Video 8

Ask Swami with Swami Sarvapriyananda | Dec 19th, 2021

[Music] lead us from the unreal to the real lead us from darkness unto light lead us from death to immortality om peace peace peace so what we do here is a lot of questions about vedanta about spiritual life in general come in from all over the world and our team here they filter it and they arrange it and they present it to me and we discuss these questions these questions it's always a good idea to listen to the questions carefully answer the answers and not to be waiting for when will my question come up often these questions are they're so good which is why they have been selected they apply to lots of people this is the kind of question that comes up often or should come up and so sometimes even when more than the person who asked the question others who are just listening they may benefit more from the answer and i will try to slip in a couple of audience questions also in between yes we will try that yes so have your questions ready and then i'll ask you just raise your hands i'll call upon you come up here and ask tell us your name and ask your question we'll see how it goes uh diane uh the first few questions are from the ashtavakragira from usha kudi i'm wondering about the cheetah bassa the reflected consciousness and its relation to pure consciousness does the cheetah bathroom go with the jiva atman after death upon attaining enlightenment does it cease to exist all right that's a good question the reflected consciousness now what is a reflected consciousness uh we'll start there you see we feel aware right now each of us we feel aware and when vedanta talks about consciousness awareness you know pure consciousness unlimited awareness is this what they're talking about what we are feeling right now no it is not what we are feeling right now what we experience right now as consciousness awareness is this reflected consciousness that the the person who's asking the question we're talking about this reflected consciousness so what is the relationship of this reflected consciousness to the pure consciousness which vedanta talks about an example might help here it's a beautiful example which i like sunlight reflected from the moon is what we call moonlight so at night whatever we see all our activities suppose there is no electric electric lights it's guided by the moonlight so when you see things in the night they're all illumined we say oh what a wonderful moonlight but all the time that moonlight is nothing but sunlight reflected from the moon now think of the world as the world which we experience and the moon as the mind and the sun has pure consciousness atman which which virante is speaking about the real self and the moonlight as the reflected consciousness so the moonlight ultimately you might say but it is the sunlight yes because without the sunlight there can be no moonlight and yet no it it does make sense to call it moonlight because uh without the moon also that reflected light would not come to the earth at night and you wouldn't have this experience of seeing things at night so that's a good example but like all examples it needs to be used carefully here the sun and the moon and the earth are three different entities you know but in the case of vedante we're talking about one absolute reality which appears as mind body and universe let's go a little more precisely into it a text which which does this which actually deals with this question is the drikdrisha viveka um towards the end towards the beginning of the regressive vehicle this question is asked this feeling of i which we have right now this ego i clearly there are two components to it what is the component one component is an activity of the mind a function of the mind the eye is also a thought it's it's a functioning of the mind one of the functions of the mind is ego what are the other functions of the mind memory is another function of the mind just thinking is another function of the mind understanding comprehension grasping something that's another function of the mind in sanskrit these are called the mind is just thinking is called mana or literally mind understanding is called buddhi memory is called and there's one more function of the mind which is the ego ahamkara ego now in the ego when we look when you feel just now when you try to feel i you know i am sitting for example it seems to be the truth that that eye in the i am sitting that eye has these two aspects one is a function of the mind the other one is awareness it's always suffused with awareness it's an aware eye right now you feel it i and also it's aware in fact all the thoughts in the mind thoughts memories desires comprehension perceptions they're all aware they're full of awareness this awareness is the reflected awareness this awareness which shines in the eye is the reflected awareness so the ego has these two two aspects the chidabasa the reflected uh consciousness and the function of the mind which we call the ego itself now the question is asked what is the connection of this eye what is the relationship of this eye with body this body with the mind and with pure consciousness the real lie so what is the connection of this you can relate it to this question what is the connection of this reflected consciousness to this body to the mind and to the real consciousness which vedanta talks about the answer is given in the drikdrisha viveka karmajam sahajam brahma born of karma what is what does it mean born of karma as long as this body lives you will feel i that i will always feel i am this body it will always be related to this body i am this body or it is my body and when this body dies this eye will now then attach itself to another body it will be born again in some other body and or in some other world so this i is connected to this body because of karma as long as its past karma is there this this body will continue and the eye will be attached to this body for that duration reflected consciousness will be attached to this body for that duration and then what is the connection between the eye and its reflected consciousness with the mind sahaja natural it's like the mirror and the reflected face as long as there's a mirror in front of you there will be a reflected face as long as the mind is functioning there will be reflected consciousness as long as the moon is there you know reflecting sunlight there then there will be moonlight so as long as the mind is functioning there will be reflected consciousness proof when the mind doesn't function there's no reflected consciousness when doesn't mind not function in deep sleep for example in coma or in anesthesia the deepest possible blankness is anesthesia actually then the mind doesn't function there's no reflected consciousness and because that's all we think we are we feel that i was completely blank there was nothing in in deep sleep absolutely nothing even the fact that there was nothing is also not evident in deep sleep only after waking up i'm saying that though we miss the fact that that blankness was also a kind of experience otherwise we wouldn't even be talking about it when we wake up in every culture of the world there is the concept of deep sleep you know i slept like a log i didn't know anything every culture of the world which means it's an experience common shared experience of humanity if it's an experience there must be consciousness there but there was no reflected consciousness that's why it feels like there was no consciousness um and then the final one so the three relationships with the body born of karma when does it end when the body dies when the particular karma which produced this body is over that reflected consciousness and the ego sense will no longer be identified with this body with the mind sahaja yoga natural as long as the mind is there there is reflected consciousness the moment the mind shuts down there's no reflected consciousness then the third one is the most important that is the question here what is the connection between this reflected consciousness the awareness which we feel right now the ego especially i and the real consciousness or the source consciousness or the atman brahman whatever you call it the absolute reality between the i which is the apparent eye the lower eye the little lie and the real eye what is the real life and in vedanta we say aham brahm has me i am brahman that's the real eye i am this body mind this personality that's the apparent eye we consider this to be the reality and that's our ignorance that's our delusion but what's the relationship between this i and that uh real life between reflected consciousness and pure consciousness and the answer is stunning the answer is born of error the answer is the only relationship is stupidity hindi one sadhu said you know it's only your stupidity oh monk that we think there is some relationship between there's some connection real connection between pure consciousness and the reflected consciousness oh so i the reflected consciousness i have no connection with the pure consciousness wrong the other way around i the pure consciousness have no connection with this reflected consciousness we immediately feel abandoned like an orphan oh i'm this little spark of consciousness and we're talking about atman brahman the the source of everything and now you're telling me i have no connection with that no vedante saying just the opposite you are that source you are atman brahman the absolute reality and you are reflected in this little pool of like the sun being reflected in a little pool of water you're reflected in this little pool of the mind and you think i am this one someone give another little more modern example a scientist looking through an electron microscope or something you know trying to isolate this little virus or something little bacteria there in the in the culture petri dish and um completely forgetting his own existence the instrument the microscope and just focused entirely on that petri dish and the little tiny creature and begins to think i am that one and that's the world and guys forgotten this entire existence which he has apart from that microscope you know where something like that has happened to us and right now we have this infinite awareness but reflected in the mind the mind shining with my own reflection i have become so entranced by that play i've forgotten my existence like looking into a mirror here's the mirror there's the face i am that but i completely forget this see why this happens is the face in the mirror has one advantage it's not your real face the rear face is here the face in the mirror has one advantage what is the advantage you see it it is because it's apart from your real face apart from your eyes your eyes can objectify that face what is the advantage of reflected consciousness it has an objective feel to it you feel aware but what is being reflected there it's a good exercise a difficult exercise simple but difficult um is that turning away where how do i discover how do i go from the reflected face in the mirror to the real face that turning that's the reflection ah here is the reality which is which is what i'm seeing reflected there this is the consciousness which i feel in every thought in every idea memory desire in every emotion in every perception i feel aware everywhere what from that awareness to this its source that is the journey okay we'll leave it at that does it cease uh at death uh does it go with what was the thing or does it seize after enlightenment attaining in night enlightenment does it cease to exist now think about it you can answer this question here's the mirror and my reflected face in it somehow i'd forgotten this is my real face my face is so beautiful that i've become entranced with the the reflection my face in the in the mirror and so or maybe so terrible that i it's uh i'm so worried about that face and face is looking so terrible you know it looks either terribly miserable or very very happy in both cases i'm entranced with it i've forgotten my real face then i discover with some face vedanta i discover oh that's not me i'm not the mirror i'm not the reflection i am the one which is being reflected i discovered that all right now let's answer this question after this enlightenment does the reflection in the mirror go away no some of you don't look convinced try it yourself look at yourself in a mirror and tell yourself that's just a reflection the real me is here this is the real face does the reflection go away no of course not what was the relationship between the reflection and the mirror sahaja yoga as long as mirror is there there will be reflection once you recognize moonlight as sunlight will the moon go dark no try it you'll be very unpopular if you make the moon go dark like that i saw this cartoon once you know it's that story about vampires can't stand sunlight count dracula that's stories there but this wonderful cartoon you know like this is a delightful this count dracula has come out of his um you know his coffin and is scaring this poor guy who's standing it's it's it's a night this bright moonlight you know and this count dracula is coming towards this man to bite him and the man says wait wait just hear me out what i'll give you a little lesson in in uh you know um geography and the planets and the sun and shows him how sunlight is reflected from the moonlight and it comes at to the night as reflected from the moon and comes to at night as moonlight so this moonlight which you are feeling is actually sunlight and immediately count dracula burns up because he realizes i'm in sunlight [Music] yeah so the moment you are enlightened you realize i am pure consciousness what it is pure consciousness is present right here just as when you are looking straight at your reflected face your real face is present definitely similarly pure consciousness all the time present when we realize what we are not this little eye which is we are feeling right now but the witness of the eye i realize that that i and the reflected consciousness will not go away but i will no longer be trapped in it i will no longer be attached to it i'll no longer be identified with it i know what it is and then you can use it to be in the world and enjoy the world that is called jivan mukti liberated while living that's the goal of vedanta all right next one after this we'll take another question from the audience this this question is from swati the dream is understood as a dream only after waking up the state of waking does not result in experiencing the dream as a dream when the dream is playing there is no place for the waker similarly how is it that the knowledge of pure consciousness will change the perception of my current reality [Music] underlying this question is a feeling that just as i wake up out of the dream and come to my waking state and then only i look look back upon it and say oh that was just a dream depending on what kind of dream it was it was a nightmare you say oh thank god it was just a dream but it was a very nice dream where you won the lottery you'd say oh no it was just a dream but you see after waking up you say it's just a dream in the waking state you're no longer experiencing the dream now if in this state you become enlightened that's the question how will you experience this state anymore you must be in an enlightened state only then you can say this what i saw earlier was false now i am you know i'm brahman atman whatever it is no that's not what it is that's why examples are very helpful and often the only way in in non-dual philosophy where language fails so examples metaphors similes are helpful but they're also dangerous basically they can mislead the master who is using those examples to illumine us knows how to how to deploy those examples they know he knows exactly what those examples are supposed to illustrate but we don't so we may take it in a completely different sense what it was not meant to show so here what is this dream example meant to show and what does it not show what it is it does not imply what it is meant to show is just as we come out of the dream into the waking and then we realize the dream was an appearance uh we experienced it but that was not the reality compared to the dream this is the reality oh i did not go there i'm sitting in my bed i did not meet that person i was i'm completely alone i was sleeping in my bed that's what we realized after waking up so this much is meant to be illustrated the moment we become in the enlightenment the breakthrough comes we realize we are we where we are and we always continue to be this pure unlimited being awareness this this presence which is continuously shining this is what we are but what it is not meant to illustrate or demonstrate is that we shifted a state we went from the sleeping state of dream state to the waking state so now when we become enlightened will we go out of the waking state into some enlightened state just as in the dream state when we went to the waking state whatever we were experiencing in the dream as swati writes everything stopped we are not experiencing those things anymore and we can look back using memory and say that was a dream will that happen to us when we become enlightened doesn't seem to be so look at the lives of the enlightened ones they seem to be exactly in the same state as we are by that i mean they see us do they go around saying i can't see you i'm enlightened i can't hear you i'm enlightened oh enlightened master this is my question i can't hear you i'm enlightened i'm in a different state altogether you belong to the earlier waking state my reality is now then like nothing of that sort ever happens the enlightened one sees us hears us can recognize us can interact with us seems to be in full possession of his or her faculties and working through the body as before so the change of state from dream to waking is not meant to be you know is not implied when you use the dream example enlightenment means waking up here and now making from baking let us call it you are waking but this is from from an enlightened perspective this is like a like dream walking or daydreaming you're snapping out of it and you come to a reality which is already there and the state does not matter you can fully function in the waking state you can use this body you can see hear smell taste touch you can experience everybody all around but you know what it is for the first time that it is one reality appearing as many many bodies appearing many individuals personalities also appearing lot of interaction with the living and non-living the material universe going on underneath it all it is one consciousness or one being and you are that one being you are that oneness of this existence just as here the dream example is useful you look back upon your dream and you realize all the places you went to in your dream all the people that you saw in the dream all the things that happened in the dream including the body which you were walking around in the dream with all of them were products of your mind the mind alone was appearing in all those ways similarly you the atman brahma whatever you are whatever you call it you are appearing as all this and while appearing as all this you can go on um interacting there's absolutely there won't be any problem at all you can even use language just like everybody else and once people begin to understand this they start speaking funny i've got emails like this i the undivided one consciousness which is the same as you identified in this body in this present life in this appearance body appearance and given the name mr mishra i'm writing to you verant actually says i know he's trying to be precise but you you can't talk you can't interact with people in the world if you start talking like that vedanta says you can actually use ordinary language just like everybody else um in panchodashi text there is this question of what does i refer to when you say i and he says there are three meanings two meanings which are used by enlightened beings and one meaning which is which is the rest of us use what is that one meaning which rest of us use i this person that's it this body mind here it seems direct point to yourself i what does it mean i what are the two meanings in which the enlightened beings use it first meaning for the enlightened one i means brahman i am brahman i am pure unlimited consciousness being awareness it's very clear to the enlightened person but is the second sense of the eye this body mind but it's different from the way we use it we use it as a truth it's a fact even unexamined fact and even when i examine it through vedanta it still seems very real to me this connection with the body but for the enlightened one it's not a fact but it's a what you call a relative truth a transactional truth in order to deal with us the enlightened one can speak just like i am sitting talking walking once in a while they slip up sriram krishna will see he would say i need a glass of water my arm is broken he had suffered a fractured once but he also sometimes says this he refers to it as an object so he's not acting there that's it's what really it feels like to that person just like this this even thoughts this it's not so difficult to understand also we can also do it little bit but you don't have to talk like that okay um a question from the audience the gentleman there you can come here and um tell us your name and then ask the question yeah humble pronounce to swamiji my name is vinod this is follow up to an earlier question i asked which was like what is my swadharma and um you had mentioned at that time that it's largely useless in modern times but one guiding thing could be god realization as the guiding factor but as a follow-up to that now um the vedas they urge and they talk about this a lot and lord krishna also he urges arjuna to do swadharma so does that mean the vedas are not useful in today's time and does that mean krishna's words are useless in today's times how do i reconcile this fact swamiji no uh what i meant when i said that that the way i was going to explain swadharma that what i did that time is largely useless in today's times i did say that is because of the breakdown of the varnasrama system remember how i explained the swadharma swadharma is the common is the synthesis of five factors um means your stage in life yeah then that means student householder what one of the four then vardhan dharma the various uh the castes you know uh brahmanakshatriya vaishya sudra and the subject subdivisions that's how the caste system origin developed then the um combination of the two are you a student uh brahmin or are you a householder warrior like arjun and krishna both were householder warriors they were grihastha kshatriyas then the fourth component was the vishesh of the special duties special rules so yes you arjunan and krishna where you know arjuna was a householder warrior but also a general of the army for the time being that means there are certain roles to be played once you accept i am the ceo of this company i am the father in this household then you have certain roles to play you accepted it the certain duties come upon you immediately and finally sadhana dharma which is the general dharma you know to be truthful to be moral to be uh compassionate um all of those so your swadharma what is your personal dharma right now what is to be done the life you're supposed to lead is a combination of these five factors among these five factors you notice the first three are it is sort of null and void these days because nobody is strictly following the wordnash from a system and uh although there's a deep wisdom in that and even if one does not follow it even if society has deviated or or changed i won't even say deviate it has evolved away from it the inherent wisdom doesn't go away that there is a certain way of living which is more conducive to us to being a young person a student to being a father or a mother in a family unit to be a retired person a person who has gone beyond um you know the initial stages of family life children have grown up and gone away your career has matured at a certain point that level of maturity there's a certain way of wisdom of living there which is not the same as when you were 20 years old or when you were 30 years old so the inherent wisdom in these varnasrama is always there it doesn't disappear it's just that our society is no longer it doesn't apply that anymore but the visa dharma and dharma continue to apply the special duties in life which come upon us with special roles and the general ethics of being a human being in a human society those are always there they are always there for all time all right so that's why i said it's not applicable not what krishna said thousands of years ago that is useless no it's not useless it is deeply true it's true that swadharma is important but what is not applicable now is the way i analyzed it the way it used to be understood at that time that understanding is more or less void nowadays because you would directly try to say i am a brahmin and i am now going to be the ceo of a company when a brahmana should not be a ceo of a company in in a traditional uh system then you have messed it up already then but that does not work these days it it's meaningless now but does that mean swadharma concept is not working no swadharma is very important it's just that we can't analyze it properly anymore in those those terms so that's why i said a general principle is better that which takes me towards god realization is swadharma that which takes me away from god realization from enlightenment is against swadharma yes so that's a good good principle all right thank you um another one i think this young lady yes please come tell us your name and ask the question my name is brija and my question for you is that for children how can we keep them involved with the spiritual concept or concept of vedanta at early age especially when they feel that it is not so cool yeah that's a very mom question yes it's characteristic of moms that when you become inspired with vedanta the first thing you try to do is to get your children involved in it and then your husband involved in it one principle i've always seen which works is the children don't really listen but they imitate young children of course young children listen too so what you have to do is exemplify that in your life in your home life for example so is there a certain time set out for meditation for example is there uh are there pictures and icons of you know gods and goddesses there is there a time where you sit for a little ritualistic worship and do you involve them in that you know it's your duty to set up the flowers today it's it's like play and children love a little bit of responsibility if they think that this is an important job for mom and she is relying on me to do it you'll see they love doing it now or at least today it's you know the evening you put the incense in front of the shrine learn a few verses of the gita if you are from a hindu household for example learn a few verses from the gita nowadays there are more organized efforts to do this like sunday schools which are popular in the united states there's one in new jersey which is wonderful the vivekananda vidya pete 800 kids study there saturdays and sundays so yes so these two things one is at home and other one is a structured organized approach if you can do it up to the age of 12 13 it's actually it's i'm just i was being funny when i said it's a mom thing but it's a great gift that one can give to a child once we realize how important it is and by the time of you know say up to 10 11 years you can do it actually activities books picture books i think nowadays there are nice little cartoons and stuff like that which talk about mythological stories and one advantage of hinduism is it's full of extremely colorful mythology and characters which people can identify with so yes one thing which we found which worked was in the iits in one of the iits in india one swami told me this he found that these young boys and girls who are coming they're very brilliant people but they seem to know nothing about india's history past not very interested either no time either under so much academic pressure so you can suggest books on indian history but nobody's going to read it history was boring enough when you're in school and now you're in engineering school and you're going to re there's no time to read history but what they did what worked was that swami said we got this entire set of amat chitrakata comics we grew up reading those things but now it seems it's available in the entire set is available you can purchase it pretty economical go for the actual book not the e-copies of some e-books the actual comic books they're very well illustrated and told simply and in an inspiring way so that worked that became very popular all the kids in the different hostels in the ideas started borrowing it and going reading it i think they went through entire volumes very fast and that gives you might say that those are comic books but but that's enough to make a beginning at least you know the stories you know the characters you know the general trend of indian history from the from the most ancient past up to the freedom struggling so that gives you some grounding and that's a good thing you can do teenagers entirely different way you have to handle it this this question is from kailash marty the universe by its own nature rises and falls in the ocean of the self this is verse 11 from the ashtavakra gira if the universe is spontaneously rising and falling does it have a nature that is separate and excluded from the self or is the self willing the rise and fall of the universe neither but i i know what verse you are referring to the 11th verse of that particular chapter which we did in the retreat vishwam's purati something like that it was there the entire universe appears like waves in an ocean by its own nature that own nature phrase might be a little misleading here is the universe something different which arises out of its own nature and moves around in the universe in in the atman is it like is the atman like a bowl in which there are little uh you know there's a little ant colony which is full of lands buzzing around by their own nature not like that the other alternative which has said is the is the atman willing it by the by the will of the self is the universe rising and falling not that either it's exactly like the ocean example in the ocean the ocean itself arises at this as its own waves and go plays around there and then subsides back into the ocean in the atman again in the atman don't think about it like a bowl in in which there are certain things rather think of it like the ocean itself like water like a movie screen in which movies appear now movie screen is a good example there various kinds of movies all the characters and the heroes and villains and a lot of action goes on there some are tragedies some are comedy some are horror so good bad ugly all of that happens and it cannot happen without the screen good bad ugly nothing can happen without the screen but each movie has its own internal logic it's its own plot it's you know it it will be projected just the way it is so that is what is meant by the by its own nature by its own nature means in the universe itself in this appearance there is an internal logic in vedanta we call it the law of karma by only vedanta all the indian philosophies they call it the law of karma and one might say i don't believe in that sort of thing you have to believe in it it's causality instead of karma let me call it causality and it's oh yeah causality of course i believe in causality causalities these causes have effects what we set in motion will have certain effects so this cause effect relationship is internal to this world anything in this world if you ask why i can give you because of this the moment you ask why the why question will have a because answer why is the grass wet because it rained why did it rain because there were clouds why are the clouds because of evaporation why is there evaporation because sun cause and effect and that you extend to human life a little further if you extend it to the realm of morality good and bad it's still causality but what vedanta says is that's all internal to this world of appearance that's all internal to the movie what vedanta wants to say is that the whole thing including the cause and effect is an appearance in the atman of the atman you that unlimited being you appear as the dream of this universe in the dream there is a certain causality involved but even that causality is part of the dream so does the movie screen are the two separate according to the question are they two separate existences movie screen and movie no ocean and waves no there is no movie apart from the movie screen it can't it won't work there is no waves apart from the ocean it won't work so it is the same thing again the question was does the self will the universe to arise the self want that the universe should arise in me and play around in me does the movie screen want that there should be a tragedy now there should be a comedy next no it's the very nature of the movie screen let's say it's not a good way of if you extend the analogy too far you end up in saying silly things it's the very nature of the self or pure consciousness to appear in this way you might say why you can be a obstinate little boy and ask why why is it the nature of the self to appear as this universe or the nature of atman to appear is this universe one swami gave a very nice answer see what's the nature of the eyes to see it's constructed in such a way that it will see now imagine a little kid looking up into the sky there is no surface which which the eyes can light upon and see so the child imagines the sky to be an inverted blue bowl it looks like that the eye projects its own because i has to see to see you need something to see but when you look out into space there's no thing no object to see so it's a kind of illusion that there's it looks like an inverted blue bowl similarly consciousness what is what is the nature of consciousness to experience but according to veda advaita vedanta apart from consciousness itself there is no other thing to experience but consciousness is not an object it cannot be experienced so consciousness tends to project its own object which it experiences those objects which appear in consciousness as apart from consciousness are actually nothing but consciousness and if you track it carefully one begins to get that feeling look at this universe let me put it in three stages look at whatever you are experiencing in this world seeing hearing spelling tasting touching all of these things are presented to you the consciousness step one in you the consciousness step two and it is nothing but you the consciousness step three so the answer to this is neither is the universe something different from consciousness from the self nor is the self willing it to happen it is an appearance in the self because it's the very nature of consciousness to experience and and it appears as its own object let's put it that way this question is from deepti swamiji if my daily life requires me to constantly engage in outwardly focused activities such as a corporate job but my spiritual quest encourages me to be inwardly focused and realize my true nature how do i resolve the conflict between the two will i fail to make any meaningful progress in my spiritual journey until i give up working and engaging in the world outside it's a practical question but let me answer it in at two levels one is a straightforward simple practical answer is that a routine where you take a little bit of time and energy out of your daily grind you know your responsibilities in your corporate career your responsibilities in your family in your community take a little bit of time out of that morning and evening in a structured consistent way and use it for meditation for study for prayer one of our senior swamijis used to say you know the slogan is work is worship and i'm going to end up saying that work is worship so you can so how to spiritualize your daily activities but that swami used to say that work is worship is fine but it's the final stage first there must be work and worship then work as worship and then work is worship right away to say that work is worship doesn't work it doesn't work you'll find it's a good slogan but it will be artificial so work and worship means there is your job there is family stuff there is personal stuff to attend to your health your finances and so on so forth everything to do in life that is work but there must be time set aside energy set aside uh for scriptural study for meditation and prayer for a little bit of ritualistic worship so now this is the first part of the answer do this this is no other way out we one must make that effort we find time for everything a lot of nonsense swami vivekananda said the ancient monarchs you know you find krishna and arjuna in the gita there they were kings and swami vivekananda said they were in those ancient times these monarchs these emperors and kings they were real kings and emperors they were not figureheads like royalties to like their royalty today you know the royalty today is more like celebrity which doesn't have to do any kingly stuff in those days they were absolute monarchs so they had enormous responsibilities and powers can you imagine the kind of pressure they would be under the kind of you know tensions they would face day to day running a kingdom or an empire and they found time for philosophy they found time for meditation that means these were practical things they found these these were men who were enormously practical so if there was something not practical something not beneficial immediately they wouldn't do it they wouldn't have any time for it same discussion comes up you know the warriors in ancient and medieval japan the samurai the technical term was bushy the bushy the bushido they found time for zen buddhism they were um very practical men often very violent kind of men they were continuously engaged in politics and warfare but why was meditation important for them why was philosophy important for them this is without that they couldn't function so swami vivekananda says if they found time to have these ideals they practice these ideals in their life this is a week if they we can we have enough time to practice 100 ideals in our life but you don't have to you take up one or two ideas and make them practical in your life there is a beautiful kali kitan in bengali a devotional song for the for the divine mother kali where the poet sings that i i have oh mother i have time for everything in my life except for calling on you so a beautiful song there a very plaintive song to the divine mother and the problem is we have time for all these nonsensical activities the price to pay is terrible because at the end of life the life is far too short anyway at the end of that period we find that we have wasted most of our efforts in life and we have what we have gathered has disappeared into nothingness the money flows out like anything is not worth much after some time children grow up and go away fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandparents you know they they grow old and die so all these things they sort of melt away into nothingness in our hands and this is what we have poured our lifetime energies into gathering so it's good to give serious time and effort to spiritual practices this is the first stage of the answer second stage is that this conflict must be done away with that i have these two in my life one secular life one spiritual life one secular life one sacred life if you do this what will happen is this this division then my life the so-called secular life will take up so much time and energy there will be very little left over for spiritual life and the opposite effect will be since my spiritual life is not my secular life my second life you'll feel continuously begin to feel it is meaningless it is worthless so the great teaching of karma yoga which krishna gives to arjuna that whatever you're doing in life can be done as a worship of god why why can be done it is actually a worship of god it is it's lamentable it's our tragedy that we don't see it to be so in the lives of the saints you'll find that whatever they did every little thing they did as worship or in saints in all civilizations little little things i'll give you two examples brother lawrence a famous example of a christian monk who worked in the kitchen all his life and he was such a highly evolved soul one of the little books i came across was this letters of brother lawrence the practice of the presence of god what was his lifelong practice in the kitchen practice of the presence of god that god is ever present i still remember some things there was only one little book available in the monastery where i joined so i wrote the whole book down and took the little book and copied it down so many inspiring little passages when one place he writes so inspiring he writes that my lord uh my lord my god you are present with me all the time therefore i do good i by myself i will fall i will slip i will make mistakes so you hold on to me my lord the presence of god is cultivating all the time moment to moment another example a small example is this zen students two zen students went to a zen buddhist master and the life was a very humdrum life in that school and the students were required to get up early in the morning and clean the meditation hall and draw water from the well and cut wood and bring it to the to the monastery all kinds of hard work there was no teaching of sin and after some time one of the students got started grumbling he told the other student you know i think this master is just exploiting us he's treating us we're just like you know servants and he's not teaching us zen so i'll go away he has not given us any lessons are you satisfied the other student said oh yes i've got what i want i i wanted to see i mean i've got what i want wanted here the first student asked him what did you come here to see what did you come here to learn what have you got he said i just wanted to see how the master ties his shoes early in the morning you know try his shoelaces in the morning what does that mean the tiniest of things from that one can see the quality of the mind behind that thing one master so full of joy he says somebody asked him how do you get up in the morning how do you start your day so you know in indians where chapel chapel means like flip-flops flip-flops so he says in the morning when i get up it's very childlike swami when i get up i see my the pair of flip-flops at the door and they start walking i quickly jump on them and they walk around all day and i go for the ride the whole day the wind goes like that it's a delightful thing i don't know where they will take me and what will happen what a joyful thing you know that little thing you can imagine the monk waking up and seeing this flip-flops beginning to walk quickly run and catch on hop on and the day takes you for that that's the day that god has designed for you i mean it's taking you around for this daily ride and it's everything is a delight so spiritualize work everything that you do in the office in the family personal life mentally keep on doing the same thing externally mentally offer it to god then it will be one continuous worship so these two stages one is a very hard edited practical thing find time routine stick to it we have done it for everything in life to get through college and university exams you worked so hard you had gave time and energy to get a job and hold on to it you worked so hard you gave time energy made sacrifices to get married and start a family you worked so hard for years and years of your life now for this highest thing in life god realization enlightenment will we not work a little bit all right can we take up one more question then we'll go to the audience for a question this question is from michael when i think of things as a dream then nothing in the dream really matters but when i think that jiva is shiva then everything i see really matters which is correct both are correct the second one is the one two two we must be practical and see which is most effective in our lives what is most nourishing in our lives the attitude that all is god eyes closed god only is eyes open all is god swami virajan and jesus to say he was the president of our order he was the guru of swami tatakata virujanji said the body along with the entire universe is presented to me together so either i am all of it or none of it i the awareness the consciousness to me appears this body the mind the entire universe all of it appears together so i am all of it or i am none of it all of this is an appearance in me like a dream like a movie on a screen i am the screen i am the dreamer both are true our problem is we take a slice of it and say i am this much i am not anything beyond the skin that is the other i am this now let me set up some equations with the other i like those ones i hate those other ones and i'm indifferent to the rest and then start samsara i'm trapped i've done something false i've done something silly i have taken this entire presentation in consciousness i've taken out a slice of it this body feels like me so i am this much and now i'll be a body and you're all bodies and i have to relate to you like that i'll be a person you're all persons i have to relate to you like that i am this body now i have to take care of this body who told you you see it's obvious no it's not obvious actually it's obvious until you examine it all life long i'm taking care of this body which is going to die very soon anyway it was meant for a purpose but the whole purpose of my life became to take care of the body to nourish it to clothe it to bathe it to treat it make it healthy once and it is sick to give it pleasure you know feed it nice things to show it nice things to give a nice music to it all of it this was my whole goal in life to make the body happy that science fiction author him classic science fiction story report on planet four are we the fourth planet from the sun third planet report on planet three um so a flying saucer comes to the earth and it doesn't the story is written in such a way you don't realize what's going on until the way into the story it's an alien who's reporting on earth sending it back to its own home planet what is he seeing he says this is a planet with intelligent creatures these creatures are made entirely of metal and they have four wheels and they have these little two-legged servants who take care of them and the creatures take these servants along with them and they rush along for some reason very urgently along these roads so they're reporting on 1960s america actually all these cars rushing all over all over the place and with these human beings inside human beings are the servants for these very powerful creatures made of steel and chrome and all and so the but that's such a satire on human society you know we are like that we are beings of spirit but we spend our time in in being servants of matter that that i like that saying that we are actually um we think that we are human beings in such a spiritual experience but we are actually spiritual beings having a human experience all right a question from the audience please come get ready too tell us your name and ask the question my name my question is um like like suppose like we're in island where there is no trace of spirituality no vivekananda no ramakrishna like sometimes i feel like all this systematic way of approaching any goal is feels like a mental game so i would like to request you like what would be your practical very practical approach to a person who lives alone in an island he has no kind of presupposition of any kind of spiritual matter so i would like to have this advice for you yeah and the question comes from the feeling that isn't this all something that we have been fed by civilization you know thoughts of others poured into our brain true but what is what's the problem in that consider the case of the man on the island let alone spirituality that man would have no access to science would have no access to culture would live a pretty joyless life basically we assume instinctively would feel hungry and will try to get some food from the island if possible but that's all it barely survived if at all now we are in a part of civilization and that's fine we develop art culture science we fight wars and we make peace we raise families and towns and cities and nations we along with that we have philosophy and spirituality what's wrong with that it is thoughts of others but it's only when i think of myself i am a little individual i'm being influenced by so many people but actually are we just this little individual much greater than this little individual aren't we minds and much greater than minds aren't we awareness itself notice as individuals also you might say hmm i am this body but i am being influenced by matter all around me i'll stop breathing i won't take any air from inside outside i will stop eating i will not take any matter from outside i won't go any further than that but no you can't do that you are actually always already completely interconnected with everything so there's no harm in that also if you think that there is if we believe as we do believe god exists and so there is a power behind this universe so that power will make sure that we progress on the path to enlightenment if we are this infinite being and we are reflecting ourselves in this body mind we will make sure that one day we will reflect ourselves in a body mind which will be which will give a truer reflection of ourselves which will be an enlightened body-mind and that's the game that's going on yet it's true that it is all ideas it is all thoughts which are some of them are very helpful generated by minds much greater than us some of them are just not all that good and they are all floating around and we are getting influenced by it even more we can see it happening in the on the internet and social media and all of that exactly like that civilization progresses that way from an enlightened perspective what you are saying will take on a much more grand dimension that from i am this infinite awareness after that i don't need any of this that is that was the vision of sankhya philosophy you are limitless consciousness but somehow you become involved with matter with body mind and now what the universe what prakriti nature does is it helps you to become enlightened it gives you a series of experiences lifetime after lifetime you that consciousness will give you a series of experiences until you get that final liberating experience and you are free of material nature very beautiful story touching story is told and very ancient story imagine a vast trackless desert and this old woman who from time from time immemorial what she what is she doing this is this little baby she has to take across this hostile desert she carefully protects those babies one by one she crosses the desert again and again and again timelessly and delivers them to safety on the other side of the desert who are those babies us what's on the other side enlightenment and freedom who's that uh old lady mother nature because sankey does not will not accept divine mother anything like that just nature nature does that for us part of that is the process you're talking about but if you're saying all of this is just this is one thing which one needs to guard against is being unduly influenced a little bit of independent thinking is always good schopenhauer said the german philosopher he says a weak mind is like a soft pillow like a soft pillow which retains the impression of the last backside that sat on it a weak mind retains the impression of the last book it read read everything hear everything but maintain a fierce independence that's the independence will be the one which will help you to become spiritually advanced yeah good question you want to come yes namaste swamiji my name is ruchi i have another mom question for you okay my 11 year old he asked me the simple question can you define god and i'm stumped i've been listening to you for years i threw all these vedantic terms at him and it makes no he's like he likes to think that he's very scientific and analytical and that you guys like you you can't even define god and you're asking me to you know think about it so how do i define to an 11 year old i would replies forget god what are you what are you are you just this 11 year old body but weren't you 10 years old last year weren't you five years old five years six years ago weren't you one year old 10 years ago which body are you are you all of them right now impossible are you one year old and five year old and 10 year old 11 year old right now impossible are your mind thoughts feelings ideas those ideas which you have now as a smart 11 year old grown up by did you have them when you were in kindergarten no the kindergarten mind was enormously different does a baby in the pram have those thoughts the scientific thoughts which you have in your mind no you had but you had a baby's mind 10 years ago so are you the mind well i was all of those but all of those but won't you weren't you saying that wouldn't you say you were that baby you were that kindergarten kid and you are the smart 11 year old now then who is that you so the answer i mean obviously the kid won't be able to give the answer we can't give the answer ourselves so you have to find out the answer for yourself but that is an answer i would give to anybody who asked me the question define god when we are advaita vedante you are god if you find you if you know who you are really you will find god a human being if a man realizes who is recognizes himself comes to know himself if you come to know yourself you come to know god all right a simple definition of god which is given in all religions which believe in god is there is a power behind this cosmos behind this universe behind means not physically behind like a curtain that which gives rise to this cosmos in which exists this cosmos into which this cosmos finally disappears and comes up again in this cycle um if you ask so science doesn't say that but science the science has just gone up to a kind of a paradox you know what's the first thing that the the deepest thing that science can say about this physical universe you've gone beyond atoms subatomic particles quarks what's even as small as super strings and they're very extraordinary things which are saying what's that what's beyond that we still don't know yes science doesn't prove god doesn't claim to establish god but can't disprove god either so far the thing is when you talk about god in religion you have to admit this clearly that there is a certain amount which we don't understand when we take on faith god of religion theistic religions are also faith-based there's always a component of belief that belief does not mean it's false it's just that we don't uh grasp it yet it's it's beyond our understanding and uh and that's a sign of intelligence actually i mean that i don't know and this is for our us i don't know if a school boy will understand that there is an intelligence beyond a school boy intelligence there's an intelligence which begins to see that uh um the concept of god is not not a light concept in hindi they say otherwise look at the cutting edge scientific institute institute of advanced studies in princeton university all right you might say what does that have to do with god did you know some of the most powerful minds of the 20th century were there einstein was there and who else was there good goodell was there the leading mathematician logician of even till today nobody surpassed him what was the last thing that godel was working on i'm not making it up look up look it up a proof of the existence of god the most powerful minds there you know you know the price they give the highest price in mathematics there's no nobel for mathematics it's the fields medal and of all the fields metal which have ever been avoided i think half or more than half have been received by people who worked in this one institute institute of advanced studies it's not that they've got it when they were working there but they ultimately worked there so more than half the fields medal recipients ever in history in the last i mean it's not a long history but they worked in that one institute and in that one institute without any any controversy the most brilliant one among them was goodell and the last thing he was working on was almost the last thing was the existence of god there is even godel's proof of the existence of god i looked it up i didn't understand a single line of it it's all anyway but but my point is that it make it even more contemporary there is this um super strings this physicist who works on super strings um you tell me his name ed [Music] he is some one magazine called him the nearest thing that we have got to einstein today in the world uh he um i always forget his name he is the most extraordinary i think one of the most extraordinary living theoretical physicists in the world edwin yes edwin his speciality is super strength okay i haven't met him but i've heard about him and i've met so many people who know him but what i'm going pointing to is if you look him up on youtube ed witton on consciousness consciousness is not his subject at all he's his field is theoretical physics cosmology but in an interview somebody just asked him so what do you think of this problem of consciousness consciousness and brain this problem and his answer is stunning even the interviewer didn't get what he was saying but if you see from a vedantic perspective you see what he's saying is very interesting he said he's a very soft-spoken person you see the enormous intelligence in his answers he says i think as the years go we will learn more and more about the brain but consciousness will remain a mystery learning about the brain will not explain consciousness very interesting and the interviewer said oh you want consciousness to remain a mystery and we will but most of us will just roll our eyes at that point he was very he just smiled a little bit and he said this is not exactly i didn't mean that look it up edwin on consciousness youtube short clip but very very moving good yes can we take one more question we've got a little bit of time this is from rama hariharan from new delhi swamiji i was listening to your video meditate better i have one question what is the relationship between a pure mind and a scattered mind you have pointed out many times that to deal with a scattered mind we must do meditation and to deal with the pure mind we must do karma yoga my question is is an impure mind by default a scattered mind also when we talk of a pure mind do you mean a mind with pure thoughts or a mind with less thoughts good question so this refers to the structure of spiritual practice we are brahmana vedanta tells us that if you study a little bit it's not difficult to understand what vedanta is telling us that we are pure awareness after that we sort of scratch our heads and say yes but it doesn't seem to have solved much of our problems so that's ignorance ignorance means not knowing it to be a reality even after reading about it we seem to know the words we seem to know the concepts behind it but it still doesn't feel like a reality that's ignorance about our real nature we don't feel that we are pure awareness immortal consciousness we still feel we are this little body mind how is that solved that is solved through vedanta the way of gyana yoga the yoga of knowledge and the practice for that is you systematically study and listen to vedanta think it through and meditate upon it we still scratch our heads and say yes but we've been doing it for many years you know swami and doesn't seem to have made much of a change in our lives well then there's a next level of the problem which is called a deeper level of the problem which is called not deeper level let's say a little less deep more surface level of the problem which is called scattered mind big shape scattered mind the mind is unable to grasp these things we are studying we are listening but it doesn't sink in in uttarakhand in the himalayas they say pachtani you don't digest it swami vivekananda used to call it assimilation we are unable to assimilate what we are reading what we are hearing why does that happen mind is scattered so what is the solution there not more without the books or arguments there the solution is meditation a different kind of meditation from the vedantic meditation the meditation is technically speaking saguna brahma pasana you are given a mantra you are given ishta devata it's shown how to meditate it collects the scattered rays of the mind and makes it a pure and focused mind again we scratch our heads you know swami i have the mantra you are speaking about and i have been meditating my mind remains as scattered it's become worse actually there's another level a more suspicious surface level of the problem which is called impure mind what is impure mind all the rubbish the trash that we have allowed to accumulate no rubbish clearance there every day you know the vehicle comes and picks up the from the dustbin dustbin has been lying without it being cleaned for not only one lifetime many lifetimes and that does not allow us to meditate with an impure mind no meditation is possible without a meditative mind no grasp of knowledge is possible so what is the solution here for impure mind how do you deal with the impure mind through karma yoga purify the mind through service of the lord in in many ways in many ways it purifies selfless action altruistic action action devoted to the to god in whatever action you're doing if you offer it to god and do that um what is the connection of impure mind and pure mind and and focused mind impure mind will not allow the mind to be focused anybody who has tried meditation you've seen that mind is actually very delicately balanced more you can focus it for a few seconds maybe then it starts vibrating again that the reason for that is um impurity of mind swami prabhupada in his commentary on the sermon on the mount someone on the mount according to vedanta one straight statement that jesus gives in the bible on sermon on the mount blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god what's our project here to see god to become enlightened and what does jesus say take it seriously it's jesus who's seeing it blessed are the poor in heart what is that heart he's talking about not the mount sinai that organ you know they're talking about the mind blessed are those who are pure of mind pure of heart means pure of mind and why for they shall see god how straightforward straight is the statement why didn't he say blessed are the pure in heart because then they go to the vedanta society and then study the upanishads and vedanta then they will see god all that is secondary the purified heart purified mind can straight away take you to god realization vedanta will work just like that meditation will work just like that in a purified mind one monk in the himalayas said i'll tell you in hindi and translate writes there in in his commentary on jesus is saying blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see god he writes a commentary in english he says how do we know that our hearts are not pure how do we know our minds are not pure he says try this like simple experiment now i shall sit quietly for 30 seconds one minute i will think of god nothing else such a small simple task my mind one thought what thought of god whatever you think about and think about krishna you can think about shiva whatever you want to think about i can visualize the image of the form of god or if you don't have a form type of meditation just the mantra whatever it is hold on to that for 30 seconds you can't how strange our minds a simple task can't hold on to it for 30 seconds for one minute that is the impurity of the mind now here is a little twist in the tail one might say oh that's just that's that's just the mind any thought little god so it's not impurity mind always keeps changing no give it the kind of thing it wants laser focus will come even in an impure mind it's not true that impure mind and focus cannot go together oh they can go together so the thing which i like see the people playing gambling machines in las vegas focus or unfocused tremendously focused you can't take them away we have a little vidante society in las vegas of all places it's not doing too well it seems the swami uh swahili when the proposal was given to him he's in he was in hollywood proposal was given to him that we're going to start a vedanta society in las vegas he chuckled and he said maybe what you can do is you can stand outside the casinos when they stumbled out broken sad miserable you can catch hold of them and tell them about this tremendous focus is there addicts are they focused or not tremendously focused when one is angry are we focused or not tremendously focused desire anger even grief ambition greed tremendous focus are the people in wall street focused or not unfortunately much more focused than people in vedanta society so what is then what does what do you mean pure mind leads to focus focus on god focus on the atman this vedantic focus would you call it buddhist focus vedantic focus christian devotional focus any of those things they all work only with a purified mind worldly focus you can have anything even kids get focused on their video games are they not focused tremendous focus tell them to the kid to do this homework no completely scattered so focus on the higher spiritual reality in whichever tradition it requires a purification of the mind pure mind now pure mind means less thought or pure thoughts both pure mind means pure thoughts and less thoughts and i'll end with this example once i'm sitting on the bank of the ganga in gangotri ten thousand feet high up um i remember i was eating an apple half uh right because i was hungry i still remember there wasn't enough food so there's this apple tree and the apples were not fully ripe but in the coming into seasons so i would plug them and eat them and sit on the bank of the river one monk came up and told me not to do it he said you know don't eat the apples in this season it'll spoil your teeth then he told me you know the difference between a yogi's mind and a worldly mind yogi mind and worldly mind i said what he said look at the river that was the rainy season so there's a lot of water in the river and it's dangerous because just the day before somebody had been swept away it's a torrential narrow stream but very fast and there are sharp rocks all over the place so he said look at this water right now the river right now it's fast it's dangerous it's plenty of water and it's dirty there are landslides there's mudslides so the water is brown brownish cold brown um you know brownish with soil in there and fast moving and unpredictable and he says it's dirty you can't drink it you can't give it to anybody else to drink either you can't cross it it'll sweep you away and there's a lot of water there and the worldly mind is just like that there are a lot of thoughts fast moving and changing and the thoughts are impure they don't give you peace and they don't give peace to people around you you are not at peace and people around you are not at peace from from you you are the culprit and it's dangerous it can make you do things to yourself and to others which you regret later imagine i do something why do i regret it later that means what i did at that time was not entirely well thought out so it can do things which you yourself will regret very soon it's dangerous people kill themselves just a simple that straightforward thing kill yourself why would you do such a thing and yet so many people commit suicide is the mind williams tyron he wrote memoirs of madness so he was subject to deep depression and one point he tried to kill himself and those days medications were not particularly good so he writes in this that the importance of those memoirs is he's such a well-known novelist he has this power to write very evocatively so he paints a picture of what it is like to be in depression deep depression which is this is harrowing but then he talks about his attempted suicide luckily he survived and he says now i think why did i try to do it there's no good reason at all and at that time it felt i have to kill myself this life is so horrible it wasn't it's the mind that yog that monk he told me that the worldly mind is dangerous like that it will make you do things and destroy yourself and others then he says you come in the winter oh monk we come in winter he says there will be less water because it's mostly frozen so water is less and the water is very clear crystal clear he told me that you stand there's a wooden bridge which crosses the river there you stand on the bridge and you throw you say a quarter down there you can read the denomination of the coin under the water the water is so um less and crystal clear like glass and then he says it is perfectly safe you can cross you can walk across you can so safe that you can walk from one bank to the another you can't don't try it it's freezing cold i tried it i got frozen halfway through not there another stream um then he says the water is sweet you can drink it and you can give it to others to drink similarly he said a yogi's mind there are fewer thoughts and the thoughts are all conscious you want those thoughts to be there in your mind they are there in your mind the what the mind is pure the mind is under control it is good for you and is good for everybody else it takes you towards your goal gives you peace and people around you feel that peace so this is pure mind in this mind meditation is easy i know a monk so we went to the president um we used to go to the president of our order to get rosaries you know for repeating mantras so the system is the president of our order he uses the rosary for a while and he gives it to us in which we do i have got one many monks we have got one a friend of mine a very remarkable young monk well not so young now in those days i heard about him so they're all people today so i were living today i would not take names but i heard when he went with another group of novices to the the then president of the order i'm talking about 16 years ago he was 20 years ago he went to get a rosary the president of the order at that time he gave the rosary to every one of them and when he came to this particular monk he looked at him suddenly and stopped and he said you he doesn't know him there's so many young novices overcome they say you you don't need to repeat a mantra on a rosary you straight away meditate and we know this monk he is one of the most brilliant people we have seen in our lives extraordinary mind so there are such minds which can which are already so pure which can go straight to meditation but and also extraordinary how the president of the order recognized it just by looking at him yes good on that ennobling and inspiring thought let us end we will of course continue online and hopefully within a few weeks we'll again be uh back in in person we'll make the announcements online on our website when we decide to come back yes i stopped after that uh i mean i did i ate so many but i felt bad one reason i think that monk said that i later realized that i had gone there just for a season i'd be gone before winter came but those monks who lived there they would they were waiting for the apples to ripen so that they could eat them you know and i was just to them i was just wasting it eating them eating them half ripe foreign [Music] you