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"Tradition is for those who have no Guru.
For one who has a Guru, the Guru is his tradition."
Religion which was generally considered to be a link between man and God, has
now become a barrier instead. If we keep ourselves bound fast to a particular
form or practice without a clear idea of its real significance and final
approach, we are probably committing the greatest blunder. God is not to be
found within the fold of a particular religion or sect. He is not confined
within certain forms or rituals, nor is He to be traced out from within the
scriptures. Him we have to seek for in the innermost core of our heart.
The great seers of India, the rishis, have bifurcated the holy life into two
distinct approaches to Reality: the ritualistic life, and the contemplative
life. The texts of Hinduism are correspondingly categorised, and the Vedas
themselves come under this categorisation. The earlier parts, dealing almost
exclusively with rituals, are classified under the term karma kanda. The later
portions of the Vedic text, the Gnana Kanda, deal mostly with the mental and
higher aspects of man's approach to his Maker, and are commonly called Vedanta,
translated to mean "the end of all knowledge." Vedanta does not
merely mean that this part of the Vedic teaching comes at the serial end of the
Veda. It means that here is contained such knowledge as can be considered to be
the end of all knowledge, the very acme and essence of knowledge.
The rishis have also taught, very clearly and emphatically, that the ritualistic
religious life is a lower aspect of man's existence, whereas the contemplative
life (the life of the mystic) is extolled as being the higher and purer one.
It is believed that a human being must necessarily start with external worship
but this is not the end of one's way of communing with God. We are expected to
indulge in ritual or formal worship only for so long as we find benefit in it.
After that we must necessarily seek a better approach to God, and at this stage
comes the idea of meditation, when we do away with the need for an objectified
form of worship by creating in ourselves the necessary instrument of worship.
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