What is sanathana dharma: it's concepts, motives, history, illusions, yoga, mediation, and much more (Part-1)

Sanathana dharma is lately captivating world wide attention for its concepts including yoga, meditation, bhagavad-Gita, ayurveda,cultural heritage, festivals and so on. 

Sanathana(pronunciation :- sa naa thana) means eternal and dharma means appropriate lifestyle. For the sake of distinction and identification amid many religions, it is also referred as hinduism or vedic dharma etc. 

By the end of the article you will get  bird's-eye view of actual santhana dharma objectives and its history. The first point to be noted is sanathana dharma is never considered as religion. It's just a way of life.  Because it doesn't come up with the things that are just intended to portray some uniqueness for the sake of indentification, nor it blindly go with the meaningless activities. Everything that covered in it is supposed to enhance the quality of every life in someway or other. 

As there are many religions happening around the world, so just to distinguish from them it's been treating as religion but actually it's not. Now let's understand the core objective and then we can cover up the layers surrounding it.

" What today's people considering as sanathana dharma does not even constitute 5% of original sanathana dharma. The prosperity of humanity hugely depends on connectivity to nature on individual basis throughout the society. That connection can be acheived through the concepts of vedas. Vedas are like user manual for human life. So without that conceptual awareness, leading day to day lives cause sufferings inevitably. Which is an unfortunate reality now."

The original version of sanathana dharma

Today santhana dharma is considered just as a religious practice that includes worships, rituals, prayers etc. Even hindus and other religions are in a mentality that going to temples, following some traditions,reading some scriptures, doing yagnas,completes sanathana dharma. But those things are just kind of leftovers when compared to actual content .

To make it simple let us consider a motor bike. Sanathana dharma being a motor bike and what people today concerned about are tiny parts like break,clutch individually and thinking them sanathana dharma as whole.

If there is no engine,no fuel,no accelerator,no vehicle then what's the use of holding a single break part or clutch that too individually. So what's the real motive of this dharma?. Everything in this religion comes from the four entities called vedas. Also cows are given extreme prominence for their human beneficial nature.

Every information regarding this universe, this planet, a detailed user manual that covers upbringing of a human right from his birth to death including day to day activities , mystical things, usage of resources and sophisticated administration system that supports human survival with ease etc are included in vedas.

Whatever be the products that supports the rituals mentioned in the vedas and handling human health protection mainly comes from cows.

Here it's noteworthy to mention that  cows are treated as mothers and hence no cow is harmed in anyway in the process. There are separate set of rules on how to deal with cows. They are treated as mothers with a sense of gratitude.

So products of cows and vedas combined and distributed uniformly to WHOLE society is what actual sanathana dharma means . By doing that humans can live with least amount of suffering on earth. In order to make the distribution process smoothly and effectively to the all corners of society, vedas guided with a specific administrative systems.

It includes two steps one is to study and understand the concept of vedas ,the second is making cows available to each and every individual. The scholars who read vedas used to guide the kings . Finally kings used to take up the responsibility of spreading knowledge to whole society. 

As kings used to have authority and control over society.

That's the reason why there will be atleast one vedic scholars or gurus who always observe the kings activities. You can also see in many old films. Gods like Lord Rama and Krishna themselves surrendered to their gurus. Just to tell us that a ruler must be guided by guru who is expert in vedic concepts.

The process that prescribed in vedas is , a vedic scholar should shower his knowledge to entire society through the ruler of the nation. Additional to that every village and every family used to have gurus guiding them from day to day activities. It includes even the micro minuscule areas of human life.

Day to day activities including the time of waking up, gratitude towards nature, types of food one should eat,types of clothes that are user-friendly, timing of eating, way of eating,types of homes ,their  construction process, materials to be used for construction and many more.

Every area of human life is addressed in a very detailed way without leaving even minute and minuscule sections.

I will give an example of food. 

If a normal person consume  2-4 neem leaves daily the probability of getting any type of cancer gets cut down by huge margin. It also has many benefits related to gut area ,oral health etc. It's a concept from ayurveda which is a minor part of the original 4 vedas.

Yagna prototype

The same goes with turmeric which is a best anti fungal ,anti bacterial properties. That's why every household here uses turmeric in their day-to-day lives in different aspects. Oil pulling is another technique useful in oral issues and tonsils. There are many such highly beneficial things prescribed in those scriptures along with procedure of intakes.

Instead of stressing on their medicinal properties ancient sages cleverly inducted them as part of traditions. Because if you say in terms of health benefits some people may listen and some may ignore them , some people may not show interest. But every individual had followed their traditional values in those days.

So keeping this scenario in mind ancient Rishi's  introduced them as part of tradition. In this case, no single person can be excluded from the benefits.

Also the security and police systems were very effective with instant and powerful punishments. People were free from all kinds of anti national elements,theifs and frauds.

That is also a reason whenever you hear the ancient stories where theives are said to be present in jungles but not in villages or cities. That is a symbol of strict administration.

Cows used to be part of daily lives.
There was an incident that created sensation in 1984. In bhopal(madhya pradesh) a tragic poisonous gas leakage incident happened, which killed thousands of people on the spot. 

But to the surprise , two families escaped the disaster without any casualties. That's because since decades they performed a fire ritual called " Agnihotra" where the products of cows will be used. The natural healthy smoke from the ritual prohibited the entry of poisonous gas and protected the two families.

When i am mentioning "cow", it's not the Jersey cows or any A1 cows that are available today. But I'm talking about desi A2 cows which are the original ancient cows. The cows which have a bulgy part above their neck are A2 cows. Unfortunately they too got neglected due to stupidity.

A2 cows

Many studies shown that the curd,milk and other dairy products of A2 cows is rich in probiotics which are very useful in chronic diseases like IBS , digestive syndromes.

Where as in agriculture there was no usage of artificial pesticides , rather they utilised the natural animal excretion and plant products as pesticides in ancient days. They did yield very healthy crops. Where as today's crops with all kinds of chemicals are ruining human health. 

There are many such mysterious concepts preserved in vedas which are way beyond our imagination.

The article published here on How food effects your personality that depicts types of food to eat also the concepts of vedas. Vedas are enriched with such enormous information on how to handle this life effortlessly.

Another core concept of vedas is "Dharmas". Dharmas are the pathways to lead happy life. Dharmas differs from person to person depending upon the scenario.

For example a father has different set of dharmas, mother , brother,wife, sister everyone has unique dharmas. But for whole humanity there are some common dharmas apart from individual dharmas. Those are Truth, Righteousness, Helping nature, self confidence, peace, love, non violence etc .

That automatically warns us to stay away from jealousy,hatred,anger, unnecessary desires, lust, greed, selfishness, ego etc. The enormous benefits is explained in Human body and its purpose.

Coming to arts, entertainment sectors, There are many soothing and relaxing unique musical instruments and concepts available in vedas. Today's research says that music has power to cure and relieve diseases and provide peaceful environments. 

In the same way variety of stage dramas, indoor,outdoor games, spiritual bhajans, wide variety of dance concepts used to happen in every village during night times.

These activities used to raise the higher level consciousness in people. They were very helpful in elimination of negative environments and generating positive vibes. So summary of sanathana dharma is making the fruits of vedas and cows available to each and every person in the society through the gurus and rulers there by enabling the harmony in lives.

Present-day duplicate version of sanathana dharma

Today there are many malpractices happening in disguise of sanathana dharma. It's due to ignorance. There is neither uniform distribution of vedic knowledge in the society nor there is availability of cows in every house holds.

It means the core objective had kept aside long back ago. No availability of vedas means no knowledge of how to live a life.

Take example of neem leaves, turmeric, A2 cows products, ayurveda for Instance. Even though it doesn't contribute important portion of vedas yet it's eligible enough to give us an example. If you don't know those beneficial things then the chances of getting into trouble is very high. 

Because no matter how much humanity can progress in technology, ultimately this very physical body we are holding right now is purely made of nature. You cannot transform this earthly body into some metal robot.

So as long as you contain this body, it's very important to not get disconnected from the source that is nature. That is why today's generations are getting weird day by day. 10-20 year old children are getting horrible diseases including High B.P , Sugar, anxiety, mental illness,cancers etc . That too not in rare percentage it's rate is improving at the range of every 2 in 10 ratio. 

If the chronic diseases attacks at that very early age then what the child supposed to achieve in his/her life. Another aspect is performing yagnas, yagas and chanting vedas. Most of them are organising in wrong ways. Yagas and yagnas are fire rituals pleasing gods for the benefit of whole society. 

There are some yagnas that are performed to invoke rainfalls where there is drought in a region. There are different yagnas that serve different purposes. So in ancient times as there was  goods exchange system, if a yagna is conducted in a village then each and every caste used to contribute their products to yagnas voluntarily. 

Goods exchange system is how people lived without money system. A wonderful collective collaboration of society that enabled people to live their lives without any worries regarding their survival. As attaining mastery over body and mind used to be top priority. 

So to make spiritual progress one must be freed from survival concerns. That is the reason, even if any unknown people comes to home, they used to be allowed to stay  as long as they want without charging any amount from them. This abundance of survival goods is a possibility of goods exchange system. 

But where as today even 80-90 years old person also has worries about their survival. If the whole life goes in vain just to maintain this body, when people can think about mastering their body and mind. Religious heads makes satires on people by saying, a man finds time for everything but he can't get  time to do his dharmas. It's better if they analyse the ancient goods exchange system and today's rigid money system. Where survival has transformed from basic possibility to ultimate achievement.

Goods exchange system enabled people to contribute their part voluntarily. As yagnas require wide variety of products. After completing a yagna whole society used to get benefits because everyone somehow made their contribution in organising yagna. 

But today only some random group of people are conducting yagnas by buying products for money. Their intent is to make benefit to society but they are not getting the desired result! 

Why, because there is no voluntary contribution of products from whole society. If there is no contribution from society they won't get the result. Only when there is voluntary community contribution without involving money, then yagnas will work in the favour of whole society. Because yagnas are not some business deals.

Also there are strict guidelines on decision of the place where these fire rituals should be conducted. But nowadays nobody is bothered and doing yagnas everywhere including adjacent to sewage pipes and most unhygienic conditions. If they do in that manner why do yagnas fetch benefits!. If you cannot follow the exact procedure then what's the point in conducting homas and yagnas. 

Coming to chanting vedas! It's been a big question mark in many heads today as why the society is experiencing the heavy levels of problems, stress, diseases etc. It's because chanting of vedas are restricted to only certain spots in the country. 

Vedic pundits are the people who must go through strict rules and regulations in their life  since from childhood while learning vedas. Today you can see the vedic scholars only in prestigious temples,Genuine religious mutts (kind of religious heads),vedic schools. 

That won't even contribute 1% area of the country. It's just like studying technical part and ignoring to implement in practical life. what about practicality?, that's where the study benefits can be seen. Vedic schools and vedic scholars are supposed to do service in each and every village of the country. 

Because only then every individual receives the knowledge of how to live their life. That's the reason why every village, every household including the king used to have one vedic pundits as their gurus. Only then we can lead happy lives without worries and unexpected diseases. That is what real santhana dharma means. That's how our ancestors lived healthy and happy lives. 

Another interesting topic is cows. It's really tough to decide whether to laugh or cry by analysing the present scenarios. It's been told in vedas that cows should be taken care. 

The motive behind this suggestion is to tell us that without cows there is no vedic rituals and also there is no health benefits to humanity.

Cows voluntarily provide benefits to humanity. Keeping this point in mind some people started organising "Goshalas" in the name of cow welfare. Intent may be correct but the implementation process is faulty. You never find  mention of goshala anywhere in the scriptures or vedas. 

Because cows are not supposed to be grouped in a particular area and taken care. That's the reason why every household till early 20th century used to have atleast one cow in their home . Cows should be in homes not in goshalas. It's like planting mango trees and wasting the mango fruits. 

Intent of planting a mango tree may be right but not eating it's fruits doesn't make sense. As how the knowledge of vedas needs to be taken to every household in the same way distribution of the cows to every household is crucial.  Building goshalas does not serve the purpose rather it distracts the actual motive of vedas that is having cows in every household.

The continuation of present day illusions including temples, gurus, sanyasis, rules plus commitment regarding vedas and the reason for the glitches will be covered in next part.

The next part is published and you can go there by clicking here Part 2.

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