I had posted my answer 7 months ago and today only I discovered by chance that Quora had removed it.
The question was:
How do Indian Rishis get knowledge by just meditation?
Here is my reply – and I wonder why Quora didn’t like it.
I keep wondering about this question since long.
My feeling is, in Vedic tradition, human beings are not the ‘crown of the creation’ as in the Abrahamic religions. There are other conscious, intelligent beings apart from humans. The Saptarishis (seven sages) for example are in my view not humans as we are.
My feeling is, a lot of the Vedic knowledge was GIVEN. It is not possible for humans to come to the conclusions of Surya Siddhanta for example. Mapping of the sky is not possible merely by observation.
Even the Upanishadic realisation that this ‘reality’ is Maya, a temporary appearance on the eternal truth (Brahman), and doing a clear analysis of Maya, including the 5 elements, is not easy to discover for humans who were supposed to be primitive thousands of years ago.
The usual explanation: they saw it in deep meditation, is unlikely. In deep meditation one may experience an oceanic oneness with all, but it’s unlikely to get inputs about certain constellations in the sky.
Let’s take Ramanujan Srinivasan. He says, his Kul Devi Namagiri gave him the mathematical formulas in dream. Should we not consider the Devi as real as we humans are?
Patanjali, who gave us the Ashtanga Yoga, was supposedly a Naga.
Or who built the Kailash Mandir? It is doubtful that it were humans.
I find it strange: Hindus have so much information about different beings especially in the Puranas, yet it almost seems, as if westerners nowadays take invisible spiritual forces – positive and negative ones – more seriously and for more real than Hindus do.
The reason may be that especially Hindus are very focused on education. And education considers these invisible powers just as figments of imagination and to believe in them as ridiculous. Yet by now we should know that education has an agenda. And it is NOT to make us free and happy and realise who we really are.
While Devas and Asuras are more powerful and long lived than humans, they play their part in Maya depending on their gunas (Devas sattvic, Asuras rajasic (egoistic) and Rakshasas tamasic).
Humans have the advantage that they can discover their oneness with Brahman by first choosing satva and then transcending the gunas.
By Maria Wirth
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7 Comments
You may be right. May be not. It is very speculative. But very deep thinking. It is very unfortunate that this material is removed from Quora and is not available there.
S M Bothra.
Many thanks Sister Maria Wirth, For spreading the Sanathana Dharma and Hinduism, in Bharat Varsh, causing a reawakening about Hindu thought and Wisdom, like Swamy Vivekananda did in the late 19th and early 20 th centuries.God bless you in your efforts .JAI SHREE RADHEKRISHNA
Namaste Maria,
It was a good attempt by you, there are certain aspects I thought are worth bringing to your notice.
“Daivam Maanusharoopena” means Divinity is expressed through human form.
I agree there are incarnations of Divine amidts human race – example Sri Adi Shankaraacharya, Sri Chaitanya Prabhu etc along with complete incarnations of Divine – Lord Sri Raama, Sri Krishna.. but essentially every human is a spark of the Divine, and every human being has the potential to become Divine/God. Examples: Sri Aurobindo, Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Raamakrishna, Sri Anandamaayi Ma and many many holy personalities who reached Godhead/Godhood.
In deep meditation, one become one with God, we call this ‘Constant Integrated Awareness’ – in that state the normal human mind becomes an illumined mind, Sri Aurobindo says this as ‘supra-mental’ being. In this state secrets of the Universe are revealed – hence the insights/words/musings of the Sages are filled with “wisdom” and higher knowledge.
Finally, only thing I want to clarify is do not separate human race being separate from Divine, as we are all Embodiments of the Divine glory, love and power.
There are some breathing techniques which if practiced correctly connect human mind to the higher consciousness
no, i never separate the humans from the Divine. EVERYONE and even EVERYTHING is one with the Divine, Brahman, the Avyakt.
yet within Maya, though we are all like waves of the one ocean of Brahman, there are differences, including among intelligent beings, and there are in all likelihood not only be humans. The Puranas list many and we should take them seriously.
thank you
i feel we should take the Puranas seriously. obviously, there are forces who don’t want this knowledge to spread. otherwise, why take this article down?