Vedanta is for freedom lovers || Acharya Prashant with Virat Hindustan Sangam (2021)
Transcript
00:00 We have someone from the audience named Jigeshu Singh and he is asking a question as in non-dualism
00:11 is not accepted by people generally in the West or even in India.
00:18 So what can be done to push people towards the Vedantic thought?
00:23 You see, we need to revisit the fundamentals.
00:27 Why is Vedanta or Dharma needed at all?
00:33 Why can't man do without Dharma?
00:37 Man needs Dharma because man suffers.
00:40 When I say man, I mean human being.
00:42 I am just being old-fashioned in my usage.
00:45 So we suffer and therefore we need Dharma.
00:50 Otherwise we are alright as we are, as animals are.
00:53 No animal has any concept of Dharma, not even a need.
01:00 So now why is Vedanta useful and why would man move towards Vedanta?
01:06 Because Vedanta actually, practically liberates us from suffering.
01:14 So it is not a question of pushing someone to Vedanta or converting him.
01:20 It is not a question of evangelizing something into a particular belief.
01:25 It is a question of seeing what works.
01:29 If we are sick, what do we need?
01:32 We need a medicine that works.
01:35 And I dare say Vedanta is the most fundamental medicine that works.
01:42 We can have derivatives from that fundamental medicine but we cannot change the fundamental
01:49 nature of the medicine itself.
01:53 So you may have a group of chemicals, you have a mother medicine and you can work on
01:59 that as need be to come up with a newer version, a more updated form, a more contemporary form
02:14 of medicine but the fundamental formula cannot change.
02:19 Vedanta is the medicine to the human condition and the human condition is of misery.
02:28 We are misery, Vedanta is medicine and therefore we will have to go to Vedanta.
02:35 It is not as if Vedanta needs to come to preach and convert.
02:40 We need to go to Vedanta if we want our welfare.
02:45 It is as if somebody needs to demonstrate that authentically and credibly.
02:51 What we need is not a justification on how effective Vedanta is.
03:02 We do not need to investigate whether Vedanta works.
03:07 What we need is people who know how it works.
03:14 There is a difference here.
03:15 Vedanta need not be put under the scanner.
03:19 We need to put ourselves under the scanner.
03:23 Do we understand Vedanta?
03:27 And if we do not understand Vedanta and try to dismiss it or as you said that people do
03:32 not want to accept non-dualism, though non-dualism is one interpretation of Vedanta.
03:42 The most logical, the most accurate, the most complete and the purest interpretation of
03:51 Vedanta is Advaita.
03:53 But there are dualistic interpretations as well.
03:59 There is Vishishtadvaita, there is Dvaita.
04:02 Ramanuj and Madhavacharya are given as high a status as Shankaracharya in many parts of
04:12 the country.
04:14 So one need not go to Vedanta through the non-dualistic route only.
04:22 One could take the dualistic route, approach Vedanta and when you are intimate with the
04:28 Upanishads, then you realize that their central message is of non-duality.
04:33 So there is another question that is if a person
04:43 wants to, many people are asking this question so I am just putting all into one.
04:48 If somebody wants to develop a Vedantic thought process, then what would be your suggestion?
04:57 You know about the books that you have written, in what order they should read those books?
05:04 So they would, you know, like step 1 and step 2 and step 3.
05:09 So the first book that you should read is this and then once you have absorbed that
05:14 then go to the next.
05:16 So can you suggest something, a good reading for people for after this lecture?
05:24 See Vedantic thought process is not quite the right thing.
05:33 There is the Vedantic attitude.
05:37 There is a Vedantic attitude and that attitude is of constant meditativeness.
05:44 You know just as there is nothing like enlightenment in Vedanta, similarly there is nothing like
05:49 meditation in Vedanta.
05:52 It could be surprising to some people maybe.
05:56 And these two are the hot words in spirituality.
06:02 Everybody wants to meditate so that everybody can be enlightened.
06:06 But in Vedanta there is neither meditation nor enlightenment.
06:11 Meditation is taken for granted.
06:14 A certain meditativeness as your basic attitude is taken for granted.
06:21 The Upanishads just do not teach any meditation.
06:25 They say obviously if you are suffering, if you are curious, you would have a certain
06:32 attention towards truth and that is meditativeness and that you need to continuously have.
06:39 And that is the Vedantic thought process in your words.
06:44 Though that's not a thought process, that's a certain attitude.
06:48 That's a way of being.
06:50 What kind of way of being?
06:52 Not ritual based, not belief based, not based in anything but floating really, floating.
06:59 Floating to be free to inquire.
07:01 I want to know, I want to know, I want to know.
07:04 And I accept that I do not know.
07:06 But I am knowing, I am knowing, I am knowing.
07:09 Vedanta does not get fixated even to I do not know.
07:15 Obviously saying I know is a thing of great arrogance.
07:18 Even saying I do not know is a thing of somewhat of a problem because if you say I do not know,
07:25 then you have settled down somewhere.
07:28 So the Vedanta is always saying I want to know, I want to know, I want to know, I want
07:34 to know and I have faith that knowing is possible.
07:40 I have faith that, not belief, I have faith that knowing is possible.
07:43 A very unreasonable faith.
07:46 Knowing is possible.
07:47 I keep inquiring, I keep inquiring.
07:50 Beyond meditation and enlightenment, there is also nothing called love in Vedanta.
07:56 Because Vedanta takes love for granted.
08:00 If you do not have love, what have you come to the Rishi for?
08:04 If you do not have meditativeness, how can you listen to the Rishi?
08:11 So even love is taken for granted.
08:12 You obviously have love for the truth.
08:16 You want nothing more than the truth.
08:18 So you have come to the Rishi and you are sitting in front of the Rishi and there is
08:22 this entire discussion.
08:26 Like the thing between Krishna and Arjuna as well.
08:29 The Gita too is considered an Upanishad.
08:32 There is that love.
08:33 Though in those 18 chapters, neither Arjuna nor Krishna ever say I love you.
08:40 But that is the underlying unsaid theme.
08:44 Because they love each other, that's why they are conversating.
08:49 So that's how one has to be.
08:52 I want to know.
08:53 I want to know.
08:54 I want to know.
08:55 It's beautiful to know.
08:56 It's energizing to know.
08:58 It's life-giving to know.
09:00 How can I be dull like a stone?
09:03 Am I not conscious?
09:04 Don't I feel that urge within to take my consciousness higher and how can I move higher if I do
09:12 not ask?
09:14 So I want to know.
09:16 If a preceptor is there, I inquire from the preceptor.
09:22 If a book is there, I read from the book.
09:25 Else, I use my own mental faculties to try to know.
09:31 But at no point am I going to feel settled.
09:34 [Music]