Vedic Rituals

Transcendence, the goal of all rituals

     Transcendence  leads the mind towards the state of Awareness. Transcendence is very important in both healing and spiritual traditions. All rituals in spiritual traditions of the world helps the individual to transcend to this state of awareness. This awareness state is the source of healing as well as the launching pad for spiritual aspirants to get into the state of pure Consciousness. This state of awareness is the source of all arts like music, painting, dancing, sculpturing etc.

      Whenever there is a health or psychological problem, all native cultures do rituals. Rituals of native cultures are often shunned as meaningless superstitious actions. The truth is that these rituals help in transcending to the source of healing, that is Awareness.

Rituals are for Purification:  What is purification and what does rituals purify?. Without knowing this rituals become meaningless actions.  Purification really means to be in single thought. Something that is pure means that it has only one entity. Like pure gold means it has only gold and no other metal. So purification of mind means to have only one thought that is awareness.  When the mind has innumerable thoughts through the contact of sense organs  of external world, it is impure. When the mind is with drawn to the interior to go the awareness state of one thought, then the mind  is said to be in the pure state.

      Purification of mind in all healing and spiritual traditions means to with draw the mind inward to have only one pure (single) thought that leads to pure awareness. However the nature of the mind is to have many thoughts which it acquires through contact with objects.

      Mind is like a kid running after attractive objects. A kid can focus or concentrate on his or  her school lesson only if the mind is available for that activity. A parent or a teacher cannot teach a kid in a place like a shopping mall where lot of people come and go, because the kid's mind will go outward towards watching the people or events. So the best way to help the kid focus on the lesson is by creating an environment that makes the mind less distracted. Such a place is called school. This is not different from a temple or church of worship.

     All religious and spiritual traditions have the fundamental aim to give this environment to the people who follow that traditions. It is sad to see later these organizations instead of allowing the individual to grow and mature inside, use them ruthlessly for the external growth of the organization. For this external growth in the size of the organization, it is does not hesitate to twist and corrupt the knowledge given by the master. This straying away from the "Truth" taught by the master, then breeds only hatred and leads to all religious wars, when the individuals fail to grow inwards and transcend to awareness state.

  Please click here to read  how the Rishi's got to know the eternal Truth?.