Vedas Beckon and Mantras Motivate

VEDAS BECKON AND MANTRAS MAKE LIFE MEANINGFUL

Human beings wish to live a meaningful life. Let us live a life where you and I enjoy good health and unadulterated happiness. But the life today is full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Men and women run from pillar to post but at the end of the day the net result is nil. May be because we have chosen a wrong path and we did not have a selfless soul around to guide the lost souls to the goal. ..The Supreme Being or God is the Ultimate Guide and souls seeking the correct path are Human Beings or other embodied souls in different forms.

VEDAS GUIDE ONE AND ALL

The Supreme Being or Ishwar revealed the Ved mantras to the Rishis right at the beginning of the Creation of this Universe or Brahmand for guidance of human beings to live a meaningful pragmatic life enjoying sound health and happiness par excellence This state of perfect happiness is called ANAND.

The state of perfect happiness or Anand is achievable when a soul attains Moksha or liberation from the bondage of birth, death, rebirth and so on.

The Vedas are four in number: Rigved, Yajurved, Samved and Atharvaved. The mantras therein guide human beings on every aspect of life. The human beings recite them, meditate on them and imbibe the teachings in day-to-day life. The Vedic process of acquiring knowledge sees a soul through mundane life to the stage of achieving Moksha when a soul attains freedom from the cycle of birth and death or transmigration of soul from one life to another.

SATYARTHA PRAKASH

The Vedas and the knowledge disseminated through the mantras had unfortunatey become the exclusive preserve of a few among the Brahmins during the dark ages. This led to degeneration in all walks of life among all sections of the society. Women and non-brahmins were the worst sufferers and were deprived of the benefits of the divine knowledge of the Vedas for many centuries. The entire Vedic society was weakened from top to toe. Many invaders of different countries and religions preyed on weaker sections of the Vedic social order.

Came the Defender of the Faith in the Nineteenth century India. A young Sanyasi, a hermit who lived detached from the mundane allurements and declined to be tied down by social order and obeyed NONE but the Almighty ISHWAR and His Commandments called the VEDAS, rose on the firmament like SUN dispelling darkness. The vibrant Vedic society saw a ray of hope and Mankind was the beneficiary.

Swami Dayanand Saraswati through his erudition, single minded devotion to reviving the moribund social order and restoring the learning-teaching process of the Vedic Thought, rose to be called a Maharishi. His treatise, SATYARTHA PRAKASH, became the panacea of all ills. Today in the 21^st century, if an individual living in any part of the globe has any problem nagging him or her physically, mentally or spiritually, he or she or both are advised to study the Satyartha Prakash’s relevant chapter to restore the peace of mind.

Love-life is lovely but does give lovers a headache off and on. The steps leading to a wedding and joys and sorrows of the marital life are dealt with deftly in this Magnum Opus of Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati. A reader has the choice of many language versions of the book but the original text in Hindi and the English translation are the most popular one. If a reader finds a chapter rather difficult, he or she is advised to skip it and begin anew with chapter eleven that deals with eradication of superstitions. The story form of narration attracts the reader and he or she may find it difficult to put down the book until the last page is read.

ARYA  SAMAJ

The Arya Samaj is a movement of the masses that was initially popular in the North India, especially the Punjab, UP, Rajputana and so on. Now, of course, it is spreading its influence elsewhere too, the western countries in particular. Men and women of the American and European countries are attracted to the Arya Samaj as it is a Reformation Movement.

The citizens of the Western India in general and Gujarat and Maharashtra in particular appealed to Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati to found an organisation to carry on the good work of Reformation of the Hindu society and save it from sinking into oblivion. Of course, the Rishivar was concerned about the welfare of entire Mankind in general and the Hindu Samaj in particular and, therefore, did not wish the Arya Samaj to emerge as a sectarian society like the Brahmo Samaj of Bengal. Rishivar was successful in this endeavour of his.

The relevance of the Arya Samaj today is greater than ever before on the national and social firmament. The Anti-National Elements working hard to destabilise Bharat today are increasing their efforts by leaps and bounds. They have to be checked and stopped in their tracks. Some large political parties have failed to tackle the Islamists terrorists because they do not wish to alienate their Muslim votebank. How disturbing a factor it is that Muslims are considered to be closer to terrorists than to their own motherland, Bharat. Here is the ground for the Arya Samaj to work and reform the anti-national elements and motivate them to merge into the main stream of social and political life. During the freedom struggle against the British rulers, the Arya Samaj had played a leading role. Now the young men and women who wish to strengthen the country may think of joining the Arya Samaj and make it a Nationalistic Force to reckon with.

Right from Day One of its founding on 10 April 1975 in Mumbai, the Arya Samaj has been promoting and sustaining Nationalist Forces. It is time Arya Samaj came to the forefront to enlist brave young men to fight against terrorists by weaning away the youth from them and merging them into the main stream of life of Bharat.

May we appeal to the youth of Bharat to earn the national language, Hindi and use it in daily parlance and business transactions.  Arya Samaj will help our new members to learn and practise Hindi. A strong nation has its own language and literature. An undue reliance on a foreign language for our conversation and business transaction is bound to lower us in our self-esteem and also in the estimation of other nations. Naturally our place in the comity of nations will be much lower than what it should be.

Arya Samaj keeps superstitions at arm’s length. In chapters two and three of the Satyartha Prakash where Maharishi talks about education of children, he is specific about disabusing their minds of  superstitious beliefs like the ghosts, djinns, she-devils and so on. It is during the impressionable age that a child’s mind has to be influenced the Vedic way and children of both the sexes have to be encouraged to influence their class mates into not believing in the existence of such super natural entities that do not exist.

Right education of children at the right age has been emphasised by Maharishi Dayanand Saraswati. He is dead against co-education as he feels that closeness of both sexes in and out of classroom is bound to excite them sexually. Boys and girls must be educated separately so that they devote their time and attention to receiving education and later disseminating Vedic knowledge among one and  all.

Vedas beckon you. Come one; come all. Please learn the Mantras, meditate on them and imbibe the teachings for the rest of your life, your children’s life and lives of children’s children.

By Brigadier Chitranjan Sawant,VSM

Email: upvanom@yahoo.com