Video 1

Ask Swami with Swami Sarvapriyananda | Mar 5th, 2023

[Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] lead us from the unreal to the real leaders from Darkness unto light lead us from death to immortality o peace peace peace Darkness to light it always works good morning Namaste everybody and welcome to this session of ask Swami if we used to get so many we do get so many so much males from all over the world with questions so we thought we can have this public forum online where we can respond to at least a fraction of the questions our brave volunteers are deluged with mail from all over the world and they do a great job of selecting some of those questions and then we have a live audience you of course there's a internet audience also all over the world people are tuning in for this good as usual Diane has some questions for us yes Swami good morning the first question is from pradeep who has one basic question why do we need to search for the unchanging self capital s why do we need that why can't we simply live as the Waker dreamer and deep sleeper what should drive me to seek the fourth which is the conscious self that remains unchanged through all these three states all right so the question is referencing the mandoki upanishad which is one of the foundational texts of advaita vedanta the approach is very simple it says that our life you know this life which we think is our life this is just part of it we are you are the waking self here you're the Waker and this is your waking world the life that we have and we might think that's right that's the life what else is there well there's another part to it when you fall asleep what happens all this world disappears this world of our waking the bedroom where you have fallen asleep that disappears the bed your way even your body disappears from your experience from in your experience remember it's an inside out approach what I mean by that is that this will illustrate years ago in a talk given by Swami Atma priyananda the University of Calcutta he was talking about the three states of waking dreaming deep sleep and the witness Consciousness and when it came to deep sleep he said so in deep Sleep there is no world there is no body and there is no mind and one professor of physiology couldn't take it anymore he got up in exasperation and he said what do you mean there's nobody I can see the fellowship snoring on his bed yes that's from a third person perspective from outside you see but what is the experience of you the one who is in um in sleep so when we fall asleep the external World disappears the physical body also is gone from our experience and even the waking self I who went to bed that also is erased and then we have our dream world a world which we later after after waking up we know it is part of our Dream but then it seems to be real so it's a dream word and we are in that with a dream body dream body not in that sense of a dream but a dream about what the body you would want in your dreams no but it's it's like a it's you are there in your own dreams and you are this person that's the dreamer and the world of the dreaming dreamers world and then there's a third part of our experience when even that stops external World The Waking World Is Gone dreams also stop just blank nothingness deep sleep all three appear and disappear come and go to you whatever you are if the waking world and the waking Body Mind come and go with the waking state if the dream world and the dream Body Mind quote unquote come and go with the dream state if the peculiar blankness of Deep Sleep comes and goes with the Deep Sleep State then what is the one underlying experiencer of all these that's called the fourth fourth Waker is one dreamer is two and deep sleeper is three the fourth in respect to these three and so the fourth is is uh is described as pure Consciousness just awareness existence awareness Limitless why Limitless because it's not limited by The Waking by the Dreaming by the deep sleep they all come and go the Waker dreamer and deep sleeper are limited by each other they don't extend over to the other states so that way and it's said to be non-dual non-dual because from that perspective perspective of the fourth there is really no second reality it is that fourth alone which appears as the Waker in the waking world as the dreamer and the dream world as the deep sleeper and the deep sleep blankness so they are not actually first second third there is only one reality it's only with respect to the Waker dreamer deep sleeper that you call your real self the fourth anyway that's the Monday that's in mandukiya in a nutshell and that's what he's referring to why should we be interested in this um so-called fourth our real self pure Consciousness whatever why not just be this person well that's the basic question of spiritual life I mean it's not just a manduke question why should at all why should I at all be interested in enlightenment it's because the when we are in this condition of that I am this person and this is my life and that's it notice I am subject to all sorts of Terrors and tribulations all sorts of problems I am open to suffering vulnerable either I'm actually suffering or potentially there's although there's a world of suffering waiting for me I am this body which is born and aging and subject to pain and illness and eventually guaranteed death I am this mind so sensitive vivekan disease slave to a good word slave to a bad word slave to a little bit of a misbehavior from others we react helplessly to this world as the mind so the mind and body are subject to a lot of unpleasantness and unhappiness and identified with that we suffer in this world it's a fact the fact of human suffering this is what the Buddha identified as the Primal existential problem suffering or at least dissatisfaction sometimes very intense suffering and if nothing else the low unhappy drone of existential angst at the background which is continuous how do you overcome that all of it how do you go beyond suffering attain fulfillment so that is the goal of of spirituality in every tradition whatever the language you can speak the language of Nirvana you can speak the language of Liberation salvation whatever you call it it's basically transcending the limitations and problems of The Human Condition every religion promises that so that's also the goal of the mandukya and he says why should I not be satisfied as just this waking person because as this waking person you are subject to all the problems of life and when you realize yourself as the force you transcend these problems I'm using the word transcend it's not that you will solve World proper poverty or one's own you know the cancer of the body or in any kind of on my own particular relationship problem financial problem any such problem will I solve no but all of those problems will be solved in one stroke by realizing they are all part of an appearance to you the Consciousness the one reality which is free of all of these problems it's like when you realize this a movie as a movie until we do not realize it as a movie you and if we somehow feel trapped within the plot of the movie we are subject to uh comedy we may laugh at it then the next show is a tragedy and you will bound to weep and notice it's worse than that because when you laugh at a comedy or or beep you know a tragedy it's still an aesthetic experience for you because you know it's a movie but if you do not know and you think yourself to be a a character in the movie then we you're trapped so the question boils down to why should I not continue to be part of the move you must realize that the movie is a movie will it stop the movie no but then once you realize the movie is a movie you you don't want to stop the movie also it's you're fine with it if there's a movie it's a comedy okay it's a comedy a laugh if it's a tragedy all right I'll enjoy quote and unquote the tragedy in the sense that aesthetic experience and I'll maybe weep with the characters in the tragedy but I know it's a movie and if it shuts down blank no movie at all on the screen it's all right that's also natural once in a while there is no movie that's a deep sleep but I know I am the witness of all of these and in the movie at least you are a witness and there's a movie separate from you here the movie is playing on you you the Consciousness in you the movie of The Waking the dreaming and the deep sleep s there are actually only two states not even waking dreaming deep sleep there are only two states appearing and not appearing he calls them dreaming and sleeping we got about the stake on that God apart there's the commentator the first commentator on the Monday shankaracharya's guru's Guru very radical non-dualist he says no no they are not even three states waking dreaming deep sleep there are actually two states we are either Dreaming or sleeping deep sleep what's dreaming so-called waking is a dream so-called dream is a dream why because things appear to you things appear to you you're you think this is a real waking State it's just like a dream and the dream is a dream so you have a dream state which is of two kinds this one and the other dream which you sleep I have in your sleep and you have a deep sleep which you call sleeping with which is blankness nothing appears to you just blankness these are the only two states for for the ignorant for those who are not enlightened for those who are enlightened they are the ones who are truly awake that by the way is the meaning of the word Buddha the one who was awakened they are the one who have truly who are truly awake when you're truly awake then you are awake even when the dream is going on you're awake even when the Deep Sleep is going on and you see in your nature as awareness none of these worldly problems appear so all of this is just to say this you know straightforward answer is to take you beyond sufferings shankaracharya's words in order to overcome to to transcend all forms of misery and unhappiness that's why we need to realize ourselves as not just this Waker or the dreamer or the deep sleeper but the underlying one undivided Consciousness yeah let's take another question this question is from Leonid shock I am a 21 year old from Ukraine I read in the gospel of Sri ramakrishna that God is a wish fulfilling tree I want to be a good sincere devotee who aspires only for Noble things from the spiritual point of view but my heart is still largely turned towards the world I want worldly success for myself and those close to me as well as peace in my country Ukraine despite knowing that God can grant me all this if I intensely pray for it I hesitate to do it because I feel a little immoral about it although for the last couple of days I have started to spend several hours each day praying for the end of the war if my passion is turned towards the world and I am not yet seized by a strong desire for Spiritual Awakening is it okay to pray to God to satisfy my desires reach my goals and so on will it hurt my progress or can it be used as a means to an end after which I can outgrow this tendency and become wholeheartedly devoted to God all right that's a very good question it's just 21 years old you can see the sincerity in the writing and in such terrible circumstances in Ukraine see this speaks to the earlier question also all these problems in the world at one level they will go on in one form or the other who would have thought at the beginning of the second decade of the 20th 21st century we are again faced with war around this time the first world war had just ended in the 20th century 100 years ago they were just coming out of um the war had ended and they were coming out of also um a pandemic sounds familiar here the war has not ended and we are not quite out of the pandemic yet so notice the nature of problems of suffering it doesn't go away it changes Vivekananda said it's like arthritis you change it from one from the knees it will go to the elbows it'll you cure poverty you'll have the problems of prosperity and some form or the other suffering continues now what he has asked for of course one can ask God for an end to the war as he is praying for that definitely and it's I've noticed that people here you meet Russians and ukrainians and one interesting thing is that the one thing both want is an end to the war into the fighting and to The Killing yeah um can one ask God for that certainly one can ask God for anything that is for the welfare of the masses for for large numbers of people an end to General suffering could you ask for the end of the pandemic end of the world yes yes we can any person with who has a noble like this idealistic young man has a noble world view who wants good for everybody you can pray and one should pray for the good of the world what about personal Desires in this world his question is I firmly believe if I pray to God my desires will be satisfied so um should I pray for that and will I know those desires will not make me permanently happy only spirituality will but I really honestly don't desire spirituality wholeheartedly do I desire God wholeheartedly and I have no taste for the world I can't say that honestly so can I pray for fulfillment of my worldly desires and will that eventually take me Beyond worldly desires and I'll become like you know holy spiritual answer is yes and no no because satisfaction of worldly desires does not take one Beyond worldly desires this is an ancient truth we find this theme again and again in Indian literature spiritual texts literature also people who like the famous case of the king yayati there's one's case the story is like that who wanted to exhaust all desires by enjoying desires and what happened it just kept on increasing kept on proliferating I remember the first thing that we were taught in our economics class the economics is the science you know which wants to match unlimited human desires to limited resources so can one satisfy these unlimited desires one cannot and if one tries to those desires just keep on the horizon of satisfaction keeps on receding okay I just invented that and coined that that's nice so the Horizon of satisfaction just keeps on receding and that's what we find in life so it's best to understand that there is this pursuit of satisfying one's disaster is not a path to either worldly satisfaction which is not which is impossible or or it's not even a path to spirituality one must step back at some point now your question is but I don't honestly want to step back from the world to a part of you does that's why you're interested that's why we are all interested why we are all here we are interested you know do we really really want God honestly not totally but do we want to want God yes we do we all of us we do we want we want to be like that we want to be like them like the mystics of all religions in all times who were intensely completely focused on on spirituality and we see how um happy not in a smiley face happy sense in a how fulfilled they were How Deeply fulfilled they were and we want to be like that so we want to be we want to want God yes that's true that and that state is fine it's fine that because of my past conditionings I still have worldly desires and cravings and at the same time I genuinely honestly I want I want to realize God I want to love God I want to become enlightened I want self-knowledge in whichever language you put it I really want that also That's The Human Condition that's the condition of most spiritual Seekers now what does Leonid do at this at this stage you pray to God your prayer you are reading the gospel of Sri ramakrishna you pray to Sri ramakrishna to pray to God in whatever form you have devotion faith in and pray for love of God devotion bhakti pray for dispassion from from worldliness from worldly worldly desires pray for focus of mind on spiritual you know on your meditation on your study on your prayer Pray for these things which we find ourselves wanting in and so we we can help some we can we can use some Divine help there now another thing he said I'm convinced that if I pray these my desires will be satisfied him something like that he said and the answer there is yes and no yes all sincere prayers will be answered I'll repeat that prayer is always answer but the answer may not always be what we expect it to be we are praying for something and we expect God to fulfill you know like Amazon Prime like that God will deliver exactly what I want and one day delivery one day delivered I wanted immediately and exactly what I ordered even Amazon Goofs up sometimes and God is not bound to fulfill our desires as we wanted wanted them to be fulfilled it's like human parents as kids kids may ask for anything from their parents and the parents may be able to Grant at least some of it but it's not necessary that Mom or Dad will give you exactly what you want they have a mind of their own and they are concerned about your welfare so they'll give you what is possible and what's good for you and maybe they won't give you what is not good for you maybe they'll give you something instead of what you wanted and that might be even better for you so yes God always answers prayers but the answer might not be exactly what we asked for so should we should I pray yes pray for fulfillment of my worldly desires as a rule no that's why you get that slight feeling of immorality when when you pray for personal things sometimes it's impossible not to pray for personal you can pray for big things like for everybody's welfare let the war stop let the pandemic go away I remember when it started we were I was at the Harvard Divinity School at that time and Harvard was one of the first universities where it was taken seriously very quickly the United States that's also the place where it actually one of the epicenters there was a conference in Boston where it spread one of the sources where it spread very fast um I still remember this was this class on prayer Christian contemplative Prayer by Professor Stephanie Paul cell and she said a couple of things we were studying Saint it was the interior Castle it's a Christian Mystic work work on mystical prayer and Saint Teresa is writing to the nuns under her care and the professor pointed out notice how often she tells them to take care of their health and you might be a little puzzled why go on and on about you know be careful about your health where it's because she explained to us you know in those days the medieval times people were often unhealthy they were sick sometimes a lot of times there were a lot of these diseases going around that was just a few days before the pandemic hit so it's like in in contrast we are fine we don't understand what's this unhealthiness this sickness why are they so worried about health and the next week literally the world began to shut down it's almost like God heard this discussion and he said oh really and then in the next week's class the professor she read out from a text from the from the Torah where it's a very interesting text what does God do all day long so God has a routine daily routine you know so there's a time when God God reads the scriptures and God prays and God does Administration answers his emails stuff like that and it's it's like and something like that actually that is God sits on the chair of judgment for uh few hours every day and so there are very deep prayers there that we we beseech thee now our heavenly father to have mercy upon us to not to sit on the on the terrible seat of judgment and to sit on your seat of Mercy so that you know this was very evocative for all of us because it was just at the beginning it was recognized this is a pandemic and within 48 Hours the whole university shut down and the medical school they were already engaged in trying to find a vaccine and although at that time they started and they were saying it will take I overheard conversations for the first time I heard the term uh social distancing all those things came in right at that time so can we pray to God that do not that forgive us go easy on us don't sit on the terrible seat of judgment we know we deserve this but let us let us off easy runs off the hook so yes you can pray for all of humanity but for personal desires it's best that yes I acknowledge I'm honest I acknowledge I have these desires but I want to overcome them I know they do not lead to any kind of deep satisfaction so I want to overcome them give me dispassion give me love of God give me this yearning for God this is what one should pray for we'll take one more and then a question from the odd the gentleman there you can come here and then ask the question but first another one more question there are two questions um on Avidia the first one is piara rudra I am confused about the concept of avidya if avidya is in Brahman and Brahman is the only reality then Avidia is also real then how is mukti possible and the second question is from srini ayanga swamiji or Maya anavidya interchangeable terms avidya means ignorance the problem is ignorance we do not know our real nature if we would know our real nature we would be free of samsara so problem is ignorance solution is knowledge that ignorance is called avidya Vidya means knowledge almost like the English negative is not Vidya or ignorance not knowing our real nature now if you say this is a question in advaitha metaphysics and epistemology if you say this ignorance is in Brahman in the Ultimate Reality because there's only that Ultimate Reality according to advaith only Brahman exists so if there is ignorance you say there's ignorance it must be in Brahman and then the question was in that case it Brahman is the only reality and so this ignorance must be real how can it be overcome well I mean this question can be fine-tuned but I think we get the trend of this question and the answer is uh why does it why does ignorance have to be something real that cannot be overcome ignorance can be overcome by knowledge it's like if the movie is on the movie screen does that mean that the movies becomes real the screen is real if you're reading a Harry Potter book the book is real for you but the the what is printed on that the fiction the story which emerges out of that that need not be as real as the book so this idea of multiple layers of Truth and what are called ontological levels there's an absolute reality and in that there can be a less than reality the mind which dreams our dream state we have a dream but the mind which was dreaming is real and when we wake up we say that oh I was dreaming so whatever happened in the dream I dismiss as a part of the dream that was a dream that was not real but I don't I don't deny that I was dreaming exactly like that if you go to the absolute level of reality Brahman is the reality in which this entire universe appears and we do not know the reality that's our current problem and knowledge will remove that not knowing and then we will know that we are that reality Brahman so that's not a problem at all the second question was is avidya and Maya are the interchangeable are they the same thing um again yes and no ignorance we have ignorance each of us we are ignorant of our real nature this is called avidya Maya is the power of God of ishwara by which this entire universe is projected now what's the relationship between our individual ignorance and that Maya it's a bit like SRI ramakrishna gave the example of the poison in a Cobra you know the Cobra has poisoned in its fangs or in its poison Sac actually and a little bit of that poison is enough to knock out its prey a frog or a mouse but all the poison is in the Cobra and doesn't affect the Cobra at all in fact it's the power of the cobra similarly Maya is the power of God and this avidya which which is there in all of us which deludes us into samsara is a part of that Maya is a tiny tiny part of that of that Maya it keeps us in delusion but you can also free us from delusion Maya has these two sidesh that which thing makes us think we are this body we are this mind we are this little person and this world is exactly what I want I want to be rich and I want to have fun I mean all I need is um on that side is Wall Street and this side is Broadway and then these two I don't need the vedanta society in between that's avidya and the video Maya says those two are fun but they are not deeply satisfying whereas what they say here in between in the vedanta society and it seems to Hope hold some hope of you know transcending this condition finding out some deep fulfillment so that is that is also Maya but this is Vidya Maya the Maya of knowledge Maya of enlightenment both of them constitute this world one Keeps Us engrossed in this world the other helps to free us from this world and both are part of Maya all right young man there and then after you the one behind you here please come here yeah you yes please come here tell us your name and ask the question hi my name is mihir what is your view in vedanta's view on vegetarianism remember that so I'm vivekananda's answer I can give you he said that vegetarianism is actually a higher truth if you want to be spiritual it's better to be vegetarian than non-vegetarian however he made a point that he made it especially for Hindus he said religion has gone into your cooking pots whether we shall eat with the left hand or the right hand and and all sorts of things associated with food and eating and he says if race has put for thousands of years the best brains on thinking this through it will lead to a race of imbeciles and that's what has bedeviled Hinduism for a long time so he he was very careful there is food important yes is it all important not at all so if you look around the world people in most religions and spiritual people and practitioners non-vegetarian one might be surprised to know most of the Buddhists are non-vegetarian the entire Tibetan because they have no vegetable vegetables they are what the name to eat on the Tibetan plateau now does that make them less of Buddhists not at all not at all what was the last meal that the Buddha had pork he died that killed him but I remember I met this Buddhist monk and he asked me about this the same question and I said we as monks we eat what is given to us in ashram generally that's the rule for monks though Hindu monks in general are strictly vegetarian so but is it in our ashram we have this rule that we eat what is given to us so for example we don't eat beef that's a cultural thing because we are Hindus um so yeah so that's the answer is vegetarian vegetarianism better than non-vegetarianism uh I would say without any reservation yes is it an important question again without any reservation no hi yeah what's your name uh Matt it's an honor to be here um oh okay so um I was at the Varanasi Rama ramakrishna Mission and I was talking to the president there and he was talking about love and he was explaining me away towards God which was he explained to me that you could have you could imagine someone like your mother and you feel that love that you have for your mother and so he described that as you have love and then the object of love in this case my mother and that's um he he told me of a meditative exercise where you use the image of your mother to evoke this love and then you remove um whatever it is that is your object of Love whether it's your mother or a close friend until you have pure love and then you can expand this love infinitely until there is pure Consciousness pure um being one with God and this was about a year ago and I haven't been as successful as I would like to with applying this and a lot of times I struggle with um as soon as I remove whoever I am evoking love towards the feeling of love goes away and so I would love to hear your response to this okay Varanasi uh yes I think I know the Swami are talking about yeah that's a beautiful um beautiful method actually and it connects to a very deep principle in vedanta all right let me see I can answer I can see a few things about it first of all a mother now that's somebody we always hold dear from our childhood onwards so for example the Tibetan Buddhists they have this exercise where they say we have been going through samsara for an indefinite period of time for our Millennia for many many thousands of lifetimes let me see all right that's something that's sort of not normally accepted in the Indian milieu so now one interesting consequence of that is we have all come across each other many times in past lives all right then the next step they say is very interesting is that then imagine then that these sentient beings whom you are interacting with in each of them in some lifetime was your mother and imagine the sacrifice that being went through giving birth to you nurturing you just giving her life for you and that's true not just of your mother but all beings where you're actually your mother not theoretically they were actually your mother at some point now imagine the kind of feeling you would have to everybody that sort of unlimited debt and great gratitude one would have nice that's a way of cultivating that loving kindness towards everybody so it's very similar to what you said but what and the Swami told you then goes One Step deeper where it's actually that feeling which is important that feeling of expansion and that unmixed love for the other now if you so one way of instead of dropping the focus of your love your mother and then just holding onto the feeling what the Tibetan with this too is make everybody your mother that might be a slightly easier way because that person evokes our love if I drop the person then the love seems to go away very quickly now instead of dropping the person can I sort of like a exercise meditative philosophical exercise ex see that person as everybody hmm so that's what they do one reason why it's not immediately easy it's a great method but it's not immediately easy is the the flip side of it see there's only this much of psychic energy that we have if I throw a great deal of it into the world which we most of us do then it is actually very little left over for love of God or the love of everybody in general we have our energies flowing out in a hundred different streams into the world that's why this dispassion and passion for God they go together it's literally the same thing the passion for the world and passion for God do not go together so one must pull back from the world in as many ways as we can be neutral towards the world and then this accumulated emotion This Heart it can be directed godward or towards all sentient beings which is which amounts to the same thing actually vivekantha said the only God I know and worship is the sum total of all living Souls all right thank you so much well thank you so much we will take one more question from the lady there yes please come yes please come then we will take some questions my name is Asha um if I understand correctly the universe is is like a dream that appears in pure Consciousness or pure awareness so my question is does Consciousness then have can it change the dream or the unit you know the laws the universe does it have control over what is appearing or is the appearance like spontaneous like what we see in our dreams so is it just something that's appearing to consciousness over which it has no volitional volitional control in which case it seems that pure Consciousness is no longer omnipotent or all-powerful on um on the other hand oh hold on to the other hand okay I'm going to answer this first part of the question first because there's a lot involved there's a lot involved there so this universe all our life is like an appearance in pure Consciousness what are you you are pure consciousness like the manduka thing which we started off with you are this pure Consciousness in which the dream of your dreams appear the dream of your waking appears and no dreams at all deep sleep that also appears and it keeps changing but you are this uh background Consciousness like a movie screen or something all right but now she's asking what's your name again I'm sorry Asha Asha Asha is asking uh do does the pure consciousness have any volitional control over this dream there is one must investigate a little deeper it's like asking so if I identify myself as pure Consciousness and this life is a dream uh asha's life is a dream can I craft a better life for Asha as pure consciousness the answer would be again yes and no no primarily because first of all when you say volition I want to change the terms and conditions of this life I didn't read the fine print when I was born that the terms and conditions apply now I I am going to I want to renegotiate all this this is not working for me but that volition that desire is part of the Mind is at the level yeah I'll come to you is at the level of the Mind pure Consciousness is the witness of that too remember my desire to change the terms and conditions of my life it disappears when I fall asleep and I start dreaming something else it disappears completely when I go into deep sleep but pure Consciousness continues so the volition of making this change of that change is not uh Asus is not a part of your real nature it appears as part of the dream as much as the project of a character in a movie would be a person in the movie wants to do something in the movie you know achieve great things in the movie Now You Are The Watcher of the movie the the heroes project in the movie is not your project you identify with it and you enjoy the whole thing but it's not your project I mean I don't mean at the level of me as such I mean like exactly the the Supreme Consciousness the Supreme Court can it change the universe that it's dreaming right you ask the question you use terms like omnipotence or pure Consciousness all right now we come to the second level of this is there someone in charge all right Asha is not in charge of the universe we have settled that but is there somebody in charge at all anybody out there yes yes so that is the idea of God in advaita vedanta the absolute reality pure Consciousness is one thing which let's just call it Brahman and uh there is something called ishwar or God that the god of religion and vedanta accepts it that there is there is uh pure Consciousness with the power of Maya which is called ishwara which is in charge of creating maintaining and finally destroying this entire universe and again creating maintaining just like your own day goes through waking dreaming deep sleep and again waking dreaming deep sleep similarly on a cosmic scale there is a Consciousness which wakes up and then this universe is created and the whole work day is this universe and then that Cosmic Consciousness goes to bed and the whole universe disappears srishti's creation or projection existence of this universe and then disappearance of this universe and again repeat and repeat and so on all of those are appearances in pure consciousness but at the level of the appearance there is someone something in charge which is called the god of the universe that's not the individual being the universe doesn't run according to our rooms almost nothing runs according to our whims I love that when um when Professor Bryant he said what do you mean I am Brahman uh God is in charge of running the universe God controls the Universe I can't even control my own bowel movements so so there's this huge difference Gulf between the individual being and the cosmic being individual being Jiva in Sanskrit Cosmic being is Shiva it sort of Rhymes nicely Jiva and Shiva ishwara saguna Brahman Brahman with attributes but beyond the individual and the cosmic is you the basic awareness the pure Consciousness that's your real nature and that's also God's real nature it's calculating means returning yes so um sir the pure Consciousness is is unmoving is is still is peaceful it's beyond attributes but from that is what creation arises so the very creating isn't that kind of like a I don't know if whether to say desire but it's like a disturbance if it actually did disturb or change you could say that but it actually doesn't disturb how Disturbed is the screen when there is a comedy playing a tragedy playing a horror film playing or no movie at all playing is the screen exactly the same it's the same it's absolutely the same one must distinguish between Consciousness as such and mind when I think the Mind moves I mean there are things happening in the mind when I think I imagine I enjoy I suffer I wake I dream I fall asleep all of this is mind not consciousness and it's lit up by you the Consciousness you are your only job quote unquote it's not a job it's your very nature it's shining this undilated undiluted unaffected shining is our real nature Brahman there it's always perfectly peaceful or peace itself in fact that's the name used in you are peace itself and there is a temporary piece and the rest and restlessness going on in this the world of appearance what about the other hand Let's uh yeah ever see some more questions and we'll who else somebody from this side somebody was asking and the gentleman here and then I'll come to you Charlie hamnet asks it appears the platonic notion of God as the platonists understand it is that of being impersonal being idealistic monism this ties into Karma being an impersonal process and similarly the idea of the absolute slash Brahman being an impersonal state yet I quite like the idea of God being personable and bestowing Grace as in the abrahamic tradition I have heard that advice has a nuanced understanding of God that God can be both personal and impersonal or monistic and monotheistic at the same time please explain yes that's a very important point in advaita metaphysics the nature of God somebody put it beautifully in an interview and this gentleman who is vedanta scholar and a devotee in the vedanta Society of Southern California it's interviewed about what exactly is vedanta how do you understand vedanta and he said how do I put it vedanta think of Buddhism with God which is a fun way of putting it yeah another person wrote saying that she was um she was into Buddhism and she moved from Christianity to Buddhism then she said she moved into vedanta afterwards why because um she said I missed God I missed the old karmajan in Buddhism no God so can we have this impersonal philosophy with a personal God you can vivekantha says impersonal in advaita vedanta does not mean the negation of Personality he says that he can have as many personalities as you want the there's a cosmic personality of God which is called saguna Brahman Brahman with attributes another name is ishwara the Lord of all and then incarnation of God and as many incarnations many many incarnations in Hinduism not just one so multiple incarnations you can have as many personalities as you like because it's that one impersonal Consciousness appearing as so many personalities just look around you so many personalities around you and so it can appear as the the cosmic Divine personality of God but that's there's only one of those but it that too can appear in many ways to you know in many religions into many Mystics across the world in different ways but it's it's one God one Cosmic God so uh to put it briefly and put precisely what is the conception of God in Hinduism it is impersonal personal impersonal personal impersonal as existence Consciousness Bliss pure being pure awareness pure not in the sense of in a nice and good pure in the sense of without any attributes pure being is existence itself pure Consciousness awareness itself and Anand the Bliss itself this itself means fulfillment utter fulfillment think about it this way um the three main questions of philosophy the three great questions of philosophy um what is real and the branch of philosophy which deals with that we used to be called metaphysics now is called ontology then the second how do we know anything at all and the branch of philosophy which deals with that is epistemology and third there was this whole group of fields um Aesthetics ethics all of that is now clubbed under the values you know so it's called axiology so this covers broadly more or less all of philosophy uh epis ontology epistemology axiology and there are three questions what is real how do we know anything and what's good or beautiful and now notice that three ways in which the absolute is described in vedanta being Consciousness Bliss notice how these are three answers to these three questions what is real existence itself just being itself is the only reality that there is then third a second how do we know anything consciousness chaitanya that being has this this characteristic of being ever shining not just a dark dead being but ever Shining so that shining itself makes knowledge possible and then that being itself is all fulfillment whatever we are trying to do in life reach for fulfillment through ethics whatever whatever is good whatever is beautiful is we are trying to reach that absolute reality and that itself is all fulfillment Ananda Bliss so that's the impersonal conception of the Ultimate Reality in vedant in advance but then there's a personal conception also that um impersonal reality in association with the power of Maya and where does Maya enter the picture all that is a this enormous complication there but with in association with the power of Maya is called God the personal God and that personal God is also infinite and it can be expressed with infinite characteristics the impersonal Brahman no characteristics no attribution you say didn't you just say it is aren't those attributes they are not but we can discuss that they are the very nature they're not qualities of God they are what that impersonal God is or the Ultimate Reality is but the personal God has many attributes all loving omnipotent omniscient and omnipresent basically the powers we associate god with all auspicious qualities in the language of ramanu jacharya endless auspicious qualities so that is the personal God and that personal God can be worshiped in many ways because it's of infinite attributes you can worship as Vishnu as Shiva as Devi with human form non-human farm with no form formless but with qualities he mentioned the god in the abrahamic religions God in the abrahamic religions is this personal God The God Who is all-powerful all loving just in abrahamic Traditions without any form it's formless form and without form you know when you say oh but Hinduism worships god with so many forms but when you go to the hymns and the mantras associated with god with form with Vishnu or Shiva you'll always see the nirguna nirak are also mentioned the formless God as formless so formless with attributes with farm and with attributes and with human form and human attributes also as the incarnations of God multiple incarnations of God so these are the two ways in which God is understood in Hinduism with the impersonal personal we'll take one more question and come to you this question is from voycheck Laskowski from Poland I did some research on the topic of panchakosha recently and also watched one of your lectures about it I have one problem it seems to me that the name Bliss to the fifth cover of Atman is misleading it is also known as the causal body which is associated with the Deep Sleep state it contains the seed of whatever happens in the remaining layers of being it seems to me that this layer can contain negative Tendencies called samskaras I tend to think that the art man can be in a less Blissful State this would explain perfectly while why in dream sleep we can have nightmares is my reasoning right or have I made a mistake I would be grateful for your help here so he is referring to the panchakosha the five layers of the human personality or five layers of Personality what are the five layers the physical body the vital body the mental body and the intellect body and the causal body but notice they're all bodies they are not you we are embodied in these five we think we are embodied only in this physical body no there are successively like Russian nesting dolls so they are successively subtler and subtler layers of this being but you are none of them but you exist in and through them you you appear or you manifest to you you are here through them so these five and this is a methodology it's another methodology for enlightenment this is from the titiri upanishad the three states of waking dreaming deep sleep leading to the realization of the fourth that is the five states of the physical of the human personality panchakosha five layers or five sheets that's from the titiri openership so this is from now the the subtlest one it is the uh called the Ananda Maya kosher literally if you translate the Blissful sheath what does it correspond to it's it's like our it's our experience in deep sleep now he says that but is it Blissful for two reasons he finds it difficult one is we don't experience any Bliss in deep Sleep it's just blank second don't we say that this is the causal not casual causal sheath that's where all the cause of the person the seeds of our personality are there including all the unpleasant stuff it's all there it's just shut down in deep sleep but it manifests so why do we call it the Blissful sheath is it right the answer is no you've got it pretty right the only thing is it's called Blissful not because you enjoy lots of positive pleasure there but it's free of all trouble the experience in deep Sleep when we wake up from sleep we say there was dreams and there was also a time when there was nothing basically let me say I slept like a log and so on these expressions are there in different languages across the world which correspond to deep sleep and they all um report a lack of any kind of trouble there so this complete trouble-free sleep without any kind of what is called in Sanskrit upadrava the the Mischief of this world [Music] even the person I always say the person who is dying in the ICU in the hospital terrible problems in the world that means I was just about to die ever but just but that person when that person goes into deep sleep no problem at all that means these problems are always mediated I'm not dismissing the problems at the level of the world at the level of the body but they're all mediated through the mind when the Mind shuts down you the experiencing Consciousness has no experience of these problems um so the Deep Sleep state with which what is the Deep Sleep state it is the shutdown condition of the mind this waking dreaming deep sleep all of them they are all states of the mind not of Consciousness Consciousness is only one state Shining um so the Deep Sleep state is free of all problems and therefore it is called Problem free in that sense blissful huh the report is in Sanskrit this is I slept happily I did not know anything that was the report of deep sleep in that sense happily and we seek it it's not just a blank state of nothingness people take pills and you know they really really miss deep sleep if deep sleep is not there we are aware of it I slept how was your sleep not too well and I slept lightly it was Disturbed I had dreams and you know sort of lightly slept that we miss deep sleep and sleep scientists have reported that in as one ages the ability to sleep deeply also goes away one sleeps more but those light and Disturbed sleep um yes now he points out that the Deep Sleep has uh the seeds of all the nasty things in our life also true that's why one can have nightmares in dreams but in deep Sleep itself the nasty side of it and the good side of it all are dormant so the nasty side of it is not manifest in deep Sleep therefore you don't feel so it's correct to call it the Blissful sheath only thing is we must remember it's not where like in the waking Strait or the dream state if there is something nice going on I feel I am enjoying this I like this that kind of feeling is not there in deep sleep because the sense of the eye has gone all particularities are erased there that is a slate of uniform blankness although all the causes of the waking and dreaming are there but in a dormant state that's why it's all right to call it the Blissful but you have to understand Blissful in that sense only all right please come and then tell us your name thank you thank you my name is Girish and um you've talked about the parallels between advaita vedanta and madhyamanka and um you know and purnata being two sides of the same coin essentially but I'm wondering about the concept of dependent origination how does that map into advaithic Concepts or paradigms or it's a big question and I'll give you a short answer to it um why I said big question I'm reminded of a similar question I had asked to a right person to you know he was the head of one of the four Great orders of Tibetan monasticism there is the gelukupa which is headed by the Dalai Lama but there is the sakyapa that is the kagyupa and there's a ningmapa the nickname tradition so the the sakya tradition their head their main Monastery in India is in near our monastery near dehradun in India so if you it's within walking distance there's a huge Tibetan Monastery there and I went there and I met the head of the sakya um lineage at that time called the sakya prison who has passed now now the next person is in charge now but I met the earlier one and there was a long queue of people waiting to take his blessings I was a newly minted Monk from the ramakrishna order so I was in the queue and when my turn came up so is this very powerfully built his big and tremendous Charisma very you can see the power radiating of this person mostly they were Tibetans and a few Indians and I was there in that line also so when I went up to him mostly people were asking for worldly blessings and somebody wanted this or that and he would give them he would bless them now I had a question same question that Girish had what is the connection between what is the relationship between Brahman and shunya The Emptiness and the purn what is the relationship Brahman and emptiness I said who I am and then I asked the question about down to him he looked at me and he smiled and he said big question no time [Laughter] but your question was more precise how would something like dependent origination be worked into or what parallel would it have in advaita vedanta so notice um according to nagarjuna dependent origination and sunyat are the same thing in fact at the very beginning of the mullah the original text nagarjuna says what is called pratitis that is what we call emptiness what is called dependent origination the potentialization is very simple I mean if you go into the 12 linked chain of dependent origination that's more complicated but basic idea is this arising that arises this not arising that does not arise now if you want Nirvana this samsara is arising clearly you want Nirvana freedom from this samsara you have to find out what arising makes the samsara arise if you can stop that from arising this will also not arise basically that's the idea of dependent origination and therefore nagarjuna uses in two senses this world of samsara is also shunya empty we have to realize that and the Ultimate Reality is also empty shunya but in what sense the Ultimate Reality is empty in what sense this samsar is empty in what sense is this samsara empty dependent origination this immediately Maps if you want to map it all it maps onto the advaiti concept of Maya samsara is Maya and what is the nature of Maya from a buddhistic analysis it would be dependent origination that's it I mean I can just thank you [Music] tell us your name and ask the question sorry G my name is honey I'm here from London actually and I come from the Sufi tradition but I've been studying uh vedanta for about 10 years now so I'm a vedant and Sufi and I've learned from you your lectures tremendously so thank you my question relates to reincarnation because I see that the Core teaching across all of the Traditions match the non-duality is is almost identical I would say but this area feels like a distinct difference of opinion and the objection I hear is presented in kind of Aristotelian terms if you're going from a causal potential State and become actualized then you know the tree doesn't return to a seed state so how is it possible to go from an actualized back to potential in order to see a cycle of reincarnation happen and you know it's a big big also so maybe you can also point me to which books or scripture or commentaries specifically go into reincarnation and more philosophical detail please thank you okay that's a good question this marks a fundamental difference between say the Indian tradition and the abrahamic tradition now in Indian tradition this Karma and reincarnation is common to all the Indian traditions it's an interesting thing the Buddhists and the Hindus do not agree on uh you know fundamentals like the existence of God Buddhists don't agree about the existence of God Hindu say God exists Buddhists don't agree about the Atman like there is uh uh you know Eternal reality of the self called the called the Atman but this talk about anatma no self and yet the Buddhists all the Buddhists and all the Hindus and all the jainas and all the Sikhs they're all agreed on the fact that there is Karma and reincarnation so you see how Karma leads to Incarnation that part is clear because if there is no previous existence then all this disparity cannot be explained and if there is no future existence then all the Karma that we are doing and we have done in the past where do the results go so we must have existed earlier we must exist in the future and especially if we do not the more serious metaphysical consequences like coming out of nothing and you know and then either disappearing into nothing or coming out of nothing and existing eternally which also seems rather ridiculous so you must have existed in some sense earlier you must exist in some sense in the future notice all the abrahamic religions say that you do exist after death all of us do it otherwise religion doesn't make sense all right my personal way of I'll go into details but my personal way of reconciling these two is that the the Indian traditions have a wider view of it if you take a big circle huge circle and if you take a tiny piece of it it looks like a straight line birth to death but if you step back it seems going around you know like you come back in a circle all right now a little more detail first I'll take the tree and tree example so from a seed comes a plant and a tree and then the tree dies that tree is not Rebo and it's not actually continuing but it gives rise to seeds which continues in the form of new trees and they are not exactly the same tree this is what is called a type token difference in philosophy the the trees are all individual they may be the same type the same DNA continuing fine now this seems to go against the Hindu view of reincarnation where something persists over lifetime this is the same thing being reborn again and again and again but it matches quite well with the Buddhist idea of reincarnation the Buddhist idea of reincarnation and the Hindu idea of reincarnation there is some difference the Buddhist idea for Incarnation is a process it's like a wave in a rope if you have a rope and you shake it and a wave propagates along the Rope it's not that the same thing is traveling down the Rope at every point the Rope is lifted and comes down so a certain impulse is transmitted across time and space and so that might be a better way of describing the Buddhist view of reincarnation what is the Hindu view of reincarnation the Atman remaining unchanged it is the subtle body the subtle body which is in vedanta it is the five layers which we talked about the pranamaya Mano Maya beganamaya these three are called the subtle body and then there's the causal body the causal body and the subtle body persist from Lifetime to Lifetime it's only the physical body which is destroyed so when the death comes it's the death of the physical body the subtle body goes on to to take up new bodies so the subtle body is not destroyed when death comes the subtle body carries the impressions of past lives um and this is what is Reborn the Atman remains unchanged in whichever philosophy in the philosophy um you know advaita vedanta it's absolutely unchanged now This Is How They explain multiple lifetimes and then when Moksha Liberation is attained physical body will die of course and the subtle body also stops propagating at the point of the death of the physical body so the difference between the death of an enlightened person death of a non-enlightened person is at the death of the physical body of the enlightened person the body dies and the subtle body disappears back into nature speak about it the unenlightened person the body dies but the subtle body goes on so a personality keeps on going from Lifetime to Lifetime so this is the idea now in non-duality however how this can be reconciled the abrahamic idea and the Indian idea is that in non-duality Karma and reincarnation along with everything else is relegated to what is called the transactional or the lower truth yeah so what is the importance of rebirth Karma in advaita vedanta answer is no importance at all is it essential to advise no it is part of the lower truth you want an explanation of what's going on here a very good explanation is Karma and reincarnation but it's only an explanation because you're asking a question the question itself happens to be wrong so the explanation also does not hold much water I'll give a little story anecdote and we'll stop it there there was this monk of our order in the Himalayas in uttar Kashi I know him so at one time he had a b in his Bonnet about the abrahamic idea of only one lifetime and the Indian idea of multiple lifetimes Karma and rebirth in Hindi it's called rebirth which is true this is true or that is true and the arguments in favor of this arguments in favor of that until the monks in the cottage got bored of it all nobody was willing to listen to his arguments so he decided to take his dialectic outside the cottage to the next school which it was a school of a of a master who taught a very radical form of non-dualism so our this monk Who belongs to our daughter he went to this teacher and he said um Swami here are those who say there's only one Lifetime and no no multiple lifetimes and here is our so many theories which say that there are this punar um so which is true means multiple life rebirth and that Swami said to him oh monk when there is no birth where is the question of rebirth please read the manduke upanishad from the advaithic perspective let alone multiple lifetimes they say there is no multiple lifetime so is it true that in the abrahamic religions have it right there's one lifetime they say there's not even one lifetime there's no birth at all are there multiple shows of the same movie or one show doesn't matter it's a movie if you see in the movie The Hero goes through these troubles and then finally Tramps and the movie comes to an end now if you ask the question will the hero have to go through it all over again and again and again and again maybe maybe not but the real answer is not even once did the hero go through any of this that's the answer so from an advantage see from a dualistic Hindu perspective it's a very serious question and they will maintain rebirth multiple lifetimes most Indian schools will maintain it very strongly and they have very good reasons to do so from another position you can see it's not an important question I I see that any specific books that you would uh one book have you heard of Reza kazimi he yes yeah right so his Paths of transcendence it's a wonderful have you seen that book yes yes yes so there he Compares shankara uh I think IBN Arabi and mystery card yes it's a really nice book thank you so much uh can be um okay okay the lady there yes please come tell us your name and ask the question we'll take one more question here hello my name is sajni yes I come from a Christian tradition the question I had was is there a concept in Hinduism about a personal God that can suffer personal God that can suffer again yes and no personal God to suffer would have to be incarnated just like the Christian God so Jesus suffered yeah and was that suffering real yes it was real um in the same way we believe that SRI ramakrishna is Incarnation did he suffer from cancer and die yes so the pain that a human being would have for throat cancer and death is the same thing that the Incarnation also undergoes so God suffers with suffering Humanity that's why we can relate to God and yet the answer is no because the Incarnation whether ramakrishna or Jesus they show us a way to transcend suffering we are limited and we are helpless in the jaws of suffering whereas the Incarnation shows us yes I suffer along with you and I feel every bit of the pain that you feel but here is a way to transcend that's why the story I often tell there are many such examples but one example famous example is when he is dying from throat cancer his disciples Hari who later became turian comes and asks him sir how are you today he says it hurts the throat the tumor in the throat and I can't eat and then Hari says to him but sir I see that you're in great Bliss and srirama Krishna strangely enough he laughs and he says oh the Rascal has found me out in Bengali so but which means here is the difference between the Incarnation and the non-incarnation there is a level at which the Incarnation is is aware of his divinity and that helps him to transcend suffering at the human level both are true both are true it's not that the human level is a play a lot of for a long period of time both in Hinduism and in Christianity there were theories because there are people who cannot accept that God can suffer yeah so there were theories that no Jesus actually did not suffer almost exactly like we have similar theories in Hinduism so for example the Jesus that died on the cross was an illusory Jesus the real Jesus who did not die on the cross now you can see how that both of that makes sense the only thing what happened in Christianity was because the idea is that there must be one truth so any deviation from that truth must be false so these other theories were rejected as heretical these were heresies they're powerful schools at one time they rejected the heresy and purged out in Hinduism what happens is everything continues parallelly that's wrong or this is wrong and that makes sense from an advaithik perspective because another perspective all these perspectives are more or less helpful to the realization of the truth some may be more helpful some people are less helpful so let them all stay yes so Sita what she actually imprisoned in um by ravana or did she actually enter the fire on the command of uh on the bishop Rama so there's one Theory which which cannot bear the idea of Sita being imprisoned or entering into the fire so that was an illusory you know the real Sita was hiding in Fire and illusory Sita was imprisoned in uh by The Demon King you see the very similarly similar in in theory but what does it mean actually is it is there some grounding in truths yes it is when SRI ramakrishna says yes I am actually suffering he's not play acting that I am sick and it's painful he's suffering as much as any cancer patient would suffer but when he's saying I'm beyond that suffering also I am actually in Bliss also and that's also true that's also true and that opens the door for us to see how in the midst of this material world without denying any of the materiality without denying any science one can also see there is the truth of spirituality which transcends this thank you thank you we'll take one more question no more questions now from just one from the internet audience we've really gonna be on time that's okay Swami um this is a question from Andrew Gonzalez which goes to the question of human suffering if all is Brahman then what is so wrong with Maya at the most absolute metaphysical level one was Oneness with Brahman can be believed and even felt however there are many human emotions and sentiments which seem to me to have their own profundity as part of the human experience which don't have anything to do with Oneness with Brahman the easiest and starkist example might be the experience of grief that can be categorized as sorrow which is not merely a source of suffering but also a source of inspiration and Beauty for human creativity my concern is that understanding one with Brahman might flatten the texture of Human Experience even though the texts speak of going Beyond sorrow might one realize Oneness with Brahman and thereby fully Embrace every aspect of the human experience which makes up such a large portion of poetry and music all over the world good question and good point to end today's discussion on so the idea is that um what's wrong with Maya I mean it the idea behind that question seems to be if you become enlightened if you feel you are Limitless existence Consciousness Bliss would it be a little boring would everything come to an end you're talking about the end of the cycle of birth and death we end up The Game of Life as if that's a good thing wouldn't it be a boring thing wouldn't it be an awful thing um that's why he says it sort of tends to flatten things out what about all the enormous variety of Life The Quest for science the beauty of our art and even into a certain extent there's a deep poetic Beauty a sad Beauty about the flow of human life the Urban Flow of Affair human Affairs you know in personal life in life of the world wouldn't all that be flattened sort of erased in you know your one Radiance or something shining forth and then sort of a kind of a blinding light where you lose sight of everything else so that seems to be the idea behind it no don't worry you know I'll tell you why but before that one great way of answering this question and other such questions is always to look at the lives of people you consider to be enlightened did they appear bold oh no I've attained Nirvana how boring I wish I hadn't no they were we on this side of Nirvana on this side of Moksha we are subject to excitement and energy and we is boredom we are subject to that the pleasant and unpleasant nice and enthralling and boring and awful on that side of Nirvana they are not not that they are perpetually excited they are they are they have a seem to have an unceasing supply of fulfillment and happiness not dependent on anything outside they're not bored by anything outside nor are they unnecessarily excited by nothing outside in this world on the body mind but they have a source which is unending what is wrong with Maya nothing really as long as you know it's Maya what's wrong with the movie when you realize it's a movie do you have to switch up the movie and keep staring at the blank screen that would be very boring no when you realize it's a movie you can you can watch the movie as long as you like when the movie is Switched Off it's not an awful disaster the most horrifying of movies the greatest of tragedies is not awful that's also aesthetic enjoyment and so is um you know comedies and pleasant movies all of them the only thing that is wrong in this realm of Maya is not knowing the Maya nature of things and not knowing the ground reality not not having God realization not having Enlightenment that's the only thing that's wrong that's the only thing that's at the root of all suffering there is a saying in panchada one of the texts of advaita vedanta which says we make the distinction between ishwara srishti and jivas rishti the creation of God not absolute reality just the god of religion the creation of God and the creation of human beings sentient beings and it says all this all suffering is actually due to the creation of our sentient beings God's creation does not create suffering for anybody so after Enlightenment the enlightened beings do they see this world or not or is it all erased do you see this word if they arise they will see forms in their ears they will hear sounds if they have skin they will feel heat and cold pressure warmth all of that if they have a mind they will think and a heart to feel all of that continues they probably feel more deeply and more subtly than we do they may even suffer more than we do and enjoy more than we do however they're also they can also transcend this all at a moment's notice because they see the reality Beyond this a Transcendent reality where they're identified with that so for them Maya this creation it is a glory it is something amazing it's not something that has to be dismissed and gotten over with oh I can tell you this what is this world from a vedantic perspective so a monk pranava chaitanyapuri he told me this he is a traditional vedanta teacher from Banaras so he said in the Gita the world has this um the status of the world is like this first of all it is here to be given up why it is because it is suffering so the world is a place of suffering the world is impermanent everything in the world is impermanent and not only that it's actually false it's like a mirage it's an appearance and hence here to be given up that's the first status of the world the next status it is Divya it is divine once you have given up this worldly concern and step back from it you connect it to God then you see the manifestation of God in everything in this world so you see the Divinity reflected in this world in the bhagavad-gita in the first six chapters it is dispassion for the world in the next six chapters and we are coming to that in our study of the bhagavad-gita 10th chapter Krishna will point out Divinity in the things in the world not that those objects are Divine but because they are connected they are from the divinity you you see the Divinity reflected in this world that which is to be given up is now after giving up you see the Divinity giving up means our worldly attachment to this world and then you see the Divinity in in the things of the world that's the second level of understanding the word same word same word exactly same word and third level of understanding Brahma swarupa it is nothing other than Brahman itself so three three levels here to be given up deeper understanding Divya it is divine you can see Divinity here and third it's not just Divine it is Brahman Brahman alone like the Rope appears as the snake it's not a word Brahman alone non-dual it's not the ultimate truth is not that Brahman created a word didn't nothing was ever born of that absolute reality according from the Quran now the Ultimate Reality does not give birth nothing is born which is not born of anything nor does it give birth to anything and yet is here is this whole word this is beyond causality Ultimate Reality is beyond causality there is no causal connection between this world and that Ultimate Reality so the Ultimate Reality alone exists many people don't know this this is the core truth talked about in the highest advaitha text in manduke and this is how the Quran begins actually the first thing in the Quran is this of course that's the non-dual interpretation [Music] all right on that beautiful note let us end um [Music] thank you