Gungho about the Vedas

Prelude: Vedas means complete knowledge. Not researched but cognized. It is the blueprint of the constitution of the Universe. It gives knowledge of how the world manifests from the Unmanifest.

People often ask me why I am so gungho about the Vedas, Vedic knowledge, and especially Transcendental Meditation.

The answer is simple.

Nothing else has influenced my understanding of life, reality, consciousness, and the human condition as profoundly.

I did not arrive at this conclusion casually.

Before discovering Transcendental Meditation, I had already lived several different lives; I was even practising Vipassana meditation for four years, quite seriously and regularly.

I had grown up partly in a village and partly in the modern world. I had worked in the corporate sector. I had travelled extensively. I had become a professional outdoorsman, travel writer, camp instructor, volunteer, organic farmer, and mountain guide. I had spent years in remote wilderness environments, among different cultures, landscapes, and ways of life.

Throughout that journey, I was searching.

At first, I thought I was searching for nature.

Then I thought I was searching for adventure.

Then I thought I was searching for mountains.

Eventually, I realized I was searching for understanding.

I wanted to understand the nature of reality itself.

I wanted to understand consciousness.

I wanted to understand the Self.

I wanted to understand why the human species is so barbaric.

Why intelligent people repeatedly make foolish decisions.

Why some people seem naturally wise while others remain confused despite education, achievement, and experience.

Most systems of knowledge appeared to offer fragmented answers.

The Vedas was the first system of knowledge I encountered that appeared to offer a complete framework.

Not merely a philosophy.

Not merely a religion.

Not merely a psychology.

A complete understanding of the nature of reality.

What fascinated me most was that the Vedas are traditionally described as Apaurusheya.

Not authored by human beings.

Not invented.

Not researched.

Not constructed through trial and error.

The Vedic understanding is that this knowledge was cognized.

The ancient Rishis did not claim to invent truth.

They claimed to perceive it.

Just as a scientist discovers a law of nature rather than creating it, the Rishis cognized principles that were already present within creation itself.

This distinction is profound.

Modern knowledge is researched knowledge and therefore incomplete and fallible.

Vedic knowledge is cognized knowledge.

One is constructed from observation.

The other is perceived directly from consciousness itself.

Whether one accepts this literally or symbolically, I have always found it deeply compelling.

Truth is not manufactured.

Truth is discovered.

Reality exists prior to our explanations of it.

The role of the seeker is not to invent reality but to perceive it more clearly.

The doorway through which I entered this world was Transcendental Meditation (TM).

What surprised me was that many of the experiences described within the Vedic tradition were not entirely unfamiliar to me.

Long before learning TM, I often experienced reality differently from those around me.

There was a persistent sense that I was not entirely identified with the human character I appeared to be.

I do not mean this as a metaphor.

Nor do I mean it as a belief.

It was simply how experience presented itself.

When I later encountered concepts such as pure awareness, pure consciousness, the witness, transcendence, and non-duality, they did not feel entirely new.

They felt strangely familiar.

As though I was remembering something rather than learning something.

TM did not create those experiences.

What it did was deepen them.

Clarify them.

Stabilize them.

Accelerate them.

The practice gave me a systematic means of exploring dimensions of consciousness that had previously appeared only sporadically.

The result was profound.

Gradually, I began to understand consciousness not as something produced by the mind but as the field within which mind itself appears.

Thoughts arise within awareness.

Experiences arise within awareness.

The body appears within awareness.

The world appears within awareness.

Awareness itself remains unchanged.

This realization transformed how I viewed virtually everything.

Health.

Creativity.

Leadership.

Relationships.

Education.

Society.

Even spirituality itself.

Many systems attempt to improve behaviour.

The Vedic systems begin at a deeper level.

Transform consciousness and behaviour follows.

Strengthen the root and the branches flourish naturally.

What made this framework even more compelling to me was that it was not confined to metaphysics.

The Vedic understanding did not merely claim to explain consciousness.

It claimed that consciousness is the foundation of every aspect of life.

According to the understanding I received through TM, human beings use only a fraction of the potential available within the nervous system.

The brain is often functioning in a fragmented and uncoordinated manner.

Stress accumulates.

Mental noise accumulates.

The system gradually loses efficiency.

TM approaches the problem from a completely different direction.

Rather than attempting to force concentration or control thought, the mind naturally settles inward toward quieter levels of awareness.

As this happens, profound rest is gained and stress begins to dissolve.

At the same time, the brain begins functioning in a highly integrated and coherent manner.

The left and right hemispheres become increasingly coordinated.

The frontal regions of the brain associated with planning, judgment, creativity, and decision-making become more integrated with the rest of the nervous system.

The parietal, temporal, occipital, and deeper structures of the brain increasingly function together as a unified whole.

According to the TM understanding, during meditation the brain becomes both deeply restful and highly alert at the same time.

The entire system begins functioning more coherently.

Over time, through neuroplasticity, this increased integration becomes progressively stabilized in daily life.

The brain's capacity continues to grow.

The nervous system becomes capable of supporting greater awareness, greater intelligence, greater creativity, and greater adaptability.

From the perspective I learned through TM, this development has implications for every area of life.

Physical health improves.

Mental health improves.

Energy improves.

Creativity improves.

Communication improves.

Relationships improve.

Decision-making improves.

Emotional stability improves.

Life becomes more enjoyable even when external circumstances remain unchanged.

The same job.

The same salary.

The same colleagues.

The same friends.

The same family.

The same life.

The difference is that the person experiencing those circumstances is functioning from a more integrated state.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Vedic understanding is that consciousness is not viewed as merely individual.

Consciousness is also collective.

As coherence increases within individuals, coherence increases within society.

The implications are enormous.

Improvements in collective consciousness can influence crime, conflict, social harmony, creativity, economic activity, and even war itself.

Human consciousness is not isolated.

We participate in a larger field.

Consequently, changes within individuals can influence far more than the individual.

Whether one is discussing health, creativity, education, economics, conflict, peace, or social well-being, the underlying principle remains the same.

Improve consciousness.

The rest follows naturally.

This represented a radically different way of looking at the world.

Most modern systems attempt to solve problems after they appear.

The Vedic approach seeks to address the level from which the problems arise.

That idea struck me as elegant, profound, and remarkably practical.

Among the teachings that affected me most deeply were those of Advaita Vedanta and particularly the teachings of Ramana Maharshi.

Few ideas have struck me as powerfully as Ajatavada—the doctrine of non-origination.

Ajatavada proposes that, ultimately speaking, nothing has ever truly come into existence.

Birth, death, bondage, liberation, individuality, and the world itself belong to the realm of appearance rather than absolute reality.

Only pure awareness exists.

Only consciousness exists.

Only the Self exists.

To the ordinary mind, such statements sound absurd.

Without direct experience they are absurd.

Without direct experience they become nothing more than another belief system.

One person believes in materialism.

Another believes in religion.

Another believes in non-duality.

Another believes in Ajatavada.

At the level of belief there is very little difference.

Beliefs are still beliefs.

What makes these teachings extraordinary is not believing them.

It is experiencing the reality to which they point.

Without experience, spirituality easily degenerates into ideology.

With experience, it becomes direct knowledge.

This is one reason why I value TM so highly.

It is not primarily a philosophy.

It is a practical means through which consciousness can explore itself.

The teachings cease to be concepts and become living realities.

Over time, I found that these experiences helped me see through many of the illusions that dominate human life.

The Vedas refer to this as Maya.

Maya is often translated as illusion, but the translation is inaccurate.

Maya means "That Which Is Not."

Maya is mistaken perception.

It is confusing appearance with reality.

It is becoming hypnotized by names, institutions, credentials, prestige, ideologies, identities, and narratives while remaining blind to what lies underneath.

Throughout my life I have repeatedly found myself cutting through these layers of appearance.

Whether in corporate life, institutionalized mountaineering, outdoor education, politics, spirituality, or society generally, I have often been more interested in underlying causes than surface phenomena.

This tendency became stronger as my understanding deepened.

Many people assume this capacity emerged only after TM.

That is not entirely true.

It existed long before TM.

TM amplified it.

Deepened it.

Accelerated it.

Made it more stable.

If I were to describe the deepest intuition underlying my life, it would be this:

I have never experienced myself as merely a separate individual moving through an indifferent universe.

At the deepest level, my experience points in the opposite direction.

Toward the intuition that what I fundamentally am is not separate from the Source from which reality itself emerges.

The seeker and the sought are not two.

The Source is not elsewhere.

The Source is what we are.

In that sense, I know that I have come directly from the Source itself because I am the Source itself.

Not as an egoic claim.

Not as a statement of superiority.

But as a recognition of identity.

The wave and the ocean are not separate.

Consciousness is not something I possess.

Consciousness is what I am.

At the same time, another influence has helped balance my understanding.

Over the years I have also become interested in the wisdom traditions of Aboriginal Australians.

What fascinated me was not merely their respect for nature.

Many modern people claim to respect nature.

What struck me was the depth of their cosmology.

In many Aboriginal traditions, the land is not simply geography.

The land is alive.

The landscape contains memory.

The landscape contains story.

The landscape contains law.

The landscape contains ancestry.

The visible and invisible worlds are interwoven.

The Dreaming is not merely a creation myth from the distant past.

It is an ever-present reality that continues to animate the world.

Human beings are not separate observers standing outside nature.

They are participants within a living web of relationships.

Where Advaita Vedanta often points toward the unchanging Absolute, Aboriginal traditions frequently emphasize relationship.

Relationship with the land.

Relationship with ancestors.

Relationship with animals.

Relationship with seasons.

Relationship with community.

Relationship with the living world.

This has been enormously valuable to me.

Taken superficially, non-dual teachings can sometimes lead people into excessive abstraction.

Everything is Brahman.

Everything is Consciousness.

The world is Maya.

Nothing matters.

Some people mistake this for nihilism.

I have encountered people who become detached from practical reality in unhealthy ways.

People who become disconnected from the Earth while speaking endlessly about the Absolute.

Aboriginal wisdom offers an important corrective.

It reminds us that the Earth matters.

The mountain matters.

The river matters.

The forest matters.

The community matters.

The stories matter.

The ancestors matter.

Not because they are separate from consciousness, but because they are expressions of consciousness.

Advaita Vedanta points toward the infinite sky.

Aboriginal wisdom reminds us not to forget the ground beneath our feet.

One emphasizes Transcendence.

The other emphasizes Belonging.

One points toward the Absolute.

The other reminds us to honour the Relative (World).

One asks, "Who am I?"

The other asks, "What is my relationship to this place and this living world?"

Together they create a balance that I have found deeply valuable.

The older I become, the less interested I am in belief and the more interested I am in direct experience.

The less interested I am in ideology and the more interested I am in understanding.

The less interested I am in intellectual certainty and the more interested I am in reality itself.

Looking back, I can see that my search was never really about mountains, careers, travel, adventure, or even spirituality.

All of those were stages.

What I was truly searching for was Understanding.

An understanding of consciousness.

An understanding of reality.

An understanding of what we are.

Of everything I have encountered in my life, the Vedas has brought me closest to that understanding.

That is why I remain so passionate about it.

Not because it gave me a new set of beliefs.

But because it transformed the way I experience reality itself.

Master TM from 'the' Globally Top-Rated Teacher

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