Vyas Muni states that in the absence of knowledge of how God created the universe, nobody can be considered a learned. From the knowledge of creation only, one becomes able to learn about each non-alive matter of the universe, its best utilisation and make our lives comfortable, long and happy. This is called materialism or the knowledge of the worldly matters. The second part of creation to be known is spiritualism which destroys illusion, enables us to control our senses and thus prevents us from committing any sins. So, when human beings get progress in both the matters simultaneously, then only peace is maintained on earth or else, ravages of hatred, tradition of blind faith, violence and several types of sins are committed in the society.
Therefore, the learned of the Vedas in Atharvaved ask the human beings, ‘whether one has tried to attain spiritual knowledge about God or oversighting spiritualism, or if one is only after the materialistic articles of the world. It asks, if one has tried to learn and obtain all the materialistic articles of the world to get merriment and this regard, if the said wealth/materialistic articles have ever been pleasurable or have only increased one’s wishes. Similarly, in the matter of food, Vedas ask whether one has eaten food or has the food eaten you.
The Vedas emphasise that only one sided knowledge/progress either in materialism or spiritualism, is always harmful as in the absence of materialistic articles nobody can survive whereas in the absence of knowledge of spiritualism, human beings indulge in illusion and are prone to corruption.
When the question to get progress in both the above said knowledge simultaneously arises then, Yajurved preaches to attain the eternal, vedic knowledge traditionally wherein it is preached that alive (eternal form of spiritualism) and non-alive (materialistic articles) matters are required to be learned. The Rigved states that God has created this land to provide us with all pleasures, comforts and a long and a happy life but the land would never give us pleasure until we worship God.
Our ancient saints in their vedic scriptures like the Mahabharat and the Valmiki Ramayan have advised humans to worship God, basically keeping in view the three subjects i.e., one should pray to God (prarthna), should listen and chant ved mantras which describe His divine qualities (stuti) and must worship Him by listening to Vedas, performing Yajyen and practice the Ashtang Yog philosophy while performing all moral duties (upasana).
The Vedic spiritualism enables a person to have a good character by controlling all his senses and organs keeping himself away from sins. In a nutshell, the Vedas preach that by all means everyone must try his best to make contact with a learned acharya of Vedas and Yog philosophy to listen and follow eternal vedic knowledge for the welfare of nation and all mankind.
Thus, the study of the Vedas is mainly to be carried out to realise God for destroying sorrows and achieving peace while taking the help of all materialistic articles. That is why one needs to make progress in both materialism and spiritualism. However, it unfortunate that at present, most people are after the materialistic articles while others are after self-made paths, which is against the Vedas.
When we set our eyes on the world, we find that the progress in materialism—science, education, atomic and nuclear energy, agriculture, medical science, space, animal husbandry, entertainment and so on, has been achieved and in still ongoing. On the other hand, progress in the matter of faith—eternal spiritualism briefed in Vedas which unites the mankind, spreads international brotherhood and condemns blind faith, is observed to be negligible. In fact, our eternal vedic philosophy emphasise that to maintain peace on the earth and to get the best use of materialistic articles, attention will have to be paid to get more progress in vedic spiritualism.
Therefore, all human beings, as those in the previous yugas, will have to pay attention towards eternal Vedic knowledge to get progress in spiritualism as well as in materialism simultaneously.
(The author is Swami Ram Swarup Yogacharya, the chief editor of Ved Ishvareeya vani, a bi-annual magazine)
