The Vedas

[sadananda]

I enjoyed reading Charles Winkers post on the subject, and could not resist
laughing at his comments.

If I may add - genital organs are not the instruments of knowledge, to make
a difference between man vs. women in terms of the learning process.

All one needs is a mind and intellect that is eager to learn and has
developed appropriate discrimination for the mind to be able to grasp the
subtle truths expounded in the texts.

It was unfortunate that scriptural statements have been misused to suppress
women and sudras who are otherwise qualified to learn.  That was the
beginning of the downfall of our culture.  It is also unfortunate that even
today in the name of the sanctity of the Vedas some still insist on their
literary meaning.

As long as we are not in the deprived segment of the humanity, we can not
appreciate the gravity of that discrimination.

Vedas as the source of Knowledge is Universal as they talks about the
universal truths. Everyone who is qualified has a right to receive that
knowledge.  And again the qualifications is definitely not based on the
genital organs since they are not the means of this knowledge.

>
>Another problem that Westerners have is the habit of divorcing theory
>from practice (the Sunday Christian syndrome): there is a great interest
>in jnana, but only as a theory, as an intellectual mind-game, whereas
>jnana in fact needs to be confirmed by direct personal experience.
>Charles.

Charles, you have hit with a big hammer on the heads of all of us.  It is
the problem everyone of us have, not just the Westerners.  This is the cry
of Lord Krishna even in those days too:  He laments:

.....it is so wonderful to listen others speak but even after listening
there are not many who really eager to know the truth themselves.

 This is true everywhere and even more so in India.  In India everybody is
a Vedantin, but truly very few live in it.

So we are no exception.  Let us all strive to be an exception.

Hari Om!
Sadananda






K. Sadananda
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