The following notes from Swami Vivekananda's class talk are reproduced from his Complete Works, 6: 97-98. Being "notes"-and not a verbatim report, like his other lectures in the Complete Works-these are sketchy and may not represent the exact words spoken by Vivekananda. But they give a fairly good indication of his ideas on the subject.
The idea that nature in all her orderly arrangements shows design on the part of the Creator of the universe is good as a kindergarten teaching to show the beauty, power, and glory of God, in order to lead children in religion up to a philosophical conception of God; but apart from that, it is not good, and perfectly illogical. As a philosophical idea, it is entirely without foundation, if God is taken to be omnipotent.
If nature shows the power of God in creating the universe, [then] to have a design in so doing also shows His weakness. If God is omnipotent, He needs no design, no scheme, to do anything. He has but to will it, and it is done. No question, no scheme, no plan, of God in nature.
The material universe is the result of our limited consciousness. When we become conscious of our divinity, all matter, all nature, as we know it, will cease to exist.
The material world, as such, has no place in the consciousness of God as a necessity of any end. If it had, God would be limited by the universe. To say that nature exists by His permission is not to say that it exists as a necessity for Him to make us perfect, or for any other reason.
It is a creation for our necessity, not God's. There is no scheme of God in the plan of the universe. How could there be any if He is omnipotent? Why should He have need of a plan, or a scheme, or a reason to do anything? To say that He has is to limit Him and to rob Him of His character of omnipotence.
For instance, if you came to a very wide river, so wide that you could not get across it except by building a bridge, the very fact that you would have to build the bridge to get across the river would show your limitation; it would show your weakness, even if the ability to build the bridge did show your strength. If you were not limited but could just fly or jump across, you would not be under the necessity of building a bridge; and to build the bridge just to exhibit your power to do so would show your weakness again by showing your vanity, more than it would show anything else.
Monism and dualism are essentially the same. The difference consists in the expression. As the dualists hold the Father and the Son to be two, the monists hold them to be really one. Dualism is in nature, in manifestation, and monism is pure spirituality in the essence.
The idea of renunciation and sacrifice is in all religions as a means to reach God.
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