Practical Vedanta

Practical VedantaIn the Upanishads, we see a tremendous departure made. It is declared that theseheavens in which men live with the ancestors after death cannot be permanent,seeing that everything which has name and form must die. If there are heavenswith forms, these heavens must vanish in course of time; they may last millions ofyears, but there must come a time when they will have to go. With this idea cameanother that these souls must come back to earth, and that heavens are placeswhere they enjoy the results of their good works, and after these effects arefinished they come back into this earth life again. One thing is clear from this thatmankind had a perception of the philosophy of causation even at the early time.Later on we shall see how our philosophers bring that out in the language ofphilosophy and logic, but here it is almost in the language of children. One thingyou may remark in reading these books that it is all internal perception. If you askme if this can be practical, my answer is, it has been practical first, andphilosophical next. You can see that first these things have been perceived andrealised and then written. This world spoke to the early thinkers. Birds spoke tothem, animals spoke to them, the sun and the moon spoke to them; and little bylittle they realised things, and got into the heart of nature. Not by cogitation not bythe force of logic, not by picking the brains of others and making a big book, as isthe fashion in modern times, not even as I do, by taking up one of their writingsand making a long lecture, but by patient investigation and discovery they foundout the truth. Its essential method was practice, and so it must be always. Religionis ever a practical science, and there never was nor will be any theologicalreligion. It is practice first, and knowledge afterwards. The idea that souls comeback is already there. Those persons who do good work with the idea of a result,get it, but the result is not permanent. There we get the idea of causation verybeautifully put forward, that the effect is only commensurate with the cause. Asthe cause is, so the effect will be. The cause being finite, the effect must be finite.If the cause is eternal the effect can be eternal, but all these causes, doing goodwork, and all other things, are only finite causes, and as such cannot produceinfinite result.We now come to the other side of the question. As there cannot be an eternalheaven, on the same grounds, there cannot be an eternal hell. Suppose I am a verywicked man, doing evil every minute of my life. Still, my whole life here,compared with my eternal life, is nothing. If there be an eternal punishment, it willmean that there is an infinite effect produced by a finite cause, which cannot be. IfI do good all my life, I cannot have an infinite heaven; it would be making thesame mistake. But there is a third course which applies to those who have knownthe Truth, to those who have realised It. This is the only way to get beyond thisveil of Mâyâ — to realise what Truth is; and the Upanishads indicate what ismeant by realising the Truth.It means recognising neither good nor bad, but knowing all as coming from theSelf; Self is in everything. It means denying the universe; shutting your eyes to it;seeing the Lord in hell as well as in heaven; seeing the Lord in death as well as infile:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Chitra%20Selva...oksBySwami/PracticalVedanta/PracticalVedantaPDF.html (16 of 113)2/26/2007 12:24:33 AM