Vedas - the science and beyond, the facebook version


Around two years ago I started a community on Orkut, the Google social network, "Vedas the science and beyond" because I wanted to learn more about the Vedas from others far more knowledgeable than me and have a platform for discussion of issues. My vision of that of a community where people could discuss, question and learn from an objective look at the Vedas. This was based on two observations:
1. Having talked to quite a few people I'd met and who could have known about the Vedas I didn't find satisfactory answers to most questions I had. Perhaps it was my ignorance or their blind belief without an understanding of the Vedas that left me utterly confused. Either way it called for a different solution to try to learn - hence a platform where different people could discuss.

2. The second was giving people a chance to talk about it so that more people are aware of such a valuable heritage left to us by our ancestors.

I remember logging into the community every day and seeing whether anyone had joined it. In the first month it had grown to 10 or 12 members and we had some good discussions going on. There was a sense of excitement each time I logged on and went and saw another member join in or another topic started.

Today the community has 12,196 members as of today, and threads with some amazing discussions. In the process I've got to know tremendously smart people whose knowledge continually amazes me, and I've learnt a great deal from them. Today out of curiosity, I searched for Vedas on facebook, another social network I'm in and there was no community there. So in a similar hope i'm starting a similar community of facebook - perhaps to involve some more people in the discussion and create an awareness.

Here is the description for the new "Vedas- the science and beyond"

This community is intended for those who want to share their insights ,and learn from those of other about the Vedic thought. The definition of the Vedas we follow is that of Swami Vivekananda which doesn't necessarily confine itself to the four books.

In that definition It is held that the vedas are without beginning and without end. It may sound ludicrous how a book can be without beginning or end.But by the Vedas no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery, and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits, were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them.

The Vedas teach us that creation is without beginning or end. Science is said to have proved that the sum total of cosmic energy is always the same. Then, if there was a time when nothing existed, where was all this manifested energy? Some say it was in a potential form in God. In that case God is sometimes potential and sometimes kinetic, which would make Him mutable. Everything mutable is a compound, and everything compound must undergo that change which is called destruction. So God would die, which is absurd. Therefore there never was a time when there was no creation.

This community then celebrates and grows from a learning of the Vedic philosophy with an aim to learn the meanings of life and a means to discover ourselves.

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