Practical Vedanta

Practical Vedantateach him. "The other world, O Gautama, is the fire. The sun is its fuel. The raysare the smoke. The day is the flame. The moon is the embers. And the stars are thesparks. In this fire the gods pour libation of faith and from this libation king Somais born." So on he goes. "You need not make oblation to that little fire: the wholeworld is that fire, and this oblation, this worship, is continually going on. Thegods, and the angels, and everybody is worshipping it. Man is the greatest symbolof fire, the body of man." Here also we see the ideal becoming practical andBrahman is seen in everything. The principle that underlies all these stories is thatinvented symbolism may be good and helpful, but already better symbols existthan any we can invent. You may invent an image through which to worship God,but a better image already exists, the living man. You may build a temple in whichto worship God, and that may be good, but a better one, a much higher one,already exists, the human body.You remember that the Vedas have two parts, the ceremonial and the knowledgeportions. In time ceremonials had multiplied and become so intricate that it wasalmost hopeless to disentangle them, and so in the Upanishads we find that theceremonials are almost done away with, but gently, by explaining them. We seethat in old times they had these oblations and sacrifices, then the philosopherscame, and instead of snatching away the symbols from the hands of the ignorant,instead of taking the negative position, which we unfortunately find so general inmodern reforms, they gave them something to take their place. "Here is thesymbol of fire," they said. "Very good! But here is another symbol, the earth.What a grand, great symbol! Here is this little temple, but the whole universe is atemple; a man can worship anywhere. There are the peculiar figures that men drawon the earth, and there are the altars, but here is the greatest of altars, the living,conscious human body, and to worship at this altar is far higher than the worshipof any dead symbols."We now come to a peculiar doctrine. I do not understand much of it myself. If youcan make something out of it, I will read it to you. When a man dies, who has bymeditation purified himself and got knowledge, he first goes to light, then fromlight to day, from day to the light half of the moon, from that to the six monthswhen the sun goes to the north, from that to the year, from the year to the sun,from the sun to the moon, from the moon to the lightning, and when he comes tothe sphere of lightning, he meets a person who is not human, and that person leadshim to (the conditioned) Brahman. This is the way of the gods. When sages andwise persons die, they go that way and they do not return. What is meant by thismonth and year, and all these things, no one understands clearly. Each one giveshis own meaning, and some say it is all nonsense. What is meant by going to theworld of the moon and of the sun, and this person who comes to help the soul afterit has reached the sphere of lightning, no one knows. There is an idea among theHindus that the moon is a place where life exists, and we shall see how life hascome from there. Those that have not attained to knowledge, but have done goodwork in this life, first go, when they die, through smoke, then to night, then to thefile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (14 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:33 AM