Steps to Attain Self-realization in Advaita Vedanta

let me start with a piece chant oh [Music] leaders from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness and to light lead us from death to immortality om peace peace i hope the volume is adequate okay great so the um subject responding is steps to realization and in advaita vedanta actually there are no steps to realization that could be a pretty short talk uh what steps do you take to become what you are so where you are sitting if you want to go to the vedanta society of dallas i can you can find out your gps will tell you where to go which direction how do you travel but suppose you're sitting right there what are the steps you need to go where you are sitting nowhere in fact any step you take will take you away from where you are sitting so advaita vedante would say that you are already brahmana but there itself you will immediately notice that that may be so but i don't know it yet so i've introduced something new there ignorance that i do not know what vedante is talking about so now you have ignorance and the moment we have ignorance in the picture we need knowledge so you already have two steps from ignorance number step one you you go to knowledge um so in fact that is the crucial stage uh the two-step process in advaita vedanta from ignorance to knowledge basically now of course practically um spiritual seekers over the centuries and millennia have observed uh what kind of experiences do sadhaka spiritual seekers have on the path of non-duality also and so they have systematized it into certain steps i'll give you two such models one is the well-known one which is called sapta bhumi seven levels bhumi simply means land so seven levels or seven lands of spiritual progress in the path of non-duality and confusingly it is called saptabhumi of yoga but here yoga means ghana yoga advaita vedanta but before i do that let me give you another model which also has uh seven stages and i like that one better though that's not so well known so i'll share with you these two models the second one which i'm going to share first uh begins with a story so i guess that's part of the attraction it's a well-known story but often it is not analyzed in this way so i'll tell you the story first and how it is used in enlightenment and then see the seven stages so the story goes like this it's very well known that the ten friends who went out on a journey and then they're going um a long journey they're walking they come across a river they walk across i suppose it was the shallow river so they walk across the river and then when they cross over to the other side they are struck by a sudden um apprehension did all of us cross or did somebody uh did did somebody drown and they thought let's count there are ten of us so maybe we will find out if the ten are still there and you know how the story goes one of them starts counting one two three four five six seven eight nine just a minute that can't be right one two three four five six seven eight nine oh my god the tenth person is drowned the tenth person is dead obviously he was counting uh the other nine and not counting himself and started beeping and wailing and another uh said that no you're not counting it right let me count and he counts and he finds nine people they all of them they make the same mistake they find nine people because they're not obviously not counting themselves and they're sitting and weeping and wailing for their for the tenth person who has obviously drowned the poor man drowned while we're crossing the river and a passerby who looks at these people sitting and weeping asks them my friends what's wrong why are you crying oh sir what a tragedy there were 10 of us we started out on a journey and now um there are only nine of us one our friend the tenth man has drowned and this passerby must have counted them immediately and he said why do you think they're the tenth person is drowned because we are nine how do you know that we counted then this passerby says see he's like the guru he says don't weep don't be unhappy i can assure you that the tenth person is there where where i'll show you but be assured that the tenth person is there notice at this point it's the stage of uh belief or faith that okay he's telling us maybe it's there we just need to calm down and humor me count and they said we have already counted and this passerby said count again just humor me so one of them starts and count uh stands up and starts counting one two three four five six seven eight nine and you have to look at me now in the picture to make this work one two three four five six seven eight nine and the passerby catches hold of his hand and turns it towards himself and thou art the tenth in sanskrit dasha must thomas this man goes wow i am the tenth let me see one two three four five six seven eight nine and ah i am the tenth the tenth man has been found and the others say let me try let me try and they try also one two three four five six seven eight nine and ten wonderful the tenth man has been frowned found so they stopped crying and they are very happy they found their friend now we may find that funny but according to vedanta this is exactly what we are doing the mistake we are committing and the way out of that error is exactly that how does this work in vedanta notice he counted the nine persons and he did not find the tenth one why did he not find the tenth one the answer would be because he didn't count himself but vedanta asks why did he not count himself and there's a very good reason why he did not count himself because where did he find the other nine people where did he find them he found them outside objects one two three four five six seven eight nine are objects and he expected the tenth man to be in the same line standing and to be counted as a tenth but the tenth man is not an object the tenth man is the counter himself is the subject an entirely different thing vastly different from objects that is our problem how does that work so apply it in any of the vedanta techniques all of the vedanta techniques rotate they revolve on this secret it's simple it's devastatingly simple until we get it we are in all sorts of models and vedanta seems advaita seems very difficult when you get it you see how stunningly simple it is how obvious it is how it was always there all the time unmistakably so you feel i was always all right i was this infinite being so you are supposed to find the atman for example in the the method of the five sheets the panchakosha which are uh five sheets of the human personality many of us have read about it we have the physical body we are asked to notice that you have a body first and then notice something subtler more inward to that that's the breath and then then notice something inward to that that's the mind thoughts and feelings and then notice something inward to that that's the intellect which is doing all this kind of uh analysis uh notice somewhat something inward to that beyond that is the anandamaya kosha the blankness if you try to push beyond thinking understanding you hit a blank wall that blankness which we experience in deep sleep for example when all thought all mentation shuts down you hit a hint hit a blankness nothing more that's the on under my kosher and that's as far as we can go so when we are inquiring about the self the technique is this i'm in a very short encapsulated format one of the techniques i showed you one yesterday it applies to that also so in this one you are you start with the most obvious feature of yourself the body and then go uh deeper and more subtler why do you go deeper and subtler you can apply those same criteria which we applied yesterday i am the subject not the object i am the drashta not the drishya so if the body is adrishya i can't be the body i am conscious the body is unconscious so this unconscious body i can't beat because i obviously feel conscious i am aware um i am the unchanging the body is continuously changing for these reasons body i am not then what's subtler what's more inwards what's closer to me the breath the prana for the same reasons it's also changing it's also an object it's also insentient not aware i am aware of it the breath is not aware of me so i can't be it and go inwards to the mind same criteria go inwards to the intellect same criteria go inwards to the blankness and then you find nothing and you come to the conclusion where is the self we are talking about where is this atman where is this witness you're talking about at that point at the point of that blankness when you look back upon the entire journey from the physical body to the vital body to the mental body to the intellect to the blankness from the annamaya kosha pranamaya kosha manome kosher vigyana my kosher to the my kosher you look back on the entire thing and then the teacher tells you to what are they all appearing there but nobody can help you this switch this one this you have to make yourself you have to instinctively catch what is being pointed out that you are the awareness to whom all of these are appearing and this awareness is not an object why we are unable to find the witness consciousness yesterday we were talking about it the same drivers should be making the same problem will arise eyes are the seer the forms are seen the eyes are seen the mind is the seer the mind is seen witness is the seer and everybody looks puzzled at that point because because the forms and the eyes and the mind they're all objects and you're trying to find a witness as an object impossible you are the witness nothing more can be said here nothing more i will say can help you you have to make that instinctive jump and then notice the unchangeability of the witness the luminosity of the witness that it is of the nature of consciousness that it is one that it is unrestricted by anything everything appears to it it does not appear to anything everything is limited everything all limited things appear to it but it is itself unlimited it is immortal it is unchanging it is free of all trouble you notice that you're about yourself that is enlightenment that is freedom okay now um there are seven stages in what we did so i would at this point like to share the screen and show you something just uh okay so you'll have to enable my uh screen sharing um and i request the host and enable my screen sharing yes is it enabled yeah yeah okay now why is it not showing me okay one second it's showing up blank um now it's something else is being shown one second what are you seeing right now you're not seeing anything script i can't show my screen unfortunately um let me see if i can show my screen one second yes i can show it thank you so here we are you can see the 10th man parable i just put the seven stages out there i'm not putting the sanskrit terms if those were interested my source here is the punch of the sheet this text um the punch of the sheet a very nice english translation by swami swan and the g so in the seventh chapter verses 29 to 47 in details these seven stages are analyzed seven steps to uh enlightenment quickly then what are the steps first is uh ignorance the sanskrit term for that would be agyana we're just in a state of ignorance we are we don't know about vedanta so just just imagine the the person those the person who was counting after they have crossed the river they have a doubt so at that point the person is in total ignorance about what the tenth man could be and the second thing that happens is that there is a veiling the person comes to the to the conclusion tenth man is dead but the existence tenth man does not exist the tenth man is dead after counting the nine clearly the tenth man is dead then the next thing that happens is there's no good english term for that vic shaper which is samsara basically sorrow comes oh our poor friend you know you come take jump to conclusions he drowned while we across that seems to be an obvious conclusion and now we are full of sorrow uh and then the passerby comes and assures them that the tenth man is there they still don't know where is the tenth man they have no idea but they are assured by the passerby that the tenth man exists is still alive so that's called parochiana indirect knowledge in sanskrit indirect knowledge means um i have heard about it i sort of believe it but i don't see it yet it's not clear to me what is meant but you are a trustworthy person you seem to be a wise person so i believe you that the tenth man is still alive and then you're asked to count one two three four five six seven eight nine and uh the passerby turns the hand around thou art the tenth now this man gets it oh i see i am the tenth therefore the tenth man is alive so suffering is over there's no need to cry the suffering is gone and having found the tenth man they rejoice attainment of bliss so in sanskrit these terms uh are called one after another first one is ignorance is aganem second one veiling is avaranam third one as it says big shaper the state of samsara or suffering fourth one is parochial indirect knowledge uh fifth one is upper okay enlightenment direct knowledge again is direct knowledge enlightenment sixth one is called dukkha he says freedom from suffering and then the seventh one is ananda prabhupti or in panchodashi terms he says unlimited unrestricted bliss so these are the seven stages how does it apply in our spiritual life so just like the man who was ignorant about the tenth person first of all we start off with the general ignorance i do not know about vedanta i do not know about spiritual life i'm not particularly interested and when i'm told about vedanta that you are not the body and mind you are the atman i come to the conclusion it doesn't exist that self which you are talking about i exist and i am the body mind but that self does not exist but you are talking about existence consciousness bliss or the witness consciousness that's not there i don't find it where it's not in my experience then the third stage comes because i do not know that i am the witness consciousness and i immediately become identified with the physical body mind and the doer of deeds i'm the enjoyer or sufferer of the results of deeds i get caught in the cycle of karma samsara starts for me so up to one two and three this is the state where uh where we where we are at at the lev when we come into vedanta this is what we feel like when you're told about vedanta it's what we feel like we're still in samsara then comes um actual vedanta teaching and we begin to understand this is an indirect knowing like the passive i said the tenth person is there the vedanta teacher comes and says no no no you're not the body and mind the real self is infinite unlimited not subject to sorrow not subject to birth and death all right so i can believe you i can sort of understand what you are saying but i don't see it yet it's not real for me it's still theoretical that's indirect knowledge at that point we sort of believe the guru the teacher it's a kind of working faith maybe there's something that you want to teach us but we don't see it yet and then comes the direct knowledge so the way i i showed you that these are objects the physical body vital body mental body intellect the anandamaya and then the turning that thou art or the drikdrisha viveka all of the vedantic methods they are all apply this or the waking dreaming deep sleep of mandukya waking i know dreaming i know deep sleep i know and vedanta says who knows waking dreaming deep sleep i find it but then where is this story or the fourth one you're talking about i don't find it is who finds those three you will find the turia turia is hidden there that's what you are so all of the vedantic methods they show this and you realize i am brahmana direct knowledge that's wonderful i am brahman immediately all suffering is overcome overcome you realize i don't have to suffer yes the body will have disease and death old age and death i am not the body and the body is not even real it's an appearance it's the dream of consciousness i am that consciousness which is not subject to birth not subject to old age not subject to death and therefore there is unlimited bliss this unlimited nature of consciousness of existence consciousness is itself bliss so this is the attainment of bliss ananda prakti care of panchodashi chapter 7 verses 29 to 47. so that's one way of looking at it the more common way if you ask a non-dualist about steps to realization will be this one seven steps so these are from the varaha upanishad chapter four uh i'm sure these are actually they were made popular by the yoga mashita suryama krishna has also referred to the yoga bhumi's the bhumi's of kyana so these are traditionally the seven steps you can relate them to the seven steps i mentioned but uh not not quite exactly i'll quickly run through those seven steps and then we'll stop and discuss it what are the seven steps though i wrote it down because the sanskrit words are a little difficult and uh uncommon the first step is shubhacha so shubha means good in intention that's a straightforward translation good intention means here i am in samsara and why should i suffer like this vedanta tells me that i need not suffer that my real nature is beyond suffering let me make a let me try it out let me sign up for the online workshop yoga veda and the workshop that is so you sign up that's the first step the second step is literally it means inquiry and inquiry means self-inquiry enquiry into oneself and this step includes shravana mananananan so we study the texts we um we reason about it and we try to assimilate the text the the knowledge through meditation as i said earlier three simple questions are do i know the text do i know the teaching step one that is hearing do i get it then you have completed step two that is reasoning and then is it real for me that's step three so these three keep going on and that's the whole all of that what we are most of us are doing is that second step as we do that and we live a moral ethical life minimize our desires so tanumanasana the third step is the mind gets purified literally tanumanasana means thinning of the mind attenuation of the mind so the mind the vasanas of the mind are cleared up there are purificatory actions like karma yoga devotion to god is very helpful at this stage yogic meditation is very helpful at this stage so all of them they contribute to the purification of the mind basically what happens at this stage is the four qualities necessary for enlightenment they are strengthened they are already there in the second stage it's already the first stage itself it's already there what are the four qualities i'll just mention them now because i'm going to talk about them in the next session in detail viveka and a discernment of the eternal from the non-eternal that there is an ultimate reality which vedanta is speaking about and everything else is transitory transient changing momentary so the distinction between eternal and non-eternal brahman is eternal samsara is non-eternal second vairagya a dispassion from the party non-eternal i'll just run through the list and then there is shat sampathi the six disciplines shama tranquility of mind dharma control of the sense organs uparati a withdrawal from too much engagement with worldliness and then samadhana focus on vedanta to settle down and focus on vedanta a mental toughness a spiritual toughness no matter what the world throws at me corona virus or whatever it is no matter what my body throws at me illness whatever even my mind i will not get upset i will focus i'll be spiritually tough i will focus on my spiritual practice i will not abandon my spiritual practices no matter what the world does to me that is detection spiritual fortitude or toughness and then shaddha a working faith that there is something to this very valuable let me so that much faith is there uh i will pursue this till the end and then finally mumuksuttan an intense desire to be free and intense inquiry a desire to be free of of bondage so those are the four disciplines which are necessary and they result in a purified mind they're already there from the first step we already have it to some extent but these are um these are at an excellent level by the time we reach the third state then what happens enlightenment happens fourth sattva means uh the reality saturation you have a grasp on the reality or the reality dawns upon me i am brahmana this is enlightenment i am the witness consciousness the tenth man am i and this is clear at this stage one is called brahma the knower of brahman you're already enlightened the next three five six and seven are not not that you get more and more enlightened this is it what you have realized is final here but these are greater and greater dep levels of meditative absorption in brahman so we realize we see in the life of sri ramakrishna and swami vivekananda when swami vivekananda has the nirvikalpa samadhi for the first time sri ramakrishna asks him what do you want now that's why we can't say i just want to stay like that of course you remember sriram krishna scolded him and said i thought you were you were bigger than this i thought you'll be like a great banyan tree under whose shade the scotch travelers of this world will find shade you know they'll find refuge and here you are thinking only about your moksha fire on you so thank god he's cold at him that's why we are all here today all the vedanta societies are all the transmission of our eastern wisdom to the west and so and so forth but that is the level of enlightenment and at that level the seeker wants to remain absorbed it's not a small thing it's actually classical advaita vedanta would say that the seeker will try to remain absorbed in what what he or she has realized that's what narendra narath wanted so those are three levels of absorption but all of them are enlightened if anybody reaches step four uh the person liberation is guaranteed at the point of death that person will will will never come back after death the person will never come back to this world again so moksha is guaranteed and the person realizes fully that i am brahmana but the five six and seven depend on meditation deeper and deeper levels of meditation number five is assam sakti asam sakti means unattachment to the worldly appearances this is compared to a dream state so the worldly appearances the world one's own body they appear like things seen in a dream and the person is deeply absorbed in meditation goes into samadhi comes out of samadhi so this person is called brahmavitavara a superior knower of brahman varah means superior so the earlier one was a knower of brahman enlightened this is a superior enlightened one who can remain absorbed in brahman but comes out of that absorption once in a while uh number six padard here the person the world seems to fade away like in being in deep sleep and the person as far as the world is concerned he's like in deep sleep but as far as brahman is concerned he is reveling he is absolutely the sense of distinction between self and drama has gone and this person stays as brahmana in samadhi at this stage it's not possible for the person to come out by himself or herself so it will require somebody else to bring the person out of samadhi these things may seem very theoretical if we had not seen sri ramakrishna's life again and again we see every day is going into samadhi and not only that sometimes the samadhi is so deep others would get scared around him like he's standing and suddenly going into somebody just standing not even trying to meditate every hair of the body stands on it every air of the body i don't know what that would have looked like with his hair and beard and the face is glowing with an inward joy and it actually scared people around him so he would teach others it was primarily the holy mother but other is other young disciples and others he would teach them mantras to say when they saw different kinds of samadhi in him you would have to repeat that mantra again and again then the mind would come back to this world so at this stage so by the example of sri ramakrishna we get a vivid demonstration that these are not just theoretical not just philosophical this actually happens so he would come back to this world but only somebody has to pull him back sometimes he would do that himself he would hold on to a desire that he would say i will drink a glass of water it was little worldly desire and that would pull the mind back again out of samadhi such a person is called i don't know what you can say that the superlative knower of brahman brahma with varian an even more superior known abraham superlative knower of brahman not that this person knows brahman any more than stage four but uh just the absorption is much deeper and finally the seventh one turiyaga the one who has merged in turia or realizes oneness victory it's the final absorption where nirvikalpa samadhi cannot be broken this is called the brahmavid parishita cannot come back by himself nobody can bring this person back within 20 suramar krishna used to say this is the samadhi in which after 21 days the body will go away our swami ah the swami who was in in boston and providence sarva gatandiji so he has written about an experience in um the kangkal shrevashram in our hospital which is near the himalayas in rishikesh actually not rishikesh there he saw so monks who were ill would go there even now monks were ill would go there for treatment in our hospital so at that time this was 60 or 70 years ago one such monk came and he seemed to be a very luminous enlightened person and his disciple bought him he was ill obviously not responding seemed to be comatose but there was some kind of luminosity about him not responding at all to external stimuli so this um swami sarvargar tanji says he became very curious he would always talk to the monks who came as patients you take care of them but also spend time with them he started spending more more and more time for from this month who was from rajasthan and he and that monk's disciple they served this month and he says it was wonderful you felt a great sense of peace while sitting this monk would not speak would not talk would not respond to anything they tried their best they would feed him a little bit of milk and sometimes milk would roll out from from the corners of the mouth but the monks seem to be in great joy somehow and swami sargartan he was curious 21 days and he says on the night of the 21st day we were sitting near the bed of that monk and the monk was as usual unresponsive and at that moment that monk suddenly got hold of his hand and squeezed his hand and let go and he was gone twenty one days exactly so sarvakarthanji says that's also true what surrounding is to say that in this final state one does not come back anymore okay so these are two models seven steps this is the traditional model these seven steps to realization again i must emphasize at step four your job is done if you want further and further absorption in brahman five six and seven are available to you um even if one does not one still is a jivan mukta and one will attain uh freedom complete freedom after death also so everything is done for this person all right i think we can take questions now swami marupananda can you unmute him lakshmi is it there i i don't see it now you hear me huh yes yes okay and actually i was so absorbed in what you were saying that i forgot to think of a question so i will pass it on to others the first question that comes up is is the insight in a doita vedanta state equal to samathi now samadhi is a state of the mind samadhi is a state of the mind it's it's the deepest absorption which you get when you practice yoga swami explained in the morning about the eight limbs of yoga the final limb the eighth limb is called sampragyata samathi and when one practices all of the eight they are all used to ultimately reach assam pragyat samanthi which is the ultimate goal in yoga so that's a practiced state of the mind the insight in advaita vedanta i'm speaking from an advaithic perspective the insight in advaita vedanta can throw the mind into samadhi one can study and think about it and try that tenth man thing the moment you realize it it's quite possible a trained and pure mind will go into samadhi after that it's such an extraordinary breakthrough the mind tends to be completely absorbed in that so one can attain samadhi through a process of inquiry or the other way around to a process of deepening the calmness of the mind and that would be the yogic approach when some when the mind is absolutely calm that calm lake swami vekandi says one can see through to the bottom of the lake the witness consciousness shines in its separate glory that would be an insight born of samadhi all right so insight can lead you into samadhi or insight can be a result of samadhi but in samadhi itself insight is not possible because the insight itself depends upon inquiry and you can't inquire if the mind is shut down so enquiry can lead into samadhi or somebody can result into into the insight that's there one more thing just one thing is that there's something called sahaja samadhi so whether with eyes closed or with eyes open you are always you know that you are brahman it is always there or has somebody put it nicely never not there you're not always thinking i'm brahmana but the moment you need it it's always available so that is called sahaja samathi sri ramakrishna is to say is there god only when i close my eyes is god not there when i open my eyes what kind of god would that be so with eyes closed in samadhi with eyes open experiencing the word the same reality scene next question what is the non-dualistic view of devotion good it's a good thing um no it's a very vast subject i will just narrate an anecdote to you and i'll stop there a very well-known monk long before my time who lived in mathura and vrindavan who was known as as um in those days so many monks did they still remember him i have only seen his ashram only a few people are left in his ashram now he was apparently a jeevan mukhtar and an enlightened being so somebody asked him they all knew he was a strict non-dualist very staunch non-dualist so somebody asked him this question which is greater devotion or knowledge so is dualistic devotion greater or non-dualistic knowledge he immediately said devotion is greater and then they were surprised and then they said but what about knowledge he said oh knowledge in knowledge there is no greater or lesser [Laughter] in hindi we asked him he immediately said bhaktivedanta one more one more insight uh what is the a practical insight what is the utility of devotion and the non-dual path what is the this is a very serious point what is the utility of devotion or non-dual path this is at the beginning and for a long time non-duality vedanta inquiry is an intellectual effort we study we think we try to understand we try to stabilize our understanding but the problem is the vasanas the desires of the world they do not operate at the level of the intellect they operate at the level of the heart and we said it's that what the heart wants in bengali also they say prana or you know bran so it's at the level of the prana of the heart that desires worldly desires up there so it's quite possible for an intellectual grasp of advaitha to exist with a level of worldliness and impurity of the mind it's quite possible and that does not help it may lead to you can be a professor and write articles or you can be pundit and teach students but it still does not lead to enlightenment it still does not lead to removal of sorrow uh it does not so such a ghani such a person who has got this kind of knowledge and yet has an unpurified mind one sadhu said rothawa a ghani who's weeping is in most unattractive site people will be reaping could be grumbling could be angry mean you a great teacher of advaita vedanta swami also would know i will not take his name but he was really a great teacher and uh he taught brahmacharis in the training center uh he had a little beard and a fan and so the swami knows who i'm talking about but he also used to be quite a angry person you know he would lose his temper at the drop of at least once in a while so somebody asked him you have such a great grasp on vedanta so why do you get angry and the bilantic answer which he gave is quite all right he said oh i know i am the witness consciousness in the mind there's a there is anger it has nothing to do with me well that's fine but from the outside it's not a very attractive side you find find this great swami yelling and losing is this temper yes maybe he's right he is the witness of the anger in the mind also so what is the solution solution is bhakti devotion to god the same desire which says i want the world pleasure money achievement name and fame prestige i want that i want remaining the same you push the world aside and put god in there god is most attractive someone something like krishna or the divine mother most attractive if you dwell on it slowly that i want will flow towards god and then gyana is much much easier not only again knowledge is much easier the manifestation of that knowledge where anger and lust and greed and and unhappiness they will all be wiped out another monk i know whom i respect very much a wonderful swami one of the most brilliant people i've met so many years ago i asked him do you think you're enlightened and he said no i asked why not and he said there's always there's still some kind of dissatisfaction some kind of incompleteness in my mind so he's a very honest person he clearly sees the state of the mind is like this these things are removed very easily by bhakti so bhakti is highly recommended for gyanis and if you see the lives of actual gyanis ramana maharshi or vivekananda and others they have a lot of bhakti ramana marsha tremendous bhakti for shiva in the form of arunachala so they predominantly knowledge but also bhakti is there all the time swami once swami ashish a disciple of holy mother was asked what is sabikalpa samadhi for the adulten what is that experience and his reply was the guru can you comment on that oh i won't comment on that but that's very wonderful i'll just say the guru is very important in advaita vedanta seems to take the place of god what god has in in dualistic approaches devotional approaches the guru seems to take the position because one can understand this because it's a knowledge system so in the knowledge system the teacher becomes very important and devotion to the teacher is very important because you realize later on a lot of self-effort is no longer necessary just by devotion to the teachers the teachings become embedded so deeply in your mind it seems true what the teacher says it seems true and it's much easier to follow and believe and reorient your worldview when you hear it from a teacher with with on whom you have tremendous devotion tremendous respect and so the teachings become much more powerful and effective can you speak a little bit about who that guru is the physical guru or sachin guru how would women on the guru but comes to the physical guru so srinamar krishna gave the example of old colonial architecture you know where there are there are these gargoyles through which the water collected on the roof after rainfall it falls so they're different gargoyles not so much in not in manhattan so much but uh and the water flows out through that so it seems like different mouths through which the water is flowing it all comes from the same source the roof where the water has collected so the gurus they all the knowledge comes from god guru is an expression of the anu shakti of god so god has many powers and one of the powers is the power of grace we want liberation we want illumination self-realization and god makes it possible on our own it might be impossible given the conditioning of our mind and the lord of karma we have from many lifetimes we have no realization how much bound we are so that help god god can give us by just an act of grace can liberate us from uh lifetimes of self effort so anugrah shakti right functions in two ways for the devotee that grace of god what happens is there is uh vyakulta sri ramakrishna says uses the word vacuolata means a restlessness a divine discontent god exists i must see god like perfectly demonstrated by sri ramakrishna when he wanted to see the mother kali so how he wept and cried and one pointed focus i have to see god that vyakulata and that culminates in bhakti the vision of god and abiding deepening ever more rich and intense love of god ever increasing love of god so that's the culmination all of it comes from the grace of god in the case of the gyani the one on the path of non-dual knowledge that same grace of god arises means inquiry who am i i must know not out of curiosity it's a life and death question for me i must find out who is this vedanta true what if this is true what can be more important than this in life this is the only thing that i must find out that jigyasa that then brings about the development of the four qualities which are essential for non-dual vedanta which i'll talk about in the next session and by pursuit of inquiry jigyasa leads to encouraging i said it really means enquiry pursuit of inquiry culminates in brahma-gyana i am brahman that knowledge and the person becomes a jivan mukta all of it comes from grace and that grace is channeled through the guru one last question swami i'm combining two uh questioners it has to do with the purification of the mind the first question uh does that purification happen as a byproduct of self-inquiry the second questioner asks to clean karma should we suppress feelings or release feelings um the purification does not really happen through self-inquiry it can it's a good question the purification happens through the practice of karma yoga bhakti yoga and raja yoga from from a traditional advertising perspective all the other yogas are subordinated to gyani yoga yani yoga is your study and reflection and vedantic meditation but that has to be preceded by and supported by a foundation of karma yoga unselfish action a foundation of bhakti devotion to god the foundation of meditation they don't generally use the word raja yoga they say upasana so karma and look at the structure of the vedas the structure of the vedas there is karma ritual there is a meditation and then there is knowledge so you can fit in karma yoga at that level karma is transformed into karma yoga and the level of upass and upasana has connotations of both meditation and devotion upasana is worship so it has connotations of meditation and devotion and then ghana upanishads are final they give you the knowledge of the non-dual reality so the purification takes place before um it preserve suppose a certain level of purification now can self-inquiry purify you this is interesting that the person has asked this this is a niche question why i'm saying a niche question is there are monks in in the uttarakhand you know in a traditional monastic structure you become a monk and you're supposed to have a purified mind i'm sure nine tenths of monks who come they are not at that level of purification so further purification is necessary that's why swami vivekananda made it mandatory karma yoga for all monks even if you take the classical advaita paradigm karma yoga is necessary but the traditional shankar right monk in the himalayas does not have the option of karma yoga you're supposed to give it up it does not have the option of upasana also you're supposed to give it up you're supposed to stay only with self inquiry sravana manananan and kyasana so they have evolved a doctrine that that sravanamanananananda national itself will work like karma yoga you daily do it day after day month after month year after year that itself will purify the mind but the problem there is it's like using a scalpel where a shovel is necessary the scalpel will do the work but you'll damage the scalp and it'll take a long and dirty process of trying to clean up the mess shovel is karma yoga and again this is from a classical yoga paradigm classical advaita vedanta paradigm um do we have time for two or three minutes there's a question which came by email i want you to respond to that go ahead uh swami yeah okay uh the question was let me read it out i'll give a very quick response um mataji forwarded the question to me a good question do not directly relevant to what we are doing um so the question is thanks for this is from anand thanks for a nice session on yoga vedanta today that was yesterday question is in relation to the new atheist discussion that you had in the session you mentioned the critique of theistic approaches mystic approaches like yoga by neo atheists like sam harris i believe her implication is that advaita vedanta may stand the logic or critique of the new atheists new neo atheists the this particular topic has come up in swami medhananda's class which i am taking to the san diego monastery i believe swami medhan it is ayan maharaj mentioned that in his opinion advaita vedanta also may not actually be able to stand the critique of the new atheists i believe the argument he gave was that ultimately even shankar advaita uses upanishads as the basis for its arguments against the new atheists and throwing a book at the new atheists does not really satisfy them it would be almost like throwing the bible in front of them these were his words i believe so my question is this in an argument against the new atheists versus shankar advaita would we have to rely on the upanishads for support of shankar advaita vedanta or is its arguments against new atheists can be held on purely on a logical basis without support of the uber nations okay i think you get the thrust the brunt of the uh arguments some again someone like sam harris and daniel dennett or richard dawkins um uh christopher richens would shankara dwighter stand its ground or would you have to refer to the issues so what uh what is said here i disagree i completely disagree this is not what shankar advaita would do remember shankar advaita has faced we have never faced sam harris that was a long time ago but they did face the buddhists they did face materialist they faced jaina's who did not believe in the upanishads and if you look at the arguments against the buddhists they they are based on reason and experience they do not throw the oppositions at the buddhist it would make no sense so that's one shankar advaita today see i know where this thing comes from medanji is a very good scholar so when you study the brahmasutras you see shankara again and again coating the upanishads to settle in a point so if you do that with sam harris of course it won't it won't cut any i said it won't um you know it won't find traction but there shankara is doing it because he's talking to either other vedantins or other schools of hindu philosophy which accept the upanishads as proof so when he wants to cut down sankhya in the brahma sutras shankara will say that look your position does not agree with such and such opponents but you cannot do that with sam harris you cannot do that with the buddhist child so you cannot do that with the materialists also their shankara goes entirely on on reason not just logic see there's a very subtle thing here he says can you use logic without support of the opponent no no no upanishads are not used like the bible upanishads are not used in the sense of here is something true and you must believe upanishads are used more like say a textbook of physics or mathematics so do you learn physics or mathematics only by reasoning it out yourself and without the help of the textbook no no that would be foolish you take the help of the textbook and then struggle with the material and try to understand it in the meantime you have a working faith that the textbook is not fake news what they're saying is genuine only i don't get it now let me try to get it okay one more point come to the new atheists themselves sam harris his book waking up no friend of religion if you read that book he says we are forced to admit in the case of at least two traditions the tibetan buddhist tradition and the hindu advaita vedanta tradition he says we are forced to admit that there is a core of truth which no rational person can dispute sam harris is saying this it's literally in his book he says i'm sure the other new atheists will be mad at me for saying this but in my own experience and understanding i find this this is there are many theological aspects of vedanta which i don't under buddhism which i don't buy but the core incites they are obvious any serious person has to take them seriously he says that last point say david chalmers who's talking about the heart problem of consciousness so we had a colloquium in that nyu which is one of the top philosophy departments in the western world and they're some of the top philosophers in the world today i you know i google top 10 living philosophers otherwise we'll get plato and aristotle in the list three or four of them i found in that room and what was the discussion the hard problem of consciousness advaita vedanta perspective so there none of the throwing the books will work nobody ever threw a book at david charles that will simply not work only argumentation only reasoning based on experience one more additional point i mentioned it yesterday i think i myself wrote a defense of advaita vedante against a tibetan against the chandra kitti's attack on the concept of atman there the professor one of his critiques was first draft do you think this is a temple talk vedanta temple talk this is a harvard university philosophy paper reasoning argument every point every sentence has to be argued for and the end result was everything was argued for and never the only quotations from the upanishads are to connect that this is what the upanishads are saying again and again you don't throw the book at the people the book is supposed to be understood and then you see this is what the upanishads are telling us i wish i had more time i could expound on this theme a little more so i do not agree it's absolutely not the same thing as believing in a text so the believing in a text why would anybody think that when you are in that fourth stage which you are talking about the stage of indirect knowledge at that step when the passerby tells you don't cry the tenth person is alive you tend to believe that person but the whole point is to see for yourself that i am the tenth person and that is not a case of belief it's a case of the text just points it out like the passer passerby just pointed it out and you are supposed to get it quite unlike the theistic religions uh whether it's the torah or the bible or the um you know the you know the puranas where a lot of it is to be taken on faith this is not to be taken on faith it has to be realized and made a first person experience for yourself a insight for yourself it should result in a complete change of your paradigm worldview about yourself and the world here and now okay

Channel: Ramakrishna Vedanta Society of North Texas

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Id: dQhrYPxHVIA

Length: 57min 3sec (3423 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 20 2020