The Vedic Experience

[Guest guest]

http://www.hinduism-today.com/1996/7/#gen332

(newspaper article)

 

http://HinduismToday.kauai.hi.us/ashram/HimalayanAcademy/Publications/VedicExper\

ience/VEIndex.html

 

(vedic anthology website)

 

The Vedic Experience

 

An Anthology of the Vedas for Modern Man

 

By Professor Raimon Panikkar

 

THE VEDAS ARE MANKIND'S OLDEST SCRIPTURES, REVERED BY HINDUS as direct

revelation from God. One of the finest translations to English was done

by Professor Raimon Panikkar, a renowned theologian who now lives in a

mountain village in Spain. Himalayan Academy has been commissioned to

publish his 1,000-page anthology in a special edition in the West. And

we have also published the entire text at our web site making

it--http://HinduismToday.kauai.hi.us/ashram/Himalayan

Academy/Publications/ VedicExperience/VEIndex.html--the most extensive

Vedic resource on the Internet. Motilal Banarsidas has published an

Indian edition. This regular monthly column will feature excerpts from

the work.

 

Jnana - Wisdom

 

This is the truth:

 

As a thousand sparks from a fire well blazing spring forth, each one

like the rest, so from the Imperishable all kinds of beings come forth,

my dear, and to him return.

 

Divine and formless is the Person; he is inside and outside, he is not

begotten, is not breath or mind; utterly pure, farther than the farthest

Imperishable.

 

From him springs forth the breath of life, the power of thought and all

the senses, space, wind, light and water, and earth, the great supporter

of all.

 

Fire is his head, the sun and moon his eyes, the compass points his

ears. The revealed Vedas are his word. The wind is his breath, his heart

is the all. From his feet proceeded the earth. In truth, he is the inner

atman of all beings.

 

From him comes fire with its fuel, the sun; from the moon comes rain,

thence plants on the earth. The male pours seed into the female; thus

from the Person creatures are born.

 

From him come hymns, songs, and sacrificial formulas, initiations,

sacrifices, rites, and all offerings. From him come the year, the

sacrificer, and the worlds in which the moon shines forth, and the sun.

 

From him take their origin the numerous Gods, the heavenly beings, men,

beasts, and birds, the in-breath and the out-breath, rice and barley,

ascetic fervor, faith, truth, purity, and law.

 

From him take their origin the seven breaths, the seven flames, their

fuel, the seven oblations; from him these seven worlds in which the

breaths are moving, each time seven and hidden in secret.

 

From him come the oceans, from him the mountains, from him come all

plants together with their juices-- with all beings he abides as their

inmost Atman.

 

The Person is all this-- work, ascetic fervor, Brahman, supreme

immortality. Who knows that which is hidden in the [heart's] secret

cave, he cuts here and now, my dear, the knot of ignorance. Mundaka

Upanishad II,1,1-10

 

Still higher is Brahman, the Supreme, the great, hidden in the bodies

of all these beings, the One, encompassing the All, the Lord-- having

realized him, men become immortal.

 

I have come to know that mighty Person, golden like the sun, beyond all

darkness. By knowing him a man transcends death; there is no other path

for reaching that goal.

 

Higher than him is nothing whatever; than him nothing smaller, than him

nothing greater. He stands like a tree rooted in heaven, the One, the

Person,

 

filling this whole world.

 

That which is exalted high above this world -- an absence of form, an

absence of suffering-- those who know this become immortal. The others

merely enter upon sorrow.

 

Dwelling in the face, head, and neck of all, hidden in the heart of

every being, all-pervading, the Lord is he. Hence he is called the

omnipresent, the Auspicious.

 

This Person indeed is the mighty Lord; it is he who impels all that is,

inspiring to the purest attainment. He is Master and Light unchanging.

 

A Person of a thumb's size is the inner atman, ever dwelling in the

heart of beings. He acts by and through the heart, mind, and spirit.

Those who know that become immortal.

 

A thousand-headed is the Man with a thousand eyes, a thousand feet;

encompassing the earth on all sides, he exceeded it by ten fingers'

breadth.

 

The Person, in truth, is all this world, what has been and what yet

shall be. He is the Lord of immortality, the ruler of every creature

that is nourished by food.

 

On every side are his hands and feet, on every side his eyes,

 

his head, and his face, on every side his hearing. He stands

encompassing all in the world.

 

Reflecting the qualities of all the senses, yet himself devoid of all

the senses, he is the Lord and God of all; he is the universal refuge.

 

The soul, embodied in the nine-doored city, playfully sports to and fro

outside it. Controller is he of all the world, of all that moves and of

all that moves not.

 

Without hands, he grasps; without feet, he runs; without eyes, he sees;

without ears, he hears. What is knowable he knows, but none knows him!

They call him the great primeval Person.

 

Subtlest of the subtle, greatest of the great, the atman is hidden in

the cave of the heart of all beings. He who, free from all urges,

beholds him, overcomes sorrow, seeing by grace of the creator, the Lord

and his glory. Svetasvatara Upanishad III, 7-21

 

Contemplating him who has neither beginning, middle, nor end, the One,

the all-pervading, who is intellect and bliss, the formless, the

wonderful, whose consort is Uma, the highest Lord, the ruler, having

three eyes and a blue throat, the peaceful--the silent sage reaches the

source of Being, the universal witness, on the other shore of darkness.

--Kaivalya Upanishad 7