Three Great Powers of the Mind – Swami Sarvapriyananda

good afternoon I am going to be bored I'm the founding president of the keyboard Center and I'm just thrilled that you are here this afternoon thank you so much for coming so I want to just say a few words to you about why this topic now as you all know it seems that the entire world has gone mad and at the top of the list is the United States many people are having a very very very difficult time and I must say that in this very broken world it is easy to become overwhelmed with grief and despair culminating in our inability to move forward each of us each of us here has been given a purpose in life a reason for being and each of us carries within a caring heart and a mind filled with a multitude of ideas we are beckoned as people of faith to rise above our heartache and work in community to make a difference in the world to laugh and to play and to note with in the deepest part of our souls that we are good and contributing to something larger than each of us than each of us in it we are called to be our best selves and that brings me to my having a Swami serve a pre Ananda to be with us today to talk about the three great powers within us well actually I felt since he had been assigned to New York City the Vedanta Society of New York City in January of this year I felt I had a moral responsibility to get him out of the cold and back to Los Angeles he did serve as assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of Southern California for thirteen months beginning on December the 3rd in 2015 he is deeply loved everybody that I have ever talked to about Swami Sabha pre Anandi they get a big smile on their face and they're just absolutely adore him he is known as the YouTube Swami because he has a multitude of youtubes that are up on all over if you just you to swami serve a pre Ananda a whole host of different talks that he has given has come up Swamy joined the Ramakrishna mutt over and mission order it's their missionary what's the monastery on a stereo thank you in 1994 and he has served as assistant ministers to Swami as assistant minister he has given regular evening classes in the Hollywood temple how many of you are here from the Hollywood tempo oh my goodness thank you so much let's give them all our videos that's a very big welcome thank you so much for being but he delivered helped with major poojas delivered Sunday's spiritual talks at each of the Southern California centers and led monthly retreats at Vivekananda house he also gave retreats here and at centers throughout the United States he served as Ontario or instructor of the monastic training center in Delhi or mutt he has served the ramakrishna Latin mission in various capacity including being vice-president of secondary school he has a degree in business management and I have to tell you that every time I've seen him I too get a big smile on my face he is a joy and I'm so very privileged to have him with the keyboard Center today and now let's warmly warmly welcome swami sour cream a very good afternoon to all of you it's a pleasure and a privilege to be here this afternoon at the keyboard centers program which is wonderful Cathedral Thank You Reverend Wynn people for giving me this opportunity and yes for getting me out of the cold in New York yes it is somebody said so Swami have you now understood the meaning of the word Envy I said why know whether you see to get the better today's talk comes out of some reflections I have had on our Hindu wisdom traditions on the wider wisdom traditions of the great religions of humanity and also on certain new insights we are getting from positive psychology neuroscience in the last 20 or 30 years let's start with the greatest of Hindu epics the Mahabharata which is also the largest epic I think that we have in all of human civilization the Bhagavad Gita which is well known as the most popular Hindu scripture is embedded in the Mahabharata the story of the Mahabharata those of you who are familiar with it it's that it's of a civil war in ancient India between princes of the same family same royal family and the hero is a tuna and his guru his friend his teacher is Krishna who is the avatar of God and the villain of the pieces is another Prince Duryodhana who was intransigent who's basically villainous and so Krishna teaches of Juna nikita which is the essence of the wisdom of the Upanishads the ancient scriptures of the Hindus now somebody once asked me that why didn't he teach Duryodhana the villain could have reformed him and could have prevented the great Civil War called Mahabharata so it's good to teach good things to a good person but really if you can teach it to a person who's being naughty and transform that person what wouldn't that have been better and the interesting thing is Krishna actually didn't try to teach Duryodhana the villain Krishna approached him and said what he was doing is wrong that his others were not Dharma and this is the path of the of morality of Dharma dirty Adela's the villians response is its I would say it's a beautiful response it sums up the human condition so beautifully he says to Krishna they body went up to Godhead he says to him Duryodhana says don't teach me what is right and wrong I know what is right and I know what is wrong I even know what I'm doing is wrong I even know what I should do that's not my problem my problem is I know what is right I don't feel like doing it I know what is wrong I can't stop myself from doing it John Holly and her mum naturally prove it in sanskrit I know what is right I don't feel like doing it I have no inclination for the right for being righteous johnelliott ever not to me in everything I know what is wrong whatever I'm doing is wrong what is immoral but I can't stop myself kena happy they mingle with each to dinner there is some force within me which impels me I cannot control myself it's a great struggle the essence of the human condition it's not just a villain it's something that every one of us if we are honest to ours we have faced this and we struggle with it the interesting thing is in the kita when krishna is teaching Archana Arjuna sees more or less the same thing that what you're teaching is very difficult the impulses within us the passions and they leave the anger within us it drives us to immorality and how can I walk the path of of of morality the same question more or less but with one crucial difference difference which makes Duryodhana the villain of the epoch and Arjuna the hero which makes Arjuna the recipient of the teachings of the Gita we want crucial difference Duryodhana said this is what I am and nothing can be done about it I am NOT interested in changing junuh said this is what I am how can I be better teach me this difference this little decision it makes all the difference in our lives religion can help us teachers philosophy psychology such psychoanalysis and therapy everything can help us only if we decide to help ourselves that crucial difference if power of decision that's the first thing that I want to talk about this afternoon we all have that power but we do not use it you see what happens is Krishna says in the Gita later on the enemy is the passions within us the anger and rage within us that is the enemy and that there is in all of us in the saint and the sinner the difference is this Krishna says to Arjuna do not give way to them that is the straight path to to despair and destruction do not give me too you have the power to choose a saint not a person who does not get angry there's a lot of person who does not feel feel anger but if the person who decides not to give way or give in to anger a decision the power of decision we all have done this thing is normally we act according to our program what we have the wave patterns of behavior that we have inculcated over a lifetime and if you are a Hindu or a Buddhist or a chain or see that the Hinton Indian traditions of religion you say many lifetimes many lifetimes the patterns of behavior which we have programmed ourselves with those are the what are normally expressed when we meet the difficult situation in life whatever is within us past conditioning that comes out automatically you know a good example is computers when you switch on a computer I don't let the new computers do that the old computers had a boot up sequence it would load things one after another and it would give you an opportunity at one point will give an opportunity to interrupt the boot boot sequence and do something else otherwise we don't do anything it pulls up the way it has been programmed to do so there is an automatic sequence of events which unfolds it's exactly like that with us our past conditioning and force something annoying happens and we react with irritation anger and even rage not consciously not as a decision it's the past conditioning which concern what Krishna tells Arjuna in the Gita is that there is a window of opportunity there is a window of opportunity when the reactions bubbles up from within us as they come up from our unconscious mind your subconscious mind come to the level of our conscious right before they are expressed before they are expressed in speech or in action there is a window where we can accept that or reject it where we can bypass it if necessary and replace it with more skillful thoughts ideas and actions that window of opportunity it's fleeting it's tiny but that is that place that is the window where we can take a decision for example sitting at a table maybe even this one and an impulse comes let me check my mail and you take up dude do I have a mail do I have a text that is not a conscious decision it's a habit it's a habit without any in evolution on our part our hand goes to the pockets and you take out the phone and being sort of fiddle around with it and we put it back that's uh that's a pattern behavior programmed behavior but at that moment if I take a decision I say no to that and yes to them maybe the top or whatever is going on that's a conscious decision I have used my power of decision the power of decision has two parts what is when you say no to something and the other one when you say yes to something it's very interesting that the English word decision has Latin roots scissoring it means to cut our words like scissors comes from that the cesarean section operation for delivering children that comes from that but to cut so decision right early needs to say no to something and then you say yes to something it's consciously if we ask ourselves throughout the day what have I said no to consciously and whatever say yes to consciously I'd find I keep taking decisions for my work for my interpersonal relationships maybe with regard to other people and other activities it's still no matter they keep taking decisions most in regard to our own lives we hardly taking decisions we hardly say no to anything we hardly say yes to anything consciously unconsciously giving that all the time krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita the path to yoga the path to wisdom is to awaken into conscious action when do you do that answer is very interesting when you to be happy power of decision we have the power of decision all the time all the time you see often we make a disservice we make resolutions New Year's resolutions the tragedy of Our Lives New Year's resolutions and they do this this year and maybe in one or two or three days or few weeks it's down to disappear them in and the dusty notebook somewhere if you at all wrote it down but what we do not recognize or it chooses to ignore is that the power of resolution the power of decision is there all the time not just one day not on 31st December first generally every day of the year every hour of the day every minute of every hour right now you can take a decision if I do not follow up on it I can again take the same decision what stops me from taking it the power to decide most important power is available to us all the time Vivekananda said that when the sleeping soul is roused to this conscious action power will come glory will come goodness will come oh that is great and excellent in human life comes when the sleeping soul is roused action conscious action here means taking a decision consciously saying yes to what I really wanted like I admitted I want these things in life I admitted I do not want these other things in my life then why not consciously saying yes to this and no to the other things what should I decide upon in the Gita Krishna tells Arjuna three things what do you think what thoughts we entertain what words we use and finally what actions we take you see actions are only the most gross visible manifestations subtler than actions are the words that we use and subtler than the words are the thoughts that entity take care of these thoughts their words are taken care of take care of your word since not the actions are taken care of in Sanskrit Kaimana water mono means mind what giving speech and body of course stands for the action physical actions that we do in the body so taking decisions about what to think you might we have this lengthy story of a monk who went to learn meditation and he told his meditation teacher it's difficult and we all know that is difficult it's difficult why is it difficult all sorts of unwanted thoughts come to my mind and then he gave it this exercises and already do this keep watching your thoughts and whenever the unwanted thought comes take a black pebble and put it in the bowl a smooth black petals and smooth white builders and then - not what you want to entertain but you want to dwell upon a whole it's not a spiritual thought a thought of calmness of loving-kindness when it comes take a white pebble and put it into the bowl and the young monk did it first day first few days the bowl was mostly full of black pebbles as he went on of watching godly replacing unskillful thoughts and skillful thoughts slowly at the end of the year the ball was mostly white pebbles so consciously we can change our thoughts our stage our action which brings me to the second great power I want to talk about this afternoon and that is the power of concentration of focus vehicle and again he said the difference between an ordinary person and a great person lies in the degree of concentration ordinary person and a great person lies in the degree of concentration but I read that I wasn't fully convinced I thought only in the degree of concentration there's a great difference between me and up and say difficult itself is it only in the degree of concentration once a brother lock of my car the most brilliant young people I've met in India you have this terribly terribly difficult examination it won't make much impact here it's called the IIT entrance examination in India and hundreds of thousands of intelligent well-prepared ambitious young men and women take that examination every year and this young man who became a month my friend he was placed second in his batch among all those hundreds of thousands of young people which is an incredible achievement in in India and of course he had a brilliant career before that academically and after that India's most prestigious engineering Institute this the background is the reason why I'm getting the respect Rama one day we're in our seminary will be a train I saw him sitting and reading now I went up to man said what are you reading no answer he sitting he has his foot out on the bed relaxed and feeding there I asked him twice standing in front of him what are you reading no reply so I caught one of his big toe and shook it what are you reading and he imagined it this person whose body I'm touching does not react you cannot feel it he's reading the problem it's only when I tried to lift the book and see the cover I'm also persistent if not anything he got a shock and he looked up now that's concentration the difference between an ordinary person a great person in any pursuit of life whether you're in academics whether you are an artist a scientist whether you are a meditator we have all come across people in our communities who had this tremendous ability to focus to bear down upon what they are doing there's this psychologist in this country behind csikszentmihalyi who has written the classic book flow he worked on this power of concentration focus all his life is worked on this and his work is taken as foundation and now in the area of attention he says in his work in the in that book flow we all have a limited capacity for processing information and he uses the language of information technology says in one second the human mind can consciously process one about 150 big bits in the sense of information science 150 bits of information not more than that and that includes your awareness of your body that you exist that you are here you're breathing plus your awareness of the environment of your own inner mental states all of that and what is focused what is concentration he says the ability to take that 150 bits as much of it as possible and put it on your object of concentration reading a book listening to music doing some work how much of those 150 bits per second that's the currency of attention that's what you've got to spend how much of that can be put into our work or an object or focus the more we put into it the more concentrated we are supposed to be the more our quality of work improves in fact we have all heard in school when the teacher snaps at us pay attention you there pay attention now that pay attention literally true it's like the currency we have every second we have 150 bits of information so how much of that are we paying to the teacher it's really true that we deal it only that limited resource and csikszentmihalyi faith people who have this ability extraordinary ability to focus they take most of that 80% of that 90% of that and put it on their object or focus and those who cannot David take maybe 30 or 40 pitch and the rest is scattered you know what I have seen children to find it difficult to study and the parents complain here this boy or girl doesn't study unless there's rock music playing and there's a mobile phone is there once in a while he's checking the who is texting him and all is browsing on the net and doing a little bit of reading at the same time if you take it away it's upsetting it's a common phenomena now increasingly common phenomena amongst teenagers especially chicks and hides what can you explain that you see what's happening there is all the bits of information available to the teenager he wants to engage it and so baby is paying very little attention to the book but all the rest of it it needs areas of engagement a little bit on the music a little bit on the texting little bit on the internet and so the person is involved does not make for very good studies but just the person is happy if you take away those sources the person becomes the teenager becomes upset Daniel Solomon he is famously known for his work on emotional intelligence his most recent work is a book called focus and he has pointed out we are having an epidemic of distraction we are in the midst of an epidemic of distraction especially because of the digital devices which are available to us at all times those things which be and flash and wink at you and call your attention you get easily distracted and once a mind is trained to them especially at a young age then the minds are trained to distraction they are not trained to concentration and focus I have been teaching children almost to the last 25 years young people and what I've discovered is we are used to being entertained from early morning to late in the night and teachers to the classroom complain I can't seem to hold their attention the problem is they are used to being entertained with cartoons and TV and and social media especially social media the continuously in contact with others and distracted so when you count it up your old chalk and talk method it's very boring you can hardly take maybe twenty or thirty bits out of the 150 bits which that little kid has to spend every second ten is relevant remarks there that we have to Train children in the art of concentration and he recommends meditation he actually recommends meditation for children is very interesting to see the important that meditation is aiding in modern positive psychology midnight Csikszentmihalyi in his book flow towards the middle of the book he mentions he has studied the literature of the world classical literature of the east and the west looking for flow experiences and he sees the best system for generating flow that he has ever come across in all his studies is the Patanjali Yoga Sutras the the classic manual of meditation Patanjali Yoga Sutras where you are taught how to concentrate the whole philosophy of yoga sutras it's meant for me it's meant for enlightenment it's not meant for just concentrating on your studies or your work it's meant for enlightenment the idea represented Yoga Sutras is the only thing that keeps us from enlightenment the only thing that prevents you or me from being a Buddha is that we cannot meditate like a bottom our minds are distracted if you could calm the mind down then you'll be entitled the 3rd Sutra of the Patanjali yoga Sutra says Dada artists for OBL astronomy at that point the witness within is revealed in its to me at that point the witness within is revealed in its true nature at what point the Sutra previous to that says yoga chitta vritti nirodha yoga the true yoga is focus of the mind absolute cessation of the disturbance of the mind movements of the mind then it ceases his absolute calmness then the truth lying beneath the mind behind the mind the witness of the mind is revealed that's the purpose but the techniques which are mentioned in the Patanjali yoga Sutra which mean I Dixon he goes through and he shows it's a wonderful technology for concentration wonderful technology for focus there you are taught first of all the moral disciplines Yama and niyama then how to sit quietly sitting quietly is an important part of questioning the mind you see imagine a bowl with water if you shake the bowl ever so little the water inside shakes quite a bit to keep the water absolutely still imagine how careful you have to be that the bowl so it is with the body and the mind the body has to be still before the mind can be still my camera body to focus only when the body is still I remember instructions from a Himalayan mother who is guiding meditation he sounds more like a bootcamp drill instructor than a meditation teacher he barks out in Hindi you know follow me so much don't move freezes don't move don't speak don't think so three stages first of all the physical body is taken care of then our language systems the chattering of the mind then the the deeper levels of the mind are quite endure so asana sitting still breathing is deeply connected our mind is deeply connected without breathing when you are angry notice how rapid the breathing is when you're peaceful notice how even the breathing is so the ancient Yogi's discovered when the mind is calm the breath is also even and harmoniously does it work the other way or not if you can control the breath if you can make the bread fatherless will it become the mine and we discovered it does that's the whole science of pranayama breathing even and then you go deeper pratyahara withdrawing the mind from a dozen different things you see how well it can even with me jigs and me nice work 150 bits of information per second is quick not here and there we draw the mind from other other other avenues when it's leaking out and then focus it then comes tarana focusing on your object of concentration there are a continuous unbroken focus and then Suhani the higher states of absorptions will lead to enlightenment but we can use this we can use this effort to improve the quality of our life reading this book by benefit calendar wrapped our apt she where she talks about attention importance of concentration and attention and she says the quality of your life depends on what you pay attention to and how much you pay attention to what you pay attention to in your life are you paying attention to the positive to your work to your passion to your are to your creativity to your relationships to your God and being attention to that are are are you paying attention to the negative things in our life the sorrow is suffering the old aging the disease the heartbreak are you dwelling on that the more we dwell on that the worst our quality of life same life the more we dwell on Devon other side the molar of Mises turned to the Sun better quality of our life just the shifting of attention just by the shifting of attention I think it was Milton who said man in his own place can make a heaven of Hell and a hell of them and the crucial learning here is shifting learn to shift attention what you learn about what you dwell upon in your own life and how much we depend on that can turn heading to hell and heaven now the power of concentration I speak more about that later in the maybe in the question answers if you have questions and move on to the next thing you see it so happened that in one of India's in India's best engineering Institute as invited to give talks I love going to libraries so I used to spend some time to the library there and able to watch the kids study how this worked hard to immerse in there in their textbook centered in their work what work they were reading eight hours ten hours they're both early in the morning and then come back in the evening and the same Firebird will be sitting near the desk at the same question meaning that so I was so impressed and I told one of the professors that incredible the power of concentration this is what powers India's best engineering institutes and the professor said Swami you're right but I'm not impressed I'm not impressed I said why not why ever not he said this power of concentration you're right these these kids have an astonishing power of concentration they're absorbing their work and eternal great work but all of that without heart it doesn't impress me it's ultimately no good it does no good to those children it does no good to the society most of them is not all of them many of them they will change their careers and they will try to make a lot of money for themselves and they have no higher higher damage like they don't look around society even their workplace who needs help just an unending focus immense power concentration and yet without heart without love sensibility without sensitiveness that's you're describing a demon you're not describing a saint so the third and I would say the most important power along with the power to make decisions take decisions along to the power to concentrate is the power of unselfishness is the power of unselfishness you see us always intrigued it's one of the subjects of discussion in our ministry Swami Vivekananda who founded our order he gave us this motto for your own enlightenment and for the welfare of the world a little more Charter giacoppetti later in Sanskrit for your own enlightenment and for the welfare of the world and we discuss this why this and why not why your own enlightenment or why not just for the welfare of the world why both of them at the same time reading the Bible I came across people asking Jesus which is the most important of the commandments you know you know in Judaism we have more than 500 or come on it's actually and which is the most important commandment and Jesus says most important commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy might and just as you think that the disciples were closings did not move up in got it Jesus said and and that I never look to things he could have just said something you you could have just said love God both in the Gita when Krishna is summarizing is teaching for Arjuna he says marvelous where are you teacher contemplate me God and fight the battle of that you see introverted inwardness a deep meditation deep absorption in God and yet being involved in society in life not one of the two not just going away if to come back to him I looked at this book by Jack confit I put prominent to this writer and the name of the book is so educated after the ecstasy the laundry both have to be done look at the life of the Gupta there are periods of the draw the kids when he was meditating and practicing severe spiritual practices enlightenment and he comes back into society every day he goes are they to prayer and meditation and then he comes back again so this involvement in society a private spirituality is at the end not very spiritual at all a private spirituality just for myself and not for nothing forever anybody else it's not ultimately not very spiritual that's why you see the connection where whether Jesus says love the Lord thy God is up thy neighbor whether Krishna says contemplate God and fight the battle of life to the to your duty in life or whether Swami Vivekananda gives us the motto for your own enlightenment and for the red thread of the world you see in the deepest sense you have not two different things they're expressing two aspects of the same thing spirituality basically one of our great Swami Swami or another that what is spirituality when I close my eyes in meditation I find peace with him when I opened my eyes my attitude is what can I do for you that is spirituality see both of them they have to be together it's usually it's the other way around people come and say Swami when I close my eyes are lots of disturbance within no peace within and then I open my eyes it's not what I can do for you what I can get from and no wonder that we do not have peace no matter that you do not have peace our our attitude is usually the opposite of spirituality one of the modern pioneers of positive psychology identities Seligman is God professor of happiness terms and to summarize his work all that if a little bit he says happiness H is a function of three things first please standing for pleasure second is standing for engagement and third am standing for meaning or purpose meaning in life so be pleasure but what happiness our immediate tendencies to resort to pleasure have fun eat something good for 10 party watch TV or something pleasurable but he says that is transient that is habit forming and that is not very appreciative does not give much happiness in the long run at all what gives more happiness is engagement it's more than pleasure II engagement is if you're lucky enough to enjoy what you do for a living or even if you do not if you're lucky enough to have a hobby or two which you enjoy when you are engaged the difference between engagement and pleasure is if we are watching a game of baseball on TV and we actually go out to play baseball I may not be able to play baseball as well at the game I'm watching a TV but actually when I go out and play that's more there gives more satisfaction than sitting down on the couch and watching a game so that's the difference engagement is activity pleasure chasing pleasure is passive but even more more to the point even more than engagement Seligman's might for us the greatest amount of satisfaction in life is how if you're on the lucky few who have found beaming and purposeful life often the meaning and purpose in life comes from religion reading attract by a psychologist who says many of the clients the patients who come to me many of them are lapsed visitors to a church they have some kind of connection to some religious institution and they've given that up and one of the components of therapy he says I always recommend that you take a topic a meaning in life is given by nature meaning in life is given by doing something for others it's concerned for others unselfishness becoming the game he says in the long run unselfishness is more pain it's more paying it but it takes a mature mind to understand that this young person who came to Vivekananda and he said Swami are trying to meditate I've closed all the doors and windows and I sit and meditate for long hours and I'm most unhappy and then I can't I said open the doors and windows of your house go out there and see there is a sick person who needs help there is an ignorant person who needs education health then you get the peace are seeking so these are the three great powers that I want to place before this assembly today the power of taking a decision that's where it begins the power of focusing that's the real energy behind all of this we need to use our resources power of focus power of concentration and the greatest power of all is the power of unselfishness and I have run out of time most important resource I think thank you very much thank you [Applause] sometimes I find this is a very difficult question sometimes it's obvious the you talked about finding meaning of life yes maybe I can if I take the intelligence for 10 seconds just frame the question in terms of my interest I've been thinking about the role of spirituality in prevention of violence you have mentioned the research in women and so on but more contextually violence against women against lower castes it's to prevent that and to say talk their religion in the conventional way may not be the best way to go because religious people who believe in their top man's fight among each other more fiercely then people who are not religious but it it turns over in each other in indivisible spiritualism I find the concepts so powerful which is think of oneness everybody is saying there is no difference between me now how can that be taught when charge says my religion is better than yours or my scripture is better than yours and so your spiritual wisdom I think that we have to teach for the Shoeless the Devas they back people now back people may be unified by not even invoking God by invoking love and peace so I was very pleased to see that he was used the word God only three times up but so who do you advise how can you spread this message to those who stop religion there number of themes involved in that question I'll try to respond to as many as possible quickly first of all acting against violence it's it sounds great but you know you still against something so religion though religious people have in fact sometimes not clearly spoken up against violence or their toddlers have been a cause of bloodshed and violence but true religion in every religion spirituality the perennial philosophy virtues which we read about that is beautiful so when we stand for religion when we believe in religion connect to religion and practice religion that has practiced that form of religion which teaching which it takes it goes against dogmatism it automatically works against violence teach the positive rather than directly fighting against the negative there's a way to chillingly said the more you struggle against monsters the more you run the risk of becoming a monster yourself yes the more you stare into the abyss you'll find the abyss staring back at you this is pretty chilling these words but what it means is let's concentrate on the positive and propagate the positive the other part of it when you say is my scripture right and your you are wrong how do you deal with that today just yesterday I was reading this book is called a spiritual genius and it's about contemporary spiritual practitioners from different traditions so it starts off with a Christian preacher who is working among very poor be kerala and he points out to the interviewer that in the last 40 years and never ever tried to proselytize or convert anybody I just served the poor and then he says after all it's good that if I didn't do is a better Hindu a Muslim a better Muslim a Christian a better Christian I think this is these are the exact words which we reckon in the spoken hundred years ago in the Parliament of Religions in 1893 so that idea has now come and you're hearing it from the amount of a Christian visionary one second the second chapter was about a rabbi a scholar a teacher who is speaking to his journalist and say you know easy bit like them fierce prophets of the Old Testament that's how at least the journalist has painted him say you know the greatest heresy in Judaism was he says the German all there isn't God all this car it's a friend was the greatest heresy but I say it is the truth it is all thought any snatched them the notebook of the journalist and says look this is copy literally copy do you understand it is all God relationship with God fine but a deeper truth is not with God but within lon that kind of immigrants coming from a Jewish teacher what we was just thinking what whatever what we're living in today so these I have have spread the idea of a perennial philosophy of an underlying harmony of religious and that's what we need to encourage thank you the street powers decision and decision and concentrations and tradition unselfishness yes yes oh and his truck how he struggled with non-violence yes Gandhi is taken as an embodiment of Hindu values but it was also realized that his sources of information with diapers taught stop Christianity from the New Age movement before it came to be called the New Age movement which was influenced by in maybe the precursors of the Jewish movement in London when he was there by the Jain tradition and of course by his native questionable traditions so they notice how a middle-class aspiring Indians lawyer from a small town in Gujarat in the days of the British Raj took a decision to stand up for what he believed in and not just himself stand up on behalf of others the oppressed the legal is to a politician who'd lead independent India later armies who asked for advice can again accept howdy how do you take decisions look at the criteria he gives for taking a decision to that politician when you take a decision for the future of India keep in mind the poorest the most neglected the weakest member of the nation the man or the woman who neglected was been discriminated against who is the poorest with the weakest and how my decision is going to help him or harm that person think about that and then take a decision criteria for his decision and non-violence the first of the practices practices of yoga yoga start starts with Yama and niyama immoral practices and the first model practice is non-violence first do no harm ahimsa perhaps inspired by his questionable background and also the Jain background of the area where he came from the Jains are among the most maybe the most peaceful religion number they make non-violence the core of their practice of the spirituality so yes Gandhi you can see all of these and focus of course he was famous for that if you look at the complete works of Gandhi Gandhi it fits shells it fits shells and I've seen that how a man who was a social reformer who was a politician who was a freedom fighter how he would write so much just immense concentration immense concentration one more thing I'll say about Kennedy before I finish what I find most touching in his autobiography he writes people think I have a freedom fighter some people think I'm a politician some people think I'm a social reformer but what I am is a simple man in search of God a simple man in search of God he defined himself as a spiritual seeker all this social reform his politics his freedom struggle against the British Raj we're all expressions of his spirituality yes I would your thoughts on the meditation and the soul the spirit mantras alright thank you for asking that question because there was something that I wanted to say and it's not I'm running out of time so I did not say it but this gives me an opening to save it I'll get that out of the way first Daniel in his book I was reading the book on focus the recent research in neuroscience on meditators when the people are meditating and therefore these it makes for very cool pictures of monks sitting and many months of meditating and these electrodes and the gadget wire sprouting out of it but they found many very very interesting things wonderful papers have been written on those researches now now in the kita Krishna teaches meditation to luncheon Archana says it's difficult what you are telling me telling us because the mind wanders so much and Krishna says is when the mind wanders the mind will matter when the mind wanders away from your meditation notice it second bring it back to your object of meditation third fold it when I read it it seems very simple our reaction has young novice has been weeded on that was yes yes get on with it when I read Daniel government's book focus he's still talking about the research done by the neuroscientist fMRI scans of monks meditating they found that when a monk is trying to meditate repeat a master for example one set of neurons is activated when the mind wanders away they're asked what's happening you might not have to they find another set of neurons being activated different cells in the brain being activated in the mind wanders away when the man notices I have wandered away from my object of meditation another set of neurons is activated and when the month makes a conscious decision to bring it back to his object of meditation or the mantra it can happen in a split second another set of neurons is activated which means each of these instructions has its neural correlate it's wonderful that we are these visitor traditions but it's equally wonderful that we are doing research like this which is confirming that putting it on a solid basis of empirical research you see the stages of meditation Krishna talks about they are now reflected it's not just Krishna any process of meditation we talk about the my inventory we talk about recognizing that the mind is wandering bringing it back and holding it again and each of them it seems has its own durable correlated which I found it's very wonderful now the rest of yourself question is a broad question the purpose of meditation is is enlightenment in any tradition it's not dwelling on guard in the theistic traditions or dwelling on the self the inner self in the yogic traditions or in the Buddhist traditions is it's watching the phenomena of the body mind the purpose being enlightenment Nirvana moksha family or whatever you call it what we are using it for or in a stress management or making the kids study better or do their work or executors do their work better those are sight benefits there was a very interesting Mosby interested in those but the original systems were not meant for that they're not meant for that they were meant for enlightenment Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who popularized Transcendental Meditation here in the in America and in the West when he went back to India when one of his early trips back his brother mugs asked him what is all this you are teaching them the people in the West you will be you will manage your stress better you'll be younger your skin will be better if you do do these things then what is all this you're teaching there this is not the purpose of meditation and then he said it is mine is it yes I give them what they want so that they will want what I want to give them so I don't know if it is it the old bait-and-switch but it's it's not not bait-and-switch because those five benefits those spin-offs they are there they're really there but once we begin to get that we look for something higher yes I am more peaceful but it's not a permanent peace I am better off but I really want whatever want to know what is the meaning and purpose of life is there God do I have an immortal soul can God be experienced is it meant only for a few mystics or a sigmat 40 so enlightenment is the purpose of life and meditation is related to it so that's at the core my core feeling about meditation and the waves being used now it's what is originally meant techniques of meditation mantra and all of that it's a enormous amount of literature is there Patanjali yoga Sutra of course the original sutras with there correctly that sub collective the Buddhists have an enormous amount of material on meditation especially the Tibetan Buddhists also therapists Christian mysticism if you go to specially Eastern Orthodox Church the the Russian Fathers they have developed a kind of mantra technique the prayer of the heart so vast amount of materials like if I mean the good books have been written about it question yes in dr. James Tony's new book into the magic shop a neurosurgeons quest to discover the mysteries of the brain and the secrets of the heart he talks about the fact that the brain and the heart talk neurologically and he says that we've discovered that the heart talks to the brain twice as much as the brain talks to the heart would you comment on that please I think that's a very interesting insight I didn't know this but but you know it stands to reason a lot of work has been done in cognitive science in recent years and this I thought this idea we had thought of modernism that we are rational creatures it's not very true our rationality is a very weak and delicate thing it is deeply influenced by emotions what we like we find reasons to support that what we dislike we find reasons the intellect the head finds reasons to support our our hatred or display that's how prejudices are found and and strengthened so the heart is actually more powerful than the head both for bad and for good you see Freud I hope this trend report coming down upon me for mentioning such names but yes they are thinkers and and they have deep insights into human nature and you know this world we should be too many kind enough to accept insights from neuroscience from psychiatry from psych - everything I remember in India in one place then it was through the second it was the Serfaty pooja worship of the day when the goddess of learning is worshipped and children - it is I think they do it not out of reverence but they want good grades that's why they do it but anyway it's go to school and it happened to be the psychology lab technology that with the pictures of great psychologists and this little old senior lady she comes in very devout and pious lady not develop on English education but very devout in her own way and she comes into the room to bow down to the goddess saraswathi and she looks around all the pictures now she thinks they are Saints so she bow down to them and then she asked me as theirs it's a true story that says she says my dear Swami who is this Rishi she needs a sage in India that was a picture of right it is very safe like Peter he's got a beard he must be a sage a saint but anyway he famously said mankind humanity has been humiliated three times the first time when we were knocked from our center position the universal when the ancient astronaut is covered that the the earth is not the center of the universe the Sun goes round the earth the earth goes around the Sun not the other way around you are not the center of the universe first look the second blow he said was delivered by doubting who said you are not descended from the Angels you descended from monkeys another part of humiliation and Freud says I have delivered the final humiliation to the - to humanity's pride and that is our idea all right maybe we are descended from monkeys but we have that mark is be a rational animal Freud says you may be animals you are not rational vast portion of the subconscious makes light work of your so-called rationality so it is the heart which is more powerful than the head and there now we see the profound wisdom of our ancient religions all of them without exception insist on the cleansing nothing heart first cleansing of the heart control and and transcendence of the passions redirections of the passions from from basil ends towards the divine all of them they may be realistic religions like Christianity all these dick religions of Hinduism vegetable samosa tourism there may be Northeast with like Buddhism or like yoga well which which actually are not Garf enter but all of them without exception insisted first of all what they call in sanskrit leadership the purification of the heart purification of the mind not of intellect the internet comes much later so that's a very beautiful insight neuroscience says now we know they are actually found evidence that the heart talk smokers literally victory so the hot dogs more to the head and the head to the heart I am interested if you could give some comments on dad last night a very dear friend of mine passed away and I was with him at the time and it was a remarkable experience of course and in some way I began to see it like a butterfly struggling out of a cocoon he had been ill for some time and as he was trying you know during those moments in that process it seemed to me very much akin to a form of birth and I was worried if you could share some of your thoughts and insights on this process thank you you had a wonderful discussion a pattern on death beyond death right here yes a few weeks ago because they don't let you answer the and then I want you to answer the question a few weeks ago the keyboard Center had a program all day called beyond the veil life after death in the morning we had one of the deans of the Cathedral so in Episcopal priest we had a rabbi and in the afternoon we had swami sivananda from the hindu a dentist's assignee of Hollywood we had venerable Miyoshi from Sheila temple and we had an Iranian singing Casa of the Sikh community and it was a wonderful discussion is the film ready to be posted yet in the next couple days in the next couple of days the film will be posted after its attitude as are all of the things that the keyboard Center does this for me if you would kindly be so gracious as to answer that as well right one common denominator of all religions in fact you can call it a defining characteristic of religion is the belief that we survive physical death if there is no existence after death there is no religion you cannot have religion without opposed some kind of post-mortem continuance existence after the physical death of the person every religion shares the same power whether it's Christianity Judaism Islam or Buddhism Hinduism enormous differences in metaphysics and beliefs practices rituals but they all are centered on this matter that we continue to exist in some form after death death is not the end a hippety coating fried again but he was asked he was asked he's in science a form of religion and he said no he was an atheist he said the defining characteristic of religion is transcendence is that anything that says that there is a transcendent beyond this empirical reality that becomes a religion so comunism more science these are not religious so existence after death the Hindu belief is that we have this physical body this dies but we also have a subtle body and the subtle bodies nothing's nothing theoretical your thoughts your memories your personality even the life forces this is a bundle which is called the subtle body in sanskrit sukshma sharir this survives death the physical body obviously dies at death it's either buried or cremated or whatever but the subtle body according to the Hindu idea it transmigrates it goes to other words based on its past Karma it's a luminous body so your your feeling of butterflies traveling out of a cocoon is very active the the language used by Krishna and the Gita is a person dies it's like casting off over and burn our clothes and you you go on and put on new and fresh clothes your clothes are like the physical body but the you inside the clothes is like the subtle body so you go from life to life we survived it that's the idea intuition yes the point there is the beyond is subtle body is the art one according to Vedanta that your real nature is not even the subtle body the subtle body comprised of the mind and memories and personality that is also subject to change we see that all the time it's also subject to good and evil there is an immortal unchanging reality beyond the subtle body so in Vedanta to score the Atman pure consciousness to realize our nature as that that is what we are it leads to the free to freedom from the cycle so the hula Hindu Buddhist Jain and Sikh theology pupil is the purpose is to get freedom from this endless cycle of birth and death one of our senior class was visiting this country in the 1960s when it seems one of the big debates was birth control and so the young people they were discussing it somewhere far it's our they're against it and they are they of course not the venerable Swami of course is not interested in such things so he's sitting there and he said I am all for it and then they looked up Swami what are you saying do you know what what you what if this is about him he says yes no but not yet that's the Hindu idea of existence beyond birth these have to be on birth and death are you somebody thank you so much for your lectures and YouTube Swami fan thank you for that you mentioned something about the gap when we make a decision or making the right decision yes I personally struggle a lot forced to identify that the gap and if we identified how to discriminate I think that's what is the rubic is that they're awake what is that gap does for us and how can I know that the gap is gonna give me a right answer the gap as in Gav the gap I mentioned yes that's very important the key thing is to do it consciously Vivekananda said when the soul is roused to conscious action self conscious action remember the the analogy of the computer which boots by itself unless you interrupt it so whatever is this stored up with in our subconscious mind that's going to play out automatically unless we consciously choose so consciously that means awareness awareness of what what I'm thinking what are we thinking right now what am I feeling right now what am i saying right now and what am i doing right now first step is to become aware of it the moment you become aware of it the gap opens up the possibility of change possibility of taking a decision and implementing the decision that comes on so your choice will be based on your values often you see there's a disconnect between our values and our lives and our life I profess some values and I genuinely believe in that but somehow that does not reflect that that's because I am NOT consciously transforming those values into myself consciously transforming those values into life means living in that gap taking that decision consciously moment to moment deciding using the power of decision all the time what should I think what sorts will I entertain what sort should i not entertain what words will I use what words should I not use and what actions will I do when what action should I not do thought worthy consciously chosen according to your values that is we make we make a means in Sanskrit we make a means to distinguish between right and wrong to distinguish between two things which are mixed up can you clearly distinguish between the two and then choose the one which is according to our families one point here it sounds easy and nice it is not the reason it's not easy is because the gap is fleeting and our reactions are fast and programmed and automatic to keep happening you will not immediately see an effect the first thing is to do there are times where meditation concentration is helpful in fact there are studies I met a neuroscientist who has presented a paper who say that in the case of veteran meditators the near frontal cortex was more involved in decision-making in the case of others it came from the more traumatic part of our brains that part became active when the person responded whereas in the case of a meditator the neocortex was more active in when the person responded to to some stimulus from outside which means in meditation it gives you that gap and let's you're the more evolved upper brain higher brain gives it a chance only problem with the higher brain is it is slow its evolution has decided that being the reptilian brain the inner lower brain is fast it's automatically so you need to slow down a little bit and then slowing down under awareness comes from meditation I'm a cradle Catholic yes and you said thought word and deed and that comes right out of the Catholic Mass yes as in the context of confession yes could you just I didn't know that it it's mentioned there but I'm not surprised I'm not surprised all of these ancient wisdom traditions the ancient religions of humanity they are incredible repositories of psychological knowledge and wisdom they have studied the human mind the human souls so deeply but this is the material these religions work with and so note this it's no surprise that they know the ins and out of all of this and therefore when you speak about thought word and deed in confession this is the very platform on which spiritual practices turn I mean the Gita is exactly so subjects not rajasic thoughts and stylistic subject means luminous righteous noble rajasic means dynamic fashion oriented Tamarack means dark and and heavy and inert and the ability to distinguish between such thoughts ability to distinguish between such words and such actions that's there in the Gita I guess that's it please [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

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Keywords: Swami Sarvapriyananda, Three Great Powers of the Mind, Three Great Powers, Sarvapriyananda, Swami Sarvapriyananda latest, vivekananda samiti, vsiitk, Nakul surana, surana, IIT Kanpur, IITK

Id: IocVfGW40gM

Length: 73min 7sec (4387 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 19 2017