Swami Sarvapriyananda | Mandukya Upanishad, 1 of 6 | Sivananda Ashram

let's start with the traditional invocation if you like you can join me um Padron gonna be in Aoyama deva petrm pasha moksha here yatra sterile engage toboggans hasta newbie via Shima diva Heaton yada you who was Tina Indra British rava swass Tina boosha boosha vida swass Tina Stark show our astronomy trustee nobley hospital data to whom Shante Shante Shante oh oh gods maybe here what is auspicious with our ears maybe see all auspicious things with our eyes while praising the gods with steady limbs maybe enjoy a life that is beneficial to the gods may indra of ancient fame be auspicious to us may the supremely the supreme all-knowing pooja to be propitious to us may garuda the destroyer of evil will be well disposed towards us Mabry hospitai ensure our welfare home peace peace peace namaste and it's wonderful to be back here in this beautiful atmosphere at the Shiva and the yoga ashram once again and the subject is the man dukhia Upanishads demand o'ciock Erica this subject it's it's actually the heart of Vedanta it is properly in the path of knowledge the the way of knowledge you see spirituality it comes in different forms different paths let's put it this way there can be one approach which is based on devotion the way of duck T of love the distinguishing characteristic of which is that we have devotion and faith in God the way of love a devotion cannot start without faith it from the very beginning you start questioning why should I believe then that's not the way for you but if I can believe if I can start with faith with shut up then the way of devotion is very powerful so there I believe and proceed most religions are like that most religious facts in all the major world religions most of it is bhakti actually devotion but there comes another path the path of yoga which says no no no not not so much bhakti but experience when you come and do yoga here whether it is the hata yoga or the meditation the raja yoga there it is not enough to say I believe in yoga will I get the benefits no you have to do it you've actually got to do it then only you get the benefits you do the hot yoga to get the benefits for your health you do the meditation to get the higher experiences promised in in raja raja yoga the path of Patanjali yoga says spirituality is not just a matter of belief but it's a matter of experience practice these techniques this is the way you sit and breathe this is the way you focus and visualize and eventually long stabilized practice over a long period of time dedicated practice you will get the various mystic experiences promised in these texts and that proves to us the truths of spirituality that it's real there is something something in it we actually experience it that's the path of yoga the path of experience as distinguished from these the path of belief and the path of experience by the way when I say path of belief path of experience path of knowledge I am NOT making a watertight compartment in each of these paths the others are also present but predominantly predominantly so path of belief path of experience now comes the path of knowledge where the objective is no longer is needed believing something nor is it getting extraordinary experiences mystical experiences but rather investigating our ordinary experience to discover the ultimate reality about ourselves what do I mean by ordinary experience and mystic experience I have had the vision of Kali or Jesus mystic experience most of us don't have it suppose it is limited to a few not only limited to a few even those mystics for them it comes and goes it was not constant it came as a result of intense spiritual practice so those are mystic experiences rare very valuable very valuable rare but in the path of knowledge what is used is reasoning inquiry inquiry into what investigation into what into our experience daily experience something that everybody has in this open ition will take up the experience of waking dreaming deep sleep who does not have these experiences we are all awake all at least most of us with Vedanta occupational hazard is it immediately takes you into the state of dreaming or deep sleep but stay awake for the duration so these experiences serve as the material for investigation so in the path of knowledge it's not a question of belief it's not even a question of getting certain specific mystical experiences but rather investigating the daily experience of live living and thereby discovering the ultimate see ultimately in all of these paths it is promised that there is something to be found call it God or Brahman or Nirvana or whatever you call it the common factor in all paths of spirituality there's a claim that there is something to be found by finding which realizing which seeing which attaining which we go beyond suffering Dukan I Ripley the cessation of suffering this is the this is the promise of spirituality as a temporary level we get it in the world through all kinds of both secular and other kinds of practice but ultimately the Buddha's quest to go beyond suffering completely that is the path of spirituality attainment of lasting and profound peace and joy and going beyond suffering the path of knowledge Swami Brahma Honda shared a nice anecdote with me about Carl Jung the great psychoanalyst towards the end of his life he was interviewed by BBC and he was asked do you believe in God he said I do not believe in God I know God you see I do not believe in God I know God believe in God path of love and devotion I know God that is the culmination of the path of knowledge so then what we are going to talk about here it lies firmly in the path of knowledge so in the next few classes that's what I'm going to talk about now this was just to make things clear about what we are going to do here if you ask so are you saying we should abandon our devotional practices and meditation and all and all do the path of knowledge which is the better path which one should we follow the answer is all of them all of them all the great teachers of sanatana-dharma never excluded any path devotion meditation indeed service Karma Yoga which many of us you are doing as he so much Karma Yoga going around here service and knowledge gain yoga all of them are components to a wholesome spiritual life it's just that different masters different spiritual teachers had different mix of these so for example Shankara the great teacher of non-dualism whose text we are going to take up Shankara he kept knowledge at the top but you start with karma with action karma yoga and proceed to upar sauna or raja yoga and bhakti yoga meditation and then finally Gianni yoga the path of knowledge by karma according to shankara shankara structure by karma yoga one gets purification of mind with a purified mind when you meditate you get a concentrated mind and when we have a pure and concentrated mind and we come to this the path of knowledge then by the path of gana yoga knowledge arises ignorant is removed and we get enlightenment and liberation karma yoga removes impurities of the mind Raja yoga or meditation removes the distractions of the mind and finally gain yoga the path of knowledge removes ignorant from the mind that Shankara structure you can clearly see his privilege acknowledged above all others but others are not excluded they are preparatory if you come to a teacher like Ramanuja who lived about a thousand years ago they're almost the same structure action first but then knowledge second higher than action is knowledge but higher than knowledge is love so in his path love comes at the highest outward most action inner to that is knowledge inert inner most is love but you see my point is all the great teachers included all of these paths here today just now notice the session you had hatha yoga exercises before this which is action then you had meditation which is Raja Yoga then you are chanting which is a practice of bhakti-yoga now we are doing the path of knowledge see all of them are included by tradition this lineage which is a commonly needs to us also swami Vishnu day one and the G and Swami Siobhan and the G they belong to the Saraswati lineage and that's a that's a knowledge Linnaeus it's a Vedanta lineage going all the way back to Shankara so this text is definitely a text which is a foundational text of this lineage what more do I want to say I can put it in another way slightly different way the spiritual journey in this path despite we are going to take up the spiritual journey is not a journey from one place to another what do I mean by one place to another say what is religion it takes you from Earth to heaven where is God not here there see there is a place where a journey in space not here but there Vedanta is not about that what we Dante's talking about is both here and there and everywhere so it's right here it's not about a journey in time when will I see God after death in America we sometimes come across these big billboards after that black very ominous after death you will see God call 1-800 for the truth or something after death but notice the word after after is a time word when do you see God not now after death post-mortem spirituality now now now I am NOT denying that such things are possible are there such words which you can call a heaven I'm quite sure there are is it possible to have visions of God after death I'm quite sure it's possible I'm sure people do have but Vedanta is not talking about that it's not a journey in time also from now to then know what we Dante's talking about was in the past is now and will be in the future also it is it it is everywhere and all the time and right here and right now so what is it a journey if it's not a journey in space it's not going somewhere or it's not waiting for something to happen then what kind of a journey is it it's a journey from ignorance to knowledge when Carl Jung says I know God it's a journey from I don't know do I know so this is the path of knowledge what is the role of these texts what do the Upanishads do let me tell you a little experience as you heard I have had the privilege of being in Boston the last few months and and the university has given me a nice apartment on highest floor of the building that's the 20th floor and from there when I open the window shades in the morning I can see the Charles River and opposite is this building which I did not know this whole campus which I did not I would see it every day it's actually the Harvard Business School but the funny thing was you know when I went there there are certain things I wanted to see I had heard of the Harvard Business School is the best Business School in the world so I should go someday and see it even every day when I would open the window and look at that also I would think one day I should go and see the Harvard Business School never realizing I was looking at it directly there one day I was walking and I went to that area and I was thinking oh very nice what is all this which I saw every day and I asked a lady what are these buildings are they part of the University and she said it's the Harvard Business School oh this is the Harvard Business School now I know did I see something new no I saw it every day but now I know this is the Harvard Business School now what did it take for me to know this to see the huh what did it take for me to see within quotes the Harvard Business School I said told this story to somebody back in New York and they said oh you have to open the window shades but no everyday I was opening the window shades every day I was looking also just by opening the window shades I did not know then what what helped what actually tipped the balance that lady had to say this is the Harvard Business School then I knew something which is continuously experienced and yet we miss it it has to be introduced to us it has been to be pointed out to us the Upanishad does that there is something which we it's already there in our experience all the time when we become enlightened do you know what the experience will be oh I did not realize that I am the Atman pure consciousness now I see it I was the body and mind earlier now I am pure consciousness no no no no no we will feel my God was always there I never saw it it was always there all the time when I didn't even know anything about Vedanta when I knew about Vedanta when I tried by at most to try to realize this I was always experiencing it in fact there is no possibility of experiencing anything else people who don't know the first thing about Barranca people who are not at all interested the most materialistic person everybody all the time it's always there it has to be introduced to us these texts do it these operations are part of the Vedas which are a very ancient collection of religious spiritual texts the fundamental texts of Hinduism even by modern scholarship they are maybe 3,000 or more years old and the Upanishads are the final teachings don't worry about what the Vedas say because you're going to get the the essence in the Upanishads Upanishads are many in number large and small the biggest of them the breed are neck opening shot is a vast text the smallest of them is this one which we are going to do the amount dookey open assured it has only 12 mantras the shortest it is the shortest of the open Ishaan's and the most powerful it is the most packed with pointer the pointer which will say not this is Harvard Business School this is your real nature this is the Atman here you are experiencing it see it for yourself and be free there is a nice story of Rama Chandra and Hanuman there is only one there and Rama and Sita in his heart so Hanuman asks Rama Chandra once how can i attain moksha spiritual freedom going beyond suffering how can i attain that and Rama Chandra says Manduca Mecca me vollum moksha Namba Mukti this Upanishad demand occupation by itself is sufficient to give liberation to those who seek it Ramachandra says this no better advertisement that this by itself is sufficient but some I don't get liberation after the classes are over I'm not yet liberated then then Ramachandra gives to her new man a list of 108 upanishads you better study those then so that's why we have to be very alert in these classes and let's try to quickly get liberation by studying this shortest and most powerful of open issues otherwise 108 upanishads so the man dookey open assured which is part of the atharvaveda shortest to initial one more point I would like to add before we enter the text directly the Upanishad itself is very short twelve mantras only Shankar Acharya who is the great commentator on the Upanishads and is had the source of our common lineage adi shankaracharya who lived about fourteen hundred years thirteen hundred years ago in India he wrote commentaries on these opening shots and thanks to him we are able to understand these opening shots I remember in our classes at Harvard University in Divinity School here studying the open issues and the attempt was to study them directly without the help of commentaries it's not particularly not very easy but anyway and the professor would again and again see I'm trying to keep Shankar out of the door because once he enters then everything follows in lockstep with Shankara so so that was these influence it's thanks to his commentaries that these open issues sometimes they seem very difficult and cryptic but they open up their treasures because of his commentaries now before Shankara shankara's gurus guru go to pada Acharya who was shankara's guru was go in the pod and govinda partes guru was goda pada so go to pada Acharya shankara's guru's guru himself wrote a commentary on this operation so his commentary which is in the form of sanskrit verses like poetry is called the Manduca carica karika means verses so there is the Manduca open Ishod and explaining the twelve Upanishads are the Manduca car Iike the and those verses are divided into four chapters chapter 1 2 3 4 the first chapter is what we are going to take a look at here the first chapter contains the entire open Ishod which is only those 12 mantras and certain caracals composed by guru pada shankara's teaches teacher very profound very powerful non-dualistic teacher and also i'll be drawing on Shankar's commentary i will not present you with directly with the Sanskrit of Shankar's commentary but what you'll be hearing from me is basically Shankar's commentary Shankara wrote the commentary on the Upanishads and on the carry cos his teachers teachers work so that is the structure of the text Upanishad so nowadays if you study the Manduca Upanishad this is how you normally study it the Upanishad the four chapters of the caracas and Shankar's commentary on the whole thing the Upanishads in one voice proclaim that there is an ultimate reality they usually call it brahman but other words also Purusha what not simply sometimes that so an ultimate reality and this reality is pure being pure consciousness pure bliss may sound very abstract but the Upanishads says this ultimate reality is our real nature that's who or what we really are because we do not know it we think of ourselves as these little creatures of flesh and blood born today dying tomorrow suffering in so many ways and ever unfulfilled we think of ourselves as that whereas we are actually infinite I love this saying that we think we are human beings in search of spiritual experience but the truth is that we are spiritual beings having a human experience that's very nice and that's what the open e shirts mean they they would just replace it instead of saying they are spiritual beings it would say we are spiritual being in the singular we are all one spiritual reality called Brahman and all the Upanishads have different ways of pointing it out to us remember this is Harvard Business School pointing it out to us we are already experiencing it as we shall see it not talking about a single thing beyond our experience but it points it out to us you think this is that's so easy just point it out to us and I know okay I am one with God I am Brahman I am the absolute done finished with life probably not otherwise there would be many more enlightened people walking her the trick is in the fine print because they want a certain preparation of mind and body a certain purity and certain ability to focus and dispassion when we madly run after things in the world we tend to miss the background it's an ever-present background it's always there but we miss it because we are looking for we miss the screen because we are so engrossed in the movie the screen is always there without the screen no movie but we are so delighted with the movie we say we we laugh and we cry and we are terrified if it's a good movie good comedy movie good tragedy good horror so we are scared we cry we laugh we are engrossed in the movie all the time it is light and scream that's all but we miss it how do we miss it we talked today I was talking about this I have had the experience of living in the past three years have been very interesting for me I lived in Hollywood for one year and then in Manhattan and now at Harvard you have Fame and glamour and all of that that's the in Hollywood the biggest people are the stars not the night stars at the Hollywood stars so they are the famous even your famous you made it and in Manhattan Wall Street if you're if you're rich money is very important so you have to make it means you have to be a millionaire or a billionaire and at Harvard it is learning it's at the top of the food chain are the Nobel Prize winners and so you have Fame and glamour you have money and you have learning some of the most important ingredients of what people think if I have those I will be happy I will be fulfilled this is the goal of life one thing I observed if people have a spiritual quest along with that glamour or money or learning all very good even better and better and better but without that spiritual quest it could be in any form could be devotion it could be service it could be philosophy it could be meditativeness whatever it is a spiritual quest if it is not there then the rest are meaningless meaningless meaningless it takes time to realize the world is mad after these things sense pleasure and money and fame and we think that will be very happy with that and temporarily like a band-aid it works but not not for long deep satisfaction is possible through spirituality alone this is my reading this all the text tell us it's good to see it for yourself it's good to see it for yourself sri ramakrishna put it this way line up as many zeros as you will still the value is zero but put one and then add add zeros the value keeps on increasing the one is call it God's spirituality and self-realization whatever you call it that core spirituality if it's there everything in this else in the world adds to it everything is better but without that one everything is empty you cannot fill up there's no fulfillment possible there's no end to it it's like a bottomless well so okay with that in mind this is what we are trying to do to discover our real nature and attain that ultimate fulfillment Vedanta tells us gives us the amazing news that what we are seeking for is already there that ultimate reality and it's you you are that that's why I say Vedanta is the most interesting subject in the world because it's about you I am the most immature interesting subject in the world to myself only everybody else things I am a bore but it's about me it's about ourselves our innermost reality so how does this proceed let's take up the first two mantras yes there's verse one so but twelve mantras will take up the first two and then I'll talk about it you can chant after me if you like o mediated omitted aksaram idam sarvam Akshara minimums album - yo pop the economy - yo pop jahannum butum bhavet butum hobbit vivillon vivillon ET salut bomb uncle saruba moon car yet yet yet yet trickle or tetum trickle ah tetum top young car Eva tada Punk arrival sir Reuben heated verse number to serve them heated Bromham I am Atmaram I am Atmaram ha so you MOT macho - part so you MOT ma chatter spot alright let's go back to verse 1 what does it say Oh mediator - arum idam sarvam it may all strong sound very strange at the beginning don't worry by the end of these classes all will be this will be like that was so simple why didn't I get it earlier Oh mediator dr. Amin observe them it means ohm this mantra is everything that is here everything that we know in life the entirety of the universe is ohm I can see how don't worry pretty easy we'll see soon ohm is everything in this universe that's GOP Arcanum explanation of that an investigation of that butum Bobby shed boot impoverished charities are evanka whatever is there in this world means whatever was there in the past entirety of the universe whatever was there in the past all the people and animals and beings and planets and stars which ever existed in the past all that is own vomit what is there right now everything that exists in the world external internal all that is ohm and everything that can possibly come in the future all that is ohm so everything in time is ohm what about something beyond time something eternal yet John yet and that which is the other trick a lotty tum' beyond the three transcending the three periods of time past present and future Brahman the ultimate reality top young car ever that - is ohm so whatever is within time is ohm and whatever if there is something beyond time and eternal that - is ohm and then the second mantra says serve them heated Brahm hah all of this remember all of this is we said ohm now it says no all of this is Brahman the ultimate reality and what is Brahman I am Atma Brahma this very self is Brahman this very self I am means this this this very self is Brahman I am Atma Brahma okay we'll stop here whatever have you got here it's all sounds very very cryptic and in America they would say it sounds cool but what does it mean Vedanta proposes to reveal the secret of the universe of everything everything that we see all around us it just uses the language of time what by our to explain everything it says everything that ever existed everything that does exist now everything that will can't possibly exist in the future all of that is within time and everything within time is Brahman it is that ultimate reality Brahman and everything beyond time is also that absolute reality Brahman now to explain this to understand this the Upanishads start inquiry two inquiries 1 and inquiry using ohm why inquiry remember the background this is the way of knowledge so open issue does not say straight away start meditating or go and do the dishes karma yoga or chant and sing no no inquiry enquiry into what two things one is the ohm the mantra ohm we'll see later and the second thing is an inquiry into the self Atman why notice to know the secret of everything the entirety of the universe is nothing other than brahman according to the opposition and brahman is nothing other than the self what is the self you it's talking about you you are the you are the you are the self which which we are that itself is Brahman and Brahman is the the essence the reality of the universe therefore to denote the reality of everything if to know Brahman to know Brahman you to know yourself therefore an inquiry into the self Atma Atma means self by knowing knowing the Atma you know Brahman by knowing Brahman you know everything that there is to know so first inquiry first investigation is into the self who am i what am i and that you find in all just about almost every one of the open issues what am i why because when we discover what we are we'll discover the ultimate reality and that's expressed in the second verse in the it's called the maha vaakya the great statement I am NOT maha brahma this very self is brahman that short statement this is very important in advaitha Vedanta conventionally there are four statements all across the Upanishads four statements are taken as great sentences or maha vaakya the great propositions of our statements all of them mean the same thing what do they mean they mean you are the ultimate reality so in the chandogya upanishad we find taught to our misdeeds many people have heard of that that thou art taught to AMA see in California there was this gentleman who changed his name and called himself Chuck to AMA see that thou art that's from the chandogya upanishad in the breed our new company showed which I mentioned the biggest of the Upanishads there is a short sentence ah hum Rahm has me I am Brahman and in the ITT open assured you come across the sentence bragging on Brahma this very awareness is Brahman and here in this open Ishod we just read I am NOT ma Brahma this very self is Brahman whether it is that thou art or I am Brahman or this very awareness within me is Brahman or this very selfish Brahman do you see that it all means the same thing it's pointing to one central truth the identity of atman and brahman the identity of the self and the cosmic that I am one with the universe but how can I understand this it's easy to say it we need an inquiry and the inquiry is one inquiry into ohm two inquiries are proposed here one inquiry into ohm will see why and the second one the important one they inquire into the self inquire into the self means let us investigate our experience of ourselves how do we experience ourselves look at our own experience and we will discover the ultimate truth so that's the background how do you proceed here the two inquiries first Upanishad mentioned the ohm inquiry and now in the second verse it mentions the self inquiry but first it will take up the self inquiry so from the third month onwards up to the seventh mantra it will talk about self inquiry and that's where we will concentrate and then from the eighth to the last the twelfth mantra will bring back the ohm enquiry and show how it is connected with the self inquiry to repeat then what do we have ahead of us mantra one and two introduced us to two kinds of enquiry enquiry into ohm and inquiry into the self important one is the inquiry into the self from the mantra number three to seven inquiry into self and mantra number eight nine ten eleven twelve which we can we take up in short order at the end it's enquiry into ohm by that time hopefully all this will be clear and a few at least will be enlightened I'm only half joking it's quite possible prepared mind anytime it's like a ceramic rush needs to talk about a dry matchstick if you strike it once it bursts into flame compared to a wet and sodden matchstick keep on striking it no flame and it might even break so that preparation if one has the preparation a little bit of pointing this is Harvard Business School it took a lot of preparation for me because long time I'd been thinking I must go and see it one day so that prepared mind when you point it out ah yes enlightenment this open issue is going to point it out to us our real nature what what kind of enquiry the inquiry has already started when it says I am at Margit oh Sh part it says in the second verse you see I am at Machado spot this is the enquiry investigation into ourselves Upanishad says all it's doing is pointing it out remember look at yourselves your experience of yourself our experience of ourself has four aspects has four aspects one aspect of our life our self is when we are awake now for example here we are there is a world before us here is a body and close my eyes there's a thoughts and feelings I am there in the world is there I am a subject here is the object here is my life this is called a waking life I am the Waker in the world of the waking and this is my waking life first first aspect four aspects of the self first aspect waking second aspect I fall asleep and dreams come somebody said oh I don't dream you just don't remember your dreams you do dream we mostly forget our dreams so dreams do come almost everybody dreams so dreams I'm not aware that I'm sleeping on the bed of the couch I feel maybe I'm walking in Boston or new your core in Bahamas and a meeting people and things are happening practicing yoga it's a dream but it's all happening I can see myself and the dreamer and here is the world of dreams that's the second aspect of the self and there's a third aspect which we tend to overlook deep sleep we all have the experience of blank nothing just relaxed no waking no external world no body no mind even no dreams and it is not even an experience that I am experiencing deep sleep then you are not in deep sleep you cannot think you cannot even have the thought of the ego the ego also disappears the mind shuts down it's like a computer in which is in hibernation but it's all there if you touch the mouse or just click one button it'll all come back again similarly push the guy who's in deep sleep sound sleep and then sound sleep maybe it is a snoring that's why sounds sleep if it anyway you just push that guy he's awake it's all there the same personality same thoughts same good and bad points everything is there it just comes back but that's another aspect of the self deep sleep these are the three aspects of the self we are conditioned we know ourselves we experience these things mostly we take all this waking life is the real me and the dream is well you know it's just a dream it's just sort of hallucinations in the mind and deep sleep is basically nothing so this is the real thing what Vedanta says is you are missing you are forgetting you do not see the real self which is the fourth waking dreaming deep sleep there is a fourth and that fort is not a separate state apart from these three it is in and true and underlying these three all the time present right now also in fact it's the only thing that is present and yet we are missing it something so extraordinarily obvious and yet we are missing it but vedanta says we what we need is knowledge the pinnacle of all spiritual practices according to Vedanta all our devotion our meditation our sir our moral life all are very good and they are all meant to ultimately bring us to this point where we realized the truth about ourselves and the universe people call it both he and Satori and Samadhi and God realization and so all these names it is commonly it is known throughout all the religions of the world from the very beginning of time as the highest thing that those religions can give in ad weight of a tanto you find it in a very pure and and pared down very precise way and no more precise than here that forth is what we are looking for in Vedanta the first three are known already all of us know waking dreaming deep sleep well known to us now we will investigate these waking dreaming deep sleep to discover the fourth all right I have a little time now I'm going to give some heavy-duty philosophical foundation laying what I'm going to say pages and pages and have been written volumes have been written discussing both sides of these issues so if you are not trained philosophically you're safe if you're trained philosophically many of the things I will say are issues of great controversy in in different philosophical systems not only in the West but also in the East here it is this is the foundation for what's going to come next knowledge way of knowledge but knowledge depends on what you see I the awareness in connection with a mind experience the thoughts and feelings and emotions in the mind I am aware with with an active mind when I'm connection with the body through the body and mind I experience a world I by knowledge by experiencing I mean I see I hear I smell I taste I touch I conceive of I remember I understand also I love and hate and want and do not want all of this is within experience knowledge it comes from the knower using an instrument of knowledge to produce knowledge about an object of knowledge there are sanskrit terms for this the knower is called pramatta the knower the instrument of knowledge is called pramana the instrumental by instrument of knowledge I mean eyes are instrumental knowledge ears are instrument of knowledge sense organs are instrument of knowledge but mind also when you are using inference and so there are instruments of knowledge and the object of knowledge is called premium the thing to be known and the knowledge which is produced is called Brahma it is effortless as easy as when you go out there on the dock there open your eyes in the morning if your my even awake mind is functioning eyes are open you see the vast ocean the vast blue sky above immediately choicelessly you see if the eyes are open mind is working you are awake you will see if the instrument of knowledge is there and the knower is there object of knowledge is there knowledge will come choicelessly it's not a question of you don't say oh I believe the sky is there I believe the ocean is there no like you Mew will say I know this is the ocean I know this is the sky because we see it through the instrument of knowledge now what I'm trying to say here is this first controversial statement existence depends on knowledge why is this controversial usually we think it's the other way round bahamas existed the ocean and the sky here existed i came here and i knew it so my knowledge comes later existence comes first so things are existing and then i come and know there's our common since we are looking at it I am reversing it the Upanishad says the first thing you got to understand is existence depends on knowledge what do you mean notice one thing as far as dream objects are concerned people and objects and things which we see in dreams they don't exist apart from your dream true or not only when you dream you're eating eating a pizza and in your dream and it's time to wake up for the yoga class and then do you say do I put the pizza in the refrigerator after I come back and dream some more and eat the rest of the pizza no it will not exist without you dreaming it objects in our dream exists only because of our knowledge our our dreaming it so they depend entirely on the dreamer on our awareness of them they have no independent existence but that apart in you'll see in the waking world at least these objects exist independently of us I am saying no there is no use no possibility no meaning of speaking of something which is not an object of knowledge it must become an object of knowledge to someone somewhere at least in principle it should be knowable if you talk about something which exists and which can never be known it will say X exists you say what is next I don't know where is X I don't know when is X I don't know who has seen X I don't know can one see eggs I don't know but I still say X exists you'll see you're silly what are you talking about something you can never pause it you can never claim the existence of something if it is not in some way an object of knowledge say but bahamas existed i did not see it i'm seeing it now after i'm coming it's an object of knowledge for me after i came but it was there before i came but yes it was there as an indirect object of knowledge you had seen it on the website it's a nice place to go to the shiva and the yoga ashram you have not seen it directly but you already have knowledge of it if you did not have knowledge of it you could not have come here it existed as an all indirect object of knowledge to you now it exists as an object of direct knowledge of to you things which we do not know suppose there are many things which we do not know you see I don't know them something happening in some planet somewhere nobody living is there to see it how can you say it does not exist it exists as an object which is unknown to us but as an object of but we can possibly be known but right now I do not know any particular details about it in that sense it is an object of my exist of my knowledge object of awareness as known object of awareness as unknown but both are objects of awareness if at all there can be no possibility of making it an object of awareness then you cannot speak about it out at all I have made a big controversial statement to be thought about I also always used to think that so existence first and then knowledge but no I'll give you one more a very powerful argument for this argument for what things cannot exist apart from knowledge things cannot exist apart from awareness what is the argument very simple argument think about it two things can exist separately and independently if they can be experienced separately let me show you here is a flask and here is a piece of paper the two can exists separately I can show you the flask you can experience the flask separately without the paper and you can experience the paper separately without the flask and you can experience them together also if you can experience them separately you can say yes the flask exists independent of the paper the paper exists independent of the flask the two are separate independent things so now apply it to knowledge or awareness what can exist independently of awareness remember the principle of of existing independently is can you experience it separately so if the can is there anything that can be experienced separately apart from awareness is that anything in this universe which can be experienced apart from awareness it's a trick question because when you say experienced awareness already included there without awareness no experiences there without knowledge no experiences there so knowledge or awareness I'm using the terms indiscriminately without that you cannot have any experience so there's no question of experiencing anything apart from awareness whatever has to be experienced has to be experienced in their wareness therefore there's no question of having anything independent of awareness all right not easy to grasp but just keep it in mind now we'll move faster here there's a chain of logic here existence of objects cannot be proved cannot be claimed apart from knowledge knowledge cannot exist without an hour for every knowledge there must be a knower if there is an experience there must be an experience sir if they seeing there must be a seer so knowledge depends on the knower and the knower depends on awareness consciousness we are all knowers what do I mean by that we all see hear smell taste touch we think imagine love hate all this is the kind of experience knowledge all of it it depends on awareness - awareness see - other things without eyes I am still aware but I am aware that I am blind without ears I'm still aware but I'm aware that I'm deaf without awareness nothing if you think about it it just become blank nothing it just disappears without awareness there is no no err awareness or consciousness let me use the word consciousness now what have we got here things do not exist apart from knowledge knowledge does not exist apart from the knower no word does not exist apart from consciousness consciousness is fundamental to nowhere and known knower knowledge known or at least no one unknown no one knowledge known if you say use that is the Sanskrit word is three putti the three points of knowledge nor knowledge and the known or simply know or unknown subject an object they both depend on consciousness one more brick for the building block which I'm making the foundation if something depends on something else and cannot exist independently this is called falsity in Vedanta Vedanta term falsity a thing is false or mithya does not mean that it does not exist it does not exist independently classic example is given heat of the fire so you have a hot potato it's boiling does the heat belong to the potato no it was cold earlier and if you keep it outside for a long time it will become cold again he does not belong to the potato the heat of the potato is borrowed it's not does not belong to it it's false there it just appears there but it why did you why did it get it from boiling water does the boiling water I have heat of its own no it was cold earlier now it's hot but he be cold later where did it get heat from from the pan does the pan have heat of its own no unless it's an electric pan or something it doesn't have heat of its own it gets heat from the fire underneath so the heat which is in the pan and in the water and in the potato borrowed with anta calls it false in the sense that it cannot exist by itself but the fire does it have heat of its own yes as long as the fire exists the way we understand fire it must be hot so it has intrinsic heat it has intrinsic heat not borrowed heat so the intrinsic existence it belongs to consciousness it does not belong to the Knorr or the known both the known and the knower they depend on consciousness because they depend on consciousness neither nor not known is real it's not intrinsically real consciousness alone is intrinsically real the duality of no are unknown they appear in awareness and disappear in awareness or in consciousness they are not real in themselves now the connection to what I was saying will become obvious now this no are unknown they come in pairs no our unknown subject and object notice in the waking world we are there you are the knower and this is known remember as I said none of it is new it all what we are experiencing which is pointing it out right now you are the knower in this world is you're known in dreams you are the knower the dreamer the knower and whatever you dream about is the known for you in deep sleep there is no separate knower no one unknown and merge together in a in a unity and there's just this blankness let's just call it the known that blankness known so you have a deep sleeper and which knows only blankness just complete cessation in each case nor unknown they are all these pairs nor unknown pairs are false the reality underneath is this consciousness 3/3 NORs and 3 pairs and 3 gnomes 3 knowers waker dreamer deep sleeper and 3 in 3 nobles waking world the dream world and the deep sleep darkness they all appear and disappear one after another in one reality which lies underneath all of them and that is consciousness so that consciousness is the fourth the self has four aspects what are the three aspects Waker and rakers world dreamer and dreamers world deep sleeper and deep sleep darkness all three are known to us what the open issue is pointing out there is a fourth the fourth is the reality in which these three appear and disappear and that is what is going to be pointed out one more point the wakers world is called the gross of the physical world here we are the feeling there is a world out there and with my sense organs I am contacting the world out there I am transacting with the world out there this is called the gross world gross not in an American sense and Americans have a different meaning for gross in a physical sense physical world or gross world and then we have a dream world which is a subtle world sukshma and then we have the deep sleep world which is technically called the causal world the causal state cause causal not casual the causal state so three karana sukshma stool causal subtle and gross waking the deep sleep dream state and the the waking state all these three straits they are all in Maya and what underlies these three states is the Atman pure consciousness which we really are the fourth aspect of the self so this is going to be our enquiry I know that's a lot to be going on don't lose sleep over it go into the deep sleep state we will go over it again and again in the next few classes Oh Shante Shante Shante hey hurry [Music]

Channel: Vivekananda Samiti IIT-Kanpur

Views: 253,198

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Keywords: vivekananda samiti, vsiitk, Saravapriyananda, swami, swami sarvapriyananda, satvapriyananda latest

Id: 4JkvlzXczpY

Length: 56min 21sec (3381 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020