Vivekananda on the Vedas (part 125)

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Parts 1 to 124 were posted earlier. This is part 125. 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 125

We know that all our great philosophers, whether Vyasa, Patanjali, or Gautama, and even the father of all philosophy, the great Kapila himself, whenever they wanted an authority for what they wrote, every one of them found it in the Upanishads and nowhere else; for therein are the truths that remain for ever.(32) Either in the sharp analysis of the Vaisheshikas, resulting in the wonderful theories about the paramanus, dvyanus and trasarenus [atoms, entities composed of two atoms, entities composed of three atoms], or the still more wonderful analysis displayed in the discussions of jati, dravya, guna, samavaya (genus, substance, quality and inhesion or inseparability), and to the various categories of the Naiyayikas, rising to the solemn march of the thought of the Sankhyas, the fathers of the theories of evolution, ending with the ripe fruit, the result of all these researches, the Sutras of Vyasa - the one background to all these different analyses and syntheses of the human mind is still the Shrutis.(33)

2. Vedantic Sects Have Been Founded by Explaining the Upanishadic Conception from Only One Standpoint

You find that the [upanishadic] texts have been commented upon by different commentators, preached by great teachers, and sects founded upon them; and you find that in these books of the Vedas there are apparently contradictory ideas.(34)

Commentators came and tried to smooth down [the highest and lowest thoughts which have all been preserved in the Vedas] and to bring out wonderful new ideas from the old things; they tried to find spiritual ideas even in the midst of the most ordinary statements, but the texts remained and as such, they are the most wonderful historical study.(35)