Wednesday 12 December 2012

Among Hindus, is detachment to be preferred to love, or the other way around?


When the Rig Veda says that the beginning of the world was Love (not Maya), how can Advaita be justified as "the ultimate meaning of the Vedas" (Vedanta)?

Where did the idea of "non-attachment" come into Indian thought except through Buddhism and Jainism, many of whose ideas were taken up by Shankaracharya to invent many of the beliefs that now go by the name of "Hindu"?

The following verses of the Rigveda are quite clear that the "connection of Being in Nonbeing" is Love, and that this Love is not some sort of energy but is the "One who existed by his own impulse...and was hidden by the Void but came to be through the power of Ardor":

"At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing. There was not air nor yet sky beyond. What was its wrapping? Where? In whose protection? Was Water there, unfathomable and deep?

"There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness; of night or day there was not any sign. The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse. Other than that was nothing else at all.

"Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness, and all was Water indiscriminate. Then that which was hidden by the Void, that One, emerging, stirring, through power of Ardor, came to be.

"In the beginning Love arose, which was the primal germ cell of the mind. The Seers, searching in their hearts with wisdom, discovered the connection of Being in Nonbeing".

- Rig Veda X, 129, 1-4

No comments:

Post a Comment