Vedanta: An Invaluable Guide to Happy and Successful Life (The Knowledge Supreme)

ABOUT THE BOOK This is the first ever exposition of the ancient spiritual science in the light of the research findings in modern material and biological sciences. The subject matter, here, ranges from the Veda and Vedic Literature like the Upanishads, Brahma Sutra, the Bhagavad ahaveera Gita, the Puranas, and the Great Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata to Mahaveer The We and the Buddha. It contains the teachings of the Great Acharyas and deals with the problems of modern day life. It holds the key to the problems of misery, poverty, and drudgery of modern life and shows the path to happiness and success in life. It is the Spiritual Heritage of India.

Normally, philosophy is treated with contempt by modern youth since they think it is unproductive and of no consequence in immediate material progress. But, Vedanta holds the clue to material prosperity; it shows the ways and means of creating wealth. It is a spiritual science as well as material science. It includes dharma, artha, kaama and moksha, i.e., horizontal as well as vertical development; rather it is a guide to progressive evolutionary development. It brings about an all-round personality. Real knowledge and happiness comes from the study of the sacred scriptures.

It is not possible to get all the ancient scriptures and the modern research works in one place. Even when experts present the commentaries on the Veda and Upanishads, they lack modern scientific perspective; it is the same with the scientists. Most of the scientists lack spiritual perspective and the study remains inconclusive. "VEDANTA" 'Knowledge Supreme' is painstaking research work carried over a decade since 1990s.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Tippur Narayana Achuta Rao (b. Feb. 1939) hails from Mandya District of Kamataka. He obtained his Ph.D. from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. He served as Principal of Colleges at Haveri and Hubli, Dr. Rao has served on various academic bodies of Karnataka University, Dharwad, Sambalpur University, Sambalpur, Orissa, Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, and the Government of Karnataka. He is the author of more than a dozen books. On wide-ranging subjects and has published more than 25 research papers at national and international conferences.

Some of his outstanding contributions are: "The Environmental Compatibility and Habitat Development" (presented to International Congress of the Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (ICUAES) at Zagreb, 1988, adjudged by the Scientific Committee of the IUAES as 'a significant contribution to development of human knowledge. Economic Regional session, Ethnological Distribution of Population and European Unification, Balanced Regional Development-Levels of Development of Karnataka, Eco morphology of Northern Karnataka, Shelter for the Poor, Balanced Regional development of Karnataka-Achievements, Problems and Strategies, are some of the important research papers presented to various scientific bodies and conferences in India and abroad. "The Knowledge Supreme is another outstanding work of the same author.

PREFACE "We are all drops of water in the ocean, we know it and we know not it.

India has made a distinct and impressive contribution to human development thought and has got a significant place in the history of Civilizations. The significance is not just limited to one or two fields like fine arts- dance, drama, music, and painting, nor is it limited to mathematics and science. It is beyond all these. It extends to the field of super natural and ecstatic, mystic trance experiences. The ancient sages of India discovered the 'magic' of the Lord's creation by tapas, contemplation, meditation, what the modern science and technology fails to explain event today, the ancient sages could easily grasp in their deepest contemplition, state of transcendental meditation. According to these Sages, there is nothing that we can search for outside of us; we do not know that all the secrets lie buried within us. They, the Seers and the Sages, say that 'man is like a drop of the ocean and, as such, he is the ocean by himself! Since he is a part of the ocean he can never come to know the ocean since the part cannot see the whole; nor he can deny the knowledge of the ocean since he himself is a part of it and has all the qualities of the ocean since the part cannot be different from the whole. The difficulty with man is that he wants to know the ocean that is so vast and beyond his ability to grasp. He can never know the vastness of its expanse or its depth and, still he says he knows it! He knows it is vast and deep, so vast and deep that it is beyond his ability to grasp and he also knows that it has been in existence, almost beyond time. This is the vision or' darshana' that the ancient sages had had in their deep contemplation, state of transcendental meditation, supreme consciousness.

'Vedanta', the Indian i.e., the Hindu Philosophy holds the key. The history of Indian philosophy, known as 'Darshanas, is as old as human evolutionary history and many a distinguished scholars have tried in vain to give a precise date to it. It is said to be as old as the first human ever born on this planet and, at least half a million years have lapsed since the first word uttered by the archaic Man. The earliest known human beings anatomically and physiologically different from all other living creatures, to the species technically known as the Homo Sapiens sapi belonging to ens', may have appeared simultaneously or at different times in different places in China, Germany, Africa and Java in Indonesia, may be a hundred thousand years ago. The earliest known fossil of humans has been dated a few tens of thousands of years ago in Israel. The artifacts of man stand testimony to his creativity and the earliest known cave paintings are dated.

The Japanese called India, 'Indie' (Paradise) and, the map of India, ie., BHARAT- 'Vedic India' extended from Iran (Persia) in the West to Indonesia and Malaysia in the East. The Sindhu Valley, the Indus considered the cradle of Indian Civilization, the 'Vedic Civilization. May be, advanced civilization flourished around Thirty thousand years. [See 'Dawn of Humans', National Geo graphic, February 1997]. What makes man so different from other living creatures is his ability to think, descend, discriminate, and express his feelings, emotions, and thoughts. But it remains to discover the source of the ingenuity of his thoughts, and expressions. It is still a mystery how man attained this r of discerning, power conscious discrimination, and ability to reach higher levels of senses. It is beyond all science, or technological means to explain the mystic experiences that some of the outstanding spiritual leaders have attained. Certain things still remain beyond thoughts and words! It is said, "Yatra vaacho nivartante... "meaning, 'where the thoughts and words return without reaching it.

India has the most valuable treasure of Knowledge in the form of Veda and Vedic Literature that are as old as man himself. The Veda, mean ing 'KNOWLEDGE', emphatically proclaims that the first spoken alphabet of the word (Akshara) 'A' came out of deep Silence, cosmic silence (supreme consciousness) known as 'Atyanta- Abhava' in Sanskrut language. The first sound 'Om' came out with a 'Big Bang' (the 'Sphota') out of this silence in that deep and dark expanse of space, where lie all the primordial dark matter and the elements like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, ozone, argon, methane, carbon, aluminum, magnesium, iron, gold, silver, uranium, &c. that are responsible for the material objects of this world. In a sense, the secret of evolution of this universe, the cause of the causes, lies in that deep cosmic Silence, 'Atyanta-Abhava' also called the 'Purusha', or the golden Silence (Hiranyagarbha or the golden egg that holds the universe). This 'Abstract Silence' is eternal, full, knows all, ie., omniscient. It is called the 'Self-Referral-the all-knowing, dynamic flow (of impulses), and when merged in the 'Anyonya-Abhava', a lower level of Consciousness (called 'Prakriti') has created this material world; it is the quality of Conscious ness, the impulses, the vibrations, that create the thoughts and sounds.

**Contents and Sample Pages**