Jake believes that Vedanta is a philosophy. He wants to know which of the six schools (darshanas) of Vedanta ShiningWorld endorses.
Dear Jake,
If you are dependent on situations, possessions, relationships, obligations, beliefs, opinions, and transactions for your happiness in life, it doesn’t help to read a book of philosophy for the solution because philosophies are the contention of individuals or groups of individuals about life. For every solution there are others who have different points of view. Who is to say who is right? Or you can think of it this way: every point of view is valid for the person who hold it, but not for everyone. So if you fancy a particular solution, take your pick.
If your suffering is due to one of the karmic factors I mentioned above, then all you have to do is find a practical solution and do what is required. But if it is due to an erroneous notion of who you are, the only thing that will work is to remove that notion. Vedanta is a means of knowledge, not a philosophy. To compare it to a philosophy is like comparting oranges and computers. They are not in the same category. It is a means, not an end. If you like coca cola you drink the coke and throw away the bottle. Vedanta is a disposable container of knowledge that destroys ignorance. When the knowledge I am unborn ever-free eternal existence shining as blissful consciousness and not the created experiencing entity that I take mysef to be, is firm Vedanta has done its job. It has set you free of dependence on the above-mentioned objects because the self is associationless; it has no contact with discrete experiences. It is the essence of experience itself. It is the substrate the names and forms that present themselves to it. If you are seeking truth it reveals the fact that the seeker is what he or she is seeking aka the truth.
Maybe you are a happy person. If so you don’t need Vedanta. If you are happy then pick any philosophy you want and enjoy it. Or enjoy all philosophies as they are.
Sometimes a person thinks they are happy when they aren’t. So a great deal of honesty is required to admit that one seeks because one isn’t happy. Happy people don’t seek. They enjoy the happiness that they are experiencing. It so happens that there is only one whole and complete self and its nature is the bliss that makes happiness happy. Vedanta takes away the ignorance of this fact and disappears, once it is known, leaving only the universal bliss experience.
It works. If you don’t understand this fact, I can’t help you. You can keep seeking but if you do understand what Vedanta is, your seeking stops because it removes the existential questions that motivate seeking. But to qualify for teaching you need to know that Vedanta is a means of knowledge, not a philosophy. It only works on qualified people. If you want to know more read my book, Essence of Enlightenment without the philosophical filter. Read it like a child, with an open mind. Don’t move to chapter 2, until you have fully assimilated chapter one etc. If it makes sense write me and I will tell you what to study next. Once you get up to speed you will know what kind of questions to ask. This argument about the means is futile. As the Bhagaved Gita says, “only the one who sees, sees.”
Om and Prem,
Ram.
