It is necessary to know the fact that, the Hindu belief system is not the source for acquiring Self-Knowledge. It is necessary to know and realize a certain truth of the Hindu belief system. The Hindu belief system is founded to revive Indian people from the clutches of Buddhism and Jainism in the past. It is better to peep into the annals of religious history.
The Hindu belief system is introduced in the past by different founders to reform the society. All these different founders had different ideologies to suit the mass mind set. Each founder introduced different code of conducts to be, to behave, to believe and to live in the society in peace and harmony. Thus, Hindu belief system is divided by their founders and caste and each having their own ideologies and code of conducts.
There are many branches of ideologies within the Hindu fold, which differs in their ideologies. Thus, Hindu belief system is mere societal reforms based on the belief of gods based on the Puranas or mythological stories and gurus and sages. Buddhism and Jainism which reject the existence of god and Vedas are also considered as Hinduism in India.
According to the Upanishad the purpose of human life is to acquire Self-Knowledge. To acquire self-knowledge, the religion and its code of conducts are main obstacles.
The codes of conducts of Hindu belief system, which are injected in the name of Vedas from one generation to the next, are greatest obstacle in pursuit of truth. The imposed inherited conditionings are greatest obstacles in realization of Brahman or ultimate truth.
This article is not an attempt to criticize Hindu belief system. It is meant only for the seekers of truth, who are in search of ultimate truth (Brahman). Since the inherited belief system is the greatest obstacle in realizing the Brahman, one has to overcome all the obstacles in order to realize the ultimate truth. Thus, it is necessary to know the truth of the inherited belief system in order to drop all the conditioning, which has been injected by the belief system.
Many think that Hindu belief system is a continuation of the Vedic religion. But there is no link between present day Hinduism and Vedic religion, because all Hindu practices and rituals are non-Vedic.
Even in the school in India, children have been thought the Vedas as Hindu scriptures and are revered”. Most Indians think the Aryans created the Hindu religion and civilization so that the Hindus of today are the lineal ancestors of the Aryans.
The beliefs of god, religion, yoga are based on the false self, is nothing to do with the mental (inner) journey. The religious, rituals, worships, prayers god and guru glorification may be useful in the worldly life, for those who believes in the birth, life, death and the world as reality, but they are not useful tools in realizing the ultimate truth. On the base of consciousness [soul] as self, everything other than the consciousness is a mere mirage. Thus, man and his experience of the world and his belief of god and religion are part and parcel of the mirage created out of the consciousness.
When Sri,Sankara says the world is an illusion, it includes birth, life and death, which happens within the world (illusion). Thus seekers main aim is to mentally trace the formless substance of the illusion, which is also the witness of the illusion. The formless substance and witness of the illusion (world) is the Atman, and this Atman itself is Brahman. This Brahman cannot be attained by indulging in egocentric religious orthodoxies. The knower of Brahman is Brahmin not the Brahmin who indulges in orthodoxy, which leads one to utter darkness as per Yajur Veda.
Brahmin is the one who has realized the Brahman [ultimate truth] and helps fellow seekers towards inner path. The one who knows Brahman knows his body and his experience of the world are mere illusion and also he knows his body and his experience of the world are also as Atman (consciousness), which is Brahman. Thus, the orthodoxy which is crafted on the body based theories will lead one to hallucinated Moksha. But real Moksha or freedom is possible only through Advaitic wisdom.
As one peeps into the annals of religious history he finds that the Hinduism which exists today is not a continuation of the Vedic religion, and it has no real historical foundation. The Hinduism is of a much later origin.
As per the researchers, the two faiths the Hindu belief system has drifted miles away from the Vedic faith so that the two seem to be two distinct faiths. It is not difficult to discover that there is no noticeable continuity of Hinduism from the religion of the Vedas.
The distinctive characteristics of Hindu belief system cannot be traced in the Vedic literature. Besides, although the Vedas are revered as sacred texts, there are many people in India who do not know what ‘belief in the Vedas’ means. In most cases, the acquaintance of the Hindus with the Vedas is limited to the few hymns that are recited in temples and household liturgies.
Max Müller says:~ "The religion of the Veda knows no idols; the worship of idols in India is a secondary formation, a degradation of the more primitive worship of ideal gods."
In Vedas the God has been described as:~
v Sakshi (Witness)
v Chetan (conscious)
v Nirguna (Without form and properties)
v Nitya (eternal)
v Shuddha (pure)
v Buddha (omniscient)
v Mukta (unattached).
It indicates clearly all the gods with form and attributes are mere imagination based on the false self.
The Vedas as a body of scripture contain many contradictions and they are fragmentary in nature. For Hindus, scriptures like the Bhagavad-Gita, Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas are more attractive and appealing than the Vedas. And also the gods and goddesses they worship differ considerably from the Vedic ones. The collection of hymns called Vedas written in praise of certain deities by poets over several centuries does not seem to have much significance for the Hindus
Yajurved says:~
Translation 1.
They enter darkness, those who worship natural things (for example air, water, sun, moon, animals, fire, stone, etc).
They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example table, chair, idol etc.) [Yajurved 40:9]
Translation 2.
"Deep into shade of blinding gloom fall asambhuti's worshippers. They sink to darkness deeper yet who on sambhuti are intent."
Translation 3.
"They are enveloped in darkness, in other words, are steeped in ignorance and sunk in the greatest depths of misery who worship the uncreated, eternal prakrti -- the material cause of the world -- in place of the All-pervading God, But those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time."
So, Yajur Veda indicates that:~
They sink deeper in darkness those who worship sambhuti. (Sambhuti means created things, for example table, chair, idol etc (Yajurved 40:9)
Those who worship visible things born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like) in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness, in other words, they are extremely foolish, fall into an awful hell of pain and sorrow, and suffer terribly for a long time." (Yajur Veda 40:9.)
Sakshi (Witness), Chetan (conscious), Nirguna (Without form and properties). Nitya (eternal), Shuddha (pure), Buddha (omniscient), Mukta (unattached). Thus, it clearly indicates the god is without the form and attributes and ever free.
Vedic gods, hardly have any significance in present day Hindu belief system. The gods and goddesses important to the Hindus of today are Ram, Krishna, Kali, Ganesh, Hanuman, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva and the respective consorts of the last three, namely, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Shakti. None of these deities figured prominently in the Vedic pantheon and some of them are clearly non-Vedic.
The more important religious sects among the Hindus, like Vaishnavism, Saivism and so on, did not have a Vedic origin, but had come into existence in comparatively recent times.
Originally Shiva and the cult of the Mother Goddess belonged to the religion of the Indus (Sindu) Valley people. Vedic worshiper did not use temples and idols as Hindus of today do. For them, the sacrificial rituals were more important than temple or idol worship.
The theory of avatara (‘descend’) of gods which is very important to modern Hinduism is non-Vedic.
The term Avatara […] is not found in the earlier Vedic texts, and is absent from the older Sanskrit glossaries”. The caste system which is so integral to Hinduism, was also not practiced in the Vedic times.
There is hardly any evidence of rigid caste system in the Vedas. It is argued that the purushasukta hymn of the Rig Veda (X.90) which is often referred to in order to give a religious sanction to caste system, was a later interpolation.
The Vedas, however, speak of various classes of people, which appear to have been names of professions, and they were not hereditary.
The very concept of castes by birth, upper/lower castes, superior/inferior castes, outcastes, untouchables, dalits, etc. are clearly prohibited by Rigveda”.
Avatara (‘descent’) of gods, caste system, were absent in the Vedic religion. Only when the Vedic religion with its own as a distinct with its own sacred texts, rites, rules of social life, beliefs and practices without inter-linking it with Hinduism the true essence of Vedas will be revealed.
Hinduism does not have a long ancestry as is often presumed or propagated by the Hindu orthodoxy. In fact, historically, religions like Buddhism and Jainism can claim greater antiquity than the Hinduism.
Hinduism began to take a systematic form from the time of Sri Sankara (8th century A.D). In this sense, he may be considered as the ‘founder’ of Hinduism. Hinduism is of recent origin.
The Vedas have influenced some aspects of Hinduism, it may be considered as one of the many factors influencing modern Hinduism. But by no means can it be maintained that Hinduism has its direct ancestry in the Vedic religion. Therefore, Hinduism of Vedic times is an imagined community. Hinduism of today is of a much later origin, and a historical view of Indian religions would endorse a dichotomy between Vedic religion and contemporary Hinduism.
Upon close examination we discover that the religion of the Vedas was not the religion of the Hindus, nor were the Vedic people Hindus, nor will the Hindus approve the replacement of the term ‘Hinduism’ with ‘Vedic Religion’.
None can say exactly when the Aryans became Hindus because neither the name Hindu nor its major beliefs and practices existed in the Vedic times. To this one must add the marginal place the Vedic gods occupy in today’s Hindu pantheon. In addition, as we have seen, the Vedas themselves are not attractive to most of today’s Hindus as sacred texts. The Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhagavadgita, Puranas and Manusmriti, may have more to do with the Hinduism of today than the Vedas.
Thus, it is clear that there is no direct ancestry of Hinduism traceable in the Vedas, though it does have some influence on it. As researchers says: “The Vedic corpus reflects the archetypal religion of those who called themselves aryas, and which, although it contributed to facets of latter day Hinduism, was nevertheless distinct”.
Who introduced concept of god with attributes and attributeless gods, when Yajur Veda says: - those who worship visible things, born of the prakrti, such as the earth, trees, bodies (human and the like), in place of God are enveloped in still greater darkness. Therefore, all these add-ons proves that the form and attribute based concepts are introduced by some sages of the past with new belief system and code of conducts in the name of Vedas.
Sruti is made the final or exclusive authority in apara Vidya and that for supporting the tenet of the CAUSAL relation or creatorship of Brahman, Nirguna Brahman = the "Absolute beyond qualities," which can be defined only in a negative way. For the Shankarian school = the Ultimate Reality, higher than the Lord. i.e. of Saguna or apara Brahman ... The support of Scriptural Revelation is, therefore, absolutely necessary for this hypothesis of cosmology, this Saguna or apara (= inferior) Brahman, but not for the absolute truth of Nirguna Brahman. The Sruti itself says: "This Atma is NOT to be attained by a study of the Vedas. (Katha Upanishad I, 2, 23.)
Therefore, all the add-ons and attribute based knowledge, which are inferior, have to be bifurcated and excluded to know the ultimate truth, which is Brahman.
Sage Sri, Sankaras’ param guru Gaudapada says that:~ The merciful Veda teaches karma and Upaasana to people of lower and middling intellect, while Jnana is taught to those of higher intellect.
This clearly indicates that the Hinduism introduced by Sri,Sankara in 8th ,century, which is based on individual conduct, prescribes karma and Upaasana to people of lower and middling intellect, therefore religion is for the lower intellect. And wisdom is for those are capable of inquiring into their own existence to know and realize the ultimate truth, which is Brahman. Thus the jnana [wisdom] was not given to the mass. The precious nondual wisdom might have been destroyed or mixed up with lower ideologies. Therefore, the seeker has to find the ultimate truth [Brahman] on his own , to realize the body and the world are myth.
Brahman is considered the all-pervading consciousness, which is the basis of all the animate and inanimate entities and material. (brahmano hi pratisthaham, Bhagavad Gita 14.27)
Sage Sri, Sankara’s notion of Maya, the cosmic illusion, which must be transcended in order to realize the truth of Brahman, which means the ultimate truth.
If Brahman is considered the all-pervading consciousness then, it is necessary to realize, the consciousness as self, which pervades all the three states, to realize the fact that, there is no second thing exists other the consciousness. Thus, the consciousness or the soul, is the ultimate truth (Brahman).
As indicated in ISH Upanishads:~ By worshiping gods and goddesses you will go after death to the world of gods and goddesses. But will that help you? The time you spend there is wasted, because if you were not there you could have spent that time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is your goal. In the world of gods and goddesses you cannot do that, and thus you go deeper and deeper into darkness.
It clearly indicates that:-If the human goal is to acquire Self-Knowledge then why one has to indulge in rituals and glorifying the conceptual gods, goddesses and gurus to go in to deeper darkness. Instead spend that time moving forward towards Self-knowledge, which is one’s prime goal.
Since it is eternal and infinite, it comprises the only truth. The goal of Vedic religion, through the various yogas, is to realize that the consciousness (soul ) is actually nothing but Brahman.
The Vedic pantheon of gods is said, in the Vedas and Upanishads, to be only higher manifestations of Brahman. For this reason, "ekam sat" (all is one), and all is Brahman.
Thus, the goal is to realize Atman (soul or consciousness). If Atman (consciousness) is nothing but Brahman and by realizing Amata (consciousness) as Brahman (ultimate truth)is truth realization or Self-Realization , then there is no need to follow religion, study scriptures or glorifying gods or gurus and follow the path of doubts and confusion by losing oneself in the labyrinths of philosophy, when there is an easier path. By mentally tracing the source of the mind from where it rises and subsides one becomes aware of the fallacy of the mind, which rises as waking or dream and subsides as deep sleep. The mind raises form consciousness and subsides as the consciousness.
They alone in this world are endowed with the highest wisdom who are firm in their conviction of the sameness and birthlessness of Ataman. The ordinary man does not understand their way. (Chapter IV — Alatasanti Prakarana 95-P-188 in Upanishads by Nikilanada)
Therefore, if one is seeking truth then he has to know the fact that, the true self is not physical but it is the Atman, which is in the form of consciousness.
Self-knowledge cannot be attained by study of the Vedas and intellectual understanding or by bookish knowledge. Therefore there is no use of studying the Vedas and other scriptures in order to acquire the non-dual wisdom. That is why Buddha rejected the scriptures, and even Sri, Sankara indicated that, the ultimate truth lies beyond religion, concept of god and scriptures.
There is only one Reality to be known, the same for all seekers, but the ways to it, are hidden by the religion. Self-discovery is the only way, towards non-dual Absolute without any religious doctrines, which will help the seekers to unfold the mystery of the illusion in which we all are searching the truth of our true existence.
The beliefs of god, religion, yoga are based on the false self, is nothing to do with the mental (inner) journey. The religious, rituals, worships, prayers god and guru glorification may be useful in the worldly life, for those who believes in the birth, life, death and the world as reality, but they are not useful tools in realizing the ultimate truth. On the base of consciousness [soul] as self, everything other than the consciousness, is mere mirage. Thus, man and his experience of the world and his belief of god and religion are part and parcel of the mirage created out of consciousness.
Sage Sri,Sankara says the world is an illusion, it includes birth, life and death, which happens within the world. Thus seekers main aim is to mentally trace the formless substance of the illusion, which is also the witness of the illusion. The formless substance and witness of the illusion [world] is the Atman, and this Atman itself is Brahman. This Brahman cannot be attained by indulging in egocentric religious orthodoxies. The knower of Brahman is Brahmin not the Brahmin who indulges in priest craft, which leads one to utter darkness as per Yajur Veda.
Brahmin is the one who has realized the Brahman (ultimate truth) and helps fellow seekers towards inner path. The one who knows Brahman knows his body and his experience of the world are mere illusion and also he knows his body and his experience of the world are also as Atman [consciousness], which is Brahman. Thus, the religious orthodoxy which crafted the body based theories will lead one to hallucinated moksha. But real moksha or freedom is possible only through non-dual wisdom.
Thus, it is necessary to follow the path of Brahman not the path of the orthodoxy. Only by dropping all the accumulated orthodox crafted baggage, one has to move forward to reach the non-dual destination in lesser time and effort.
Katha Upanishad says:~
Fools dwelling in darkness, but thinking themselves wise and erudite, go round and round, by various tortuous paths, like the blind led by the blind. (Ch II-5 P-14~ Upanishads Nikhilananda)
It indicates that the one who is ignorant (darkness) of the true self [formless witness or soul or Atman) searches truth by accumulating knowledge of every path and practice and uncertain about the truth, and thinks every path leads towards reality. The ignorance of the true self leads one towards unreality or hallucination.
This Atman cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, or by intelligence, or by much hearing of sacred books. It is attained by him alone whom It chooses. To such a one Atman reveals Its own form. (Katha Upanishad Ch-II -23-P-20)
This Atman cannot be attained by the study of the Vedas, or by intelligence, or by much hearing of sacred books. It is attained by him alone whom It chooses. To such a one Atman reveals Its own form. (Katha Upanishad Ch-II -23-P-20)
Thus, only through deeper inquiry, analysis and reasoning one becomes aware of the fact that, the "Mind" is a myth , and the formless substance of the mind ,which is consciousness is real and eternal.
