The past nine weeks have seen the exploration of profound insights provided by the great philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, who developed their models of the universe by employing the techniques of logical reasoning and analytical thought. However, what if there is another method of knowing that does not utilize logic, but relies on a direct experience of the universe itself?
Our journey this week takes us to India, approximately 1500 B.C.E., where we find a group of enigmatic sages known as the Vedic Rishis. They were unlike any other intellectuals; they were seers who boldly proclaimed that they didn't create the Vedas, the oldest and most revered religious texts in the world, but rather received them directly from the Universe itself.
The Rishis believed they were able to access the Akasha, or the cosmic intelligence field, that retains the information of every thought, event and possibility in existence, as well as the sound of an infinite number of possible sounds of the human voice. Today, after thousands of years of development within quantum physics, we are witnessing the resurgence and rise of the concept of the Akasha.
The Rishis: Seers, Not Authors
A key premise to understanding Rishis is to let go of our modern understanding of authorship. Rishis did not consider themselves to be authors or composers; rather, they were Mantra-Drashta (seers of mantra). Because they perceived the Universe to be composed of vibration, they were able to attune their consciousness through deep meditative states to those vibrational frequencies that form the basis of reality and everything in the Universe. This knowledge that they experienced is referred to as shruti (that which was heard). This revolutionary concept proposes that the Vedas are not created by humans but are eternal and exist outside of the authorial perspective as truths that the Rishis perceived. They did not channel a divine spirit but rather tapped into the fundamental layer of Reality. They claimed that this knowledge was always present in nature and will always be and will be available when a consciousness has developed sufficiently to access it.
"I am the instrument, the first-born of the eternal order, earlier than the gods, in the navel of immortality. The voice that speaks through me is my own voice, yet it is the voice of the universe. He who eats, who sees, who breathes, who hears what is said, does so through me. They do not know me, yet they dwell in me."
- Devi Sukta, Rigveda 10.125.1-8
