[Advaita-l] Is study of Vedanta necessary?

[Shrinivas Gadkari]

Namaste,
Q. What is Vedanta?
   Let first ask what is siddhanta? A person engages in an intense    sAdhanA for a prolonged period of time, and achieves his goal    (sAdhya) and perfects it. That is, he attains siddhi of that goal,    or in other words, he becomes a siddha as far as that goal is    concerned. Then this siddha who has a clear vision of various    aspects of this specific goal may decide to formulate a theory    to clearly explain this goal and precise sAdhanA for it. This would    constitute the siddhAnta. For example, the laws of motion, law of    Gravitation and the mathematical tools of calculus developed by    Newton together with various illustrations of how one may make    sense of measurements of various physical phenomenon using these    together constitutes Newton's siddhAnta on Mechanics.      Similarly, there have been people who have devoted themselves to    study of various vidyA-s (a comprehensive collection of vidyA-s is    referred to by the term veda). This is a rather prolonged exercise.    If some person, say A1 wanted to embark on this quest, it is almost    mandatory from practical considerations for A1 to seek guidance of    someone say A2, who has already made clear progress on this path.    So A2 is the guru of A1. For similar reasons A2 has also earlier    sought guidance of some A3 who has embarked on this quest earlier.    A3 in turn has received guidance from A4, and so on. Since "existence"    is anAdi (and also ananta - and I will maintain this view irrespective    of what opinion anyone else may have voiced on this), this succession    of guru-s A2-A3-A4-A5 .... is unending. So when A1 is seeking guidance    of A2, he is not seeking guidance from a limited embodied being A2,    but from an infinite sequence of gurus A2-A3-A4-A5 .... Let us call thus   cumulative effect of infinite gurus "guru-tattva" or "sadguru-tattva".      The siddhanta formulated by people who have mastered innumerable vidyA-s    (thorough succession of gurus) is termed as Vedanta.   Q: Why study Vedanta?   Let us again ask why study the Newton's siddhanta on mechanics. So that    we can apply it to solve practical problems. So by studying Vedanta one    should be able to understand and master ANY vidyA-s from the veda - for    understating and dealing with all aspects life. For this reason it is said    that vedanta teaches "THAT WHICH WHEN KNOWN EVERTHING ELSE IS KNOWN".    Needless to say that to understand vedanta in this manner one needs the    ultimate grace of "sadguru tattva". There may be people who claim that    vedanta teaches "that through which everything else is known". In my   opinion this is a highly watered down version of the lofty goal of vedanta.      (In my opinion it is much better to keep seeking grace of "sadguru tattva"   with original lofty goal of vedanta intact - almost certainly it will take    several lifetimes to reach this goal.)   Hari Om.   Regards,Shrinivas Gadkari