Brahmacharya

“ If one beholding a Brahmana leading the Brahmacharya mode of life arrived at one's house, offers unto him the first portion of one's food that belongs as of right to a Brahmana, and eats what remains thereafter, one is regarded as eating Amrita. If one, after adoring the morning twilight, stands with face directed towards the sun, one reaps the merit that attaches to the performance of ablutions in all tirthas and becomes cleansed of all sins. Ye Rishis possessed of wealth of penances, I have told you in details what constitutes a great mystery. ”

“ Nor should one accept ornaments and other articles contributing to the enjoyment of the senses of scent and taste. One should not covet honour and achievements and fame. Even this is the behaviour of a Brahmana possessed of vision. [1068] He that hath studied all the Vedas, having waited dutifully on his preceptor and observed the vow of Brahmacharya, he that knows all the Richs, Yajuses, and Samans, is not a regenerate person. [1069] One that behaves towards all creatures as if one is their kinsman, and one that is acquainted with Brahma, is said to be conversant with all the Vedas. ”

“ Upon his return he should duly wed a wife that is fit for him. Another duty of the Brahmana consists in avoiding the food prepared by the Sudra. Walking along the path of righteousness, always observing fasts and the practices of Brahmacharya, are his other duties. [561] The householder should keep up his domestic fire for daily worship. He should study the Vedas. He should pour libations in honour of the Pitris and the deities. He should keep his senses under proper control. He should eat what remains after serving gods and guests and all his dependants. ”

“ Sanat-sujata said, ‘They, who, residing in the abodes of their preceptors and winning their good will and friendship, practise Brahmacharya austerities, become even in this world the embodiments of Brahman and casting off their bodies are united with the Supreme Soul. They that in this world desirous of obtaining the state of Brahman, subdue all desires, and endued as they are with righteousness, they succeed in dissociating the Soul from the body like a blade projected from a clump of heath. The body, O Bharata, is created by these, viz., the father and the mother ”

“ Years later I discovered from Swami Keshabananda 27-10 that Pranabananda, a few years after his birth in a new body, had gone to Badrinarayan in the Himalayas, and there joined the group of saints around the great Babaji.
27-1: Vidyalaya, school. Brahmacharya here refers to one of the four stages in the Vedic plan for man’s life, as comprising that of (1) the celibate student (brahmachari) ; (2) the householder with worldly responsibilities (grihastha) ; (3) the hermit (vanaprastha) ; (4) the forest dweller or wanderer, free from all earthly concerns (sannyasi) . ”

“ Thou thinkest, O Partha, that there is nothing superior to wealth, and that the poor man can neither have heaven, nor happiness, nor the acquisition of his wishes. This, however, is not true. Many persons are seen that have been crowned with success through sacrifice in the shape of Vedic study. Many sages are seen by devotion to penances to have acquired eternal regions of bliss. They, O Dhananjaya, who always observe the practices of the Rishis by betaking themselves to Brahmacharya and who become acquainted with all duties, are regarded by the gods as Brahmanas. ”

“ The human soul, according to the Vedas, is a portion of the supreme ruler, as a spark is of the fire.
"BRAHMA, at first a word meaning prayer and devotion, becomes in the laws of Manu the primal God, first-born of the creation, from the self-existent being, in the form of a golden egg. He became the creator of all things by the power of prayer. In the struggle for ascendancy, which took place between the priests and the warriors, Brahma naturally became the deity of the former. ”

“ In one of the later books of the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa (X. vi. 3) this ātman which has already arrived at a high degree of abstraction, is said to "pervade this universe." Brahma (neuter) in the Rigveda signified nothing more than "prayer" or "devotion." But even in the oldest Brāhmaṇas it has come to have the sense of "universal holiness," as manifested in prayer, priest, and sacrifice. In the Upanishads it is the holy principle which animates nature. Having a long subsequent history, this word is a very epitome of the evolution of religious thought in India. ”

“ Between these two ages, however, of the Vedic gods on the one hand, and the theological systems of Vishnu and Shiva on the other, there is in the Mahabharata and also in the Puranas to a less extent one anomalous figure. It is that of Brahma the Creator, the benevolent four-headed Grandsire. Who was this Brahma? What is his exact significance? It might almost be stated as a law that in India there has never been a deity or a religious idea without some social formation behind it. ”

“ Everywhere we find that the great primal gods of Hinduism have suffered grievous degradation. Throughout the length and breadth of the Indian peninsula Brahma, the Creator, has hardly more than a couple of shrines specially dedicated to him.4 Indra has, as we shall see, become a vague weather deity, who rules the choirs of fairies in his heaven Indra-loka: Varuna, as Barun, has also become a degraded weather godling, and sailors worship their boat as his fetish when they commence a voyage. The worship of Agni survives in the fire sacrifice which has been specialized by the Agnihotri Brâhmans. ”

“ Kings and Brahmans considered as gods in India.
Other human gods in India.
Further, in India “every king is regarded as little short of a present god.”​ [1399] The Hindoo law-book of Manu goes farther and says that “even an infant king must not be despised from an idea that he is a mere mortal; for he is a great deity in human form.”​ [1400] As to the Brahmans it is laid down in the same treatise that a Brahman, “be he ignorant or learned, is a great divinity, just as the fire, whether carried forth (for the performance of a burnt-oblation) or not carried forth, is a great divinity.” ”

“ The interpretation of the poem is to be found in an understanding of what Brahma really means in the Hindu religion and philosophy. It is not a personal divinity; but rather the creative force of the universe, an all-pervading presence, bringing power, devotion, and holiness, unlimited by time or space, and signifying soul and spirit. Hence, Brahma views with equal unconcern both life and death, both doubt and faith, both shame and fame. Those who attain to a true conception of this ideal have no need to think of heaven, since heaven is everywhere. ”

“ The knight asks "What is brahma, the Supreme Spirit, the supreme being, the supreme sacrifice?" The Deity: "The supreme, the indestructible, is called brahma. Its personal existence is Supreme Spirit (self) . Destructible existence is supreme being (all except [=a] tm [=a] ) . The Person is the supreme godhead. I myself am the supreme sacrifice in this body."
Then follow statements like those in the Upanishads and in Manu, describing a day of brahma as a thousand ages; worlds are renewed; they that go to the gods find an end of their happiness with the end of their world ”

“ The Paraiyas imbibe freely, and toddy is the drink most scrupulously prescribed for those who are under a vow. Like the Pulayas, the Paraiyas work in the rice fields and cocoanut gardens, and are employed in hill cultivation, and the manufacture of wicker baskets. The sun god is their principal deity, and in his name all solemn oaths are uttered. It is believed that the Brāhman who originally became a Paraiya cursed Brahma. To remove the evil effects of the curse, the sun gave to his descendants as objects of worship forty-eight thousand gods and eight special deities. ”

“ The whole Brāhman caste considered itself divine or as partaking in the life of the god, the original reason for this perhaps being that the Brāhmans obtained the exclusive right to perform sacrifices, and hence the life of the sacrificial animal or food passed to them, as in other societies it passed to the king who performed the sacrifice. A Brāhman further holds that the five gods, Indra, Brahma, Siva, Vishnu and Ganesh, are present in different parts of his body,142 and here again the [132] life of the god is seen to be divided into innumerable fragments. ”

“ The religion of Brahma, under all its various sects and forms, is peculiarly distinguished by sublimity, and even the utmost extravagance of its apparent polytheism is resolvable into the unity of deity; while the mythological fables it offers to the credence of the multitude are splendid and poetical, like the forms and ceremonies of its religious duties. Of those you will be able to judge to-morrow, as the Guru of Cashmire enters Lahore, to perform the ceremony of the Upaseyda, in the Pagoda of Crishna ”

“ In course of time this nature-worship of the Vedic period developed into a sort of pantheism, that is, a system which identifies God with the universe. This form of the Indian religion is known as Brahmanism. Brahma, an impersonal essence, is conceived as the primal existence. Forth from Brahma emanated, as heat and light emanate from the sun, all things and all life. Banish a personal God from the universe, as some modern scientists would do, leaving nothing but nature with her original nebula, her endless cycles, her unconscious evolutions, and we have something very like Brahmanism. ”

“ Ishta, another kind of sacrifice, is compared with eshanâ, search; sattrâ-yana with Sat, the True, the Brahman, and trâyana, protection; mauna, silence, with manana, meditating (which may be right) ; anâsakâyana, fasting, with nas, to perish, and aranyâgana, a hermit's life, with ara, nya, and ayana, going to the two lakes Ara and Nya, which are believed to exist in the legendary world of Brahman. Nothing can be more absurd. Having once struck the note of Brahmanic legends, such as we find it, for instance, in the Kaushîtaki-brâhmana-upanishad, the author goes on. ”

“ The humbled Brahmins learned in the three Vedas then ask Buddha to "show them the way to a state of union with Brahma."
Buddha replies at considerable length, drawing a sharp contrast between the lower Brahminism and the higher Brahminism, the "householder" and the "houseless one." The householder Brahmins are gross, sensual, avaricious, insincere. They practise for lucre black magic, fortune-telling, cozenage. They gain the ear of kings, breed wars, predict victories, sacrifice life, spoil the poor. ”

“ In its keen insight into the mystery of existence, its scientific value of philosophical thinking, its boldness of conception, this all-absorbing monism has no equal in the history of philosophy. Brahma, as the apex of existence, is the acme of metaphysical speculation. But being nameless, colourless, and lifeless, it denies definition and defies description. It demands that man shall speak of it in negation only, but better still not speak at all. It is an impersonal neuter abstraction, a phantom god in the world of shadowy reality, a god who is no god. ”

“ A man of lower caste, in his upward transmigrations towards union with God or absorption into Deity, should pass through an existence as a brahman. In the chapter on Transmigration we found that the upward steps of the ladder up to the brahman caste had been clearly stated in an authoritative Hindu text-book. The word brāhman, the name of the highest caste, is itself in fact a synonym for Deity. But as a matter of fact, men of any caste, moved by the spirit, are found devoting themselves to the jogi life. ”

“ The gods, they said, were of superior caste to mortals; but the Brahmini easily rose to the occasion, and her feminine wit supplied her with a crushing answer to them. She coolly assured her guests that the origin of herself and her husband was as divine as they themselves claimed, for all Brahmins, she reminded them with a smile of superior wisdom, were the offspring of Brahma, the Sirdar of the gods. Putting into the hands of Haro a copy of the sacred writings, she asked him to refresh his memory. ”

“ He asked no deity to help him, for he was greater and wiser than all the gods. In the legends Brahma is said in intercession to have pressed him to preach the way, and moved eventually by no intercession, but simply by his own pity for men lost in the vortices of miserable existence, he went forth in no strength but his own to preach and to teach in a ministry, not of shame and humiliation and death, but one of great exaltation and honour. ”

“ Crossing the gloom, gazing with wonder in many directions, let the unborn soul go up to heaven.”
From the Vedas has arisen the great sacred Brahmin caste, which even now ranks highest throughout India. It is regarded as pure, stainless, divine, as well as human, worthy of unbounded admiration and worship. The Brahmin is the general preceptor, the guide of many millions of Hindus, residing in the vast country lying between the Himalayas and Cape Comarin. ”

“ Having eaten the thousands of Nishadas that live there, bring thou amrita. But let not thy heart be ever set on taking the life of a Brahmana. Of all creatures a Brahmana must not be slain. He is, indeed, like fire. A Brahmana, when angry, becomes like fire or the Sun, like poison or an edged weapon. A Brahmana, it has been said, is the master of all creatures. For these and other reasons, a Brahmana is the adored of the virtuous. O child, he is never to be slain by thee even in anger. ”

“ On the other hand Brahman, the pantheos of India, though equal to the Christian God in majesty, is really a different conception, for he is not a creator in the ordinary sense: he is impersonal and though not evil, yet he transcends both good and evil. He might seem merely a force more suited to be the subject matter of science than of religion, were not meditation on him the occupation, and union with him the goal, of many devout lives. ”