Brahman and Ritam

[Vivek Anand Ganesan]

Namashkar,
   I once again thank Shree Anand Hudli for his well-written and
informative reply to my previous question.  I have another question.

   I read about this term called "Ritam" in an English translation of
the Vedas.  The author maintains that "Ritam" was the primordial
"Brahman" i.e. "Ritam" was the Universal Existence present in the
Samhitas before the more intellectual concept of "Brahman", discussed
in the Aranyakas and Upanishads.  Is there any truth to this claim?

P.S. :
   I know that the implicit assumption made above is that the
Upanishads  are later than the Samhitas.  Granting this "unorthodox"
assumption, would the claim stated above have validity?

Thanks,

-Vivek.
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>From ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU Wed Apr  1 08:53:18 1998
Message-Id: <WED.1.APR.1998.085318.0600.ADVAITAL at TAMU.EDU>
Date: Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:53:18 -0600
Reply-To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
To: "Advaita (non-duality) with reverence" <ADVAITA-L at TAMU.EDU>
From: Ravi Mayavaram <msr at REDDY20.TAMU.EDU>
Subject: introduction from VISWANATHAN KRISHNAMURTHY (fwd)
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 18:47:45 -0500
From: Viswanathan Krishnamurthy <kviswanathan at eccubed.com>
To: "'aum at unix.tamu.edu'" <aum at unix.tamu.edu>
Subject: introduction from VISWANATHAN KRISHNAMURTHY

Hi to all,

It gives me great pleasure to join in the discussion group with people who
are really interested to know the truth of their birth or people who are
really interested to know about Hinduism.

I have a kind of radical view about everything (what others said about my
views), so I want people to know that this is purely from the intellect
view point and nothing personal.

My whole discussion will be based on what I deduced from what I know.  I am
not well versed with our scriptures except Gita (english translation) and
this I attribute to my lack of knowledge in Sanskrit.

Now I going through a course in Sanskrit.

This discussion will be very important to me because this is the one place
where I can share my ideas and validate them with knowledgeable people who
are in the same frequency of thought.

--My opening discussion-

My whole discussion will be based on the fact that I don't believe on
GOD(s)  who/whom we follow in our daily life.  I believe in only one GOD
and that is SHIVAM.

To me SHIVAM is the singularity from which this whole universe sprung.

I believe that sages of our ancient times did find out that SHIVAM is the
GOD and other GOD(s) where only the images of SHIVAM.

GOD(s) will be henceforth referenced as IMAGES  in my discussions.


As SHIVAM has no characteristics which could be understood by ordinary
humans, sages did not want the people to believe in something that they
cannot comprehend.

So they exploited the most important human factor hero worship.  So they
imaged SHIVAM in human form so people could comprehend.

People can now comprehend but will they follow.  So charm and character was
added to IMAGES.

But did anything good delivered by this.  So virtues were added to the
IMAGES.

Resultant - GOD.

This aspect I strongly believe is only for society to function properly. I
believe that HINDUISM propounds that it should have two branches. They are

1.      PHILOSOPHER -  who's only duty it to realize his self.
2.      SOCIETY - Family - which is responsible in giving birth to the above
category.

So far so good now what role does advitam plays in this theory?

As I mentioned that the whole universe sprung from one point (singularity -
according to scientists) ie. SHIVAM, which only means that everything in
this universe has a part of it.  To further simplify,  SHIVAM (GOD) is part
of everthing.




So we can't think about the fact that we are different and SHIVAM is
different - it also means that IMAGES are our own images and only thing
that we may lack is all the charm, character and virtues.

What other proof do we have to prove that we are part of SHIVAM?

Pass the sunlight through a prism.  What do you see ? A spectrum.  To
understand something we have to split it.

To see what a cell is composed of we use magnifying lens.

Similarly SHIVAM wanted to know what it was, so it started splitting itself
or started magnifying itself.  Result is today's universe. Everything which
is part of this SHIVAM ( the whole universe) has this curiosity embedded
with itself.

But why is it that only humans think that they possess this urge?  Basic
flaw here is that we are so arrogant to think that we are the only
intelligent beings in this world.  Point is it is not true.  It is only
that we have a communication gap between ourselves and

everything around us.

WE ARE SHORT SIGHTED.

This argument should not impress upon the readers that whoever wrote this
has a pessimistic view.  Views are relative.  BUT TRUTH IS ABSOLUTE.

?.UPON ACCEPTANCE DISCUSSION WILL CONTINUE.