Overview

What is Vedanta? Vedanta is an enquiry. Vedanta is a rebellion. And enquiry and rebellion go together, no? When you are deeply discontent with not knowing, when you rebel against your state of ignorance—that is called rebellion, right? You don’t know but you are satisfied, content with not knowing—then why would you question? Why would you be curious?

Enquiry is rebellion—rebellion against what? Rebellion against ignorance. So, Vedanta is rebellion against ignorance of the self. Vedanta explores the ‘I’ to dissolve it. Go to Vedanta. That's where you'll find rigorous self-inquiry. That's where you will find freedom from the sufferings of the self.

Vedanta offers you the power to change

Questioner (Q) : Does Vedanta, or wisdom literature in general, offer any fundamental solutions to the problems that we face as normal individuals in our personal and professional lives?

Acharya Prashant (AP) : Vedanta doesn’t go at all into the specifics of the problems we face. If it does that, it would become very limited, temporal, and even regimentary. That is because the problems faced by people in one age vary greatly from the problems in another age; problems faced by one community, or one gender, or one economic class are not the same as faced by others. So, if we try template-based solutions, they would never suffice.

Vedanta goes directly into the one who is facing the problem. Problems are multifarious, problems are so diverse, but the one who is facing the problem has remained much the same since the advent of time. Man’s insides have not changed.

Our exteriors have changed, but our interiors have not

The exteriors have changed majestically. If you look at the way we live today, our civilization, and the technology available to us, it is very different from the exteriors we had, the resources we had, the technology that we had at our disposal, let’s say, five thousand years back. Everything has changed. If someone were to videograph a place, let’s say a university campus like Nalanda, several years back and were to compare it with a video clip of, let’s say, our campus (IIT Delhi) today, he will hardly find anything in common. There has been so much change.

But there is one thing that has not changed at all: that is the self, the one we fundamentally are. And I am talking here about the ego, I am talking here of man’s mind; that has not changed. When I say ‘man’ I mean humans; that includes both the genders. We were insecure then, we are insecure today; we were ignorant then, we are ignorant today; we wanted to be better then, we want to be better today; we were never satisfied then, we aren’t satisfied today either. Greed, fear, jealousy, possessiveness ruled the day then; they abound equally today as well.

Vedanta is timeless

That is what Vedanta addresses, and that is why Vedanta is of such timeless value: because time will change everything on the outside. What is not changing is the one we are on the inside, and that is our very problem. Externally, we are able to change everything; internally, so little has changed. In fact, every new kid that is born, is born at point zero. Irrespective of how much progress mankind has made, every new kid is a new challenge.

Vedanta is crucial today

So, that is where Vedanta becomes perennially useful. It says: Why are you troubled, first of all? Who is the one so much in need of trouble that he can give up everything except his problems? Today you are worried about this thing, tomorrow you are worried about that thing. Things that you are worried about keep changing, but your state of being worried does not change. What does that tell? Does the problem lie with the situations, or does the problem lie in the one who is situated in the problems?

We need problems for our survival

Let’s say we take away all the problems that each of us face today, here. What do you think, we won’t be worried tomorrow and the day after tomorrow? No. Very quickly, just for the sake of our psychological existence, we will dig up problems, we will rather invent problems. Without problems, there is something within us that cannot survive, and it is a very fragile, very insecure thing; problems are its very nutrition.

Our problem lies within

That is what Vedanta digs deep into. Who is the one sitting inside so much in need of problems? And what is the point in striving so much on the outside if this mischievous one, the real culprit sitting within is anyway never going to feel contented? I may explore and win the entire world and keep at its feet; it is still going to keep cribbing: “Oh, this is not sufficient, that is not proper!” And if there is no problem, that itself becomes a problem—as if the problem itself is born from the mother’s womb.

Vedanta is not a belief system

That is what Vedanta goes into. It is not a belief system. It does not ask you to believe in mythological stories or gods and goddesses. There is no belief involved. In some sense, entire Vedanta can be condensed into this one question: Who is the one talking? Who is the one experiencing? Who is the one searching for happiness? Who is the one always dissatisfied? Who is the one competing and hustling so hard?

Vedanta empowers your choice

And when you start knowing that, as a result of your investigation, as a result of your enquiry, you find you have power, you have choice. What is the choice? “Do I want to remain that one?” And it is a very powerful choice to have. If you don’t have that choice, there is so much helplessness: “I can change everything outside, but I cannot change the one who I am.” It is a situation of miserable helplessness, is it not?

Vedanta gives you great power because it blesses you with that choice. Internally, you need not compulsorily be the one you have been so far. You can be totally different, you can be entirely better, and the transformation need not be just superficial. The very essence can change, as if a new individual can take birth.

What is Vedanta?

Vedanta offers inner wellness

Remember, it somehow suits us to play the victim. We want to act as if life has been hard on us; we want to give too much importance to our circumstances. Vedanta says: Let circumstances remain where they are. Your entire domain is your own kingdom, the internal one. Outside, things can happen in their own random way; internally, you can be the master. Irrespective of how things are outside, internally you can remain untouched, undisturbed. And that is a very powerful state to be in.

Otherwise, there is no dearth of problems. When one is not alright inside, then problems appear from all possible directions outside. It is not that those directions are to be blamed; it is the lack of inner health, inner wellness that is the culprit.

Vedanta is the religion of future

Q : Will Vedanta be the religion of the future?

AP : See, whether Vedanta will become the religion of the future or not, only time can tell. Three thousand years have passed since the Vedas have come into being. So, if Vedanta were to become a religion, it would have been by now. One cannot say anything definite or certain about these things. And having such an ambition that Vedanta would be followed by the whole world in future is not a spiritually evolved desire either.

Vedanta is rebellion

What is Vedanta? Vedanta is enquiry. Vedanta is a rebellion. And enquiry and rebellion go together, no? When you are deeply discontent with not knowing, when you rebel against your state of ignorance—that is called rebellion, right? You don’t know but you are satisfied, content with not knowing—then why would you question? Why would you be curious? Enquiry is rebellion—rebellion against what? Rebellion against ignorance. So, Vedanta is rebellion against ignorance of the self.

Someone asked me eight or ten years ago, “Where do the Upanishads come from?” I said, “Upanishads come from ‘no’.” So, Vedanta is an emphatic ‘no’, negation—‘no’ against what? ‘No’ against my present state of living. This is Vedanta.

Vedanta asks ‘Who am I?’

“If my present condition is indeed bad, and if I honestly acknowledge that I do not want to continue living that way, then I will deeply enquire and investigate to understand why my present situation is so bad. I won’t make excuses. I won’t falsely accuse anyone or hold the circumstances and situations responsible for my present condition. I will come to understand that I am responsible for whatever is happening in my life. So, what is it within me that constantly keeps me in bondages and suffering?” Vedanta asks this question. This is self-enquiry: “Who am I? I often find myself in strange and disgraceful situations—who am I? Where did I come from? Who am I?”

Whom does Vedanta address?

And Vedanta is not talking about your hand, hair, or nose. Vedanta talks about that thing within you which is in pain and suffering. Your hand is not suffering; there is something else within you that suffers, that desires, that hopes, and when those hopes and expectations are not fulfilled, it gets disappointed, and then it expects again.

What lies within you?

Who is that within you? Where does it come from? And if it desires, hopes so many things and so many times, then what does it really want? Sometimes it runs in this direction, sometimes in that direction; sometimes it goes one way seeking happiness, sometimes in the other way to get some pleasure. Wherever it goes, it may find few moments of happiness, but those moments are fleeting like a morning star—present now and gone the next moment.

Vedanta is an honest search

Who is that within us that seeks happiness throughout our lifetime but never gets satisfied? And then, after repeated defeats and disappointments, it plays a self-deceptive and dishonest trick of calling suffering itself as happiness. It says, “I am happy, I am okay.” Why? Because it has tried a hundred times to find happiness but didn’t find it. And every time it went for happiness it got more entangled in bondage, and now the bondages have become so hard and rigid that there is no hope left that it will be able to break these bondages. So, it says, “Let’s play a small dishonest trick: let’s call bondages as freedom and suffering as happiness.”

Who is that within us that is suffering and yet dishonest? Vedanta is the name of this search.

Vedanta vs Organized religion

Vedanta does not focus on external, material things. Vedanta does not say, “Go to that temple, worship this goddess, believe in stories about God who resides in the sky and created this world.” All such childish talk doesn’t have any place in Vedanta. Vedanta is for adults. Religion may appeal to adolescents; organized religion is kid stuff. Some X said something to Y, then god created the world in such and such way, then this god had a quarrel with that goddess, then a sage appeared and assuaged them, and so on. Vedanta doesn’t have any place for such fancy stories, absolutely none; there the subject matter is for adults.

Vedanta in contemporary times

What does Vedanta say about Science?

Vedanta’s approach is clean, straight and well-defined. For the sake of understanding, we can even say that it is scientific, although Vedanta goes beyond the purview of science. Science only looks at what is happening outside, in the external environment; science doesn’t talk of what is happening within us.

Can Vedanta address the problem of Consumerism?

So, whether Vedanta will become the future religion of humanity or not will depend on how we want our future to be. Vedanta claims that you are not powerless, you are not helpless; you have a lot of power within you. In fact, you have so much power that you can destroy your life. If you didn’t have so much power, then why would you be in such a bad state? You have misused your power to come to this state.

So, how the future unfolds will also depend on the direction in which your power is being channelized. If you direct your power and energy towards self-destruction, then Vedanta will keep lying on the fringes and periphery as it has been until this day. But if we make a conscious choice to not destroy ourselves due to climate change or population explosion or extravagant consumerism, then we have to bring Vedanta into our lives.

Can Vedanta address the problem of Climate change?

But the data and the signals don’t seem to indicate that humanity has made the choice to save itself from self-destruction and sustain itself in a healthy way. From what we are seeing now, it appears that within the next ten, twenty, or forty years itself—especially you guys are young, so you will definitely witness for many years before you die the devastating impact of our actions on planet Earth. It has already started, but the media does not highlight such issues because they won’t sell and they won’t bring in ads from the companies, so they are not brought to the attention of the masses. Otherwise, the countdown to annihilation has already started. The temperatures we are experiencing right now in April is not a usual or an ordinary thing. We are not interested in looking at such facts and figures because we are sitting comfortably in air-conditioned rooms—but this will also not continue for long.

There is a reason why I put aside the usual career paths taken by students after studying at IIT, IIM, or after getting through UPSC. All those career paths are good and there are many people taking those paths. I did not see anyone doing this work, and this work is an urgent necessity in our times. If nobody is doing what is urgently needed, then somebody has to step in and do that, right?

Vedanta vs self-help

Q : Pranam Acharya Ji! I am working with home ministry, the government of India. My question is, there are hundreds of self-help books published every year telling us how to live in a better way. What makes Vedantic teachings distinct from those self-help books?

AP : Self-help books in general, want to help the self without investigating into what the self really is. So, in the name of self-help, what is usually advised is gratification of the self. The self is taken as a fundamental and unchangeable entity not to be questioned. And the entire purpose of the book then is to remove the obstacles in the path of gratification of that self that has been turned into a sacred entity.

So, the self has certain desires, and the book will tell you how to fulfill all your desires and dreams. And you'll say – “Yes, this is what I want and the book is telling me how to get that thing.” The book will never or rarely ask you – “What is it that you want? Where are your wants coming from? Are your desires even yours?” Now, these are tough questions; these are unsettling questions. People don't want to go into them because if you go into these questions, then your basic identity is challenged. Your very sense of existence is then interrogated. And we don't like that because it disturbs.

What is the ego, according to Vedanta?

You see, our disposition is such that we would rather have false security than a true exploration of the Truth. Even if we know that we are living in false concepts, we would choose that falseness, because there is comfort in that. We are used to living in a false way for a long time. That central falseness itself is called as the ‘self’. Are you getting it? What else is ‘self’? In self-help, ‘self’ obviously cannot pertain to the Truth because the Truth does not require any help; ‘self’ surely pertains to the ‘Ego’. It is the ego that is always quite helpless and seeking support and help and stuff of all kinds.

So, this entity that you are seeking to help is actually not requiring help; it is in need of dissolution. Or you could say that the only way to help it is by calling out its falseness. Even if you want to help the Ego, you cannot help the Ego by furthering its desires or giving it hope that its dreamt way of life is indeed feasible and beneficial. That's not the way to help the Ego.

The way to help the Ego is to enable it to see the Truth, which practically means seeing its own falseness. That's a difficult thing to do and this thing pleases nobody. Since this approach pleases nobody or very few people, therefore, the self-help book won't really sell if it takes the right approach. But the author surely wants a bestseller, so, he would say those things that the people are, you know, more amenable to accept. And then, the book would be selling a million copies. Are you getting it?

What is the approach of Vedanta?

Self-help is very-very far removed from all spirituality, obviously, including Vedanta. Vedanta explores the ‘I’ to dissolve it; whereas self-help in general extends and inflates the ‘I’ and tries to provide it a certain validation. You would have realized by now, that the process of self-help is fundamentally opposed to the spiritual process.

The spiritual process says – “What's the point in running after my desires if I do not know myself? If I do not know myself, then whose desires am I chasing? Are my desires even my own?” That's the approach of spirituality.

The approach of self-help, I'm repeating is – “I am sad because my desires have not met fulfillment. So, the way to help myself is to fulfill desires.” It's a dimensional difference.

Self-help doesn’t really help!

Therefore, self-help pleases but not helps; it is not then self-help. That genre should be more correctly called ‘self-gratification’. And if you want self-gratification as we all do, then there are so many means and ways available – people entertain themselves; people drink; people move to narcotics; people go high on money, on power; people look for carnal pleasures. These are all ways in which we try to ‘help’ the self by fulfilling its desires. Unfortunately, these ways don't work.

So, self-help is attractive but not beneficial. It's great that you are juxtaposing Vedanta against self-help. Go to Vedanta. That's where you'll find rigorous self-inquiry. That's where you will find freedom from the sufferings of the self.

In order to gain more clarity about the above topic, you can refer Acharya Prashant's books Advait Vedanta and Upanishads .

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