Realizing Non-Duality (pt.1) by Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] Oh [Music] a Sir Thomas Edgar Maria Thomas oh ma jus T gamma Britt Daruma unwritten gamma home shanti shanti shanti own leaders from the unreal to the real leaders from darkness unto light leaders from death to immortality Oh peace peace peace good morning everybody and welcome to this retreat on non-duality the spiritual problem is that is it possible to overcome suffering is it possible to find permanent and profound meaning in life is it possible to find lasting joy and happiness in life is transcendence of our empirical life possible and spiritual all spiritual paths they insist that yes it is that is the promise of spirituality it is possible to overcome death it is possible to overcome suffering it is possible to find the deepest and most profound meaning and lasting joy in life the greatest promise that human civilization has now broadly speaking in the path of spirituality there are different paths in spirituality there are different paths different paths depending on how you how you situate the problem one way is the path of knowledge Advaita Vedanta non-dual Vedanta which we shall be doing today which we shall take that's the path we shall follow today where the idea is that the ultimate reality is present right now right here and all that prevents us from realizing it is our ignorance we don't notice it it's as simple as that we don't see it we don't get it there's really nothing to be done except remove ignorant and ignorance can be removed by knowledge any ignorance can be removed by knowledge so the part of non-dual Vedanta path of non-dual Vedanta is a path of knowledge the problem is situated as a problem of ignorance and the solution is knowledge the darkness of ignorance has to be removed by the light of knowledge that's one way and that's the way we will be taking today but just for contrast just for understanding there are other ways too there is the path of yoga of meditation which says ignorance is not really the problem the primary problem is the restlessness of the mind if the mind can be calmed through meditation can be focused the scattered powers of the mind can be concentrated through meditation when the truth will reveal itself so that's the path of yoga where the problem is seen as a problem of restlessness of mind and the solution is seen as concentration or focus of mine or calming down the mind and the technique will be meditation that's one pad different that the first one was one of knowledge the second one is one of meditation there is yet another path the most well-known of all in all the conventional religions of the world the path of bhakti the path of devotion the path of faith where you say that the problem is not one of ignorant the problem is not one of restlessness of mind the problem is one of lack of faith in God belief in God and surrender to God so that's the path of devotion that's the path of love and surrender and faith in God which is more or less the broad highway in most religions but today we shall concentrate on the first one the whole day will be dedicated to the first pack ignorance is the problem knowledge is the solution what ignorance and what knowledge according to add weight of a ranter the central truth is very simple she just sang it that in the cave of my heart atman and brahman shall never part the ultimate reality is you your inner self is the ultimate reality brahman whatever you call it Brahman Atman the absolute god the void whatever you call it that ultimate reality there is such an ultimate reality and it's you we do not know it that's the only problem and Advaita Vedanta the part of non-dual Vedanta seeks to point it out to us how does it work it says if that's the only reality according to the I could Vedanta the only reality is this Brahman an absolute existence consciousness bliss these may sound like big words by the end of the day they'll just be facts to you at least in understanding if not in enlightenment we will see that if that's the only reality the world is an appearance then in that case where is that reality Vedanta says it's everywhere if it's everywhere it must be here right here when do you find that reality after death when you're promised to heaven no if it is eternal it must be for all time if it is for all time it must be now and if it's the only reality then what it is the reality of every object everything everyone that you see the reality of that must be this ultimate Brahman the absolute what I'm trying to say is according to add weight of a tanta the non-dual Vedanta the tremendous claim is this that ultimate reality which we are searching for the goal of all spirituality is available right here right now and in everything that we experience now the question comes if so when the big question will be why don't I know it why don't I experience it at least in conventional religion when I am told that just believe in what the Good Book says in the Gita or or be the Quran or the Bible but it's a just believe and after death you will be rewarded and you will go to this place called heaven now heaven is a place different from this place if you say why can't I see God why can't I experience heaven you will be told oh God is in heaven that's why you can't see God God's not here so it's an it's nice I mean there's no problem you can't dispute that only thing is after death if I don't find God I can't come back and catch the teacher it's too late but if you claim that ultimate reality which you're speaking of is right here then I have a legitimate question why don't I experience it if it is right now if you say the spiritual reality called God is the posthumous experience after death you get to see God in that case you are safe because nobody can catch you right now because if you ask where is God you see it you wait lead a good life do be a good boy a good girl and after that you get to see God but if you say it's right now then I can legitimately ask why can't I see it now I can't experience it now Advaita Vedanta takes on this question head on and says yes you can yes you can the literature of Vedanta the Upanishads are full of what I might call pointers pointing to this ultimate reality here and now and within you right now we will take up today three of these pointers today's retreat has been structured a very simple structure three of these insights I can call them insights or pointers or each of these inside points to the same thing but the advantage of multiple approaches is if one doesn't work for you the other will if one works for you you can enjoy this one and the other one also and the third one also so three we have three of these insights which I will share with all of you today and the structure is this there are three sessions each session built around one of these insights all of the insights will tell you just the same thing that there is this ultimate reality and it's Brahman and this is how you experience it right now right here so three sessions one starting now in which we will conclude at 11:15 the next one will be at 11:30 which we will conclude at 12:45 and then yes there is lunch so you can have your lunch and then we come back for the third session which is at 1:45 so 12:45 to 1:45 is lunch and 1:45 to 3 because we have to wrap up by three o'clock so 1:45 to 3 is the third session which has the third in sight so three insights or three pointers to the ultimate reality which you are according to advaitha Vedanta each of these sessions is divided into three parts traditionally in adwaita vedanta the way of teaching was this first day would be the teaching the knowledge would be transferred that phase is called listening literally Shravana in sanskrit listening literally listening the second part of the other session will be each session the second part will be thinking in Sanskrit mononym what you have heard now think about it and the third part will be the needed the asana which means meditation in sanskrit meditating on what what you have heard about what you have thoughts true that you must abide in meditation is abiding in what you've already got you must stay there so that will be the meditation part traffic so I'll divide each session into three parts the first session the first part of each session which is going to start now the first session you just listen carefully the first part will be I'll say something to you just listen careful you don't even have to see me there are people are sitting outside I hear the voice quality there is excellence so you can just sit out there and listen to my voice but listen look out into the mist or the sea and listen the second session will be what I have heard that the goal of the first the first part in the first session the first part the goal will be What did he say that's all what did he say you don't have to literally repeat what I said to you just the gist of it the essence of it the second part of the each session will be okay he said this do I get it there's a difference between being able to repeat what the teacher said and getting what the teacher said so do I get it if I do not get it what are my questions where am I getting stuck there I will work with you somebody will be there with the microphone will go around please ask questions I will work with you when the questions are being asked listen it's not just his or her question often it is a question common to everybody listen to the answer too often the answer works for somebody who's listening and may not be work may not work for the person who asked the question so listen to the answers that's the second part of each session thinking Sanskrit mononym it's essential because that's where you begin to get it a kind of conviction it comes up yeah it's true it could well be clarity comes and then the third part abiding in what you have understood what you have heard what you have understood in the first session the problem will be i-i've heard what you said but here are my problems I don't get it the second session I have heard what you said now my problems are clarified I need to stay with it the third session is staying with it not third session sorry third part of each session is staying with it so three sessions each session divided into three parts first session first part the pointer or the insight which I will share with you now is drawn from a medieval book a text called pancetta she so this is a truly Indian Himalayan Edition this is something that the Swami's carry around they're not in their pockets because they don't have pockets but they have little bundles so books will be like this it has the original verses in Sanskrit and a commentary in Sanskrit this book is called punch Adashi a beautiful English translation exists translated by none other than our own Swami Sivananda I am going to use the first chapter in the first chapter from verses 3 to 10 the author with the irony who lived 700 years ago in the south of India he there's a remarkable performance in which in 8 verses this utter establishes that you are pure existence pure consciousness pure bliss he establishes without any appeal to Authority without any appeal to the open issues just based on your experience and reason just based on experience and reason what experience experience we all have and we all share that experience and reason and he shows that you are pure consciousness pure existence and pure bliss so it's quite remarkable in that performance now I'm not going to use all eight verses I'm just going to use the first four verses which try to show that our real nature is pure consciousness what is pure consciousness and how are we feel consciousness become clear so I'm going to use only four verses and we are going to point to that our real nature is pure consciousness alright I'll chant the Sanskrit just for effect you don't have to know any Sanskrit English is enough but just for this sound of it so please settle down the first this is verse number three from the first chapter of despair chaadayev aadya waited three are jaggery protec tato yati taught some bid I Iike rupee on a bit deity what did it say I'll give a literal translation first and you will go into the verse all our experiences all our experiences sound sight whatever the experience in life they're all different from each other and they keep changing but apart from them and unchanging is the awareness the consciousness to which these experiences appear in which all these are experienced a simple pointer but let's see what it means this verse is essential attend to this verse this is the key to the first session our life is made up of experiences that's what our life is think about it all the people that you have seen in your life all the things that you have heard all the things that you have seen or tasted or smelt or touched all that you have thought about all that you have remembered all that you have suffered all that you have enjoyed whatever you hope for your desires your frustrations your personal memories the loss of memories youth and old age and decay and disease and all of that they're all basically experiences is that true you're with me our life is a series of experiences just imagine today from early morning till now you have had a series of experiences you woke up and you heard the I mean you heard the alarm clock maybe that was an experience you woke up it felt like something to wake up from from a dream you maybe you brushed that was an experience you if it felt like something and you tasted coffee or something and then you then you drove here driving down the freeways and experience you are sitting here listening to my voice that's an experience you are hearing things you're seeing things you're thinking things you might say Swami I'm not thinking of anything in particular blank good that's also an experience lack of thinking now he points out his worst points or something extraordinarily simple but very profound here it is every experience is different from every other experience one second experiences come and go two experiences come and go and third most important each experience has two parts a changing part and an unchanging part what's the changing part and what's an unchanging part take up any experience there is an object which you experience for example right now if you're listening carefully you are hearing sound you're experiencing sound my voice that's the object of your experience and that changes and speaking so many words and sentences so different sounds are coming to your ears and this is a continuous series of experiences you are having and the object of experience changes but what what happens next sounds come into your ears and they produce thoughts in your mind they produce a thought in your mind thoughts in your mind those thoughts also change you see a clock clock is object of experience it produces a clock thought in your mind then you see a a person the person is an object of experience for you and produces a person related thought in your mind so the object of experience changed the thought related to that object of experience changed but what did not change was in each each experience there is the background awareness to which the experience comes there is an unchanging awareness to which every experience comes in each in which every experience arises is experienced and it it dissipates or it subsides it's like the light in this room the light in this room suppose it's constant and there are people at before there's nobody there's nobody there empty chairs the light shone upon the empty chairs now all the chairs are full your people the same light is shining upon all the people at the end of the first session you will all walk out and the light will shine upon the empty chairs again the light is constant it did not change what changed the people coming in and going out that changed imagine your awareness the awareness the sentient the consciousness which we all have right now we are all conscious hopefully we Dante as a way of putting people there to sleep we are all conscious right now that consciousness is unchanging and the objects of experience are changing and the thoughts produced by those objects of experience in our mind are changing that's why one experience differs from another experience one experience differs from another experience because the objects are different one and the thoughts and reactions they create in our mind are different too but in the background there is one constant unchanging awareness are you with me so far remember three stages what did he say yes and then next session we will the next part of this session we will talk about it if you have questions write it down or hold on to it you will get a chance to ask now you might say okay what we have got so far is our life is a series of experiences and each experience has two parts a changing part and an unchanging part experiences differ from each other because the changing part differs but the unchanging part which is usually not noticed that does not differ that's constant like light lighting up a series of objects the objects come and go the objects are different from each other the light is constant and not different now as day fades into evening or night we fall asleep and we perhaps we dream we lose touch with the body the mind is still active but we are not aware of the body the body is sleeping on the bed but the my generates dreams and with the next verse comes Tata so Clara bade diem to nurse theorem jog erase theorem that beta star yo some with a group on a bit dirty dreams come generated by the mind here the sense organs are not operative you're not contacting the external world you're not hearing external sounds or not seeing sights or tasting external food but the mind generates dreams based upon its past experiences now the point here is an important point to understand Vedanta is not interested in your dreams many people ask so can dreams be true I saw this in the dream what does it mean there are you can be you can go to a union psychoanalyst who will tell you the meaning of your dreams but Vedanta is not interested in 3 in your dreams when say that's unfriendly once swami said to this person who came to him said rather sharply what person was telling about his sorrows and the swami said i am not interested in your problems that person was so shocked I am interested in you do you see the difference between yourself and your dream the contents of the dream what you dream about good or bad they all appear the verse says they all appear to the same awareness which experienced your waking life that awareness which is experiencing all this now unchanging awareness when you go to sleep and you dream but same awareness continues undisturbed and it lights up the objects of your dream your dreams differ your waking life disappears and your dream life bringing begins and every day maybe you have a different dream or a repetition of a same dream whatever whatever you dream about whomever you dream about good or bad whatever happens in the dream what Vedanta is pointing out here is the awareness to which the dream appears is one and constant its same awareness which experienced your waking life it is the same awareness which is experiencing your dream life where the dreams are real or not whether your waking life is a dream and a good as a dream there are different schools of Vedanta one school of analysis there is no difference between your waking and dreaming your waking it just a long dream it this is what he is mentioning your dream is unstable the waking life is more stable in this life here you are if you go if you come to the Vedanta class and retreat and you fall asleep and you dream of being somewhere else on the beach maybe and then you wake up your car will still be there don't worry be the baking world is stable compared to the dream world in your dream if you are on your beach on the beach and having a pizza you cannot say oh it's time to wake up let me put the pizza end in the fridge I'll next time I dream I'll come and eat the pizza because it's unstable it won't be there anymore but what Vedanta says is we are not interested in the contents of your waking life we are not interested in the contents of your dream experience we are interested in the container in the awareness in which all these are happening and that awareness continues undisturbed from waking to dreaming this awareness which continue is undisturbed from waking to dreaming when you go into deep sleep because sleep is of two kinds you dream and as deep sleep whether you do not do you have no experience it just blank doctors also know about that and they say there is a REM sleep and non-rem sleep REM sleep rapid eye movement sleep which is associated with dreams when people have those rapid eye movements and you wake them up they will repeat they will report that they were dreaming and there is sleeper there is no rapid eye movement under your closed eyelids if you wake up people at that time it's a cruel thing to do if you break them up they report no dreams it's a deep sleep and the brainwaves are apparently different also so their different levels of sleep a light level of sleep is associated with dreams a deeper level of sleep no dreams blank we say I slept like a log I didn't know anything we say that deep sleep now somebody might ask a question here is something crucial somebody might ask a question Swamy your thesis falls flat here because all right we have awareness in waking we have a wareness in dreaming definitely some kind of dream awareness is there because the experience dreams but in deep sleep there is no awareness deep sleep it's blank everything's gone so there is no continuity of consciousness this idea you had up an unchanging consciousness it disappears in deep sleep Vedanta says no the next verse is about this question is there consciousness in deep sleep or not next verse Soto Teta says oh shoot da motivates me he Sarge Abu Dhabi Shia Buddha Dhamma in deep sleep once you wake up from deep sleep what you say there was nothing I slept happily I was unaware of anything but what we learnt the points out here is settle down what Vedanta points out here is focus on this deep sleep without the creams that it's not an absence of experience it's an experience of absence deep sleep it's not unconsciousness it's not no consciousness it's consciousness without an object of consciousness it's a container which is empty it's like you go to Carpinteria station here and then first you see an Amtrak train coming in a lot of people getting down and getting up and the girl and then the denouncement a lot of happening it's happening it's like the waking life comes into your awareness and then the train leaves after sometime maybe a freight train comes in no activity nobody's getting on getting off no announcements it just passes it stays there for a while and passes like your dream experience hazy not very important not the industrial-grade reality which you see in waking state okay so kind of virtual reality like a movie it comes and then the freight train leaves also you're still there what's there no train but to say that the platform is empty there is no train you must be there you are the one who noted that there was an Amtrak you are the one who noted there was a freight train you are the one who noted there's nothing unless you note that there is no train who will say that there is no train exactly like that in deep sleep in the waking state you noted here is your waking state I am sitting here in Santa Barbara and then the temple and listening to a talk on non-dual Vedanta fall asleep tonight dream about something there you are dreaming about a walk on the beach in central Santa Barbara or something in the ocean and the mist and everything a dream exactly like that when you say deep sleep nothing blank you must have been there to see that blankness do you see where I'm going with this that consciousness continues unabated that consciousness is not thinking in deep sleep thinking also stops you do not even think I am in deep sleep I am seeing nothing no if you do that that that's the mind you're not sleeping the mind has also shut down so when we are talking about awareness here consciousness here we are not talking about the mind the mind continuously changes we are talking about a background awareness which does not change that awareness in which the changing mind also shines the thoughts arise and dissipate one unchanging light like a bright blue sky full of sunlight where clouds of various hues come and go bright puffy white clouds waking state the early morning mist you saw dream state and at night nothing you don't see anything with the sky still there in the same way we are that unchanged consciousness because of which after waking up we could say I went to sleep I had dreams and there was a time when I did not dream anything it was blank I was sort of deeply relaxed I didn't know anything it's because of that consciousness you are able to say that imagine if there had been no consciousness in deep sleep no awareness then what would be our report upon waking up we would say I was awake I went to sleep I had dreams now on awake again but in between period of no consciousness would never be reported you'd never feel that I slept deeply without knowing anything if you put it briefly deep sleep is not unconsciousness according to Vedanta deep sleep is a state of where you have experience of absence not absence of experience you experience the absence of objects of experience there's nothing to experience that's deep sleep that's something to experience that's waking there is something to experience that's dreaming the experiencing consciousness is one and unchanged next verse so both oh we shall yard in no no bird Swapna bowed her but Avon starna try iike some betadine on teri that consciousness in deep sleep which lights up the blankness of deep sleep one mystic a Christian mystic points out something very interesting he says I forget his name he says this the blackness of deep space outside the Earth's atmosphere the blackness of deep space is actually full of light sunlight is streaming through space to the earth how do you know when a comet passes through it you see a glorious display at night you see the comet's tail shining in the sunlight which means what we call space between Earth and Sun looks black it's black because there is nothing to reflect the sunlight which is continuously streaming from Sun to earth all that sunlight which lights up our world right now what you can see right now all that sunlight is coming through deep spaces it's streaming all the time it looks black why does it look black because there's nothing to reflect the sunlight if a satellite passes through it you will see the satellite shining in right if the moon passes through sunlight you see the moon shine the entire moon light is basically borrowed sunlight it's on credit so it's this borrowed light in the same way in deep sleep he says that blankness itself is the object of consciousness nothingness itself is the object of consciousness therefore he concludes in all the three states of our daily existence waking dreaming deep sleep one point is that there is one unchanging awareness because of which through the mind and sense organs you experience the waking world because of which through the mind only you experience dreams because of which when the mind and sense organs have shut down in deep sleep you experience the blankness that unchanging consciousness you are not this waking body and this little person here the little person is in the mind the body is physical right here the body is in consciousness you are not a body with awareness your awareness in which a body is experienced you are unchanging awareness in which a changing bodies experienced the youth and the middle age and the old age and the decay and disease and eventual death of the body are all experienced in the same unchanging ageing undecaying non dying conscious which you are all the changing dreams are experienced in that consciousness which you are it's not the mind the mind changes therefore in all three states of our daily experience there's one unchanging awareness this is the central insight of the first session and the next verse is very beautiful the the next verse is Maha yoga LP issue got agha me show naked huh node 18 ostomate tikka some with Asia so I am Prabha beautiful verse which says the self-effulgent consciousness which you are which I am this one need arises norstedts it's not a Sun which rises and sets really speaking the son of this son also does not rise and set it's an illusion created by the the rotation of the earth but it's a son which need arises not sex what are we talking about talking about you this consciousness rises or sets means it's neither created nor destroyed this consciousness is neither created nor destroyed the body is born and the body dies thoughts are created throught appeared and thoughts disappear it is witnessed by the same unchanging consciousness month he says here very beautiful verse months pass years pass lifetimes pass body dies we get other bodies this consciousness neither emerges nor disappears he says eons pass universes are created and destroyed you know the Hindu idea of the universes is not that was created once and will be destroyed once forever it's this cyclic there is creation existence destruction again creation existence and destruction and so on in in cyclical order a bit like nowadays they are talking about the Big Crunch and the Big Bang so I in New York where I am right now the Met is very close the Metropolitan Museum and they have a very nice planetarium and Neil deGrasse Tyson so he narrates the whole thing and then he talks about how the how modern cosmology is coming around to this point of view that there are universes which are created in a Big Bang which go through the entire lifecycle and die in a either a heat death or a Big Crunch and again a new universe is generated universes cycled through you the consciousness you need or emerge not nor are you destroyed you are the witness to this whole game this consciousness one and self if an effulgent you are first first part of the possession is over to sum up the outline is this our life is a series of experiences you are with me on this good bad desired for anxious about not desired for not of experiences series of experiences these experiences are all different from each other having a cup of tea and having a cup of coffee that different experiences they are different from each other and the thoughts we have about these experiences in our mind they are also different they come and go but the awareness in which these experiences come is unchanging constant immortal that awareness think of it as an unchanging light is what you truly are you see no Swami on this body but are you an awareness and you experiencing a body see yes if the body disappears from your awareness as it does every night when you go to sleep are you there or not if you are not dead then who dreamt so I are they're very aware of your body on the bed no I was aware of doing something else on the beach in Santa Barbara or somewhere else not on the bed I was not aware of my body sleeping on the bed for your awareness continues without awareness of the body it's proved it's there's no doubt about it and even the mind when the mind shuts down in deep sleep even there if you understood that bit about deep sleep then in we have to admit that in some sense awareness itself - any object of awareness continues therefore awareness is continuous there should be questions so the first part is over this is the pointing to the pure consciousness which you are think about it when you say you are pure consciousness it sounds cruel but whatever does it mean now you know what it means it's pointing to something very real within you within us all the time present it's because of that awareness that we have this experience of life our problem is we have identified that awareness which we which we are and we have put on top of it the mind and the body and forgetting that unchanging awareness we identify ourselves with a mind and a body I'm a man I am a woman I am happy I am unhappy I'm unhappy trying to be happy I'm overweight trying to lose weight what does this say no no you're not consciousness is not overweight consciousness does not need to lose weight conscious is not even happy happiness is this hot in the mind anything that comes and goes comes and goes in your awareness happiness is of thought in the mind anxieties are thought in the mind fear is a thought in the mind these are experiences these are the contents of your experience you are not the contents of your experience you are the light shining upon the contents of your experience you are not this body this body appears in you the awareness you're not even the person where is the person the person is in the mind proof when you go to deep sleep the person disappears think about it we are more than 100 people here it also different from each other there are men and there women there are young people there are old people young and old body man and women body the person different kinds of people different occupations different talents different life histories but when we all go into deep sleep when we go into deep sleep even though our dreams are different but when we go into deep sleep isn't our experience all of us we have exactly the same experience in deep sleep proving that the differences between us are the differences of body and of personality a personal history and they are all in the body they're all in the mind not in the background pure awareness which we all are in that pure awareness we are also all one we are not different pure awarenesses it's one pure awareness shining through many bodies and minds at the deepest possible level we are all immortal and we are all one reality one consciousness let's have some discussion now we are entering into the second phase of the first session just raise your hand are you able to hear my voice don't worry about not seeing me yes I can see you I ask you a favor all right we'll we'll work backwards from there the people who are raising their hands just give it to Annie yes nice to be here yes no is a mystery so for energy and spirit at the same time I guess that some of the message is trying to say my problem not a problem is I want these experiences because I'm human because I want to grow so he's just supposed to have that experience acknowledge it and it's just let account right first of all we must be aware that we are not our experiences if we wear our experiences the accumulation of our experiences you know all the sizes that we have taken and all the places we have visited the photos jamming our hard disks which we never look at again what are we doing I am a sum total of all the places I've been to the people I've made the food I've eaten I think I my experiences no you are not you are far more than your experiences those experiences are like clouds floating through a shining blue sky you are not the clouds you are the shining blue sky let the experiences come and go you enjoy the experiences as as the witness of all of them don't get attached to them don't identify with them that I am these experiences if you identify with them what will happiness I want to collect nice experiences pleasant experiences people I like the food I like the places I like the jobs I like and I'd hate these other experiences other people and the food and jobs and life becomes a perpetual struggle trying to replace one set of experiences with another set of experiences it's like the sky saying I like this cloud I don't like that cloud the sky has nothing to do with the clouds it provides space for the clouds depend on the sky without the sky no clouds are possible and you see how all the experiences that you have had they depend on you the awareness without you the one who experiences no experience but you do not depend on the experiences these experiences which float through you I'll tell you something it may be shocking you asked why we grow through that you know they add nothing to you they detract nothing from you the worst of experiences can detract nothing from you I'm telling you this with all conviction you the unchanging consciousness will remain ever that I had a very moving experience another experience people try to call me and talk with me but it's difficult to talk with everybody so somebody called and said that I wish to speak with you and over Skype so I put her off I said ok later and then she wrote saying that I have no time I am dying so I said of course we can speak and she was in a hospice in a place I will not tell the name because it's because of privacy this person this lady was dying of cancer and we spoke a few times I don't know she reached out to me for help I think I was the one who's helped she's been pursuing Buddhism and Vedanta most of her life and the calmness and the light and the dignity with which she faced what she was going through never once complained about pain and nausea and suffering her caregiver told me and she just asked a few questions about Vedanta about Buddhism about the Guru I still remember she's saying on skype she's on the bed she's saying Oh Swami I'm dying I don't know if have a few hours left maybe I said you are not dying you are immortal and I can never forget the way her face lit up and said yes I am immortal I look forward to it it's so relaxed about it it's another experience I'm not the body I'm not even that little person who is facing death yes so even the worst of experience is dying of cancer we can think of it as a terrible experience it detracts with nothing from the pure awareness which you are in the background it's terrible for the person if you are rooted in the person I am this person oh my god I'm dying of cancer can I not please leave live a few more days and the Bible it is said who by his own will can add even an instant even a moment to his life we are like the grass of the fields you know the flowers of the fields here today and dead tomorrow you cannot the little person is an experienced who will pass away but you use the immortal consciousness in the background you are not touched bite and say something horrible you can even enjoy it the Saints do there are so many examples of saints who who see the joy in insult and deprivation and disease you can think that's crazy but now it's not because underneath it all behind it all they see the same background radiation that the same one consciousness everywhere alright question somebody close to you yes there's the person there as always nice to see you once again so I'm finding a difficult time to understand the deep state in deep sleep states so I understand waking and dreaming you experience what like in deep sleep you are experiencing the absence that is difficult because so when I wake up then I infer that okay five hours or eight hours pass away so that though that means I inferred I was in deep sleep but all right let me stop you right there follow what he said it's a good good question when we wake up do we look at look at the clock and say okay eight hours three of those hours I dreamt so that really leaves five hours which are blank so those five hours I must have slept do we do that or do we wake up and say I had dreams and have periods of no dream do you follow the question he's asking is when we wake up do we actually remember our deep sleep or we just remember our dreams and then we look at the clock and we infer that okay I had a period of dreams the rest of it must have been deep sleep but we don't infer actually look at your own lived experience do you look at the clock and calculate now do you not feel that there was a blank nothingness when you wake up why when you wake up because then the mind starts functioning and looking back upon what happened just now do you see my point look at it from another way look at it in another way remember these questions are useful for everybody here is your waking world which you can see which you can hear which you can smell and touched and taste right and inside you there is an internal world where you think where you remember where you feel good or bad where you desire where you are frustrated where you are angry where you are peaceful that's the internal private mental world right now imagine Mt yourself of everything no physical world you cannot see you cannot hear you cannot smell touch nothing no sense is functioning thoughts sees no feelings no sensations no ideas no memories no dreams not even i blank 0 emptied of everything now my question is are you gone try to follow this carefully each of these are actually pointers to the reality that you are are you gone some will say yes they are identifying with the mind something that has been emptied out you throw something out of the container empty the container if you identify yourself with something that was in the container you will say I'm gone but if you identify yourself the container you will say everything is gone but I am the empty container I am the awareness and the field of light where there is nothing to shine upon I remember I'll give you one more example do you know these PowerPoint presentations you have a projector up on the ceiling which throws a beam of light and the pictures on a screen and there you point out stuff on the PowerPoint the projector actually throws a powerful beam of light right I was talking about this in a seminar in in India in a place called Nalanda which is one of the oldest universities of the world and the ruins are still there the university was there from 580 to 1280 800 years to give you a perspective the oldest college in Oxford is Balian college which started in 1280 so that's when a lambda was in 4 was coming to an end it was destroyed so there are new universities now I was not giving a talk in the ruins the ruins are ideologically preserved up there so in the talk I wanted to illustrate this kind of question had come so suddenly I had a an idea I said look this space seems to be blank nothing dark but I knew that the beam of light was through their tool for the PowerPoint so when I trust my hand here suddenly see the whole hand lit up with white light the light is shining right through here I could see it but people the audience couldn't see it when I trust my hand into the beam of light you could see my hand shining in that light when I removed my hand this just looks like empty space you can't see the light here when I put my hand in the light you can see that not only my hand but you can see the light reflected from my hand my question is when I remove my hand is the light here gone now I wish I could show it to you it's so vivid startling so much light so bright and yet seems to be nothing there seems to be nothing because there is nothing for their light to be reflected from similarly in deep sleep there is not hot no dream no sensation nothing for consciousness to to illumine that's why it looks like that there are a lot of discussions on this some philosophers actually say what you are saying but we infer isn't it be that we infer when we wake up where anthesis look at your experience you don't infer you actually report not experiencing anything blankness all right question we can come up here oh okay yeah yes Swami I find and I would like to know is it my mind or this mind or is it like this wanting to know what then is the purpose or does this that we the container does it have an agenda for lack of a better quality you know what I'm asking yes the distinction or how do we think about it what agenda do you have in deep sleep none the point is you yourself if there is a point at all it is that pure consciousness in fact the point of all of this is to lead you back to the absolute that you are the point of all of this this game of life is to take you back to the reality that you are I can't put it any better than Alan Watts who was a very funny philosopher very British he was into Zen and Buddhism and Vedanta and he loved Advaita Vedanta he used to say if religion is very very mischievous also it was in San Francisco in the Bay Area and the 60s so he's he's to say if religion is the opium of the masses then I must say that the Hindus have the inside dope what is the inside dope in the context of your question what's the point of it or if you ask he put it so beautifully he says when people ask me such a question I tell them a little story for children and I find the children understand it much faster than or others do children are satisfied with this story if they ask what is all this story goes like this god only existed from eternity to eternity there's only one reality again you can see what he means now invade on three that we are talking about that reality right now but he puts it in simple terms God only existed from eternity to eternity now God had a God was lonely got lonely I mean all by himself on lonesome self so God decided to play hide and seek don't just to pass the time but then that's a big problem whom will God play hide and seek with is nobody else there's really nobody else and poor God whom would he play with then God hit upon a plan what's the plan God pretended to be not God God in order to play hide and seek pretended to be not God God pretended to be you and him and her and me and everybody else God pretending to be not God but then because it's God and he's awfully good at everything he does he pretended so well he forgot that he was God and the game of life started from eternity to eternity spinning around in the world you know individual beings and plants and animals and men and women and children and good and bad and evil then striving all of it is God seeking to find himself again that's the story that's all of it question all right I'll come here all right my question is that we do understand that it's the unchanged consciousness through which we experience and everything but how do I remind myself of that constantly because we are so much attached good I am I'm glad you asked that because that's the third part of today's session you see how beautifully we segue into that because once you would start becoming aware of whatever we are talking about immediately a question will be how do I remain in that that's cool that's great how do I remain in that the answer to that is first of all you don't have to do anything at all whether you attend one more with on the talk or not you are always that you are helplessly that you cannot be anything else it's like asking you know what you're asking how do I remain as the pure consciousness how do I remind myself that I'm the pure consciousness it's like the waves in the ocean asking Wow there is something called water how do I become water hmm it's exactly that you are not water pure consciousness and you cannot be anything else but I understand what you are saying we tend to keep getting mixed up with the body mind and a little person and it's not all that easy the way I'm pointing out seems to be very direct very easy when you read Advaita that's the problem if once you begin to get it there cannot be anything simpler than this it's the same one simple truth of existence so I mean where they kind of called it the open secret there's a lecture the open secret it's right here staring at us in the face we don't see it but how do I abide in that will come to techniques for that there's a question here please come here yes Swami what is the difference between what neuroscientists call core consciousness which is a part they can identify in the brain yes that governs a lot of what we do but we can't be aware of it for example our organs are always digesting and taking care of things maybe it could could the awareness that when we wake up and we know that we haven't been even dreaming could that come from that part of the brain called core consciousness right the difference right now it's an exciting time for consciousness studies about 25 years ago no serious scientist would touch consciousness studies but now it's a booming field the universities have departments our neighbor in in Manhattan at NYU has a whole whole department called mind brain and consciousness unit and this idea the problem of consciousness is one side of it is we understand there must be some link with this thing we call the brain and nervous system there must be some link something is functioning through that but other side is what you are experiencing and what I am experiencing right now right now you are not experiencing neurons firing you're seeing colors you're hearing sound you're thinking cuts this is consciousness for you and for me but for a scientist who studies it from outside he has no access to it what he has or she has access to is the brain other nerves are the neurons which they can scan with fMRI scans and many other things now how do the two come together you see the two sides of it this table or this book has only one dimension the physical but you have two dimensions there is an external public dimension which is the physical dimension and there is an internal dimension your own inner life of thoughts emotions desires your lived experience that is not directly accessible to any machine whatsoever that's what we call the conscious life within so how do the two come together well David Chalmers who is a philosopher and who kinda termed the hard problem of consciousness if you google consciousness studies you will invariably come across the hard problem of consciousness how do you explain the brain generating a first-person subjective experience so that's what she is asking how do you how do you connect the two where is in the brain the activities of the brain are they generating consciousness Vedanta says no Vedanta says consciousness is fundamental it functions through the mind and the mind functions to the brain even now in modern consciousness studies they are unable to separate mind and consciousness and yet in Vedanta right now do you see that you are able to separate mind and consciousness what is mine I can't resist telling you this little joke in all philosophy departments they start off with this little joke what is mind no matter what is matter never mind okay I had to just get it out of the way that's so cliche yes that is so cliched but that's the hard problem of consciousness okay we'll take one more question we're running out of time for the meditation for the okay that's all right yes we have a question here my question is what is your hand sticking in the light according to Sankhya we have Laguna's and maya and all the play and the two realities and everything but what is it according to a daughter padartha good I'll just repeat the question for you the hand sticking in the light the world and your body and mind appearing in the awareness the light which you are it's the hand sticking in the light this world is shining in your awareness then the question is what is this word is it real is it something apart from the light clearly this is light there and I put my hand there my hand and the light are two different things the light shines upon my hand the hand is not the light the light is not the hand the light is not produced by the hand so different that's the position of Sankhya philosophy they say there are two realities there is a material reality of time space matter energy called nature prakruti and there is consciousness separate from this material reality two realities Advaita Vedanta says there are not two realities but one reality I'll answer it precisely and let it leave it at that I'm glad you asked because this is a seminar on non-dualism if somebody who have been following this acutely would immediately sense swami you're speaking about duality consciousness and everything else that's what are you speaking about consciousness and everything else Advaita says no everything that appears in consciousness is nothing but the same consciousness with name and form this will become more clear in the third session when the pointer the insight will be about existence in adwaita Vedanta everything that you experience in your awareness is actually that awareness itself coming in front of you with different names and problems that's called Maya we just leave it at that if it is the awareness coming in front of you with different names and forms and giving you an experience of the world if it is God who has hidden himself is not God so whatever God experiences which looks like not God looked like mr. X and mrs. Y but it actually God Himself so it looks not dual it's actually non dual think of the story of God pretending to be not God is it dualism or is it non-dualism think about it it looks dual because God is playing hide and seek with themselves there are different people different plants animals worlds but if it's all God pretending to be not God pretending to be men and women and plants and animals in the world in that case really what is there only God is there only the ultimate is there so it's really our non dual non dual appearing as duality is what advaitha sees our life as alright we'll stop here and we go back to college we're going into the third part of the earth session there are different variations within one meditation the first part of all the radiation can be landing nothing to do in longer anything if you like the body and bring a guy brought in a really very vision will be what we tell each other I don't know what do we do monthly some other place and after the meditation ask for comment and one person raised hand is sorry you said breathe deeply and even be an original tenant already at that point you will fit you laugh and be in evenly that I'll stand that after that your consciousness if I don't get it over now that second part is the real limitations is going to come this three but not which is which is what it will comfortably and succulent up on the chair and with them alone don't stoop or don't slouch and you like you can put your hands on your lap when you are ready enclose your money so reading not me breathing in reading relax listening to my voice many of you already got what I was talking about so you really don't have to follow - you just abide in the Instagram events is divided or if you like follow my instructions reading normally relax the body left hand very just think of it and think of it being relaxed let let all last left shoulder right hand yeah right on I showed it let would realize left leg right hood with a right hands these relaxed Vegas to neck upper body later sitting straight cheating or me but actually Matylda hand counting on it I [Music] a relaxed both are human acts you know listen to the sounds you can hear my voice other sounds Oh notes that the sounds appear to you period sounds arising in awareness interviewing back hopeless first of all it's a sound note the sound heaven without any help and from there go back to the awareness nobody had ears in area you can do anything anything that it is serves you what account a sensation in the body don't be disturbed just use it just note that the sensation appears in being changed Harsha if there's discomfort in the body our Anil in the mind it is notes that as being and the mt4 consciousness the sensations come in in irony it sounds and I interview I give you this mini and just do our mind does my Dave and I mean before me my modulus in re light of consciousness David marks has the body changes and ages the mind thinks so many thing and being so remember implicates and then changing light of business old age and disease - not touching your objects alekseevna gone depression and misery - not touching their objects rising house in a shiny new sky this would be really lady gnarly every sound every destination right slant reminds me of the light that fire [Music] become aware - you're seated in the temple you're on a chair people around you leaving Norman I reject all three times on the third time open your eyes and look down at your hands on your lap I'll just turn three times [Music] [Music] [Music] you lie and silly your eyes down Sooey Hey rifles and you're likely engage

Channel: Vedanta Society of Southern California

Views: 185,676

Rating: 4.8121738 out of 5

Keywords: vedanta, advaita, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Santa Barbara

Id: o-RFz56gb9E

Length: 78min 3sec (4683 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2017