Posted on: 06 Aug 2017
Dr. Sudershan Rao (Doctor in Global Hospitals, Hyderabad) asked:
1) What about the human beings present in Western countries to develop spiritually in the absence of this Vedic culture in those countries?
Swami replied: You sympathized foreigners missing Vedic culture due to your kind and good heart aspiring universal benefit. But, if you follow My analysis, you will know the truth, which is otherwise. What is the meaning of the word ‘culture’? Is it external language like Sanskrit in which the Veda is composed and external religious practices? If this is the meaning of the word ‘culture’, such culture can’t take any human being to the God. If the meaning of the word ‘culture’ is the internal spiritual knowledge that guides our practice, such culture is nothing but the true spiritual knowledge that gives right direction to God in practice. The external culture like language is only a vehicle. The internal culture that is communicated or transported by the language is the meaning or the passenger travelling in the vehicle. The languages may be different like the vehicles. If the same passenger travels in different languages, the communicated meaning or the passenger is not different in any way in any country. Spiritual knowledge is always one and the same, which is the communicated or transported meaning like the internal passenger. The language of the scripture and related religious customs are like different vehicles carrying that meaning or passenger. Whatever may be the language and external religious customs, the direction is based on the quality of the meaning communicated by any language related with any type of external religious customs. Whatever may be the vehicle or the decorations of the vehicle, the passenger travelled in it is giving the correct direction through his speech. The vehicle may be very good and its decorations may be excellent, but, if the speaker coming by such vehicle gives wrong direction in his speech, the goal is not reached. The communication-vehicle of Swami Vivekananda was an ordinary ship travelling slowly, but, the speech delivered by him was excellent. Other speakers might have come very fast in advanced vehicles like airplanes, but, their speeches were not so much appreciated.
The meaning of the word ‘Veda’ is knowledge representing the meaning communicated by a vehicle called as Sanskrit language. The root word of Veda is ‘vidul’, which means meaning or knowledge. The specialty is in the meaning but not in the language. If the same meaning is conveyed by different foreign languages, what is the harm? It is the conveyed meaning that gives right direction for the practical implementation of sacrifice to please God. Sacrifice is related to the meaning that results in the actual action. A speaker may come in a very posh car decorated by several flowers and if he does not give the right direction in his speech, what is the use of that posh car and its decoration? Another speaker might have come on a simple bicycle without any decoration, but he may give the right direction in his speech. Therefore, the meaning that gives right direction to practice will lead the soul to God and not the vehicle-language and external decorations like religious customs.
Today, you have performed the yearly ceremony of your grandmother. The ritual is performed by you under the guidance of the two priests, who recited the Vedic hymns. If you analyze the meaning of these Vedic hymns recited by the priests (unfortunately, the priests themselves do not know the meaning!), all these hymns mean the instructions given to you to respect the priests by washing their feet, by giving a seat convenient for sitting, the various food items to be offered to them for eating and finally saluting them by offering some money (dakshina). The importance of these hymns lies in the practical steps of your sacrifice to learned priests, who deserve your sacrifice. The importance lies in the meaning of these hymns that enlighten you regarding the practical implementation of your sacrifice. But, nobody knows the meaning of these hymns including the priests. The priest is supposed to know the meaning of the Veda since the Veda itself means the meaning or knowledge guiding practice. The priest is expected to enlighten the meaning of the hymns recited by him to the people assembled on the occasion of any ritual since the language Sanskrit is not known to many. The priest is expected to explain the essence of the meaning in elaborated way so that the performer of the ritual is doing sacrifice with full heart. When the meaning (artha) is understood from words or language (shabda), its essence (bhava) is to be impressed by the commentary of the priest. From such essence, interest (rasa) on God is generated. This interest on God is called as devotion as said by Sage Narada in his Bhakti Sutras (rasa swarupaa). The ultimate aim of any ritual is development of devotion to God. But, today, the hymns recited were limited to the words or language or sound without knowledge of its meaning. Can we expect the devotion to God from such useless ritual performed by these useless priests?
The whole ritual consists of two parts: 1) Praise of God through prayers and 2) Practical instructions in respecting (karma samnyasa) the priest and in sacrifice of material like food and money (karmaphala tyaga). The first part (1) can be done in any language since God only sees your real interest and not the language (bhavagraheejanaardanah) since God knows every language. The second part (2) can be done practically even without reciting the instructions theoretically. You need not read ‘wash the feet’, if you are washing the feet practically even without such theoretical instruction. The sacrifice shall be done to a deserving person only and if the sacrifice is done to undeserving person, it results in sin. Hence, the Veda says that you should analyze the deservingness of the receiver of your sacrifice (samvidaa deyam). Two types of receivers deserve: 1) A hungry beggar in whose case you need not analyze the deservingness and 2) A priest, who enlightens you in the ritual and improves your devotion to God. In our rituals, both these points are lacking. We do not know the meaning of prayers to God and hence, devotion is not developed since the priest is also not explaining the hymns due to his own ignorance. It becomes a sin since the sacrifice is done to undeserving priest. These priests are spending several years in reciting the Veda to read it like tape recorders. All these years can be better spent in knowing their meaning. Since the printing technology is developed and the Vedas are printed, there is no fear of insertions in the Veda. In the olden days, the Vedas were preserved through recitation in the absence of printing technology. Don’t you think that a foreigner praising God in his own language and distributing bread and sweets to beggars on the day of the ceremony of the departed soul, is far better than our performers of rituals? Every human being is having a bad habit of looking at his own merits and looking at the defects of others. This is egoism mixed with ignorance and is very difficult to be cured like diabetes associated with blood pressure! Anybody looking at his own defects and looking at the merits of others will always rise up. Similarly, any human being always looking at his merits and looking at the defects of others will go down only. Every religion shall avoid the self-praise and criticism of other religions. All religions have both merits and defects because any human being in any country belonging to any religion has both merits and defects. Every human being shall belong to the universal religion to pick up only the merits from each religion and progress towards God in the spiritual path that contains only merits. Truth is always bitter and the preacher following truth can’t avoid the simultaneous bitterness. Saint Kabir says that the enemy scolding you is your real well-wisher whereas the friend praising you is not your real well-wisher!
A Vedic ritual with sacrifice to undeserving devotees and prayers to God, which are not understood at all, is not appreciated by God. A non-Vedic ritual having sacrifice to deserving people along with prayers to God in mother tongue with increased devotion is appreciated by God. A hut with good scent is far better than a palace with bad scent. You should not mean palace as good scent and hut as bad scent. Actually, when the soul leaves this materialized gross body and enters into energetic body to go to upper worlds, the energetic body receives energy-food from cosmic energy and this materialized food has no relation to the energetic body. But, the sacrifice of materialistic food to a deserving human being along with the understood prayers to God increasing devotion will do good to the performer of the ritual and to the departed soul also. The deservingness of the receiver is the life of sacrifice in practice. The priest is always expected to guide devotees towards God through enlightened explanations of scripture and should not be a tape recorder reciting the scripture without a trace of its knowledge.
This present Vedic culture practiced by us is false since it is misinterpreted culture by the so called Vedic scholars of middle age, who are just tape recorders without even the basic knowledge of the Veda. The original true Vedic culture related to the inner meaning established by our ancient sages was lost, which was always universal. You are worried about foreigners missing this Vedic culture, but, what about women and certain castes in Hindu religion here itself, who are forbidden from this Vedic culture? Thank God since the forbidden Vedic culture is not real meaning of the Vedas and fortunately it is only the misinterpreted false culture only! Hence, loss of false is not loss of truth and thus, there is no real loss to these forbidden souls. For example, Gayatri means really any song on God in any language and it is misinterpreted as a specific verse written in a meter called Gayatri. Singing on God is real Gayatri (Gaayantam traayate…) and this is not lost by any soul in this world. Similarly, giving food fried with ghee to a hungry person is real homa (giving food to hunger fire called as vaishvaanaraagni) and this is the real meaning practiced by sages. This real meaning is not lost by any soul in this world. This real meaning was misinterpreted as the ghee fried food taken as ghee (ghee fried food can be called as ghee by a logic principle called Lakshana) and the fire is taken as the physical fire burning sticks and pure ghee is burnt in the physical fire. God protected every soul in this world by seeing any innocent soul not to lose the real meaning of the Vedic culture. Who are the losers? We are the losers, who follow this false meaning of the Veda propagated by these priests-tape recorders and we have to rectify our practice by knowing the real meaning of the Veda. We have to sympathize ourselves and not the forbidden souls or foreigners in this matter. These ignorant misinterpretations are due to ego of gender (the word Jeeva stands for soul in masculine gender and hence, the soul is concluded as male. Even the word ‘Purusha’ stands for the soul lying in human body and does not mean male.) and ego of caste by birth (while God says in the Gita that caste is by qualities and deeds).
Theists are in every religion in every country. Similarly, atheists also exist everywhere in every country on this earth. In some countries, majority may be atheists. We can give scientific direction to theists, who are scientists because all scientists are not atheists. Science believes in proper analysis done patiently to investigate the truth. If the truth existing is unimaginable like a genuine miracle exhibited by God, science keeps silent on such miracle. But, the atheist always tries to disprove the miracle and say that the unimaginable God with unimaginable power does not exist at all. Science keeps silent about God whereas the atheist shouts and scolds against God. You can turn a scientist into theist because scientist accepts the existence of unimaginable God at least till he proves that God is also an imaginable item of imaginable creation. Science accepts the inefficiency of the human being and its sophisticated technology to detect a concept with utmost precision as in the case of uncertainty principle. The position and simultaneous momentum of an electron actually exist even though they can’t be calculated by the finest electron microscope in single instance of time. The concept is not negated since it is not precisely received by the receiver. The atheist negates the very existence of the concept since it is not precisely received by the receiver associated with technology. When a genuine miracle is observed and analyzed, the scientist accepts its existence even though it is not understood by the human brain. An atheist negates the existence of anything that is not understood by the human being associated with technology. Hence, if the atheist is rigid, nothing can be done except leaving the atheist after doing salutations to the atheist!