An interview with Swami Dayananda Saraswati can be found here:

http://www.wie.org/j14/dayananda.asp?page=2

The interviewer comes with a particular perspective and at times he seems to misunderstand Swamiji, but the interview brings up some important and interesting topics nonetheless.

Selected excerpts:

"But I don't think advaita is only in the Vedas; I think it's everywhere—wherever there is the idea, "You are the Whole." That is advaita, whether it is in Sanskrit, Latin or Hebrew. But the advantage in Vedanta is that it can be taught and it is taught. We have created a teaching tradition, and it has grown. Whereas in America, when suddenly people turn vegetarian, for example, all that they have is tofu and alfalfa and a few other things, because there's no tradition of vegetarian cooking. It takes time. You can't create a tradition overnight!"

"Q: Why is it that you feel the study of the scriptures, rather than spiritual experience, is the most direct means to Self-realization?

A: Self-realization, as I said, is the discovery that "the Self is the whole"—that you are the Lord; in fact, you are God, the cause of everything.

Now nobody lacks the experience of advaita, of that which is nondual—there's always advaita. But any experience is only as good as one's ability to interpret it. A doctor examining you interprets your condition in one way, a layperson in another. Therefore, you need interpretation, and your knowledge is only as valid as the means of knowledge you are using for that purpose.

As the small self, we have no means of knowledge for the direct understanding of Self-realization, and therefore Vedanta is the means of knowledge that has to be employed for that purpose. No other means of knowledge will work because, for this kind of knowledge, our powers of perception and inference alone are not sufficient.

So I find that by itself there is nothing more dumb than experience in this world. In fact, it is experience that has destroyed us."

" First, you have an insight that is knowing, and then, as difficulties arise, we take care of them. I don't say it is not a matter of experience, but I say that experience is always the very nature of yourself. Consciousness is experience, and every experience reveals the fact of your being Self-evident. And what is Self-evident is, by definition, nondual. So subject and object are already the same.

Here is a wave, for instance, that has a human mind. It thinks, "I am a small wave." Then it becomes a big wave, swallowing in the process many other waves, and begins boasting, "I am a big wave." Then it loses its form, and again becomes small—files a "Chapter Thirteen," as you say in America, you know, bankruptcy—and now it wants to somehow get to the shore. But from the shore, other waves are pushing into the ocean, and from the ocean, waves are pushing to the shore, and this poor little wave is caught in between, sandwiched, and begins crying, "What shall I do?" There is another wave around, a wave that seems to be very happy, and so the first wave asks him, "How come you are so happy? You also are small—in fact, you are smaller than me! How come you are so happy?" Then another wave says, "He's an enlightened wave." Now the first wave wants to know, "What is enlightenment? What is this enlightenment?" The happy wave says, "Hey, come on! You should know who you are!" "All right. Who am I?" And the enlightened wave says, "You are the ocean." "What?! Ocean? Did you say that I am the ocean, because of all the water by which I am sustained and to which I will go back? That ocean I am?" "Yes, you are the ocean." And he laughs. "How can I be the ocean? That's like saying I am God. The ocean is almighty, it's all-pervasive, it's everything. How can I be the ocean?"

So we can dismiss Vedanta's statement of the non dual reality, or we can ask, "How come? How come I am That?" The nondual teaching is not necessary if our identity is obvious, if what is apparent to us is not a difference but an essential nondifference. Here, there is nondifference. There is no wave without water, and there is no ocean without water. Every other wave, and the whole ocean too, is one water alone."

"Q:In fact, if people would say that they wanted to leave their family and take sannyas, he would discourage that.

A: Every sannyasi will say the same thing, because otherwise all those people would end up in the ashram! Certainly I would say the same thing in this case, because anybody who says, "I want to give up everything," has got a problem.

Q: Why?

A: Because he's doubtful! If he were not doubtful he would have left already; he wouldn't have come and asked me. Because the mango fruit, when it is ripe, falls down; it doesn't ask, "Shall I fall down?" Ramana was not dumb; he knew exactly what he had to say. If I were he, do you know what I would have said? I would advise the person, "Hey, come on, you need not change anything. Be where you are; it's a change of vision." Even Shankara would say the same thing. Shankara had only four disciples. He traveled up and down this country on foot, which means he met thousands of people, yet he had only four disciples! That means he was advising everybody, "Stay where you are."