Sri Sadhguro Pahimam Parama Dayalu Rakshamam

[Guest guest]

Dear Members

" Hindu Dharma " is a book published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan which contains

English translation of two volumes of the Tamil Book " Deivatthin Kural " ; which

is a collection of invaluable and engrossing speeches of Sri Sri Sri

Chandrasekharendra Saraswathi MahaSwamiji.

 

http://kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/chap1.htm

 

The Basic Texts of Hinduism : Our Ignorance of Them

 

There are books aplenty in the world dealing with a vast variety of subjects.

The adherents of each religion single out one book for special veneration,

believing that it shows them the way to salvation. The followers of some faiths

even build temples in honour of their holy scriptures. The Sikhs, for instance,

do so; they venerate their sacred book, calling it the " Granth Sahib " [and

enshrine it in temples].

Thus the followers of each religion have come to have a work showing them the

way to their spiritual uplift. Such books are believed to enshrine the

utterances and commandments of God conveyed through the founders of the

respective faiths. For this reason they are called the revealed texts. We call

the same " apauruseya " (not the work of a human author). What men do of their own

accord is " pauruseya " and what the paramatman reveals, using man as a mere

instrument, is " apauruseya " .

What is the authoritative work of our Vedic religion? People of other faiths

are clear about what their sacred books are. Buddhists have the Tripitaka,

Parsis(Zoroastrians) the Zend-Avesta, Christians the Bible, and Muslims the

Qur'an. What work is basic to our religion, common to Saivas, Vaishnavas,

Dvaidins(dualists) and Advaitins(non-dualists) and the followers of various

other (Hindu) traditions? Most of us find the answer difficult. Why?

There is an important reason. People born in other religions are taught their

sacred texts in schools. Or they receive instructions [at home] in their

respective faiths for two or three years, and then have what is called " secular "

education. So even at a youthful age they are fairly conversant with the

religion into which they are born. We Hindus receive no religious instruction at

all. How has this affected us? Whenever adherents of other faiths go seeking

converts, we become a convenient target for them. How is it that people

belonging to other religions do not leave their faith to embrace another in any

considerable numbers? The reason is that they learn about the tenets of their

religion in childhood itself and remain firmly attached to it. In contrast, we

are not taught even the elements of our religion in our early years. Worse, we

speak ill of our scriptures and have no qualms about even destroying them.

Our education follows the Western pattern. We want to speak like the white

man, dress like him and ape him in the matter of manners and customs. We remain

so even after our having won independence. In fact, though we keep speaking all

the time about our culture, about swadeshi and so on, we are today more

Westernised than before. Remaining a paradesi (alien) at heart we keep talking

of swadeshi. Religion has been the backbone of our nation's life from time

immemorial. If we wish to remain swadeshi, both inwardly and outwardly, we must

receive religious instructions from childhood itself. The secular state is of no

help in this matter because, in the secular set-up, education continues to be

imparted to our children on the Western pattern, and the children are taught

that our sastras are all superstition. The result is that most of us do not know

what the sacred text is, that is common to all Hindus.

Our Atma-vidya (science of the Self) is extolled by people all over the world.

(In our country learning even subjects that are apparently mundane like

political economy, economics, dance, etc, has a transcendent purpose).

Foreigners come to India in search of our sastras and translate them into their

own languages. If we want to be respected by the world we must gain more and

more knowledge in such sastras as have won the admiration of the world. We

cannot earn more esteem than others for achievements in fields like science and

technology. We feel proud if one or two Indians win Nobel prize but the rest of

the world hardly takes any notice of it. Its attitude may be expressed thus:

" The strides we have taken in science and technology do not give us

satisfaction. So we go to the Hindus seeking things that are beyond. But they

themselves seem to forsake the philosophical and metaphysical quest for our

science and technology " . We must be proud of the fact that our country

has produced more men who have found inner bliss than all counties put together

have. It is a matter of shame that we are ignorant of the sastras that they have

bequeathed to us, the sastras that taught them how to scale the heights of

bliss.

Many Hindus are ignorant of the scripture that is the very source of their

religion - they do not know even its name. " What does it matter if we don't

know? " they ask. " What do we gain by knowing it? "

Though we are heirs to a great civilization, a civilization that is

universally admired, we are ignorant of its springs. " Who cares about our

culture? Money is all that we need, " such is the attitude of our people and

they keep flying from continent to continent in search of a fortune. Some of

them come to me and tell me: " People abroad ask us about our religion, about the

Vedas, about the Upanishads. They want to know all about the Gita and yoga,

about our tenples and Puranas and about so many other things. We find it

difficult to answer their questions. In fact we seem to know less than what they

already know about these matters. We are indeed ashamed of ourselves. So would

you please briefly put together the concepts of our religion and philosophy? "

What does this mean? We are proud of living as foreigners in our own land, but

the foreigners themselves think poorly of us for being so. We are inheritors of

the world's oldest religion and culture; yet we have no concern for them

ourselves. How would you then expect foreigners to have any respect for us?

Perhaps it would have mattered much if we were an unlettered people. Others

would have thought us to be ignorant, not anything worse. But what is the

reality today? We read and write and talk a great deal. Science and technology,

politics, cinema, fiction -- these are our interests. Yet foreigners think

poorly of us because we ignore what is unique to our land, the sastras relating

to the Self.

There are so many books on our religion but we seem to have no need for any of

them. All our reading consists of foreign literature. We know all the works of

Milton and Wordsworth, but know precious little of the poetry of Bhavabhuti and

Ottakkuttar. We are acquainted with the history of the Louis dynasty and of the

Tsars, but we know nothing of the solar and lunar dynasties of our own country.

Why, we do not know even the names of the seers of the various gotras. We are

thoroughly acquainted with things that are of no relevance to us, but of the

subjects that have aroused the wonder of the world we are ignorant, ignorant

even of the names of the sastras on which they are founded. Even if men learned

in the scriptures come forward to speak about them we refuse to listen to them.

It causes me great pain that our country and countrymen have descended to such

abysmal depths of ignorance.

The reason for this sorry state of affairs is that we are not as anxious to

know about our culture, as we are to find out how much it would fetch us in

terms of money. Indeed the true purpose of earning money and other activities of

ours must be to know this culture fully, live in consonance with its spirit and

experience a sense of fulfilment. Why should we care to know about our religion?

A question like this absurd. Religion itself is the purpose of all our actions

--it is its own purpose. The need be no purpose for religion although the

performance of religious rites brings us great benefits such as tranquillity of

mind, affection for all and, finally, liberation. Unmindful of all this, we want

to know whether it would fetch us money. If we were truly interested in religion

and truly attached to it, we would never be worried about the purpose served by

it.

" Brahmanena niskarano dharmah sadango Vedadhyeyo jneyasca, " so say the

sastras. It means that a Brahmin must learn the Vedas and sastras not because

there is any reason for it, not because there is any purpose served by the same.

It is only in our childhood that we learn the subject without asking question

about how useful it is. A schoolgoing chiild does not ask : " Why should I learn

history or geography? "

Our religious texts must be taught early in life. When a child grows up and

goes to college, he believes his studies will prove useful to him. If he reads

for a B.L. or L.L.B. degree, it is to become a lawyer. Similarly, if he reads

for an L. T (or B. Ed. ) degree or on M. B. B. S. , it is to become a teacher or

a doctor. If you ask a teenager to study our religious texts, he would retort:

" Why should I learn them? How will it help in my career? " So religious texts

should be taught in childhood itself, that is before the youngster is old enough

to question you about their utility [or harbour doubts about the same]. Only

then will we develop an interest in our religion and sastras. Do we pay our

children for their being interested in sports, music or cinema? Similarly, they

must be made to take an interest in religion also and such interest must be

created in the same way as in sports and entertainment. If children take to

sports and entertainment which afford only

temporary pleasure, they are bound to take religion which will confer on them

everlasting happiness. The present sorry state of affairs is due to our basic

education being flawed.

Today we have come to such a pass that people ask whether knowledge of

religion is of help in their upkeep. This is a matter of shame. The sastras

admonish: " Do not ask whether Vedic education will provide you food. We eat and

live but to learn the Vedas. " Your approach must be based on this principle. A

child born in a faith which has such high ideals is cut off from all

opportunities of religious instruction at his very birth. Our concern is

imparting him worldly knowledge from very start. Our children must be brought up

properly and faith in God inculcated in them early in life.

We spend so much on our youngsters- but what do we spend on their religious

instruction? A father spends thousands on his son's upanayana. But if he were to

spend one tenth of the sum towards achieving what constitutes the very purpose

of the upanayana ceremony - making the child a good brahmacarin - faith in our

religion would be kept alive. To repeat, far better would it be to spend money

on achieving the goal of upanayana than on the upanayana ceremony itself. The

child must be given religious instruction by a private tutor and taught the

duties of the brahmacarin. Why should teachers conversant with such matters be

denied an income? If religion is taught in childhood itself, people will be free

from doubts as they grow up and the teacher too will be benefited. Today the

situation is so lamentable that most of us do not know even the name of the text

that forms the foundation and authority of our religion.

The fact that our people are not taught religion at an early age is one reason

why there are so many differences among them. One man is a theist and another an

atheist. One performs religious rites without devotion while another is devoted

but does not perform any rites. The differences and disputes are many. As for

the doubts harboured by people about our religion there is no end. If our

religion were taught in childhood itself there would be unanimity of views and

freedom from doubts. We know it for a fact that there are not so many doubting

people among followers of other religions as there are among ours: the reason is

that, unlike us, they are better informed about the concepts of their respective

religions.

What is the book of our religion? A definite answer even to this question

seems to be a difficult task for people these days. However, if we follow the

truths of that book which is the basic work of our religion there will be

universal uplift.

Followers of most religions point to a single book as their sacred text even

if the matters mentioned in it are dealt with in other works of theirs also. A

man may write one book today, tomorrow a second man will come up to write

another. There may be good as well as bad points about them and it would be

difficult to determine the value of each. So is it not to our advantage if a

single book is accepted for all time as our basic religious text? That is why

every religion treats such a single book as its prime scripture.

What are the works that tell us all about our religion? The libraries are

chock-full of books on Hinduism; indeed there are hundreds of thousands of them.

The subjects that come under our religion are also numerous. It all seems to

cause confusion. But we must remember that there are a few texts that constitute

a common basis for all the other numerous works.

By practising the tenets of our religion many have had the beatific experience

and remained in tranquil samadhi, without knowing death and oblivious of the

outside world. We see such men even today. There are books from which we learn

about Sadasiva Brahmendra, Pattinattar, and similar realised souls. Other

religious systems have not produced as many realised souls as has our own faith.

Is it possible that a religion that has been a source of inspiration for such a

large number of great men should have no authoritative texts?

 

AYA JAYA SANKARA HARA HARA SANKARA

 

Thwameva Maathaa Cha Pithaa Thwameva

Thwameva Bhandhuscha Sakhaa Thwameva

 

Thwameva Vidhyaa Dhravinam Thwameva

Thwameva Sarvam Mama Dheva Dheva.