Back to The Vedas (A Spiritual Guide for All in a Family)

In this era of information and technology, Mr. Madan Raheja's book 'Back to the Vedas' serves a valuable digest providing authentic information on a number of subjects related to human life from birth to re-birth. The beauty of this information compiled by Mr. Raheja from the Vedas and other Vedic literature is that it is divine, original and full of absolute truths, which an intelligent reader cannot set aside. This is so because only the Vedas are unadulterated treasure-house of all true knowledge and wisdom, and the efficient cause of all true knowledge, and all that which is knowable through knowledge, is none other than God Almighty. The rationality of the information compiled in the book has been further reinforced by logical interpretations given in `Upanishads', `Darshan Shastras', the holy Geeta and the works of the great saints and philosophers, in particular Mahar'shi Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Mr. Raheja has made appropriate use of the information contained in the contemporary literature on various subjects:

The encyclopaedic treatment of various subjects, like dharma and religion, god, soul and matter, karma siddhanta, Astrology and Astronomy, Vedic sanskaras, yoga and meditation, doctrine of incarnation, worship of god, goal of human life, vedic theories and beliefs, etc., in a self-contained manner makes the reading of the book more interesting and absorbing. Indeed Mr. Madan Raheja has very nicely simplified many baffling subjects for the upcoming generation in a most lucid, simple and easily understanding language.

Dharma of mankind is "Humanity" also simply known as "Righteousness" but in real sense many of us do not know the meaning of righteousness or Dharma. Otherwise all creatures except man perform their duties accordingly. Then why not man? Of course this question may have to arise in human mind because man has intelligence to think and gain all true know-ledge to develop his "Art of living" and to be happy in his life.

Human beings are said to be the most superior creatures in this Universe because only they have intellect and freedom of "Karma" i.e. action and to get the fruits of the same in the form of rewards (Pleasures) or punishments (Pains). Also one can visualize God only when he/she is in human form.

Dharma meaning eternal righteousness, rule of law, ethical conducts and so on flow from the ideals and principles outlined in the Vedas. Hinduism has no founder or prophet but there are common grounds, which most Hindus accept. One of them is that the purpose of religion is to take the individual through a gradual process to a higher and higher, or deeper and deeper awareness, ending finally in liberation of the soul from all bondage.

All sacred scriptures state the same thing that Humanity is the only "Dharma" of all mankind but in the shadow of ignorance people have given many different names, in different period of time, in different circumstances and according to their own needs and beliefs. These man-made new names which are so-called "Religions" are actually Sects such as Hinduism, Muslim, Sikhism, Christianity, Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Judaism, Bahai etc. Also in these so-called religions there are many more differences. For example in Hindu religion, there are Shivait, Vaishnavi, believers of many different Deities. (Hindus believe in 33,00,00,000 deities) and still these deities are increasing day by day. These differences always expand as of differences in thoughts of different people all over the globe because of their residential tendencies i.e. "Sanskaaras". This difference among people creates more differences, which results in abuses, street-fights, arsons, and disturbances in nation and spreads all over, which ends in wars between two countries or many more countries of this small planet called the world. War is no solution to anything. The only solution to these problems is to acquire all true knowledge revealed by God.

No man is complete or perfect and can never be the same because he has limited intellect and so he always commits mistakes due to ignorance. Truth always remains truth and all believe in truth. To accept truth and renounce falsehood is acceptable to all.

What is truth is truth! But how to decide and distinguish between truth and false? For this purpose one has to study the Vedic Philosophy and literature as the Vedas are the Word of God revealed in the beginning of the Universe. The Veda means Knowledge, thus the Vedas are the books of Knowledge, so the Vedas (Knowledge) belong to all human beings irrespective of caste, creed, colour, race and so on. They cover all aspects of the human existence. They cover everything for the benefit of all human-beings, such as knowledge of trinity (God, Soul and the Matter i.e. material cause of the Universe).

The main theme within the Vedas is to provide correct knowledge to all human-beings to realise themselves and to visualise the Divine Being, to attain salvation from all wordly miseries and pains.

The most known Veda is the Rigveda. It is the largest containing 10,589 Mantras (Hymns). It is considered the Veda that deals with knowledge. The Yajurveda deals with action. One can also find reoccurrence of the information found in the Rigveda; but in different words and context. The Samaveda deals with the glorification and worshipping of God. The Atharvaveda deals with all the three principles.

All human-beings are equal, as we all are children of one God who is our real Father, Mother, Brother as well as our Friend. He is our real Teacher, Justice, and Knower of everything who is Oninipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent and Creator of the whole Universe. Everyone has the fundamental right to study and teach the Holy Vedas and make his/her life peaceful and pleasant.

The chief object of writing this book is to bring forth the correct interpretation of the Vedic Scriptures in vogue. An effort has been made to prove what is true and expose what is false. The Holy Vedas are written in the `Deva-Vani' (Divine Language) i.e. the Sanskrit language and most of us have not studied this holy language which is the main reason why we really do not know about the Vedas. Many impartial philologists and linguists now unequivocally admit: "Sanskrit is the mother of all important languages of the world. It is the Divine language-the most regular language known, especially remarkable as containing the roots of the various languages of the world." God has revealed full knowledge (according to the full capacity of soul's absorbency and with that knowledge he/she can realise oneself and get liberated from all evils and get emancipation). No one can feel his culture to be complete without an acquaintance with the Vedas.

In to-day's world, most factionalists have adopted such a distorted form of God, Worship of God, Religion, Meditation and many topics related to religious rituals etc. that the ordinary or even intelligent people have no other choice but to accept and follow it.

**Contents and Sample Pages**