Swami Sarvapriyananda: The Wisdom of the Upanishads I

[Music] Oh esatto mas at gamma yah Thomas oh ma Jyothi gamma yah Richard ma I'm written gamma home chanté chanté chanté good evening to everybody and it's great to be back by pronounced revered Maharaj who invited me to give this talk it's a regular Upanishad class so I'll be speaking about the Upanishads but this will be more in the line of a general talk yes as Maharaj said the Vedanta Society of New York is the first of the Vedanta societies and it were established in 1894 Swami Vivekananda came to this country in 1893 and the very next year the Vedanta Society of New York was established there's a very nice book about the about how East Eastern wisdom came to Western shores Phil Goldberg's American Veda so I'd like to start with a with an anecdote from that book which is both amusing and instructive he he says that once he was on a tour to India in Rishikesh on the foothills of the Himalayas and he saw this little hut where a monk a common sight in in Rishikesh where you have these little huts where monks stay on the bank of the ganges and so there was this monk was staying there asado and the author of the book he struck up a conversation with him I was happy to find that that young man who's a young monk who spoke fluent English so he asked him how did he become a monk what's his life story and this man he said as a young man he was an atheist he got a chance to go to the United States to study and then he came to the United States in an Ivy League college he studied literature he studied Emerson and was introduced to Eastern wisdom through Emerson and decided to become a monk back in India now that's very instructive you know this kind of cultural ping-pong back and forth which has been going on Emerson has been called by one of his biographers the mind of America and then the biographer goes on to note that very few people know how much that mind has been shaped by Indian thought Emerson had the best collection of Indian philosophy books at that time in the in America he was acquainted very thoroughly with the bhagavad-gita their references to the Gita in his writings and his talks with the opening shots he lends some of those books to sorrow sorrow when he went to Walden every day he would read the Bhagavad Gita every day in the morning he read a few pages of the Bhagavad Gita so this is really remarkable how there's cultural exchange from India to Emerson and back to the sadhu who became a an Indian young an Indian man who becomes a monk goes back to his openness adequate vedantic roots because of Emerson sorrow then Walt Whitman was strongly influenced by Indian thought and more and more research which is coming up it shows the enormous impact of upanishadic thought I read in in TS Eliot's papers he was very well acquainted with the Phoenicians and with with Gita he knew Sanskrit in fact in the original manuscripts of his poems on the margins there are the original quotations from the Gita and the Upanishads which later he put in beautiful language in his poetry and in one place he writes you can google this he writes when I read these ancient sages I see that compared to them our philosophers of today are mere schoolboys he says that TS Eliot these opening shots they came to the west a long time ago now more than 200 years ago the story has been told in a book journey of the Upanishads to the west by Swami Tata cotton and who was the Swami in charge of the New York Vedanta society until last year so he tells the story and how sharpened her the great German philosopher he came across a Latin translation of a persian translation of the sanskrit original and reading that the book was called open occurred their space you can come over here come reading that he said I consider the study of these opening shots the most beneficial of all study in the world as the most beneficial study in the world is the study of these or Phoenicians he says except perhaps the originals he says and every day we would go to bed before going to bed he would read a few pages of the open issue that very dry and difficult Latin translation of a Persian translation of the Sanskrit original he said this study the Upanishads have been the solace of my life and they will be the solace of my death that was shopping horror and sharpen hearts impact should not be underestimated he was the most seminal influence on Nietzsche and from Nietzsche comes a great deal of modern postmodern thought also critical thought lot of it is traced back to need see so from Nietzsche to Schopenhauer back to the open issues in Schopenhauer's masterpiece the world has a will an idea its runs to four volumes in German which I do not know but I skimmed through the English translation and in the very first chapter Schopenhauer writes that what is to follow in these pages was best known to the ancient Indians they called it Maya there are a number of references to valent in the first few pages of Schopenhauer's masterpiece the world has villain i these open ishod's they form the highest philosophical teaching of the Vedas the Vedas we know are the fundamental spiritual religious texts of the Indians of the Hindus and in the Vedas the Upanishads from the philosophical spiritual part of it they form actually a very small part of the Vedas there are collect Upanishads are a collection of texts in science in ancient Vedic Sanskrit and these open ishod's are collectively called Vedanta if you ask we are sitting here in the Vedanta society what is Vedanta literally the word Vedanta would mean the end of the Vedas literally but end is not what is meant here anta here means in sanskrit and the the meaning which is taken here is near near t in the conclusion the final conclusion the highest teaching of the Vedas is do finishes so that's why it's called Vedanta the final teaching of the Vedas literally definition of Vedanta when we learned Vedanta in our monastery our primers the the first books which we from which we learned Vedanta is called Vedanta Zahra the essence of a parent and they are the beginning you get a definition of Vedanta Vedanta nama Upanishad from Adam what is Vedanta simple direct definition Vedanta means the source of spiritual knowledge called Upanishads so the collection of texts Kalapana shirts is Vedanta literally and what we know as the bhagavad-gita is simply a collection of teachings from Nevada from the open issues Sri Krishna in the Gita is often directly quoting the open issues sometimes you can see they're almost the same verse the exact same moment era from the open assured which comes in the Gita so she is a kind of original plagiarist in Krishna so he just takes the open issues and quotes from it so the bhagavad-gita is also the open oceans the brahma-sutra the philosophical aphorisms are also based on the Upanishads so the central texts of Vedanta are the Upanishads in fact the central texts of Hinduism audio furnishes the great philosophical systems of Hinduism they are all interpretations of the Upanishads Advaita Vedanta non-dual school of Vedanta wished Advaita Vedanta the qualified monastic school of Vedanta Dwight away taunted the dualistic school of Vedanta do a third way the Vedanta should Dodd way to Vedanta agility of a Nevada multiple schools of Vedanta they are different and all these schools are just interpretations of the opposition's they may seem very esoteric philosophical meant for an elite view but actually their influence on modern Hinduism is incalculable if you approach modern Hinduism suppose you go you see the Hari Krishna's singing and dancing they don't seem to be directly connected to the open issue here the distance between them and open issues is very little because the philosophical foundations of the Krishna consciousness movement is what is called a chin T of Hara web the philosophy of Gaudiya Vaishnavism and that's a school of Vedanta if you go to the in the Chino Hills this magnificent swaminarayan pool so you will see the the images of gods and goddesses of the of the masters of their lineage but behind it all is a philosophical system called vashisht Advaita Vedanta ramanujacharya their roots of that particular movement of Hinduism lies in the qualified monastic School of Vedanta you are here today we have all gathered in the Vedanta Society and our roots lies in the non dualist school of Vedanta Advaita Vedanta our philosophically Rhodes but a holy mother ma Sharda she said your master Sri Ramakrishna was Brahmin himself a traitor he was the non-dual reality himself and you I can save it definite with emphasis I can say that you are all adwaita body you are non dualist vedantins yes to come these openings are many in number in the Mukti cope initial you get a list of 108 upanishads but out of them 10 have become prominent when you actually study the Upanishads there are what we call 10 major Upanishads the issue open assured became open assured the katha upanishad depression open assured Mundaka Upanishad Mundaka Upanishad either a Upanishad tight theory open Ishod chandogya upanishad and brihadaranyaka upanishad these are the what we call the 10 major Upanishads and they are major because Shankar Acharya 1400 years ago the great philosopher saint he selected these 10 open issues to write his his magnificent commentaries in Sanskrit there are wonderful philosophical texts matchless and they are all commentaries on these 10 open issues to this list if you add one more which is a matter of scholarly debate whether it's an original commentary of Shankar Acharya or not the Shwetha shutter open assured with its commentary by Shankar Acharya then the list is extended to 11 open issues but anyway this is the the fundamental basis of Vedanta these 10 Upanishads - that you add the bhagavad-gita or the brahma sutra and many many many other texts but fundamentally these open issues as we go into these operations we find that their remarkable texts they are remarkable for two reasons one is for the questions and the second is for the answers these open issues are often in the form of dialogues between teacher and students sometimes the names of the teachers and students are mentioned sometimes they are not mentioned but clearly there are questions and there are answers you go to a spiritual master and ask your question and the answer becomes the Upanishad the questions are among the profoundest questions we can think about these are what we call the big questions the meaning of life is there an ultimate reality what happens after that what is the purpose of human life what is this universe what's going on here in in the Mundaka Upanishad the student goes to the teacher and asks sir what is that one thing by knowing which I know I can know everything in this universe what a profound question if you the original Sanskrit is beautiful Shona ko Hawaii Mahalo angee rasam Vida voodoo person nappa preacher show naka very prosperous powerful man accomplished person goes to his teacher engages in a proper way and asks a question Kozma Nabokov Ovid got a sarvam idam the Gotham poverty ET sir what is that which being known everything becomes known that's the question can you see it's the the impersonal nature of the whole thing strikes you first there is no breath of what you might call conventional religion God and believe this and do this and you'll be rewarded with this or punished with that none of that it's the highest philosophy Swami Vivekananda says as a human thought reached its Himalayan peaks the mountain peaks in the in the opening shots where the human Lankan scarce breed such rarefied levels it attained one there's a book waking dreaming being even Thompson a Canadian philosopher from the University of British Columbia it's a book on Upanishads Buddhism modern neuroscience the science of consciousness and he starts off by saying it's only in recent years in the last two decades or so that modern science has become seriously interested in consciousness and we have got consciousness studies and yet he says consciousness studies did not start 20 years ago consciousness study started with the Upanishads and he quotes another writer saying the Upanishads are so important that instead of dating our history with AD and BC we should date our history with before Upanishads and after Upanishads waking dreaming and being even Thompson such tremendous questions what is consciousness that is the central question in the open e shirts in a chandogya upanishad we find the young man who has come back from school from college graduating and he is proud of his knowledge of his learning he has learned all the branches of knowledge that there are and his father sees that the bye is proud of his learning so his father punctures his ego by asking him a question son welcome back but in your school did you did your teachers teach you that knowledge by a bit knowing which everything else is known same question you see and the son is confused how is it possible by knowing one branch of knowledge you know one aspect of reality by knowing another bunch of branch of knowledge you know another aspect of reality if you study chemistry you know you know chemicals if you study botany you know plants but how can you know how can there be one branch of knowledge by knowing which you know everything is that possible and then the analysis goes there he says yes it's possible how is it possible how is it possible to know one thing and yet know everything because he says by knowing by knowing clay you know everything that is made of clay in what sense he says if there's a lump of clay and out of that you make many kinds of pottery one thing you already know you don't know what kinds of pottery will be made by the Potter depends on the ingenuity the skill of the partner but one thing you know whatever the Potter makes with that clay you know one thing that all of that is clay yes of course whatever the Potter may make make may be in centuries in the future maybe genius part or maybe make fantastic new parts and stuff with with clay but you can predict without knowing any of that you can predict it's all made of clay Wow how did you know that how did you know by knowing only one claim you can you know thousands and countless products made of clay because clay is the material cause and all those products are the effect of clay effect in the sense like wood is the cause and this is the effect made of wood if you know the word you know all furniture which could be particularly made by what you don't know what shape they will take what kind it will be what use it will be put to you don't know all of that but you know the reality that there is the reality of this is that it this is wood touch it I say touch wood so the reality here is wood the reality of a pot made of clay is clay that kind of thought by knowing the material cause the substance out of which it is made you know the reality of all the products it bears repetition by knowing the cause material cause one knows the effect knows the effect ins what sense knows the reality of the effect what is it actually karana in sanskrit if you know the car and a cause you know the car IAM affect the karana is usually one out of one material you can produce many kinds of effects if you know the one material out of which many effects are produced you know what they are all in reality so what the Upanishads make this enormous claim that there is one reality out of which this enormous universe that you experience you yourself and whatever you experience in life all other people plants and animals good things and bad things happiness and misery stars and galaxies and protons and neutrons all of that is the product is the effect of one primal cause one primal cause that primal cause is called Brahman therefore if you know that Brahman then you know everything that kind of thought is there it's not it's not just a claim the remarkable thing about definitions is they will show you they will take you by the hand and actually acquaint you with this Brahman till at least if you just study the opening shot systematically if you have a good teacher and you study it at the end of the study you may not be enlightened you may not be a saint you may not be a Rama Krishna or Rama nama she or whatever but intellectually at least in understanding at least you cannot deny this is extraordinarily profound that yes it is possible the key s I am convinced that there is a spiritual reality of which all of this is a product today I shall consider two questions from the Upanishads one is the general question of religion how Upanishad sees religion and the second one the second question is the question of consciousness and I'll relate it to what we what we see today let's take up the first question we'll see what it means the question of religion in general what is the upanishadic view if you ask the Upanishads they're so systematic that on the surface they do not seem systematic on the surface they seem like a wild profusion of different teachings but if you see study it which for example Shankar Acharya scum entries you see the systematization the systematic thinking behind it so they are so systematic then all of these open issues can actually be summarized in one sentence if you want to take away from this talk somebody asks you after the talk so you went to your class on the open assurance what do the opening shots teach you can tell them in one sentence that Val art thought - um I see it's a said quote from the chandogya upanishad the sixth chapter where this is repeated nine times that thou art that - a mercy I was walking I take a walk in Central Park in New York it's just one block less than one block away from the Vedanta Society it's very nicely located half a block of a Yoko Ono still live still I haven't seen her though that's where John Lennon lived and he was shot and it's a it's an American teeth pilgrimage you have people from all over the world not just America coming there and taking clicking pictures and and there is Strawberry Fields and there are aging hippies who still they sit there and they sing imagine and let it be and so many some good sing there and I walk so that daily and there's a link the Beatles Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who is a descendant of a Vedantic tradition again the Upanishads and lot of that the Gita and openness found its way back into George Harrison's music and all that you know anyway again you can see links there but what I wanted to say was I was walking through that and once in a while have an interesting back and forth with the hippies these old stairs now they are the ones who know me who know what I am sometimes I get a namaste from them sometimes one of them shouts out to the grout crowd there man I love my Himalayan brothers he just points out I had to make my I have to make my escape quickly now one of them among them said I was walking past it along with beads and long hair he says hey you look like the real thing and just a few days ago I was walking back out of the central park and with this this person who was bare bodied and would be eaten long hair and he said to me if there's one thing that you could say to me what would it be and you know this the whole of the opening so easily summarized into that withou art I said that and he got it that thou art that meaning that one cause out of which this entire universe of which the entire universe is a manifestation in the in the chandogya upanishad it starts the sixth chapter starts where that young man who came back very proud of his learning and his father said do you know that did you did where you taught that one branch of not that one knowledge by knowing which everything is known that chapter when the father starts speaking to the son teaching him he says sadaiva sama dama Grasse alaikum eva buti'm in the beginning before all this universe there was one reality one without a second pure existence pure being without a second it starts with like that and that pure being is that which you see now as this multi various universe cause carnem effect karyam one many if you know that one you know the many in what sense do you know the many you know all of them are that one reality so again and again that the father tells the son taught to UM I see that thou art that meaning what that pure being one existence Brahman well you who consider yourself to be a young man really you are mistaken you are not this body you are not this mind you are not this little person you think you are you are actually that infinite being that original being which is this entire universe which you say I see in front of you that one being pure being immortal being that spiritual reality you are and he explains it in detail and you can actually appreciate how I am that being how I am not just a bundle of you know flesh and blood and bones so that thou art is repeated nine times in the chandogya Phoenicians this statement that thou art taught to him a sea gives us the entire coming coming there's a lot of space here do come the the profound understanding of religion that the Upanishads have if you take an open issue attic point of view you get a remarkable understanding of the religions of the world in fact Aldous Huxley who worked here in the Vedanta Society of Southern California in his masterpiece the perennial philosophy he goes back to the openness of the worldview and from there looks at the different religions of the world and he finds the underlying one underlying perennial philosophy he says calls it the highest common factor of all religions now what is it let's explore this a while remember what we are doing where we are I said in the opening shots I'll take up two major themes in this talk one is the upanishadic worldview of the upanishadic view of religions that's what I'm doing now the second one will be the more specific question of consciousness that thou art that meaning Brahman now meaning you now all the religions of the world can actually be classified as that oriented religions or thou oriented religions that oriented religions are thou oriented religious what does that mean if you look at the religions of the world they are about God you takes obviously what are what can get what else can they be about but not all religions for example if you consider Buddhism it's a religion but doesn't speak about God either it is silent about God or outright denies the existence of any such be Buddhism and there are others Jainism in Hindu philosophy if you take Sankhya yoga yoga does speak about God but the god of yoga issue of yoga is not the Creator God of evident or of any other religion so there are religions which are centered on God that centered religions Christianity all of Christianity Judaism all Judaism Islam do come in don't peek come in come in coming it's very distracting if you keeping come come come there lot of space here come come Christianity Judaism Islam many branches of Hinduism Vaishnavism the worshipers of Vishnu or Rama or Krishna shaivism the worshipers of Shiva Shakti ISM the worshipers of the Divine Mother God in Hinduism as multi various forms and names a Shiva or Vishnu can be made and can be woman can be which firm can be without form so all of these are God centered religions you see what else can they be you know it's very interesting an interfaith conference I saw in one interfaith conference was organized by the Sikhs on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh making the Guru Granth Sahib the the guru of the Sikhs soul it was held in up none dead as in southern India so it was an interfaith conference and they were representatives of all religions including Buddhism also they have a Lamas what's been sent by the Dalai Lama now one by one the Sikhs and the Hindus and the Christians there was a rabbi from New York and the Jews they came up and talked about God and the grace of God and the love of God and how we are all children of God nice and I saw the Lama sitting at the back and smiling they're too polite to say so but from their point of view it's just superstition all God talk what does it mean to them nothing from the god centered religions when you look at the the vows entered where self inquiry is the goal Buddhism and Jainism and and yoga and the Sankhya from from the God centered religions that that centered religions when you look at the added aus centered religions the attitude is those are not religions they are a tea stick people how can it be a religion without God it's difficult to understand for a person who's brought up in a god-centered tradition to look at something like Buddhism we just sit quietly and follow the breath of something what's he doing nothing it has been condemned as being self-centered or navel-gazing something like that which is not truly a religion you cannot understand that approach so on one side they look at the god central religions and they'll say that superstition what grounds have you got to believe in some supreme being some supreme dictator in the skies nothing and from the other side they look at these religions and say that the this is some kind of superstition this is some kind of sorry some kind of selfishness self-obsession and there are great differences between these approaches if you look at the god centered religions usually they are devotional in nature Christian traditions or Vaishnava traditions they will talk about love of God Islam surrender to God belief faith love surrender and often ritual and temples and churches and mosques and so God centered religions they have something in common something like this on the other hand if you look at the vows entered religions which they are based on self inquiry you will find they are more meditative more philosophical more introverted often more monastic in in nature Buddhism Jainism heavily monastic in nature Sankyo yoga again the great differences and they have advantages and disadvantages two kinds of approaches to religion are we are you with me on this the two approaches are they becoming clear the two approaches to religion and they seem so different they have advantages and disadvantages you know of what is the the great disadvantage of a god centered religion the most obvious disadvantage which is becoming more and more clear in today's world what is the great great disadvantage the great disadvantage of a god-sent religion is it's based on faith it demands that you believe to begin to begin in a devotional religion demands that you believe and if your belief is challenged then it gets shaken on what basis do you believe you believe on the basis of authority you believe on the basis of Scripture you believe on the basis of tradition you might say that's why Ramakrishna's approach was so powerful because he says I believe on the basis because I have seen on experience that's what really you know Venezuela then Swami Vivekananda came to the West one of his central messages was God is not a matter of faith alone God is not a matter of belief alone alone God is not a matter of tradition or books God can be experienced and must be experienced the purpose of life is to realize God to actually experience God religion is realization so that was such a powerful message but generally the God centered religions are based on faith and today if you see the attacks of the New Atheists Daniel Dennett or Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens or sam Harris they all attack the god centered religions the atheistic attacks are usually under God centered religions and the gods intelligence find it very difficult to defend especially in the age of science modern science seems to cut away at the very roots of belief in God whatever earlier was attributed to God now modern science can offer better explanations everything in this universe whether it is the origin of the universe whether it is life whatever science is offering every day coming up with better explanations then religion never did and so religion is on the backfoot you know its defensive they derisive Lee call God now the God of the gaps God of the gaps is whatever science cannot explain as yet you people in religion you can quickly take that position and say look this is what God has done you cannot explain it in science so this what God has done now the gaps are ever diminishing science is explaining more and more and therefore the space for the god of the gaps is diminishing God is being squeezed into non-existence that's the problem the great problem and you find people in God centered religious even people who seriously follow that they are again and again plagued they are plagued by doubt the stories of saints who followed these religions and believed and prayed and meditated and they would be plagued by waves of doubt they would call it you know like dark night of the soul of dark night of faith no light and dark night of the soul has a deeper meaning in Christian mysticism but even then a general meaning is that I am praying and praying is it really there does God really exist who knows that's a great disadvantage of the God centered religion but the DAO centered religion the self inquiry based religions they do not have this disadvantage why because their subject matter is not a God in heaven their subject matter is you and your own existence is undeniable if there is anything that you are certain about it's me I I exist no doubt about it what am I is the subject of the self of these religions inquiry so is it's Buddhism the answers they come to a different with is Buddhism or Sankyo yoga or Jainism they take up the individual and investigate the individual that's the advantage of the vows entered religions what is the disadvantage you will notice I am NOT putting Vedanta in it you would expect that I'm going to put Vedanta in two thousand trade religion but I'm not what's the disadvantage of without centered religion the disadvantage is this whereas the that centered God centered religions have an advantage here what is the advantage of a god centered religion and disadvantage of a now centered religion of the self inquiry based religion it's this though my own experience is beyond doubt I do not doubt that I exist but my existence does not solve any problem in fact my existence is the problem is surrounded by a thousand problems I have mortgages I have I have health issues I have relationship issues I have financial issues and now I am going to die one day death issues I have parking issues just the fact that I exist doesn't solve any problem for me that's the source of all my problems and in contrast God has no problems at all God is only potent omniscient omnipresent God is all-powerful can do everything and anything God is beyond all trouble God if he/she it exists if it exists then God has no problem I certainly exist but I have a lot of problems you see on the god centered religions you will see in all of these religions Christianity for example you find an effort to prove the existence of God strong efforts enormous efforts put forward by theologians arguments for the existence of God Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologica did five proofs of the existence of God even now books are being written ontological proof of the existence of God in another land another age in the Naya philosophy who were dualistic philosophers in India the great philosophers they put forth the indian logicians they put forth proofs of the existence of Ishwara of god same problem how do you justify there was the thousand year battle between the buddhists and the indian logicians Duellists the hindu dualists the duel is trying to prove the existence of god and the buddhists attacking the very existence of god the great logician who they are acharya nayika who lived over a thousand thousand years ago in 1000 AD he puts forth nine proofs of the existence of God but and don't worry don't worry about the prove these proofs of existence of God because if you're interested how I would like to know how to prove the existence of God if we actually studied the proofs you will be underwhelmed I think Anthony Kenny who is a well-known philosopher he said he decided to become a philosopher he decided to become a priest so when you're studying theology he studied the proofs of the existence of God and decided that he's not convinced he decided not to become a priest and became a philosopher for instance by there studying the proofs of the existence of God so they're so unconvincing that it but anyway what I mean is in such diverse traditions as Christianity in medieval Europe and in dualistic Hinduism in ancient India you find the same effort trying to prove the existence of God thereby showing the great what troubled them you know that really whole thing is based on God suppose God doesn't exist you might say Ramakrishna said he saw God well good for Ramakrishna but that doesn't solve the problem of everybody else there also you have to believe Ramakrishna now so these proofs of the existence of God whereas on the vow centered religions that the end self-enquiry based religions there is no need to prove your own existence nobody ever doubts it now what Vedanta does here this is the incredible thing about Vedanta the Upanishads what the Upanishad say is the vow centered religions what they finally find God Brahman the I'm sorry the centered religion self-inquiry what you finally find yourself as an infinite consciousness Atman the reality within whatever you found in whatever sense and the that centered religion God centered religions what they finally end up with in upanishadic terms Brahman they are one and the same that's the remarkable conclusion of the Upanishads you take a path of self inquiry where you will end up and you take a path of devotion and faith to God where you will finally end up and you reach the peak of the mountain that particular mountain you will find you reach the same peak that thou art this is the remarkable conclusion of the Upanishads from that conclusion you trace all the possible religions of the world everything is explained there there was this rabbi who visited from Jerusalem his visiting balloon much I was given the duty of showing him around and we're speaking about Judaism and the upanishadic understanding so when I was talking about Judaism about its dualistic approach to God the Father the creator and and then I quickly apologized because I said look that's our view of Judaism and that sounds that might sound patronizing a condescending I know that's but from the out our perspective we look at it this way he said something remarkable he said you know Swami you the meaning the Hindus you might actually have a superior understanding of our religion than we might have it's quite possible why not if you have a a deeper wider philosophical framework then you get a better understanding of all the religions of the world which the practitioners of that religion might not have that much of understanding so the open it approaches this now you know what is the advantage of this it combines the advantages of the that centered religion and the now centered religion guard Sultan religion and the self inquiry based religions it combines their advantages and eliminates the disadvantages this is how listen carefully this is a remarkable insight over the Upanishads have the very certainty of your own existence is combined with the infinitude of God's existence you see what do you discover when you follow the Upanishads you follow that thou art I am branded I my own existence is certain there's no doubt that I exist but my problem is I as this body as this person I'm subject to old age death destruction so many problems my existence is beset with problems God's existence doubtful but has no problems can you combine my selling certainty of my existence with the infinitude of God's existence I'll repeat that can you combine the certainty of your own existence with the infinitude of God's existence what the Upanishads do is they will investigate and they will take you by the hand and show that you who certainly exist you are not this limited body and mind you are an infinite existence consciousness bliss the infinitude of God is your infinitude and thus the certainty of your own existence then becomes the certainty of God's existence what is the proof of God's existence your existence Swami in the Himalayas asked another Swami give me a an irrefutable proof of the existence of God the immediate answer of course from our non-dualistic swami was immediate answer was your own existence swami irrefutable proof of the existence of God your own existence you don't doubt it but what the problem with our own existence is we think it's limited to this body and mind Vedanta shows you that you are not limited to this body and mind are you with me yes do you see the the amazing insight if you could be certain of something like an infinite existence like God as certain that you exist how remarkable that would be how tremendous that's one insight I'll share with you and and leave it at that how open assured looks at religion I love that Sufi poet who says when I search for God I found myself when I search for myself I found God it's exactly that thing that thou art the only thing is the Sufis have the most ecstatic poetry but they don't have the philosophical these the structure which can take you step by step to that thing which can actually take you by the hand and take you to that and directly give me give you the understanding the intuitive realization straightaway sometimes all the religions of the world the this Christian theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church I forget I'm missing his name right now he wrote a book he wrote a book which says God as being consciousness bliss God as being consciousness bliss and the chapters of the book are remembered this is the Christian theologian of Eastern Orthodox Church the names of the chapters of the book are sud chit Ananda and he says we final the highest understanding of God in all the religions of the world is this it is most clearly found in the open assurance of Hinduism but it's that understanding is there in all the religions of the world sorry I'm missing the name of the person but God has existence consciousness please no no very recent he is he is working even now he's written a number of books so I'll leave it at that now let's go to this second question I still have 10 minutes so the second great question is question of consciousness the consciousness studies today in the Kano of initial you find this question gaining shittim butter depreciate amana gain a pronoun Pithom a prokta gain a shitamachi the ashram code ava eunuch 'they what does it mean the cane open it starts with the word Sanskrit word Cana that's why it's called ke nope initial Cana literally means by what and look at the look at the question the student asks this question by what has the teacher the teacher is nameless the student is nameless they're just the questions are there and the answers by what does my mind think these thoughts by what are these words spoken what Shining being enables these ears to hear the the breath to flow in this body so all these our conscious experiences what he's asking is you are seeing you are hearing you are smelling tasting touching thinking speaking remembering all these things understanding all of these are what we call conscious experiences is that not so and he's asking a question maybe the most fundamental question of all to which modern science has come just now just now how is it possible you say why why is it difficult to understand how is it possible a material system a physical body a biological system made of flesh and blood and bones and organs and tissue completely material how can it have an inner first person experience the difference I say is this I don't need the Google car is still learning on the streets in in California you drive and the Google car comes up which is an autonomous car driven by computers in Pittsburgh it's working so you sit there and the driver is actually not driving now even now they have a driver just to for your comfort computer is driving it the driver sits there which is hands above the wheel like that in case something goes terribly wrong he'll catch the wheel but the computer is driving now you are driving your car and this other computer driven car pulls up besides you and then the light changes from red to green and you you accelerate both of you both of you from a distance you are behaving in the same way if people look at your human driven car and the computer driven car both are behaving in the same way is that not so maybe the computer driven car really claim it's better driven than they drive it drives better than human beings that's what they are saying they're going to make lanes narrower lanes are wide because this is because we have human beings have a lot of error we can't drive straight according to the computer scientists they're going to make lanes narrower cars smaller and Mercedes just demonstrated a car there we start driving the you cannot even take charge because the steering wheel folds up and recedes into the you can't do anything you see let me out you cannot be let out when the car is moving it's automatically locked and the seats will not face the front also just in case you're terrified so it will just turn around and then you can face each other and will be desks and you work they're saying that's the future but now what I'm asking is one one philosophical question when you look at these two cards they seem to be doing the similar things but yet there is a very big difference when you are driving you have the sensation of driving the light the sound the feeling of driving the decisions you are continuously making almost automatically in your mind all of this driving is a conscious experience that car that Google car which is multiple sophisticated computers does not have the experience even you'll say how do you know Swami I don't know but even the Google the the the engineers who have programmed it none of them will claim that the car is actually experiencing driving no it is not it's a perfectly understandable machine now the activities are being performed but in this case the human being has an inert first person experience a movie if you will of experiencing driving not just seeing but hearing sounds smelling this is the question that the this student is asking the open e Shattuck teacher how is it possible here is a glass of water a simple example I would expect it to taste like water but if I taste it and it tastes sweet what will I think looks like water hmm somebody must have added something to it it makes it sweet or salty here is the light here is the microphone and here is the air conditioner what got into them that's the question from outside what got into them now the light is shining them in the shop it was not shiny suddenly you plug it in it shines what got into it in the shop it was not amplifying sound you plug it in it starts amplifying sound what got into it air conditioner it was not cooling the shop when it was in the box you plug it in and it starts cooling the room what got into it what got what one thing got into which is different from the air conditioner gets into the air conditioner makes it cool the room what one thing different from the light gets into the light makes it shine what one thing different from the microphone gets into the microphone makes it makes it amplify sound we all know we will say electricity electricity is not a microphone electricity is not a bulb electricity is not an air conditioner the open aesthetic student is asking what is that one shining thing which makes the bulb shine the air conditioner cooled the room and the microphone amplifies sound and the answer should be electricity in the same way he's asking what is that one thing which gives us the conscious experience of living it cannot be a material thing material system is eyes and ears and nose and he is not asking about a lesson in how eyes function he's not asking a lesson in in how ears function or how the voice box works no no he's not asking for a biology lesson he's asking for consciousness what what is that that he calls it daiva what conscious being manifests all of this you know how remarkable this this question is a few decades ago consciousness studies really took off 20 25 30 years ago where at that time a little-known philosopher Australian philosopher David Thomas he walked up to a conference in a conference and he presented a paper called the hard problem of consciousness he stood up and he said there is an easy problem of consciousness you can do fMRI studies of the brain and say when a person is drinking coffee which neurons are firing okay those are the coffee coffee drinking neurons which gives you the experience of drinking coffee when you smell a rose which neurons are firing when you feel a pain which neurons are firing a science of correlations you have some conscious experiences which parts of the brain become active and that's very interesting to know that's really interesting to know but he calls them all of that is the easy problem of consciousness but what he says is what is the how is it possible for a physical system like the brain and the nervous system to generate this first-person experience this inner experience of living a five dimensional movie where you are seeing hearing smelling tasting touching our lives it's like Hollywood here it's just God's Hollywood that's our life how does this come about he says no physical system can generate it do you see that this difference between a behavior and an inner feeling our lives are basically after all what is our life except this inner conscious experience all our life is this inner conscious experience how does that happen and he asked this question and it created an enormous impact on consciousness studies till today so many papers are being written on the hard problem of consciousness we still haven't and they're saying that it's leading to something incredible so I was in New York I went to NYU they have a mind brain consciousness unit I went there to attend the conference and whom do I meet David Thomas he's the head so we got to know each other then I attended one of his conferences and a Q&A there's this guy running around with a with a microphone in and then I raised my hand and David Chalmers said the guy in orange give it to the guy in orange and then he invited me to a debate between him David David Chalmers and Christophe Kok who is the chief scientist of the Paul Allen of Microsoft Fame Paul Allen brain brain Science Institute see now there are two approaches to this problem one approach is called a reductionist approach which says somehow the brain and nervous system generate consciousness that's one approach that's the materialistic reductionist approach you would expect science to take that approach because it ties well in well with the materialist world view of science but I am so amazed to see and so happy to see and so excited to see there's an equally serious worldview represented by David Chalmers and others of his kind who are coming and saying literally I saw it in a debate where these two sites in pioneer works in Brooklyn there's a series called scientific controversies these two sites come to a clash one side saying that it's just the brain doing its thing generating consciousness and David Chalmers saying that no consciousness we have to admit now consciousness is a fundamental reality consciousness is a fundamental reality he's got his call said Pan psychism and it's interesting that it comes from him he's not a non duelist he's not an follower of Vedanta or even Buddhism no he is coming at it from a purely scientific philosophical point of view and he says now that we have to admit that probably consciousness is fundamental space is fundamental time is fundamental matter isn't fundamental energy is fundamental consciousness is fundamental consciousness is not something generated by a living sense system it works through a living system it calls it panned psychism you can google it if you read it it sounds remarkably like the open it's amazingly like definitions that's where we have come to open Isha's go one step further he says that consciousness is fundamental and so the space-time matter energy are also fundamental opening shots go one step further and say consciousness is fundamental space-time matter energy even those are not fundamental they are all generated consciousness is the one reality by knowing which everything is known because space time matter energy they are all manifestations of consciousness it's not that there is physical universe and there's consciousness not that dualism universe and consciousness Upanishads say consciousness alone in which universe is experienced it generated and experienced consciousness alone appears as this universe how does that work I'll end with this story Alan Watts he was a remarkable philosopher and mischievous - a very very very funny man I didn't see him but I've heard his recordings and his book I've read his book so he says if religion is the opium of the masses then I must say that the Hindus have the inside dope and he says look it's best explained as a little story and he tells the story and I'll tell that story and end there you see I'm not giving you the answer to the question we have run out of time so the answer to the question of what is that one thing which expresses itself in so many conscious experiences that answer we will take up in the next class I think at the end of the month I have on one board open t-shirt class so we will do that but let me tell the story which other and what says tells to explain the upanishadic worldview and he says it's a little like a little story for children he says children understand it perfectly adults not so much he says God alone existed Brahma God alone existed but then after some time God got bored yes all by himself sort of lonesome you know so God wanted to play but whom could God play with because there's nobody else who could God play with there's nobody else now God hit upon a plan he needed playmates so God decided to be not God to pretend not to be God and what did he do he pretended to be you and him and her and me and then God could play hide and seek God playing hide and seek with himself but not pretending to be himself herself or itself but then the problem arose what's the problem because God is God God is awfully good at what he does so when he pretended not to be God he got so good at it that he forgot that he was God and he got into a load of trouble a lot of suffering a lot of pain and now God is seeking God God have having forgotten himself is seeking himself that's the universe that's the game of life that we see so that's the a very beautiful story I think you know it captures the sense of the openness of the teaching in such a little like a like a fable what is the upanishadic answer and solution to this that's the part we shall take up next time when we meet if I run out of time maybe you can take one should we take a question take a question you have a question oh there is a microphone the question in the back and the very back Thank You Sami hey I did a lot of activism in the past couple months and I had to like experience like working with Marxists and materialists yes and I was just wondering like if I kind of had to branch off of that but I I think there's a lot of important like things that came out of it and I'm just wondering like is there like a proscribed kind of social system that comes out of the Upanishads like how we should live like society wise yes one thing I've noticed coming out of India to this country is how present-oriented this society is it's all about the burning issues of the day I will not name the issues there are political issues or social causes the gender related causes the economic causes and people are so active and up and doing but I've seen the attention span is just one or two years things which were not even talked about openly 20 or 30 years ago and now things to fight and even say kill over now and I'm sure they'll be forgotten 20 years hence whereas in India you have a very eternal kind of outlook maybe it comes from being a very old civilization this vehicle used to coat this a thousand years a city a thousand years of forest if you have gone through cycles like that sort of the blood cools down and you say okay let's take time over this but it's an eternal eternalists point of view only the ultimate questions matter enlightenment liberation spiritual questions matter now neither of them is good the effect of that on Indian society we have seen an effect of this on this society also we are seeing I have forgotten as a philosopher is a website also he says the Eastern traditions are addicted to being and Western civilization's are addicted to doing but the best cure will be the combination of the two and that's what Vivekananda was all about in the West Vivek on the preached eternal message of the Upanishads what I was talking about but you'll and you'd see you'll find it very interesting when he went back home to India his central message was of social reform and uplift and he is very interesting when he was here he did not hesitate to point out the materialism of American society in no uncertain terms and people would be annoyed with him and he would say that I have emptied entire halls people will be so annoyed they would walk out when he criticized Western civilization and people who were anti Indian they said things about Indian civilization he defended to them to the hilt here but when he went back home it was just the opposite he praised the dynamism the Western civilization the Equality of men and women the Equality of all human beings the commitment to work and social improvement social justice he praised it to disguise it and criticize the Indians no end he was merciless with with her with his own countrymen just the opposite of that there and there you see a strong message of social activism equality of men and women he said the two great sins of India of national life in India have been the oppression of the masses and the oppression of the women if India's to rise again it must be by by the uplift of the masses and the raising up of the standards of the conditions of the women he said education of women he amend the same emphasis to that sister nivedita who went from England there he gave her that task to start systems for educating Indian women economic uplift social justice strong emphasis on that so he based it on Vedanta your question was precisely does it have implications for activism and and and social life a social system he says yes he criticized the eggs listing social system in India he said no religion speaks of the glory of human nature in such exalted terms as Hinduism does we are self initials literally saying you are God and then he says and no religion tramples on the necks of the poor and helpless as Hinduism does because of the caste hierarchy tremendously hierarchical society the privileged few dominating it over the the underprivileged he was extremely critical of that tremendously critical and he said a combination of the best of the east and the west yeah so yes the two can be combined should be combined and must be combined and the objective should be to combine them the Buddhist teacher Thich not a thick knot on mindfulness he said when he first came to the West at that time the anti-war protests the peace protests were going on in Europe he said something similar you know he said what struck me first was the peace protestors how angry the peace protesters were and they did not see it this Adeus of course is a righteous anger but yes but peace and anger do not go together he appreciated that they are protesting for something good but he also saw that underneath the anger and the dislike of the other side that does not go well it with the ideology of peace or one more question yes here that's it hi I just want to ask you about thoughts I had so coming over today and realizing that I'm working really hard to have better thoughts yes but I realized that that's not the better thoughts are no better than the the thoughts of the bad thoughts that's not the solution like feeling better and then you know something comes up and you feel worse so this thoughts and they thoughts just come unbidden they just I don't know where they come from they show ups are usually negative and I'm working to get positive but that's not it yes so if you talk about that okay the very good question very precise and well pointed question his question was I'm trying to cultivate and get better thoughts but then I realized that's not it really that's not the final solution which is given in the open e shirts for example in Vedanta the Vedanta says you're not the body Vedanta says you're not the not the mind the thoughts also but yes you have a new operator body and mind and that's how you work in society it's like saying you are not the car that doesn't prevent you from driving the car or owning a car okay now what we do in life is we try to make our lives better by organizing things around us better job better car better relationships as we become more mature we realize that's not the way out I have to change my own life to be happier so better lifestyle more healthier food more yoga less gluten better body then I realize that's also not it really something deeper thoughts emotions ideas feelings can I contribute a better mind but as you go on doing that rearranging the mind let me have more positive thoughts more spiritual thoughts you realize one thing the mind is continuously shifting you may have wonderful and positive thoughts but they will go away again you may cultivate it in the hope that one day it will be mostly positive and spiritual thoughts that takes a lot of cultivation but even then it will still change the nature of the mind is to change what the opener should point out this is the direct answer to your question but the Upanishads point out is you are not the changeful mind also you are that which notices the positive thought which notices the negative thought the presence of thoughts the absence of thoughts all shine in the light which you are now center yourself in the understanding even the understanding is at the level of thought but the understanding is I am that unchanging pure light of existence consciousness bliss not a theory as a fact having centered yourself there I am not affected by the thoughts I'm not the thoughts might as well be clouds in a shining blue sky they come and go and the same shining blue sky now having centered yourself there and this is important then you can spend time in cultivating better thoughts better thoughts are Noble no better than worst thoughts no that's not true better thoughts are actually better than what starts because better thoughts do make you happier and better person like a healthier body does make you a happier and better person so centering yourself in the Atman existence consciousness please know that you are that then seek to cultivate positive thoughts spiritual thoughts calm or thoughts helpful thoughts seek to reduce the amount of unhelpful negative worldly materialistic thoughts it becomes a project of self-improvement why is that you necessary it's a better reflection of the Atman then negative thinking or poor thinking or poor emotional health Swami Vivekananda said religion is the manifestation of the divinity already within us the two words divinity already within us and manifestation both of them are important once you center yourself in the divinity within you existence consciousness bliss then what do you do what about the mind then the mind is still there what about the body then the body is still there what about your life the life as the person is still there you can actually make it much better by manifesting your true nature a better thought a kind of thought is closer to the admins true nature than an unkind thought and honesty is closer to the nature nature of the Atman than dishonesty restlessness is further away from the true nature of the admin then calmness it's called sattvic nature a sattvic nature is a better manifestation of the admin and a better state of mind in which to remain centered in the Atman ORS then a rajasic mind or a thematic mind very good question to end today's session with will carry on next time boom Shante Shante Shante hurry that's a sri ramakrishna Aparna must thank you you

Channel: Vedanta Society of Southern California

Views: 161,238

Rating: 4.8258348 out of 5

Keywords: Vedanta, Advaita, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Vedanta Society of Southern California, Hollywood Temple, Upanishads, consciousness

Id: bzLHJXQMCGA

Length: 76min 53sec (4613 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 20 2017