Relationship between Mind and Consciousness | Swami Sarvapriyananda | Sarvapriyananda latest 2022

I'll start with a chant um [Music] [Music] you know it's I was just thinking I'm the one who's fortunate to be here I remember when I became a monk just about two days from where I had joined the order it was a new brahmacari absolutely a newcomer to the order and the Swami introduced me to the teachers it was a school a ramakrishna mission school and introduced me to teachers this boy has come to become a monk has got these qualifications one of the teachers said oh so we are so lucky to have him and immediately the monk corrected him and said no he is lucky to be here and I've always had that attitude in life and when I look at this institute and the very distinguished Gathering here on the days and of the days I feel I'm very fortunate that I'm able to come here and discuss this most important subject um in this most elite of Institutes what can Indian philosophy what incites can Indian philosophy give to Neuroscience in the study of consciousness well straight off when we I can give you one one example right now which which happened just now as I was entering the administrative block there was a um poster which said an exhibition on obsessive compulsive disorder and from a vedantic perspective immediately you know what what struck me was when you talk about something like OCD you see on one hand Behavior which is the OCD the correct Behavior characteristic of OCD now if you ask that the the patient um to report what he or she is feeling so they'll give a personal report a first person account of what it feels like to be under the grip of this compulsive Behavior so how do we deal with it normally from a psychiatric perspective what you deal with is the behavior that has to be treated and you talk with the person you say that is the subject and this is the objective Behavior The observed Behavior and that's it but from a vedantic perspective what difference does it make here is an Insight from a vedantic perspective both of them are objects the behavior is objective it's observed but even the experience of being in the grips of OCD which that person is reporting and which you would normally treat as a subjective report is also an object because that person is experiencing it whatever what's the definition of a subject what's the definition of an object in vedanta whatever is experienced is an object whatever is an object of experience I I love this definition by Professor arindam chakravarti he teaches Indian philosophy at Hawaii he was in New York a couple of years back he said definition of an object anything that objects to your Consciousness is an object think of your Consciousness as a field spreading out now when it encounters an object you know something like this you see this So when you say you see this Consciousness experiencing an object then you have the experience of seeing Consciousness plus object is equal to experience from a vedantic perspective what are what are these objects their physical objects like this or objects like the OCD Behavior or objects mental objects which we do not see but each of us has an inner first person world and we have those experiences so I'm most grateful um Dr Murthy are the distinguished faculty members on the days members of The Faculty students staff and so many guests from Bangalore and outside Bangalore I'm glad that you have come here this afternoon we'll spend some time together deliberating these very profound issues it was not always so I had this in very interesting experience a couple of weeks back I got an invitation from a very powerful body in the United States the American Psychiatric association APA and the invitation was interesting we want the APA wants a conference with spiritual leaders with leaders leaders of religious organizations so I was the token representative from Hinduism but they are mostly representatives from different churches from Islam from Judaism and the idea there was that there's a mental health crisis they're talking about United States but India also and it is impossible for us as psychiatrists to deal with it alone and we find that another player in this whole field is religion and often he's talking about the United States often we find people who come to us they don't really like us they don't really trust us but they like the pastor or the minister in the church the head of the uh the local religious organization there's more trusted somebody they can talk with especially in cases of mental illness so we should have a partnership we are surprised because we thought Americans so there are these two organizations I mean I'm I'm talking uh to people who are experts in the field two APS and I got confused the American Psychiatric association American psychology Association and they hate each other yes sir and they both have both have enormous headquarters buildings near each other in Washington DC so I got confused actually luckily in time I found out which was the one which had invited but they're the case they made for engagement with spirituality was you cannot argue with the data they said it's not that we are going to come out as religious people the spiritual people and start supporting religion philosophy no we may or may not believe in all this but we cannot argue with the data every survey shows that those who have some grounding in some personal grounding in any some religious Faith some kind of regular practice of their own they are much more resilient when it comes to mental illness there are much less incidents of mental illness and also then there is mental illness often on the average again um resilience is more they can handle it better so you can't argue with the data that's why we want a cooperation and even more interesting I'm just sharing it I'm sure he won't mind the ex-president of the American Psychiatric association summer guard I think uh over after lunch because he saw this dress he came and told me that you know as a young man I spent three years in a Buddhist Monastery in Japan and even till today I meditate daily I I meditate daily who is this psychiatrist in America repetition of pill pushers every no meditation philosophy that I'll just take this medicine you'll be fine he is saying that I meditate every day and I really feel that the next in the way to go forward in Psychiatry is this bridge between our ancient spiritual traditions of all religions and uh psychiatry so I'm very glad that we have this and this institute as I was just hearing from the director ma'am she was saying how the philosophy is that we are open in this institute to the ancient spiritual Heritage of India and try to understand these problems from this kind of synthetic perspective the reason really why we are here today is as Dr ravindra mentioned it's it's a hard problem of Consciousness and the hard problem of Consciousness is why today I'm a monk I am a vedantist here your psychiatrist neuroscientist of various range of disciplines why are we talking at all it's because of this what this problem is in its it's been understood for quite a long time but it is only in recent times it's taken on a life of its own it we got the catchy formulation the hard problem of Consciousness uh Dr Professor David Chalmers who is the head of the mind brain Consciousness unit uh Department in NYU NYU by the way has probably the best philosophy of Mind faculty in the philosophy Department worldwide so it's there what he said was notice that we all have experiences of the world we are continuously having experiences and this is what we call Our Lives at the same time when we look at our body and the Brain nervous system it's matter it's observable processes going on there I mean you can observe it as a living tissue you can observe the even without modern technology you can observe the minute electrical activity in the in the neurons but that's the limit of what we can see and by the way it's I think one of the reasons why this renewed interest in Consciousness and this right now why this is such a hot subject also technology two sides of it the new imaging technology which has come into play that's one reason and another reason is I think it Information Technology the possibility of AI the people in IBM senior researcher was asking me questions about the viability of AI and Consciousness can AI be conscious and what is consciousness from an Indian perspective problem is this as David Chalmers has put it um we see minute electrical activity that's literally the last thing that can be observed by our most advanced scanning mechanisms fmri scans or whatever you know better and yet each of us we have this Vivid experience going on right now we you can see color and shape and such such complexity in our field of vision you can hear sound music you know harsh noises melodious stuff all of this we can hear we taste we smell We Touch not only that we have the inner introspective experience of thinking remembering Desiring hating all of what we call our life in fact one of the leading neuroscientists Christoph cook who was in the Paul Allen brain Institute his late one of his his latest book is the feeling of life itself he defines Consciousness as the feeling of life itself which all of us we have now there is a huge Bridge minute bursts of electricity and compare it with the experience each of us is having right now when I'm seeing you when I'm hearing you when I'm thinking feeling these are not minute bursts of electricity it's color and shape a direct first person experience and when you look at from EXT externally when you look at the um the what's going on electrical activity in the brain that's not seeing hearing smelling tasting touching Desiring thinking understanding hating you know inspiration creativity no you see one must appreciate the huge explanatory Gap here one might say right here what's the problem those bursts of electricity are causing it right from a vedantic perspective this is a huge what we might call a category error why is it a category error um once I was talking with another philosopher and he is a he's a biologist Massimo he teaches at um I think at city college in New York I think or City University of New York uni so he's a biologist and um a neuroscientist also a new biologist and a philosopher of mine and he said look I am convinced that Consciousness is nothing but something that is produced by a living brain that's it and he says I cannot explain it yet he admits the Gap the explanatory gap between minute electrical activity observed in a living brain in the tissues of a living brain and our Vivid experience of Life how is it how are the two connected he says I cannot explain it yet but his argument was look this Gap it's not a big deal because even a hundred years back people were saying that you cannot explain life science cannot explain life but today we understand life down to its molecular level the molecular processes which go to constitute what we call life we understand that now and for me that's enough explanation so give us time as means neuroscientists give us time and we will explain how Consciousness is produced from physical processes in a living brain so this is called promissory materialism and I can't it's a real thing if you Google it you'll find it it's a really big thing promissory materialism um I can't explain it now but I will be able to explain it later just give me some more time for the time being you must accept that somehow physical processes produce Consciousness now what could be the objection against this objection from a vedantic perspective perspective there's a huge objection here is the objection and these are insights actually we can share in the dialogue why is promissory materialism not acceptable because of this I said my reply to him was look when you say I X I have now understood life in terms of more fundamental processes life is a complex higher order process and you reduce it down to more fundamental product processes down to the cellular level down to even to the molecular level as you have said great from an advantic perspective what have you done you have understood a complex objective process in terms of more fundamental objective processes remember what's the definition of object in vedanta anything that is experienced in Consciousness that is presented to Consciousness is an object whatever you can experience is an object it could be something external it could be something mental also these are all objects life is an objective process molecular processes you find in experimentation or observation these are objective processes that you have explained in terms of this but now when you say I am going to explain consciousness which is not an objective process we will see why not is not an objective process in terms of objective processes then you do you see you're making a jump you're making what what can be called in philosophy a category error he did not take it well I mean either he didn't get what I was trying to say or it's not a valid thing now remember we must keep our minds open as neuroscientists are keeping their minds open explanations from vedanta Buddhism all of these Traditions interesting let's hear them out from our perspective also it should not be a done deal remember in in Indian philosophy also there's a whole range of views on consciousness there is consciousness very different from the advaita view of Consciousness though if you go deeper into it It's Not So Different At All there is the sankhya view of Consciousness and the advaita view of Consciousness there are various schools of Buddhism with various grades of understanding of Consciousness the jaina idea of Consciousness so the ancient Indian philosophical discourse there was this whole spectrum of views of Consciousness yeah I mean it's very attempting to give a very neat idea that this is the ancient Indian understanding of Consciousness and here is what we can share with modern science no it's not all that neat it's much more messy than that but it's much more interesting also it's much more interesting I remember reading a paper by Patricia Churchland and she says that philosophy of mind is not the way to understand the mystery of Consciousness we are doing Neuroscience we need to keep on doing more neuroscience and one day we will understand the mystery of Consciousness this is again promissory materialism I don't agree it's not now this has to be taken carefully so is it that doing bone Neuroscience is not necessary it is necessary first of all we live in an age of science we would be doing less than Justice to our own philosophical traditions if we are not open to science I'm sure the great masters of the advaitha tradition whether it is shankara or and this is the land of vidyar India the author of The panchadashi or so many others the kind of mind that you see working in those texts if they were here today they would be completely engaged with with science they would be very happy to you know take insights from science and investigate the scientific approach so even to understand our ancient philosophical spiritual traditions we must engage with science and the other way around there is something that I I firmly believe that these philosophical schools specially advaita vedanta can help in the investigation into Consciousness so both ways but why is it that I said that I don't think further investigation in uh in Neuroscience will actually solve the mystery of Consciousness in the sense that we will be able to explain it from matter to Consciousness that is I'm reminded of a little quote from Ed Whitton he is in Princeton he's a string theorist not a neuroscientist not a vedantist or philosopher a string theorist but brilliant man nevertheless and some interview I was watching and there uh quite off the topic it's not something related to physics somebody asked what about the mystery of Consciousness so do you think by Neuroscience we'll solve the mystery of Consciousness and he made a very perceptive remark this is somebody a very intelligent powerful intelligent mind from outside the field neither philosophy nor Neuroscience from outside the field a powerful intelligent mind observing this and he says I think as we do more Neuroscience we will learn more and more about the brain Consciousness will still remain a mystery so this observation is actually the basis of this dialogue which we are having I feel with the traditions we have in India for centuries Millennia of Investigation into Consciousness and the new booming interest in Consciousness studies in brain science in computer science in the philosophy of mind we will we are at a very exciting time and we will get new powerful understandings theoretical as well of something of practical use also I think just like the American Psychiatric association feels that a partnership between spirituality and Psychiatry can be very helpful um I was reading this book by Evan Thompson he's a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia in in Vancouver and um he's he's written this book um waking dreaming being Consciousness from Modern neuroscience and vedantic and Buddhist perspectives in the very beginning he says Consciousness studies is not a new field it's a very ancient field it goes all the way back to the upanishads of India five thousand years ago that was they were the first people to investigate Consciousness and they reached dramatic results and he gives a quote from another philosopher in that book um he says and this is from a person who is not a vedantist he says that the upanishads are such a remarkable development in human civilization that I believe our dating system should not be a d and BC it should be before upanishad after upanishad [Applause] he finds it so powerful and then he talks about the manduki upanisha the waking dreaming deep sleep now let's take this in a few stages and see what insights we can get from uh vedanta from Indian philosophy something that can keep the dialogue going by the way I am not going to promise and I don't see easy results coming if easy results were coming they would have come long ago we are we are really investigating the ultimate subject and there's a play onwards the subject itself Consciousness which is you or I the interesting thing here is when you talk about something like black holes or super strings now these are so esoteric these are so super specialized that only a few people with the requisite mathematics and advanced physics can authoritatively speak about it and we have to listen and try to understand as best and read Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time and get some idea of that but when it comes to Consciousness we are all experts conscious we have Consciousness we can always look inside into our own experience and check whether this guy is saying something useful or completely useless stuff we can always check in our own experience that's one of the beauties of of uh advaita vedanta there's no doubta vedant is a part of religions part of Hinduism advaita vedanta is a part of a philosophy uh so but there's something unique about advice I want to mention that a little bit before we go into the this this dialogue um what's unique about advaita vedant and forgive me because I'm a little partial partisan to advaita vedanta um there is one way of doing religion which is a faith-based approach in fact in the United States the word for religion is Faith they'll ask you what is your faith in India we don't do that because we know there are religions like Buddhism which generally do not talk about faith in God so one approach is the faith-based approach well the faith-based approach we are all familiar with God exists how do I know that well you don't but our your holy scriptures tell you that your tradition tells you that you know Wise and holy men mostly men uh did they they tell you that and so you're supposed to believe it and yes it works if you have faith if you hold on to that and practice this devotional approach faith-based approach it works but the problem is I mean there's no hiding it from an audience like this you just have to listen to a debate with Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or you know Sam Harris something the militant atheists faith-based approach cannot stand up to a skeptical scrutiny it doesn't even have to be a scientific scrutiny it can just be a rational skeptical scrutiny if I simply challenge you God said this what God now where is your god it is toxins so God is in heaven where is Heaven nowhere now if you push hard people in religion will take up you know back back foot they will say no it is symbolic okay symbolic about what if you keep pushing there is no clear answer there so as a skeptical inquiry something that starts with faith cannot withstand a direct skeptical attack this has always been the problem you notice in the faith-based approaches always there have been people who try to prove the existence of God the famous Theologian um Thomas Aquinas he offers in Christianity five proofs of the existence of God our own great logician they were engaged in trying to prove the existence of God because they were under under attack from the Buddhists so whenever you're trying to hold on to something by faith it's always open to doubt questioning as against this there's another approach this faith-based approach is sort of common to religion all across the world it is common to especially god-centered religions but there are other approaches available in the Indian tradition and quite well known the other approach is an experiential approach now remember when I say experiential um experiential from your perspective on my perspective not from a third person perspective so when SRI ramakrishna is having a vision of mahakali it happened quite openly in front of everybody he is seeing mother Kali or talking to makali but remember if you look at the description he alone is seeing Kali not anybody else others have to take it on faith until they have their own experience the better beauty of this experiential path is it is open to everybody Swami Vivekananda caught on this and in fact in the West in America he would say religion is realization so um if I if God exists I should be able to see God if I have an immortal soul I should be able to feel it see language at empirical language can I have experiences which justify the claims of faith and the yogic path the path of mystical experience claims that yes you can do this in fact that's what turned Narendra into Vivekananda he goes to Sri ramakrishna and asks can I see have you seen God can I see God also and when sudama Krishna says yes I have and you can too that was enough for Narendra not to start investigating further and start following SRI ramakrishna so this is the path of experience again problem is there what is the problem the problem is the people in this room psychiatrist neuroscientists you know what they will say they will say that I don't doubt that you feel you're experiencing God or feeling one with the universe but actually what's going on is you have a little stroke on the brain here a little little lesion is there and there's a blood clot and that is making you feel like this are you actually seeing God no no no no no you think you are seeing God are you actually one with the universe no no of course not you're just a human being and you are you feel you are one with the universe that can happen I mean it's not just you don't have to just have a stroke or a clot in the brain um I am in New York recently they have legalized marijuana so every day when I go out of the ashram after 6 pm the many spiritual experiences are going on all around so the brain is affected by substances ingested in the body and why not the brain is part of the body so if you ingest chemicals into the body if something goes wrong in the brain you will have different kinds of experiences and it's not just today Mystics those who claim to have extraordinary spiritual experiences how have they been treated by Society throughout the ages in every religion in every part of the world what did what was the first reaction of most people is mad crazy so mystical experiences though there are genuine mystical experiences but first of all they are rare not everybody has them even if you want them it's possible for all of us to have it but it takes long cultivated practice to get there and even if you get there it's good for you not good for others good not good means they will not accept it especially um you know neuroscientists psychiatrist a skeptic will not accept because there's so much evidence that other things can also cause such experiences and drugs can cause such experiences now right now that's a big thing again in American waves drugs come into fashion and go out so now there's experiments going on with psilocybin Asylum yeah um okay so what does advaitha have to say this on this we have got we have seen two two different approaches to religion one is the devotional approach faith-based which can easily be criticized the other one is the experience approach not so easy to criticize it's great because it makes an empirical claim it can be experienced but the experience itself is so specialized that again it can be an object of criticism of at least skepticism advaita vedanta has this remarkable Advantage this is I think a strong selling point the the advaita vedanta approach is not Faith you're not supposed to believe in something you're supposed to understand it understanding is the beginning it's not the end of advaita vedanta it's the beginning of advaita vedanta and experience yes but what kind of experience we are not asking for Extraordinary mystical experiences we are asking for experiences which are normal quotidian day-to-day when you see arthritic processes see her in the scene it's our common experience now which is being talked about you are the experience that you are seeing and this is the objective World which you are experiencing and this is enough to begin the investigation of advice the advaithik investigation enough waking dreaming deep sleep who does not have it you don't need drugs to have waking dream you might if you don't get good sleep but in general waking dreaming deep sleep are available to everybody I was surprised to read a paper an ant ant has dreams how do you know ant has dreams how do you know so we have rapid eye movement during our dreams so doctors can tell you that REM sleep ants have rapid antenna movement a ram sleep huh they stopped for a micro sleep and the antenna moved like this so the the postulate is they might be dreaming short sleep and short dream also so waking dreaming deep sleep we all have these experiences and advaita says this is enough this is something really convincing and Powerful in today's world you're just the structure of experience subject object experience this is enough to start the advaithic investigation the waking dreaming deep sleep this is enough to start the advaithik investigation which are panchakosha the five levels with which we experience ourselves the physical body this one and there is the pranic body you know for the tip of which is the tip of the iceberg is the breathing the life forces within this body and then even deeper more inward so notice when in advance when we say inward it does not mean physically in in the body if you go physical in the body you find more body but inward means in your direct first person experience you find thoughts emotions perceptions go further inward you find this faculty of understanding which is called buddhi or intellect which by which we are understanding these things go further inward you will hit up hit a blank wall nothing blank that is the Ananda May or the causal body and that to which these five experiences of ourselves appears and disappears that is called Consciousness and that is not an objective thing now this is all experiential all continuously available to everybody not just the mystic not just the yogi we all have it and on the basis of that if you conduct a rational inquiry we come to the advaithic idea of consciousness so the first thing starts with the irreducibility of Consciousness and mind to the brain so this is the hard problem of Consciousness that you cannot um explain satisfactorily explain Consciousness through brain processes um in fact there was a volume of papers on this called the irreducible mind a very interesting papers although it shows some misunderstanding also there was one one paper called Pure Consciousness events pure Consciousness events this is a paper of Investigation we will see what's wrong with that from an advaithic perspective immediately you know there's a mistake there just a title the moment you say pure Consciousness events and even to something that begins and ends it is something that is observable that person is still thinking of something to be observed uh but whatever is observed is observed by Consciousness in Consciousness is presented to Consciousness agrees with the idea of pure Consciousness but not pure Consciousness evens the moment you say event it's something to do with the mind or the body so these are insights which one can always share fruitfully with uh you know in a dialogue between neuroscientists psychiatrists philosophers I remember one such dialogue in The Institute of culture Dr ravindra was present um in one one in one interaction there was a neuroscientist and there was a professor of philosophy of sankya philosophy um Dr Professor Larson an American and there was no progress the neuroscientists and the doctors were saying one thing physicists and the philosophers were saying another thing and there's no way of mapping so finally this professor Larson he asked the neuroscientist doctor how do you is there Consciousness in deep sleep at that time the idea was there's no consciousness in deep sleep so he said no consciousness there's no consciousness in deep Sleep the way we Define it there's no consciousness in deep sleep and Professor Larson said here is the difference according to Indian philosophy at least sankhya and advaitha there is only Consciousness in deep sleep so this is the gulf so deep sleep there is nothing to be observed there's no objective presentation that's why your blankness and the blankness is presented to consciousness that's the that accounts for deep sleep in an advantic perspective one uh professor um gallon strassen he wrote a half humorous piece semi-humorous piece in the New York Times hard problem of matter but he it is very perceptive what he said was this all this discussion about heart problem of Consciousness is misplaced why we are all conscious who is he not conscious here all the readers of New York Times Are conscious in other words how can you read so Consciousness is directly experienced by each of us directly it is matter which is presented to Consciousness it is the object which appears to consciousness when we say subject and object they are not equal you are a subject and two youth objects appear so matter appears to consciousness we have somehow made up our mind that matter is producing consciousness now we cannot explain how matter is producing Consciousness hence hard problem of consciousness but why are you Beginning by assuming that matter is producing Consciousness there's good reason because materialist explanations are predominant in the world of science today so that's why there's we are trying to explain in terms of matter but he says rather it is matter which is a mystery I am conscious and then I am experiencing something what is that thing that's the question and when we and then he says when physics investigates matter before our very eyes matter is disappearing from atoms to subatomic particles to quarks to now super strings what they are talking about so it's becoming more and more esoteric it's becoming mathematics now you mentioned the talk on it from bit project actually just sort of came up as a half humorous remark with Professor Chalmers you know he talks about there's a theory of how matter is nothing but information now information is analogous to mind in vedanta so mind is also nothing but Consciousness so Consciousness appears as mind and matter and then we thought oh all right eat from bit from chit sounds like a great topic for a talk and actually gave that talk later on um there are some like Professor Chalmers and a few others Bernardo Castro Donald Hoffman who are open to this idea that Consciousness may be a fundamental reality not something that is emergent from Material processes in the in the brain if you cannot explain in terms of more fundamental realities then you have to say that the fundamental you are investigating is a fundamental reality itself so this this is what is now called or it was called pan psychism it is an old theory that Consciousness is pervading actually mind is pervading the universe that was the idea it has now been revived and pretty eminent people are sort of beginning to Advocate it like um David Chalmers himself in one of the interviews he said look if you think long and hard about the hard problem of Consciousness only two things are possible either you will become a pan psychist that is consciousness is everywhere or you will become an administrator you will give up research and go to Administration so this is this is one important thing where vedanta would completely agree that Consciousness and mind are not reducible to physical processes then what is consciousness here is something that is not yet so this is something that's being discussed now this is uh open on the table now that is possible that Consciousness may not be reducible to uh physical processes possible that Consciousness may be a fundamental process of the of the universe um fundamental reality of the universe but one more powerful Insight from advaitha from sankhya it is not yet part of the worldwide discourse which is something that we can take up here in India we're outside I've seen I've suggested they said Harvard University in the philosophy Department also they considered it interesting but they find it a little difficult to grasp this idea the idea is mind and Consciousness are not the same thing this is so in most of the literature in the world you'll find the modern literature in the philosophy of Mind in Consciousness studies they treat Consciousness as mind as the same thing if you ask in Consciousness studies what are you studying we will say we are studying perception we are studying emotion we are studying cognition vedanta will say all of these are mined or more precisely they are mixtures of mind and consciousness how will you distinguish between mind and Consciousness very elegant analytical knife is there to distinguish between Consciousness and mind I used it a little while ago one of shankara's disciples more than 1400 years ago he says not this Consciousness this not this Consciousness whatever can be designated as this is not Consciousness this table not consciousness this shirt not Consciousness this body this not consciousness very interesting this mind this thought this memory this ego this this ego I feel I right now I'm feeling it I can call it this ego it can be designated as this this uh perception this emotion this this this therefore not consciousness quite remarkable when you when you look at it this way is it theoretical is it something weird no it's how we are experiencing right now if you are experiencing a thought you can call it this thought this thought in my mind this thought is troubling me so this thought is an object whatever is presented to Consciousness is an object to Consciousness is not Consciousness the mind is presented to Consciousness just like you are aware of the body you are aware of the mind too when Shankar has disciple in upadesha sahasri asks that you are saying that this is an object and the body is also an object I I have an objection to this what is the objection is that if I hit this I have no problem but if someone hits me he's actually says if someone burns my skin it hurts it hurts how can I say this is an object I feel the pain when shankara says Ah do you feel it of course if you feel it is it an object or not even the pain is an object even the pain is an object and if you think in this way I've tried it and you can easily try it it's a nice exercise psychologically you begin to relax even in the presence of pain if you treat the pain as an object as giving this talk once a teenager in the audience in America he was pinching himself somebody asked him what are you doing so I'm trying out what he's saying and observing it as an object yes addict actually works so even mind Sensations are objects they're not consciousness Beyond this lies two more fundamental steps very big and very radical completely not acceptable by modern science at this point but I'll just throw it out there just to complete the talk two more insights one is that it's one consciousness I think it's Heisenberg who said Consciousness is the Consciousness is the Phenom is that which has no is a Schrodinger the singular which has no plural and he was right advaita vedanta insists it's one Consciousness not many many bodies you can count them a bodies here many Minds also but Consciousness how would you say apart from body and mind how would you say Consciousness is many he says in all these bodies and Minds there is one Consciousness I am in fact this is what this is one big radical claim of advaita vedanta here son can obey the pathways Sanchez has many consciousnesses and then the last and most radical thing Consciousness is non-dual non-dual means all those which are objects and with regard these objects as apart from Consciousness there are actually nothing but Consciousness whatever is presented to you the Consciousness is presented in you the Consciousness and is nothing but you the Consciousness the Consciousness does not have a second it is appearing to itself as its own object this is called a non-duality of Consciousness or advaitha this is the the heart of the core of the advaithic message there is one non-dual reality and that is consciousness and that is you that is the meaning of the great mahavakya you are that one non-dual Consciousness all right I'll stop here question answer is more important thank you so much thank you for the patient Theory [Applause] thank you swamiji for such an insightful session so we have received few questions from the audience before the session after taking these questions we'll ask a few from the audience right now so uh swamiji what exactly is spirituality how is it different from science can we ever study what is spiritual through a scientific process let me give the answer from a vedantic perspective what is spirituality spirituality is overcoming the ignorance about ourselves if I am that one non-dual Consciousness but I don't see myself at all in that way I see myself as this guy this fellow David Chalmers calls me the orange guy so as this orange guy I am sarva priyananda the orange guy but this is wrong from an advaithic perspective this is ignorance transcending this ignorance through knowledge and realizing what I am truly and then living it in life this is profound implications for life if I am that non-dual Consciousness can I die the body dies but can I die if I'm Immortal then what does it do for my fear of death if I am that one non-dual Consciousness and nothing is apart from me nobody is apart from me can I hate what will I hate it's it's a can you hate somebody in your dream when you wake up from a dream you had the experience of some nasty guys and some good people when you wake up do you hate those good people and do you hate um do you hate those nasty people and do you like those good people no they're all one with you I myself appear to me in those forms so who can hit or whom can you hit whom can you be partial to they're all you one uh sadhu put it very beautifully he said in in Hindi I'll tell you in Hindi and translate the consequence of this advaithik realization he says very beautifully put he says in our innermost understanding as Consciousness We Are All One not even a little bit different from each other we are one reality that's both in Consciousness in mind in thinking comes that whatever happens in the world apparently it is something is desirable for me something is undesirable something is Pleasant something is unpleasant but underneath you find an Equanimity that that's the sign of maturity actually this Equanimity which when it comes in life ups and downs in life you have Equanimity and in day-to-day activity with the body with other people with situations in life a Detachment not lack of Engagement fully engaged fully active the ideal of a Karma Yogi detached and yet intensely active that's what comes this is spirituality again from an advaithic perspective can it be investigated scientifically um I don't see why not Swami Vivekananda said I am of the opinion that the claims of religion must be subjected to the same rigorous investigation as the claims of science are if by that way we find something is false it should be given up no matter how soothing and good it seems because ultimately if something is false it cannot be ultimately good but he says I am convinced that the claims of religion the truths of religion will withstand this scrutiny and he is a mysterious phrase he uses because he says religion has an internal mandate with science legs now what is what did you mean by that internal mandate I with a with an advaithic bias I'm predisposed to think of it as this first person experience that I am obviously Consciousness so this is the internal mandate all right let's take the next question thank you swamiji by the way but if you want more practical uh investigation not just big theoretical talk um the his Holiness is Dalai Lama has engaged in uh a lot of discussions with neuroscientists especially and there have been studies on the effects of meditation many good papers have been published and work like that is going on our own Dr ravindra has done work and many people I think in this institute itself have done and are doing work which uses modern scientific methods rigorous studies to examine the claims of religion and the effects of various practices Associated to religion certainly this investigation can be done and should be done oh thank you swamiji next question in science and medicine when a person's boundary of self and the world is dissolved we say it is a loss of reality and diagnose it as delusion but whereas the same thing is the core objective in spirituality and it is perceived as transition from the world of Maya to absolute truth how do we reconcile these two right so when you say I feel one with the universe psychiatrist will say a problem yetugaya I remember in the dialogue between religious leaders and the psychiatrists in Washington DC from the religious side there were some objections one was don't categorize everything we do as abnormal this is our request to you that is an unfair accusation it's I mean many of the some of the psychiatrists themselves Are Spiritual practitioners one he is the dean of faculty in a very prominent Hospital in Baltimore he says I watch your vedanta Talks on YouTube and I've got so many questions so there is a serious engagement among many people there's a skepticism also um now one thing is even applying a pride was once asked whatever we say you are saying that it is abnormal what is normality please Define normality then Freud's answer was very simple he says the ability to love and the ability to do work function effectively and to relate with people if you have that you're normal so that is a very good answer as long as once Oneness with the with everything if that increases suffering it that makes a person a pest nuisance so and it reduces functionality deeply and over sort of permanently that might be a problem otherwise I don't think it's a problem and often you see in genuine mystical experiences the person has a higher functionality some of the greatest the Builders of our civilizations across the world religions there were mistakes with such experiences what advaita claims is that is not the goal the goal is you realize that and realize that it's a fact whether I have that experience or I do not have that experience it's a fact right now there's one Consciousness shining forth as many now with that understanding and possibly with mystical experiences like that you come back and relate with other people you see you're able to relate better much better live a life a much better life thank you swamiji we have time for a few more questions from the audience how do we do that I think I I just point out to you and we won't do you want to take the micro microphone is it being recorded okay just pass down the microphone and one more there please tell us your name and ask the question uh sir my name is Dr Kishore I am professor ayurveda and Aliens Institute I just wanted to know what uh I was just wondering how do we understand Consciousness in uh as a terminology in in Sanskrit yes is it chaitanya is it purusha is it what so there are many words for Consciousness Consciousness is a broad and ambiguous term in English and that's why it creates problems even in Consciousness studies and philosophy of mine when they talk about mind and Consciousness indistinguishably in in Indian terminology in yoga ayurveda also in vedanta we have so many words for this and with precise meanings so Consciousness here the direct answer to your question is chaitanya these are some of the words which all of which denote pure Consciousness Consciousness as such now when Consciousness or purusha itself in the sankhen term purusha itself in that sense I'm talking about Consciousness in vedanta we talk about sakshi pure Consciousness as sakshi um and Atman Brahman again Atman is a broad term with many connotations but atman's highest vedantic sense Brahman in its highest vedantic sense as such Ananda in that sense we are talking about consciousness yeah thank you and swamiji my question is little similar to this so tell us your name my name is Aditi I'm a student here I'm doing MSC yoga therapy yes uh so in yoga we talk about purusha and prakriti and how it forms our body and how it forms how we look and how what we are so is purushan consciousness the same because we talk about multiple purushas each one of us have and if not then how does vedanta tell about the formation of body right so purushan prakriti Consciousness and matter basically so yoga we must remember yoga and sankhya are dualistic systems so sankhya and yoga both stop at Consciousness and the material world which is pretty logical I think that's that's something that's pretty acceptable to everybody uh uh I am awareness who can deny that we are awareness and I'm aware of a mind and I'm aware of the body and the external universe so Mind Body external Universe you can all lump it under matter under the material Universe we call it prakriti that's why when modern materialist reductionist approach would say that mind is also matter yoga or sanki have no objection Indian philosophy has no objection because according to Indian philosophy mind is also matter is are there and that's what becomes the mind so um but sunken yoga stop there and there the system is called Bahu purushawada that means there are many consciousnesses as many sentient beings here so many consciousnesses because this is dualistic notice again how the terminology creates a problem in the western philosophy also the you know the big problem is the Mind Body dualism the Mind Body dualism and you can attribute it to Descartes so Descartes is the one who investigated um you know was trying to find a solid basis for knowledge and in his uh meditations he comes across the this famous formulation causative I think therefore I am but I'm thinking that means the mind and the mind proves my own existence so I am a mind I am there is a Body Mind Body dualism but in sankhya in yoga it's not mind body dualism mind and body are part of the same system mind and mind is not the body well there is a difference but they are both material and they are all part of a material system this entire universe so if you affect the mind the body will be affected if you affect the body influence the body the mind will be affected and perfectly acceptable in yoga in ayurveda in all the Indian systems no problem at all there the dualism which comes is a Consciousness and not consciousness Consciousness and object Duality and that's where yoga and sankya stops advaitha asks the just to answer your question how is the body found in advaitha advaita says we have given outsourced it to sankya the entire the entire sankya cosmology Advantage accept because advaith has this thing about vivaharika and paramarthika paramarthika advaith is only interested in saying that there is one absolute reality in the vivaharika transactional world if you want to say body is produced in this way in the sankine cosmology perfectly all right advaitha will give a blank check there um yes interestingly I remember I studied Descartes in the origin not in the original French in English translation very interesting there we often quote but there's another place just a little later where he writes he says so I am I exist that I am sure of and what I know in this world outside that I am not totally sure of and everything can be doubted right you can be in the metrics movie you could be dreaming it could be a virtual reality how do you know but I exist that cannot be doubted I exist that cannot be doubted um then a few lines below that very poignantly touchingly he remarks how strange it is the diet which I am so sure of I do not know anything about it and that which I know so much about I can never be sure of it I know so much about this world and that time itself is we know him as a mathematician you know we always study Cartesian coordinates in mathematics record so I know so much about this world but you can never be sure of it how do you know it's not a dream how do you know on principle you can never you can never say that there is no way of verifying that this is an absolute reality outside um whereas I am totally sure that I exist but what is that I exist I have no idea this is where vedant by vedanta sanchi also begins right here we can investigate see this is another thing I can I can share with you um Christoph cook I asked him a question when upon the release of his book it was an online event from Harvard bookstore so I asked him a question about the hard problem of Consciousness and what what do you think about it and he was against this idea he says you can't do science like that because if you say I'm pure Consciousness and not an object then what science will you do with that if it's not an object well we have to stretch the limits of science to include that non-objective reality also non-objective is a curse word in science it not objects so it's your subjective and be objective in advaita vedanta objective is a curse word you see this is the difference World exists why because I'm seeing it in advance the world is false why because you are seeing it [Applause] because it's an appearance to consciousness who can deny the world is appearing to your Consciousness Descartes himself could not deny it and what did Descartes say that which I know all this I know the world Science World religion science always in the world I can never be sure of it and one thing that I know I exist that I'm sure of but I don't know anything about it now this I don't know anything about it see let's just ask for your patience what was the problem see Descartes original process their project was how can I find a sure foundation for knowledge so once once he has found the sheer Foundation my own existence I think therefore I exist then he goes outwards to establish re-establish knowledge knowledge of the entire world but he did not spend even one minute investigating that which he had found I the self either what we call Atman sakshi witness he did not investigate any further he just said I can't do anything about it and he's Let It Go investigates it yoga in fact all the Indian philosophies the Buddhist philosophies the jainas all of that for three four five thousand years of study is an investigation into that which Descartes found and you can do it so much literature has been generated for the three four thousand years now why do you say that you cannot do philosophy of Mind why do you say you cannot do science uh on the uh about the Atman you can do it it's a different kind of science it's a different kind of Philosophical Investigation if we have to expand the philosophy of Mind in fact we should change the topic itself into a philosophy of mind we should call it philosophy of mind and Consciousness at least that much expansion we should do yes good question we'll take maybe one or two questions here all right the one two three that's it we don't have time my name is Dr TR Raju yes I am a retired professor of neurophysiology from immense um if brain is not the basis of Consciousness do we at least need brain to perceive the consciousness thank you sir for that question yes that's an important corrective to what I am saying because I tend to go off on one end because as if Consciousness is all but then the SEC the question which should be asked is if that is true what you are saying how do you account for the tremendous correlation between brain activity and this reported subjective experiences Testament is closed tight correlation correlation is not causation but still correlation is there how do you explain it from a vedantic or sankhen perspective it's not difficult to explain because mind and body are part of the same system so when I have an experience a pain a pleasure a tasting some sweet and there is corresponding firings of neurons in the brain have no objections there because when you taste something see something feel something these are all objects pain flavor sight they're all objects and the brain is also an object and these objective realities can and in principle they should be interacting therefore this close um correlation in fact this is the other side of the heart problem of Consciousness the so-called so-called easy problems that by close observation of the brain scientific observation and does match it but with what the subject is reporting you can find a very close link here yoga they all say that's fine it can be done and it should be like it should it's expected so yes um brain is a very good way of understanding the mind from an advantage perspective when we split mind and Consciousness brain is a very good way of understanding mind because of the tight correlation between brain activity and mind and as I said I have no doubt that you know widespread neuroscientific investigation investigation of brain science it's a most valuable thing it should proceed not that anybody is waiting for my permission but should it proceed or not it it is it is the knowledge system of our time sense so um our understanding depends a great deal on the efforts that we may make in that direction so yes certainly of course um what uh Professor Raju has just emphasized is the importance of the brain in all these these discussions even David Thomas he said don't be in a hurry to an abundant materialism it's a powerful hypothesis and it has given tremendous results our modern civilization this building we are sitting here this microphone the clothes I'm wearing all are based on objective processes and through scientific investigations technologies have been generated which have given us all this so it's not ultimately that materialism or is true or not or idealism is true or not there's a truth which underlies both of them we have not yet got it that further breakthroughs are necessary and honestly I've talked with um advaithins I've talked with philosophers of mine and their inner feeling is we will land somewhere in the middle we don't know exactly what it is which will reconcile these World Views we have not come there yet but the truth will somewhere be neither decide not that side nor complete materialism nor this absolute idealism also um the lady there and then yes and then we go there don't wait for the microphone yeah stand up and ask the question YouTube right yes yes correct [Music] yes can the realization go away the report of all enlightened persons what we find in the texts and all realization does not go away when the brain fails and it can even for a highly spiritual person just as the body fails brain is a part of the body it will fail and with the failing of the brain the memory could be affected the cognitive processes could be affected but the Consciousness is now the what the same Consciousness which was aware of the Keen memory of the sharp intellect is now aware of a failing memory and a slow intellect but that Consciousness is not affected thereby and there is this intuitive understanding that I am still the same yes

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Published: Sun Dec 04 2022