Upanishads - The pulse of Bharat

Upanishads – The pulse of Bharat

Our ancient knowledge, Wisdom of Bharat…

One  of the ancient known literature in the world is the Vedas, that is categorised and compiled as Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharvana. These Vedas are storehouse of knowledge that are referred to as Apauresheya, meaning that these are not created by any human or Purusha.

 Another way of looking at Vedas is to see them as dairy notes written by people who have seen and recorded the way the ancient people lived. Rig Veda seems to have come from the northern region of Bharat namely Uttar Pradesh, Bihar. Yajur Veda covers Yagna that could have been done by people from Himalayas. Sama Veda covers the music aspect which may have come from the Eastern states. 

People could have recorded Vedas as dairy entries elaborating many different shastras/sciences like health, astronomy etc that were prevalent in their culture. Every knowledge that we have now is being rooted back to Vedas for its origin, be it dance, music, sculpting, engineering, medicine fields. Even Diabetes has its reference as Madhumeha in the Vedas.

There is a very popular theory stating that Vedas came from outside India, somewhere from central Europe. This sounds absurd as the we apply the logic that in a place when there was so much knowledge, the traces of that would certainly be present for generations. However, no such traces are seen. No knowledge of Vedas can be seen in any other part of the world except Bharat. This clearly shows that Vedic knowledge is our own and is not from outside.

Mantavya in the Aranyakas …..

Upanishads constitute an important part in the Vedas, that are found in the Aranyakas. These are referred to as Vedanta. Many translate Vedanta as the end of Vedas. However, I see it as fulfilment of Vedas. An apt example would be, a creeper latha when flowers, we call the flower as lathanta. The fulfilment of the creeper is the flower. Similarly, the flowering, fulfilment of Vedas is called as Vedanta.

Upanishads get its name from the concept that knowledge was shared/transferred when the sishya sits close to the Guru/master. Another perspective is that, people gained such wonderful knowledge when they sat close to the truth.

Upanishads are more than 10,000 years old and yet they are much alive in the nerve of Bharat even today. We have seen many civilisations and cultures rise to glory and fall subsequently. However, the Upanishadic culture is still flourishing and is indeed the nerve current of our country. How is this possible?

Pulse of a culture……

Every culture has a centre around which every other thing evolves. For example, 
   Europe evolved with manufacturing, automobile as the central theme around which their complete development revolve. 
   For US, it is capitalising every thing. 
   For Japan , miniature. Their houses are small , the huge mango trees have Japanese bonsai counterpart.

    Similarly, our Indian culture has revolved and is still revolving around this central Upanishad theme. What do I mean by Upanishad theme?

Upanishads are insights into fundamentals of life. Typically, an Upanishad starts with questioning from the sishya, for which the Guru gives some triggers and then the sishya’s journey of quest begins.

Few of those fundamental questions are

             Who am I?

             What happens after death?

             By what are all beings functioning?

             Is there any eternal truth called God? How to experience HIM?

            What is self-realisation? …… and so, on

These questions are eternal in the sense that, the search for truth was there 10,000 years back, it is still present now and will be there many years later.

People who have gone into any of these quests are plenty in our country.

A young lad prince, called Siddhartha finds out about death as he goes around his kingdom. The question about death did not let him sleep. The question became his quest. He renounced his kingdom in search of truth and later came to be known as Gautama Buddha.

A young boy called Narendranath started questioning everybody if anyone has seen GOD. His question was very serious. He meets many great eminent personalities who were stalwarts in philosophy and asked them if they have seen GOD. He got answers like, God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient but he did not meet anyone who told him that they have seen God. Naren got so obsessed with his question that he forgot to dress up neatly, forgot to do his wok as a student. Every teacher and his friends thought that naren had gone mad with one useless question, have you seen GOD.

One day, as Naren was in his school, English class was going on. Naren was not attentive as he stared out of the window. As the teacher explained an English poem by Wordsworth, he said that the poet must have had God experience. Immediately this statement caught Naren’s attention. Naren asked the teacher if he can take him to the poet, for which the teacher replied that the poet was no more and had lived many centuries before. On persisting on the question, Naren asked the teacher if he knows anyone who had seen or experienced God. The teacher shared that he had heard that some priest in Dakshineshwar talks to God. The priest name was Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and people called him Thakur. He was the priest of Kali temple in Dakshineshawar.

Immediately, Naren fled to Dakshineshwar to meet the priest. He knocked the door at the Kali temple and Thakur opened the door. Naren’s immediate question was ‘Have you seen GOD”. Thakur’s reply came fast and clear. Ramakrishna replied naren in three sentences that actually speak the Upanishad language.

Here are those ..

‘Yes, I have seen GOD, I see God more real that I see you, I can show GOD to you “

Thus, began the quest for Naren, who becomes Swami Vivekananda.

This is the pulse of our country. Vedic knowledge, Upanishadic wisdom, Spirituality. Let every Bhartiya keep Bharat alive by beating the pulse of our country!

- Yogashree NV Raghuram 
Founder, Yogabharati .