Sathya Sai Vahini - Post 30

Experience Godhead with faith in the Vedas

 

One fact has to be noted here. Just because people have this knowledge of the immanence of the Divine, and even of its transcendence, they cannot be honored as people of wisdom (jnanis), for the knowledge has to be digested through actual experience. This is the crucial test. It is not enough if the intellect nods approval and is able to prove that Godhead is all. The belief must penetrate and prompt every moment of living and every act of the believer. 

Wisdom should not be merely a bundle of thoughts or a packet of neatly constructed principles. Faith must enliven and enthuse every thought, word, and deed. The self must be soaked in the nectar of the spiritual wisdom.

The intellect is a poor instrument, for what the intellect approves as correct today is rejected tomorrow by the same intellect on second thought! Intellect cannot judge things finally and for all time. Therefore, seek the experience. Once that is won, the Atma can be understood “as all this”. That is the yoga of wisdom (jnana-yoga).

According to the Indian (Bharathiya) way of thought, the Vedas are taken as the voice of God. Thus, the Vedas are the primary source of all knowledge for Indians. Everything is tested based on the Vedas. The ancient sages have laid down that what agrees with the Vedas is agreeable to people and what does not thus agree cannot agree with them. 

The Vedas were not spoken by humans or composed by men and women. They were heard and recorded by sages and transmitted by guru to pupil for generations by word of mouth. The guru recited, and the pupil listened and recited just as the guru did, with the same care and correctitude. Thus, the Vedas have been handed down for centuries. No one can determine the exact dates when the Vedas were first heard or recited. Therefore, they are taken as eternal (sanathana).

Vedas: the voice of God in eternity

 

At this point, we have to keep in mind another important truth. All other religions prevalent in the world hold as authoritative communications made to some holy persons by God Himself in His corporate Form, or through some superhuman personalities or embodiments of parts or portions of Divinity. Indians do not follow this line. They declare that the Vedas are based on no human authority; they do not depend on any person for their validity. They are emanations direct from God; they are primeval; they are their own authority and validity. They were not written down or composed, constructed, or put together.

The cosmos or creation is limitless, eternal, with no beginning or end. So too, the voice of God, namely the Vedas, have no limit; they are eternal; they have no beginning nor end. Vid, the root from which the word Veda is derived, means “to know”. When knowledge began, the Vedas manifested. Sages (rishis) visualized and announced them. They are the “see-ers of mantras”.

The Vedas have two major sections: the Karma-kanda and the Jnana-kanda. 

In the Karma-kanda, a number of different sacrifices are mentioned, in which oblations are offered in the sanctified fire. Most of them have been given up by Indians in recent times, since it has become difficult to perform them with the exactitude the Vedic rules prescribe. Some still continue in a very attenuated form. In the Karma-kanda, moral codes are insisted upon very much. The moral rules and restrictions regulating life and conduct refer to the student (brahmachari), house- holder (grihastha), recluse (vanaprastha), and monastic (sanyasa) stages. Also, the Karma-kanda declares what is right and wrong for people following various professions and occupying different statuses. These are being followed here and there, in some thin form, by people in India.

The Jnana-kanda is called the end of the Vedas (Vedanta), the goal, the finale. It is enshrined in the Upanishads. Adherents of the dualistic, qualified non-dualistic, and non-dualistic (dwaitha, visishta-adwaitha, and adwaitha) schools of philosophical thought, worshipers of Siva, Vishnu, Sakthi, Surya, and Ganapathi —all accept the supreme authority of the Vedas. They may interpret the Upanishads and other texts according to their own predilections and intellectual calibre, but no one dare question the authority of the Veda or Vedanta. So, it is possible to use the words Hindu, Indian (Bharathiya), and Vedanthin for the same person.

Currently, the various schools of philosophical thought may appear difficult to comprehend or as derived from unripe understanding. But when the matter is thought over in quiet, or the texts are studied in silence or investigated without prejudice, it will become clear that they have all relied on the points raised and the conclusions arrived at in the Upanishads. The Upanishads are being symbolized and worshiped in image form in temples and in private shrines, as a tribute to this universal appeal. They have entwined themselves, inseparably, in our lives.

“The Vedas are endless (Anantho vai Vedaah).” But they were reduced into four collations, and their essence was preserved in them. For promoting peace and prosperity in the world, the four were taught and propagated. They are the Rig-, Sama-, Yajur-, and Atharvana-Vedas. They uphold righteousness (dharma), proclaim the reality, and promote peace and harmony by developing among people the attitudes of worship, music, and adoration and also by cultivating skill in weaponry and war. They present the ideal before people and exhort them to follow it.

Whether the Indian is aware of it or not, invariably, every right act of the Indian will have some Vedic injunction or prohibition behind it as the regulator or the illuminator. From marriage rites to funeral rites and even rites for the propitiation of the ancestral spirits, the Vedas are the guides. A true Indian should never forget the Vedas or be ungrateful to them. The dualists, qualified monists, monists — all direct their lives according to lines laid down in the past by sages. But they do not now know the origin and the purpose of these guidelines. If only they did, the fruit would be much more plentiful and permanent."

Today's post, taken from SS Vahini, is self-explanatory and readers should be able to understand on reading the post sincerely.

 

Love.