Vedanta The Ultimate Wisdom

Introduction:
Vedanta: the Ultimate Wisdom

Vedanta is one of the worlds most ancient religious philosophies
and one of its broadest. Based on the Vedas, the sacred scriptures
of India, Vedanta affirms the oneness of existence, the
divinity of the soul, and the harmony of religions. Vedanta is the
philosophical foundation of Hinduism;

But while Hinduism includes aspects of Indian culture, Vedanta is
universal in its application and is equally relevant to all countries,
all cultures, and all religious backgrounds.

A closer look at the word Vedanta is revealing: Vedanta is a
combination of two words: Veda which means knowledge and
anta which means the end of or the goal of.

In this context the goal of knowledge isnt intellectualthe limited
knowledge we acquire by reading books. Knowledge here means
the knowledge of God as well as the knowledge of our own divine
nature. Vedanta, then, is the search for Self-knowledge as well as
the search for God.

What do we mean when we say God? According to Vedanta, God is
infinite existence, infinite consciousness, and infinite bliss. The
term for this impersonal, transcendent reality is Brahman, the
divine ground of being. Yet Vedanta also maintains that God can
be personal as well, assuming human form in every age.

Most importantly, God dwells within our own hearts as the divine
Self or Atman. The Atman is never born nor will it ever die.

Neither stained by our failings nor affected by the fluctuations of
the body or mind, the Atman is not subject to our grief or despair
or disease or ignorance.

Pure, perfect, free from limitations, the Atman, Vedanta declares,
is one with Brahman. The greatest temple of God lies within the
human heart.

Vedanta further asserts that the goal of human life is to realize and
manifest our divinity. Not only is this possible, it is inevitable. Our
real nature is divine; God-realization is our birthright. Sooner or
later, we will all manifest our divinityeither in this or in future
braindynamic.com
By : Swami Vivekananda
Vedanta
The Ultimate wisdom

livesfor the greatest truth of our existence is our own divine
nature.

Finally, Vedanta affirms that all religions teach the same
basic truths about God, the world, and our relationship to
one another.

Thousands of years ago the Rig Veda declared: Truth is one,
sages call it by various names. The worlds religions offer varying
approaches to God, each one true and valid, each religion offering
the world a unique and irreplaceable path to God-realization.

The conflicting messages we find among religions are due more to
doctrine and dogma than to the reality of spiritual experience.
While dissimilarities exist in the external observances of the world
religions, the internals bear remarkable similarities.

VEDANTA ( The Ultimate wisdom)
By Swami Vivekananda
(Delivered at Lahore on 12th November, 1897)

Two worlds there are in which we live, one the external, the other
internal. Human progress has been made, from days of yore,
almost in parallel lines along both these worlds.

The search began in the external, and man at first wanted to get
answers for all the deep problems from outside nature.

Man wanted to satisfy his thirst for the beautiful and the sublime
from all that surrounded him; he wanted to express himself and all
that was within him in the language of the concrete; and grand
indeed were the answers he got, most marvelous ideas of God and
worship, and most rapturous expressions of the beautiful. Sublime
ideas came from the external world indeed.

What is that knowing which we know everything else?

In modern language, the theme of the Upanishads is to find an
ultimate unity of things. Knowledge is nothing but finding unity in
the midst of diversity.

Every science is based upon this; all human knowledge is based
upon the finding of unity in the midst of diversity; and if it is the
task of small fragments of human knowledge, which we call our
sciences, to find unity in the midst of a few different phenomena,
the task becomes stupendous when the theme before us is to find
unity in the midst of this marvelously diversified universe, where
prevail unnumbered differences in name and form, in matter and
spirit each thought differing from every other thought, each
form differing from every other form.

Yet, to harmonize these many planes and unending Lokas, in the
midst of this infinite variety to find unity, is the theme of the
Upanishads.

One step further, and we find the same teacher teaching that this
God is not outside of nature, but immanent in nature.

And at last both ideas are discarded, and whatever is real is He;
there is no difference. Shvetaketu, Which thou art. That
Immanent One is at last declared to be the same that is in the
human soul. Here is no Compromise; here is no fear of others
opinions.

Truth, bold truth, has been taught in bold language, and we need
not fear to preach the truth in the same bold language today, and,
by the grace of God, I hope at least to be one who dares to be that
bold preacher.

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Introduction:

Vedanta: the Ultimate Wisdom

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