The Vedic Worldview

Worldviews are powerful. In fact, according to one Russian General – Konstantin Petrov – they are THE most powerful weapon there is. This is so because worldviews create limits of thought. Despite the meme of “thinking outside the box,” meaning to approach a topic from a different angle, such a thing is only possible within the confines of the worldview. Of course one may create fictional ideas, but they cannot serve as a means of dealing with the reality of the human experience.

The tools we have for thought and perspective are limited by our language. Language frames our reality. Thus the significance of the Sanskrit language, a spiritual language that offers us concepts of spirituality not available in the majority of the world’s languages, and specifically, the English language. Readers of this blog will observe Sanskrit words regularly being introduced to explain the concepts of the Spiritual Science.
Today I am presenting a summary description of the Vedic worldview as part of the necessary background information to understanding the Spiritual Science. Understanding the Vedic worldview will allow the reader understand a bigger and far different picture of reality than the average Westerner is ever exposed to. Understanding the Vedic worldview will help you make more sense of this world.

Please keep in mind that this is an overview, a summary, without supporting details. The details will be fleshed out in future posts here.

The Cause of All Causes

Our experience in this world teaches us that everything has a cause, or origin. Our parents created us, and their parents created them, and so on. If we trace back one cause after another, we will eventually come to a cause that has no cause, or the cause of all causes. This is one of the definitions of God. God is the beginning of everything, or the Alpha, as it is sometimes stated.

One Sanskrit word that is often used to refer to God is Bhagavan. The word Bhagavan means “one who possesses all opulence.” Personal opulence is reflected in beauty, strength, knowledge, wealth, fame and renunciation. These characteristics are attractive to everyone. Popular literature is full of stories about people who possess one or more of these characteristics, and we all want to hear about such persons. God, however, is the one who possesses all of these in full, and aspects of His opulence are displayed throughout His beautiful creation.

As the possessor of all opulence God has unlimited energies, which can be divided into three main divisions: His internal, or spiritual energy, the external, or material energy, and the marginal energy. We have explained these energies in detail in other posts, but to summarize, the spiritual energy is personal, eternal, full of knowledge and always blissful. The material energy is dull, inert and temporary. The marginal energy is the jiva, the spiritual energy that can also live within the material energy. We are that marginal energy, spiritual in nature, but now living within the confines of the material world.

The living beings are all eternally connected with God, being part and parcel of Him. Being a part of Him they have Godly qualities such as personality, likes/dislikes, emotions and love. The love human beings want is expressed in songs as a totally fulfilling, unending, ever-expanding love. That love can only be experienced with God. The search for such love in the material world must be frustrated due to the limited and temporary of this material world. No relationship we find here will ever last forever.

The Spiritual World

There is a spiritual world, which is the kingdom of God, known as Vaikuntha. Vaikuntha is not the heaven of the Bible, but a completely transcendental world that is perfect and eternal and has none of the defects of this material world. In that world there is no birth, death, old age or disease, no suffering and no misery. Everyone there is eternally happy and satisfied, and has full knowledge without the need for schools and education. That spiritual world is full of people, animals, birds, flowers, jeweled palaces, lakes and pleasure gardens. Once going there the jiva never returns to this material world. That world is achieved by understanding the Spiritual Science and pursuing the process of self-realization.

Phases of Existence

The jiva has the choice to live either in the material world that is incompatible with its nature, or in the spiritual world that is fully compatible with its spiritual nature.

To live in the material world the jiva requires a suitable material body of gross physical matter. But, in order for the spiritual energy to function in a body of material energy a suitable interface is required. That interface is the body of subtle material elements: manna or mind, buddhi or intelligence, and ahankara or material identity (ego). Through the ahankara we identify our body to be ourselves, although it is not, and use it to experience various sense pleasures.

The mind is the nexus of all of the senses, and it gathers the sensory input, and interprets it as desirable or undesirable, pleasurable or not. We are not the mind, nor is the mind a function of the brain. It is a separate subtle material energy. By identifying with the mind the jiva takes pleasurable sense gratification to be happiness, thus pursues sense gratification as the goal of life. But while sense gratification may give pleasure it cannot give actual happiness. Thus the jiva who pursues sense gratification only, and does not search out spiritual understanding, becomes unhappy and frustrated with life.

The functions of intelligence are to help in ascertaining the nature of objects, to help the senses by discrimination between good and bad, desirable and undesirable, proper and improper action. The intelligence interfaces with the body through the organ of the brain, but is not a function of the brain.

In its activities in the material world the jiva thus “wears” bodies made of both subtle and gross material elements. The physical body, like everything in the material world, is temporary. The jiva will use it for some time and then discard it for another. There can be no eternal life on the material plane. Eternal life is possible, but only in the spiritual world.

It appears as though we are born into this world, but what is born is only the material body. Prior to being injected in the womb of the mother the jiva lived in the subtle or mental body in the mental (non-physical) world. At the time of death the jiva, encased in the mental body, leaves the physical body and lives in the mental world. After death of the body, in the mental realm, the jiva has the opportunity to learn life lessons associated with its previous incarnation. After a period of time its desires for activity on the material plane become strong and act to develop a suitable material body that can satisfy those desires.

Thus the jiva repeatedly cycles through the gross (physical) and subtle (mental) worlds as it passes through various physical incarnations. It can be freed from this cycle of birth and death through the process of self-realization.

The Material World

The material world is a combination of the material and spiritual energies. The spiritual energy gives life to the inert material energy in millions of different forms. The living being, or jiva, is given the opportunity to experience the material energy with a suitable body. To experience the sea in all of its completeness there are millions of suitable forms, or bodies: sharks, whales, minnows, jellyfish, and so on. To experience the air there are millions of additional bodies equipped with wings from insects, to great birds. To experience the earth there are many more bodies such as bacteria, plants, trees, earthworms, and moles.

This material world is not actually created by God who whimsically puts us here, but is a creation of the jivas who inhabit it. All of us have many desires and plans for material activities. It is our desires for activity within the material sphere that bring about its creation. As spiritual beings our desires will all be satisfied according to the principle of karma. Our unfulfilled desires cause us to be born again and again, in the cycle of reincarnation, or samsara, in millions of different species. Each of these species offers opportunities for the evolution of our consciousness.

The jiva evolves through all of these forms of life prior to achieving the human form with developed intelligence, reasoning ability and free will. Thus the same living energy, non-different from you and me, is present wherever there is life, and the consciousness of the living being is filtered or limited by the nature of the body. Yes, animals do have a soul. So do plants and insects. The soul is life. When the soul leaves the body, the body “dies.” Actually the body is always dead but appears to have life due to the presence of the soul.

Divine and Demonic Natures

Human life offers the jiva the opportunity to become free from identification with the material body and achieve the spiritual world or bliss, knowledge and full freedom. Once achieving that transcendental state the jiva will never again be born in this material world.

However, the jiva may prefer not to do so, but may choose instead to try to become the lord and enjoyer, of this material world. This idea of being the lord of this world is expressed through the ability to command and control others, to acquire material possessions and wealth, to enjoy sex, and so on.

As the jiva endeavors to become the lord of this world it retreats from recognition of God as the legitimate enjoyer of all. Distancing itself from God the jiva may become more and more egocentric and narcissistic, focusing exclusively on its own pleasure at the expense of others. This self-centeredness may become pathological, developing into what is called a psychopath, having no conscience at all. In such a state one cannot distinguish between right and wrong behavior and acts without regard for the welfare of others.

Cutting itself off from God the errant jiva engages is unbeneficial and horrible works. It seeks to satisfy itself at all costs, and may kill and destroy anything to that end. In such a condition the jiva actually thinks that it has become supreme. This is referred to as a demonic condition of life. Engaging in sinful and destructive behavior the jiva falls to hell and suffers greatly. Eventually, over the course of many incarnations the jiva may rectify itself and free itself from such demonic inclinations.

This world is currently ruled by such demonic personalities who manipulate everything from behind the scenes. It is they who create wars and strife in this world. Politicians are merely their puppets.

The Cyclical Nature of Time

Although there is life on every planet within the universe, the earth is the predominant field of activities for human beings. And because there are different types of people as described above ranging from saintly to extremely sinful the earth is given to each type for a particular time for their purposes. Thus there are four ages of development for the earth – often referred to as: the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, or correspondingly in Sanskrit Satya, Dvarpara, Treta, and Kali.

During the age of Satya goodness is the predominant quality in society. People are godly, long-lived, healthy, and peaceful. Life is easy and wonderful. In the next age, Dvarpara, human qualities are reduced by one-fourth, along with life-span, interest in religion and peacefulness. The next age, Treta provides an environment for those who are yet more degraded and the influence of ignorance begins to be felt, along with strife, ill-health, duration of life, etc. And finally, in the age of Kali, the earth is given to the demonic for their nefarious activities. The most spiritually fallen people take birth on earth. Sinful activities become prominent, along with cheating, killing, exploitation, environmental degradation, ill-health, and the duration of life is reduced to at most 100 years. During the age of Kali human beings become progressively degraded, and by the end of the age will be reduced to mere animals incapable of even thinking about religion or God. We currently have passed 5,000 years in the age of Kali, with another 427,000 years yet to go.

The cycle of these four ages is called one divya-yuga. When the cycle is complete there is a period of purification and again the cycle of ages begins with Satya. Thus the earth is something of a multi-purpose room, with different purposes being served at different periods of time.

Karma

The jiva is the superior energy of the Lord, and has the same qualities of the Lord. Thus the jiva is endowed with the ability to satisfy all of its desires. This is carried out through the agency of the Lord’s potencies of Maya-shakti. Within this material realm the agency of Maha-maya acts to fulfill the jiva’s desires. This is also known as karma. The living being need only desire something and it will be fulfilled – eventually. If the desires are not in the present life, the unfulfilled desires act to cause the jiva to take birth again in order to receive the objects of their desires. Unfulfilled desires are the cause of the jiva’s continued birth and death in the material realms.

In order to stop the repetition of birth and death the jiva must learn how to control its desires, to become purified from previous desires, and to desire only the devotional service of the Lord. When the jiva desires only to serve the Lord, giving up selfish desires to enjoy independently of the Lord, then it becomes free from the reactions of karma and may be transferred to the spiritual world.

Spiritual Liberation

The jiva is bound to the material world by its continuing desires for material enjoyment and karma. When it has learned to understand its spiritual nature and acts to qualify itself to enter the spiritual world then, and only then can it be forever freed from material suffering and repeated birth and death.

That liberation can be achieved when we abandon our attempts to be the enjoyers of this world, and instead, act in our natural and constitutional position as the servant of God. Everyone must serve someone or something. We naturally serve our children, our employer, our community, or nation, and millions of people also serve their pet animals. But the serving propensity is misdirected. As we learn how to serve God in a selfless manner we qualify ourselves to enter the spiritual world. In the process of doing this we contact our spiritual essence and experience the natural bliss of the soul – our inherent blissful nature. Thus devotional service to the Lord is joyfully performed.

Devotional Service

As long as the jiva attempts to find happiness in the material world it must be frustrated, because it is looking in the wrong place. The satisfaction and love we seek is actually spiritual but we have forgotten our spiritual nature being distracted by activities within the material world. We are attempting to make illusion a reality. Material is illusory because it is temporary. Reality is spiritual, and to be spiritual it must be connected with God. The jiva will find the satisfaction and fulfillment it seeks only when its relationship with the Lord is properly established.

That relationship is one of the servant and the served. The Lord is the proper recipient of all love and service. When the jiva directs its energies toward serving the Lord it will find its happiness, fulfillment and satisfaction. This is because the jiva is part and parcel of the Lord. Without being connected to the Lord in loving service the jiva can never be complete, just as we feel ourselves incomplete without having someone to love and serve in this world. That propensity to love and serve is inherent in the jiva. In this world those propensities are directed to other living beings, but all such relationships are temporary and thus ultimately frustrated. When directed toward the Supreme Lord however the jiva will experience complete fulfillment. The Spiritual Science teaches how to achieve this perfection of life and a permanent state of happiness through God realization.