Spiritual Import of Religious Festivals :Ch-4. Part - 5.

Chapter-4. Swami Sri  Adi  Sankaracharya - The Genius ( Sankara Jayanti ) :


Part-5.



This is a slightly posterior period to that of the exuberance of the Veda Samhita Mantras wherein there was only a spontaneous spiritual outpouring of devotion to the One on account of Its having been recognized in realization, in direct experience.

But, when we make a study of these outpourings, they do not look like the manifestations of the One Experience.


All study that is historical is esoteric, prosaic, mechanized and sensory, and hence the esoteric significance that was the background of the very origination of these Veda Mantras got lost in the process of time, in the passage of history.

The outward form and the visible significance as hymns offered to the various centers of divinity – the many gods, as they usually say – got emphasized, and these gods became not only objects of reverence, but also objects of fear.

It was not that gods were always beneficent.


They could also be wrathful.

While in the earlier stages of the Veda Samhitas, it was not fear of God or even a reverence, in the ordinary sense of the term, cherished towards God that was the cause of these hymns, but an automatic outpouring in ecstatic poetry of a diviner experience felt within; later on, these recorded hymns became historical record of the utterances of the ancient masters.



Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...