How to Learn the Vedas

There is a beautiful story in the Veda explaining the purpose of doing rituals. The ultimate aim of doing rituals is to gain knowledge.

When you keep on doing rituals, questions will rise in your mind:
Why am I putting this precious food in the fire?
Where does it go from there?
Why should I take only so many drops of ghee and offer to Agni — why not more, why not less?
Why should I face east while doing this ritual?

Such basic questions.

As you go on acquiring the real answers to these kinds of questions, your level rises. You start contemplating on deeper topics. Now, the answers are not written somewhere. They come to you as a result of your own contemplation.

Sage Bharadwaja propitiated Devendra and was blessed with three purnayus — 3 x 100 years. These three hundred years he spent learning the Vedas, observing brahmacharya, learning Veda as a tapas. At the end of three hundred years, his body was just bones and skin. Time to leave the body.

At that time, Indra appeared again in front of him.

'What if I give you a hundred more years — what will you do?'

Bharadwaja said, 'I will learn more.'

Indra then manifested three huge mountains and said, 'These are the Vedas — in the three formats: poetry, prose, and song — Rik, Yajus, and Sama.'

Then Indra Deva took one fistful of soil from each mountain and gave it to Bharadwaja, saying:

'This much is what you have learned in three hundred years.'

अनन्ता वै वेदाः
Vedas are endless. Nobody can learn the whole Vedas.

That means — if you want to learn Vedas, you can never be successful. The task can never be completed.

But Veda only tells us to learn Veda.

Will Veda put us on to something in which we are going to fail?

That's not possible. Then there is something here — something mysterious — about the method of learning Veda.

Indra Deva himself tells Bharadwaja the method:

एहीमं विद्धि। अयं वै सर्वविद्येति ॥ ४ ॥
तस्मै हैतमग्निं सावित्रमुवाच। तं स विदित्वा। अमृतो भूत्वा। स्वर्गं लोकमियाय। आदित्यस्य सायुज्यम् इति।

Indra taught him the Savitragni Vidya.

It is not possible to learn all the Veda, but the result of learning all the Vedas can be obtained by contemplating upon Savitragni. Knowing Savitragni through contemplation and manifesting Savitragni — whatever is the result of learning all the Vedas, it can be achieved by contemplating and realizing Savitragni.

Not by mugging up some description of Savitragni and reproducing it before an audience to get respect, recognition, and admiration.

Realize Savitragni internally through contemplation.

We will briefly go through the concept of Savitragni.

Brahman or Parabrahma has got two aspects or parts — manifest and unmanifest. Manifest is mortal — it will disappear after some time. Unmanifest is immortal.

Savitragni is spread across both these — fills both, penetrates both.

Savitragni, through karma such as yajna, tapa, daana, gives worldly comforts — and through the same karma gives self-realization also.

Savitragni is that single energy which has become the various energies — such as heat, light, electricity, nuclear, wind — in the manifested world.

Savitragni is that energy which has condensed into gas, liquid, and solid — and the space occupied by them. Collectively, they are called the Pancha Bhutas.

Savitragni is that Agni, that single energy in which exist:

• the Bhuloka, governed by Agni

• Antariksha Loka, governed by Vayu

• Dyuloka, governed by Indra

• Brihanmandala, governed by Brihaspati

• Parameshti Loka, governed by Prajapati

• and Svayambhu Loka, governed by Brahma

'Governed by' means these worlds are occupied by these patterns of energies — and they all collectively exist in Savitragni.

This Agni is to be contemplated upon with the mind — it doesn't have a definite form or shape.

स वा एषोऽग्निरपक्षपुच्छो वायुरेव तत्सर्वं सीव्यति तस्मात् सावित्रः
Savitragni is that big cloth onto which many other things such as buttons are sewn — like how you do it with a needle.
Seevyati means sewing.

It is because of this nature of Savitragni it got the name Savitragni. It holds everything onto it — like how a cloth holds objects such as buttons sewn onto it.

This contemplation gave Bharadwaja Aditya Sayujya. He attained the Swargaloka with this contemplation.

There is another reason behind the name Savitragni — this is the energy of Savita, Surya.

Ramaswamy Sastry and Vighnesh Ghanapaathi