On Vedas and Vedanta

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Namaste All,

 

I have penned down a small article on the relation of

Vedanta to Vedic sciences/arts. Comments and

suggestions are most welcome.

 

Best Regards

Shrinivas

 

1. It is said that Vedanta is the theory and different

branches of the Vedas are the nothing but the theory

of Vedanta applied to different aspects of life. If

this is true it should be possible to extract the

different vedic sciences from Vedanta. In this article

I would like to present a few thoughts in this

direction.

 

2. What is our life all about ? It is nothing but a

series of goals. It is a general observation that not

every one attains all goals easily. Non-attainment of

a goal or application of an excessive effort towards

attainment of a goal causes pain / suffering. If

objective is harmony and removal of pain, it is

necessary to inquire into the process by which one

attains their goals. The hope is, once this process

and the obstacles in the process are understood, the

removal of obstacles will lead to elimination of

pain/suffering.

 

3. Who is the entity who has goals and who experiences

pain ? This entity is the Jiva or Purusha. Since the

term Purusha is understood by some as the Self, I will

use the term Jiva, although personally I like the term

Purusha better. What is a Jiva ? A Jiva is a Mind

animated by the Self. A Jiva is the unlimited, all

powerful, all knowing Self, that gets apparently

limited by the limitations of the particular Mind. And

how does the limitation come about ? The cause of the

limitations is the mistaken ideas of the Mind, that

is, the confusion in the Mind of the Jiva.

 

4. Suppose, a Jiva has a goal to achieve. Since Jiva

is in truth the omnipotent Self, there is a natural

tendency for the Jiva to effortlessly achieve its

goal. Who then stands between the Jiva and its goal ?

The confusion in the mind of the Jiva is the only

obstacle that prevents the Jiva from attaining its

goal. Then identifying and eliminating the confusion

is all that is needed for curing pain.

 

5. This is an important point. The variety of pains

that we see around, have a single remedy, namely

identification and elimination of confusion. (In many

cases identification of confusion naturally leads to

elimination too.) Thus identifying the different

thought patterns that cause different forms of pains

and their subsequent correction is the goal of

different Vedic sciences. The techniques that

different individuals have developed towards this goal

however can be quite different. In many cases, it

might take a substantial effort to realize that

"modification of the thought pattern in an intended

manner" is what the techniques of Vedic sciences are

infact trying to achieve.

 

6. As an example, consider ayurveda. In his treatise

on ayurveda, Charaka says in the very first chapter of

Charaka Samhita, "excessive correlation, lack of

correlation, or in-appropriate correlation between the

senses (with mind as the sixth sense) and the objects

of the senses is the cause of ALL diseases". Then he

goes on with his techniques to treat diseases. If one

looks just the the variety of treatments that he deals

with it is possible to forget the fundamental

principle that he starts out with.

 

7. In summary, if we study the different branches of

the Vedas, keeping in mind the fundamental objective

(summarized in paragraph 5) of the Vedic techniques,

we might end up discovering hidden treasures. On the

other hand, if one is not aware of this fundamental

objective, it is easy to get carried away by the

confounding details of the vedic techniques and get

completely lost and frustrated. Thus in modern times

we have witnessed many a people giving up faith in the

vedic techniques.

 

 

 

 

 

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