[MUSIC PLAYING] NITIN PABUWAL: Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining. My name is Nitin Pabuwal, and
I'm an engineering manager in the GCB org. Today, I'm extremely pleased to
welcome Swami Sarvapriyananda to "Talks at Google." Swami Sarvapriyananda is the
minister of the Vedanta Society of New York. He is a monk, a philosopher,
and a very popular teacher. He teaches Advaita, or
nondual Vedanta philosophy, and is also well versed
in many other philosophies of the world. He was recently granted the
Nagral Fellowship at Harvard and has spoken at
many large forums, including TEDx Science
and Nonduality conference, and many renowned
universities and colleges. He's very popular
worldwide and also has a large online
following on YouTube, as his talks cater well to the
scientific, intellectual minds, and he seamlessly
relates ancient wisdom to modern society. Today's talk will explore
the core of nonduality, how it is realized,
its implications for the quality of our lives,
and broader implications for modern
consciousness studies. It's a very subtle
topic and will need your undivided
attention, so please avoid the urge to multitask. There will also
be an opportunity to ask questions towards
the end through the chat feature on YouTube. So without further ado, let's
welcome Swami Sarvapriyananda. SARVAPRIYANANDA:
Namaste, everybody. NITIN PABUWAL:
Welcome to Google. SARVAPRIYANANDA: Thank you. Thank you, Nitin, and thank
you to Google for having me this afternoon. So today, we're going to
talk about consciousness. Consciousness is
everywhere in our lives. You are looking at me. You're listening to my voice. You are aware of sitting in
the chair, your environment, light and sound. All of this is possible
because you are conscious. There's consciousness when
we see, and hear, and smell, and taste, and touch. So consciousness
is all-pervasive. I remember last week, I
was listening to this talk by Christof Koch, the Chief
Scientist of the Paul Allen Brain Institute,
where he was talking at the Harvard bookstore
about his new book, "The Feeling of Life Itself." And he said, consciousness
is the most important thing in our lives. So he humorously said that if
you give me a billion dollars and say you give up
your consciousness, and you can go on living, you
will still be a living body, you can just be like
a zombie, he said, I wouldn't accept
a billion dollars. I can't trade my consciousness
for anything in the world. And that's how important
consciousness is. Today, there is a great interest
in consciousness studies fueled by the developments
in neuroscience, by the new imaging
technology of the brain, by the development
of the internet and artificial intelligence. There is a tremendous interest
in understanding scientifically what consciousness is,
where does it come from, what does it do, what are
its possibilities, and so on. But consciousness studies
is not a new subject. Consciousness studies
is very, very ancient. As the philosopher Evan Thompson
has written in his book, "Waking, Dreaming,
and Being," he says consciousness studies
goes all the way back to the "Upanishads," these
very ancient texts in the Hindu scriptures, the Vedas. These "Upanishads" contain the
final, the highest spiritual and philosophical teachings
of the Vedas dating back-- who knows-- 5,000 years or more. And they made a
remarkable breakthrough in consciousness studies so
many centuries, millennia ago. And those insights
into consciousness, into human consciousness,
were developed into this body of philosophy
called Vedanta, and over the centuries, into
this philosophy of nondual Vedanta, which is
a school of Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta. So that's what I'm going to
talk about this afternoon in this Google talk today,
in the next few minutes, these very ancient insights into
consciousness, very profound, and very, very important, first
of all for our personal lives, and also, for what they can do
for this modern investigation into consciousness. The whole purpose, let us
remember, of Advaita Vedanta, nondual Vedanta, was overcoming
human suffering and attainment of lasting, deep fulfillment. We'll see how it works. I will try to
present the essence of the teachings
of nondual Vedanta in the next few minutes. I want to flag something here. Though it's deeply rooted
in the Hindu traditions-- Vedanta is the central
philosophy of Hinduism-- but there is something
unique about nondual Vedanta. It's not religion as it
is generally understood. You know, you have to believe in
something, faith in something. Not at all. It's quite the opposite. It's rather
understanding something, realizing something, seeing
something, let us say. It is not even about
extraordinary mystical experiences with which religion,
the mystical side of religion, is associated. Rather-- and this
is important-- it is about our daily experience,
just this experience which we are having. Everybody has this experience
of seeing, and hearing, and smelling, and
tasting, and touching, of waking, and dreaming,
and sleeping-- just our daily lived experience. And applying a
certain logic to it, a certain philosophical
logical investigation based on experience and reason, we
come to the startling insight about ourselves. Vedanta is an investigation
into ourselves to find out who or what we are. And the claim that
Vedanta makes is that when we truly
know what we are, we will discover that we are not
these limited beings of flesh and blood born at a
particular time, fated to grow old, and diseased, and
die sometime later. No. This remarkable
discovery that we are this immortal consciousness,
that is the discovery. And Vedanta claims
that we can all come to an understanding
of this if we follow our experience guided
by the insights of Vedanta. So here is this journey. It's not a journey
from not believing to believing in something. It's not a journey from our
present daily experience to some kind of
extraordinary experience. No. Rather, it's the journey
from not knowing to knowing, to realizing, to seeing. That's what makes it incredible
for this day and age. There is nobody who is
rational and scientific who could have any
kind of objection, the usual objections
which are leveled against faith-based approaches. So how do we do this? What is the process
in Advaita Vedanta? The process is to
investigate oneself, our experience of ourselves. There are
methodologies developed in Advaita Vedanta which help
us in this investigation, and I will talk about
one of these methods. This is my favorite. And it's found in a text
called [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH],, written about 700 years ago
by a philosopher in the south of India. In this text, we are led what
is called phenomenologically in our lived experience step by
step from the outermost aspects of our experience, to a subtler,
inner aspect of our experience, to what consciousness really is. The way it is done
is, the discernment, the distinction between
the seer and the seen, it starts very simply. Here you are looking
at the screen, looking at me on your
screens, and you become aware. You take your attention
from what you are seeing, the forms that we are seeing. We take our attention to the
eyes, that the eyes are seeing. We just attend to the fact
that the eyes by themselves are the seer, and they
see this world around us. All sorts of colors and
shapes, people and things, all of them, such a variety
of things which are seen, they are seen by these eyes. And these eyes by
themselves, they are distinct from
what they are seeing. The seer and the seen
are two different things. They are not the same thing. That is an essential insight
which we are going to use. So that's the first
thing we become aware, something very commonplace. Like any good teacher,
Vedanta takes you from what is obvious to what
is subtle and not so obvious. So the eyes are
distinct from what they see, and the
eyes by themselves see all different
forms, the changing forms which come before us. Then we go inwards, more subtle. We transfer our attention
to the eyes themselves, and then we become aware
that I am aware of my eyes. The mind is aware of the eyes,
that when my eyes are open, I'm aware that my eyes are open. When my eyes are closed, we are
aware that our eyes are closed. When we need glasses, we
are aware that the eyes need glasses. So the eyes themselves
become, so to say, seen, an object, and the
mind is the seer. So now the mind is the seer
and the eyes are the object. And the world, of course,
still remains as the object. Now, we notice immediately,
the mind, whatever it is, is clearly distinct
from the eyes. The seer and the
seen are separate. They are not the same thing. The mind is the observer
not only of the eyes but of all the sense organs,
the entire sensory system, the skin, and the nose, and the
tongue, and the ears, in fact, of the entire body. So the mind is the observer
of the body, the seer. And the mind and
what it sees or what it observes, what it
thinks about, they are distinct because
the seer and seen are distinct, different. Now, we can go deeper. The mind itself, our thoughts,
our feelings, emotions, ideas that I understand, all
of this, we are aware of. The movements of the
mind are also something that we are aware
of, that I am happy. I'm aware that I'm happy. I know that. That I am pleased, or I
remember, or I cannot remember, I understand, or I
do not understand, all these are activities of the
mind, the thoughts in the mind. And they become the
observed, the seen. And I, whatever I am,
I am aware of the mind. So I am the witness,
so to say, of the mind, and the mind is
something that is seen. Now, if the seer and
the seen are distinct, Then I, the witness of
the mind, whatever I am, I must be distinct
from the mind. I am not the mind. I am the witness of the mind. The seer and seen
being different, I must not be the
same as the mind. I am something that
lights up the mind, that illumines the mind,
that is conscious, aware of the mind,
the various thoughts and feelings in the mind. Now, this is already very
interesting because we generally-- most of us thinking
people, grown up, we generally identify ourselves
most closely with our minds. I am this person who thinks,
feels, has a personal story, likes and dislikes, a memory,
a narrative about myself. This person, this mind
is who I think I am. And here, we are being told, if
you are aware of the contents of your mind that you
cannot be the mind. You are that which is aware
of the mind, that which is the witness of the mind. This witness, this witness
self, it must be consciousness. It must be awareness
by the very fact that it lights up the mind. And the mind being lit
up by consciousness, this conscious mind is
now conscious of the body and the senses. And this conscious
mind-body unit is now aware of
the external world. So now we have gone from
a sense of bodily self to a sense of mental self,
to a sense of the witness of the mind-body. So who am I according
to this way of thinking? I am the witness of
this body and mind. Being the witness of
this body and mind, I must be distinct from
this body and mind. I am-- what can I
say about myself? The one thing I can say about
myself is, obviously I exist and that I am aware. What am I aware of? I'm aware of the mind. I'm aware of the body. I'm aware of this body-mind. So the question,
who am I, what am I, this investigation
of the self, leads us to this appreciation
and intuitive grasp that I must be consciousness,
a witness of the mind and the body. This consciousness itself,
our immediate, enthusiastic response to this would be,
hey, that's interesting. I would like to know more
about this consciousness. What is this like? What am I, this
consciousness, like? That cannot be done. That philosopher who wrote
700 years ago, he says, this conscious self, this pure
subject, is not an object. You cannot know it. If you know it, then
what is the knower? What is the one which is seeing? So it is always the seer. I am always the
seer, not the seen. I'm always awareness,
consciousness, not something that I'm aware or conscious of. So the seer is never seen in
the words of that philosopher, [INAUDIBLE]. Since we are trying to
understand what consciousness is from the Advaitic
perspective, it's very important to
pause at this point. This idea that consciousness
is not an object, this is a fundamental insight
going all the way back to the "Upanishads." This is something
really, I feel, that Vedanta can contribute to
modern consciousness studies, the modern philosophy of mind. It's not something that
is usually understood. So I want to stop
here for a moment and appreciate this carefully. Do follow me carefully
at this point. It's very subtle. What do I mean that I,
consciousness, the witness, am not an object? Then what am I? What exactly am I talking about? At this point, the old
Indian story of the 10th man is helpful here. What the story says is
10 people, 10 friends, were going on a journey. And they crossed this
river on their journey. And after having
crossed the river, they think, did we all
cross or did somebody drown? Let's count. And one of them counts,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Oh my god, there are
only nine people, and the 10th person has drowned. And the others say, no,
no, you can't be right. Let me count. And each person who counts
counts only nine people. Obviously, they are not
counting themselves. But they think there
are only nine people, and we started out as 10. So the 10th person has drowned. And they sit down,
and they start crying and weeping and
wailing, until there's a passerby who
sees them and asks, why are you crying, my friends. Oh, sir, what a tragedy. There were 10 of us when
we started the journey, and now there are
only nine of us left. Obviously, one of us drowned. And the 10th person,
our friend, is dead. He's drowned, and we are so sad. This man, he sees all
10 of them are there. So he asks, how do you know
that there are only nine? Oh, because we counted,
and we found only nine. This man tells them, relax. It's all right. All 10 of you are there. And they go, where? Where's the 10th person? Relax. I'll show you. I'll show you where
the 10th person is. One of you count. One of them starts counting,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. I told you so. And this man comes and
takes the counter's hand and turns the hand this way
and says, thou art the 10th. You are the 10th. [SPEAKING SANSKRIT] in Sanskrit. You are the 10th. And this man goes, oh, 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Ah, the 10th person
has been found. And everyone wants
to try it out. And they say, let me try. And they count nine, and
they turn the hand around and find 10. I am the 10th. And so they are very happy. Now, that might sound
like a silly tale, but it's actually very important
as far as consciousness studies is concerned because let's
just ask, why did they not find the 10th person. And the immediate answer
is, of course, they were not counting themselves. But then a deeper
question arises. Why were they not
counting themselves? Why were they not
counting themselves? The simple reason is
because the counter found nine people outside-- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9-- and therefore, the 10th person must be
outside by that logic. And it's good
reasoning, actually. I found nine people there. There should be the
10th person right there, but the 10th person isn't there. The 10th person is not
an object out there. The 10th person is none other
than the one who is counting. Now, this story
is very important because it gives
us a clue to what Vedanta means by consciousness. Vedanta means by
consciousness something that is in our experience, not
classifiable, not objectifiable as this. It's not an object. Whatever we are aware
of is not consciousness. Whatever we can see, or
hear, or smell, or taste, or think of, or understand,
or objectify in any way, or remember, none of
it is consciousness. It's an object shining
in consciousness. So consciousness is
like the 10th one. When we investigate the
world, then the body, and then the senses, and the
mind, and the thoughts, feelings, awareness,
and then that which is aware of
all of this, now, that turning of the hand, that
intuitive, reflexive grasp, it must be done in
our own understanding. It cannot be pointed out. What can be pointed out
is not consciousness. In fact, Vedanta offers a
very interesting definition, an inside-out definition
of consciousness. And this is important
because one problem they have had with consciousness
studies still today is the quarreling
over definitions. What is consciousness? And every definition
of consciousness, for good reasons, involves
something objective. But from a Vedantic
perspective, this perspective which we have right
now, we immediately see where they're going wrong. If you define consciousness
in terms of behavior, that's an objective thing. You are mixing up with what is
not an object with an object. If you define consciousness
in terms of thoughts-- in fact, in terms
of neuroscience, you know it says
we'll trace it back to the fine activities in the
neurons, electrical activities in the neurons. But from a Vedantic perspective,
that's still not correct because that's an object too. If you are aware of it
through your instruments, then it's an object
of your awareness. Even the mind, which is what
we always take to be conscious, Vedanta says even that
is not consciousness because if you are aware of
your thoughts, emotions, ideas, conceptions, memories,
in fact, all this process we are doing now in Vedanta,
all of that is still object. So Vedanta gives us a
very, very precise way of defining consciousness. Consciousness is not this--
in Sanskrit, neti neti. Whatever we can be aware
of, either directly through our senses or through
our minds or thoughts, or indirectly through
our instruments, our scientific instruments, all
of it, they are all objects. They are not the 10th man. That which is aware of all
of them is consciousness. It is a pure subject,
the nonobjective subject. It is uniquely distinct
from everything else as the 10th man is distinct
from the other nine. This is something that
is not yet understood. I mean, I was at this course
I took at Harvard last year on the philosophy of mind. And we did a survey
of all the work that is done on mind
and consciousness, and everywhere, they're
getting stuck at this point. They are still trying
to make consciousness into something objective,
either reduce the mind into-- they don't distinguish between
mind and consciousness. To reduce it to a
body, or to the brain, or to behavior, or
to language and try to say that is
consciousness, and there will be these other philosophers
coming and pointing out that, no, it doesn't work. Those who have
read Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" or John Searle's "The Chinese
Room Experiment," or the Turing test, why it does not
prove consciousness, or Jackson's Mary who
had never seen color and sees color for
the first time, they are all thought
experiments to show that all the attempts to reduce
consciousness, they don't work. There is a problem
somewhere or the other. All the attempts to see
that the 10th man is nothing other than the ninth, you
will never find the 10th man among those nine. So this idea we must accept
from Advaita Vedanta, that consciousness
is uniquely distinct, it's an entirely
different category from the objective universe. The universe out there,
the objective body, even what is normally taken to
be the subject, the mind, that is also an object. And in our experience,
that's what we experience all the time. So you can try
this for yourself. Here is the world outside. I'm aware of it. Now, change your attention to
the body, to the eyes maybe. I'm aware of the eyes. Change your attention
to the mind, the mind which is aware of
the eyes, thoughts, feelings, emotions. I'm aware of the mind. Push backwards to--
suppose you drop the mind. Stop. The blankness, there's a
blankness, absence of thought, but I'm aware of that too. That also is an experience. What is it that is aware
of the blankness when there is no thought, of the thoughts
when there are thoughts, of the body when
it is experienced, and through the body,
the external world? What is the one thing
which is lighting up all our experiences? That is the nonobjective
consciousness. We call it sometimes
pure consciousness, but pure not in the sense
of it is good or bad. It's just that it's not
mixed up with any object. Yeah. So that is one thing
that Vedanta tells us. Immediately, we see
the benefits of this. If I am this nonobjective,
pure consciousness, distinct from body and mind,
experiencing the body and mind and through the body
and mind experiencing an external world,
then in a sense, I am free of the body and mind. The birth and aging and
disease and death of the body, I experience. Because I experience it, it must
be something different from me. I am not it. The ups and downs
of the mind, we are often tortured by the mind. The mind is the cause of
our greatest suffering. The ups and downs of the mind,
the pleasure and the pain, the frustrations and the
anxieties and fear in the mind, they are objects
of my awareness. I am not them. I am ever free of them. Before they were
there, I was there. When they come, they shine in my
light, and when they disappear, I am still the same shining
light of consciousness. So the "Upanishads" put it
in very poetic language. "That shining,
everything else shines. By its light,
everything is lit up." And that's literally true if
you look at our own lives. I shining, everything
is lit up by me. By my light is
everything lit up. I shining, everything
shines after me. That's true of all
of us, each of us. That is our inner what is called
a phenomenological experience. So this great sense of freedom
comes if you think about it. Even the worst of
the experiences in the body, even the worst of
the experiences in the mind, they are things. They are not attached to
me, the consciousness, no more than when I move my
hand through the sunlight, you can see the sunlight
is not affected. It just reveals,
shines on my hand. You reflect and you reveal
all of these experiences. So an experience basically,
how would you define an experience in Vedanta? See, the thing
become so elegant. Consciousness illuminating
an object is experience. Consciousness
illuminating the mind is an experience of the mind. Consciousness working through
the mind illuminating the body is a bodily experience. Consciousness through
the body and mind is an experience of
the world outside. So experience is
consciousness plus object. That gives experience. This consciousness
also is free of change. It illumines all change. I mean, it's easy to work
it out that logically, this pure subject cannot be a
change because every change is testified to or revealed
by consciousness. The world changes. The body changes. The mind changes
continuously, but they are all revealed by this one light
of consciousness, which I am, which is our real nature. So this nonobjective
pure subject, this is a very deep
insight which I think is not yet fully grasped
in modern thought, in neuroscience or the
philosophy of mind. But we have to go further. The subject was consciousness,
the ultimate reality. We still are not at
the ultimate reality. Nondual Vedanta
means consciousness is the only reality
other than which there is no second reality. We have to go further. A question is raised now. All right, I am, each of
us is this pure subject, awareness only, illumining
the body and mind. But this awareness, this pure
subject, how many of those are there? If there are hundreds
of people out there, hundreds of pure
consciousnesses, billions of people and
animals, billions of consciousnesses,
or is there one? Here, there is a
division of opinion among some ancient philosophies. The nondual Vedanta
insists there is one consciousness,
one consciousness shining through all of us. But other philosophies,
ancient philosophies in India, for example, the
Sankhya, which is pretty close in the theory
of consciousness to Advaita Vedanta-- the Sankhya says each of us
had separate consciousnesses. And I will not go
into the arguments here why Advaita
Vedanta insisted it must be one consciousness,
but I'll give you a clue. If you ask this question, why
do you think that there is one consciousness, that we
are all one consciousness, why not many consciousnesses--
that seems to be more reasonable-- Advaita Vedanta asks,
why would you think there are many consciousnesses? You see, the question
is like this. If you ask why-- do you think there
are many bodies? Obviously, you can
see, and you can count, and you can clearly see
there are many, many bodies. Living bodies are many. Are there many minds? That's also very clear. Each of us, when we express
our opinions, our knowledge, our understanding, our
feelings, clearly our minds are different, very,
very different. So there are distinct
minds, distinct bodies. But consider this pure
consciousness, which is not mixed with any object. So this consciousness, which
is not a body, not a mind, how would you distinguish one
consciousness from another? Every distinction,
every distinction is either a
distinction in the mind or the body or the
external world. So that's a clue. That shows you why
Advaita Vedanta thinks there's one consciousness. A good example would be imagine
a huge jar, a clay jar maybe. And inside that, there is
a lamp, a big lamp shining, and the jar has
many little holes. So from outside
the jar, it would look like many
thin rays of light are coming out from the jar. But if you look
inside the jar, there will be one lamp, one
flame which is shining. So the "Bhagavad
Gita," for example, says consciousness is one
and undivided in all beings, but it appears to be
divided when shining through many bodies and minds. Again, the implications
are tremendous. If we accept we are
all one consciousness, then we are all one
being, actually, not rhetorically,
not emotionally, not in a feeling
of we should all feel we are all
brothers and sisters, but much deeper than that. Advaita Vedanta claims at the
deepest level of our being, as consciousness itself,
we are actually one. And the results for,
for example, ethics and this notion of
oneness of all being, oneness of all existence, this
is the Advaitic foundation of ethics. I don't want to go
into it too much, but the whole problem in
ethics is the question of why should I be good. What is the
grounding for ethics? Ethics seems to be a question
of emotion and culture and preference rather
than of brute fact. Can you ground, technically
speaking, axiology on ontology? Can you ground values
in metaphysics? And the feeling was that no,
you cannot derive an ought from an is. Advaita Vedanta says you
can at the deepest level because we are all one. That's why love
is a true outcome. It follows. Hatred is false because it goes
against our deepest oneness. Ahimsa, nonviolence,
nonviolence is fundamental because we would never want
to hurt ourselves truly. We should not want to
hurt others, anybody else. So this Advaita Vedanta,
this nondual consciousness, this awareness of
one consciousness, it can serve as a basis,
as a foundation for ethics. This is also something very new. It's not appreciated at all. Even in the modern
study of ethics, this is what is lacking. All right, that's
one more benefit, but we are still not at
the end of our journey. Advaita Vedanta
is truly radical. It starts off by
saying, we are not the body, not the
mind, not an object, but we are the
witness consciousness, that we are the witness
of body and mind. Then it goes further on
to say that this witness consciousness, if
you appreciated it, it's not an object. It's a pure subject. It is not open to suffering
and change and destruction, increase or diminution. This is like a constant
sun of awareness. It goes further to say that
it is one in all beings. In all the billions of beings
who have ever been and will ever be, in all living beings,
it's one consciousness, but still, it's not nondual. If you appreciated it,
it's just one consciousness versus the entire
material universe. So the entire material
universe is out there from quarks to quasars
from whales and dolphins to the bacteria and
even the COVID virus. All of the material world,
including our bodies, the organic bodies
which we have, all solid material--
according to Vedanta, in fact, even mind is material. Everything up to
consciousness is material. The definition of material in
Vedanta is also very precise. Whatever is an
object is material. The Sanskrit is [SANSKRIT]. Whatever is an
object is insentient, an object to your awareness
that must be a material. Even thoughts are objects to us. That must also be material. So we have one
consciousness but billions and endless varieties
of material objects. So it's not nondual. There's a lot of
plurality out there. The final step taken
in nondual Vedanta is the question of what is the
relationship between this one consciousness and this vast,
varied, material universe. What is the relationship? Indian philosophy had
different answers. I'll give you
quickly four answers. One answer was the materialist
reductionist answer of the ancient
Indian materialist, [SPEAKING SANSKRIT],,
which is that the material universe, matter is
fundamental and consciousness is born of matter, of
material processes, which is exactly what
neuroscience is at right now. Whatever the
advances, even then, the idea is it must be
somehow rooted in matter. Notice, it's the same
10th man problem. The 10th man must be out there. Consciousness must be brain. It must be language
or body or behavior. What else is there? Among those nine people, we are
trying to find the 10th man. So that is one approach,
the first philosophy, this materialist,
reductionist approach, which is in principle
the same today in spite of our tremendous
advances in science. The second approach
is just the opposite, that consciousness is
the producer of matter, and this is not Advaita,
not nondual Vedanta. This is actually the
theistic approach. Every religion in the
world, which claims God created the universe, whether
it's Christianity or Judaism, Islam or the varieties of
theism in Hinduism, Shaktism, Shaivism, Vaishnavism,
they all claim that there is a conscious entity,
all-powerful, omniscient and all of that, which
created the material universe. So that's a second option. Consciousness creates matter. The third option is
neither creates the other. Both of them are fundamental
realities, material universe, consciousness, and they
exist eternally and interact with each other. Who says that? The most ancient philosophy
of Sankhya in India, which says prakriti and purusha,
consciousness and matter, are two entities. It's very logical. That's how we
experience the world. We experience the world as I,
the subject, and everything else is that, is the other. In fact, some theories now
being explored seriously-- David Chalmers, the
philosopher, who coined the term "the hard
problem of consciousness," he's the Head of the Mind,
Brain, and Consciousness unit here at NYU-- so he talks about
the possibility. He says that we must
consider now the possibility that consciousness is
a fundamental reality of the universe just like
time, space, matter, energy, very close to the Sankhyan
dualism of consciousness and the material
universe being two, which neither
produces the other. Both are fundamental realities. The fourth option I'll explore
is the Advaitic approach, which says no, consciousness
was not produced by matter-- and there are arguments
for each of them. Consciousness did
not produce matter. Consciousness and matter are
not fundamental realities, both interacting. No, rather, matter, the
entire material universe, is an appearance
within consciousness. Take it in three stages. The material universe appears
to you, the consciousness. It appears within you,
the consciousness. And it cannot be anything
distinct from you, the consciousness. So the material universe is an
appearance in consciousness, just like a movie
appears on a screen without the screen
actually producing the characters and the
objects in the movie. Or even better, in our dreams,
we dream an entire world. There is the sky and the
Earth, and there are people. There are actions. And even you are
there in the movie, in the dream, as you
can see yourself there. And all of it is an appearance
in your mind, the dreamer's mind, without being
a separate entity. Exactly like that, and there
are very solid arguments at every step of the way,
why Advaita Vedanta insists this entire universe must be
an appearance in consciousness. Not all that crazy. Just a few months back,
I heard Brian Greene presenting his new book
"Until the End of Time" at Harvard University. And he mentioned that
it's quite possible that we could be a simulation
in a virtual reality or an imagination of a
particular kind of brain. He talks about it in his book. He doesn't buy into it, but
he says it's not impossible. There's nothing scientifically
impossible about it. So if consciousness is the
reality in which the material universe arises, then
the material universe is not a second reality
apart from consciousness. It's not a countably
different entity apart from consciousness,
just as all the things that we see in the dream are
not countably different, are not distinct entities
apart from the dreamer's mind. So there in the dreamer's
mind, it's a nondual reality. Whatever you see in the dream
is not a second reality apart from the dreamer's mind because
without the dreamer's mind, none of them would appear. So the dreamer's mind
is nondual with respect to what it dreams about. Consciousness is nondual with
respect to what it experiences, this entire objective universe. Now, now, those who have
been listening carefully, you might say, wait a minute. You started by saying the seer
and the seen, consciousness and objects, are different. The 10th man is something
different from the ninth. You separated consciousness
from everything else. Now you are saying
everything else is the same as consciousness. Isn't it contradictory? No. Here is a very subtle
point to grasp. It is true that the seer
is different from the seen. But you have to ask
yourself, is the seen different from the seer? Consciousness is different,
distinct from its objects. But are the objects
of consciousness distinct from consciousness? What kind of a question is this? A simple thing would
be, these glasses are distinct from this
napkin, and the napkin is distinct from the glasses. They are different
from each other. But there's another
kind of difference. For example, the waves in
the ocean and the water, the waves are distinct. They come and go. The water is apart from
the waves in the sense that the water can
exist as waves. It can exist without the waves. It can exist as water
vapor and what have you. But the waves are not different
from the water because they cannot exist without the water. You are distinct from your
dreams, all the characters that you see in your dreams. You are distinct
from them because you can exist without them. You exist when you see them. And then they disappear
back into you. You still exist, but those
characters in the dream, the entire dream world,
cannot exist without you, so they do not constitute a
second reality apart from you. So the first step
in Advaita Vedanta is to appreciate what
consciousness really is, what am I as
consciousness, and then to see whatever I experience is
actually not different from me, the one consciousness. This one consciousness
known as Brahman or Atman in Advaita Vedanta, is
nondual, Advaita, not two, with regard to the
entire universe. So this is a tremendous claim,
tremendous insight, not new. This has been pretty well
known in India for thousands of years, and there have
been thousands and thousands of people in every century,
in every generation, practicing it and
deriving benefits from it. So think about it. Investigate it. A huge amount of material
is available there. I think for me, at least,
it's the best thing that ever happened to me, and
so I love talking about it and sharing it with people. I think a lot of questions. Nitin? NITIN PABUWAL: Yes, Swamiji. Thank you so much for an
amazing and eye-opening talk so we can truly see. We definitely have
good questions coming in so let's get
started with those. The first one is the
quintessential question for Vedanta, of course. How does consciousness,
this pure subject, evolve into its contents,
which is objects? And related is, why does the one
consciousness appear as many? SARVAPRIYANANDA: OK,
very deep questions. This just shows the person
who has listened to this has understood
what is being said. So we do come to that question. So how does it evolve
into its objects? How does consciousness
evolve into its objects? If you are saying
consciousness is the ultimate reality
of the universe, then how does it evolve
into the universe? That was the question. The direct answer
is, it does not. It's like asking how does
the dreamer's mind evolve into all the people and
the buildings and the sky and the Earth and the ocean. How does the mind
become a world? The answer is it doesn't. By its unique capacity, it
only experiences a world projected within itself. The entire process of
evolution is within creation, within the universe, so
given a certain state, it evolves into other states,
and that's perfectly all right. Vedanta is comfortable
with evolution. In fact, Monier-Williams,
the British anthologist who compiled first
English-Sanskrit dictionary, he said these ancient
Indians were Darwinists 1,000 years before Darwin. So an evolution within
the living system, even an evolution of the
cosmos, that is in principle understood. Of course, today
with science, we understand it much, much better. But in principle, Vedanta would
have no objection to that. But what Vedanta says is that
consciousness did not create, did not become this universe. That is the second
theory of consciousness which I talked about. That's a religious
understanding. God produces, God
creates this universe. Advaita Vedanta says
no, consciousness does not create an
universe in that sense. Whenever you are
seeing anything, you're still experiencing
consciousness itself. It's just this capacity
of consciousness to project its own image. Why would it do so? Deep question. In fact, this is
the question of why does the one become the many. Why? How is the question of science,
and that's within the many. But why at all would it appear? So Swami, you are saying, the
one does not become the many, but it appears as the
many, but still ask, why does it appear as the many. So this is a very deep question. Why does the one
become the many? It's basically the same
question as why does anything appear in this universe at all. I was just reading
yesterday Heidegger, one of the most
brilliant philosophers of the 20th century. He says this question-- why does anything at all
exist in this universe-- is the first question. Why? Because he says it's the
widest possible question, because it includes
everything, consciousness and all its subjects. It is the deepest
possible question because it's not a question of
a particular area of science. It's not a physics
question, a math question, or a biology question, or
a brain science question. It is the deepest question from
which everything else emerges. And he says it's the most
fundamental question because of this last one. When you ask why
does anything exist, why does the ultimate reality
appear as one appear as many, remember, this question
and the questioner are also part of the many. So I am part of this
appearance of this universe, and I am also
asking about myself. And I ask, why all this? In all this, I am there. So this question is asking
about its own existence. Heidegger calls
it, this question is the most fundamental question
because you're asking why why. Why why? You're asking a question
about causality itself. So this question is most
fundamental, the widest question and the
deepest question. I'm not trying to
avoid the question. I'm just saying, let us
understand how profound it is. Let me give you
just two answers, and we'll get onto
the other questions. One answer is, Vedanta says
this question is illogical. Why is this question illogical? Because the question why,
you asking for a cause. Whenever we ask why, we
are asking for a cause. Why is the grass wet? Because it rained. Because. So why does the consciousness
appear as the many? You're asking for a cause. But in between consciousness
and the many, in the many, at the beginning of the
many, causation, time, space, causation, it's
basically the stage upon which this consciousness,
Brahman, plays out its drama of the universe. The moment you ask why, you
already assumed causation. You have already assumed the
start of this manifestation because causation itself
is built into creation. I'll just leave it there. But let me give you a
simpler answer which I didn't find in a Vedanta
text, but it appeared to be the simplest possible answer. You're asking why
does consciousness appear as so many objects. Why? What are the options
to consciousness? It could either
appear as something or not appear as anything,
and that's exactly what consciousness is doing. When you are awake,
when you are dreaming, you have this entire waking
world, the dream world. But when you are
in deep sleep, you have this blankness,
consciousness not appearing as anything, blankness. The absence of objects
is experienced. And in waking and dreaming,
the presence of objects is experienced. What else can consciousness do? It can be something
or it can be nothing, and it gives you both options. If you look at the
macrocosmic universe, the idea that the entire
universe is projected from consciousness,
appears as all of this and then again disappears,
the [SPEAKING SANSKRIT],, the projection, the sustenance,
and the final dissolution of the universe. So there is a period when
consciousness or Brahman appears in the
universe, and there is a timeless
period, let us say, when it does not
appear as the universe. So there are logically
two alternatives. And both are
provided by Brahman. Consciousness would be like,
what are you complaining about? Yes. NITIN PABUWAL: Very nice. Thank you, Swamiji. So the next question
that we have was first asked early on in your lecture. "You explained so far
that consciousness is aware of the
mind, but you also mentioned that it
illuminates the mind. It seems a little different. Could you explain how we
know that it illuminates?" SARVAPRIYANANDA: Right. Illuminates is a better word. The moment you say
aware of the mind, we get this general idea of
when we are aware of something. I'm aware of the screen and
the people and those questions. So already, the
mind is involved. Thinking is going on. It's being processed. It's a process. That's part of the mind. It's not part of consciousness. So consciousness is not aware of
the mind in the way the mind is aware of everything else. The mind is thinking about
everything else and processing data. Consciousness is not like that. Consciousness is
more like a light that uniformly
shines on whatever is presented before it,
in it, to it, within it. So let us say
consciousness shines. Consciousness illumines. The light metaphor is used again
and again in Advaita Vedanta. So this is called the
self-illuminous nature of consciousness, in
Sanskrit [SPEAKING SANSKRIT].. It reveals itself and
whatever is presented to it. So it's not that consciousness
is thinking about the mind. Yeah. NITIN PABUWAL: Awesome. The next question, this
was also asked earlier on. "Since I'm the
witness/awareness, that means I'm creating my
own world and other entities? Is that correct?" NITIN PABUWAL: Witness awareness
is it creating its own world? I as the witness/awareness--
remember, whenever we are talking about
it at this level, in most cases, we still do not
appreciate what is meant by the witness awareness. We are still thinking of
ourselves as a kind of mind. One Vedanta teacher, he's
put it very beautifully. In all the initial
stages, even when we feel we have
understood it and people claim they have understood it
and the witness consciousness or witness awareness, you have
to be careful what are you smuggling into consciousnesses. He said, what are you
smuggling into Brahman? We are surreptitiously
smuggling the body or the mind, especially the
mind, into consciousness. So it is not that we are
creating this universe as we see it as we go along. Definitely, we are creating
the objects in our dreams, but we are not creating
the physical objects out there because the moment we
see physical objects out there, we are already located
in a body and a mind. So from this
body-mind perspective, I, Sarvapriyananda, am
not creating Manhattan. It's not that kind of what is
called subjective idealism. Subjective idealism is the
mind creates its objects like Berkeley, Bishop
Berkeley, for example, or the ancient
Buddhist [INAUDIBLE],, the Mind-Only
school of Buddhism. Shankaracharya, the
great teacher of Advaita, he spends a lot
of time and energy distinguishing Vedantic
theory of consciousness from the Buddhist
Mind-Only theory. So as a preliminary
answer, I would say if you want a
straight answer, no. When we talk about, am
I creating my objects, no, you are not
because already, you are thinking of yourself as a
body-mind, this consciousness plus body and mind. The whole purpose in Advaita
Vedanta to put a lot of effort into shifting our
paradigm of ourselves as a body with consciousness
to a consciousness with a body. That's the first step,
and then body and universe will all be seen as
appearances in consciousness. Now, just a little qualification
for those who are well versed in philosophy
and Vedanta. There is this school
of Vedanta called Drishti-srishti-vada,
a subschool of Vedanta which does say, yes, you are
the creators of your objects. Just as in dreams, you create
objects and dream about them, this world is also
a virtual reality. You are the creators of
the matrix of this world. So that's a school. But there, they say you
must be firmly established in the witness
consciousness idea, and then only you can see that-- because all of these things
are appearances in me, and therefore, "creator," also,
you have to be very careful. You don't actually
create anything. Whatever you think
you're creating, they are nothing other than
you, the consciousness, appearing distinct from you. Yes. NITIN PABUWAL: Great. Next question is-- so I
think this is probably going to be a good
question to end with. "What are the methods
for actual realization and entering the
state of nonduality?" SARVAPRIYANANDA: Very good. The question would be, what
is the methodology here? What is the practice here
apart from the philosophy? Here, the philosophy
is the practice, but there are things to be done. Let me outline
that very quickly. This is called the
method of knowledge as distinguished from
the method of faith, the method of service,
method of meditation-- the method of
knowledge, Gyaan Yoga. In this method or
path of knowledge, the actual practices
are literally hearing, reasoning, and
meditating, [SPEAKING SANSKRIT] in Sanskrit. Hearing is basically
systematically studying this, so we try to understand
what is being said here, try to grasp it-- not a
question of believing it. Try to get it. This stage will be complete. The first stage is complete
when I say, all right, I have read the books. I have heard the talks. I know what is being said. So then the first
stage is complete. The second stage is that
I know what is being said, but I have many
questions about it. I don't get it. The second stage
is to work it out. Most of these texts are the
format of questions and answers just like what we are doing
here, and a lot of questions are raised which are
our own questions and many questions we
wouldn't even dream about. Those are raised and
answers are given. We have to work through those
questions and answers still. Still, we can say
confidently, I get it. You can ask me questions. I can answer your questions. I understand it. I not only know the teaching
but I also understand it. It's clear to me. I'm convinced. I'm sold. Now what's the problem? It's true that I get
it, but you know, it's not a living
reality for me. I still kind of feel
the same person. We were promised that you would
transcend suffering and attain a deep sense of
peace and well-being. I'm not getting that. I still am buffeted by
the ups and downs of life. So the third stage
is meditation, meditation not in the
sense of sitting quietly, but what we have studied
and what we have understood, to dwell in that, to
marinate ourselves in that, to assimilate that. So Swami Vivekananda
uses the term, assimilation of what
we have learned, what we have understood. So you meditate on
that until there's a moment, a very clear
moment of awakening where it seems absolutely
obvious and effortlessly so. After that, even if you try,
the person who doesn't get it, even by trying, does not seem
to feel that you are the witness consciousness. The person who gets it, even
without wanting to, even without trying, will get it,
and even if he does not want it, cannot escape from it. It's done. Once you walk through
that gate, it's done. Now, there are
associated practices. If you do this, we'll find
there are problems coming up. The problems are not
with the teaching. The problems are
with our own mind. So one problem is
called scattered mind, in Sanskrit, vikshepa. So practice of focus, especially
in these days of distraction, the mind is scattered
more and more, and it doesn't quite grasp
or soak in the teachings. So practice, regular practice
of meditation, mindfulness, you might say, is taught. In Sanskrit, it
is called upasana. It combines both
worship and meditation. There's another
level of practice, that the mind is conditioned
by negativities, prejudices, hatreds and passions and lusts,
and this has to be toned down, cleansed so to say. The problem is
called impure mind, and the solution is
called pure mind. And there are
practices for that too. So there are
associated practices which basically sharpen the
knife, which clean the mirror. That's a saying among the
monks in the Himalayas-- is your mirror clean? The mirror is the mind. When we clean the mirror,
then these teachings take effect just like that. They are very fast, very
direct, very powerful. NITIN PABUWAL: Wonderful. Perfectly on time. Thank you so much
for joining us today, Swamiji, and for your
enlightening words and packing so much wonderful
content in such a little time. Really, really appreciate
you taking the time, and it's been a privilege
to have you with us. SARVAPRIYANANDA:
Thank you so much. Thank you. NITIN PABUWAL: And many thanks
to the "Google Talk" backing team as well for enabling
this wonderful platform and for making this a
smooth session, and thanks to everyone as well in
the audience for joining. If you are interested in
learning more about nonduality and consciousness,
please look up Swami Sarvapriyananda
on YouTube or subscribe to the Vedanta
[? Invite ?] channel. He also has an "Ask Swami"
program through which you can ask more questions. Thank you, everybody, again. Have an illumined day. Thank you. SARVAPRIYANANDA: Namaste.
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Sam harris has taught me everything I need to know. I doubt he has anything new to say