My views about vedic knowledge
In current days, Vedic and spiritual knowledge is critisized for unavailability of scientific basis for their hypothesis. The vedic (more specifically vendantic) conclusions are not accepted because of lack of objective experimental and analytical proofs. Most of the scientists / students reject vedantic conclusions blindly even without giving them justified amount of thought on it. They are reluctant to study these things today. It's important to know that why vedic knowledge was so much adored in past, while it's loosing faith in current era.
Since ascent of modern science, many things in nature were explained with reasonably well explanation based on analytical proofs. This suddenly increased its faith in minds of people. But many people don't realize the fact that modern science is just a neonate. It's still in midway of it's development before it reach its destiny. While vedic knowledge is a full grown adult. It had possibly passed through all those stages which modern science is now facing. Even though exact figures can't be retrieved from history, we know that, it was thousands of years of vedic culture which was existing in India. And it possibly took even thousands of years more before it, to develop fully. This span of time is dramatically larger as compared to the time that modern science has spent since its birth (more or less 400 years).
The logical inquiry that modern science makes, is marked by objective nature of experiments and detectable direct evidence. Any scientific inquiry revolves around the two fundamental assumption - 1> Every thing in nature can be studied objectively 2> Logic and reasoning provide the ultimate a basis for judgment. (meaning, a hypothesis which passes test of reasoning and viable logical explanation is concluded as a truth and vice versa). Both of these assumptions are futile. And science itself will reveal this after considerable amount of iterative cycles in which it progresses. ( Hypothesis--> Experiments--> Analysis --> refinement in hypothesis --> Experiments.... is the typical nature of this cycle. )
If we think carefully, we ourselves are at the end of entire mystery of knowing the ultimate truth. Even if some day we solve all the other questions then the knower of all these answers still remains a question. And this question can never be dealt objectively. And from there, starts the journey in subjective world. The things like the faculty of logical reasoning, intelligence and mind which we currently use as instruments of judgment, suddenly become objects of study instead ! The objective experiments can no more be carried out. Neither the experiments nor their results can be directly shared with others. They are highly personalized. The results also do not remain a universal phenomenon, since they are localized and have their own meaning. This fundamental fact, that we ourselves being the center of whole mystery was very wisely understood by ancient folks. And they started to dig inside rather than searching the answers outside. The foundation of highly subjective experiments, their outcomes and resulting knowledge was built in those prehistoric times.
By definition itself, subjective knowledge is not a verbally sharable entity. It can only be verified by personal experience. But still, the path to get that experience can vaguely be explained verbally. And all the spiritual texts are nothing but the verbal explanation of this path to obtain subjective knowledge. That's why vedantic texts are called 'Shabda Pramana'. They state final truth in the words which can be verified by only one way - analyze personal experiences of our own mundane life and by link them to internal dynamics of our psych to come to fruitful conclusions. This whole process requires highly introvert contemplation. But there are systematic step wise methods to achieve introverting, and to delve into one's own nature. And these methods are nothing but scientific experiments performed into our own subjective laboratory. They are as standard and meticulous as any other scientific experiment. All the spirituality is about these methods. We know that all kinds of chantings and meditations lead to some form of mental concentrations which further lead oneself to become introvert. All forms of worships (Puja, Aratis) bring oneself to submissive state of mind and make him to loose the ego.
So vedanta is nothing but much highly evolved form of the same science which we know today.
Since ascent of modern science, many things in nature were explained with reasonably well explanation based on analytical proofs. This suddenly increased its faith in minds of people. But many people don't realize the fact that modern science is just a neonate. It's still in midway of it's development before it reach its destiny. While vedic knowledge is a full grown adult. It had possibly passed through all those stages which modern science is now facing. Even though exact figures can't be retrieved from history, we know that, it was thousands of years of vedic culture which was existing in India. And it possibly took even thousands of years more before it, to develop fully. This span of time is dramatically larger as compared to the time that modern science has spent since its birth (more or less 400 years).
The logical inquiry that modern science makes, is marked by objective nature of experiments and detectable direct evidence. Any scientific inquiry revolves around the two fundamental assumption - 1> Every thing in nature can be studied objectively 2> Logic and reasoning provide the ultimate a basis for judgment. (meaning, a hypothesis which passes test of reasoning and viable logical explanation is concluded as a truth and vice versa). Both of these assumptions are futile. And science itself will reveal this after considerable amount of iterative cycles in which it progresses. ( Hypothesis--> Experiments--> Analysis --> refinement in hypothesis --> Experiments.... is the typical nature of this cycle. )
If we think carefully, we ourselves are at the end of entire mystery of knowing the ultimate truth. Even if some day we solve all the other questions then the knower of all these answers still remains a question. And this question can never be dealt objectively. And from there, starts the journey in subjective world. The things like the faculty of logical reasoning, intelligence and mind which we currently use as instruments of judgment, suddenly become objects of study instead ! The objective experiments can no more be carried out. Neither the experiments nor their results can be directly shared with others. They are highly personalized. The results also do not remain a universal phenomenon, since they are localized and have their own meaning. This fundamental fact, that we ourselves being the center of whole mystery was very wisely understood by ancient folks. And they started to dig inside rather than searching the answers outside. The foundation of highly subjective experiments, their outcomes and resulting knowledge was built in those prehistoric times.
By definition itself, subjective knowledge is not a verbally sharable entity. It can only be verified by personal experience. But still, the path to get that experience can vaguely be explained verbally. And all the spiritual texts are nothing but the verbal explanation of this path to obtain subjective knowledge. That's why vedantic texts are called 'Shabda Pramana'. They state final truth in the words which can be verified by only one way - analyze personal experiences of our own mundane life and by link them to internal dynamics of our psych to come to fruitful conclusions. This whole process requires highly introvert contemplation. But there are systematic step wise methods to achieve introverting, and to delve into one's own nature. And these methods are nothing but scientific experiments performed into our own subjective laboratory. They are as standard and meticulous as any other scientific experiment. All the spirituality is about these methods. We know that all kinds of chantings and meditations lead to some form of mental concentrations which further lead oneself to become introvert. All forms of worships (Puja, Aratis) bring oneself to submissive state of mind and make him to loose the ego.
So vedanta is nothing but much highly evolved form of the same science which we know today.
posted by Sachin Joshi | 11:48 PM
1 Comments:
interesting blog. It would be great if you can provide more details about it. Thanks you
Pujas - Vedic Folks
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