Video 119

119. Bhagavad Gita | Chapter 10 Verse 4-6 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

um blessude was [Music] krishnam one day studying the bhagavad-gita and we are on the 10th chapter um so last time we just started the 10th chapter and we went through the first three verses what's going on here is this this um well now you must be tired of hearing this the whole of the bhagavad-gita can be seen in divided into three parts can be that's one way of looking at it six chapters first six chapters then six more chapters in the final six chapters 18 chapters six chapters each three parts three parts are supposed to correspond to you are that which is the teaching of advaita vedanta that you are that absolute reality tattoo amazing the first six chapters are they talk about our real nature who am I what am I the second six chapters they talk about God the Creator preserver destroyer of this universe the god of religion the theistic god and the last six chapters are supposed to in this scheme tell us about the identity of the individual and the cosmic of you and God so actually when when the upanishad says you are that you stand for you just this person sentient being and that technically that stands for God now before you you can wipe that big grin of your face oh I am God not in that sense not in the sense of you know I this ego this person I am God that's just megalovania but um in the sense that my own reality and God's reality is one reality it's one pure Consciousness one Swami put it very beautifully if you interrogate this world what is it really and the world will say I am actually Brahman if you interrogate the individual being you I what are you really at least when we are enlightened we'll say I am Brahman and if you interrogate God what's your reality what's the deepest mystery and answer to that God will say I am Brahman so there is one underlying reality which appears as the world as us these individual beings and as a god which rules this universe so in Sanskrit Jiva jagat ishwara Jiva sentient beings jagat this world ishwara the God of this world God of religion all three are really one unlimited non-dual existence Consciousness place this second six chapters from chapter number seven to chapter number 12 is about God is about that ishwara the god of religion and being about God it is very devotional so you will find a lot of bhakti teachings in these chapters but that what's what's going on now and um the way God is understood in all the religions which believe in God they are called theistic religions and someone might think are there religions which don't believe in God how can you have a religion without god well Buddhism is such a religion Jainism is under such religion India it's well understood there may be two different ways of being religious one is the god the well-known God way of being religion the other one is self-inquiry based the inward looking way most ancient and Hindu philosophers they were not theistic Buddhists were not theistic jainas are not theistic um even the yoga patanjala yoga I'm saying this because I mean for people who don't know better it's all the same oh so he Swami said the the patanjali yogi is not theistic but those who have studied Indian philosophy will say you're making a mistake there God is mentioned in patanjali yoga but that is not the god of uh you know the Creator God now one way God is understood in all the theistic religions is that God is the creator of this universe to be God to be really God you must be the power behind this universe that which has created the universe that reaches omnipotent omniscient omnipresent that that power that's how God is understood in all theistic religions with variations in theology now how does this God create this universe there are these three levels of understanding it's all relevant I'm not going off on a wild goose chase um one way is there is a God a power which created this universe separate power separate universe in that case you need to say something about that separate power where is that separate power then you have to imagine a separate realm called Heaven some kind of Heaven the Christian Heaven or the various kinds of Hindu Heavens whatever and um some material out of which this universe might have been created so for example the ancient nyaya philosophers and the vaisha philosophers they believed in God but they believed God is this omnipotent Indonesian or power but space is eternal space coexists with God and there are Eternal free floating atoms in space and what God does is how does he create this universe God creates this universe out of those free floating atoms by the will of God these atoms coalesce into stars and planets and the different worlds are formed if you think about it from a modern cosmological perspective they are pretty intuitive thousands of years ago not too bad really it didn't do too badly however notice in that conception God and the material out of which this universe is created are separate it's like a you know the model they model probably they had in mind was a Potter making Pottery out of clay so there is some clay and there's the mix Pottery but the Potter Potter is what is called the intelligent cause the intelligence behind this creation so God is the intelligence the power but creation is made out of some other stuff which is not God stuff a deeper understanding came this is stage one a separate God a deeper understanding came that if God is truly God all that there is then the universe cannot be literally separate from God you can't really say God created the universe and then then say that there were atoms before creation there was peace before creation there was time when you're saying before already time so that means God didn't create time God didn't create space God didn't create the the atoms of the particles a more comprehensive God would be that God existed and that was there's only God and nothing else before Creation in that case whatever we call creation which Universe must have come out of God out of God stuff so the deeper understanding of of God and Creation in Sanskrit this is called parinam Avada transformation Theory so God projects this universe or creates it out of his her its own being so what is this universe made of it's literally made of God so that is the second or deeper understanding it is God transforms in some theories part of its being some theories its power so there are multiple theories they're all various forms of what is called parinam avadh the theory the causality which believes in transformation of cause into effect what's the cause of God what's the effect Universe you can see how this is different from the first Theory where God and the material are different and then there can be a deeper understanding which is the advaitha which we claim to be deeper is that does is it possible for an absolute reality for Pure being or pure Consciousness to transform itself limit itself you know can the infinite become the finite can the change list actually change or is God and not only that if God has changed in some way into this universe God is changeful then if you might say what's what's the harm many problems a changeful God is subject to change and Decay and eventual death why not if change if you're admitting change why not the ultimate change of deaths and destruction so God would die and God changes if God is perfect look at I'm giving you some problems which come if you say God really changes if God changes God is our idea of God in every religion it's god is perfect and whatever your idea of perfection but the God has to be perfect the most perfect being if the most perfect being changes in any way the change state will be less than perfect to put it in less philosophical terms it means God will really become miserable God will really become sinful God will really become you know damaged and in other words not quite Godly anymore so there are many problems if you admit a changing transformed God and if you just say God has been transformed into this universe then it's not God anymore it's just the universe it's just the universe if it's really tables and chairs and that's it God it was God maybe one set upon a time but no longer it's just the universe that's the problem with the theory called pantheism spinos uh you know talks about this entire God being this entire universe but critics will say that if you literally say this is God then you're just using a new term for the universe why not just call it the universe why not just call a table at it why are you saying that it's God who became a table or God somehow is a table if it's really a table then that's all it is call it a table call it a word call it matter and energy time and space why are you calling it gardening what what's Godly about it anymore so not pantheism the deeper understanding is God Brahman the Ultimate Reality remaining exactly as it is perfect appears as this universe so this universe the the famous two theories of Truth the ultimate truth and the relative truth in the relative truth like a movie it could be a comedy it could be a tragedy the Perfection of the movie screen is not marred in any way many examples are given like a mirage water in the desert so shankaracharya famously says all the water in a mirage is not enough to wet one grain of sand of the desert so all the universes appearing and all the terrible things happening in the universe is not enough to Mar even in the least the Perfection of God so that is the advaithic idea of they call it Weaver tawada not an actual transformation of God into the universe not an actual transformation of the cause into the effect but the cause appearing as the effect like your mind remaining the mind it appears as an entire world of Dreams in your dreams like a movie screen remaining the movie screen can appear as all kinds of movies so this is the third understanding it is Brahman only this universe is brahmana appearing as the universe at our enlightened unenlightened perspective it appears like the world and that's it we don't see any Brahman God or anything here the end to the enlightened person this year is God shining through in every person in every activity in every you know tiniest and in the most massive scale it is none other than one existence Consciousness place that enlightened one is the one who interrogates the universe and the universe tells him or her I am God looks inside and finds I am God and looks at God God obviously I'm God so that God which is the god of the universe the individual and this Cosmos that is Brahman what might be called in English the godhead the the absolute being and Mystics in all religions have accessed that now why am I saying all this what this chapter is doing is halfway in between it's talking about God not as just as Krishna or as Vishnu in the in a particular Heaven But as God who has become second stage who has become this universe so this universe is the glory of God I mentioned earlier what one advaithik teacher Master contemporary Master told me chaitanya in Banaras he said how does the Gita regard this world this world the world we live in in three ways it takes three passes at this question what is this world first I'll tell you the Sanskrit words he used and then I've already said this well quickly touch upon it first pass here to be given up in Sanskrit here to be given up discarded renounced second pass Divya Divine this word third pass at it what is this word Brahman the Ultimate Reality what does it mean here to be given y here to be given up the worldly approach to this world is this is all that there is this is a reality and we are trying to grasp hold of it and we suffer and suffer and suffer there's something terribly wrong here there's something terribly wrong I said um why because of enormous suffering present here most of us will say we are not really suffering but dissatisfied everybody is dissatisfied in existential angst if everything is going well for you well congratulations but it won't last it's too good to last so we are dissatisfied so because of enormous suffering and if you think that's not true wait somebody wrote a comment to me that you know we say vedanta the purpose of vedanta is to overcome suffering and attain Bliss overcome suffering Buddha also says the problem is suffering and how do you overcome suffering but my 13 year old daughter told me we accept happiness happily and so suffering also comes in this world we should accept suffering also I did not have any answer to that what would be the answer to that why even try to overcome suffering I said the answer to that is she's 13 years old she hasn't and thank God may she never experience suffering but she has not experienced suffering don't take it too literally don't take it too seriously either I'm sorry to say but you know in this world not just here in the United States but also in India and everywhere we're fast becoming the more we advance the fast becoming you know like a child worshiping civilization whatever children say is is the words of wisdom I know moms and dads love children that's great but don't be immature children might once upon you know once in a while say something that's pretty wise that doesn't mean they are wise yeah you give them a Halo of wisdom because you love your kids worse um one gentleman with the heartfelt he said I'm learning so many spiritual lessons just watching my dog I was I didn't say anything I rolled my eyes a little bit here you are you're sitting with a monk here you are today you are you have the spiritual Heritage of the combined spiritual Heritage of all of humanity all the religious religions the thought of all the philosophers available to you God is available to you no it has to be from the dog now don't do that so the first thing is here the world is to be given up because of suffering Gita says this world full of suffering having attained having come here means impermanent continuously changing I told you what's wrong with change that when it's a change is not bad yes but change is the problem with changes we want to have fulfillment happiness and that depends upon so many factors and if you ever are lucky enough to get all the factors at the optimum level you know wealth and health and Facebook likes and the proper parking and all of that goes very well for you because it's a changing set all the time changing next moment it will change and the level will be sub-optimal so we are programmed for suffering unfortunately that was the Buddha's great discovery fun guy 2500 years ago but no uh he's a fun guy because no he tells us the truth about the way the world is but he also tells us a way out you know how to attain how to go beyond suffering he says so it is suffering it is temporary whatever any gains you make here prosperity family wealth and learning civilizational Advance all of it is temporary there's an ancient saying you know in India A Thousand Years a city a thousand years of forest we go to the Hayden planetarium here we saw this show what was here of millions of years ago right here right here where we are sitting it was under water and there were these huge extinct under you know sea dinosaurs which were swimming around here that's what it was right here thousand years of City A Thousand Years a forest and then a thousand years of City again so temporary and then the Gita goes further Maya it's not just temporary it's an appearance it's not even real in itself it's not that it doesn't exist but it's not the way we think it is it's an appearance something deeper is there we are just seeing the surface of it Maya where does the Gita say it's Maya second chapter 16 verse I will not explain that it's a big thing so that's the first thing about new to know about this world it's not a good place the world which we inhabit the world which the way we look at it the second thing which we know about this world which this is this chapter deals with this 10th chapter famously will deal with it it's a wonderful place seems to be just the opposite of what we said you give up the world as the world and then you see the Divinity in this world it becomes a wonderful place the word used was Divya divine literally the Sanskrit Dev comes to from to shine means divine this world is the glory of of God if you see it as that not as things to be grabbed and things to be avoided but it's glory of God and that's what the 10th chapter is about so it's sort of intermediate but it goes further which has not been mentioned in this chapter it will come later in the from the 13th chapter onwards it's not only the glory of God it's the Ultimate Reality itself when I say the be careful Advantage this is like anathema to say that the world is the Ultimate Reality itself not in that sense is the Ultimate Reality itself it's not the world that's the meaning of Brahma satyam jagatam Brahman alone is real the world is an appearance and you are none other than brother that's a relief you're thinking what am I am I real or false an appearance or don't worry you are the reality and this world which includes Body Mind individuality their appearances so the 10th chapter will introduce us to that in between stage where God says I I've created this universe out of what out of myself so all this universe must be in some sense God and then Krishna will introduce you to how do you see God in everything in this universe he will point out some places where God is most manifest easier to see most manifest means more easier to see and as a part of our spiritual practice so we'll when we interact with the world it will no longer be this is worldly and that spiritual in the church and the temple in the vedanta society or that spiritual in Wall Street or in Broadway oh that's secular no everywhere the same God shines through that's what the theme of this chapter is now in the [Music] um fourth and fifth verses which we'll see together Krishna is saying our internal Universe thoughts feelings emotions ideas intelligence all of that that's also God it's like we identify those as my thoughts and feelings and I am looking out all right this world is you're saying this is not a world this is God but I am experiencing that as a world or as God but no that which you think you are experiencing your own thoughts your emotions your aspirations your intelligence your knowledge your Joys and sorrows all of that is also none other than that one Divinity so that's what said in the fourth and fifth Universe our internal universe is also God let's do fourth and fifth together [Music] foreign [Music] discrimination knowledge non-delusion forgiveness truthfulness self-control Tranquility happiness misery existence non-existence fear and also fearlessness non-injury Equanimity contentment austerity charity Fame ill-fame these different dispositions of beings are indeed born of me we'll just run through the list but it just means whatever we feel inside whatever we think inside whatever we experience within ourselves first person experience all of them come from God the beauty of it is when we begin to see that we get what is called an even sightedness an even-mindedness that this is great and the rest of it is awful that kind of reaction becomes less endless we begin to see is not particularly great and that's not so bad either we begin to see all of them are coming from the Lord and all of them I accept with respect and with equanimity all of them remind me of the Lord that that's a wonderful thing whatever happens in my mind see we are most impacted by not So Much by with the world not So Much by other people we're impacted by our reactions to the world and other people all those reactions are also Divine not in the sense that they are great they're Divine because they're coming from the divine and if you take the transformation Theory the second theory we talked about then it is the Divine if it's a Transformer if it's Clay then the clay pot the pot must be clay if it is a golden ornament then a necklace and the bracelet and the you know whatever it is a tiara it must be gold now he I'm using a particular commentary but don't worry about it there's multiple commentaries the one I'm using is by sridhar Swami simple commentary on the bhagavad-gita literally means intellect but here he uh specifically says I'll give you the Sanskrit translations the interpretations he has given what is intellect the ability to grasp in all things in life but especially in spiritual life to grasp the essence and leave out the non-essentials vivekanth used to say I am a man in a hurry [Music] we are all people in a hurry actually we don't just know it time is running out the clock is ticking good deal of our life is already gone in being just being young [Music] being 13. but and then there will come a time in in our lives you know when our age catches up with us and then the physical the debilitating and difficult to change so make the best use of it whatever time we have so the ability to take the essence of a scripture of a talk of an idea and to put it to practice to to assimilate it to make it part of my being not just a little bit of information but a part of my being that he says this is the real nature of buddhi intellect but different from anything intelligent means a person who is very scholarly read a lot of books and knows lots of things no he says the ability to take their sense out of it sometimes people who are not scholarly not with big degrees they might have a lot of strong Common Sense the ability to extract an essence now then knowledge some intellect comes knowledge so he says the next thing he says is knowledge Ghana knowledge and then what is this knowledge he says the knowledge about yourself this is a vast Universe out there encyclopedias to read he says all of that that's fine what knowledge we are talking about here is who am I what am I Ghana means the knowledge about yourself this is making it very specific this is the commentator not Krishna himself but the commentator then he says moha means delusion we are walking around in a fog we are not totally awake some are totally asleep that's the is it like it's a kind of operating cost you have when you have a vedanta class some will be sleeping but you expect some to be awake and most people to be halfway in between half and half you know that's the meaning of the term Buddha the one who woke up means delusion we are walking around in a fog we don't even know what the world which we inhabit is we are so much you know bubbling with what is especially likes and dislikes our dispositions our attitudes towards the world and people that we continuously are interpreting the world reading motives into people which are not there that one really likes me and that one really hates me neither is true I can assure you that without knowing who you are and which is who's the one who likes you and who hates many neither is true very few people can be bothered with without anybody else it's a basic operating principle so we walk around in a fog imputing motives to people scared of phantoms in in this world or you know walking around in anxiety somebody said we are all you know those old slapstick comedy movies Charlie Chaplin you see somebody slipping and falling in a banana peel but we are always sleeping and falling in a banana peel either he's sleeping and falling back into the past memories regrets or the golden it was so nice When We Were Young back or you're slipping forward and falling into the future anxiety expectation not even here so we are walking around in a fog that's the delusion moha to be enlightened at the minimum is to snap out of it the Buddha when the beautiful story Houston Smith in his book the religions of the world he introduces the chapter on Buddhism in this way after Enlightenment the Buddha is walking before he gives his first teaching and a Shepherd boy sees him and struck by the extraordinary expression on his face the radiance of this person this being and he says what are you Houston Smith writes there many people have been asked who are you we all asked who are you what are you either somebody is tremendously evil you can ask a Hitler what are you or something extraordinarily good more than good Divine so what are you what are you are you a god Buddha said no are you an angel in the Sanskrit would have been David you know like a messenger of the Gods no are you a human being no then he's bewildered then what are you he said I am Buddha the awakened I've woken up so moha what happens if you have intelligence and with intelligence you have extracted the knowledge about the self you have woken up or some more completely undiluted about yourself and this world and all other qualities ability to forbear the behavior of others the you know illness a kind of toughness mental toughness fortitude ability ups and downs in life I've seen through many things in life I shall also see this through just that attitude the psychologist Albert bandura called it self-efficacy self-efficacy is a kind of feeling that I can deal with most things in my life that kind of confidence he was talking about students than college students now what does shama forgiveness have to do with it um this spiritual this toughness also the ability to forgive other people for their actual or imagined wrongs which they have done remember again very shocking they are mostly forgotten if they have done wrongs to you they've forgotten about it they really do not most people don't hold ill will against you they don't even remember that they did something we remember because it's the party which has been hurt which remembers but it's no good storing up hurts no good so the ability to forgive and let go to forgive and let go and move ahead in life um that doesn't mean you allow people to take advantage of you this is sudama krishna's story of the his it's important to know yeah you don't hiss but don't bite so there was this I'll tell you this Parable a brahmachary and now you know a celibate monk who was going from Village to Village and he comes to the particular Village and he's going on a particular path the villagers say don't go that way there's a venomous snake a big Cobra which stays there it'll bite you and brahmachary the wandering monk he said no I know the mantras you know they can't do anything to me and then the snake comes out charging at him and the brahmachary quite in sit down with his Mantra and then he says why are you so violent why are you hurting people um so the snake says what should I do the brahmachary said here is a mantra repeat this Mantra and you'll become enlightened and um don't bite it's only goes this way years later he comes back to that same Village he's passing through that Village and he says wasn't there a snake here and the people say oh it's dead it can't die it can't die before becoming enlightened because I know the power of the Mantra I gave it well nobody has seen it for ages then the ramachari goes and calls out to the snake and after some time sees the snakes become very skinny and it's sort of broken it's sort of painfully crawls out of its hole and comes and bows down to the um buying down is pretty easy if you're a snake just have to do this and to the brahmatary and the brahmacharya he said how are you I'm fine I'm very happy the Mantra you gave me it gives me lot of Peace but what happened to you you're hurt and broken and the snake said no that's nothing yeah you have to think and say oh it's those mischievous children you know once they realize that I'm not going to bite they caught hold of me one particularly mischievous by Court hold of my tail and swung me around and dashed me on the ground and but it's all right they're children it's all right I've forgiven them um in the brahmachary said I told you not to bite I didn't tell you not to hiss [Music] so to his means make sure people don't take advantage of you until you are enlightened until you have achieved the goal of your life it's no good I am forgiving everybody I'm practicing non-violence and you're most Disturbed and unhappy because people keep troubling you with the Disturbed and unhappy and and troubled mind you can't do spiritual practice you can't meditate you can't study you can't pray so you have to protect yourself whether you have a worldly goal you're raising a family building a business to protect yourself if you're going to be spiritual you have to protect yourself the common sense always so kshama here um one interesting Insight I found ishwaran if you don't if some of you may have read his beautiful writings he has three volumes on the guitars [Music] so one Insight he gives is look at the continuity buddhi is intellect and then through that intellect you know you get knowledge knowledge about yourself and through that knowledge about the self your delusion goes away you wake up one good way of driving away this fog is forgiveness he says Shama this non-forgiveness generates a big fog thick fog in our lives Letting Go forgiving that internally outwardly if it's a nasty person you may continue to hiss but internally it's okay and then satyam he goes on to describe each of them truth speaking things as they are so that's a simple definition of the truth I think a couple of classes back I mentioned the French philosopher Michelle Foucault and he's almost his last Works where truth telling on what is called in Greek ferrisia which is telling truth which can be damaging to oneself I mean you don't have to go around telling people and the way I'm going to you know Badger people on the street I'm going to tell you some damaging truths about myself people do that now not on the street but on social media every all the time number no General tendency is to hide and project what I am not to be quite simple about it sudama Krishna is to say it is the simple in one's last life one one becomes a simple person and Swami if I'm simple people will take advantage of me the clever will take advantage of me there's a saying nothing confounds the clever so much as simplicity so satyam truth means control of the senses control of the shama means control of the Mind internals the mind um all the translations and commentary is very simple sukha is that which is Pleasant is that which is unpleasant so far we are discussing spiritual things inside knowledge self-knowledge removing the delusion but also the experience of pain bhava he says bhava means birth creation is death I am born I come to a sense of my own existence not only at physical birth but also as I grow as a baby you know the whole development of the psychology and then the degeneration and then the stopping of the mind at death all of that he says means fear fearlessness all of these krsna says they all come from me all of these come from me so when these things come up in the mind we must remember that this has come from God there is a Divine element in this just as meant as much as there is clay in pots and gold in Golden ornaments there is God in there is that one Brahman in all of these things then ahimsa non-violence is a whole list here non-violence in thought word indeed Swami ramsukdasjid begins a list of 81 types of non-violence but I'm not going to go through that list now it'll be it's a kind of violence to subject you to that it's the 82nd kind of violence then he says samata this is a beautiful one samata means evenness and the commentator here translates it as um transcending our conditioning likes and dislikes strong likes and dislikes for people and food and activities and places transcending it how do you transcend it if all of these things are coming from the same Source my beloved Lord alone is appearing or is is giving me all of this in that case my focus is on God not on the nasty thing somebody said to me or the great thing that I'm expecting next not that all of this is coming from the Lord that's where my attention is that evenness [Music] tushti santosha another word is used contentment so you put forth your best in the world at the end of the day God not harassed and harried to bed not like a hunted hair you know with the hunting dogs are after you no go to bed with contentment because I have put in what I could do and I give the whole thing my efforts and whatever I've got mentally I offer it at the feet of the Lord and sleep happily tushti fulfillment contentment as far as the world material things are concerned we are usually very contented about God and discontented about the world trishti means to be contented about the world and discontented why do I not have focus on God why why do I not why do I keep forgetting God why is it so difficult for me to you know be even minded about the world SRI ramakrishna was most discontented about God he wept and wept and wept for what for for him God was the Divine mother Kali why have I not been able to see you one more day has passed the sun is sitting on the bank of the Ganges on the ganga he would rub his face on the shore of the river till his face bled and he would cry for the mother and the people around him they thought his young priest has come from a village he's probably he misses his mother but he's so he's this is a Divine discontent until ramakrishna said people cry you know they shed pots of Tears for their you know wives husbands for their children for money Nobody Cries for God I choose to be mad about God I cry about God so santosha means contentment about the world austerities danam so they're very nice translations here but I'll move ahead dhana means giving there's so many stories here there's a very very ancient story the Gods devatas human beings and the demons they all went to the to Brahma their their grand side the creator of this universe not not Brahm and the Ultimate Reality just Brahma The God Who is sort of like a subcontractor you you give him the job of making the universe God gives him the job of making the universe anyway so they are all the people after the universe had been created they all went to him for advice um tell us what's what spiritual advice do you have for us and see there clearly Brahma gets different is my advice to the gods different advice to human beings different advice to the demons what will make them progress so all he said you know they prayed to Brahma it's very dramatic and Brahma replied in the voice of Thunder what did the Thunder Say Elliot he used this what did the Thunder say in the poem itself he's written the the but what does it mean three times the first is for the gods it is control yourself the gods are this like super powered beings you know and they are always having a party these are not Spiritual Beings they are Gods with a small G so they are all these radiant beautiful beings and always having a party um control yourself for you spiritual progress is possible when you control yourself control stop for human beings give because human beings are Petty small and close-wisted it is Godly to give it is great to give don't be small SRI ramakrishna advised the mother when he was dying of throat cancer his advice is parting advice to her is always never put your hand like this before anybody when I'm gone you be contented with your little village Cottage and you know you have a vegetable garden and whatever you get in your little backyard garden you live on that don't ask always give the hand like this is asking and like this is giving human beings the the advice of Brahma the grand side of the universe grandfather of the universe is give learn to give it over the demons he said be kind demons are cruel they they like hurting so there's a people who are good who are privileged who have got everything in life but they are wasting their life in pleasure seeking they're the gods what what is the way forward for them self-control um there are people who are cruel in nature who like hurting others what is the way forward for them compassion and then the rest of us general advice to people is not to be small be big let go give they say there is a Prosperity psychology and a poverty psychology it doesn't depend on how much money somebody has is Americans story about The Scrooge so one to give so that is the answer here he says dhanam even that impulse to give Krishna says it comes from God Yasha Fame ayasha loss of Fame nowadays very fast Facebook likes up and down Twitter followers up and down so all of that remember it comes from but it comes from Twitter No it comes from God moving on so our entire internal internal universe you have to see God in all of that that's the basic message number six same theme everything in this universe I have become that's the theme so that you see me in this universe in everything sixth way yes [Music] the seven Great sages the earlier four and also the Manus were born of my mind endowed with my Essence whose prajini are these in the world it's a very poetic stuff here the Creator created first the so his job was to create the universe so his first attempt was didn't work the story is very nice you know we ask why if God created the world why did God why didn't God create a perfect world why such an awful world so God did try he tried to create a perfect world didn't work so there's one version of the story that he created these four sages he must be mentioned here and he expected the sages means they were not human beings they are very wise beings they had all spiritual knowledge and everything and expect ation was they will take this universe forward and they will have progeny and they will they will have families and create worlds and civilizations and but no when these sages came into being how did they come into being manasa he says they came from my mind God says from my mind or from brahma's mind it is said sankalpa just as just by thought how can you create anything by thought actually you create and everything is created by thought basically and every day in the night in our dreams we create universes with thoughts a painter well a novelist a scientist it creates my thought anyhow so there is this concept of manasa Putra a child born of mind not physical child child born of Mind in fact in our tradition SRI ramakrishna had that relation with Swami brahmananda that the Divine mother appeared before him in a vision and said here is a baby and in a vision she put this baby on his lap and he said I'm a celibate how am I going to have a child and she said this is not not a child in that way this is your spiritual son but literally it means mindborne so Brahma created the Mind Bond the first four Sages but it flopped because the first four sages were such perfect beings the moment they saw what's this a universe why we were perfectly happy absorbed in the Ultimate Reality in Brahman in God and so let's they immediately sat down to meditate and attain Nirvana immediately and disappeared this is one version of the story so what Brahma said it is didn't work it didn't work Saturday they were all very satwik so would now let me create a universe with a proper mixture of not just you know sugar and spice all of it together sweet and sour all of it together so satwa rajasthamas the Divine qualities the dynamic qualities but also the awful qualities all of it together and the next batch he created David that was successful they had all sorts of different dispositions and the universe is humming along nicely till now you can see it's all around us so anyway but the original story is that Brahma first created four Sages this is what is called the four earlier the seven Great stages they are very famous in Hindu mythology in Hindu thought but before the seven they were the four and these are the four and they are all Immortal so these four are still there they are called Umar so these are the four names and often they are just referred to as sanakadi sanakra Etc it's in many hymns many songs they are referred to as the great sages so they are supposed to be still there and they're all teaching Humanity they're giving spiritual knowledge to humanity in fact if you have heard of theosophy so theosophy was based on Oriental wisdom in Indian wisdom basically Hindu Buddhist and Jain thought they have a system of what they call mahatmas so this invisible Spiritual Beings which give knowledge to you and also all sorts of theories there but the point I want to make here is the greatest of these Mahatma in in theosophy thought philosophy is still big in America it's still there there are centers so the greatest of these Spiritual Beings who give um spiritual knowledge to humanity from age to age this Immortal spiritual being his name is wait for it sanat Kumar the fourth of these four great sages if you look up theosafi their theories and all so there's a mystical city which is in the sky somewhere over Mongolia in the Gobi desert it's called Shambhala which is the again taken from Buddhist thought the Buddhist spiritual City and there dwell all Spiritual Beings and at the head of them is one this Immortal luminous being who happens to be called this sanat Kumar the ancient the fourth of the four ancient Sages but they didn't do much for creating a world so Brahma tried again then he created the seven Great sages who are known as the saptarshi and um after that he created what is called the Manus so Manus are the um the let us say the creators of civilization so they're supposed to be 14 Manus and each Manu has a period of civilization running for hundreds of thousands of years this is a whole calculation right now we are in the age of the seventh Manu the first Manu was supposed to be swayambhuva and the seventh one that's the one who is behind our present civilization for as long as we can look back you know from pre-civilization era till now the seventh manu's name is so this is all in Indian cosmology there are seven more Manus to come after this till the end of this universe anyway not our Point here they are born of my mind and this world that you see around they're all descended from these Manus and that's where the name um manusha in Sanskrit means human being has come from Manu even the word English word man I don't know if you look at the root I don't know where it has come from might be connected to the Sanskrit Manu Manu also is related to the Sanskrit word for mind a thinking being any up all that is not the point all of this which is this vast and most ancient cosmology Krishna says from God all of these things have come that's the point all right I will not go into the next few verses which are very soaring and very Sublime this is those who know this they will realize the truth about what I am what this universe is and they'll become enlightened he's going to say that how do you practice this all of this will come next I'll just let it be we can take up questions observations comments if you raise your hand yes tell us your name and ask the question okay this is a question for the big guy why did you have to I can give you multiple answers none of them very good let me warn you at the beginning um why did God have to create this universe one answer in vedante is for us what do you mean for us we are spiritually evolving so we need a field of action we need a universe we need bodies we need to interact and grow spiritually until we become enlightened I don't know you can always say that so how did it start why are we unenlightened to begin with why were we created we were not created and according to vedanta there are multiple theories one is that the souls our the Atman the selves they are co-evil with God they exist along with God God didn't create us or even deeper answer is you and God are actually one reality one answer to this is a beautiful story which Alan Watts has told I love this story it's what it seems like it's for children but it's really I mean for for grown-ups actually so he says in the beginning there was nothing no Universe God Alone existed why did God exist particularly obstain a child can ask but God can't help existing there's something called a necessary existence so God ex God is existence itself God cannot not exist so God existed from eternity to Eternity but eternity is an awfully long time awfully awfully long time so God got bored and God wanted to play but there was nobody to play with it was only God existed nothing to play with nobody to play with then God thought about it how can this problem be solved and because God is awfully smart he came up with a he she it came up with a solution what was the solution God decided to be not God so I am God if there's anything else that must be not God so God and now not God now there are two they can play and so God was very happy he could play with not God but the problem is now that God is Not only very clever God is awfully good at what he does so when he decided to play not God he completely forgot that he was caught and now not God is searching for who am I what am I what's going on and that's this universe that's what you are so that's the it's actually based on kashmiri shaivasan Kashmir shaivism says this so ramakrishna said foreign being freed from bondage the same reality is Shiva the Ultimate Reality that's one answer why did God create because he was bored he wanted to play and there's the whole Lila theory behind it a deeper answer is why did God create answer is no he didn't you're asking the Rope why did you create a snake the Rope snake example the Rope what will the Rope say I didn't it's your mistake God is perfectly calmed there is no it didn't create anything at all then what's all this you will say but what an awful answer what is all this then it's an appearance God didn't do anything it's like watching a horror movie on a in a movie hall and then complaining to the movie screen why are you so horrible no the screen didn't do anything it just provided the occasion for you to enjoy the movie so God did not actually create creating means making something new I didn't God's appearing in this way that's one answer God didn't create that's what what this is talking about this universe itself is nothing other than God I'm using God as a general term there are more precisely saguna Brahman Brahman with attributes that's what's being talking talked about here um there also you can push it Forward further you can ask this question but why did God appear as this universe all right I accept it God didn't create but why did God appear as this universe you know this God didn't create it's an appearance the scriptures if you look at it from this perspective they suddenly make extraordinary sense yeah the Quran the source of Islam the first verse in the Quran says that Allah is not born not as Allah is not born nor does he give birth so the Ultimate Reality is not created out of anything nor does that Ultimate Reality create anything of course theologians give it a different spin but if you look at it literally it's saying that means if God was not created from anything and God does not create anything then whatever is is God then you can process it further you can push it further say if God all right God is appearing Brahman is appearing as this world why appear at all Somerset mom the English author novelist he read quite a bit of vedant and he went and met Ramana maharshi in India so in one of his essays he writes when he hears about God Brahman projecting this universe his right British humor you know he writes one feels that Brahman could have left well enough alone shouldn't have created or projected this universe would have spared us a lot of trouble so you might ask why all right I understand it's Maya it's a projection it's an appearance it's lower truth all of that fine but even that I can ask why now one answer I have come up multiple answers here one answer I'll share with you and stop this is getting very awfully abstract one answer is you're asking why is Brahman appearing as this universe and why is the absolute reality appearing as this relatively reality or simply why is God appearing as this world tell me what option does God have either to appear or not to appear and God does both when the universe is existing this is God appearing to you as this universe when the universe does not exist according to the Hindu cosmology there are times called pralaya Cosmic dissolution where God Alone exists no universe God is not appearing as anything at all then God has got these two options and God has done both so you can't complain there's nothing else to do if you ask why is God appearing in this particular way why are planets and stars like this I think then you are in the realm of science vedanta would say karma there's a causality there all right we'll stop there oh one can be enlightened yes they are where people are enlightened however you're not entirely wrong God is Not Ultimate Reality is not exhausted by one flash of enlightenment so once you discover that srinama Krishna somebody in the you know in front of Sri ramakrishna said this it's an endless Journey you know it was and one goes on and on SRI ramakrishna said no where one finds peace ultimately that's the end of the journey but for you when you are enlightened when you make a breakthrough you touch God see God or Brahman you realize that you are Brahman that breakthrough is one and Final however that does not mean that's the end of spiritual experience then you taste that Divinity which you have discovered in a thousand different ways every day of your life for the rest of this particular existence so the enlightened one can have various kinds of Mystic experiences for that enlightened one every experience is a god experience clean upanishad says in every experience when you see that you see the same Brahman then you attain to immortality so in one sense Enlightenment is the end you find peace you know that's it the game of life is over the riddle has been solved the I have attained and you realize at that time it was always there it's somehow I didn't I never saw it it's an Open Secret however that's not the end of it's not oh it's too bad boring now I I wish I hadn't finished so early no it's a game of life is over doesn't mean that it's it's in one sense it's big and Swami brahmananda says spiritual Life Starts after nirvikalpa samadhi this is an extraordinary statement we somehow the way it has been put in yogic path in the yogic path nirvikalpa samadhi is said to be the final samadhi the final meditative absorption Brahman this is spiritual Life Starts after that what does that mean it means after that it's real it's no longer you're a Seeker you're found you're no longer a Believer it's a fact for you it's the most obvious fact for the undeniable so yeah another little story let me share with you there here there was one Swami um from whom I learned vedanta he is name was medha chaitanya then later on damodar ashram he was one of the greatest vedanta Scholars of in in Bengal at that time when I started learning from him he was already in his 90s and he imagined 100 year old teacher he went on teaching up to almost the very end he lived for 105. so he told me of a story I asked him about his teachers and he studied under many great teachers including some of the greatest scholars in Sanskrit College in Calcutta at that time um profound scholar encyclopedic scholar so this monkey told me that this is this happened a long time ago 60 70 years ago he said I was going daily from the monastery I would go daily to attend classes under this great pundit in Calcutta then come across the river with the boat the ganga come to the monastery in the evening there was foreign but he saw more than other people so he would sit and wait for me this monk told me so when don't get confused among all these characters when I would go for classes with the great pundit come back and every day I had to repeat to him he would sit there and say who is it I'd say I've come I've come back what did the Pandit say and I would I have to give him a summary of what I learned that day one day I went to my master that Pandit in Calcutta to attend classes and I saw the Pandit he was he was also very old lying down reading a book and I sort of asked him this monk told me you are a walking Encyclopedia of anything to do with you know religion and philosophy you still studying new things and the Pandit said if I don't learn something new every day I don't want to live I must learn something new every day so that inspired me a lot this monk told me that day when I crossed the river and came back in the evening to the monastery Gan marriage was sitting there he said who is it and they send this one so I've come back from my classes what did the Pandit say oh the Pandit said if I don't learn something new every day then I don't want to live said that's good that's the scholars ideal but remember Enlightenment is not new every day it happens once and it's forever so that knowledge the knowledge of the self what what I am there is no second edition Third Edition updated but that doesn't mean it becomes stale it's not something like oh I got Enlightenment in 1965 and I have barely I sort of remembered it it's a great thing it's not a memory you to yourself are not a memory you are living ever fresh to yourself what you are becomes clear to you that's always living impression that's in fact that's the only thing that's living in flesh so answer yes there is an end Enlightenment you Attain unbroken Limitless peace and and no there is no end to this infinite Divine reality which you keep on experiencing that's fine I'll come back to you hello um so what what I think um you've actually touched on this uh quite a bit today but one thing I was kind of wondering about and uh hoping to understand a little bit more is um it's sort of like you talk about of like how far like the enlightenment process is trying to understand things about absolute reality and things that exist for them after the reality that are not that are unchanging things like morality or uh or you know the absolute reality and I was I was wondering like how about we describe it a little more detail like the like the benefit school like system of reasoning that helps us uh that that guy just sort of understandably all right don't complicate it unnecessarily let me let me put it very simple in one sentence what we are all driving at of course this is advaita I'm talking about non-dual vedanta here all that we are trying to drive at is I am Brahman this realization what's your name shape so right now you feel straight away who are you I'm shiv but by the way you're very fortunately named shaver means the Ultimate Reality so uh it means god of course Shiva and this is the thing with Hindu names they all mean the Ultimate Reality it's supposed to remind you of that when you think of yourself or you call somebody else you're talking now I I am Brandman this realization right now whatever I can say I have read this I've understood that but my feeling is I'm just this guy and then the feeling will be then the realization indubutable indubitable realization will be I am limitless existence Consciousness or existence Consciousness place I am Brahman this thing will Flash this is what we are all driving towards and all this reading understanding this and that the metaphysics of it the the ethics of it the meditative practices the devotional practices God appearing as many things in the universe these are all helpful that's all but don't get caught up in any of this he's driving towards something very simple and very straight now did you had a particular question about the reasoning behind it I guess like the system of reasoning that's like destroyed in um in like uh and like the system of understanding all right I just mentioned two things and then we'll leave it at that broadly the methodology followed in vedanta is called means these teachings it's transmitted to you from lineage of teachers and they they're like pointers they point out something in your experience which you would not have noticed otherwise second reasoning so these books are there but everybody's reading them what you take out of that depends upon the way you can interpret these texts and use reasoning so reasoning there's a whole science of it Indian logic nyaya how to make an inference and all of that it's a vast vast field and very subtly developed I think um until the evolution of until the development of modern symbolic logic and mathematical logic in 19th century I would say 18th 19th century until that time the most subtle and sophisticated system of logic that existed in the world was the Indian Yaya system which had been adopted by all the schools of Indian philosophy including the Buddhists also so a very subtle very sophisticated far more than the Greek Aristotle in logic but of course I mean it's been exceeded in Precision by modern mathematical logic and symbolic logic um and then the third pillar of that is teachings literally the upanishads that which is heard yukti reasoning logic and there's a whole system of logic just as I mentioned and then means experience our own experience it has to be grounded in experience all three together and this is the methodology that's developed okay lady here and then you there really meditation you know calms the mind gives you a sense of peace and Detachment but there's also a phenomena where it kind of leads to a loss of meaning or depression or maybe call it like a dark night of the soul in such cases do you just push through or do you back off and then the second part of that question is there are people who are who tend towards depression whether because of genetics or trauma or circumstance should such people be careful about meditation yeah and reduce the intensity a straight answer to your question is yes to both back off and reduce the intensity that's my feeling um remember meditation is not the only spiritual practice devotion is spiritual practice ritual is a spiritual practice service is a spiritual practice it's very useful for people who are by Nature introverted prone to depression and aloneness and loneliness and lack of meaning service immediately cures all of these problems it may be difficult it may be difficult such people don't want to interact with others but once you start the taste it gives you the immediate benefit and joy and the blessings which come into your life service is a very powerful spiritual practice and then this philosophical study this inquiry this is a very powerful spiritual practice that's why the four yogas Ghana yoga The Yoga of knowledge bhakti yoga The Yoga of Love um then yoga of meditation and Karma Yoga Yoga of work or service what is the role of psychiatry in all of this now there are two schools of thought in our order in our tradition at least there were some monks who said no you take all your problems to God don't depend upon a Psychiatry you don't take drugs don't the other school of thought which I subscribe to another there are also many great enlightened people good monks in this order right in that school of thought is that you take the help of Mr Cat you take the taking the help of Physical Medicine anyway going to a doctor if you've got a tummy ache why won't you go to a psychiatrist if somebody's got depression or unhappiness or um you know schizophrenia or what it's a an illness it's now it can be shown it's also grounded in genetics it's grounded in in the brain nervous system so if you're taking medicine to help you to digest or for your you know diabetes or for your heart and you can take medicine for the brain this is you know earlier there was like a lot of um what would call it a kind of disrepute a kind of Shame taboo Associated mental illness no interest is mostly gone now I attended a conference American Psychiatric association APA they called a conference with faith leaders a few months ago in Washington DC at their headquarters and they were the people who were strongly against any kind of religion or spirituality they're to the extent of for many many decades to the extent of saying that it's pathology if you're religious you are a nutcase now they're completely reversed in the meeting itself they were the leading members of the American the most powerful body of psychiatrists are the um most you know largest number of psychiatrists in the world here in the United States and they said we have a shortfall of 30 000. because they said we are now facing a mental health crisis in the country exacerbated by lack of mental health professionals and covid and that's true in other countries also I know it's true in India also and we need all the help we can get and we notice whenever people have problems mentally they don't turn to a psychiatrist they turn to the local Pastor to their local church leader so their idea was two ways what can we learn from you and what and we can give you some kind of basic training how do you recognize and deal with mental illness and help people when they come to you because they are saying we have to be honest we can we are seeing that people are coming to you to the church leaders to the priests and pastors not to us at first um so yes so that's the second school of thought we take at least counseling counseling is very useful and it's a whole Spectrum from I mean I can even tell you I'll not tell the name because the past it was the president of the American Psychiatric association and over lunch he took me aside because there was a monk he took me and said look in my youth I went to Japan I was a Buddhist monk for three years and till today who's saying this the president of the American Psychiatry Association he said till today every day I meditate so yes take help meditation can in some cases aggravate symptoms of depression unhappiness um psychosis people are hallucinating it's not a good idea to sit down and meditate at that time you'll think all right I'm seeing God all the time no don't do that there are other avenues of spiritual practice also this is a big issue but take help I would say to everybody a spiritual Seeker you're taking Physics help help from medicine from a doctor if needed be need be take help from the psychiatrist there's no shame in it at all good question last question yes I very much enjoy studying um frequently declarities something sort of um was there was a little bit of a red flag I'm hoping in um elaborate a little bit more on the and tennis but don't bite because I sort of was thinking wouldn't it be hard to do that and I've had situations with work as well um sold by my Guru you need to be more aggressive and maybe even righteously become angry because they weren't paying when I needed to pay bills and such but um not sort of um collapsing into that imaginary self which is empty which doesn't inherently exist um seems like it's so easy for me practically to sort of fall back into that as like a fallback State it's it's it's easy to go back into the imaginary self whereas um it seems like that would be a hard thing to do can you say like how I'm going to set aside advaita I'm going to set aside I'm going to go back many many years ago to a college professor who was teaching a course called assertiveness training I still remember the Spectrum he drew he said on one end of the spectrum is being aggressive screaming shouting demanding bullying and there are people like that and there are Behavior patterns like that on the other end of the spectrum is being manipulative playing politics talking and being but you know talking dirty about somebody behind their backs um duplicity that's the other end of the spectrum but he says the right thing to do is in between in between there is assertiveness you're not aggressive you're not manipulative it's the weak who are manipulative it is even the aggressive also are in one sense week actually to be assertive we need to be strong so you have a right to say what you want to say but the other person also has a right to say no you should be Fearless in saying what you want to say but also strong in accepting what the other person has to say so it's easier said than done and remember we as kids we students we used to call the course how to be rude yeah assertiveness training how to be rude all right I say this is the last question but yes oh that's a big question the question of evil why is it evil if everything is the will of God straight answer to that even then we must be hard-headed and logical the straight answer is that even what we see as evil is in some way veiled by God does it make us stronger it's like I'm sure that when we first went to school our parents mom forced us dragged us to pre-kindergarten or whatever which we must have asked the same question why is there so much evil in this world why am I dragged off to screw But ultimately we see it was for uh really for our own good there are many answers I can give you 24 actually 24 answers if you look at there's a book there's a book Arthur Hermann the problem of evil in Indian thought what are the answers you get in Hinduism Buddhism but he collects answers from all religions of the world and different philosophers of the world and he has a list of 24. foreign so yes so the multiple answers are possible one answer I just gave you that maybe it's not evil maybe both what we see good and evil are pushing us along in spiritual life if things were perfectly fine here then we wouldn't want anything else we would want to stay here be worldly often people make spiritual progress in suffering but other than in pleasure and in a fine life they don't grow have you noticed it's a well-known phenomenon across the world children of Rich parents they don't do too well why they should do well they've got all privileged they've got all opportunities that's what the parents ensure that our kids will have a better life than we had but then it doesn't work out that way why why so maybe some amount of challenge toughness is a shock is necessary that's not a complete answer the places there there's such terrible suffering that it's not leading to anybody's growth it's just just suffering and ends in death maybe so how do you explain that so there are many theories this is one Theory I gave you then there is the karma Theory then there is how the karma Theory work one thing the karma Theory does to answer your question is Karma Theory takes the blame away from God if God's will is good God's will is good but God has also given us freedom and we exercise the freedom in this way through Karma and we end up with this world this very interestingly the karma theory is this is the conclusion the Karma's theory in Hinduism Buddhism Jainism Sikhism but this is also the conclusion the official doctrine of the Catholic Church but evil is a product of um God's giving us free will and god is perfect but given us Free Will and we have created this world for ourselves even here there are many objections but it's almost nine o'clock um