Video 100

100. Bhagavad Gita | Chapter 8 Verses 8-10 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru we are studying the eighth chapter of the bhagavad-gita the it's known as akshara brahma yoga akshara is another name of brahman now what's going on in the eighth chapter is this remember the bhagavad gita has this rough sort of rough division of sets of six chapters each first six chapters the next six chapters and the final six chapters and from our perspective our means from the advaita perspective we say that it corresponds to the three parts of the mahavakya kathwamasi um means you what's what's your nature our real nature that was the subject of the first six chapters chapter one to six atma who am i then the next six chapters where we are now we are squarely in that it's about god cut that that reality about god and finally the last six chapters starting from the 13th are supposed to be about the identity of our real nature and god's real nature tattoo mercy that thou art the great equation the great identity which is basically advaita vedanta again a very rough very broad picture you can always say that there are it isn't quite true and there are many discussions of knowledge of you know self-knowledge here in the chapters which are supposed to deal with bhakti and there are many descriptions of bhakti later on in the last six chapters which is supposed to tell you the identity between the sentient being and the absolute reality anyway but in this chapter it is about devotion the from again from an advertising perspective what's going on here is one way the royal way the direct way is to realize who we are i am brahman realize that and you you have freedom you have attained freedom ultimate release your infinite nature you realize you are brahmana you are shiva you can honestly claim you know when you sing chidananda rupa shiboham we can honestly claim that it is true i see that it is true and that's moksha that's jeevan mukti liberated while living however that may not be everybody's cup of tea there may be many there are many many people who might not want that way at all there is another way the other way is devotion to god that is also way to what way to liberation way to liberation through devotion to god how does that work so i may not be interested in that advaithic way the way of knowledge why not well one reason might be that i don't feel ready for that yet i don't get it it doesn't um you know i feel myself inadequate i don't i think that's later on or higher or it could just be a matter of mental makeup of taste it is just something that does not attract me a person may be quite advanced in spiritual life but through and through a devotee and wants to maintain this distance this difference between oneself and the god which one worships like sri ramakrishna said doesn't want to become sugar wants to taste sugar so there are there are many such people we have to admit there are many such people what does vedanta what does advaita vedanta say about that advaita vedanta says that there is this second path it is called krama mukti sequential liberation krama sequential mukti liberation so sequential liberation the first path is called sadhyo mukti saddya immediate right now mukti liberation i realize i am brahman your task is done you're free in this life here and now but i i don't do that and i still maintain i am this person server priyanda then my real nature brahman is now god for forbid i i see that as the reality behind this entire universe and i establish a relationship of devotion of adoration of worship and that devotion can be of many types it could be a mother and child relationship like srirama krishna it could be like the christians or the jews have a father and child relationship god is my father or it could be the opposite god is my child just the opposite that like the baby krishna or the baby jesus you have or baby rama god has a baby uh or it could be god as a friend arjuna and krishna had that relationship god has a friend god as the beloved like the gopis and krishna or radha and krishna and so many these are all relationships they are all dualistic in nature and that there is god i also know i may also acknowledge in some ultimate philosophical sense we are one reality but my focus is i clearly am this person and god is this cosmic person whom i have love devotion surrender faith so that will lead to the path of sequential liberation compared to the path of immediate liberation now right now one might ask before we go ahead why not immediate it sounds nice immediate liberation so why would anybody want sequential liberation well for the same two reasons which i mentioned earlier one is one might feel unable to i don't get it's not working for me your path of knowledge or the second reason it might be a matter of taste i don't care for that i want the scenic route you want the game to end you think it's all maya samsara and you want liberation from samsara well for me it's delightful to be in love with god and i want to mean i want to exist like this i'm full of devotion i enjoy this relationship with god and i want to be in this life devotee of god in after death i want to be devotee of god if there are future lives in future lives too i may be a devotee of god the prayer of kunti who says to krishna that may i be born i'm let me be born again and again i don't even want the moksha which advaitans talk about but in whatever life let there be sorrows suffering but may i have unshaken unshakable devotion at thy feet it's one thing i want i want that you are that i will not forget you i will always have love and devotion and surrender to you now that's the path that's the other path the scenic route and that's also wonderful what will happen there again i'm talking about classical advaita vedanta so this you've seen in the upanishads and in the bhagavad-gita this chapter and you see there are open ships also this path of sequential liberation what does it mean it means having led a moral life and spiritual practice karma yoga bhakti yoga and meditation having done all of that at the time of death one things about god why because one has been thinking about god all one's life and then after death one goes does not take any more for birth one goes to heaven one goes to the loka it's in vedanta it's called brahmaloka that brahmaloka is basically the heaven of all religions uh where it is way kunta for the vaishnavas it is kailasha for the shy whites it is devi loka for the devotees of the divine mother it is the christian heaven the muslim heaven i might go so far as to say it's the pure land of the buddhas where there's no question of god also but still there's a heaven so it is a world it is a continued existence but a very exalted a very divine kind of existence so that continues and advaita vedanta being advaita vedanta will say is that enough no no no we will say that's not enough the dualist will say that's enough you remain eternally in the blissful companionship of god no you still have to realize that you are brahman otherwise that ultimate freedom is not there so there also you end up in heaven and there are there'll be vedanta classes there presumably over zoom or some kind of thing and god will teach you the cut open each other the gita or whatever and then then you will get realization and i'm not joking that's what classical advaita vedanta holds even ramana maharshi that very cute story is there and actually verified it's a true story somebody went and asked ramana maharshi that i am not so interested in your who am i but it's very unfair because that was ramana marsha's main plank you know if you go and say i don't interest i'm not interested in your main product then why are you here at all but he says i am devoted to narayana to the lord vishnu is that all right now he was a very humble and guideless person so brahmana mashi was very affectionate he said yes yes it's all right so it's all right if i'm devoted to narayana yes and after death will i go to narayana yes you will i will yes you will will i see narayana yes you will oh i will see narayan after death yes and will narayana with god see me yes oh narayana will see me he will look at me yes and will he speak to me yes yes he will speak to you god will speak to me yes what will he say what will he say he will say find out who i am find out who am i so ultimately the god will also tell you to attend vedanta classes uh but that's that's classical advaita vedanta the dualistic schools of vedanta will say that all that's not necessary you be with god and sudama krishna gives an in-between he says if it is necessary my mother will tell me if the veda vedanta what what your veda he tells the way the vedanta that mother has shown me all of that is there so god will give us the knowledge if necessary so devotee can we relax there devotee need not worry so that those non-dualist fellows what they are studying am i missing out it's like divine fear of missing out they called for more fear of missing out so divine fomo fear of missing out am i missing out on something no god will take care of it god will give you that knowledge if it's necessary for you so in this seventh chapter we are looking at that krama mukti sequential liberation the most important verse we have already seen was the fifth verse and the seventh verse fifth and seventh verses the faith they have already done these two but quickly s at the time of death one who remains absorbed in my thought who leaves this body will attain to me and will not um you know go through that cycle of transmigration that person has passed karma that karma will not catch hold of him we will not be forced into rebirth again and this is a very big statement so that's why krishna adds nasty attraction do not doubt this this is quality control given by heaven then um the seventh mantra says seventh says that in order to that we may attain this blessed recollection of god at the time of death we one must practice recollectedness of god keep my keep one's mind on god throughout one's life a lead a deeply devotional spiritual life seventh mantra tasman therefore what do you mean therefore because you have to think about god at the point of that therefore at all times not at the point of death at all times think about god all right i'll only think about god then i won't do anything i've been asked to think about god so i'm going to give up my job and go to an ashram and think about god he says yudhyaja fight the battle of life wherever you are in your personal kurukshetra battlefield of life at home in a community in your job you have to fight the battle of life you cannot run away from there then with your mind and intellect dedicated to be meta mano i'm not going to the details we have already discussed this then you will come to me because in that end of your time of your days you will remember god at the time of your passing but also by the grace of god and then one might think you know at the time of passing suppose i'm unconscious or weak or i am in coma doesn't matter if one has thought of god all through one's life one need not fear many people say in old age i am unable to do the japa i used to do something not enough and now i can't even do that much don't worry you think you are going to catch hold of god by your japa by your meditation no god is going to catch hold of you god has got a hold of you you can't catch hold of god we cannot it's much better that god catches all of us and god has got hold of us there's no doubt about it if you have been initiated if you have got a mantra you are in the safe hands of sagun abraham brahman with attributes the god of religion that's the safest place to be all right now going further the next few month verses shlokas are very beautiful very poetic soaring sublime [Music] with the mind that has taken to this to the way of constant practice and does not stray to anything else one who thinks of the supreme divine being attains him or partha so you have to make a mind like this cheetahs are by a mind what kind of mind um does not go to anything except god at the time of practice and at other times see our minds are like spring you know you press it down it goes down as long as the weight is there it's there as when you let it go it springs back again so our minds we are controlling it by effort but desires anxieties worldliness it's all teeming there and you let it go it'll come back again it'll take position of you again it'll push you back into the world the mind has not been prepared but here krishna says over a lifetime of effort these devotees they have prepared the mind na nyagami now the words mean does not go elsewhere so i i still remember very very weirdly something that revered swami told us i was there at that time when he was telling this he was the 12th president of our order and he said that he was in his late 90s he was talking about his days in the himalayas and spent in meditation so at one time he did intense tapasya austerities in the mountains staying in a little cottage begging for food and meditating day and night great austerity for example many things he told us one is one example was um one day it was so cold uh he had got some uh rice and he was about to boil the water and and have boiled rice for food this is too cold snowing outside no no chance of going out for begging for food so he heated water and he was boiling the rice and it wouldn't boil properly it was too cold and he was trying and trying hours past and then he felt overcome with remorse he said i started thinking is this what i have come here for to spend hours to prepare this miserable you know handful of rice i have not come here for this so he waited for it to cool down and then he stuffed a half boiled rice into his mouth and washed his mouth and sat down for meditation again so like this he spent time once of course there's no electricity or anything like that and it was getting dark and he said sitting for meditation is getting dark he would spend a whole night in meditation after the sunset it's getting dark suddenly saw these huge snake slither into the room probably it was a little warmer than outside so we were all stunned and they said immediately after that darkness fell and we asked swami what did you do it's dark it doesn't have any any light and there's a snake in the big snake in the room and there's no furniture it's on the ground snake is on the ground he said the snake stayed and i also stayed in the morning i i saw when the sunlight came in the snake had left but imagine staying in a room like that and he spent the night in meditation what tremendous focus it takes and you know a kind of complete detachment from from what happens you know life or death it's unthinkable a mind like that so preparing a mind like that now he told us one day after many days of meditation he said i was sitting in meditation and i let the mind go honestly i told the mind you think about whatever you want you think about whatever you want in the privacy of my own heart you know nobody will know i want to see honestly where the mind goes and he said the mind immediately went he said in bengali the mind rushed to the holy feet of the lord so in the heart you know it mind rushed there that's a prepared mind it's the greatest treasure one can have so caitasa na anya gamina anyagami means it does not go to the world does not go to relatives does not go to property does not go to my um you know name and fame my relationships my problems my issues my fears my anxieties my hatred none of that it goes straight to the lord how does that happen constantly dedicated to practice so the nature of practice is repetition repetition means constantly bringing the mind back to the object of meditation here it is god in whichever form whatever the guru has taught you in that form practice means repetition knowledge means the breakthrough realization i am that but practice means repetition so one must keep on repeating normal flow of the mind is against repetition it likes variety and it likes going it has patterns mind always has patterns we don't think of new things every day we would either be crazy or geniuses if we thought of really new things to think of every day it goes to the same patterns but it's scattered so the way the mind function is is to it goes from one link to another like a monkey climbs a tree and then jumps from one branch to another tree it doesn't climb down the tree and then climb another tree jumps from one branch to another branch of another tree so our mind goes from one topic to another if you follow the mind it goes like that that's why the mind loves browsing on the internet one of the worst things one can do but the mind loves that because the internet is designed in that way you see something click there it goes somewhere else see something there you click there it goes somewhere else the mind really likes that that's how the mind functions but if you do japa what happens is the mind is forced the monkey is forced to stay on the same tree it jumps to another tree you bring it back to the tree jump to another tree and gone quite far you bring it back to the original tree again what is the original tree the form of the lord and the mantra given to you by the guru it is very good training for the mind that is the preparation for the mind and do it for extended periods of time for many many years mind is transformed so that's a very powerful practice that's not the only practice prayer is a very powerful practice devotional music is another powerful practice so with the practice of repetition what do you attain beautiful language um means beyond all limitation it is not something limited in one particular place and god is only in heaven or only in this image only in that temple no it is beyond all limitations of space it's not only limited in time that god is only after death or after the coming of the avatar or the second million name or something like that no god is always god is everywhere god is always and god is all things because we non-dual there is nothing apart from god so whatever we come across we realize it is god owned this god has no limitations there is nothing apart from god that is paramam in technical language desha kaala vastu pariche devoid of limitations of time space object divide of time limitation eternal divide of space limitation all pervading divide of object limitation nondual so this is the meaning of paramam purusam purusam here means con they the spirit the atman brahman all of them are used the term is used is purusa not a material entity not an object not a thing purusam another meaning of purusham is puri shayanath who resides in the city which city the body is the city the one who resides in this city is called purusha the one who sleeps or recites or reclines in the city of the body purusa what is this god made of the shining consciousness it is awareness that shining everything else shines by its light everything is lit up yati you reach you reach how in two ways one way is by the way of knowledge you realize i am that this is talking about my real nature i am not this limited being i am that non-dual limitless effulgent deity which others worship as god and one with that or the second way is that you actually go go means after death one feels that one is living in the presence of this divinity so that's going to heaven living with god like that the different gradations the dualistic schools speak of four kinds even sometimes five kinds of um mukti liberation salukia you go to the same plane as god that means you know heaven brahmaloka in vedanta or vaikuntha for the vaishnavas that's one kind of mukti you go and live in the basically you go to the same city and live in the city of god sami not only live in the city of god you are in the best locality you are living close to god you are in the cool place to live in you are very close to god um then that then uh the sarupya you get a form like that of god and then sayudya you become wha you have i have a oneness with god um there are so many different ways of thinking about about liberation and the devotional kind of liberation who goes there partha ano chintayan so this word is used again and again anuchin ten literally means having learned all this one spends time thinking about god one powerful way is repeating the mantra but it also could be repeating the mantra listening to devotional songs reading about the divine play of god or the leelah of the avatar or reading the teachings the conversations like we read the gospel of srila krishna that's the practice that's anuj anujintayan or i mentioned how swami caitanya maharaja has this practice where he goes to all the places mentally sitting in meditation all the places associated with srirama krishna dakshineshwar also belormat itself so all of these places and a vivid like a virtual tour you know so you can actually feel your presence there that's also anucintaya you living in the presence of deep your mind is there your mind is with god then the next verse soaring poetry again extraordinary poetry one of the most beautiful verses [Music] he who endowed with devotion actually the translation has taken both of these verses together nine and ten let me read ten also [Music] yum nine and ten together he who endowed with devotion meditates at the time of death with a steady mind having by the power of yoga properly fix the life breath life breath in between the eyebrows on the being who is wise ancient the ruler smaller than the smallest the sustainer of all inconceivable form resplended like the sun and beyond ignorance he attains that shining supreme being very poetic one who contemplates at the time of death what does one contemplate so there's descriptions of god these are all descriptions of sagan brahman both so sabuna brahman means ishvara god god of religion nirvana brahman absolute reality which is our own real nature kavi so kavi immediately anybody who knows any indian language will think poet so kavi means poet but there's a technical meaning of kavi in vedanta krantha darshi shrankar acharya says granthardashi means far seeing the far seer the one who sees till the end the one who sees everything in other words the omniscient one who knows everything so god knows everything our past our present our future everything in this universe omniscience one of the characteristics of god and avatara srinama krsna suddenly once he's telling in the early part of the gospel of christianity is telling m the author of the gospel tell me i know everything about you do i not your past and your future and what overcame m he immediately says yes master you do you know everything about me my past and my future that is kavi granta darshida the farce here somebody said about swami vivekananda vikand you know you just say i see this what will happen the future of india rising glo more glorious than its past or in balud the last kind of prophecy he made that i see that this place will be a great university in the future do not think i imagine it i see it somebody said that said about five video we can't see further than the tips of our noses you know we don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow we can only guess and he would he's not guessing he's not making a wish he says straightforward i see it centuries into the future not one day two days decades centuries clearly he told uh um tilak the great freedom fighter that i see that india will attain its freedom in 50 years and that was in 1897 exactly 50 years later india attained its freedom india attained her freedom he talked about the rise of communism he talked about the future rise of china and all those things sounded crazy at that time predicted a golden future for india a colonized country backward superstitious people were starving the most least likely of nations to rise in future so was china backward in the community of nations but now you just see he predicted the world wars he says europe is sitting on a powdered keg anyway um so krant adashi farseer who is the greatest farseer of all god who sees everything kavi now so it means omniscient the all-knowing now it also means poet many people those who study vedanta they think so this is a technical meaning it means farsi or doesn't mean poet it also means poet the uh rigveda in one of the vedic sentences is it compares the universe to the poetry of god look upon the poetry of god look upon the composition of god literally composition of god what is the composition of god universe which neither which knows no decay which knows neither decay nor death oh man look upon the poetry of god which knows neither decay nor death pastya devas when i heard this it was very let me share that story um this was about 17 years ago i was in the high himalayas in in gangotri i met this remarkable old monk he had been a sevak and attendant to uh tapo one swamiji the one swamiji was one of the greatest masters of vedanta long ago long before our time in the early 20th century up to the mid-20th century actually and he was the spiritual teacher of you know the chin by mission is there chin my mission swami chinmayan and the spiritual teacher who taught vedanta to chinmaranderjee it's a lot you can hear from chinmaya and this is reminiscences about swamiji this swami was whom i met sundar rananda he was an attendant and his story to cut it short he told me his story uh he was in his 80s when i met him and he has passed since so he told me story how as a young boy he ran after the himalayas to become a monk so that's the beauty of india where like you know people here run away to los angeles to hollywood to become film stars or nowadays in india some people run up to bollywood to become film stars so people run away to the himalayas to become monks and spiritual seekers there's a young boy he ran off to the himalayas the sundaranda and finally after long many adventures he came to this great teacher the woman swami but he was not educated i mean sundar ananda so taboo and swami was teaching very high vedanta to his students which who were a band of monks very it's a very very austere setting but that's a different story so because sunderland was not educated tabu and swami initially would not accept him he said what will you do here i teach vedanta and it's in sanskrit and upanishads and the commentaries what will you do here and so sundar and they said i told him that i like you and i just want to stay near you i'll i'll serve you i'll clean the place i'll cook i'll take care of you and the students just let me stay here let me i'll just sit and listen to you all so he did that all his life as long as the phone swallowed his he became the most dedicated attendant he took care of the phones while he did personal service for him till the end of his life and his guru and swami to two is to his credit it must be said that when taboo and swami passed his past literally almost literally on the lap of this sundaranda at the end of tapu and swami's life um all right now all this is background what to what swami gave him a special practice he said since you are not you cannot understand vedant as it is taught because you lack the background knowledge you you see god with open eyes he quoted from kabir he tapped one swami told sundaran that's told me right there when it had been told that that hut it's still there he said the master kabhie said in in hindi kule nen with open eyes i look upon sahab literally means sir the lord so i look upon my beloved lord with open eyes not in meditation not in philosophical abstraction and not in some breakthrough advaithic non-dualistic no with open eyes how how the next he quoted from the um vedas look upon the poetry of the lord which need knows neither decay nor death and he said you will find god in the ganga and in the himalayas so tapu and swami told this person this young monk so the rest of his life for the next 40 50 50 years 60 years he wandered through the himalayas and he was always fascinated by the mountains and the rivers so that's how there's if you look up amazon there's a book it's called himalaya by swami sundar rananda and it's it's the collection of photographs what happened was the story is becoming longer than it should but anyway let me just finish it up what happened was after tapu and swami passed um this sundar ananda he became a well-known mountaineering guide in his own right because he had known these secret pathways in the himalayas which nobody knew in those days so after independence of india when the mountaineering teams started coming from the west to climb you know the giants of the himalayas so he would guide them and this was also his opportunity to visit some of the tallest peaks of the himalayas he told me a beautiful story once kalindi peak i think that's 22 000 feet or 23 000 feet he said i i took up a european mountaineering team up there and they were busy planting the flag and doing taking pictures and he said he told me in hindi i still remember he said i was so overcome with ecstasy he chanted the ravanas him to shiva that's a very rhythmic powerful hymn to shiva um and he says i chanted that and i danced on the peak of the kalindi mountain at 22 000 feet for him it is the amount of shiva so he did that and uh in fact in the 1962 indo-chinese war the indian army took his help with swami sundaranda's help and he told me how he showed them passes himalayan passes even now there is a past named after him uh in the himalayas called the sundara in the past but this is all that he had learned from tapo and swami um oh he took where all this came from i asked him how do you survive in in those days now there's so many devotees come in those places in gangotri but at that time there was nobody he said the army used to give me supplies because they were very grateful and so generation after generation they knew that there is this monk in that little hut high up on that mountain you should feed him so they would give some of their rations to this monk um so what happened was an european um photographer noticed this young monk he was basically the guide notice his interest in photography in those days with those you know big cameras and all so he um taught him this european mountaineer and photographer taught this swami sundaran the photography and left his camera and some rolls of film with him and the swami became a well-known photographer in in india his well-known he got national awards and there used to be a magazine growing up when we were kids there was a magazine in india called the illustrated weekly of india and so there were his pictures were published there he went on national tours with slide shows so his subject always was himalaya and ganga the mountains himalayan mountains and the river and all in the in in the himalayas and in the book which was published he doesn't know english the book is in english so it was an austrian visitor who was stunned by his collection of photos and he said this needs to be preserved so he said he gave everything to me he took it and then he published it from singapore or somewhere so the swami has one or two copies he doesn't even know what's in his own book except the photos and once he was telling me about one of his samadhi experience he had um in vashishta guha and i completed it for him i said you then you had this experience you were stunned he said how do you know i said it's in the book you showed me the book then he burst out laughing he said oh they've written that also in hindi he said obi dal diaz me he must have told the devotee earlier about it and so he dedicated his life to like contemplation on the mountains and the river and he became a known conservationist protecting the river and the mountain anyway he passed a few years ago why did i say that kavi the university the universe is the poetry of of god and definitely he said the himalayas and the ganga is a poetry of god he told me things which was thrilling he said in hindi i'll repeat and then i'll translate he said he said there is there is believe me a young monk the you know there's a upanishadic term the atman the lord of the size of the thumb in your heart it's not symbolic it's not just poetic expression you can experience god in that way he says believe me monk and then he sort of felt silence he sighed and he said you are all intellectuals what can i say you won't believe it you won't believe i know you won't believe me i mean i can't share everything with the public here many amazing things we talked for hours and he talked you'd have to get through a barrier because he was known for his rough temper so first thing is he would scold you very roughly you'd have to put up with that i actually saw visitors leaving in tears so you can't leave in tears you have to put up with that then he opens his heart up to you and then so all right so kavi all that was for the universe and definitely the himalayan the ganga are the poetry of the lord and if you see the pictures in that book it's amazing puranam the ancient one shankaracharya says purana means ancient yet modern ever fresh um somebody said that india is forever aging and forever young who said that swami ranganathanji quotes so puranam purapi nava ancient and yet yet always young always new always fresh puranam anusha sitaram the lord of the universe who controls everything even a leaf does not move here without the with without the wish of the lord so he is the control of the universe means everything every little thing here happens because we know as brahman as existence is everywhere everything is the lord there is in fact nothing but the lord anusha and yet ano neon smaller than the then atoms anu means the smallest particle smaller than the smallest particle see its existence itself so the smallest particle if it exists it must be in that smallest particle so it's finer than that subtler than that it is subtler than it's like this here is a physical world this is from we feel it's solid it's out there subtler than that we feel in ourselves the breath go further subtler than that our mind feelings emotions perceptions go further subtler than that understanding ideas they seem so abstract so fine so delicate go further the ego itself i go further blankness subtler than that go further beyond that the witness of all of this from the gross to the subtle that is this atma or brahman so it's the subtlest of all smaller than the smallest and it does not add here but it's also larger than the largest faster than the fastest because everything else is appears within brahman by the way this is a direct quote from the upanishads so krishna here is openly quoting from the upanishads the support of all just as water is the support of all these and and foam and and drops of water in the ocean all of that is support is water gold is the support of all ornaments clay is the support of all clay pottery similarly brahman which is existence sat is the support of the entire universe there's a special sense of this servadhata it means the one who gives us the results of karma so you know all the indian systems of philosophy except the materialist accepts the law of karma that means cause and effect whatever we are experiencing now is the result of our past actions whatever we do now will be um will be reflected in our future lives but then the question arises which intelligent principle which cosmic banker is in charge of all our credit and debit so it's god in all the theistic systems the vaishnava shiva shakta all the theistic systems in india this god in whatever form they worship god shiva durga kali vishnu it is always god who is one term is used karma daksa the lord of karma so we get what we deserve but it's through the grace of the lord and it's for our own good and yet because god is in charge god has alone as the power of um can extend you a line of credit whenever we don't deserve it or can uh will cannot may not call in the loans when we are supposed to pay and give us some a breather but only for spiritual purposes so life actually is actually easier from in a karmic sense if you are spiritual there's an incentive to be spiritual one way if the whole game is for spiritual enlightenment then one way in which the lord makes the spiritual is by the law of karma we get kicks and blows till we come back on track if we are on track to spiritual evolution the kicks and blows are much less it'll still be there will be much less that's another complicated way of saying that leading an immoral life is a bad idea leading trying to lead a moral life is generally a good idea if you want peace of mind a better life more sustainable life definitely of inconceivable form for means of inconceivable nature why inconceivable for two reasons one is god is so awesome so extraordinary so much beyond our capacity to understand ajintya inconceivable the best that they have tried is some of the most glorious and awesome poetry in human history in every theistic religion where they have tried to describe god gita 11th chapter always comes to mind where krishna gives the vision of vishwaroopa his cosmic form the virat which we were talking about in the upanishad class on wednesday that form is shown to arjuna and it doesn't do much good arjuna asked for it prayed for it and the result was he was terrified and he said i don't want to see it i'm terrified show me your human form again i don't want to see this this is an american would say mind blowing yep that's why people go mad sometimes if they're not prepared they go mad um a couple of examples mathur babu himself they asked sriram a krishna that give us that that vision you seem to be having the vision of god at least once let us see they couldn't bear it video became like a megalomaniac when suram krishna touched him and he says oh uncle we are not ordinary human beings we are beings of light we have come here for the welfare of the world what are we doing here come on let's go from land to land and set humanity free and sudama krishna said hush you fool i have these visions every day and night and you just have a tiny bit of it and you can't control yourself you are making a commotion and then he touches him and says in bengali jada means incentive it means dull or back to what you were earlier now you're lit up stop switch off because otherwise he's going to blow a fuse and then i wept oh uncle what have you done to me now i have lost it all um so one swami humorously remarked that blessing has come down to all of us remain remain as you know not lit up don't be lit up by the divine consciousness that's why we keep saying i'm not getting anything nothing is happening to us yes so um until we have played our parts in this little life that we have got then hopefully we'll be set free until that time that that blessing jordah is actually remain literally remain like a blockhead no spirituality zero baseline flat and mature baba couldn't bear it he said he was burning he said take it away what you have given it why kuntana sanyal he came to srama krishna on first january 1886 where everybody who came and bowed down to him they got extraordinary visions extraordinary realizations my kuntana came and prayed to him and srila krishna blessed him so somebody many years later asked him what did you see he said i saw srirama krishna everywhere everybody was seem to have different experiences some went into deep samadhi some sang and danced some started started chanting hymns and showering sriram krishna with flower petals some went you know into ecstasy i saw sri ramakrishna everywhere in the sky the smiling face of krishna in the sky and the earth wherever it looked with eyes open with eyes closed and my heart was bursting with joy and i left the kashipur that temple garden the garden house walked through the streets of calcutta back home it didn't seize even one bit not for one moment not one not no effort and it was not only it was not my effort it was unstoppable and then i went back home and i had no interest in anything else i was just overwhelmed by this i had to really struggle hard to do the things in life which i had to do the day passed whole night absolutely not even the slightest sleep you know always immersed in the thought of god three days passed like that and i became terribly scared i can't eat i can't attend to my of my work my you know my job my family duties and then i couldn't sleep is i thought i would go mad i'll die so i prayed to sri ramakrishna what you have given me please take it everywhere and the moment he prayed he said it went away and then he says now i spend my days i i think now i think he's saying this 20 or 30 years later i think why did i do that i should have stayed with that and at worst what would have happened i would have gone mad or i would have died that's all right what did i get in in return what did i get in exchange when i sent it back i got the world back in exchange but everything is just as it was uh but he says my only solei says every time every day i remembered that that the vivid remembrance of that that is i can remember that experience it's memory it's not that experience but several times in a day i remember it and that's how i passed my days till the end of my days so that was one experience [Music] but he was a pretty worldly man actually he had a very strangely mixed relationship with direct disciples i met a very old swami in the main monastery in mother's house he was there he lived till the age of 104 when i met him he was in his late 90s so he served swami saradan and in mother's house in calcutta and he saw this viking turn at sandal he told me that he would come quite often to talk with swami saradana because he knew all the direct disciples he had known sriram krishna so i asked what did what did they talk about and they swami told me and never heard anything good from his lips he would come and sit with swami saradanandaji and talk about the latest theatrical performance in star theater girish gaushi's theater just it's like talking about the latest hollywood movie you know and saradan and swami sadhar and jeep would smoke the hubble bubble and all he would do was hmm and then by contro nat sanjil would spend some time talk and then bow down to him and then leave and sara danji wouldn't say a single thing you just say hmm i see you know but who knows but they were so blessed by sri ramakrishna i still remember that old muk i was so excited oh you saw vaikunta natsanyal talking to swami sadhana what did they talk about what did he say and he said not one good thing inconceivable form that's why i was talking about inconceivable form but there's another reason why the form is inconceivable because it is not an object mind can conceive of something that's an object something that you can see hear smell taste touch something that you can think about something that language can express but as we know atman pure consciousness is not an object like the 10th man story i won't repeat it so it's not something out there it's not something that you hear smell taste touch it's not something that you can think about it's not something that you can speak about it's not even something that you can even form any kind of conception about that's mind that's speech those are the senses so how do we know at all it is that by which the mind thinks and the speech speaks and the eyes see [Music] so the cain openisher is big on this it says that by which that which cannot be an object of the eyes but by which the eyes have the experience of you know it will give you the experience of seeing that which mind cannot think of but because of which the mind thinks that which the speech cannot speak up but because of which the speech speaks the tongue speaks and so on so that is the one con basically it means consciousness it's you it's pure consciousness so it's not an object hence it is not it cannot be conceived of so theoretical dark who knows what it is blazing forth we like the sun as clear as that nisargadatta maharaja says so what is this brahman like somebody asked you are experiencing brahman all the time you said yes so what is it like is it some kind of idea some kind of conception and he says look at the noonday sun in mumbai as bright and blazing as that for me brahman all the time effortlessly blazes forth but it's not a material light like this light it is the light of consciousness it's your light it's the light by which you are living your life right now thomas of parastart forever beyond the darkness of death misery sadness unhappiness namaste so what are we to do on this amazing being among this amazing reality prayanakali at the time of death by a steady mind focused mind a bhaktya by a devoted mind a lifetime of your emotions are focused on god i love god i rely on god i surrender to god lord only you are there for me and nothing else in this universe and that's devotion and focus by lifelong practice of meditation mind is focused how do you do this yoga ballena by the regular practice of yoga yoga here is the practice meditation so this is difficult practice prana here is the lifeblood she is an expert in pranayama first the prana is concentrated in the heart by intense focus in the heart sushumna the zanari then the prana is taken up to the and then from there to the sahasrara from which the yogi leaves the body so there's something called the brahmarandra the yogi leaves the body remember whom are we talking about not the one who has already got brahma-gyana who is jivan mukta who's already realized that person doesn't have to do this may do it may not do it it's entirely it's immaterial because that person already knows i am brahmana this one is the one who is devoted is not fully enlightened yet leaves like this and reaches heaven which is the brahmaloka the proximity the the presence of god leaves the body and attains to that transcendent infinite purusa give them shining a shining being basically attains to god at the time of death now one clarification i said that the non-dualist advaitha not all advaitans the one who has realized i am brahman need not go through this process because this that person is already liberated already knows i am brahman there's no question of going anywhere the body will die and that's it the death of that one and the death of this one you can see in fact from outside also one can see a little difference the rare given muktas who are already free in this life when the body dies it just stops one person who witnessed such a death told me it's just like literally like a clock ticking you know and running out of they [Music] used to wind up clocks earlier so tick tick tick stop nothing else in fact i can tell you who told me this swami suhitanji told me he saw the passing of swami prime shannon who was who was regarded as a g1 mukta brahmanyani and he was surprised because how he passed by premier shanji um he said at the time of his death in in benares the doctor had come to check he was very ill the doctor had come to check and the doctor said today he seems to be better the doctor left the room it was time to feed the old swami who was also blind and this young attendant used to feed him take care of him just like a mother you know so with the spoon saying swami open your mouth and put the spoon in the second spoon swami open your mouth he was not opening his mouth and so this young attendant he thought sometimes the swami was like a child likes we had to coax him one more spoon then he said i felt something odd so i put the spoon down and ran to the doctor who was just crossing the court yet he just left so come back and take a look he seems a little different came back swami has passed between one spoonful and the next now so that was the end but the swami suhitanji told me that he had a little doubt in his mind he had seen other great monks passing and devotees you know both householder devotees and great other great swamis who were who were disciples of the direct disciples in many cases there were extraordinary visions you know the hair standing on the end visions of of a divine presence of srama krishna coming and the number of such extraordinary experiences and he said i was i felt a little let down i always thought for information there was a brahmana nothing just like a clock ticking tick tick tick silence so he went to uh another great swami who was in banaras at that time swami uh vishwa rupanathiji so he was the one who has written he's well known in our order for writing a commentary an explanation of the brahma sutras four volumes i have it in my this is a huge work great vedantic scholar so swami switanji went and asked him i have a question that uh i served swami pramishanti so closely holy mother's disciple everybody regards well what is your question but when he passed i i expected to see you know spiritual fireworks so i expected to see some vision something nothing it just stopped and then this swami was excited he said what are you saying did you see that he said yes then he showed him references from the upanishads from vedantic literature this is the sign of a brahmagyani of a jivan mukta others they will leave the body and go to a very high plane which is described in the gita here that's where at that time you're full of the thought of god and you may have extraordinary visions and then you are actually traveling but traveling on an astral plane to the highest possible realms what is in every culture every religion is known as the heavens highest heaven seventh heaven what not um in vedante cosmology it literally is the seventh heaven if you count but in the case of an enlightened person nothing like that happens all the person is already gone long ago when the person make the breakthrough is one with brahmana what you saw was the person continuing under the past impulse of karma it stops when karma is exhausted it stops the physical body will go back to physical nature the subtle body will not travel this is the big difference between the um the krama mukti the sequential liberation and the sadhyo mukti the immediately liberated so the immediately liberated who have already been liberated the subtle body will not travel mind intellect senses the inner instrument it will all merge back into subtle nature whereas in the case of the advanced yogi the subtle body will not travel to the to a higher local the highest loka to the presence of god so this is the difference and this is he says he so told swami sweet and this is what you witnessed the rarest of events the passing of a jivan mukta i know of one or two references definitely which say this munda kopanishad talks about the passing of a brahmaganya jivan mukta gata kala pancha dasha pratishta very beautiful mantra it's like rivers merging into the vast ocean nothing is left behind of the original river so like that physical body goes back to physical nature the subtle body goes back to subtle nature and the atman pure consciousness is pure consciousness always was not one trace is left and yet what is left is brahman infinite existence so that person has become brahman as one withdrawn whereas this other one they are yogis they are devotees they still have a scenic route to go a few more stops along the way and again one more clarification so just because a person passes in this way does it mean that the person is belongs to this category and is not enlightened is not jivan mukhtar may not be notice jivan mukta is not somebody oh i have attained god now i don't need to do all this stuff about meditating on god i can i can have a blast even when the body is dying no they are already so merged in god it's quite possible at the time of death they may be deeply merged and the mind also may be deeply merged in the thought of god and they may actually pass like this they may give up the body like this and they may actually be jivan muktas swami vivekananda gave up the body like this number of other great yogis gave up the body like this again there may be some some of the direct disciples for example who retain their individuality at the command of god so then they give up the body they still retain individuality so that they can help humanity so there are these varieties out there that does not mean they are somehow lower than the g1 mukta let me quickly run through questions so these are very beautiful [Music] um beautiful uh verses and they're drawn from the upper nations soaring soaring sublime poetry rick says i don't believe i met a fan of the direct path who is still who isn't still progressing some have demonstrated quite embarrassingly that asserting abraham does not mean they are living the truth that is true it's not that fast it's it's much easier to say i am seeking i'm progressing then to claim i have attained in fact i have attained is a very very problematic statement even from the vedantic perspective ken upanishad says those who think that they have attained definitely have not attained bill says ramakrishna declares in this age gyan is difficult and bhakti is easy rick says oh the book oh you actually found it i wonder if it's still available yes that is the book and there is a even the picture of the swami is there yes ramya says i have read that swamiji man and i wanted to bring tapu one month to delhi for treatment hospital tried to convince him at faults and the woman wants it don't people die in delhi that's true in fact that's how ching man and the mission started he told taboo that what you have given me is extraordinary but the people of the world are deprived of these people in the plains of india how many people so tapo and mars said no they will have to come here and learn in this way the way everybody you have come and others have come when jin man you told him that how many can do this you have to become a monk you have to beg for your food stay in a in a cave or a hut in the high himalayas and all you get for that is two classes and plenty of scoldings so how many can do that people have families and jobs and you know weaknesses and suffering so why don't you come and teach this to the world he said no those whose karma will bring them here they will do they will come i will i cannot do that he will not descend below a certain altitude so jim manzi said then i will do it anyway the story after that is very well known and i will not take it up also there is there are other angles to it but anyway ultimately blessed him at first your taboo was completely against the idea then the woman was blessed him and the result is this the chinmay mission you see all over the world now that's the result someone says pranam swamiji did he get a chance to meet hanuman i don't know shri says swami chetan and the often says god can erase one's faith yes karma nasha kapal motion i mean this eraser of karma correct this is the mean situation of karma under what conditions would god offer disgrace remotes good karma service spiritual practice the the intense desire to realize god other things like remotes good karma service what they do is everything has an effect so if you do good service especially we help people consistently that generates so much good karma that your storehouse you know that good karma will be activated and the bad karma will be pushed to the back so that's all you need a little gap in your troubles and suffering so that you can seek and practice and be liberated shri says can you help us process the events of this week in texas the catholic priest said that on the news that this evening the family should remember that god is in control what should our prayer be for these families um peace being centered in god and see there is nothing that you can say to people at this time which will i have you know that somebody said there is no word for somebody who loses a child there's a word for somebody who loses a wife or a husband a widower or a widow a child who loses parents an orphan but there's no word for somebody who loses a child because this is the worst kind of suffering that can befall a human being that i am alive but my child is dead especially a young child i'm always reminded of baburam maharaja's mother she was highly deeply devoted to sri ramakrishna so once ramakrishna said can you give me something she said of course your son is a very pure boy give him to me so she said this is a this is his great good fortune that he will live with you and so that boy babaram became swami premara but she set two conditions she said two conditions she said does a mother give away a child so easily the surama krishna laughed and said so what do you want in return in return for your son she said two things one that i might have unshaking devotion to you i have devotion to god unshakable devotion to god all my life second um he should not die before me i know one day he will die one day i will die but i should die before him and so they see even the person like bhavara maharaja's mother he doesn't want she doesn't want to see that the most terrible thing she can think of is her child dying before her sriram krishna smiled and said so be it and many years later it came out true and terrible illness babur maharaj laid dying he told the other monks who are serving him he said do not worry my old mother is still alive as long as the old lady is alive nothing is going to happen to me and he made a miraculous recovery and the last time in his last illness his mother had just passed away and the dalek disciples who were his brother disciples who knew sriram krishna from that time who knew this secret they they said there's no way of saving him now he will go and he did pass at that time well swami brahmana was certainly a jivan mukta but had a beautiful stirring that extraordinary difference many of the dark disciples so in their case one thing would be they didn't just stop in many cases they had visions and extraordinary it was a glorious passing and people were stunned by the the upsurge of spiritual emotions around them you know it was just stay near this dying person but these are people who will who are jeevan mukhtas they will not disappear into the infinity of brahman they will remain in the close proximity of god and maybe come again and so on so there's something more to it than that swami brahmana had the vision there is no time today so if i remember next time we'll read the passing of swami room 100 it's very sturdy very very inspiring is the g1 mukta totally free of attachments yes but might apparently seem no because the mind has its conditioning so just leave it at that shilpa says swamiji you say maya is dynamic once an enlightened person passes and subtle body merges brahman does this mean they transcend maya and three gunas no more cyclic phenomena yes for the enlightened person it's no longer a person anyway if um brahman transcends maya they have realized that they are brahman so they transcend maya then the individual subtle body is lost there is no more individuality for them [Music] [Music] just on the question of the children who died so tragically one thing one can always you don't have to tell anybody but one should know that what religion teaches us not just vedanta every religion in the world teaches us those who die are not really dead none of us ultimately are dead it's not totally wiped out and gone forever so the beloved person who is dead is beyond our certainly but is not gone it still continues to exist either in the cycle of samsara or in the presence of god or as liberated so that i think is a great consolation of religion okay