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Video Information: 19.02.2022, Arth: A Culture Fest, Zee News Noida, U.P.
Context:
¬ What are hell and heaven?
¬ What is recorded in the Vedas?
¬ How does Vedanta operate?
¬ What makes a seeker beautiful?
¬ What makes people reject Vedanta?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...
~~~~~
Video Information: 19.02.2022, Arth: A Culture Fest, Zee News Noida, U.P.
Context:
¬ What are hell and heaven?
¬ What is recorded in the Vedas?
¬ How does Vedanta operate?
¬ What makes a seeker beautiful?
¬ What makes people reject Vedanta?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00I believe every one of you should read this wonderful book.
00:06I couldn't read it fully.
00:07I'm just going through and one chapter was a revelation in itself, right?
00:11Like he rightly said, the right action is its own reward.
00:14Maybe you know that will, that is one of the revelation you have.
00:17And for the uninitiated, the common people, many people may ask because of the various
00:21concepts and religions around the world, heaven, hell, you will get that hellfire.
00:27So many concepts are there.
00:28So are they fanciful imaginations or where they're merely symbolic or are they metaphoric?
00:34How do you?
00:35They are neither imaginary nor symbolic.
00:39They are very, very real.
00:40In fact, they are more real than the life we lead, the breath we take, Vedanta.
00:47It's Niralambu Upanishad, I suppose that puts it very succinctly.
00:52Right company is heaven.
00:56Wrong company is hell.
00:58You don't have to think of heaven and hell as afterlife.
01:03You don't have to think of other dimensions or other worlds, other lokas, both heaven
01:09and hell are here right now.
01:11And this is not a recent modern or liberal point of view.
01:16This is coming from our most ancient scriptures.
01:19They are saying you don't have to look towards the future.
01:22You don't have to look towards anywhere else.
01:26Heaven and hell are both exactly where you are standing right now in this moment.
01:31If you are someone who loves to be with people who will take him towards truth, towards joy,
01:39towards simplicity, you are in heaven already.
01:42And if you surround yourself with people who pull down your consciousness, muddle up your
01:48mind, then verily you are right now in hell.
01:54Just being the devil's advocate, I'm not calling our liberal friends devils, but just asking
01:58a question from their point, being a devil's advocate, many people say what is presently
02:03described as Vedic wisdom was to a large extent initiated and reinterpreted by Swami Vivekananda
02:10in the last century.
02:11I know they say that the word karma used to mean rituals in Vedas, signifying yajnas and
02:17yagas, but Vivekananda reinterpreted through the modern sensibilities.
02:21And you know, maybe Vivekananda is a common icon, everyone accepts, but Vivekananda reinterpreted.
02:26So karma originally meant something else.
02:28Right now it is being reinterpreted as actions.
02:31Those who say this are probably factually right and yet totally wrong when it comes
02:36to the truth.
02:37You see, please understand the Vedas are literature and Vedanta is their philosophy.
02:45There's a difference between literature and philosophy and it's juvenile to talk of literature,
02:52sense its underlying philosophy.
02:54It's very right that the opening part, the first part of the Vedas is mostly karmakand,
03:03ritualistic.
03:04And it's right that the second part, the latter part is Vedanta, specifically the concluding
03:12part.
03:13They're inseparable.
03:14They're inseparable.
03:15To pit these two against each other is not wise at all.
03:23So more importance when it comes to philosophy has to be given to the Upanishads.
03:32And the Upanishads have no place for rituals or karmakand as such.
03:38They are the jnana khand or jnana khand.
03:43So it's not as if the intellectual part or the philosophical part has been recently superimposed
03:52upon or rather foisted on the Vedas.
03:56Vedanta is the very juice, the very essence of Vedas and all that Swami Vivekananda was
04:04doing was that he was bringing out the Vedantic essence as against mere ritualism.
04:12Unfortunately, it had happened in his time around 100-150 years back that people had
04:19become more interested as they actually always have been in mere mechanical repetition of
04:26traditions and this and that and rituals.
04:31And very little attention comparatively was being paid towards the juice, the fundamental
04:38philosophy which is contained in the Upanishads.
04:41So that's the reason he stressed so much on Vedanta.
04:46He stressed on Vedanta.
04:48He didn't reinterpret Vedanta as per the liberal values.
04:54Stressing on something is one thing and the thing that he's stressing on has been ever
04:59existent since the ancient times.
05:03I believe that's beautifully articulated rather than reinterpreting, Vivekananda re-emphasized,
05:08re-emphasized, stressed or highlighted the Veda part.
05:11There is another aspect, especially these things are intimately connected to our history.
05:16Many people say that India had a very vibrant pre-Vedic civilization and yoga temples were
05:22a part of it and Vedas, of course, are a great part of it.
05:26But this Vedic wisdom is not indigenous in one sense or it was not very true to us.
05:33So this Vedic wisdom was more of a pastoral nature, what they call Aruvanevan, the Aryan
05:39stuff.
05:40So how do you respond to such historical misrepresentations of it?
05:43First of all, the most fundamental thing is that seekers of truth are concerned with the
05:52truth, not really with the personalities surrounding it or the historical source it
05:59is coming from.
06:00So that's the most fundamental thing.
06:02However, if rather than the truth one is more interested in the historical facts, then let
06:10us please understand that Vedanta itself is totally independent of all histories and personalities
06:22and everything that is contained in time.
06:24Does Vedanta tell you that you have to listen to a particular person, that you have to listen
06:29to a particular Rishi or sage?
06:32Even the names of the sages that blessed us with the riches, the verses are not all known
06:37to us.
06:38We do not have to follow the name of one towering personality, be it a Buddha or a prophet.
06:44That's not how Vedanta works.
06:46So it might be so that the sages were looking in all possible directions to seek knowledge,
06:55to seek inspiration, to observe everything that is available to them.
07:00And I would say that this is their greatness.
07:04If you are really a sage, why would you confine yourself to your narrow coterie or something?
07:10And that's the reason why we have so many Upanishads and that is the reason Upanishads
07:14were compiled over a period of so many centuries and that is also the reason why at the superficial
07:20level you sometimes also see contradictions there.
07:23This is the greatness.
07:24This is the beauty of a real seeker that he doesn't care for boundaries.
07:31And also when he teaches, he says this teaching is not limited to the boundary of my persona.
07:38Sometimes I'm not even willing to tell you my name.
07:40I'm not saying that the word of some heavenly power has come down through this particular
07:45person or that this particular stream has to be named after a particular person or a
07:51series of persons or one group or something.
07:56It's an open source thing.
07:59And that makes it all the more venerable.
08:02Just imagine the greatness of those timeless saints who gave us eternal wisdom and didn't
08:06even bother to write their name.
08:07Didn't even bother.
08:09It is eternal wisdom.
08:10It doesn't belong to you or me.
08:12Equally Rahul, they were not very particular to not to write their names.
08:20It didn't mean to them enough even to make it a rule that they have to remain anonymous.
08:27So sometimes we do get to hear their names as if names don't matter at all.
08:33Are they not the real egoless or that selfless wisdom?
08:38We can hear that.
08:39And especially in the past century, we can see that back to Vedas was a great movement
08:43initiated by all the great reformers.
08:45And we could, like you said, Acharya Prashant is one of those rare people who still can
08:50take on blind superstitions, can fight against it.
08:53You know, it's a very politically inconvenient topic and incorrect topic.
08:56So when you deal with such things, what is the social reaction you get?
09:00Because a person of your stature, addressing real social issues and tackling it.
09:05At the superficial level, we get battered from all sides.
09:09But at a deep level, I very well know that what I'm saying is something each of us is
09:16thirsty for.
09:18So even if people resist and they resist for various reasons, there are some who resist
09:26because I am talking of Vedanta, which is quite old.
09:33And then there are some who say that the Sanghita part of the Vedas is older than Vedanta.
09:37Why are you talking of that?
09:39So people on the left, people on the right, all find their own reasons to offer resistance
09:48irrespective of that.
09:49The fact is the ones we are, we all want the light.
09:58We all want to be liberated.
10:00We all have a certain hidden love for truth.
10:04It's that love I'm banking on.
10:07I know that my best friend lives even within my most rabid opponent.
10:17And it's that best friend I rely so much on.
10:21Your depths, the core of your mind is seeking exactly what Vedanta is bringing to you.
10:28You will have to go to Vedanta, even if in some other name, you may not call it Vedanta.
10:33You may go to Vedanta via some, let's say, author who is relying on Vedanta and yet not
10:42acknowledging it.
10:43But it's ultimately Vedanta that would redeem you.
10:47So call Rose by any other name, and how can Vedanta, now connecting to nation building,
10:54how can this Upanishadic wisdom, Vedanta, bring forth a national rejuvenation, a nation
10:59building process?
11:00You see, we just talked of what heaven is and what hell is, right?
11:05We do require the right company.
11:08Right company is very important.
11:09What really is a nation?
11:11A nation is people brought together by shared values, by something that they share.
11:18That something that they share could be ethnicity, could be language, could be their formal religion,
11:23could even be their dress or their food habits.
11:28We will have to live together.
11:32Since we are born as bodies, we will seek company.
11:36The question is, what is the foundation of that company?
11:40On what basis are we having that company?
11:43So it translates into what really is the basis of the nationhood.
11:48Now nations will exist.
11:50I'm not talking of countries.
11:51I'm talking of nations.
11:53Nations will exist.
11:54It's just that they must exist on the right foundations.
11:59And I take Vedanta as just the right foundation for any nation, specifically the Indian nation.
12:06In fact, I clearly see that the true foundation of the Indian nation is anyway Vedanta.
12:17Today we don't really have much time.
12:19But another day, another opportunity, I would love to elaborate on how anyway Bharat has
12:27nothing but Vedanta as its glue, as the point where everything emanates from.
12:36So that has to be recognized and that has to be acknowledged.
12:39And that is not something sectarian or region specific.
12:45That's not something divisive.
12:47If you acknowledge that, then you really get people on one platform based on extremely
12:55sublime values.
12:57And that would do good to all of us, irrespective of our faith, irrespective of our gender,
13:04irrespective of our persuasions and ideologies.
13:08So that's what I want to say.
13:09The foundation of the Indian nation is Vedanta and has to be Vedanta.
13:14And Vivekananda used to brilliantly articulate that every nation has a character and that
13:19character of India is spirituality, Vedanta.
13:21Wonderful.
13:22Yes.