Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 36)

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Parts 1 to 35 were posted earlier. This is part 36. Your comments are welcome... Vivekananda Centre London

Earlier postings can be seen at http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 36

 

2. Philosophy and Renunciation

The Upanishads believe in [getting things right according to the Vedas, but they have a higher standard, too]. On the one hand they do not want to overthrow the Vedas, but on the other, they see these animal sacrifices and the priests stealing everybody's money. But in the psychology, they are all alike All the differences have been in the philosophy [regarding] the nature of the soul. Has it a body and a mind? And is the mind only a bundle of nerves? Psychology, they all take for granted, is a perfect science. There cannot be any difference there. All the fight has been regarding philosophy - the nature of the soul, and God, and so on. (26)

The germs of all the ideas that were developed in the Upanishads had been taught already in the Karma Kanda. The idea of the cosmos which all sects of Vedantists had to take for granted, the psychology of which has formed the common basis of all the Indian schools of thought, had been worked out already and presented before the world [sankhyan cosmology and psychology]. (27)

You remember that the Vedas have two parts, the ceremonial and the knowledge portions. In time ceremonials had multiplied and become so intricate that it was almost hopeless to disentangle them, and so in the Upanishads we find that the ceremonials were almost done away with, but gently, by explaining them. We see that in olden times they had these oblations and sacrifices; then the philosophers came and, instead of snatching away the symbols from the hands of the ignorant, instead of taking the negative position, which we unfortunately find so general in modern reforms, they gave them something to take their place. "Here is the symbol of fire", they said. "Very good! But here is another symbol, the earth. What a grand, great symbol! Here is this little temple, but the whole universe is a temple; a man can worship anywhere. There are the peculiar figures that men draw on the earth, and there are the altars, but here is the greatest of altars, the living, conscious human body; and to worship at this altar is far higher than the worship of any dead symbols." (28)

Then another great difference between the priests and the Upanishads: the Upanishads say renounce. That is the test of everything. Renounce everything. It is the creative faculty that brings us into all this entanglement. The mind is in its own nature when it is calm. The moment you can calm it, that [very] moment you will know the truth. What is it that is whirling the mind? Imagination, creative activity. Stop creation and you know the truth. All power of creation must stop and then you know the truth at once. (29)

On the other hand, the priests are all for [creation]. Imagine a species of life [in which there is no creative activity. It is unthinkable]. The people had to have a plan [of evolving a stable society. A system of rigid selection was adopted. For instance,] no people who are blind and halt can be marred. [As a result], you will find so much less deformity [in India] than in any other country in the world. Epileptics and insane [people] are very rare [there]. That is owing to direct selection. The priests say, " Let them become sannyasins." On the other hand, the Upanishads say, " Oh no, [the] earth's best and finest and freshest flowers should be laid upon the altar." (30)

If the performance of yajnas is the cornerstone of the work portion of the Vedas, as surely is brahmacharya the foundation of the knowledge portion. (31)

The spiritual portion of the Vedas is specially studied by monks. (32)

 

Cross reference to:

Taitt. Up., 2.8.1

 

3. The Highest Is the Knowledge of Brahman

The Upanishads point out that the goal of man is neither misery nor happiness; we have to be the master of that out of which these are manufactured. We must be masters of the situation at the very root, as it were. (33)

The philosophical portion denounced all work, however good, and all pleasure such as loving and kissing wife, husband or children, as useless. According to this doctrine, all good works and pleasures are nothing but foolishness and, in their very nature, impermanent. "All this must come to an end sometime, so end it now; it is vain" - so say the philosophical portion of the Upanishads. It claims that all the pain in the world is caused by ignorance; therefore the cure is knowledge. This idea of one being held down fast by past karma or work, is all nonsense. No matter how dense one may be, or how bad, one ray of light will dissipate it all. A bale of cotton, however Large, will be utterly destroyed by one spark. If a room has been dark for untold ages, a lamp will end it all. So with each soul, however benighted it may be, it is not absolutely bound down by its part karma to work for ages to come. "One ray of light will reveal to him his true nature." (34)

The knowledge portion deals with the knowledge of Brahman and discusses religion. The Vedas in this part teach of the Self; and because they do, their knowledge is approaching real knowledge. Knowledge of the Absolute depends upon no book, nor upon anything; it is absolute in itself. (35)

 

Cross reference to:

Mund. Up., 1.1.5

 

4. Denial of the Ultimate Authority of Any Book

The farthest that any religion can see is the existence of a spiritual entity. So no religion can teach beyond that point. In every religion there is the essential truth and the non-essential casket in which this jewel lies. Believing in the Jewish book or the Hindu book is non-essential. Circumstances may change, the receptacle is different, but the central truth remains. The essentials being the same, the educated people of every community retain the essentials. (36)

There is a place in the Vedas [even] for superstition, for ignorance. The whole secret is to find out the proper place for everything. (37)

One peculiarity of the Vedas is that they are the only scriptures that again and again declare that you must go beyond them. The Vedas say that they were written just for the child-mind, and when you have grown, you must go beyond them. (38)

The rest - all these talks and reasonings and philosophies and dualisms and monisms, and even the Vedas themselves are but preparations, secondary things. The other is primary. (39)

Books are useless to us until our own book opens; then all books are good so far as they confirm our book. (40)

Our own realization is beyond the Vedas because even they depend upon that. The highest Vedanta is the philosophy of the Beyond. (41)

In spite of [the idea that things exist because they are in the Vedas], look at the boldness of these sages who proclaimed that the truth is not found by much study of the Vedas. (42)

Do you find in any other scripture such a bold assertion as this: not even by the study of the Vedas will you reach the Atman? (43)

The glory of the Vedic scriptures is unique in the history of religion, not merely because of their great antiquity, but vastly more for the fact that they alone amongst all the authoritative books of the world, warned man that he must go beyond all books. (44)

 

Cross reference to:

Ka. Up., 1.2.23

Mund. Up., 1.1.5

Taitt. Up., 2.4, 9

 

5. Truth Is beyond All System and Is Based on the Nature of Humanity Itself

Personally, I take as much of the Vedas as agrees with reason. Parts of the Vedas are apparently contradictory. They are not considered inspired in the Western sense of the word, but as the sum total of the knowledge of God, omniscience, which we possess. But to say that only those books which we call the Vedas contain this knowledge is mere sophistry. We know it is shared in varying degrees by the scriptures of all sects. Manu says that only that part of the Vedas which agrees with reason is the Vedas; and many of our philosophers have taken this view. (45)

There are truths that are true only in a certain line, in a certain directions, under certain circumstances, and for certain times - those that are founded on the institutions of the times. There are other truths which are based on the nature of humanity itself and which must endure so long as humanity itself endures. These are the truths that alone can be universal; and in spite of all the changes that have come to India as to our social surroundings, our methods of dress, our manner of eating, our mode of worship - these universal truths of the Shrutis, the marvelous Vedantic ideas, stand out in their own sublimity. (46)

It is true that we have created a system of religion in India which we believe to be the only rational religious system extant; but our belief in its rationality rests upon its all-inclusion of the searchers after God, it absolute charity towards all forms of worship, and its eternal receptivity of those ideas tending towards the evolution of God in the universe. We admit the imperfections of our system, because the Reality must always be beyond all system; and in this admission lies the portent and promise of an eternal growth. Sects, ceremonies, and books, so far as they are the means of man's realizing his own nature, are all right; when he has realized that, he gives up everything. "I reject the Vedas!" is the last word of the Vedanta philosophy. Ritual, hymns and scriptures through which he has traveled to freedom vanish for him. (47)