Veda Anta

Vedanta is based on the philosophical books known as the Upanishads, which form the concluding portions of the ancient Indo-Aryan scriptures, the Vedas. The word “Vedanta” is, in fact, another word for the Upanishads. It means, literally, the end (anta) of the Vedas; it also means the culmination of spiritual knowledge (Veda).

The Supreme Reality, the Brahman, cannot be described; the most one can say of it is that it is Sat-Chit-Ananda—Absolute Existence, Consciousness, Bliss.
Vedanta recognizes, however, that the absolute Brahman becomes manifest in various aspects and forms and is known by various names. In other words, Brahman, or God, is both formless and with form, impersonal and personal, transcendent, and immanent.

Vedanta declares that one can realize the Truth in whatever aspect one wishes, and, further, that one can realize it directly and vividly in this life, in this world.
Such realization constitutes spiritual freedom and contains in an infinite measure the fulfillment of humankind’s ideals and aspirations; it is indeed the true purpose of human life. There is, in short, but one reality, one being, and, in the words of the Upanishads, “Thou art That.”

Vedanta teaches that there are various methods by which the individual, in accordance with his or her temperament, can realize God.

The four primary methods, or paths, are:

jnana yoga, the path of knowledge;

bhakti yoga, the path of devotion;

karma yoga, the path of selfless action 

(physical, intellectual, or spiritual service); and

raja yoga, the path of concentration.

All these paths presuppose a highly moral and self-disciplined life.

By following one or more of them under the guidance of a qualified teacher, one can fully and permanently discover the existence of divine Reality as the very essence of oneself and the universe.
Vedanta holds that all religions lead to the same goal. Further, Vedanta reveres all great teachers and prophets, such as Jesus Christ, Buddha, and Sri Krishna, and respects their teachings as the same eternal truth adapted to the needs of different times and peoples.

Vedanta does not believe in a book - that is the difficulty to start with. It denies the authority of any book over any other book. It denies emphatically that any one book can contain all the truths about God, soul, the Self as ultimate reality.
Those of you who have read the Upanishads remember that they say again and again,
"Not by the reading of books can we realise the Self."

Not one man or woman has ever become the object of worship among the Vedantins.
It cannot be.

A man is no more worthy of worship than any bird, any worm. We are all brothers.
The difference is only in degree. I am exactly the same as the lowest worm. You see how very little room there is in Vedanta for any man to stand ahead of us and for us to go and worship him - he dragging us on and we being saved by him.

Vedanta does not give you that. No book, no man to worship, nothing. Nobody seems to understand that the real power, the real life, the real strength is in the unseen, the impersonal, the nobody. As a mere person separated from others, you are nothing, but as an impersonal unit of the nation that rules itself, you are tremendous. You are all one in the government - you are a tremendous power. But where exactly is the power? Each man is the power.

There is no king. I see everybody equally the same. I have not to take off my hat and bow low to anyone. Yet there is a tremendous power in each man.
Vedanta does not teach the old idea of God at all. In place of that God who sat above the clouds and managed the affairs of the world without asking our permission, who created us out of nothing just because He liked it and made us undergo all this misery just because He liked it, Vedanta teaches the God that is in everyone, has become everyone and everything. His majesty the king has gone from this country; the Kingdom of Heaven went from Vedanta hundreds of years ago.

Vedanta proposes no sin nor sinner. 

No God to be afraid of. 

He is the one being of whom we shall never be afraid, because He is our own Self.

There is only one being of whom you cannot possibly be afraid; He is that.
Then is not he really the most superstitious person who has fear of God?
There may be someone who is afraid of his shadow; but even he is not afraid of himself.
God is man's very Self. He is that one being whom you can never possibly fear.
What is all this nonsense, the fear of the Lord entering into a man, making him tremble and so on? Lord bless us that we are not all in the lunatic asylum!
But if most of us are not lunatics, why should we invent such ideas as fear of God?
Lord Buddha said that the whole human race is lunatic, more or less.
It is perfectly true, it seems. No book, no person, no Personal God. All these must go.
Again, the senses must go. We cannot be bound to the senses.
At present we are tied down - like persons dying of cold in the glaciers.
They feel such a strong desire to sleep, and when their friends try to wake them, warning them of death, they say, "Let me die, I want to sleep." We all cling to the little things of the senses, even if we are ruined thereby: we forget there are much greater things.


What does Vedanta teach us?

In the first place, it teaches that you need not even go out of yourself to know the truth.
All the past and all the future are here in the present.
No man ever saw the past. Did any one of you see the past? When you think you are knowing the past, you only imagine the past in the present moment.
To see the future, you would have to bring it down to the present, which is the only reality - the rest is imagination. This present is all that is.
There is only the One. All is here right now.

One moment in infinite time is quite as complete and all-inclusive as every other moment.
All that is and was and will be is here in the present. Let anybody try to imagine anything outside of it - he will not succeed.

Vedanta formulates, not universal brotherhood, but universal oneness.
I am the same as any other man, as any animal - good, bad, anything. It is one body, one mind, one soul throughout. Spirit never dies. There is no death anywhere, not even for the body. Not even the mind dies. How can even the body die? One leaf may fall - does the tree die? The universe is my body. See how it continues. All minds are mine. With all feet I walk. Through all mouths I speak. In everybody I reside."

Vedanta Society of Southern California