The Vedanta Sutra was compiled by Vyasadeva as the conclusion of the Vedas. Vyasadeva compiled the most important parts of the original Vedas in the form of the Upanisads, short books that bring the ultimate conclusions of the Vedas. The Vedanta Sutra is a book that offers the ultimate conclusions of the Upanisads and clears many common misconceptions. The Vedanta Sutra brings thus the ultimate philosophical conclusions of the Vedas in an extremely compact form, being composed of about 555 sutras.
The Vedanta Sutra starts with the Sutra “athāto brahma-jijñāsā”, Now it’s time to enquire about Brahman.
This is an invitation to properly use our human form of life to try to understand Krsna, the absolute truth, and thus become free of the cycle of birth and death.
It continues with the Sutra “janmādy asya yataḥ”, which starts describing the Absolute Truth by stating that: From Him, everything emanates.
How can we understand this Brahman or the Supreme Absolute truth? This is explained in the third Sutra: “śāstra-yonitvāt”. He can be known through the sastras.
The Sastras offer different arguments and many of them appear to be contradictory. Somewhere it’s said that Vishnu is God, somewhere else that Shiva or another demigod is Supreme. How can we understand all these apparent contradictions?
Srila Prabhupada explains that the Vedas are like a desire tree that contains all types of knowledge. Because most people are interested only in the four materialistic religious principles of dharma, artha, kama, and moksa (mundane religiosity, economic development, material sense gratification, and impersonal liberation) the Vedas explain a lot about how to achieve these things in the karma-kanda sections. For people who are spiritually inclined, there are the jnana-kanda sections, that deal with spiritual knowledge, such as the Upanisads and the Vedanta Sutra, but the Srimad Bhagavatam brings the highest knowledge, directly describing the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Srimad Bhagavatam is considered thus the essence or the ripened fruit of all Vedic literature.
This knowledge is so attractive that it can attract everyone, even people who are already liberated. In SB 1.7.10 there is a very famous verse that Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu once explained in 64 different ways:
Lord Indra is a very exalted devotee, who receives a very important post in the universe. He is like Krsna’s prime minister in universal affairs. Similarly, Lord Brahma is the creator of this universe and the head of our sampradaya. Understanding their exalted position, how can we understand that Indra tried to inundate Vrindavan and kill all the Vrajavasis, and Brahma kidnaped the cowherd boys and calves, depriving Krsna of His associates? How can such exalted personalities commit such serious offenses?
The answer is that this happens due to Krsna’s internal potency. This is the same divine potency that made the four Kumaras quarrel with Jaya and Vijaya and made Arjuna bewildered before the beginning of the battle of Kuruksetra. Although the actions of Brahma and Indra may sound like serious offenses, they actually did an important service.
Every day Krsna goes with the cowherd boys to tender the cows and at night He has His pastimes with the gopis. When Krsna is with the cowherd boys, the gopis are pained by the separation of Him, and similarly, when it is night the cowherd boys are pained for not being able to stay with Krsna. Similarly, Mother Yashoda stays with Krsna only in the morning and evening and she strongly misses Him the rest of the time. However, because of the service of Indra, trying to inundate Vrindavana, Krsna had an opportunity to stay simultaneously with everyone for seven days and enjoy the sweetest moments in the company of all His associates.
Similarly, all the elderly gopis had maternal affection for Krsna. Although they loved their own children, their feelings for Krsna were actually much stronger. Not only the elderly gopis but also all the cows of Vrindavana desired to have Krsna as their son. Although Krsna reciprocates this desire by taking their milk and butter, as well as reciprocating in other ways, He doesn’t have the opportunity of directly living in their houses and accepting their service. However, due to the actions of Brahma, Krsna was able to expand Himself and simultaneously become the child of all the mothers of Vrindavana for a whole year. Thanks to this wonderful service, Krsna had the opportunity to increase the affection of His devotees for Him.
Vyasadeva left a total of 108 upanisads with selected passages from the four Vedas, as well as other Vedic literature that speak directly about self-realization. The list also includes the Bhagavad-Gita, also called the Gitopanisad.
As expected, the Upanisads are full of interesting passages, but most of it is not easy to understand, be due to the scarcity of good translations or lack of explanations of what the passages mean.
Here is an interesting passage from the Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upanisad (2.45), where Yājñavalkya teaches his wife Maitreyī about self-realization.
The context is that Yājñavalkya had two wives: Maitreyī and Kātyāyanī. The second was just interested in regular household affairs, while Maitreyī was interested in spiritual knowledge. When later in life Yājñavalkya was preparing to accept the Vanaprastha order and go to the forest, he called Maitreyī and proposed to make a settlement, dividing the properties between her and Kātyāyanī. To this, Maitreyī answered:
There is an interesting verse in the Padma Purana, where the Lord tells Lord Shiva:
tvam ārādhya yathā śambho grahiṣyāmi varaṁ sadā dvāparādau yuge bhūtvā kalayā mānuṣādiṣu svāgamaiḥ kalpitais tvaṁ tu janān mad-vimukhān kuru maṁ ca gopaya yena syāt sṛṣṭir eṣottarottarā
“In the same manner, I shall worship you to ask a boon from you. You should descend to earth in your partial expansion and take birth as a human being in Kali-yuga. Concoct your own scripture and divert the people away from me. Hide me so that this creation will keep increasing.”
This is of course connected with Lord Shiva coming in Kali-yuga as Shankaracharya to preach impersonalism and thus bring the atheists back to the study of the Vedas. The interesting point in this passage however is the idea of increasing the population.
Not all devotees are perfect. In any group or community, we can find devotees from different backgrounds and at different stages of spiritual development, all mixed. Some of them may be highly evolved people who show genuine saintly qualities, while others may not behave much better than the average Joe you may meet in the street. However, devotees are still the best of the bunch. Usually, the best people from each class are the ones who become devotees. On the other hand, we may often have the impression that living amongst devotees is not so great. Often we meet people who are not good-natured, and we may feel dislocated, not being able to find like-minded souls.
We may find it hard to reconcile these two ideas. On the one hand, devotees are supposed to be the best people, and on the other, we may often have trouble relating to devotees around us. How is it so?
Are devotees always good in a moral sense? If so, why often do devotees behave in dishonest ways?
In A Second Chance, Srila Prabhupada mentions that a true devotee will always be a good person, which means he will be kind, honest, soft-hearted, and so on. In fact, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura mentions that there are four classes of human beings, being the devotee the topmost.
Going from the lowest to the highest, the four classes are:
– The impious atheist – The pious atheist – The pious religionist – The devotee
What is interesting in this classification is that it doesn’t include such a thing as an “impious devotee”. According to this classification, one who is impious is by definition an atheist, because a devotee will always obey the laws of God. Only an atheist will ignore such laws, and therefore one who is immoral and impious must be an atheist. Sahajiyas sometimes claim to be devotees while breaking all rules of morality and civilized life, but they are also not considered devotees. Sometimes sahajiyas are counted amongst the neophyte devotees, a definition that certainly applies to the harmless cases, but the hard cases are often considered offenders who actually envy Krsna.
In other words, one may be materially pious and still be an atheist, but it is not actually possible to be a devotee and still be impious. These are actually two contradictory terms. Or one is a devotee, or he is impious. One can’t be both at the same time. Strictly speaking, only an atheist can be impious.
We can see that in the age of Kali, most people are actually in the “impious atheist” stage. This means that for most of us, a pious and moral life is not an extra, but an essential step in our spiritual life. One mistake we may commit is exactly to try to be a devotee without following a moral life. This led to scandals and ultimately fall.
However, when one is firmly situated in the platform of devotion, he may sometimes act in ways that may appear condemnable from a material point of view, just like in the case of Arjuna killing his relatives. This is something Prabhupada mentions in the chapter 16 of the same book:
“One may even become a brāhmaṇa, a very pious man, but that does not mean he has become a devotee. And sometimes a devotee appears to act against the rules of mundane piety. Arjuna, for example, was an exalted devotee of Lord Kṛṣṇa, but he killed his relatives. Ignorant people may say, “Arjuna is not a good man. Look, he killed his grandfather, his teacher, and his nephews, devastating the entire family.” But in the Bhagavad-gītā (4.3) Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna, bhakto ’si me: “You are My very dear friend.” In the estimation of the material world Arjuna may not be a good man, but because he is a soul surrendered to the desire of the Supreme Lord, he must be accepted as a devotee. While it is true that Arjuna killed his own kinsmen, in the eyes of Kṛṣṇa he remained a dear friend and devotee. That is the difference between a devotee and a good man of this world: A good man of this world tries to always act piously, for he knows that if he acts badly he will suffer sinful reactions; but a devotee, although naturally a very good man, can act like a bad man on Kṛṣṇa’s order and still not fall down: he remains a pure devotee and is very dear to the Lord.”
This passage brings the idea of spiritual morality, which is higher than mundane morality. In this world, morality is based on the mode of goodness, including principles such as non-violence, honesty, and so on. These are essential principles for anyone practicing spiritual life. However, morality based on the mode of goodness is not absolute. Higher than it there is a spiritual morality, that is based on the desire to fulfill the order of Krsna. Generally speaking, to kill one’s relatives is immoral. However, if the order comes directly from Krsna, then it becomes the highest morality.
One example of this is that when Yudhishthira hesitated in fulfilling the instruction of Krsna of telling a lie that would help the Pandavas to win the battle, his chariot (who was previously floating above the ground, just like in the case of the demigods) touched the earth, showing that his piety diminished.
Ordinarily, to kill one’s relatives is bad both for the person who kills and for the one who is killed, due to the repercussions of the law of karma, but when Arjuna killed his relatives in the battle of Kuruksetra under the direct guidance of Krsna, the result was wonderful for both. The relatives attained liberation, and Arjuna became recognized as Krsna’s pure devotee. The test, in this case, is the result: acts of spiritual morality will always bring wonderful results, different from impious acts, which will always bring misery, suffering, and degradation.
In other words, a devotee is always a moral and pious person. Ordinarily, he acts on the platform of ordinary morality, but sometimes when there is a direct order from Krsna or His direct representative he may act at the higher level of spirtual morality, executing actions that will bring the supreme good for all involved. One who acts in an immoral way, on the other hand, is either an atheist or a very neophyte devotee who still can’t differentiate right and wrong.
Violence in a religious context, and especially in the context of the Bhagavad-Gita is a quite complex subject.
Materialists often see no problem in using violence to obtain whatever they want, be it richness, a kingdom, a woman, and so on. In the Bhagavad-Gita we see this exemplified in the figure of Duryodhana, who was ready to use all necessary means to achieve his goal of destroying the Pandavas and becoming king.
This type of violence is condemned in the Bhagavad-Gita by both Arjuna and Krsna.
Arjuna says, on Bg 1.37-38: “O Janārdana, although these men, their hearts overtaken by greed, see no fault in killing one’s family or quarreling with friends, why should we, who can see the crime in destroying a family, engage in these acts of sin?”
Krsna says, on Bg 16.9: “Following such conclusions, the demoniac, who are lost to themselves and who have no intelligence, engage in unbeneficial, horrible works meant to destroy the world.”
Two days ago I spoke a little about the atheistic Saṅkhya philosophy and the difference from the original Saṅkhya philosophy propounded by Lord Kapila many millions of years ago.
A concept that is very central to the atheistic Saṅkhya philosophy is the idea that everything that exists is a combination of pradhāna (the unmanifested mass of material elements) and purusha (the souls), excluding the idea of Isvara (the Supreme Lord). According to their theory, through the interactions of the three modes, pradhāna (or prakrti) is the ultimate cause of everything that exists, and purusha, the souls, get involved in the creation by falsely identifying with the different material manifestations.
The difficulty with this theory is that it is not supported in the Vedas. The Puranas include descriptions of how Lord Maha-Vishnu looks in the direction of the material energy, impregnating her with both Kala (the time energy), which puts her in motion, and the different souls who desire to take part in the material creation. Similarly, the Upanisads are full of passages describing the Lord as being the cause of the material creation.
The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.16, for example, states: pradhāna-kṣetrajña-patir guṇeśaḥ, “The Supreme Lord as the Supersoul is the chief knower of the body and the master of pradhāna (the unmanifested material nature).”
On the other hand, there is no passage that says that the pradhāna or prakrti is the ultimate cause. Everywhere, prakrti is described as the apparent cause, just like a chisel being used by a carpenter.
Sometimes we may regret past decisions and missed opportunities. One may regret following a professional path instead of another, regret having entered a marriage that ended in frustration, regret missing the opportunity of moving to a different city or country, regret missing the opportunity of a certain investment, and so on.
The point is that most of what happens to us, including the result of many of our decisions is actually determined by our past karma. Our karma determines not only the place, time, and situation where we are going to take birth but also the particular disposition of planets and stars that are going to give us shelter, something that is studied in Vedic astrology. These different celestial bodies then pull us in different directions, influencing our thinking and actions. There is a combination of past desires and decisions that binds us to go through a certain combination of experiences and make certain decisions.
