Swami Sarvapriyananda | Vedantic Self-Enquiry

start with a prayer saga [Music] um [Music] lead us from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness unto light lead us from death to immortality all peace peace peace namaskar thank you to rng for that full some praise and extraordinary introduction to a very ordinary person i was looking forward to visiting the vedanta society of austin this summer but like many other plants we had to cancel that because of the pandemic but thanks to the efforts of the volunteers uh the organizers we are we are able to organize this program now when i was asked about what i would like to speak about i um i decided on this subject which means self enquiry and inquiry into ourselves that is my favorite topic so i thought i'll indulge myself i'll really enjoy this session i suppose as much as anybody else or more than others so we'll just slowly go into this subject perhaps the most important subject that there is most rewarding subject that there is look at what is promised in vedanta um you know the question is in these times of suffering and anxiety can we be free of anxiety effortlessly can we have a stable lasting peace of can we have a natural joy welling up spontaneously within ourselves is it possible to be without attachment to anybody or anything and yet be full of love be fully involved in light you don't have to become a monk sitting in the mountains but fully involved in life and yet be free of attachment is it possible to attain that in the language of the bhagavad-gita to attain that by attaining which one is not shaken by the deepest of sorrows the heaviest of sorrows bhagavad-gita says by finding that you are not shaken by the heaviest of sorrows by finding which there is nothing greater to be gained having attained which you find nothing else in the universe which is greater than that you've already attained the ultimate so is it possible to do that without the claims yes it is possible so the reward is great i was thinking it's usually in the times of suffering often into times of personal suffering you see suffering is always there it's only that most people carry on with their normal lives a few people are struggling each of us we find times in our life when we suffer personal loss physical or mental ill health financial problems problems with family and beloved ones all kinds of struggles often look localized to one person to a family and other people carry on but in times of great calamity like this for example whole society feels this the whole society now across the world feels that we are in this space in this time when we are all faced with a crisis and these are good times to learn this is the time when question comes up but what is the purpose of all of this what is the ultimate meaning what have we gained from life nothing lasts neither money nor achievement nor youth nor health not even life not even this most beloved body of ours nothing lasts so what do we gain out of this when you're young life seems to be long and ahead of you full of possibilities and as we go through life we find how fast does all fast all of you i'm sure you all have memories of being a child sitting for your school examinations passing out from college getting married or children big events of your life and if you think back you notice how fast it has passed in me i am in myself i notice i'm a monk and if i remember it was just just over 25 years ago that i joined the day i joined the order i left the world behind i came to become a monk this young person it seems just like yesterday and 25 years have passed and no doubt 25 years more also will pass just like that in an instant 25 years later i will look back yes 50 years have passed maybe if i'm still alive so time passes just like that what is the point of all of this this ultimate realization god realization swami vivekananda's language or the manifestation of the divinity within us this is the purpose of life advaita vedanta says such a thing is possible to attain that that ultimate realization illumination call it brahmadyana whatever you call it it is possible not only possible we must do it that is the purpose of life one may say it is not my purpose my purpose is to be happy somehow in this life i need some money i need my children to be happy i need my job to go well my my health to be all right but by all of this what do you intend to get we never think like that you think by all of this i need some peace of mind some sense of fulfillment some joy so basically it is a happiness that you are looking for one second let me silence them silence this one it is this fulfillment we are looking for and that fulfillment in ultimate sense is what vedanta promises us so it is possible now um religion or spirituality this higher spirituality where we are looking for god realization there are two broad baths often not recognized as uttarakhand said in hindi though there are only two paths either you know it or you believe it either you know it or you believe it now this you believe it this is basically how religion is understood throughout the world in most cases whether it is here in the west or in india mostly people think religion is a matter of belief religion is a matter of faith and that's not wrong mano believe it um that's why in the united states for example the common word used for religion is faith but it's a it's a system of beliefs so that's one way definitely it is a religion but that's not the only way there is a higher way a deeper more profound more direct way of attaining the same result of attaining that ultimate goal of human life janu you know it one teacher punjabi teacher i was hearing he was giving in his talk he said that those who can understand us for that person knowledge is there and he says who cannot grasp it yet for them do's and don'ts are given you follow a certain path these are the rules you follow these are what you do not do these are the practices to be undertaken and with the belief that you will attain something so that's the broad path which people are used to in religion but today we are not going to go down that path we are taking the higher path more difficult not really if many people are suited to this are open to this for them it's a easier more swami vivekananda said in this age advaita vedanta is the only religion open to rational minds if we believe if we find it difficult to believe if our reason stops us from following the broad path of faith here is a path which is rational which is logical which is direct and demonstrates its results straight away so there's this path looking a little deeper not just two in fact three paths become obvious to us not just belief or knowledge but all three paths what are the three paths see one is the path of belief you believe there is god or heaven or something like that even all these other things mostly at this level when we talk about it at first it's a question of belief you like these ideas other people believe in it and you have some kind of faith in it and you start up that way and that's a good way to start but there's a problem with this the problem is in this day and age this is the day at the age of science this age of skepticism of reason if you listen to a few talks by christopher hitchens or richard dawkins so he blasts they blast the system of faith a faith-based religion in no uncertain terms they are called the new atheists or militants will be cured of all kinds of belief belief is subject to doubt notice in all those debates between dawkins and various pastors or rabbis you know different teachers of religion or theologians almost always not almost all the time in every case it is richard dawkins or christopher agents who gets the better of the proponents of religion it's very difficult to defend a system which starts with faith and is based on faith against the attacks of skepticism and reason very difficult higher than this deeper more profound than this is the other another path a second approach to religion spirituality which i might call the path of mystical experience this is what swami vivekananda emphasized when he came to the united states more than 125 years ago he said religion is realization religion is not just believing certain things religion is realization and it's true at the core of every religious system there were people the founders their disciples who actually realized what what the the truth start in that religion they actually had these extraordinary experiences as vivekananda said if there is a god i must see god if i have an immortal soul i must feel it to be so i don't feel it i feel i am this body which is not immortal it's going to die so if i have an immortal soul why can't i feel it if god exists why can't i see god and the path of mysticism says you can here are the practices here is the way of sitting of breathing of meditating of concentrating inside your your inner being and there these truths of religion will be revealed to you how not by just believing in it through extraordinary experiences how do we actually experience this world not we don't we don't believe that the world exists you don't believe that your father mother exists your husband wife or children exists you know you experience them you see them directly in that way even more so can you experience god it is the second path part of mystical experience when narendra nath went to sri ramakrishna his question was have you seen god not that do you believe in god not that how can i believe in god no how can i see god and saddam krishna said yes i have seen god and so can you if so here is a there is a way of seeing god that is the path of mystical experience a classic example of such a path is patanjali yoga the yoga sutras of patanjali you practice these things you will get certain experiences and those experience are supposed to prove the truth of religion to you but here again there is a possibility of doubt you know if you ask a modern neuroscientist and some of you are brain scientists or doctors a neuroscientist might say look that experience of light you had of oneness that divine vision you had i am not doubting that you had that experience but that does not prove anything it is just a lesion or a tumor in your brain and that is putting pressure on certain neurons and that is generating these experiences and we can also prove it we can stimulate certain areas of the brain and it gives rise to certain feelings and experiences how do you know that it is not just an abnormal occurrence in your brain that's why many mystics were always regarded as mad people it's not that they are really seeing god they are mad they just krishna many people said that around at that time today we are saying avatar and at that time many people around the kali temple in dakshinay ford used to call him the mad brandon because what is to see in kali and experiencing the divine mother and he must be mad more sophisticated version is your modern psychotherapist or neuroscientist who also basically in more technical and polite language say that you are mad if you think that you are actually experiencing anything other than this world so it can be doubted now higher than that deeper than that is the subject of self-inquiry which you are going to talk about how is it different from the other two here it is not a question of belief you are not being asked to believe that you are not the absolute reality no no you must not believe in fact you must know for yourself you're not even asked to go through certain exercises and get certain mystical experiences in samadhi you will realize this not even that those are welcome remember i am not uh criticizing belief i am not criticizing mystical experiences they are all true they are all helpful and indeed in practical spiritual life you must have those also but i'm trying to distinguish what the today's subject from those things we must drill down we must be precise in our thinking today so i am trying to exclude those things from the purge of today's subject at the end of your questions if you ask so should we not believe in god should we not do our meditation exercises and all uh my answer always will be yes you must not only are they good they are very useful in spiritual life but they are not the core of the path i'm going to talk about today how do you distinguish what is this unique path if it's not mystical experience what is it the beauty the unique beauty of advaita vedanta is it tells you it's not a question of belief it's a matter of experiencing reality right now as it is it is not even a question of mystical experiences seeing some light or some kind of vision not even that just the experiences which are continuously available to all of us all the time that this word which you are seeing i am the seer and i see these things that's enough to begin the investigation i exist that's enough to begin the investigation rama namashi famously somebody asked him am i qualified because we always think the path of knowledge is very difficult it's not for us no just they asked ramana mashi am i qualified for this path and ramanu maharishi said did you say i then you are qualified if you can say i then you are qualified because famous method was who am i if you say you can ask who am i self if you have a self and obviously you have everybody has it then you can inquire into the self the very existence our own existence and what we experience around ourselves is sufficient to begin the process of self enquiry it does not ask for anything more than that it is based entirely upon your experience see the problem with mystical experiences though the promises you can experience it for yourself as vivekananda said but this is a fine print it takes all this difficult psychophysical exercises over decades of time to have these extraordinary mystical experiences until that time it's still a matter of faith that other people have it i believe i have trust so i'll try it but but without the promises right here right now it's not a matter of believing something not a matter of trying to get certain extraordinary experiences so that's the beauty of this path what is the spiritual journey here it is not a journey in space that you have to go from here to heaven from here to vaikuntha or ramakrishna some divine pure land of the buddha no it's you're not going from one place to another that reality which vedanta talks about the self-reality is right here right now you have do you have to wait for it after death i will see god or after samadhi after certain spiritual practices then i will find god no that then when you use it then you are talking about time but in this path there is no then right now right here right now and all the time and all everywhere wherever you are it is there that reality is there whenever you are whatever the time past present and future that reality is available to us and here you are not looking for something other than yourself it is the self itself that that is the subject of our inquiry you are always available to yourself if nothing else is available to you you are always available to yourself if a temple or a meditation hall is not available but you are there if all the textbooks of religion and philosophy are not available you are there if i am old and sick i cannot sit up straight and meditate but my own self is there may be old and sick self is there if i'm lying in a hospital bed self is there so the cell but the object of investigation here is the subject itself is the self and that's always available so it's not a journey in space not a journey in time spiritual journey in this path is not a journey from self to the other it is the self itself now the problem is if it is not a journey in time space or from one object to another then if it's a journey what kind of journey is it why why do we not know it right now if it is right now why don't i see it if it is right here why don't i experience it if i am that reality you are talking about which i'm looking for why don't i feel that way it doesn't seem to be so so the problem here is ignorance i don't know it and the solution is knowledge so spiritual journey in this path is a journey from ignorance to knowledge not from one place to another not from one time to another not from myself to some god no it is a journey from not knowing to knowing immediately people will ask this question a valid question is knowing enough i have heard many talks read many books so i know but i don't think that i'm enlightened or i'm a buddha knowing here has a special sense not just listening to a talk or reading the book this knowledge is essential what we gain from this talk of the book is essential but that deepens into an enlightenment so you are already in the process it's a very interesting thing whether if you're learning meditation or if you're on the path of bhakti devotion hearing talks and reading books is just a step but ultimately you have to do it if i read a manual on meditation bestseller on meditation miracle of mindfulness thick not on and i don't practice it then i gain nothing from it i have not even started reading the book itself is not a beginning you have to start practicing mindfulness but in advaita vedanta now right now when you get this knowledge when you listen to it you've already started three steps i hear i reflect upon it and i meditate upon it so once you have started hearing once you've started studying the process of self self inquiry has already started so congratulations we're already on the path i think that i have to listen to this then i have to practice so why doesn't he get on with it no we are already practicing just by listening here enquiry into the self ignorance to knowledge the claim is that we do not know ourselves as we are we think we have to know things outside there's nothing to know about us but vedanta says you're making a profound mistake what you think what we think that we know about ourselves that is the biggest stumbling block that hides the ultimate truth from us mark twain once said it ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble it's what you think you know but you don't know that's what gets you into trouble we think we know ourselves we don't and that's why we get into the trouble called samsara so what is this enquiry into oneself the inquiry is who am i or what am i and the obvious answer is why this there's nothing to know more than this you see here i am this body this mind when you investigate this body when we investigate this mind the inquiry it shows us very clearly we are mistaken we are actually not this body we are actually not this mind though the body is there in the mind is there we are not it and our real nature right now is startlingly different is extraordinarily different from this body and mind so let's see this process a little bit and then i would like to interact with you i'm actually going to point out the real self atman or brahman whatever you call it in advaita vedanta we're going to point it out right now and see if it makes sense to you and see especially if you can catch it right now if you can sense the reality within within yourself within ourselves right now i mean the words are i'm using within quotes because you cannot directly do that not the body not the mind why notice that the body changes continuously it's a fact babyhood childhood teenage youth middle age old age how much this body has changed hardly recognizable we ourselves if you are not told group photo 40 years ago and we might not even recognize ourselves and our the body there in that photograph and yet we have the sense that i was that baby i was the child i was the teenager i was that young person middle aged person now i am here this old person that which is changing continuously and this sense of unchanging identity throughout the changing and the unchanging cannot be the same thing in vedanta this is called savikara nirvikaara that which is savikara which change with modification and that which is nirvikara the sense of personal identity this awareness of the changing body that awareness has not changed the two cannot be the same between the changing and the unchanging there can be no relationship when sadhu said nithyananda if you think about it very deep and stunning between the eternal and the non-eternal there can be no relationship and yet if you find a relationship that's an error brahma how devastating it is non-eternal father mother they come and go they are there and one day they go grow old and die husband wife children colleagues friends community they come and go non-eternal and say yeah i know that but what we don't know is if they are non-eternal you the eternal self you actually have no relation with them we think we are so closely attached my dearest and nearest husband wife children if there was a time when they were not there know it for sure there will be a time when they will not be there and even deeper if that is so that there was a time they were not there in your life and there will be a time when they will not be there in your life in that case even now when they are there you have no real relation with them now i'm not being cruel i'm not saying you should abandon your children and divorce your spouse no no no it's easy this is in a deep philosophical sense actually in a most profound sense you are not connected to them you are not tied to them if you are tied to something when it goes it will pull you along with it if you are tied to something when it moves it will pull you along with it if you're tied to a person i am so much attached when that person goes away you should also go along with it you'll be pulled around it does not happen people come and go and disappear in our lives we don't come with them we don't go with them in that case when they are there also there is no deep there is no deep connection attachment with them just seems like that nothing wrong with it as long as you know it seems like that you'll be free of that you'll be free of that attachment and you can do your all your family professional work can go on there's no problem at all but you will have enjoyed the benefit of freedom in the midst of all of this between the eternal and non-eternal there can be no relationship between the changing and the unchanging there can be no relationship you the unchanging awareness and the continuously changing body you have no relation you are not only not one with the body you are not the body it is not even connected to you it's not even connected to you same goes for the mind the mind changes so much from morning till now just now how many times happy how many times miserable how many times alert how many times bored how many times sleepy after cup of coffee how awake and alert how many times curious angry irritated happy pleased how much the mind is mind is changing within this few hours after waking up last night's sleep throughout the life imagine how fast and how much the mind changes but you are the same one who saw the happy mind who saw the miserable mind who saw the board mind who saw the curious and interested mind who sees the fresh and alert mind who sees the dull mind if you see all of these things then you are not the mind if you have seen all of them then all these things have come and gone you are the seer of the mind you are unchanging and the mind is changing between the nirvikar and savikara between nithyanandya there can be no relationship it seems to be my mind the closest thing in the world the closest thing in the universe is my mind i think i am the mind no not only are you not the mind you have no relation with the mind also but what a tremendous statement and if you think that way you will first of all feel a great relief and where will the relief be not in the consciousness relief will be in the mind mind itself will be very happy to get rid of you all the trouble the mind undergoes is because we embrace the mind as ourselves so the mind itself is not me not even related to me i'm aware of it no doubt of it because i am nirvikaar mind is savikara someone might say so when you become a what i am the awareness which is aware of the mind through the mind i'm aware of the body through the body mind i'm aware of the world but world is continuously changing no doubt about it body is continuously changing no doubt about it mind is also continuously changing no doubt about it because they are changing and i'm aware of the changes in that case i have no connection with them i am just the witness of these changes if i am witness if i am awareness my very nature must be consciousness the self is not blurred and flesh and bones and cells and organs the self is not thoughts feelings memories desires this bundle which we call the personality self is not that it's the witness of all of that it functions through it no more than you are your shirt or your undershirt in the same way you are not the physical body not the subtle body the mind they are there but they are not you why savikar nirvikaar not only and you are not that you are completely unattached to all of these even when they are existing you are you have no sangha no attachment to them why not an attachment as i said if you are attached to this a changing thing when it changes if you are attached to it you will change along with it but if you have not changed if you are the same witness which you wear in your childhood watching the child's body and the child's mind teenage body teenage mind middle aged body middle aged mind and old age body an old tired mind need not be old and tired mind some people have old body but young mind some people have opposite young body and old mind but in either case you are not it you are the unattached witness again in another way let us look at it this way couple of two more other ways we will see the self enquiry these are called prakrias methods one method is changing and changing we just did that another one my favorite is drigrishya his experience and experience here and seen what you see is apart from the seer eyes are seeing all this laptop all these faces all these things in the room but they are all different from the eyes physically different they are objects out there and the eyes are here they're two different things you see so what it's obvious but so what in the same way the mind which knows the eyes is different from the eyes and of the sense organs and you the consciousness the awareness you are aware of the mind and the sensory system including the eyes and the world if you are aware of them they are different from you they are not the self this object the world outside this piece of paper i know i am not that piece of paper that's a thing but i am this person but even this person i can use the word this i can use the word it this body these eyes even as you go further inside this thought these thoughts if you can say this it then it's not you look at your experience right now whatever right now it's a very powerful method right now whatever you can label as this then it's not you this laptop not me clearly but this body i can say this body can i not i can see it here it smell it taste it touch it it's an object of all my senses this body then it's an it an object a thing it's not me i am the one who is aware of it then the thoughts in the mind which i intimately own that i am that those thoughts am i really the thoughts when the thoughts are not there am i not there i'm still there when new thoughts came did i become new no when memory is faded away did i fade away no am i able to objectify the thoughts can i say this thought right this thought is bothering me this in that case i am not the thought even bothering me that also i am not you see the question is asked here no no no this will not work you see you said you are not this piece of paper correct i agree i am not this piece of paper but then in the same logic you are saying this body you are not this body but that will not work if you hit the piece of paper if you cut the piece of paper you could burn the piece of paper nothing happens to me but if you hit this body cut it or burn it i will feel so much pain so to be very logical in the path of self self-inquiry one thing is you have to be very rational very slow and careful what is the argument if you do something to the if you heard it try to damage the piece of paper i am not affected so i understand i am not the piece of paper but if you cut this body and burn it i am affected terrible suffering is there so i am this body no it does not follow if you hit this body pierce this body there is pain next step are you aware of the pain yes then can you say this pain can you say it is hurting it's an object of awareness yes then the pain is also an object you must follow this carefully the pain in the body is also an object it is not you if you can categorize something as this thing then it's not you just as this paper is not you this body is not you the pain in the body is also not you it's equally enough it's a more subtle thing it's a feeling but it's still an object because it's you are it is presented to your consciousness the pain in the body is presented to your consciousness just as the body itself is presented to your consciousness just as this piece of paper also is presented to your consciousness paper body pain equally object not you you are free of it they come and go you don't come and go with them drink this even the the you are the drik the seer and whatever you experience is this your seeing thoughts in the mind no matter how horrible how depressing how miserable not you my mind is dull maharaja i can't meditate when i try to meditate i feel sleepy all right what does vedanta say alert and peaceful mind not you you are aware of it are you aware of the sleepy mind the unmeditative mind yes i'm aware that's why i'm complaining if you are aware of it that one which is aware of the unmeditative sleepy mind is that sleepy or unmeditative no that is shining always as it is that is not affected see mind is sleeping and if you're aware of the sleepy mind later on you can report during the sleepiness you cannot report because mind is sleeping but afterwards you'll see here i noticed the sleepiness that which noticed the sleepiness of the mind that which noticed the depression of the mind that notice that this the the restlessness of the mind that one is not depressed that one is not sleepy that one is is is not restless that one is consciousness it is free of all the problems of mind dashta the seer the seer is not touched by the scene it is untouched asanga again just as savikar nirvikara unchanging and changing the unchanging is unattached completely with the changing similarly the seer is completely unattached with the scene and the scene includes body and mind also body and mind are not the self one more then will be done this is called chit jara you the awareness the entire world including body and mind are presented to us to us the awareness i am aware in my awareness comes this world in my awareness comes this body also however it is in my awareness comes this mind also but i do not become an object of the body or the mind who is aware of whom are you aware of the body or is the body aware of you i do this experiment sometimes that look at this hand when i look at this hand what is my feeling am i aware of the hand or is the hand aware of me i'm obviously i'm aware of the hand here it is the hand you say so what same way i am aware of this hand same way i'm aware of every part of the body wherever i choose to focus my awareness and none of these parts of the body are aware of me think about it you see what is this so great one doctor in scotland wrote to me suddenly great realization he said recently i was looking at a scan image of the body and he said i have been looking at these for years and years of thousands of such pictures of the body and i just realized just now i realized in these all these pictures detailed pictures of the body where am i these are things complicated sophisticated organic structures but where am i i'll be conscious being who is examining all these things where am i in this body am i in one place in the body nowhere am i the totality of the body no where am i it's an object similarly even thoughts take it one step deeper even the thoughts are you aware of the thoughts are the thoughts aware of you you the awareness shine and upon the thoughts and reveal them the thoughts do not reveal you simple experiment just now before performing um if i think a thought like uh the funny thing is mind please think a thought swami is asking me to perform an experiment the mind which is always thinking thoughts when it's not required when you ask mine think about thinkers my mind is blank now think i thought i always say abcd or 2 plus 2 4 some thought 2 plus 2 4 when you away but now be aware of the chart 2 plus 2 4 are am i aware of 2 plus 2 4 or is 2 plus 2 4 aware of me so what a ridiculous suggestion very clearly i am aware of a thought 2 plus 2 4 it has no capacity of being aware of me it's just a thought in the mind similarly the mind is not aware of you mind which is composed of such thoughts feelings perceptions mind is not aware of you you are aware of the mind you are awareness and everything else from the physical thing like a rock or a stone to the body to even the subtle things like the mind thoughts feelings perceptions they are all classified as insentient jada in sanskrit and you are classified as chit consciousness between the chit and the jada between consciousness and the object the incentive there can be no connection appears to be connection no connection the light shines on everything this light shines on everything in this room but it is not connected to anything in the room when the light shines on this piece of paper it is illumined piece of paper is illumined but the light does not stick to this piece of paper when i remove the piece of paper the light is still there the paper does not carry the light away by itself similarly when you shine upon the world including body including mind no matter how disturbing the thought you are not connected to it in any way they are like little pieces of duck little bits of dust floating in this ray of sunlight early in the morning we see when ray of sunlight comes into the room you'll see lots of tiny pieces of dust little bits of dust floating in it all thoughts emotions perceptions are like those pieces of dust floating in you the ray of consciousness in new consciousness in your radiance between chit and jara consciousness and non-consciousness sentience and in sentience there can be no connection between drik and drishya seer and seen there can be no connection between savikar and nirvikara unchanging and the changing there can be no connection you the seer the self you are the seer you are the unchanging you are you are awareness and what you see what you experience is the ever changing the seeing the experienced object and insentient this unchanging radiance revealing everything in your life this is the nature of the self this is what we are this is what is meant when you say as me i am not the body i am not the mind i am i am of the nature of awareness and bliss that is shiva that is sugar okay one more and just say it i will not prove it here one question remains all right so i am the witness the awareness the unchanging consciousness and everything else in the world including body and mind are changing so are they two different realms consciousness not consciousness changing unchanging seer seen so you have made a division it is not advaith it's not non-duality it's still duality still vast differences remain earlier the difference was inside the skin i am outside the skin everything else separate from me but now i am saying even this body and mind are also put as else at the other what is the relationship between consciousness and matter what is the relationship between self and other according to advaita vedanta is a bombshell that what you regard as matter is actually nothing other than a projection within consciousness there is no separate realm of matter what we just separated the changing insentient object universe that is all an appearance in consciousness according to advaita vedanta it is nothing but consciousness vivekananda puts it this way first it appears to you when you look deeper it's actually appearing within you this world is within you see that sounds cool object put an objection who said when this was being said that this whole thing is inside you sub up my head you're all pervading consciousness this monk protested from the back of the hall question i am here and you are there i am here i am not there how can i be all-pervading i am not even i cannot even pervade one room i am in only one chair even the fattest person cannot pervade this room and let alone pervading the whole universe in hindi he said how can i be all pervading the immediate answer came from the teacher yaha or waha even this idea of here and there are they not both within your awareness where else are you are you experiencing space and time here and there all within awareness only you see we think of it in terms of body in body i am here another body is there so these two are different but we are being asked not don't think in terms of body think in terms of consciousness don't stand in the body and judge stand on consciousness i mean identify with consciousness and then try to understand very good example is this in dreams we see lot of people we see vast distance in the mountains and rivers i am here i am not there that so far then when i wake up oh the whole thing was a dream so here and there all those distances mountains rivers everything was in this mind only it appeared that i was here and not there vast space no the whole thing was projected and imagined in the mind including space including time including object in description so first to consciousness then you look investigate it is in your consciousness and finally you realize what is in your consciousness not outside it cannot be anything other than consciousness what is it made of consciousness only it just appears to be an object then if everything that you experience is not a second reality apart from your consciousness no second non-dual dual means second no second non dual advaita consciousness is advaita non dual you are this non dual radiance this awareness and what you experience this whole universe the drama of your life including this little body and its little life they are all appearances in this immortal awareness which you are which we all are advaitam brahmaveda brahma by knowing this brahman one becomes brahman becomes raman means i am already brahman i suddenly realize i am that ahamram has me i am not this was me i am not this body i am not this little person server i am this unchanging witness consciousness which is the ground of this reality the fundamental nature of this entire reality which i am experiencing that i am this is the grand teaching of advaita vedanta is the end result of self-inquiry very good i am done i am available for questions can you keep calling out people yes yes i think we have a few hands raised and there are few uh who have reached out saying that they're unable to raise their hands so i will call out some names or recall in the order it is in the chat and um and then we'll go from there right so the first question is from anu uh sundaran so let me unmute you or not uh yeah i know so please go ahead namaste swami namaste can you hear me okay yeah i can hear you you're a voice without fog if you want me to turn on the video i can definitely turn on the screen um okay i can see there you can see so swami my question is a little more of a personal i have two questions for you one is more close to me personally so uh the question i have is i have someone close who has a health issue with her brain uh and i used to talk about neuroscience and everything and she has ongoing periods of depressions and bouts of mania uh which does not allow her to settle into uh deep inquiry uh this has affected her family physical health and my question is really how can i help her further or is there a way i can even help her with self-realization yes so the answer to this is this is a difficult situation remember advaita vedanta or any path of higher spirituality is not against our material science is not against material remedies for materials problem the level at which the problem is the medicine and the remedy at that level also should be taken into account so nowadays many good medicines are available many good therapies are available i'm sure there are many mental health professionals who can guide you so take the help of whatever help is available take it and remember this self enquiry why is it regarded as the highest path and the most direct path for that certain amount of qualifications mentioned that's why in all advaita vedanta packs we will give fourfold qualification vivek vairagya the six-fold treasure and mumuksu intense desire to be free and all of that so this is a path where you have really got your act together if i am personally very disturbed and shaken this path will not work for me so all that easily so a certain amount of self-preparation is necessary so will it have no use at all no by the grace of god it might actually work i know of at least more than one instance that a person with severe mental uh restlessness mentally unwell has found peace this i will tell you one thing i don't know if it worked there i just heard this story many years ago there was a vedanta teacher in the south of india and a person who nowadays they would have been classified as having bipolar disease and all but in those days they did not just has very riskless and sometimes becomes like or sometimes becomes very depressed so this person was brought to this veil of the teacher and luckily at that time that person was lucid it was little calm for the time being and then precisely that time the vedanta teacher told this young man remember when these storms come they are storms in the mind you are not them they may come it will be stormy restless manic period is coming and it's happening but yet you are not it because you are experiencing it that's all he told so the difference between the mind which is experiencing all of this this storm which has a neuroscience background also and you the witness consciousness witness consciousness is not disturbed by the disturbance in mind or body and it seems that person found a lot of peace those problems kept coming but over time that person became much more stable so this vedanta thing works another thing i remember is many of us have seen the movie the beautiful mind and the professor nash he was right here in princeton actually i never saw him long before my time but in the movie i remember one thing really touched me at the very end in those days unfortunately medicines were not so good now much better medicines are available now this person this brilliant scientist used to have hallucinations but when those heavy sedatives were given he could not those hallucinations stopped but he could not do mathematics so if you remember the movie he stopped taking the medicine because he could not do math without the medicine he could do some mathematics so the interviewer asks him at the end of his towards the end of the movie um that professor you're not taking your medicines so are you still seeing those hallucinations and he said yes i am then right now are you seeing the hallucinations you say yes i can see then what do you do he says i have taught myself to ignore them i taught myself to ignore them so remember the problem in the brain is still continuing the problem in the mind is still continuing but he has taught himself to ignore has developed a system by which he can ignore certain things which are presented to him and he can function in the other part if he can do that from a vedantic perspective we are all in the situation of john match we are in the midst of a total hallucination called samsara and we all have to the process vidant is teaching us savikara what is changing and what is unchanging this is the way to teach ourselves what is changing and unchanging in my life what i what where is the what is seen what is the seer the object what is the object and what is the subject and what is sentient what is insentient you ask these questions not only ask these questions observe it in your life that which is changing that which is an object and that which is incentive is not me we have to teach ourselves like this it is possible if john nash could do it unfortunately you know like two years ago both he and his wife and after going through all of these troubles what a tragedy you know both were killed recently nearby here in a car crash uh old two old persons anyway so that is the answer thank you so much i have one more question for you which is more around the share which is my by the way my favorite technique to create that separation from the mind sorry uh sorry nope i mean i mean let him let him ask the question basically one question for just that yeah yeah so question i really have keep it short is uh as part of the uh just being aware of uh the mind itself isn't it possible that the silent mind is seeing itself during that process the direct answer to that is no it's not that it may seem to be that because the mind has a capacity called introspection so when you look into the mind so when you're saying i'm the witness of the mind isn't it introspection so the mind can do that but that's an artificial witness what is the proof that it's an artificial witness when you don't do that that witness disappears when the mind becomes involved in the day-to-day activities of your life then that witnessing goes away you say i was very nice when i was practicing with antique witnesses now i've become involved again that was an artificial witnessing you're telling the mind like mindfulness you're practicing being the witness that practiced witness is not the vedanti witness we are talking about what is the proof what is the just think about this i'll give you a pointer you said that isn't it possible that when it's the calm mind the silent mind it is witnessing itself so is that the sakshi then in that case sakshi is silent mind not chaitanya consciousness no the sakshi i'm talking about what vedanta is talking about is equally present in the disturbed restless mind which is outgoing mind even there when the mind is disturbed when the mind is restless when the mind is outgoing when you have no vedantic thought at all later when you look back upon it at that time also were you aware or not you are aware and that awareness is the suction it is not a practiced sakshi manu tarakan saudi said when he was teaching this at the time that sadhu was telling everybody um so monks are you feeling that you are the sakshi and the monk said yes yes you're going to fall into a very big ditch because that sakshi is not the real sakshi it is a practiced thing and that practice is not bad in mindfulness you do that in sakshiv however meditation that's a meditation like standing on the bridge and watching the water flow by fine that's a good practice but it is not the sakshi the real sakshi is permanently right now even if you do not know it even if you don't practice vedanta for one minute also you are perfectly the sakshi right now and that's actually unattached when you realize it finally you will see i was always the sakshi even when i thought i was terribly mixed up with the world i was still the unmixed action when the sky is full of clouds thunderstorm so it is same unaffected space where all the clouds are gone bright blue sky sun shining same unaffected space but it seems different it seems very different think about it okay next uh so uh probably the next one is actually gabriel and gabriel can you go ahead and i will unmute you yes can i go ahead yes uh swami uh hi a familiar face yes from manduka class and i'm having the same as i used to have in manduka class at the beginning especially during the night time when i don't sleep i do my vedantic meditation my inquiries my contemplation and when i do a hambra mass me i feel like an energy rising from my lower pelvic area and it feels like a volcano about to erupt but i cannot get it to erupt i don't know how to describe it uh and from what i know it seems like a kundalini rising and i'm surprised because i've always been on the path of knowledge i'm not a yogi but this energy is so intense it's like dragging me crazy and i cannot get the volcano to explode don't worry about it don't mess with it leave it alone at that time if you feel disturbed just stop it remember the practice the witness consciousness we are talking about it is the one which is aware of that experience that intense experience something is going to happen i want to push it through no don't bother about it at all if you have that experience you are the witness of that if you don't have that experience you're equally the witness of that my question is is it kundalini rising i don't know but is it possible yes it is possible the kundalini that's the path of tantra now in in that also suramar krishna said very clearly even by bhakti by devotion by knowledge by any of these facts the kundalini can be awakened so if you have an intense yes if you have an intense process of enquiry yeah it's exactly when it happens it will lead to that but from remain true to your practice don't be bothered with that yeah but then i have to stop it because it arises when i do it stop it no problem you are you know that you are the witness you know that you are the witness even now the practice is not the central thing this essential thing is that you are the witness consciousness change the practice then you listen to some soothing music read a book don't worry about it but one thing is why i'm telling you not to pursue it i don't want to you don't because this is like these psychic energies are powerful now there are yogis there are tantric fractures practitioners who can safely deal with it but if it's not part of our path we are not trained to deal with it yeah that's why i was praying what do i do and then you i got the invite for this for this right and it's an answer to your prayers thank you i'm sorry i just ignore it yes ignore it stop stop the practice do something else fall asleep listen to music or read a book i can't sleep that's the problems i usually do read a book okay don't worry about the ham ramasthi practice even if you don't do the amber amazing you are drama all of us are unchangeably choicelessly that absolute reality so there is nothing to worry about at all very good okay thank you okay so the second question goes from mo thank you from poornam tunden i wanted to know whether there is a difference between swarup gyan and brahma gyan okay she always asks the difficult question but very important question some of these questions many of them are actually questions which we all share in so when one person asks don't be eager that when when will i get the chance to ask my question it may be that that person's question and the answer to it is actually more important to me than my own question so swarup again and brahma gyan infants or consciousness swarupa means the self or one's own real nature ramagyana means knowledge brahman so brahma-gyana is enlightenment what we normally call enlightenment realization that is brahman knowledge of brahman and that knowledge of brahman has a very precise form nothing not i'm reading about brahman listening to a zoom talk about brahman not that the direct indubitable breakthrough that realization aham brahma asked me i am that not repeating it as a mantra actually realizing it comes as a flash it comes once in your life and it removes all the darkness of maya and then afterwards it remains effortlessly you can state you can you can repeat it by staying with it but it comes only once afterwards you can meditate upon it and stay with it also but it will be there forever that's brahmatyana and that's what we are all working towards that's what is called enlightenment um realization so and so forth now the swarupa gyana can be understood in sanskrit in two ways the knowledge about the self awareness of the self that's one way the second one would be the self which is awareness so rupa is guyana or gyana is swarupa not the knowledge about the self when you say knowledge about the self it is equal to brahmacaryan i realize where i am that is the that is the end result of this which we did today the self-inquiry what should it result in in the realization i am the chidan and i am that awareness consciousness bliss of the nature of shiva not this little body this little body is there it will play out its role mind is there it will do its dance it's not me i am free of it let the little devil dance around as it will i have no problem with it this is realization this is gyana about this about my real nature which is what is your real nature but what is that real nature what's its nature what is what is that thing body is made of flesh and blood mind is made of thoughts feelings emotions what is your swarupa made up what is your self made of consciousness so that is called swarupa ghana and in the sense of that your swarupa is what's the nature of yourself consciousness is the nature of yourself thank you swamiji thank you uh probably the next one is actually partha to unmute yourself thank you sanji for taking my question thank you now i have a small question so i will uh put them together uh so that it appears that i'm having only one questions now the most difficult part of the whole conversation or your talk is to realize that i is totally different than my body mind and intellect okay this realization of that person who has uh realized that is a brahmagani the consciousness right so that is one questions and how to do it in practice in practical way you mentioned that it is true process as uh by uh the way you are supposed to do the uh meditation and all of those things and then the next uh part of the question is logo moho and krodha in according to vita are the three uh doors of the hill okay now loha and moha assume that i understand what are those and how to avoid but the krodha the anger how to take care of that no even though if i had the knowledge of i the i consciousness then probably i know that when you are getting angry it is i is totally different i cannot have any uh any any emotion then what are the five we know about the five senses i read somewhere uh in one of the books there are five carmen real let me just deal with the first two the first question was that how do you actually come to this realization i am not the body mind intellect that was the question actually come to this realization we have heard this now maybe we have understood it also but how do you actually how do you make it real realization what is realization making it real just as right now i feel i am this body you feel that you are part that is effortlessly you feel that no practice is necessary like that how can i feel i am not this body and mind though it is there i am aware of it i am the awareness and this is something that i'm aware of how do you come to this realization that's number one now i've already given the answer see how the mind works the mind says all of this what he's saying is philosophy is theory now there must be some practical way something to do now that's what i that's why i spent the first 15 minutes of the talk distinguishing this path from the other parts the other paths are paths of doing whether it is devotion or puja or karma yoga or the paths of doing this is a path of enquiry if you inquire into it you are already practicing how do you inquire by the inquiry of changing and unchanging by the inquiry of drastic and rishi by the inquiry of chit and jara now even here the mind plays a trick yes i've understood that not understood that do it now how do i do it the method of doing it is noticing it just sit quietly and notice how the body has changed just notice it from childhood to middle age this body how much it has changed and how it will change further in the next few 10 15 20 30 years and i do i not feel that i was the experiencer of that little boy's body the young man's body the middle aged person's body will i not be the same experiencer do i not own it i am the one who was the teenager i am the one who was in that middle aged person's body in that case this unchanging sense of awareness illumining this body is changing body can the changing body and the unchanging awareness can they be the same thing no if you think like this it's an obvious fact but we don't think about it if you think like this you are already doing the inquiry into changing and unchanging and you will begin to feel very soon you will begin to feel yes the body is there i am experiencing it but i cannot be it do the drinkdrisha whatever i experience is an object i am the subject do i experience the body certainly i can see it smell it taste it feel it touch it which is clearly an object for all senses it's a thing an object i am the subject i am drastic this is transition cannot be the same thing sure similarly i am the awareness and this is an object of awareness i am chaitanya this is matter and consciousness is matter cannot be the same thing already you are practicing this is the practice now it is a good point to introduce all the other practices which we have left out of this talk so far so if you ask what about the other practices what about bhakti what about meditation what about unselfish work so angry vikander spoke not only about ghana yoga but we are talking about ghana yoga but raja yoga bhakti yoga karma yoga yes you will find if you practice those things if i do unselfish work if i meditate daily morning and evening if i have a deep devotion love for ishwara for god remember i'm not here i've not even talked about god once but if i have a devotion in some form in any religion if i've got it those you will find those are very good very helpful for this gyana the mind is they may not have seem to have any relation with this practice this seems to be so philosophical and those things seem to be so religious but the mind which is prepared by those practices can immediately catch this i have seen a simple monk in balor mutt who is not so much into gyan yoga but he's a very devoted has strong belief in srirama krishna has devoted his life pure simple devoted person when i talk to him about rig rishi he immediately catches it and i have seen top professor philosophy the top university in the world and talk about rigor understands but still not willing to accept somehow see the mind is grounded in materialism very intel very intellectual sharp mind grounded in materialism it is somewhere although the intellect understands it somewhere the impure mind which is grounded in material reality it tells that no that can't be true whereas this pure mind devoted person because the mind is light and pure when you introduce this idea immediately mind says yes of course i am clearly trusted all these are christians it does not take too much intelligence there the second thing is gates of hell just one point that we mentioned stop moha is delusion and the deepest more the deepest delusion is that we are body mind because of that what happens desire arises desire becomes predominant the moment i am body mind then we are vulnerable to samsara if i am this body and mind then kovid can attack me swami if you are dressed also kobe will attack dracovite will attack body it i will be the dust off that covered attack body but i am not i will not say i am attacked by kobe i am the drastic of the kobe dogs so um if i am the body if i am firmly convinced i am this body i am vulnerable to samsara i am always in danger ditty advai bhayam bhavati upanishad says thousands of years ago profound statement source of our problem the moment we think really there is something apart from second reality fear arises all samsara starts there when i realize i am this non-dual consciousness not even consciousness separate from body mind see this first thing which i did that i am the consciousness not body not mind not the world remember it is for step only matter all of it is in consciousness nothing apart from consciousness consciousness is non-dual this dripdrish this this this differentiation is the preliminary step one uttarakhand sadhu warned i'll tell you in indian translate those who continuously keep talking about the big distributor i thought he's talking about me only you continuously teach that these are unripe these are baby vegan things that's the beginning of venant is not actually saying teaching separation one psychoanalyst said swami this will lead to alienation what you are teaching correct you because we are not stopping there we are not separating consciousness from everything and then leaving it there no then we integrate everything back into consciousness you leave it with just the opposite of alienation you leave it with a deep oneness with everything nothing in this world is different from you nobody in this world is different from you yeah holy mother's last saying most profound yes [Music] there's nobody separate from you in this world learn to make everybody your own they seem to be an ordinary teaching most profound final teaching of advice right you're just reading when he came to sriram krishna krishna asked what do you want he said i want to see god in all beings sudam krishna laughed and he said that's the that's the laugh i have to see god everywhere and everything said no i is this duality that i am the body mind all these are separate realities then comes desire karma from desire if you the problem is that is if you satisfy desire you know if you satisfy desire it will become low i want to repeat repeat again again repeat desire if the desire is not satisfied so desire has two children two evolutes greed anger there is no good consequence of desire you see um sure somebody was talking about the frustration and the rage and among poor people in this country america i said again go back to that central insight desire if you satisfy it if you keep satisfying desires it will become greed look at the rich classes those who stay in high skyscrapers and all the billionaires who are staying here in manhattan what is their problem they are not angry they are more more more no there's no end to it desire satisfied if you're a billionaire staying here then more more more unsatisfied homeless and maybe ill may be rejected by society maybe in all sorts of distress then what happens i smash and i attack people then i attack the police and i rob things anger because desire is not satisfied in both cases problem is the root krodha and logha are the children very good very good question thank you thank you so the next question is by god of mithil and i would uh in the lieu of short of time that we are entering so gaurav and others can you keep your question small and suck think so that we can actually get uh vertical we can cover everybody you know so that's the goal okay namaste so when we inquire about like self using like our tracks we go backwards to i but and that becomes the to something living reality also but that is still mixed with mind or the matter like sometimes you call it chidabhasa and after this like for pure consciousness to reveal itself is do we have to just wait for it or is this how to go beyond chidavasa where we are still yes through the pure consciousness stay with it stay with it you are right on the absolutely on the right track the final thing you can get to when you investigate this is the i that i has three parts parts i'm saying just with a way of expressing it's not really parts but the three aspects of that eye if you feel right now if you feel i there are three aspects two of them are knowable you can sense it right now it's very subtle but you cannot show you one is the thought i when you say i gaurav that is the thought it's called it's a function of the mind and it is changing it when you fall asleep it goes away it is an object because it is you are aware of it you cannot be aware i god you are aware immediately aware of it and it is jada you are illumining it so the consciousness which illumines that i that is called reflected consciousness right now you will see when you notice your eye you will see two things together the thought eye after all the eye is ego is a thought in the mind it's a product of the mind the thought i and that awareness associated with the thought eye you know what this relationship it's like mirror and the reflected face in the mirror they seem to be together but they're two different things um i mean one is the mirror itself and one is the reflected face similarly the mirror is the i the ego function of the mind and the reflection is which also you feel because you feel aware the same awareness you feel in every thought in every perception in the eye also you feel most distinctly that awareness there is a third aspect which is the sakshi the pure consciousness the atman which is our real nature which is just the tiniest tiniest little turn away from that but that i cannot teach you have to do it's just like it's exactly like when you are aware of the awareness in the eye what is aware there can be no answer to that question you immediately and they said bishop you become one with it immediately you are one with it once you make that breakthrough it will never go away it's very very close sudam krishna says imagine a thief who is sitting in a hut at night and only a thin wall is there and he knows on the other side part of gold is there so how sleepless he will be you'll be continuously thinking how to break through this small little barrier and get that part of code similarly is the distance between you and brahma no distance you see it's you yourself but it requires one swami gave a very nice example in aquarium have you seen fish swimming like this in aquariums small fish and when they come to the end of the aquarium what do they do they are swimming like this and they they turn like this it's swimming like this and they suddenly turn like this that turn you have to do stay with it and i'll give you another secret it may seem strange by instead of this process there's another process you're doing all of this if you are devoted if you have a deep personal you have got mantra diksha for example ishta devatha is there or devotion to god in any form genuine devotion bhakti is there you pray to god for that realization that's actually an easier way i have heard of people who have made that breakthrough permanently realized me not by the process which we discussed today they know all these things but they got it by praying to god to ishwara to the divine mother that i want this and they get it yeah good question thanks sanji okay so probably my uh probably our vertical next critical questionnaire is shayval gupta uh should well just go ahead and what do you call ask your question namaskar swamiji can you hear me yes very clearly yes thank you uh thank you for taking my question um i was um um i was thinking about how can we prove that the self is one the self within me is the same self that's within another person or for that matter everywhere how is that how can we prove the singularity of that self right this is actually a deep philosophical question advaita vedanta holds on to the singularity of the self advaitha says self is one and non dual there's only one reality and there's no second reality apart from it and that reality is brahman and it is the self atma is brahman but not others none of the others agree with advaita vedanta so famously sankhya philosophy says the self is many self is many now how does advaita deal with this advaita's answer is why do you think the self is many and sankey says it's obvious if you say they give deep answers but even those answers can be dealt with the first obvious answer is very very simple to deal with there are so many bodies but we just said self is not the body we are agreed on that so if there are many bodies that does not mean there are many selves now what does sankhya say you see this advaita's response is like that that there are many bodies where nobody disputes even advaita does not dispute it ultimately it's all drama but right now at this level there are many bodies you can count here let me see 142 right now and by logo i think 100 150 were there so many bodies so not one body minds so many minds how do you know look at the different questions which are coming so different minds thinking in different ways so minds are also different advaita also agrees ultimately same brahman but at this level body mind many bodies many minds many jivas sentient beings but beyond that the atman the sakshi pure consciousness advaita insists it is one why because advaita asks how will you differentiate body you can count mind you can take a survey and ask you'll get different answers you can infer there are different minds how will you differentiate the self why do you think o sankhyam or other philosophers why do you think the selves are different now sanchez arguments are there very quickly you can give that reply to those arguments yourself right now sanken says look when one is asleep another one is awake if the self were the same then you would be awake all the time or asleep when one falls asleep you would also fall asleep that's not true sleeping and awake baking drinking deep sleep are not the states of the self they're states of the mind in one case mind is sleeping another case mind is awake another case mind is dreaming in all cases consciousness is illumining them equally how do you know that this consciousness is different another argument no no no the death of one would be the death of all if the self is saved or the birth of one would no birth and death birth of the death of the body not of the self another argument is no enlightenment if one person becomes enlightened and free then everybody will become enlightened and free because it's the same self no ignorance and enlightenment are in the mind salaam krishna was once asked [Music] that okay we'll leave that aside he used to use to say that so body is not spiritual monish means what the mind itself becomes spiritual so ignorance and spirituality are in the mind not in brahman or not in the body atman or brahman is not subject to ignorance so your whole spirituality ignorance and enlightenment are all play of the mind are all within the realm of maya it does not mean that many selves are there similarly so all these arguments are dealt with by advaita um it's like it because it appears to be many we think there are many selves says undivided in all beings it appears as if divided this vast space here and suddenly manhattan comes up all these buildings with their rooms now this is vedanta society that is other address this is my room that is another room and so on and so forth the same space seems to have been divided but actually space divided not at all and all of this along with the movement of the earth manhattan is also moving so that means all this building is moving through space at great speed so when i cut off i've blocked up this space in this room is the space being carried along with the room is the room uh is the space moving along with the room or is the room moving through space the room is moving through space space cannot be cut up by these walls it only gives the appearance similarly by the presence of bodies and minds consciousness is not cut up it gives the appearance mainly because of the chidavasa reflected consciousness how many reflected consciousnesses many why how many minds many it's just like you sit in a barber shop and many mirrors you will suddenly see the showball mini showball hundreds of all around just like that thank you okay uh uh probably our next questionnaire is actually rajendraparik um so rajendra go ahead and ask your question and uh namaste swami namaste after this so you have you got questions in the chat uh we have four more uh four more actually particular raised hands so you know i mean uh i mean i think people who actually wanted to raise their questions and they posted all the data all right please go ahead this is a reversal of what was earlier talked about how do you explain from vedanting point of view the buddhist idea of no self and one more interested in knowing what is the counter argument from vedanta's response i'll tell you what what is happening with the buddhist from a vedantic perspective there was a question that in the calm and silent mind it's witnessing itself so why are you saying that there is a separate consciousness witnessing the mind why not the calm and silent mind now what the buddhist is doing is the highest function of the mind is buddhi function of the intellect so the flashes of buddhi flashes of awareness which are coming moment to moment so there are two things involved there according to vedanta one is consciousness one is the move the the movement of the mind and the think of different things and understand different things that's the buddhi flashing and consciousness we will say one constant consciousness is shining up of course is there all of that and all of that you don't have to go to vedanta sankhya is enough what the buddhist does is according to us is unable to separate consciousness from the flashes of so according to the buddhist each flash of buddhi is coming with its own power pack its own consciousness so it's a flash of of it's a thought and along with it there is awareness so it is self-luminous coming and disappearing this is one way of looking at it so this is my several schools so what i'm talking about is vignavada in tibet it's called the mind only school there are varieties of this also so i'm in my back of my mind is i i took courses with some brilliant professors at harvard on buddhism so they will meet i can see them objecting at everything that i say because they're always interested in the nuances little more division little more division but anyway basically this is our analysis uh sankian or advaithic analysis of what's happening with buddhism but you cannot distinguish between the buddhi and consciousness therefore you think that two are same and therefore you say there is no permanent consciousness each flash of buddhi is coming with its own awareness you are aware of it and all of that all that exists is a series of flashes of buddhi they call it shanika vignara momentary flash of consciousness stream stream of momentary flashes of consciousness and the buddhists say if you want to call this the self call it the self but there is no permanent self there is only series of flashes yesterday we were talking with professor arundham chakravarti in hawaii so he says that he was not talking about advaita but he was talking about kashmiri shaivism versus buddhism he says see you can attain freedom in these two ways one is it depends on where you draw the line you give the example of sri ramakrishna okay i'm putting it backwards let's start with he said think about sriram krishna simple explanation the two ways of escaping maya one is when you make yourself very small and you escape through the the net of maya between the measures of maya you can escape because you're too tiny to be caught by the net you can slip out easily or you make yourself very big then you're too big for the net of maya now he says so we say that girish gosh no uh in in sram krishna's disciples our um was very humble he made himself so small that maya could not catch him that i am nothing god is everything on the other hand it is vivekananda who said who's me you made himself so vast maya cannot catch him now you look at it philosophically in terms of this question what the buddhist does is the buddhist draws the line so finely at just this moment the only self that exists is at this moment this flash of consciousness tomorrow day after tomorrow separate self just as all of these hundred and thirty now 137 so all of these 137 people are separate cells we feel like that i also i mean what i exist tomorrow i will exist that will be a separate cell just like another person so i'm slicing it so thin i'm tiny here just one flash after this i am not existing how will i be caught in samsara you have you have drawn the line just instantaneously and from instant to instant you're separating the self from everything else the opposite is done by kashmir shaivism and also by extension of dwight abernath the line is drawn at infinity everything is included in the self all of this is i so where will maya draw selfishness because you and you and you everybody is i myself from infinite time to infinite time throughout infinite space everything is within me so you become so big maya cannot catch you and the buddhist slicing is so small why i cannot catch you of course there salam krishna meant it into some terms of bhakti and ghana here processor random chakravarti is comparing the buddhist slicing with the kashmiri shiva slicing rashmi shiva includes everything and buddhist excludes everything we are unfortunately in between that's why we are caught in samsara we slice it at the skin up to the skin i am outside the skin i am not from my big birth up to my death at the age of 80 or 90 i am before that i was not there after that i will not be there caught in samsara you will be pounded by maya if you draw your line like that now how does advaita counter it i just mentioned because i actually have to do it in one of the exercises in professor um garfield's class so jay garfield is one of the greatest present present-day philosophers of tibetan buddhism is very close to the dalai lama and everything so he one course he taught i took that course so at the end assignment for me was your hindu monk advaitan in the beginning of the course he told me swami keep your advice outside the door when you study this tibetan buddhism we are studying madhyamaka buddhism according to the galopa school the one which is the strongest most rational kind of dalai lama's own group so my assignment was exactly what you said defend your advaita against all the attacks which have learned in the past few months so i had to write a 25 page thesis on the attack by chandra kitty nagarjuna and chandra kitty on the idea of atma and how advaita idea of atma is not caught in the net of nagarjuna it is it escapes that it's not covered by all the refutations so it was not easy the professor returned the paper to me three times first time in return he said what do you think is this vedanta society talk this is harvard university philosophy department every line has to be justified by reason and line by line he cut it and very good i mean he he would read my paper in 24 hours and return it second time i submitted it again he returned it make these changes third time i submitted he approved he says this is a solid defense of advaitha against buddhism although he's fully committed to tibetan buddhism are you going to publish that in the academic edu i would love to read that i don't think it's not particularly great he said it is really i can discuss the details it will take quite a bit because you have to learn the actual attack the position of tibetan buddhists and then the actual attack by so how can you respond to it from the perspective of advaita vedanta and consider modern neuroscience philosophy and all and then sort of sum it if the flash is the consciousness of buddhism whose karma is being transferred from one to other in the next cycle it is the series so for buddhism it's a process quite a sophisticated theory actually you don't have to have a substance called atma or jimatma even sushma going from birth to birth as we hindus believe they say why not a cds a wave is being propagated in physics for example it does not mean the water in the wave is travelling from each through each wave from this side to that side at each place the water is coming up and going down when you shake a rope the wave is propagated through the rope it does not mean something is traveling from this side to that side and each place the way a rope comes up and goes down we have all done that as children similarly the the so-called self is actually a process there is no one thing which is being transmitted which is surviving from moment to moment at each moment there is an impulse from the past so each flash which is coming up has the impression imprint of the past flashes that's why the whole series called rajendra thinks of itself as one being called rajendra and because he is a hindu he has this mistaken notion of one atma persisting through time no no no rajendra is a series and if if you accept that and you call that series the atma buddhist has no problem but advaitan does not agree we don't agree that it's a flashing cities buddhists are flashing cities mind is a flashing series body is also continuously changing we agree totally there but all of it is a super imposition or an aware or an appearance in one unchanging reality called brahman that's what we are saying thank you okay probably our next question uh is my meera uh thank you so humira i would ask you to probably unmute yourself and actually because you will ask your question please uh sure um swamiji so my question is you know we assume that the changeless to be changing and that's one kind of error and so but then when i think about the snake and the rope like even though we assume the snake to be the rope it's not a fundamental error because the rope is kind of sort of something like the snake but you know what i mean so when you talk about changeless and what is changing are you talking about a fundamental error or is it maybe we have some idea or some clue and we're not talking about it how do i make sense of that i missed any question and you know these are questions which have been raised uh shankaracharya when he talks about adhasa superimposition um the body mind are superimposed on pure consciousness you take pure consciousness to be body mind and the world the question is that number of questions are asked one is asked is this this question snake and rope are similar you can mistake a rope for a snake but pure consciousness and material universe material body how can you mistake one for the other they are so dissimilar so that's just an example pure consciousness and i mean you can have mistakes of all sorts imagine like a dream in a dream there is only a mind but the entire universe appears in your dream people and places and good and bad everything is imagined in the dream and it appears like a movie like a like a world outside so the mind thoughts appear as people and rocks and sky and earth so that can happen projections can happen a movie when you watch on a screen right now you are watching you can see people and places and things what is there just glass and electrons floating around and some kind of imaging technology in your computer and there is actually no person or place of thing in that screen itself yet it appears now this is jada this is incentive matter it can produce such extraordinary effects imagine what consciousness can do all right okay so probably our next question is by chary uh cherry so can you go ahead and probably ask a question yes can you see me yeah and i'm swamiji i i i think the question is probably raised and answered also but i'll ask it anyway this is about the pure consciousness and the notion of rebirth and cycle of rebirth and you also refer to sushma sadira at this point so i'm wondering if we take this pure consciousness then then where is the karma associated with it no karma is associated with it from the perspective of pure consciousness remember advaita vedante is very actually in one sense very simple and very neat as far as pure consciousness when you say pure consciousness you mean chit which is brahman the ultimate reality from that perspective no world is there no body is there no subtle body is there no karma is there no birth is there what to speak every but but they all appear that is the whole teaching of brahma satyam jagat mithya so if you see a like a movie hall what is actually there the screen but what appears there whole world appears comedy tragedy actors actresses violence um funny things all are happening you say how are they happening if there's only screen no the reason is that the screen is the reality and all of the things which happen in the movie is a lower grade of reality we call it appearance movie fiction it's like saying um in a book harry potter book is it really if it is only paper and ink how come that boy is there and performing magic and going to a magic school in england no that is at a different level at the level of fiction harry potter is there and doing all those things but at the level of your vehicle reality it is a book paper inc with some words giving out some meaning similarly consciousness if it is the only reality at that level no karma no but no rebirth but at the level of the fiction of our our gross body sukshma shari the subtle body karma birth rebirth all those things are accepted so does yama uh uh answer this question to nachiketas in katowice yes is it referring to this lower um drama or is it referring to the higher brahman both both so naziketa's question starts with our experience all these questions will start at our level what we experience and then only we are showing the higher truth so his question was very simple people say that after that something is there some people say there's nothing after death what is the secret of this now notice his real question was about atman his real question was not even about birth and death already he has asked about the karma kanda yagyas which means which will take you to heaven after death so after death if you go to heaven that means after that something is there he was born up in the karmakanda environment of ritualistic vedic times so there was a common belief that the sukhma sharia remains after death jeevathma remains after that it goes to heaven comes back again reborn again those things nashikita himself says to his father also but beyond that is there an ultimate reality that's what he's actually asking and yama reveals that to him but yamaha says that you will you'll be born based on your knowledge and your karma again yes that is at the level of reality and then he reveals brahman to him and shows him that you are drama that brahman if you realize yourself as that you are never born again in fact advaita vedanta shankara will say inappropriate actually when you realize that you are brahman you realize that not only you will not be born again you never wear god as brahman you were never born no many how many no matter how many births and deaths appear on you think of it as a movie cinema hall and the cinema so tragedy and comedy in one sense yes tragedy and committee are there but in another sense nothing is there only the screen is there when you realize yourself as the screen the tragedy and committee can go on but you know it is it is nothing to you every the same tragedy will be referred to a terrible tragedy you know you can see the movie again afternoon show will be there again evening show will be there you will know nothing has happened yeah thank you thank you okay so uh oh swamiji i guess we have three more questions and i think i think the questions i think yeah uh there is uh there's one by pk colin gorde so so i would uh what he will ask him to unmute and please ask a question yes hello swami i am paraneshwar um so you have answered my question itself by answering other questions but i still want to bring it up seems like a really basic question that i just want to hear you answer directly so once um you know uh someone attains realization once the realization is attained then is it not possible to fall back into samsara yeah the answer is no once the screen realizes itself as the screen is it possible to fall back into the movie no because once you realize that the screen realizes itself as the screen it also realizes that i was always the screen i never had fallen into the movie you're asking no at least the ignorance was there about the movie and that about my nature so can the ignorance not come again no from the perspective of it's like when you realize yourself as the sun is there possibility of darkness coming again darkness never came in the sun there can be no darkness somehow the illusion was i am not the sun and i'm trying to see the sun and there's a cloud between me and the sun all that is possible if i am not the sun itself but when i realize i'm the sun and i always was then that whole thing disappears it may sound paradoxical why not if it has come advaita vedanta perspective says that not only your brahman this ignorance and samsara which we are suffering from that itself also has not happened yeah it is not that there are two realities one is brahman and another one is ignorance and samsara no from the perspective of brahman there is only brahman it may seem strange because right now our suffering and our samsara seems to be the only real thing but when we realize that we are drama we'll see we always wear and what we thought was samsara what we thought was body mind and my samsaric life was nothing other than drama it was perfectly all right even at that time and that also see this time we are speaking about it we go deeper even this time also is a part of this game when you realize brahman is no longer future time past time present time this is still past part of the game day will the future time come when i again may fall into samsara there's no future time at all what future time will come will be eternally free even when you say eternally notice we are already accepting time we say brahman is eternal it we talked about just a little while ago with rajendrashi eternal self versus non-eternal self advaita vedanta says it's the same thing what do you mean instantaneous of the buddhist and the eternal of advaita is the same because eternal of advice and instantaneous of the buddhist all depends on time time itself is a dream to it's it's it has no substantial reality but we cannot think without time that's why we are either thinking about nithya or anything to convince us that there is an eternal reality beyond our temporal reality we are told nitya brahma eternal brahman god is eternal brahman but that is also within time we say brahman is everything we have i said it myself also not true why because we are accepting everything then we say brahman is everything there is no thing at all to be accepted except brahman itself brahman is all pervading we are accepting space then only we are saying brahman is all cultivating brahman is eternal we are accepting time then only we are saying brahman is eternal but the truth will be something even more subtle neither space or time are also real they're all part of maya so if you say no no brahman is eternal is not the truth we we tend to fall into the error of thinking oh so brahman is non-eternal i am born and i die brahman also will be born and died no not in that sense yeah thank you thank you okay so we have last what you call the second last question by abhijit sum and a widget you can go and what you call ask yourself and i will lower the hand can you hear me marge today my memory takes back takes me back to delgar my old days oh you were in in dalgar my i used to go every summer my grandfather house in bompasstown oh bumperstown i see very good to meet somebody from there yeah last time we are in india we visited a mission yeah my wife's father studied there too oh i was there from 1994 up to 1999 and again for one more year in 2001 i have a in order to be grounded to this central idea of this deep and profound teaching that you have today in a more tangible way i was thinking would that be correct to think along this line for example uh is this the the reality of can be thought of like reality of existence which says the fundamental premise however without applying the objective association that is like you grounded reality without applying the rules objectively correct beautifully put existence itself without associating with objects consciousness itself without associating with mind bliss itself without associating with particular instances of pleasure right that is brahman and that's always there that's a beautiful way of putting it but it's very difficult to hold on to that we keep objects no the idea was to say because i want to be serious about it so set a process with mind as a tool so i will say one thing for everybody what i found in my life practically if you're seriously interested in god realization sometimes people are fascinated by advaita and i'm teaching talking about advaita so i should not speak against it but people see the whole idea is to become enlightened the whole idea is to get god realization and somebody asked swami turiyananda what was the philosophy of srila krishna was it advaita was it was it a lot of debates are there about this because sriram krishna seems to say everything this answer was very interesting and it's something we should all follow he said if you press me tell me one thing what is the sriram krsna's philosophy advaita vishishta gan or bhakti or dhyana what is it he said i'll tell you in bengali and then translate ramakrishna's philosophy was like meditation service go by that so that was the philosophy and that that should be our philosophy we should not say that this is the most sophisticated philosophy so i will hold on to this only no whatever helps me i will take it i have to find god i have to become enlightened in this life itself i must most wholesome ways suggested by swami vivekananda do all four hold on to vedanta keep studying it trying to think about it like abhijit just said meditate regularly find deep peace and meditation morning and evening forget the world forget the troubles forget everything even your own body sit in quietness in the radiance of god be totally devoted to god krishna's formula not me thou my lord thou my lord be totally devoted to god and last continuously keep on doing good to others don't look back so when vikander said never look behind to see what it means is whoever looks back i have done so many good things his ocean dwindles into a drop never look back continuously keep on giving be absolutely free never look back to see what i have caught you will be free you will become infinite radio most powerful combination and most safe wholesome beautiful combination thank you for the question probably ronnie go ahead and ask one question and i think uh there is one small request that has come for one additional question and i was i was kind of hesitant but at the same time uh you know people don't get this opportunity to talk to you as well right and to hear from you so i i said okay after vani there will be the last question and we will probably let and then close the thing so is that okay with you all right yes yes hariyum swamiji thanks for the opportunity and it was a wonderful talk i wanted to ask is there a relationship between consciousness and the five elements that support life which is sun space earth air and water because they support every life and there has to be a relationship i feel yes two points i'll make one is the swami who was here before me swami tathagata in new york so he was a very forceful man and i remember one thing he would always say i bet him a few times only many other devotees are here who have seen him many more times could be he would always say that forget atman brahman consciousness and all those things appreciate life he would slam the table and say life is god appreciate the play of life everywhere i was reading in uh woodrocks um you know the word has power on on tantra he's saying that above material nature the glory of material nature also this universe but higher than that you can appreciate god in the play of life in the vastness the frequentity of life around you from everything from kobe virus up to blue whale everywhere this glory of expression that you find in life and our own lives so that is one thing the importance of finding god in life itself does not talk about it why because advaita makes a huge jump all of material nature is lumped together as drishya purinami and jada including like jada because prana is also an object if you're aware of it then it's a journal thing are you aware of light then otherwise it dismisses and goes ahead to the ultimate reality but you are missing several steps so life itself should be appreciated as an expression of divinity very powerful expression second is upon issues your question about the five elements i will refer you just to tighter your opponents and talks about brahman the ultimate reality is infinite existence consciousness which is what we talked about today but then if you ask this infinite existence consciousness well it's too abstract what is infinite existence consciousness then upanishad explains so it says from that ultimate reality absolute brahman space emerges fire emerald wind emerges fire emerges water emerges earth emerges and the five elements then it goes on see how it brings it back to life and from all of that the herbs and plants which are food for us they emerge and from that comes this body the physical body of the human being so i am purusa nara upanishad says i'm not talking about consciousness you're talking about the body made of the essence of food so it brings down to the level of life this life is rooted in brahman it's rooted in the five elements the five elements are rooted in brahman you can trace god back through this life itself i just leave it you look up brahmana shankaracharya's commentary is there on these lines very beautiful thank you thank you um there's only one more question by padma minit what do you call tamirisa so can you go ahead and ask your question namaste swamiji uh my question is about real life i mean we we are dealing with a lot of things in real life here right and you did tell us that okay uh think of this as everything is brahman you're a witness you're watching all of this thing but what i'd like to understand is to deal with the mental language that people have because real life is again from buddhism if you go back to buddhism how do you deal with that suffering the only way i can think of is i i would look at these people and say that everything is brahmana anyway and therefore the jealousy the anger whatever else you feel is just temporary and i'm trying to deal with the mental anguish that way but is that you were looking at it as don't worry about the mental language leave it behind look at it as a witness and let it be is what i thought i heard you say my thoughts are why wouldn't you deal with it the way that you know think of it as brahman everybody is brahman and therefore if there is a mental language somewhere because of somebody the way you deal with it is you know um brahman anyway takes different forms and that's a different form all right can you can you hear me yes now i can hear yes yes because my internet is giving a little bit of problem so you might might freeze at one time all right i'll stop you at the very first thing you said i'll talk about real life no what i talked about advaita vedanta says what we talked about today that is reality what we normally call real life is a dream when the buddha was asked what are you after enlightenment when he was coming towards both from both the guy who was going to sarnath somebody asked him what are you are you a god he said no um are you an i'm like david or something and no are you a human being he says no then what are you i am the awakened the buddha which means he is claiming that he has awakened into reality and the rest of us are sleepwalking what we say our real life is not our real life what is so real about this life all the great problems which you faced as a child you know my exam is there i have to pass the exam we look back upon it you will see it has gone faded into the past and anyway those problems were children's problems said nothing to me now every problem in youth in middle age later on in old age which we will face all of them come and go there's no doubt about it even when they are there when they seem to be real imagine if a person falls asleep disappears problem disappears that means all our so-called real life problems and anguish depends upon one thing your attention your your awareness if you are not aware of it it's not a problem to you now advaita vedanta says one crucial thing it says is this for this you don't need advice it's actually from patanjali yoga we make a very big mistake we think that the world is disturbing us that's why my mind is so disturbed the big mistake is this is not true it is because my mind is disturbed that i see the world as a problem the in a peaceful mind who has seen a samsara we think samsara is there therefore my mind is ashanta no vedanta vedanta of course uh patanjali yoga tells us because your mind is ashanta that's why you're seeing samsara isn't isn't it possible what you call real life problems is haven't you seen people in the same problem which i am facing that person is so calm that person is so patient how is it possible if the problem is so terrible same problem in two cases one person breaks down other person bears for bears and manages to come out resilient psychologists don't talk about resilience so a great part of the problem is not in the world so-called real world outside it is in our minds and so vedanta buddhism they all help us to deal with this problem any problem in the real world is it better to deal with it with a restless disturbed mind or with a calm and peaceful mind problem is the same problem it may be illness it may be disturbing person if you are calm and peaceful deep isn't it much more easy to deal with it much more easy thank you thank you very much for the practical question yes thank you so much let me do a chance yeah uh so so anand uncle is going to save few things after the talk is so after the session is over so so it's up to you yes thank you so much you are like tremendously beyond time unfortunately it is so ananda i will quickly uh unmute you and uh please say the note of thanks very good thanks on this and we can close this very quick uh is everybody here to hear me yes yes yes um i think uh on behalf of vcga that is without the center of greater austin we wholeheartedly thank all those who are registered for this event and attended the event enthusiastically asked questions got enthusiastic answer from maharaj thank you so much and maharaj i don't know how to express through worlds and the kovite 19 has placed two great demands number one it placed a great demand on vaccine everybody knows number two it placed the availability of time for maharaj to speak to many people during this time through zoom youtube so with that shortage of his availability of time mara still accepted our invitation and it was very graceful very fortunate that we are able to listen to you today and very useful from the point of view of how to make our mind peaceful make take things easy and maharaj my only request we are small center maraj please keep us in your consideration thank you so much thank you for having me i was just looking at all the faces i recognize people from india who are here and people from other parts of the world also i think i know somebody who is in vietnam now so there are people from all across the world who have gathered that's one advantage of the kobe situation that we can gather like this virtually from all over the world i enjoyed it very much uh this session uh very sincere seekers and very deep questions and one sign was that almost everybody has stayed till the end although we are about 45 minutes over time so everybody interested in the discussions going on i pray to you i pray to the holy mother to bless all of us especially the organizers the volunteers at the vedanta society of austin and all the devotees gathered in virtually here from across the world may the lord bless all of us may the lord protect all of us thank you very much steven david ramakrishnan

Channel: Advaita Vedanta: Non-contact Yoga

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Length: 128min 27sec (7707 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 05 2020