Why are the Vedas important today?
Let’s assume for a second that you have had absolutely no exposure to the Vedas and while you may be a Hindu, have no reason to appreciate it or respect it. As far as you are concerned, The Vedas were written by some old guy or guys a long, long time ago and has no relevance or importance today. How do I convince you (Provided, of course that you are open to being convinced) of the importance of the Vedas based on daily existence in the modern era?
We can start by making a simple premise. Everyone enjoys vacations, whether they be in school, college or especially while working. In fact all Human Resource professionals across the world will tell you that without vacations increase in or the maintenance of “productivity” of employees is impossible. On further analysis, you take a break and because of taking the break, the quality of your thinking improves and you are able to take rational or clear decisions. The clear thinking also leads to foresight in looking at long term solutions instead of putting out fires all the time.
Also, Vacations for a lot of us means a potential opportunity to be one with nature; this could be in the form of Forests/National parks (The beautiful Rockies come to mind), Beaches, etc. There is just something about modern day living where we are all “addicted” to the screen culture. Every day we spend more amount of time in front of our laptops, TVs, and now even Cell Phones and Kindles. Long term, this type of continued activity has the potential to inflict significant damage, as many of us may be intuitively aware. The effects of this are a loss of reasoning, dullness, attention deficit disorders, etc.
Coming to the point – If a small break with nature in today’s day and age help in our decision making, how much more would it help if you were in tune with nature all the time? Would nature reveal some of its hidden secrets to you, that have always existed but you failed to see because of your preoccupation? You may start observing, analyzing and intuitively being “in tune”.
Well, the Vedas are exactly that. Some very sharp, bright, intellectual people a very long time ago had a lifestyle advocated to them by other sharp bright intellectual people before them which enabled them to be in tune with nature always. While being in tune, they realized truths that we cannot even dream of realizing in today’s day and age because of our lifestyle. Therefore, I would call these people far more “Advanced” intellectually as well as spiritually even compared to the brightest beings on the planet today.
Funnily enough, these people seem to have realized that a day and age would come such as today when the day to day lifestyle would be totally non conducive towards realizing deep truths. Therefore, in their deep pity towards us, they finally started writing down the truths as they realized them, for the benefit of future generations. Truth has no expiry date. Therefore, their revelations, the Vedas, are as true today as they were thousands of years back.
The Seers in the Vedic age have also written treatises on Vimanas or Aircraft, Surgeries, Ayurveda or holistic healing etc, way back, except that they were far cleaner technologies. Since today’s scientists are unable to recreate these technologies and we think of ourselves as the most advanced civilization in History, Scholars attribute them the status of myths.
These seers through the Vedas tell us that in spite of all material advances, the only pursuit that is important in life is spiritual advancement. Modern day man has no issues with following the orders of a completely flawed individual just because his paycheck is being paid. Why, then should he have issues with following directions for his own good by people who have seen and realized the truth?