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