Title : An American discovers the Vedas

February 26, 1999

Title : Title : An American discovers the Vedas

Author : David Frawley

Publication : First Jagtik Rhugved Parishad

Date : December 27, 1996

Why would an American dedicate his life to studying the ancient Vedas

of India? And how could an American, coming from such a different

background, find a deep affinity with the Vedic teachings, which most

Hindus today themselves don't even relate to? How did such a person get

started in studying the Vedas? In the modern world everyone, including

Hindus, appears to be trying to adopt Western culture with its

scientific and technological advances and economic affluence. Why would

a person go the other direction and look to the East, particularly when

it was not a matter of academic study, nor does it promise any material

reward?

As I have written many books and articles on the Vedas and traveled

through America and India over the past few years promoting Vedic

knowledge, I am often asked such questions, particularly by

Indo-Americans, who usually do not have the time and are lacking in the

motivation to examine their own tradition. Confronted with an American

dedicated to the Vedas, Hindus find me not only an anomaly but also a

question mark on what they themselves may be doing. Sometimes they find

it an inspiration to re-examine their own roots.

This is a difficult query to try to answer. I will begin by relating

something of my life. There is really nothing in my family or

educational background that might explain my connection with the Vedas

or even India. I was the second of a family of ten children, born in a

small city in Wisconsin in the Midwest in 1950. Both my parents came

from strict Catholic backgrounds and were raised on dairy farms. One of

my uncles in fact was a priest and missionary to South America (which

example my mother wanted me personally to follow).

My parents, education was minimal. My mother did not even go to high

school. My father went to college only briefly, and served in the army

for several years. Though they were both open minded people they never

oriented me in the direction of India or anything mystical.

I myself went to Catholic school until the fifth grade (age ten). We

were taught to look on Protestants with suspicion. Asia was like another

world, a land of backward, primititive people needing conversion. After

much moving about, as my father was a realtor, we finally settled down

in Denver, Colorado. There, owing to the financial burden of so many

children, we switched to public school which brought us out of the shell

of Catholic beliefs. Yet public schools had no real mention of India

either, except as a big country in Asia suffering from poverty and

overpopulation.

I had an inquisitive mind as a child and began developing my own studies

outside of school, perhaps because my mother encouraged me in such

things. I had an interest in geography since seven or eight years of age

and became aware that there was much more to the world than America.

Foreign lands of all types fascinated me. I began reading various books

starting with science and history, which broadened my view of life and

caused me to question my Catholic upbringing and its dogma. I found the

ideas of modern astronomy with the vastness of the universe and the

relativity of time and space to be much more intriguing than Catholic

views of creation.

I left the Catholic church at the age of fourteen. This came not only

from the clash between the church and modem science, but from having

read history and discovered that the church often stood for political

oppression and social exploitation, not anything truly holy I felt that

if there was a God, it was an impersonal reality, not a personal God

with his own whims, judgements and partialities. Yet though I left the

church, I still felt that there was a spiritual reality in life, which I

found in nature, particularly in the mountains which I loved, This

spiritual reality was an inner experience quite divorced from churches

and creeds.

By the time of high school my own studies were of more interest than

classes in school. I had a kind of intellectual awakening when about the

age of sixteen which caused me to study European literature and

philosophy, particularly symbolic poets and existential philosophers. I

felt that American culture was very superficial compared to the

European. Yet examining the mystical and poetic sides of the European

mind, I also eventually found them to be lacking. I saw that the great

intellectuals and artists of the West, the geniuses who were regarded as

the highest human types, were still plagued with doubt, depression and

uncertainty. They obviously had not found any lasting peace or ultimate

truth.

About the same time, as a secondary interest I began examining the

Eastern spiritual traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. Some of

this came as part of the sixties counterculture movement, which included

a fascination with Eastern gurus and teachings, but much of it was the

product of my own independent and generally more philosophical search.

Between these teachings I found a common truth-consciousness as the

supreme reality and meditation as the way to realize that. Yet it was

among the teachings of Yoga and Vedanta that I found the views which

most resonated with my inner being, particular the sense of the supreme

Self (Atman) and pure Existence (Brahman) as the highest truth. For

example, I remember walking home from high school one day and looking up

at the blue sky and realizing that it was the presence of Krishna, who

represented the cosmic power of bliss. This was before encountering the

Hare Krishna movement and was not produced by any outer influences.

After high school I attended a local college briefly, in which I found

little to interest me. I remember taking a class on Cosmology and

Metaphysics, which was actually in the graduate studies department. I

thought the class might have something mystical in it. Instead it was

mainly a science class, with a few cosmological speculations thrown in,

generally of a materialistic nature. The teacher could not even decide

whether there was any spiritual reality or not. This caused me to feel

that the academic world had no capacity to answer the real questions of

life. Hence I abandoned college after less than a semester.

About this time I also came into contact with local spiritual teachers

and yoga groups in Denver, through which I learned of various gurus and

practices, including yoga and meditation, which I began to do on a

regular basis. A couple of years later I travelled to California and

visited many of the spiritual groups based in America. I had more

interest in India itself and teachings that were more traditional. I had

a serious bent of mind and did not feel satisfied with these groups

which were largely social movements or cults centered around one person,

in which one's personal relationship with the teacher generally

outweighed any real interest in spiritual studies. I have always

distrusted mass movements and fads of all types, including the pop

spirituality that has developed in the West.

I came to learn of the teachings of great modem Hindu gurus of India

most notably Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, Anandamayi Ma, and Sri

Aurobindo, Their I felt something truly solid and real. As several of

these figures had already passed away, I wrote to their centres in India

and developed contact with some of their living disciples. Most notably

I corresponded with Anandamayi Ma for several years, who was still alive

at the time. But more so than any particular teacher the Vedantic

teaching interested me, particularly the Upanishads, which appeared as

the ideal combination of spiritual philosophy and poetry. I felt in

them the core teaching that I was looking for in all spiritual

teachings.

This led me to the works of Shankaracharya, the great commentator on the

Upanishads according to the system of Advaita Vedanta. The Advaitic view

of the pure unity of truth and the illusory nature of the world, agreed

with my experience of life through the political and social turbulence

of the late sixties and early seventies. Yet I was also drawn towards

the earlier Vedas and their Mysterious mantras, with which most Vedantic

teachers have little concern. I had a sense of things ancient and wanted

to know the earliest teachings of humanity. The idea of things ancient

rishis and seers appealed to me and I wanted to know who they were.

I also had a poetic bent of mind and wrote poetry of a mystical and

symbolic type since I was sixteen. I used images of the dawn and the

night, fire, the wind, and the sun, along with gods and goddesses, with

the forces of nature appearing as powers of both the human and cosmic

mind in their interplay. Later I found that these same images

predominated in the Vedas themselves.

Of the great modern yogis, Sri Aurobindo was the greatest poet, and so

naturally his work had a certain appeal to me on this level. The

beginning of the chapters in his book the Life Divine contained various

Vedic quotes, particularly from the Rig Veda, which I found to be

particularly inspiring. I noted in a list of his books that he had

several on the Vedas themselves. This aroused my interest in the Vedas

and I ordered these books and studied them with great interest,

meditating carefully upon them.

My encounters with the Vedas through these books were not mere

intellectual experiences. They represented a contact with the Divine

Word, Vak or the Divine Speech, the Goddess Sarasvati. I felt the

presence of the Vedic Dawn, like the Dawn of humanity, the beginning. of

creation, and the building of a new world for the Divine. This began my

study of the Vedas, which was rooted in poetry with a background of

Vedanta.

Yet I was not satisfied in simply following Sri Aurobindo's

interpretation. I wanted to know what the Vedic rishis themselves saw

and felt. A few years later when I was twenty-seven, having gone

through most of what was available in English on the Vedas, I decided to

look at the Vedas and Upanishads in the original Sanskrit. As there

were no teachers available to me, as I was then living in a remote town

in Northern California, I started with the Sanskrit. texts and a

Sanskrit grammar book and began trying to figure out the language

myself, starting with the oldest Rig Veda itself. It was a rather

unusual and haphazard way to learn Sanskrit, starting with the most

difficult and oldest part of the language, but somehow it worked.

The Vedic language gradually unfolded its meaning through a study of the

images, sounds and roots upon which the language was based. I felt an

inner affinity with the teaching so that I did not find the texts to be

difficult, though the grammar was often cumbersome. I soon discovered

that the interpretations generally accepted for the older Vedas-not only

those done by modern Western scholars but the traditional school of

Sayana-as Aurobindo had noted, were indeed erroneous. The result of this

research was that I produced a small volume on the Upanishads and the

Vedas. It traced back the Vendantic teaching of the universal Self

found in the Upanishads to an origin in an earlier and more powerful

Vedic vision. This was opposite the way it is usually explained, which

is to view the Upanishads as exalted philosophy developing from a crude

Vedic ritualistic base.

A friend of mine, who had recently become a disciple of M.P. Pandit of

the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, recommended me to visit him during an upcoming

trip of his to America. I knew that if anyone would understand what I

was doing it would be him, as Pandit had done many books on the Vedas

and Upanishads, with similar ideas.

I explained my views to him that the Vedas contained a science of Self

realization hidden in their teaching, from their very first mantra to

the Divine Fire (Agni). He was happy to know of my work and told me

that he would help publish it in India. He encouraged me to follow out

my studies, which he explained was a kind of Divine mission given to me.

I told him that I was not academically trained, nor had I yet studied in

India, and that my work was merely personal and never intended for

publication. I said that I did not feel qualified to comment on the

Vedas in a public way He replied that it was good that I Wasn't

academically trained, that it gave me a direct and independent insight,

so that I would not just merely repeat the same errors as other

scholars. He told me to trust my vision. If I had such insights and

had produced such work it was for a purpose and should not be limited to

my own private study

Naturally this moved me to continue my Vedic work with more effort and

dedication. I worked on the Rig Veda itself and in four months had

produced a five hundred page book on the Vedas, which I mailed to Pandit

and he began serializing in World Union and other publications of the

Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

I began sending articles out to other publications in India as well,

including to the ashram publications of Ramana Maharshi and Anandamayi

Ma, as well as to Motilal Banarsidass, the main publisher of Indological

books and these articles were almost invariably published, which

additionally encouraged me to go further. Thus my Vedic work began

spontaneously and independently I sort of naturally fell into it. I

never had a plan to do so. And in retrospect it would appear to be a

ludicrous thing to attempt, particularly by someone at my age and

background working largely on his own.

After developing this foundation I gained many contacts and much support

for my work throughout the world, though it took over ten years to get

it recognized in a broader way. I have since taken many trips to India

and studied and discussed the Vedas with many teachers, which would

require separate stories to relate. I have worked with Ayurveda and

Vedic astrology as well, expanding the range of my original Vedic

research. But the basic core of my Vedic views has not changed.

What was it that I discovered in the Vedas? What made the Vedas more

important to me than other spiritual or intellectual teachings? It was

not just philosophy or poetry of an exalted nature. Nor was it the

later portion of the Vedas alone, the Upanishads that drew my interest.

It was the most ancient Rig Veda itself and its wealth of mantras and

symbols. The Rig Veda for me is the doorway to mind of the rishis, to

the cosmic mind itself, the heart of creation. The Vedic vision is a

universal mantric knowledge that integrates all aspects of human

knowledge including yoga, philosophy, poetry, psychology, mythology and

ritual. The Vedas are like an ongoing explosion of insights, with every

sort of color and form, merging ultimately into a pure lightning

illumination that has no end.

For me the Vedas are a living teaching and the Vedic rishis are living

teachers. There is no gap of time or culture between us and the Vedas.

The Vedas transcend time. Nor do I see the Vedas as merely Indian; they

are the heritage of the greater spiritual humanity from which we have

fallen and to which we must return. The Vedas are part of us or, to be

more accurate, we are part of the Vedas. They are the very fabric of

the cosmic intelligence that works inside us and in all the universe

upholding the great beauty and harmony of life. The Vedas exist at the

core of all real seeking to connect with truth through the great forces

of nature and consciousness, whether it is in the form of Native

American, Ancient Creek, Egyptian, or even modem scientific approaches.

In that connecting to the universal being and its powers lies the Vedas,

and there the Vedas must eventually be found. The Vedas are not merely

particular books-though the Vedic texts we do have are authentic-but are

the very vibrations of the Divine Word, the Primal Sound, the voice of

original reality.

I don't find the Vedic mantras to be hard to understand. What could be

more obvious than the dawn and the sun that rises every day? Yet the

dawn and the sun are not outer realities, they are outer symbols,

intimations of an inner reality of enlightenment and illumination that

is our true home. The Vedas are the language of nature not as outer

phenomena but as a poetry of the spirit, which is the real meaning and

beauty of creation. To me what is hard to understand is not the Vedas

but the modern world with its technology that alienates us from nature,

its commercialism that warps our minds, its endless desires and

sensations, its artificial dogmas and ideologies, compared to which the

Vedic world is indeed paradise.

The final answer as to my connection with the Vedas perhaps goes back to

the truth of karma and rebirth. There is really no reason why someone of

my background would take to this Vedic work and be able to go anywhere

with it. The only answer is the samskaras, the impressions from previous

births. This was a knowledge that came with me, that I was born with,

the result of a previous life which I have since come to remember in

various aspects. For example, when I received my first copies the Vedas

in Sanskrit it was not something ancient or foreign that I saw but an

old friend and companion.

Nor do I approach the Vedas from an academic or even personal

perspective. To approach the Vedas I first put my mind into a silent

state and let the teaching unfold itself without the interference's of

my own though there is not done through a mental effort, though there

is the effort of concentration. It is like opening an irrigation

channel to great river.

It is the great beauty of the Hindu religion that the impressions it

creates in us remain with us life after life. It is not a religion

limited to one life only, and its benefit carries through all of our

lives to the final liberation. In this regard the impressions of the

Vedas can be found in each one of us, if we know how to look deeply for

them. While unusual, I don't think what I have experienced with the

Vedas is unique. I think that many more people, East and West, will

come to it in the future. The Vedas are not only. our most ancient past

but the key to our global future as well.

The message of my encounter with the Vedas to modem Hindus is this: Your

spiritual tradition is perhaps the greatest treasure of all humanity.

Please cherish it, sustain it, practise it and share it with all.

Whatever deficiencies may be in India or Hindu culture economically or

politically, should not get a person to forget the power of the Vedas.

The Vedas are like the sun. In them is the key to all light, life and

love for all the world, through which all problems, individual or

collective, can be solved. Let us not forget our Vedic heritage.

David Frawley (Vamadeva Shastri) is the author of various books on Vedic

knowledge including Gods, Sages and Kings, From the River of Heaven, and

Mantras of the Ancient Seers. He can be reached through the American

Institute of Vedic Studies, PO Box 8357, Santa Fe NM 87504 (505)

983-9385. His books can be ordered from Passage Press 800-873-0075.

Web Address: http://www.vedanet.com/