Arsha Vidya

The Vision of the Rishis

The Vidya, the knowledge of the Rishis — that you are the whole

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Arsha Vidya — Vision of the Rishis

A Trdition of Teaching

What is Arsha Vidya?

Rishi means the one who knows. The word is derived from the Sanskrit root 'ṛṣ' which is in the sense of knowing. The knowledge — the Vidya — of the Rishis is called Arsha Vidya.

Mystics do not create mystics. A mystic cannot make another one equally an eloquent mystic. If he can, then there is a means of communication and therefore there is nothing mystic about it. Mystics have no tradition, whereas when teaching is involved, there is communication. Then there can be a tradition — a teacher, a student, and his or her student; the Guru-Sisya Parampara. Then the flow is possible. Knowledge always flows to the hearts, to the minds.

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.

Like the Ganges — an ancient river, no doubt, but when you take a bath, the water is fresh. She is the very flow of knowledge whose touch changes a person into a pure one.

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You Are the Whole

The Knowledge of the Whole

Any empirical knowledge you have 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 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, 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 should be one of unfoldment rather than achievement. The attitude with which I perform an action is what matters — because a proper attitude frees the mind from conflicts.

When I perform an action as a response to a given situation — not because I fancy it, but because it must be done — I am not in the hands of likes and dislikes. That action becomes arcanā, a worship to the Lord. This is Karmayoga. A mind free from conflict is the fit instrument to see the whole. This too is Arsha Vidyā.

The Last Word

A Vision That Cannot Be Bettered

Arsha Vidya cannot be bettered — because the Rishis have the last word about you. Others can say you are a part of the total, you are little, you are mortal. But the Rishis say that you are the whole. Who can say more than that?

This is the only knowledge which qualifies to be called knowledge — because it cannot be falsified, it cannot be improved upon, it cannot be amended. Everyone must acquire this knowledge because there is no choice in becoming the whole.

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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