Meditate Better | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] lead us from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness unto light lead us from death to immortality om peace peace whenever we have spiritual gatherings like this especially in india after a spiritual retreat is always a question answer session and in the question answer session there will always be one question which will be most common and that is i can't meditate my mind doesn't settle down my mind is distracted so that question will always be there in every you know q a session on spiritual spiritual matters and that is the subject for today's talk meditate better it actually comes out of something that arjuna asks krishna in the bhagavad-gita in the sixth chapter of the bhagavad-gita arjuna asks this very question to krishna the sixth chapter of the bhagavad-gita is about meditation dhyana yoga the yoga of meditation and after krishna teaches this in pretty good detail actually arjuna pops this question he says that whatever you have taught or krishna i don't think it's practical is he he's a practical man he's a warrior and he's about to be engaged in some very nasty business of war and philosophy no matter how subtle spiritual sentiments no matter how noble techniques no matter how sophisticated unless they work unless they give results he's very american that way very pragmatic he is not all that interested he says that o krishna this yoga that you have taught me i don't see it working because you know the mind is fickle the mind is it is subject to continuous change ups and downs so he asks this question how do you settle the mind down otherwise whatever your teaching is is not practical by the way what did he teach the word yoga just a little side note here in america and most of the western world and now in india also yoga there's no such word in english in in sanskrit or in an indian language there's no yoga it is the original sanskrit word is yoga and you don't have to go that far people will look at you weirdly if you say yoga but the correct pronunciation would be yoga uh not a yoga in hindi you'd say yog bengali yoga but never yoga so what is this yoga which the spiritual path yoga is a spiritual path what exactly did krishna teach arjuna before we dive into the subject it's good to get some perspective of what krishna was teaching and this is of course i'm speaking entirely from the perspective of advaita vedanta non-dual vedanta krishna was not teaching the yoga of devotion to arjuna you see these schools meditation devotion of action the schools of the ancient schools of nyaya these are not vedanta these are not advaita in fact these are what are called purva paksha for advaita a lot of effort is spent by the advaita masters in cutting down the conclusions of these schools the niya school it teaches devotion and surrender to god that is not advaita somebody trained in indian philosophy might object at this point and say where do you get that from the ancient school of nia we know the metaphysics and logic of nia well it is a devotional school because if you see the later dualistic vedanta schools and others which are devotional if you open up the box and see how the workings inside the machinery inside the metaphysics and logic they're all entirely borrowed from the ayah see the dualistic schools theistic schools are basically the metaphysics and logic of niya vaishaishika with an overlay of theism of devotion so the naya of ashishika school which says god exists and ultimately by surrender to god by devotion to god you will attain freedom not advaitha we do not agree the ancient school of of yoga by which i mean patanjali yoga it says that by the restraint of the modifications of the mind hold the mind back tie down the mind so that by the calmness of the mind absolute cessation of the movements of the mind the separation of the self from material nature you will see that in assam pragyat samadhi the deepest possible samadhi see what's wrong with that not by these arguments are set aside the ancient school of yoga taught by patanjali don't be disturbed by all this i'm saying i'm going to take it all back very soon but right now let's see even sankhya the ancient school of sankhya which seems closest to advaita vedanta what does it say this vast world which you see the material world a mass of change it's an object and you are the witness thereof you are pure consciousness without limit and you are unchanging and this entire world is a material world and object and apart from you consciousness and matter are different purusha and prakriti are different this distinction this discernment is the key to your liberation self not self um i often talk about drikdrisha viveka the the discernment the separation of the seer from the scene you see yeah that seems like advaita vedanta no it isn't advaita vedante in fact they spend more time in cutting down the school of sankhya rather than any other school because in some sense it is the closest to advaitha it's not sankhya it is not purvam advaita vedanta is entirely based on the vedas on the upanishadic portion of the vedas and yet the the previous portion of the vedas the ritualistic portion where you perform good actions in this world and devout actions and you know and by the merit gained by these actions we hope to gain a good life in this in this world and in the next world and in the next birth purvami the way of sacred action not advaita none of these are advaita these are what constitute the puru paksha the opponent the those schools which are different from advaitha in their ultimate conclusions and advaita vedanta sets them aside firmly then what is it what is the yoga taught by krishna to arjuna what does it say then what is advaita just before the question asked by arjuna krishna had taught the climax of this path he's teaching arjuna he says you see the yours the self in all beings and everything in the world you see yourself and all things in this world entire universe you see in yourself you in everything else and everything else in you and the one who is centered in yoga the one who is established in yoga sees the same radiant divinity everywhere sarvatra samadar not as a sentiment that everything is god no sees eekshates sees sees with the eye of wisdom not with these eyes these eyes reveal difference you're all different from me different from each other you are all sentient beings and is sitting on the chair which is different um from you and sentient incentive and there are millions of entities around the world the differences are revealed by these eyes the eye of wisdom the eye of non-dual wisdom reveals one radiant divinity as a matter of i can say roughly experience this is deeper than experience and sri ramakrishna said to the young naren vivekananda you know who came to him do you see god and he says yes as i see you only more clearly what is that only more clearly does sriram krishna need glasses no by the eye of wisdom you see something deeper which makes all experience possible you see consciousness it is more evident than anything revealed by consciousness if that makes sense you are that awareness which makes possible the entire possible the experience of what you call life and that awareness that being that presence by which everything is possible that is more more evident more direct let us say than everything else that's what i mean so you see that same radiance same divinity everywhere this oneness of existence vivekananda called it the divinity within and the oneness of all existence this is the teaching this is the yoga this is advaita vedanta which krishna is teaching arjuna this is the core message not the restraint of the mind not that there is a separate divinity which has to be worshiped and appeased and loved and surrendered to not that you have to engage in ceaseless actions to generate good karma and go from life to life and birth to birth and death to death no not even the separation of the witness consciousness from the external world not even that not nyaya vaishya shikha not sankhya not yoga not purvam but advaita vedanti this is the yoga which krishna teaches arjuna now let me take it all back whatever i've said just now yeah because all this can be shocking and disturbing this is swami this is all that we are trying to do in our lives and you're saying this is not the teaching of vedanta that's what we have been trying to do for so many years all of it is there we see if it's not the teaching of krishna to arjuna but clearly in the bhagavad-gita krishna teaches devotion krishna teaches meditation krishna teaches the discernment of the self and the not self atman all of that is taught krishna teaches a moral and ethical life above all all of those are helpful are indeed essential as the foundation for the advaithic insight of the one divinity everywhere these are the components in a grand structure built up by krishna pointing to the divinity that one exit one radiant divinity everywhere the oneness of all existence without these that insight is not possible these are preparatory these are preliminary these are foundational one must have an ethical life without that enlightenment spirituality is not possible without morality one must have meditation without the calmness of mind this will not work one must of course discern the witness consciousness from everything else unless you disentangle we disentangle consciousness in our own understanding from all that it is mixed up with unless we do that nothing else will work that one divinity everywhere will remain up like a slogan will remain rhetoric will remain a nice sentiment so all of it karma bhakti yoga by yoga i mean meditation raja yoga all the yogas are all part of the path shown by krishna they are all components of the structure the technology being built up by krishna but the teaching is to see the same divinity everywhere in all beings living and non-living that which is within is also outside that which you discover with eyes closed in the deepest meditation is also what you see exactly what you see with eyes open and engaged with the world that which you see in the waking world here the same reality which shines forth in your world of dreams the same reality which shines forth but unmanifest in the world of deep sleep in the physical in the subtle in the causal all are appearances of say the same underlying reality vivekananda put it very well he said one only exists it appears as nature and soul nature means universe soul you there's only but it's one underlying there's one underlying reality meister the cuts beautiful not eckhart tolle maestro cut 500 years ago his wonderful statement the ground of my soul and the ground of god are the same ground it's the same the same meaning as that thou art tattoo so that is the yoga that is being taught by krishna arjuna at this point would have given a dry smile and he would have said thank you for the philosophy lecture but i'm still not convinced it doesn't work that's my object my objection it's all wonderful um as a wonderful sentiment the oneness of all existence it is wonderful philosophy fine it doesn't work why not he says chanchalatwa stating because of the wavering the fickle the restless nature of the mind my problem is not with your philosophy of let it be devotion let it be non-duality let it be sankhya whatever it is duality non-duality devotion knowledge but the mind is the problem arjuna is very practical he narrows it down to the problematic component in this whole scheme the mind is the problem what is the problem with the mind listen arjuna has understood this whole teaching because he uses a key word krishna this yoga you have taught me o krishna o madhu sudhana the yoga you have taught as samina the one same vision of divinity everywhere so he has understood what what is being taught here he did not say oh krishna the meditation you taught as being the calmness of the mind or the cessation of the modifications of the mind like patanjali said he didn't say that he didn't say oh the yoga you have taught as devotion to you the supreme lord no he didn't say that he says the one the vision of oneness everywhere which you are teaching great but doesn't work why the mind is fickle so he points to the core problem here why is the mind fickle what is the problem with the mind could you explain a little further and arjuna does that in the next verse krishna brahmati beloved what does that mean the mind is fickle restless o krishna turbulent and strong and set in its ways trying to control the mind is like as difficult as trying to control the wind notice what he has said or each of these terms he uses has a certain meaning he's describing the problem one is it's fickle thoughts feelings emotions perceptions a continuous flow going through the mind what we call stream of consciousness in vedante will immediately object and sits consciousness is not a stream the mind is a stream consciousness is the the underlying reality the witness of that but it is understood continuous modifications running through the mind one after another after another the mind is like this restless monkey it's been compared to a monkey which is restless by nature then somebody has made it drink wine and then a scorpion has stung it so imagine how the monkey is jumping around from every exactly like the like the mind restless but restless in itself may need not be such a problem you know i'll give you a nice example suppose you visit somebody's house in new york with little apartments everybody has a dog and it might be a cute dog running around restless shooting around here and there and the your host says i'm sorry the dog is so restless it's he said no it's cute i i like watching it play it let it run around let it play it's it's nature and it's fun to watch but if it's restless maybe fun maybe cute but then your host tells you that's not the only problem it's turbulent turbulent means problematic it chews the socks and the slippers and it it knocks over furniture and it smashes cups and plates and glasses so it's turbulent brahmati it's not so easy it's not as cute as as it looks well why don't you restrain it or maybe you can't restrain it it's very strong it's not a pomeranian or a sichu or something it's it's a pit bull or or a rottweiler you can't restrain maybe it's so strong and so aggressive you might have to call animal control or 9-1-1 call the cops it's so strong bhalavad it's powerful it's the moment you try to restrain the mind in meditation you see how powerful it is um in the sermon on the mount in the bible jesus christ says that blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god somebody asks how i'm not to jesus christ but somebody asked later on that how do you know that how do i know whether i'm pure in heart or not and she says one way swami prabhupada nandaji writes in his book sermon on the mount according to vedanta he says one way sit down and try to meditate try to think of god try to pray try to think of god for the next two minutes i will think of god and nothing else try to do that very soon you will find it in 20 seconds in 30 seconds other thoughts will start arising in the mind will bubble up the very fact that i cannot hold on to one thought for any length of time for a minute or two minutes or five minutes it shows that the mind has impurities it is restless it keeps on generating what is the nature of these impurities we'll see later so it is strong it cannot be controlled even if you want to control it cannot be controlled well maybe it will settle down maybe its attention will be diverted maybe it will become nice later on no he says it is drama it is set in its ways the mind runs in patterns and those patterns are not easily changed unless you work at it it will remain the same it will trouble you it will trouble you continuously you know in fact if you take an extreme example that of mental illness it might be easier to understand our con our condition not that we are all mentally ill but little bit all of us are so if you take the case of people who are actually suffering from mental illness they'll always tell you after you know i understand the mind is an object i am the witness of that but when the storm arises in the mind it's impossible to control and also it's impossible to remain at peace i understand with all the vedanta and sankhya and the witnessing and the mindfulness meditation all of that is fine but when the mind kicks up a storm um difficult to remain the witness and difficult not to suffer some people have um ocd obsessive-compulsive disorder they cannot help doing a rep a set pattern of activities again and again and again even after knowing that this is something set in my brain in my behavior patterns i am the unconcerned witness i am the vast blue sky in which these clouds are floating floating past fine still disturbing so it is set in its path in in its ways very difficult to control hence your teaching i understand the philosophy but it does not become practical it does not solve my problems because the mind is playing truant in between what do i do with this he's already taught meditation that meditation is not is failing to control the mind so what is krsna's answer and here we must pay attention why we must pay attention a wonderful old swami long before my time swami bhaskar is who established our ashram in nagpur in india i met some senior swamijis who were trained by this wonderful old swami and it seems his his classes his vedanta classes were amazing each of them was a spiritual experience you sit there and your mind is immediately elevated he was such a wonderful teacher he was an enlightened soul obviously once somebody complained i think to swami shankarananda probably if i remember the story it was a very old times 1950s oh the level of spirituality in our monasteries is going down we don't find the same level of spirituality as it was during the direct disciples of sri ramakrishna and some senior monk complained and the president of the order said why are you seeing that saying that go to nagpur where swami bhaskar shwanji the that swami it used to call him vipra dashmaraj when he gives a class i find the whole ashram vibrating spiritually so this swami would teach now why am i bringing him here is that i had access to some of the notes taken down during his teachings and just one example will show you uh how unique his approach was so here he is telling young novices monastic novices brahmacaris how to study the gita and he says remember who is teaching sri krishna is teaching not a pundit not a scholar a professor not even a an ordinary monk not even an enlightened being it is the incarnation of god who is teaching and he has been asked this question which is uppermost in our minds let us hear what god has to say to us that kind of value we must give to the words of sri krishna again he would say whenever you study the gita and that that is true for any spiritual text keep your prayer janam vibrating within you all the time the sanskrit word prio janam means your need your purpose why am i here what am i going to gain out of this what do i want out of it i have come here with a purpose if you keep that vibrating in your mind i have come here to go beyond sorrow i have come here to attain enlightenment god realization then imagine the reverence the focus by with which we will take the teachings so you would teach in this way and when you study a text you do it like this so let us listen to krishna that way who is teaching sri krishna what is our prayer january our need our goal here and nothing short of enlightenment what does he say sri bhagavadu the blessed lord said asham first he agrees entirely with arjuna he says no doubt you're right the mind is very difficult to control so that gives us some peace of mind that so it's not a small problem the lord agrees it is a problem it is something that is a major major problem the mind is difficult to control but then he uses the word mahaba oh mighty armed one indicating to arjuna you have defeated so many enemies in your time now you are surrendering before your own mind without a fight i'm reminded of about 16 years ago i was in the high himalayas and we used to go to this wonderful old monk a traditional monk who uh living at that time in an ashram small ashram but he spent most of his time in a cave in the high mountains and he could point out the cave actually from the ashram a little higher up in the mountain you could see there was the cave and this old monk he was a punjabi he was in his 80s at that time complete non-dualist saw a man after my own heart so i used to go and study the ashtavakra gita which is a text of radical non-dualism with him and they were a motley group of monks who would sit around him monks and yogis and who knows they were we were an odd bunch some dressed like me some with beards and you know long hair some the shaven heads some stayed in huts some stayed in caves some st one at least i know stayed in a hole in the ground so we would gather around him and we would study this text of non-dual vedanta and this monk he was a he was quite a character he has passed in the last few years i think yeah i know he has passed he's quite a character he's he used to say uh oh monks i have committed only one sin in my life you see what it is to start this ashram starting this ashram was my only sin i was fine in that cave and then we would say of course not we are getting so much benefit from this you know you are because you are here in this ashram anyway so once he was teaching ashtavakra gita he closed the book and he looked at us sort of in a pensive mood and he said you have weapons in your hand and the enemy comes and gives you a couple of slaps and you come back weeping where is the fun fun in that oh monks so what is the fun in that oh monks what are the weapons these are the weapons this understanding this philosophy these techniques which are being taught in these these are the weapons what what is the enemy the enemy is the mind the mind which is uncontrolled the mind which is stopping you from um realizing uh god and you're giving up you're coming back weeping it's no good i can't do it so there is a way of uh of controlling the mind it has to be learned notice a very simple thing for everything else in the world we know it has to be learned and we know it takes time and effort and and capacity you go to enroll in columbia university for a mathematics or physics degree the moment you enroll the next day you don't say where's my degree why haven't i got it yet i have to give up it's no good you don't say that you know you're going to spend years and years and work hard attend classes turn in assignments go through exams and finally write theses and finally get your degree and that's not the end of the road there are higher degrees to be attained you start a business invest in wall street and why aren't i a millionaire yet nobody says that that's ridiculous uh so in spiritual life we do that you know i've started meditating i have been initiated i've got the mantra started meditating but the mind is fickle doesn't calm down so it's no good no it takes time this is the subtlest of all tasks and the greatest of all adventures so it will take time it will take effort and every bit of it is worth it in the end success is guaranteed you are the atman you will realize it what can stop you and once having started this what could be better than this this is the highest endeavor in in life this should become the central task of our life everything else will be there this is the central task of our life and moment to moment you get benefits from it sitting down in meditation sometimes i say to people who express frustration at not being able to progress in spiritual life i say give it up when i say senior monks would take this approach all right fine doesn't work give it up stop coming to the ashram stop meditating stop reading sacred texts or lives of the saints stop listening to devotional music no no no i can't do that ah you can't do that which means there's something there that you like something there that you're getting some benefit from some peace of mind some strength from already already most people when they stop and think yes i am not an enlightened i'm not an enlightened being like the buddha vivekananda but whatever i've got is already valuable to me this is what makes you turn up on a sunday morning turn a cold sunday morning in manhattan so it is worth learning it is worth taking the time to do this not getting impatient about it we have to learn everything everything that is that civilization gives us is not given directly by nature every word that we read every letter that we read had to be taught to us by our primary school teach kindergarten teachers to eat properly to walk to get up and walk on on our feet that had to be taught by our parents at least we are to be helped along by our parents so all of that has to be taught and brahmavidia enlightenment about brahman doesn't and doesn't it have to be learned of course it has to be learned of course it will take time but it takes less time than one might imagine so what is the advice that krishna gives um he says the first thing is literally it can be translated as practice but literally it means repetition means repetition what's so great about that i thought he would give us his guard he should give us some some more glamorous and profound technique all he is saying repeat do it do it again and do it once more is that all there is something very important to learn here there's a very ancient saying in indian philosophy sankhya samam there is no knowledge like sankhya and there is no power like yoga what does sankya mean here the knowledge of the self who am i what am i that knowledge is the greatest of an all knowledge because that really takes us beyond samsara settles all our needs takes us beyond suffering that's the knowledge but there's something else added to that yoga here means this practice which which develops the mind and enables us to live that knowledge enables us to manifest that knowledge act upon it in our day-to-day life respond to the ups and downs of life from that knowledge otherwise what happens is we might feel i know but it's a kind of intellectual knowledge it doesn't help me to face the problems of life when somebody says something nasty to me i know it's one undivided divinity but still it hurts so that power inability to manifest or live that knowledge in day to day life that inability comes from the lack of that power and that power is built up by yoga all right what is the essential nature of one word of that knowledge and what is the essential nature of this yoga this power the essential nature of that knowledge is insight enlightenment it is a breakthrough it is a clear paradigm shift it's a clear before and after one sees the world in an entirely new way it's not so much that one sees new things but one sees the same things in new new ways with new eyes you see to see old things with new eyes i'm quoting ulysses here you know to set sail in the new lands and new things but after all those adventures in the high seas and foreign lands to come back once again to see old things with new eyes old things old people the same places with new eyes that's wisdom so this is a new complete paradigm shift i thought this was a fractured world of people and places time and space um limited life's birth and aging and death now i see there is clearly this one underlying divinity this of when all beings and all beings are in that and that divinity is beyond sorrow beyond old age and disease and death and and that is the oneness that the reality of this entire universe in which the entire universe is an appearance like a movie on a screen like reflections in water and i am that limitless radiance that divinity so this is the nature of the shift it actually happens it's not as difficult as one might think one is blessed when that happens but it's the nature of an insight of a breakthrough and for that there's a whole process in vedanta fine but that's a different topic now our topic today is the second one it is what is the essence of yoga if the sense of knowledge is that insight that breakthrough that paradigm shift what is the essence of yoga one word repetition repetition training um the difference between these two let me tell you swami atma priyananda ji he yeah some of you have seen him and some of you see him on youtube he's a senior monk of our order he was the vice chancellor of our university in india so he told us this story about anecdote about when he became a monk after 10 years of being a novice we are initiated into the vows of sannyasa the president of the order the head of the order gives us the vows of monasticism so during his time which was in when he became a monk was early 80s um a long time ago 40 years now huh so after that night when you're conferred early in the morning just at sunrise your comfort whole night there's a ceremony and then there's your comfort the vows of monasticism next morning you can go the newly minted monks can go to the guru the president of the order and if they have any questions they can ask we did that too and in his time they also did that so they went at that time the president of the order was swami gambhira namdaji he was the 11th president of our order extraordinary so i mean i mean his output literary output is is amazing the translations of the upanishads which we use and i've seen it being used um across the world translations of the commentaries of shankara of madhusudana on the bhagavad-gita two years back i was at harvard it was his book which was being used gambiranji's book but he was a person who was very grave in fact his name gambhiran and the means who delights in graveness so he was never actually known to smile if you look at his picture he's a most unsmiling picture very inward and you sit with eyes closed so these newly minted monks went and their spokesperson was none other than our swami at papriyan energy and he asked so the swami was sitting there and he said any questions and atma priyanji said we the brothers we want to know that this mahavakya this statement which we received from you last night aham ramhasmi i am brahman so how many times should we repeat it because that's what we know you know a mantra is to be repeated you get a mantra from a guru it should be repeated swami gambhiranji answered it is for not for repetition it is for realization any other question no you can go but it's a very important very profound point the difference between yana and yoga ghana knowledge enlightenment you have to realize i am brahman not repeated i am ramana you can do that but that's not the point whereas there are mantras which are for reputation suppose your guru tells you to repeat the mantra of shiva om namashivaya so what do you do with that you repeat it a thousand times in the morning a thousand times in the evening ten thousand times a day somebody asked the holy holy mother herself she said people keep asking me i have no peace of mind i have taken the mantra initiation but i have no peace of mind yet and she says they won't do anything and they keep on complaining and let them repeat the mantra ten thousand times a day then i'll see where there is no peace of mind let me see so repetition definition of mantra that by which you dwell on it it saves you it takes you across samsara the power of a mantra comes from repetition but a maha walk you're like me i am brahman that thou art that comes from the enlightenment that comes from the awakening into that in that reality and both are necessary from an advaithic perspective of course the highest thing is the realization i am brahman but the other part of it as i said all the other components meditation devotion moral life all go towards establishing a foundation without with a restless mind with an impure mind with a selfish selfish attitude one cannot become i am brahman no won't work such a person even if they work hard at vedanta and trying to understand you know what will happen at the end they will say i got it i've read all the books i understand all the arguments but sort of if they're honest they'll say it's sort of intellectual speculative it's some idea that i've got it's a cool philosophy i've learned i'm still the same person so the ability to manifest this knowledge uh it comes from the repetition jonathan height who is right here he's a psychologist in the stern school of business here he is i was seeing his biography he is recognized as one of the 25 most influential psychologists today in the world so his masterpiece long ago he wrote this book the happiness hypothesis i read it long ago i was very impressed um there he makes a very important point he asks the question why is it so difficult to change we have so much knowledge now and the if you go to barnes and nobles he mentions that all these self-help books personality development all these self-help books go to barnes and nobles you will see racks and racks full of self-help books how to develop a great personality how to communicate more effectively how to impress people how to how to lose weight uh how to uh what else uh how to meditate better uh what we are talking about today all these things and many more things are all there but and people go and buy loads of them but he asked the question do they deliver are our lives significantly changed almost always the answer is no all it changes is our bank balance changes goes down a little bit and we run out of racks to put books in so it keeps on increasing and overflowing but really are we changing are we developing all those wonderful capacities talked about in those self-help books and by the way the self-help books some of them are little way out there but many of them are pretty reasonable they're pretty good actually they're not lying to you some of it is anecdotal but increasingly with the development of positive psychology it's pretty rigorous academics also now when dale carnegie and others wrote it was anecdotal inspirational but now it's a matter of academic uh psychology so it's not wrong but why doesn't it work jonathan haight asked that question why doesn't it work why doesn't it change our lives why is it so difficult to change he says it's because what it does not address is the structure of the mind our mind has the structure he uses a very beautiful indian analogy he says it's like a elephant with a mahout you understand what a mahout is the one who sits on the top of the elephant and controls the elephant so elephant with the mouth the mouth is the intellect and the intellect the mouth knows where to go and can tell the elephant where to go and just like the intellect it understands but the problem with that is as long as the elephant obeys it's fine but if the elephant does not obey the mouth wants to go this way and then there the elephant wants to go this way and then there then there's nothing that the mouth can do to the elephant because elephant is much much stronger than the mouth if the elephant wants to go there and raid a shop and eat the bananas there or attack a banana plant or something and eat the bananas there the mouth can't do anything because the elephant is much more stronger physically it's just like that our intellect which buys all those we buy all those books from bonds and nobles and listen to ted talks and then we decide these are great ideas i am going to revolutionize my life i have taken the what tony robbins robin's seminar i don't know how many hundred dollars it is several hundred dollars i think i'm going to revolutionize my life and by the way i'm not criticizing any of that all of that is right they're correct they're not lying to you but it doesn't work why because i am sold on it but who's the i who loves these ideas who is inspired by them who is who has this wow moment it's the intellect but underneath the intellect is the lower mind the emotions and the the more than the emotions the set patterns of a lifetime of many lifetimes and then there is the body the physiology i decide i realize one of the keys to success and happiness in life is getting up early in the morning i have to rise with the sun monks in the himalayas are very clear about these things they say they have sayings like the one who does not greet the rising sun the knowledge of brahman will not rise in his life you sleep the other funny stories like oh i get up with the first ray of sunlight in my room oh really that's pretty good um so when do you get up 5 o'clock or 5 30 he says no my room faces the west not that way i'm i'm determined to get up early in the morning early in the morning i get up i have the alarm rings i wake up but then what happens it's cold it's so comfy under the blanket and i want to get up but then the body says i didn't sign up for this you the intellect you thought it was a great idea did you ask me you go and get up and do your meditation and yoga i'm going to sleep inside the blanket can the intellect do anything by itself no it cannot force the body also it gives in and that's why every kind of practice which leads to difficulties it comes from our lower nature which has not signed up for that which does not respond to to knowledge and insights and lectures and seminars and books and philosophy no what does the elephant respond to what does the mahout do for the elephant it trains the elephant the mouth doesn't persuade the limit elephant the mouth doesn't give a ted talk to the elephant the mouth doesn't sign up the elephant for a tony robbins seminar no doesn't send it to hr programs no it trains the elephant and training is mostly systematic repetition the body mind responds to repetition so repetition of bihasa somebody asked ramakrishna the same question i my mind doesn't settle down srinama krishna seems startled he said sheikhi or bhashya what are you saying why don't you practice the yoga of abhasa there's nothing more than the yoga of repetition so repetition regular meditation is it will work over time it is learned and it clearly changes the nature of the mind you will see it becoming more obedient more subdued more it begins to flow a new pattern is set a time comes when it becomes natural so krishna gives a beautiful example he lived on the bank of the ganges the ganga river you see these little boats flying and you would see how the boatman would take a long bamboo pole and work hard at pushing the boat away from the bank into the midstream but once it reaches the midstream and catches the current he says the boatman would sit down just hold on the rudder and would take out like a hubble bubble and smoke tobacco and merrily sail along on the current but until it catches the current he has to work hard to push the boat into it so how the current of spiritual life means when it becomes natural to us when you when the mind is now set in the new pattern then you don't have to work so hard all the time but initially yes that is it will work but not by itself here is the another part of it the mind comes under control by vairagya vairagya means dispassion and i must stress this you see it is a problem a symptom of our secular rather materialistic age where here in the united states for example meditation is quite popular but the dispassion side of it is never taught the dispassion for worldliness going beyond worldly desires that is essential to meditation that part is not emphasized at all perhaps it's not popular perhaps it's not palatable all sorts of meditation techniques have been popularized mindfulness is very big now but notice whether it's mindfulness vipassana whether it's tibetan buddhist meditation techniques whether it is yoga kundalini yoga non-dualistic meditation whatever kind of meditation if you look back upon the origins of all of them they came from the high spiritual traditions all of which emphasized a dispassion for worldliness a detachment from the world not just buddhism every religion does that if you're honest about it maybe not the modern versions of those religions but if you go back to the original text absolutely what teaches more dispassion than the new testament the gospel of jesus respection for the world so dispassion it's called vairagyam viraga raga means likes and dislikes ragadveisha both are meant likes and dislikes they color the mind any kind of strong pull towards the world that is raag i was amazed to read freud the wise old atheist but it's pretty wise i remember many years ago it was nearly 20 years ago in our teacher training college teacher education college in india in near our monastery where school teachers were trained so there was a department of psychology educational psychology and we had pictures of freud and jung and other well-known john dewey our american father of modern american education william james and others so freud has this little beard like this now in that room we had the annual saraswati puja the worship of the divine mother saraswati a goddess of learning so the image was there and people from the locality would come and bow down to the image so this little old lady comes to bow down to the image of saraswati and there are these pictures of the psychologists she's standing before freud like this and i went and she asked me i was walking past her yeah i'll tell you in bengali and translate she said baba akon rishi my boy who i was a young a novice he said which rishi which which sage is this she would have been shocked at what freud thought but but it's true he is a rishi in a certain way the people who have insights and deep insights into human nature are rishis so he's in sight when you talk about freud talking about libido we think of about you know the baser passions of human nature but look at the definition of libido he says any movement of the subject to the object is libido any movement from here to outside anything outside is the manifestation of that same energy this is raga which will not allow you to remain centered it can start as a mild attraction something nice and pleasant it can develop into a desire i want it it can go into the level of an obsession and addiction it will not allow you to remain centered raga swami ashoka nandaji in a very nice essay he say about monks he says when are you ready to renounce the world when can you become a monk he says something interesting he says that if if you stay in the midst of the world and people and objects of the senses of things of the world your mind may be attracted disturbed by that but if you stay away from them in a monastery in an ashram in a retreat then your mind is at peace you don't anchor about it you don't think about those things at all then you're ready to be a monk if you stay away from the world and things and uh you stay in an ashram and yet think about those things then you're not ready to be a monk it will fail it won't work and those whose minds are steady and serene in the midst of the world and in an ashram they don't need any monasticism they're above it already there are very few they have but there are such people there are very few such people so you have to be in that middle category the same thing is true of meditation when can you meditate effectively it is when the raga the attractions the pulls of the world the things of the world don't continuously pull your mind outwards if you sit quietly in a meditation hall in your little personal chapel or shrine in a holy place quietly sit there if your mind is more or less stable more or less it may be restless but more or less then you can meditate if continuously pulled out you cannot there is raga the things of the world which pull us the obsessions the attractions the thing that this is nice i must have this and equally true the dues the repulsions it is a whole range just as raaga is a range the different kinds of raga i want more and more money and property that is greed i want pleasures of the senses from eating good food to all kinds of sense pleasures that is karma there are various kinds of of raga attraction for the world repulsion for the world for people and things it can be a whole range it can be a minor irritation a minor dislike to a general dislike of a place a person a food an activity a job all of these but general a clear dislike i don't like this you might say what's wrong with that it is based on a false notion of the world if it is true that it is the one divinity underlying everything you can see the good and the bad but underline you must have serenity because ultimately it's a one divinity notice when you are watching a movie you root for the success of the hero you hate the villain and yet at the same time you're serene because you know there's no hero and villain there it's fiction it's an appearance of one reality a couple of years back at harvard a student divinity student said i don't like your vedanta philosophy it tells me that mother teresa and adolf hitler are the same how can adolf hitler and mother teresa be the same i said it doesn't first of all it doesn't tell you that adolf hitler and mother teresa are the same it doesn't it is much better to be a saint than to be a monster but consider are they really all that different when they were little babies two or three years old was mother teresa mother teresa was adolf hitler adolf hitler no every night when they fall asleep deep sleep even the personalities are erased for the time being that being who's in deep sleep at that moment is this being evil and this is being good saintly no there is a layer in which goodness and badness are there the layer is the mind the personality if you take the mind and personality to be the ultimate reality then yes this is ultimately a saint that's ultimately a monster but no that's not the ultimate reality anything that has developed over time that is conditioned by causes and effects that is subject to change cannot be the ultimate reality neither saintliness nor um what monsterliness a monstrosity they are the ultimate reality but yes at that level they are not the same you have to move from adharma to dharma and beyond that from evil to morality and ethics and rise to spirituality so they are not equivalent but beyond that there is a the reality lies beyond all of these that's what advaita vedanta says so dwesha dwesh also disturbs the mind some people make a habit of enmity of dislike of others and holding on to anger and resentment you cannot meditate if it's like that and it's unwise i'm quite sure your indignation is justified i'm quite sure people have treated you badly but it is unwise to cultivate these fires when you set a fire you burn your own house before you burn somebody else is that what is what is resentment what is anger it is here i am the person who is resentful of others who may have misbehaved with you you know mistreated you quite correct but first i make myself unhappy so that kind of mind cannot meditate raga and dwisha neither can meditate sudama krishna told the story of the boatmen who were rowing about the three not both when their three friends were drunkards at night they stumbled around and they wanted to go home across the river they found a boat jumped into it and started rowing as the day broke early morning they found they were still in the same place rowing hard all night long that road what happened that's forgotten to untie the boat that's forgetting to untie the boat that is raga and vairagya dispassion for the world is untying the boat it's letting go doesn't matter doesn't mean that you won't do your duties in the world you won't take care of people you will you will but your motto will be neither seek nor avoid seeking and avoiding comes from raga and dwisha attraction and repulsion neither seek nor avoid as far as the world is concerned why because there is some higher thing that you are about to do you are on the journey to enlightenment self-realization god realization whatever you call it so vairagya is important complete dispassion for the world and its events at this point let me just give some practical points now so far i have said what krishna said meditation is possible if you have a regular program of repetition and dispassion for the world untie your boat don't be like those trunkers untie your boat but before that just one more point you know when they say that all this giving up the world sitting quietly meditating it's repression and it can lead to mental instability it does sometimes why does it why does that happen it's because not there when does it lead to um mental problems that's firmly cutting away the word sitting quietly and meditating trying to meditate for long hours it's only when there's a strong outward movement and i'm denying that and i'm shutting it down and trying to hold it down within myself then it leads to a reaction in the mind my tendency is to want things and chase after things and to achieve things in the world i'm stopping myself from doing that in the name of spirituality and that leads to a revolt in the mind krishna has already said that in the gita he says the one who sits withdrawing from action sitting quietly in a meditative posture closing the eyes shutting out the contact with the world and thinking of the world in the mind that one he says mithya chaara saw that one is called a hypocrite then what is the way out if i am then don't give so much emphasis on meditation do your regular meditation but engage in karma yoga i'll tell you what is to be done practically to purify the mind one monk in uttarakhand said nicely he said uh what does it mean samadhi the highest state of spirit meditative absorption is is very easy mahatmaji oh monk i'll give you samadhi in one minute how this is the condition is your mind must be purified purified of raga and dwisha this continuous embroilment in the world the mental level all right now some practical advice i have taken from swami ashokan in the ji very beautiful before you sit in meditation i mentioned it at other times but it quickly run through this practical advice for good meditation what do you do one you do it regularly you see abby repetition again do it regularly not when the mood seizes you not when you feel very spiritual not when you are on a meditation retreat only do it every day second have a fixed time so sometime in the early morning sometime the evening or night if you are too busy some do it three times a day early morning afternoon and night fix time the mind is a creature of habit remember the elephant the elephant is a creature of habit not of intellect it responds to training it responds to rhythm so time have a fixed place that's why we have meditation halls and temples and churches and you know shrines and chapels that's because that's why we have a particular seat for meditation and asana that's why we have even in india you say you have special set of clothes which you wear before meditation your one set a clean same kind of clothes but a clean separate set set aside for meditation why all of that helps the mind again a creature of habit and repetition it immediately tells the mind this is the time when you must be calm and turn inwards when you must follow the mantra follow the breath visualize the deity whatever your technique these are these things will work for any technique of meditation in any tradition fixed time fixed place which the mind immediately associates with meditation you see half your work is done there do not dwell on thoughts which are disturbing i cannot emphasize this enough do not dwell on what you might call bad thoughts it could be thoughts of um you know which old thoughts of guilt anger resentment negativity sensuousness anxieties all kinds of negativities the mind has a habit of dwelling on these things try not to do that replace it immediately there's a very good thing the way of handling the mind is a secret of the mind is it can dwell on only one thing at a time you might think it's a bit what's important about this it's a very important thing to know in order to handle the mind is if the mind can handle only one thing at a time it does so very quickly that's why we think the mind is doing many things it does very quickly one thing at a time in that case if you want to handle the mind very effectively immediately try this give it something practical to do it's even good if you do it something physically you know get up clean the room do a chore something go for a walk so if you do that the mind will stop it it has to be engaged listen to a song or go and meet somebody in conversation so that you can't mind cannot run elsewhere it can do only one thing at a time so do not dwell on thoughts which are negative the whole range of negative thoughts negative company bad company there are people and places which arouse likes this raga and dwisha obsessions and hatreds of the which are worldly in nature so don't mix with them and some salaam krishna would say that a little plant that you have a seedling that you have planted on the roadside it needs to be protected by a little fence otherwise he said the goats and cows in india and the roads you'll see goats and cows walking around so they'll come and eat it up so you need to fence it once it grows and becomes a huge big tree he says you can tie an elephant to it we're having a lot of elephants in today's talk he says you can tie an elephant to it nothing will happen but initially you must fence it around so bad company be clear about whose company you want to keep it has an effect on our mind then the next thing is to practice some amount of asceticism by that i don't mean become a monk a simple life few positions few activities as i said neither seek nor avoid few activities few positions a minimalistic life positions for example the more we have cluttered room cluttered positions in lifetimes accumulation of things our mind is on those things also normally we don't realize it you sit for meditation you'll realize half of your mind is scattered in things so an ascetic lifestyle and then the next thing swami ashokanji says is have this sense of vastness this entire disease immensity of space vast mountains and oceans lands beyond the horizon and beyond that the universe so vast and yet it is all appearing to you and playing around in you the consciousness you are vaster than space itself eternity the vast periods of time millions of years billions of years think about one lifetime 80 90 years seems to be very long it's like gone in a twinkling of a of an eye in our own experience if you're 20 years old or like bill you're 97 years old as i'm sure if you ask him if he's just for a moment he can recall his whole life you know and in general in a twinkle of an um in an instant it has passed 97 years have passed as 97 years is a twinkle to you twinkling in an instant to you the consciousness so is a million years so it's a billion years you are vaster than the eternities of time faster than the immensities of space have this feeling within you what vedanta is telling me that is my real nature i am vast not this limited creature only this will give stability to the mind have a yearning for enlightenment here devotion or bhakti is very useful yearning for limitless existence consciousness bliss is a bit dry philosophical but yearning that can happen some natures have that and yearning for freedom spiritual freedom but yearning for a personal god is easy to cultivate my rama my krishna my jesus you know my ramakrishna that love so have a yearning yearning also stabilizes the mind just as thinking of things in the world outside can pull our mind outside similarly thinking of god and loving god can pull the mind towards god so yearning is very important for meditation good meditation the next the activities in the world let us spiritualize it as much as possible the job the family the chores in the house my own personal affairs like health and everything can be offered as a worship of god not just the flowers which we put in the shrine incense but also our daily activities can be offered as we spiritualize our daily activities a little bit of ritualism can be useful here it elevates you know if you do a puja mindfully a short puja it actually spiritualizes the mind it develops the quality known as sattva i have run out of time but i must say this i mentioned jonathan haidt his book happiness hypothesis one reason i remember it was he did this experiment do rituals work religious rituals do they actually do anything to the mind and he mentions it he says that he went to orissa bhuvaneshwar which is on the eastern coast of india and i like that very much because that's where i grew up so he says he went there and he went to the there are very ancient temples there i mean temple older than a thousand years of the commonality there in that in that town in that city it's in fact known as the city of temples so the famous temples of lingaraj which is the temple of shiva there are sacred pools of water outside bindu sagar so the priests in the temple before they go in for worshipping the deities they take a dip in those pools and they recite mantras and they come out now what he did was he conducted psychological test like a questionnaire a battery of questions he gave those tests to the priests before the rituals and after they performed the rituals general questions about life and person personality and all of that and he says there's a significant difference the after the rituals this thought patterns change at least for a while and feelings about themselves the world and others so clearly those rituals have an immediate effect on the mind may not last very long but if you do it repeatedly throughout your lifetime they have an effect and they elevate the mind so a little bit of ritualism whatever your tradition uh allows you whatever you you're doing don't do too much ritualism is like weeds tends to overcome and cover metaphysics and meditation and or devotion all of it just becomes especially for the hindu mind we are very ritualistic so it tends to over grow everything else the garden just becomes a garden of rituals of weeds so rich little bit of rituals very helpful and finally holy company and the company of people who are meditators who are genuinely devotional spiritual their company what did i say let me run through it quickly i hope i remember the list ten things ashokanji has mentioned so i've summarized a long essay in these ten points one meditate regularly two have a fixed time three have a fixed place four avoid bad thoughts five avoid bad company six um practice a little bit of asceticism seven cultivate vastness infinity eternity eight yearning for god not desire for the world yearning for god nine spiritualized daily activities little bit of ritualism also and 10 seek holy company good i'm patting myself on the back i remembered all ten the thing is to do them with this kind of a preparation meditation becomes deep so this section is very beautiful where arjuna being ever being the practical warrior he's akshatriya the warrior and he has a very practical question all these wonderful philosophies belief in god devotion non-dualism all those are wonderful but they all depend on the mind how do i make the mind amenable to all of that do all of that and krishna answers practice repetition dispassion for the world bias so [Music] you

Channel: Vedanta Society of New York

Views: 710,913

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: GGYGxdcdE40

Length: 75min 31sec (4531 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 06 2021