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BEGINNING FLUTTER®

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

▸▸ PART I THE FOUNDATIONS OF FLUTTER PROGRAMMING

CHAPTER 1 Introducing Flutter and Getting Started. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 2 Creating a Hello World App . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
CHAPTER 3 Learning Dart Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
CHAPTER 4 Creating a Starter Project Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
CHAPTER 5 Understanding the Widget Tree. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

▸▸ PART II INTERMEDIATE FLUTTER: FLESHING OUT AN APP

CHAPTER 6 Using Common Widgets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
CHAPTER 7 Adding Animation to an App. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
CHAPTER 8 Creating an App’s Navigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
CHAPTER 9 Creating Scrolling Lists and Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
CHAPTER 10 Building Layouts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
CHAPTER 11 Applying Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
CHAPTER 12 Writing Platform-Native Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

▸▸ PART III CREATING PRODUCTION-READY APPS

CHAPTER 13 Saving Data with Local Persistence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
CHAPTER 14 Adding the Firebase and Firestore Backend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
CHAPTER 15 Adding State Management to the Firestore Client App . . . . . . . . . 411
CHAPTER 16 Adding BLoCs to Firestore Client App Pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

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 BEGINNING

Flutter®

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 BEGINNING

Flutter®
A HANDS ON GUIDE TO APP DEVELOPMENT

Marco L. Napoli

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Beginning Flutter®: A Hands On Guide To App Development
Published by
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
10475 Crosspoint Boulevard
Indianapolis, IN 46256
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Copyright © 2020 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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To God; my wife Carla; my children, Michael, Timothy,
and Joseph; and you, the reader.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marco L. Napoli is the CEO of Pixolini, Inc., and an experienced mobile, web, and desktop
app developer. He has a strong proven record in developing visually elegant and simple-to-use
systems. He wrote his first native iOS app in 2008. His work and published apps can be seen at
www.pixolini.com.

He has loved computers from an early age. His dad noticed and bought him a PC, and he has been
developing software since. He attended the University of Miami for an architecture degree, but he had
already started his own business, and after four years he decided architecture was not for him. He
developed systems for a diverse mix of industries including banking, healthcare, real estate, education,
trucking, entertainment, and horizontal markets. Later, a leading banking software company acquired
his MLN Enterprises, Inc., company. The main products were mortgage banking, processing, and
marketing software.
Next, he started consulting and later created IdeaBlocks, Inc., with the purpose of software devel-
opment consulting. He developed for a client that sold hospitality software for mobile, desktop,
and web platforms. The main product focus was on hotel sales, catering, webspace, guest service,
and maintenance software. The products synced via cloud servers using Microsoft SQL Server with
encryption applied to sensitive data. His client’s customers included Hyatt Place and Summerfield,
Hilton Hotel, Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn, Marriott, Best Western, Radisson Hotel, Sheraton Hotels,
Howard Johnson, Embassy Suites, and many more. Once his contract was done, he closed IdeaBlocks.
Today, his focus is running Pixolini. He develops mobile, desktop, and web apps for iOS, Mac,
Android, Windows, and the Web. He also teaches a course at Udemy using a web app that he devel-
oped for analyzing real estate investment calculations. He has developed and published more than 10
apps in each respective store.
He was interviewed by Hillel Coren for the “It’s All Widgets Flutter Podcast” on November 27,
2018, and the episode can be found at https://itsallwidgets.com/podcast/episodes/1/
marco-napoli.

“I cannot code without espresso, cappuccino, or coffee, and I love martial arts.”
Marco is married to Carla, and they have three amazing children.
ABOUT THE TECHNICAL EDITOR

Zeeshan Chawdhary is an avid technologist, with 14 years of experience in the industry. Having
started his career with mobile development with J2ME, he soon ventured into web development,
creating robust and scalable web applications. As a chief technology officer, he has led teams to build
web and mobile apps for companies such as Nokia, Motorola, Mercedes, GM, American Airlines, and
Marriott. He is currently director of development on an international team, serving clients with tech-
nologies like Magento, WordPress, WooCommerce, Laravel, NodeJS, Google Puppeteer, ExpressJS,
ReactJS, and .NET. He has also authored books on iOS, Windows Phone, and iBooks.
Zeeshan is based in Mumbai, India. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter
@imzeeshan, and he maintains a Medium publication at https://medium.com/@imzeeshan.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank the talented team at Wiley, including all of the editors, managers, and many people
behind the scenes who helped to get this book published. My thanks to Devon Lewis for recogniz-
ing early on that Flutter is having a major impact on the industry, to Candace Cunningham for her
project editing skills and her insights, to Zeeshan Chawdhary for his technical input and suggestions,
to Barath Kumar Rajasekaran and his team for getting the production of the book ready, and to Pete
Gaughan for always being available.
A special thanks to the Flutter team at Google, especially Tim Sneath, Ray Rischpater, and Filip
Hráček, for their kindness and invaluable feedback.
A thank-you to my wife and children who have patiently listened and given feedback for the projects
created in this book.
CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION xxi

PART I: THE FOUNDATIONS OF FLUTTER PROGRAMMING

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING FLUTTER AND GETTING STARTED 3

Introducing Flutter 4
Defining Widgets and Elements 5
Understanding Widget Lifecycle Events 5
The StatelessWidget Lifecycle 6
The StatefulWidget Lifecycle 6
Understanding the Widget Tree and the Element Tree 8
Stateless Widget and Element Trees 9
Stateful Widget and Element Trees 10
Installing the Flutter SDK 13
Installing on macOS 13
System Requirements 13
Get the Flutter SDK 13
Check for Dependencies 14
iOS Setup: Install Xcode 14
Android Setup: Install Android Studio 14
Set Up the Android Emulator 15
Installing on Windows 15
System Requirements 15
Get the Flutter SDK 16
Check for Dependencies 16
Install Android Studio 16
Set Up the Android Emulator 17
Installing on Linux 17
System Requirements 17
Get the Flutter SDK 18
Check for Dependencies 19
Install Android Studio 19
Set Up the Android Emulator 19
Configuring the Android Studio Editor 20
Summary 20
CONTENTS

CHAPTER 2: CREATING A HELLO WORLD APP 25

Setting Up the Project 25

Using Hot Reload 30
Using Themes to Style Your App 33
Using a Global App Theme 33
Using a Theme for Part of an App 35
Understanding Stateless and Stateful Widgets 37
Using External Packages 38
Searching for Packages 39
Using Packages 40
Summary 41

CHAPTER 3: LEARNING DART BASICS 43

Why Use Dart? 43

Commenting Code 44
Running the main() Entry Point 45
Referencing Variables 45
Declaring Variables 46
Numbers 47
Strings 47
Booleans 47
Lists 47
Maps 48
Runes 48
Using Operators 49
Using Flow Statements 51
if and else 51
ternary operator 52
for Loops 52
while and do-while 53
while and break 54
continue 54
switch and case 55
Using Functions 55
Import Packages 57
Using Classes 57
Class Inheritance 60
Class Mixins 60
Implementing Asynchronous Programming 61
Summary 62

xvi
 CONTENTS

CHAPTER 4: CREATING A STARTER PROJECT TEMPLATE 65

Creating and Organizing Folders and Files 65

Structuring Widgets 69
Summary 74
CHAPTER 5: UNDERSTANDING THE WIDGET TREE 77

Introduction to Widgets 77
Building the Full Widget Tree 79
Building a Shallow Widget Tree 85
Refactoring with a Constant 86
Refactoring with a Method 86
Refactoring with a Widget Class 91
Summary 99

PART II: INTERMEDIATE FLUTTER: FLESHING OUT AN APP

CHAPTER 6: USING COMMON WIDGETS 103

Using Basic Widgets 103

SafeArea 107
Container 108
Text 112
RichText 112
Column 114
Row 115
Column and Row Nesting 115
Buttons 119
FloatingActionButton 119
FlatButton 121
RaisedButton 121
IconButton 122
PopupMenuButton 123
ButtonBar 126
Using Images and Icons 130
AssetBundle 130
Image 131
Icon 132
Using Decorators 135
Using the Form Widget to Validate Text Fields 139
Checking Orientation 143
Summary 149

xvii
CONTENTS

CHAPTER 7: ADDING ANIMATION TO AN APP 151

Using AnimatedContainer 152

Using AnimatedCrossFade 155
Using AnimatedOpacity 160
Using AnimationController 164
Using Staggered Animations 170
Summary 175

CHAPTER 8: CREATING AN APP’S NAVIGATION 177

Using the Navigator 178

Using the Named Navigator Route 188
Using Hero Animation 188
Using the BottomNavigationBar 193
Using the BottomAppBar 199
Using the TabBar and TabBarView 203
Using the Drawer and ListView 207
Summary 217
CHAPTER 9: CREATING SCROLLING LISTS AND EFFECTS 221

Using the Card 222

Using the ListView and ListTile 223
Using the GridView 230
Using the GridView.count 230
Using the GridView.extent 232
Using the GridView.builder 233
Using the Stack 237
Customizing the CustomScrollView with Slivers 243
Summary 250
CHAPTER 10: BUILDING LAYOUTS 253

A High-Level View of the Layout 253

Weather Section Layout 256
Tags Layout 256
Footer Images Layout 257
Final Layout 257
Creating the Layout 257
Summary 265

xviii
 CONTENTS

CHAPTER 11: APPLYING INTERACTIVITY 267

Setting Up GestureDetector: The Basics 267

Implementing the Draggable and Dragtarget Widgets 275
Using the GestureDetector for Moving and Scaling 278
Using the InkWell and InkResponse Gestures 289
Using the Dismissible Widget 296
Summary 303
CHAPTER 12: WRITING PLATFORM-NATIVE CODE 307

Understanding Platform Channels 307

Implementing the Client Platform Channel App 309
Implementing the iOS Host Platform Channel 313
Implementing the Android Host Platform Channel 318
Summary 322

PART III: CREATING PRODUCTION-READY APPS

CHAPTER 13: SAVING DATA WITH LOCAL PERSISTENCE 327

Understanding the JSON Format 328

Using Database Classes to Write, Read, and Serialize JSON 330
Formatting Dates 331
Sorting a List of Dates 332
Retrieving Data with the FutureBuilder 333
Building the Journal App 335
Adding the Journal Database Classes 339
Adding the Journal Entry Page 344
Finishing the Journal Home Page 359
Summary 371

CHAPTER 14: ADDING THE FIREBASE AND FIRESTORE BACKEND 375

What Are Firebase and Cloud Firestore? 376

Structuring and Data Modeling Cloud Firestore 377
Viewing Firebase Authentication Capabilities 380
Viewing Cloud Firestore Security Rules 381
Configuring the Firebase Project 383
Adding a Cloud Firestore Database and Implementing Security 391
Building the Client Journal App 395

xix
CONTENTS

Adding Authentication and Cloud Firestore Packages to the Client App 395
Adding Basic Layout to the Client App 403
Adding Classes to the Client App 406
Summary 409

CHAPTER 15: ADDING STATE MANAGEMENT TO

THE FIRESTORE CLIENT APP 411

Implementing State Management 412

Implementing an Abstract Class 414
Implementing the InheritedWidget 415
Implementing the Model Class 416
Implementing the Service Class 417
Implementing the BLoC Pattern 417
Implementing StreamController, Streams, Sinks, and StreamBuilder 419
Building State Management 421
Adding the Journal Model Class 422
Adding the Service Classes 424
Adding the Validators Class 430
Adding the BLoC Pattern 432
Adding the AuthenticationBloc 432
Adding the AuthenticationBlocProvider 435
Adding the LoginBloc 436
Adding the HomeBloc 441
Adding the HomeBlocProvider 443
Adding the JournalEditBloc 444
Adding the JournalEditBlocProvider 447
Summary 449

CHAPTER 16: ADDING BLOCS TO FIRESTORE CLIENT APP PAGES 453

Adding the Login Page 454

Modifying the Main Page 460
Modifying the Home Page 465
Adding the Edit Journal Page 472
Summary 484

INDEX 489

xx
INTRODUCTION

Flutter was unveiled at the 2015 Dart Developer Summit under the name Sky. Eric Seidel (engineer
director for Flutter at Google) opened his talk by saying that he was there to speak about Sky, which
was an experimental project presented as “Dart on mobile.” He had built and published a demo on
the Android Play Store, and he started the demo by stating that there was no Java drawing this appli-
cation, meaning it was native. The first feature Eric showed was a square spinning. Driving the device
at 60 Hertz was Dart, which was the first goal for the system: to be fast and responsive. (He wanted
to go much faster [i.e., 120 Hertz], but he was restricted by the capability of the device he was using.)
Eric went on to show multitouch, fast scrolling, and other features. Sky provided the best mobile
experience (for users and developers); the developers took lessons from working on the Web, and they
thought they could do better. The user interface (UI) and the business logic were both written in Dart.
The goal was to be platform-agnostic.
Fast-forward to 2019, and Flutter now is powering Google’s smart display platform including the
Google Home Hub and is the first step toward supporting desktop apps with Chrome OS. The result
is that Flutter supports desktop apps running on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Flutter is described as
a portable UI framework for all screens like mobile, web, desktop, and embedded devices from a
single codebase.
This book teaches you how to develop mobile applications for iOS and Android from a single code-
base by using the Flutter framework and Dart as the programming language. As Flutter is expanding
beyond mobile, you can take the knowledge that you learn in this book and apply it to other plat-
forms. You don’t need to have previous programming experience; the book starts with the basics and
progresses to developing production-ready applications.
I wrote this book in a simple, down-to-earth style to teach you each concept. You can follow the “Try
It Out” practice-style exercises to implement what you learn and create feature-focused applications.
Each chapter builds upon the previous ones and adds new concepts to advance your knowledge for
building fast, beautiful, animated, and functional apps. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to take
the knowledge and techniques you have learned and apply them to develop your own applications.
In the last four chapters of the book, you’ll create a journal app with the ability to save data locally
and a second journal app that adds mood tracking with state management, authentication, and
multidevice data cloud syncing capabilities including offline sync, which is a must for today’s mobile
applications. I have made every effort to teach you the techniques using a friendly and commonsense
approach so you can learn the basics all the way to advanced concepts needed for the workplace.
From the first time I saw Google presenting Flutter, it has captured my attention. What especially
attracted me to Flutter was the widgets concept. You take widgets and nest (composition) them
together to create the UI needed, and best of all, you can easily create your own custom widgets. The
other major item that attracted me to Flutter was the ability to develop for iOS and Android from a
single codebase; this is something I had been needing for a long time and never found a great solution
until Flutter. Flutter is declarative; it’s a modern reactive framework where widgets handle what the
UI should look like according to their current state.
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Jnâna Yoga,
Part II: Seven Lectures
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Jnâna Yoga, Part II: Seven Lectures

Author: Swami Vivekananda

Release date: December 10, 2023 [eBook #72368]

Most recently updated: December 24, 2023

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Vedânta Society, 1907

Credits: Carla Foust, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images of public domain material
from the Google Books project.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JNÂNA

YOGA, PART II: SEVEN LECTURES ***
JNÂNA YOGA
PART II
SWÂMI VIVEKÂNANDA
VEDÂNTA PHILOSOPHY
 JNÂNA YOGA

PART II

SEVEN LECTURES
BY

SWÂMI VIVEKÂNANDA
PUBLISHED BY

THE VEDÂNTA SOCIETY

135 West 80th Street
NEW YORK
 Copyright, 1907
BY
SWÂMI ABHEDÂNANDA

New York
The Baker & Taylor Co.,
33 East 17th St.
 EDITOR’S PREFACE
The lectures given in this volume were originally delivered by Swâmi
Vivekânanda in New York in the beginning of 1896, and were
received with the greatest enthusiasm. Their purely philosophical
character, however, made it doubtful as to whether they would
appeal to the general public, and for that reason they were not
brought out in book form at once. The great success of the London
lectures on Jnâna Yoga, which were published several years ago
and which have already gone through two editions, now encourages
the belief that this series will meet with an equally favorable
reception. The conception of Jnâna according to Vedânta is a bold
and daring one, and reaches the highest possible ideal, for it teaches
the absolute unity of all existence. As will be easily understood by
the students of the former volume, Jnâna Yoga is purely monistic on
the highest spiritual plane. Speaking about this phase of Vedânta,
Prof. Max Müller writes: “None of our philosophers, not excepting
Heraclitus, Plato, Kant, or Hegel has ventured to erect such a spire,
never frightened by storms or lightnings. Stone follows on stone in
regular succession after once the first step has been made, after
once it has been clearly seen that in the beginning there can have
been but One, as there will be but One in the end, whether we call It
Âtman or Brahman.” This may be a difficult thought for many to
grasp at the outset, but it is worth careful study, and once
understood will be a never-failing light to guide the enquiring soul to
the crowning truth of all philosophy.
 CONTENTS.
Jnâna Yoga—Part II.

Introduction 9
I.
The Sânkhya Cosmology 21
II.
Prakriti and Purusha 44
III.
Sânkhya and Advaita 69
IV.
The Free Soul 94
V.
One Existence Appearing as Many 121
VI.
Unity of the Self 141
VII.
The Highest Ideal of Jnâna Yoga 157
 INTRODUCTION
This universe of ours, the universe of the senses, the rational, the
intellectual, is bounded on both sides by the illimitable, the
unknowable, the ever unknown. Herein is the search, herein are the
inquiries, here are the facts, from this comes the light which is known
to the world as religion. Essentially, however, religion belongs to the
supersensuous and not to the sense plane. It is beyond all reasoning
and is not on the plane of intellect. It is a vision, an inspiration, a
plunge into the unknown and unknowable, making the unknowable
more than known, for it can never be “known.” This search has been
in the human mind, as I believe, from the very beginning of humanity.
There cannot have been human reasoning and intellect in any period
of the world’s history without this struggle, this search beyond. In our
little universe, this human mind, we see a thought arise. Whence it
arises we do not know, and when it disappears, where it goes we
know not either. The macrocosm and the microcosm are, as it were,
in the same groove, passing through the same stages, vibrating in
the same key.
In these lectures I shall try to bring before you the Hindu theory that
religions do not come from without, but from within. It is my belief
that religious thought is in man’s very constitution, so much so that it
is impossible for him to give up religion until he can give up his mind
and body, until he can give up thought and life. As long as a man
thinks, this struggle must go on, and so long man must have some
form of religion. Thus we see various forms of religion in the world. It
is a bewildering study, but it is not, as many of us think, a vain
speculation. Amidst this chaos there is harmony, throughout these
discordant sounds there is a note of concord, and he who is
prepared to listen to it will catch the tone.
The great question of all questions at the present time is this: Taking
for granted that the known and the knowable are bounded on both
sides by the unknowable and the infinitely unknown, why struggle for
that infinite unknown? Why shall we not be content with the known?
Why shall we not rest satisfied with eating, drinking, and doing a little
good to society? This idea is in the air. From the most learned
professor to the prattling baby, we are told to do good to the world,
that is all of religion, and that it is useless to trouble ourselves about
questions of the beyond. So much is this the case that it has become
a truism. But fortunately we must question the beyond. This present,
this expressed, is only one part of that unexpressed. The sense
universe is, as it were, only one portion, one bit of that infinite
spiritual universe projected into the plane of sense consciousness.
How can this little bit of projection be explained, be understood,
without knowing that which is beyond? It is said of Socrates that one
day while lecturing at Athens, he met a Brahmin who had travelled
into Greece, and Socrates told the Brahmin that the greatest study
for mankind is man. The Brahmin sharply retorted: “How can you
know man until you know God?” This God, this eternally
unknowable, or absolute, or infinite, or without name,—you may call
Him by what name you like,—is the rational, the only explanation,
the raison d’être of that which is known and knowable, this present
life. Take anything before you, the most material thing; take one of
the most material sciences, as chemistry or physics, astronomy or
biology, study it, push the study forward and forward, and the gross
forms will begin to melt and become finer and finer, until they come
to a point where you are bound to make a tremendous leap from
these material things into the immaterial. The gross melts into the
fine, physics into metaphysics, in every department of knowledge.
Thus man finds himself driven to a study of the beyond. Life will be a
desert, human life will be vain if we cannot know the beyond. It is
very well to say: Be contented with the things of the present; the
cows and the dogs are, and all animals, and that is what makes
them animals. So if man rests content with the present and gives up
all search into the beyond, mankind will have to go back to the
animal plane again. It is religion, the inquiry into the beyond, that
makes the difference between man and an animal. Well has it been
said that man is the only animal that naturally looks upwards; every
other animal naturally looks prone. That looking upward and going
upward and seeking perfection are what is called salvation, and the
sooner a man begins to go higher, the sooner he raises himself
towards this idea of truth as salvation. It does not consist in the
amount of money in your pocket, or the dress you wear, or the house
you live in, but in the wealth of spiritual thought in your brain. That is
what makes for human progress, that is the source of all material
and intellectual progress, the motive power behind, the enthusiasm
that pushes mankind forward.
Religion does not live in bread, does not dwell in a house. Again and
again you hear this objection advanced, “What good can religion do?
Can it take away the poverty of the poor”? Supposing it cannot,
would that prove the untruth of religion? Suppose a baby stands up
among you when you are trying to demonstrate an astronomical
theorem, and says: “Does it bring gingerbread?” “No, it does not,”
you answer. “Then,” says the baby, “it is useless.” Babies judge the
whole universe from their own standpoint, that of producing
gingerbread, and so are the babies of the world. We must not judge
of higher things from a low standpoint. Everything must be judged by
its own standard and the infinite must be judged by an infinite
standard. Religion permeates the whole of man’s life, not only the
present, but the past, present, and future. It is therefore the eternal
relation between the eternal soul and the eternal God. Is it logical to
measure its value by its action upon five minutes of human life?
Certainly not. These are all negative arguments.
Now comes the question, can religion really accomplish anything? It
can. It brings to man eternal life. It has made man what he is and will
make of this human animal a god. That is what religion can do. Take
religion from human society and what will remain? Nothing but a
forest of brutes. Sense-happiness is not the goal of humanity;
wisdom (Jnânam) is the goal of all life. We find that man enjoys his
intellect more than an animal enjoys its senses, and we see that man
enjoys his spiritual nature even more than his rational nature. So the
highest wisdom must be this spiritual knowledge. With this
knowledge will come bliss. All these things of this world are but the
shadows, the manifestations in the third or fourth degree of the real
Knowledge and Bliss.
One question more: What is the goal? Nowadays it is asserted that
man is infinitely progressing, forward and forward, and there is no
goal of perfection to attain to. Ever approaching, never attaining,
whatever that may mean and however wonderful it may be, it is
absurd on the face of it. Is there any motion in a straight line? A
straight line infinitely projected becomes a circle, it returns to the
starting point. You must end where you begin, and as you began in
God, you must go back to God. What remains? Detail work. Through
eternity you have to do the detail work.
Yet another question. Are we to discover new truths of religion as we
go on? Yea and nay. In the first place we cannot know anything more
of religion, it has all been known. In all the religions of the world you
will find it claimed that there is a unity within us. Being one with
divinity, there cannot be any further progress in that sense.
Knowledge means finding this unity. I see you as men and women,
and this is variety. It becomes scientific knowledge when I group you
together and call you human beings. Take the science of chemistry,
for instance. Chemists are seeking to resolve all known substances
into their original elements and if possible to find the one element
from which all these were derived. The time may come when they
will find one element that is the source of all other elements.
Reaching that, they can go no farther; the science of chemistry will
have become perfect. So it is with the science of religion. If we can
discover this perfect unity, there cannot be any farther progress.
The next question is can such a unity be found? In India the attempt
has been made from the earliest times to reach a science of religion
and philosophy, for the Hindus do not separate these as is
customary in Western countries. We regard religion and philosophy
as but two aspects of one thing which must equally be grounded in
reason and scientific truth. In the lectures that are to follow I shall try
to explain to you first the system of the Sânkhya philosophy, one of
the most ancient in India, or in fact in the world. Its great exponent
Kapila is the father of all Hindu psychology and the ancient system
that he taught is still the foundation of all accepted systems of
philosophy in India to-day,—which are known as the Dârsanas. They
all adopt his psychology, however widely they differ in other respects.
Next I shall endeavor to show you how Vedânta, as the logical
outcome of the Sânkhya, pushes its conclusions yet farther. While its
cosmology agrees with that taught by Kapila, the Vedânta is not
satisfied to end in dualism, but continues its search for the final unity
which is alike the goal of science and religion. To make clear the
manner in which the task is accomplished will be the effort of the
later lectures in this course.
 I
THE SÂNKHYA COSMOLOGY
Here are two words, the microcosm and the macrocosm, the internal
and the external. We get truths from both of these by means of
experience; there is internal experience and external experience.
The truths gathered from internal experience are psychology,
metaphysics and religion; from external experience the physical
sciences. Now a perfect truth should be in harmony with experience
in both these worlds. The microcosm must bear testimony to the
macrocosm, and the macrocosm to the microcosm; physical truth
must have its counterpart in the internal world, and the internal world
must have its verification in the outside. Yet as a rule we find that
many of these truths are constantly conflicting. At one period of the
world’s history the “internals” became supreme, and they began to
fight the “externals;” at the present time the “externals,” the
physicists, have become supreme, and they have put down many
claims of the psychologists and metaphysicians. So far as my little
knowledge goes, I find that the really essential parts of psychology
are in perfect accordance with the essential parts of modern physical
knowledge.
It is not given to every individual to be great in every respect; it is not
given to the same race, or nation, to be equally strong in the
research of all the fields of knowledge. The modern European
nations are very strong in their researches into external physical
knowledge, but the ancient Europeans were weak in their
researches into the internal part of man. On the other hand, the
Orientals have not been very strong in their researches in the
external physical world, but have excelled in their researches into the
internal, and therefore we find that some of the Oriental theories are
not in accordance with Occidental physics, neither is Occidental
psychology in harmony with Oriental teachings on this subject. The
Oriental physicists have been criticised by Occidental scientists. At
the same time each rests on truth, and, as we stated before, real
truth in any field of knowledge will not contradict itself, the truths
internal are in harmony with the truths external.
We know the present theories of the Cosmos according to the
modern astronomers and physicists, and at the same time we know
how wofully they hurt the old school of theologians, and how every
new scientific discovery that is made is as a bomb thrown into their
house, and how they have attempted in every age to put down all
these researches. In the first place, let us go over the psychological
and scientific ideas of the Orientals as to cosmology and all that
pertains to it, and you will find how wonderfully it is in accordance
with all the latest discoveries of modern science, and when there is
anything lacking you will find that it is on the side of modern science.
We all use the word Nature, and the old Hindu philosophers called it
by two different names, Prakriti, which is almost the same as the
English word “nature,” and by the more scientific name, Avyaktam
(“undifferentiated”), from which everything proceeds, out of which
come atoms and molecules, matter and force, and mind and
intellect. It is startling to find that the philosophers and
metaphysicians of India ages ago stated that mind is but matter in a
finer form, for what are our present materialists striving to do but to
show that mind is as much a product of nature as the body? And so
is thought; and we shall find by and by that the intellect also comes
from the same nature which is called avyaktam, the undifferentiated.
The ancient teachers define avyaktam as the “equilibrium of the
three forces,” one of which is called Sattva, the second Rajas and
the third Tamas. Tamas, the lowest force, is that of attraction, a little
higher is Rajas, that of repulsion, and the highest is the control of
these two, Sattva, so that when the two forces, attraction and
repulsion, are held in perfect control, or balance, by the Sattva, there
is no creation, no movement; but as soon as this equilibrium is lost,
the balance is disturbed and one of these forces gets stronger than
the other. Then change and motion begin and all this evolution goes
on. This state of things is going on cyclically, periodically; that is to
say, there is a period of disturbance of the balance, when all these
forces begin to combine and recombine, and this universe is
projected; and there is also a period when everything has a tendency
to revert to the primal state of equilibrium, and the time comes when
a total absence of all manifestation is reached. Again, after a period,
the whole thing is disturbed, projected outward, again it slowly
comes out in the form of waves; for all motion in this universe is in
the form of waves, successive rise and fall.
Some of these old philosophers taught that the whole universe
quiets down for a period; others maintained that this quieting down
applies only to systems. That is to say, that while our system here,
this solar system, will quiet down and go back into that
undifferentiated state, there are millions of other systems going the
other way. I should rather follow the second opinion, that this
quieting down is not simultaneous over the whole universe, but that
in different parts different things are going on. But the principle
remains the same, that all that we see, that Nature herself is
progressing in successive rises and falls. The one stage, going back
to the balance, to the perfect equilibrium, is called the end of a cycle.
The whole Kalpa, the evolution and the involution, has been
compared by theistic writers in India to the inbreathing and
outbreathing of God; God, as it were, breathes out the universe, and
it returns into Him again. When it quiets down, what becomes of the
universe? It still exists, only in finer form, as it is called in Sanskrit, in
the “causal state” (Kârana Sarira). Causation, time and space are
still there, only they are potential. This return to an undifferentiated
condition constitutes involution. Involution and evolution are eternally
going on, so that when we speak of a beginning, we refer only to the
beginning of a cycle.
The most extraneous part of the universe is what in modern times
we call gross matter. The ancient Hindus called it the Bhutas, the
external elements. There is one element which according to them is
eternal; every other element is produced out of this one, and this
eternal element is called Âkâsa. It is somewhat similar to the modern
idea of ether, though not exactly the same. This is the primal element
out of which everything proceeds, and along with this element there
was something called Prâna: we shall see what it is as we go on.
This prâna and this âkâsa eternally exist, and they combine and
recombine and form all manifestation. Then at the end of the cycle
everything subsides and goes back to the unmanifested form of
âkâsa and prâna. There is in the Rig Veda, the oldest scriptures in
existence, a beautiful passage describing creation, and it is most
poetical—“When there was neither ought nor nought, when darkness
was rolling over darkness, what existed?” and the answer is given, “It
(the Eternal One) then existed without motion.” Prâna and âkâsa
were latent in that Eternal One, but there was no phenomenal
manifestation. This state is called Avyaktam, which literally means
“without vibration,” or unmanifested. At the beginning of a new cycle
of evolution, this avyaktam begins to vibrate and blow after blow is
given by prâna to the âkâsa. This causes condensation and
gradually, through the forces of attraction and repulsion, atoms are
formed. These in turn condense into molecules and finally into the
different elements of Nature.
We generally find these things very curiously translated; people do
not go to the ancient philosophers or to their commentators for their
translation and have not learning enough to understand for
themselves. They translate the elements as “air,” “fire,” and so on. If
they would go to the commentators they would find that they do not
mean anything of the sort. The âkâsa, made to vibrate by the
repeated blows of prâna, produces vâyu or the vibratory state of the
âkâsa, which in turn produces gaseous matter. The vibrations
growing more and more rapid generate heat, which in Sanskrit is
called tejas. Gradually it is cooled off and the gaseous substance
becomes solid, prithivi. We had first âkâsa, then came heat, then it
became liquified, and when still more condensed appeared as solid
matter. It goes back to the unmanifested condition in exactly the
reverse way. The solids will be converted into liquid and the liquid
into a mass of heat, that will slowly go back into the gaseous state,
disintegration of atoms will begin, finally equilibrium of all forces will
be reached, vibration will stop and the cycle of evolution which in
Sanskrit is called Kalpa is at an end. We know from modern
astronomy that this earth and sun of ours are undergoing the same
transitions, this solid earth will melt down and become liquid once
more, and will eventually go back to the gaseous state.