Lessons from the East II - Ashram, Ananda, Anadi, Ananta: Perceived Reality, Cult, or the Truth

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Om poornamadah poornamidam poornaat poornamudachyate,

Poornasya poornamaadaaya poornamevaavashishṣyate

Om shaantih shaantih shaantih

Meaning:

Om, That (Outer World) is Purna (complete with Divine Consciousness); This (Inner World) is also Purna (complete with Divine Consciousness); From Purna comes Purna (From the completeness of Divine Consciousness the Universe is manifested).

Taking anything Purna from Purna, Purna Indeed Remains (As Divine Consciousness is Non-Dual and infinite).

Om Peace, Peace, Peace.


For us, as the above shlok from Upanishad suggest, everything is complete, whether outside or within oneself.
However to decipher this completeness or fullness (unfortunately there is no word that can describe Poorna in totality, hence using the closest clone), within oneself one needs to learn, imbibe knowledge, gain wisdom.
The first MahaVakya (major statement or one of the 4 greatest sayings) of Vedas is “Prajnanam Brahma” or Knowledge is Brahma.

Who or What is Brahma then?

Brahma is Sat-Cit-Ananda (truth-consciousness-bliss) or the cosmic principle or the param-atma which is connected with Jiva-atma that is present in every human, every plant, every animal, in every living thing, and even in metals.

In a nutshell, knowledge is supreme and knowledge is the way to achieve bliss in perpetuity, with no other external factors leading to a constant & consistent state of happiness.

Thus for thousands of years, the principle of input and output was followed in the Vedanta Culture.

Every human life that took birth on this planet was divided into four stages or four phases:

1. Brahmacharya– Being a Bachelor, considered as the learning phase of life, marked by chastity, devotion, and obedience to one's Guru (teacher).

2. Grihastha – Phase in one’s life where one gets married and pursues his or her worldly duties of maintaining & running a Household.

3. Vanaprastha – Withdrawal from material things, and a phase where one prepares for renunciation from the worldly desires and duties handing over responsibilities to the next generation.

4. Sanyasa – Phase of giving up prejudices, biases, and opinions. Wandering Ascetic Stage and gaining supreme knowledge to attain Moksha and imparting knowledge to younger ones.

This activity of Phase one (Gurukool) and Phase four of life happens at Ashram.

The Word Ashram is again a Sanskrit word that finds its root in the Sanskrit word Srama, and ashram means “making an effort toward liberation.”

An Ashram is thus the place where one learns, imbibes, attains Supreme knowledge about one’s Dharma, one skill to perform one’s duties during Grihasta Jeevan (married life) and follow Purushartha (4 aims of human life - Dharma or Righteousness, moral conduct, cosmic law & order, virtues, the right way of living & path of rightness, Artha or prosperity & wealth, Kama or pleasure, satiation of senses, and Moksha or the pursuit of liberation).

Immediately after birth, life used to revolve in and around Ashram and after satiating material desires and sensual gratification, life was brought back to Ashram. Thus in the final leg of one’s life, one came back to Ashram with a single focus of achieving Moksha – cutting the revolving cycle of birth, life and death.

Though the words Gurukul and Ashram are perceived as different, the place where the teacher or Rishi (the enlightened one) taught was the same.

It’s interesting that till about 1000 AD, an uncountable number of Ashrams existed in the Indian Subcontinent. In fact, all schools with deep work (whether in the field of astrology, astronomy, mathematics, Ayurveda, physics, medicine, surgical medicine, agriculture, water storage system, aviation, nuclear science, etc) were Ashrams.

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Firstly foreign invaders and then Britishers killed the entire system of learning, teaching, and giving back to the society.

For the modern generation, especially the millennials, one is not even aware of the true meaning of Ashram. For them what one sees on the OTT channel creates an image of Vedanta and that image finally forms the perceived reality. Similarly, Vedantic Philosophy never believed in cults.

In Vedantic philosophy, it's always been Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The World Is One Family) or “Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah” – May everyone be happy, may everyone be healthy, may everyone see what is favorable, and may no one suffer.

However, with the portrayal of the Ashram and Cult (series and or documentaries), Vedantic Philosophy is perceived to be loose, lax, and sloppy.

Whilst the virtues which Vedanta stands for are totally opposite.

It never forces or forced people to visit temples every day or every week or pray or follow any particular rituals.

The result of which was, that some used Vedanta culture’s tolerant nature to pursue their own wicked agenda. When directors or producers made programs like Godman or Conman or Ashram 1 or 2 or 3, their intention was to expose the selfish and ulterior motives of these so-called Godmen who prey on the innocence of others.

However for doing a smaller good, one forgot about the larger good by creating a wrong perception about Vedanta or its thousand-year-old culture (Sanskriti).

Could they have used other words, neutral words?

Could they have enticed the audience with other phrases or portrayals?

Religions came into existence to bring people together so that one can watch the other one’s back in case of danger.

As it always happens, there is nothing good or bad in any religion, but people in religion make it good or bad. And then there are millions or billions of good people in a religion, but a few bad across all religions, who use religion as a tool to gain power, a tool to satiate their malfide desires, a tool to oppress others pushing their personal agenda. Hence words to depict, describe, and to paint the character of these bad or evil people should be chosen very carefully as they can harm the whole etymology or the perceived meaning of the word used otherwise.

Vedanta philosophy has suffered several severe setbacks when holy texts (~ 9 million ancient books) continued to burn in Nalanda for 3 months and when Taxila library was burnt.

Since human origin, there have been only two primary emotions in humans. The rest are all subsets of these two. Love & Fear.

Vedantic Philosophy always preached, practiced, and pursued Love as its primary emotion and thus never had equivalent words of depression or divorce, as those concepts were never envisaged.

Similarly, there is no equivalent word in English or in any Non-Indian language to illustrate Ananda (~ Bliss in perpetuity) or to interpret Anadi (~ the one which has no beginning), or Ananta (~ the one which has no end). In such a culture, which follows such a way of life, one needs to be cautious and judicious with words one uses (especially when one is using a noble word to portray someone's evil), beyond the material gains one gets from using them, as one knows that Ananda is something that cannot be bought even by an infinite amount of money, or praise or recognition as that recognition surely has a beginning (Aadi) and surely has an end. (Anth).

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