| Listen to Prabhaata-rashmih Audio |
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. Jai Guru.
This is a point that I have been emphasizing for many years now. What is that point? We have got some literature, the primary literature - the Vedas and the Vedic Upanishads. We don't know when they were evolved. Vedas might have been evolved in a period of time. It is not that all the Vedas were evolved by the same individual or even group of people. It was a gradual evolution extending over an indefinite period of time. Initially, it started in a very rustic, religious manner.
There are hearts which are given to piety – devotion, and a kind of thought and respect and allegiance towards some kind of an invisible cause of the world. This is actually a kind of a religious inspiration, compulsion or affinity. Our Vedic thoughts, perhaps, also evolved in that manner, with one difference. The difference was they were always realizing the fact that they were products of nature and the nature was manifest in the form of the Panchabhutas around. The first is the Bhūmi itself, upon which we are living, our parents were living, and all the others. This Bhūmi is very-very limited in its range. Anytime and every time we look from the earth, we can only look above, but not below. There are people sitting exactly diametrically opposite to where we sit upon the earth. When they look, they also look up, we also look up. So there is nothing like looking down. When we look down, by about six feet down, the surface of the earth is struck. Suppose you pierce the earth, drill the earth, the hole will go, open up into the opposite side. There also it is not below, but it is above. So as denizens of the earth, our people only have to look above. So they found, earth itself must have been formed from some source above.
When we look around we find a number of spacial, solid particles or solid formations. And the one on which life on the earth depended, was Sun. So the Sun very soon became an object of worship for them. They considered that Sun was unfailingly rising in the morning and setting in the evening, to come back again almost the same time, next morning. So they found a kind of a cyclic-ness, loyalty and allegiance on the part of the sun so far as our life upon the earth is concerned. That is why in the Rigvedas you will find, a number of hymns addressed to the sun. But was it really so? The moment a man tries to think deeply, contemplate upon, you will find, his perception, insight and objective in life, all begin to change. The moment they started uttering praises looking into the higher elements, they were all praises. After you pray for a while, you are obliged to close your eyes. When you close your eyes, if at all you sense anything, it will be your thoughts, emotions and aspirations. These are not really parts of the body. The body is insentient and inert. So whatever arises in the mind and the intelligence cannot be physical parts of the body. And it is true. The moment there is an absorptional flair, that absorption leads you to higher and higher levels of contemplation.
So even in the Rigvedic Gayatri, which is supposed to be a hymn of sun, I find a deeper element and discovery. What is that?
We are contemplating upon using our intelligence, the adorable presence of Savita - the illuminer. And what is the purpose? So that, it may illumine and inspire our intelligences. The moment they hit upon a proposition like illumining, inspiring, guiding, motivating our intelligence. Our intelligence is subtler. It is not a part of the body. It is something beyond the body. And such an intelligence should be inspired and motivated. What does it mean? I don't think any external factor can inspire, guide and motivate our internal spiritual intelligence, not material or energial. So right in the Rigvedic hymns you find, our thinkers had struck a depth and a dimension, that were clearly spiritual, metaphysical and beyond matter and energy. This is something that you should understand.
So even the Rigvedic Gayatri, I feel is not really addressed to the Sun God. It is addressed to the indwelling presence which shapes and also leads our intelligence and the mind. Normally we don't think about it. Right from the morning when we wake up, till the eyes are closed in sleep our interaction is with the outside objects. And the outside world has an overbearing upon the mind. This is not religion. Religion begins only then, when we are able to think away from beyond and inward to the objects. The moment you start thinking of something different from the objects of the world, that becomes spiritual and philosophical. So the spiritual and philosophical notes in our religious thoughts were right from the beginning present.
One Rigvedic prayer says,
May noble thoughts enter my system from all the directions of the world creation. See, this is something very characteristic of our Vedic thoughts. Then they developed, ultimately reached the Upanishadic level, where they were able to come face-to-face with the Supreme Reality, the indwelling spiritual presence called the Self. Ever since then, the Upanishadic prayers, the Upanishadic contemplations have remained an inseparable part of our culture.
Mind you, it was millennia ago that these Vedic and Upanishadic thoughts were evolved. The moment something becomes prehistoric, you have no access to say how old it is. It can be 100,000 millennia, 1000,000 millennia, it may be 50 or anything else. The moment it is prehistoric and the treasure that we have is not a material or a physical one. Only for material, gross, physical things, carbon dating and research and other things can be done. But this is a treasure which is intellectual in character. It is only in the form of knowledge, expressed in words and poetry. Such a treasure, because it is so, people started learning, imbibing, pursuing, perfecting and bequeathing it. I always wonder, I would like you to think, if one of the countless generations of people before us had not taken the pains of imbibing it, pursuing it and perfecting it, the whole treasure would have been lost. So there is something characteristic in the Indian society, the Hindu society, which makes it uniquely worthy. Some members of the society always took interest in learning this wonderful intellectual treasure and in pursuing it whole-heartedly. To some extent I can say, perfecting it and then bequeathing it also. This kind of a generational fondness and affinity which our people had for this treasure is the one that has resulted in perpetuating it and our possessing it. I don't know whether our government has even given a sufficient consideration to this. They push it aside as religious. They push it aside as non-secular. This is the greatest bane that we can ever think of having. Very-very sorrowful!
Which society is there on the surface of the earth which has a legacy, which has a knowledge treasure of this kind dating past to obscurity, we cannot say when? From then on, the treasure was preserved with greater enrichment, greater empowerment and greater applicability. That is how the epic writing of the Ramayana style came to be evolved. From Ramayana we are progressing and transiting into Mahabharatam where the discussion of human life in all its fullness, complexity and comprehensiveness has taken place. Mahabharatam is said to be a treasure, VedaVyasa himself describes, "There is nothing else anywhere in this world which is not in Mahabharatam, and whatever is elsewhere, it is only what Mahabharata contains." As I told you earlier, if this Mahabharatam were translated into any language of the world, that will remain the greatest knowledge treasure of that language. There cannot be anything to excel or exceed it.
The summary of all that I have said is this. Nothing will remain an eternal memorial except the thoughts, aspirations, ideals and objectives which a society has fostered, and to know what they are, there should be a written presentation. It is such a literature that we have in the Vedas, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and allied texts. They have to be identified, evaluated, appreciated and preserved, with as much fervor and knowledge as possible. The earlier we are able to do it, the better.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
