Spiritual Secrets from Hinduism - Essence of Vedic Scriptures - Summary

Spiritual quests begin with an inquiry into the nature of self. ‘Who am I?’ This question has captured the interest of several profound thinkers throughout history. The awareness of I remains with us all the time. The body is continuously changing. If you were the body, you, too, would have changed. Despite the constantly changing body, we remain the same person.

We learn from the Vedas that within the body is the unchanging atma(soul). It is the real or the true self. The body is material, while the atma is divine, as God is divine. And like God, the soul is immortal as well.
All the matter is lifeless, and our body is made from matter. Science realises this paradox and is grappling to explain the phenomenon of consciousness. Vedas explain that life, or sentience, originates from the soul. The consciousness or sentience comes from the soul.

The Prashnopanishad states: hridi hyesha atma. Meaning the soul is situated in the heart. This does not mean it is physically locked to the heart.

The soul (atma) is minuscule. For the soul, there is neither birth nor death. What we term as ‘death’ is merely the soul changing bodies. The process of giving up the old body is looked upon as ‘death’, and taking on the new body is called ‘birth’. Death is extremely painful for the soul. It erases most memories of the life gone by. Birth is an even more painful experience, which wipes out remaining recollections of the previous life.

According to the Vedic scriptures, 8.4 million life forms exist, and a soul may inhabit any of these species. The human form is unique as it includes the ability of discernment, which carries a significant responsibility. God has granted humans the gift of knowledge; however, it is important to use this capacity to seek and understand the ultimate truth.

As humans, we can consciously decide our life’s purpose and strive to attain it.
Vedas say we all seek happiness in everything we do. The goal of all living beings is happiness. We seek happiness because God is an Ocean of bliss. All the souls in the world are eternal parts of God. It is the nature of every part to be attracted towards its source. We are bereft of true happiness because of ignorance of the ‘self’. We have forgotten that we are divine souls and think of ourselves as the gross body.

Our soul wants divine bliss, which is of the nature of Sat, Chit, and Anand. Sat means permanent, Chit means ever fresh, and Anand means infinite bliss.
The goal of human life is God-realisation.

The Vedas are sacred texts that are not works of any human but God himself. They are called apaurusheya, or ‘having no human writer’. Since God reveals them, they are regarded as the most sacred Hindu Scriptures and given the highest seat.

Vedas are not the name of any book; instead, they are divine knowledge of God. They have existed ever since He existed, which is eternity. Each time the Supreme Entity creates the world, He reveals the Vedas in the heart of first-born Brahma. This Vedic knowledge is passed down by word of mouth from Guru to disciple. Therefore, they are also called as Shruti or knowledge conveyed by hearing.

Each Veda contains four sections: Samhita, Brahman, Aranyak, and Upanishad. Vedanga are supplementary to the Vedas. Other Vedic scriptures include the Puranas, Ithihas, Shad-darshan, and Agam Shastras.

In the material world, we suffer from an affliction called ajnana or nescience, which prevents us from achieving our goals. We all want happiness but experience misery. We want peace but experience conflict. We want to succeed but repeatedly experience failures. We must strive to remove ajnana(ignorance) and make our lives successful.

We read textbooks and approach teachers who explain their meaning to acquire spiritual knowledge. Spiritual knowledge must also be acquired similarly—through books and teachers.

The Vedic Scriptures are not amenable to self-study, for they are incredibly intricate and complex. It is only through a Guru that we can understand the Vedas. To realise the Absolute Truth, we must approach a Guru who is both Shrotriya and Brahma Nishtha with faith. The Guru must be Shrotriya, a knower of the scriptures, and Brahma Nishtha, meaning situated in God-consciousness.

Once we find the God-realised Guru, we must diligently adhere to his instructions.

We live in an astonishing universe consisting of the smallest atoms and the largest galaxies.
God is He who created this world. God is He, within Whom the entire world exists. God is He, into Whom the whole world will merge on annihilation.

The Rig Veda states: ekam santam bahudha kalpayanti (10.114.5)

Meaning: There is One Supreme Entity Whom the Saints have referred to in various ways. The creator of the world is One, and all religions worship the same all-powerful God.

God is all-pervading, but He also manifests in a personal form. All the Divine avatars are perfect and complete. The Supreme Divine Personality is so complete that He can simultaneously be small and big, near and far, with a personal form and formless. God possesses innumerable contradictory attributes at the same time. God has countless paradoxical contrary qualities to His Personality.

He is subtler than the subtlest yet bigger than the biggest. He is present in the tiniest atomic particle, yet all creation resides in Him.

The Vedas inform us that if we wish to attain God, we must first obtain knowledge about Him. When we know Him, we will develop faith in Him, and through faith, we will attain love.

Knowledge leads to faith, and faith leads to love.

We possess three instruments of knowledge—senses, mind, and intellect—and use them to gather information about things. However, these instruments of knowledge are made from material energy, while the Supreme Divine Personality is not material. God is above Maya.

The Mundak Upanishad reveals: divyo hyamurtah purusah
meaning: He, the Divine, is unfettered by form.

The Yajur Veda states that the Supreme can be known only by His mercy: Without the grace of the lotus feet of God, nobody can know Him.

When God bestows His grace, He will endow His divine power to our material senses, mind and intellect. Equipped with this power, we will be able to see Him, know Him, and love Him.

Jagadguru Kripaluji Maharaj explained this very nicely in the Bhakti Shatak:
samujh! samujh saun shyam ko, samujh saka nahin koy
samujh milai jab shyam ki, samajh sakai bas soy

Meaning: Nobody can ever know Shree Krishna by their effort. When He bestows His grace upon someone, that fortunate soul attains knowledge of the Lord.

Many people downplay the significance of personal effort, claiming, ‘Nothing is within our control. God resides within us, guiding all our actions.’

In Pandav Gita, the wicked Duryodhan said: ‘I know what is right, and I know what is wrong. But there is some devata sitting inside me. As he provokes me, that is how I behave.’

Many people often present such arguments. When questioned about their mistakes, they attribute them to the will of God.

If God were our Doer, we would not receive karmic reactions.

The world is under the wheel of karma. In accordance with our actions, we receive the results. God is impartial and perfectly just.

Certain Vedic scriptures refer to God as the Doer, but to avoid any misunderstanding, let us understand two key terms:
Prayojak Karta: God is prayojak karta, as He gives our senses, minds, and intellect the capability to engage in actions.
Prayojya Karta: The individual soul is the prayojya karta, which harnesses this divine power for its action.
In conclusion, the concept of God's grace should not diminish the need for self-effort in our minds.

Let us now inquire how we can qualify for God’s grace.

God bestows His grace the day you truly accept Him as your father. Innumerable Saints did so in the past and attained eternal bliss.

God is just and unbiased. He governs the world as per His Eternal laws; If He were to grace people arbitrarily, the world would lose faith in Him.

God’s eternal law is: Those who are sharangat(surrendered to God) receive His grace. All the scriptures, from the Vedas to the Ramayan, emphasise the principle of Sharanagati.

The moment a soul surrenders to God, its account of sinful deeds from past lifetimes is destroyed by His grace.

The Nature of Sharanagati:
There are six aspects of surrender to God:
• To desire only in accordance with the desire of God
• Not to desire against the desire of God
• To have firm faith that God is protecting us
• To keep an attitude of gratitude towards God.
• To see all we possess as belonging to God
• To renounce the pride of having surrendered.

What exactly is the mind? It is a subtle piece of equipment fitted within the gross body. While science has made notable strides in comprehending the brain, the workings of the subtle mind remain a mystery. Ancient books of wisdom explain that they are separate entities. The brain can be compared to the hardware, while the mind is the software that runs it.

The mind is so powerful that it can make heaven out of hell and hell out of heaven.

The mind has four aspects : mana, buddhi, chitta, and ahankar. These levels of functioning are all the facets of the one mind.

Our mind is made from the material energy, maya. It possesses three modes: 1) sattva guna, or the mode of goodness; 2) rajo guna, or the mode of passion; and 3) tamo guna, or the mode of ignorance.
Our mind sways between the three gunas and takes on the corresponding qualities.

The field of psychology explores human behaviour and the functioning of the mind. It serves as both an academic discipline and an applied science.

Astonishingly, five millennia ago, the Vedic scripture elucidated the science of the mind with remarkable precision. Exploring Vedic psychology can be a highly rewarding journey, but it requires focus and dedication.

The Vedic scriptures identify a range of human weaknesses, including anger, envy, greed and desire, which they refer to as manas rog or mental illnesses. The power of these mental illnesses is so propounded that even government laws fail to contain them. Given that desire is the root of these problems, the root of desire lies in our attachment.

Desire arises in us not because of the intrinsic qualities of the objects themselves but because of our attachment.

All the religions across the world emphasise a single path to God-realization. In Hinduism, however, we encounter a multitude of distinct approaches, all of which are endorsed by the scriptures.

The Vedas refer to the Supreme as sat-chit-anand. These three, sat, chit, and anand, refer to three partitions of God’s Yogmaya power.
● The nature of sat is action or karm.
● The nature of chit is knowledge or jnana.
● The nature of anand is devotion or bhakti.

Hinduism divides the duties into two categories - spiritual and social.

The social duties are often referred to as ‘Karm’. They are delineated in Vedas and are also known as ‘Varnashrama Dharma’. A part of social duties is karm kand, or ritualistic ceremonies.

Karm, or social duties, help regulate the mind and elevate it to the mode of goodness; thus, for genuine seekers of God-realization, there is the system of Karm Yog.

Knowledge wields great power. A person with superior knowledge can achieve in a matter of days what might take years for others to accomplish. Knowledge carries the same kind of impact in the spiritual realm as well. There are two kinds of knowledge - theoretical and practical.

In the spiritual realm, theoretical knowledge is where one has read or even memorised the scriptures, but one has never done sadhana. Mere theoretical knowledge, which is not accompanied by practice, leads to the pride of learning. Proud people think they know, but their life does not reflect their knowledge. Hence, instead of taking them upwards in life, such knowledge can lead to their downfall.

There are different perspectives on Indian spirituality - Advaita vad, Dvaita vad, Vishistha Advaita vad, Dvaita Advaita vad, Vishuddha Advaita vad, and Achintya Bhedabhed vad.

The goal of Jnana Yog is to know the ‘self’, or the soul. There exists a common misconception equating self-realisation with God-realisation. However, it is crucial to distinguish between these two states. Atma jnana is only a fraction of the complete Brahma jnana. A God-realised soul undoubtedly possesses self-realisation, but a self-realised soul may not necessarily have attained God-realization.

Bhakti Yog entails the cultivation of profound love for the Divine. In bhakti, the devotee nurtures an intense yearning to behold God, to meet Him, and to remain in His presence. The mind remains firmly attached to the Supreme, and thoughts naturally flow towards Him, like rivers streaming into the ocean.

What is Bhakti? Just as God is infinite, His bhakti is also infinite. So, no definition can fully encompass all the dimensions of Bhakti.

Various Acharyas experienced various dimensions of it in their individual practice and then emphasised that aspect in their definition of bhakti. True bhakti manifests as the desire to serve and glorify God. The chapter explores the concept of bhakti in every facet of our lives. It emphasises that bhakti can be practised with all materials and forms the foundation of society in Bharat.

The Supreme Lord manifests in this world in three ways: Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan. These are not three different Gods; they are three manifestations of the same God. However, they exhibit distinct qualities.
Brahman is the aspect of God that is everywhere in creation. As Brahman, God does not manifest His Forms, Virtues, and Pastimes.

The Paramatma aspect of God resides in the heart of all beings.

Bhagavan is the aspect of God when He takes on a personal Form.

Worshipping the formless Brahman simply gives a feeling of bliss in the mind. In contrast, in the worship of Bhagavan, we experience all the sweetness of His names, Forms, Qualities, pastimes, Abodes, and Associates.

God possesses innumerable powers, and each is unlimited in extent. Hence, He is called Sarva-Shaktiman. One of God’s powers is maya, the material energy with which He creates the material world. Beyond this, He possesses a superior spiritual power called Yogmaya. With the help of Yogmaya, the Lord manifests His divine Abodes, Forms, Virtues, and Pastimes.

Yogmaya has many branches. One of them is Hladini Shakti, the power that gives pleasure to God. The quintessence of this power is para bhakti, or divine love. It is the most confidential of His power.

The power of Divine love is God’s most extraordinary power. It is so special that the Supreme Almighty becomes a servant of the devotee who possesses bhakti.

God happily serves that devotee who possesses the treasure of divine love.

God does not bestow para bhakti easily, for doing so will entail becoming enslaved by the devotee. He waits till the soul becomes deserving of it. If we wish to receive it, we will have to qualify for it. The criterion is the preparation of the antah karan.

We must purify our mind completely until it becomes a suitable receptacle for para bhakti.

How will the mind be cleansed? This will happen by engaging in sadhana bhakti, or ‘preparatory devotion’. It will prepare the vessel of the heart, in which God will then bestow Siddha bhakti, which is His divine love.
Hence, bhakti is of two kinds - Preparatory devotion and Divine Love.

If we approach God with worldly desires, our mind remains entangled in the world. Then, no matter how much devotion we do, the mind does not become pure.

If we worship the Lord externally, but our mind clings to material desires, it will be devotion to the world, not to God. Such bhakti will not cleanse the mind from the afflictions of maya. The scriptures label this type of bhakti as sakam bhakti. If we wish to purify our minds, we must learn nishkam bhakti, which means we do not ask God for anything in return for our devotion.

If we love selflessly, no matter how others behave with us, our love for them will not diminish. True devotees desire God's happiness. They love Shree Krishna for His happiness alone. To make Him happy, they wish to serve Him with everything they have. We have three possessions with which we can serve Him: Mind, Body, and Wealth.

Meditation is a valuable contribution from Bharat to the world. It is known as ‘dhyan’ in Sanskrit. Its journey from Bharat to China led to modifications in its name, evolving from Dhyan to Jhan and later to Zen. Various meditation techniques can be used to train the mind to focus. The technique of Roop Dhyan is the meditation upon a Form of God.

To progress in spirituality, we must do sadhana daily. Spiritual progress does not happen merely by performing devotion on Janmashtami and Ram Navmi. We must set up a daily schedule for doing Bhakti. This regular practice will gradually and systematically lift our consciousness to God. It will increase our spiritual strength, as daily exercises increase our physical strength.