Swami Sarvapriyananda and Deepak Chopra - " Discussion on Vedanta"

thank you for being here we have approximately 40 minutes to solve the mystery of existence so without wasting any time I'm going to start talking to Swami ji thank you for being here thank you for having me and I'll just give a very shortened introduction and then we'll get going okay so how many people here have heard the phrase the hard problem of consciousness how many people have not okay well if you'll go if you do a google search and you ask what are the 150 open questions and science the first open question in science is what's the universe made of and the answer is we don't know because 96% of the universe is mysterious dark energy dark matter I'm not gonna go into that 4% of the universe is atomic of the 4% of the universe that's atomic 99.99% is invisible interstellar dust so we can't see it the visible universe which we are now told according to the scientific model is two trillion galaxies it's two trillion galaxies so we live in the Milky Way galaxy with a hundred billion stars next door is Andromeda same number of stars will go on and on keep going two trillion galaxies 760 liyan planets I don't even know how to write that and according to current scientific models trillions uncountable trillions of planets possibly 60 billion habitable planets in our own galaxy based on what they call the Goldilocks zone that's only point zero one percent of the universe that's point zero one the rest is unknown or unknowable and the point zero one percent that's atomic if you go deep into the nature of atoms they become particles and then particles have this mysterious behavior that when they're not being looked at or they don't interact with other particles they become waves and unlike particles which are units of mass and they have units of mass and energy waves just exists as possibility it's bottom line the universe is made out of nothing so why does it look like this that's the hard problem of consciousness why does it look like this how do atoms and molecules in the brain or electrical impulses create this experience this experience the experience of your own body the experience of your own mind and actually most people now think this hard problem is unsolvable if you think of matter as foundational if matter is the ontological primitive then the problem is unsolvable so that's why we have Swami ji he's going to solve the problem for us very badly by telling us there is no hard problem at all if if you take the reverse point of view and that is consciousness is fundamental and matter is a human construct but without now me going on and on Swami ji vedanta has solved this problem what is Vedanta well thank you for the introduction Deepak Vedanta is the is a philosophical system or a family of philosophical systems based on very ancient texts called the open Asians and these Upanishads are the final the highest teachings of the Vedas the Vedas as we know are very ancient scriptures of the other Hindu religion so these Upanishads they contain certain insights about who we are what we are and what reality is the Rishi's the ancient sages who came upon these insights they found that by knowledge of these insights by getting these insights it actually it solves the very human problem of the suffering the problem of death of meaninglessness this the crucial human problems they're actually solved if you have knowledge about what we are and what this reality we live in is is what we are experiencing if you want me to put it in one sentence and happily we can do that the sentence is that thou art than urs that - Amma see it means there is an absolute reality of this universe which can be known or realized and luckily for us we are that absolute reality that - Amma see means that that you are the absolute reality of which entirety of this universe and the person you experience yourself to be these are manifestations of that one absolute reality which is called Brahman in the open oceans thomassie means that thou art and this identity is the essential teaching of Vedanta and they they claim that it actually can be experienced in life it's not a speculation it can be experienced and it must be experienced in order to overcome suffering so this is basically the core teaching of of bailant and that absolute reality is usually expressed in English as pure consciousness yes pure consciousness or pure existence the Sanskrit terms are sucked which means pure being or isness existence chit which means awareness consciousness in itself but also happily and pun intended Ananda which means happiness so joy or bliss so as swami vivekananda put it existence itself consciousness itself and bliss itself that is the nature of the ultimate reality which by Dantas speaks about so let's now use one terms for convenience such it on unjust for lack of for the economy of expenditure of energy let's just use the word consciousness absolutely and so consciousness is the basis of every experience we have whether it's mind or body or the universe right right so give your definition of consciousness and how you would experience for me give you a definition in fact in fact it is interesting that we live in interesting times from I was just talking to Deepak a little while ago consciousness studies has become very important in the last 20 25 years scientists were not so interested in consciousness until about 25 or 30 years ago but right now consciousness studies is booming there are the psychologists are obviously interested interested in it neuroscientists are interested in it linguists and philosophers and people cosmologists are interested in it computer scientists are interested in it so you think that all of these people interested so they know what they are talking about but they cannot agree on what they are talking about what is the definition of consciousness they there is no consensus there are multiple definitions of consciousness but none of them are acceptable across the board in fact a friend of mine who is a mathematician and a monk he told me that I don't take this entire field of consciousness studies too seriously I said why ever not because it seems to be what we are doing as monks he said any field of study where you cannot define this subject of study is not yet a mature field of study all right now what Deepak is asking me is give me a definition of consciousness so I am going to give you a definition of consciousness from the Vedanta perspective where actually they are very clear and what they mean by consciousness get this whatever you are aware of is not consciousness it's it's a what is called a vr- a definition a definition by exclusion that means anything that you are aware of right now you are aware of sights and sounds and smells all of this so there are objects of consciousness you are aware of them and that which is aware of them is consciousness so then consciousness B is basically awareness of experience right is the awareness in which experience becomes possible yeah so here you know I attend these conferences that you're talking about and people come up with all kinds of definitions so some materialists say consciousness is first-person experience others their consciousness is the knowing element in every experience but I think the non-dual lists these days you know a lot of non duelists in the West you there they're saying the consciousness the knowing element in every experience so right now you know that you're having this experience you also know that you have a body you also know that you have a mind so what is it that knows this experience called mind body word other non duelists have expanded on that in some consciousness is that in which all experience occurs all experience is known and out of which all experience is made so you started off by saying consciousness is not anything that is an object yes so this what is this this is an experience in consciousness right right look at the words which deeper just use right now the knowing element that by which knowledge is possible now what Vedanta would say is that if you carefully look at knowledge all your experience and eliminate mentally in your understanding eliminate from your experience whatever is objective by which I mean you're looking at this beaker that is this jar here this is objective because it's an object of fear you are looking at it it's an object but what is King at it your eyes but you're aware of your eyes your eyes are open closed the guy's boring me so much I can't keep my eyes open you are aware of that so the eyes are also objects in your awareness now you are aware of your eyes with your mind you're thinking about your eyes so the thoughts in the mind you're also aware of that so even the thoughts in the mind are objects of awareness in this way if you eliminate again in understanding everything that is objective everything that is an object in your experience you are left with consciousness as it is and don't try to catch it ah now we'll get consciousness as it is you will never get it that way because that would be an object so it is the you the real you in fact one definition of consciousness offered by one of the disciples of the great Shankar Acharya in Sanskrit are needham titanium very elegant definition what is it not this awareness from your awareness from your experience just now if you eliminate in your understanding everything that you can call this this jar this body this eye this mind this thought if you eliminate that which shines upon all of them that is consciousness and what shines is the knowing element Swami ji said you can't go looking for consciousness because it is that which is doing the looking right you can't find it out there because it's that which is looking at what's out there but let's go a little deeper now that you have right you have created the basis now the consciousness is not an object the object is experience in consciousness now this is also an object right what is also magic and the thoughts are also an object right so can we say let's say you're a baby you just showed up in the world which by the way has already been interpreted for every baby for two thousand plus years ever since people started to speak in language and created culture and started telling stories people started interpreting experience and we are born into an interpreted world before we are born you see you're a baby what you see here is not a show you see a color a shape right if you touch it it's a sensation if you you know you can smell it taste it if you want but I would make noise out of it so these are sensory experiences right without labels right but then humans create labels and create constructs we call that a show we call this a hand we call this a body we call this the world right and then we give names and you were earlier on explaining to me this is the whole phenomenon that we call it nom Rupa right but this naming creates a human construct of what is really a sensory perception which in turn is a mental activity which in turn as you just say can conjugate an activity in consciousness right so if we take that actually yeah then this is also made out of consciousness ah this is I think Deepak favorite themed but everything is made out of consciousness but here's the thing here because that's what one of the schools of Vedanta are dwight evident you know this open issue that i was speaking about so great philosophers came along and they took these open issues and they developed very complex but very current and consistent systems of philosophy based on these oak initials so they became the different schools of vedanta one school which is very well known is advaita vedanta non-dual vedanta there the idea is that not only are you consciousness but then everything else is also consciousness now this might sound as somebody told me recently a materialist it's a wacky idea it's a crazy idea how can everything be consciousness but it goes like this once you say that whatever is objective is not consciousness that which is aware of the object is consciousness then you are left with the entire world of objects the entire universe out there my own body even the mind they're all objects now you I am the consciousness witnessing all of this now your question is then what are these objects and that's where Vedanta becomes very interesting it says all of the things that you experience in consciousness as objects are actually nothing other than consciousness itself you the pure consciousness the entirely subjective consciousness appears out there as a as a world set in space and time and full of objects with the with the help of name and form so this names and forms another name for this is Maya name and from nama Rupa so what you're seeing here is you the consciousness in yourself appears a mind a body which it senses and the senses revealed to it and universe of objects set out there apparently in time and space including this glass jar and all of this is name-and-form interpretation as you said somebody put it very beautiful in language is the knife with which you cut reality so this batch of color but what it might look like to a baby but the mother comes and explains this is a jar of water and this is your body this is your body this is yeah and a concept of your body that also slowly a baby learns over time let us my bath so given this understanding and given the Vedic worldview and given the fact that we as humans we can only speak in language and explain things in language and as soon as we create a word we in a sense create a construct of the fundamental reality which right now you said his consciousness that - amar see that's brahmasmi tattva masih given this contract for our audience who's not familiar with these terms can you help explain the difference between Jeeva Brahman and then let's go further after that once is an opportunity to get we don't earn less than an hour we can't waste time Vedanta 101 day yes that absolute reality which Vedanta speaks about is called Brahman and the word Brahman etymologically if you look at it in sanskrit it simply means the vast that which has no limit just the vast it's not the name of a particular god or anything like that it's just the limitless the vast the infinite and by the way when you talk about infinite a mathematician or a scientist might want to ask ask you what exactly do you mean by the infinite because they are precisely defined infinite more than one infinite in mathematics for example where on tile is a very precise definition of the infinite it says that which is not limited in space-time and object is the infinite in sanskrit deja Carla was to parichi the shown iam divided of limitations in time space and object what are limitations in time born at this time dying at this time created and destroyed so that's a limitation in time if you do not have a limitation in time what happens your eternal there's no point where your creator that is created no point that it is destroyed no here's a very important thing to understand eternal doesn't mean stretching in time forever eternal means timeless not in time you're right it's not which something which lasts a long time that's one way of understanding eternal but that's just a preliminary step the real thing is you are time is in you you might ask that sounds confusing what do you mean time is in you there aren't two means it in a very simple sense when you experience time right that Tim just told us we're going to wrap up by 8:30 so it's in Tim's consciousness all the time that we are going to wrap up at 8:30 8:30 is not aware of Tim Tim is aware of 8:30 that's all that we donto means when it says that time is in consciousness and not a consciousness in time another human guns room and no limitation in object that's an interesting thing in Indian philosophy limitation in object needs this glass jar is just a glass jar it's not the table it's not deeper or me so each object has its own identity and it's different from everything else that's called limitation by object and being infinite means it is not limited to any particular object which means no object in the universe is different from brahmana if no object is different from Brahman there's no difference between Brahman and any other object there is no second thing apart from raman so that no second means advaita non duality so brahman is that non dual reality which is not limited by time space or object the the objects in consciousness cannot limit consciousness consciousness is not limited by its contents but no Atman yes that's the second important concept in Vedanta Atman means you so when vedanta says that thou art what it basically means brahman is equal to Atman it means that that infinite reality not limited by time space and object is you you might say that sounds cool but I can't really believe that but it's you in a very special sense not you as a body not you as the mind or as the live in limited person but as that absolute consciousness which shines through that particular mind and body so which in fact shines through and reveals the person you take yourself to be so that reality beyond the person that pure consciousness is called admin and admin is equal to Brahman is basically the teaching of a pedant so if you see what is Atman the real meat or the real I which is the reality of this universal it's the self not the selfie this is a shelf yesBut Chopra is a selfie who your name and your form is your selfie at the moment through an act of perception but when we say I what is the eye that is experiencing this I think the selfie I did struck me know in Vedanta we keep saying that you have to find out who am I or what am i because if you discover that you have discovered the reality of the universal self knowledge I think that's the real selfie when you instead of taking a picture of the body if you could take a picture of yourself as you really are that would be the ultimate selfie I think that would be a nice topic for a talk we ultimately what is the difference between admin and the Sanskrit term Jeeva it's as we experience ourselves right now if I tell you that you are pure consciousness you might say Swami that sounds nice but that's not how I see myself how do you see yourself how do you experience yourself we experience ourselves as persons as embodied in bodies which are born and change and age and decay and die we enjoy and suffer so this being which is definitely a conscious being but which finds itself limited to a body and mind this is called a Jeeva and even that body mind is an activity it's not a noun it's a verb it's a changing process right so I in in pure consciousness true the body is a series of changes we can we all know it from birth till now and eventually from babyhood to childhood to being a teenager to a young person middle age and an old person it's a stream of changes in this physical matter that's the body and the mind changes even faster I mean today from the morning till now how many times you've been happy in irritated and curious and bored mind changes continuously it's a series of changes at a subtle level we experience it within yourself and this body mind series of changes appearing in consciousness having forgotten its consciousness nature is what we call the individual - Jeeva that's not that the vedantic understanding of the person and this Jeeva is and correct me if I'm wrong because you know you're not he's been at it much longer than I am yeah but you have to train me Jeeva is programmed by if I may use that word by sanskara karma vaasana' at a very fundamental right so can you explain these terms our well yes our story does not begin at birth and does not end with death we are very ancient creatures even the most newborn baby is actually a very very ancient creature we have existed many lives before and they are possibly many more lives ahead of us that's the Vedanta world view this Jeeva existed before this it came to this particular body it existed in other bodies in other worlds and so over an infinite period of time through actions it has been accumulating through cause and effect what is called the law of karma the law of karma to put it very briefly every action has its reaction or its its effect every cause has its consequence and this is something very fundamental in Indian philosophy the enormous variety within Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism all the Indic philosophies but they all accept the law of karma that there is causality now because of this we are what we are today it explains the differences between each Jeeva as consciousness we are one one reality but when you come to the mind and the body and the person we are so different we have different stories different abilities different problems and different possibilities all of these differences are the results of past karma and what we do with it right now generates new Karma for future existences so this is karma the Karma has two effects one is it gives us this life and the other is it has an effect on our minds so the effect on our minds our individual likes and dislikes whether you prefer this or that whether you hate this thing or that thing those individual preferences are called some scars and they exist in the mind in the subtle body that's what the Jeeva takes away after death yeah so the Karma the sense cara the asanas is that the personality with which you'd have to i didn't you have identical twins they have the same fertilized dough but any mother will tell you that they're two different personalities is that coming from sense Farah a true true I mean even children in the same household you mentioned twins but parents know how different they are so these differences though they come from the same parents they're probably brought up in the same kind of environment nature and nurture both seem to be similar but then there's tremendous difference between children so that comes it's inherited from past lives that's the vedantic understanding of how we are so different completing this map step by step then even in Iraida we talk about physical body culture ears sukshma sharir subtle body mind intellect ego causal body explain this map just a little bit the physical body the subtle body in the coastal boy okay that's an important concept but one thing I want everybody to know is Vedanta it's not speculation it's not even metaphysics it's firmly grounded in experience who's experience your experience in my experience so when you talk about a physical body subtle body causal body it's all experiencial and right now you can see it right now what is the physical body that which you can see you can see it you can touch it taste it smell it this is this the physical body yes that which you see which you can weigh that's the physical body now within this physical body is what Vedanta calls a subtle body how do you know do you just have to close your eyes and look inside me see you I'm happy that's the subtle body I'm unhappy subtle body I remember I forget I want I dislike I understand I do not understand all that you directly experience within yourself this first-person experience which we are having right now that's the subtle body and beyond that Vedanta talks about something a little more obscure called the causal body which is the blankness which we experience in deep sleep if you right now try to experience yourself beyond the subtle body what is it that it is which is experiencing the subtle body you will tend to hit a blank wall if you see try it right now that is the causal body and vedanta says the real you the Atman is not the physical body you are not this body is not the subtle body not even the mind not even the person is not even the causal body but that consciousness in which all of these are experienced and the way I put it is your you can drive a car that doesn't make you a car you are embodied we have a body peasanty doesn't deny that you are experiencing a body and a mind that's all there but you are not that you're not limited to that so every day Swamiji we go through this experience waking dreaming deep sleep so we understand breaking this is waking unless somebody is dozed off yeah always a problem with everybody's in the waking okay then the dream state we also experience every night and deep sleep we also experience every night but in deep sleep there is awareness right not conscious experience with awareness he is touched upon a very important subject if we are saying that your awareness I am awareness and this is constant body changes mind changes then somebody might ask what about deep sleep whatever the stages we call unconscious or under under anesthesia there's no awareness just mister so where are there is this pure consciousness Vedanta talks about Vedanta insists there is consciousness there and that's where you begin to understand what way dontoh means by consciousness see a fundamental difference has to be understood here in in concepts normally in ordinary discourse especially here in the West we take the mind to be consciousness so hearing smelling touching talking thinking desiring willing remembering this is called consciousness but what Vedanta says is this is consciousness plus the activity of the mind so all the changes that you say see are the mind but consciousness is not the mind it X it reveals the activity of the mind and when the mind shuts down in deep sleep the blankness that nothingness that you experience in deep sleep it's still an experience I put it this way deep sleep is not an absence of experience it is an experience of absence so that's what Vedanta you know you know experience comes when consciousness has an object in deep sleep consciousness has no object because the world is not revealed body has shut down I mean body is not we are not using the body to experience the world the mind is shut down there are no dreams so because there are no objects it seems to be nothing but you do wake up and then you do say I slept like a log I didn't know anything I slept like a baby this this phrase is there the similar phrases are there in every language showing that it's a common experience across all all humanity so that means it's an experience it's not nothing so there is consciousness in deep sleep that's what in fact a recent book which talks about the phenomenon of conscious that consciousness is there in deep sleep it's called waking dreaming being by Evan Thompson was a philosopher in the University of British Columbia they said that even in deep sleep you have to admit consciousness and he makes an interesting comment at the very beginning he says that consciousness studies didn't bring in 25 years ago it began with the Upanishads 5000 years ago and he makes a tremendous statement he says we should not date our history from you know ad and BC we should date history from before opening shots and after opening shots they are so important yes tremendous assertion he makes let's talk about deep sleep and the relations is deep sleep what kind of a loot window to what death okay now now we are moving into grim subjects we go into in India when they do a cremation or frequently but what Vitas yeah and you know Lord Krishna says the real you is not subject to birth or death water cannot wet it wind cannot write right it's got a shattered fire cannot burn it's it's ancient weapons cannot leave it its unborn it's not subject to death right and you know many Swami's like yourself when they say what you know what happens to you after death is their answer is I was never born which is very confusing to people but what is the connection between say waking dreaming sleeping and Toria and death all right you use the term Talia which is a common term in Vedanta it literally means the fourth what do you mean by the fourth Vedanta looks at it this way there are different procedures methodologies if you will for discovering ourselves as pure consciousness and anybody can try them out one of the methodologies is to use our common experience of waking dreaming and deep sleep to come to an intuition of ourselves as the witness consciousness of waking dreaming and deep sleep when you are when you are identified with this person this this waking person your called the Waker call it the first when you are identified with the person you are in the dream you're not aware that you are dreaming it's a dream which you realize later but you were there in the dream as a person that person is that is we call it the dreamer then deep sleep that consciousness associated with deep sleep when you wake up and say I slept like a baby call it the third the deep sleeper so you have the Waker the dreamer and the deep sleeper and these are the three which we are used to we think of ourselves as this is our experience and what Vedanta teaches us the insight crucial insight of a Dante's you are not the first the Waker not the second sleeper the dreamer not the third the deep sleeper but what it calls the fourth the consciousness in which all of these are appearing and disappearing so the consciousness is apart from these three and yet underlying all of these three that forth is called Torian and that is not subject to word that is not subject to Bert ended what is subject to birth and death the body what is subject to change the mind but the Turia itself is the witness of the birth and the death of the body Bert and the aging in the decay and the death of the body it itself does not is not born with the birth of the body it itself does not age with the aging of the body itself does not die with the dying of the body and the changes of the mind Turia itself reveals the changes of the mind the Mundaka Upanishad this is a classic text of Advaita Vedanta it says that that you are datoria you are not the waker dreamer or deep sleeper and the whole point is to realize yourself as datoria and it's not really the fourth really when you come to an understanding of it it is the one which appears as the three so now we we both were talking about Wittgenstein the German philosopher and Wittgenstein said in one of his writings our life is a dream we are asleep but once in a while we wake up enough to know that we are dreaming so by tonight whatever happened today will be a dream your childhood is now a dream what happened five minutes ago is a dream what happened to my words but they reach you there so actually this right now in a sense of the wakingdream because it's ungraspable right one minute ago is ungraspable and so this is a waking dream in what we might say a lucid now and the reason I'm bringing this to our attention right now is this waking dream is frequently referred to as Maya where you're right because it's a projection of consciousness but anyway how does this all help us how does this help us alleviate our existential suffering what has this to do with the five glaciers that they dont't talks about yeah before I get to that I know when you when Deepak says this is all a dream I would see some skeptical faces it's a no no this is real and the dreams are dreams and this is real but you know look at it this way what if you imagine something you know eating a cookie you'd say that's an imagination it's not real and if I eat a cookie that's real but now do this imagine eating a cookie and also remember that a cookie which you ate maybe one day ago or two days ago the memory of eating a cookie and the imagination of eating a cookie they seem very similar because both are in the mind and mental and what Deepak says is this very thing which seems very real now is going to become a memory every every fleeting second it's retreating into memory when you compare that memory with the fantasy came into this room exactly right now if we imagine walking us walking into this room it's memory how is that different from the memory of a dream every fleeting moment which we call real is quickly at tremendous speed disappearing into a dreamlike memory you would still argue no but this particular moment feels very real and Vedanta agrees with you this present moment feels very real because you are here you are reality this moment borrows its reality from you see wherever you are that feels real to you imagine even in your dreams when you are actually in a dream you don't know it's a dream it feels very real it feels very real at that time it's because of the presence of consciousness and that present moment which lends reality to it so the only continuity in any experience is that which you say I when you say where are you you say I'm here right but if you go inside the body there's no one there because this body is in I being experienced my mind is being experienced not that high is the only invariant in every dreamlike experience absolutely only constant and absolutely we're a baby and when you were a teenager different body different mind but the invariant is that luminous consciousness right it brings that experience the light of awareness that brings that experience right to what we call reality I'll make a small distinction here when you say I that I is not the ego yes it's the I would call it the witness of the ego yeah the ego comes and goes so when you are deeply absorbed in something playing a game of tennis or something like that or immersed in a beautiful musical experience you lose sense of self so you'll see has the eye gone then the ego is not apparent there but consciousness that's always there otherwise you wouldn't have that experience at all so that's what he means by the luminous eye but going back to the very important question which deeper cast what good is all of this what's the point of all of this the point is its most important thing in our lives the whole point of this and of all of Indian philosophies the different schools it doesn't have to be at the weight of adult it could be Buddhism it could be in the ayah Sankhya the whole point is overcoming suffering and attainment of true lasting peace and happiness how does that work think about it where is self suffering there is suffering in the world suffering of the body suffering of the mind but that consciousness which reveals the body mind in the world does it suffer in itself you will see no I tell you a very funny story this person goes up to a Swami in the Himalayas and asks Swami I'm in great suffering I'm suffering I'm miserable helped me and the Swami says are you aware of your misery he says yes of course that's why I've come here I'm unhappy I am deeply aware of my unhappiness that's why I've come to you miss Swami says if you are aware of your unhappiness of your misery then that misery is an object and you are the consciousness aware of that object you are aware of their object means you cannot be that object you are aware of unhappiness means you cannot be unhappy you are aware of unhappiness in the mind think about it well funny thing is it works like this the person goes and thinks about it and if you do that you will see a certain distance opens up between you as the experiencer and they experienced unhappiness and he comes back and says that you're right I am not unhappy I'm experiencing an unhappiness in the mind and I'm so peaceful now and the Swami expulsion immediately no you are not peaceful you are the witness of the peace in your mind and that's important because the moment he distances himself from his unhappiness and he thinks I'm at peace you're trapped again because that's the peace in the mind and the mind is changeable it will change into unhappiness again in the thing that I was very happy at the Rubin Museum but now we have stepped out into Times Square I'm unhappy now both of them are appearances and disappearances in the mind and this is not speculation if you look at it this is an accurate report of what's actually happening Vedanta just brings it to your notice more they noticed this the more we stabilize ourselves in that witness consciousness the more we are free of the ups and downs of the mind and the body and the world yeah so that's where the whole purpose lies going back to the five dishes yeah with this basis yeah so you know the five pleasures and yoga yoga actually yeah yoga not knowing the true nature of reality grasping and clinging that which is ungraspable fear of impermanence identifying with the ego the fear they're all connected right right so if we ask this question what am I Who am I go through the process in 1880 Shankara areas migrate him and we get to the source then all these things disappear in a sense including the fear of death right what in your view how should we explain death right scheme it's interesting is what what is death in this scheme right you remind me of this meeting I was in I saw me there's something called meetup these days yeah and you see you see there's a something kind of philosophers cafe and in that philosophers get together in the New York ethical society and they discuss the the great questions of philosophy and is it the five great unsolved questions of philosophy we're going to discuss it in such a necessity so I turned up for that meeting because I was attracted and what are the five great question if you google it on Oxford University Press website you will find the five great questions of unsolved questions of philosophy are I'm telling you this because one of those questions is what Deepak asked and four of the five are related directly to consciousness the first question is do we have free will the second question they discussed was what can we know if anything at all the question of epistemology and skepticism go to the limits of knowledge yes and the third one is straightaway what am I or Who am I that was the third question which is the fundamental question in Vedanta then the the fourth question was what is death and they and the fifth one was what is justice but the fourth question what is death and the Philosopher's themselves said we are not talking about death I end up in the from the point of view of a doctor which Deepak is an expert in and he knows it's an interesting topic for a doctor too but in this system as a person what is death to me if I'm not the body then what is dead to me in Vedanta death is the passing away of this particular body you're embodying this this this particular experience it stops because this body cannot support the Jeeva any longer maybe it's all maybe it's damaged so it dies and the Jeeva moves on the individual person moves on and all of this is again an experience in consciousness so in consciousness birth and death of the body take place which means you as consciousness even you as Jeeva you are not subject to death in that sense that you are not that death is not the end of us that happens the experience of body mind and the world that goes with it right which is a changing experience anyway right but not to that which is the witnessing awareness in which that experience absolutely let me make a point it's a subtle point but very interesting you know when people say how do you know a person exists after death but the person is dead obviously the body is dead and you Burnett or or you you bury it or whatever it's gone so how do you know the part the person is also gone but notice something there's a very quick switch which has happened which is goes unnoticed as long as I'm alive when you say the person by that I understand I this entity called server prion under which is encased in this body that's what I understand is the person right and death is understood as death of the body but the moment apart the body is dead the materialist will say that person called self apparent is gone but you at no point did you addint did you see this person called serve appear on the disappearing you saw the body dying and being burnt and aura buried and at no point did you actually see a body that was a fixed entity as pre Ananda that's another point it's a stream of changes the stream intermittent flow of sensations images feelings thoughts that we call a body yes yes in fact this lady she told me in in Santa Barbara she's a nun there she said recently Swami was passing by a shop window and I saw my reflection in the in the window and I thought who is this old lady and this WOM it like went by so fast I still think of myself in there as a twenty-something I never changed yes only the experience of the eye change has this body this mind this this experience of the world all right so debt from a pedantic perspective or a yogic perspective is the moving on of the Jeeva from one non-functional body to another experience in maybe another body so you started off by saying this is not philosophy this is actually not even religion in a sense it's not a system of thought it's based on experience and knowledge directly and that comes from I would say yoga right the word yoga implies union with this self I would in fact it's equally true to say that it's all of these you can regard bailant as a philosopher it as a philosophy and certainly it is starting departments of philosophy in India you can regard it as a system of thought you can regard it as a religion because if it's actually the foundation of of religion I would just look at it that way that is a foundation but it's grounded in experience all the time it does not talk about a single thing which is different from what we experience all the time so yes a direct experience of this what we are talking about there are techniques in yoga which help us but maybe we'll talk more about that no we have two minutes okay very quickly Raja yoga bhakti yoga we have everything done in less than an hour yes and thanks to Deepak he structured it's so wet you would say so what are the procedures there are basically four major classes of practices one class of practice is what you might call meditative practices and there's a vast range in the Rubin Museum itself there have been exhibits and talks and demonstrations of various kinds of mostly Buddhist tradition practices so there's a wide range of meditation practices in Hinduism you have the potentially yoga Sutra which is a classic manual of meditation so that's one group the other group is based on emotion and feeling the bhakti traditions so that's called bhakti yoga length love yes and then there is a third group of practices which seeks to convert our action work into spiritual practice so what you might call in a generic way doing good to others living unselfishly living for a higher purpose so all of that comes under karma karma yoga how do I transform action from a negativity from a prison into something that frees me take takes me to freedom but the one which is a personal favorites I've saved it for the end are the iana yoga the path of knowledge which are like I just mentioned the three stages waking dreaming and deep sleep or the seer and the seen trick Trisha or the method of the five sheets the physical the vital the mental the intellectual and the causal sheet and so the Bliss sheet so dear there are different these you might call them philosophical investigate spiritual philosophy science Sciences which are investigation directly based upon what you experience right now to lead you to that intuitive experience of I am that immortal pure consciousness so yes before your file directly verify but directly verify yes okay so that's we're on tawa you

Channel: Vivekananda Samiti IIT-Kanpur

Views: 368,324

Rating: 4.8346286 out of 5

Keywords: Deepak Chopra, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Sarvapriyananda

Id: viPVFqxHrRM

Length: 53min 14sec (3194 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 08 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Boethiah18]

Swami sarvapriyananda puts up some amazing content. Love Deepak sitting there still trying to understand.

[u/erikvillegas]

I love how eloquently Swami Sarvapriyananda explains things, I hope to watch him in person some day! Thanks for sharing.

[u/vignesh24d]

Most needed.....thanks for sharing