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by
Sri Bimal Mohanty
VOL
No. 76
June: 2007
PRASTHANATRAYAM – THEIR IMPORTANCE IN SANATAN PHILOSOPHY.- Part 1
Based on the lectures by Sri Bimal Mohanty
The expanse and all pervasiveness of Sanatan philosophy has always fascinated the spiritual sadhakas, philosophers, researchers of life sciences and intellectuals of all kinds. Where one can find, and learn more about it? In the midst of life’s trials and tribulations, the search is always on. It is obvious that an authoritative reference material would be the first thing they look for.
The Vedas of course have always remained the source material for all knowledge. But again the vastness of the Vedas has often rendered them out of grasp for beginners and even fairly advanced knowledge seekers – the jijyanshus. Prasthanatrayam or the three authoritative references of sanatan philosophy – of which we shall discuss now are like concise treatise which have become favourites with all to begin with.
As we have stressed so much in our earlier discussions, the spiritual approach to Life, is the philosophy of the very journey of the soul, of every soul or every jiva, from the first spark of its existence till its final liberation. However, it loses all its meaning and substance unless we understand that movement, not only at the individual level but also at the collective level of the creation as whole, as a single, unified, divine process of evolution. As the jiva progresses, this journey is never an individual journey. It is like a caravan in a pilgrimage. If an individual gets detached from the group, he is more likely to lose his way and get lost without the support of the caravan. It is a single, unified, divine process of evolution. The collective or the samasti is the real thing. The individual elements or vyasti are only parts in that collective samasti and has no separate role outside the grand cosmic collective design.
In this overall movement, everything is in a state of continuous evolution from the lower to the higher, from ignorance to enlightenment, (from tamashA to jyoti as the Upanishadic mantra says), from imperfection to the perfection, from confusion and lack of understanding to satchidananda- the clarity about the absolute truth, its realization and the bliss or ananda that flows from this realization. It is that process of which the Divine Lord himself is the controller, the niyantA, the adhyaksha and under whose supervision jagat viparivartate, the creation moves. All individual activities are part of and dictated by the collective design.
Those who do not recognize this profound truth, the truth about living, and remain preoccupied with their individual lives alone, merely oscillate through their births after births like the bullock tethered to the oil mill going continuously round and round and round. They may have movement but they go no-where until the shackle of this ignorance is broken and sets the mind free to join the caravan of the collective movement.
But the moot point is, why should the bullock ever want to free itself from the yoke of that oil mill? What is wrong one may ask, in going on and on through the motions of life, lives after lives, without bothering about its spiritual evolution?
The truth is, it just can not. Because, it is the commitment of every soul to that continuous progressive evolution. It is in its very nature. Sooner or later he himself chooses to fall in line to be integrated with the grand cosmic design. A separatist individual is like a prisoner in a solitary cell.
Something eventually triggers the mind of every individual soul to cry out ‘ No, this is not my life. These shackles have to be broken. Freedom is my true nature.’ What made Swami Vivekananda declare –“freedom is the song of the soul”? In line with Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy all shackles must fall off so that the Divine can freely act His will through the souls that we are.
But what shackles are we talking about? Freedom from what? The ignorance is our shackle and we seek freedom from ignorance. The cover of the darkness of ajnanatA, that does not allow us the revealation of the knowledge of our true nature and true potential of jivahood. I am weak and helpless without that knowledge.
The ignorance stands between me, and my freedom to access that knowledge, by the light of which I shall discover my hidden self. I am degenerating in this darkness and must quickly move into the light. The Vedanta or sanatan philosophy discarded everything for the sake of that light of knowledge and cried out ‘tamasho ma jyotirgamaya’ –lead me from darkness to light. There lies the soul’s freedom- Sri Aurobindo’s “freedom of the Gnostic being”.
Only when I am free, I can progress. Freedom of soul and enlightenment of the soul are inseparable from each other. That is the conclusion.
To understand sanatan philosophy or the vedantic philosophy or even the common usage of reference as the hindu philosophy, is to understand its respect and reverence to ‘Knowledge’, its preeminence over everything else. In sanatan philosophy, knowledge becomes the very definition of God- The lord of all – Prajnanam Brahma.
We thus make another conclusion. The freedom of the soul, the enlightenment of the soul and Brahmajnana are inseparable from each other.
Like many other religious faiths, it would have been simple enough for the sanatan dharma to have rested and remain satisfied after devising a set of ‘do’s and ‘don’t’s, a code of conduct for life to live on, to extole and command people to strictly adhere to it and even build a ‘sense of fear’ into it for the wayward people to fall in line. But that would not have satisfied man’s ever-growing intelligence. The sanatan dharma also did devise an elaborate set of conducts for every conceivable conduct in life, but did not stop there.
Much as the dharma or righteous conduct is essential for the very survival of the mankind, our wise seers also knew that mere good living or good conduct is an inadequate help when our objective is much higher, which is the progressive evolution to reach the state of satchidananada.
Sanatan philosophy without doubt vouches for dharma in life – that is the concept of the purushartha – the four aspects of the soul’s existence (read about it in the March and April 2007 issues of AHWAN)
But our seers could see also the future scenario- being duradrastAs as they were- and knew that the human conduct in society will always be influenced by the factors of sthAna, KAla and pAtra – the surroundings, the time and age, as well as the people who implement these, the human judgement. These are the precise reasons why in all religions, over a passage of time aberrations or vyabhicAra always seeps in and corrupts the human conduct. This you can well see all around you now a days.
So they reasoned. One must look beyond the procedures and rituals of righteous conduct and look for the esoteric reasoning, the unchangeable source, the truth behind all things. They knew that if the knowledge of truth is understood, all aberrations can be corrected and our conduct can be made compatible again with our ultimate goal of life. The light can assume many colours but its nature as the source of illumination can not be compromised. It will always illumine the right path. So they went beyond the shades of light and concentrated upon the illuminating nature of the light itself.
The very concept of spiritual evolution of this creation is a total overall movement. ‘Knowledge’ is the guiding principle of this grand cosmic design of the total movement or the total process.
The process necessarily means the freedom from ignorance, the revealation of knowledge which is our true nature and realization of knowledge which is synonemous with Brahman, the Lord of all.
Realisation of knowledge is realization of Brahman.
Brahman is knowledge of the absolute truth of everything – prajnanam Brahma. Therefore sanatan philosophy puts knowledge of Brahman as the ultimate object above all activities of dharma.
Thus, we have in the sanatan philosophy the unique importance given to the absolute truth over the practice of truth, the darshana or pure philosophy, the jnana over the karma of all kinds. The importance of Jnana exceeds the importance of karma, bhakti and everything else.
Take the case of the structure of the Vedas itself. We have a section known as the karmakAnda and another section known as the jnAnakanda. The former deals with rituals for every conceivable activity for the human beings as long as they live. From how to till the soil to cosigning a dead body to flames, the Vedas tell us how to do it. But as we said, our seers were wise men, they knew, that over the ages these ritualistic practices will lose their appeal. People will not be able to follow them and even if they do, the purity of the concept and the process will be grossly distorted. What will be the fate of the soul of man then? Will it be allowed to lose its way in this mess?
Surely that can not be the divine intention. So there has to be another base of solid foundation built with absolute truth and unshakeable logic, from where the human faith can bounce back again to the right path to liberation over and over again. A base to which it can return and rejuvenate the faith. That base is the other section of The Vedas- The JnanakAnda. It is this Jnanakanda, which is the soul and life force of the Vedas that helps to keep Dharma alive.
It is true that the Vedas are incomplete without the karmakAnda and the jnanakAnda taken together. But what good is the karmakAnda unless it leads the human mind into the truth embedded in the jnanakAnda? The source of enlightenment lies within the jnanakAnda popularly known as VedAnta the final words about the knowledge of the Vedas, which contains the Upanishads.
All our jnAna or knowledge is derived from there.
Then arises an interesting question. Are then the Vedas, or more precisely the VedAnta, the source of the entire gamut of knowledge? The answer is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ depending on how you look at it.
“Yes”, when you consider the following. As far as the exploration of the human mind goes, there is’nt a single thought, branch of knowledge or mental concept on any subject what so ever, whose root can not be traced back to the Vedas. This is a profound truth that often irritates the propounders of the later day philosophies as well as our so-called scientific community. This need not be so. The Vedas or the sanatan philosophy itself, does not belong to any particular group or section or any ethnic division. It is the heritage of the entire mankind, of all philosophies, of all branches of science and faith, of all different expressions of truth. Great philosophers and scientists who understand this, do not quarrel over this but draw knowledge from it. Whatever is discovered, spoken, written or experimented start from the ‘nature of things’ already referred to in the Vedas. From the creation of the universe to the concept of genes, behavioural pattern of the smaller than the smallest to the larger than the largest (anur aniyAn mahato mahiyAn), have already found a place there. The so called modern science merely tries to discover the embedded truth and builds upon it.
Is it within the human comprehension to be able to declare that all knowledge can be in Vedas? Well, it is not. It is indeed beyond the comprehension of the physical human mind. The wise have described the Vedas as apaurusheya, conceived not by man but by an absolute and ultimate consciousness or the Brahman himself. That is a concept we shall return to shortly.
Yet in another context the answer “no” – that it can not contain all the knowledge is also pertinent. Knowledge has no end. The final boundary of knowledge has not been found by man nor he will be able to find it. His limited comprehensive faculty will always fall short. Knowledge is always equated with Brahman and ‘ananta’ or limitlessness is the character of Brahman. A thing which is limitless can never be confined within any limited expression. Only Brahman knows Himself in all His totality. No one else knows Him in full, not even the Vedas.
This ambivalence, this double interpretation about The Vedas, unless properly understood, can create great confusion especially in the minds of sadhaks in the initial stages of sadhana. Sri Aurobind’s words are quite candid in this context and puts everything in very intelligent perspective. He does say that ‘the Supreme Shastra of the integral yoga ( here yoga is to be understood as the practice or engagement to acquire the ultimate knowledge or Brahman) is the eternal Veda secret in the heart of every thinking and living being.’
But he also goes on to caution that ‘ For the sadhaka of the integral yoga, it is necessary to remember that no written shastra, however great its authority or however large its spirit can be more than a partial expression of the eternal knowledge. He will use, but never bind himself even by the greatest scripture’. He further says: ‘ Where the scripture is profound, wide, catholic, it may exercise upon him an influence…. But in the end he must take his station or better still, if he can, always and from the beginning he must live in his own soul beyond the written Truth. …. For he is not a sadhaka of a book or many books; he is a sadhaka of the Infinite.’
So, from where does the sadhaka begin? We shall have to continue discussion further to get our answer in the next.
