Ask Swami with Swami Sarvapriyananda | February 21st, 2021

[Music] [Music] [Music] lead us from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness unto light lead us from death to immortality om peace peace peace so we are back for another session of ask swami where so many questions which come to us from all over the world through the internet um we select a few only a few representative questions and so but thanks to all of you who write and also to our dedicated team who go through all these questions and then make a selection obviously we cannot answer all your questions or discuss all your questions but in a subject like this when we're talking about spirituality about vedanta often the questions are common questions and a question asked by somebody else may be of benefit to me when i listen to the question and the answer carefully so instead of being eager or impatiently waiting for my question to come up let's just relax and attend to the questions which do come up and listen to the answers carefully yes damn yes swami the first question is from kyle parson does the individual soul or jiva man exist if so what separates it from brahman or absolute reality does the individual's soul jivatman exist and what separates it from brahman the the ultimate reality look one thing is without any doubt it's it's obvious that we do exist i exist i know i do i don't know about you but i do feel that i exist so the individual does exist now the question is when we are told about an ultimate reality an infinite awareness existence consciousness place brahman and when we begin to understand what it is then we naturally wonder about our relationship with that that entity according to advaita vedanta we are that entity ahambram has me i am brahman if i would investigate my own existence if i would investigate my own awareness and advaita vedanta helps us to do that if we if we do that then it will be revealed to me that i this this seemingly limited individual in by individual existence jivatman we mean a limited existence this seemingly limited existence is actually an unlimited existence by limited and unlimited again we have to be clear what we mean in advaita vedanta the terms are very clear limited means limited in time space in object which means i'm only here and not there i'm only you know from this year i was born and that year i shall die so those are limitations of the body and there are limitations of the mind but uh i the awareness and the unlimited brahman this is what advaita vedanta tells me you are that or i am brahman so what is the difference between the limited jivatman and brahman what separates that was the question what separates according to advaita vedanta only ignorance separates us the individual and the and and the absolute reality brahman is they are separated by ignorance whose ignorance our ignorance about our real nature our ignorance about brahman which translates into our ignorance about our real nature even more directly and more crudely a monk put it even more directly what is the difference between you and the ultimate reality and he put it in hindi crudely i'll translate he said stupidity the only difference between me and brahman is my own stupidity that i don't realize that i am brahmana so um what differentiates the jivatman what separates jivatman from brahman ignorance the jihad means ignorance about its own reality which is another way of saying nothing separates us from brahman there's nothing that separates us from raman um what separates the pot from the clay if it's a clay pot what separates the part from the clay nothing except possibly the part was ignorant about its nature as clay what separates the way from water the gold ornament from the gold nothing if they were it was possible for them to be ignorant they're ignorant about their real nature that's the only separation if i even if i may use air quotes that's the advaithic answer to the question let's take a step back and add a broader view there is the vishishta dwaytek answer which is the qualified monistic school of the great master ramanuja by the way when i say advaita vedanta shankaracharya or vishishta dwight i feel a little uneasy because the the traditional teachers of these schools would not agree advaita vedanta was not founded by shankaracharya vishishtadwaita was not founded by ramanuja they are traditions which go back centuries if not millennia before these great masters so in the traditions shankara ramanuja madhwa in their respective traditions they are known as the great commentators the ones who wrote the foundational commentaries and the upanishads gita and so on anyway that's just a technical observation now in the qualified monistic view of ramanujacharya the individual and brahmana jiva and brahman they're related as part and whole brahman is the whole of which jiva is a part we are just like hands and feet and you know fingers they're all parts of one organic entity called this body so the parts of an of a unity called this body similarly all of us sentient beings uh and also this incentive world this material world we're all parts components now tiny bits one example is of thousands of sparks millions of sparks of fire emanating from a vast bonfire and the vast bonfire itself is brahman or god so that is the qualified monastic view another view would be we are actually separate we are actually distinct from brahman brahman is god and we are sentient beings and we are distinct and we will we will remain so and so then we have a loving relationship or a devotional relationship with god so it could be identity it could be part whole or it could actually be different strict difference between a god and the individual being which one is correct as a non-dualist i will insist that the non-dual position is correct but srirama krishna would say that all of them are correct why would all of them be correct and what's the point in saying they're all correct notice the important thing important thing is to be in touch with to realize uh to connect with or become one with that ultimate reality the that is the only point that that is that is important if if you can do that do it by a dualistic way do it by qualified monistic way do it by a monistic non-dualistic way whichever way it works and it's liberating it solves your problem somebody asked once what is sri ramakrishna's philosophy is it non-dualistic is it dualistic is it qualified monistic swami turian energy writes if you press me for an answer i will say his philosophy was realize god by any means whatsoever right this question is from dmitry slatkov could you please help me understand the description of self existence consciousness bliss i understand the existence and bliss my question is about consciousness does it mean that the self can be self aware without the need of the mind or any object so can the self be self aware without the need of the mind or any object first of all straight answer no when you mean by self-awareness that i am aware of myself deliberately consciously as an experience then obviously one needs the mind because it's the mind which generates that self-awareness and not only that even with the mind one may not be self-aware in the sense in which dimitri is asking it requires an introspective act an inward turn of the mind to become self-aware that i notice not only do i see the time i'm aware i'm aware that i'm aware of the time so that requires an act of the mind but again let's do look deeper into the into the matter what is an experience just self-awareness any experience at all the way we define experiences in advaita vedanta would be consciousness plus an object when consciousness is conscious of an object that's an experience consciousness by itself is not an experience so an object any object and if you actually look at it the way it works the all the objects come to me the consciousness through the medium of my mind i mean even the time when i'm looking at the clock it needs a clock it needs light falling on the clock it needs my eyes to be working but more than that the brain and and then the mind to be awake finally the information that which comes by the reflected light from the surface of the clock to my eyes through the optical nerves races to the brain centers from there somehow to the mind and then the mind must have a thought a perception clock perception and that clock perception is presented to consciousness or is illumined by consciousness and i have this experience of i am seeing i'm looking at the time so this experience of looking at the clock or looking at the time requires all of these but ultimately consciousness must light up a perception in the mind i'm calling it a perception in the mind any movement of the mind is called a vritti and the movement of the mind lit up by consciousness is what we call experience that's a very precise definition of experience consciousness plus a vritti in the mind brittany means a movement of the mind and the movement of the mind could be a perception could be a thought you know like an idea or a memory or a desire or even the functioning of the ego or self-awareness i am aware of myself so that's a that's an introspective inward turn of the mind that's also a variety an activity of the mind so consciousness plus object especially consciousness plus a movement of the mind is required for any experience let's go even deeper even the activity of the mind may not be required the absence of activity of the mind is also a kind of experience when the mind shuts down in deep meditation or in deep sleep that's also a kind of experience why do i say a kind of experience it does not have the uh markers or the the characteristics of experience which we have at the moment i'm consciously aware of experiencing things i'm not consciously aware of deep sleeping or um so but it is still an experience because when the mind does start functioning it registers that there was a period of blankness so that that register the registering the period of blankness is also because of consciousness shining upon the non-activity of the mind in deep sleep that's also an experience deep sleep is also a kind of a kind of a very peculiar kind of experience but experience now i know i think i know where dimitri is headed with this he would like to say that then so consciousness by itself is not enough to have experiences you need consciousness plus an object specifically consciousness plus the mind so consciousness is itself not enough for experiences well that depends upon your philosophical point of view um if you think that the world and the bodies and the minds and all objects they all belong to an independent real category called nature or in sanskrit prakriti and then consciousness uses that for experiences consciousness is called purusa and everything else is called prakriti or material existence and the combination of pollution prakriti gives rise to experience then you are right it requires two different things that's called sankhya philosophy so then yes consciousness would need mind to generate experiences but on the other hand if you look at advaita philosophy the advaita paradigm then prakriti is not an independent entity prakriti is not something separate from consciousness it is now called maya it is the projecting power of consciousness itself though it appears to be an object it is still nothing other than brahman so consciousness or brahman with its objects which is nothing but brahman appearing as an object so the universe body and mind are nothing but brahman appearing as objects and that's enough to generate generate experiences good way of understanding this would be the dream experience so in a dream you are there maybe you are having a cup of coffee and watching cars go by out of your window so there are objects there are cars and there's a window and there's a cup of coffee and you're not aware that you're dreaming you're even you have a body and so you are an experiencer and there are objects to be experienced and you might feel yes i need objects for experience something different two things are needed but are they really two the moment you wake up you the experiencer in the dream and all the objects that you experience in the dream they are all generated by the same mind in the dream the dreaming mind it generates both subject and object in the dream similarly it is brahman alone which appears as both the knower and the known the experience experiencing subject and the experienced object and the experience itself yeah all right so we go on to samkhya yes this is from anurida bose from india in the book iriti songs of the ramakrishna order translated by swami hashananda it is written according to samkhiya vedanta metaphysics the whole creation emerges out of prakriti or maya what i understand from some of your lectures on vedanta is that this whole universe that that we see is due to the projecting power of maya and the veiling power of maya prevents us from seeing our true self is this different from samkhya so anirudh has referred to the rt songs swami harshanandaji by the way he passed just a couple of weeks ago he was in bangalore a very senior monk of our order very erudite learned very saintly swami so yes that book is very popular where he has translated and introduced the arathi songs which we which are sung in all the centers of the ramakrishna order including this one here yes the universe is a projection of brahman through maya or a real creation through prakriti in sankhya in in advaita vedanta it is brahman alone which appears does not become the universe but when you say project this is a sanskrit word srishti uh brahman appears as the universe just as the movie screen never really becomes the people and the places and the objects in the movie only appears similarly brahman appears as this world that is advaita vedanta that's the metaphysics of advaita vedanta maya projects brahman as a unity as a variety consciousness as its own objects but sankhya philosophy says that prakriti nature is independent of consciousness consciousness and prakriti purush and prakriti are independent entities as far as independent as far as this existence is concerned there are innumerable purusas innumerable consciousnesses in sankhya in sankhya philosophy and there is one prakriti nature is one but it has innumerable products of various levels so all of these they interact and that produces the experience of life consciousness and matter interacting but but their existence as far as their existence is concerned they are independent whereas when you come to advaita vedanta all the consciousnesses are actually one consciousness there are no markers of difference how would you mark the difference the border between one consciousness and the other there's no way so it's one consciousness and prakriti nature is not an independent reality it is the power of that very consciousness to project itself as its own object it sees the object within itself so yes and repeat the last question again what hand the whole just the last part of the question what i understand from some of your lectures on vedanta is that this whole universe that we see is due to the projecting power of maya and that the veiling power of maya prevents us from seeing our true self is this different from some here so in vedanta maya has these two powers or capacities the awareness is the the capacity of the power to wail the truth from us the truth is that we are brahman we don't realize that the truth is that this world is actually brahman we don't realize that in devotional language you would say inside outside everywhere there is one god but we don't see it anywhere neither inside nor outside and that is the wailing power of maya and the projecting power of maya is to project that brahman itself as this world as this person as the subject and the object that's why vivekanthu said one alone exists it appears as nature prakriti soul that is the purusha so one consciousness alone appears as nowhere unknown um is this different in sang here as i said in sankhya prakriti is independent maya is not independent of brahman but prakrut is independent of purusha but prakriti and purusha are dependent as far as their activities are concerned they interact to produce the experience of life um the first step in advaita vedantes is is basically sankhya it is to see yourself as not a body not a mind this body mind little personality it's it does not define me it does not um complete it it's not not an exhaustive description of what i am i am something much deeper than this so i am not the body i am not the mind i am not the activities of the mind the thoughts feelings emotions the personality i am the unlimited awareness which is in which is a witness to this and which lights up the mind and the body making it an experiencer so this differentiation this is in sanskrit it is this discernment in sanskrit it is called viveka this is sankhya it it shows us the very great truth very very important an indispensable first step towards advaita vedanta but only a first step that you are not body mind you are the the witness consciousness you're not a body which is born and which ages and it is subject to disease and old age and death you're not a mind subject to the ups and downs every day ups and downs and waking dreaming and deep sleep and transmigration from one body to another body to another body the jihad you're not even that you are the awareness in which all of this is taking place you are the very existence of all of these things but you are different from all of that now if you stop here this is sankhya but you take one step further you ask the question what is the relationship to me yes i understand i am the witness consciousness but what i am witnessing that which i light up that which i illumine all of this what is its relation to me is it something different from me is it something separate from me sankhya says yes through a chain of reasoning and with the with the support of the upanishads shows that it cannot be so what we are experiencing cannot be something outside of our consciousness there is no way of consciousness to come in contact with something outside of itself so ultimately what advaita wants to say is that you the consciousness are definitely different from nature that is sankhya but is nature different from different from you water is different from the wave gold is different from the ornament the wood is different from the table correct but is the wave different from water is the ornament different from from the ornament is the altar different from the wood which constitutes the altar no it is not to make it even more clear in case anybody has any doubt in what sense did you say that the wood is different from the altar in what sense did you say the water is different from the wave in this sense that there was a time when the water was not a wave now the water might appear as a wave but there will be a time when the water will not be away it could be calm water it could be water vapor it could be water in a glass there was a time when this wood was not an altar it was in a tree so the wood is not the altar right now it is it looks like that and it's the form given to it right now water is appearing as a wave right now gold is appearing as that ornament but gold in itself is not an ornament so just as gold or water or the wood is different from the ornament and the wave and the altar but the altar and the wave and the ornament are not different because they cannot exist without their constituent material similarly this entire universe is not different from consciousness then you have advaita vedanta so this is the difference between sankhya and advaita vedanta advaita takes one step further after distinguishing consciousness from the material universe it reduces the material universe back into consciousness the material universe is absorbed back into consciousness with leaving only one non-dual consciousness as the only existence right this question is from hermann gomez who's in colombia we in the west are more familiar with the terms soul and spirit from your lectures i understand that the soul can be equal in vedanta to the subtle body whereas the spirit seems more like the pranic part of it the vital forces is it so or are those identical things would you please explain which is the closest concept in vedanta to those terms and expand on it in line with that concept you assert that the subtle body is the one which transmigrates and is born anew in another physical body why then did sri nisagata nissa gadata maharaja in his teachings say that reincarnation is nonsense that it is impossible and refused to talk about it all right so i'll break up this answer to herman in three parts first i'll describe the the vedantic vedantic world view especially the vedantic view about the human personality and then we'll in the second part i'll relate it to spirit and soul the word spirit and soul and third finally quite separately we'll deal with what nisargadatta maharaja first of all how does vedanta understand the human personality a trichotomous three-layer to to put it in in the simplest possible terms there is this physical body and there is a subtle body and beyond that there is the atman the the real real eye that this existence consciousness plays to self which is the reality so the atman and it has a subtle body and it has a physical body so the physical body is not you it's a body even the subtle body is not you it's a body and if you actually for the sake of completion i must add there's a causal body the causal body is nothing but ignorance about our real nature so there's a causal body the subtle body and a physical body and again none of this is actually theoretical it's directly observable physical body everybody can observe what your doctor checks up is a physical body what you see or others can experience is the physical body but the subtle body how would you differentiate the subtle body from the physical body the subtle body is you uh first person experience in you experience it yourself it's private to you nobody else can experience your thoughts feelings emotions memories so those experiences which you have even the neuroscientists can experience only the they can scan the brain and find the neural correlates of your memory of your thoughts and your perceptions but your thoughts perceptions feelings memories that constitutes your subtle body which everybody experiences and it makes sense to make this division between physical body and subtle body from the perspective of our experience clearly these are two different kinds of things but these are the subtle body is also a body it's not you you are the witness consciousness of that in between there is a causal body so causal body subtle body physical body this is the vedatic division stool division and they are bodies and all of that is lit up by is animated by the presence of you the consciousness which is quite separate from all of these now how do you relate this to and by the way the three bodies can also be further analyzed into the five sheaths the so-called five sheets of the human personality the food sheet is the physical body physical body is the food sheath stula shadida is the annamaya kosher the subtle body there are three sheets there there is the pranic body and there is the mental body and then the intellect body or the the pranic sheath mental sheath intellect sheet the prana maya kosher manomaya kosher bigyana maya kosha all three constitute the subtle body sukhmachadira and then there is the anandamaya kosha the bliss so-called bliss sheath which we experience in deep sleep or in samadhi uh which is always there that that is the the innermost innermost means in the sense closest to subtlest to the atman the anandamaya kosha which is the causal body so this is the structure according to vedanta now if you try to compare it with spirit and soul so you have to go back to christian theology and before that greek theology greek philosophy the greek world view so pneuma which is literally means breath that came to be known as spirit and the soul is what corresponds to the subtle body so you can see it is a bit of a cross-reference here the subtle body in the vedantic perspective the subtle body includes the prana the spirit the prana maya kosha is a part of the sukhmashara the subtle body the the vital sheath is a part of the subtle body so in the in the vedantic perspective the spirit which you call the spirit the the vital breath uh the vital air that would be part of the soul that's what leaves the body at death the soul and spirit together but in modern usage both soul and spirit the words in english today both soul and spirit they as you can see they were ambiguous in vedanta there isn't this ambiguity is not there they're very clear references the very clear meaning of each term but in modern english when we say soul and spirit it refers to so many things when you say the soul has left the body a death god has the soul has gone to its god you're talking about the subtle body sukshma the physical body is dead the soul is left that's the individual being the sentient being behind which all of it is by the way the atman in the vedantic perspective the soul has left the body now in the vedantic perspective the prana which is what what is meant by spirit here is part of that soul so where the soul leaves the body the prana the vital forces also leave the body that's what makes the body a dead body when the life literally life goes out of the body but in modern english spirit the word spirit also refers to um you know the the ultimate reality the the atman soul also refers to the ultimate reality atman there's no there are no other words in english to refer to the the ultimate the real self so the real self atman sometimes we see it's called the soul it's called the um spirit so the word spirit has two meanings technically the old greek meaning and i think the latin meaning also was vital forces breath you're right there the modern meaning in the general way spirit is used in um day-to-day life it just means our spiritual self that which goes to god maybe part of god or stays with god or whatever and the word soul is also used in that ambiguous way for example save our souls i commend this soul to god he was a good soul a good soul talks about certain characteristics of the subtle body the subtle body the characteristics of being virtuous unselfish truthful and you know disciplined is a good soul you're talking about the personality characteristics of the personality but when you talk about soul and god you're talking about the atman the the inner self so that ambiguity is created by the the various meanings of the word spirit and soul finally we come to nisargadatta maharaja who says i don't know what the reference is but if he says that i could quite believe it that he says the reincarnation is nonsense and impossible so what is reincarnation in the vedantic perspective there are any indian perspective except the materialist whether the buddhist or the vedantic or the china sankhya any kind of indian perspective the physical body obviously dies the claim is that the subtle body does not die with the physical body it was not born with the physical body it only animates and enlivens the physical body once the physical body is dead the subtle body goes on it's basically the subtle body leaving the physical body which is physical death so the subtle body goes on and karma gives it newer newer bodies to inhabit in future lives so the subtle body sukshma shadira this is going from body to body to body this is called reincarnation punar janma now remember all of this advaita vedanta from an advertising perspective which is what nisargadatta was in a non-dualistic from an advertising perspective all this is a convenient fiction only to experience our ex you know our the way we look at the world the only to experience to explain that it's a convenient fiction it is not to be ultimately taken seriously because from an advaitic perspective from nisargadatta's perspective there is only one reality which is brahman the absolute so the absolute or brahman pure consciousness and again be careful when you read i know when people read nisargadattan i also read i've read him in english but he originally spoke in marathi so it has been translated into english and you will find two words awareness and consciousness so this is that death or the uh you know when the body dies that's it that's the end consciousness also dies so a non-dualist might an advaitha might become surprised what is he saying consciousness dies isn't it the whole perspective the whole program of advaita to prove that consciousness exists is immortal it's just a translation problem because you will notice immediately after that nisargadatta says so consciousness dies and only awareness is left so it is basically what we call consciousness we are translating chaitanya's consciousness there it is being translated as awareness but anyway just a terminological difference from circles at this point of view this whole idea of a world and a body and incarnation and reincarnation all of this is a convenient fiction how can the one reality the absolute which is it's for him it's the only reality how can that be born how can that go from life to life it's an impossibility and that's why he says that from that from the ultimate perspective from the perspective from his perspective there is no such thing as reincarnation and i have told you the story earlier about a monk one of our monks who was worried about this question about that the indian religions say there are many lives life after life after life you're born and reborn reincarnation is there punar janma in hindi or sanskrit but the semitic religions judaism christianity islam they say that there is only one life you're born you did not exist earlier and you die you will eternally exist afterwards but there's no more further birth so one life or many lives reincarnation or no in reincarnation that was the concern of this monk very soon people in the ashram became tired of his arguments so he took his whole dialectics and debate outside the ashram to another ashram nearby this was in uttarkashi in the himalayas so that ashram belonged to the data astronomy that there lived a great non-dualist master so the swami went there and said um master many lives are one life punar janma yani is there is there reincarnation or not and that monk replied i'll tell you is what he said in hindi and then translate into english he said when there is not even one birth what is the question of rebirth you haven't been born to begin with how can you be reborn go and read the mandu kyopa nation and that swami came back and told me an exasperation it's no use arguing with these non-dualists they'll all immediately go to brahmana and mandukka and that's the end of the argument so that's where nisargadatta was coming from yes and this is from asif hussein i have been following you since my college days and the question has always bothered me how do i make your teachings relevant in a world full of chaos one has to deal with the social question of identity community-based latent isolation noisy urbanization and lastly one's aspiration which is being glass shielded by one's birth how shall i liberate myself from these by following your teachings would that not be a part of nihilist escapism i'm not sure what you mean by glass shielded but i get the general tone of the question so being a non-dualist an advaitan would it mean escapism would it mean nihilism that nothing exists or this world doesn't exist at the very least the world doesn't exist and there's so much trouble in the world i'm not going to deal with that i'm going to sit in meditation or just sit quietly and think nothing exists that doesn't seem very satisfactory no advaita vedanta is not escapism i again and again repeat what i heard from or i read actually from a monk who said in hindi is not for for for erasing transactions in the world erasing activity in the world no not for that it makes you limitless in in your experience of the world limitless in the sense of you're fearless you uh have your you are completely fulfilled when you go out and act interact with the world um so vedanta is not for for erasing or stopping your experience of the world there is one kind of spirituality which tries to do that i will retreat into a mountain cave i will not interact with society i'll shut down all interactions because interactions are the source of sorrow advaita vedanta says no no interactions are not the source of sorrow the world is not the source of sorrow in fact samsara itself is not the source of sorrow think about it the enlightened people they lived in this world even the body is not a source of sorrow even the mind is not a source of sorrow what is a source of sorrow according to advaita vedanta the source of sorrow is ignorance ignorance about our real nature is brahman once you realize what brahman is that i am brahma when you realize this then this world and this body and the same mind will no longer be a source of sorrow for you will not no longer be you know source of chaos or trouble so advaita vedanta does not want you to erase your experience of the world it does not want you to erase your experience of the mind also it does not want you to shut down the mind no the mind must think the intellect must understand and you must interact with the world but what advaita wants us to do is to realize what all of this is really it is brahman it is one existence consciousness place having realized that the same world continues when you open your eyes after enlightenment if you have eyes if you have a body you have the world also which you can see if you have a body then the mind is also there the mind will think so all of that will go on does advaitha want you to see is interacting with the world does it want you to stop dealing with the problems of the world absolutely not that's what arjuna wanted to do in the gita and krishna told him quite the opposite that you have to pursue your duty in the world do your duty in the world do your activities in the world but now it's a spiritual perspective earlier doing it with the worldly perspective now you do it with a spiritual perspective you see the iniquities the sufferings and the injustice in the world why would you turn your eyes away from it rather if you feel motivated to do that you engage in it and vedanti will help you there um vivekananda gives us some criterion of the truth so if it uh if it strengthens you accept it as the truth if it weakens you reject it as poison if it is selfish it is untruth if it is unselfish it is true if it divides and separates its untrue that which unites brings everybody together is true these are tests of truth strength or weakness um selfish or unselfish one or divided unity or division these are strength these are like a litmus test and based on this engage in activity vedanta encourages you to bring about unity and not deceive this unity vedanta encourages you to be altruistic and self-sacrificing and unselfish selfless a small self has to be overcome because that's what ties us to samsara all that vedanta tells you your real self is limitless that is selflessness um vedanta gives you strength to engage in your so you want to be an activist for example and fight against injustice in social society if you are motivated to do that vedanta will give you strength to do that i am reminded of gandhiji who who struggled for india's freedom who struggled for reformation of society against the caste system who struggled for uh for education and equity in society all sorts of things an enormously busy person you can just think about you know i was just once i saw the complete works of mahatma gandhi in almeras in the library in our ashram and i believe he's written more than a hundred volumes the complete works of mahatma gandhi comes in more than 100 volumes can you imagine a person writing so much in the midst of so much activity and yet quite serene quite happy having all the time for people um peaceful and sweet and loving how is that possible it's because he's grounded in spirituality so whether it's vedantic spirituality or any other kind of spirituality it will give you strength and it enables you to engage with the world not to run away from the world but you notice i have been saying if you so choose if you if it motivates you why i'm saying that is you cannot make it a rule that a spiritual seeker or an enlightened person must be engaged with society need not be it could be like um ramana marsh who might stay in a cave all his life and yet his exp his uh teachings and his presence radiates across the world even today isn't that a great benefit for society it is a very great benefit to society so vivekande said there might be even other enlightened persons who are not even known at least raman mush is very well known now but you might not even be known but even that the very fact they existed and they thought vivekananda's words they thought five thoughts for the welfare of humanity and that penetrates through the walls of their caves and it lives in the thought world and it will do good to humanity nothing can stop it so an enlightened person is a blessing to humanity whether that person is actively active or withdraws from society and stays in an ashram or a cave but still just because the person is enlightened is a great blessing to humanity so they cannot make it a role you cannot make it a rule that an enlightened person or even a spiritual person must be an activist may not be there's no rule for an enlightened person okay this question comes from sriram who's in india i am learning from listening to you that the ultimate reality is brahman but at the transactional level the world exists this world borrows existence from brahman what does this mean even an enlightened being sees the world when he comes down to the transactional level so can't we say that this world is real and consciousness is also real why should something exist in all states of mind to be real how can subjective experience be used to prove existence or non-existence of an object let's say if i don't experience a city which i haven't seen does it mean it doesn't exist all right there are multiple questions here which sriram has asked first of all let me say yes just because we don't see something it doesn't mean that that thing does not exist that's not in the sense in which advaita vedanta says everything is in consciousness that's the problem the moment we hear advaita vedanta says everything is in consciousness we think this consciousness this is what i'm thinking so everything has to be in this not necessarily and it's it's obviously not true we are sitting here i'm looking at people it's a brilliant day outside is central park there if i'm not seeing it yes i hope it's there so it it's the entire world exists even when i'm not seeing it the individual person the individual knower individual subject experiences some objects at any one time all the other objects still do exist this is why swam a shankaracharya attacks the buddhist idealists in his refutation of different points of view to the buddhist viganavadhi the viganavada buddhists were subjective idealists but subjective idealism is meant exactly the kind of question sridham is asking that they believed everything exists in the mind that other than the mind there is no independent existence of anything so when i am seeing all these objects they are all in the mind even the body is in the mind even the brain is in the mind the the mind is the only thing that exists and the mind is a series of flashes of cognitions called vigna so all that exists is the series of flashes of cognition and they admit that different series exist in parallel so we have all different beings and we are each of us is a series of cognitions and the so-called objects which we experience they are objects but they're objects in the mind and there's nothing outside very similar to um what bishop barkley the subjective idealist who lived about 400 years ago uh he he talked about the world is in the mind and there is no evidence for anything being outside the mind shankaracharya did not exist i did not agree with this advaita vedanta does not agree with this advaita vedanta says the individual knower as we know ourselves to be the object is independent of you and you are interacting with the object this view in advaita vedanta is called sri drishti wada the sri external universe it exists it has been created by god let's say saguna brahman and we the individual experiences we come and we experience this world so that's there it's not subjective idealism this might be surprising for many people who have heard me speak no it is this is the advaithic position vis-a-vis subjective idealism of the vikana buddhists that's why shankaracharya takes a lot of effort it makes a lot of effort to uh refute the vigna about the buddhist arguments vigyanavadi says everything is in sight the simple question shankaracharya asks is if everything is inside where did we ever get the concept of an outside and i can think of a clock in my mind and there's a clock outside vignavadi says that the clock it only seems to be outside what is outside is also inside your mind but then why do i have the distinction of outside and inside at all if there's no real outside so things like that um but what advaita vedanta is saying you the knower and the object that you know both are appearances in one underlying consciousness which you are you the knower if you would investigate yourself you are not just this body mind as a body mind you experience an externally the moment you're a body there are external bodies apart from you we have no doubt about that but in awareness the mind appears the body appears and everything else experienced to the body mind also appears swami vivekananda puts it this way one only exists it appears as nature soul you can put it in more philosophical language consciousness only exists or brahman only exists it appears as object and subject who is the subject you are a subject does the object exist in need the subject no the you and the object both exist in that absolute reality which is brahman the one thing that we do not know right now is that we are that absolute reality what we feel is i am a subject and here is object so the whole battle between the realists and the idealists in the philosophical sense the realist says the object exists independent of me the subject the object is there i come and experience it i see it hear it smell it taste it touch it but even if i were not there the object would still be there that's the realist point of view and that's most fashionable in modern philosophy because of the success and power of science the idealist says like bishop berkeley that no no no only the subject exists and what you think is an object out there is only existing in your mind the mind of the subject so that's the idealist point of view both the realist and the idealist are wrong from the absolute point of view which is the advaithic perspective subject object are both appearing in consciousness you can take a realist perspective and then you as the subject investigate yourself whatever i you will come to the absolute reality from that absolute reality yes there everything is in that absolute reality or is nothing apart from that absolute reality so that is the answer yes and this is from fahad jalali who's in germany does our brain create consciousness how can i be sure that consciousness is not a product or function of the brain how can i test to see if awareness is something manufactured by the brain some believe that a deeper understanding of brain chemistry will provide the answers others look to quantum physics the minute microtubules found inside nerve cells could create quantum effects that might somehow contribute to consciousness some explore computing theory and believe that consciousness emerges from the complexity of the brain's processing as i understand the brain is responsible for the content of consciousness there is ample evidence for a strong correlation between what goes on in the brain and what goes on in the mind but how can we be sure that the brain is not responsible for experience itself the capacity for consciousness well that is the question isn't it does the brain produce consciousness there is a question and that's what uh david chalmers is called the hard problem of consciousness and that's what uh we hear from scientists and that the term has come to be of uh in current usage now the heart problem of consciousness what is the heart problem and why is it hard problem why is it that there's a doubt that the brain produces consciousness which is where the question is coming from um if you if when scientists scan the brain we have extraordinarily subtle instruments nowadays so when you scan the brain what you see is minute electrical activities in the brain the blood flow in the brain the minute electromagnetic activity in the neurons in the brain you don't see consciousness you say brain produces consciousness then it must be in a very strange and unique way when you say something produces something it should be observable right if the productive processes are observable the product also must be observable so when you look at this at the factory producing cars you can observe the raw materials going into the factory you can observe the process of production the raw materials being converted the parts being put together in the assembly line and you can observe the car the final product coming out that's also observed but when you observe the brain you observe processes you observe blood flow electrical activity uh electromagnetic activity uh certain chemical neurochemical activity all of these are observable but where is the car at the end where is the consciousness at the end is that observed no nothing at the end of it only thing that's observed is more and more electrical activity is consciousness observed no is it observable at all in principle no and that's the interesting thing those who are completely reductive say daniel dennett for example so daniel dennett would say consciousness is the firing of c fibers in the brain the firing electrical activity of certain neurons in the certain structures in the brain that is consciousness there's nothing more to it than that that does not seem to be um very satisfying if you say that if you say that consciousness is just the brain without explaining how the brain produces you say don't say that it produces consciousness it is the brain now it's like a person sitting on the branch and cutting up the branch you're sitting on you are sitting on on conscious experience all that we have in life is conscious experience now to explain how conscious experience comes we have to show every step of the way you can show us the brain you can show us the neuronal activity the the chemical neurochemical activity show us the electrical activity in the neurons and then next nothing where is consciousness so this is called the hard problem of consciousness there seems to be a jump as he has said multiple attempts at trying to explain the hard problem of consciousness um there is microtubules i think sir roger penrose who got the nobel prize this year i think he has proposed microtubules in in the nerves nerve cells the brain which might have quantum effects to produce uh consciousness might but there's obviously no evidence of that david chalmers would say it is not possible in principle whatever is material will produce something else that is material not the observing consciousness itself um some might have said a computational model in fact the latest theories by tonini um the info integrated information theory the complexity of the activities of the brain generate consciousness every other week i see an article in some science journal or some popular website mystery of consciousness solved and we look closely at it every one of them will have its favorite candidate microtubules quantum effects computational model complexity of brain activity everybody has a favorite candidate to solve the problem of consciousness but in every article you'll see um there is a jump at one point suddenly consciousness appears there is no clear link between what was being talked about whether it is quantum states or microtubules are the you know computational model and consciousness this is a jump i'm reminded of that cartoon you know which i had seen quite a long time back one scientist is writing on the blackboard probably a graduate student is writing on the blackboard step one two three four five one two three are full of mathematical equations and five is again full of mathematics but in four it's written a miracle and his guide maybe the professor who's guiding him is telling the graduate student you know it's good but i think you need to work on step four as somebody put it the miracle of the biblical miracle of water turning into wine we understand water we understand the wine but how water turns into wine we don't understand so we understand brain and consciousness also we understand directly from our own experience because we are conscious we understand that but how this activity of the brain produces consciousness we don't understand the philosopher galin strassen was in texas um recently professor indam chakravarti told me that he's actually the son of very famous oxford philosopher peter strossen sir peter starson so like father like son um so galin strassen he is he has written this article about this sort of tongue-in-cheek about the hard problem of matter he says there is no heart problem of consciousness really you know what is the real problem here we have made up our minds that consciousness has to be reducible to the brain because we have sort of made up our minds matter is the only reality so everything has to be explained in terms of matter matter energy time space we have to explain in material terms therefore if you come across something like consciousness which we are always there consciousness we have to explain it in terms of matter so we have to explain it in terms of the brain we have to reduce it into brain states brain activities and we can't and therefore we call it the hard problem of consciousness what galen strassen says is consciousness is most obvious the first thing that's obvious to us is consciousness we are aware only after that we are aware of our bodies of the world only after that we do science and religion and art and politics all of this is in consciousness everything that we do even when we doubt consciousness and we want to reduce consciousness to matter it's still done in consciousness so he says consciousness is beyond doubt galen stars and he says consciousness is beyond doubt it's the first thing we start with there's nothing prior to that what is doubtful is matter it says as we have investigated matter over the last hundred years or so in physics in particle physics matter is vanishing before our eyes you know atoms into subatomic particles subatomic particles electrons neutrons protons into quarks and quarks into super strings where does it bottom out is there any end to it what does it mean even and they are so incredibly tiny and so it's beyond human imagination now only mathematics predicts it so matter itself is vanishing before our eyes he calls it the hard problem of matter yeah so that's the problem um there is uh really at this point there is no clear pathway the whole field of trying to reduce consciousness to the brain is the field has just stalled having said that obviously there are strong correlates between our conscious experience and neural activities that has been mapped in fact that's called the so-called easy problems of consciousness is it's not easy it requires an enormous amount of training and brain science and technology to map our reports of cognitive experiences and the neural active neuronal activities which which um correspond to that so it's a science of correlations what does it mean clearly it means the brain is strongly involved is is implicated in our conscious experience vedanta is actually very compatible with this state of affairs every experience is consciousness shining upon an object the objective side of it so there's an objective side to every experience when you say what it feels like and the technical term is qualia the hard problem of consciousness everything feels like something why it feels like something is because of consciousness but it feels like something that like something must be objective and that like something part of it is contributed by the world by the senses by the brain even the mind according to advaita vedante even the mind is material so one day you will be able to find the brain and the mind and the the how the brain and the mind interact but both are material what advaita vedanta calls consciousness is beyond the mind it shines on the mind illumines the mind what modern neuroscience calls consciousness is basically mixed up with the mind there's no clear distinction between mind and consciousness in modern neuroscience okay i think we should bring it to a close here we have run out of time thank you diane om shantesh foreign [Music]

Channel: Vedanta New York

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Keywords: vedantany, vedanta society of new york, sarvapriyananda, swami sarvapriyananda, sarvapriyananda lectures, swami vivekananda, vivekananda, vivekananda teachings, vedanta ny, vedanta, vedanta lectures, belur math, jnana yoga, hinduism, spirituality, enlightenment, higher consciousness, meditation, mindfulness, realization, consciousness, moksha, nirvana

Id: Yej6AY0KNN4

Length: 67min 49sec (4069 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 23 2021