In the Hindu view, philosophy and religion are not contradictory but complementary.

Religion is the practical side of philosophy. The Supreme Reality is at once the Absolute of philosophy and the God of religion.

Prof. S. Radhakrishnan has rightly observed that:

In many countries of the world, reflection on the nature of existence is a luxury of life. The serious moments are given to action, while the pursuit of philosophy comes up as a parenthesis. In ancient India philosophy was not an auxiliary to any other science or art, but always held a prominent position of independence. In the West, even in the heyday of its youth, as in the times of Plato and Aristotle, it leaned for support on some other study a politics or ethics. It was theology for the Middle Ages, natural science for the nineteenth-century thinkers. In India, philosophy stood on its own legs, and all other studies looked to it for inspiration and support. It is the master science guiding other sciences, without which they tend to become empty and foolish. The Mundaka Upanisad speaks of Brahma-vidya or the science of the eternal as the basis of all sciences, sarvavidya-pratistha. 'Philosophy,' says Kautilya,' is the lamp of all the sciences, the means of performing all the works, and the support of all the duties.' (S. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, London: Allen and Unwin, 1948, pp. 22-23.)

In Vedanta, there is a close connection between philosophical reasoning and intuitive experience. N. K. Brahma suitably notes this point in his Philosophy of Hindu Sadhana:

It is the task of philosophy to try to translate and understand analytically in terms of thought or conceptual thinking what has been presented in the living experience of intuition. It must start from experience and it must recognize experience to be the goal of all philosophy. Philosophy cannot give us an experience of the actual---it attempts to show what is possible, not what is but what may be. The merely possible demands a verification or rather an actualization in concrete experience. This is supplied by intuition. A philosophy that does not base itself on this solid footing of perfect experience is a merely barren speculation that moves in the sphere of ideas alone, detached from Reality. This is what distinguishes Hegel's Idea from Sankara's Brahman. The latter is a concrete experience in ecstatic intuition, while the former is only the highest achievement of reason. (N. K. Brahma, Philosophy of Hindu Sadhana, London: Kegan Paul Trench, Trubner and Co., p. 167)

Vedanta or the Upanisads occupy a unique place in the history of Indian philosophy. On the bedrock of spiritual experience through pure intuitive knowledge, the mystics of Vedanta arrived at conclusions that are infallible, as they have been tested in time through thousands of ages. The Upanisads constitute the concluding portion of Vedic literature and are therefore called Vedanta. In a deeper sense, they contain the very essence of the Vedas. They primarily refer to knowledge, and only secondarily to a book. Vedanta upholds the view that truth is not the monopoly of any race. It is a part of world literature; it is a universal phenomenon. The term Vedanta, however, is used in a wide sense to cover all the sacred texts that have the Upanisads as their basis and elucidate their teachings.

These are the fundamentals of Vedanta:

1. Divinity of the soul
2. Unity of Existence, i.e., oneness of matter and energy or the ultimate oneness of God, man and nature,
3. Harmony of Religions
4. Immanence and Transcendence of God Who is both the material and the efficient cause of the universe
5. Cyclic Theory of Creation, and
6. Mukti, or total freedom from weakness, i.e., spiritual union with the Divine.

These may be regarded as the fundamentals of Vedanta, which for this reason is also addressed as Eternal Religion or Sanatana Dharma.

The scientists, through their painstaking and dedicated research, 'discover' certain laws of nature. This knowledge is verifiable by others. In the same way, Indian sages or rishis, through their elevated minds discovered the spiritual truths extant in the Vedas. Only after attaining high spiritual eminence can the mystery of the inner world be discovered through intuitive knowledge. These laws or the facts of their discovery are not 'created' by the sages. Vedanta in this sense is apauruseya or impersonal, and thus universal and eternal. Vedanta philosophy exhorts us to verify these eternal truths of spiritual life through our personal endeavour geared to achieve final liberation from bondage.

Swami Vivekananda threw light on this point:

By the Vedas. no books are meant. They mean the accumulated treasury of spiritual laws discovered by different persons in different times. Just as the law of gravitation existed before its discovery and would exist if all humanity forgot it, so is it with the laws that govern the spiritual world. The moral, ethical, and spiritual relations between soul and Soul and between individual spirits and the Father of all spirits were there before their discovery, and would remain even if we forgot them. The discoverers of these laws are called rishis,, and we honour them as perfected beings. I am glad to tell this audience that some of the greatest of them were women. (Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 6-7.)

Unlike other world religions, Hinduism---Sanatana Dharma (PerennialPhilosophyy) rather---has no founder. It is not based on the authority of a single individual, but on the intuitive knowledge of the host of mystics. These highly illumined souls do not give us a set of finished and final dogmas or conventional creeds, which are to be accepted. Rather, Vedanta tells us repeatedly that experience is very vital to spiritual development: 'Religion is realization,'Swamiji said, and not a matter of blind faith in following certain socio-religious practices or external forms of religion. One of' the most remarkable features of Vedanta is the intensity of emotion that it inculcated in the seeker of Truth. Therefore, it puts strenuous emphasis on practice to establish a definite relationship with God. 'Religion is a question of being and becoming, not of believing.' (Swami Vivekananda, Complete Works, Vol. IV, p. 216)

To be continued---Part II will be posted soon.

The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Golpark,Calcutta, published this article titled "The Fundamental Teachings of Vedanta" in the Institute's January and February, 2001 bulletins.

Comments on this article can be sent to: VedantaSoc@aol.com

Books by Swami Tathagatananda:

1. The Vedanta Society of New York -- A Brief History, 2000
2. Mahabharat--Katha (Bengali), 1998
3. Ramayan Anudhyan (Bengali), 1996
4. Healthy Values of Living, 1996
5. Meditation on Swami Vivekananda, 1994
6. Meditation on Shri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda, 1993
7. Glimpses of Great Lives, 1989
8. Shubha Chinta (Bengali), 1988
9. Smaran--Manan (Bengali), 1987

You can order these books from The Vedanta Society of New York.

Other books on Vedanta can be purchased from any Vedanta Center.

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