We celebrate Guru Purnima on 13 July, the day five thousand years ago Sage Vyasa was born as a love child
to Parasara Muni and Satyavati,the fisher woman. Vyasa was called 'Krishna' because of his black complexion,
and 'Dvaipayana' because he was born in an island (dvip) flanked by the Yamuna.

He was also called Badarayana, the inhabitant of the Badarika (Jujube tree) forest. Later this great saint
came to be known as Veda Vyasa for his seminal work of collecting,editing, publishing,interpreting
and propagating the four Vedas- Rig, Yajur, Sama and Atharva.Thus Vyasa's full name was 'Paarasara
Krishna Dvaipayana Badarayana Veda Vyasa'. His independent works are, the 'Mahabharata',
'the 'Puranas' and the 'Brahmasutras'.

The Prasthanatrayee i.e.. the 'Brahmasutras',
the ten principal 'Upanishad's and the 'Bhagavad Gita'
are essentially the work of Sri Veda Vyasa.
The Prasthanatrayee are the triple scriptures of
present day Hinduism. The great Acaryas of
Hinduism such as Sankaracarya, Ramanujacarya
and Madhvacarya and later Swami Vivekananda,
Sri Aurobindo and Mahatma Gandhi wrote
commentaries for at least one of these scriptures.

Therefore Sri Veda Vyasa can be called the
father/mother/Guru of Hinduism as we know and
practice it today.Sri Vyasa was not only a scholar,
but he also was an active statesman who took
interest in the affairs of the nation. He came to the
help of his mother/queen Satyavati in running the
kingdom when his half brothers, who were kings,
were found inadequate for the task. Sri Vyasa even
went to the extent of siring children in Ambalika and Ambika,
the royal queens, who could not conceive
from their husband kings- Vicitravirya and Citrangada.

The central teachings of Vyasa can be condensed into the following:

(1) Truth is one , but paths are many.
(2) World is one family, hence to exist is to co-exist.
(3) God/ Divinity lives in the heart of each human/being.
(4) God/Divinity can be experienced moment to moment
in a pure mind.
(5) Purity of mind is attained when engaged in the world through self-giving work.

Whenever Hindus have forgotten to live these immortal teachings of Veda Vyasa then they came to suffer humiliation and cultural degradation. That has been happening to us, Hindus, for the last 1500 years. Instead of responding creatively to challenges of the Muslims and the British, and grow in stature, we withdrew from the arena of action, and tried to find our god in seclusion and in the cocoon of our small self. Now Vyasa's teachings are finding world acceptance and are experimented on the world theatre by globally conscious individuals.

I have no doubt that Veda vyasa's teachings will be the foundation of the emerging world spiritual consciousness.

Salutations to Our Guru, Sri Veda Vyasa.
Jai Jai Gurudeva,

Swami Bodhananda
Thursday, 10 Jul 2003, 20:07:59
Kalamazoo, Michigan