The Field & Its Knower · Swami Sarvapriyananda

the hymn of samadhi by swami vivekananda the sun is not nor the beautiful moon all light extinct in the great void of space floats shadow like the image universe in the void of mind involute their floats the fleeting universe rises and floats sinks again ceaseless in the current eye slowly slowly the shadow multitude entered the primal womb and flowed ceaseless the only current the i am i am tis stopped even that current flows no more void merged into void beyond speech and mind whose heart understands that one verily does [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] the [Music] [Music] a [Music] oh [Music] [Music] no [Music] [Music] i [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] see [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] he oh lord lead us from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness to light and illumination lead us from death to immortality and even more shine in our hearts with your resplendent face on peace peace peace be unto us all welcome to you all we have a great privilege of having swami sarvopriyan with us today uh we he does not need any introduction you know much more than i know he's so dear to us we are very happy that he is with us wherever he is he gives the boosting to our inner spiritual reality reminds us always who we are who we are swami vivekananda on this to say day and night say i am that i am that i am that no so who will remind us the scriptures remind us and the spiritual people who live that life get inspired by that they want us to live in that consciousness not to think of this limited body and mind and our little failure fails and failures and success and our sufferings and pains together go above that that's the clarion message of the vedanta is the saving rescue for all of us so we are very happy to have swami sharma priyan and i don't want to speak much but want to hear from him so it's it's a his vacation but we don't allow him to take vacation make him much work so we yesterday he was there with us in swamiji house passed it in a house for the what you call the opening open house of the swami vivekananda stay at that place and swami spoke there and was present there and he's here today but he has here for vacation only two three days then he goes to san francisco again to maybe different areas so we will get this chance today and also we'll have another evening chance on the 19th tuesday at 7 30 that will be he will be speaking here again so i welcome some please come oh [Applause] lead us from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness unto light lead us from death to immortality om peace peace peace good morning everybody good morning it's wonderful wonderful to be back here and see so many familiar faces or half faces sort of my pronouns to revere swami sarvadevananda ji maharaj other reviewed monks and nuns here and namaskars to all of you when swami vivekananda was here he met robert ingersoll who was very famous at that time not not such a well-known name these days but he was famous as the great agnostic in fact even now if you google the great agnostic you will get robert ingersoll and i didn't know while researching for this talk i found out that yale university press has just just means about eight or nine years ago published a biography of robert ingersoll titled the great agnostic he was one of the most famous orators at that time at that time in the late 19th century um public speaking oratory was the great entertainment so people would flock to it people are not so much patient these days i mean you have ted talks but instead of 20 minutes imagine a two-hour ted talk so people are not all that patient these days i remember a few weeks back i was walking in central park in manhattan and a gentleman came up to me stepped up to me and said hey aren't you that guy on youtube with the really long talks so i had to sheepishly say yes i was the culprit [Music] and robert ingersoll was actually one of the most well-known orators at that time and swami vivekananda met him once at least once that we know off and ingersoll gave his usual you know what they said spiel they say there's something called an elevator spiel that means whatever your movie project is in hollywood or your phd project as at harvard you should be able to you know tell that in the one minute it takes to go on an elevator right so show that you're clear about it so he gave his agnostic spiel to swami vivekananda he says i don't believe in all of this you know spirituality religion this word is the only thing that we are sure of and i believe in squeezing the orange of this world dry swami vivekananda's answer is something to be noted he said i believe in that too but i know a better way of squeezing the orange i know that i cannot die and therefore i am not in a hurry i know there is no fear therefore i can enjoy the squeezing i love every man and woman i see god in everybody imagine the joy delight of seeing god in all beings squeeze the orange of the world in this way and get ten thousand fold from it get every last drop so these are swaying vivekander's words i want to talk today about that knowledge which by which knowledge swami vivekananda knows that there is no death and therefore he's not afraid he's not in a hurry that there is no fear you can enjoy life and lives in plurality and how to see god in all beings and be filled with the joy of loving all beings by seeing god in them what is that knowledge that's our subject that's the subject of vedanta actually and the way swami vivekananda taught vedanta you know if you ask vivekananda how would you summarize vedanta he said that two aspects one is the divinity within all of us so to see god in all beings that means there is god within us in our reality so the inner divinity that's one pillar of vedanta and the other one is the oneness of all existence you are divine you are one with god and the entire universe is one with you so this this divine oneness let us say this is a good way of of encapsulating vedanta but it sounds cool to say that but how do you understand it and more importantly how do we realize it and make it a living reality in our lives that is the subject matter of vedanta and the the particular teaching that i have chosen the field and its knower that's the subject today that's taken from the 13th chapter of the bhagavad-gita and specularly it confirms to this paradigm the divinity within us and the oneness of all existence that's what the teaching is so i want to go into that this morning we are talking about ultimate things we are talking about the final teaching the highest teaching the deepest teaching so you have to be ready for a heavy dose of metaphysics and logic but it's fun i mean i enjoy it i don't know about you and i've got a captive audience willing victims so i'm going to enjoy myself the 13th chapter is a bit of an oddity 13th chapter of the bhagavad-gita it's a bit of an oddity because depending upon which version of the bhagavad-gita you start with there it either starts with a question by arjuna the verse the first verse is a question by arjuna and then krishna starts teaching or it starts directly with the teachings of krishna so in some books there is an extra verse in some versions of the bhagavad-gita and that one extra verse is the first verse of the 13th chapter or not sometimes it's not there if it is there then you have 701 verses in the whole bhagavad-gita if the question is not there then you have 700 verses why would that be a controversy because in the ancient commentaries including shankaracharya's commentary which i'll rely upon heavily this morning in ancient commentaries they take no note of that first verse of the question and the question is very simply just the topics covered in the 13th chapter so some people think that that verse might have been put together you know just as a segue into the chapter arjuna asks prakriti purushan jai by the way i'll use a lot of sanskrit but i'll translate every word you can we used to have these classes here in the library and there was a gentleman always at the back who objected to too much use of sanskrit so we had an understanding he would wave his hands widely if there was too much sanskriti and then i would be careful to translate every word but arjun asks what does that mean i want to know these things what is prakriti nature what is purusha the ultimate reality or our inner being then what is the field and what is the knower of the field what is knowledge and what is to be realized these are the things i want to know but here we focus on the field and the field ignore these two terms shatra in sanskrit means field and shaitra the knower of the field because that's the name of the chapter the chapter takes its name from these two terms the actual teaching starts with krishna so depending upon your version of the gita it's either the first verse or the second verse and these are some of the most important verses in the bhagavad gita in some by some accounts the the most important the first and the second verses [Music] shankaracharya you know many ancient philosophers have written commentaries on the bhagavad gita miss ancient and medieval and the oldest commentary one of the most profound commentaries we have and the oldest one which we have they're very earlier commentaries but they are lost now the oldest one which we have is shankaracharya's commentary dating back some 1400 years um he writes the most massive the most extensive commentary on this verse the the second verse of the 13th chapter which we will come to no other verse comes even close the commentaries on those words other verses of the entire bhagavad-gita those verses even the longest commentaries on some of these verses do not come close to the densely written philosophical sanskrit page after page i i was counting just day for yesterday it's 16 pages with english translation and without the english translation it would be about six pages of five to six pages of densely written sanskrit so that it's that important not only shankaracharya it has been a bone of contention of debate through the ages even as recently as i think about 30 or 40 years ago there was a great debate in india between the non-dualists and the dualists the non-dualists saying that krishna is teaching you are one with god you and god you are the ultimate reality and the dualists claiming that no no krishna is teaching you have to know yourself and you have to know god the exact phrase used by krishna is kritragyam imam know me as the knower of the field in all fields now that can be interpreted in two ways we'll come to all that but just to tell you about the debate one way is that um i god and the knower of the field in all fields that's one interpretation or sanskrit you can you know arrange the words in such a way it means know the knower of the field that's know yourself and know god that also is an acceptable interpretation but one leads to non-duality and the other one leads to duality non-duality means you and god are one reality duality means you and god are separate realities there's a huge debate by a great uh advaita master of the 20th century um kashi khan who has passed recently i read his book that's where how i found out about the debate so he took the non-dualist position and there was a great scholar who took the dualistic position and they had a fierce debate which interpretation is right which ended with the audience which was neatly divided into like two ales you know dualist and non-dualist ended up with throwing chairs at each other so the debate dissolved into chaos luckily you have pews here you can't throw them at each other and this non-dualistic swami he wrote a book later where i heard all about this i read all about it he says that i wrote to the organizers of the debate asking who won and they didn't reply and so i take it that i have one and the name of the book is uh my victorious debate with the dualists that's the name of the or the victorious parade of non-duality that's the name of the book so we are going to look take the non-dualist position here and investigate the teachings of sri krishna the first verse goes like this sri krishna starts the teaching to arjuna saying this [Music] he says oh arjuna know this body to be the field this body here your body know this to be the field and in this body you the one who experiences this body the one in this body who experiences this body know that one to be the knower of the field pretty simple notice is just what the teaching is confirming to our coteadian experience our day-to-day experience what is that experience here i have a body here's a body you're calling it the field good i can call it the field and i experience my own body i know the body here i feel it i can see it i can touch it so i know this body so you're calling me the knower of the field fair enough so we have the field and the knower of the field so what here krishna gives us a key sort of master key to unlock this mystery now talking about the key i was reminded of some beautiful lines by elliot t.s eliot actually was deeply inspired by the open issues and the gator in some of the original manuscripts you find penciled notes in the wasteland for example quotations from from upanishads and he was inspired by vedanta but one of the lines which i read recently was so profound from an advaithic perspective eliot says each one of us looking for the key to the prison first line each one of us looking for the key each looking for the key to the prison second line each looking for the key that's confirming the prison and i think we'll find the mystery sort of we understand it better at the end of this talk how we dissolve we don't open the prison we dissolve the prison altogether we'll see here he gives us the key the knower of the field now the field actually is the entire universe whatever is knowable whatever we experience is the field but specifically it starts with the body why the reason is here's an investigation into our own nature who am i or what am i and we never have any problem about you know sitting on the chair i don't think i'm the chair i'm talking here on the with the podium i don't think i'm the podium i don't think i'm even the shirt which i'm wearing but moment i come to the skin aha i see i know the podium and i'm not the podium very clear it would be awful if i know the podium and i became the podium i am i know the podium and therefore i am not the podium i know the shirt i know means i can see the shirt therefore i am not the shirt i know the body and therefore i ah there i hesitate can i say i am not the body i know the body so i can i say i'm not the body there we hesitate that's why krishna starts with the body he says look at the body this is the field and you are the knower of the field knower of the field and the field are distinct whatever you know that must be distinct from you this is one of the first deep insight profound insight of vedanta straight away the meaning of the words field and knower of the field is just as we experience it here's the body this is a field and i hear i am somewhere i am the knower of the field go a little deeper notice one thing the knower and the known must be different whatever you see is an object you are the seer the seer and the scene must be different the knower and the known see knowledge operates and therefore the subject and object must be different just as a knife cannot cut itself similarly the knowing subject cannot make itself an object it's a very philosophical way of saying that whatever you experience whatever you know must be in some sense distinct from you otherwise it couldn't be an object of our knowledge so drink grisha viveka this is one technique favorite of mine which takes us which tries to answer the question using this principle that whatever you know must be distinct from you so it starts off very simply it says that whatever you see is different from the seer yes if you look at this very clearly we see that this is distinct from the eyes the eyes are the seer and this is the seam and the two are different in fact not only this whatever the eyes see they are all different from the eyes in fact the only thing that the eyes cannot see are the eyes themselves whatever is not distinct from the eyes that the eyes cannot see the eyes are not distinct from the eyes therefore the eyes do not see themselves swami haven't you seen reflections have you seen yourself in a mirror yes but in a mirror you see an um we see a reflection of ourselves we don't see the the eyes see and reflection the eyes don't see themselves the way they are they're seeing other things if you take a selfie you'll see a picture of your eyes but you won't the eyes won't see themselves the way they are seeing other things right now so the eyes are distinct from the forms which are seen forms are many the eyes are the same forms are changing the eyes are relatively unchanging go a little deeper the eyes themselves they become an object to the mind how my eyes are open i can barely keep my eyes open which is a problem in vedanta talks you know inevitably i know who knows this you know this about the eyes we know this about the eyes with the mind so the mind is the knower the eyes are the known but if you apply that same principle the mind and the eyes are different they have to be otherwise the mind wouldn't be able to know the eyes and not only that the mind knows not only the eyes but all the other sense organs and all that the mind knows is continuously changing but the mind remaining the mind can know all these changes go deeper the mind itself is known after all when you are happy you know you are happy when you are miserable we know that we are miserable when there is pain i know that i am in pain when i'm feeling great i know that i'm feeling great when i understand something i know that i understand something so knowledge ignorance pleasure pain memory loss of memory all of these are known these are all events in the mind but they are all known known in the sense we are aware of them therefore that which is aware of the contents of the mind must be by that principle no one unknown are different seer and seen are different therefore that which knows the contents of the mind must be different from the mind so this awareness why am i calling it awareness because it is aware it's giving us experience so this awareness which is knowing the contents of my mind i the awareness i'm aware of the contents of my mind therefore i must be distinct from the mind the contents of the mind are many thoughts emotions ideas memories even the sense of ego i that's also part of the mind and the contents of the mind are many but this awareness is one this consciousness is one the mind keeps changing consciousness is one does not change so this consciousness distinct from the mind one and unchanging this consciousness it is termed sakshi or witness consciousness this is what vedanta points to as a first step as you this is what krishna is pointing towards by saying um knower of the field so one term shaitra no word of the field the other term sakshi witness consciousness when we investigate the knower of the field right away instinctively i feel okay i am here nor of the of this body but what exactly am i when we investigate using the clue given by krishna what is the clue given by krishna here in this field is the one who knows that field implying thereby the no word must be distinct from the field how is the knower distinct from the field you apply this kind of a technique viveka seer and seen the distinction of the seer and the scene and we come to the conclusion i the knower of the field i'm there i'm surely i exist but what's my nature my nature is the witness consciousness is consciousness is awareness i the unchanging awareness i am aware through the changing mind and the the active and changing sense organ sensory system i'm aware of this body and external world this is the knower of the field and this body and external world especially the body is the field and also the world so i am awareness i am consciousness i'm using them um you know without any particular distinction awareness consciousness witness consciousness knower of the field atman self self with a capitalist what would be self with a s it's just without before we discern anything before we philosophize before we inquire just me plain old me i am the self what exactly are you if i think about it if i dive deep into it then i have to say whatever i am i must be aware i exist and i'm aware that seems to constitute my essential nature if there is an essential nature it must be that i exist and i'm aware what am i aware of first of all i'm aware of the mind by mind i mean thoughts memories ideas emotions and through that i'm aware of the senses and the inputs of the senses and through that i'm aware of the body and the external world activities it's dynamics things are changing this witness consciousness is the knower of the field now notice this witness consciousness this awareness it's the same when you see many many things whether you are hearing so many sounds and music and talk and noise and indeed silence you are aware noise speech arose and faded away that awareness which was aware of the speech is aware of the fading away of the speech and of silence so noise sights taste smell touch all the inputs of the senses and they are all different from each other they all keep changing but what's constant and what illumines all of them like the one light which illumines the entire room similarly there's this light of awareness this consciousness that constitutes our basic nature what we are it's there right now it's what we are right now not only all these uh um you know perceptions but also internally in our own minds various kinds of thoughts come emotions come memories come they're all they come and go they're all lit up by that same consciousness thoughts feelings memories they change emotions change happy sad they change but that consciousness is constant it lights up all our internal the technical word is a perception not only that the same consciousness continues through waking dreaming and deep sleep we are awake now hopefully and soon um tonight you'll fall asleep and we'll dream you'll wake up again the exam the experiences are tremendously different the moment you fall asleep the entire external world disappears even our own body disappears is sleeping on the bed but we are not aware of it and we have an entire dream world coming up but but the point here is the same awareness continues same consciousness continues in dream and everything shuts down in deep sleep and vedanta claims it's the same consciousness which reveals the utter absence which is basically deep sleep the blankness even the blankness of mind no thought no object no thoughts no external world nobody nothing nothing is presented to you the subject but you remain as awareness according to vedanta so same awareness continues in waking dreaming deep sleep it continues unbroken through time you see it was the same awareness which is there right now you're listening to this talk it is the same awareness when the body was the body of a baby in your mother's arms and as a kid playing and as a young person in school job and marriage and families and kids growing up older same awareness everything has changed the body has changed so much the mind has changed so much think of the body of the baby think of the mind of the you can't even think about it the mind of the baby is so alien to you now and yet the awareness was the same think about it the awareness was the same constant the same awareness watch the ever-changing world the ever-changing body and the ever-changing mind the same awareness through time through space i was in a couple of days ago i was in manhattan walking down there in the central park here i'm across a continent it's not a country it's a continent it takes six hours to fly across when i was in india i choosing india was big this is much much bigger same awareness which saw new york and central park the same awareness which is seeing hollywood now awareness the same place has changed dramatically time changes space changes awareness constant this one awareness this one witness consciousness this is what krishna means when he says in every body there is the knower the consciousness the awareness which is called shaitra you know of the field or you can call it the witness consciousness suction call it the atman the self for those who have studied vedanta in a classical way what is being the entire of the entirety of what i did can be put in a half a phrase it's called an analysis of the term you it is called the difference between what laksa what chayata means the primary meaning lakshyata means implied meaning the primary meaning of the word knower of the field is you the implied meaning of the word knower of the field is pure consciousness is the witness consciousness okay this is great this is amazing so i am pure consciousness i am not the body the body can come and go the mind keeps changing ups and downs if its mind is happy great if the mind is unhappy not so great but i am free of it because i am the witness of all of that i am not affected by the ups and downs of the world of the body of the might which is great but is this is this the teaching about the field and the knower of the field shankaracharya in his commentary says is this enough to know that secret of the field and the knower of the field he says no no the real teaching is coming next you see two things have been left unsaid here when we think like this we have two questions or we should have two questions what are the two questions one question is this sounds great but um one thing i'm not very sure about here are clearly so many bodies so many fields as krishna would call them so if there is a knower of the field in this body i am the knower of the field in this body there's so many bodies here billions more outside and the non-human creatures also so in each body is there a separate nor of the field how many of us are there billions and billions or one when you know vedanta that's why you said one i can't keep this audience in suspense yeah all without the veterans here so they all know all the answers so is it how many of us are there it's a great philosophical question the great system of philosophy the great systems of yoga philosophy of nyaya philosophy of veishea philosophy philosophy all of them are unanimous in saying we are many we are not one it's advaita vedanta which says we are one and krishna is going to say that so he's going to answer this question how many of us are there how many knowers of the field how many consciousnesses i'm just reminded of one heisenberg who apparently said consciousness is that singular for which there is no plural but anyway how we'll see how that's one question the second question is uh what about god isn't this supposed to be a religious kind of place you haven't talked you've talked about existence and feels and knowers or fields and consciousness and stuff like that what about god you haven't even gotten to god yet so the question about what about god where is god is god on the side of the field then god will become an object or is god on the other side nor of the field then god will become me i am god that's all both seem crazy is god a thing or is god these are the only two options being offered by krishna there are only two things no one unknown subject and object field and field nor both of these questions question about how many how many of us are there how many consciousnesses how many knowers and what about god i remember when i was a newly minted monk about 18 years ago in bellurmat in our main monastery i was asked to give a talk one of my first talks as a new after getting the vows of monasticism so i gave a talk afterwards the usual kind of talk i give like this then afterwards an elderly gentleman came up to me gave some well-meaning feedback he said swami your talk was good it's nice but you add a little rama little krishna they'll be fine you know your talks are good but you add a little god to it you know we we need god can't do without god um there was a gentleman who used to visit here quite regularly peter kowalski i think uh so he gave an interview i saw him on on the net an interview he was asked to talk about what is vedanta he said how do i put it to you well let's put it this way think of buddhism but with god that's vedanta so what about god where is god in all of this the second verse krishna comes to the second verse and this is a stunning verse the verse goes like this [Music] arjuna i know me alone to be the knower of the field in all these fields this knowledge of the field and the knower of the field is knowledge according to my humble opinion this is the thing to be known in life so here is the direct answer in half a verse know me god says god says to man krishna says to arjuna know me to be the knower of the field in all fields what a stunning statement here god is declaring his identity with with the human with this sentient being direct answers what were the two questions how many are there one krishna says one and we'll see how what is what he means by that and what is that one that one is god that one consciousness in all beings is god what does that mean all right first of all so all right krishna says it's one consciousness but you notice how we have suddenly moved from reasoning and experience into scriptural authority somebody said swami till now you are arguing very nicely look at yourself as the object and you are the experiencing subject and the subject and object must be different it sounds pretty convincing it's pretty nice and right now you have jumped into to establish oneness you have jumped into authority krishna says i am the one consciousness in all beings good we are all reverential krishna says that but can you convince us logically how do you think that there is one consciousness in all beings what advaita does and this is the debate between non-duality advaita and say the sankhya philosophy for example the sankey philosophy insists there are what is called bahu purushavada many consciousnesses what would be their argument how can you say there is one consciousness and advaita answers you know counter question why would you say there are many consciousnesses what do you mean well look at it this way why would you say there are many bodies and it's obvious look there are so many bodies you count take a census you have millions and billions of bodies so bodies are many there's no doubt about it minds why would you say are there many minds or one mind many many minds take a survey ask a question you'll find so many answers which means minds are different so many minds minds are different bodies are different but apart from body and mind why would you say consciousness is different and the sunken says no no no you're mixing up things it'll lead to so many problems like um the death of one person would be the death of everybody that will be terrible but then that's so easily answered death is of the body not of consciousness if one body dies doesn't mean all the other bodies have to die death is in the body well they'll um um you know what about if one person falls asleep everybody would fall asleep if it's one consciousness which would be terrible in a vedanta because somebody is sleeping all the time you'll get one or two people sleeping all the time so if one person falls asleep everybody would fall asleep that would be terrible but then what falls asleep what wakes what is waking what is dreaming and what is sleeping it's the mind not consciousness remember we did that the same consciousness which experiences the waking and the waking world and the dreamer and the dreaming dream world and the deep sleep experience all of that is the same unchanging consciousness consciousness is not waking dreaming or deep in or in deep sleep it is mind so this is where we differ from the present day sort of muddled understanding of consciousness a very clear differentiation between mind and consciousness then the sankhya comes back and says see all of these arguments with the sunken presence you get the drift you can easily make a distinction between body and mind and answer all these questions for example well um you know if it was one consciousness it would be so nice if my guru is enlightened i would become enlightened you know and then i wouldn't have to try all this but it doesn't work so it clearly it's not one consciousness again nondualist says my dear sankhya you're making you're mixing up mind and consciousness where is ignorance where is knowledge it's in the mind knowledge is a function of the mind so the mind has ignorance and knowledge comes in the mind and removes that ignorance but consciousness is the one the same consciousness isn't it isn't it our experience i who was ignorant now i'm the one who knows so if i the awareness experience the ignorance in the mind and the same awareness experiencing the lack of ignorance the removal of ignorance the arising of knowledge in the mind therefore knowledge and ignorance come and go to me the same consciousness if you look at it that way it seems pretty easy so one consciousness the sanction arguments in favor of multiple consciousnesses do not stand one consciousness in all bodies and minds and vedanta says it is that one consciousness in association with one body and mind is a sentient being a jiva uri the same consciousness in association with all bodies and minds in association with the entire universe is god but the consciousness in consciousness in itself is the same apart from bodies and minds apart from the cosmos apart from the microcosm and the macrocosm the consciousness itself is the same therefore you and god are the same reality in a sense you can say aham brahmasmi the teacher can teach you that that thou art that thou art so it sounds blasphemous you know that don't look at on who's the lucky one all of us are the lucky one all of us are the lucky one that thou art and in fact that's what we sing every day every day when we have the hymn sung to sri ramakrishna here the light of lights shining in within me in my heart what is the light of light that light which illuminates the mind and the body it's the knower of the field whom are you singing to to god that means that light of lights and you are the same light of lights but then the question might arise what about this entire world yes notice how we moved from i thought i am this body mind we have stepped back from the body mind i am one consciousness that was the first step knower of the field body mind is filled body is filled mind is also field i am the knower of the body mind i am the knower of the field good step one step two there's only one node of the field in millions and billions of fields in millions and billions of bodies and mines there's only one number of the field one consciousness that was step two but that still is not non-duality after all non-duality means not to but there is still duality here one consciousness and everything else what do you mean by everything else millions and billions of mines and millions and billions of living bodies and billions and billions of non-living entities in the world from quarks to quasars from viruses to whales so so many things are there in the world they're all the field and you have the one consciousness the knower of the field still duality all of that is hidden in this short cryptic statement krishna says this knowledge of field and knower of the field is knowledge according to me what he means there is the commentators say this is the same meaning as that this is the identity of god and man of the divine and the human this statement of identity you are that reality that's called mahavaki in sanskrit mahavakya means the profound sentence the great sentence which encapsulates the entirety of vedanta this one beauty of vedanta vast literature sophisticated philosophy metaphysics logic but it can all be encapsulated in one sentence that thou art and krishna that's from the chandragupta nation but here krishna is saying exactly the same thing know me to be the knower of the field in all these fields now this entire universe this entire cosmos is an appearance in that consciousness it's not a separate existence apart from that consciousness because it isn't i'm not going into the logic to prove that it can be proved also but apart from that that consciousness there is no second reality just as there is no you know in a movie you may see cars and hollywood so movie you may see cars and people and earth and sky but none of them exist apart from the screen on which it is being shown the screen is non-dual with respect to all the characters in the movie all the objects in the movie all the activities the incidents in the movie they are not a second reality apart from the screen the thousands of waves that you see in the pacific ocean they are not apart from the water it's one water appearing as ten thousand waves krishna would say later in the gita avivac undivided in all beings appearing as if divided what is undivided in all beings krishna god is undivided in all beings appearing as if divided look so many what is undivided in all beings consciousness appearing as if in so many consciousnesses what is undivided in all beings you you are undivided in all beings but you appear to be divided as so many not only that you appear to be divided as i and the other the other is an appearance in you in the greater self as capitalist self all this is encapsulated in the great vedantic saying brahmas consciousness alone is real the world is an appearance in consciousness well good for consciousness in the world what about poor old me you are that consciousness you are that ultimate reality once sudama krishna was asked by somebody he said that can you teach me spirituality in one sentence so he limited sudama krishna because otherwise he asked krishna to teach you spirituality of the whole gospel of sridhara krishna thousand pages is there can you teach me spirituality in one sentence and sri ramakrishna said to that man brahman is real the world is an appearance our consciousness is real the world is an appearance in consciousness contemplate this assimilate this having said this sudama krishna felt silent he kept quiet which means with the swami brahmananda says which means this is all that has to be taught in spiritual life this is the essence the kernel of spiritual life this is the teaching there's one divinity this is the meaning of swami vivekananda when he says that there is divinity within each of us our we are the divinity within the human being already within each of us and the oneness of all existence what is the divinity within each of us the knower of the field the field noah pure consciousness witness consciousness and what is the unity of all existence it's that one consciousness which appears as all of this the entire universe is one with us we alone are appearing as our own object and the subject swami vivekananda writes in one poem one alone exists it appears as nature soul one alone exists it appears as nature all of this and soul you you are that one this is the knowledge which swami vivekananda based on this he said to ingersoll that i know that i will not die therefore i am not in a hurry bodies die they come and go i'm not in a hurry i know there is no fear therefore i enjoy the squeezing of the orange and he also said to ingersoll we made i agree with you we may just differ in our choice of fruit with you it's an orange with me it's a mango he said that actually i enjoy the squeezing of the orange because i know there is no fear i love he says i love all men and women because i see god in them think of the joy of seeing the divine of seeing god in all beings seeing god in all beings means what know me alone to be the knower of the field in all these fields i alone my real nature higher self i am all of these you're all one with me we are all one with you in this way swami vivekananda said squeeze the orange to get 10 000 fold more get every last drop um i pray to swami vivekananda i pray to srila christian the holy mother to bless us so that this great insight may dawn upon us in this very life and we may for the first time enjoy squeezing the orange of life you know um we will have some questions so there'll be some music and i'm sure you've got questions and answers we'll have a short question answer session here thank you [Music] [Music] um [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] today [Music] i [Music] [Music] so so next sunday or next will be uh the concept of guru by swami sarubando and the week the classes will be there but more interestingly please nineteenth evening swami sharayanandaji will be speaking the topic will be knowing and becoming so now swami will give the question i said i don't want to take time by saying what he said so that is enough and we can question will bring out much more things thank you please take the microphone we have to say something yes tell us your name and ask the question can i sit or stand uh oh you can sit and send whatever you like yeah my name is kapil verma uh my question is so there there is uh a prison and that's why we're looking for a key the prison is the mind so specifically i'm asking in terms of fear like if uh um there is fear how do we use vedanta to overcome fear for example if someone's claustrophobic so that fear is very real to them in situations where where you're like they're in an enclosed space or there is a reality of they being in a situation they'll be confined in a space for for a while so um how do how do we use vedantic thought process to overcome fear and especially specifically for uh you know situations like claustrophobia right so how do you overcome fear for example claustrophobia using vedanta first of all even claustrophobic don't sit in enclosed spaces that's a good way of not being claustrophobic but seriously notice what was done in vedanta as you said the prison of the mind why is the mind of prison because i think i am this body mind and so whatever happens to this body mind in this body mind it's it's affecting me but what vedanta did was in two steps first of all it showed me that i am not this body mind why am i not this body man how am i not this body mind because it's an object i'm a verb are you not aware of the body is it not the field yes and if you're the knower of the field you cannot be the field mind is also the field why because you know it if you know it then it's an object it's not you therefore you are not trapped by the mind how does that work you'll say wherefore how did that happen it sounds like some kind of slate of hand you know it happens like this it's because i think i am this one therefore i feel trapped if for example a fear in the mind now in vedanta the principle is whatever belongs to whatever place don't misplace things keep things in the rightful place it's a clumsy english translation of what i had heard very straightforward in hindi instruction oh monk whatever belongs to you know keep things in their own places where does fear belong in the mind what do you what does that mean fear is not in the literally not in the body i mean it has bodily consequences there are chemicals and all but the feeling of fear the experience the emotion of fear it's a mental thing now whether in the body or mind it belongs to the body mind it doesn't belong to you the moment i say i am the mind then i am afraid because fear is there in me but if fear is there here then i'm not denying that there is a feeling of fear but it belongs to the mind there not here and therefore you are you see a space opening up between you and the fear and that's how it works deeper it's the first step the second step the deeper step which krishna says is there fear in the mind is there a mind is there a body at all or is the world body mind all appearances in me the one unchanging undivided non-dual consciousness there is no world apart from you there ever shining radiant awareness there is no body apart from you the ever shining radiant awareness the swami what nonsense can't you see the body i don't know let's just stay with the question a monk once challenged this and the monastery is saying what nonsense to say that the um world is an appearance the world is an illusion jagat mitchell can't these people this non-dualist can't they see it here here is the sky here is the temple here is the ganga we are standing in the monastery in belur can't you see it i didn't say it because he was a senior monk but my response would be immediately notice your language swami you said you see it in your seeing which is which takes precedence the seeing or the object the scene takes precedence in your seeing you see sky earth temple ganga in your seeing the sky earth temple ganga you're the sky earth temple ganga is nothing but you are seeing three steps i've given you there's a huge amount of metaphysics involved at each step there is realism there is idealism and there's absolutism three steps object presented to awareness object in awareness an object indistinguishable from awareness that's what happens in the second step oneness only the radiance of consciousness what is it appearing as it's appearing as body mind and indeed claustrophobic fear in the mind no problem at all i'll enjoy that fear in the mind you might say that's a tall order no problem but but there are people who can do it and then you feel the fear losing its hold upon you it won't go away all of a sudden see vedanta gives knowledge it doesn't change the world immediately it won't even change the mind immediately it's like a movie you vedanta tells you it's a movie it doesn't change the plot of the movie but the very fact of it being a movie settles everything once photo then slowly the plot also will change that's an interesting thing once you begin to see oneness once you begin to relax into your immortality your fearlessness you will see the world begins to change after all the world is nothing but you the world begins to change for you the world will change body will change mind but first the mind will change then the body will change and the world will change but for the time being avoid enclosed spaces a question from here uh yes the lady there oh the gentleman here then you pass down the microphone there so tell us your name and ask the question my name is anthony thank you swamiji for making these ancient teachings so accessible and understandable but even with this understanding of the app of us being the absolute reality we still have to live in a relative world so even if i knew the oneness of being if i really knew it i still can't act as if everything is one and the same i have to still take care of myself as a separate individual and others so my so my question is at best we could act harmoniously all right so my question is why not just go after piecemeal happiness where we can take a broader perspective when things get too difficult act compassionately and harmoniously i mean that's what most of us do anyway why make such a big deal about this enlightenment project right no it's a very good question really it's really a very good question and that was ingersoll's whole point robert ingersoll's whole point was why not do this piecemeal why not the world is all that we can be sure of and therefore why bother with all this and let me squeeze the orange of the world dry there was an incredible question basically in principle do you agree it's the same same insight yes that is true of just about all religion except i will be as both so bold as to say for advaita vedant and maybe some form of zogchen buddhism here is a world is all that we are absolutely sure of so we can i'll take that over all your theories and speculations but here no advaita vedanta this one existence is all that we are absolutely sure of it's not so difficult to see even descartes came pretty close to it when you say i'm absolutely sure of it he set out to find out what could what could one be absolutely sure of set out by doubting everything you know the great skeptical project of descartes and he found out that the one thing he could not doubt was his own existence because he was to even to doubt it he would have to exist kojitor gosum i think therefore i am and then see here is the difference between the ancient indian philosophers and tekkart for example his whole point was to find an absolutely certain basis for all knowledge so once he had found that basis my own existence then he quickly turned outwards again to set up the you know to make sure that all knowledge is safe whereas the indian philosophers the sankhya the advaita the buddhists they stayed with this is important they stayed with this insight instead of rushing back into the world how can we be sure of society of the sky and the earth and garden forget it you have found this absolute certain existence yourself stay with it what's it like how many of those are there what's it made of is it made of being is it made of consciousness is it made of what what is it made of is it made of matter and neurons this absolute certain existence stay with it the indian philosophers dug deep there they had the same intuition as as descartes did i remember reading the descartes meditations and there this kojito orgasm is is a most well-known quote you have from the car everybody knows it but there he says a very poignant thing he says descartes writing there he says it's so strange that what i am sure of i do not know anything about that i cannot know anything about that what's that my own existence and what i know so much about i can never be sure of it and then he just lets it keeps it aside it's a very powerful insight but he keeps it aside and he goes back into how can we be sure that there's a world and then he says that well god has is presenting this world to me god is good he wouldn't deceive me so there must be a world i remember reading this stuff and our professor at harvard university and she said do you notice the standards of proof have slipped considerably i mean the kojito orgasm is a tight piece of reasoning it's really good but when you go from there back to the world again it's become loose again yeah so the absolute certainty it's not that just as ingersoll said that the world is all that we can be certain of no no no pay attention here to something like advaita for example you'll see something that is even more certain than the world sri ramakrishna when swami vivekananda asked him have you seen god he said yes as i see you even more clearly what does that mean does he have cataracts even more clearly now i'll share with you something which i heard i cannot tell the name this was a senior professor from india i met her recently at a conference and she said that when she was a young girl she used to go to the very well-known saint in those days in north of india anondu mohima so she used to go and visit and she was very close to the saint who was a simple village lady small town lady but also a god intoxicated saint like a divine child herself anyway so this lady who is a professor of philosophy she said as i grew up in my teens i started reading you know skeptical philosophy rationalist philosophy i said you must have been a remarkable 13 year old to read heavy philosophy at that age anyway so for the first time it struck me all this could be false i mean god could not exist and this lady ananda maimaa is so god intoxicated but maybe guides all and hallucination here are all the philosophers with nice arguments to show that maybe god doesn't exist so like ingersoll again now see what happens she said i went to her one day and she was alone in her room she was lying down on the floor on a mat i went into the room and she started as usual talking about god lying down there and i said to her ma mother maybe god doesn't exist maybe god doesn't exist she sat up and looked at me and called me come here and i went and sit down and i went and sat in front of her and she said it's still so vivid to me she looked into my eyes and if you've seen pictures of under my mah she had the most extraordinary eyes she looked deep into my eyes and said tell me you are sitting here talking to me is this true or not is this real or not i said yes this is real and i tell you god is more real than this she said i've never forgotten that now that might be you might say it's a proclamation of a saint but logically how do you understand this logically you understand it the way descartes did yeah so it is more sure than this word why would you not uh base your life on what you are sure of ingersoll's argument i am sure of this world which is revealed to me by my senses so i'm basing my life on what my senses tell me vivekananda what was the essence of his reply to ingersoll his in the essence was even my senses and my mind and all of this my limited existence all of it is revealed by consciousness so i'll base my life on what's most sure that i am awareness i'm consciousness and then again look at the difference the taking it peace meal approach we have been doing it all our lives and all of civilization is the history of taking it piecemeal it hasn't done as much good whatever good is done is this not much good good deal of the good that we have actually comes from religion most of ancient civilization was built up around religion all kinds of religion so the little bit of good that we have in this relative world has seeped down from the transcendent into this world and here is this philosophy advaita vedanta is extraordinary insight telling us that transcendent which seems to be so mysterious and unknowable is you you are that reality why not base our life on that why not investigate a little further and you know then try to leave it yeah very good question yes swami my name is sumi my question is really one about the vocabulary the language that is used in this 13th chapter you hear the language of samkhya you hear the field and it's noah prakriti and purusha obviously sankey is uh be all huge debt to sankey in a philosophic tradition uh but i just i'm curious as to why the gita uses this language because after all our tradition goes way back to the upanishads where the sages do not bifurcate their vision of the world there is no uh non uh duality but is it is this because uh the ramen and the mahabharata are based historically as that very well-known scholar said in the age of unreason um and bhakti being unreasoned in a very divine madness nothing not to put bhakti in the second row but it is a very different perspective a very different paradigm so i'm curious about that and also in the narrative of the 13th chapter there seems to be this huge jump uh this changing horse's midstream where you're trying to cancel the division the duality that sankey sets up and yet suddenly you postulate krishna both of them are kind of interesting conundrums although one understands what the meaning of the field and the snow are i'd love to hear your comments at the age of unreasoned i don't give too much credence to all that you know it is it's more like you have the insight of the upanishads and sort of along with that a little later you have the ramayana the mahabharata and krishna as the teacher of the gita and the formal beginning of the systems a little later so this very sharp distinction between sankhya yoga nyaya and the various buddhist systems and china systems i think it comes a little later historically i know scholars will debate it back and forth all the time so the great masters whether it's krishna teaching the gita or sri ramakrishna if you look at the gospel of srinama krishna it's almost impossible to categorize him is he a bhakta is he a gyani is he a vedantin is he a you know dualist nondualist what is he is he a shakhtar dwighton he moves so smoothly between these different categories and krishna does that too so you have multiple streams of thought flowing into the gate and flowing out of the gate are there and there seems to be less systematization at that point than there came later on um yes but we do owe a lot to all these masters i often say something like advaita vedanta especially in its sort of finished form in the medieval period if you unpack the box on top it says advaita vedanta if you unpack the box you will find the logic borrowed from nyaya and nabyaniya the entire logical apparatus you will find the concept of pure consciousness borrowed almost entirely from sankhya and you will find yogic meditation techniques borrowed from patanjali yoga you will find the hermeneutics of the purvam imam sakhas used to interpret the upanishads they are all developed by purumi massacres none of it is developed by shankara and you will find it all used and including i am bold enough to say logical insights developed by the great buddhist masters nagarjuna chandra kitty dharma kitty vasubandhu some of those insights are and some terminology is incorporated and then the box is again closed and you see advaita vedant it's like you know you open up the box inside made in china [Music] so a great deal of the machinery inside inside advaita vedanta owes its existence to a long development in indian philosophy and they were not narrow about it they debated with each other fiercely but when they debated with each other they sort of exchange the dna of each other into their own philosophy you see these philosophies evolving together one of the two periods of maximum development of indian philosophy um where first period was near nearly thousand-year debate between the buddhists and the hindu systems so-called you know the various orthodox schools of hinduism for nearly 1 000 years and it led to a flowering of of philosophy on both sides buddhist philosophy developed to very sophisticated heights and so did the indian the hindu systems of philosophy jaina philosophy also developed around that time the second time of the flowering of indian philosophy was more internal to hinduism when advaita vedanta became so paramount the other schools of vedanta rose up especially the dwaita and vishishta dwaita and there were fierce dialectical fights between advaita vedant and the other schools which led to a further development of these schools of shortening of logic of language of naviance language of epistemology and so that's that's good i will leave it at that and we conclude here thank you so much you

Channel: Vedanta Society of Southern California

Views: 62,562

Keywords: vedanta, advaita

Id: mIZpVfs5D5g

Length: 85min 40sec (5140 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 10 2022