Gunnar wrote:Honestly, Little Nipper, don't you think that exposing people to all this tedious, detailed, meaningless and even silly ritual documented ad finitum in the Old Testament is far more likely to turn people off than to inspire them to accept the notion that the Bible is the revealed word of God?
I feel people will read simply to see if they disagree with my interpretation. Otherwise, they will fully agree and be informed of a Fundamentalist's view of the Bible, which should eventually run contrary to the Book of Mormon (if not already).
I don't dispute that a Fundamentalist's view of the Bible runs contrary to the Book of Mormon or even that the Book of Mormon conflicts with the Bible in many respects, but that does not mean that either one of them is necessarily, infallibly correct. There is little doubt in my mind, though, that unlike the Book of Mormon, not everything in the Bible is entirely non-historical fiction or purely mythological. I will give you that much.
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
LittleNipper wrote:[I feel people will read simply to see if they disagree with my interpretation. Otherwise, they will fully agree and be informed of a Fundamentalist's view of the Bible, which should eventually run contrary to the Book of Mormon (if not already).
I don't dispute that a Fundamentalist's view of the Bible runs contrary to the Book of Mormon or even that the Book of Mormon conflicts with the Bible in many respects, but that does not mean that either one of them is necessarily, infallibly correct. There is little doubt in my mind, though, that unlike the Book of Mormon, not everything in the Bible is entirely non-historical fiction or purely mythological. I will give you that much.
Not only does the Bible claim to be inspired, but it also defines and describes what it means by inspiration. In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul claimed, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” The Greek term underlying the word “inspiration” (theopneustos) means “God-breathed.” Thus, Paul affirmed that Scripture is the product God. The Bible is God’s Word—not man’s. Three verses later (2 Timothy 4:2), Paul declared, “Therefore...preach the word.” Just as surely as God’s breath brought the Universe into existence (Psalm 33:6), so the Bible declares itself to be the result of God’s out-breathing.
In II Peter 1:16-21, Peter alludes to the momentous occasion of the transfiguration of Christ (God literally spoke from heaven directly to Peter, James, and John) God orally boomed forth His insistence that Jesus is His beloved Son, and that human beings are commanded to hear Him (Matthew 17:5). Peter then declared: “And so we have the prophetic word confirmed,...knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation.” Peter was saying that the Scriptures provided to us by the prophets are just as certain and just as authoritative as the voice of God that spoke on the mount of transfiguration.
Peter further explained that the prophetic word were not of “any private interpretation,” meaning that they did not originate on their own, or in the minds of those who wrote them. Scripture did not come from “the will of man.” It is not the end result of human research or human investigation into the nature of things. Scripture is not the product of its writers’ own thinking.Quite the contrary, “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21). The word “moved” in the Greek means “borne” or “brought.” Peter stated that the Holy Spirit, in essence, picked up the writers (the prophets) and “brought” them to the goal of His choosing. Thus, the Scriptures, although written by means of human instrumentality, were so superintended by God that the resulting words are His.
This is the same Peter who, while awaiting the coming of the Spirit in Acts 2 on Pentecost, stood up among fellow disciples and declared, “Men and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas,” and then he quoted from the Psalms (Acts 1:16). Peter believed that the Holy Spirit governed what David wrote, and the result of that writing is designated “Scripture.”
This is the same Peter who, in 1 Peter 1:10-12, explained: first, that the Old Testament inspired spokesmen did not always understand all the information given by God through them; secondy, it was the Spirit of Christ that was operating upon them; next, this same inspired information was being presented in Peter’s day by the apostles; and finally, the same Holy Spirit was directing their utterances. That means that inspired men had their own minds engaged as they produced inspired material, but the product was God’s, since they did not always grasp the significance of their productions.
The same Peter who, in 2 Peter 3:15-16, referred to “our beloved brother Paul” as having “written to you.” He then noted: “as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” Notice that Peter made clear that: Paul wrote epistles; those epistles are classified with “the rest of Scriptures." So Paul’s letters are Scripture every bit as much as the Old Testament and other New Testament writings; and these writings are authoritative and divine, since Peter said that to twist them is to invite “destruction." Most obviously this references God’s disfavor, and the spiritual harm that results from disobeying God’s words.
The Bible unquestionably claims for itself the status of “inspiration” being breathed by the Almighty Himself. That inspiration involves such superintendence by God that even the words themselves have come under His divine influence. King David stated: “The Spirit of the Lord spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue” (2 Samuel 23:2). Observe that David did not say God’s “thoughts” or “concepts” were on his tongue, but that Jehovah’s word was on his tongue. In I Corinthians 2, the apostle Paul declares that the things of God were revealed to men by God’s Spirit. Then, concerning the divinely inspired messages, he went on to state, “which things we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth; combining spiritual things with spiritual words” (1 Corinthians 2:13 and John 17:8). The words of divine revelation are Spirit-directed words, not words of mere human wisdom. This is verbal inspiration. This does not mean that the writers merely took “dictation.” Rather, the Bible indicates that God adapted His inspiring activity to the individual temperament, vocabulary, and stylistic idiosyncrasies of each writer.
Leviticus 14:1-57 The Lord tells Moses that the following instructions are for those seeking ceremonial purification from a skin disease. Those who have been healed must be brought to the priest, who will examine them at a place outside the camp. If the priest finds that someone has been healed of a serious skin disease, he will perform a purification ceremony, using two live birds that are ceremonially clean, a stick of cedar, some scarlet yarn, and a hyssop branch. The priest will order that one bird be slaughtered over a clay pot filled with fresh water. 6 He will take the live bird, the cedar stick, the scarlet yarn, and the hyssop branch, and dip them into the blood of the bird that was slaughtered over the fresh water. The priest will then sprinkle the blood of the dead bird seven times on the person being purified of the skin disease, and will release the live bird to fly away. Persons being purified must then wash their clothes, shave off all their hair, and wash themselves in water. They will then be considered ceremonially clean and allowed to return to the camp. However, they must remain outside their tents for 1 week. Then they must again shave all the hair from their heads, including the hair of the beard and eyebrows. They must also wash their clothes and themselves in water. Then they will be cnocidered ceremonially clean. The eighth day each person being purified must bring two male lambs and a one-year-old female lamb, all with no defects, along with a grain offering of six quarts of the best flour moistened with olive oil, and a cup of olive oil. The officiating priest will present that person for purification, along with the offerings, before the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle, taking one of the male lambs and the olive oil and present them as a guilt offering, lifting them up as a special offering before the Lord. He will then slaughter the male lamb in the sacred area where sin offerings and burnt offerings are killed. This guilt offering belongs to the priest. It is a most holy offering. The priest will then take some of the blood of the guilt offering and apply it to the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot of the person being purified. Then the priest will pour some of the olive oil into the palm of his own left hand, and will dip his right finger into the oil in his palm and sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the Lord. The priest will apply some of the oil in his palm over the blood from the guilt offering that is on the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot of the person being purified. The priest will apply the oil remaining in his hand to the head of the person being purified. Through this process, the priest will purify the person before the Lord. Then the priest must present the sin offering to purify the person who was cured of the skin disease. After that, the priest will slaughter the burnt offering and offer it on the altar along with the grain offering. Through this process, the priest will purify the person who was healed, and the person will be ceremonially clean. Anyone who is too poor and cannot afford these offerings may bring one male lamb for a guilt offering, to be lifted up as a special offering for purification. The person must also bring two quarts[g] of choice flour moistened with olive oil for the grain offering and a cup of olive oil. The offering must also include two turtledoves or two young pigeons, whichever the person can afford. One of the pair must be used for the sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. On the eighth day of the purification ceremony, the person being purified must bring the offerings to the priest in the Lord’s presence at the entrance of the Tabernacle. The priest will take the lamb for the guilt offering, along with the olive oil, and lift them up as a special offering to the Lord. Then the priest will slaughter the lamb for the guilt offering. He will take some of its blood and apply it to the lobe of the right ear, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot of the person being purified. The priest will also pour some of the olive oil into the palm of his own left hand, and will dip his right finger into the oil in his palm and sprinkle some of it seven times before the Lord, etc... Then the priest will offer the two turtledoves or the two young pigeons, whichever the person can afford. One for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, to be presented along with the grain offering. These are the instructions for purification for those who have recovered from a serious skin disease but who cannot afford to bring the offerings normally required for the ceremony of purification.
Then the Lord told Moses and Aaron that when yjey arrive in Canaan, God may contaminate some of the houses in the land with mildew. The owner of such a house must then go to the priest and say, ‘It appears that my house has some kind of mildew.’ Before the priest goes in to inspect the house, he must emptythe entire structure so nothing inside will be pronounced ceremonially unclean. Then the priest will go in and examine the mildew on the walls. If he finds greenish or reddish streaks and the contamination appears to go deeper than the wall’s surface, the priest will step outside the door and quarantine the structure for a week. On the seventh day the priest must return for another inspection. If he finds that the mildew on the walls of the house has spread, the priest must order that the stones from those areas be removed. The contaminated material will then be taken outside the town to an area designated as ceremonially unclean. The inside walls of the entire house must be scraped thoroughly and the scrapings dumped in the unclean place outside the town. Other stones will be brought in to replace the ones that were removed, and the walls will be replastered. If the mildew reappears after all the stones have been replaced and the house has been scraped and replastered, the priest must return and inspect the house again. If he finds that the mildew has spread, the walls are clearly contaminated with a serious mildew, and the house is defiled. It must be torn down, and all its stones, timbers, and plaster must be carried out of town to the place designated as ceremonially unclean. Those who enter the house during the period of quarantine will be ceremonially unclean until that evening, and all who sleep or eat in the house must wash their clothing. But if the priest returns for his inspection and finds that the mildew has not reappeared in the house after the fresh plastering, he will pronounce it clean because the mildew is clearly gone. To purify the house the priest must take two birds, a stick of cedar, some scarlet yarn, and a hyssop branch. He will slaughter one of the birds over a clay pot filled with fresh water, and will take the cedar stick, the hyssop branch, the scarlet yarn, and the live bird, and dip them into the blood of the slaughtered bird and into the fresh water. Then he will sprinkle the house seven times. When the priest will release the live bird in the open outside the town. Through this process, the priest will purify the house, and it will be ceremonially clean.These are the instructions for skin diseases and mildew.
Young's Literal Translation (YLT)
1 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, saying,
2 `This is a law of the leper, in the day of his cleansing, that he hath been brought in unto the priest,
3 and the priest hath gone out unto the outside of the camp, and the priest hath seen, and lo, the plague of leprosy hath ceased from the leper,
4 and the priest hath commanded, and he hath taken for him who is to be cleansed, two clean living birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop.
5 `And the priest hath commanded, and he hath slaughtered the one bird upon an earthen vessel, over running water;
6 [as to] the living bird, he taketh it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and hath dipped them and the living bird in the blood of the slaughtered bird, over the running water,
7 and he hath sprinkled on him who is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and hath pronounced him clean, and hath sent out the living bird on the face of the field.
8 `And he who is to be cleansed hath washed his garments, and hath shaved all his hair, and hath bathed with water, and hath been clean, and afterwards he doth come in unto the camp, and hath dwelt at the outside of his tent seven days.
9 `And it hath been, on the seventh day -- he shaveth all his hair, his head, and his beard, and his eyebrows, even all his hair he doth shave, and he hath washed his garments, and hath bathed his flesh with water, and hath been clean.
10 `And on the eighth day he taketh two lambs, perfect ones, and one ewe-lamb, daughter of a year, a perfect one, and three tenth deals of flour [for] a present, mixed with oil, and one log of oil.
11 `And the priest who is cleansing hath caused the man who is to be cleansed to stand with them before Jehovah, at the opening of the tent of meeting,
12 and the priest hath taken the one he-lamb, and hath brought it near for a guilt-offering, also the log of oil, and hath waved them -- a wave offering before Jehovah.
13 `And he hath slaughtered the lamb in the place where he slaughtereth the sin-offering and the burnt-offering, in the holy place; for like the sin-offering the guilt-offering is to the priest; it [is] most holy.
14 `And the priest hath taken of the blood of the guilt-offering, and the priest hath put on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot;
15 and the priest hath taken of the log of oil, and hath poured on the left palm of the priest,
16 and the priest hath dipped his right finger in the oil which [is] on his left palm, and hath sprinkled of the oil with his finger seven times before Jehovah.
17 `And of the residue of the oil which [is] on his palm, the priest putteth on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot, on the blood of the guilt-offering;
18 and the remnant of the oil which [is] on the palm of the priest, he putteth on the head of him who is to be cleansed, and the priest hath made atonement for him before Jehovah.
19 `And the priest hath made the sin-offering, and hath made atonement for him who is to be cleansed from his uncleanness, and afterwards he doth slaughter the burnt-offering;
20 and the priest hath caused the burnt-offering to ascend, also the present, on the altar, and the priest hath made atonement for him, and he hath been clean.
21 `And if he [is] poor, and his hand is not reaching [these things], then he hath taken one lamb -- a guilt-offering, for a wave-offering, to make atonement for him, and one-tenth deal of flour mixed with oil for a present, and a log of oil,
22 and two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, which his hand reacheth to, and one hath been a sin-offering, and the one a burnt-offering;
23 and he hath brought them in on the eighth day for his cleansing unto the priest, unto the opening of the tent of meeting, before Jehovah.
24 `And the priest hath taken the lamb of the guilt-offering, and the log of oil, and the priest hath waved them -- a wave-offering before Jehovah;
25 and he hath slaughtered the lamb of the guilt-offering, and the priest hath taken of the blood of the guilt-offering, and hath put on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot;
26 and the priest doth pour of the oil on the left palm of the priest;
27 and the priest hath sprinkled with his right finger of the oil which [is] on his left palm, seven times before Jehovah.
28 `And the priest hath put of the oil which [is] on his palm, on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, and on the thumb of his right hand, and on the great toe of his right foot, on the place of the blood of the guilt-offering;
29 and the remnant of the oil which [is] on the palm of the priest he doth put on the head of him who is to be cleansed, to make atonement for him, before Jehovah.
30 `And he hath made the one of the turtle-doves, or of the young pigeons (from that which his hand reacheth to,
31 [even] that which his hand reacheth to), the one a sin-offering, and the one a burnt offering, besides the present, and the priest hath made atonement for him who is to be cleansed before Jehovah.
32 This [is] a law of him in whom [is] a plague of leprosy, whose hand reacheth not to his cleansing.'
33 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, and unto Aaron, saying,
34 `When ye come in unto the land of Canaan, which I am giving to you for a possession, and I have put a plague of leprosy in a house [in] the land of your possession;
35 then hath he whose the house [is] come in and declared to the priest, saying, As a plague hath appeared to me in the house;
36 and the priest hath commanded, and they have prepared the house before the priest cometh in to see the plague (that all which [is] in the house be not unclean), and afterwards doth the priest come in to see the house;
37 and he hath seen the plague, and lo, the plague [is] in the walls of the house, hollow strakes, very green or very red, and their appearance [is] lower than the wall,
38 and the priest hath gone out of the house unto the opening of the house, and hath shut up the house seven days.
39 `And the priest hath turned back on the seventh day, and hath seen, and lo, the plague hath spread in the walls of the house,
40 and the priest hath commanded, and they have drawn out the stones in which the plague [is], and have cast them unto the outside of the city, unto an unclean place;
41 and the house he doth cause to be scraped within round about, and they have poured out the clay which they have scraped off, at the outside of the city, at an unclean place;
42 and they have taken other stones, and brought [them] in unto the place of the stones, and other clay he taketh and hath daubed the house.
43 `And if the plague return, and hath broken out in the house, after he hath drawn out the stones, and after the scraping of the house, and after the daubing;
44 then hath the priest come in and seen, and lo, the plague hath spread in the house; it [is] a fretting leprosy in the house; it [is] unclean.
45 `And he hath broken down the house, its stones, and its wood, and all the clay of the house, and he hath brought [them] forth unto the outside of the city, unto an unclean place.
46 `And he who is going in unto the house all the days he hath shut it up, is unclean till the evening;
47 and he who is lying in the house doth wash his garments; and he who is eating in the house doth wash his garments.
48 `And if the priest certainly come in, and hath seen, and lo, the plague hath not spread in the house after the daubing of the house, then hath the priest pronounced the house clean, for the plague hath been healed.
49 `And he hath taken for the cleansing of the house two birds, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop;
50 and he hath slaughtered the one bird upon an earthen vessel, over running water;
51 and he hath taken the cedar wood, and the hyssop, and the scarlet, and the living bird, and hath dipped them in the blood of the slaughtered bird, and in the running water, and hath sprinkled upon the house seven times.
52 `And he hath cleansed the house with the blood of the bird, and with the running water, and with the living bird, and with the cedar wood, and with the hyssop, and with the scarlet;
53 and he hath sent away the living bird unto the outside of the city unto the face of the field, and hath made atonement for the house, and it hath been clean.
54 `This [is] the law for every plague of the leprosy and for scall,
55 and for leprosy of a garment, and of a house,
56 and for a rising, and for a scab, and for a bright spot, --
57 to direct in the day of being unclean, and in the day of being clean; this [is] the law of the leprosy.'
Leviticus 15:1-33 The Lord now informs Moses and Aaron of more instructions for the people of Israel. Any man with a bodily discharge is ceremonially unclean. This defilement is caused by his discharge, whether the discharge continues or stops. In either case the man is unclean. Any bed on which the man with the discharge lies and anything on which he sits will be ceremonially unclean. So if one touches the man’s bed or anywhere he sits, that one must wash both clothes and bathe in water, and will remain unclean until that evening.This includes even any saddle blanket on which the man rides will be ceremonially unclean. Touch anything that was under the man and one will be unclean until that evening. One must wash one's clothes and one's self in water, and you will remain unclean until evening. If the man touches you without first rinsing his hands, you must wash your clothes and bathe yourself in water, and you will remain unclean until that evening. Any clay pot the man touches must be broken, and any wooden utensil he touches must be rinsed with water. When the man with the discharge is healed, he must wait pne entire week for the period of purification. Then he must wash his clothes and bathe himself in fresh water, and he will be ceremonially clean. On the eighth day he must get two turtledoves or two young pigeons and come before the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle[a] and give his offerings to the priest. 15 The priest will offer one bird for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. Through this process, the priest will purify[b] the man before the Lord for his discharge. Whenever a man has an emission of semen, he must bathe his entire body in water, and he will remain ceremonially unclean until the next evening. Any clothing or leather with semen on it must be washed in water, and it will remain unclean until that evening. After a man and a woman have sexual intercourse, they must each bathe in water, and they will remain unclean until the next evening. Whenever a woman has her menstrual period, she will be ceremonially unclean for one week. Anyone who touches her during that time will be unclean until that evening. Anything on which the woman lies or sits during the time of her period will be unclean. If any of one touches her bed, one must wash their clothes and bathe in water, and will remain unclean until that evening. If one touches any object she has sat on, one must wash your clothes and bathe in water, and will remain unclean until that evening. This includes her bed or any other object she has sat on; you will be unclean until evening if you touch it. If a man has sexual intercourse with her and her blood touches him, her menstrual impurity will be transmitted to him. He will remain unclean for one week, and any bed on which he lies will be unclean. If a woman has a flow of blood for many days that is unrelated to her menstrual period, or if the blood continues beyond the normal period, she is ceremonially unclean. As during her menstrual period, the woman will be unclean as long as the discharge continues. Any bed she lies on and any object she sits on during that time will be unclean, just as during her normal menstrual period. If anyone touches these things, one will be ceremonially unclean and must wash one's clothes and bathe in water, and one will remain unclean until evening. When the woman’s bleeding stops, she must count off one week. Then she will be ceremonially clean. On the eighth day she must bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons and present them to the priest at the entrance of the Tabernacle. The priest will offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. Through this process, the priest will purify her before the Lord. This is how Israelites will guard the people of Israel from ceremonial uncleanness. Otherwise they would die, for their impurity would defile God's Tabernacle that stands among them. Young's Literal Translation (YLT)
1 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, and unto Aaron, saying,
2 `Speak unto the sons of Israel, and ye have said unto them, When there is an issue out of the flesh of any man, [for] his issue he [is] unclean;
3 and this is his uncleanness in his issue -- his flesh hath run with his issue, or his flesh hath stopped from his issue; it [is] his uncleanness.
4 `All the bed on which he lieth who hath the issue is unclean, and all the vessel on which he sitteth is unclean;
5 and any one who cometh against his bed doth wash his garments, and hath bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
6 `And he who is sitting on the vessel on which he sitteth who hath the issue, doth wash his garments, and hath bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
7 `And he who is coming against the flesh of him who hath the issue, doth wash his garments, and hath bathed with water, and hath been unclean till the evening.
8 `And when he who hath the issue spitteth on him who is clean, then he hath washed his garments, and hath bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
9 `And all the saddle on which he rideth who hath the issue is unclean;
10 and any one who is coming against anything which is under him is unclean till the evening, and he who is bearing them doth wash his garments, and hath bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
11 `And anyone against whom he cometh who hath the issue (and his hands hath not rinsed with water) hath even washed his garments, and bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
12 `And the earthen vessel which he who hath the issue cometh against is broken; and every wooden vessel is rinsed with water.
13 `And when he who hath the issue is clean from his issue, then he hath numbered to himself seven days for his cleansing, and hath washed his garments, and hath bathed his flesh with running water, and been clean.
14 `And on the eighth day he taketh to himself two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, and hath come in before Jehovah unto the opening of the tent of meeting, and hath given them unto the priest;
15 and the priest hath made them, one a sin-offering, and the one a burnt-offering; and the priest hath made atonement for him before Jehovah, because of his issue.
16 `And when a man's seed of copulation goeth out from him, then he hath bathed with water all his flesh, and been unclean till the evening.
17 `And any garment, or any skin on which there is seed of copulation, hath also been washed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
18 `And a woman with whom a man lieth with seed of copulation, they also have bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
19 `And when a woman hath an issue -- blood is her issue in her flesh -- seven days she is in her separation, and any one who is coming against her is unclean till the evening.
20 `And anything on which she lieth in her separation is unclean, and anything on which she sitteth is unclean;
21 and any one who is coming against her bed doth wash his garments, and hath bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
22 `And any one who is coming against any vessel on which she sitteth doth wash his garments, and hath washed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
23 `And if it [is] on the bed, or on the vessel on which she is sitting, in his coming against it, he is unclean till the evening.
24 `And if a man really lie with her, and her separation is on him, then he hath been unclean seven days, and all the bed on which he lieth is unclean.
25 `And when a woman's issue of blood floweth many days within the time of her separation, or when it floweth over her separation -- all the days of the issue of her uncleanness are as the days of her separation; she [is] unclean.
26 `All the bed on which she lieth all the days of her issue is as the bed of her separation to her, and all the vessel on which she sitteth is unclean as the uncleanness of her separation;
27 and any one who is coming against them is unclean, and hath washed his garments, and hath bathed with water, and been unclean till the evening.
28 `And if she hath been clean from her issue, then she hath numbered to herself seven days, and afterwards she is clean;
29 and on the eighth day she taketh to herself two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, and hath brought them in unto the priest, unto the opening of the tent of meeting;
30 and the priest hath made the one a sin-offering, and the one a burnt-offering, and the priest hath made atonement for her before Jehovah, because of the issue of her uncleanness.
31 `And ye have separated the sons of Israel from their uncleanness, and they die not in their uncleanness, in their defiling My tabernacle which [is] in their midst.
32 `This [is] the law of him who hath an issue, and of him whose seed of copulation goeth out from him, for uncleanness thereby,
33 and of her who is sick in her separation, and of him who hath an issue, the issue of a male or of a female, and of a man who lieth with an unclean woman.'
Leviticus 16:1-34 After the death of Aaron’s two sons, who died after they burned the wrong kind of fire before God, Aaron is warned not to enter the Most Holy Place behind the inner curtain whenever he chooses or he will die. For the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—is there, and God is present in the cloud above the atonement cover. When Aaron enters the sanctuary area, he must follow these instructions fully. He must bring a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He must put on his linen tunic and the linen undergarments worn next to his body. He must tie the linen sash around his waist and put the linen turban on his head. These are sacred garments, so he must bathe himself in water before he puts them on. Aaron must take from the community of Israel two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. Aaron will present his own bull as a sin offering to purify himself and his family, making them right with the Lord. Then he must take the two male goats and present them to the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle. He is to cast sacred lots to determine which goat will be reserved as an offering to the Lord and which will carry the sins of the people to the wilderness of Azazel. Aaron will then present as a sin offering the goat chosen by lot for the Lord. The other goat, the scapegoat chosen by lot to be sent away, will be kept alive, standing before the Lord. When it is sent away to Azazel in the wilderness, the people will be purified and made right with the Lord. Aaron will present his own bull as a sin offering to purify himself and his family, making them right with the Lord. After he has slaughtered the bull as a sin offering, he will fill an incense burner with burning coals from the altar that stands before the Lord. Then he will take two handfuls of fragrant powdered incense and will carry the burner and the incense behind the inner curtain. There in the Lord’s presence he will put the incense on the burning coals so that a cloud of incense will rise over the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—that rests on the Ark of the Covenant. If he follows these instructions, he will not die. Then he must take some of the blood of the bull, dip his finger in it, and sprinkle it on the east side of the atonement cover. He must sprinkle blood seven times with his finger in front of the atonement cover. Then Aaron must slaughter the first goat as a sin offering for the people and carry its blood behind the inner curtain. There he will sprinkle the goat’s blood over the atonement cover and in front of it, just as he did with the bull’s blood. Through this process, he will purify the Most Holy Place, and he will do the same for the entire Tabernacle, because of the defiling sin and rebellion of the Israelites. No one else is allowed inside the Tabernacle when Aaron enters it for the purification ceremony in the Most Holy Place. No one may enter until he comes out again after purifying himself, his family, and all the congregation of Israel, making them right with the Lord.Then Aaron will come out to purify the altar that stands before the Lord. He will do this by taking some of the blood from the bull and the goat and putting it on each of the horns of the altar. Then he must sprinkle the blood with his finger seven times over the altar. In this way, he will cleanse it from Israel’s defilement and make it holy. When Aaron has finished purifying the Most Holy Place and the Tabernacle and the altar, he must present the live goat. He will lay both of his hands on the goat’s head and confess over it all the wickedness, rebellion, and sins of the people of Israel. In this way, he will transfer the people’s sins to the head of the goat. Then a man specially chosen for the task will drive the goat into the wilderness. As the goat goes into the wilderness, it will carry all the people’s sins upon itself into a desolate land. When Aaron goes back into the Tabernacle, he must take off the linen garments he was wearing when he entered the Most Holy Place, and he must leave the garments there. Then he must bathe himself with water in a sacred place, put on his regular garments, and go out to sacrifice a burnt offering for himself and a burnt offering for the people. Through this process, he will purify himself and the people, making them right with the Lord. He must then burn all the fat of the sin offering on the altar.The man chosen to drive the scapegoat into the wilderness of Azazel must wash his clothes and bathe himself in water. Then he may return to the camp.The bull and the goat presented as sin offerings, whose blood Aaron takes into the Most Holy Place for the purification ceremony, will be carried outside the camp. The animals’ hides, internal organs, and dung are all to be burned. The man who burns them must wash his clothes and bathe himself in water before returning to the camp. On the tenth day of the appointed month in early autumn, you must deny yourselves. Neither native-born Israelites nor foreigners living among you may do any kind of work. This is a permanent law for you. On that day offerings of purification will be made for you, and you will be purified in the Lord’s presence from all your sins. It will be a Sabbath day of complete rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. This is a permanent law for you. In future generations, the purification ceremony will be performed by the priest who has been anointed and ordained to serve as high priest in place of his ancestor Aaron. He will put on the holy linen garments and purify the Most Holy Place, the Tabernacle, the altar, the priests, and the entire congregation. This is a permanent law for Israel, to purify the people of Israel from their sins, making them right with the Lord once each year.
Young's Literal Translation (YLT)
1 And Jehovah speaketh unto Moses, after the death of the two sons of Aaron, in their drawing near before Jehovah, and they die;
2 yea, Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Speak unto Aaron thy brother, and he cometh not in at all times unto the sanctuary within the vail, unto the front of the mercy-seat, which [is] upon the ark, and he dieth not, for in a cloud I am seen upon the mercy-seat.
3 `With this doth Aaron come in unto the sanctuary; with a bullock, a son of the herd, for a sin-offering, and a ram for a burnt-offering;
4 a holy linen coat he putteth on, and linen trousers are on his flesh, and with a linen girdle he girdeth himself, and with a linen mitre he wrappeth himself up; they [are] holy garments; and he hath bathed with water his flesh, and hath put them on.
5 `And from the company of the sons of Israel he taketh two kids of the goats for a sin-offering, and one ram for a burnt-offering;
6 and Aaron hath brought near the bullock of the sin-offering which is his own, and hath made atonement for himself, and for his house;
7 and he hath taken the two goats, and hath caused them to stand before Jehovah, at the opening of the tent of meeting.
8 `And Aaron hath given lots over the two goats, one lot for Jehovah, and one lot for a goat of departure;
9 and Aaron hath brought near the goat on which the lot for Jehovah hath gone up, and hath made it a sin-offering.
10 `And the goat on which the lot for a goat of departure hath gone up is caused to stand living before Jehovah to make atonement by it, to send it away for a goat of departure into the wilderness.
11 `And Aaron hath brought near the bullock of the sin-offering which is his own, and hath made atonement for himself, and for his house, and hath slaughtered the bullock of the sin-offering which [is] his own,
12 and hath taken the fulness of the censer of burning coals of fire from off the altar, from before Jehovah, and the fulness of his hands of thin spice-perfume, and hath brought [it] within the vail;
13 and he hath put the perfume on the fire before Jehovah, and the cloud of the perfume hath covered the mercy-seat which [is] on the testimony, and he dieth not.
14 `And he hath taken of the blood of the bullock, and hath sprinkled with his finger on the front of the mercy-seat eastward; even at the front of the mercy-seat he doth sprinkle seven times of the blood with his finger.
15 `And he hath slaughtered the goat of the sin-offering which [is] the people's, and hath brought in its blood unto the inside of the vail, and hath done with its blood as he hath done with the blood of the bullock, and hath sprinkled it on the mercy-seat, and at the front of the mercy-seat,
16 and he hath made atonement for the sanctuary because of the uncleanness of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions in all their sins; and so he doth for the tent of meeting which is tabernacling with them in the midst of their uncleannesses.
17 `And no man is in the tent of meeting in his going in to make atonement in the sanctuary, till his coming out; and he hath made atonement for himself, and for his house, and for all the assembly of Israel.
18 `And he hath gone out unto the altar which [is] before Jehovah, and hath made atonement for it; and he hath taken of the blood of the bullock, and of the blood of the goat, and hath put on the horns of the altar round about;
19 and he hath sprinkled on it of the blood with his finger seven times, and hath cleansed it, and hath hallowed it from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel.
20 `And he hath ceased from making atonement [for] the sanctuary, and the tent of meeting, and the altar, and hath brought near the living goat;
21 and Aaron hath laid his two hands on the head of the living goat, and hath confessed over it all the iniquities of the sons of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, and hath put them on the head of the goat, and hath sent [it] away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness;
22 and the goat hath borne on him all their iniquities unto a land of separation. `And he hath sent the goat away into the wilderness,
23 and Aaron hath come in unto the tent of meeting, and hath stripped off the linen garments which he had put on in his going in unto the sanctuary, and hath placed them there;
24 and he hath bathed his flesh with water in the holy place, and hath put on his garments, and hath come out, and hath made his burnt-offering, and the burnt-offering of the people, and hath made atonement for himself and for the people;
25 and with the fat of the sin-offering he doth make perfume on the altar.
26 `And he who is sending away the goat for a goat of departure doth wash his garments, and hath bathed his flesh with water, and afterwards he cometh in unto the camp.
27 `And the bullock of the sin-offering, and the goat of the sin-offering, whose blood hath been brought in to make atonement in the sanctuary, doth [one] bring out unto the outside of the camp, and they have burnt with fire their skins, and their flesh, and their dung;
28 and he who is burning them doth wash his garments, and hath bathed his flesh with water, and afterwards he cometh in unto the camp.
29 `And it hath been to you for a statute age-during, in the seventh month, in the tenth of the month, ye humble yourselves, and do no work -- the native, and the sojourner who is sojourning in your midst;
30 for on this day he maketh atonement for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins before Jehovah ye are clean;
31 it [is] to you a sabbath of rest, and ye have humbled yourselves -- a statute age-during.
32 `And the priest whom he doth anoint, and whose hand he doth consecrate to act as priest instead of his father, hath made atonement, and hath put on the linen garments, the holy garments;
33 and he hath made atonement [for] the holy sanctuary; and [for] the tent of meeting, even [for] the altar he doth make atonement; yea, for the priests, and for all the people of the assembly he maketh atonement.
34 `And this hath been to you for a statute age-during, to make atonement for the sons of Israel, because of all their sins, once in a year;' and he doth as Jehovah hath commanded Moses.
Last edited by Guest on Sun Nov 25, 2012 12:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
No other living tradition can claim scriptures as numerous or as ancient as Hinduism; none of them can boast of an unbroken tradition as faithfully preserved as the Hindu tradition. Hindu literature is the most ancient and extensive religious writings in the world. Hindu religion is not derived from a single book. It has many sacred writings which serve as a source of doctrine. The most important texts include the Vedas, Upanishads, the Puranas, the Epics - Ramayana, Mahabharata and the Bhagavad Gita.
Hinduism is very much a religion of revelation. Hindus are the most thoughtful people, and their literature is characterized by constant concern with humanity's spiritual destiny. In response to this concern they have created elaborate philosophical concepts and wrote great epic poems, narrative literature and fiction. These vast epics, and the four 'books' of the Vedas, were originally transmitted by a phenomenal human chain of memory, and only written down centuries after their actual compilation. This oral tradition still exists in India today. The early phase of the Vedic tradition in India is dated between 10,000 - 7,000 BCE.
According to Professor Klaus K. Klostermaier: "Since ancient times India has been famous for its wisdom and its thought. The ancient Persians, Greek and Romans were eager to learn from its sages and philosophers. When, in the eighteenth century, the first translations of some Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita became available to the West, European philosophers rhapsodized about the profundity and beauty of these writings. Here they encountered a fusion of philosophy and religion, a deep wisdom and a concern with the ultimate, that had no parallel in either contemporary Western philosophy or Western religion. Indian philosophy is highly sophisticated and very technical and surpasses in both in volume and subtlety."
Sir William Jones was always impressed by the vastness of Indian literature. He wrote: "Wherever we direct our attention to Hindu literature, the notion of infinity presents itself." Hinduism has always laid great stress on Pramanas (the means and instruments of correct knowledge). Hindu philosophers have discussed at great lengths the science of Noetics. Max Muller says: "In thus giving the Noetics the first place, the thinkers of India seem to have again superior to most of the philosophers of the West."
Introduction Vedas Upanishads Bhagavad Gita All Matter is Nothing but energy Brahman: The All- Pervading Reality Itihasa: The Great Epics 1. Ramayana 2. Mahabharata Conclusion
Introduction
The Vedas are not puerile babblings of rustic troubadours, but sedate out-pourings of exceptional minds in quest of God. Early Rig Vedic hymns were composed between 6,000-1500 BCE. Like indestructible gems they have come down during many thousands of years in spotless perfection. From the Vedas they evolved the Upanishads, whose copious enquiries into the nature of man, the Universe, and God, strike us with speechless wonder. They evolved the most perfect language in the world, Sanskrit, with a scientific alphabet and perfected vocabulary, and a grammar which is itself a great work of art. Their intellectuals vying with each other, propounded six systems of philosophy explaining man, universe, and God, before which Aristotle's and Plato's theories look like juvenile endeavors, which fell flat on their own country-men. They discovered the Earth's dual motions, and studied the courses of constellations and stars, and founded the twin sciences of astronomy and astrology. They probed the human frame, and perfected a system of medicine for the welfare of the body, evolved the science of Yoga for the health of the mind, and the Tantra Shastra to develop the psychic and esoteric forces latent in man's being. They brought out Dharma Sastras to guide man's conduct in society, Grihya Sutras to guide the conduct of house-holders, and a unique science, Meemamsa, prescribing sacrificial lore for the attainment of individual and national prosperity. They codified the laws of sanitation, town-planning, architecture, sculpture and enunciated the principles of music, dancing, and the art of love. They laid down principles of state-craft, and of the art of war, with human and animal strategy, with physical weapons, or shastras, and enchanted weapons or astras.
The English knowing world began to read of the greatness of Indian civilization in the 18th century. Scholars, one after another, caught glimpses of its luster, and becoming curious, slowly unveiled the enveloping shroud and gaze with ever growing wonder at is astonishing extent. Russian, German, Italian, Swedish, French, and American intellectuals also turned their telescopes on the Indian sky during the period, and expressed their appraisal in no uncertain terms.
But the bulk of the English educated public of India are still unaware of its rich past.
(source: Sanskrit Civilization - G. R. Josyer International Academy of Sanskrit Research. p. 3-4)
The Sanskrit word for philosophy is darsan or 'seeing', which implies that Hinduism is not based merely on intellectual speculation but is grounded upon direct and immediate perception. This, in fact, distinguishes Indian philosophy from much of Western philosophical thought. The oldest and most important scriptures of Hinduism are the Vedas, which contain inspired utterances of seers and sages, who had achieved a direct perception of the divine being. The Vedas are considered to be eternal, because they are not merely superb poetic composition but represent the divine truth itself as perceived through the elevated consciousness of great seers.
In general, Hindu scriptures may be classified into two divisions: Sruti scriptures and Smriti scriptures.
Sruti in Sanskrit means "that which is heard." Thus the Vedas are the eternal truths that the Vedic seers, called rishis, are said to have heard during their deep meditations. The Vedas are not considered the works of the human mind, but an expression of what has been realized through intuitive perception by Vedic rishis, who had powers to see beyond the physical phenomena. As such, Vedas are considered of divine origin. The Vedic truths were originally transmitted by the rishis to their disciples over thousands of years. At a later date, these were compiled by Sage Vyasa for the benefit of future generations. India's teachings are not speculative. They are based on divine revelations. Indeed, the revelations are so cosmic that they approach more closely the findings of physics and astronomy than the pious pronouncements of preachers. The rishis made claims so cosmic that even modern physics seems only to be catching up with them and realizing, after every scientific breakthrough, that the ancients were there long before them. Sruti include the Vedas (Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva) and the Bhagavad Gita. The Vedas are the primary scriptures of Hinduism. Each of the four Vedas consists of four parts: Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads.
Smriti means "that which is remembered." Smriti scriptures are derived from the Vedas and are considered to be of human origin and not of divine origin. They were written to explain and elaborate the Vedas, making them understandable and more meaningful to the general population. All authoritative writings outside the Vedas are collectively referred to as Smriti. Smriti inlcude the Dharma Shastras, Nibhandas, Puranas, The Epics, Agamas or Tantras, Darshanas and Vedangas (Upa Vedas). According to Alain Danielou distingused Orientalist, " The Puranas provide genealogies, which go back to the sixth millennium B.C. E. and are probably largely authentic. The stories and descriptions of the various regions of the earth and the various civilizations living on the "seven continents" provide priceless documentation on the world's oldest civilization."
The Smriti are considered the secondary scriptures of Hinduism. These scriptures are classified in the following diagram:
Classification of Major Scriptures
Note: Each of the four Vedas consists of four parts: Samhitas, Brahmanas, Aranykas, and Upanishads.
The Bhagavad Gita is a part of the Epics (The Mahabharata).
(image source: The Hindu Mind - By Bansi Pandit).
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Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854-1930) in his History of Sanskrit Literature tells us that 'the importance of Indian literature as a whole consists of its originality. When the Greeks towards the end of the fourth century B.C. came to the north-west, the Indians had already worked out a national culture of their own, unaffected by foreign influence.
Sir William Jones was always impressed by the vastness of Indian literature. He wrote: "Wherever we direct our attention to Hindu literature, the notion of infinity presents itself."
(source: Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services. p. 21).
To the Hindu, Shruti is what cannot be thought up by the limited human intellect, but is of God. It is what is forever valid, never changes, is not dependent on the limited capacity for understanding of any one historical person. The Hindu for this reason is proud not to need a historical founder. The founder and foundation of the Vedas and the Upanishads is the Brahman itself, is what is indestructible and timeless.
(source: Vedanta: Heart of Hinduism- By Hans Torwesten p. 23).
The Vedas and the Upanishads are to India what the Crown and Scepter are to an anointed king. They are India's proudest and most ancient possessions. They are the world's oldest intellectual legacies. They are the only composition in the universe invested with Divine origin, and almost Divine sanctity. They are said to emanate from God, and are held to be the means for attaining God. Their beginnings are not known. They have been heirlooms of the Hindus from generation to generation from time immemorial.
When Europeans first came to know of them, they roused amazement. Guigault of France exclaimed: "The Rig Veda is the most sublime conception of the great highway of humanity."
(source: Sanskrit Vistas - By J. R. Josyner p. 1).
Professor F. Max Muller says: "The Vedic literature opens to us a chapter in what has been called the education of the human race, to which we can find no parallel anywhere else."
(source: India: What can it teach us - By F. Max Muller p. 89). Refer to Internet Sacred Texts on Hinduism and Stotra Rathnas.
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Vedas
The Vedas (Book of Knowledge) are the greatest legacy of India, a prodigious body of verse, philosophy and hymns that is among the world's oldest written sacred scriptures.
The Vedas are the discoveries of the laws of nature, the world and the being living in it and the Ultimate Truth. They are called apauruseya grantha (authorless works) as they are not books composed by men at a particular period of time. Ancient sages received these eternal Truths as revelations in meditation.
The Four Vedas are the primary texts of the spiritual and religious records of the ancient culture and teachings of India. The four Vedas are the Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva Vedas. The religion of the Rig Veda is well known. It is pre-eminently the worship of Nature in its most imposing and sublime aspect. The sky which bends over all, the beautiful and blushing dawn which like a busy housewife wakes men from slumber and sends them to their work, the gorgeous tropical sun which vivifies the earth, the air which pervades the world, the fire that cheers and enlightens us, and the violent storms which in India usher in those copious rains which fill the land with plenty, these were the gods whom the early HIndus loved to extol and to worship. Such is the nature-worship of the Rig Veda, such were the gods and goddesses whom our forefathers worshipped more than four thousand years ago on the banks of the Saraswati. The conception of the nature-gods and the single-hearted fervency with which they were adored, argue the simplicity and vigor of a manly race, as well as the culture and thoughtfulness of a people who had already made a considerable progress in civilization.
In the first years of his stay at Pondicherry, Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) most original philosopher of modern India. He made a deep study of the Vedas and, struck by the light it threw on his own experiences, rediscovered its lost meaning. In his book India's Rebirth ISBN: 81-85137-27-7 - p. 94:
He wrote: "I seek a light that shall be new, yet old, the oldest indeed of all lights...I seek not science, not religion, not Theosophy but Veda - the truth about Brahman, not only about His essentiality, but about His manifestation, not a lamp on the way to the forest, but a light and a guide to joy and action in the world, the truth which is beyond opinion, the knowledge which all thought strives after - yasmin vijnate sarvam vigna - tam (which being known, all is known); I believe it to be the concealed divinity within Hinduism..." "I believe the Veda to be the foundation head of the Sanatan Dharma; I believe it to be the concealed divinity within Hinduism, - but a veil has to be drawn aside, a curtain has to be lifted. I believe it to be knowable and discoverable. I believe the future of India and the world to depend on its discovery and on its application, not, to the renunciation of life, but to life in the world and among men. I believe the Vedas to hold a sense which neither mediaeval Indian or modern Europe has grasped, but which was perfectly plain to the early Vedantic thinkers."
"The mind of ancient India did not err when it traced back all its philosophy, religion and essential things of its culture to the seer-poets of the Vedas, for all the future spirituality of her people is contained there in seed or in first expression."
(source: The Vision of India - By Sisirkumar Mitra p. 59).
Vedic Rishis - the Ancient Pathmakers
Watch Scientific verification of Vedic knowledge
Watch video - Brahmins in India have become a minority
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The Rishis were the revered pioneers of the Hindu religion, and pre-eminent among them are Vishvamitra and Vasistha. The great Rishis of the Vedic age composed the hymns, fought their wars, and ploughed their fields; but they were neither Brahmins, nor Kshatriyas nor Vaisyas. The hymns of the Rig Veda speak of the Punjab alone - India beyond the Punjab is unknown to the Rig Veda. The banks of the distant Ganga and Jumna are rarely alluded to; the scenes of war and social ceremonies are the banks of the Saraswati and her tributaries. This was the Hindu world when the hymns were composed.
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Swami Vivekanada (1863-1902) was the foremost disciple of Ramakrishna and a world spokesperson for Vedanta. India's first spiritual and cultural ambassador to the West, came to represent the religions of India at the World Parliament of Religions, held at Chicago has said:
"The Hindus have received their religion through revelation, the Vedas. They hold that the Vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous, that a book can be without beginning or end. But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons at different times. Just as the law of gravitation acted before its discovery by humanity, and would continue to act if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The discoverers of these laws are called Rishis, and we honor them as perfected beings. Now the Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science has proved to us that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same.
They were written, nobody knows at what date, it may be 8,000 years ago, in spite of all modern scholars may say; it may be 9,000 years ago. Not one of these religious speculations is of modern date, but they are as fresh today as they were when they were written..."
..this ancient monotheistic idea did not satisfy the Hindu mind; it did no do far enough....the first question that we find now arising, assuming proportions, is the question about the universe. "Whence did it come?" "How did it come?" "How does it exist?" Various hymns are to be found on this question, struggling forward to assume form, and nowhere do we find it so poetically, so wonderfully expressed as in the following hymn:
"Then there was neither aught nor naught, nor air, nor sky, nor anything. What covered all? Where rested all? Then death was not nor deathlessness, nor change to night and day."
Now first arose desire, the primal seed of mind. Sages, searching in their heart by wisdom, found the bond Between existence and non-existence."
It is a very peculiar expression; the poet ends by saying that "perhaps He even does not know."
(source: Hinduism - By Swami Vivekananda p. 2 -35).
The metaphysical agony, which alone makes man great, bursts forth in the famous words of the Rig Veda. These words of spiritual yearning, metaphysical unease and intellectual skepticism set the tone of India's cultural growth. The seers of the Rg Veda believe, in a truth, a law which governs our existence, which sustains the different levels of our being, an infinite reality, ekam sat, or which all the different deities are but forms.
(source: East and West in Religion - By S. Radhakrishnan p. 21-22).
Agni, god of fire, shown riding a goat, in a miniature painting from an 18th century watercolor
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The Vedas are the most ancient scriptures in the library of consciously evolving humanity. The Vedas are the direct experience and revelations of the rishis of the hoary past. The Vedas are meant for the lovers of eternal Time. The oldest Indian literary documents are the four Vedas; the word means sacred knowledge or lore. These texts include hymns, liturgical instructions, and explanatory theological and philosophical courses. These vast and complex works reflect a long development in philosophical and religious thought. The Vedas are regarded as the foundation of the Indian Culture and the Rishis of Vedas have been revered throughout the ages in India as having heard the truth and revealed it and thus given perennial wisdom to guide the development of the future.
The Vedas stand in all their might and majesty as the very source and bedrock of Hindu civilization. The Vedas are the inspired utterances of a whole galaxy of realized souls, of spiritual geniuses, of people not merely
One of the most dominant ideas of Indian culture has been that of Dharma, and this has been a consequence of the Vedic discovery of the r'ta or the Right. The right of law of this automatic harmony is the r'ta.
The Vedas are the brilliant product of intuitive insight. The original seers who "saw" them were and will ever remain anonymous, for this was not the age of unbridled individualism. Here you have the quintessence of classical Indian philosophy. Thinking with your heart and loving with your mind. The Vedas were the brilliant product of intuitive insight, not of the logical intellect. Known only orally at first, transmitted by word of mouth from master to discipline, later written down. The original seers - 'rishis' who 'saw' them were and will ever remain anonymous, for this was not an age of unbridled individualism.
The chief sacred scriptures of the Hindus, the Vedas, register the intuitions of the perfected souls. They are not so much dogmatic dicta as transcripts from life. They record the spiritual experiences of souls strongly endowed with the sense for reality. They are held to be authoritative on the ground that they express the experiences of the experts in the field of religion. The Vedas bring together different ways in which the religious-minded of that age experienced reality and describe the general principles of religious knowledge and growth. The experiences themselves are of a varied character, so their records are many-sided (visvatomukham) or 'suggestive of many interpretations' (anekarthatam).
(source: The Hindu View of Life - By S. Radhakrishnan p. 5-6).
Sir William Jones called the Vedas as the fountain of Indian literature: "From the Vedas are immediately deduced the practical arts of Surgery and Medicine, Music and Dancing, Archery, which comprises the whole art of war, and Architecture, under which the system of mechanical arts is included."
(source: Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services. p. 21).
Dr. Nicol Macnicol says, the beginning of 'the brave adventures made so long ago and recorded here, of those who seek to discover the significance of our world and man's life within it...India here set out on a quest which she has never ceased to follow."
(source: The Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru p. 79). Refer to Internet Sacred Texts on Hinduism and Stotra Rathnas.
When the Yajur Veda was presented to Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1774) France's greatest writers and philosophers, he expressed his belief that:
"the Veda was the most precious gift for which the West had ever been indebted to the East."
The Vedas are said to be anadi (beginningless) and apaurasheya (not thought and taught by men). The Rig Veda says: The Hindu doctrine is that the mentioning of the sage and the metre and the deity in respect to a Vedic hymn (mantra) does not mean that the sage composed the mantra as a piece of literary composition. The sage merely had it revealed to him in his vision as the result of his purity and meditation.
Professor Max Muller in his book, India: What It can Teach Us says: "In the history of the world, the Vedas fill a gap which no literary work in any other language could fill. I maintain that to everybody who cares for himself, for his ancestors, for his intellectual development, a study of the Vedic literature is indeed indispensable."
Some Vedic hymns paint the exquisite glories of the natural world: the preternatural beauty of predawn light, its rosy fingers holding the iridescent steel-blue sky; some celebrate the welcome cool of evening, the scented breezes of a calm and refreshing night, its basalt dome studded with shimmering pearls and diamonds. Beauty permeates them, a reflection of Truth. The Vedas go much further in outlining the nature of reality than any other religious texts still in use. Other hymns concentrate on different aspects of nature's wonder, very specific in their knowledge of the great cycles that sustain life. Vedic writings detail a scientific knowledge of the rain cycle that startles with its accuracy.
(source: Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys into India - By Paul Williams Robert - p. 312).
' We meditate upon the supreme effulgence of the Divine creative Sun, that he may give impulse to our intelligence.'
- Rig Veda III. 62.10
The Vedic songs represent the most amazing celebration of life that has ever been created. The joy and wonder in life which was felt by those early and vigorous peoples who sang the Vedas.
The Vedas testify to a strong urge in Man towards unity, a longing to arrive at a conception that is both totally Divine and human. This dynamic process has not yet ceased. No merely naturalistic explanation of the worship of the God as natural powers will do justice to texts or to the sophistication of Vedic culture.
The Lord of the paths shows the way to growth to all creatures, each according to its nature. A Vedic man prays to:
'The One who is the life spark of the water, of wood, of things both moving and inert, who has his dwelling even within the stone, Immortal God, he cares for all mankind, 'He who sees all beings at a glance, both separate and united, may he be our protector.'
(source: The Vedic Experience: Mantramanjari (An Anthology of the Vedas for Modern Man) - By Raimundo Panikkar p. 53-123).
The Vedas emphasize that the internal suksmasarira, the finer or subtle body of man, the equivalent of "soul" in modern thought, is of transcendental importance; and that suksma-sarira is of the nature of infinite existence and infinite consciousness. In this luminous philosophy, material substance is wholly insignificant. Compare the observations of Einstein: "We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of space in which the field is extremely intense...There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality."
(source: India's priceless Heritage - By Nani Palkiwala p. 6-7).
An 18th century manuscript of the Rigveda ("Wisdom of the Verses"), the earliest and most auspicious of the four Vedas.
Watch Scientific verification of Vedic knowledge
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1. Rig Veda
"This homage is to the ancient-born Seers, to the ancient makers of the Path." - Rig Veda X. 14-15.
"Let us bring our minds to rest in The Glory of the Divine Sun! May He inspire our reflections!"
- Rig Veda II. 62. 10).
"You shine, all living things emerge. You disappear, they go to rest. Recognizing our innocence, O golden-haired Sun, arise; let each day be better than the last." Rig Veda (X, 37, 9).
The Rig Veda is the Veda par excellence, the real Veda that traces the earliest growth of religious ideas in India. These hymns were composed between 6,000-1500 BCE. It is in poetical form, has one thousand twenty eight poems or hymns called Samhita. It is so much full of thought that at this early period in history no poet in any other nation could have conceived them. The sublimity, the nobility, the natural justice, the equality, the love and welfare of all humanity as a whole is the theme of the Rig Veda. The Vedic God has no partisan attitude of the jealous vindictive God, who is ever ready to please and help his own people by hurling disease, death and destruction on their enemies in return for sacrifices.
Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: "Rig Veda is the earliest book that humanity possesses. Yet behind the Rig Veda itself lay ages of civilized existence and thought during which had grown all other civilizations..."
(source: The Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru Oxford University Press. 1995. p. 43).
The Vedas are the quintessence of classical Hindu philosophy. Thinking with your heart; loving with your mind. All yoga and meditation aim to attain this goal. Anything else is delusion, or worse. And when the heart sees, it sees the unknowable, nameless, formless, limitless, supreme God. He is called the nonexistent because he is eternal, beyond existence. God manifest is the fabric of creation itself. They are one. The heart that learns to think realizes this truth and merges into the eternal oneness. As William Blake put it, “ If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear as it is, infinite.”
This merging with the Eternal, this inner transformation, this direct experience of Truth – these are the goals of which the Vedic sages speak. They explain the nature of the universe, of life, while admitting that Creation itself is the one unknowable mystery. To the Vedic sages, creation indicated that point before which there was no Creator, the line between indefinable nothingness and something delineated by attributes and function, at least. Like the moment before the Big Bang Theory. These concepts preoccupy high wisdom, the Truth far removed from mere religion. Recent research and scholarship make it increasingly possible to believe that the Vedic era was the lost civilization whose legacy the Egyptians and the Indians inherited. There must have been one. There are too many similarities between hieroglyphic texts and Vedic ones, these in turn echoed in a somewhat diluted form and a confused fashion by the authors of Babylonian texts and the Old Testament.
(source: Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys into India - By Paul Williams Robert - p. 312).
Indian poetic thought at this stage appears as free, candid and honest about the nature of God as that of any modern thinker who would express the doubts and sorrows of his heart without any inhibition. Even in the very early hymns of the Rig Veda, we encounter passages of a rather philosophical nature. These are no longer concerned with singing the praises of the numerous nature deities and reaching some kind of heaven, but with knowledge of a higer reality. There is also a refusal to be bound into any dogma about the supernatural though their ecstatic expressions do acknowledge Him as the Highest Being, the Most High Seer, as can be seen from this beautiful Hymn of creation in the Vedas called the Nasidiya Sukta. The most remarkable and sublime hymn in which the first germ of philosophic speculation with regard to the wonderful mystery of the origin of the world are found:
"Nor aught nor naught existed; you bright sky Was not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above; What covered all? What sheltered? What concealed? Was it the waters' fathomless abyss? There was no light of night, no light of day, The only One breathed breathless in itself, Other than it there nothing since has been. Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled In gloom profound, an ocean without light;....
Yet the Vedas go further, being philosophy, or really spiritual sciences, rather than myth. One can almost detect a touch of irony in the last question of this hymn which ends this verse.
Who truly knows, who can honestly say where. This universe cam from And where it will vanish to at the End? Those godlike wise men who claim they know were born long After the birth of Creation. Who then could know where our universe really came from? And whoever knows or does not know where Creation came from, Only one gazing at its vastness from the very roof of the final Heaven "Only such a one could possibly know, But does even He know? " - Rig Veda - 129.6. 7
The philosophical and mystical depth of this hymn is unsurpassed.
Paul William Robert has written: "The Bible begins with the Creation. Before the Creation, however, there was the Creator, but does even He know what was there before He existed ? Long before such philosophical questions occurred to other historical peoples, Vedism posited the existence of something more ultimate than the one God. Whatever must have created Him. That is presuming the absolute and basic reality. Or is it?
This is mysticism that is simultaneously metalogic and the kind of thing those bardic sages living some twenty-five thousand years ago thought about a great deal, according to Hindu tradition. The Vedas are the very first compositions mankind produced dating back at least twenty thousand years. Most orthodox historians and anthropologists strongly dispute such a view. They confuse writing with civilization and deny meaningful history to any people who did not leave a written record. A rich culture does not necessarily depend on writing, as the Celtic civilization proves. The hymns are the most sophisticated, most profoundly beautiful, and most complete presentations of what Aldous Huxley termed the “perennial philosophy” that is at the core of all religions. In modern academia, of course, there is not supposed to be any “ancient wisdom”.
The Vedas go much further in outlining the nature of reality than any other religious texts still in use. Some Vedic hymns paint the exquisite glories of the natural world: the preternatural beauty of predawn light, its rosy fingers holding the iridescent steel-blue sky; some celebrate the welcome cool of evening the scented breeze of a calm and refreshing night, its basalt dome studded with shimmering pearls and diamonds. Beauty permeates them, a reflection of Truth. The Vedas hold within them enough information to rebuild human civilization from scratch, if necessary. I think someone did believe that might be necessary one day.
(source: Empire of the Soul: Some Journeys into India - By Paul Williams Robert p.299 -325).
The Gayatri Mantra (chant), which forms the core of Hindu faith, is actually addressed to Surya, Sun God:
" Om bhūr bhuvah svah tat savitur varēnyam bhargō dēvasya dhīmahi dhiyō yō nah pracōdayāt"
O splendid and Effulgent Sun, we offer this prayer to thee. Enlighten this craving mind. Be our protector. May the radiance of the divine ruler guide our destiny. Wise men salute your magnificence with oblations and words of praise."
Lord Rama was also taught, by sage Agastaya, the Adityahridayam, a prayer addressed to the sun god.
"The Sun is the foremost physical manifestation of divine creative power. In the glorious morning the faithful bend towards the giver of life in one single gesture of adoration. "
His chariot drawn by prancing horse, Surya, the Sun god rides the sky to a chorus of worshippers.
O splendid and Effulgent sun, May your radiance enlighten this craving mind.
(image source: Splendors of the Past: Lost Cities of the Ancient World - National Geographic Society. p.186-190).
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Battlestar Galactica - The Sky One version of the title sequence for season one featured a Hindu mantra, the Gayatri Mantra, taken from the Rig Veda. In the U.S. , the music was an original instrumental piece by composer Bear McCreary called "Two Funerals" originally written for the episode "Act of Contrition". As of season two, the main title sequences in all territories where the show airs now use the Sky One title sequence, the Gayatri Mantra version written by miniseries composer Richard Gibbs.
Usha, the dawn, is often invoked, and is the subject of some of the most beautiful hymns that are to be found in the lyrical poetry of any ancient nation.
Beautous daughter of the sky! Hold they ruddy light on high, Grant us wealth and grant us day, Bring us food and morning's ray. White-robed goddess of the morning sky, Bring us light, let night's deep shadows fly.
"We gaze upon her as she comes The shining daughter of the sky The mighty darkness she uncovers, And light she makes, the pleasant one that we see."
This light, most radiant of lights, has come; this gracious one who illumines all things is born. As night is removed by the rising sun, so is this the birthplace of the dawn....We behold her, daughter of the sky, youthful, robed in white, driving forth the darkness. Princess of limitless treasure, shine down upon us throughout the day." - Rig Veda I. 113.
Usha! (Dawn) Hail, Beautous daughter of the sky!
(image source: The Splendour That Was 'Ind' - By K T Shah).
Refer to The Vedanta Kesari
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Of the hymns to other deities, the hymns to those to Usha, the Dawn, are especially beautiful. Some of the loveliest nature poetry of this period is dedicated to her, depicted as a young maiden who comes to mankind in the special characteristics of the dawn. Dawn bring a feeling of hope and refreshment, of entering into the activity of the universe.
The Aryas worshipped Nature. They were fascinated by their natural surroundings. Gods representing the forces of nature are mentioned in the hymns of Rig Veda. Rta was the term used to mean the natural law of the cosmic order and morality. It was the regulator of the whole Universe. Dyaus, sky, Prithvi, earth, Varuna, the sky god and protector of Rta and Indra, Savitri, Mitra and Pushan represented different powers of the Sun such as heat, light and nourishment. Vishnu was the symbol of swift movement while Rudra amd Maruts were the gods of storm and winds. Shiva was the later name given to Rudra. Vayu and Vata were other gods of winds while Parjanya was the god of rain. There were gods on earth also. Agni was an important deity. Soma was regarded as essential for sacrifice. Saraswati as river goddess on earth. But the most loved goddess was Usha (Dawn) belonging to both earth and heaven. Some of the most beautiful hymns are addressed to Ushas.
(source: Ancient Indian History and Culture - By Chidambara Kulkarni Orient Longman Ltd. 1974. p.43-44).
2. Yajur Veda
The Yajur Veda, containing 3,988 verses, is a compilation of mantras and methods for use by priests in performing Vedic rituals and sacrifice.
3. Sama Veda
The Sama Veda, a collection of 1,540 verses, was wet to music by the Vedic period for chanting during rituals. The use of music in the r
4. Atharva Veda
The Atharva Veda, a unique collection of 5,977 verses was used to satisfy the daily needs of the people. This included verses deemed necessary for success in agriculture, trade, progeny, health, and general welfare. Other verses are designed to assist in procuring medicine and fighting one's enemy. The Sanskrit word Ayurved means medicine. The Ayurvedic system of medicine, based upon the use of herbs for the treatment of disease, has its roots in the Atharva Veda.
Format of the Vedas - Each Vedas is divided into four main sections: (a) Samhitas or mantras (b) Brahmanas, (c) Aranyakas or "forest books" (d) Upanishads.
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Guigualt says: "The Rig Veda is the most sublime conception of the great highways of humanity."
On July 14, 1882 Mons Leon Delbios said in a paper read on the Vedas when Victor Hugo was in the chair, says: "There is a no monument of Greece or Rome more previous than the Rig Veda." When Voltaire was presented with a copy of the Yajurveda he said, "It was the most precious gift for which the West has been for ever indebted to the East."
(source: The Soul of India - By Satyavrata R. Patel p. 76-77).
F. Max Muller wrote: "In the history of the world, the Veda fills a gap which no literary work in any other language can fill."
(source: India: What can it teach us? - By Max Muller p. 121).
Dr. Jean LeMee born in France in 1931, and studied Sanskrit at Columbia University has written:
"Precious stones or durable materials - gold, silver, bronze, marble, onyx or granite - have been used by ancient people in an attempt to immortalize themselves. Not so however the ancient Vedic Aryans. They turned to what may seem the most volatile and insubstantial material of all - the spoken word ...The pyramids have been eroded by the desert wind, the marble broken by earthquakes, and the gold stolen by robbers, while the Veda is recited daily by an unbroken chain of generations, traveling like a great wave through the living substance of mind. .."
"The Rig Veda is a glorious song of praise to the Gods, the cosmic powers at work in Nature and in Man. Its hymns record the struggles, the battles, and victories, the wonder, the fears, the hopes, and the wisdom of the Ancient Path Makers.
Glory be to Them!"
(source: Hymns from the Rig Veda - By Jean LeMee - Illustrator Ingbert Gruttner ISBN: 0394493540 and ASIN 0224011812).
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), American Philosopher, Unitarian, social critic, transcendentalist and writer:
What extracts from the Vedas I have read fall on me like the light of a higher and purer luminary, which describes a loftier course through purer stratum. It rises on me like the full moon after the stars have come out, wading through some far stratum in the sky."
"Whenever I have read any part of the Vedas, I have felt that some unearthly and unknown light illuminated me. In the great teaching of the Vedas, there is no touch of sectarianism. It is of all ages, climes and nationalities and is the royal road for the attainment of the Great Knowledge. When I am at it, I feel that I am under the spangled heavens of a summer night." He also admitted that, "The religion and philosophy of the Hebrews are those of a wilder and ruder tribe, wanting the civility and intellectual refinements and subtlety of Vedic culture." Thoreau's reading of literature on India and the Vedas was extensive: he took them seriously.
(source: The Secret Teachings of the Vedas. The Eastern Answers to the Mysteries of Life - By Stephen Knapp volume one. pg- 22)
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), British mathematician, logician and philosopher best known for his work in mathematical logic and who, in collaboration with Bertrand Russell, authored the landmark three-volume Principia Mathematica, (1910, 1912, 1913). He reported to have remarked:
"Vedanta is the most impressive metaphysics the human mind has conceived."
(source: Huston Smith: Essays on World Religion. edited by M. Darrrol Bryant. Paragon House 1992 p. 135). J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Scientist, philosopher, bohemian, and radical. A theoretical physicist and the Supervising Scientist Manhattan Project, the developer of the atomic bomb said:
"Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.
Modern man is a diminished man. Despite the superficial excitements of our high-tech world, life for most has become a flat, stale, and joyless thing. It is joyless because we have forgotten what life is supposed to be.
Dr. Karan Singh observes:
"The Vedas stand in all their might and majesty as the very source and bedrock of Hindu civilization. The Vedas are the inspired utterances of a whole galaxy of realized souls, of spiritual geniuses, of people not merely well versed intellectually but with spiritual enlightenment. "
(source: Essays on Hinduism - By Karan Singh p. 50. For more on nature refer to chapter on Nature Worship).
Prof. Bloomfield Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology has remarked:
"The Vedas represent the pinnacle of the oldest literature of India. It is the ancient most written document of Indo-European language. This may be termed the principle source of religious thought."
Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya (1861 – 1946) was a great Indian nationalist and a true propounder of Hindu culture and often called as the Teacher of the Nation, has said:
"The Vedas are the oldest scriptures in the world. The Vedas accept the existence of God. They say that the creator of this animate and inanimate world is God. The sun, moon, heavens and earth have been created by God only."
(source: The Essence of the Vedas - By Dr. Mahendra Mittal p. 12).
A P J (Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul) Kalam ( 1931 - ) Noted Scientist and President of India. India who reads the Bhagavad Gita and the Koran. He said, India should seek to become like the perfect nation defined in Thirukkural, the ancient Tamil discourse. He described the Veda as,
"They are the oldest classics and the most precious treasures of India. The soul of Bharatiya sanskriti dwells in the Vedas. The entire world admits the importance of the Vedas."
(source: Vedas, soul of India - By Dina Nath Mishra - dailypioneer.com). Refer to Internet Sacred Texts on Hinduism and Stotra Rathnas. Refer to Battlestar Galactica - wikipedia.org.
Refer to Rig Veda among 38 new heritage items in UNESCO culture list - Thirty manuscripts of the ancient Hindu text Rig Veda dating from 1800 to 1500 BC are among 38 new items that have been added to the United Nations heritage list to help preserve them for posterity.
To download Hindu Scriptures - refer to Hindu Temple of Greater Cincinnati. Refer to The Vedanta Kesari
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Upanishads
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher and writer, wrote about the Upanishads:
"From every sentence (of the Upanishads) deep, original and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit...."In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. They are destined sooner or later to become the faith of the people.”
He regarded them:
" It has been the solace of my life -- it will be the solace of my death."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) an author, essayist, lecturer, philosopher, Unitarian minister who lectured on theology at Harvard University wrote:
"They haunt me. In them I have found eternal compensation, unfathomable power, unbroken peace."
A. E. George Russell (1867 -1935) the Irish poet, essayist, painter, Nationalist leader, mystic wrote:
"The Upanishads contain such godlike fullness of wisdom on all things that I feel the authors must have looked with calm remembrance back through a thousand passionate lives, full of feverish strife for and with shadows, ere they could have written with such certainty of things which the soul feels to be sure."
Paul Deussen (1845-1919) a direct disciple of Arthur Schopenhauer, preferred to be called in Sanskrit, Deva-Sena was a scholar of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, has observed:
"Whatever may be the discoveries of the scientific mind, none can dispute the eternal truths propounded by the Upanishads."
" the Upanishads have tackled every fundamental problem of life. They have given us an intimate account of reality." "On the tree of wisdom there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads, and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy,
Huston Smith (1919 - ) born in China to Methodist missionaries, a philosopher, most eloquent writer, world-famous religion scholar who practices Hatha Yoga.
"When I read the Upanishads, I found a profundity of world view that made my Christianity seem like third grade."
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) was among India's most fervent nationalists and he paid tribute to the remarkable Isha Upanishad.
“If all the Upanishads and all the other scriptures happened all of a sudden to be reduced to ashes, and if only the first verse in the Ishopanishad were left in the memory of the Hindus, Hinduism would live forever.”
"The Lord is enshrined in the hearts of all The Lord is the supreme Reality Rejoice in him through renunication. Covet nothing. All belongs to the Lord." - Isha Upanishad 1 -1 .
(For more refer to chapter on and Quotes).
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India's soul-offering is the perennial light of the Upanishads. Upanishads are the divine revelations received by ancient seers. They represent the essence of the Vedas, the greatest truths ever known to mankind. The Upanishads are humanity's most profound philosophical inquiry and the first perceptions of the unity of all, the oneness of man and God. The Upanishads are also called the Vedanta. The literal meaning of Vedanta is 'the end of the Vedas.' They were composed around 700 BCE. The basic teaching of the Upanishads is that the essence of all beings - from a blade of grass to the perfect human being - and all things is the Divine Spirit, called Brahman.
Free from theology and dogma, the Upanishads remain the primary source of inspiration and guidance for millions of Hindus and non-Hindus alike. They have influenced many Western thinkers, including von Gothe, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The Upanishads are the concluding portions of the Vedas and the teachings based on them is called Vedanta. The Upanishads focus on philosophical questions such as the purpose of life, origin of the universe, concepts of time, space and matter, as well as concepts of atman, Brahman, maya, immortality, rebirth, karma, and the world.
The Upanishads offer to the world at large the supreme achievement of the awakened and illumined Hindu life. The Vedas represent the cow. The Upanishads represent milk. We need the cow to give us milk, and we need milk to nourish us.
According to our Indian tradition, there were once 1,180 Upanishads. Of the 108 Upanishads that have been preserved, the following thirteen are generally considered to be the principal Upanishads: The Isa, Katha, Kena, Prasna, Mundaka, Mandhukya, Chandogya, Brhadaranyaka, Taittiriya, Aitareya, Svetasvatara, Kaivalya and Maitri.
The Upanishads are known as the Vedanta, both because chronologically they come at the end of the Vedas and also because philosophically they represent the noblest upshot, the highest watermark of the Vedic civilization and genius. One meaning of the word Upanishad is to sit nearby. In the Indian tradition, the guru would be seated under a tree, near a river or lake, and one or more disciples would cluster around him to learnt he wisdom. They are the dialogues between guru and sisya.
The Upanishads are the remarkable compositions, which contain sublime and philosophical speculations concerning the Universal Soul, the All-pervading Breath. The Upanishads contain the quintessence of Brahmavidya and declare that Brahman is in its nature Satchitananda and is also the material cause (Upadana Karana) and the efficient cause (Nimitta Karana) of the universe. The Upanishads declare that Karmas give us only perishable fruits and that jnana (knowledge) alone can lead to immortality.
We begin with the Doctrine of a Universal Soul, an all-pervading Breath which is the keystone of the philosophy and thought of the Upanishads. This idea is somewhat different from monotheism as it has been generally understood in later days. For monotheism generally recognizes a God and Creator as distinct from the created beings; but the monotheism of the Upanishads, which has been the monotheism of the Hindu religion ever since, recognizes God as the Universal Being: - all things else have emanated from him, are a part of Him, and will mingle in him, and have no separate existence. This is the lesson which Yajnavalkya imparted to his esteemed wife Maitreyi. This too is the great idea which is taught in the Upanishads in a hundred similies and stories and beautiful legends, which impart to the Upanishads their value in the literature of the world.
"All this is Brahman (the Universal Being). Let a man meditate on the visible world as beginning, ending, and breathing in the Brahman."
"He is my self within the heart, smaller than a corn of rice, smaller than a corn of barley, smaller than a mustard seed, smaller than a canary seed or the kernel of a canary seed. He also is my self within the heart, greater than the earth, greater than the sky, greater than heaven, greater than all these worlds."
Such is the sublime language in which the ancient Hindus expressed their sublime conception of the minute but all-pervading and Universal Being whom they called Brahman or God.
Who is not struck by this manly and fervent effort made by the Hindu nation, three thousand years ago, to know the unknown Maker, to comprehend the incomprehensible God. And the joy of him who has comprehended, however, feebly, the incomprehensible God, has been well described:
"He who beholds all beings in the Self, and Self in all beings, he never turns away from it."
(source: The Early Hindu Civilization - By Romesh Chunder Dutt p. 17-177).
Etymologically the word Upanishad suggests “sitting down near”: that is, at the feet of an illumined teacher in an intimate session of spiritual instruction, as aspirants still do in India today. The sages who gave them to us did not care to leave their names; the truths they set down were eternal, and the identity of those who arranged the words irrelevant. While the Vedas look outward in reverence and awe of the phenomenal world, the Upanishads look inward, finding the powers of nature only an expression of the more awe-inspiring powers of human consciousness.
The Upanishads tell us that there is a Reality underlying life which rituals cannot reach, next to which the things we see and touch in everyday life are shadows. They teach that this Reality is the essence of every created thing, and the same Reality is our real Self so that each of us is one with the power that created and sustains the universe. The Upanishads are not philosophy but are darshanas, “something seen” and therefore to be realized.
This fervent desire to know is the motivation behind all science, so we should not be surprised to find in Vedic India the beginnings of a potent scientific tradition. By the common era, it would be in full flower…But the roots of this scientific spirit are in the Vedas. The Vedic hymns are steeped in the conviction of rita, an order that pervades creation and is reflected in each part – a oneness to which all diversity can be referred. From this conviction follows a highly sophisticated notion: a law of nature must apply uniformly and universally. The forest civilization of the Upanishads took a turn unparalleled in the history of science. It focused on the medium of knowing: the mind. The Self is the Brahman – is the central discovery of the Upanishads. Its most famous formulation is one of the mahavakyas or “great formulae”: Tat tvam asi, “You are That”.
(source: The Upanishads: Translated for the Modern Reader - By Eknath Easwaran p. 1 - 25).
The Chandogya Upanishad makes a bold statement, to some extent more daring and at the same time convincing:
Tat twam asi - That Thou art.
What does it mean? It means that you are none other than God. Who else is God, if not you?
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In the words of the great German philosopher and writer, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860):
"In the whole world there is no study so beneficial and so elevating as that of the Upanishads. It has been the solace of my life; and it will be the solace of my death. They are the product of the highest wisdom."
"As flowing rivers disappear into the sea, losing their name and form, thus a wise man, freed from name and form, goes to the divine person who is beyond all." - Mundaka Upanishad iii 2.
Upanishads are the zenith of Hinduism cultural development. The Upanishads are crammed with thoughts that wander through eternity. Their message is that there is far more to life than success, and far more to success than money; and there can be no higher destiny for man than to be engaged in endless seeking after endless truth. They give the most memorable answers to the three immemorial questions posed by T. S. Eliot:
"Where is the life we have lost in living" Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
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The Brhadaranyaka Upanishad (I.3.28) offers to humanity an unparalleled prayer:
"From the unreal lead me to the Real; From darkness lead to Light, From death lead me to Immortality."
One of the lessons of the Upanishads is that you must regard "the universe as a thought in the mind of the Creator, thereby reducing all discussions of material creation to futility." The Upanishads teach that both space and time are endless or infinite. Modern science completely agrees.
(source: India's Priceless Heritage - By Nani Palkhivala published by Bharati Vidya Bhavan 1980 p. 6-27).
The reality of the atomic physicist, like the reality of the Eastern mystic, transcends the narrow framework of opposite and contradictory concepts. The Upanishads say:
"It moves, it moves not, It is far, and it is near, It is within all this, And it is outside of all this.
The words below of Oppenheimer seem to echo the words of the Upanishads regarding physical matter:
J. R. Oppenheimer (1904-1967) Chairman of the Los Alamos Project, sadly confessed:
"If we ask, for instance, whether the position of the electron remains the same, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron's position changes with time, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether the electron is at rest, we must say 'no'; if we ask whether it is in motion, we must say 'no.'
In his autobiography, Einstein expressed his sense of shock when he first came in contact with the reality of atomic physics:
"All my attempts to adopt the theoretical foundation of physics to this (new type of) knowledge failed completely. It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built."
The Rishis had repeatedly emphasized that the ultimate reality lies beyond the realms of the senses and the grey matter beneath our skulls. Hark again to the Upanishads:
"There the eye goes not Speech goes not, nor the mind. We know not, we understand not, How would one teach it?"
(source: India's Priceless Heritage - By Nani Palkhivala published by Bharati Vidya Bhavan 1980. p.14-15).
Of all the productions of the Epic age, however, the Upanishads are the most striking. They represent the belief of the learned and the wise, and they embody the philosophy and spiritual knowledge of the age. The Upanishads elucidate the doctrine of the Universal Soul. In India the Upanishads are classed as works which impart True knowledge, while the Brahmanas regulate Observances. This distinction has endured in India in all times.
The cardinal doctrine of the Upanishads are the doctrine of Transmigration of the Souls and of the Universal Soul. We have seen both these ideas in a hazy form in the hymns of the Rig Veda, in the Upanishads we find them more fully developed. All things change, all things cast off their old form and assume new shapes. The Soul within living beings thus changes its outward form, enters into new shapes, until it is merged with the Universal Soul called by the Vedic name of Brahma. This cardinal principle of the Upanishads is best explained in the language of the Upanishads:
"As a goldsmith, taking a piece of gold, turns it into another newer and more beautiful shape, so does the Soul, after having thrown off this body, and dispelled all ignorance, make unto himself another newer and more beautiful shape....
"So much for the man who desires, But for the man who does not desire, who not desiring, free from desires, satisfied in his desires, desires the Soul only, his spirit does not depart elsewhere; being Brahma, he goes to Brahma." (Brihadaranyaka, iv. 4).
This is true philosophical Hinduism as it was more than three thousand years ago, and as it is now. The doctrine is that all universe and all being proceed from Brahman, live in Him, are a part of Him, and end in Him. Each individual Soul has its beginning in the Universal Soul, and passes through a number of outward shapes or incarnations according to its doings in the world, and in the end merge in Him. The great idea of a true Unity comprehending all changing phenomena, is conceived and explained in the Hindu doctrine of Transmigration of Soul and of a Universal Soul.
(source: The Civilization of India - By Romesh C. Dutt p. 23 - 24). Refer to and Stotra Rathnas. Refer to The Vedanta Kesari
Handwritten page of Sanskrit text from the Chandogya Upanishad. Chandogya is one of the oldest and best known for its equation of the atman (soul) within, with the Brahman (absolute spirit) without.
Watch Scientific verification of Vedic knowledge
To download Hindu Scriptures - refer to Hindu Temple of Greater Cincinnati.
Refer to The Vedanta Kesari
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Dama, Dana and Daya (i.e DA, DA, DA).
In our daily life Indian culture has emphasized three cardinal virtues. There is a parable in the Brihadaranyka Upanishad 5.2 Prajapati, the ancestor of man, blessed his creation with a code of conduct consisting of three basic principles. viz. Dama, Dana and Daya i.e. restraint, charity and compassion. These are the basic qualities for which man is revered and respected in India.
(source: Cultural Heritage of Ancient India - By Sachindra Kumar Maity p. 14).
"Like corn decays the mortal," said the Katha Upanishad, "like corn is he born again." It is one of the fundamental tenets of Hinduism that the soul, upon the death of one body, moves to another body or form carrying with it all the impressions or deeds that it has accumulated in its previous body. It is a simple cause and effect process between the matter and the spirit, the soul. All living beings are subject to this process of transmigration since they began life.
Professor F. W. Thomas in The Legacy of India says: "What gives to the Upanishads their unique quality and unfailing human appeal is an earnest sincerity of tone, as of friends conferring upon matters of deep concern."
And C. Rajagopalachari (1878-1972) was a scholar, a statesman, and a linguist. A contemporary of Mohandas Gandhi, he was also free India’s first Governor General, thus eloquently speaks of them:
"The spacious imagination, the majestic sweep of thought, and the almost reckless spirit of exploration with which, urged by the compelling thirst for truth, the Upanishad teachers and pupils dig into the "open secret" of the universe, make this most ancient of the world's holy books still the most modern and most satisfying."
(source: The Discovery of India - By Jawaharlal Nehru Oxford University Press. 1995 p. 90).
The main teachings of the Upanishads are of a sublime character. Max Muller wrote: "How entirely does the Upanishads breathe throughout the holy spirit of the Vedas! How is every one who has become familiar with that incomparable book stirred by that spirit to the very depth of his soul! Vedanta is the most sublime of all philosophies and the most comforting of all religions."
Paul Deussen (1845-1919) preferred to be called in Sanskrit, Deva-Sena was a scholar of the Asiatic Society of Bengal says:
"On the tree of Indian wisdom there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy."
In his Philosophy of the Upanishads, Deussen claims for its fundamental thought "an inestimable value for the whole race of mankind." It is in "marvelous agreement with the philosophy founded by Kant, and adopted and perfected by his great successor, Schopenhauer," differing from it, where it does differ, only to excel.
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 298-299).
Victor Cousin (1792-1867) French Philosopher, says: "The history of Indian philosophy is the abridged history of the philosophy of the world."
(source: Hindu Culture and The Modern Age - By Dewan Bahadur K.S. Ramaswami Shastri - Annamalai University 1956 p.214-215).
Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) in comparing the ancient Greeks with the ancient Hindus, says: "Their (Hindus) general learning was more considerable; and in the knowledge of the being and nature of God, they were already in possession of a light which was but faintly perceived even by the loftiest intellects in the best days of Athens."
(source: Hindu Superiority - By Har Bilas Sarda p. 299).
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The Bhagavad Gita
"I am the Self seated in the heart of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle and the very end of all beings".
- Lord Krishna (Bhagawad Gita, sloka 20, Chapter 10).
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Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American Philosopher, Unitarian, social critic, transcendentalist and writer. He wrote:
"In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial." "One sentence of the Gita, is worth the State of Massachusetts many times over"
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) an author, essayist, lecturer, philosopher, Unitarian minister who lectured on theology at Harvard University. He wrote: "I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-Gita. It was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another age and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us."
Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) A theoretical physicist and the Supervising Scientist for the Manhattan Project, the developer of the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer acquired a deeper knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita in 1933 when, as a young professor of physics, he studied Sanskrit with Professor Arthur W Ryder (1877-1938) at Berkeley.
The Gita, he wrote was “very easy and quite marvelous”. He called the Gita “the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.”
Oppenheimer who finally brought the Gita into the popular vocabulary of the scientists in the West by citing this quote from the Bhagavad Gita.
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one " and "Now I am become. Death, the destroyer of worlds." (July 16, 1945, inscription at first nuclear test site Trinity, New Mexico).
Carl Sagan famous astro-physicist was awed by the revelation in the Gita that the creation and destruction, an essential part of the cosmic evolution, was actually postulated in a more realistic vast time scale.
(source: Science and the Gita - By Dr. Alok K. Bohara).
Lord Krishna playing the flute adorns a mural at Mattancherry Palace, Cochin, Kerala.
The notes of Krishna's flute drifting through the woods are the call of the Divine.
(image source: National Geographic - January 2008).
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Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) most original philosopher of modern India observed: "The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization." He wrote in Essays on the Gita, "The Gita is the greatest gospel of spiritual works ever yet given to the race." "Such then is the divine Teacher of the Gita, the eternal Avatar, the Divine who has descended into human consciousness, the Lord seated within the heart of all beings, He who guides from behind the veil all our thoughts and action."
Lokmanya Tilak (1856-1920) freedom fighter, great Sanskrit scholar and astronomer and author of Geeta Rahasya says: "It gives peace to afflicted souls, it makes us masters of spiritual wisdom."
Warren Hastings (1754-1826), was the first governor general of British India wrote: "The Bhagavad Gita is the gain of humanity - a performance of great originality, of a sublimity of conception, reasoning and diction almost unequalled."
Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) Austrian-born scientist, editor, and founder of anthroposophy, wrote: "In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-Gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it."
Arthur Anthony Macdonell (1854-1930) in his History of Sanskrit Literature remarks: "The beauty and the power of the language in which this doctrine - that the zealous performance of duty is a man's most important task, to whatever caste he may belong - is inculcated, is unsurpassed in any other work of Indian literature."
Lord Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) says: "The Bhagawat Gita deserves high praise for the skill with which it is adapted to the general Epic, and the tenderness and elegance of the narrative by means of which it is introduced."
Mrs. Manning wrote: "Bhagwat Gita is one of the most remarkable compositions in the Sanskrit language."
Count Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a Belgian writer of poetry and a wide variety of essays. He won the 1911 Nobel Prize for literature. In his book The Great Secret calls The Bhagavad Gita "a magnificent flower of Hindu mysticism."
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) writer, philosopher, schoolteacher, visionary. On May 10, 17, and 19' 1846, he wrote in his journal: "I read more of the Bhagavad Gita and felt how surpassingly fine were the sentiments."
"Best of books - containing a wisdom blander and far more sane than that of the Hebrews, whether in the mind of Moses or of Him of Nazareth. Were I a preacher, I would venture sometimes to take from its texts the motto and moral of my discourse. It would be healthful and invigorating to breathe some of this mountain air into the lungs of Christendom."
Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767- 1835) Prussian minister of education, a brilliant linguist and the founder of the science of general linguistics. He said:
"The most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue ....perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show."
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) the English novelist and essayist wrote: "The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. The Gita is one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of the spiritual thoughts ever to have been made."
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888) writer, philosopher, schoolteacher, visionary. He wrote:
"I read more of the Bhagavad Gita and felt how surpassingly fine were the sentiments. These, or selections from this book should be included in a Bible for Mankind. I think them superior to any of the other Oriental scriptures, the best of all reading for wise men."
"Best of books - containing a wisdom blander and far more sane than that of the Hebrews, whether in the mind of Moses or of Him of Nazareth. Were I a preacher, I would venture sometimes to take from its texts the motto and moral of my discourse. It would be healthful and invigorating to breathe some of this mountain air into the lungs of Christendom."
(For more refer to chapter on and Quotes and GlimpsesX).
Dr. Alok K. Bohara, professor of economics at University of New Mexico has remarked:
"Inspired by the Bhagavad Gita and encouraged by the scientific evidence behind the power of meditation within the controlled environment, Dr. David J. Haglin has initiated a project in India involving mass meditation. He hopes to change group behavior to promote peace through such concentrated meditative contemplation. The power of intention through contemplation to alter personal disposition is amply articulated in the Gita as well, and scientists have just begun to scratch its surface. Interestingly, many Hindu scriptures speak of highly accomplished Rishis as having power to calm the other beings around them. But, there is much to learn about the relationship between the mind and matter. Nevertheless, efforts are underway to make good use of such potentiality."
(source: Science and the Gita - By Dr. Alok K. Bohara). Listen to The Bhagavad Gita podcast - By Michael Scherer - americanphonic.com. Refer to Vrindanet - Poland
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The Gita opens magnificently: the two armies arrayed, ready to do battle, on the ancestral field of Kuru; pennons flapping in the breeze and horses pawing the ground impatiently. As the conch shell signal the beginning of the battle, and as the armies are about to hurl themselves upon each other, Arjuna has doubts about the bloody deeds he is on the verge of perpetrating - the slaying of his kinsman, teachers, friends - and he voices his doubts to his charioteer, none other than the Lord Krsna himself. Krsna (Vishnu) then tells Arjuna why he must take part in the upcoming battle, why he has in reality, no alternative but to do so (his dharma, his duty as a Kshatriya), Krsna then preceeds to expound the unique philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita, including the essence of practical morality.
(source: Traditional India - edited by O. L. Chavarria-Aguilar Prentice Hall Place of Publication 1964. chapter on Practical Morality - By Franklin Edgerton p. 69).
Lord Krsna expounds the unique philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita.
The Gita is a diamond among scriptures.
The Bhagavad Gita has influenced great Americans from Thoreau to Oppenheimer. Its message of letting go of the fruits of one’s actions is just as relevant today as it was when it was first written more than two millennia ago.
Watch Lost / Submerged city of Dwaraka – The Learning Channel video
Watch Maha Vishnu Das of ISKCON - lecture on The Bhagavad Gita. Watch Scientific verification of Vedic knowledge. Refer to jalebimusic.com. To download Hindu Scriptures - refer to Hindu Temple of Greater Cincinnati. Listen to The Bhagavad Gita podcast - By Michael Scherer - americanphonic.com and The Bhagavad Gita – The essence of all Scriptures. Refer to Science and the Gita - By Dr. Alok K. Bohara and Vrindanet - Poland
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The Bhagavad Gita embodies a universal ideal of spiritual warriorship, teaching that freedom lies not in renunciation or retreat, but in disciplined action performed with self-knowledge and detachment.
Before the final battle of Kurukshetra, Arjuna had doubts whether it is right to fight and kill men who are his relations and his old friends; above all is war justifiable? Lord Krishna, after failing to convince him that it is the duty of a warrior to fight in a righteous war, reveals himself to Arjuna and answers his questions on the nature of the universe, the way to God and the meaning of duty. This magnificent dialogue between man (Arjuna) and creator (Krishna) forms the Bhagvad Gita, in which the Hindu doctrine is fully explained.
(Note: Lord Krishna was born at midnight on Friday July 27, 3112 BCE. This date and time has been calculated by astronomers on the basis of the planetary positions on that day recorded by Sage Vyasa. Lord Krishna passed away on 3102 BC, start of Kail Yuga. The Bhagavad Gita was compiled around 500 BCE.
(source: Hinduism TimeLine - By Madan M. Mathrani and The Hindu Mind - By Bansi Pandit). Refer to Internet Sacred Texts on Hinduism
A God of War?
The Gita does not solve the problem of war: rather it thrusts us right into the heart of the problem of war, any struggle, and shows us by means of one example how easily in actual life we can be drawn into tricky situations and conflicts of conscience the likes of which hardly arise for the ascetics in forests and caves. Lord Krishna, in the Gita is not addressing a sannyasin (a monk; one who has completely renounced worldly life), but a member of the warrior caste who still finds himself right in the midst of life.
There are no cheap attempts at painting black and white in the Gita; no heroes in the service of the good cause and bad guys in the service of the devil and the ending a triumphant victory of good over evil. A certain dualistic pattern is evident in Krishna's pronouncements, the kind we find in almost all religions; the struggle of light against darkness, against asuric (demonic) forces. He says himself that he manifests himself a new in every age "whenever there is a decline of dharma....for the protection of the good...for the destruction of the wicked.." (IV. 6 -8). Good and bad are both aspects of the one divine reality. Good and evil are relative. The world is not neatly divided here in two halves. It is shown in all its ambiguity in its condition as maya, where all good contain a little evil and all darkness a little light.
(source: Vedanta: Heart of Hinduism - By Hans Torwesten p.78 - 82). Refer to Burning of Bhagavad Gita – by Christians in India - By Prof. C I Isaac
In his famous Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo summed up the whole problem in these words:
We will use only soul-force and never destroy by war or any even defensive employment of physical violence ? Good, though until soul-force is effective, the Asuric force in men and nations tramples down, breaks, slaughters, burns, pollutes, as we see it doing today, but then at its ease and unhindered, and you have perhaps caused as much destruction of life by your abstinence as others by resort to violence. Strength founded on the Truth and the dharmic use of force are thus the Gita’s answer to pacifism and non-violence. Rooted in the ancient Indian genius, this third way can only be practised by those who have risen above egoism, above asuric ambition or greed. The Gita certainly does not advocate war ; what it advocates is the active and selfless defence of dharma. If sincerely followed, its teaching could have altered the course of human history. It can yet alter the course of Indian history."
The Gita is, in Sri Aurobindo’s words, “our chief national heritage, our hope for the future."
(source: The Gita in Today’s World - by Michel Danino - bharatvani.org). Also refer to Gita Supersite and Stotra Rathnas.
Dr. Fritjof Capra (1939- ) the famous theoretical high-energy physicist and author of The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism writes:
"One of those epics, the Maha Bharatha, contains India's favorite religious text, the beautiful spiritual poem of the Bhagavadh Geetha. The Geetha, as it is commonly called, is a dialogue between the god Krishna and the warrior Arjuna who is in great despair, being forced to combat his own kinsmen in the great family war which forms the main story of the Mahabharata. Krishna, as Arjuna's charioteer, drives the chariot right between the two armies and in this dramatic settling of the battlefield, he starts to reveal to Arjuna the most profound truths of Hinduism. As the god speaks the realistic background of the war between the two families soon fades away and it becomes clear that the battle of Arjuna is the spiritual battle of man, and the battle of the warrior in search of enlightenment. Krishna himself advises Arjuna:
Arjuna was confused by noble thoughts before the war. But fortunately Lord Krishna labored through 18 long chapters of discourse in Bhagvad Gita to clear Arjuna's confusion and to help him take a decision. Arjuna finally decided to wage the war. But what today's intellectuals have failed to fathom is that only wars waged out of ambition, like Emperor Ashoka did, are wrong. Men of wisdom have regarded war as sometimes essential to bring peace. What is wrong is war of hate. Kill therefore with the sword of wisdom the doubts born of the ignorance that lies in thy heart. Be one in self-harmony, in Yoga and arise, great warrior, arise.
The basis of Krishna's spiritual instruction, as of all Hinduism is the idea that the multitude of things and events around us are but different manifestations of the same ultimate reality. This reality, called Brahman, is the unifying concept that gives Hinduism its essentially monistic character in spite of the worship of numerous gods and goddesses. "
(source: Hindu Destiny in Nostradamus - By G.S. Hiranyappa. cited in Chapter on Hinduism - By Fritjof Capra p. 171). For more on Fritjof Capra refer to Quotes251-270)
Non-violence is the ideal for the individual, but society needs protection and cannot remain non-violent in the face of aggression. The Gita mentions repeatedly that ahimsa, or non-violence, is the highest virtue.
The Bhagavad Gita forms a part of the great epic, the Mahabharata. It is the song of the Supreme God and is considered a sacred text of religion. Gita is said to be the most beautiful philosophical song in any language.The contents of the text are brought out in the form of a dialogue between Krsna, and Arjuna, a warrior prince of the Kuru dynasty. The situation in which both are placed in a battlefield where in Arjuna has come to fight, by force of circumstances, his own cousins, nephews, elders of the family, teachers and friends. Metaphorically, the battle and battlefield is life itself. For in life we are constantly engaged in a struggle both within and without between the forces of good and evil.
The Bhagavad Gita is both supremely realistic and extremely idealistic, certainly the most acute, penetrating depiction of human nature and true morality, however remote it may seem from our own. Lord Krishna symbolizes the principle of Divine Incarnation (avatar), the supreme spirit become flesh, pouring into the world during the evil phases of the cosmic cycle in order to check evil - but in a spirit of complete detachment and indifference. The supreme thought of the Gita is concerned with a tolerance: "Whatsoever devotee seeks to worship whatsoever divine form (rupa) with fervent faith, I, verily, make that faith of his unwavering."
Dharma and Non-Attachment: The first answer given to Arjuna is that he must full fill his Dharma, that is the basic obligation of his state in life. Only in this way can his salvation be achieved. He is a warrior. To abandon the field is to betray his fundamental duty. Yet if Dharma is to be fulfilled, it must be done with total self-detachment. There must be no seeking after success in life, for the fruit of action (karma phala). Action are to be done, because they are correct, because they are required by Dharma, not for personal gain.
Lord Krishna’s views on the immortality of the soul were compiled in one of India’s holiest books of scriptures, the Bhagwad Gita.
One reason that the Gita is a source of inspiration is because it presents to its readers the concept of God as personal (Isvara), and this is the most meaningful concept of God. A personal God is a being who knows every sorrow and is a witness of all our grief: "I am time never ending. I am the creator who sees all." Ishavara, the personal God, accepts us as we are and purifies us: " Though a man be soiled with the sins of a lifetime, let him but love me, rightly resolved, in utter devotion. I see no sinner. That man is holy. He shall not perish."
The Awesome Majesty of God
In Chapter 11, perhaps the most famous in the Gita, Lord Krishna appears again before Arjuna in his full and this time awe-inspiring majesty. To enable him to see his far-flung powers he lends Arjuna the Celestial Eye. What follows is the sheer endless profusion of images of the mysterium tremendum et fascinosum, causing the amazed and frightened Arjuna's hair to stand on end.
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One."
"I am mighty world-destroying Time, now engaged here in slaying these men. even without you, all these warriors standing arrayed in the opposing armies shall not live."
- Bhagavad Gita chapter XI. 12- 32).
Lord Krishna appears again before Arjuna in his full and this time awe-inspiring majesty.
The Bhagavad Gita, a world beloved, timeless classic was treasured by American writers from Emerson to T S Eliot.
Watch Lost / Submerged city of Dwaraka – The Learning Channel video. Refer to Bhaja Govindam - kamakoti.org and The Bhagavad Gita – The essence of all Scriptures. Listen to The Bhagavad Gita podcast - By Michael Scherer - americanphonic.com. Refer to Science and the Gita - By Dr. Alok K. Bohara and Vrindanet - Poland
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The Bhagavad Gita is the greatest testament of the Eternal Religion (Sanatana Dharma), the name by which the Hindus call their spiritual tradition. In it, spiritual wisdom finds its most profound, catholic, clear and modern expression. Gita means a song, and Bhagavad Gita means the divine song. The truth of scripture or of science does not depend on historical facts. The Gita is a sermon on the battlefield. It was delivered by Lord Krishna, the Divine Teacher, to Arjuna, his disciple, on the eve of a great battle between two sets of opposing cousins in which were engaged most of the princes and noblemen of India of the time. Krishna's sermon epitomizes the wisdom of Sanatana Dharma. It is a marvel because such an excellent work on religion and ethics has not been written since, nor is it likely to be written again.
The Bhagavad Gita has been read daily and recited by millions in India over centuries and across its vast expanse. It has been the source of inspiration to individuals, to seekers of enlightenment and peace and also to leaders of great social and political movements. Gandhi had turned to the Gita for light and guidance in times of crisis just as a child in trouble turns to its mother for comfort and reassurance. Gita has inspired many thoughtful men of letters and theologians of the West; several influential and liberal movements like Christian Science and New England Transcendentalism owe their origin to it. The source of Emerson's inspiration was the Gita. Carlyle presented him with a copy of the Gita, and this little book was responsible for the Concord Movement. "All the broad movements in America," said Swami Vivekanada, "in one way or the other are indebted to the Concord Party."
The Gita is a diamond among scriptures. Invocatory poems praise it as the essence of all scriptures. Krishna declares that God dwelling in the heart of all beings moves them to action. The Gita proclaims that there are many ways (yogas) of reaching the spiritual goal of life and that one should never disturb the faith of others whose understanding is poor. All the different ways of knowing God have been classified into four broad paths; namely 1. Jnana yoga - the way of wisdom, 2. bhakti yoga, the way of love of God 3. karma yoga, the way of selfless action 4. dhyana yoga, the way of meditation.
(source: The Bhagavad Gita: A Scripture for the Future - By Sachindra K. Majumdar p. 1-55).
The Bhagavad Gita is the jewel of all Hindu religious writing. This sacred poem, which appears in the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata, is the quintessence of the Upanishadic teachings. The chief doctrines of the Bhagavad Gita are in theism, its devotionalism, its doctrine of the divine appearance in human form as savior of man, and its teaching of divine grace. In the Bhagavad Gita is found the first clear statement of beatitude as a mutual indwelling of God in man and man in God: "They who with devotion worship me, they are in me and I in them." (IX 29).
(source: Religions of India: Hinduism, Yoga, Buddhism - Thomas Berry p. 31-32).
The Bhagavad Gita is a spiritual, much revered work that has served as an inspiration to all Hindus for thousands of years. Sri AdiSankara composed his commentary on the Gita in the 8th century, while Sant Dnyaneswar, one of the foremost religious figures of Maharashtra wrote his commentary on the Geeta; The Dnyaneswari in 13th century. The Dnyaneshwari has been an integral part of Maharashtra’s cultural and religious tradition ever since.
Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904) poet and scholar. Author of The Song Celestial, which is a translation of the Bhagavad Gita. It has great elevation of tone and majesty and dignity of style. There are many translations of the Gita but Arnold's translation has a place apart among them by its accuracy and the grave harmony of the verse. The translation is dedicated by the poet to India. Arnold was inspired by the Gita in his "Lays of Ind". The dedicatory verses are in Arnold's own translation:
"So have I read this wonderful and spirit-thrilling speech, By Krishna and Prince Arjuna held, discoursing each with each; So have I writ its wisdom here, its hidden mystery, For England; O our India! as dear to me as she!
He wrote in his preface: "This famous and marvelous Sanskrit poem occurs as an episode of the Mahabharata, in the sixth - or "Bhishma" - Parva of the great Hindu epic. It enjoys immense popularity and authority in India, where it is reckoned as one of the "Five Jewels" - pancharatnani - of Devanagari literature. In plain but noble language it unfolds a philosophical system which remains to this day the prevailing Brahmanic belief blending as it does the doctrine of Kapila, Patanjali, and the Vedas."
(source: Eminent Orientalists: Indian European American - Asian Educational Services. p. 234-235).
To download Hindu Scriptures - refer to Hindu Temple of Greater Cincinnati.
Refer to Internet Sacred Texts on Hinduism and Stotra Rathnas.
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The Message of the Bhagavad Gita to Modern Man
1. Gita not only a Philosophy but a Code of Conduct
Gita consists of the teaching given to the pupil Arjuna by Lord Shri Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra when the pupil, at the critical moment when the war was about to commence, was in doubt as to whether he was to follow the promptings of his personal affection and reverence for those on the opposite side or follow the dictates of duty.
In unequivocal terms the Lord asks Arjuna to fight the battle irrespective of his personal ties with persons on the other side.
The occasion is utilized by the Lord to explain the whole purpose of Life, the meaning of all the world process and the place of man in the scheme of things. As the colophon at the end of every chapter puts it, the Gita is an Upanishad, it is a philosophical treatise. But it is something more than that. It is a code of conduct for man applicable to varying temperaments, various avocations and various levels of development. It is this aspect that makes for the unique place which the Gita has among the scriptures of the world.
2. Unity of Life and Consequent interdependence of everything in the world
The Lord stresses throughout the central idea of all Indian philosophies, the Imminence of God and the interdependence of man - not only man, but of all beings. "The Lord dwelleth in the heart of all beings." 'Having pervaded this whole universe with one fragment of Myself, I remain." Everything in the universe partakes of one life; the wise man realizes that the outer differences are deceptive and illusionary, he looks beyond the veil and sees the common basis of all beings.
3. Dedicated Action does not bind, it frees the Man
The most important contribution of the Gita to the religious thought of India is the emphasis the Lord lays on action (karma) in Sanskrit. The attitude of escapism is severely condemned by the Lord. He says, "Nor can anyone, even for an instant, remain really action-less." What binds a man is not action but his attachment to the fruit of the action. And so the lord repeatedly enjoins activity without attachment to the fruit.
Lord Krishna playing his flute awakens devotion in the hearts of Hindu devotees, because it reminds them of God calling the soul to eternal wakefulness in Him.
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
In the spirit of fair and balanced, the Bhagavad Gita:
1. ARJUN'S DILEMMA King Dhritaraashtr said: O Sanjay, assembled in the holy field of Kurukshetr and eager to fight, what did my people and the Paandavs do? (1.01) Sanjay said: Seeing the battle formation of the Paandav’s army, King Duryodhan approached his guru and spoke these words: (1.02) O master, behold this mighty army of the sons of Paandu, arranged in battle formation by your other talented disciple. There are many great warriors, valiant men, heroes, and mighty archers. I shall name a few of them for you. (1.03-06) Also know, O best among the men, the distinguished ones on our side.
Introduction of the army commanders
I shall name the commanders of my army and many other heroes who have risked their lives for me. They are armed with various weapons, and all are skilled in warfare. (1.07-09) Our army is invincible, while their army is easy to conquer. Therefore, all of you, occupying your respective positions on all fronts, protect our commander, Bhishm. (1.10-11)
The mighty Bhishm, the eldest man of the Kuru dynasty, roared as a lion and blew his conch loudly, bringing joy to Duryodhan. (1.12) After that, conches, kettledrums, cymbals, drums, and trumpets were sounded together. The commotion was tremendous. (1.13) Then Lord Krishn and Arjun, seated in a grand chariot yoked with white horses, blew their celestial conches. (1.14) Krishn blew His conch; then Arjun and all other commanders of various divisions of the army blew their respective conches. The tumultuous uproar, resounding through earth and sky, tore the hearts of the Kauravs. (1.15-19)
Arjun wants to inspect the army against whom he is about to fight
Seeing the Kauravs standing, and the war about to begin with the hurling of weapons, Arjun, whose banner bore the emblem of Lord Hanumaan, took up his bow and spoke these words to Lord Krishn: O Lord, please stop my chariot between the two armies until I behold those who stand here eager for the battle and with whom I must engage in this act of war. (1.20-22) I wish to see those who are willing to serve and appease the evil-minded Kauravs by assembling here to fight the battle. (1.23) Sanjay said: O King, Lord Krishn, as requested by Arjun, placed the best of all the chariots in the midst of the two armies facing Bhishm, Dron, and all other Kings, and said to Arjun: Behold these assembled Kauravs! (1.24-25) There, Arjun saw his uncles, grandfathers, teachers, maternal uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, and comrades. (1.26)
Arjun's dilemma
Seeing fathers-in-law, companions, and all his kinsmen standing in the ranks of the two armies, Arjun was overcome with great compassion and sorrowfully said: O Krishn, seeing my kinsmen standing with a desire to fight, my limbs fail and my mouth becomes dry. My body quivers and my hairs stand on end. (1.27-29) The bow slips from my hand, and my skin intensely burns. My head turns, I am unable to stand steady, and O Krishn, I see bad omens. I see no use of killing my kinsmen in battle. (1.30-31) I desire neither victory, nor pleasure nor kingdom, O Krishn. What is the use of the kingdom, or enjoyment, or even life, O Krishn? Because all those --- for whom we desire kingdom, enjoyments, and pleasures --- are standing here for the battle, giving up their lives and wealth. (1.32-33) I do not wish to kill teachers, uncles, sons, grandfathers, maternal uncles, fathers-in-law, grandsons, brothers-in-law, and other relatives who are about to kill us, even for the sovereignty of the three worlds, let alone for this earthly kingdom, O Krishn. (1.34-35)
O Lord Krishn, what pleasure shall we find in killing the sons of Dhritaraashtr? Upon killing these felons, we shall incur only sin. (1.36) Therefore, we should not kill our cousin brothers, the sons of Dhritaraashtr. How can we be happy after killing our relatives, O Krishn? (1.37) Though they, blinded by greed, do not see evil in the destruction of the family, or sin in being treacherous to friends, why should not we, who clearly see evil in the destruction of the family, think about turning away from this sin, O Krishn? (1.38-39)
Arjun describes the evils of war
Eternal family traditions and codes of conduct are destroyed with the destruction of the family. Immorality prevails in the family due to the destruction of family traditions. (1.40) And when immorality prevails, O Krishn, the women of the family become corrupted; when women are corrupted, many social problems arise. (1.41) This brings the family and the slayers of the family to hell; because the spirits of their ancestors are degraded when deprived of ceremonial offerings of rice-ball and water. (1.42) The everlasting qualities of social order and family traditions of those who destroy their family are ruined by the sinful act of illegitimacy. (1.43) We have been told, O Krishn, that people whose family traditions are destroyed necessarily dwell in hell for a long time. (1.44)
When the going gets tough, even tough Ones can get deluded
Alas! We are ready to commit a great sin by striving to slay our relatives because of greed for the pleasures of the kingdom. (1.45) It would be far better for me if the sons of Dhritaraashtr should kill me with their weapons in battle while I am unarmed and unresisting. (1.46) Sanjay said: Having said this in the battle field and casting aside his bow and arrow, Arjun sat down on the seat of the chariot with his mind overwhelmed with sorrow. (1.47)
2. TRANSCENDENTAL KNOWLEDGE Sanjay said: Lord Krishn spoke these words to Arjun whose eyes were tearful and downcast, and who was overwhelmed with compassion and despair. (2.01) The Supreme Lord said: How has the dejection come to you at this juncture? This is not fit for a person of noble mind and deeds. It is disgraceful, and it does not lead one to heaven, O Arjun. (2.02) Do not become a coward, O Arjun, because it does not befit you. Shake off this trivial weakness of your heart and get up for the battle, O Arjun. (2.03)
Arjun continues his reasoning against the war
Arjun said: How shall I strike Bhishm and Dron, who are worthy of my worship, with arrows in battle, O Krishn? (2.04) It would be better, indeed, to live on alms in this world than to slay these noble gurus, because by killing them I would enjoy wealth and pleasures stained with their blood. (2.05) We do not know which alternative --- to fight or to quit --- is better for us. Further, we do not know whether we shall conquer them or they will conquer us. We should not even wish to live after killing the sons of Dhritaraashtr who are standing in front of us. (2.06)
My senses are overcome by the weakness of pity, and my mind is confused about duty (Dharm). I request You to tell me, decisively, what is better for me. I am Your disciple. Teach me who has taken refuge in You. (2.07) I do not perceive that gaining an unrivaled and prosperous kingdom on this earth, or even lordship over the celestial controllers (Devas) will remove the sorrow that is drying up my senses. (2.08) Sanjay said: O King, after speaking like this to Lord Krishn, the mighty Arjun said to Krishn: I shall not fight, and he became silent. (2.09) O King, Lord Krishn, as if smiling, spoke these words to the distressed Arjun in the midst of the two armies. (2.10)
Teachings of the Gita begin with the true knowledge of spirit and the physical body
The Supreme Lord said: You grieve for those who are not worthy of grief; and yet speak words of wisdom. The wise grieve neither for the living nor for the dead. (2.11) There was never a time when these monarchs, you, or I did not exist, nor shall we ever cease to exist in the future. (2.12) Just as the living entity (Atma, Jeev, Jeevaatma) acquires a childhood body, a youth body, and an old age body during this life; similarly, it acquires another body after death. The wise are not deluded by this. (See also 15.08) (2.13) The contacts of the senses with the sense objects give rise to the feelings of heat and cold, and pain and pleasure. They are transitory and impermanent. Therefore, learn to endure them, O Arjun, (2.14) because a calm person --- who is not afflicted by these sense objects, and is steady in pain and pleasure --- becomes fit for immortality, O Arjun. (2.15)
The spirit is eternal, body is transitory
The invisible Spirit (Sat, Atma) is eternal, and the visible world (including the physical body) is transitory. The reality of these two is indeed certainly seen by the seers of truth. (2.16) The Spirit (Atma) by which all this universe is pervaded is indestructible. No one can destroy the imperishable Spirit. (2.17) Bodies of the eternal, immutable, and incomprehensible Spirit are perishable. Therefore, fight, O Arjun. (2.18) One who thinks that Atma (Spirit) is a slayer, and the one who thinks Atma is slain, are both ignorant. Because Atma neither slays nor is slain. (2.19) The Spirit (Atma) is neither born nor does it die at any time. It does not come into being, or cease to exist. It is unborn, eternal, permanent, and primeval. The Spirit is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. (2.20) O Arjun, how can a person who knows that the Spirit (Atma) is indestructible, eternal, unborn, and immutable, kill anyone or cause anyone to be killed? (2.21)
Death and transmigration of soul
Just as a person puts on new garments after discarding the old ones; similarly, the living entity (Spirit, Atma, Jeev, Jeevaatma) acquires new bodies after casting away the old bodies. (2.22) Weapons do not cut this Spirit (Atma), fire does not burn it, water does not make it wet, and the wind does not make it dry. Atma cannot be cut, burned, wet, or dried. It is eternal, all-pervading, unchanging, immovable, and primeval. (2.23-24) The Spirit (Atma, Self) is said to be unexplainable, incomprehensible, and unchanging.
Knowing this Spirit as such, you should not grieve. (2.25) Even if you think that this living entity or body takes birth and dies perpetually, even then, O Arjun, you should not grieve like this. Because, death is certain for one who is born, and birth is certain for one who dies. Therefore, you should not lament over the inevitable. (2.26-27) All beings, O Arjun, are unmanifest --- invisible to our physical eyes --- before birth and after death. They manifest between the birth and the death only. What is there to grieve about? (2.28) Some look upon this Spirit as a wonder, another describes it as wonderful, and others hear of it as a wonder. Even after hearing about it very few people know it. (2.29) O Arjun, the Spirit that dwells in the body of all beings is eternally indestructible. Therefore, you should not mourn for any body. (2.30)
Lord Krishn reminds Arjun of his duty as a warrior
Considering also your duty as a warrior, you should not waver. Because there is nothing more auspicious for a warrior than a righteous war. (2.31) Only the fortunate warriors, O Arjun, get such an opportunity for an unsought war that is like an open door to heaven. (2.32) If you will not fight this righteous war, then you will fail in your duty, lose your reputation, and incur sin. (2.33) People will talk about your disgrace forever. To the honored, dishonor is worse than death. (2.34) The great warriors will think that you have retreated from the battle out of fear. Those who have greatly esteemed you will lose respect for you. (2.35) Your enemies will speak many unmentionable words and scorn your ability. What could be more painful to you than this? (2.36) You will go to heaven if killed (in the line of duty), or you will enjoy the kingdom on the earth if victorious. Therefore, get up with a determination to fight, O Arjun. (2.37) Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, and victory and defeat alike, engage yourself in your duty. By doing your duty this way, you will not incur sin. (2.38)
Importance of KarmaYog, the selfless service
The wisdom of transcendental knowledge has been imparted to you, O Arjun. Now listen to the wisdom of KarmaYog, the selfless service (Seva), endowed with which you will free yourself from the bondage of action (Karm). (2.39) In KarmaYog, no effort is ever lost and there is no adverse effect. Even a little practice of this discipline protects one from the great fear of birth and death. (2.40) A KarmaYogi has a resolute determination for God-realization, O Arjun, but the desires of one who works to enjoy the fruits of work are endless and many-branched. (2.41)
The Vedas deal with both material and spiritual aspects of life
The misguided ones who delight in the melodious chanting of the Vedas --- without understanding the real purpose of the Vedas --- think, O Arjun, as if there is nothing else in the Vedas except the rituals for the sole purpose of obtaining heavenly enjoyment. (2.42) They are dominated by material desires; and consider the attainment of heaven as the highest goal of life. They engage in specific rites for the sake of prosperity and enjoyment. Rebirth is the result of their action. (2.43) The resolute determination of Self-realization is not formed in the minds of those who are attached to pleasure and power; and whose judgment is obscured by such ritualistic activities. (2.44) A portion of the Vedas deals with three modes or states (Gunas) of the material Nature. Become free from pairs of opposites; be ever balanced and unconcerned with the thoughts of acquisition and preservation. Rise above the three states, and be Self-conscious, O Arjun. (2.45) To a Self-realized person, the Vedas are as useful as a small reservoir of water when the water of a huge lake becomes available. (2.46)
Theory and practice of KarmaYog
You have control (Adhikaar) over your respective duty only, but no control or claim over the results. The fruits of work should not be your motive. You should never be inactive. (2.47) Do your duty to the best of your ability, O Arjun, with your mind attached to the Lord, abandoning worry and selfish attachment to the results, and remaining calm in both success and failure. The calmness of the mind is called KarmaYog. (2.48) Work done with selfish motives is inferior by far to selfless service or KarmaYog. Therefore, be a KarmaYogi, O Arjun. Those who work only to enjoy the fruits of their labor are, in truth, unhappy. (because one has no control over the results). (2.49)
A KarmaYogi becomes free from both vice and virtue in this life itself. Therefore, strive for KarmaYog. Working to the best of one’s abilities without becoming attached to the fruits of work is called KarmaYog. (2.50) Wise KarmaYogis are freed from the bondage of rebirth by renouncing the selfish attachment to the fruits of all work; and attain a blissful divine state. (2.51) When your intellect completely pierces the veil of confusion, then you will become indifferent to what has been heard and what is to be heard from the scriptures. (2.52)
When your intellect; that is confused by the conflicting opinions and the ritualistic doctrine of the Vedas; shall stay steady and firm on concentrating on the Supreme Being, then you shall attain the union with the Supreme Being in trance (Samaadhi). (2.53) Arjun said: O Krishn, what are the marks of an enlightened (Sthit-prajn) person whose intellect is steady? How does a person of steady intellect speak? How does such a person sit and walk? (2.54)
Marks of a Self-realized person
The Supreme Lord said: When one is completely free from all desires of the mind and is satisfied with the Eternal Being (Brahm) by the joy of Eternal Being, then one is called an enlightened (Sthit-prajn) person, O Arjun. (2.55) A person whose mind is unperturbed by sorrow, who does not crave pleasures, and who is completely free from attachment, fear, and anger, is called Sthit-prajn --- a sage of steady intellect. (2.56) Those who are not attached to anything, who are neither elated by getting desired results, nor troubled by undesired results, their intellect is considered steady. (2.57) When one can completely withdraw the senses from sense objects, as a tortoise withdraws its limbs into the shell for protection, then the intellect of such a person is considered steady. (2.58) The desire for sensual pleasures fades away if one abstains from sense enjoyment, but the craving for sense enjoyment remains. The craving also disappears from one who has known the Supreme Being. (2.59)
Dangers of unrestrained senses
Restless senses, O Arjun, forcibly carry away the mind of even a wise person striving for perfection. (2.60) One should fix one’s mind on Me with loving contemplation after bringing the senses under control. One’s intellect becomes steady when one’s senses are under complete control. (2.61) One develops attachment to sense objects by thinking about sense objects. Desire for sense objects comes from attachment to sense objects, and anger comes from unfulfilled desires. (2.62) Delusion or wild ideas arise from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls from the right path when reasoning is destroyed. (2.63)
Attainment of peace and happiness through sense control and Self-knowledge
A disciplined person, enjoying sense objects with senses that are under control and free from likes and dislikes, attains tranquility. (2.64) All sorrows are destroyed upon attainment of tranquility. The intellect of such a tranquil person soon becomes completely steady and united with the Eternal Being (Brahm). (2.65) There is neither Self-knowledge nor Self-perception to those who are not united with the Eternal Being (Brahm). Without Self-perception there is no peace, and without peace there can be no happiness. (2.66)
The mind, when controlled by the roving senses, steals away the intellect as a storm takes away a boat on the sea from its destination --- the spiritual shore. (2.67) Therefore, O Arjun, one’s intellect becomes steady when the senses are completely withdrawn from sense objects. (2.68) A yogi, the person of self-restraint, remains wakeful when it is night for all others. It is night for the yogi who sees when all others are wakeful. (2.69) (While most people sleep and make dream plans in the night of the illusory world, a yogi keeps awake or detached from the world while living in it.)
One attains peace when all desires dissipate within the mind without creating any mental disturbance; just as river waters enter the full ocean without creating any disturbance. One who desires material objects is never peaceful. (2.70) One who abandons all desires, and becomes free from longing and the feeling of “I” and “my”, attains peace. (2.71) O Arjun, this is the superconscious (Braahmi) state. Attaining this state, one is no longer deluded. Gaining this state, even at the end of one’s life, a person attains BrahmNirvan (or becomes one with the Absolute). (2.72)
More to come...
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true" Twain.
It seems you and I are on the same page (pun intended). I posted mine as you were posting yours. Now, if we can just get someone to post the Qur’an, The Talmud, the Tao Te Ching and the Tripi?a.k.a. we might make our point.
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.
"Faith is believing something you know ain't true" Twain.
Quasimodo wrote: the Qur’an, The Talmud, the Tao Te Ching and the Tripi?a.k.a. we might make our point.
You can not convince me!
The next book I take in hand will be - umpteenth time - the one You borrowed Your name from...
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
