Advaita Vedanta

(The Supreme Knowledge)

Brahma Sri Yellamraju Srinivasa Rao's Discourses
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PRASTANATRAYA

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THE ESSENCE OF PRASTHANATRAYA


   The sole bane of life is dejection.. Our ancients have thought about a solution of this problem for a long time. Those who reflected thus are the sages. The truth they realized in their meditation has come out in the form of the Upanishads. It is the essence of all the ten Upanishads from the Isavasya to the Brihadaranyaka. As that truth could not be grasped in its true sense, and different people gave different meanings, Badarayana resolved the disputations in his work called Brahmasutras. As the work is an inquiry into the essence of the Upanishads, it is also called Vedanta Mimamsa. In order to enable man to practise in his daily life what he has imbibed from these two, the third, the Bhagavadgita has emerged. These three together are called prasthanatraya by our ancients.

    Prasthana means the means to get rid of dejection. If dejection is the problem, liberation is its solution. The way of solution is one, but consisting of three stages. One is, listening, sravana. All that there is God-consciousness. And it is our essence. Apart from this consciousness there is nothing like a world. This is the Siddhanta, the ultimate resolution of the sages. This we have to grasp first by listening to the Upanishads. But there is this world, with its moving and non-moving things, very much around us which we see every moment. And is it not because of it are all our woes ? How can we take this source of all our misery as God ? It is in order to dispel such doubts that we should meditate on the meaning of the Brahmasutra. Then we get rid of the doubt and arrive at a decisive awreness that all is God. But this awareness is only at the intellectual level. Can this awareness be translated into experience ? Bhagavadgita provides the answer, nididhyasa. Nididhyasa is constant practice of seeing everything as God and seeing God every where.

    Listening, reflection and constant practice – these three are the stages of the path in which one should travel. The path will certainly lead one to the solution of the problem of dejection and to the ultimate fruit of liberation. That is why the three together are named Prasthanatraya by the spiritual scientists who know them. Therefore, if one wants to attain the goal of life every Indian has the responsibility of studying the prasthavatraya and follow it. Not Indians alone, every human being should study and follow them. There is no doubt about it. For, the problem of human bondage is common to all mankind. If one wants to break free out of this bondage, no other education will help him out. For, other than this, all eduction is worldly which can give only incomplete knowledge, but not complete, total knowledge. It cannot make man get rid of his dejection and make him happy. Education is that which liberates (Sa vidya ya Vimuktaye). And that liberating knowledge only the Prasthanatraya can provide . We shall see briefly how this liberating knowledge is taught.

                                                      

                                                       1.Upanishads   

 

                                                       2.Brahmasutras   

 

                                                       3.Bhagavadgita