When I decided to meditate on Vedas, I was left with two options – I had the privilege to combine it to my existing pool of perception and reduce it to what I wanted from it, or I had the privilege to unlearn everything and learn everything from start. From the poetic interconnection the Vedas spoke of, the latter seemed to be the right way to me. The words from Yajurveda VS 40, better known as Īśopaniṣad, kept ringing inside: “They fall into blinding darkness those who worship the deconstruction. Those fall into even more darkness who on construction is intent. Different is the fruit of destruction and synthesis, so have the wise sages of yore spoke. Through destruction one crosses the death, through synthesis reaches immortality”.
I would not agree with the statement that “But there are so many confusions that have been created by people who wrote about Moksha from time immemorial, without knowing it in one’s experience. Also, there is a huge problem in putting it in words.” People don’t just write for fun. Many of them have experiences that they choose to not philosophize or conclude into anything. Many of them do have self-restraint on certain topics that they wouldn’t randomly speak of. And all the people have their own concepts of what they perceive as something.
For someone to write about sweetness, he should have conceptualized it and felt in his mind, in his reality, if not as a perception of outer reality. I agree that putting it into words is tough. But what makes you think that what you have experienced is mokṣa or Nirvāṇa? There is the same pre-conditioning in your mind that facilitates it. Everything in this world is like that. Whether we like it or not, we exist only because of the māyā. Hence, any kind of action is possible only through māyā. Deconstructing the māya is destruction – it helps us transcend death by being in it, but then we are in the shut world of our darkness, of ignorance. Ignorance is not a solution to a problem. Why I say problem, is because the mokṣavādis essentially bring mokṣa as a solution to the problem called duḥkha. And indeed, the traditional schools don’t stop it with the ignorance of outer reality. Their “spiritual science” comes with all the paraphernalia in carving out a newer philosophy to rise to life, newer concepts, forms, and things. And this is where I disagree – not with the exact experience that caused this transformation, but how they begin their perception afterward. In short, how they carve their māya again.
If you see, the dhyāna methods all converge into very similar experiences, which almost all schools of philosophy who have used it, have succeeded to put into words. (though those words are mostly dead for the person who hasn’t experienced it) But the schools of philosophy – do they end up the same? 🙂
If Buddha experienced Nirvāṇa and became Buddha, did he stop his engagement with the world there? No. He came up with its philosophy, that could enable others, in his perspective, to leave their duḥkha. He preached. All the great masters of various Brahmanic and Samaṇic philosophies have done exactly the same thing. And then, why do they disagree? Is it because they disagree with the experience? No. It is exactly based on what māyā they crafted afterward.
If you didn’t yet know, it is the same experience of seeking which Dīrghatamas speaks of when he says, “na vijānāmi yadi vedam asmi, niṇyaḥ sannaddho manasā carāmi”. “I do not yet identify like what am I here. Being bound in my limit, I still roam (beyond) by the thought”. But what he says the next half of the stanza is the key takeaway: “yadā māgan prathamajāṃ ṛtasya, ād id vāco aśnuve bhāgam asyāḥ”. “Only then when the first-born of Ṛta comes to me, it’s just then that I taste the share of speech”. Ever wondered why the masters who have concluded things from their experience in these days, have come up with totally contradictory philosophies, while the 350+ sages of Rigveda all speak their perception in the same way despite being separated by language and generations? It amounts as to what māyā they have crafted after they deconstructed what they are from what is not. Guess why the Vedic kavis were not just held in a great position covertly by traditional Brahmanic philosophers, but even by the Buddha in a subtle way, when he speaks of the kavis?
If you read again the Nāsadīya, you see that the seeking comes at the half of hymn. “The mindful poets, seeking their hearts through wisdom, found the bond of what “is” in what isn’t.” Doesn’t this exactly correspond to neti-neti philosophy or in a way, to the śūnyatā which Buddha speaks of? But do the wise stop there? No. They began to craft their māyā again, they synthesize again. That is what Buddha did, that is what Śaṅkara did – even if they have failed to acknowledge that they did. That is also what Vedic poets did. So what exactly made their perception universal and poetic while the perception of Buddhism or Advaita became rigidly philosophical? Sages of different clans, different tribes, invoking different devas, all speak through the same perception – why?
The answer is the two-syllabled word – Ṛta.
That there exists Ṛta is reality. Anṛta is what is contradicting the reality – it cannot exist. Adharma is something that shouldn’t exist. Asatya is simply that doesn’t have an existential realm. Anything that is yet to be perceived under time is asatya. Anything extinct is currently asat. We have no issues with it. (In fact, it is from asat that we reach sat – that is how it has happened in the yore) But the negation of Ṛta results in arrogance. The premise that “only my conclusion of the reality is true”. That does conflict with all other perspectives even while being built on the same experience.
Meditating on sat alone results in this – because the seeker apparently fails to include dharma and ṛta in it. His conclusions will surely lack the characteristic of dharma and ṛta in it. To compensate it, he has to theorize or propose a system, and that is exactly where the schools disagree. On how the connection to the world can be made possible through this experience, on how dharma can be understood from this experience. The answer is that this experience can only lead you to where you should start. Not where you should stop. Once your engagement with the world has become fully meaningful and you have no more obligations to the society, you can pursue the end as identifying yourself with everything, with the fullness that you have reached. You might return to that experience any time you think you need inspiration, but you must also have an active perception that decides how you should move on.
Sanatana Dhara 