Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 48)

[Guest guest]

Parts 1 to 47 were posted earlier. This is part 48. 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 48

c) The Upanishads, Having Been Preserved Unmutilated, Allow Us to Trace the Historical Growth of Spiritual Ideas

 

The word Upanisad may mean sittings [or sittings near a teacher]. Those of you who may have studied some of the Upanishads can understand how they are condensed, shorthand sketches. After long discussions had been held they were taken down, possibly from memory. The difficulty is that you get very little of the background. Only the luminous points are mentioned there. The origin of ancient Sanskrit is 5,000 BC; the Upanishads are [at least] two thousand years before that. Nobody knows exactly how old they are. (12)

In the older Upanishads the language is very archaic, like that of the hymn portion of the Vedas, and one has to wade sometimes through quite a mass of unnecessary things to get at the essential doctrines. The ritualistic literature about which I told you, which forms the second division of the Vedas, has left a good deal of its mark on the Chandogya Upanisad, so that more than half of it is still ritualistic. There is, however, one great gain in studying the very old Upanishads. You trace, as it were, the historical growth of spiritual ideas. In the more recent Upanishads the spiritual ideas have been collected and brought into one place, as in the Bhagavadgita, for instance - which we may, perhaps, look upon as the last of the Upanishads - you do not find any inkling of these ritualistic ideas. The Gita is like a bouquet composed of the beautiful flowers of spiritual truths collected from the Upanishads. But in the Gita you cannot study the rise of the spiritual ideas, you cannot trace them to their source. To do that, as has been pointed out by many, you must study the Vedas. The great idea of holiness that has been attached to these books has preserved them, more than any other book in the world, from mutilation. In them, thoughts at their highest and at their lowest have all been preserved, the essential and the non-essential, the most ennobling teachings and the simplest matters of detail stand side by side, for nobody has dared touch them.....

We all know that in the scriptures of every religion changes were made to suit the growing spirituality of later times; one word was changed here and another put in there, and so on. This, probably, has not been done with the Vedic literature; or, if ever done, it is most imperceptible. So we have this great advantage: we are able to study thoughts in their original significance, to note how they developed, how from materialistic ideas finer and finer spiritual ideas are evolved, until they attained their greatest height in Vedanta. Descriptions of some of the old manners and customs are also there, but they do not appear much in the Upanishads. The language used is peculiar, terse, and mnemonic.

The writers of these books simply jotted down these lines as helps to remember certain facts which they supposed were already well known. In a narrative, perhaps, which they are telling, they take it for granted that it is well known to everyone they are addressing. Thus a great difficulty arises; we scarcely know the real meaning of any one of these stories, because the traditions have nearly died out and the little that has remained of them has been very much exaggerated. Many new interpretations have been put upon them, so that when you find them in the Puranas they have already become lyrical poems. (13)

 

b) Vedanta Philosophy Began When the Ancient Aryans Found No Answers in the External World and Turned Back upon the Inside World

In the oldest parts of the Vedas the search was the same as in other books - the search was outside. (14)

The Hindu scriptures, the Vedas, are a vast mass of accumulation, some of them crude, until you come to where religion is taught, only the scriptural. Now, that was the portion of the Vedas which all [later] sects claimed to preach. Then, there are three steps in the ancient Vedas: first, work; second, worship, third, knowledge. When a man or woman purifies him or herself by work and worship, then God is within that man or woman. He or she has realized God is already there. He or she can only have seen God because the mind has become pure. Now, that mind can become purified through work and worship. That is all. Salvation is already there, but we don't know it. Therefore, work, worship and knowledge are the three steps. (15)

We find that the minds of the ancient Aryan thinkers began a new theme. They found out that in the external world no search would give an answer to their question [about the relationship of the external and internal world]. They might seek in the external world for ages, but there would be no answer to their questions. So they fell back upon this other method; according to this, they were taught that the desires of the senses, desires for ceremonials and externalities have caused a veil to come between themselves and the truth, and that this cannot be removed by any ceremonial. They had to fall back upon their own minds and analyze the mind to find the truth in themselves. The outside world failed and they turned back upon the inside world, and then it became the real philosophy of the Vedanta; and from here the Vedanta philosophy begins. It is the foundation-stone of Vedanta philosophy. As we go on, we find that all its inquiries are inside. From the very outset they seem to declare: look not for truth in any religion; it is here in the human soul, the miracle of all miracles - in the human soul, the emporium of all knowledge, the mine of all existence - seek here. What is not here cannot be there. And they found out, step by step, that which is external is but a dull reflection at best of that which is inside. (16)