Vidya and Avidya - I

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!! Srimathe Ra:ma:nuja:yanamah, Jeeyar Thiruvadigale: Sharanam !!

Dear Bhagavathas,Jai Sri:manna:ra:yana.

Adiye:n's humble and respectful Sashtanga Pranamam.

Jeeyar Thiruvadigale: Sharanam. Jai Sri:manna:ra:yana.

 

This mail is a collection of some of the excerpts from the Swamiji's lectures

related with the topic of Vidya and Avidya: science and nescience.

 

Swamiji's super excellent lecture series on "Sri Isho:panishad" is the origin

and inspiration for this. It reflects the actual quality of so called modern

education and how, in the name of that, they are propagating great ignorance.

By nature, everybody seeks unending happiness. No living being wants to be

unhappy. However happiness doesn't seem to be of this world. By design, this

world cannot give happiness to anybody. (9.33:"Anithyam Asukham lokam....Imam

Pra:pya Bhajaswama:m"). However, it seems we don't have enough faith in Lord's

words. In pursuit of that ever eluding happiness, we take shelter of many

poisonous things in this world. We place our faith in unworthy people, endeavor

hard to possess more and more material comforts, read so many unnecessary books,

visit so many places, approach so many persons, but ultimately, again we are

unhappy, back at sqaure one. Our achievements, wealth, education, our beauty,

our intelligence, the books that we read and wrote, the health that we gained

and lost, the people we took shelter of....nothing seems to give real happiness.

What happens when we are after something and we never get it? we become

frustrated. It is all because we are searching for happiness in the wrong

place. We have not taken shelter of the right thing. ("Maya:metha:m

Tharanthithe"). Lord says "if you surrender unto me, I shall alone give you the

happiness that you can ever imagine to receive from your parents, wife,children,

relatives, friends...." (Swamiji's puports of B.G) And that anandam is unending,

limitless as He is the reservoir of pure bliss. A surrendered devotee of Lord

alone is the happy man in this world. To desire something other than Krishna

is attachment(Swamiji's purports of B.G). To do something as other than His

service is great sorrow. To forget Him is the greatest danger. Let us

turn our attention from what we should be doing to what we are doing to gain a

better idea why we are unhappy always. The root cause seems to be the

educational system we have been attending and the association we have been

taking. If we analyze from the Vedic standpoint, the kind of ignorance and

nescience these top educational institutes all over the world are preaching, and

how they are pushing unhealthy and dangerous stuff into the minds of innocent

people in the name of scientific "advancement", we would be dazed to look at

the consequences. . Since modern education has carefully avoided what is

eternal(Athma), all it proposes is simply waste of time and it can never make us

happy. At most it can give you some pleasure with its luxuries, but not

happiness. Each and every soul which gets a chance to undergo modern

education, is more and more sent away from what is actually scientific. They

lose all the natural good qualities like truthfulness, purity, cleanliness,

mercy, selflessness, humility, austerity, piety, simplicity etc. Instead, just

by the virtue of pursuing modern education, one becomes hypocritical, dogmatic,

self-centered, deceitful, highly selfish and proud, unintelligent, lusty,

impure, unclean in habits and foolish. Needless to say, he will definitely grow

atheistic opinions and convictions. One may not wish to be like that, but one

will become like that as it is the inevitable influence of Kali. They are

searching for happiness in zillion number of ways, wasting their invaluable time

in mundane and cheap pursuits quite oblivious to the inevitability in the form

of Time. If anything is technological, the Vedas are and if anybody is a real

scientist, the Vaishnava is. To turn away from them and to believe that we

evolved from monkeys would be a giant and successful leap towards really

becoming monkeys in our next birth. What is the use of that education which

subdues the natural qualities of the soul and increases our sorrows by growing

our attachment to this temporary and miserable world? The more we are educated

in this, the more is our "Ahanka:ram" and hence the more is our foolishness.

The real high technology is to understand how the soul gets attracted to the

allurements in the material world in one form or the other and the true

intelligence is to seek the "prescription" of the real doctor for this greatest

disease called "Bhava Rogam" and not to secure top ranks in academics. Utmost

what they can do is manipulate some form of material energy into some other and

that doesn't mean they can defy death, transmigration of the soul and other

vedic injunctions as these concepts are beyond the purview of science and human

comprehension altogether. A great logician, Kurt Godel, in his incompleteness

theorem, mathematically proves that "no amount of rational thought can penetrate

the absolute". So it is moronic to waste our precious time believing in such

oxymoronic "artificial" intelligence concepts. Much to our wonder, as Swamiji

explained very very lucidly in the "Isho:panishad Lecture Series", people who

possess only "Avidya" would be thrown in to dark regions of hell but those who

take to "Vidya" alone would fall into the darkest regions of hell. Worse, isn't

it? "Avidya" means to do things without the knowledge of how we have to perform

them ("Ke:vala Karma:charana" is called Avidya). We eat, we work, we earn

dollars, we beget children..... but we don't know with what consciousness they

have to be performed, for whom they have to be performed. "Vidya" is the

knowledge of Bhagavan, knowledge of "how" to do things in this world as service

to Him. For doing each and every activity, there is a procedure outlined in the

Vedas which is well practiced and clearly taught by our Acharyas. When

Bhagavadh Jnanam (vidya) is practiced with Karma:charana (avidya) we cross this

ocean of material existence and reach the eternal realm of Lord, Sri Vaikuntham.

So "Avidya" and "Vidya" both are needed for us to prosper and to get to the

other side of this ocean of "Samsara". In Sri Isho:panishad lectures Swamiji

explains in a crystal clear manner, the need for practicing both simultaneously.

Careful nurturing of the plant of Bhakthi in our hearts is only possible when we

take the instructions of Acharya to the hearts and consistently put them in

practice(vidya+avidya => give birth to Bhakthi). There is no other way.

Acharya's teachings guide us in times of danger and difficulty. One who holds

one's Acharya's lotus feet tightly with in the core of one's heart is the most

intelligent man of all. Why? because "Bhagavadh Prema or Bhakthi" takes birth in

his heart and that is the perfection for this Janma. In the next mail, we

shall see what are the basic processes of acquiring knowledge ("Prathyakasha",

"Anuma:na") and what are the defects in them as explained by Swamiji in His

Bagavadh Geetha lectures. We shall apply these two processes to some great

scientists (Millikan, Newton, Mendel, Darwin, Galileo) and show how heavily

modern science depends on the massive manipulations and extensive speculations

put forward by them, where as there is no room for speculation in our sanathana

dharma. We will also see how aural reception from a proper Acharya in the

sampradaya is the ONLY source of infallible knowledge. Kindly forgive adiye:n

for any mistakes or offenses,

 

Adiye:n, Jai Sri:manna:ra:yana, Sheshagiri.