INDIA’S ANCIENT CULTURE SWAMI KRISHNANANDA The Divine Life Society Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India Website: www.swami-krishnananda.org Publishers’ Note This book consists of a series of 21 discourses that Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj gave to students in The Divine Life Society's Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy from November 1989 to January 1990. Swamiji Maharaj begins with the earliest stages of Indian culture, and discusses its evolution until the highest level of human achievement, which is liberation of the soul by the realisation of Brahman, the Absolute, through the stages of samadhi. 2 Table of Contents Publishers’ Note………………………………………………………………………………………………3 Chapter 1: The Definition of Culture ............................................................................................ 4 Chapter 2: The Evolution of Culture .......................................................................................... 11 Chapter 3: The Vedas – the Foundation of Indian Culture .............................................. 1 Chapter 4: The Fourfold Aim of and How to Achieve It ............................... 2 8 Chapter 5: Introduction to the Epics ......................................................................................... 3 Life ............ 7 Chapter 6: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata ..................... 4 7 Chapter 7: The Message of the Mahabharata ........................................................................ 5 Similarities between 6 Chapter 8: India’s Concept of Totality ...................................................................................... 69 7 Chapter 9: The Vision of Life which is the Culture of India ............................................. 80 Chapter 10: The Development of the Concept of God ....................................................... 90 Chapter 11: The Universality of God ......................................................................................... 99 Chapter 12: .... .. 109 Chapter 13: True Spiritual Devotion to God ....................................................................... 11 The Soul Wanting God ................................................................................... Chapter 14: The Nine Forms of Worship of God ............................................................... 12 7 Chapter 15: Yoga is the State of At-one-ment .................................................................... 13 7 Chapter 16: Some Aspects of the Essentials of Meditation .......................................... 147 6 Chapter 17: The Object of Meditation .................................................................................... 15 Chapter 18: The Meditation Technique of Savitarka Samadhi ................................... 1 2 Chapter 19: Transcending the Tanmatras Through Samapatti.................................. 167 59 Chapter 20: The Culmination of Yoga Practice .................................................................. 174 : Siva’s Trident of Yoga Practice ........................................................................ 182 Chapter 21 3 Chapter 1 THE DEFINITION OF CULTURE India has always been considered as the repository of one of the earliest of cultures. Cultures are there in every country, but Indian culture is said to be one of the most ancient, historically speaking. So there is some point in trying to go a little deep into the ancient circumstance that gave rise to the kind of culture which we call Indian culture. The word ‘culture’ is something which requires to be defined in an adequate manner. It is a process of purification. Culturing a thing implies analysis and purification. Indian culture or any culture—human culture, so to say—is the theme connected with the efflorescence, the development, the onward progress, the extent to which perfection has been attained by a group of people or an individual, and there has been purification of the inner nature. Culture is connected with the inner life of a person, and whatever the inner life of a person is will decide their outer behaviour because we cannot conduct ourselves outwardly in a manner different from what we are inside. The way in which we speak to people, our physical gestures, our demeanour, our deportment and our social concourse with people outside are a manifestation of what we are within. In our social relations, which are culturally oriented, we express outwardly what we are inside. Therefore, the culture of a people, the culture of a nation, the culture of a country is the cumulative product, so to say, of the culture of the individuals constituting that particular nation or country, broadly speaking. It does not mean that every individual thinks identically with every other person. Every individual has his own or her own pattern of a general outlook of life, taken independently. Yet, apart from there being a difference in the minor details of the outlook of life by individuals, there is a general consensus of opinion, a broad-based outlook which determines a community, a large group of people, and so apart from individual differences which are practically negligible, we may say, there is a general consciousness which brings people together into a nationality, into a cultural background—that is to say, into a general outlook of life. Culture, therefore, is a product of a general outlook of life. What do we think about ourselves? What do we think about other people around us? What do we think about this world into which we were born? What is our general idea about things—the world and the individual included? Our reaction to the outer atmosphere of the world and people outside is our culture. We react in a particular manner in respect of conditions prevailing outside, and our reaction will show what kind of culture it is that we are endowed with or that we are born into. Something is happening in the world outside, in nature. Something is happening among people outwardly. There is a large country. There is a large world. There are people. Something is happening to them or they are doing something, and we react in a particular manner to these events taking place in society or in the world in general. How do we react? That reaction is the product of our culture. We react in a particular manner in respect of natural history, as 4 well as social history. This is a very subtle point because though individual reactions in respect of particular events may vary from moment to moment, from person to person, general reactions are common, and they lay the very foundation of a community. Thus, cultures can be individual and also collective. India is a country with millions of people inhabiting it, and each person has his own or her own way of thinking due to individual differences in his or her evolutionary stage, but commonly an Indian is supposed to think in a general and a collective manner. There is some common background on which an Indian thinks, in spite of there being so many differences among individuals. That commonness of thought that we find in India, among its citizens, is the culture thereof. This is what we call Indian culture. Before I go further into this subject, I request you to read two books thoroughly, from cover to cover. The first book is The Foundations of Indian Culture written by Sri Aurobindo. The second book is The Human Cycle, also by Aurobindo. The book was originally called The Psychology of Social Development, and now it has been reprinted under a different title, The Human Cycle, and is clubbed together with another book that he wrote. The entire book now goes under the title of The Human Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, War and Self- Determination. But this book must be read after the first book, The Foundations of Indian Culture. This is a standard work which will inspire you not only by the elevated style of English literature, but also by the profundity of thought. It is a classic. There is another book which is also very inspiring and interesting: Eastern Religions and Western Thought by S. Radhakrishnan. There are many other books, but as you have no time to read too many books, I suggested only the basic fundamentals. I mentioned that culture is basically an outlook of life. What do you think about life? You would have noticed that generally when you think, you think in three ways. First of all, you think of your own self. You look within and think about yourself. Every day you think about yourself for some reason or the other, because you are very important to yourself. You cannot ignore your existence. Right from morning onwards you think of yourself. That is the first thought. Then you think about other people. You look within at your own self, and you look without at the world outside. This without includes not only the world of nature, but also the world of people. Subjectively you think of yourself, and objectively you think of nature and history, as we may put it. By ‘history’ I mean the movement and performance of people. You look at yourself and you look at others, the others including nature as well as people outside. Then there is a third way of thinking, which generally is not a concomitant of your normal way of thinking. The mind gets so much occupied with one’s own self and with other people outside, due to its having to deal with the external atmosphere from one’s own point of view, that there is very little time left to think of the third item, though the third item will also come up for insistent consideration one day or the other, especially when you are totally dissatisfied with both