why must Bharat survive

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Vedic Culture: The Last Bastion of Deep Spiritual Truth

By Stephen Knapp (Sri Nandanandana)

 

Why would Vedic culture be called the last bastion of deep spiritual truth? It

doesn't take much to understand, at least after a little investigation, that

the Vedic process of spiritual advancement promotes individual freedom of

thought, complete liberty of inquiry, and the privilege of independent and

personal development through one's own spiritual experiences. This degree of

latitude for self-discovery is found in few other cultures or spiritual processes.

 

The fact is that the Vedic literature consists of the oldest and most complete

spiritual scriptures available. It contains more in-depth knowledge of the

identity of the spiritual being and its connection with the universe and God

than most anywhere else. It provides more information about the spiritual

domain, the characteristics of God and our relationship with the Supreme.

Furthermore, the spiritual principles in the Vedic system are universal, meaning

they can be applied in any time or place in the universe. In fact, even a

Christian, a Muslim, a Jew, or anyone can understand his or her own religion

more deeply by investigating the Vedic spiritual knowledge.

 

The Vedic system expects the individual to progress and not merely stay on the

level of blind faith. The Vedic path does not rely on faith or beliefs alone,

but offers the methodologies that a person can use to refine one's

consciousness. Then he or she can personally perceive the higher levels of

reality and spiritual truths of which the Vedic instructions speak. In fact,

the many Vedic holy men are often those who have had various levels of success

in experiencing aspects of spiritual reality, and then can relay that

information to others. This is also why portions of Vedic philosophy are

expressions of one's spiritual experience,

followed by instructions enabling others to reach that same experience in

perceiving the Absolute Truth. The Vedic process allows full freedom to

investigate spiritual matters and for one to ask all the questions that may

come to mind, without restrictions or the possibility of being called a

doubting person or a blasphemer. The Vedic approach knows that the Absolute can

be perceived in different ways, thus the Vedic system accommodates this and

allows for the individual to pursue the

level of Truth that he or she wants to perceive. The Vedic path also makes no

restrictions on our right to use whatever resources we can to help ourselves

understand our spiritual nature. This it is why Vedic followers can look at any

religion and find truth in it.

 

The Vedic system also acknowledges that we all have a unique relationship with

God, and that this does not depend on the approval of a church, an institution,

or a cleric or priest. It is eternal. The Vedic process merely provides the

means or methodologies by which we can awaken that relationship and the

awareness of our spiritual identity. By this approach, we stimulate our own

perception of spiritual reality rather than merely being forced to accept a

dogma presented by some religious institution.

 

On the other hand, we see the conventional religions of the West. They are often

monotheistic constructs that are based primarily on faith, beliefs, and fear.

Their faith is often directed toward the idea that if you follow what your

church authorities tell you, or what you read in your scripture, you will go to

heaven and be "saved". Belief usually amounts to accepting something that is

still beyond your experience. And fear in most religions is based on the idea

that if you don't follow the tenants of your faith or church, or if you

question it, you may find yourself being excommunicated and outcaste from your

religion, or even told that you will go to hell. Thus, you will have no

relationship or connection with God. Fear in this regard is also displayed as a

fanatical defense of one's ideas, that everyone else but you and your clan are

going to hell and that

you are the only ones who really know the truth. In this way, they allow for

little freedom of thought or inquiry, or for the individual to seek out answers

to questions that are not described in its scripture. Anything that is not

included is labeled as either demonic or will lead one to hell.

 

One problem with the religions that primarily are based on belief and faith is

that they can become an effective means of manipulating the masses who follow

it. If you can convince people to believe that by doing something they can go

to heaven, then you can get them to do almost anything. For example, Pope Urban

II implied to the soldiers who were going out on the first crusade that if they

died in the name of Christ, they would ascend to heaven and live in the

association of God. Thus, they rode out to fearlessly and mercilessly conquer

the "heathens" or non-believers, and were willing to die to reach heaven.

This is the same effect we see with the Palestinian youth, that if they die in

the name of Islam they will immediately go to the seventh level of heaven and

take pleasure in wondrous gardens in the company of beautiful virgins. The more

fantastic the heaven, the more hope and conviction will be seen in the

followers.

 

Another problem with this is that the beliefs that are given to you to accept

often change with time, or according to the needs of the church to keep a

congregation. As explained in a recent issue of Newsweek magazine (August 12,

2002), the concept of heaven has changed with the ages. "Dante saw heaven as

the universe, and Thomas Aquinas thought of it as a brilliant place, full of

light and knowledge. In the 18th century, Emanuel Swedenborg imagined heaven as

a tangible world, with public gardens and parks." Nowadays you can imagine

heaven to be whatever you need it to be. This gives impetus for you to do

whatever you feel you should do for your beliefs, and have it justified by your

religion. However, in actuality, in the Bible, the Koran, or Torah, there is

little in the way of specific information of where or what is heaven. And this

leaves much for the imagination. Another problem with religious processes that

rely mostly on faith and belief is that peer pressure and the need for

conformity and acceptance or approval stifles and restricts one's ability to

develop or inquire to one's fullest.

 

We often see children tolerated for their deep and thoughtful questions, while

the adults fear to reveal their ignorance of the topics or even stifle a

child's inquisitiveness. So such religions act like self-policing institutions

wherein individuals are not encouraged to develop their own spiritual

realizations or ask too many questions. They are encouraged to leave it up to

faith and the dictates of the institution. They are told that we are not meant

to know certain things, and that faith alone in a particular savior or the

power of the church is enough to take you to heaven. But if you lack faith or

question it, or don't follow the

>dictates of the church or scripture, you won't go to heaven. Thus, you must

look good in the eyes of the church authorities and your fellow members or

there will be no room for you, and thus you will be sent to hell.

 

The second kind of fear is the fear that you may be wrong, or the church and its

doctrines may be wrong, or there may be weaknesses in its philosophy. So people

become defensive of their beliefs, defending it like life itself. Thus, they

condemn and criticize those who are of other religions without trying to

understand them. Sometimes you can see this amongst the sects in the same

religion. We already see so many divisions within Christianity, as well as

Islam and Judaism. And each one often feels they are the only ones that are

true followers of Jesus or Mohammed, and all others are going to hell. So it

can

become extremely divisive even within the same faith.

 

In fact, some people, as in Christianity for example, may feel it is their

God-given mandate that when someone is a so-called non-believer, he should be

converted and "saved" at whatever cost, and then deprived of any freedom to

follow an alternative view. A person in another religion may brand

"nonbelievers" as infidels, and thus feel it is his duty to convert, destroy or

even kill such a person. In either case, they may use coercion, manipulation, or

simply take advantage of poor and vulnerable people to bring them over to their

faith.

 

And in both cases, the people of these religions feel they are doing God's work,

and that they are justified in what they do.

However, it is refreshing to see that you usually don't have this kind of

divisiveness or criticism in the Vedic system. It is much more open and

provides the individual the freedom to pursue the level of experience that he

or she needs for his or her own development and still be a part of the Vedic

process.

 

Religion, when used improperly or without the real essence of spiritual truth,

can also be a way of confining and restricting people of a wider understanding

of the universe and themselves. This is done through the use of fear, guilt,

violence, and the oppression of anything that shows a different view than what

is being indoctrinated into society. It has been the most militant

of religions that has suppressed the ancient avenues of reaching higher levels

of understanding our multidimensional or spiritual nature. Thus, by mere blind

faith in whatever the church or priests are giving us, or allowing us to know,

we are kept in a lower consciousness than what is really possible. In this way,

higher realms of thought, wisdom, love, and knowledge are kept away from the

masses.

 

After all, knowledge is power, and your ignorance is my strength. To keep power

over others, the church and monotheistic religions in general have

systematically abolished a wide range of spiritual and esoteric knowledge that

would, otherwise,

give mankind the ultimate freedom. And because people who understand their true

spiritual nature and the power that lies within themselves become impossible to

manipulate, it is necessary to keep this knowledge hidden. So the idea

would be to keep the truly spiritual knowledge concealed while creating and

perpetuating a religion, or a standard of "science," that keeps people bound by

the above mentioned factors: fear, guilt, violence, and intimidation. The

implication is that to tread outside the accepted jurisdiction of knowledge or

understanding, or outside the rules of the institution, will bring fear. This

is fear of uncertainty, or disapproval by the institution, or of going to hell,

as previously mentioned.

 

Questioning the present system, or doubting its effectiveness, or desiring more

knowledge about God than the church provides, will bring guilt. In this way,

some religious institutions have made such ancient sciences as astrology, yoga,

meditation, or the deepest understandings of the soul, or other topics, to look

evil or even absurd, and thus be dismissed, or preferably even outlawed. We

need to understand and recognize this pattern, which is used in numerous places

in the world. In this regard, reports have been given about how the Vatican has

sealed vaults that contain thousands of ancient esoteric books, all of which

are kept out of circulation from the public. This indicates the methodical

removal of various levels of spiritual and metaphysical knowledge from society,

while claiming that anything other than the established doctrine of the church

is satanic, evil, and hellbound. The Inquisition was a wonderful method of

producing this effect.

 

Even today we can see how some people are so influenced by this tyrannical

tendency that they still are afraid of looking at anything other than what the

Church condones. However, most of these people are totally unaware of the

"pagan" heritage found in Christianity or Judaism, which makes it very similar

but with a different name. It is practically the same medicine but in a

different bottle. To remove this understanding from public knowledge, it became

necessary that whenever Christianity or other militant religions conquered a

country or culture, the first thing that was done was to capture or destroy all

of the ancient sacred texts. However, any organization that destroys the ancient

knowledge and historical records of a civilization is never going to present the

true history of the world, or the spiritual wisdom of any previous culture.

 

Thus, the view of history is controlled and the population is kept in ignorance

and under subtle restraint. And the people who are allowed to understand any of

the truth are those of the elite or who are already in power. By taking a look

at the history of the Christian Church, for example, a person can see to what

extent a religion will go to maintain power and control,

especially when it feels threatened by what it does not understand. Furthermore,

the dark history of Christianity represents the fanatically narrow-minded side

of it that has continued to the present day in the form of fundamentalists

thinking that if a religion or culture is not Christian, then it must be of the

devil. Or at least its followers will not go to heaven. Such people are often

ready to dismiss or criticize other spiritual paths and cultures without

understanding them. They may see a ceremony or ritual of another religion and

immediately say it is heathen or devil worship, without realizing that it is

the worship of the same Supreme Being that they worship. But a similar

misunderstanding can happen in Christianity.

 

For example, in the Eucharist ritual they partake of drinking the blood and

eating the body of Christ. Does this mean that Christians are cannibals, or

have a cannibalistic mentality to eat the body and drink the blood of their

savior? Not if

you understand that the blood and body of Christ is distributed symbolically in

the form of wine and wafers. So proper understanding is needed in any religion.

The point is that all people have to have the freedom to find themselves to the

fullest extent on whatever path it takes, providing it is a genuine and

uplifting path. So how do we make sure we can continue to have this freedom? By

understanding each other and other cultures of the world and the different paths

of self-discovery, and by recognizing the value that they have to offer. We must

also bury our preconceived prejudices that are based on our immature feelings of

superiority because, spiritually speaking, we are all the same. We just have to

attain that spiritual vision to see the reality of it. And the path we take to

do that is the only difference among us.

 

A true religion paves the way for everyone to become spiritually aware, and to

establish his or her own relationship with the Supreme. And the Vedic system is

an ideal means for supplying that. If a religion is not based on the higher

principles of self-realization, but is merely based on dogmatic rules and

regulations that it forces on others, then it becomes a trap based on fear,

guilt, oppression and intimidation. One must not be afraid to break free from

such a trap. It is greater to see God's love manifested in many sages belonging

to different traditions at different times and places, among different people.

The premise that all spiritual knowledge must be connected with one >distinct

or localized savior is itself a stifling factor in allowing individuals to

progress in spiritual understanding. There is so much more that could be

learned if they didn't feel that if something isn't connected with their

particular savior or scripture, then it must be Satanic. In this way, if it is

not in the Bible or Koran, >for example, they refuse to acknowledge the value

of any additional spiritual knowledge if it comes from a different culture or

source. Thus, they act with fear or contempt toward anything outside their own

sphere of familiarity or acceptability, or like people who are proud of their

own ignorance and narrow- mindedness.

 

The straightjacket of Western theological dogma keeps a person from looking at

additional resources that could supply answers for questions not considered in

western thought, or at possibilities that are elementary in Eastern traditions.

What's wrong with learning newer ways of connecting with our higher selves, and

with each other and with God? What's wrong with allowing our hearts and minds

to expand with new vibrancy, new insights and confidence? Why not allow

ourselves new hope and understanding in regard to the purpose of the universe

and the nature of God, even if we look to different sources of

>knowledge? Who knows what additional information we can add to what we already

know, or newer ways to incorporate and develop ourselves into people who are

better and more aware and spiritually developed. This is natural for

>those who participate in the Vedic system. For these reasons, India must

remain the homeland of a living and dynamic Vedic culture. This will allow the

world to retain some of the deepest knowledge and methods of attaining the most

profound spiritual insights that have been known to mankind. India should defend

itself from the risk of further partition or divisions. If India is divided up

any further, Vedic culture could dwindle or even be lost, except for small

colonies of Vedic practitioners

>here and there. This may indeed be what many people would like to see. Yet, if

Vedic culture is lost, the world will not even realize the treasure of human

development that will disappear. Then such deep spiritual knowledge and

insights will

>begin to permanently fade away from society. Once India and Vedic culture is

diluted or stamped out, along with other

>decreasing numbers of indigenous traditions, then the whole world will be

fitted with the straightjacket of Western thought and monotheistic religion.

Thus, it will be more easily controlled by the establishment. Then individual

freedom for

>the pursuit of higher understanding and spiritual happiness will be limited to

the constraints as dictated by whatever regional monotheistic views reign in

that area.

 

> For this reason Vedic culture is the last bastion of deep and genuine

spiritual truth and freedom. This is also why it should be clearly understood

and preserved. [More insights into this reasoning are given in my free

"e-booklet" cal

>led, "Why Be a Hindu: The Advantages of the Vedic Path." You can find this and

many more articles on my website at: http://www.stephen-knapp.com.]