Who are Vedantists? Vedānta means the end of knowledge. The ultimate end of knowledge is knowledge of Kṛṣṇa, who is identical with His holy name. Vedantists are the students of the Vedanta philosophy Those who are followers of the Sankara cult are generally known as Vedantists. This does not, however, mean that Vedanta is a monopoly study of the Sankara-sampradaya. Vedanta is studied by all the bona fide sampradayas, but they have their own interpretations. But those in the Sankara-samprad aya are generally known to be ignorant of the knowledge of the Vedantist Vaisnavas. For this reason the Bhaktivedanta title was first offered to the author by the Vaisnavas. (Sri Caitanya Caritamrta---1:7:72-----purport). The word vedānta means the last word of Vedic knowledge, which is to understand Kṛṣṇa. As Krsna states in the Bhagavad-gītā (15.15), vedaiśca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ: By all the Vedas, I am to be known. When one actually comes to understand the Vedānta, he comes to know Kṛṣṇa and his relationship with Kṛṣṇa. And one who understands Kṛṣṇa understands everything. Moreover, the knower of Kṛṣṇa is always engaged in His transcendental loving service. (Teachings of Lord Caitanya). According to the Skanda and Vāyu Purāṇas, the word sūtra refers to a condensed work which carries meaning and import of immeasurable strength without any mistake or fault. The word vedānta means the end of Vedic knowledge. In other words, any book which deals with the subject matter indicated by all the Vedas is called vedānta. For example, the Bhagavad-gītā is vedānta because in the Bhagavad-gītā the Lord says that the ultimate goal of all Vedic research is Kṛṣṇa. Thus one should understand that the Bhagavad-gītā and Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, which aim only at Kṛṣṇa, are vedānta. (Teachings of Lord Caitanya). In Bhagavad-gītā (15.15) it is said, vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaḥ: Vedic knowledge means to understand the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa. Therefore, whether one speaks of the Vedas, scriptures, religion or the principles of everyones occupational duty, all of them must aim at understanding Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. (Srimad Bhagavatam----7:11:7----purport). Vedic knowledge means which is spoken by the Supreme Lord. That is Vedic knowledge. Apauruṣeya. It is not spoken by common man like me. So if we accept Vedic knowledge, if we accept the fact as it is stated by Kṛṣṇa, or His representative... Because His representative will not speak anything which Kṛṣṇa does not speak. Therefore hes representative. The Kṛṣṇa conscious persons are representative of Kṛṣṇa because a Kṛṣṇa conscious person will not speak anything nonsense, beyond the speaking of Kṛṣṇa. That is the difference. (Lecture on Bhagavad-Gita----2:22). ---------- Vedic knowledge means to understand God, the whole Vedic knowledge. Knowledge means we are getting... Veda means knowledge. Vetti veda vido jñāne. Veda means knowledge. So we want to know so many things. That is knowledge. So you get all information from the Vedas. There is called Āyur- veda, Dhanur-veda, Yajur-veda. Veda means knowledge, but actually the Veda means, ultimately, to know God. That is called Vedānta. Anta means ultimate, and veda means knowledge. So ultimate knowledge is your, when..., if... You know so many things. We have got so many subject matters for understanding. But ultimately, when you understand what is God, that is the end of knowledge. That is end of knowledge. So that is Vedānta. So Vedānta means to know the Absolute Truth, God. That is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, vedaiś ca sarvair aham eva vedyaṁ vedānta-kṛd veda-vid eva cāham (B.G.15:15). Kṛṣṇa says that By all Vedic knowledge, ultimately one must come to the point of knowing God. Therefore another name of God is Brahman, Parabrahman. So brāhmaṇa, brāhmaṇa means one who knows Brahman. That is called brāhmaṇa. A brāhmaṇa is not a class which is to be found in India only. No. Anyone who knows God, who knows the Parabrahman, he is brāhmaṇa. Brahma jānātīti brāhmaṇaḥ. So Vedic knowledge means ultimately to become a brāhmaṇa. That means to know God. That is Vedic knowledge. And the summary of Vedic knowledge is here in the Bhagavad-gītā, because here God directly is instructing about Himself. Therefore it is the essence of all Vedic knowledge. The ultimate goal of Vedic knowledge is to know God. (General Lecture). Please accept my humble obeisances All glories to Srila Gurudeva ... All glories to Srila Prabhupada ... Chant these names with love and you will feel the ecstasy: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare ... Hare Krishna ... Jay Jagannath ... https://facebook/groups/harekrishnaharerama/ Gauragopala Dasa > Vedic Cosmology Decoding the 5th Canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam Many are asking how do we understand Prabhupada’s statement that planets float because of air not gravity? Mayesa Dasa attempts to answer. SB 5.23.3 purport The question of how the planets and stars are floating is also answered in this verse. It is not because of the laws of gravity. Rather, the planets and stars are enabled to float by manipulations of the air. It is due to such manipulations that big, heavy clouds float and big eagles fly in the sky. Modern airplanes like the 747 jet aircraft work in a similar way: by controlling the air, they float high in the sky, resisting the tendency to fall to earth. When many read this they think there is air in the space also which modern scientist certainly does not agree with and is proven with space travel. So Mayesa dasa will explain if there is air in the space or is it vacuum? Actually why is it the following points by Prabhupada about the log and the needle is very easily defeated by modern science, there is a practical reason the small needle sinks and the large log floats, to a scientist this argument is ridicules that Mayesa dasa will try and answer – Srila Prabhupada – ‘Another revelation is that the needle, when put into the water, it goes down quickly to the bottom. But a big, big log, weighing one ton, does not go down. Who has made this law? If the law of gravity is there, why does it not apply to the big log? We can understand that Lord Ramacandra was able to make a bridge by causing the big stones to float n the water, so counteracting the law of gravitation is the law of the Supreme. Gravitation is caused by the Supreme Lord, so He is also able to remove that law or do anything and everything at His will. If you know something like swimming, then the law of gravitation will not work, and who knows better than Krishna how to do everything, so Krishna can change anything, therefore we worship Him as the greatest Scientist.If a man knows swimming he can stay up. So if this much power has a man, what to speak of God. So we see that Ramacandra has the art how to make stones float. It is a question of knowing the art. Art means the display of intellectual energy. Everywhere we can see intelligence in everything, so the Lord knows the art of everything, so He can change anything, we cannot. The atheists and scientists are trying to get God out of things, we are doing just the opposite, trying to put God into everything. They are God-less, nonsense—we are God-full, God-sense or God-conscious’. Letter to Rupanuga Tokyo Wed 3 May 1972 Question - How are we to understand that the planets float due to the manipulations of the air when scientists say there is no air in space, non at all. Answer by Mayesa dasa - I think we can say that they do not yet have a field of science to study air. Vedic science says five different types pf airs circulate in this body, meeting in the heart where the soul is situated. We utilized that air to breathe, to evacuate, to open and close our eyes. The force of air is resistant so you cannot jump up very high because the air is pushing you down. Air is very subtle within the material body however, we do not consciously detect it or suspect it is our secondary life force like it is in the atmosphere around planets, our material body is also regulated due to the air pressure that surrounds it. Consider like this: Air is pushing down on us all over the planet, yet we do not detect it, we take it for granted. My guess is that somehow or other if scientists devise an experiment to detect it they may understand that air pressure is more influential than their ‘so called’ law of gravity There is something I have seen - A small ball that floats in place supported by a column of air. I have seen this in a department store here in America. So air supports it Now consider that air has different weight or density or speed. That means that the air in space is pushing the stars around, in fact such a force would be so unique its pushing and pulling forces would be near identical. Then the final question would be what causes its flow in a certain direction/meaning-what other force started it moving ? What I am suggesting is that the column of air is so great in the universe and it moves that the planets are propelled by it but it is so steady and uniform that it is undetectable. If you have a globe around a light bulb try to understand that the globe is filled with air and the globe surface is covered with the pressure of air. Now, as the globe turns everything within it (the air) turns as well. Any object in that air would be caught in that air. In this way, the planets also move up and down also by the movement of the air however, remember there are different types of air and modern science has not discovered all of them. Modern science accepts these north and south movements. But modern scientists are not perplexed or amazed at these movements. This is because modern science rejects that air could move the planets as preposterous. It just sounds too fantastical. And besides this they have already decided that there is a mystical force called gravity holding everything on the surface of any particular planet, they further speculate that this force causes planets to move. The truth is their speculations cannot be demonstrated on any scale. And at a certain point their speculations break down into unanswerable questions. We are breathing air but foolishly we are thinking that we are able to breathe this air because it is air. But it is the circulation of tiny currents of air in the body allowing us to breathe the air. We think we know all about air because we breathe it. But air like any of the five elements may be on a scale higher and lower. Just like light is a type of fire but it is not fire. In the Pursnas it is said that Pravaha or universal wind is the prana of the Universal Form. As the body has nerve currents (pranic routes) so the universe also may have. As the body has nerve currents (pranic routes) so the universe also may have. Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 5 Chapter 23 TEXT 3 TRANSLATION When bulls are yoked together and tied to a central post to thresh rice, they tread around that pivot without deviating from their proper positions—one bull being closest to the post, another in the middle, and a third on the outside. Similarly, all the planets and all the hundreds and thousands of stars revolve around the polestar, the planet of Mahārāja Dhruva, in their respective orbits, some higher and some lower. Fastened by the Supreme Personality of Godhead to the machine of material nature according to the results of their fruitive acts, they are driven around the polestar by the wind and will continue to be so until the end of creation. These planets float in the air within the vast sky, just as clouds with hundreds of tons of water float in the air or as the great śyena eagles, due to the results of past activities, fly high in the sky and have no chance of falling to the ground. PURPORT According to the description of this verse, the hundreds and thousands of stars and the great planets such as the sun, the moon, Venus, Mercury, Mars and Jupiter are NOT clustered together because of the law of gravity or any similar idea of the modern scientists. These planets and stars are all servants of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Govinda or Kṛṣṇa, and according to His order they sit in their chariots and travel in their respective orbits. The orbits in which they move are compared to machines given by material nature to the operating deities of the stars and planets, who carry out the orders of the Supreme Personality of Godhead by revolving around Dhruvaloka, which is occupied by the great devotee Mahārāja Dhruva. This is confirmed in the Brahma-saṁhitā (5.52) as follows: yac-cakṣur eṣa savitā sakala-grahāṇāṁ rājā samasta-sura-mūrtir aśeṣa-tejāḥ yasyājñayā bhramati sambhṛta-kāla-cakro govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi “I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, under whose control even the sun, which is considered to be the eye of the Lord, rotates within the fixed orbit of eternal time. The sun is the king of all planetary systems and has unlimited potency in heat and light.” This verse from Brahma-saṁhitā confirms that even the largest and most powerful planet, the sun, rotates within a fixed orbit, or kāla-cakra, in obedience to the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. This has nothing to do with gravity or any other imaginary laws created by the material scientists. Material scientists want to avoid the ruling government of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and therefore they imagine different conditions under which they suppose the planets move. The only condition, however, is the order of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. All the various predominating deities of the planets are persons, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead is also a person. The Supreme Personality orders the subordinate persons, the demigods of various names, to carry out His supreme will. This fact is also confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (9.10), wherein Kṛṣṇa says: mayādhyakṣeṇa prakṛtiḥ sūyate sa-carācaram hetunānena kaunteya jagad viparivartate “This material nature is working under My direction, O son of Kuntī, and it is producing all moving and unmoving beings. By its rule this manifestation is created and annihilated again and again.” The orbits of the planets resemble the bodies in which all living entities are seated because they are both machines controlled by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. As Kṛṣṇa says in Bhagavad-gītā (18.61): īśvaraḥ sarva-bhūtānāṁ hṛd-deśe ’rjuna tiṣṭhati bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā “The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy.” The machine given by material nature—whether the machine of the body or the machine of the orbit, or kāla-cakra—works according to the orders given by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Supreme Personality of Godhead and material nature work together to maintain this great universe, and not only this universe but also the millions of other universes beyond this one. The question of how the planets and stars are floating is also answered in this verse. It is not because of the laws of gravity. Rather, the planets and stars are enabled to float by manipulations of the air. It is due to such manipulations that big, heavy clouds float and big eagles fly in the sky. Modern airplanes like the 747 jet aircraft work in a similar way: by controlling the air, they float high in the sky, resisting the tendency to fall to earth. Such adjustments of the air are all made possible by the cooperation of the principles of puruṣa (male) and prakṛti (female). By the cooperation of material nature, which is considered to be prakṛti, and the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is considered the puruṣa, all the affairs of the universe are going on nicely in their proper order. prakṛti, material nature, is also described in the Brahma- saṁhitā (5.44) as follows: sṛṣṭi-sthiti-pralaya-sādhana-śaktir ekā chāyeva yasya bhuvanāni bibharti durgā icchānurūpam api yasya ca ceṣṭate sā govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi “The external potency, māyā, who is of the nature of the shadow of the cit [spiritual] potency, is worshiped by all people as Durgā, the creating, preserving and destroying agency of this mundane world. I adore the primeval Lord Govinda, in accordance with whose will Durgā conducts herself.” Material nature, the external energy of the Supreme Lord, is also known as Durgā, or the female energy that protects the great fort of this universe. The word Durgā also means fort. This universe is just like a great fort in which all the conditioned souls are kept, and they cannot leave it unless they are liberated by the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The Lord Himself declares in Bhagavad-gītā (4.9): janma karma ca me divyam evaṁ yo vetti tattvataḥ tyaktvā dehaṁ punar janma naiti mām eti so ’rjuna “One who knows the transcendental nature of My appearance and activities does not, upon leaving the body, take his birth again in this material world, but attains My eternal abode, O Arjuna.” Thus simply by Kṛṣṇa consciousness, by the mercy of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, one can be liberated, or, in other words, one can be released from the great fort of this universe and go outside it to the spiritual world. It is also significant that the predominating deities of even the greatest planets have been offered their exalted posts because of the very valuable pious activities they performed in previous births. This is indicated herein by the words karma-nirmita-gatayaḥ. For example, as we have previously discussed, the moon is called jīva, which means that he is a living entity like us, but because of his pious activities he has been appointed to his post as the moon-god. Similarly, all the demigods are living entities who have been appointed to their various posts as the masters of the moon, the earth, Venus and so on because of their great service and pious acts. Only the predominating deity of the sun, Sūrya Nārāyaṇa, is an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Mahārāja Dhruva, the predominating deity of Dhruvaloka, is also a living entity. Thus there are two kinds of entities—the supreme entity, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, and the ordinary living entity, the jīva (nityo nityānāṁ cetanaś cetanānām). All the demigods are engaged in the service of the Lord, and only by such an arrangement are the affairs of the universe going on. Regarding the great eagles mentioned in this verse, it is understood that there are eagles so big that they can prey on big elephants. They fly so high that they can travel from one planet to another. They start flying in one planet and land in another, and while in flight they lay eggs that hatch into other birds while falling through the air. In Sanskrit such eagles are called śyena. Under the present circumstances, of course, we cannot see such huge birds, but at least we know of eagles that can capture monkeys and then throw them down to kill and eat them. Similarly, it is understood that there are gigantic birds that can carry off elephants, kill them and eat them. The two examples of the eagle and the cloud are sufficient to prove that flying and floating can be made possible through adjustments of the air. The planets, in a similar way, are floating because material nature adjusts the air according to the orders of the Supreme Lord. It could be said that these adjustments constitute the law of gravity, but in any case, one must accept that these laws are made by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. The so-called scientists have no control over them. The scientists can falsely, improperly declare that there is no God, but this is not a fact.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 08:45:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015