The Secret of the Five Sheaths by Swami Sarvapriyananda

omus on all of the tools he'll open up to civilian guru baba pages we know but he Thomas to move it Bashar bhai Oh Shanti Shanti Shanti good morning today the subject before us is the secret of the five sheets and the session is going to be packed I can assure you that we have a very rich Vedantic feast before us this morning the subject is taken from the tight tea reopen assured one of the most important Upanishads and in the second chapter of the Thai tea reopen ition it begins with a profound sentence a profound Vedic sentence Brahma Javed OP note a param the knower of Brahman attains the highest the knower of Brahman attains the highest the whole of Vedanta nay the whole of religion is packed into this little statement the knower of Brahman attains the highest it tells us right away that the spiritual journey is not a journey in space is not a journey in time it is a journey of knowledge from ignorance to knowledge is a spiritual journey how do we know this because the words are the knower of Brahman the emphasis is on the word the knower so it's not a journey in space it's not that you have to go somewhere if you grow to Banaras or wind Arvind you know the spiritual journey usually starts in this country by people taking up their passports and getting a visa to India or come back packing it to India you don't have to go to India or Banaras or Brindavan you don't have to go to Mecca or Jerusalem you don't have to go to any place you don't even have to go to hell after that you've to go to heaven or the board of Vishnu or the abode of Shiva Kailash or vacant oh no no no it's not a journey in space it's not a journey in time either that you have to wait until such-and-such time when God will be incarnated back on earth again in Hinduism you have so many incarnations of gods have to wait till God comes back to earth again the Second Coming no we don't have to wait for a particular time you don't even have to wait until death God seems to be hiding behind the veil of death that after that a post-mortem religion no it's not a journey in time you don't wait for something to happen it's rather a journey the open Isha tells us of knowledge from ignorance to knowledge what ignorant sin what knowledge from spiritual ignorance to spiritual knowledge but what do I mean by spiritual ignorance the hope initial is very clear on the point ignorant about who or what we are right at this moment who are we what are we the open issued claims contrary to our fondest beliefs we do not know who we are Swami Vivekananda would sometimes say with a touch of pathos he would look at people you know with great sadness he would say if only you knew who you really are if only you knew yourself as you truly are so the knowledge of we do not have the knowledge of who we are that's ignorant and getting that knowledge the knower of Brahman attains the highest getting that knowledge is knowledge that is spiritual knowledge so spiritual ignorance - spiritual knowledge I'm not talking about secular ignorance ignorance about physics or mathematics or Sanskrit that's one kind of ignorance and that's remedied by secular knowledge but here we are talking about spiritual ignorance and spiritual knowledge so it's a journey from ignorance to knowledge Brahma Vedic no T param the knower of Brahman attains the highest what is Brahman Satyam Yanam remember this is what we had discussed last time when we met beautiful definition perhaps the best definition if there can be a definition of God the most beautiful definition of God that I've ever come across and we discussed it in detail last time I found this book by a Christian theologian of Eastern Orthodox Church David Bentley Hart an English theologian who's it in this whole book God as existence consciousness bliss and he says he says this is from the Hindu formulation of sat-chit-ananda and he says this is the most sophisticated definition of God arrived at by humankind ever but that does not concern us today God as Satya Yanam anantam translating as God is reality God is consciousness God is infinity infinite reality consciousness is God that is the definition given by ITT of initial but that does not concern us today it's not on the table what is on the table is how do we realize this God where is it where is this Brahman this infinite reality knowing Brahman one realizes Brahman well how do we get to know Brahman that is the question and that's the question we shall deal with today this morning the Upanishad goes on to answer this question how do we realize this Brahman how do we undertake this knowledge this journey of spiritual knowledge first of all we have to know where Brahman is and open assured says Yahweh the hit'em GU hai arm para maybe Ullman you have to know this Brahman as hidden in the sacred space of the cave mystical language let's see what it means Yahweh the nickytom GU hai arm which is existing in the cave in the sacred space of the cave what is this cave where is this cave let's go and take a look at peek inside the cave and find out Brahman Shankara says that the cave is Buddha Gua Gua means Buddha Gua the cave of the intellect but vidyaranya more in keeping with the open Isham another great post Shankar Advaita master with Tanya in the bunch of the sheep he says the cave means a system of five interlocking caves Guha means the five sheets of the human personality do come forward a lot of seats here come there are these five sheets of the human personality is what is called the cave what are the five sheets this is what we shall take a look at the opening shot tells us that if we look at ourselves we will find five layers five sheets of our being and this is compared poetically to a cave or maybe a system of caves you know there is a saying in Sanskrit in the Himalayas where Vedanta is compared to a lion we're on the case arre it's the saying goes that when the lion of in the deep dark gloomy forests of philosophy when the lion of Vedanta roars all the jackals of other philosophies run for their lives now I am sure other philosophies would beg to differ it's what the vedantins like to think about themselves zero but anyway the lion of Vedanta is in the cave and the cave is the this is not one K but it's an interlocking cave system of five caves or five sheets of the human personality and that's what we are going to do we are going to go deep into those caves and confront the lion of Vedanta will hunt occasionally but you need not be scared because the lion is you yourself it's your true nature its we really are we're going to find that out this morning now the method taken up by the Upanishads is that of a very good teacher a teacher a good teacher always takes the student from where the student to where the teacher wants the student to be from the near to the far from what is to what shall be from the known to the unknown it's a poor teacher who comes and says Brahman is infinity existence consciousness and bliss what but what the open Ishod says follow me we shall go step by step we shall start with what is most obvious to all of us which we can none of us can deny we want to find out who we are well do Peniche it says who do you think you are right now and our answer is and this this is who I am this body and the open assured starts there it seems in ancient India I don't know if it's true now when they were when people when the husband and wife no no be they get married and there was a one of the rituals in the marriage is to show a faint star in the night sky called the Arundhati now the bride is shown that start step by step so first you point out to a tree a branch of a tree the and then they say that look at the bright star just above the tip of that branch and then look near that bright star just below it there is that faint star and near it is another fainted star if you find to the train start straightaway you know it but the girl doesn't know it you have to take her step by step so the objective is not the branch of the tree the objective is not even the brighter starts the objective is the faint star called arundathi in sanskrit this is called around 13 ER the process methodology of arundathi when you go from the known to the unknown every good teacher does it any school teacher knows this method the open Ishod says all right since we are most familiar with the body let's start with the body do you think you are the body we want to know who we are who I am I feel I am the body let's start with the body this body is God unnhhh amaya literally pervaded by food this body is what we eat and drink I heard a lecture by a scientist who said you are food rearranged food is presented to you on your table in our breakfast or in lunch you have food arranged in front of us rearrange that food and that's us that's what the scientists said Vedanta would agree almost wave anta would say yes the body is food rearranged in the name of the body given in the open assured is Annamayya pervaded by food it's a product of food it's a modification of what we eat and drink I often quote this Italian actress who said the secret of my beauty the secret of this it's pasta so annamaya this physical body of skin and bone and flesh this is Anna Maya now the opening shot says take a close look at this are we really this body are you really this body why not well far far to begin with there are so many reasons one after another powerful reasons disturbing reasons which show us that why we cannot be the body first of all the body changes so the same body was the body of a little boy or girl then a teenager then a young man or woman now a middle-aged man or woman an old person so much change in the body from that little guy to this old person so much change and yet we feel I am the same person I was the one who was a little kid I am the one who's an old man watches with the mission of the great 10th century Vedanta scholar he was a prodigy he was a master of different philosophies so he has written books in different Hindu philosophies he is called Salva Tantra so Tantra chharia the master who is independent of all philosophies anyhow he has a beautiful book called Mohammed II which very explains Advaita Vedanta it's a commentary on Shankara charges coming Rionda brahma sutras he says touchingly i who was a little boy playing on the lap of my grandfather I'm now sitting with my grandson on my lap yet I am the same one there's this elderly lady who told me just a few months ago she was walking past a shopping window and she saw the reflection and she said the first thought in our mind was who's this old lady and he says it's me and then she says it just seemed as 30 years ago I was this young girl if you think about it psychologically what a tremendous changed his body is undergoing I don't think that I was that little guy was somebody else and the middle lady's member somebody else and now I'm somebody else no I think I'm the same person if I am the same person the body is certainly not the same body certainly not the same body's changing continuously how can I be the body another thing the body is always an object do I know the body yes I'm always aware of the body I can see the body I can touch the body internally I can always feel the body that's what's paying and I can smell unfortunately swear as the body like so all five senses operate on the body very clearly revealed to the five senses I am the knower of the body the body is a known object in Sanskrit I am the draszt our bodies drishya how can I be the body the knower and the known are two different entities so the knower is me obviously that's what I feel I never feel the body is knowing me I look at the hand and I feel I am looking at my hand and never get the feeling that the hand is looking back at me that would be so weird we never get that feeling think about it and what is true of the hand is true of the entire body you look at the party you sense the body the body is not doing that to you so you are the draszt are the seer and the body is the scene we are not the body other examples always we think of ourselves as conscious we never think of ourselves as unconscious and the body is something that we are conscious of the drush time Risha is one reason slightly different but related reason is what they say in sanskrit body is Jarah inert in sentient we always regard ourselves as chetana sentient aware we are beings of consciousness beings of awareness whatever we think ours about ourselves we first of all know that we are aware sentient the body is not the to the extent that the body sentient it is pervaded by my sentient see I pervade the body as an as a sentient being so the body is not me there are many reasons page after page and you don't have to come to Vedanta every philosophy yeah I mean Indian philosophy accepted charvaka all the Hindu philosophies all the Buddhist philosophies all the Jain and Sikh philosophies all the Indian philosophies will tell you you are not the body and they'll give you reasons page after page of reasons let me give you a little more complicated reason these are simple reasons why we are not the body a little more complicated reason would be this all Indian philosophies believe in the law of karma cause and effect what we experienced today are the effects of causes long past the happiness and misery which we are experiencing today is due to what we have done in the past if if we are happy today the law of karma tells us at some time in this life or earlier lives they must have been particularly nice to somebody somewhere if we are miserable today something nasty happens to us well you've been a naughty boy or girl and someday somewhere you don't remember so cause and effect that is the law of karma now whatever is happening in this body since its birth must have had some cause follow this carefully the effects of which we are aware in this body from the very beginning of the from our light from her from birth itself they must have had some cause if we follow the law of karma so those causes must have existed before the birth of the body hence I must have been there in some form earlier they must have been some other life where have generated some karma which has led to this body are you with me so far if I am getting effects in this body happiness and misery sooo kind oka the causes of that must be prior to this life not only that there are many things that people do in their lives good and bad and they don't seem to get all the results in this life so if they are going to get the results they will exist after death the body does not accompany them after death so they must be apart from their body they must not be the body to uphold the law of karma this is one reason one of the reasons given in Vedanta to uphold the law of karma we must admit admit that we existed before this body was born and we will exist after this body dies in fact every religion takes this for granted without this you cannot have religion think about it there must be some post-mortem existence some heaven some hell some kind of consequence otherwise there can be no religion if that is the end at the end of the bodies end of our existence then there can be no religion so not only their anta every religion accepts that we must be something other than the body so for all these reasons body is Vicari changing from childhood babyhood to old age bodies Vicari changing I am their weak are unchanging body is drishya an object of experience I am crushed on the experiencer bodies achaya Tana Jarrah in sentient I am Jatin a sentient the body is a product of karma comes and goes I exist before this before birth I exist after death for so many reasons the uh nah my ax this thing made of food cannot be me and indeed the opening shot says the real you is something different from the annamaya onion tart ma Prada my aha title Upanishad says look deeper you are something deeper than this body what is deeper than this body something interior to this body but yuck anta anta anta means interior something interior something more subtle sukshma something more subtle something more pervasive via pakka what is that the life forces the Sanskrit word is pranamaya pervaded by life the life forces what do you mean by life forces what pervades this body life itself breathing we breathe in and out yep the breathing in and out is due to the life forces called prana when we learn yoga we learn breathing it is called pranayama pranayama means control of the life forces this blood flowing through our veins there is oxygen being assimilated into the blood there is food being converted into different parts of the body so much is going on a variety of chemicals is being produced in the body biochemical runs a doctor told me Swami I was gonna Swami at that time I was a brahmacari said Mirage your liver that little liver which we have produces so many different kinds of biochemicals that it would require a 500-acre factory to produce the kind of back end because one human liver produces so all these life processes surging through our body all the time which keeps our body alive which maintains this body which gives us energy our experience of breathing is prana our experience of hunger is prana our experience of thirst of our experience of Health energy our experience of sickness lack of energy this is due to prana the body remaining the same the prana keeps surging like a tide throughout our body we are healthy not so much because of the body we are healthy because of the prana yoga Ayurveda the holistic medicine systems of the world not only from India from all over the world they don't act on the body directly they try to act on the prana the Chinese word for that is Chi the Japanese word is key so they try to act on this and that produces physical health of the body so the pranamaya the open Ishod says you are the prana maya you are life itself and we think that well that seems to be a pretty good argument yes I might be life but then when we look closely look at the pranamaya is it changing oh yes sometimes your energetics sometimes you are absolutely dead tired sometimes I am healthy sometimes I am I feel absolutely sick continuously changing the prana surges in and out of the body and it's continuously changing and I am unchanging I am the same person who was ill and the same person who is cured but the prana has changed and the same person who was hungry now I couldn't eat a bite more and the same person the prana has changed as it has become satiated so prana is changing I am not changing the same reasons apply the prana is drishya me am i not aware of the prana the activities of the prana all the time when you do this meditation you do follow your breath and breathing in and breathing out what are you doing but you are becoming aware of the problem so you are that which is aware of the prana the prana is drishya m-- you are - to the or the knower the prana is something that is known in you are conscious the prana is Jarah in Sanskrit in sentient and for all of these reasons because prana is changing Vicari you are near Baqarah unchanging because prana is drish IAM you are did Russia nor unknown prana is known you are the knower the prana is in sentient Chara you are sentient for all these reasons you cannot be de prata you must be something deeper and though punishment comes in and says indeed you are not the prana see first it said you are the problem and we felt convinced then it asks us to look deeply think deeply and you see it becomes an object just as this body is an object the prana is a subtle object you can't see it but you can certainly feel it so it's not you either and the open Ishod says onion tart maman or Maya go deeper look deeper within yourself antara means deeper deeper than the life processes protect inside Sushma subtler the apakah more pervasive what can be subtler and more interior to the life processes say is the mind the mind our sauce our emotions our memories indeed our entire personality that's you isn't it and we say yeah that's it right right now if I found who I am really and it is true that most of us educated grown-up mature people we identify ourselves with our personality do we know that's who we think they are really speaking no matter how much Vedanta we read we mostly we get stuck at the personality I am my likes and dislikes my ideas my thoughts my memories my identity my feelings my personality it's who I am whenever the ads advertisements we also discover who you are what they mean is your personality it means the mind the opener should say is just a minute not so fast are you aware of your mind yes when I am happy I know that I am happy when I'm unhappy I know that I'm unhappy when I had desires I know that I have desires of course I want this I want chocolate so I want chocolate the desire is there and an that which wants that this wants that object of desire clearly I cannot be the mind why not many many reasons one reason of course is the mind is something that is experienced just as the body is experienced the pran has experienced our thoughts are also experienced our personalities are also experienced by you not by anybody else they can see it from outside seed from our behavior but we experience our own ideas thoughts memories from the inside as it where we have a privileged advantage first person point of view so we experience it if we experience it then the mind also becomes drishyam an object of knowledge and I become Dedra star the seer of the mind the mind becomes something changing and of course the mind changes somebody said we have sixteen thousand thoughts in our waking day day time till we go to sleep every day we have sixteen thousand approx thoughts not different thoughts mostly repetitive and mostly useless but sixteen thousand thoughts they are not useless we would be wiser than any Nobel Prize winner but mostly they are repetitive patterns of thinking but they are different thoughts and I am the one to whom these thoughts come I cannot be all of that desires so many desires and I am one I the desire if I may use such a word I am one I don't think I am many I am one until unless I have a multiple personality disorder but I think I am one person but desires are many number I remember the first thing we learnt in our economics class back in school the first thing they taught us I still remember human desires are infinite resources are limited and thus is economics born you studied economics any economics class they'll start with that desires are infinite and resources are limited and so economics comes up well good for economists but the point is since desires are infinite I I don't think I am many number I'm just one so how can I be my desires they are known they are there in the mind they are there in the personality but I am NOT that in fact it's very interesting that I am NOT the personality I am NOT the mind either the very word personality no it comes from the origin of the original Greek roots the person II wear masks the word personality means a mask in Greek theater it seems people would the actors would come on stage something like this and there were no microphones at that time so they had to sort of shout out their parts and they would come with this big big masks which they would hold in front of themselves and that then they would play their roles so those masks came to be called the persona that's where the word personality has come from personality means a mask it's not you it's the mask you put on when you face the world so I am NOT the mind either and this is tremendous dope then Who am I the Upanishad says look deeper you are you are right you are not the mind and he was telling us all so long as I am the mind now it's telling us you are not the mind there is something interior to the mind subtler than the mind but junk inner antara Oneonta Atma vichara Maya began Amaya means the sheet of the intellect the intellect and the mind are the same thing but performing different functions it's the same inner instrument Balanta tells us it's the same inner instrument but we make a distinction based on the function you see what the Vidya no Maya does is it understands it's the intellect and it is also the agent when I feel I am speaking it's not the mind it's a certainty which is there in my mind that certainty is produced by this sheet of the intellect the wig John Amaya in fact the best way to think about it is right now we are all trying to understand this using the VG anima what we are using now the word is good D that's part of the big John Amaya so the intellect by which we are trying to understand what's going on now hopefully is the vague Yemaya and am i that I seem to be that when I say I am Swami silver prion under that's the big anime I when I say I understand what this guy is talking about I do not understand what this guy is talking about that's the big anime which which understands or does not understand it's another function of the inner instrument untuk karana again apply the same logic are we aware of the intellect yes we are are we not aware of understanding I get it understanding I'm aware of that I am confused I don't see what he is talking about that's the intellect again so I'm aware of it I am aware of my intellect am I not aware that I am mr. so-and-so or mrs. so-and-so I am aware of it if I am aware of it then the intellect becomes an object ever so subtle but still an object it's an object shining in the light of consciousness it's an object shining in your light you cannot be the intellect it's your intellect it functions in your light you lent consciousness and sentient see and awareness to that intellect but you cannot be that intellect it changes continuously so many things we understood in school we am a forgotten so many things we did not understand in school now we understand and so many things remain for us to understand so the intellect changes continuously yet I feel as the same kid who didn't know calculus in school who knew calculus in college and was again forgotten calculus now I'm the same person the intellect has changed so the intellect is also a changing object I am the changing witness of the intellect the intellect is also a known object drishya and I am the rush to the seer of the intellect and so on all the reasons apply Vicari nirakara drishya drishna gerra che Donna all of them apply to the intellect the intellect being closest to the Atman very close to the Atman it shines in the light of the Atman and it seems to be very sentient in very conscious much more conscious than the bodies is the intellect but still it borrows consciousness from you it is not you it is not our real nature and the open Ishod says we can predictably you are right you are not intellect either my goodness what can you be let's look deeper and his open Ishod says son you enter Atma Anand oh my aha something subtler than the intellect the venetian says in deep sleep when we go to sleep we forget the world we forget the body which is on the bed and sleeping sound sleep snoring that sound sleep that's why do you call it sound sleep because somebody is snoring well I'm joking so the body is there completely unaware of it and if dreams are not there if it's a dreamless sleep deep sleep absolute blackness there is no intellect there either there is no feeling of Asian ship or identity I am sleeping if you have such a feeling you are not sleeping so the intellect has shut down and yet something remains behind after all what comes up after deep sleep and says I slept peacefully I did not know anything so come Mahama sobs our Mandakini tear away vision the Sanskrit goes like this I slept like a log the same I slept peacefully I did not know anything this not knowing something is also kind of knowing something was there if something was not there in deep sleep what would we have said I went to sleep and I woke up that I have a feeling of blankness of ignorance of darkness in between something illumined the absence of the intellect in deep sleep hence there is something in deep sleep which will be experienced as blankness as deep restfulness and open assured calls it the anandamaya the sheet of bliss by the sheet of bliss because deep sleep is associated with untroubled rest so the sheet of bliss and it is if this according to Vedanta it is that sheet this sheet of bliss which is closest to the Atman subtlest this is what gives us happiness in the waking state also when you something nice happens to us and say I bite into a chocolate brownie or something and I get a flash of pleasure they say it is percolated from that sheet of bliss anandamaya but that too is an object it's experienced who is the experiencer of that you are not the sheet of bliss either you say okay five sheets we have talked about we spoken about five sheets the food sheet under Maya the sheet of life Khurana Maya the sheet of the mind our personality ideas who we think we are actually even that we are not the monomial the intellect which we are using right now Vick Gianna Maya and the darkness of deep sleep the so called bliss sheet ananda maya and open assured says you are none of these because these are all objects they come and go they change you are aware of them you are conscious and they are Jarra not conscious though they are pervaded by our consciousness and at this point we say okay five sheets we have ticked off now we are coming to the point open Ishod is going to tell us who we are all right give it to us we are ready we whip out our notebooks and our pen tell us and the open should keeps quiet we expect that like the nesting dolls in the Russian dolls nesting dolls are there you open the big doll little smaller doll you open that will be smaller doll and so on we expect secret of the five sheets okay we have gone through the five sheets now the secret is going to come out and what does the speaker do what does the teacher do what does the open you should do keeps quiet silent Shh how strange at this point there are two reactions one is if you are trying to find out the real Atman the real self who am i we have considered five sheets one after another and rejected all of them we have negated all of them now we are looking for this ultimate reality Brahman which the open assured point pointed out Septim Yanam an anthem Brahman we expected to emerge it does not emerge so our first reaction is that we can't find it number one and immediate reaction is it's not there so there is no no self it's void soon iam so the Atman promise where you finishes is not there at all we have P is the onion and found nothing else at the end inside it and when you peel an onion you get tears so if we end up with the tears you should have told us I braved 101 on a fine Sunday morning to come and hear the secret of the five sheets and hear he have nothing more to tell us you keeping quiet what could be the secret and the and the student asks the teacher in detected open ition so there is no self now at this point we shall go to with dr anya the author of the punch of the she which he wrote some 700 years ago he gives he makes five beautiful points here we shall consider those and bring the top to a closed we shall discover the secret of the five sheets and discover ourselves - and the very least will understand what open assured wants to say why it kept quiet and if we are lucky we might get a little flash of enlightenment also all right with the Iranian in the third chapter of the Panchala she has an opponent as a student or a questioner asked him here are the five sheets which you have so beautifully pointed out to me there is nothing apart from these five sheets - no there is nothing apart from them to know what they'll let us look at ourselves very carefully we have found only these five things what are these five sheets take an example I'll quickly summarize what we have done so far in a sentence here is my hand what I see here the skin and inside it the flesh and the bones and the blood this is the anime or the food sheet when I lift my hand the energy which enables me to move my hand is the pranamaya we thought I must lift my hand that's the mono Maya the mine sheet the feeling I am lifting my hand that knowledge that identity the agent of action cut trick 2 in Sanskrit that is the wig annamaya kosha and if there is any happiness associated with lifting the hand that is particular to down from the anandamaya kosha we much mind what happiness is then lifting the hand well go to a physiotherapy unit oh yes person who has a stroke struggling days and weeks and months and finally beginning to lift the hand a little bit so much happiness so that comes from the Arnon the Maya quotient so these are the five layers of our personality what else is there there is nothing that is the question here comes the story of the ten persons who cross the river I have told this earlier but it's relevant here ten friends crossed a river and after they swam across or the waded across on the other side someone thought that have we all crossed or did anybody drown let's count and one of them counted line up one two three four five six seven eight nine oh my god one two three four five six seven eight nine oh my god the tenth person our friend is as drowned the other person said you couldn't have counted correctly to let me count and he counts one two three four five six seven eight nine and they all sit down and start sobbing booze where hoot boom so a wise person inevitably walks by and he says why are you crying my friends well we were 10 and we crossed the river and one of us drown and so we are sad and this person takes a quick count and he sees there are 10 of them of course he says how do you know that the 10th person is down drown well we counted sir and we can't find we can find only 9 the wise man says he gets it what has happened and he says to them most important calm down don't cry the 10th person is there believe me the Guru comes and tells us you are not the body and mind you are the immortal conscious self a pure consciousness itself believe me right now to begin with they say where is the tenth person you haven't seen it yet but believe me calm down relax I'll show it to you they trust him ok show us line up and you my friend count I have counted count is I'll show you you count all right if you say so one two three four five six seven eight nine and that vise person comes holds his hand turns it around thou art the tenth ten - Thomas Thomas II this person sees which is it one two three four five six seven eight nine ten Oh the tenth person has been found what joy and his friend says let me try it let me try it and he does the same thing one two three of Isis in mind and they were all illumined and thus goes to story with the AR and Nia says though you may laugh at this story we are always doing the same thing we are doing the same thing here is the secret what bid they are in essays to the person who asked the question we see the five sheets we experience them where is this Atman you promised where is the self you promised with the arrhenius A's watch this what did you say did you not say that I experienced the five sheets then the five sheets are experienced body and mind and intellect and so forth they are experienced yes if they are experienced there must be an experienced sir true if they are experienced there must be an experienced sir then who is that experience what is that experience this was windier in his first point you are looking for an object what was the mistake of the person counting he was counting one two three four five six seven eight nine you are looking for one more 10 out there the tenth one is not out there it is the one who was counting with the arunya tells us exactly like that when you consider the body and the life forces and the mind and the intellect and the darkness beyond the intellect who is the one watching all of them that one is not an object your mistake our mistake a fundamental and very natural mistake is to look for an object when you tell them they tell you there is an Earthman Brahman our first unconscious natural instinct is to go out there and look for an object of knowledge called Brahman or Atman and we don't find it we don't find it Vidya says not to a satya not because it does not exist but it is the one who is seeking it is not an object of seeking it is the one who is seeking the second point at which the Armenia makes is that when you look when you want to know the subject you see the problem is this he says the field of knowledge remember we are on a journey of spiritual knowledge when jarnia makes an important point Kika borrows from the cane open assured he says the field of knowledge is divided into the known and the unknown there are things that we know of things books we have read people we have met foods we have eaten places we have visited these are things which are known and there are places we have not visited books we have not read theories we do not understand people we have not met experiences we have not had so these are the field of the unknown this is our field of knowledge known and unknown apart from the known and unknown what is there yes the knower the entire field of knowledge can be divided into the known and the unknown but quite apart from that is the knower that's why the open Ishod says the one who thinks that the the Atman is known as an object he does not know the Atman the one who says the Atman is unknown he's still thinking it's an object looking for it he does not know the Atman it's neither known nor unknown it is the knower that's a beautiful second point that Madonna makes it is the subject it's not an object of knowledge objects of knowledge are known and unknown many things which we know many things we do not know we will know many things we may not be able to know in our lifetimes but the self you are none of them you are the subject so you are neither Danone nordian unknown omnia David Billa Todd avi ttohi Caine open assured says in with our new codes the self you I am apart from all that I know and apart from all that I do not know and the self itself now if I still persist okay I know it's not an object of knowledge still I would like to know it with the irony gives a fantastic example he says consider this example this sugar is water in this milk if I add sugar to the water it becomes sweet if I add sugar to the milk it becomes sweet so how does water become sweet by adding sugar how does milk become sweet by adding sugar so to make something sweet you have to add sugar now there are many things in the world how do I know them by adding consciousness literally meaning you become conscious of them by bringing them into relation with consciousness here is this microphone how do I know this microphone by bringing it into relationship with my consciousness it's a fancy way of saying looking at it so I look at it that means my consciousness becomes aware of it so to know anything you have to add consciousness to it just as to make anything sweet you've to add sugar to it now if you ask with the arunya says if you ask how do I make sugar sweet so I have to add sugar to make it sweet because anything to make it sweet you have to add sugar if you say that then how do I make sugar sweet that means the rule is you have to add sugar to it so what sugar will I add to sugar to make it sweet it's a foolish question sugar has inherent sweetness which it lends to other things consciousness you don't have to become conscious of consciousness consciousness is what they call swap prakasha self-luminous it humans everything else and reveals itself in the act of illumining everything else let me repeat that in every act of knowledge you the self are revealed you the consciousness is revealed in every act of knowledge eyes how are the eyes revealed how do you know that you have got eyes by seeing things by seeing what the first answer is to say that by seeing your own eyes you don't have to see your own eyes to say that you've got eyes you have to see if you see anything at all it's a proof that you have got eyes in the same way I am consciousness the pure self is consciousness it is revealed in every act of knowledge you don't have to add consciousness to it you don't have to make consciousness and object of consciousness no the fourth point that with uranium makes is he says it is indeed shameful if we say if I say aloud I don't have a tongue the very act of speaking makes it a lie that I don't have a tongue you understand if I say it out loud I don't have a tongue the very act is luck job it is a shameful statement to say say that I do not have a stung if I speak it aloud it means I have a tongue how did I speak otherwise no matter what I say Shankar Acharya says yahveh shanira Hakata the savate massa whoever is the denier of the self the self is it the self of that very person without that consciousness how could you deny something who or what is denying this is the fourth point with the arunya makes and the fifth point is rather amusing it's a technical point here isn't debate with the Buddhist nearest the Buddhist nihilist who says soon iam the nature of the Atman is nothing void to be fair to the Buddhists nihilist Sonia Wadi he actually does not say this though we wait on teens we say that we put words in their mouths if you actually go to their scriptures nagarjuna's mullah Matt democrática what he says there is very much like what we say in advaitha Vedanta but anyway supposing someone comes and says the self does not exist the five sheets are there if you open that like the peeling the onions layers of an onion nothing remains after that it's zero nothing then we are in a safe in a debate you need an opponent in sanskrit it is called body pretty body body is a person who is debating and pretty body is the opponent who holds the opposite view now in this case the pretty body the Buddhists should Nevada has said the Atman does not exist or the self does not exist so he does not exist so the Prunty body does not exist there is no opponent hence I have won the debate to whom will I reply you don't exist if you say that there is no real self within it's a void it's a technical point he's making and nothing he is half joking this is if my word the opponent says that there is no act when the self it's void there's nothing then he does not exist the opponent is self dissolved dissolves himself poof vanishes whom will I reply to so I need not reply to any to do that question so that's the fifth point he makes because the Preta body dissolves by his own admission it's again I will reply and I'll point out here the Buddhist nail list actually does not say that is not really a nihilist one interpretation of the shunya vada school of Buddhism the Magda maka Buddhism is very very thick actually in many ways it's very violent action Marat Swami Chidananda ji the author of the great master he says what they call the void we call the the fullness hole poornam what they call shown IAM we call porno exactly the same thing so these are the five points with the rnases see the problem at the at this point when we when we say that the we are not the physical body we are not the life sheet we are not the mental sheet the intellect sheet or the Bliss sheet the problem here is twofold one is we feel thing here is the admin which one is still looking for an object and the second problem is if you say that there is no object called the Ockman immediate reaction will be also there is no othman so both of these are set aside by with they are near these five points the first point being that story of the ten persons who cross the river it's not an object out there second point being you are neither something known nor something unknown you are the knower third point being to know the knower you don't need to add more consciousness to it like adding more sugar to make sugar sweet it is self revealed in every act of knowledge the fourth point being it is shameful to say that I do not exist and who's saying it some things they which is saying it it's like saying I have no tongue and the last point of course is a technical point in a debate both the pretty body cannot dissolve himself in his last if it disappears so the conclusion we come to is the secret of the five sheets is this consciousness which is illumining the five sheets right now not only that I am NOT going into it but I must mention it before concluding it's not that we have separated a consciousness from the five sheets here are the five sheets and here is one consciousness we then do Punisher goes on to tell us that it is this consciousness alone which appears as the five sheets I'll repeat that the five sheets of our personality the body mind and so on they are not objects separate from consciousness they arise in our consciousness they have no objective existence apart from consciousness in fact I will tell you the Upanishad can be a little misleading what it is doing is asking us to go deep within ourselves to discover this existence consciousness place the witness consciousness within the witness of the five sheets that's what we have been doing so far but it's misleading in the sense it's just like saying if if somebody says here is a huge wave and you say the reality is water how will you discover water if I tell you go deep inside the wave you will find what you don't have to go deep inside the wave the wave the whole thing is water it's just the form and a name in the same way these forms of the body of life of mind of intellect and the blankness beyond the intellect they arise and shine in our consciousness and subside within our consciousness the whole thing is consciousness that is what the open ocean is going to point out after this secret of the five sheets discovered pure consciousness and then see the entire system of caves as nothing more than pure consciousness names and forms body and mind arising and shining and subsiding back into consciousness all of it is consciousness all of it is existence consciousness infinity Satyam yharnam an anthem Brahma just as you don't have to go deep within the table to discover wood you don't have to go deep within a clay pot to discover clay or deep within a wave to discover water it is all water or all clay or all wood in the same way all the five sheets once we realize what pure consciousness is they are all pure consciousness that is our true nature having discovered that we discover an immortal unchanging reality mortality is in the body disease and decay are in the light life forces happiness and sadness and desire and frustration are in the mind ignorant and knowledge are in the intellect all of these are in the five sheets none of them are in the pure consciousness which which we already are this moment we are immortal pure infinite consciousness existence right now as family vivec under said if only you would see yourself as you truly are right now all of spiritual life we'll discuss that later all of spiritual life is meant to bring us to this understanding not in a lecture not in notes but actually as a living reality just as today we feel we are this body we must feel actually know realize that we are infinite existence consciousness you

Channel: Vedanta Society of Southern California

Views: 500,065

Rating: 4.823164 out of 5

Keywords: vedanta, advaita, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Sarvapriyananda, Vedanta Society of Sothern California, Hollywood Temple, Five Sheaths, pancha kosha, taittiriya upanishad

Id: rPtHCCT1SZM

Length: 58min 27sec (3507 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 20 2016