Introduction to Vedanta

Intellect is the unique faculty of human being. Because of this unique thinking faculty, a human being is capable of seeing his life very clearly...Therefore, because of the intellect, human beings are able to have goals in life ... So the faculty of planning and having specific goals and working for the fulfilment of the goals is the unique feature of human birth and a human being ....And these human goals are called in sanskrit - Purushardha.

And these goals keep on varying also. As a child I had certain goals. As youth, goals are being changed and when I become a grandfather the goals are again changed and therefore for one human being itself many goals are there...

But in our scriptures, even though goals are innumerable, countless, infinite... all human goals fall into four types. They can be broadly classified, categorised into four types known as Chaturvidha Purushardhah...four types of human goals.

What are those four types? The first type is called Ardhaha, means all types of wealth, moving or non- moving, may be in terms of cash, gold, in terms of property, in any form...

My next interest is how to enjoy human life...which is called Kama, recreation, pleasure hunting, enjoyment, entertainment, dance, music, drama all of them form the next goal.

Then the third Purushardha is called Dharma or Punyam. This is because, in Indian culture especially in Hindu religion there is a belief in rebirth... And since he believes in future birth a believer in the future birth is interested in the well being of the next Janma also...

And when a humanbeing pursues these three and after some time, if he is an intelligent human being who learnt from experience, who is mature in thinking, who is sensible, …understands that in all these pursuits, inspite of their being wonderful, they have got certain defects, just as a wonderful rose has got a thorn...

What are the minus points? The first minus point is that all those pleasures are all mixed with equal amount of pain or sorrow...How do you say they are mixed with pain, because the acquisition of or getting them involves lot of pain, lot of effort, lot of competition.

Then the second defect is - Atruptikaratvam. Any amount we acquire, we will not be satisfied. With one lakh rupee bank balance I had insecurity, With ten lakh rupee also insecurity and in fact the higher you go the greater the insecurity .The third defect is Bandhakatvam one becomes addicted to them...

Therefore discovering them in myself is called Moksha. Moksha is discovering security in myself, discovering pleasure or joy in myself and because of this self- discovery what will naturally happen? I will no more depend upon them.

Scriptures in Sanskrit are called Sastram. Scriptures are that body of literature which helpa person in the fulfillment of the four Purushardhas. Scriptures have come only to help humanity, not to bind humanity, not to create problems to humanity, not to restrict freedom of humanity.

Veda says if you like the life of dependence and want to acquire things I will help you out. And the same Veda says if you are wise enough, and if you are tired of human-dependence and also thing-dependence and if you are interested in independence - for that also I will provide you the method. And which one you like that is for you to do. As I said, Veda never imposes. what the scriptures tell is a fact. And the moment he understands this he develops a faith in the scriptures...