Vedanta and Tantra (Kashmir Shaivism) - A Dialog Between Philosophies

[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] um [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] namaste everyone welcome everyone from around the world to this discussion on vedanta and kashmir shaivism hosted by the vedanta life academy i am swami hari namananda i'm speaking to you from the san diego center and we have a great program so i hope you'll enjoy it now it's traditional to begin with the chant so let us invoke it and if you know the chant please chant along [Music] [Music] he lead us from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness to light lead us from death to mortality light is through and through and guide us evermore with thy loving presence oh peace peace peace to all beings everywhere welcome everybody to attending this this great philosophical discussion first of all i want to say this is the first time that we're hosting such a program with this new type of software and let me apologize in advance if there are any difficulties that do arise if any difficulties do arise um just reset the youtube and wait a couple minutes and we will be back and another thing is that if you'd like to ask a question i'm not guaranteeing we can put any questions but if you'd like to ask a question you can try putting it in the chat box and i'll try to see it at maybe at the end of this program in the youtube chat box now the purpose of today's program is to understand these two great philosophical systems you're going to hear about eduardo vedanta and then be able to compare and contrast it with the philosoph philosophical system you're probably much less familiar with which is cashmere cyberism or tanther system and you'll discover probably that many of your spiritual practices actually come from this tantric practice tantric system like mantra and worship it's a robust philosophy which some say in many ways really describes the experiences of saints and incarnations like shiramakrish and others now today we're going to have really two spiritual heavyweights two sadakas and scholars who really know their field really well in fact they both know vedanta and kashmir cyprism but this talk is not meant to show one defeating the other and declare a winner at the end of this by the end of this talk i hope that you'll be able to see that you can actually integrate both of these philosophical traditions into your everyday outlook and into your sadhana your practices now to help us understand these philosophies we do have these two great eminent scholars and sadhakas so let me introduce them the first uh our first speaker is swami sarva priyananda who's the minister and spiritual leader of the vedanta society in new york he is an inaugural fellow for 2019 2020 at the harvard divinity school prior to this he served as an assistant man he served as an assistant minister in the village i'm sorry he's the minister and spiritual leader of the vidant side of new york now and prior to that he served as the assistant minister in the vidal side of southern california for 13 months in 2015. swami joined the ramakrishna and mission in 1994 and received a sannyas in 2004 before being posted to the vedant societies in hollywood swami served as an acharya of the monastic probationers training center at bellermont and he was also vice principal of dayugar vidyapit higher secondary school and many other positions he is known as the youtube swami and is probably the most popular speaker in our rom krishna order he has an innate capacity to take very difficult subjects and make them simple and comprehensible and he is fun to listen to and when you listen to them you actually feel like you're learning something next we have dr stanishwar timulsina he is a professor of religious studies and philosophies at the san diego state university he is from nepal which has been described by many as a place of tantra his learning and training in the knowledge of tantra began with his father and then with other noted sanctuary scholars he went to benares and studied sanskrit after receiving an m.a in classical indian philosophy and particularly in yoga and tantra from the sampurnanda sanskrit university in benares in 1991 he returned to nepal and took a teaching position at mahendra sanskrit university in 2005 he received his phd from martin luther university in classical indian philosophy with a focus on advaita vedanta in germany dr t malzina is a prolific writer with five books and over 80 referred journal articles but besides his scholarship he's also a sadhaka a keen seeker he's been trained in the vedas and kali krama by his father and he has deepened his studies of vedanta with swami ramananda and tantr and tantric systems with premature tonya and many others we welcome both of you so much for coming and being present here and giving us your knowledge and wisdom so today what we're going to do is we're going to have swami server priyananda speak from the position of advaita vedanta and dr timulsina speak from the position of kashmir shaivism tantra now like i said they're both well-versed in both of these traditions so they could speak on both of them but um so what we're going to do is our plan is to go through the philosophy then the practices and then the experiences and so what i'd like to do is allow each speaker about seven minutes to introduce the philosophical structures of each of their systems so i'd like to first have swami sabha pre and nanji speak a little bit about the advaithic vedantic tradition and i know there are some of you also who are this is the first time you're getting introduced into the adorative video so swamiji thank you so much for coming thank you so much for having me um namaskars to both swami harinama nandiji and professor tanishwar timal sinha um i was just saying before we started in the preparatory stage when we were talking to each other in the backstage i was saying that both of these positions advaita vedanta and kashmir shaivism could have been very easily handled by professor stanislaw timothy he is a leading authority on advaita vedanta philosophy and of course also on kashmir shaivism but strangely enough to talk about non-dualism it seems we need two people so just to make it just for the sake of fun i think swami hari namanji has brought in two people to speak about non-dualism and he has asked me to speak about uh advaita vedanta is my job is a little easier than professor timothy because advaita vedanti is actually pretty easy to summarize in comparison to kashmir shaivism which is a very intricate philosophy advaita vedanta can be put in very few words the famous formula given usually given about advaita vedanta is brahmasatyam brahman is the reality world is an appearance and you the sentient being the jiva is none other than brahman so if we just look at these three components the brahman is the ultimate reality the world is an appearance and the g is none other than brahman who you'll get a pretty decent overview of advaita so all of this comes from the upanishads these are the spiritual philosophical texts found in the vedas and the teachings of the upanishads are called vedanta if you want to a straight definition of vedanta vedanta nama upanishad so this is the definition when beginners in vedanta are asked to memorize vedante is this is basically the source of spiritual knowledge called upanishads so these texts are vedanta upanishads are vedanta what do the upanishads teach multiple systems have developed out of these upanishads based on the commentaries of great masters like shankaracharya and so on but what we are going to talk about today in the this discussion it is about advaita vedanta so upanishads based on the interpretations the commentaries of adi shankaracharya and his followers in which line we also come as monks of the ramakrishna order harinama and ji and myself ultimate reality brahman what does that mean according to advaita vedanta the ultimate reality of this universe is brahman which is existence consciousness bliss existence here does not mean things which exist normally whenever we talk about existence we think about things existing tables and chairs and people men and women and stars and quasars and quarks that extremely tiny and like extraordinarily massive whatever exists these are things which exist but now think of existence itself a good example would be when you look out into the ocean you see waves and bubbles big waves and small waves and medium waves and bubbles and foam all of that but we know all of those are different forms of one substance which is water exactly like that can we try to think of this entire universe which we are experiencing right now all kinds of existing things it could be a very gross physical thing like a table which exists or it could be a little more abstract like a number that also exists in some sense or like harry potter a fictional entity that also exists in some fictional sense all kinds of existing things can you think of them like waves or foam or bubbles and existence itself like the water so um or the gold and ornaments example where the same gold is appearing as necklaces and bracelets and rings and so and so forth the substance itself is gold the substance itself is water similarly conceive of this entire universe which you are experiencing now as an ocean of existence and all the existing things are like waves every entity existing entities like a tiny wave it's a form a name and an activity but the substance the reality is existence so this existence this is called sat in advaita vedanta but it's not just a mere dead existence it is also awareness chit consciousness again we are using the english word consciousness deliberately so because we really do not have an equivalent word for pure consciousness chaitanya what do i mean by consciousness just as by existence or sat i do not mean a particular existing thing similarly by consciousness we do not mean particular conscious experiment experiences seeing hearing smelling tasting touching thinking remembering hating loving understanding all of these these are conscious experiences we have now think of consciousness as the background of all of them it is one consciousness which appears as various conscious experiences not particular conscious experiences but the consciousness which which is the background of all of them that consciousness is called chit and in advaita vedanta this sat existence and this consciousness chit they are one and the same thing they are not two different things and then this consciousness this this unlimited existence and this unlimited consciousness this is itself ananda that is uh fulfillment in all our life we are looking for fulfillment bliss happiness only the thing is we experience a series of you know individual joys and pleasures and we keep trying to repeat that and we keep trying to avoid pain but underlying all of this is one unlimited joy or bliss which is called ananda and this is the same thing as sat and chit this is an unlimited infinite existence consciousness which in itself is ananda so this is the ultimate reality of the universe what do i mean by ultimate reality that brings us to what we normally consider as reality this universe the people the laptop in front of you um the sky and the earth and all the events which are happening in the world this is what we consider to be real and this is where advaita vedanta says you're mistaken you're making a very big mistake this is not ultimately real ultimately real is brahman existence consciousness bliss and what we call real the world is an appearance appearance of what appearance of the same brahman existence consciousness place just as a rope is sometimes mistaken as a snake in the semi darkness there's a rope there and you go and see and you think oh it's a snake it's not a snake never was not a snake now never will be but by error it looks like a snake similarly it is our mistake it is our error which makes brahman appear as this universe we have no idea of what brahman is and this world itself all the people and the objects and all the activities this seems like reality this world which seems like an external existing reality and the underlying reality called brahman is not evident to us this this experience we are having now this is called jagat mithya falsity of the world the world this is not how it is it's like the illusory snake appear which is appearing on the real rope the rope is appearing as the snake because of ignorance of the rope because we do not see the snake we do not see the rope we are making a mistake and thinking it's a snake similarly because we do not realize it is brahman we are making a mistake and we are considering this to be an independently existing world out there it is not so it is false an important concept in advaita philosophy is falsity just as truth or reality is brahman similarly falsity the falsity of the world has to be understood falsity does not mean that it does not exist at all since we are experiencing it it has to be given some kind of existence some kind of provisional existence so you cannot say it does not exist because we experience this world we are seeing it hearing smelling testing all our activities including our vedanta and kashmirism everything is going on in this world so it has a kind of provisional existence you cannot say it does not exist but you cannot say it exists also in the sense of brahman if this is difficult to understand think of think of an ornament a necklace made of gold does the necklace exist by itself apart from gold is it a second reality a reality in itself no the gold is the substance which appears as the necklace which is a name and a form and an activity which you call the necklace but the necklace does not have a separate existence of its own but can you see the necklace does not exist at all then what is it that you're calling necklace what is it that looks like that what is it that you put on your neck so um the name and the form and the activity associated nama rupa vivahara of the necklace is given a provisional uh kind of reality it is called anirvachanya and in virginia means cannot be expressed as ultimately real like brahman cannot be expressed as false completely unreal the world is like that now again is the world like a snake uh seen in a rope is it like a dream like a mirage no advaita vedanta makes a distinction between paramarthika viva harika and prathibhasika ultimate reality is brahman and the world of appearance is divided into two kinds one is this world which we are so familiar with this is called vewa harika transactional or relative reality and in this world itself we have examples of errors and dreams and illusions a snake in a rope mirage dream these are called pratibhasika errors illusory appearances so advaitha metaphysics makes a distinction between ultimate reality and the transactional or relative reality and the relative reality again is divided into that which is transactional or relative and also within that examples of error and dream and illusion now all of this so this is what is meant by jagat mithya falsity of the world why does this happen because of something called maya which is neither ultimately real nor totally unreal which is constituted of sattva rajasthan ideas are taken from sankey philosophy and having their roots in the upanishads also and final point what about us what are we ultimately real or relatively real or false or what we by we i mean the jivas the sentient beings individual beings like us human beings animals and all kinds of living creatures we are actually in reality none other than brahman jiva brahman opera so advaita vedanta is often summarized by the great sentences this consciousness which we experience this is in reality none other than brahman i am atma brahma this very self is the ultimate reality brahman what does that mean it means that what we consider ourselves as as individual little beings born and aging and dying and struggling in life if we knew ourselves in reality we would know that we are brahman this knowledge is the goal of advaita vedanta it's a goal of human life according to advaita vedanta to realize our identity as brahman as immortal as in unlimited existence as unlimited consciousness as unlimited anand or bliss this sachidonan is my real nature i am brahman this has to be realized how do we do that those are the practices which we'll consider in a little subsequently later discussion but this is the sum and substance of advaita vedanta one reality brahman the world is an appearance and what we consider ourselves to be jivas we are mistaken we are actually none other than the absolute reality brahman by realizing that we overcome all sufferings and attain what we were always seeking which is peace and blessedness okay that should cover it swami sarfat pinanji and now i'd like to invite dr thimalsina to introduce us into the kashmir shaivism tantra philosophy dr t malcina thank you so much for coming thank you so much for this opportunity i'm really really pleased to have this conversation with swamiji and all the folks here um listening to this conversation uh there is not much left to say because i i enjoy both the traditions and um for some folks where is the loyalty you know so for my own understanding is is a pure description of the truth and it's not about being a follower or having a loyalty to you it's it's just describing the facts and so of course i agree with swamiji and and just speaking uh from kashmir shaivism uh a general term given to describe a few of the systems actually i'll just try to do my job within the given time as swamiji pointed out that it's it's vast and there are so many different streams broadly speaking when we say tantra we are speaking about 92 different arguments there are 10 shaiva agamas 18 raudra agamas and 64 vahrehvah agamas these 10 agamas called saiva siddhanta agamas are dualistic 18 raudra agamas are dualistic and non-dualistic veda veda and 64 bhairava agamas are non-dualistic or monistic but even within these 64 agamas there are some secondary sets of agamas making uh the literature broad when we pick kashmiri shaivism we are not only trying to read the list of like the entire outcome of this again literature we are also adding new philosophical innovations uh by uh seekers philosophers like a vasu gupta somananda kallata utpala and of course abhinava gupta kremaraj and jayaratha so to make it concise um i would have to just give you four or five uh points and and the first would be how it has been easy for me after listening to swamiji is swamiji pointed out there is this shot chief and ananda pure existence pure consciousness and pure bliss in that what the trigger system does is it takes advantage of most of the premises from within advaita and then moves beyond and we should not get confused that there is just only one way of looking into adulthood actually there are different ways of reading and interpreting the very discipline of advaita the same way even in the trika system and spanda and mahartha there are different ways to understand and and philosophers have adopted very many ways to interpret these systems so the first point would be starting from satyajit and ananda which has have been thoroughly explained by swamiji the way the the philosophers here did in tantra is sat and sit are anyway identical so we are considering as pure consciousness but it is not to deny every single expression of the chit so every modification of the cheetah retains the same self-luminous quality and it's a spontaneity of effulgence of this consciousness to become the manifold and therefore all our epistemic all our cognitive modes are self-expression of this city that is the first point i would like to point out and then comes ananda bliss so yet again in the sense of the bliss what vedanta stressed is not the way these objective joys uh or enjoyments come as a vishaya the object but there is this basis for all the enjoyment and that is the absolute but what the trigger system does is takes advantage again of that ananda is the foundation of being expression but takes it further that every mode of expression every mode of being every mode of cognition has this bliss embedded within it so much so that even brahmananda becomes one of the categories of ananda and jagadananda like a all comprehensive bliss becomes a a category to incorporate starting from the body to breathing to our cognitive faculties to different states of pranic and kundalini uh the swords of kundalini so all the mores of our being experience are embedded with this joy it's just being itself it's euphoric life is not miserable life has nothing to say this is all is suffering it's even when we are suffering there is some type of bliss in the foundation of this uh this being therefore even the beings who are suffering do not want to terminate their life because they they are still seeking for some kind of bliss there or when we are suffering the the the trika cybers interpret this as a dance of playing a bad role of of suffering not actually suffering in reality because this is just the very expression of the divine consciousness but then they add two additional categories of uh uh three additional categories of ichat gana and kriya first identified sat with the chit and so chit and ananda we have three additional categories of each volition or will so this is the pure will of lord shiva materialized in the in the manifold you will it everywhere in every sentient being the will to be will to express will to enjoy and then when that will is somehow hindered we feel shankuchita conditioned confined and then unhappiness begins and the whole world suffering is explained in this terminology of sankoza sort of shrinking being limited not having the fullness of the will and then the next category is ghana cognition of course even in there the same sunk are shrinking of unbound knowledge becomes limited and we we start knowing limited things and then the same thing happens with kriya if the the action the power of action and the power of action comes within us too and that power of action also is limited and we find ourselves uh shrunken into like like a small worm unable to move unable to will even unable to know and this is what suffering is but even in its most limited state even in one insect these five potentials are always there so the idea is that those those divine aspects are always there whether one is in this insect form or in the form of the creator of the world with this premise so i will introduce three or four categories each relating to each of the schools the first is the kula marga because even within tantra there are different schools and i will not be doing the just if i only speak from the perspective of one so from the perspective of kula they very much focus on embodied experiences these are the callers actually who develop the practice of kundalini so it's not in patanjali or the upanishads we have to go to early call shastras yogi kula to understand the chakra system and the kundalini so now you know all the workshops people are talking about kundalini starting even western uh psychologist carl jung discussing about these energies or kundalini so the first is how much within our own body we have infinite potentials and we are able to somehow re-kindle those energies by um properly channeling not just our breath but alongside the breath what we call mantra the speech the purified watch the show which helps us to correct our own thinking patterns thought systems and that allows us to broaden the horizon of our consciousness and so the the idea is that human suffering or suffering of any person is the condition of incompleteness and that comes not just by a means of recognition of the world beyond or locator or transcending this reality but that comes by very much engaging in the world enjoying the world with the positive outlook positive approach to our everyday life from the trika i would just like to give one single terminology of i am that is phonetically and cosmically very significant that every pulsating heart has this i am-ness i am i exist so this sense of i am is an acronym from the trika perspective of all the phonemes because in sanskrit i is the first phoneme and how is the last so aha is but ah is itself a joy of being ah so this ananda expression so in the very mode of i am there is this aham the expression of bliss embedded within and this is what constitutes our presence in the world not just a trap but rather a an expression of bliss and consciousness so in that we have multiple upayas so rather than pure description of the truth like when they say this is this is what it is this is such and so but how do you experience that the entire focus of tantric systems is upaya sastra this is this is the doctrine to teach people how to get to that pristine experience that has been described in the text and there is not one upaya it is not just about the truth and this is what it is and then you have to somehow magically be there but it's a systematically cultivating experience from the bottom to the top and for some uh seekers if they get instantaneously by the grace of the divine or by the grace of the teacher guru then that is one type of samavesa entry into the divine and the other would be by contemplative practices just a pure thinking pure analytical thought without engaging anything external and the third would be engaging all the external modes and successively gradually starting from which are articulation of the phonemes and different gestures let us say or physical postures meditating upon different images and visualization and the thinking of different colors or locating different images in different places different centers of the body ah so this is to cultivate different states of what we call samavesa they give all different systems different modes of practices because ultimately it is not about the description of the truth but about the expression of what has been described and so two small points next would be krama and spanda they are very much interrelated from the system of krama i would just like to add i'm i'm speaking with swamiji from ramakrishna order as you know swami ramakrishna was a great devotee of mother kali so this chromosystem is a development of the philosophy of kali and in in this great philosophy we find this successive emergence of the divine finding temporality and speciality that is pure consciousness is not bound in any space and time but it with its own freedom it assumes the manifold and in this manifold it expresses its dynamism inherent dynamism its ability to change so basically the absolute is not necessarily changeless and always a still and then all the changes are illusion but actually if the divine entity the absolute were to just stay motionlessly without a change anything it would be just like a party and and what would it even mean to be uh conscious so it's the the centrality of swatantry is what is used or swatantry means freedom so this is this is by means of swatantry or freedom that these thinkers explain the world diversity the manifold and the oneness either the absolute while one can be many because out of its absolute freedom to unfold itself in as many ways it as it likes so what is the world and what is the absolute what is the imminent being present in the world into the manifold and being one in the absolute form is in their terminology is purely unmesha animation when we close our eyes towards the world there is this oneness revealed and when the oneness is closed the world is revealed consciousness is constantly revealing consciousness is constantly unfolding in folding constant consciousness is simultaneously manifold and one when it is many it does not transcend it wound its own inherent unity oneness so we can find all these examples of similar examples of the bubbles and the waves for example so we do not need in vedanta we generally find the attitude that to see the ocean you generally have to not see the tides basically you focus on the oneness the side of the ocean but the the kashmiri cyborgs stressed that you you can see the tides and the waves and the ocean at the same time it's just happening and if there are no tights there's distilled ocean and if there are tides there's still ocean there is no problem there so the the oneness is not contradicted in whichever the form it is expressed where i can see some points of divergence between these two systems is if we say first of all in the fusion of knowledge and action although in in contemporary practices so much so that when i stayed in monasteries and and even my own teachers coming from sankara's orders practicing tantra i didn't see in real life these systems are viewed so much as as a contradictory but if we go to read actual advaitha text the fundamental debate is over guyana kriya samuchaya the fusion of action the life of activities active life with pure knowledge so the advaita in the classical time rejected that and that is what kashmiri shaivites thoroughly maintained that the philosophy and whether we can check in abhinava or see in ramakantha so many other even within doita and advaita these these ideas of integration fusion of both is there so the second point would be the stress on swatantry rather than finding the world stressing on illusion and all this is more of a stress on absolute freedom of consciousness in its unfolding the diversity so it does not the if the brahman is pure consciousness and if advaita vedanta had said brahman is absolutely free in manifesting itself in whatever the way it likes then that would have been very much kashmiri shaivism so the only thing we defer is that absolute has that freedom but if you are not free what is the point of being i got moksha liberation and what can you do no i just don't even exist so what is the point so if you are free you can do something so there's always action oriented if you are free then you can know everything you like if you are free oh i don't want anything what is the point of freedom then if you are free then all your desires are fulfilled and that is the point so this is how uh anyway kashmiri shaivads drew and then they consider this maybe in a process of uh you know creating a hierarchy of apari meta yogi that for the parimeta yogi that there is this seeking the quest for transcending as quickly as possible because they want this one singular experience and then when the yogi transcends even that limitation then he enters into the realm beyond the limitation and then his experience becomes opera with the unbound and and that is where the diversity becomes its own his own expression and he experiences the world as his own body the entire existence becomes his spontaneous manifestation and then okay i'll catch up later okay so thank you thank you so let me um let's just break it down into like layman terms so that uh maybe the people who are new to this swami sarva prinanji so from your understanding then what is the difference in the philosophical structures between advaita vedanta and kashmir shaivism let me start with in the nature of consciousness itself you've just talked about it as such it is existence but it is consciousness now dr t malcina is implying that consciousness also has will is is this in advaita vedanta does consciousness also have will explain a little bit about the differences as you understand between the two yes that was by the way an amazing performance by dr timulsin i wouldn't have dared to try to talk up summarize kashmiri shaivism in a few minutes it's a vast and intricate system um all right so a precise question about the nature of ultimate reality the difference in the nature of ultimate reality from the advaita perspective and from kashmir to shiver perspective um that can be easily pinpointed from as professor timothy has said one need not go into sat and differentiate between them let's just call it prakasha consciousness itself because it's existence and it is consciousness now according to advaita vedanta the ultimate reality is prakash only is is existence consciousness is-ness awareness and according to kashmiri shaivism it is prakasha vimarsha so consciousness which is also aware of itself sort of self-reflexively aware of itself and from there i think if president can correct me if i'm wrong from there follows uh guyana icha and kriya so gyanecha kriya is a fundamental thing advaita vedant at this point would say that what you are doing is you are importing the activities of the anti-karma into the ultimate reality of the mind so willing and knowing and desiring and activity these are all which are something which originates in the mind these are not cognate these are not identical to consciousness they are rather superimposed on consciousness they are an appearance in consciousness uh they are they do not constitute an equal reality with with consciousness they do they are not parts of consciousness uh they are not apart from consciousness also their appearances like a snake in a rope uh like a reflection in a mirror their appearances they do not exist by themselves in consciousness so when uh kashmiri shiva would say fundamentally the ultimate nature of reality is consciousness and a kind of self-reflexive self-awareness of consciousness that advaita vedanta would object to would you say that you are bringing in something that belongs to the world of appearance into the world of reality um all right so that that's the uh core issue which differentiates i am reminded of um i'm reminded of um bradley this very famous i mean i don't know if he's famous but a wonderful british philosopher in the transition between the 19th and 20th century who wrote this book appearance and reality was he was asked that your conception of the absolute is it a better conception of god and then bradley said perhaps a better philosophy is not always a better religion so something might be philosophically more cogent more accurate more logical but in practice it may not form a more uh useful religion as such yeah so dr timulsina so then according to dwight vedanta the world is uh a swami safar pinon she's saying it's more an illusion but according to the shakta tradition the kashmir shaivism you're saying this world that we're experiencing is a manifestation of consciousness itself it's a manifestation of shiva are there is this world then a a um is it the same reality that is that is consciousness itself is it just a manifest is it real according to dwight villante it's unreal but in kashmir shaivism do we consider this world is the real is the is there levels of reality in kashmir shaivism yes swamiji uh even in kashmir shaivism we do have the concept of abhasa and the abhasabhada the doctrine of avasa is not to say that everything just the way it is like if you see a snake on a rope is also real you know but the idea is that for me to have the error of a snake would would a child who had never seen a snake have the same illusion so there is some kind of imprint there right there is some kind of samskaras arising in the sense of seeing this world so in the samskara form there is where is that samskara form embedded within if it is not in the consciousness uh of course the world as it is in the manifold may not be the way it appears you know we can go to quantum level and reject this appearance but even in the quantum level for there something to be for it to unfold in this particular structure like for water to be fluid for example or fire to be burning for example they must have some quantum properties you know and and for that they lead it to appear in this particular distinctive way so let us say this is not real but i see at least not me what the pratha viga philosopher saw a little problematic there is a if we are to rely on rejection of something that appears in front of us that let us say this is not real then this non-reality becomes as one of the categories there is something that is not real uh from the absolute advaitha perspective since every manifestation has some kind of extension you know you know even if in a tiny form even in its tiniest particle like a vidyar in his panchadasi has this vishayananda you know and he is also inspired by he wrote srividyar navatantra for example he was one of the guys to integrate both the systems and tantra so even in vishaya ananda there is this tiny bit of bliss we enjoy every day when we say this is totally uh illusory then all our modes of experiences like when i'm conscious i'm conscious of things when i say this is completely illusory then i am used to understanding consciousness in terms of on comprehending objects when i'm enjoying i'm enjoying something and then when we say that all this is just illusion then my experience of enjoyment becomes negated we may go to that pure pristine absolute form that we have no idea about because all our everyday modes of consciousness all our everyday modes of being on our everyday modes of activities do not capture anything of that but even more problematic will be um if we say that whatever is existing is not real that not real itself starts appearing as a category and why is that absolute manifesting in to the manifold because it doesn't have you know any icha it doesn't have any region the brahman does not have any will and therefore we can say but it has never appeared i mean from the other perspective then therefore the world experiences whatever you are stuck to trying to say why am i suffering or why is this world then the world never is then there is no then there is no time there is no temporality and then the only problem is that fails to explain our mundane our our worldly experiences it doesn't fail to explain the absolute it it does not give us a any satisfactory answer about this thing the world where we are in and and our problems of being in the world or little enjoyment we have while being in the world it doesn't it sticks to that absolute thing and then is willing just very much ready to give up all that we have and then it would be like what if we are jumping off a cliff to find something absolute and giving up what we have we have in everyday life and and the the kashmir shaivite or tantric effort is come on you can have this and you can have that too and you can start from this it's it's a small okay but you have to look for something big and you can gradually may be able to go see that absolute so yeah i don't think there is any contradiction in the we've lost you a little bit there um hopefully we'll get you back again um swami sarva printed would you like to respond to what uh dr timothy has said good let me use this uh internet created gap to jump in and make a few observations so what is uh quite apart from philosophy and metaphysics what is the use of this concept of the falsity of the word of the world what good is it in spiritual life so there are two ways of um or two uses let us say in spiritual life of understanding the falsity of the world one is of course a practical use which an advaita will say that if only you regard the world as false then only there will be vairagya a dispassion for the world as long as we uh chase send subjects uh as the end all and be all of life no spirituality is possible neither bhakti is possible nor kashmir shaivism nor advaita no spirituality is possible so certain amount of dispassion vairagi is generated by the concept of understanding of that is one but a deeper philosophical and spiritual point is made by the um by the declaration of mithyatu of all city of the world consider this consider this when we think that they are getting a feedback here so when we say that the snake is false we are by mistake seeing a rope as a snake when you say that a snake is false it's actually a rope when you say the snake is false the meaning of that is right there is the reality where is the real rope right where you are seeing the snake if it was a real snake and you say that there is a rope then you will start searching for some other rope you must negate that snake to find the rope you must know that it is not a snake it is actually a rope right there what i thought was a snake is a robe so when you say world is an appearance jagat mithya the world is false what you are saying is right there in your experience what you are experiencing is the world there there itself you investigate you will find the ultimate reality the very the teaching of jagat mithya is a pointer to the underlying reality there can be no falsity without an underlying truth so there can be no false snake in vacuum there's a false snake means that there is a real rope that there is no mirage water without the actual desert underlying it similarly when you say jagat mithya you're not saying that there is some other truth the truth is right there what you are seeing as the false world is in not even when we get enlightened when we see the truth you see right there and then in our experience that itself is brahmana so the teaching of jagat mithyatu is a pointer to the reality of brahman that is a wonderful insight so it is not something actually very abstract unknown um far away shankaracharya in his introduction to the mandukya karika bhashya in the agama prakaran introduction he says the only way to realize this truth of thuria is to negate the dwaytha prapanja the appearance of duality has to be negated because there itself you will find the tudia it is the turia itself which is appearing as the waker and the waker's world the dreamer and the dreamers world and the deep sleeper and the deep sleep potential darkness the the bijavasta so yeah so that was my point the falsity of the world is a very useful doctrine it is actually pointing to the underlying reality thank you swamiji um as time is running out i want to do a little bit into the practices now so i'd like to get into the practices of uh basically a deuter vedanta and you were talking about kashmir so let's just begin dr timalsina uh just just in in five minutes just maybe give some what are some of the basic practices as you were talking about that is done in this kashmir shaivism so the easiest practice is from all the agama's perspective when people go to temple for example worship an image people recite mantras people chant the names of the deities of whatever the deities they like to worship and they meditate they contemplate upon the images of the deities or relate to their meaning they do physical exercises they do breathing practices every aspect every mode is incorporated within what we say tantric practice so therefore i cannot say these are what the tantric practices but i can group into three i pointed out a little bit earlier that there are these upayas s is when you are not thinking of anything so that state of being free from thoughts being free from big helpers constructions mental constructions imagination fantasy at that time when the instruction occurs or when there is the shaktipata emission of power potential by lordship himself the grace the divine grace or the grace of the teacher aha moment a saturday a just instantaneous experience without any thinking without any doing that would be shambhava upaya the object like let's say a thought that cannot be articulated but can we can only be thought through eva only the mind can be actively engaged on and what that leads to the type of samavasa entry into the esoteric experience that we are calling shakta upaya which is also a gradual process of refining thoughts from pure externalization to inner modes and even transcending the inner uh modes to the absolute and then the ana upaya would be uchara karanadhyana so it is there is the articulation of mantras corona different bodily gestures and locations different centers of kundalini like chakras for example and then a visualization of colors this and that and the location within so or outside any external practices and breathing exercises so these all fall under the anaba upaya so instead of saying this is the upaya i would say that it's the whole shastra is is it's a bundle of upayas so we can we can investigate another 1000 new yoga methods if we were to read these agama sastras so the the more focus there is are not about describing the truth but about experiencing how to go this is this is the fire shasta thank you thank you uh swami sarfa preenergy what are the practices in advaitha venata yes again i have an easier job i think it was when you said five minutes to professor timothy i talk about dupay i thought it was so unfair because when you talk about upayas in kashmir shaivism it's an ocean it's just the vikyana bhairava has 112 dharana's techniques of meditation so yes i like that phrase it's an upaya sastra a wealth of techniques whereas in advaita vedanta um the problem is simple that we are actually right now at this moment the absolute reality you are brahman our reaction would be but i don't know it i don't see it i don't feel it what do you what what do you mean so um we do not know our real nature as brahman that's the problem ignorance agaana and the solution to any kind of ignorance is always knowledge guyana so the practice would be to generate the gyana then the realization that i am brahman brahmas me the brahmacar what is the practice for that practice for generating this awakening knowledge brahmagyana the practice would be shravana mananananana there are these texts which convey the highest truth we have to study them this is sravana sharma literally means hearing them but you have to study them systematically investigate them the first stage of the practice this hearing or studying is complete when you know what the teaching is when i know the basic teachings of the upanishads are now clear to me now uh this is what the upanishad says this is what vedanta says now i may have uh doubts about the teachings it may i may have many kinds of objections so those are taken care of in the second stage which is means cogitation reflection dwelling on it with using reason raising various kinds of objections not only from yourself but from rival schools different philosophical points of view today from a materialistic reductive scientific point of view raise those objections clarify answer those objections to your satisfaction the teacher will help you the texts help you there is a vast dialectical tradition of which our professor tim also himself is a master of and advaita vedanta the dialectical tradition the manana is complete the second stage manana is complete when you can say i not only know the teachings but now i am convinced i get it i know it now and i get it then what remains there still is this feeling that i get it it's very clear i have conviction but my contrary tendencies are still there i tend to when i'm faced with a toothache for example i tend to behave like a jio that i am suffering i react in suffering to unpleasant things i react with desire for pleasant things so life is still going on the way it was before knowledge these are called contrary tendencies still behaving like a body mind still reacting to life like a body of mind so how to manifest this knowledge that i am brahmana this is done through uh nididhyasana or or vedantic meditation and for which there are many many techniques drinkdrishya viveka gives six techniques upper okay gives 15 and so on so this is asana systematically studying the text reasoning upon it and then meditating upon it till you get uh you assimilate it but i must mention here when advaita when we enter advaita vedanta they impose some entry-level conditions southern viveka vairagya the six-fold treasures and their mumus intense desire to be free the discernment between the real and the unreal uh dispassion for the uh the temp the the transient and disciplines of body and mind all those um qualities the of a aspirant of a seeker they are supposed to be already generated by previous practices what are the previous practices upasana um worship uh which will give you chita ekagrata focus of mind and even before that karma action which will give you purity of mind so with a purified mind with a concentrated mind you come to shravanam and the result will be the arising up there brahmagyana or brahmacada which will remove the ignorance you will realize your brahman and you'll realize you're free you always wear and you continue to be free i'll just point out that advaita vedanta is actually firmly set in the vedic system so they're taking for granted a vedic lifestyle so a lot of practices which are not directly mentioned in advaita vedanta they're taking for granted that you have done vedic ritualistic action you have a purified mind you have done upasana you have a concentrated mind and then you enter into advaithic practices thank you swamiji uh dr timothy two questions come to mind first who or what is ishvara in kashmir shaivism because if it is shiva shakti that through its own power is is reducing itself to this jiva that's experiencing the world where is the role of ishvara as we know in advaita vedanta and second what is then the role of grace who are you praying to uh if if ishwara so explain this concept of ishwara and grace within the kashmir shaivism system so uh ishwara is a kind of technical category there in kashmir shaivism and it can be confusing because at times we are using ishwara for parameshwara the absolute shiva and uh but the ishwara in in the system is there is this absolute category of shiva and then abhinav harbor so never separable is shakti and then when there is some sense of difference veda udaya there is this slight rise of ishmael means like a slightly different emerges that is called sadashiva and there's this equal state of being outside and being inside and then comes ishwara as a lower category below shiva shakti and sadashiva and there comes this ishwara as a category where in there is this i am-ness that permeates the world but he has that ishwara as a category has also the consciousness of this as outside of me so that is where this governing capacity of the will comes so and and then uh and and where does this grace come from the grace comes from the same shiva because it is it is not like at one time the grace comes and then other time grace does not come grace is constantly without being any temporal limitation grace is constantly coming there but then uh that grace is not captured without uh having some chita sudhi if we say uh in in other terminology like the proper purification to grasp receive the grace of lord siva so the grace of lord siva is not temporal it's not finite it's infinite it's just like the sunlight constantly coming and sometimes we get the light other times we do not am i out what's the role of grace in in adulthood that's a question for me yes can you hear me yes i can hear you okay so and so what is the role of grace in advaita vedanta well i think the first line of one of the most radical texts of non-dualism of advaita vedanta the avadhuta gita isana it's only by the grace of god by ishvara's grace that a person gets a desire for advaita vedanta so if you've got a desire if you have interest in advaita vedanti you already have the grace of god srinami krishna used to say the grace of god is like the wind which is always blowing you have to raise the sail so in advaita vedanta uh the grace of god is there and that's why only we have become interested in advaita vedanta now the whole thing is to go go ahead with our inquiry with the self inquiry in fact um upanishads they themselves so whoever the athman chooses to to that it reveals itself and shankaracharya there interprets that uh it seems to be a occasion to talk about grace but shankaracharya there in his commentary he says who whom does the atma choose to reveal itself the one who chooses the atma so i think he is taking the side of effort self-effort rather than talk about grace at that occasion in fact there is a whole book big volume the role of grace in shankara's vedanta which was published recently by an american professor in boston i think so wherever shankaracharya has talked about grace that has been put together in that volume yeah and dr timothy you have not yet mentioned um divine mother you've talked about shiva consciousness but where's where is divine mother lion in this philosophy i know you're a worshiper of mother kali so where's the role of divine mother here oh she has to be kept hidden she doesn't like to talk to be talked about so i'm just kidding uh uh she doesn't mind so it's the chitti your consciousness it's just another name is a kali because it is the consciousness itself because it is the the very pure consciousness that has self-differentiating capacity power shortly to differentiate within itself to become many and that is because of shepard so this is a kala kilabi lakshepe from the verbal root kal we have kali because she who constitutes difference without actually being many ganum ganamja so she who cognizes as many fold without actually even being different so that is why color gyane there is the root color from the root color the the the you know in sanskrit all the words name words are coming from the verbal base so this is this is what makes it possible for us to cognize diversity without consciousness being different that same consciousness constitutes difference in concepts and that is what does that is the task of kali that is where kali comes sankhanam we have the analytical power to determine we ascertain things and that sankhana is also one of the meanings of the word kali dynamism motion so the the entire world is buzzing everything not just sentient there's the sentient beings have the sentience as dynamic and and then even the non-sentient entities have some energies motion everything is dynamic that dynamism itself comes from uh so the verbal root is color from that we get kali so from all the articulations like we are speaking right now this articulation would not have been possible without kali this is this is kali expressing herself so this this these words are not just kali speaking this is kali being spoken too it is the kali speaking kali herself that is where kali comes thank you thank you dr team also a swami server pinanji why in what you've been talking about why did shankacharya introduce divine mother worship in the advaitha vedanta tradition um in the practice yes but you will notice that it is actually not there in any of the uh the fundamental texts of advaita vedanta in the partials or the prakaranas though in in the tradition in the shankaramata tradition there is always there is an esoteric practice of the worship of the divine mother the reason for that is uh you know holy mother masharadha once uh has sent a question to swami brahmananda that ask rakhal swami brahmaranda why should one worship a divine mother what is the purpose the idea being you are a monk and your aim is brahmagyana the realization of brahman so what is the ex need for it seems like an extra why do you worship the divine mother what is the point why don't you just do what advaita vedanta says you know do shravana manananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananananan dhasan and realize your brahman finished of course you did not say all those things he simply asked ask rakhal why one word has to worship the divine mother and swami brahman replied because the keys to brahma ghana are in the hands of the divine mother brahman ganet jabikatti maerhati the keys to brahmagyal in the hands of the divine mother the reason is the worship for the reason for the worship of the divine mother in the shankara tradition is not a philosophical reason it is more of a practical upayic reason thank you swamiji and i'd like to now go into the experiences so if we do these practices what are the experiences we can hope to achieve through these through these systems so i'd like to begin with uh dr t malzina so what are the different types of experiences that one experiences in the practice of kashmir in tantra one of the best texts my teacher my guru and my guru's guru liked very much is biru pakshapan this is a very small book uh 50 standards of dhirupakya and the text begins with the bhimatipada manga sarvam rishipatsariramitam so that let me not go into sanskrit that the idea is that everything in the world that i can see feel touch is my own body so this this says virupaksha is sharing his personal experience of having the entire world as his own physical experience just the way i can move my fingers he says that you can i can move the mountains the same way basically i don't feel the difference between this corporeality and that corporeality the corporeality down in the form of the rocks and plants and the rivers and everything so this is one experience i find wherein the bishop mayata being imminent universal comes and then the second is uh of utter nata transcending the difference transcending duality and uh you know not even the expression of the manifold in its most pristine form in its non-dual oneness singularity of consciousness bliss only to be there without expression of any form without expression of any name without words so this is what generally the arduino type experience i could say so vishwa util to transcend to the absolute and and be here so be sure and bishop so and then the third category in pratha viga is why would we want to either or and then they introduced a category of bhairava so the image of bhairava is like bhairava has generally the the type of hyderabad i i am familiar with there's a big eyes wide open and then they are in this absolute serene state while engaging in the world so the concept is you are fully enjoying the world apparently also in that same pristine nondual state of experience but are all these experiences the beginning steps not really because i wanted to start from the top to the bottom so even the pulsation of kundalini you know like like a simple feel of the surge of kundalini and small states of samavasa wherein starts experiencing himself as the mother you know like and we can hear these stories from no other but swami ramakrishna himself you know not having any sense of difference between himself and and the divine mother he's worshipping so these are these are the beginning stages actually of experiencing and there are many more i'm sure he went through all of these but not necessarily came to our conversations you know so uh yeah the these uh many of these experiences can be felt at least from the tantric perspective by simply means of pranayama like the breathing exercises combined with visualization uh different images but there are some practices that are absolutely conducive to highest goal and there are some other practices that may only lead to uh some kind of small gimmick achievements and people sadhakas can be misguided and so therefore although tantra has a vast array of practices but tantras repeatedly said do not do this without your mentor so you know like random picking in google i found this vijayana bhairava so let me kind of sort of try on it at least from the perspective of that parampara you know tradition and and the text this is strictly forbidden because you know things might not always go right and people might get carried away because the the flaws actually i was worried if swamiji would start bringing those things yeah there are many disturbing things also in tantra people might take that as the real core practice you know so the tantra can be both it can be blessing and it can also be a hindrance for the people who are not well qualified for thank you dr timulsina swami sarva what are the experiences that uh one can achieve in the dwight the philanthropic system if you want to go to the heart of that question it's a it's a difficult question to answer because it's like asking seeing what is an experience of seeing seeing anything is an experience of seeing similarly advaita vedanta is actually not a path of experiences that might sound very strange there is the path of experiences see i make a broad classification there is the path of belief which is a kind of dualistic devotional faith depend on god and then god will take care of everything that that that is kind of religion people understand then there comes the path of mystical experiences uh patanjali yoga for example a part of kashmiri shaivism for example tantric practices a variety of extraordinary emphasis is on extraordinary the variety of extraordinary experiences which will prove to you the truth of spirituality as swami vivekan himself said if there is god i must see god he goes to sudama krishna says can i see god if i have an immortal soul i must feel it so religion is realization in the sense of mystical experience extraordinary experience that's the second path but advice at its core is not even that advaita is not about getting new experience it's not about believing in something it's not about getting new or extraordinary experiences it's about seeing the reality which makes all experiences possible ordinary experience extraordinary experience worldly experience mystical experience secular experience spiritual experience all kinds of experiences what is behind all of that that consciousness you are i am that consciousness this knowledge is advaita then what happens is there no experiential correlate there is at the end what will happen is ken openishad says in every experience in seeing hearing smelling tasting touching in walking talking in waking dreaming deep sleep every experience brahman is experienced not that it is a new kind of experience in seeing every golden ornament gold is experienced shankaracharya and apology says when you see a clay pot when you see the pot the clay blazes forth he uses that language it blazes forth choicelessly so for an enlightened person who has got advaithic enlightenment realization i am brahman in every experience brahman is revealed because of knowledge not because of particular mystical experiences uh yes uh am i audible yes yes yes so would you say then are you are you experiencing every experience you're experiencing as consciousness so when you're seeing whatever you're seeing is it experienced as brahman itself when you look at a golden necklace is it experienced as gold itself you see yes and do you see the necklace or not of course you see yes you see the truth as it is that that's the way you could to put it dr timolsonia do you have anything would you like to anything to add to that can i so yeah i would yes yeah okay yeah please just just one uh verse at the end uh from abhinav bhavadana so just a brief translation became mother what can be your prayer what can i say for your prayer because why why can't you pray me so-called whether these forms are coming in my mind fantasy memory or outside in the world oh auspicious mother thinking like this whatever this is without any effort whatever i have gotten in their life in in the world that is devoid of your your japan your archana worshipping you chanting your name i have not spent a single moment of my life without praying you because everything i do everything i think everything i speak is just your prayers that's all i have to say thank you thank you i'm just reminded um let's make a couple of comments here one question to professor timul sinha is that i have noticed traditional advaithic teachers monks i'll give two examples whom uh i have seen one is of course who i personally seen ramananda saraswati and uh before that akanda and the sarsuti whom i did not see it was before my time now they are traditional advaithic teachers monks and with a great fascination and interest for kashmir shaivism they not only studied it they maybe they practiced it also and they they are taught it also there are classes of vigna bhairava spandakarika shiva sutras by ramananda saraswati so my question is so how do you account for it what does um what does it mean what does it signify is it that they are all i think you probably will agree immediately that both of these advaita vedant and kashmiri shaivism are fully aligned and there is really no fundamental problem or you know clash between the two wonderful one of my diksha gurus is sankara caitanya bharati and this is the story of bringing sardar mats to banaras when the mother had to move and with in the lolita ghat you will find a small abode where shankara chaitanya bharati used to live and the mata is already there we have this lolita upasaka from the server amna order and i have of course everybody likes to talk great many things about their teachers but i do not think there existed anybody in our time who knew as much of ada as the first sankara chaitanya bharati for his darpana commentary on kandana khandakade swamiji you know to write the best existing sanskrit commentary in honduran khandakardiya and then also the authorship of darsana sarvasu where he just critiques on the swatantribada but in his real life every day 10 hours of sadhana after mataji and and that was such a strenuous training for us for me to be qualified to be even remotely his disciple i had to wait in line for three four years after my acharya you know all the all the classical educations so there is a combination there i have seen in real life and my another guru's guru was would have been shankaracharya in joshimat he east kept he didn't like that business of taking all these matters and instead of vidhyaranya he just changed name to murkharin and he stayed in nepal and worshipped mother kali he was a prominent vedant of course prominent venanti scholar but he had contributed to editing some of the most esoteric kali texts from our karma system so i i many of my gurus who taught me kashmir shaivism tantrashastra are actually from the mata order of sankara so if one sees that there is no there is no coherence let it be for their thinking because all the uh you know astronomers have the centrality all the four mothers worship sri yantra and and uh so there are just different ways of some ammonia difference in the in the worship but um now so this that is where it comes basically people who are trying to understand vedanta from the books shankaracharya wrote this therefore we have to understand that way or the people who kind of sort of are part of parampara part of the tradition who have been into ashrams who have actually lived in real ashrams and they will get into this diversity and i don't think that for us what about the philosophical differences simple this question i have asked to swamiji shankar chaitanya and he said that our our job of shastra is is fun of just doing sastras so we were like we are trained to be badass fatimistra we don't have loyalty to one idea we have loyalty to sastra and we want to continue thinking along the lines of sastra if i'm defending uh trigger system today and tomorrow if i'm going to defend advaita somebody might say oh my gosh i can't rely that guy it is their problem not the problem of pundits we ponder loyalty to sastras alone that is our dream to be because then we are thinking through the perspective of like bhattasmati misra thinking through the perspective of a yoga sutra and then thinking through the perspective of sankara so because these are and and you can see all of these culminates into a single system in uh uh vidyarani swami and we can we can see and a clear integration of tantra and advaita vedanta uh at least in in the in the works of vidder and swami not just in of course tantra but even in ponchathi itself we start seeing the glimpse of real passages coming from the agamas or studies of and then of course in his evan mukti viveka he exploited extensively the yoga basis and yoga basis has its deep history with kashmir shaivism so a real fusion happened like 600 years ago so the living traditions have a great fusion but when we uh kind of sort of a top of the uh history from parampara and then go to earliest book and then how and shankara's not the only ada in the world you know so there are many models and even sankara may not have given only one model of advaita at least that is the way i have read so sankara was open-minded exploring of course very thoroughly audited but even sometimes he might have used different models of interpretation otherwise how come in his own disciples generation and and grand disciples generation we find these different types of uh prosthetics and and then there is a prastana veda we see you know that there's a pratibhimba bada and pannapada and then uh different commentaries and so on the viva rana and the brahmati yeah just one my personal i've been thinking about this kashmiri shaivism in relation to advaita vedanta what i was just thinking what exactly is going on in kashmir shaivism and i'll just say something that tell me if i'm on the right track my inner feeling sort of intuitive feeling is if we track phenomenologically track the spiritual experiences of sadhakas and ground it in a philosophy you will get the tikka system or the kashmiri civil system all kinds of spiritual experiences and then unify it with a you know give a philosophical foundation to it you will get this system is this the right way to think about it swamiji you put it way better than i could because it's i like it because yeah yeah it's a it's a it's an archive of experiences and um like when we are trying to develop a system uh we can go through pure logic uh or we can go through pure faith just like you said and then we can go sit in your experience so yes no other system brought to prominence in the experience the logic itself though because and and we find in the malini and other agamas itself the best part of yoga the best limb of yoga is taka taka not just simple logic irrational thinking inquiry analytical thinking so without what they did is while compiling and analyzing these experiences of thousands of sages over time over places they used rational inquiry to ground and whatever could fit within the system they assembled them and there are many other experiences i'm sure they were and they didn't come within the system it's like a two day two even in 20th century what we are finding but only one difference is not trying to um minimize the 20th century experiences but very uh and and great changes have not done that one thing is the in the earlier times these experiences were never things to brag about and they were not trying to say this is my experience you cannot find any geography in like a 7th century like autobiography of yogi in in the 20th century for example i don't think that i don't believe these people in those times didn't have those experiences and only all of a sudden people started having it but it was not very much fashionable for the great yogis to talk about their personal experiences and and they were more interested in how to based on these experiences how to create a structure how to systematize and how to disseminate these not like i had this so what if you do not have it then it is pointless i'm the only one having it so how to create a system so that you can have what i have i think that is the way i see i see tantra functioning in in the real world almost exactly the language of swami vivekananda he says that if anybody tells you that i have had these experiences but you cannot and you must follow me only and believe me only do not believe such a person but if somebody comes and says that i have these experiences and you can too here are the ways to do it then you can believe such a person wow thank you so much it's a lively discussion we can we can go on listening for long time periods i want to thank er each one of you uh swami sabra primary thank you for this wonderful dialogue about exploring kashmir shaivism and advaita vedanta and it's been a wonderful experience so um swamiji um if as you know if anybody wants to hear swamiji swamiji has uh continue has just go to the villa he's the vedanta society new york minister and he has many uh lectures on youtube dr timothy not are you do you also give are you have lectures also um do you teach classes that people can attend as well um i have recently started a group of vimersa foundation and i'm trying to i offered on yoga basis a series which i would like to you know when i meet swamiji i would like to share them with you and i intend to continue those discourses so the teachings.net doesn't you know do not remain clogged inside my job and you know i have a job i'm teaching but it has to go outside of these institutional limitations and and i think i'm starting there and i i seek uh the blessing of swamiji and all the support i can get so that the ideas particularly of kashmir shaivism can go out to the public if i may just intervene just for a few seconds is something that professor timalsina will not do by himself so i'm going to do it uh here's some extraordinary books among which i would particularly recommend um so there is this book consciousness in indian philosophy which is a collection it's the most advanced advaithic dialectics what is mithyatwa what is consciousness what is self-luminosity what is the relationship between advaita vedanta buddhism on consciousness itself and all the arguments across over over a thousand over a millennia all concisely put in within a few pages very densely written book extraordinary i'm enjoying it and many of you those who are interested in advaita vedanta have been asking me about drishti shishtivada so drishti srishtivada this is rather radical school of advaita vedanta i can think of nobody better than professor timothy he is i think maybe the world's leading expert on that he even has a book on district which is seeing an appearance i think we should really have a special session i don't know it may be a past interest of dr timothy i mean no longer be interested in this but really there are so many people who have asked me about this divada and i always think we should get uh professor timothy now to give a talk on this diwali so yes thank you thank you so much i am really humble thank you so much and i'm literally embarrassed too but swamiji it's not a past interest i i will be all my life i'll be working in these two systems um and and vedanta always remains my beloved field and i will be always willing to be there happy to share whatever i can think of or whatever there is nothing for me to think of whatever the acharyas have already thought through on drishti srishti or any other streams of aditya vedanta and i i really appreciate it and i'm humbled you are you are on record now so i will take you up on that offer in the near future thank you everyone i'd like and i'd like to request swami sabha primary can you end with the closing chat please [Music] foreign you

Channel: San Diego Vedanta Monastery

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Id: V-vDexl5xTw

Length: 106min 10sec (6370 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020