Agony of the soul (?) etc

[Swami Vishvarupananda]

Jalandhar H. Vyas wrote:

> On what basis is the study of Vedanta different from the study of
> chemistry or physics?


In that the material sciences are outer formulae which can be grasped by
any intelligent mind with enough of brain cell gymnastics. Its
understanding has to be merely intellectual. Vedanta on the other hand, if
it is not to be a futile exercise in self-deception, has to be entered by
meditation, experienced within and finally one has to merge in it totally,
_become_ Brahman. A study of the scriptures in the way chemistry and
physics are studied is useful only if it leads to an inner contemplation
that is very different from contemplation on chemistry and physics. No
chemist or physicist I know of -- not even Einstein or Hawking -- _became_
physics by his studies. :-)
The study of physics and chemistry is concluded by a doctorate. Well, yes,
there are doctorates in scriptural studies too, but they don't certify
anyone's true study of Reality. To know that Reality is to BE that Reality.

As far as Buddhism is concerned I would like to add here, that there are
various schools of Buddhism, and nihilism is not an element in all of them.
Mahayana Buddhism for e.g. is very much opposed to it and warns of "falling
prey to the shunya heaven of the nihilists". The Void is not defined as
nothingness here.
I mention this just to say, that generalizations are very dangerous, and
that to judge a philosophy just on the basis of some scholar's refutations
of that school, without our personal study, is at the least very one-sided.


Greetings and Om,
Swami Vishvarupananda