What is Vedanta?
Exoterically the word Vedanta refers
to the knowledge contained in the texts that are at the end of each Veda. These texts are called Upanishads. The fundamental idea of the Upanishads is
that reality is non-dual (advaita)
Awareness and that the ultimate goal of human life is the realization of the
non-dual Self. The realization of the
Self is called moksha or liberation.
Vedanta is a Sanskrit compound. ‘Veda’
means knowledge and ‘anta’ means
end. So esoterically Vedanta is the
knowledge that ends the quest for knowledge.
What is it, the Upanishad says, that ‘knowing which, everything is
known?’ The
realization that the ‘I’ is whole and complete actionless Awareness ends the
quest for the meaning of life because it destroys the belief that the self is
limited, inadequate, incomplete and separate, a notion that is commonly called
duality. Duality is a problem
because it causes people to seek lasting happiness though the enjoyment of
impermanent objects, a quest that always ends in disappointment and
disillusionment.
A long teaching tradition has
developed over the last three thousand years based on Upanishadic
ideas. This teaching tradition is also
known as Vedanta. But to convey the
precise meaning of Vedanta the word ‘pramana’ needs to be added. A pramana is a means of knowledge. All knowledge takes place with the aid of
some means. Sense objects require sense
organs to be known. The knowledge of
ideas depends on an intellect. But
since the Self is not an object, the senses and the mind cannot know it. But Vedanta can reveal it by using ideas and
logic to remove one’s ignorance about it, delivering direct Self
knowledge.
As Vedanta evolved over time it
became a very attractive means of knowledge as great sages added their
commentaries and contributions to the literature. At some point in its long history enough
apparent doctrinal differences concerning the nature of reality appeared that
Vedanta seemed to be disintegrating into several ‘schools of thought.’ These apparently conflicting views do not
compromise Vedanta as long as it is taken as a means of knowledge because the
purpose of any teaching is to remove Self ignorance. And because different minds formulate Self
ignorance differently, an idea that may reveal the Self to one person may not
reveal it to another. But many people
who are not interested in liberation and are not qualified for it are
nonetheless attracted to Vedanta for intellectual reasons because it is a very
beautiful and profound body of literature.
In
Vedanta is not a philosophy or a
school of thought because it is not the contention of an individual or a group
of individuals. Philosophies are subject
to negation and correction because they are invariably speculations,
imaginations, beliefs and opinions of an individual or a small group of
individuals…which means they are always subject to error or irrelevancy because
they do not serve a fundamental human need, in this case the need be free of
limitation. Where is existentialism
today? Vedanta has thrived for several
thousand years precisely because it is not a personal philosophy.
Vedanta is called ‘shruti.’ Shruti literally means ‘heard.’ Its teachings are meant to be ‘heard’ from
someone who has been freed by them and who can skillfully wield them to help
the qualified aspirant remove his or her ignorance. But ‘shruti’ has a more general meaning too. It means revealed unauthored truth that has
passed the test of time. In other words
the essence of Vedanta, the teachings that remove Self
ignorance, do not change because they effectively do what they are intended to
do. Nobody is pressing for a new
improved eye, since the eyes do all they need to do. So in this sense Vedanta, like the Sanskrit
its mantras are formulated in, is a perfected body of knowledge. Nothing needs to be added to it, no timely
modifications are necessary to help it adapt to recent times. But this has not stopped people from making of
it what they want.
In approximately the last one
hundred years Vedanta has suffered an apparent change largely as a result of
the teachings of Vivekananda around the turn of the twentieth century. Its basic function as a means of Self
knowledge became confused with the doctrines of Yoga because Vivekananda who
had a profound influence on the West’s understanding of Vedanta (probably
unintentionally) reduced it to ‘jnana’ (knowledge) yoga, one of the many
branches of Yoga. In fact, Yoga has
traditionally been considered a subset of Vedanta, its purpose being to aid in
the preparation of the mind to receive the teachings of non-duality. Before Yoga sullied the pure teachings of
Vedanta enlightenment was considered to be the removal of ignorance about the
nature of the Self. But with the
ascendancy of the Yoga teachings enlightenment came to be considered a
‘permanent experience of the Self’ in contrast to the mundane experiences of
everyday life, which it obviously can’t be if this is a non-dual reality as the
Upanishads claim. It can’t be a
permanent experience first, because there is no such thing as a permanent
experience and second, it can’t be an experience in a non-dual reality because
the subject object distinction necessary for experience is missing in a
non-dual reality. If this is true then
the quest for a permanent enlightenment experience is pointless and what is
needed, as traditional Vedanta says, is the knowledge of reality since the
craving for experience, including the experience of the Self, is Maya, the
consequence of seeing oneself as a doer who is separate from reality. Or to put
it another way, trying to get out of Maya experientially is not ever going to
happen because Maya is unreal. How can
one be ‘in Maya’ in the first place if Maya is only an apparent reality? The only way out of Maya is to see that Maya,
the belief in duality, is only in the mind and to destroy it with the knowledge
of reality. In any case, the
experiential notion of enlightenment has been the dominant view for the last
one hundred years, although it goes back to the Yoga sutras of Patanjali. This Vedantic evolution has been labeled
‘modern’ Vedanta, an oxymoron if ever there was one.
By and large the wave of ‘export
gurus’ that inundated the West in the Sixties peddled Modern Vedanta with
considerable success. Then in the
Eighties the Western spiritual world became reacquainted with Ramana Maharshi,
a sage in the Vedic tradition who had achieved international recognition around
the middle of the century but who had been all but forgotten since his death in
the Fifties. Ramana was not a
traditional Vedantic sage but he realized the non-dual nature of the Self and
taught both Vedanta and Yoga. Self
inquiry, which many Neo-Adviatins believe to be his invention, is as old as the
Vedas itself. The rediscovery of Ramana
roughly coincided with the rise of ‘Neo-Advaita.’ Neo-Advaita is basically a ‘satsang’ based
‘movement’ that has very little in common with either traditional Vedanta or
modern Vedanta or even its inspiration, Ramana…except the doctrine of
non-duality.
I have recently been informed that
in spite of the fact that no new Vedantas are
required we have entered the ‘Post Neo-Advaita’ period. Presumably, Westerners have seen enough of
Neo-Advaita and are now waiting for the next permutation of the Upanishadic teachings that by their nature never
change.