Discoveries of The Vedic Rishis - Discoveries of The Vedic Rishis 501

We have already discussed four great discoveries of the Vedas. The first was that life and the world are a battle, in which there are not only living creatures, our partners, but also invisible forces, consisting of benign and adverse forces. The second was that sacrifice is the means by which you can progress in this battle toward victory. The third discovery was turiyam svid, the discovery of the Supermind; and the fourth was the discovery of “the One which is strange and wonderful”? That that Reality is One that is different from itself, a motion of itself in another consciousness.

So now we come to the fifth discovery. The fifth is much more complex than all the others; it consists of many parts. The fourth discovery, the discovery of the One that is simple and complex, “that which is wonderful”? Is perhaps the loftiest realization and has never been surpassed in the history of the world. But as a result of this fifth realization the Vedic Rishis obtained a very vast knowledge of the origin of things, the origin and purpose of the world, the origin of the individual, and the means by which the individual can gain the same knowledge that they themselves obtained. It is not a knowledge that is meant for only a few individuals, but a knowledge that can be given to all according to their needs, development, and capacity to receive it. It is a knowledge that can be transmitted, provided that certain conditions are fulfilled.

Let us now take all these one by one. They considered the origin of things, of the world, of individuals, and what was their reply to these questions?

They discovered that the origin of the world was a manifestation of Joy. At the root of the world is Joy, is Delight. It’s a very important discovery, because many people in the world believe that the origin of the world was desire, and not joy. But the Vedic Rishis discovered that desire is not at the root of the world, but joy, a fullness. You know, there is a difference between works impelled by desire and work which is a result of fullness. When you are absolutely full there is joy? Joy and fullness are interrelated. To take a mundane example: I don’t know if you have seen a film called My Fair Lady. It is a beautiful film that tells the story of a girl who sells flowers, and who draws the attention of a professor of languages, Professor Higgins. Hearing this girl speaking murderous English, he enters into a bet with a friend; he says, “This girl can master English in six months time.” And then she comes to his house, she is taken in by Professor Higgins, and he starts teaching her. There are a lot of tears in the labor of learning English, at least pronunciation of English, and ultimately, one fine day, after a lot of labor, suddenly she is able to pronounce one line in English beautifully? You might say that this is the day, on which she becomes full, and she sings that she can dance and dance for the whole of night. It’s a dance of joy, not of desire; there is fullness in her. She has mastered a sentence which was so difficult to pronounce earlier, and because of that mastery there is fullness in her being, she is absolutely overjoyed, in ecstasy. In that ecstasy she dances. It is a dance of joy, not of desire.

Now this world is also a dance, a dance of the Reality. At a later time in India this dance was given great significance, the world has been conceived thereafter as a dance of Shiva (you must have seen statues of Nataraj in a dancing pose), but at the root of that dance was the discovery of the Vedic Rishis that this world is a manifestation of the fullness of being. It is not that the Reality needs to manifest. There is no desire to manifest, for desire is a condition in which you attempt to grasp what you do not have, it is not from fullness but from lacunae, from want, from some deficiency. The activity of the Reality is not of this kind. The Reality is full, perfect, there is no deficiency in it, but in that fullness there is a spontaneous activity. Because it is full it can throw itself out fully, not to grasp something it does not possess, it is not a movement toward the external to grasp the external into oneself, but to throw the fullness inside outside as perfectly as possible.

Now, this word manifestation is very important. The world is a manifestation. You can manifest only what you have, what is inside, so this world is conceived by the Vedic Rishis as a manifestation. Even the word creation is not sufficiently expressive of it. Creation might mean that there is something that is not there that you are now creating, that is not the concept. The idea is that what is already inside the Reality is manifested.

Along with this there was another concept, called tapas. It’s a Sanskrit word which means “force of concentration”. This force of concentration can be inward, but also can throw itself outward. So this manifestation is by the force of tapas; the entire world is a manifestation of tapas, the force of concentration. There is a very important verse in the Rig-Veda, of which it is said that if you recite and understand it properly you can be liberated from all difficulties. If you know the origin of the world truly, then you will have only joy left, all grief vanishes. So it starts by saying what is at the origin of things, tapasah adhyajayata, and “The whole world has come out of tapas.” Ajayata means was born, manifested. Tapasah, from tapas.

And the first thing that came out of tapas, the origin of things, was ritam cha satyam, “the Truth and the Right.” In other words, the first thing that manifested was Supermind. Satyam, ritam, brihat, -- these three words are the formula of the Supermind in the Veda. Wherever you come across these three words in the Veda, they refer to Supermind. So the first thing that came out of the action of force, of concentration, was ritam cha satyam, was the Supermind. This was the origin of things, so at the origin of things is the Supermind.

But then a surprising thing happened. The statement of the verse is rapid, it doesn’t state everything fully, tato ratryajayata, “from there arose the Night.” And from there samudro anarvah, “from there arose an Ocean of Inconscience.” So in one sentence there is the whole description. First came the Supermind, then came the Night, and then came the Inconscience. It’s only two lines, but this entire process has been described in the Veda in many places, under many circumstances. Actually, this is a subject of which Mother herself spoke to the children of the Ashram. She said, “I will tell you the ancient knowledge of the origin of things which was in the Veda, or even in pre-Vedic times, in Chaldean times.” She said that it can be told in a very philosophical manner, or it can be told in a simple manner, and that she would tell it like a children’s story. She said that in the beginning of things, the Reality manifested or emanated four Beings. The Being of Life, the Being of Light, the Being of Delight, and the Being of Truth, -- Life, Light, Delight and Truth were the four Beings, and when they came out there was so much vastness, so much delight. And then happened what Mother called an “accident”. An accident occurred. These four Beings severed themselves from the Origin, and by separation from their relationship with the Origin, they became limited. They were vast, but by deviating, by disconnecting with the Origin, they became limited, -- so limited that Life became Death, Light became Darkness, Delight became Sorrow, and Truth became Falsehood. And once this happened, from darkness came greater and greater darkness, until there came about the Inconscience.