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Classifications of Bhartiya scriptures.
In a city there are
kindergarten schools, elementary schools, high schools, colleges and maybe
a university. From the kindergarten and up to the university, all the
institutions are called the educational institutions and their aim is to
remove illiteracy and make a person educated, but all of them are not for
all the people of that town. They have classifications according to merit
as to who could be admitted to which institution and in which grade or in
which kind of study.
Similarly, all of our scriptures are collectively called “Sanatan
Dharm” which means the eternal (sanatan) knowledge for the
spiritual well being of all the souls (dharm). It provides the guidelines for all kinds of people of the
world, which, if followed, leads them towards God realization. But the
scriptures of Sanatan Dharm, like the various educational institutions of
a town, are specified according to a person’s receptivity for God as to
which scripture one should follow.
The Vedas: For example: A wicked person should at
least think of God that He knows everything, so He will punish him for his
wicked deeds. A selfish and worldly person should at least follow the
disciplines of the Vedas and do good deeds and learn to pray to any
form of God or he may do any ritualistic yagya* even with a
worldly desire to obtain the celestial luxury.
*The
technical requirements of doing a yagya are hard to fulfill in
kaliyug. Thus, the Sages have promulgated that the Vedic yagyas
are not suitable for kaliyug, and so, only the good deeds, prayer
and honest behavior as mentioned above should be observed by those kind of
people in this age.
The other good actions which are also involved in the
performance of the yagyas are: giving charity, maintaining
piousness and celibacy during the period of doing yagya, and
praying to God for the purification of the mind; and afterwards he is
supposed to observe honest behavior in his life. These good actions slowly
purify the heart of the doer, and thus, he could become qualified to enter
into direct devotion to one form of God which is like taking an admission
into high school from an elementary school.
The Upnishads: When a person begins to feel a real
liking for God but still he is attached to his material enjoyments and he
keeps on doing good deeds, the Upnishads help him at this stage and
tell him about the futility of worldly pleasures and advise him to
renounce worldly attachments and wholeheartedly love God.
The Gita: When the person enters into such a stage
of heart purification where he really begins to realize the worthlessness
of worldly pleasures and feels an urge to meet God, the Gita tells
the secret of devotion,
 and says that devotion to God is
selfless bhakti, which means selflessly loving Him and living in
the world to fulfill your aim of the realization of His Divine love.
Selflessness means not desiring any worldly thing from God but desiring
only for His love and His vision.
The Bhagwatam: When a devotee has understood the
importance of pure and selfless bhakti, then the Bhagwatam
tells the devotee that the sweetest and the real intimate form of God is
Krishn Whose bewitching beauty had enchanted everyone who was living in
Braj at that time.
When a devotee is fallen in love with Krishn then the
writings of the rasik Saints tell about the richness of the
Blissful stages of Divine love which are experienced in Golok and in
Divine Vrindaban.
Thus, the Vedas tell to become a good person; Upnishads
tell to love God and don’t be attached in the world because it is
illusion; the Gita tells to love God selflessly and reveals the secret of
the spiritual practices that only through bhakti one can
realize God; and then the Bhagwatam tells what is the most loving form of
God that encharmed the heart of the topmost Yogi and Gyani,
Shukdeo.
Now we know that our scriptures are a very systematic
line of teachings. They relate to every class of people of the world from
an ordinary worldly person to a highly evolved soul deeply longing to meet
God. But, every scripture is not for everyone; just like a book,
prescribed for postgraduate classes, is no good for the student of a lower
grade; and vice versa. However, as a whole, all the scriptures represent
such Divine teachings which accommodate the spiritual need of all the
souls of the world and show the path of God realization. This is Sanatan
Dharm or the Hindu religion which is the “universal religion” for the
whole world that originated directly from the supreme God. It was first
introduced by Brahma to the Sages and Saints of this brahmand who
produced it for the people of the earth planet. Lastly it was again
reproduced by Bhagwan Ved Vyas about 5,000 years ago and its Divineness
was further magnified in the celebrated writings of our great acharyas.
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