R. Narayanaswami
Active member
Vedas 108 – Spirituality and Wisdom in the Vedas – 8 July 2021
Human beings live in the physical cosmos subject to death and the much falsehood (anṛtasya bhūreḥ RV 7.60.5). To rise beyond this death, human beings must turn from the falsehood to the truth; must turn to the Light and to battle with and to conquer the powers of the Darkness.
How can the human beings turn from falsehood to truth, conquer the powers of Darkness and achieve Light?
By communion with the divine Powers and with their help.
How to commune with the Divine Powers and get their help?
This is the secret of the Vedic Mystics. The symbols of the outer sacrifice or yajna are given an inner meaning.
What is that inner meaning?
The inner meaning of the outer yajna is a calling of the gods into the human being, a connecting yajna (or sacrifice), an intimate interchange, a mutual aid, a communion. There is a building of the powers of the devas (or gods) within the human being which gives rise to a formation in those human beings of the universality of the divine nature. For, these gods are the guardians and increasers of Truth, the powers of the Immortal, the sons of the Immortal Mother (Aditi). The way to Immortality is the upward way of the gods, the way of Truth, a journey, an ascent by which there is growth into the Law of the Truth (rtasya panthah, RV 3.12.7). Human beings arrive at Immortality by breaking beyond the limitations not only of one’s physical self, but of one’s mental and ordinary psychic nature into the highest plane and supreme truth; for there is the foundation of immortality and the native seat of the ‘triple infinite’.
What are the ‘triple infinite’?
The ‘triple infinite’ are (a) ‘Existence or ēkam sat’, (b) ‘chit or Knowledge or the greater Truth of an Immortal life; ‘chit’ is consciousness-force or force with knowledge, and (c) ‘Ananda or Light or the bliss of ‘realized divinity’ and ‘immortality’.
On these ideas, stated above, the Vedic sages built up a profound psychological and psychic discipline which led beyond itself to a higher spirituality. The Vedas state these in ‘subtle’ terms, in seed form, the ‘nucleus’ sort of, not in their full expansion, of later Indian Yoga & Upanishads:
There is the Existence (ēkam sat, RV 1.164.46), supra-cosmic beyond the individual and the universe (the brahman of the later Upanishads, transcendent and immanent or ‘the Uttama purusha’ or ‘Purushotthama’ of the Bhagavad Gita). There is one God who presents to us many forms, names, powers, and Its or His personalities.
There is the distinction between the Knowledge (the greater Truth of an immortal life) and the Ignorance (the much falsehood or mixed truth and falsehood of ordinary mortal existence).
There is the discipline of an inward growth of human beings from the physical through the psychic (connected with the soul) to the spiritual existence. There is the conquest of death, the secret of immortality, the perception of a ‘realizable divinity’ of the human spirit.
This was the inspired and intuitive psychic and spiritual teaching by which the ancient human fathers (manushyaa yajne jaathe pitaro nah puraane, RV 10.130.6) founded a great and profound civilization in India. We will discuss in the succeeding posts how human beings can adapt this teaching in their day to day lives, even while pursuing their chosen fields of professional work, and hope to achieve the triple infinity.
Human beings live in the physical cosmos subject to death and the much falsehood (anṛtasya bhūreḥ RV 7.60.5). To rise beyond this death, human beings must turn from the falsehood to the truth; must turn to the Light and to battle with and to conquer the powers of the Darkness.
How can the human beings turn from falsehood to truth, conquer the powers of Darkness and achieve Light?
By communion with the divine Powers and with their help.
How to commune with the Divine Powers and get their help?
This is the secret of the Vedic Mystics. The symbols of the outer sacrifice or yajna are given an inner meaning.
What is that inner meaning?
The inner meaning of the outer yajna is a calling of the gods into the human being, a connecting yajna (or sacrifice), an intimate interchange, a mutual aid, a communion. There is a building of the powers of the devas (or gods) within the human being which gives rise to a formation in those human beings of the universality of the divine nature. For, these gods are the guardians and increasers of Truth, the powers of the Immortal, the sons of the Immortal Mother (Aditi). The way to Immortality is the upward way of the gods, the way of Truth, a journey, an ascent by which there is growth into the Law of the Truth (rtasya panthah, RV 3.12.7). Human beings arrive at Immortality by breaking beyond the limitations not only of one’s physical self, but of one’s mental and ordinary psychic nature into the highest plane and supreme truth; for there is the foundation of immortality and the native seat of the ‘triple infinite’.
What are the ‘triple infinite’?
The ‘triple infinite’ are (a) ‘Existence or ēkam sat’, (b) ‘chit or Knowledge or the greater Truth of an Immortal life; ‘chit’ is consciousness-force or force with knowledge, and (c) ‘Ananda or Light or the bliss of ‘realized divinity’ and ‘immortality’.
On these ideas, stated above, the Vedic sages built up a profound psychological and psychic discipline which led beyond itself to a higher spirituality. The Vedas state these in ‘subtle’ terms, in seed form, the ‘nucleus’ sort of, not in their full expansion, of later Indian Yoga & Upanishads:
There is the Existence (ēkam sat, RV 1.164.46), supra-cosmic beyond the individual and the universe (the brahman of the later Upanishads, transcendent and immanent or ‘the Uttama purusha’ or ‘Purushotthama’ of the Bhagavad Gita). There is one God who presents to us many forms, names, powers, and Its or His personalities.
There is the distinction between the Knowledge (the greater Truth of an immortal life) and the Ignorance (the much falsehood or mixed truth and falsehood of ordinary mortal existence).
There is the discipline of an inward growth of human beings from the physical through the psychic (connected with the soul) to the spiritual existence. There is the conquest of death, the secret of immortality, the perception of a ‘realizable divinity’ of the human spirit.
This was the inspired and intuitive psychic and spiritual teaching by which the ancient human fathers (manushyaa yajne jaathe pitaro nah puraane, RV 10.130.6) founded a great and profound civilization in India. We will discuss in the succeeding posts how human beings can adapt this teaching in their day to day lives, even while pursuing their chosen fields of professional work, and hope to achieve the triple infinity.
