[ramakrishna] Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 20)

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On Mon, 6 Nov 2000 23:29:29 -0000 " Vivekananda Centre "

<vivekananda writes:

>

> We are presenting the following work by Sister Gayatriprana.

> Parts 1 to 19 were posted earlier. This is part 20. 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 20

>

> PART I, SECTION 1: DEFINITION AND EULOGY OF THE VEDAS AND VEDANTA

>

> Chapter 3: The Glory of the Vedas

>

>

> a) The Vedas Are Eternal

>

> 1. The Vedas Are Ever-Existent, Without Beginning or End

>

> Away back, where no recorded history - nay, not even the dim light

> of tradition - can penetrate, has been steadily shining that light,

> sometimes dimmed by external circumstances, at others effulgent, but

> undying and steady, shedding its luster not only over India, but

> permeating the whole thought-world with its power, silent and

> unperceived, gently, yet omnipotent, like the dew that falls in the

> morning, unseen and unnoticed, yet bringing into bloom the fairest

> of roses: this has been the thought of the Upanishads, the

> philosophy of the Vedanta. Nobody knows when it first came to

> flourish on the soil of India. Guesswork has been vain. The guesses,

> especially of Western writers, have been so conflicting that no

> certain date can be ascribed to them. But we Hindus, from the

> spiritual standpoint, do not admit that they had any origin. This

> Vedanta, the philosophy of the Upanishads, I would make bold to

> state, has been the first as well as the final thought on the

> spiritual plane that has ever been vouchsafed to man. (1)

>

> By the word Shastras the Vedas without beginning or end are

> meant.... The whole body of supersensuous truths, having no

> beginning or end, and called by the name of the Vedas, is

> ever-existent.(2)

>

> The date of the Vedas has never been fixed, can never be fixed; and,

> according to us, the Vedas are eternal. (3)

>

> We [Hindus] believe the Vedas to be the eternal teachings of the

> secrets of religion. We all believe that this holy literature is

> without beginning and without end, coeval with nature, which is

> without beginning and without end; and that all our religious

> differences, all our religious struggles, must end when we stand in

> the presence of that holy book; we are all agreed that this is the

> last court of appeal in all our spiritual differences. (4)

>

>

> b) It Is the Spiritual Truth Revealed by the Vedas Which Is Eternal

> and Is Discovered by the Seers

>

> Q: What is the true meaning of the statement that the Vedas are

> beginningless and eternal? Does it refer to the Vedic utterances or

> the statements contained in the Vedas? If it refers to the truth

> involved in such statements, are not the sciences, such as logic,

> geometry, chemistry, etc., equally beginningless and eternal, for

> they contain an everlasting truth?

>

> A: There was a time when the Vedas themselves were considered

> eternal in the sense in which the divine truths contained therein

> were changeless and permanent and were only revealed to man. At a

> subsequent time, it appears that the utterances of the Vedic hymns

> with the knowledge of its meaning was important; and it was held

> that the hymns themselves must have had a divine origin. At a still

> later period, the meaning of the hymns showed that many of them

> could not be of divine origin, because they inculcated upon mankind

> performance of various unholy acts, such as torturing animals; and

> we can find many ridiculous stores in the Vedas. The correct meaning

> of the statement " The Vedas are beginningless and eternal " is that

> the law or truth revealed by them to man is permanent and

> changeless. Logic, geometry, chemistry, etc., reveal also a law or

> truth which is permanent and changeless and in that sense they are

> also beginningless and eternal. But no truth or law is absent from

> the Vedas, and I ask any one of you to point out to me any truth

> which is not treated of in them. (5)

>

> The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the

> Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without

> end. It may sound ludicrous to this audience [in the West] how a

> book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are

> meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws

> discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law

> of gravitation existed before its discovery and would exists if all

> humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual

> world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and

> soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits

> were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we

> forget them. (6)

>

> [Vedic] principles have existed throughout time; and they will

> exist. They are non-create - uncreated by any laws which science

> teaches us today. They remain covered and become discovered, but are

> existing through all eternity in nature. If Newton had not been born

> the law of gravitation would have remained all the same and would

> have worked all the same. It was Newton's genius which formulated

> it, discovered it, brought it into consciousness, made it a

> conscious thing to the human race. So are these religious laws, the

> grand truths of spirituality. They are working all the time. If all

> the Vedas and Bibles and Korans did not exist at all, if seers and

> prophets had never been born, yet these laws would exist. They are

> only held in abeyance, and slowly but surely will work to raise the

> human race, to raise human nature. But they are the prophets who see

> them, discover them; and such prophets are discoverers in the field

> of spirituality. As Newton and Galileo were prophets of physical

> science, so are they prophets of spirituality. They can claim no

> exclusive right to any one of these laws; they are the common

> property of all nature.

>

> The Vedas, as the Hindus say, are eternal. We now understand what

> they mean by their being eternal, i.e. that the laws have neither

> beginning nor end. Earth after earth, system after system, will

> evolve, run for a certain time, and then dissolve back into chaos;

> but the universe remains the same. Millions and millions of systems

> are being born, while millions are being destroyed. The universe

> remains the same. The beginning and end of time can be told as

> regards a certain planet; but, as regards the universe, time has no

> meaning at all. So are the laws of nature, the physical laws, the

> mental laws, the spiritual laws, without beginning or end; and it is

> within a few years, comparatively speaking - a few thousand years at

> best - that man has tried to reveal them. The infinite mass remains

> before us. Therefore the one great lesson that we learn from the

> Vedas, at the start, is that religion has just begun. The infinite

> ocean of spiritual truth lies before us to be worked on, to be

> discovered, to be brought into our lives. The world has seen

> thousands of prophets, and the world has yet to see millions. (7)

>

> The Vedas are anadi, eternal. The meaning of the statement is not,

> as is erroneously supposed by some, that the words of the Vedas are

> anadi, but that the spiritual laws inculcated by the Vedas are such.

> These laws, which are immutable and eternal, have been discovered at

> various times by great men or rishis, though some of them have been

> forgotten now, while others are preserved. (8)

>

> to be continued.....

>

 

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