What is Vedanta?

by Paul Hourihan
Vedanta, one of Hinduism's six main systems of thought, is a scientific approach to religion and religious truth. There is no one individual associated with the origin of Vedanta. Every other creed was founded by an individual. Not Hinduism. Only principles at the beginning; and Universal Truth and laws discovered and handed down by the rishis, the ancient Vedic sages. The main Vedantic texts are: the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma or Vedanta Sutras. This ancient philosophy of India is also readily found in the teachings of Buddha, Shankara, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda. It is open ended, a vast cathedral of thought encompassing both the personal and impersonal approaches to Divine realization. The Vedantic teachings are from the Vedas, which are the traditional Hindu scriptures. The Vedas are a diverse collection of Sanskrit writings extending back several thousand years and concerned with the knowledge of spiritual reality. The root word, "Ved," means to know in the mystical sense: to know spiritual truth. The suffix "anta" means "end" in the sense of termination and, secondly, of purpose. The end of the Vedas is the philosophical section, the "Vedanta," the portion known as the Upanishads. The third level of meaning is that the Upanishads represent the end of knowing, the summit of all knowledge. Meditation is the chief means to realize this knowledge and goal of Vedanta. The Upanishads are part of the Vedas as the New Testament is part of the Bible. They not only occur at the end of the Vedas, but are the culmination towards which the Vedas move. Vedanta's basic principles are: 1) Nothing exists except the Divine Being, or Brahman. It pervades, supports, determines, and explains everything. It is called the One. The doctrine of the Spiritual Oneness of Existence follows from this. 2) 3) The very nature of the Soul is Divine: the Cosmic Self becomes the individual Self. The goal of the individual, then, is to realize and manifest the divinity, which is his/her true nature. 4) The Universality of religious truth: there are many ways to realize God. (Prophets differ in their interpretation of religion as to details, but not in the essentials.) The Upanishadic texts are unique in their endless emphasis on the central Vedantic discovery: The Supreme Being is the Self and your self is that Self.