Video 20

Ask Swami with Swami Sarvapriyananda | February 9th, 2020

[Music] Oh Misato Mossad gamma yah Thomas oh ma Joe dear gamma yah great your mom written gamma ha boom cha Mon dish Shante Shante boom leaders from the unreal to the real leaders from darkness unto light leaders from death to immortality Oh peace peace peace good morning everybody and it's good to be back although temporarily and it's also very auspicious day because it's the birthday of Swami at Bhutan and he was one of the sixteen direct disciples of sri ramakrishna who they became monks and they were the founders of our order so I mean vacant and there was the leader but there are 15 other young men one of them was not actually young one of them was older than Sri Ramakrishna himself swami advaitha and at bhutan energy was the first among all of them to come to sri ramakrishna actually more or less he he was also unique in the sense that he was practically illiterate and somebody called him the miracle of sri ramakrishna that this person illiterate and he remained illiterate and yet he became an enlightened person a brahmana Johnny a wonderful teacher so today what I thought I'd do is a session of ask Swami those of you you know that we have these occasionally there are questions which come from the live audience here and questions collected from people sending in emails from across the world I know a lot of questions have accumulated unfortunately for various reasons we have not been able to do these sessions for quite a while only a few of them could be sorted out and collected and arranged thanks to the efforts of our team here so some of those questions will be read out and put to me I enjoy these sessions of so you see it gives me an opportunity to think about the same teachings from different angles there's a saying that in teaching you learn twice which I find to be really true it's really useful for my own personal spiritual practice and a good part of teaching a solid part of teaching is responding to questions queries in the in the ancient texts you will find there's something called like a Q&A going on a question and answer they there was a person defending a particular position in sanskrit called the Sidhant in the position defender and there was there were a variety of other opponents which was called Porou habesha that means the opposing point of view and they would come from different angles somebody from the school of Sankhya somebody from the school of jnana or the yoga school or me Monza or various kinds of Buddhist schools and attack your position and then you would have to respond to those questions they're wonderful very deep very subtle discussions the advantage was what good does it do you to engage in these dialectics spiritually what good does it do you the advantage is this our own understanding of our own position becomes deeper when you consider various criticisms various opposing or possible alternative points of view your own understanding of those points of view and your own point of view also becomes deeper in Sanskrit there is L there's this metaphor it's called through Nanak and on any ayah which means driving the post deeper so you are suppose you are you are driving in a wooden post into the ground the way you do it is you push it into the ground but you move it around and pull it out again and again push it in and again pull it out and again push it in each time you pull it out and push it back into the ground it goes in deeper and more firm so this process of uprooting certain examining our own belief systems our own thinking rationally critically it's a very good exercise really so that's what we do here but the way we will proceed is Diane will put a question we'll start off to break the ice people's often shy about asking questions so we'll take a question from the internet audience when you think about your own questions raise your hand I'll call you up here and you come and tell us your name and ask your question Dan yes Swamiji we're starting out actually with three questions on your favorite subject consciousness the first one is Sara suave s I understand from your lectures that we are not the body or the mind we are the unchanging self then to whom does enlightenment happen certainly it is not the body or the self then is this Mukti only a mind game then Olivia V intellectually I can understand that all is Brahman and that I am Brahman but if this was so I am then responsible for all my experiences there is so much pain hatred and injustice in the world I cannot think how I have been able to cause this to even enter into my consciousness moreover if I have caused this then shouldn't I be responsible for all this misery at least at some level I know you will say that at the transactional level of consciousness we have to deal with karma whose Karma collective karma this seems like a cop-out because we all have to live at the transactional level of consciousness for a greater part of our time here please help me to understand this and the third question is from Martin mahant ash I have heard many times that Brahman God Atman the self ultimate reality is new guna which means it has no characteristics like happy sad envy no gunas sattva rajas tamas but yet Brahman is blissful which means extremely happy is that not a contradiction okay these are various questions about some central teachings of Advaita Vedanta coming from different points of view but is exactly what I was talking about and one thing to keep in mind is that often the question that is being asked could be very beneficial not only to the person who's asking but to those who are listening it might be just be our question so it's good to listen to the question and the discussions which follow instead of being all waiting for my turn I'll ask my question so the first question is about you know I like that part when he says that is enlightenment than just a mind game it's just a mind game if I am Brahman then who has some sovereign who gets enlightenment if I'm not the body and mind the body cannot get enlightened or you know become free become an enlightened being and Brahman does not need enlightenment the absolute reality is beyond samsara anyway so who gets enlightened so there's a standard question when you probe into Advaita Vedanta at one point this question will come to all of us wait a minute if I am one with God if I am pure being awareness and bliss then who is in samsara and who gets enlightenment who is listening to it on to who needs all of this the short answer is you who me I'm God do you know that your God if you know that your God you would have no problem at all the question of enlightenment and you know of spiritual practice and overcoming suffering and getting enlightened the whole question becomes moot if you know that you are already beyond suffering why would you even bother he said but that's you are avoiding the question if you are clearly saying that I am Brahman I am one with God so how can I need enlightenment the thing is we have to see you from what perspective we are asking the question right now when we ask the question we have to be honest but I am asking the question as this body mind complex yes I hear that there is something called Brahman I hear that I am the absolute I'm one with God I hear that I may even understand some of that but honestly what I what I feel about myself my identity and more importantly how I behave in the world and react to things in the world is as a body mind complex as this person as long as I think this I need spirituality I am in samsara I need spiritual knowledge I need spiritual practice and I need enlightenment you see still have not answered the question then exactly who is it who is in samsara who has the problems and we're seeking a solution is it Brahman is it the body is it the mind the Jeeva the sentient being which we are is a peculiar creature it is the absolute it is Brahman you are that a absolute reality and yet right now Vedanta will say under the influence of ignorance under the influence of Maya we feel and think and act as if we were not we feel and think and act as if we were this body and mind this is called the Jeeva sentient being the sentient being is none other than Brahman you are one with God and yet you think you are not is it just a mind game then Vedanta says when you get enlightenment you get what you already had prop the see properly what if what we always had we get that and what do you remove when you get rid of samsara all the problems of samsara you get rid of what was never there never eat that's generally what was never there at all to begin with is removed what you always had to begin with you get that now that sounds like classic con con game so is it just a mind game now look at the presupposition beneath that question underneath that question just a mind game you know what lies behind this kind of language is that I think this is real this physical world of people and buildings and this body and matter this is real compared to this I know there is a mind that mind is somewhat less real and this God Brahman Atman whatever you are talking about is very theoretical it's not at all reals very thin just the other way around Brahman is the reality and body mind the entire world is an appearance of that Brahman don't underestimate the mind just a mind game as if mine gave me nothing all of our samsara is the mind proof when you fall asleep what samsara what do you see of this world nothing what do you know about yourself nothing what about all the big problems of this world nothing recently I was I did have a Divinity School and outside the class we had a discussion just sort of ongoing discussion with some of the grad students and one of the students were saying that you know the adwaita point of view that ultimately we are all one divine reality that we are all going to become enlightened that that was the question does everybody B's is everybody enlightened saved at the end or not because there's this doctrine that only some are selected to be enlightened one of the students was from a Calvinist background and was saying that there is this those were going to be saved it's already decided and there are those who are not going to be saved whereas in comes something like Vedanta which says that ultimately everybody is going to be enlightened because you are brahman already what can stop you so the question was you know what student asked me a brilliant young man he asked me you know still it feels wrong to think that Hitler and Mother Teresa will end up at the same place when you put it that way it seems so unjust and I said to him all right Hitler and Mother Teresa they end up at the same place every day it's just a matter of fact not a question of belief just a matter of fact what do you mean when Hitler is in deep sleep and mother Teresa is in deep sleep is Hitler Hitler or Mother Teresa mother Teresa nothing and that happens every night when you go to sleep all your individual personality is wiped out with the best of people and the worst of people it disappears into down a black hole of nothingness do we become nothing then no because that that mask that we put on the personality which is good and evil that is still a mask it's not the real you therein in fact lies the possibility of salvation and and saving this think about it when they were 5 years old or 2 years old was Mother Teresa mother Teresa was Hitler Hitler no so is evil nothing is good nothing of course not there is a there's a greater significance to it that's where karma comes in and yes the evil person person who has put on that mask of evil has to pay for all of that there is a karmic consequence and the person who's good also gets the reward and spiritual life you cannot become spiritual straight from evil to saintliness from through good alone but spirituality is beyond both good and evil but that does not mean from the spiritual perspective or an Advaitic perspective evil and good are the same they are not evil is evil it has to be overcome and transformed into the good it's only after you are moral and ethical then you can think of being saintly our Swami's often say when a young man comes to become a monk he says that they are often told be a gentleman first then you can think about becoming a monk what does that mean it transform the inner nature and that's part of becoming spiritual so advaitha does not say evil and good are equal or they are they don't exist or we should not be concerned with that not at all we should be deeply concerned with overcoming evil and transforming it into good and encouraging the good but advaitha does say that there is an ultimate reality which is both which is beyond both good and evil and that's our real nature and that's always our real nature physical world the subtle world and then the spiritual world they are not three different things there are deeper and deeper realities of the same reality better and deeper understanding of the same reality what we understand as this physical world and we take this to be the reality and the mind to be something not as realize this table this table is really real it's really real and the mind is it's real but in some sort of vague sort of way and God Atman consciousness that's mostly Theory Advaita says it's just the opposite follow this Swami Vivekananda says there is a matter of perspective at one perspective it is all matter and the scientist will come in and say that's what I'm telling you all along but then when you look deeper it's all mind and you look further and deeper it's the Atman or just pure consciousness how does that work give it a try I'll just tell you something just see if it works here is this physical world people you're sitting and obviously the chair feels pretty solid and the ground under your feet feels pretty solid and you feel that you have a physical body here in this physical world around us seems so real and if you we're at this moment to suddenly sit up in your bed and think oh I dozed up I forgot to go to the Vedanta Society was dreaming I was in the Vedanta Society actually I was napping and on my bed or my couch then when you back upon what you had just seen all those people and the Hall in the pyramid the building and your own body and the floor you felt which felt so solid underneath you all that was part of your dream which means it is all mind whatever we dream about even if we dream about a physical real thing or a person out there when we wake up you realize oh it was all in my mind which means all those things you dreamt about which seemed solid and real and separate from you they all they're nothing other than figments of your imagination your dream are we are you together with me that it's possible it's possible such a thing such a scenario is possible okay at this point you will say yes Swami I understand in a dream but this is real this I'm awake here even here if you consider your ex your experiences your experience of what you see and hear and smell and taste and touch which feels real it's all mediated through our senses and our mind what do I mean by that is when you're looking at me looking at this orange person standing in front of you it's basically light reflected from these clothes and my body which goes into your eyes this clot is not going into us god forbid you'd have to call 9-1-1 if you the world does not enter our senses our eyes for example are designed to take in only one and only one thing light so reflected light comes into our eyes into the lenses and then the image is formed and install most instantaneously it's not even light anymore thing think now the entire world of things has been reduced to light first step one second step within a fraction of a second it's no longer light it's tiny bursts of electricity in our neurons being transmitted very fast she's an expert here sir to our brain centers already no no people no animals no sky earth building nothing just burst of electricity in our brain and this is absolutely standard neuroscience nobody says that the world has entered your brain of course not now at one point and we don't know how at one point those little bursts of electricity are suddenly converted into a extraordinary representation of the world what we call our mind we see people and the sky and flowers we feel and not only to seeing hearing sounds and feeling cold or or warm all of that is now reconstructed at that level we have already gone beyond the physical body the brain we have gone into something which we just called a mind which means whatever we are experiencing here right now is at that level we are not nobody here is directly experiencing a world out there it's all through the eyes and the nervous system and the brain the skin and the nervous system and the brain and the nose and the tongue and the years nervous system brain from there one step forward or deeper into what we call the mind what you experience is only your mind true or not it's actually self-evident what scientists will say and many philosophers will say yes that's true Swami but what but it's still an accurate representation of an existing world outside an accurate representation of an existing world outside every word of that is open to doubt now why do you think what you are seeing is an accurate representation of the world outside well one group of thinkers evolutionary you know Darwinists will say that if human beings are animals we are basically sophisticated animals so these these bodies at least are sophisticated animal bodies and if they do not accurately represent their environment outside they wouldn't be able to survive so this this is a dogma of our time so the last 150 years since Darwin I don't know how far Darwin would agree with this but we have taken it further so neo Darwinists will say that because our body is a design for survival and the body and a brain which does not represents it its environment accurately will not survive in that environment if you can't see the tiger hunting you and then you're going to be eaten up so you your jeans will not be transmitted further and so so that kind of behavior will be eliminated so your your nervous system must be representing the world accurately outside now there's not a challenge there is I forget there's some important there researchers in neuroscience who are saying not at all if your nervous system actually accurately reported what's going on in the world you'd be paralyzed into inactivity it's such a vast amount torrent of information pouring in your nervous system in order to survive the body has to collate filter out information and present some actionable points you're like the executive sitting in there and your secretary filters out almost entirety of the world and just gives you a few things to do so what is being nice it's very interesting one professor was giving a talk and he said that imagine your computer when you are doing Whitaker we were working in the computer on your screen you see all those icons is a word and there is Firefox and things like that and you click on this and you is that an accurate representation of what's going on in the machine absolutely not it's almost nothing to do with the zeros and ones of machine language and which has almost nothing to do very little to do with the little flashes of electricity going on in those gates you know on and off states actually what is happening in the machine is very different from what you see on the screen and if you had shown what's happening in the Machine and asked to deal with that you couldn't get any work done on a computer so the whole thing is systematized and bought to you there's as little representations little icons which are pictures and easy to handle for you and then you get your work done our nervous system according to the latest thinking functions in exactly the same way it has what you see has nothing to do with the world outside very little to do with the world outside but it's a good handy way of dealing with the world it's a good representation for the consciousness to interact with this world whatever is there out so anyway that's that's the physicalist approach physicalist materialist reductionist approaches at that point now that I am taking only one thing out of the whole whole picture that we are not experiencing the world as it is we are experiencing our own minds now where are we we thought we were in a physical world now we we think we begin to understand we inhabit a world of mind of representation what's out there we don't know Kant would approve Immanuel Kant who who who thoroughly approves it we are just seeing a structure put up by our own minds we are the second level now physical world we have abandoned it now we move to the level of mind one more step which modern science psychology philosophy does not understand so far Advaita Vedanta will tell you this so you are experiencing your own mind its thoughts feelings perceptions everything in your mind only all of it is lit up by awareness if it were not later by awareness none of it would be experienceable I cannot spend time to explain this much further I just leave it at that we have been discussing this on and off a lot of times consciousness lights up the whole thing not only that Vedanta says consciousness gives existence to all these things which you are in there in your mind because without consciousness they would just be not experienceable and not even existing it's like for example pain or excitement if you are aware of the pain you can claim honestly I am in pain can you think of this statement I am in great pain but of course I don't feel it you are laughing because it's a ridiculous statement pain is something which is when it is there it must be experienceable if it is experienceable it is there but the two go together experience ability and existence of pain if you remove one there's no pain but I'm experiencing a lot of pain that's ridiculous or there is a lot of pain but I'm not experiencing any of it that's ridiculous notice for pain existence and awareness go together but right away that is a good example Advaita Vedanta is saying it's exactly the same for everything in your mind their existence and awareness go together and that existence and awareness is lent by you the consciousness the background consciousness and therefore whatever you're experiencing while expressive we are experiencing a physical world out there you are experiencing nothing but consciousness you yourself in the guise of so many names and forms that's the entire teaching of Advaita that's better here so it's not a mere mind game if it was a mind game then all of samsara is a mind game and enlightenment is a mind but not mere under any circumstance that's most important that's central to our human experiences let me tell you a little story Swami server guitar and the G was the head of the Vedanta Society of Boston in Massachusetts many years ago some of you may have seen him he was a disciple of swami Ockendon on the one of the direct disciples of sri ramakrishna so this is a story we saw him only a few times when he visited India towards the end of his life the story which in which he narrates how he got he was initiated or not initiated by Swami a candana initiation means getting a mantra so Swami's are begotten and at that time he was a brahmacari he was a novice not yet a Swami and he had gone to Swami Yogananda in Sargon Ostrom in Murshidabad in Bengal the Swami Yogananda was there a disciple of sri ramakrishna and this young man he went as a novice to become a monk he was under training somebody told him have you taken mantra diksha initiation he said oh I did I haven't go and ask Swami Ockendon in the for mantra diksha initiation so all this is what he told us I mean this is from I mean at the end of his life he went and asked anaconda and she said what do you want many funny things he told this Swami Vivekananda because see for example that was an orphanage started by Swami Yogananda four little boys with no mother and father the boys were mischievous and this young man he was from the south of India from Karnataka I think and he had gone to this was Bengal he had gone to Bengal and his boys were teaching him Bengali and their mischievous of course they are teaching him wrong things teaching him so Mirage is repeat after meal they'll tell the Bengali word for the year and say here ear he knows in Bengali we would say Mirage con the NARC anyway so one day he went to Swami ik undone and then asked for the mantra what do you want I want I heard that you give the mantra initiation I would like to be initiated by you and Swami I couldn't just sit sit sit and just sit and meditate so I mean so forgot and he said I didn't know how to meditate but anyway the Swami's telling me so I just sat quietly with my eyes closed and the mind became calm and inward you know and after some time so omnia kundan and I said what are you seeing what do you experience and Swami serve a guitar and who was a brahmacari at that time he said I see that everything is mind it's all ideas it's mind meditate more more said quietly for some time after some time so a mere condemned asked what do you see now I see that it is all consciousness said good you can go no he got up and went he was in a stunned mood you know and even when he was telling this the brahmacaris who were there in balloon mutt sixty years after the event they told me I heard it secondhand they told me that the whole room became such charged with emotion you know when he narrated something that would happen 60 years ago and everybody was quiet for for a long time then a few days later he suddenly thought but I didn't get the mantra so he went back to Swami Ockendon and and said Swami what is it now you didn't give me the mantra Swami I contend they said or whatever had to be done has been done it's done for you go now this Swami who came many years later to the United States and was the head of the center and gave the mantra to so many people never ever received the mantra in his whole life many people don't know that he was not initiated instead of the mantra he just got enlightenment directly so this is an interesting thing physical world the three steps you see physical world we think this is real reduce it to mind and see just spend some time there and see how actually we experience nothing but mind and mind to consciousness notice all thoughts feelings good bad all the things that we experience including the so-called nothingness of deep sleep are all appearances and disappearances - awareness which must be our real identity that thou art alright there's a variation of this Olivia she asks that so the ultimate reality is beyond any characteristics and yet we read that it is blissful so what ultimate reality in Brahman must be must not be happy sad or anything like that and yet you see and blissful so Brahman is very happy no happy sad remembering forgetting desiring hating these are all at the level of the mind and they're all illumined and lit up and experienced because of awareness of consciousness this distinction between consciousness and mind must be made in them in the mind itself in your intellect the difference between awareness and what awareness experiences this distinction is crucial for understanding Vedanta why we learnt it is crucial for understanding Sankhya so happiness is in the mind then why is Brahman called Anand bliss not blissful and the bliss itself it's like this so I mean Vivekananda said not that it exists it means with capital I it that ultimate reality not that it exists it is existence itself it's more than nothing which exists not that it knows it is knowledge itself which means it's consciousness and not that it is happy it is happiness itself that's one way of putting it another way of putting it is one teacher said this confusion can be prevented if you translate anandam bliss not as bliss or happiness but as poor not to am completeness infinitude limitlessness that limitlessness has to be happiness when you experience that limitlessness that limitlessness when it is experienced in my mind the reaction will be fulfilment joy peace again kind of unshakable and very pure and elevated happiness but that happiness is also in the mind it's not brahman itself brahman itself is is limitlessness I have given a talk about this this is discussed in the opening shots in a section called Ananda my mom's anti-d reopen Isha in the second chapter I think the 8th section of second chapter is called Ananda my mom's are calculus of happiness very interesting section does brahman exist one answer is yes but a deeper answer is no no it is existence itself it more than exists it's not a thing which exists it is the very existence of things so let's just play on words but it's not difficult to understand the example which I gave about ornaments and gold so you have got a necklace and a bracelet and a ring they are all made of gold and if you ask is gold a type of ornament then you have to say none to know gold is not a kind of ornament it's not a fourth kind of ornament and so then gold doesn't exist because only ornaments exist no gold exists in a deeper sense than ornaments exist because the very existence of these jewels these ornaments it depends on gold gold is the existence of these two exactly like that Brahman is the existence of this universes universe has a lower category of existence than Brahman so anyway similarly so brahman is existence itself it's not a thing which exists similarly Brahman is bliss itself it's not a feeling of happiness the last question was could you repeat the last last question my intention the third one I have heard many times that Brahman God Atman the self ultimate reality is Nagina which means it has no characteristics I think answered that all right so the awareness itself for Brahman itself has no characteristic of its own but we did put some names and forms it takes on characteristics and it becomes Hitler or mother Teresa so ami Vivek kundan he says that existence is prior to everything else then we color it with good and bad and we say good or sinful and bad but it's that existence first and then it then we talk about good and bad I hope this has given you enough food for thought do you have questions can you raise your hand this young man there come here tell us your name and ask the question I'm asking Swamiji my name is Samira one of the biggest challenge I face on seeking enlightenment is family and friends when we consider everything as one the concept of family or friends seem discriminatory by itself and with limited identity is there a middle ground or right balance still maintain the relationship and be enlightened yes it's a good question by the way this question is fixed the reason is I met him this morning while walking in the park Central Park he was walking there and he says I'm going to ask a question I said all right you guys raise your hand I'll good I'll call on you so it was it was fixed yes again from the perspective of Brahman or Atman it is all one who is your friend or enemy when it's all one whom to hate whom will you condemn when it is it's all but one similarly for family and not family this is mine and this is not mine these are mine and these are not mine so this is definitely it comes from a perspective of ignorance but after enlightenment when you realize it is all one reality after that you're still back in this identity this Samiran identity and from that perspective there'll be somebody whom you call dad and mom somebody you call a friend somebody you call the professor or colleague and you can still play that role but now you are aware of a much deeper level of Chosun you know at that deeper level of truth these differences disappear and you are one so from that perspective you act in the world what will happen then these deep likes and dislikes will disappear you have a deep sense of identity with every but it's a wonderful way of living actually you still fulfill your role you still do whatever has to be done you go to work and you learn and you study and you take care of people you have to take care of but deep inside there is this feeling of oneness with everybody so I'm Eva Condor said what will happen when you realize this know like vividly when you feel this he said this world itself it is only if only a fraction of the population of this world we're to realize this truth society would be transformed into heaven heaven on earth itself then gods would work with gods gods would play with gods gods would be loving gods that's the language he puts it in so yes even if I am NOT THERE I can simulate that perspective and try to live accordingly when you try to live accordingly you'll notice something all ethics love unselfishness they flow from that perspective it's yes you had a question I will take one more question in the gentleman there I'll come to you later my name is Girish I had a question about Maya I hope you don't say to ask another question but Maya's defined both as unreal as well as not unreal which would appear to violate the law of the excluded middle Astoria middle but am i falling it so it would mean that Maya is illogical but am i falling into the fallacy of the excluded middle which means that not unreal is not the opposite of unreal are there other alternatives all right it's a much more difficult question you ask what is Brahman easy what does it say easy-peasy but if you ask Maya it's really a difficult question and you see one of the first difficulties is this but this exact sanskrit freezing is such a--such become a near Virginia it is not unreal and it is not real but actually an accurate translation would be you cannot express it as being real you cannot express it as being unreal a near Virginia means cannot be put into an expression cannot be linguistically expressed as it cannot be written mind as real cannot be determined as unreal or in simple language you cannot say that Maya exists seeing that only Brahman exists from an advantage perspective you cannot say that Maya does not exist seeing that it makes all this difference so from a very strict philosophical point of view Maya is not a second reality apart from Brahman from a practical point of view you have to admit the efficacy of my everything here we see is in the realm of mile all that exists here is the wood because what I'm touching is worth what you weigh is wood but can you see that the table the lectern does not exist the podium does not exist if I say apart from the wood it does not exist and say yes but there is a shape to the podium there is a function you are able to put your hands on it and you know you can use it there is a name podium which is different from the name wood so you have a different label a different form and different function all of this nama Rupa Viva Hara in Sanskrit this is these are the constituents of Maya now does it violate the rule of the excluded middle rule of excluded middle is one of the fundamental rules of I would say Aristotle in logic where it says a thing has to be either a or not a there can't be any other third middle possibility notice that the way it is phrased it's not saying that it's not not more asking for another possibility it's just saying that it cannot be expressed as a it cannot be expressed as not a that's a weaker way of saying it it's not actually directly violating if it said that it is both a and not a that is contradictory but it's not saying that it both exists and does not exist this doesn't say that it just says it cannot be expressed as existence it cannot be expressed as non-existence and that's where you leave it they actually say in Uttarakhand in the Himalayas I will say Swami have been some Oh monk don't try to establish Maya - I try to come out from cut it mark cut cut it or come out of Maya establishing Maya Maya is putting it on firm foundations then you are trapped if you can really establish there is something called Maya then you're trapped in it because it's real in Hindi they say it's question the Mata ki GA is car ta don't try to establish and how do you cut it when you investigate it when you investigate it it disappears when you investigate it seems to be that there yes there is word and there is a podium but when you investigate it logically when you say is what does is mean what I touch what I weigh what we see but what I'm saying you know what I'm hitting here it's all it's wood only the whole thing is wood and what you call name and farm and function is attributed to it is imputed imputation is another good word and that is Maya okay it's a technical question but seeing none of the ladies are asking but anyway you can come then we'll take a question from the internet audience Namaskar M Swamiji I'm trying to write tell us your name my name is Praveen thank you for all the education so far I'm trying to reconcile some of the concepts you know you talk about Ambrym a Smith at Massey with some of the other things that we see for example Kundalini Shakthi or some of the cities even Shankar Acharya went through Pyar Kiya privations I left his body got into something else third thing is there is also a concept that says you have to be different from the one in order to experience for example examples corridor only if you are different from sugar you can taste the sweetness of sugar you can't be the sugar and taste or know the sweetness of sugar so how do you reconcile is giving upward right answer one-word answer from that way the perspective is it's all Maya see advert is very easy you are Brahman Brahman is the only reality what about this that and the other thing oh it's all Maya somebody said the problem with Shankara is it's like he flew on an aeroplane so when you fly on an aeroplane across the country you miss everything that's beneath you you get your destination you've reached the highest what you wanted enlightenment but the all the vast expanse and variety and infinitude of maya you miss all of that because you've jumped beyond it but in 'but Queen in the realm of Maya there is a lot which is yet to be discovered what we call the miraculous the Sidney's you're talking about from an from a yogic perspective that's why you see immediately you changed philosophies from Advaita to yoga Patanjali yoga or to Tantra these are different philosophical systems what they do is first of all they take Maya to be real at least provisionally real and then investigate that and use that a lot of what we might call miraculous from a yogic perspective to nothing miraculous it's all natural it's just we don't know it yet and if you investigated the Yogi's investigated these things they found extraordinary potentialities and powers in the body in the mind which didn't hardest towards enlightenment so this explains that's why you see people who do spiritual practice asana they come across these extraordinary phenomena do they exist there you know people have tried it experimented there have been labs on parapsychology and it's still what do they curse a jury is still out on it so we don't know the one problem with these experiments is it's done on ordinary folk so people who have not cultivated it but if you select your samples to maybe a select group of Yogi's or Lamas which they did actually the Dalai Lama insisted when the mind life dialogues he said when you're going to talk about the efficacy of meditation don't take the population as a whole you have to take people who have been like veteran meditators beginning med beginners and people who do not meditate then only you can but when you get veteran meditators first of all they'll not be willing to submit to experiment so Dalai Lama actually volunteered some of his lamas the hugo and take part and they had wonderful results coming out on the efficacy of meditation similarly I have seen it myself at least a few instances extraordinary there's this person who claimed to be able to read minds he demonstrated some of it and some of it you can be you know it's slate of hand it's any good magician can do so I thought just for my own sake to satisfy myself I'll ask him just a little experiment which will not satisfy anybody else but just me simplest experiments are the most difficult that means so there are no way of manipulating so I just went up to him and said what am I thinking now and he told me straight away like the very hair on your body will stand on it how do you explain that that you can't explain so it's possible it's possible I've seen that in some very senior monks extraordinary one of Swami bearish Ferengi was there he was the president of the Ramakrishna order the tenth president I swam just to once when I was a little kid one of the Swami's who served him who worked under him when he was the president so this Swami he told me that we kept hearing that the Swami Swami very solemnly he could actually read the minds oh my god I'm telling this and it will go out on the internet because the person I'm talking about his still alive - when he's passed on anyway so he said that I wanted to test for myself whether does he really read your mind so one day those have gone to balloon but you know President Mahad sits there and everybody comes and they bow down to talk to him and there are some assistant monks younger monks who stand behind him so this Swami was on duty that day he was standing behind me - when do those who have seen various runs years you know the tiny tiny man his when he passed away he was 26 kgs I think 50 pounds tiny and and it people said that it's like almost every cell of his body was a computer chip or something is so extraordinarily hair so he's sitting there and people were filing past and this one he was standing behind Swami British veranda and thinking all sorts of unmarked like thoughts standing and thinking all sorts of nonsense after a few seconds of that maybe a minute suddenly this one is sitting there looks up at him and says enough enough of testing me and then looks back again looks a bit what do you say to that Swami prima Linda another one of the Datak disciples of Sri Ramakrishna who's calling the young monks and novices that come come down from the temple we have to know cut the vegetables for the noon meal and back to kitchen work and the monks are in meditation and think Swami Brahma hadn't they put them up to it you have come here for meditation and becoming mother he is going to make you work in the kitchen so don't listen to you meditate sit here and meditate and so the younger monks are sitting there and the Swami's calling from downstairs and then he understood what was going on there said all right you lot go and meditate go on meditating but if I see the noise of the marketplace rising in your minds I will go and pull you down by your ears and make bring you back to work here I'll do all the work myself you can go and meditate which means you he's saying that I can see what's going on in your mind's that autobiography of a yogi' Swami paramahamsa yogananda he says when he was a novice in Calcutta in the monastery he's sitting upstairs in the old building and meditating and his gurus Swedish for Giri he called from downstairs come here and sweep the courtyard help me and he says I'm sitting and meditating and grumbling in my own mind the old man keeps telling me to meditate and Here I am meditating and he's now disturbing me he's asking me to go and sweep the co-chair well I won't respond I won't I'll sit quiet and the moment he thought this the response came from below and this guru shouted that if you were too good for this world you wouldn't be in it come down here and help me sweep this coat here yeah so tantric practices Kundalini Yoga all of these are advisors right Shankar is right they're all part of Maya but that does not mean they're invalid they are very useful and the problem is we are stuck in some some corner of Maya and we need these technologies to help us so Shankara would not be against any of these techniques yeah did we have three three questions from the audience yet can we have an Internet question yes this is a question from Dave on shoe on the bhagavad-gita in the eighteenth chapter verse 59 60 and 61 of the Gita Shri Krishna says to Arjuna that if thou in thy vanity thinkest of avoiding this fight thy will thy will shall not be fulfilled for Nature herself will compel thee o Arjuna thy duty binds thee from thine own nature has it arisen and that was in my delusion thou desire not to do that very thing thou shalt do thou art helpless God dwells in the hearts of all beings o Arjuna he causes them to revolve as it were on a wheel by his mystic power the summed up meaning of all the three verses in that God himself by his progress aspect has compelled Arjuna to take in the action of war so but then Shri Krishna says in verse eighteen sixty-three thus the knowledge the mystery of mistress has been declared to you by me reflecting on it fully do what you will he asks Arjuna to do what he thinks is right according to his will how can one ant freely have already predetermined by the supreme force if Arjuna is already predestined to kill all his enemies then where is his free will left to participate taking me straight back to a classroom in at Harvard is exactly the question which was being discussed you might think that they don't discuss such subjects they're not at all we're studying the bhagavad-gita and in another course at the emerson building in the philosophy department this question of freewill versus determinism it's an old old question is being discussed so exactly the same question actually and what I answered no answer yeah we haven't come across answers in thousands of years of Southeast and best well anyway what is the question the question is Krishna is saying that everything here you think or junuh you think you will not fight but nature prakruti will compel you into action you think you're going to run away from this fight and sit in a mountain cave and meditate you know what you will MIT you can do that but you know what we meditate upon those Carabas or rascals I just when I had the chance I should have really trashed them you know your mind will dwell you think you're going to be meditate on the atman and brahman and we won't work that way so you cannot escape action because you're compelled into action by nature another place where Krishna says nobody can sit still even for a moment without action this body is continuously moving and changing mind is moving and changing all the time helplessly you'll be impelled into action so by prakruti by nature we are impelled into action helplessly there's no you know there is no option - there's no opting out of it another thing Sri Krishna says God live in the heart of all beings makes us move like mish like puppets on a machine that's what he says select puppets on a machine we are controlled by God in our hearts so God is within all of us and controls everything that we do so this seems - whether it's prakruti or God nature or God it seems to say there is no free will there is only an illusion we think we are free but we are not free and today he would have said instead of nature you would have said neuroscience tells us that we have no free will it's it's everything is predetermined on the other and at the end of the bhagavad-gita he says I have told you what I wanted to tell you now do as you will your teacher seated our guru so can I do as I will or can I not do it is there free will or is there no free will first answer yes there is free will take it for granted and act accordingly without free will none of this makes sense spiritual practice if I were not free to do spiritual practice then how is it what's the use of attending Vedanta classes how would I even decide to come to a Balanta class or start meditating or doing yoga or praying all of these decisions they assume the presume free will so one of the professor's there they're saying that imagine if there are no free will then the entire legal system would collapse Harvard Law School would go out of business because the entire legal system is predicated on this assumption that the criminal does wrong things freely if somebody put a gun to your head and forced you to steal some money your blame would be much less because you were forced the court would take that into account you did not do so freely you could not blame people you could not charge them with crimes if they were if there was no free will conversely conversely there would be no reward there would be no praise there would be no goodness else if there were no free unless you freely choose if somebody makes you puts a gun to your head and makes you donate all your money to the Children's Fund in UNICEF now is are you a very good person not necessarily you might be a cowardly person but you can't claim that look at me I'm such a such so generous but the gun was to my head so you cannot claim any kind of recognition reward of goodness you cannot claim goodness without free will you cannot blame without free will there can be no crying without free will so lot of our our society entirely depends on free will look at the arguments used in court to save people from criminal charges the plea of insanity for example what is the plea of insanity this person cannot choose to exercise his or her free will and therefore you should not be blamed because there are other extenuating circumstances so free will is essential to the functioning of arts our our life our civilization and spiritual life so all spiritual systems all religions they assume free will it's only when you are can freely decide to do something that spiritual practice becomes possible in fact some of them go further so for example in Christian theology whole existence of evil Hawai is there evil in in God's world God is not to blame God gave us free will and we freely chose to misuse that free will and we created evil that's one answer the theory of karma is not very different from that you see we have free will and we exercise it in doing our karma and we get the result of that Karma so free will is assumed that's my first answer don't worry I'm going to abandon all of this next first answer is that yes there is free will and please act and behave as if you are free you say as if that that takes us to the second answer every religion and today neuroscience also trace that there is no free will it's actually an illusion that we have that we have free will at a deeper level first devil is still there yeah when you leave this all please behave as if you have got free faith but whether you examine it scientifically science is its we're talking about a deterministic universe even with quantum mechanics and all is still talking about a deterministic universe even with a probabilistic physics and still it's a deterministic universe in some sense or the other freewill doesn't make sense in such a universe so there are so many theories discussing this and desperate attempts to combine free will and determinism they call them compatibilist theories and they're whole bunch of theory of books and books have been written on this they were all failed so at a deeper level sri krishna is saying sri ramakrishna is saying every religion says it's ultimately God's will not your field even your free will is so-called free will is granted to you you can cash it in but it's granted to you by God that story in the in the gospel where the cow is tied to a tree the question of free will is being discussed so the farmer ties the cow to a tree and gives it a certain length of rope and and that within the radius afforded by that length of rope the cow can graze and again and she can eat grass and odd considered still and biscuits tail you know if the cow pulls against the rope the farmer may come and give it some more rope or may untie it and take it to a greener pasture so within that radius afforded by the Rope the cow has some freedom but even that radius is also controlled by the farmer similarly we have free will for practical purposes but even that is determined by call it God or prakruti nature when you see in the procreative in krishna since practically then modern science will have nothing to object there yes it is nature which determines the limits of our freedom finally third level yes so first answer was yesterday's free will deeper answer no third last level final deep deepest level yes again Swami Vivekananda says that there is freedom no freedom of the will but there is freedom when you are enlightened when you realize yourself as Brahman the absolute that's always free and through Maya Ishwara creates this universe out of freedom completely it's not deterministic that way so at the level of enlightenment you have you are free it's not that you have free will but you have freedom so what comes up all of this can you can you put it all together or in them checker ability the professor who gave a talk here last year in his beautiful article why pray to our God who can hear the anklets on an ants feet it's actually a commentary on a line from the from the gospel of sri ramakrishna sri ramakrishna says Deenie people air payal new puta definition the Lord hears the jingling of the anklets needed to imagine children in India little boys and girls they put anklets on their ankles so they make little jingling sounds when they walk nowadays it's been replaced by these shoes which squeak and flashlights when the catechins kids walk now imagine an ant so tiny and its feet are even more tiny like you have to design anklets for the feet of the end how tiny they would be but God can hear the sound of your anklets in the ants field what it means is God knows everything what's in our heart it's just the standard idea of God knowing everything buts in our heart now I didn't I'm checking about the ask so why pray to such a God if God knows everything but you have to pray God knows what we need no like the Bible says ask and it shall be given after knock and it shall be opened you have to ask that's an exercise of your freewill so what he says finally is use the illusion of the free will at the first level and I feel a free will use the illusion recognizing that actually it's not free will it's God all the way through so what is the best use of that appearance of free will it is to continuously pray and surrender to God the Sanskrit namaha he says philosophy says namaha mean no mohammad salutations but what does it mean he splits it up the Sanskrit into namah not mine not I bow my lord o my lord to continuously recognize this in our day-to-day lives in our thoughts in our actions and to surrender to this absolutely this is the reality to know this even a Jeevan Mukta who is an enlightened person as far as the life of this particular body and personality is concerned that person lives a life of complete surrender to God for that person is easy because the person sees clearly that everything in this realm of name and form is the God's doing for us it may be difficult because we are only aware of the name and farm we are not aware of the vastness behind therefore we are we are terrified when disease comes unhappiness comes only it comes because this is threatening this tiny existence was I think to be my existence this is not our existence there's a deeper existence behind it which is immortal and perfect so free will yes it's there no it's not there and yes it's there and knowing this please we live our lives accordingly yes yes no one saw me G tell us your name my name is Roger she she I want to thank you brother for inviting me this is my first time here so welcome I apologize if my question is comes from ignorance you know all our questions come from ignorance is so so one of the you know my my understanding of Vedanta comes mainly from YouTube particularly watching your video videos and I guess probably is one of the most popular YouTube videos this is your 2000 presentation at can't variety I think two and a half million views so that's I that's something that I have seen few times and that's and so you are responsible for a good deal of the two and a half million so so my questions are at somewhat at a meta level and if I may have a few minutes I want to kind of not too much we have to compress it okay so so the first question would be that you know since 2014 you have had you know anyone of us and you have had other experiences learned in read learn new things if you were to give that you've talked about Mundaka Upanishad again how would it be different how how'd that this new presentation incorporate new ideas new experiences and how would you fold that in and I guess the basis of the question is in this philosophy how does it incorporate new ideas is it is it a living philosophy or is it correct you know this is this is this is it right it right the answer is both this is it but it's also a living philosophy the teaching is the same thing which has been there for thousands of years what you find in the Mundaka Upanishad which is thousands of years old part of the atharvaveda it's the same thing that I'm talking about in the 21st century at IIT Kanpur and just this earlier this year at the Bahamas she won and the yoga ashram yes so yes it is the same message but does it incorporate new discoveries new points of view certainly does and I'll just give you one example the Mundaka Upanishad itself if you actually look at the history of Indian philosophy the actual textual history of Indian philosophy you will see Vedanta raita Vedanta is what is called a johnny-come-lately yeah that's the phrase it appears in a major form quite late the early players in this field are Sankhya and the AIA and various schools of Buddhism Jainism mimamsa these are the schools which are obvious from the texts so the arguments between the Buddhists and the Hindu opponents they were Hindu Duellists than any ayah school mostly later on it was kumarila bhatta the of the minimums of school no way do you really see them interacting with acquaintances the first major advantage text which is available today available today quite apart from do positions which are there which are much older but the philosophical text is the Manduca carica of Golda pata so it which is good about this commentary on the Manduca position now this is going somewhere which is about 1400 years ago just before Shankaracharya couple of hundred years before that there was a buddhist shoonya body philosopher bhava vega and one of his texts a rare text I found in the Widener Library in in Harvard it's been recently translated into English nobody reads it it's very obscure but what struck me was one there two chapters refutation of Sankhya refutation of Vedanta and yet this is 200 years before God Father wrote the command of chakalaka now when you read the Vedanta that is presented for refutation there it's based on the ferocious öktem it's based on the Upanishads some parts of the Vedas and it's very easily torn apart by the Buddhists because you are saying things like Brahman is changeless and here is this world of change how do you reconcile this how can this living person born and dying and subject to suffering how can you be the perfect blissful Brahman so then he proceeds this is 200 years before God about 300 years before God our Father when you come to 300 years later Advaita is being presented by God our Father by writing the commentary on the man dokie upon assured you find all these things have been incorporated and dealt with already what did they do they took in the two levels of truth you're talking about a blissful absolute unchanging reality that's param Arctica the absolute level of truth and this person was born and suffering and dying and that's called Baba Chanukah actual empirical level of truth the absolute level of truth is the real truth this is appearance in between is Maya all these things are not there in the presentation 300 years ago before God epatha all these things are very much during the presentation of God our Father now you see what has happened in between but because of this vigorous attacks from the Buddhists what God had the did was he looked at them and he gave a pedantic response incorporating a lot of DNA from the Buddhists two levels of truth one level is an appearance one is the ultimate reality for the Buddhist the ultimate reality soon iam the void and that level of appearance is name and form instead of the void mandu cube or Gordo father puts Poonam the infinity infinity is the level of truth and ultimate level of truck and this is what we experience is an appearance based on that infinity now you have the with the tools and the structure which can resist and respond to the Buddhists attack did you see how it evolved over 300 years from mandu Kyo Punisher to mando Erica huge step forward many things have been incorporated there none of them violate the basic structure but now what has happened is the basic structure of Brahman in the world now begin to look look viable and reasonable now not in current the way Bobby Waker makes it out to be and so over the centuries it becomes a very powerful system this continuous process of dialectical attack and response and creating new ways of looking at the same truth so that was that was then move forward a thousand years Vivekananda so he says he says in one place this philosophy which means Advaita Vedanta has saved India twice in the past one from the his talks about at the ready I think to put this challenge and he talks about the I think the ritualists the mimamsikas challenge and once again he says it is it what Sri Ramakrishna and I have done he has brought forth this philosophy in a new form incorporating the challenges of this modern world in many ways practical Vedanta how is it we a very realistic world we this society is very important to us how does your vedanta respond is it the monastic renounced the world's sit in a cave Shankar Acharya saying world is false world Brahman alone is real is it that alone then that does not seem to be capable of responding to the requirements of the modern world what about science what about human rights and gender equality and democracy you see all the challenges thrown up a modern society the new responses in form of Swami Vivekananda which is an extraordinary liberal open rational presentation of what Shankara said which is the reformulation of what guru pada said which is a reformulation of what was there in the open assured itself right and I see so we are studying different systems of thought I can see it from analytic perspective that how much advaitha has to contribute to questions which even now at the highest level of academia they're struggling with philosophy of mind I'm taking a course there so you know what we are discussing here it is immortal more or less in little more technical language is exactly what is being discussed there how do I know that the world is real start with decart and and we're reading Descartes and Carnap Rudolf Carnap the Vienna circle and and Gilbert Ryle Oxford comma did common language philosophers language philosophers of Oxford in the 60s they are still light years away from the insights which I'm not saying only wadn't the Buddhist philosophers the song can philosophers Advaita philosophy they already made these cement many of these breakthroughs and we can translate at least some of these ideas into the modern conversation yes so that that's very that's you know I was saying that so that answers my second yes so so the other point I was curious about and as a scientist and dabbling in neuroscience for example you know one of the examples that he started today's discussion was I do the questioning and you know give the example of gives you better understanding give the example of the post posture being driven into the ground driven into the ground and what if if we had a way to through whatever mechanism perhaps science neuroscience if you had a way to quantify that understanding that is when I say that I realized something or when I say I understand something there is a way that I could quantify it right so so my understanding of something could be I think I understand but my understanding is less than perhaps yours and what if there is a way to quantify that say say let's say you have your phone now say using neuroscience I do the neuroscience would that help in some of the discussions we are having in terms of making things more quantitative and making like making them I understand what you're saying but you are coming from a very scientific worldview what Advaita will say is that examine the presuppositions of that worldview when we say that which is measurable is real so you ask yourself where does that worldview come from where does it come from the scientific method the philosophy of science for example the people we are studying the logical positivists Rudolf Carnap and on the Vienna's a circle Ernst Mach these are the people who develop the philosophy behind a scientific method so for them verifiability and truths are same so for example one of the things is if a statement is verifiable tell me a test and if it which it can either pass or fail if you can tell me a try a test then that statement which you made which can be testable is a meaningful statement if there is no test which can decide this way or that way then that statement is meaningless and therefore his conclusion all statements about God are nonsense a meaningless why they cannot be tested so but you see what is underneath this kind of an approach there is already the understanding that reality is out there it is measurable quantifiable testable but is that so so that also has to be questioned yes quantify ability testability and our modern neuroscience they can all help certainly we are in the age of modern science and especially neuroscience and we should take the help of that but also make a deeper search of of the assumptions underlying materialistic reductionism one question yes are they ready yes we have just a question about some tell us your name or item so a Buddhist question reading some of my David Loy on non-duality who compares Buddhism with Advaita Vedanta and other non dual traditions and a lot of the books even professor Sharma who you recommended in one of the books so it seems that the comparison is always with majolica with sort of two truths I want to know in your studies of Buddhism have you dealt with things in the non gelareh things like zouk Shane and Maha mudra and what is your take on identical similar different I know it's a big question but and things in that area thank right so the question is he refers to David Louis book on non duality where he compares non dual and explores non dual traditions in Asian philosophies especially advaita vedanta and then also the Dogon and soap chain Buddhism Medea mocha Buddhism he talks about he doesn't talk about my yarmulke too much but this non-dualism with Advaitic non-dualism yes so I spent some time about four or five months studying with one of the leading experts professor Garfield J Garfield we studied indo-tibetan Madame occur so the texts of tsongkhapa and me farm and so some of the leading Tibetan commentators so first of all the Tibetan Buddhist tradition the philosophy it's it comes from two systems of Indian thought one is the Myakka Buddhism of Nagarjuna I mentioned bhava Vega Baba Vega Chandra ki t Hippolyta they are all the school of shun Nevada which means the school of the void of the emptiness professor is to say the emptiness people so emptiness and there's another school school of mind only or consciousness only began avada the school of mind only school or consciousness only school and it's a synthesis of the of the two which you find in Tibetan Buddhism so the philosophy followed by the Dalai Lama and the monks and they have different schools and very subtle differences between them I'll just make two comments here one is what I'd thought of it before these studies and what changed after this I'll just sum up what Isis went through my take on madhyamaka and began about and the synthesis you find in Tibetan Buddhism is that it's a kind of Advaita Vedanta where the negative side is said the world is an appearance and things are empty in themselves what is the ultimate reality they will call it thought world the reality or but not reality as in a substantial reality they will not mention what it is so if you say the negative side of it the world is an appearance without saying the positive side of it that there is an absolute reality then that's what you get in Tibetan Buddhism for example Monty McCann began Avada that was my understanding I was wrong how did my understanding change they talk about the medina Mecca talks about two kinds of emptiness one is the emptiness of the world and another one is emptiness of the self this can be very can make you make an Vedanta feel uneasy or even a Hindu feel uneasy because we are used to a substantial list view of the self that there is an ultimate reality called the self or God but remember all of these whether Hindu philosophies or Buddhist philosophies these are technologies or methodologies for enlightenment for taking you beyond suffering and they come to a common understanding that our identification with this body mind complex is at the root of our suffering what add weight of Atlanta does not this is my understanding what happened in the class two classes one is professor Garfield's indo-tibetan man Tameka another one was professor per ml Patil's classical Indian Buddhism Sanskrit texts from about 182 or 1080 so a thousand year period nearly two key insights I'll share with you one is that about the world Advaita Vedanta says it is actually Brahman appearing as this world with names and forms because of Maya it is actually the Rope appearing as a snake and to say that there is only the snake and there's no rope behind it that seems silly something must be real that's our intuition yes you can say what we are experiencing is false but then there must be some reality behind it it's only the reality which appears as a falsity without reality how can it be falsity all the way down that's our objection so here is the inside it can be how take an example money so dollars and cents and times so our daily foundation of money not really they exist because our concept of money exists so they are just manifestations of a mutually interdependent interlocking system of constructions in our mind and when you manifest it in the world it becomes dollars and cents and dimes and credit cards and electronic money and Bitcoin and whatnot but none of them really are foundation it's when you say that because we put it this way will you say that because you have these dollar notes in your pocket therefore there is money no it's the other way around some money the actual cash and coins are not the foundation on which money is based they are just manifestations of what is just an understanding a mutual lick so the word they use this use fancy words but it's at its heart it's a very simple understanding it is the Magda maca is talking about a coherent East anti foundationalism what it means is that there is no foundation ultimately to this universe but it's just things which are coherent among each other they they hang together nicely but there's nothing that they hang on you may not agree it's a difficult thing to to wrap your mind around but it's at least you must understand it's understandable what they're trying to say so for example they never they generally do not use the snake they use make rope example but the example which is they use for the world outside is Chandra Kate this example sheaves of hay which when you arrange them they all lean on each other so there you can imagine lots of hate in bundles and stats all leaning on each other so the entire world it leans on each other there is no underlying foundation on to it to this it's emptiness all the way through this is one understanding without brahman also you can make sense of the world has coherent is tanta foundationalism okay ii understanding is about the self so from analytic point of view not the body not the mind witness consciousness which is existence consciousness bliss what they showed is that you deconstruct the body mind and you see that none of this can be me and then then what is me don't ask that none of this can be me why are you asking more than this what you thought was you I'm showing you that it's not you so generally tell you something called under kati's chariot so he says is called a Sevenfold reasoning which tibetan lamas actually spent years meditating on what is the chariot today we might say an SUV but what is the chariot chandrakirti asks is it the parts of the chariot is it is that the chair is it the wheels and the nave and the axle so no no those are the parts that's not the chariot so is that I did something apart from the parts you just say that there's no space for the chair your chariot in the ashram you can leave the parts outside you can bring your chariot in no you can't do that there's no chariot apart from the parts also is is are the parts of the chariot something in which the chariot is kept like a bowl in which flowers are kept so the the parts are there in that something called chariot is kept no no is it the other way around the chariot is something in which the parts are kept no no not like that so Sevenfold reasoning is going to show that there's no such thing is a chariot don't for your SUV will still be there and yet in practical life you can treat that whole thing as a chariot and you can go about using it it serves all practical purposes that's the two levels of truth so deconstruct the self to see that there is no such thing as a self and then go about your business whose business that thing which appears to be the self what that removes your suffering which is clinging to the body and mind as the self so this was my understanding how do you reconcile the two Advaita Vedanta shift the reference of the eye from the body mind to Brahman to witness consciousness whether through the method of trick drishya Vivica the method of the five sheets or method of waking dreaming deep sleep whatever it is to a non objective pure subject consciousness it shifts the references if shift reference means what does the word I refer to when I say o'clock it refers to this when I say clot it refers to this when I say hi what does it refer to usually we will set this Advaita Vedanta shifts it you can shows you that it no it's not this it's the witness consciousness and thereby you overcome all problems because all problems are because of this body and mind and our reference to this body and mind as myself that's Advaita Vedanta shifting the reference of the eye what does much Dimmick about this them to madam akka Buddhism what it does is it dissolves the eye there itself none of this body and mind is worthy of being called I and that's it you're free so so this is my new improved understanding and which you take a broader views both work both work and it was amazed to see Swami Chetan angie from st. Louis I spoke with him recently he said I came across something amazing I just want to tell you Swami should on under who was the disciple of swami vivekanand who worked a lot on so he awakened his complete works he is one of the presidents of our order long way back one of the earliest disciples of swami vivekananda he writes is respond in a diary he writes difference between Shankara and Nagarjuna Shankara says the eye is Brahman Nagarjuna dissolves the idea and there itself exactly what I said and I got that insight from so this is this is new improved understanding not that the old understanding was wrong but this is much much more fair understanding instead of reducing Madame occur to Advaita Vedanta you appreciate both as grand systems in their own right and take them at their word don't say that oh they got you're talking about Brahmin you just don't we have to too shy to mention Brahmin no we are not talking about Brahmin the MIDI America which which is say to you and you take it take the mat America at his word and see that the system works however I will end by saying after all this on the streets of Cambridge just outside Harvard University I happen to run into a Lama a Tibetan lama he said what are you doing here I said I'm studying and I'm studying your philosophy so which books are you studying I said this book and that book I'm studying with professor Garfield and he suggested some other books and then he said but you are an adroit in I said yes oh it's all the same you know not only the head so this is not a professor this is actual actual practitioner laughter materialism he even went on to say I was amazed he said those five verses by Shankara and I said Manisha Pancham the five verses on enlightenment by Shankar Acharya CD SES I use it in my teaching he said you could first ready one more we can take a question that gentleman was raising his hand or not please come yeah tell us your name my name is Matt yeah and any question I wrote it down so I don't forget I've heard you talk about brahmaloka the highest heaven in many of your talks I understand the concept of one going beyond that and how one still has an identity there and has to attain moksha one must be go beyond name and form and beyond the experiencer like not chaqueta ass yama about going beyond heaven and is not interested in it and the question that arose in me is that if we all have the opportunity to transcend Maya where does that leave God can God also have the opportunity to transcend Maya or is that or is God positioned as a creator of Maya and can never move past it and then I have a second part to this question I understand that advisor is open to all religions and you've also mentioned that you know if one meditates on a one they can have like a vision of whatever God they meditate on and my question is if someone if you know a few different people will have the life of devotion to certain religions like you know Muhammad or Christ or Kali is there's a fight to see them all go to different heavens or different or is you know like different heavens where those gods live or is it all under the same like growl okay all right actually is a pretty good question matter to ask what's the general follow this question will be in our dueto Vedanta which sounds more like a philosophy and religion what is the role of religion by which I mean God and heaven spiritual practice and the destiny of human beings where does this leave all of that the answer is brahmaloka what he talked about the highest conception of a spiritual heaven where I am still there maybe not in this body maybe in a more perfect heavenly body or in some form and my beloved God is there and I live in the eternal holy presence of God enjoying sugar not becoming is that a possibility well that seems to be the goal of all theistic religions it's a sort of oversimplified description of the Christian Judaic are Muslim are Vaishnava or Shiva heaven whether it's Janet or the Christian heaven or why Kunta or kailasha or the various pure lands of the Mahayana heavens that seems to be a fair description I mean sort of simplified description where does it what does our way to say about it Advaita gives that answer we often talk about attaining enlightenment here and now and realizing that you are the absolute and it's done no more question of heavens and hills or anything like that it's done because Brahman alone is the reality and heavens hells and earths and all the bodies and there are all appearances you go beyond the movie to the screen itself that's what we often talk about but if you go back to the original texts of Advaita Vedanta the Upanishads they talk about the second option - if one leads an ethical and religious life and devotion to God they call it ooop asana worship of God so ethical and moral life plus love and devotion to God what happens to these persons suppose they do not attain the realization I am Brahman either they are not interested in it or they tried but they did not get it but it's still backed up by a lifetime of devotion and love and surrender and this passion for worldly if one does not have this passion one is going to come back into the cycle anyway what happens they go to this heaven so brahmaloka is a generic term from an advaithic perspective the ramakrishna loka we talk about the why koonta that Vaishnav was talked about the kailasha the Shia was talk about daily loka which the chakras talked about or the Muslim or Christian and Judea Kevin no they may not agree but this is what Advaitic perspective is all of them are talking about brahmaloka the highest spiritual realm where the devotee of God goes ultimately if enlightenment is not there yet and stays there for a really really long time and at the end of this cycle so goes so all of this is very theological not very philosophical at the end of the cycle creation is a cycle of creation by the grace of God these highly spiritual Souls attain to the realization I am Brahman and then they lose their individuality and remain as Brahman so that that's the idea so that's the place of religion religion is there and if you ask a non duelist what do you say about religion the non duelist will say if it's a mature non realist will say highly recommended highly recommended if you want to be a successful non duelist religion is a good is a very good foundation but only a foundation that's I love that story about a Ramana Maharshi if heard of Ramana Maharshi Who am I they would always ask that question so what is young but this person was a very simple devotee who came to Ramana Maharshi and said look I don't like all that Who am I but I love Narayana my Lord Narayana is that all right and ramanamma she obviously touched by sincerity said yes it's all right oh it's all right if I worship Narayan yes so after death will I go to wake on to heaven they're bored of Narayana and Ramana where she said yes I'll go to eye contact when I see Narayan I will I see God in heaven yes you will oh and will God see me Narayan I will Narayana see me yes he will oh that's so wonderful and beliefs speak to me will God speak to me in heaven no monomer she said yes either oh and what will God say what will barfi Narayana say he will say find out Who am I on that note thank you very much thank you so much boom shanti shanti shanti hurry he owned that such sri ramakrishna Aparna Moscow [Music]