The Threads That Lead to Divine

By Dr.King

In this excellent exposition of ancient Indian thought systems, the authors rig up an interesting debate among proponents of these systems, finally leading to the conclusions well established by Vedas and Upanishads.
The book is based on the well-known work namely The Brahma Sutra of Sage Badarayana.
A good book to get a quick introduction to Samkhya, Vaisheshika, Yoga, Teravada, Vijnyana Vada, Shoonya Vada, and Anekantavada and their contrast with the Upanishadic views.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr.King
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005178963

Dr.King

Dr.King is an avid writer in the nonfictional category. In the past 3 decades he has written several books in the areas of philosophy, Yoga, religious practices, sculpture, gardening, and so on. His books often blend scientific outlook with traditional faiths and practices. His books especially in the area of ancient philosophy succinctly showcase volumes of ancient literature in a condensed form, providing very authentic, insightful and unbiased portrayal. These books are generally characterized as thought provoking, giving an incisive look at the otherwise difficult to understand topics. One can expect to find reliable information, devoid of glorification and hype that is typical in this category.

Book preview

Prologue

Several years ago, I was part of a large institution. This institution used to organize frequent lectures by eminent scholars in various fields. The Head of this institution used to invite me to attend to all these lectures. The funny thing was that the topics of most of these talks were not directly connected with my field of expertise nor something that was of my interest. That used to puzzle me.

Once I asked this Head, why he invites me to such talks since he knew my interests very well. His reply was quite interesting. He said Because you ask lot of questions!.

Before I could get offended by his reply, he hastened to explain what he meant. He said that when someone in the audience asks good questions, it encourages the speaker to give out more of what he knows. It also forces the speaker to ponder over his own way of thinking. At the same time, other audience get to know of a different aspect of the same subject.

So, it not only benefits the person who asks the question, but also the speaker as well as the audience in general.

So, asking good questions always helps us to grow. Remember your childhood days when you used to ask too many questions? That is how a child starts learning. But as you grow up, you stop asking questions and that is when you stop growing ;-)

Asking questions may be meant to know more. That is what a child does. But as we build our own views and opinions, we ask questions to punch holes in the opponent’s views. That is when the questioning takes the form of a debate.

Yoga asks you to quieten your mind. But debate agitates your mind. In that case why debate? Why ask questions?

This is the confusion even some of our modern Gurus have. They bar you from asking questions. They say that to move on the spiritual path, one should stop asking questions but accept what is told by the Guru. Well, that is how they build a large clientele ;-)

But everything has its place in life. Accepting blindly whatever a Guru says might have been Ok when we had ideal Gurus. Unfortunately, we rarely find such Gurus these days. So, we need to question before accepting. Otherwise, we will be taken for a ride ;-)

What is this book all about?

The topic of this book is one of the well-known ancient Indian compositions namely Brahma Sutra. Brahma Sutra is about Brahma – the ancient Indian word for God. But this God is not a personified God that you find in religious texts. It is an abstract concept. Literally, Brahma means something very big. Bigger than the biggest.

My intention is definitely not to go into the nitty-gritties of this phenomenal work that has baffled even the most seasoned philosophers. I would not like to drown you into deeply philosophical issues.

My intention is to show you how ancient Indians developed a very systematic debating process through which they thrashed out their differences.

The way ancient Indians debated with each other

As we see in the world around, religious wars were and are often fought at the point of sword or sometimes by deceit. But in ancient India, most of these wars were fought through debates. The condition was that whoever lost the debate would accept the winner’s path.

There was hardly any bloodshed, and the defeated person accepted the opponent’s views without resistance.  Along with the defeated, his entire band of followers moved to their new ideologue.

Coming back, Brahma Sutra is a short composition by ancient saint Badarayana who lived long ago in the Himalayas. His name indicates that he lived in Badari – a small forest filled with Indian jujube fruit trees.

Many believe that he was the same person as Vyasa who wrote the great Indian epic namely Mahabharata. Though early philosophers like Sankara don’t explicitly say that Badarayana was same as Vyasa, later Indian philosophers took that for granted.

This composition is in Sutra style – very brief exposition of ideas often extremely terse and difficult to interpret. There are all together 555 sutras spread over 4 chapters. The main topic is Brahma or God. That is why it is called Brahma Sutra.

Brahma Sutra is considered to be one of the three most important philosophic texts of ancient Vedic Indians. The other two being Upanishads and Bhagavad Geetha. Together, these three texts are supposed to conclusively define Brahma and other related ideas concerning Vedic thought process.

Upanishads which are called Shruti, are believed to be revealed texts which are authorities by themselves. Bhagavad Geetha is categorized as Smrti, something that is based on Upanishads. Brahma Sutra is supposed to use Shruti to logically arrive at conclusions about Brahma and other realities of this world around us.

Any new ideologue who comes up with his new viewpoint was expected to show that his views are consistent with these three – Upanishads, Bhagavad Geetha and Brahma Sutra. These philosophers often fought among each other through debates.

The Advaita Philosopher Sankara is well known for his commentary on this Brahma Sutra. Apparently, his commentary is supposed to have over 100 thousand verses.

Through his commentary, Sankara tries to justify his own philosophy namely Advaita.  In my discussions, I will mostly hold on to Sankara’s viewpoints and how he explains them in the context of Brahma Sutra. Where possible I will also show how his opponents, both from Vedic school as well as outside Vedic school, argue their point.

So, take this as an intellectual treat and an exercise in debating. The debating, that should take place in thrashing out opposing views rather than resort to bloodshed or covert onslaughts of religious perversion and persecution.

Why should one care to know about God?

In many faith-based religions, this question does not arise at all. It could even be a forbidden question to ask. It is sacrilegious to question the existence of God.

Acceptance of God is the most basic prerequisite. There is no religion if there is no God.  But not so in ancient India. India had a completely open system where anyone was free to question anything including God.

There were the Meemamsakas who firmly believed in Vedic rituals. They said that talking about God was a useless pursuit. These are the people who championed a ritualist form of the religion.

What are these rituals for? Not to appease some God, but to get some worldly benefits or at least to attain heavenly abode after death. They said that anything which does not end up with some palpable result is of no consequence. They ridiculed the Upanishads as idle talk, though these Upanishads were also part of the same Vedas.

Upanishads focused mainly on Brahma or God. Meemamsakas’ view was that irrespective of whether God exists or not, a given ritual produces the promised results. So, it is action that is more important and not some hallowed concepts.

And we had the atomic theorists called Vaisheshikas. They said that this world came into existence as a result of combining of various atoms. Whether God exists or not, he is not the one who created this world. He might