The Eternal Order

There has been a lag in between and I apologize for that. I've been busily involved in some activities and also studies. Moreover, the week's lesson was quite heavy and as such I had to take some time to look through the notes and just record here some essence of the lessons learnt on that day.Like said in the previous post, the revelation of the Shruti scriptures were characterised by the time, place and content. In the early 2000 BCE, or even earlier, the Veda was revealed near the Saraswati river. The Agamas were revealed later around 500 BCE near the Ganges river. In our Sampradhaya (tradition), rivers are very highly revered even until today. Ganges river (near Kasi) is considered to be a pilgrimage and believed that if you take a dip, your sins are washed away. Why this is so?! Well, if you think of it, padi field are found near rivers and its the river that provides water for the growth of rice plants. We get the rice and we consume it. Literally then, our body is given life by the river and thus, they are highly revered!
The now-existent Temple tradition was revealed in the Agamas. The Veda does not say "This is God" and is therefore not sectarian. But the Agamas have a sectarian attitude. There are three branches under the Agamas: Shiva Agama, Vishnu Agama, and Devi Agama. If its Ganesha and Muruga, they come under the Shiva Agama. All the three different sects lead you towards the same goal but reveres each as the supreme deity. For example, the Shiva Agama says that Shiva is supreme, the Devi Agama says that Devi is ultimate and so on... To avoid confusion I would advice you to follow just ONE sect! If you are a Shiva devotee, do not look at the other sects. Just pray to Shiva, Parvati, Ganesha and Muruga. Basically, Agamas have made the abstract concept of Ishwara (God) that is found in the Veda, into something tangible and reachable to all.

Puranas (Smriti), about which we will be talking in the next post, are in parallel with the Agama tradition. Though you can find some answers in the Agamas, for ultimate authority on any issue, you HAVE to go back to the Veda! Veda is the ultimate authority! Thaayumanavar has put it very beautifully. He said that the horse is the Agama and the path the horse follows is the Veda. There are no contradictions between the Agama and the Veda, both compliment each other.Each sects in the Agama can be further divided into four, just like the Vedas. Take a look at the chart. The Carya (conduct) describes how to lead a life for the priest looking after the Temple. This usually includes the penances and the kind of lifestyle he should be leading. Kriya (rituals) is about how to chant mantra to invoke the grace of the Lord. This is also the part where the Temple structure and the procedures for building Temples is described in details, together with hymns and such. Yoga and Jnana is the same as in the Vedas. What a striking resemblance it has with the Vedas!

Did the Agamas propagate a Bhakti tradition? No! For example, the agama shaivism doesn't have its own Bhakti tradition. but Shaiva Siddhantha has! You can do rituals without any Bhakti. And here we need to define Bhakti. Bhakti is a liking towards God, it is also about understanding your relationship with God. It usually involves emotions. You can have no bhakti and yet appreciate the knowledge gained from Hinduism. Bhakti is not required, however, if you have Bhakti then it will act as a propellant (catalyst) in your journey towards your ultimate goal.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that there are four types of Bhaktas:
1) The one who only thinks of God during times of distress (Artha)
2) The one who seeks God for wealth, children, prosperity and happiness (Artharthi)
3) The one who seeks Him through knowledge (Jignyasu)
4) The one who realises that "Jnani is in me, I am in Jnani" (Jnani)
According to Krishna, all the four types of the bhaktas are important to him. If you look at the different types of bhaktas as listed above, you will realise that it is the evolution of our minds in relation to God and how we perceive Him. In the 3rd stage, we will then start to realise his true relationship with him and by the 4th stage, we would have realised! The first two stages, in which most of us are in now, are propellants that would bring us slowly to the 3rd and 4th stage. Remember! God's grace is very important to take you further to the 3rd and 4th stages of your mental evolution.

Now we have come to the essence of today's post. Hinduism defines the individual evolution towards the ultimate goal, moksha, through 3 stages:
1) Learn Dharma and follow it. Learn what your duties are and follow them.
2) After you've attained a certain level of mental maturity, do Upasana. Meaning meditation and yoga.
3) Seek Jnana (knowledge) to attain moksha.

There are some important points to take note here. This evolution doesn't take place in the time of one life span of a human. It can take place along the time span of mutiple births and rebirths. Most of us are still in the first stage of individual evolution. Some of the fortunate ones have already advanced towards the second stage in life. A very few are already in the third stage of life. NONE are forced to follow all three in their current birth! JUST FOLLOW DHARMA! That's more than enough to earn you a place in the heaven (temporary existence, not eternal happiness). There will come a time when you would be prepared to go through the 2nd and 3rd stages in life.

Now you will understand the problem with Modern Hinduism. They straight away teach you yoga and meditation (when you are not even mentally prepared) and tell you that it is the way to moksha! DON'T be deluded with all the modern day teachings of Hinduism targetted to the WRONG audience! They will make you feel guilty with the notion of renouncing happiness and wanting to attain moksha! This is NOT TRUE! Wait till the next few posts to find out... :)

The Veda is the essence of Sanatana Dharma. Without the Veda, there is no Sanatana Dharma. I had learned something in my lesson last week, which I could not come to grasp it up till now. I've always taken it for granted but when I think of it deeply now, I realise something that which I cannot easily grasp. How much have we really appreciated our Vedas and other scriptures? not really. We've taken it for granted and have led our lives in such blatant ignorance!

Shastra consists of two different types of texts: Shruti and Smrti, as indicated in the table below:
Apaurusheya texts are simply those which are "unauthored", meaning that they were revealed to humans. Paurusheya is the opposite; that which has authors. The Veda comes under the category of Shruti. Vega is one body of knowledge which was divided into four parts by Vyasa Rishi and given to four of his students. Vyasa Rishi played an important role, as said in the earlier post, by compiling or rather systemizing the Veda that was revealed to around 421 Rishis in different times and places. All the knowledge revealed to these Rishis, though in different places and times, were almost compatible and consistent with each other's knowledge. This is proof enough that the VEda is entirely the word of God!

What makes me hard to grasp is how these 421 random people were chosen? And why at that particular time of the histroy? Now I'm telling you, this revelation happened ages back in time and history, somewhat like 7000-10000 years ago! Its really amazing to think about it. Hard to imagine! Wonder what it would have been like to receive such a revelation. Such things don't happen today at all and probably never will.

This one body of knowledge got revealed to these Rishis, who might not have even exactly known what the content is really about. Their duty back then was to regard it as the sacred and just pass it down to the next generation, by oral transmission. The Veda was not in any written form until around 2000 BCE! Before that, the Veda existed only through oral transmission. Where did this revelation exactly take place? Or rather, how? It got revealed to the hrdaya aakaasha (space in the mind). Who are these Rishis? A Rishi is anyone who has the knowledge and has attained liberation. However, not all who received the Veda were realised beings! They were called mantradrshtas! These people may not even have attained liberation. Like said before, their duty was only to pass it down to the next generation and to follow whatever was said in the Veda.

Shruti is the ultimate pramaana (means), which has NO involvement of human intellect to create it! How could something like the Rig Veda be created by humans out of thin air?! How can it be possible? It must have been the God's compassion and His grace that has given us such a revelation; the Veda! Just think about it! The beautiful thing about Hinduism is that we call all humans as "children of pure immortality", unlike the Christians who call everyone "sinners"! Your limitlessness, will make you realise that the Sanatana Dharma is UNLIMITED!

So now, if you take a look at the image above again, you will notice that each of the 4 Vedas further divide into 4 parts: Samhita (hymns), Brahmana (ritual manual), Aranyaka (yoga/meditation) and Upanishad (knowledge). It follows like this: You first have to learn the mantras. You needn't understand its meaning but just by uttering the words, you will acquire its benefits. Next, you have to apply these hymns you've learned and conduct rituals. Rituals are done usually to fulfil your personal desires such as the need for wealth, fame, prosperity and immortality. After you have done the rituals, you will then come to realise the significance behind these rituals with the help of the Aranyakas. Upanishas will make your understanding of the VEda complete! Skipping any of these steps would end up confusing you totally!

You don't understand? Let me explain more clearly to you. Modern Hinduism teaches you that experience is all that you need and that you can attain moksha by doing yoga (basically, just contorting yourself into different yogic postures, calming the mind and chanting OM, as per the definition of modern-day yoga). However, do you ever stay focussed? Honestly speaking, how long does this interest of yours on yoga and meditation last? A week? A month? A year? No right? It doesn't! Because you are either FORCED into it, or FORCING yourself into it! You are forced into it when you are not even prepared mentally! You are forced into it, when deep inside, you don't even want to attain moksha! Well, you actually might not even know the meaning of moksha!!

STOP feeling guilty my fellow Hindus! It's not that bad to want to attain pleasures rather than moksha! Hinduism says that its OK to think about pleasures and wanting to have them in your lives. Its the other religions saying that pleasure is sin! Not Hinduism. Your ultimate aim IS moksha... But only when you really really want it! That's the beauty of Hinduism. You wouldn't get it, unless you want it!

Well, you are not to be blamed! All of us start feeling guilty when people look down on us when we ask God for wealth, fame and money! This is the effect of modern-day Hinduism. We'll get more insights on the decline in Vedic tradition and the uprise of the Agamic tradition (Temple worship) and how this has become modern-day Hinduism.

This blog is about Hinduism, basically. Hinduism, or Sanatana Dharma, is one of my passions. This blog would be my avenue to muse over the thoughts and teachings I'm currently going through in this stage of my life.

I'm attending a Diploma course in Hinduism Studies. I find it really useful to build up my almost-non-existent knowledge in Hinduism. Only after going to the lessons do I realise that there is actually so much more to be learnt and that I'm such an ignorant person! I want to share this so-little knowledge I've gained so far with my readers and I would be very happy if someone gets benefitted from my writings here.

What is Vaidika Dharma? It is just an another name for Sanatana Dharma. Sanatana Dharma has become such a common name that most are using it in the blogger's world. I wanted my blog to be a little uniquely named and as such I've given it as Vaidika Dharma. I will use the word "Hinduism" for convenience's sake, although it was a name that was only recently given to this particular practice of Sanatana Dharma.

Hinduism is nothing but a collective philosophical and religious thought by ancient Indians. The stress here is on the "ancient" because the current Indians do not own rights to the teachings that were given by our Rishis. Hinduism is unique in comparison to Judeo-Christian religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Hinduism does not have a single founder, we do not worship a single God, we have more than one philosophical school of thought and no one scriptural authority!

We do not have a founder to be named, but if he has to be named then there is only one person. He is Vyasa. We cannot actually call him a founder because there were many before him. But he is a very important person. Before his time, the Veda was passed down only through word of mouth. It was Vyasa who compiled the Veda into 4 different Vedas (Yajur, Sama, Atharva, and Rig). It was Vyasa who wrote the Puranas. It was Vyasa who wrote the Mahabharatha, and together with it, the Bhagavad Gita. He also wrote the Brahma Sutra. He systemized the Vedic "Hindu" thought. We will talk more about scriptures in the next blog post.

There are three important persons who have helped in the evolution of Hinduism. They are Swamis Ramakrishna, Shivananda, and Chinmayananda. Their scriptural compilation and teachings of Hinduism gave birth to Modern Hinduism. Hinduism is a religion that keeps growing and evolving. It NEVER stops! This is very unlike the other religions in the world. You name it! The word "Sanatana" itself means ever-lasting, universal and eternal. The teachings of Sanatana Dharma is relevant at all times because there is continuous evolution. "Dharma" means, the way of life.

In Hinduism, the goal is not to attain Moksha. This is a common misconception that everyone has. There are two lifestyles that is presented to man for him to choose. If he wants to experience the pleasures of life, he could choose to live a life as an house-holder. If he doesn't want the pleasures but wants to be a spiritual person, he can renounce all his pleasures in life and commence his journey towards moksha. Both lifestyles are equally important in Sanatana Dharma. A materialistic goal is also a spiritual goal according to Hinduism.

What do you call the people who follow Sanatana Dharma? Well, there is a word in the scriptures given to those who follow this teaching. It is "manushya". It is originating from the root word "manu", meaning first man. "Manu" comes from the root word, "man", which means mind. Another word for "man" is "manas". Now where does this word "manas" comes from? The brain, antahkarana, is made up of 4 parts: ego (ahankara), memory (citta), intellect (buddhi) and manas (questioning tendency). So essentially, "manushya" means a man who wants to know and therefore questions! This leads to conclude that essentially everyone is born a Hindu!! Because all humans born in this world strive for knowledge and want to know. This is a simple yet a beautiful truth and shows that Sanatana Dharma is actually for everyone!!!