namastvaismai gaNeshAya brahma vidyA pradAyine, yatsya agatsyAyate nAma vighna sAgar
shoshaNe
Saluatations to Ganesha, bestower of all knowledge
(i.e., knowledge of brahman), mere utterance of whose name can save us from stormy ocean of calamities (literally,
take in the ocean of calamities in the manner of sage Agasthi).
Back in the old days, some people came to a realization that creation is not chaotic
and random but that a certain order underlies it. They called this order Rta.
They wondered what was maintaining this order and they posited that a certain law - a natural law - was maintaining this order.
They called this law dharma - that which
holds, supports and upholds, from the root verb dhR to
hold or support. Instinctively, they felt that this law had to be universal; after all, they were
pondering the entire universe, not merely some part of it. They also realized that they were not making up this law but that
it pre-existed them; in fact, they thought this law must have always existed and will always exist. They called it sanAtana dharma or the Eternal Law. Hence the title of this website.
My
understanding of the Eternal Law in its varied aspects is presented in these web pages.What you read in these pages is my
presentation of what I learned from our forebears. If there is anything of value in my words and sketches, I owe it to the
Rshis (seers) who performed tapas (rigorous efforts) to
bring us this knowledge eons ago. However, I am solely responsible for all the errors in this presentation whether of
interpretation or representation.
Two salient features of the Eternal Law are that it is universal
and it is eternal. These were serious thinkers with serious interests. They were interested in
knowing all, not just bits and pieces. They were not interested in what starts and ends in time. That would be ephemeral.
They were reaching for the stars. Nothing was going to hold them back.
Let us not hold ourselves back.
A no bhadrA Rtavo yantu vishvataH (Rg veda)
May
propitious thoughts come to us from the entire universe.
But what is Eternal Law?
Eternal Law is an axiom. It is the most wide-ranging, over-arching and all-encomapassing
axiom that I am aware of. All other axioms are necessarily contained in this one axiom. Quite simply,
it is the mother of all axioms.
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