Because of the complexity of the Indian region's philosophical traditions, there are many ways to find which all present a solution to reach the ultimate goal of realizing the unity with the divine Brahman. Yet, it is most likely to study them carefully, because although the ways are heading towards the same goal, they are completely different.
Yogis of the early centuries came up with solutions we call pretty much bizarre, while deeply spiritual ways like Zen Buddhism conclude solutions which are simply not understandable for a western mind.
It is therefore of most necessity first to prepare yourself to deny all what you believed to be real, good, right, or true. Only with such attitude will you become able to understand the path, even if you can't comprehend the end of it.
Buddhist monks use a famous illustration for this. Imagine that you have a cup of tea. The cup is full of tea, as normally, when you just prepare to drink it. Someone comes along and wants to fill your cup with his tea. If he tries this, the cup will fill very soon and the most of his tea will flow down the floor and becomes useless. First you have to empty your cup to be able to receive the new tea. It is the same with the mind: first you have to get rid of the old knowledge, and the old wisdom, to be able to embrace the new.
This is a very difficult process and it gives a lot of pain and misery to an average person. This is the reason why his Holiness the Dalai Lama said once, not everyone was born to reach enlightenment in a lifetime.
However, most of the Vedic scripts deal with the possibility of reaching enlightenment in one lifetime, moreover, they tell you to do that because you don't really have a choice.
It is interesting (to me) that the western cultures, and the economical viewpoints globally, strive for success and the opportunity to leave a mark behind, while most of the ancient wisdoms tell us that the best way is to live without leaving a mark, without reaching anything extraordinary. Tao, the next part of this series, is the way which truly develops the "not reaching anything" attitude to perfection.
Yogis of the early centuries came up with solutions we call pretty much bizarre, while deeply spiritual ways like Zen Buddhism conclude solutions which are simply not understandable for a western mind.
It is therefore of most necessity first to prepare yourself to deny all what you believed to be real, good, right, or true. Only with such attitude will you become able to understand the path, even if you can't comprehend the end of it.
Buddhist monks use a famous illustration for this. Imagine that you have a cup of tea. The cup is full of tea, as normally, when you just prepare to drink it. Someone comes along and wants to fill your cup with his tea. If he tries this, the cup will fill very soon and the most of his tea will flow down the floor and becomes useless. First you have to empty your cup to be able to receive the new tea. It is the same with the mind: first you have to get rid of the old knowledge, and the old wisdom, to be able to embrace the new.
This is a very difficult process and it gives a lot of pain and misery to an average person. This is the reason why his Holiness the Dalai Lama said once, not everyone was born to reach enlightenment in a lifetime.
However, most of the Vedic scripts deal with the possibility of reaching enlightenment in one lifetime, moreover, they tell you to do that because you don't really have a choice.
It is interesting (to me) that the western cultures, and the economical viewpoints globally, strive for success and the opportunity to leave a mark behind, while most of the ancient wisdoms tell us that the best way is to live without leaving a mark, without reaching anything extraordinary. Tao, the next part of this series, is the way which truly develops the "not reaching anything" attitude to perfection.
Hindu philosophy is one of the most complex around the world, it consists of nine different main schools, of which six is based on the Vedas as the ultimate basis of knowledge, while the other three do not. The nine schools are:
1. Sankhya
2. Yoga
3. Nyaya
4. Vaisheshika
5. Mimamsa
6. Vedanta
7. Buddhism
8. Jainism
9. Carvaka (died out in the 15th century).
The Vedas, the main scripts of knowledge in the Indian region, consists of four books: The Rgveda hymns, the Yajurveda formulas, the Samaveda formulas, and the Atharvaveda collection of spells, incarnations, stories, etc.
Vedanta’s focus is on the spiritual tradition of the Upanisads, which contain the core teachings of the Vedas in a philosophical way. The Upanisads are hence very important scriptures of the Hindu tradition, which offer the essence of the knowledge of the Vedas, embraced by different stories through the different Upanisad books. Vedanta, by focusing on this essential knowledge, deals with self-realization and the ultimate nature of reality (reality named Brahman, and it is far from the reality as we usually think of it). Actually, most of the Hindu scriptures deal with this issue, except maybe the ones which deal with rituals.
The Vedic scripts are based on two main statements:
1. Human nature is divine.
2. The aim of human life is to realize this divineness.
The goal of Vedanta is the state of self-realization through the realization of the self-divineness, or cosmic consciousness. However, the Hindu tradition does not believe that human is the body, it believes that human is the soul, thus it has a different way from the western alchemy, which tries to refine the body to make it immutable.
As one of the greatest writers of the Vedic history, Adi Sankaracarya (or Adi Shankara) wrote several scripts on the issue of self-realization, the realization of the unity with Brahman, or in other words, to realize that the soul (Atman) is equal to the Brahman (this is similar to the Christian theory of the Holly Spirit being equal to both God and the human soul).
It is usual in the Indian region by most philosophies that they try to reach the ultimate perfection through the mental unification of the individual human and the ‘cosmic one and only’. By this unification they believe to attain a state in which no disease can take place, no early death can occur, no struggling may be part of life, because the life of the self-realized is a divine life.
The one and only existence which the Vedanta and other Hindu schools refer to, called Brahman, is one without attributes. It cannot be defined, neither observed, nor known directly. It can only be reached through the realization that the human soul (Atman) is the same being, it is Brahman itself, and since human’s true nature is the soul, human is equal to Brahman, and is without attributes. The knowledge of the Vedas and the Upanisads is mainly focusing on the issue that – in their true nature – human beings do not have organs, thus they cannot become ill and they can’t die.
An essential summing up of the Vedic knowledge is made in the Atma Bodha by Shankara, you can read it here.
The previous part of the series, Buddhism, can be read here.
The next issue in this series is going to be the Tao.