Video 102

102. Bhagavad Gita | Chapter 8 Verses 15-20 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru so it's been a little disrupted over the past few months first of all i went off to india and then i had multiple uh speaking commitments different places across the united states so and most of it the brunt was born by the gita class because it's on a friday evening and the invitations are usually over the weekend so i would be traveling we are on the eighth chapter one way of looking at the bhagavad gita which has 18 chapters is to divide it into three sets of six chapters each chapters one two six and then seven to twelve then thirteen to eighteen and then equate these three sets with the great vedantic saying tatumasi that thou art you know the idea in non-dual vedant advaita vedanta is that the central teaching of all of these texts is that you are the ultimate reality your own nature our own nature if we realize who we are is brahman the ultimate reality now that is that absolute reality tuam is you the individual being now the first six chapters according to this division the first set of six chapters uh concentrates on finding out who we are and the next six chapters the one where we are now from chapter seven onwards focuses on that as the god of religion the theist the god of theistic religions you know the creator preserver destroyer of the world and the final six chapters will tell us about the oneness how the what our reality and the reality of god are one and the same it does not mean that you are god so that is a common mistake nondual vedanta does not commit that blasphemy saying and that the this ultimate megalomania of saying i am god no no we are i'm as individual sentient being just as i see myself and there is a god of the universe which we take on faith religions tell us but advaita vedanta says our reality and the reality of this universe is one reality our reality if we inquire we are not the body not the mind we are this existence consciousness place the atman pure consciousness and that pure consciousness with and is also in the background of this universe as god and we are that we have consciousness knowing that uh sets us free from samsara again a very non-dualistic advaithic reading of the bhagavad-gita there are any number of other interpreters who would not agree with any of this at all all right but now we are in the second set of six chapters chapter 7 8 and so on and these are generally focused on god our relationship to god is always one of devotion worship devotion faith surrender all the theistic religions the varieties of theism found within hinduism vaishnavism shaibism shaktism all the other theistic religions of the world christianity islam judaism all of them are devotional in nature so they talk about god which you take on faith and that is love devotion surrender worship and so on and that's the main theme of these theme of these chapters also in this eighth chapter shri krishna has said that the one who continuously remembers god keeps his mind and heart on god throughout life will attain to god after the death of this body will not go through the cycle of births and deaths will not be subject to coming back and forth the samsara which all the indian religions speak about they're born and then you go through all you know you're growing up and establishment relationships attachments in the world and then aging and disease and death everything that you have gathered is also snatched away again from you and not once again and again and again so you can see it's not a not really good news that we don't die with the death of the body we are put back on the rack as it were again and again until we realize that we are not these limited creatures become enlightened we are set free which was the purpose all along so that's the kind of world view general world view not just vedanta all hindu systems buddhist systems jain sikh sikhism all indian systems have this idea of cycle of birth and death that's a good segue into the 15th verse where he will say those who attain me here krishna is talking as god those who attain me do not come back into do not come back into this world of eternal return you know being born and dying again and again that stops 15th verse [Music] mana the beautiful verse actually the great soul once the mahatmas having attained me have no more birth which is the abode of misery which is the abode of which is the word of missouri and is non-eternal for they have attained the highest perfection so attaining god attaining the absolute attaining me they are set free free from what from the cycle of birth and death rebirth birth river death again rebirth what's the problem why would you want to be set free from this ashwatham this is the the house of sorrows the veil of sorrows as it is said aalayah means house in sanskrit school a house of knowledge dewali a temple the house of god and now krishna calls this this world the house of sorrows ashashvatam why is it the house of sorrows because everything is unstable here everything perishes and goes away this is very buddhistic in it this idea the buddha's idea was exactly this that everything is sorrow here because everything is impermanent momentary and empty here krishna says the same thing the ashashwatham this house of sorrows you are not going to come back be sent back again to this house of sorrows this unstable ever changing this veil of tears sacha mahatmas the great ones why then what happens to them if they don't come back here where do they go some said him they attain the highest glory paramount transcendental some siddhim perfection they attain to transcendental perfection um before i forget this question of birth and rebirth a couple of funny stories one is right here in new york swami he was the president of our order in the 1960s a very great month long before my time of course and he was known as a very strict disciplinarian and extraordinary scholar a man of very few words uh deeply meditative and enlightened being everybody knew that so um in his old age he had a tumor in the brain and it was diagnosed and at that time proper medical facilities were not available in calcutta swami nikhilan anderjee who was here in the vedantist center here in the ramakrishna vivek on the center of the east side so in new york we have two centers the one where i am sitting now belongs to society of new york and the other one across the park uh the east side center the ramakrishna vivekananda center so i mean nikhil and he was there and he was a very good friend of swami madhavan so he wanted to do his friend a good turn and so he wrote from here extending an invitation to swami madhavanji that please come to the united states we will undertake all expenses and get you treated operated for the brain tumor and you know all the post operative care everything you'll do you stay with me and so madawanji comes to the united states all this is very nicely described in a book six lighted windows six lighted windows written by swami yogesh ananda swamy yogashan just passed just a few months ago last year i think at the age of 96. six lighted windows it's about the six enlightened swami's masters he met in his life madhavanji was one of them anyway so madawanji comes here and there's a funny side story to that so to come here he had to wear a western dress you know with a suit and trousers and shoes so in the calcutta airport where he was the president of the order so all the monks went to see him off and the airport staff looked on you know they were aghast who's this gentleman who's sitting dressed in a western suit and all the revered monks of balor mutter coming and bowing down to him so respectfully who's this person so he came and he had the operation here and he recovered so there are many very interesting stories about him here before i get to the main story so this is a very indian way of telling stories you have a main story but you have a lot of little side stories also for example swami nikhilanji knew the nature of swami madhavan abdul that he was very strict in a very austere monk so they had built a rail on the staircase for mother wants you to hold when he would climb up because after the operation there would be impaired mobility to help him to climb the stairs there was a railing installed there and swami nikilanji told all the devotees in the ashram never tell the swami the visiting swami that this was put in before him and uh so but people forgot you know the operation was concluded the swami came back to the center he was in post operative care and physiotherapy his client slowly trying to climb back upstairs painfully and devotee helpfully said completely forgetting what had the warning helpful he said swami use the rail we put it in just for you a moment he said that the swami from that time till the last day he stayed in the center he never touched that trail again so he was like that he was swami tathagatanji's sannyasi guru i think but what does what did sangeetha say sannyasagura correct now their story the point of this all of this one day swami mother one jesus was here and there was a lot of discussion about the birth control pill at that time that was the latest innovation so if people were for it people were against it it was a raging debate so among the devotees they were talking about it and the swami was at quite a distance they of course thought the swami wouldn't be interested in such a thing from that distance the swami said i am all for it and so david looked astonished swami what do you mean he said birth control and death control no more births and no more deaths so that's what he meant here now up to one there are no more birth and that's the cycle of birth and death the other funny story i have shared many times earlier it's one of our swamis in uttar kashi in the himalayas in the cottage where we stay there when we go he had this being his bonnet about all the indian systems believing in multiple births and deaths many lives and all the you know the jews christians and muslims believing in one life so which is true many lives are one life punarjan mahakin whether there is rebirth or not and very soon the monks in our cottage they got tired of this endless debate so he took his arguments outside to another nearby vedanta school there was a very noted great teacher of non-dual vedanta at that time so our monk he goes and i this i've heard from him from his own lips he goes to this great teacher and asks him [Music] or not and the teacher said i'll tell you in hindi and translate when there is no birth where is the question of rebirth go and read mandooka you know the ultimate conclusion of dwight abedante is we were not even born this thing is an appearance the birth of the body in reality your reality is brahman which is unborn which never comes into a human birth at all in any birth at all so those are the two stories the great ones having attained me do not come back into this life um swami ram sukhdashi whose commentary is also very nice he makes an interesting remark mahatma great so even mahatma gandhi was called mahatma so mahatma krishna uses this word in the gita a few times and he makes a very interesting observation ram suggests he makes this interesting observation at no point does krishna refer to a gyane yogi or raja yogi or karma yoga as mahatma every time he has referred to somebody as mahatma is only a bhakti bhakti yogi the person who is a devotee of god that person is referred to as a mahatma so that's interesting observation by ram sugdasti he goes on to make another observation that coming back into birth and into this house of sorrows notice just being born and being in this world is not a cause of sorrow enlightened ones all the enlightened ones they are in this world but they are supposed to have gone beyond sorrow not only that when an incarnation comes along with an incarnation what is called parshada the the companions of the incarnation come in every incarnation of god there is a group of enlightened beings who come to help the incarnation in the divine play so ram sugdesti's observation is for them also this is not a house of sorrow once you are enlightened in this very life itself it stops being a house of sorrow sram krishna says it's a house of mirth maja khuti it's a house of mirth after enlightenment most enlightenment and not only that such enlightened beings among them some of them do retain their individuality they do not disappear into the nameless infinite so they retain their individuality and they may even take birth again to help humanity and for them it's not a house of sorrow so neither in this life after enlightenment nor if they even come lifetime after lifetime again to help others for whom is it a house of sorrow for those who live for themselves ram sugdesti makes this point those who use those who use this is bastu the things of this world for their own pleasure and profit those who use activities in their world for their own personal individual pleasure uh gain and people in this world relationships with people in this world for our own individual pleasure the moment you use it you he says you are a consumer in this world your basic attitude is of a consumer in this world whether it is for things it could be food it could be a vacation it could be whatever you see in this world if your idea if our idea is i am consuming it will make me happy you are writing um you know a guarantee of suffering if our attitude towards the activities we do in the world at home in our community it's all for my self-gratification i'll become richer more popular more powerful you're writing a guarantee of your own of sorrow and if you use people and relationships for myself i me myself again you're writing a guarantee of suffering anybody who uses things of the world whatever it is gadgets money house property whatever it is and activities in the world work all kinds of personal and you know in your professional life and people to make myself happy you are writing a guarantee of of um we're bound to suffer you're tying yourself to suffering but those who use the things and activities and relationships with people for the benefit of others that i don't want anything i'm here with this little knowledge little money little capacity whatever little love and affection i have i can do so much for others if that attitude comes then you will be happy and he says if that can now be connected to god it is my worship of god all my activities in the world all the things in the world are meant as for my worship of god and my relationships with people that also is the worship of god then you will be happy so this is the thing that dukkha it's a house of sorrows if we go around as a consumer but if i go around as the servant of the lord it is a house of joy house of mirth he makes a further observation before that let me just add one thing this particular commentator those who know ram sukdashi he was a very great monk who passed a few years ago lived to an age of 1800 304. i told you i think you remember once i had a chance of meeting him and i was so restless and i was visiting different monks on the bank of the ganga and the himalayas and he used to live in this cottage there somebody told him he's a great teacher of gita he should go and meet him i said later when i come back very unwise he was 100 years old so if you say i'm going to come back in my next trip how do you know he's going to be there and that's what happened the next time i came back he was gone already anyway the philosophical background uh is important ram sudashi is not a non-dualist he was what is called a qualified modest vishishtadvaita according to qualified monism um the ultimate reality brahman is an organic whole that means all of us all beings all of us and the entire universe living and non-living we are parts components tiny bits of the divine the divine is an organic whole of everything we are all part of it isn't it what advaita vedanta says no not at all advaita vedanta says there is no all there is only one reality and you are that every that all that you are seeing is an appearance the qualified monism says it's not an appearance it's real the way you see this word is a real thing only thing what you don't see is that there is an underlying unity that underlying unity is god more technical language jiva jagat vishishta brahma brahman is the absolute reality qualified by the all sentient beings and all non-sentient entities now why am i saying this ram suggestion makes a nice observation here and it applies only if you are in this philosophical framework not to a non-dualist he says that those who follow philosophies teachings like sankhya buddhism advaita all of these which are non-devotional which are based on self-inquiry only they leave god out of the picture there are many such paths there is and all possibility that they'll free themselves from suffering and attain to peace that's what is promised and they will get it but the extra special the add-on which a devotee gets the great joy of love of because it prayer that mad love of god which is extraordinary fills your heart with unending bliss in this life and beyond it's the greatest love story of the universe the love between the human and the divine that these people will not get which people those who have a non-theistic philosophy they will free themselves from suffering and they will attain to peace that's it um so what will happen what do what does the devotee get more by the process of of purification and self-inquiry you come to realize i am not the body not the mind i am consciousness good so far when you come to be aware of you are like a spark of a blazing fire a tiny ray from a tremendous blazing sun the infinite mass of consciousness which is god of which you are one tiny ray you become aware of that and immediately you establish this extraordinary loving relationship with god and that love loving relationship he says protection about moment to moment it is overflowing and increasing forever so that extraordinary bliss you deprive yourself of if you follow those much more dry philosophical you know paths of insight into oneself that's his point of view here is a point i mean if you ask me as a non-dualist what does he would you agree with that and say yes ananda in advaita vedanta bliss is basically an appreciation of your infinite nature your infinite existence consciousness an appreciation of that fills you with peace and fulfillment that's ananda but this positive love of god that is a unique contribution of bhakti the bhakti movements the devotional movements the devotional movements they claim that this is more than moksha this is more than spiritual freedom this endless this love with god okay so they attain that and for such people this world is not a house of sorrows they can come back to it as many times as the lord wills and for them it is all eternal loving service of god they do not use people objects and activities in the world for their own gratification they don't need to they are ever fulfilled by the love of god any other point here no next verse is a very soaring sublime verse 16. pune [Music] including the world of brahma are subject to recurrence but after attaining me there is no rebirth or son of kunti beautiful verse all the worlds all the universes the lokas are universes all the universes in this vast universe what we see as a universe is actually a multiverse not in the physics sense old indian cosmology said there are multiple universes packed in here we see only one this physical universe but there are many other levels according to that cosmology again shared by hindus giants buddhists a very complex cosmology of layered universes all of them krishna says they are subject to arising persisting and disappearance they come they play around for a while and they disappear back merge back and then they come back again and play around for a while and go go back into the source this continues this cycle abram o arjuna up to the highest heaven the most magnificent sphere of brahma not brahman ramha the creator of the universe up to that level what you might call the highest heaven the seventh heaven literally it is the seventh heaven by even by the hindu cosmology so there is something there up to that all of them are subject to arising persisting and disappearance they all come back this is the world of return eternal recurrence coming back again and again and again not just this little human life all life all worlds all universes we cycle through this creation existence and destruction again and again and again but those who attain me they do not they escape this punar janma they do not go into the cycle of birth and rebirth so the question here is what about heaven the theistic religions all talk about heaven so in the in vedanta in buddhism jainism there are they they say that there are multiple heavens there are multiple words these heavens are words also and they are also like this word much better much better than this world much more happier much better place but there is still one problem they come to an end there's another problem there are gradations there so there is jealousy and competition there you can move to a better neighborhood so there are multiple neighborhoods in this cosmos you can move to what in you can move up down here you know the upper west or the upper east or bel air or other places in you know in los angeles all these up upscale neighborhoods you can move to higher and higher heavens but they're all infected with the same problem which is here they don't have the miseries which uh which affect ordinary life here human and non-human things are much better in those heavens but they all come to an end and there is jealousy there is better and worse higher and lower there also there is gradation competition the higher gods than the lower gods and so on and none of them are all gods with small g they are all beings like us immensely more powerful but still sentient beings like us and all of it comes to an end swami nishraya shanandaji who established the vedanta work in south africa many years ago he was a disciple of swami shivananda so he used to teach vedanta with most extraordinary stories one of his stories is this about this multiple heavens and coming back he says well you know what these heavens are like i flew from south africa from durban to mumbai in those days bombay by air india so i had to purchase a ticket and then i got into the plane there were air hostesses who said come come this is your seat these are almost literally the language you find in the karma kandas in the in the vedas so there are beings astral beings who will say come come this is what you have earned after our death we go and see that this is the ticket you've purchased so i go and sit down there and then we take off we fly at 30 000 feet and there is a movie playing and the air hostesses bring us nice food and drink it's all wonderful it's temperature cool temperature and they're a nice fork around and there's entertainment throughout you can sleep and there's more entertainment and more food and drink and then and then what happens well then you land in mumbai and the captain says that we have landed in mumbai now it is a hundred in the shade and 100 humidity outside um thank you for flying with air india no i want to stay here don't kick me out i'm sorry you have to leave now you have to you can buy you can fly with us again buy a ticket again you can fly with us again and you are kicked out into 100 humidity and 105 in the shade exactly like that when we generate a lot of punya good merit after the that of this death of this physical body the subtle body and the sentient being now goes to other worlds and it's like and there are beings who say you have accumulated so much merit here is your seat you know this particular heaven and these are the enjoyments we have for you and it goes on all very nicely until gita itself krishna says as your merit is exhausted it runs down you are again sent back to the world we are back to earth again back to human life and they say that it is worse for the dwellers in these heavens because they have no old age they have no human wear and tear they have no disease so when the end comes it comes suddenly it's over off you go back to the world and so there are depictions of beings kicked out of heaven you know falling back to the earth and they cry out alas alas we are lost and this has happened not once and one might think it would be nice to experience that well we have all of us have again and again and again ad nauseam so we have all experienced it it all comes to an end that is the great defect he says up to the highest heaven even in the most spiritual heaven that is called brahmaloka now there is one point here the heavens the heaven mentioned heaven with a capital h mentioned in the theistic religions the heaven the christian heaven the muslim uh the jannat and so on and the hindu vaikunta the kailasha of the shiva is the devil devotees of the mother goddess or even those who do not believe in god the pure land of the buddha they are eternal heavens they are not like what i mentioned just now they are meant for for spiritual seekers even there if you go there you still have some desire left you still have to come back so brahmaloka again will send you back the brahmaloka is there and as long as this universe lasts ramalloka also lasts and when the universe is gone that also is that also disappears along with the rest of the universe but those in the brahmaluka the only advantage is from there one can attain to full illumination and see that you are you are the infinite and you are free forever if you do not you're going to come back to this world again um so he says up to the world of brahma everything comes back everything is recycled yeah that's a good good uh paradigm we are all thrown into the recycle bin and we are reprocessed again and come back here again and go through it until we attain a realization then next some very nice verses here sahasra yoga paryantham [Music] [Music] those who know brahma's day that lasts for a thousand yogas and no no words of day and night the knowers of brahma's day and night so the highest heaven which is presided over by brahma not brahman the absolute reality but brahma the creator of this universe who is identified with the cosmic mind so that um so the the age of brahma brahma also appears with the creation of the universe and disappears with the dissolution of the universe so brahma's age is the age of the entire universe now there is a nice calculation here i'm quoting from a commentary on the gita written by sridhar swami who lived about 600 years ago this is a beautiful commentary you have so there he talks about this calculation he says brahma and all the other inhabitants of brahmaloka they live for that long how do you compute this time what is the age of how long are we talking about one year of human beings is equal to one day and night of the gods so 365 days is one day and night day and night together one day 24 hours for for the gods in heavens then compute fortnight's months etc with such days and nights so one year for us is one day for them so a week for them would be seven of our years a month for them would be 30 of our years and one year for the gods would be 365 years for us one year for a god now if you compute in this way one quartet of yogas stands for 12 000 such years so the yugas the four ages of satya yoga dwapara yuga treta and kali yuga satya the dhopper and kali yuga the four ages total twelve thousand years and that's 12 000 into 365. that's the number of hour years it will be so it's more than 3 million or nearly 4 million years for us so that is that is four yogas and you multiply that by one thousand a thousand such yogas is the day of brahma so let's say four million years and then into one thousand four thousand million years which is like four billion years very interesting that comes approximately to the age of the universe this physical universe actually four billion years is the day of brahma and the night of brahma is um four billion more years so total of eight billion years is one day for brahma and he lives 100 such years so one day is like 8 billion years for us and multiply that by 365 is one year for brahma and then into 100 is the lifetime of one brahma so that is the lifetime of one universe created existing and then dissolution a lot like our days and nights we wake up we spend a day and then we go back into sleep and then we wake up again similarly brahma spends a whole lifetime like that and the entire universe goes through these cycles so this is an enormous scale of time i remember reading carl sagan carl sagan and cosmos when we were kids they used to show it on tv in india beautifully done this is a book also cosmos so carl sagan i think there's a new serial cosmos narrated by neil degrasse tyson probably so carl sagan uh he writes in that book that all these ancient mythologies of time they were paltry compared to our modern physics the cosmology we have got now they spoke at the most of a few thousand years they couldn't think beyond that ancient ancient human beings but physics today cosmology speaks about billions of years the lifetimes of stars of galaxies in the lifetime of a universe and then he adds the only other time scale which is even more extraordinary and impressive than our modern understanding of physics and cosmology is the ancient hindu understanding of this universe which talks about staggering periods of time so in multiple billions and billions of years and multiple universes of course not in the modern scientific paradigm but they had this at least they had extraordinarily you know wide and fertile imagination in those days so the vast conception of the vast so here he says all the heavens also come to an end and the lifetime of brahma for thousands of ages and for billions and billions of years but that also comes to an end everything comes to an end i had mentioned in this class earlier of that beautiful um science fiction story um the nine billion names of god i don't assure him some of you must might remember it's a very um it was by arthur c clarke i think yes and they made a short documentary about it also and somebody pointed out to me it's available on youtube nine billion names of god do you see it if you it's very nicely made by a french filmmaker the original short story which i read when i was a kid was by arthur c clarke if i remember and it's about these ibm engineers in india in in the united states after the second world war they get an order for a computer you know those huge mainframes you know with punching punch cards and all um and the order comes from tibet and this was pre-chinese invasion tibet and not many people knew much about tibetan buddhism and also the tibetan buddhism in any way doesn't talk about god so still but the story itself is very interesting and the engineers go they fly from so they ask the tibetan monk who has come to order the computer why do you need a computer he said we have been engaged in this project for hundreds of years we have to chant the nine billion names of god what's that these names are generated by some kind of formula and we have to chant them and we have when we are finished chanting the uh then our task is done what will happen when you finish chanting well the universe will come to an end and the of course the scientists and engineers they roll their eyes but anyway an order is an order so they decide to transport the computer uh from their ibm office in united states to india and then to nepal and then to the then to tibet so by plane they take it and then by on the back of yaks and all in a caravan they take it to the monastery in tibet and they install generators there's no electricity there generators and set up the computer and they program the computer to chant the names of god it can be done much faster if the monks had done it it would have been done in hundreds of years but the computer can do it in a couple of weeks or so so stan starts chanting and the monks are all very serious and very happy when one of the engineers says to the other you know we are in trouble because moment the computer finishes their silly project of chanting these nine billion names well nothing is going to happen and then the monks are going to blame us we'll be in trouble they'll beat us up or worse you know we'd better better escape from here before the computer finishes chanting the nine billion names when they see nothing is happening they'll be so disappointed they'll blame us so at night they escape and the story is that chanting is going to so it's very thrilling conclusion so the chanting is going to end that night at midnight and so they are escaping from the monastery and they look back at the monastery and they know that the chanting has ended they're worried that the monks monks going to chase us and beat us up and so they're going through the dark plateau the tibetan plateau with icy mountains all around and the last line of the story is one of the engineers says to the other look and they look up at the sky and they see that that's the last line of story they see the stars going out one by one and you know a great darkness spreading across the universe so the universe is ending but it does come to an end not in you don't have to chant the nine billion names of god or a computer chanting can't do it but it will come to an end and then not on end it will start all over again and then again it will start end and then it will start all over again and i can keep doing this till the end of the class but you get the idea so the basic principle is given in the verse number 18. s from the unmanifest all manifested beings are born at the advent of brahma's tea and at the approach of his night they get merged and that very thing called the unmanifest so the whole our basic universe this universe we exist in it is created when brahma wakes up and all gets merged back into the unmanifest when brahma goes to sleep and the entire cosmos including brahma also will disappear at what is called mahapray at the end of brahma's life the hundred years so there are cycles within cycles from the unmanifest the basic principle is this from the unmanifest which is maya from maya all beings emerge and they exist for millions and billions of years we all go through life you know birth life death again birth like that so many times hopefully in this period we'll get enlightenment if we don't maya is not exhausted maya will withdraw the entire universe back into itself at the end of one cycle and we will all remain in our seed form and again when the universe is projected we'll be thrown back into it to play again until we get enlightenment and this goes on basic principle the universe emerges from maya exists for some time and then disappears back into maya from unmanifest to manifest from manifest to unmanifest just like our day from deep sleep we emerge into dreams from dreams into waking and then from waking back into sleep and dreams and again into deep sleep so this cycle of sleep dream and waking it continues this defines our day the basic paradigm of our days and the idea is that the universe also goes through that from an unmanifest state into a subtle state the science does not talk about that and then into a physical growth state there might be a big bank or something at that point and that goes on for billions of years again that growth state disappears into a subtle state and subtle state back into the unmanifest and again the cycle is repeated so multiple universes multiple times endlessly then 19. [Music] that very multitude of beings being born again and again is absorbed at the approach of night or partha and the approach of the day is born again in spite of itself so this day and night is the day and night of brahma it is the beginning and end of this universe within the existence of the universe we are born and die many times our bodies are born and they die many times many civilizations come up and disappear planets come up civilizations come up living beings evolve and they disappear back again all of that happens in one day time of one day of brahma at the night the entire physical universe is absorbed back into the unmanifest and again next day next is the day of brahma and this continues for the whole lifetime of brahma that that brahma and that brahma also comes to an end when there's something called mahapralaya the brahma and the highest heaven brahmaloka that also gets absorbed back into maya then only consciousness and maya exists and then again the whole cycle starts so it's a stupendous mind-blowing conception stretching across billions and billions of years millions of lifetimes millions of universes and endless stars planets galaxies sri ramakrishna says i saw the source where universes like he said like those baby crabs which are born on the bank of the ganga shoals of them swarms of them they walk back into the river so he says universes like that i saw being born and spinning off you know compared to that what is one little life one little civilization one little planet also and he says helplessly at the beginning of day they are projected into this existence physical existence and at the at the coming of the night coming of the night not the night of our life it comes at the age of 18 1900 the coming of the night for the whole universe the entire game is absorbed back into the unmanifest he says helplessly avasha you can't say let me play a little more no mom and dad is not going to allow you to play little more because all your little friends are going home and even the playground is going to disappear or because the whole of the universe is going to disappear now and then at the descent of the night uh it's all going to disappear back but you'll get your chance to play again tomorrow when the universe is created again so it's a very extraordinary vision one more verse the point of all of this twentieth what are we to do parastasma beyond this unmanifest there is another unmanifest eternal being that does not perish when all creatures perish beyond maya there is another unmanifest why is maya called unmanifest maya is like our deep sleep waking and dreaming are like the creation of the universe there are things they are objects they distinct their differences there are experiences everything drawn into a blank uniform oneness that's like maya the entire cosmos becomes like that but beyond our waking dreaming deep sleep is you the consciousness you illumine in you there is waking in you there is dreaming in you there is deep sleep and you are the illuminer of all the experiences all that happens in waking dreaming deep sleep this you the fourth you know in mandukka it was called turiya consciousness you are the fourth which illumines your own baking dreaming deep sleep this story is also the consciousness which illumines the cosmic waking dreaming deep sleep the creation of universes existence of universes and the disappearance of universes all happens illumined by this consciousness and in this consciousness and as nothing but this consciousness three steps appears to consciousness illumined by consciousness exists in this consciousness not outside and actually does not exist in consciousness also consciousness alone appears as its own universe this is the other unmanned the greater unmanifest beyond the unmanifest what is the unmanifest maya what is the other unmanifest beyond maya consciousness so sounds great but what is it to me you are that ultimate reality you are that consciousness the same consciousness identified one one individual being right you i right here is the witness to the individual waking dreaming deep sleep individual lives births and growth and aging and depth same consciousness and identified with maya is the witness to the cosmic creation existence and disappearance so tremendous declaration here this is the point of all beyond all of this transcending all of this there is a reality what is that it's an unmanifest well we just talked about an unmanifest maya no this is beyond that maya is higher than that maya it is sat existence itself chit consciousness itself and ananta endlessness infinitude which is also on the bliss yes when all beings from the most insignificant creature up to brahma the master of the entire universe when they all disappear you the consciousness you exist when the universe is there it shines in your light you are there and the universe is not there you continue the absence of the universe is illumined by your presence so that is that ultimate absolute that is brahman atman is you are that and the whole goal is to realize that and advaita vedanta has no objection it says suppose you someone says but this is the chapter on bhakti devotion to god why are you bringing in the absolute reality there's no problem there nir guna brahman the absolute reality and saguna brahman god of the universe theistic god they are one and the same same consciousness in association with maya is called god ishwara second brahman same consciousness by itself is nirkuna brahman which one is real there's no which one there's only one from the perspective of this universe it is god from its own perspective it is the absolute reality what is it to me you are that absolute reality from the perspective of one body and mind that absolute reality is you from the perspective of all bodies and minds in this entire universe that absolute reality is god in itself what is it absolute reality brahman all right this is a beautiful point to end it and there is no problem with devotion also here because classical advaita vedanta will say yes by sheer devotion to ishwara by sheer devotion they have a loving relationship with god and your loving relationship with krishna by the grace of krishna if you get that realization you are brahmana advaita vedant has no complaint there all that advaita vedanta wants is you have to realize that you are brahman you are that absolute reality do it with self-inquiry or do it by surrender to god by the grace of god you will get that knowledge sudama krishna says what is there in the vedas in vedanta my mother has shown me so the divine mother can give you that knowledge god can give you that knowledge if you are if your path is just devotion to god certainly by surrender today itself somebody was saying that ramana maharshi the great non-dualist teacher he said there are actually these two paths the path of self-inquiry and the path of surrender to god both will take you to enlightenment and freedom good let me take a look at the comments and questions ashok says we love your story swamiji yes i love the stories also i remember we had a master who taught us vedanta in our training days as novices he was this wonderful monk he passed a few years ago a very jolly he looked like a huge baby she was very fair and totally around and chubby has his glowing face and people warned him that you should shed weight of becoming obese and he would tell me he's a jewish child like he would tell me you know it's all these skinny people they're jealous of me that's why they they're telling me to lose weight anyway he was a great scholar of vedanta but he was a great devotee a great lover of krishna very devoted so and he loved telling stories and we all knew that so when we would be bored with the vedanta classes you know we would trick him into telling us a story and this is swami that story this happened that we would twist the story we knew all these stories but we twist the story a little bit get it wrong and he would say no no no you don't listen how many times should i have to do i have to tell you that story listen this is how it was and good so the rest of the class was pure entertainment and then the bell would go and the swami would get very flustered so you all are so mischievous next time no more stories i will finish this and you would start the class with a clear statement of intent i am going to finish this paragraph or this page of some sanskrit commentary and nobody is going to stop me but after some time he would get sidelined we would trick him into telling us another story rama says what is meant by retaining individuals is non-dissolution subtle body actually the subtle body can remain in the causal state so subtle body can remain as subtle body also that is rare but such i've heard from senior practitioners those enlightened beings who retain their subtle bodies they are much easier of access to us those who go back into the causal state it requires much more spiritual practice for us to get help from them so when vivekananda said it may be that i shall see fit to discard this body but i shall not cease to work i shall inspire men everywhere all human beings all all beings everywhere till they know till the universe knows it is one with god now i i've heard from a senior uh very wonderful swami that vivekananda is easily accessible he retains a subtle body and he can help if there's a somebody who's seeking spiritual enlightenment or the good of humanity there are people i know of at least a couple of one monk and one devotee a great worker for the welfare of humanity they have had clear visions from vivekananda telling them what to do and there may have been many more like that so that's somebody who retains a subtle body those that go back into the causal state that requires much more spiritual practice so okay here is something from avatar a logi study of avatars incarnations why do we speak about yogavatar of an age the srirama krsna's for example yogavatar avatar after the passing of the avatar giving up of the physical body until the coming of the next avatar the incarnation retains a subtle body so that avatar is most easily accessible most powerful immediate source of grace which was the most recent yes you can still and people still do access krishna and christ and all of the others but much more difficult because they have gone back into the causal state so that's that sri says i had asked about this once before and would like you to explain little more mahapurus maharaja told davidor that the deceased wife was residing in shiva loka is the same as brahmaloka yes it's the same as brahmaloka it's residing in the presence of god yes rodrigo says the three bodies paradigm is only valid upon this plane yes three bodies physical subtle causal just as we have physical bodies subtle bodies and causal bodies the universe too has a physical existence subtle existence and causal existence physical existence is this universe subtle existence is the cosmic mind causal existence is maya that's the unmanifest from that emerges this universe and it goes back into that causal state nine billion names of god i think we had watched it once or somebody had shared it last time but do see it rick has shared the youtube link it was made by a french filmmaker nicely made ashok says do we come back with our prarabdha karma still with us in a new day of drama yes our prada karma will follow us across universes and it's all right that's our storehouse of spiritual evolution so what we have all the homework and assignments we did in our last universe if we have not become enlightened not graduated yet we still get credit for it we don't remember anything at all but we start off in the new universe at a uh a higher level vishwanath says is only but the lord's grace that we get even interested in advaith yes and the lord's grace is upon us only when we have a lot of good karma so a lot of good karma that means everybody here who's interested they're all interested in advaita vedanta are people with lot of good karma and blessings of god sangeetha says specific temples in karnataka which one of the awakened subtle bodies summoned by francis our prayer and generation witnessed this happen live too nigeria's question i missed a question up there do you mean brahma is ishwara the god we paid in bhakti yoga when you say his age is same as universe's age no who you know ishwara god in the depiction the vaishnava depiction is vishnu or narayana on the cosmic serpent lying down on that and from his navel comes a lotus on the lotus seats brahma that is brahma who emerges from the navel of vishnu and lives for what several billion years and goes back into enfold back into vishnu vishnu is eternal god is eternal and ishwara is eternal brahma is not eternal ishwar is the reality plus maya consciousness plus maya so the god you pray to does not come and go it's an eternal otherwise it won't be god brahma comes and goes and the universe of course from our perspective it might as well be eternal so so very longly billions and billions of years but still subject he says universes all the universes starting from the heaven of brahma including brahma is subject to coming and going subject to return very good so this will be last class when we're shutting down for summer um we will again resume in the third week of september of course you will get notifications for all of that and there is one more talk on sunday the last talk this sunday please take care prabhupada you have the last word you raised your hand with your permission i want to share a story yeah so in 1967 i came to berkeley to do my studies and within a few days there was durga puja in berkeley so we went to the ram krishna mission and i saw this swami who was doing the puja and after the puja i saw him in a three-piece suit and that is the first time i saw a swami in that and i was really taken aback and it happened to be swami's radar on the and also he used to come from sacramento to all the pujas in the berkeley ashram and sami swamanandaji was the resident minister at the time so i had the opportunity to see them and meet me to them yes that's a wonderful story thank you so um very highly uh revered both swamis sridharan swan and highly reviewed swamis and you saw them at a much younger age of course chandanji might have been still quite elderly by that time no he was quite young i have a picture of him still that time wonderful thank you it's a good note to end this session on please take care and stay safe let me do a peace chant sri rama krishna [Music]