Arsha Vidya

The Vision of the Rishis

The knowledge of the Rishis — the vision that you are the Whole.

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Arsha Vidya — Vision of the Rishis

A Tradition of Teaching

What is Arsha Vidya?

A Rishi is one who knows. The word “Rishi” is derived from the Sanskrit root ṛṣ, used in the sense of knowing. The knowledge — the Vidyā — of the Rishis is called Arsha Vidyā.

Arsha Vidyā is not mysticism. Mystics do not create mystics. A mystic cannot make another person an equally eloquent mystic. If he can, then there is a means of communication — and therefore, there is nothing mystic about it.

Mystics have no tradition. But where teaching is involved, there is communication. And where there is communication, there can be a tradition: a teacher, a student, and that student’s student — the GuruŚiṣya-Paramparā. Then the flow is possible. Knowledge always flows from heart to heart, from mind to mind.

Wisdom cannot be considered as old, or something new. It is not old because it does not become obsolete. It is not new because nothing new is added to it. And therefore, it is fresh.. Therefore, it is ever fresh.

Like the Ganges — ancient, no doubt, but when you bathe in her waters, the water is fresh. She is the very flow of knowledge, whose touch purifies and transforms.

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You Are the Whole

The Knowledge of the Whole

Any empirical knowledge is incomplete. In no discipline of knowledge have we come to the last word. The more one knows, the more one comes to know what one does not know. A highly informed person is the most humble person because he knows what all he does not know. Only a totally ignorant person does not know and he does not know that he does not know - and so thinks of himself as a wise person

Take the knowledge of a forest. To know the details — the trees and bushes, herbs and shrubs, climbers and creepers — is a big job. The research will be on and on. But if you want someone to see what the whole forest is, it is easy. Drive him through it, or take him up in a helicopter and he can clearly see what a forest is like. Once one knows what a forest is, it is known — there is no scope for contradiction.

In the knowledge of the whole, there cannot be any addition or amendment. Wisdom of the whole is the wisdom — because knowledge is possible only of the whole.

If one knows the whole, one can make another person see the whole, and the other can make another one see it. And thus we find a whole series of gurus and śiṣyas — there is a flow.

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The Fundamental Problem

The Process of Becoming

If a ten-litre pot-space were to think, 'I am merely a ten-litre pot-space,' it is bound to be jealous of a bigger pot-space. Let us say it becomes a twenty-litre pot-space — now it can keep company of a new set of pots. But there is always a thirty-litre pot-space. And if it becomes thirty, there is fifty. The process of becoming has no end.

The problem is not that I am a ten-litre pot-space. The problem is the conclusion: “I am small”. The small 'I' will ever be, however big I become. Unqualified bigness can never be achieved by a process of becoming. I can only be it. I must know it.

The Resolution

I Am the Whole

The small pot-space is told: "You want to be free from being small. You want to be limitless. But limitless can never be separate from you. If you are different from the limitless, the limitless becomes limited. The limitless ceases to be limitless if it does not include you."

The pot-space understood: I am the limitless space in which all the pots have their being — all the planets, the solar systems, even the galaxies. I feel limited only when I look at myself through the pot-wall, the enclosure. But 'I am' is not limited. I am the one space. I am the whole.

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The Way of Life

Karmayoga

Since I am already the Whole, life is not a struggle for completion through achievements, but an unfoldment of understanding.

The attitude with which I perform an action is what matters. A proper attitude frees the mind from conflict.

When I perform an action as a response to a given situation — not merely because I like to do it, but because it is to be done — I am no longer driven by likes and dislikes. Such action becomes arcana, an offering, a worship of the Lord.

This is Karma Yoga.

A mind free from conflict becomes a fit instrument to see the Whole. This too is Arsha Vidyā.

The Last Word

A Vision That Cannot Be Bettered

Arsha Vidyā cannot be bettered because the Rishis have the last word about you. Others may say that you are a part of the total, that you are little, that you are mortal, that you must become complete. But the Rishis say: you are the Whole.

Who can say more than that?

This is the knowledge that truly qualifies to be called knowledge, because it cannot be falsified, improved upon, or amended. Everyone must gain this knowledge because there is no real choice in becoming the Whole. You are already the Whole. The only choice is whether you choose to know it or remain ignorant of it.

Explore the Teaching

The books and recordings published by AVR&PT carry this vision in Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati’s own words — carefully preserved, faithfully edited, and made accessible to all sincere seekers.

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Everything that is here is Īśvara.
It means, every law is a manifestation of Īśvara.
Every form is the lord's form.
Dharma is not different;

it is the very manifestation of Īśvara.

Swami Dayananda Saraswati