Swami Sarvapriyananda, who is Minister in charge of the Vedanta Society of New York. And what do I say? I'm just going to hand over my mic to him and give him. All right, we can get started. First, we will calm down, settle down and center ourselves here. Very good to see some familiar faces, many new faces too. All right. So notice that we are here now, this hall, this hall here, in this chair, you're in this chair, notice that just here. And it is now, not the past, don't think about the past, don't think about the future, just now, not even the rest of the class, now, now, right now. And it's about you, I, I, ourselves. So here, like a mantra, repeat it to yourself mentally. Here, here, here, now, now, now, I, I, I. Let us chant OM together, beginning and end, you begin by yourself, you end by yourself, so that there's a rolling OM going on in the hall for a couple of minutes. Don't start with me, don't end with me, at your pace. OM. OM. OM. OM. OM. I'll start with a peace chant. OM ASAT OM AH SADGAMAYA TAM ASR OM AH JYOTIR GAMAYA MRITYOR MA AMRITAM GAMAYA OM SHANTE SHANTE SHANTE OM, lead us from the unreal to the real, lead us from darkness unto light, lead us from death to immortality. OM, peace, peace, peace. Namaste and welcome everybody to this retreat. We're very thankful to the Pittsburgh Vedanta Ashram for organizing this retreat, for having us all here. This is a retreat on Advaita Vedanta. What is Advaita Vedanta? It's the last word on spirituality. It is the fairest flower of Indian philosophy, the final word. You say, yeah, you're biased Swami. Yes, I am. You have to give me that much. I haven't found anything higher, more profound than the teachings of Advaita Vedanta in all my studies in Eastern, Western literature, philosophy, spirituality, religion, nowhere. Nothing comes close. And so this is a retreat on Advaita Vedanta, particular text. But the message of Advaita Vedanta is simple and direct. So whatever text we study, it's the same message. So it is just that you are that. I am Brahman. That message. And that realization of that message is the culmination, the summum bonum, the greatest thing that we can get in life. It takes us beyond suffering. It gives us limitless fulfillment. Whoever we are, wherever we are, whatever condition we are in, it will give you limitless fulfillment right here, right now and forever. So that's a promise, very big promise. But we shall see how. Now, this particular text which we will take up for the duration of the retreat today and tomorrow, the text is called Yoga Vasishta Sara, the essence of Yoga Vasishta. Yoga Vasishta is an Advaitic text, a vast, very big text. The original text is 32,000 verses, I think in six books, six procurrence, 32,000 verses in Sanskrit and very ancient text. We don't know when it is, what it is dated as it is. I mean, if you go by tradition, it is from the time of the Ramayana. It is a dialogue between the sage Rama and a sage Vasishta and the prince Rama. So it seems at one time the prince Rama, when he was a teenager, he was depressed, teenage angst. What's the point of it all being a king and all that? I want to give up everything and go away to the mountains and be a monk and realize that I've become enlightened. His father, the king Dasaratha was worried and so he asked their guru, the household, royal household guru Vasishta, please talk to this prince, you know, set him right. Because we are worried who's going to be the king next and so on. So Vasishta speaks to him and the dialogue is there between Rama and Vasishta. Vasishta asks him, this Brahman you are trying to realize, this ultimate reality, becoming enlightened. Is samsara something other than that? Is it somewhere else? Not here, there. Is it sometime else, sometime in the future? Is it something else other than you? Now you see the importance of the mantra. Here, here, here, now, now, now, I, I, I. So that is the dialogue. But it's a long, long dialogue full of amazing stories. Some of the stories will beat any Hollywood science fiction movie. If you have read some of the stories, it's amazing. Time travel, multiple universes, what not. I have lots of philosophy. I have not read the original text, only bits and pieces everywhere. But from beginning to end, I haven't. Though now good English translations are also available. If you want, you can read the whole text also. It's a, it's a fascinating read, fascinating read. I know one of the most brilliant persons I know, maybe most leading philosopher working in Indian philosophy today, Professor Arindam Chakraborty, who is in the University of Hawaii. He has a very poetic way of putting things. He says, whenever any philosophical question comes to me, philosophical or spiritual question, I do arati of that question in the light of five lamps. You know, an arati, the lamp which is used to, arati of the deity. It has five flames. So in the light of five flames, five lamps, I do arati of the question. What are the five lamps? Upanishads, one lamp. Bhagavad Gita, second lamp. Yoga Vashishta, this book, third lamp. Fourth lamp is the Tantrasara of Abhinavagupta, which is the sort of compendium of wisdom in Kashmiri Shaivism. And then finally, he says, Kathamrita, the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna. Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. He says, these are the five lamps in my arati lamp. So any question, I evaluate it in the light coming from these five texts. What a beautiful way to put it. So one of those lamps is the Yoga Vashishta. Another personal encounter with the text I had was unforgettable. I was in the high Himalayas about 20 years ago. And in this cottage in Gangotri, in the cottage next to mine, there was this monk. He was a brahmachari in a white dress. His name was Brahmachaitanya, elderly gentleman, Punjabi. He'd lived in the high mountains for 30 to 40 years till he passed away. Very interesting person. Picture, if you will, those who have seen the movie, The Lord of the Rings, the magician, Gandalf the magician. Exactly like that. Tall, flowing white dress, flowing white beard, long. His locks are actually even longer than Gandalf's locks. I don't know if he knew any magic, but he was a magician of a sort. And what did he do? All day long, all day long, for years and decades, he translated the Yoga Vashishta. It was a spiritual practice for him in order to keep his mind on those truths. So he had this little bench in front of, picture it, a little hut, wooden bench in front of it, where he would sit, surrounded by towering mountain peaks, which were, I was in summer, so there was no snow in the valley at that time, but glaciers flowing down those mountain peaks, and the Devadar forests and the Ganga, the Bhagirathi, running at our feet, maybe 100, 200 feet below, rushing, narrow, fast stream. He would sit there like a Rishi of the Vedic times, with flowing white beard and all, and translate this all day long, from morning till sunset. And around 10 o'clock, we would go together with him, I would go with him to the place where monks were given food, we would go for our alms. So he translated, and what did he do? Other monks told me. After a few years, he would finish the translation of all the verses, and then he would take all his notebooks, he wrote in little notebooks with a pen, he would take them all and throw them into the Ganga. And then he would come back, and he'd start all over again, and finish over a period of four or five years, whatever, I don't know, and then go and throw it all, because he was not going to publish it. Another little thing about him, this question comes up, apparent conflict between the path of knowledge, I am Brahman, and the path of devotion, I love, I surrender, I am devoted, path of faith, devotion. Look at this man, all day long, dwelling on the highest non-dual truths, that you are limitless existence, consciousness, bliss. And evening, evening used to come very fast in those high mountains, and the sun dips behind the mountain range, immediately it becomes dark in the valley, and cold immediately also. And there was no electricity there, you can't do anything, you have to go back into your hut. I would go into mine, he would go into his, but over the sound, the rush of the torrent of the Ganga, I could hear faintly his voice, Narayana, Narayana, Srimad Narayana, Narayana, Narayana, Narayana, Srimad Narayana, Narayana, going on and on and on, in a plenty faint voice. So this amalgamation of knowledge on the outside, and devotion inside, same reality actually, you catch it one by the intellect, one by the heart. Intellect and heart, one more little anecdote, one of the Swamis of our order, who is a friend of mine, one of the most brilliant people I have met in my life, he told me something interesting once, he knows my predilection for Advaita, so he said, I'll tell you what he said to me in Hindi and then translate. Do you think, you think that Advaita, non-duality is from here? No, it's from here, it's from the heart. Make of that what you will. All right, that's the Yoga Vashishta, big, big book, vast, 32,000 verses. Somewhere down the line, we don't know who, did us a great favor by extracting, I won't say the best of it, or the essence of it, but he felt it was the essence of it. And 223 verses, and made this book, the Yoga Vasishta Sara, who did it? We don't know. We don't know. One more personal anecdote, then I'm done. When I joined our order, became a monk, years ago, decades ago, about 20, 25 years ago, I became a monk in 1994, 30 years ago, but about 10 years into my monastic life, I met this remarkable monk of our order, Swami Shiva Pradhananda, who has since passed, two years ago he passed away at the age of 93, 94. I met him, the uniqueness about this monk was, he was already quite elderly, that he was entirely non-dualistic. In our order you will find monks who have a balance of, many are engaged in a lot of work for schools, colleges, hospitals, running ashrams and all that. Some are very deeply meditative, some, many are very devotional, and a few are there who, so we generally have a balance of all of these in our lives, and that's what we do, I do too. People think I'm a committed non-dualist, no, no, no. We haven't met committed non-dualists. That's why you think I am a committed non-dualist. I am a pretty average middle-of-the-road kind of guy. You shouldn't meet such people. So there are very few, very few, but he was one of them. And if anybody was interested in Advaitha, non-duality, he would be delighted, he would encourage, delighted means internally, outside I never saw a single expression on his face. He was always neutral. Man of very few words. So he would present this book to everybody. Yoga Vasishta Sara. Which book would he present? The Bengali version, which was a translation of the original Sanskrit by another such very committed non-dualist monk of our order, Swami Dheereshanandaji, whom I never met, before my time. So he translated the Sanskrit Yoga Vasishtha Sara into Bengali. It was published by our publication house in Calcutta, Udbodhan Press. The uniqueness of the Bengali edition is, original verse plus the Bengali translation, copious notes, observations. So like a compendium of knowledge in Advaita Vedanta. If you are interested in Vedanta, you need to know Vedanta a little bit before you get into it, but you'll be benefited. It's like reading a lot of very nice observations. So that book he would present to everybody. And he gave me my copy too. I still have it. It's a little falling apart, but I have it. I just saw he gave it to me in 2004. And there was no English translation available, until recently. When I came to the West, that Swami, Swami Shiva Pradhananda, we knew him as Kalipada Maharaj. He told us that, he told me, so you're going to America, teach them Advaitha. In Bengali he said, bhalo kare Advaitha bolve. Teach them Advaitha. I said, yes, Swami. And a few times afterwards, in the last five years, six or seven years, when we talked before he passed away, on the phone, he was a man of few words. He said, I hear that you are teaching Vedanta. You're doing good. Good. That's all. So I always felt like a personal, what's the American thing? A shout out to him. So that way I should teach this book sometime, but I couldn't. I was hamstrung by the fact that there was no English translation of that edition available until Revered Swami Sarvadevanji, few years back he did it. Before I could get down to teaching it, the first edition was sold out. Luckily, the second edition has come. Not in time for this retreat, we managed to get 20, 25 copies. So they are there. I think they're going to be sold off within seconds or they already have been sold. Doesn't matter. You've all got the soft copy. The first chapter, which we are going to take up now, you have got the original verse and the translation. And whatever is in this book, I'm going to talk about it anyway. That's the background. Let's get into it. Swami Dheeranjanandaji was given the translation, all the translation of the introduction. His introduction has also been translated in this English translation. He knew many of the great masters in the mountains. He lived on the foothills of the mountains in Haridwar. For almost the last part of his life. And he knew many great masters in the Himalayan mountains. He used to go and meet them, talk to them and write down stuff. So he said that a very revered old monk in the Himalayas, who was a master of non-duality, said to him that the Yoga Vashishtha is a book that is for Shavana Manana Nididhyasana. What does that mean? In Vedanta, the three, the practice is to study, listen to the teachings. Step one, Shavana, hearing, literally it means hearing. Second, to reflect upon what you have heard, so that you understand it. Third, to meditate upon your understanding, your clarity. The clarity which has been gained, you get the teachings in Shavana, you get clarity out of Manana, and with the clarity about the teachings, you stay with that in Vedantic meditation. That's called Shavana Manana Nididhyasana. Mainly the Upanishads and associated texts are for Shavana, for the teachings. There are a bunch of texts which are very dialectical, reasoning oriented. They are for Manana, for reasoning. And a very few texts like Ashtavakra, for example, which you can use for, which does not attempt to do any reasoning, just tells you the basic truth, the central truth of non-duality, that you are Brahman. It tells it to us again and again and again. Somebody called it a grand monotony. Why do they do that? In order for meditation. Just reading Ashtavakra attentively is Vedantic meditation. Anyway, different books, different purposes. This monk told Swami Dineshananda that this book, Yoga Vasishta, it serves all three. For those who are coming to Vedanta, it introduces them to Vedanta, it gives you the teaching. Yoga Vasishta gives you the teaching in a comprehensive way. And an entertaining way, stories and stuff like that. For those who have got the teachings, but it clarifies, at the second level, it clarifies our doubts. The philosophy is explained through arguments, through examples, through stories. So it is Manana also. You have to think about it. And for those who have got the teachings, I have understood Advaita Vedanta. Study of this book is equal to Vedantic meditation, non-dual meditation. It serves the purpose of Nididhyasana. And finally, he said something even more interesting. He said, these three. And for those who are enlightened, this book, Yoga Vasishta, points directly to the Self. You read the book and they are immediately established in Aham Brahmasmi. Because they know it already. They know the truth of that. It's like if I say to you, this is a bottle of water. It's not a teaching. It's not something that needs argumentation, nor does it need meditation. It's just a fact for you. Yes, it's a bottle of water. For the enlightened one, this book is like that. That you are Brahman. Yes. Immediately points back to your own reality. So four uses of the book, he said. To learn Vedanta. To understand Vedanta. To meditate on your understanding of non-dual Vedanta. And finally, of course, for the enlightened one, direct pointing to the truth. Okay. Now we shall only take a look at first chapter and a few verses of the first chapter. What does the first chapter contain? The highest truth. First verse, which we will do now. The highest truth. The whole teaching is there in the first verse. Magnificent. And then it tells you about the qualifications of the student. What do we need to do to prepare ourselves to benefit from this teaching? That is the second thing this book will tell us. The importance of the Guru. Importance of holy company. This one will go on and on. About associating with those who are advanced on this path of spiritual seeking. So that is another topic. We will go on with that. Importance of detachment, renunciation, vairagya. Very important. Especially in the path of non-duality. Doesn't mean that you have to become a monkey. If you can, you are welcome. But even if you cannot internally, I always say, is it necessary to be a monk if you want to be enlightened? The answer is yes and no. Especially on this path of non-duality. No, not that you have to externally become a monk. But yes, everyone who becomes enlightened has to become monk like internally. Entire turning away from worldliness. Externally you may be wherever you are. Remember, many of these teachings. Vashishta himself was a householder. Student Ramachandra himself was a householder. Neither of them were monks. So it's not externally, no. But internally, yes. Then he will go on to the teaching of the appearance nature of the world. You can give up the world, you can turn away because in any case it's not worth it. It's, that they will show you the way of discrimination and analysis and renunciation. So the appearance nature of the world. You talk about the unique method of Advaita Vedanta. That is inquiry. There is a method called devotion. In spiritual life there are different paradigms. One is devotion. God is there, I have faith in God, I pray to God, I worship God, I surrender to God. And I depend on him for my progress in spiritual life and this life and the next. That's a way of devotion. There is a way of meditation. Calm down the movements of the mind and be centered. And in the still mind the truth is revealed. That's the claim at least. Yogic meditation. But there is a separate, unique method. Path of inquiry. Of spiritual philosophical inquiry. It's not philosophical in the sense of an academic philosophical inquiry. But it's a spiritual philosophical inquiry into who am I or what am I. So that is the unique path. He will mention that. That's important. It's called vichara in Sanskrit. Vichara, inquiry. What inquiry? There are generalist inquiries, scientific inquiries, so many inquiries are there. Legal inquiry, court inquiry, why not, what not. Inquiry commission. This is self inquiry. Inquiry into who am I or what am I. And then finally, a restatement of the highest truth. This is the syllabus, what we will do. I will speak for a little while on the first verse. Till the end of this session. Second session we will start with a little bit of Q&A on the first verse. Then we will go on to the qualifications of the students and so on. That's what's ahead of us. All right. First verse is really amazing. It starts with salutation to Ganesha. Om Shri Ganeshaya Namah Now I will chant the first verse. Please chant after me. You all have the soft copy at least. And those who cannot read Devanagari, you have the English. It's good. English transliteration is there in the Roman script. So you can always follow. So please listen and repeat after me. Sanskrit Chant. Dik kala adi anavacchinna ananta cinmatra murtaye sav anuhuti ekamanaya santaya tejase namah So beautiful. Sublime. I salute that Supreme Brahman who is beyond all qualities. Tranquil. Beyond the limitations of the ten directions, space, time or objects. Who alone is the embodiment of infinite consciousness. And who is to be known only through the proof of one's own experience. Beautiful. And so much is packed into this. So much. The entirety of Advaita Vedanta. What the highest truth is. How do you realize it? What's the point of it all? And everything is packed into this. And this is the invocatory verse. It's worth spending time on this. All right. What do I? Namaha. I salute. I salute Brahman. What kind of Brahman? Beyond the limitation of space, time and object. It says direction, time, etc. What that means we'll see. Infinite. anantaya namah I salute the infinite. Limitless. What that means we will see. cinmatra- murthaye, Consciousness only. What is the nature? He's calling it infinite beyond space, time or whatever it is. But what is it? This is table. It's made of maybe wood. This is a bottle. This is made of plastic. What is it? This Brahman what we are saluting. Consciousness. All right. That doesn't seem very extraordinary. I am conscious. No. Consciousness only, nothing else. cinmatra- Consciousness only, nothing else cinmatra. Consciousness only. that is its nature. It is infinite. It is infinite. It is infinite. It is infinite. It is infinite. It is infinite. No consciousness it is. No consciousness only. Nothing else while doing the matter. Consciousness only. It is it's nature. Chin Matra murtayM Namaha. I salute that consciousness only. Svanabhuti ekamanaya. A beautiful way of putting it. I salute that reality who is only proof. How do I know if any of this is real? His only proof is your experience. Which experience? We will see. Every experience! Whatever experience it is, spiritual, worldly, whatever experience, every experience is rightly understood. He will help us to understand it. Every experience points to that I am Bhraman. And also Shantaye, ever serene. What a description. Shantaye, Shantaya Tejasaye. My salutations to that serene radiance. Serene radiance, what language? Shantaye, ever serene, the most serene. Shantaye namaha, salutations to the most serene. Tejasaye, Namaha, salutations to that limitless radiance, which is the most serene. Who is that? It's you. All right, let's see. So it starts off with Dikkala dianavacchinna. Anantaye, limitless. This is a direct reference to the Upanishadic statement. What is Brahman in Taittiriya Upanishad? Satyam jnanam anantam brahma. Brahman is limitless existence consciousness. Taittiri Upanishad, the second, Brahmananda Vali, that section begins with this. A definition, an indication, a pointer towards what Brahman is. Brahman is what? Satyam jnanam anantam, limitless. Brahman is limitless. What is limitless? Well, what are limits then? In order to understand the infinite, infinite is equal to limitless. Limitless is equal to no limit. But then what are limits? In Vedanta, one limit is space limit. Limitation in space. What is limitation in space? It means located in space. Something is here and not there. You are here. I am here in this chair. That means I am not in that chair. I am located here. This body is located, limited in space. It's located here in Pittsburgh, in Monroeville. That means it's not in New York or in India. It's here, not there. Every physical entity is located in space as a limitation. Nothing more than this. Up to this, where am I? I am up to the tip of my finger. That much, even one millimeter beyond that is not me. I am limited in space. But suppose something is not limited in space, what will happen to it? What is limitation in space? Here, not there. But not limited in space, what will happen to it? Everywhere. There is no place where you can say it is not there. Something everywhere. In Sanskrit, sarvabhya. Limitation in space is called in Sanskrit, desa pariccheda. Pariccheda means cutting. Cut off in space. And not limited in space is called desa pariccheda śūnya. Devoid of space limitation. Implies mathematical. Implies sarvabhya. All pervading. There is nowhere in space that it is not. If something is unlimited in space, it has to be everywhere. And the second kind of limitation is called time limitation. What is a time limitation? Time limitation is something has a beginning and an end. This class was beginning at 1.30 and it has an end at 2.30. Before 1.30, no class. After 2.30, no class. Hopefully. Are you going to let us go at 2.30? Yes. So, beginning and end. Person is born and the person dies. Before birth, did not exist. After birth, after death, does not exist. So, limited in time. Things are created and destroyed. Tiny particles pop out and they disappear in extraordinarily small fractions of a second. And stars and galaxies appear, they're created and they're destroyed over billions of years. But creation and destruction, birth and death, beginning and end, this is time limitation. In Sanskrit, kaala paricheda, cut off in time. If something has no time limitation, what will happen? Something has time limitation, that means it has, there was a time when it was not. And there will be a time when it will not be. But if something has no time limitation, that means there was never a time when it was not. There will never be a time when it will not exist. In other words, eternal. Eternal. Sanskrit, nithyam. Time limitation, kaala paricheda, cut off in time. No time limitation, kaala paricheda, shunyam, devoid of time limitation. Implication, eternal. In Sanskrit, nithyam. What other kind of limitation is there? There is something interesting. Time and space limitations are understandable. There is another one which is, it takes a little bit of a trick to understand it. It's called object limitation. Object limitation. What's an object limitation? A thing is itself and different from everything else. This bottle, it's a bottle of water. It's different from the mobile phone. It's not a mobile phone. It's a bottle of water. Not only that, it's different from another bottle of water. So a thing is identical to itself and different from everything else. This is in logic, a law of identity. A is A and A is different from all not A. This is called object limitation. Why is it a limitation? Because it's a kind of limitation. In that case, an object is only one thing, itself and nothing else. It's a kind of limitation if you look at it that way. It's a fancy way of talking about difference. Object limitation is a fancy way of talking about difference. Everything is different from everything else. Now suppose there was no object limitation. What would happen? What is object limitation? This is a bottle of water. And it's different from everything else. It's different from the mobile phone, different from the tablecloth, different from even another bottle of water. It is different from every entity in the universe. Every entity in the universe is different from it. What is the name of this difference? Object limitation. Everything is limited to being a bottle of water and only this bottle of water. But if there is no object limitation, something has no object limitation, what will happen? There will be nothing, yeah, there will be nothing different from it. If there is some strange entity which has no object limitation, then nothing in the universe will be different from it. There will be no second thing apart from it. No second non-dual, non-dual advaitham. Let me repeat that. In Sanskrit, object limitation is called vastu paricheda, limitation in object. No object limitation means vastu paricheda shunyam, devoid of object limitation. Implies non-duality, advaitham. I can see some of your faces. Could you repeat that again? Yes, sounds like magic. So object limitation means it's only itself and everything in the universe is different from it. And that's how the world is. Look around. There are entities, supposedly, and these entities are all different from each other. Everything in the universe is different from this object. And if there is no object limitation, then nothing will be different from that entity which has no object limitation. If nothing is different from it, there is no second thing, vrityam, second thing apart from it. No second non-dual. Non-dual. In Sanskrit, advaitam. Put them together. Limitation means anta, limit. Not limited. Unlimited means anantha. In Sanskrit, limitless. Three kinds of limitations are possible. Space, time, object. Desha, kaala, vastu paricheda. If you deny them, what will happen? Thing will become no space limitation. All pervasive. Sarvaadhyapi. No time limitation. Nityam, eternal. No object limitation. Advaitam, non-dual. So, we are talking about Brahman. He says anantha, limitless. What is limitless? That was the expansion in the first phrase. Dikkala dianavacchinna. Direction, space. What is this direction? See, direction is basically space related to an object. In this, there is something below this, something in front of this, something here, something above this, something below this. So, ten directions. So, there is this direction, and you know, north and south and east and west and then northeast and southeast and southwest and northwest. And then up and down. All of this is relative to you. Really in space, there are not, these are ten directions are not there. So, anyway, basic idea is space limitation, time limitation, and object limitation. So, look at this phrase. Dikkala dianavacchinna, anantham So, this dikala, dhyavacchinana, not limited by direction, space, time, object, is equal to, it's a phrase, is equal to anantha, limitless. It's an expansion of the word limitless. Alright, this is fine, I get the idea, but is there anything like that? It just sounds like fiction or philosophical speculation. Is there anything which is all pervasive, everywhere? Is there everything that is eternal? Is there anything that is non-dual? There's nothing in the universe that is different from it. It's just there is. Chinmatra, consciousness only. Chinmatra, consciousness only. How so? That we will see. But consciousness only, what is this consciousness only? It's you. Let me ask you, where do you see a bottle? There, Swami, it's there in your hand. Where do you see the Swami? Right in front of me, Swami. Can you see your own body? Yes. Can we see people around? Yes. After a fashion, we can even see the space in front of us. Where do you experience consciousness? Each of us, right now. Yourself. Yourself. Yourself, within yourself, not even in the body. Somewhere in our own experience, at the very core of our existence, let's say. In our minds. We are aware, we are conscious. Nowhere else. Nowhere else do you experience consciousness. Swami, all these people surrounding me, they are zombies. They are not zombies. Swami, all these people surrounding me, they are zombies. They are not conscious. But do you experience their consciousness? Don't you just see their bodies, hear their language and see their behavior? Do you experience their consciousness? No. The way we experience consciousness, ourselves, directly, first person, do we experience consciousness like that in anybody else? Not at all. We sort of assume they are conscious. In philosophy, this is known as the problem of other minds. Those who have studied philosophy, the big problem in the philosophy of mind. Other mind. How do we know other people have minds? We see their behavior, we see their bodies, we hear their language. But the mind, thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas which I am having, how do I know others have it? Because I can't experience it directly. Vedanta will say, maybe you can even experience their thoughts directly. If you are a telepath, you can experience their thoughts directly. But you can never, nobody can experience consciousness directly. In other people. Because that would be objectifying consciousness. Consciousness is never the object. It's ever the subject. Which subject? There is only one subject. You. So when he says, Chinmatra murta consciousness only, you. I remember this Swami, an old monk who is still there, in our city, in Benaras. He is in our ashram. Advanced stage. He told me, when he became a monk, before he became a monk, he was this young student. He used to visit a very great monk of odd order, Swami Premeshananda. He was a disciple of Maa Saratha. So this monk, he told me that as a student, I used to visit Swami Premeshananda. He would, Swami Premeshananda was ill. He would often be lying on a bed. But he would talk to us and inspire us. I would go and sit at the foot of his bed. One day when I went to him, Swami Premeshananda with one little trembling finger, he touched me in my forehead, suddenly like this. Little cold touch, so I jerked back. And he said, There, there! That which was startled, which jerked back, which was startled, that one. Other than that, there is no rascal called God. In Bengali he said, Oye, yeh je, chumke utlo. O chala kono chala bhava vande. But he doesn't mean the person. He doesn't even mean the body, he doesn't mean the mind. He means the consciousness behind the mind, illumining the body-mind. Chinmatra. Chinmatra, murta, murta, murti means form. Consciousness itself has no form. The formless form of consciousness. What is that? Limitless. What do you mean limitless? Precisely, please be precise. It's not limited by time, hence eternal. It's not limited in space, hence all-pervasive. It's not limited by object, hence non-dual. There's nothing apart from consciousness. These are big claims. We will see. What is the proof of it? Svanubhuti ekamanaaya. Svanubhuti ekamanaaya. So, in traditional Advaita Vedanta, if you ask, what is the proof? See, in philosophy, it's not enough to say God is real, Brahman is real, you are Brahman, the world is an appearance. All these things, it's not enough to say that. You have to also explain how do you know that? So that I can also know it. So philosophy has these two parts. One is ontology or metaphysics, which talks about reality. World, space, time, matter, self, God, all of that. And there's another branch called epistemology. How do you know? It deals with knowledge. In Indian philosophy, this is called pramana shastra. In Indian languages, pramana means proof. In philosophy, Indian philosophy, pramana means source of knowledge. Answer to the question, how do you know? Here's a bottle of water. You would all agree, yes, there's a bottle of water. If I ask you, how do you know? You would immediately say, I see it. In philosophical terms, you are saying, I am deploying the pramana, the source of knowledge called visual perception. And with the data gathered from the visual perception, I can confidently make the claim there's a bottle of water. Pramana siddha established by pramana, by the source of knowledge. This pramana shastra, very important. Without epistemology, no philosophy. It's just a bunch of claims. So, pramana, what is the proof for this? If you ask a traditional Advaitin, the first answer would be, oh, the proof of Advaita is the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Vedas, the Upanishads. The texts make these claims and we take the texts as revealed truth and so that is the pramana. But no words can designate that ultimate reality. No words can designate that ultimate reality. Why not? Even Upanishads cannot. Why not? So, because of this. In the Mandukya Upanishad, for example, Brahman, this ultimate reality is called Avyapadeshyam, cannot be named. Beyond linguistic designation. Brahman is often called in Vedanta, avangmanasagocara, beyond language, beyond thought. But why? But why? So, I'll quickly run through the reasons why. Shankaracharya has given a very fine analysis of this in his commentary to the term Avyapadeshyam, unnameable or cannot be designated by language. Shankaracharya's explanation in his commentary to the Mandukya Upanishad, seventh mantra. There he says, to understand why Brahman cannot be named. Remember, he's talking about you. In Harry Potter books, the villain is the one who must not be named. That is the villain. In Vedanta, you are the one who cannot be named. Not the villain, you are the hero. So, why can we not use language to talk about Brahman? And then how are we using so many verses? You said 32,000 verses are there. So, how language, what are you doing talking so much about that which cannot be talked about? So, Shankaracharya says, first we must understand how language functions. How can language, how does language work? How are you calling this a bottle? So, he says, there are five factors. Actually, Shankaracharya said this, plus supplemented by some information, some more analysis by his disciple, Sureshwaracharya in a varthika. So, this is where the source is, where I'm coming from. Five factors, any one of which if they are present, you can use language. What are the five factors? I will tell you the original and then translate. Jati, guna, karma, sambandha, rodi. Class, quality, action, relation, convention. So, first of all, class. If something belongs to a set, you can use the set designator. So, there is a set of objects called bottles. This satisfies all the things what we understand by a bottle. So, we can say this belongs to the set of bottles. I can use the word bottle for this. Shankaracharya uses the example cow. And both to a jati. You can't use it for Brahman. Why? Because there is no class of Brahman, no set of Brahman. It is one without a second. Ekameva advityam, one without a second. There is no group by which you can use. It doesn't belong to a set. And the second way of looking at things is, using language is quality. Swami wears orange robes. Ocher robes. Orange robes. What kind of, how did you designate what kind of clothes I wear using the color of my clothes. Color is a quality. Clothes belong to a set of objects. Like bottle is a set of objects. But if you say small bottle, get me a small bottle of water. Small is a quality. Which distinguishes this bottle from a larger bottle. Which distinguishes my clothes, the ocher robes, from say blue dress or red dress or black dress, so ocher. So quality is a way of using language. But immediately you know. We say again and again, Brahman, Atman is without any attributes. All attributes are objective. They are illuminated by consciousness. Consciousness itself has no attribute. Why not? Suppose it did. If it did, would it be experienceable as an object or not? If it is experienceable as an object, then it belongs to an object, not to the subject. If it cannot be designated or experienced as an object, why do you at all speak about it? So consciousness cannot be said to have any attribute. But it reveals all attributes. Therefore, quality cannot be used to point out consciousness of Brahman. Action. Action. Will the person with the car, you know, the driver, it is blocking the road, can you please move the car and bring it to the parking lot? How did we point out among all these people presented, how did we select the driver? Driver, how did we select that person? Driver of such and such car. Action. Compliment the cook. This dish is delicious. How did you find out the person? Cook. The person who cooked. Action. Can we designate Brahman with some action? No, you cannot. Can't we? Brahman is defined as the creator, preserver, destroyer of the universe. Here is the universe. There is some source of the universe and therefore that source is Brahman, right? Can we do that? No, you cannot. Because in Advaita Vedanta, the universe is an appearance. There is no real thing. It's not a real entity by which one can designate Brahman. It's not making sense. It doesn't matter. Hold on. Just take it as it is. So, there is no action by which one can designate the absolute. You cannot characterize the absolute that it does these things. Relationship, we can say. Participant in the retreat. Father or son or daughter. Based on relationship. Immediately you see it will not work. But relationship requires at least two. Between two things. In Sanskrit,dhui nistha sambandha Sambandha, relationship. It requires at least two terms to have a relationship. And we just said one without a second, non-dual. With what will Brahman have a relationship? No relationship. Therefore, you cannot use relationship. Finally, another option to use language is called conventional designation in Sanskrit, rudhi. Just call this boy Ram or that girl Mary. For what class, action, quality, relation? Nothing. It's just a name. You're just naming. So, can't you do that for Brahman, Atman? Just call it Atman, absolute. Brahman, pure consciousness. Something like that. That will also not work. Why not? Because for naming to work, you must point out the one being named. If I just say, that's Mary. The question in your mind will be, who? If I'm not pointing out anybody. So, if I point out somebody, such and such person is Mary. Then you say, oh, that's Mary. But I have to point it out. So, without designation, it's called ostensive definition. Without that pointing out, naming will not work. So, none of the five ways in which we deploy language will work on Brahman. Why can't you point out Brahman? Because it's not an object. Then, what is... So, language does not work. Then all these texts, thousands and thousands of verses and all the Upanishads, what are they doing? Ashtavakra and all of that. All that language is just what is called pointer. It's you. It's pointing to something that is you. You have to catch it. That's all Advaita Vedanta does. All these teachings, they are pointers towards the real you. It will also tell you the helpful things which will help you to catch it. That's all. It's already here. Now, it is I. In what sense it is I? That I. But the Vedanta will refine it, refine it, refine it, until you get it. Without getting it, you have to do. Language cannot express it fully. So, when this is said, Ramachandra asks Vasishta. In the dialogue, remember, this is a dialogue going on between Rama and Vasishta. Ramachandra asks Vasishta, Oh, it cannot be expressed by language. Why did you give me so many instructions? You could have kept quiet. Vasishta says, actually he says, the real description, the real teaching of Brahman is silence. Upashantaya ayam atma. brihadaranyaka Upanishad says. It is complete silence, absolute silence is the real teaching of the Upanishad. It is the real teaching of Brahman. Rama is a teenager. See, that means you are bugging me till now. The way teenagers react to, in India they will, there is a phrase they have, gyan deray. You are giving us lot of advice and wise stuff and we don't need it. Who asked you? So, Rama does that to Vasishta. Why did you tell me all these things? And Vasishta also, no less in humor, he said, see silence is the real teaching. But in the beginning if I kept silent, people would have thought I don't know anything. Laughter So, I had to give you all these teachings and philosophy and everything and then, now I can keep silent. Silence is the, points to the reality. How does silence point to the reality? Here is the thing. The you, the reality, the witness consciousness, what we are is the witness of silence. Like this. Shut out the world. I do not see, I do not hear, I do not smell, taste, touch. Body, I make it as still as possible. Breathing, I make it deep and rhythmic. Neutral feelings, either pleasant or unpleasant. I am not remembering anything. I am not thinking about anything. No perceptions. Absolute stillness. Even the sense of ego, I let go. Complete deep stillness. Visualize the stillness of deep sleep. Visualize the stillness of anesthesia, of deep anesthesia. Just blank. Not even the sense of passage of time. That deepest stillness, you can go even deeper. It is called Samadhi. To Samadhi. That deepest silence, the deepest stillness. To which is it appearing? To what is it appearing? The witness of silence. Svanubhuti, we'll do that again, don't worry. Svanubhuty ekamanaya namah, the only proof. The real proof. ekamanaya, the only proof. What is the pramana? The real pramana is not even the Upanishad. It is you, the consciousness. Which remains over and everything is cancelled. See, it's like this. You are aware. Open your eyes and look at me. You can see me, right? Are you aware? Are you aware? I need more confidence. Are you aware, conscious, awake? Now suppose you close your eyes. Can you see me? No. But are you still aware? Yes. Extend it further in your... Make a thought experiment like philosophers do. I cannot see, hear, smell, taste, touch. Am I still aware? Yes. I do not think, I do not remember, I do not feel, I do not imagine, I do not suffer, I do not enjoy. Am I still aware? In the utter blankness, am I still aware? It's a question. So this awareness is what is being pointed out. Svanubhuty ekamanaya. This awareness is not difficult to understand. But what must be further understood about this awareness is this awareness is anantha, limitless. Space is in this awareness. Limitless means it has to be all-pervasive. So is this awareness all-pervasive? No, Swami. It is only, I feel I am aware, nobody doubts it. But I am sort of aware within the bounds of this skin. Inside this skin I am aware and a little bit of a bubble of my awareness is there, extended through my seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. This is what we feel. But this entire experience is appearing in awareness. And all that we do not know, what we cannot see, hear, smell, taste, touch, that we cannot hear of, that we cannot think about, that we do not remember, all of that, the vast unknown to us is also unknown in our awareness. This little story I have shared often but it's very helpful. It's an eye-opener for people who think. So we have the senior-most member in our congregation in the Vedanta Society in New York, the people who are there, the senior-most who is still there is Bill Conrad, he is 99 this year. He was a pilot in the Pacific Theater in the Second World War. I am not a pilot, he was a navigator and a bomber. So he has been a member of the Vedanta Society since 1955. And he is a physicist by training and he resists this idea that everything can be in consciousness. He says, no, no, no, the room is not in consciousness, Swami. The room is there, this hall is there and you and I as conscious beings, we come in and we experience this room. I can prove it to you. It exists without consciousness, outside consciousness. How? We'll put a camera here and then we will go out of the room. Then we will come back and in the pictures in the camera we will see an empty room which existed without you or me, without any conscious being. It's not in our minds, it exists and can be recorded by cameras, it can be seen by non-living things also. It exists separately. And I said to him, Bill, in your consciousness, in your awareness you proposed this experiment. In your awareness you set up a camera. In your awareness you invited me to go out of the room with you. In your awareness you invited me back into the room with you. In your awareness you opened the camera. In your awareness we saw the picture of an empty room. Where did we step outside awareness? See, this is the answer to the question. I know only this much is in my awareness. There is a vast world existing independently of my awareness. All of this also you are saying in awareness. All of it, the known and the unknown, knowing and awareness is not the same thing. See, right now I don't know what's behind me. You can see. I don't know. But it's in my awareness as the unknown. Now I deploy my Ramana, sources of visual knowledge. And I look at it and it says Ramakrishna, Vedanta Ashram, Pittsburgh. I know it. But now you are unknown to me. Turn around, you become known. But in both cases, known and unknown are within consciousness, within awareness. Namaha I salute. There is a quote from Padmapada who was a disciple of, you won't have it unless you have the book. You don't have it. But do get the book. It will be available within a month's time. Vedanta Press Hollywood, it's coming. It's in a ship. It's racing towards across the Pacific Ocean. So Padmapada was a disciple of Shankaracharya. He defines namaha. Namaha means salutation in Sanskrit. Namaha means salutation. He says Pranamo deha geha deha geha de avimanasyanashanam The destruction of identification with house, body, possessions. That identification, the destruction of that is called pranama, salutation. Philosopher whom I mentioned earlier, he defines it this way. Namaha, salutation. Namaha means in Sanskrit, namama, not mine. So namaha, Sanskrit, salutation. Namama means mine. Namama, not mine. So when I say bow down to the lord or bow down to the divinity, I am saying everything that I thought was mine. These people, this house, these possessions, this body, my thoughts, my education, all of it is thine, my lord, not mine. So I'll be there. Step back from it. That is the deeper meaning of namaha. I do salutations. santaya tejase Shanta means peace, not peaceful. Mind can sometimes be peaceful. Mind can sometimes be restless. Body can be peaceful. Body can be restless. World can be peaceful. World can be restless. But shanta, peace itself, serenity itself, consciousness is shanta. Because there is no world, no universe, no samsara in consciousness. There is no body, no mind, nobody in both ways, nobody, no person. No mind, no world, no universe. It's an appearance. Yes, it's there, an appearance. Just as on a movie screen, there may be cops and robbers and a car chase, robbers being chased by the cops. But in the screen, is there a car? Is there a road? Are there cops and robbers? Nothing. There are appearances on the screen. Similarly, on you, the screen of consciousness, the universe appears. Shankaracharya sings, Viswan darpana drusyamana Nagari tulyam nijantargatam. The entire universe is like a city seen in a mirror. In a mirror, when you're driving, approaching Pittsburgh, you can see the blazing lights of the city as you take a turn, you can see it. Buildings and lights and roads, sky, the skyline, you can see it in your driving mirror. So Shankaracharya, even in those days, they definitely had mirrors. So the mirror, the city seen in a mirror. What do you see in a mirror? You see buildings, palaces, roads, chariots in those days. No SUVs. So, sky. And yet in a mirror, what is there? What is there in a mirror? Glass. Nothing else. You say, yeah, that's right, but there is a city outside and a mirror here and the city is being reflected here. That's a doubt in our minds. That's why next Shankaracharya says, nijantargatam. Within yourself, within awareness itself. There's nothing outside. In awareness, the whole thing is projected. Those days, they did not have video monitors, otherwise you would have seen, you would have said, a city seen in a video monitor on a TV. So, within yourself. Hence, even when all of samsara is there, it is one all-pervasive, non-dual consciousness. You are that. In the midst of all trouble. I saw, we're going out in the church here. I think somewhere on the staircase it's written, peace. Not an absence of trouble, but within trouble. In the midst of all samsara, it is one non-dual consciousness and you are that. With that, I salute. Shantaya. What is it? Tejase. Teja, limitless radiance. Where is the limitless radiance? Here. Once you, once we realize what it is, we will see. Everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, think, imagine, feel, remember is the radiance of this one awareness which we all are. With that, I Salute. Dik kala adianavacchinnaya Unlimited by space, time, object, directions. I salute. Namaha. anantaya namaha That unlimited, infinite. I salute. Namaha. Cinmatra murtaye Consciousness only. That is the reality. Namaha. I salute. Svaanubhuti ekamanaya The only proof is that you, the self-shining consciousness. That experience is the proof that you are this limitless consciousness. Another way of saying you are the proof is like this. What is the proof? If I ask you, what is the proof that this hall is there? How do you prove it? It says by seeing it. I see it. Therefore, it is there. I see it. Therefore, it is there. The proof that this book is there in my hand. What is the proof? I see it. Therefore, the book is there. The proof of the existence of the book is you see it. If I ask you, what is the proof that your eyes are there? You can't say I see it. Proof of existence is to see something. Suppose I say. You can't see your eyes. You can see a reflection of your eyes or a selfie of your eyes. But you can't see your eyes. Then how do you know what is the proof that you have eyes? The proof of X is that you can see X. The proof of the eyes is that you can see anything. X, Y, Z. Whatever you see is proving that X, Y, Z are there. First and foremost, it is proving that you have eyes and the eyes are working. Seeing what is the proof of existence of eyes? Seeing what is the proof of the existence of the book? Seeing the book. Seeing what is the proof of the existence of the phone? Seeing the phone. Seeing what is the proof of the existence of the eyes? Seeing anything. Book, mobile, whatever. Seeing what? What is the proof that you are consciousness? Experiencing anything. That's why Kena Upanishad says, Vati bodha viditam amritatvam hi vindate. In every experience, Brahman is realized. Only for the enlightened person. We don't understand it. To understand that, to educate us into enlightenment, our divine nature. It is the purpose of this teachings of Yoga Vasishta and all of the Vedantic teachings. Om shante shante shante Hari Om Tat Sat Sri Ramakrishna Napanamastu
