Last Updated on August 13, 2024 by Tejaswini

In all the 5000+ comments/questions that I have read/answered on this blog in these past 4yrs or so, there was only one comment where a person mentioned Vedant. It was good to see this comment, thus this post (which may not be very useful for 99% of my readers.) 

Vedant is the apex of all thinking processes, which requires a highly subtle vijnyanmaykosh (post here). You realise yourself as the Parabrahma, you are everything and yet beyond everything. And for this to happen, a lot of preparation and hard work is required which is spread over millions of lives.

The scheme of things goes something like this,

First you overcome your excessive attachment to the sthool sharir, the physical body, the material world, the relationships of the material world. You stop depending on any of the material things around you for your support. eg You stop thinking that you would look beautiful if your eyes were blue in color. You stop thinking that your wife’s voice or your son’s physical presence or your mother’s phone call will give you happiness. You stop thinking that the promotion or money or the new house etc will support you. Instead, of expecting support from the material, you start depending on the adored deity, your Ishtadevata, your Kuldevata for support. And you find happiness in reciting his name or singing his bhajans, doing his pujas etc.

You do this via the activities mentioned in the Ved-purva ie the Karma kand and Upasana activities. In these ‘modern’ times, Vedpurva is labelled as ‘rituals’ and dismissed but that is the first step. Dharma is Vedpurva and Moksha is Vedant. You cannot even touch Moksha unless you have understood what Dharma is. So do the activities, first Karma kand and then Upasana.

This process of becoming independent of the material world’s suport is referred to as purifying, resolving, dissolving the sthool sharir. This means that intellectually you realise its non-substantiality. And that you are firmly convinced that you are more than just the physical body. Your awareness has expanded/ become more subtle, and you are ready to think on what more could you really be.

This will take several human lives. (And do remember that you will take on several plant and several animal lives to complete karma. Human birth is extremely rare.)

Then the next step is the astral body. You have to work on your subtle body, sookshma sharir and in the process realise its non-substantiality. You are required to overcome your excessive attachment to the subtle body. You are required to think and come to the conclusion that you are more than just the astral body.

As you know the subtle body has 3 layers, Pranmaykosh, Manomaykosh and Vijnyanmaykosh.

You start with the basic pranayam, eg Anulom Vilom is being widely practiced by a lot of people (this is the greatest contribution to collective human health and Ramdev baba deserves to be recognised for this). And later you also do yogic postures, Yogasans which manipulate the pran within the energy body nadis eg Suryanamaskars. And once you reach an appropriate level of nadi/ pranic fitness, a Guru will appear who will teach you to do Dhyan using a naam-mantra. You use your breath and your mantra to ‘clean’ out the nadis and regularise the pran flowing in your body. In this process you slowly come to realise that your source of support is now the mantra which your Guru has given you. You continue to be grateful to the deities but your source of support has subtly shifted and now it is the Guru.

Again this will take several human lives. Thankfully any spiritual progress you make is saved when the physical body is disposed with. And similarly any fall from the spiritual route is saved. So we are always warned to be mindful about our actions. Physical and emotional actions both result in karmic bondage.

I have written this as a step wise process but the bodies are interconnected layers so as you work on one layer the other layers too are to some extent ‘purified’. Pran is connected to the breathing and as we can to some extent control our breathing, we are also indirectly regulating the pran movement. That is why for most of us, Pranayam and Dhyan are seen to be very doable spiritual activities.

Then once the pranmaykosh has been sufficiently strengthened, you start your work on the manomaykosh. This is the mind portion of the subtle body. (This is not the ‘mind’ as we understand in English). In this stage, your emotions are all sorted out. You are required to overcome all the emotional dependencies which you have developed over lifetimes. eg if you cannot sleep without wishing your child good night, this is an emotional dependency. All emotional conflicts have to be faced and resolved. eg if you are not sure if you should do some correct action because it will hurt your wife, this is an emotional conflict. You will have to completely accept that you are the source of your own emotional problems and only you can help yourself. eg if you think that you will cry in front of your adored deity and he will bless you and magically your grief will disappear then this is extremely faulty thinking. You have to resolve these emotional issues on your own. No one else is going to do it for you. The role of the deity is critical in providing courage as he is your support system. eg Bhagwan Krishna gave Arjun the support, the courage but Arjun had to fight his own war.

But ‘resolving’ the manomaykosh does not mean that you become emotionally dead or unemotional or turn your heart into a stone. This simply means that you do not indulge in excessive emotions. Eg you can feel extremely happy or extremely sad but in 1min you are back to your stable emotional equilibrium. For this to happen, you are required to read Shastra, or listen to pravachans by an Sat-Guru or read commentaries on the Shastra by Sat guru. A Sat Guru is one who is the Parabrahma, the Advaita itself.

Thus as the emotional manomayakosh level is ‘resolved’, you realise that emotions do not have any real substance, ie they are variable, changeable, finite etc and thus cannot be said to have any real existence.

In this process, your intelligence has become refined and you become aware of the most subtle Vijnynmaykosh. Here you use your buddhi, intelligence to understand the core of Vedant, you will read and understand the prasthan-traya, ie the 10 main upanishads, the Bhagwat Gita (especially its Shankarbhashya) and the Brahmasutra. Then there are several commentaries, sub-commentaries on these main books. You are not required to read them all. Just those which help you make that intellectual leap.

Now you have come to the actual Vedant, so you have to go through its three steps,

1. Shravan – ie listen to what the Sat Guru says to you. The Sat Guru always says ‘Tat tvam asi’ ‘you are that’, in whatever language, but the only teaching of the Vedant is this ‘Tat tvam asi’.
2. Then you will do Manan, ie think over what has been told to you. Here you are required to ask questions to yourself, think some more, analyse, re-think, till all your doubts are resolved on the intellectual level.
3. Once your doubts are resolved and you state with full conviction ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ you are now in Nididhyasanam. Now you internalise the Vedant, the four Mahavakyas, from ‘Tat tvam asi’, then ‘Aham Brahma Asmi’, next is ‘Prajnyanam Brahma’ and finally to ‘Ayam Atma Brahma’. Thus you break the cycle of ignorance and error and remain in the Self, the Advaita.

This is an intellectual journey and in the final human birth in which this fact is realised/ owned, that life will show a extraordinary birth chart with combinations like, Tapasvi yog, Rahu Ketu as yogkarak, powerful ascendant, Sun and Moon on an overdrive, a overpowering Moksh trikon supported by a powerful Dharma trikon especially with a superlative 5th house, vargottam planets, typical DC, etc. Jyotish is ultimately a Vedang.

Now you need no support. But you yourself are the supporter of everything.

You will not experience anything fantastic, eg no flashing lights, no out of body experience, no samadhi, nothing like that at all. Just that you have changed your perspective completely. And you have the conviction to say, ‘I Am’. ‘Satyam Jnyanam Anantam Brahma’. I am limitless existence, limitless consciousness. I am the fundamental substance.

If I have to put all this in the simplest words, then the entire journey is from an adjective to the noun. From an attribute to the substance.

Eg. Clay is used to make a bowl, a jar, a plate etc. For 99% of us, the form and the name, bowl, jar, plate is more important than the substance clay. When we say a ‘clay bowl’ or ‘clay jug’ or ‘clay plate’, the words plate, bowl and jug are more important, these are the nouns, and the word clay is used as an adjective. But just think, the only substance in the plate, the jug and the bowl is actually the clay. Only clay has real existence. The three seemingly different – plate, bowl and jug are essentially what? Clay! Just giving clay fancy names does not change the essential substance. So if you can intellectually interchange the adjective and noun you are ready for Vedant. If you can understand the difference between a ‘clayey bowl’ and a ‘bowley clay’, ‘juggy clay’, ‘platey clay’, ie if you can firmly keep your focus on the substance, then you are capable of understanding Vedant. But if you cannot understand this then first do the karma-kand, do the daily puja routine, do your mantra, have faith in your adored deity. Follow Dharma, understand Dharma and then come to Vedant and Moksh.

Vedant is the only route to the Self. (Ref Purush sukta, Na anyah panthe vidyate ayanaya.)

The sthool sharir and the sookshma sharir are also called the Vikshep shakti of Rajogun, they indicate ‘expansion of the original error in understanding’. (If you have been following my blog then these terms will not be new to you.). And the final anandmaykosh is another name of ‘the original ignorance’. ie it is the Avaran shakti of the Tamogun. As you work at the Vijnyanmaykosh this Avaran, this concealment is also resolved simultaneously.

This is a post on Vedant so I have to use some Vedantic terms too. The unique advantage of being born in Bharat is that we have heard these terms ever since we were children. They are not new to us. Otherwise perhaps only higher level theoretical physicists can perhaps understand these concepts.

While the sthool sharir is dominant, you are in the realm of Dvaita ie duality. ie, you are convinced that there are multiple individuals, several people existing all separate from each other. Multiplicity on several levels, including the material. Eg, you think that a golden bangle is completely different from a golden necklace. Thus there are several substances at this level of intelligence.

But as you slowly ‘resolve’ the sthool sharir, (ie understand that  it can be experienced but it has no real existence), you slowly enter vishishtah-advaita, ie ‘qualified non-duality’.

Now you are sure that everything belongs to the deity you adore. And you and everything around you is a creation, product of the deity. The deity is the real existent one and all are just products of the ‘substance’ of the deity. Eg your friend may look different from you but now you are convinced that you both are children of the same deity in two different forms. There is duality, but now you are sure that the underlying substance in everything is the same. Just that the qualities, qualifications, descriptions, properties are multiple which result in the multiplicity seen in the world. Thus this is called Vishishtha Advaita. ‘All my problems are sure to be solved because I am the property of my adored deity’. This thought gives you strength to carry on at this intellectual level.

And once your self awareness reaches the level of the vijnyanmaykosh, and you start observing it, examining it, enquiring into it, with the mirror of the Shastra and the eye of the Buddhi, eventually you realise ‘I Am’. I am the source of the manifested creation, I am the manifested creation, I am everything, I am every apparent qualification, I am existence, I am consciousness, I am limitless. I Am. This is Advaita. Now you know that every apparent multiplicity you see is a superimposition on the fundamental substance and you yourself are that fundamental substance.

Satyam Jnyanam Anantam Brahma.