Video 5

5. Bhagavad Gita | Chapter 2 Verse 16 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Oh Vasudeva suitum our new Ramadan um dave aqui para maana and krishna monday jagadguru can you hear me can everybody hear me at the back I don't know why I I can't hear myself oh now now it's okay yeah yeah before we start we had I had a very interesting experience this evening there's this a conference at NYU in the philosophy department on the hard problem of consciousness many of you know what it is thanks to me I've been going on and on boring you about it and today the discussion was the Advaita Vedanta answer to it and so a professor from Australia all the way from Australia Miri Albahari she came and she gave a talk some of us we went to attend it some of you are here who we went we were there together they were thinking were these strange people so imagine the top people in in philosophy especially in philosophy of mind net block and others I mean these are names to be reckoned with so did a very well there and what we are studying here that was being presented therein in more philosophical language when the presentation was going on I was so delighted you know the things that she was saying are almost if you put them in Sanskrit that's exactly what Shankar Acharya was saying 1400 years ago exactly the same things not only that it's a tough crowd somebody said it's a tough sell obviously there you don't expect them to buy it or immediately big the take up take it up but even the questions they asked in the hard questions they asked they don't know exactly those questions have been asked by the opponents of the ad weddings over the last 1400 years and there are excellent answers to them I'm not saying that it's all solved and cut-and-dried of course not but I think there are good answers to that in fact afterwards I was talking to some of the philosophers and saying that you're trying to put me out of a job I was feeling happy at the same time as a feeling and I thought maybe I should retire go back to the Himalayas the Americans can take care of themselves now they are doing it in the in NYU so why should I where should we have Abaddonn to Society for it incredible I was so happy to see this in fact what we are going to talk about today is directly related to the discussions that was going on at that time and as a result as a sort of consequence of that I nearly did not make it to the class I came out of NYU then I got went into Washington Park and then I came out and I got lost so I wandered around a little bit here and there with time running out for the class and I thought no need to get anxious because nothing's going to happen unless I get there so yeah nothing interesting is going to happen unless a week but I did manage to come back I said last time that the verse that we are going to do now the sixteenth verse second chapter is a very important verse and philosophically speaking at least from the non-dual perspective it's the heart of the bhagavad-gita I'm using my words carefully philosophically speaking from the non-dual perspective if you are asking for practical advice in spiritual life there are other verses which will be very useful for karma yoga something like karma Nevada Kara state that is a central verse what do i do I don't want all this philosophy how do I lead my life Krishna will say at the very end said weatherman para ta give up all other practices take refuge in me so practical spiritual advice there are other verses this will seem very theoretical but this is fundamental to the whole of Advaita Vedanta this verse what does this verse say it can be said easily the central teaching of Advaita Vedanta Brahman is real the world is an appearance and you are Brahman moneymen you feel like yeah we know that you should have been there at the seminar just each of these things is taken was taken up and shredded the person coming from say a materialist reductionist background this is a crazy thing to say incredible thing to say but this is the central message of Advaita Vedanta Shri Ramakrishna he was asked please teach me spirituality in one sentence so the person who asked that was wise because otherwise the whole of the gospel of ramakrishna was several hundred pages eight hundred nine hundred pages is the teaching of ramakrishna but one sentence tell me all of spirituality in one sentence and sri ramakrishna looked at that man and he said Brahman is real the world is an appearance assimilate destroyed and then the writer no less than Swami Rama Harinder he says saying this sri ramakrishna kept quiet he says this also that means emphasizes it that Salaam Krishna did not add anything more to it Brahman is the reality the world is an appearance in Bengali said eighty Donecker the assimilate this this is enough word for for enlightenment this verse says it this verse is for the first time what is going on here Krishna is talking about the Vedanta theory of this self who are we and he has said that we do not die with the death of the body remember the last few verses but now he is coming to the the central teaching there is one reality which appears as this universe and you are that reality brahma satyam brahman is real jagat mithya the universe is an appearance and what about you Jeeva from haven opera you are none other than that that absolute reality I was thinking it will make you smile the language the professor was using to say exactly this thing she was saying that Advaita says that is an a perspectival ground of consciousness and that appears as perspectival subjects basically this is the same thing this central teaching that has been set forth for the first time in this verse and as you can imagine Shankar Acharya the great teacher of advaitha Vedanta is very very happy with this verse so today we are going to not only read the verse and the basic meaning behind it but I'm going to take you into what I usually do not do into the original commentary of Shankar Acharya on this verse so we'll do a close reading of his commentary it's fantastic and it has tremendous implications for for philosophy the commentary itself is so wonderful and the great thing is not only is the truth stated here teaching given here it is argued out and it is also shown how you can directly experience it here and now and forever so that's what's given here there's a story which goes you know Mahabharata was written by Vyasa the great poet and sage and remember the story of Mary nice Theresa's Mahabharata he needed somebody to take it down here to write it down a what you call a stenographer a scribe and so who does it get Ganesha so Ganesha is described with his elephant head analogies his enormous processing capacity he is described and Vyasa is the person who's composing and giving out poetry as it comes to an all in the form of poetry and this greatest of all epics but we also knew that Oh Ganesha said so a sets a condition I will write it down but you have to keep on composing and telling me the verses it can't be like you can't take a break and I'll keep writing if the moment you stop I will also stop and the moment I stop that's it I'm done Vyasa is no less he said okay I agree to your conditions but I have a condition of my own and the condition is if there is okay the condition is you must understand what you are writing you must understand before before you write it down once you have understood it write it down don't write without understanding and on purpose the answer would once in a while compose a verse very difficult to understand so that Ganesha would go mm-hmm and we also would take a breath of breather you-know-who but very soon Ganesha satatam got it when he starts writing so there are those verses so this is story with just a story to show that there are difficult verses they called not grunty and they are the places where you have to really pay attention because something deep is being said said here untie it at that point the whole thing becomes revealed to you one of those verses is there are others you will often find them by their deceptively simple appearance and yet paradoxical statement and sometimes paradoxical or here it will seem tautological stating the absolute obvious so what does he mean let's see please repeat after me NASA to videotape abu nasr to videotape abu dhabi deity SATA Naveed deity SATA uber you repeat rich don't repeat rich 22 anna you start or - if he started to add a shape he the unreal never comes into existence and the real never goes out of existence those who are truly wise they have understood these - the unreal as the unreal and the real as the real those who are truly wise they have understood - now in the face of it it's strangely what philosophers called tautological stating the obvious one is one a is a it's tautological that you're stating the obvious real is real underneath unreal is unreal that's all it's wise to not know what is real and what is unreal I have two good little deeper what does he want to say here this is the philosophy of being the philosophy of existence remember there can be an approach to Brahman from sucked existence from chit consciousness and also from Arnon the value or bliss this is an exist this is an approach from existence what is from isness now one way I'll give you a simple explanation before we launch into what Shankar Acharya does one explanation is this one way of explaining it is this I have often mentioned you can think of it in this way things have intrinsic properties and incidental properties so I've often given you the example of a hot potato potato which is being boiled so it's hot but it's hot only temporarily it was not hot to begin with and it will not be hot a little later it's only when you're serving it hot now it gains heat and loses heat so the heat in the potato it's not it's not intrinsic to the potato it's not always hot where did it get its heat from it's a borrowed heat it got it seeped from the boiling water and the boiling water similarly is not intrinsically hot it is hot now but it was not hot earlier and it will not be hot later on that he does not belong to the water it borrowed it from the hot pan similarly the pan it well it was cold it borrowed its heat from the fire underneath but the fire did not borrow its heat from anywhere else it has its own its intrinsic heat now look at notice what happens to the fire as long as it is burning it is hot if you use a very simple example it is hot it does not become hot and does not become cold as long as the fire is there it is and it can lend its heat to others so a sign of a borrowed property incidental property accidental property is that it comes and goes the pan was cold it became hot and lost the heat the water became hot and lost the heat the the potato it became hot and lost the heat but the fire never became not a hot and lost a heat whenever it was there it was hot so this sign of an intrinsic property is that it does not come and go the sign of an incidental property you know what is meant by incidental not essential to the nature of the thing it's borrowed it comes and goes so somebody says in Manhattan you don't know who's rich because everybody acts rich and spends a lot of money but some they own that money someday it's there running on their maxing out their credit cards so only when it's repossessed the people who have lent you money they come to take away the stuff then you realize oh it was borrowed money it came and went but it does not belong to that person similarly about heat now if this is this much you take away this much if there is something called an intrinsic property it will be there always if there is something called an accidental or incidental property it can come and go the sign of it being an incidental properties it comes and goes now think of existence can existence be a property that's a different issue altogether because there's a lot of philosophy we might not know it philosophers would immediately object but anyway consider existence suppose existence is an incidental property I'm telling you something which is common sense but I'm putting it in a little philosophical language suppose existence is an incidental property what would happen to it if heat is and what happened to the heat in the potato or the water of the pan it comes and goes if existence were like that it would come and go when heat comes and goes the object becomes hot and cold if existence comes and goes what would happen to the object it would be born it would die or to be created it would it would come into being it would go out of being right are you with me if existence is like that if it comes if something gains existence it's a it's a fancy way of saying it is created or born if something loses existence it's a philosophical way of saying that it is destroyed or dead which means being born and dying being created and destroyed coming into being and disappearing these are signs that this these entities have borrowed existence existence does not belong to them incidental the incidental existence accidental existence borrowed existence existence does not belong to them and what are we talking about just about everything in the world including here are us our bodies everything is created products are created bodies are created and destroyed the entire universe in fact was created in the Big Bang and every artifact in it is created and destroyed every entity that we know comes into being and is lost so they do not have existence as an intrinsic property but suppose there is something called that something which has existence as an intrinsic property suppose what would happen to it what would happen to it it would be there always it would never be born never die just as fire whenever fire is there fire is hot it's in the same way if existence were an intrinsic property then that entity would be there always what he's saying here is there is such a thing which has existence as an intrinsic property and it's you the real you and he will show it now he will demonstrate it he says he it's actually we it is there it's an open secret not exactly in front of our noses and we would rather we have to say behind our noses let's say it's there all the time and open secret we just have to see it he's going to show us now so that's the whole story behind it he is going to show us what we call our immortal soul that we are Brahman is going to show that to us okay he said the Unreal has no existence or does not come into existence and the real never goes out of existence he uses words asset and subtle now there are think of three kinds of entities one is in Advaita Vedanta which has intrinsic existence that means it never goes out of existence it always is you would say that it's good to say such a thing you've defined it is there actually such a thing yes there is we'll see today right today we'll see he right here there is such a thing and it's been within everybody's experience now that thing is that ultimate reality is Brahman is sucked that the name for that is such pure being existence pure being sucked so uses that word sucked we are we have also heard such eden and brahman is defined as existence consciousness place so that word is used sucked that is the ultimate reality the opposite of that is the absolutely unreal which has no existence at all so like a square circle for example or the classical example they give is banda hapara the son of a barren woman by definition impossible a square circle by definition impossible so something that can never that does not exist and can never appear does not exist cannot appear there's no question of it experiencing such a thing it's a logical impossibility but in between these two the absolutely real and the totally unreal in between these two there's another category which has borrowed existence so which comes into existence and disappears that's that in between category in Vedanta is called mithya things with borrowed existence things which do are not intrinsically real they borrow their reality for a time being mithya what is the difference between absolutely real and this this in-between category this English translation would be the false would be an appearance or false how do you distinguish between existence the rat which really exists such and this mithya such always exists never goes out of existence and the myth here is something which does not exist yet appears to exist for a time bring with borrowed existence where does it borrow his existence from it borrows its existence from shut I'll repeat mithya the false the the apparent reality who in for a time being it appears before us the absolutely unreal never appears as nobody has actually seen a square circle but we have this is not not crazy because we have such experiences Mirage water in the Mirage it you see it it seems like existing there when you go close you see it doesn't exist the classic example of seeing a snake in a rope so it appears for a moment you saw it so it's not you saw it but when you go close it's not there so there is a category of things which are which appear without existing and for the time being they seem to exist and their existence is borrowed so that category is called mithya and Shankar Acharya wants to say whatever we experience in the world is in that category they all have borrowed existence they do not exist by themselves they will not exist after some time and even when most important even when they seem to exist when they seem to appear before you right now they do not exist by themselves they are borrowing their existence from shut from Brahman all right how is this possible he takes this track see this verse is about reality and unreality such the technical term is mithya the word he uses for Mitya here is assert why this has to be serious those have studied Vedanta for them Asad does not mean meteor they talk about absolutely real set the false mithya and the totally unreal ASET so here does not mean totally unreal this is what I wanted to point out here a set means false when you say the world is false Shankar Acharya is calling it a set here but in Vedanta textbooks a set means square circle nothing he does not mean that so that's what has to be clear all right now we go into we know enough to go into Shankar Acharya explanation he takes what yes yes yes all entities which are called meteor products of maya maya presents brahman dis up the pure being as the ever-changing world yeah so therefore everything that we see here everything that Shankar Acharya calls meteor is Maya in fact it's a common phrase in India sub my ahead people will repeat repeated in villages they have not gone through all this philosophy but it's just a sort of you know catch phrase I mean like life is like that so sub Maya everything is my literally it means everything is Maya but when somebody says that he's what he he or she means in India is just let it go it's just like that and don't start philosophizing with that person he will be puzzled him all right now the track Shankar Acharya takes is how do you borrow existence it's cool to talk about borrowing existence as if but is it possible is what what do you mean borrow existence it happens all the time where does it happen cause and effect material cause and effect so clay clay when you shape it into a pot you call it a part but the part which has a name a distinct form and a use name form use nama Rupa Viva Hara but its entire existence depends on the constituent clay true or false only a few of you seem convinced a clay pot look at this a wooden lecture a wooden lectern its entire existence depends upon the would constitute and constituting it proof take away the would electron would disappear immediately right it has no existence in fact when I touch it what do I say touch would I don't say touch lectern well I know I'm touching would only way I can conventionally see I'm touching a lectern or a podium but I know physically I'm touching what the material the material out of which it is made so entire existence of this piece of furniture is the wood constituting it the material cause the wood is called the material cause in Sanskrit Hoopa Donna Karan and this using Shankar Acharya sturms we will see now this podium would be called karyam effect ark he says vicara vicara means a modification of the material so the podía podium is a modification of the Constituent wood any modification this is what he wants to say any modification borrows existence from its constituent material by the way those I'm enjoying this but those who are thinking I wanted some religion let me go and get me some religion in my life whatever whatever landed up in don't worry all that will come devotion and meditation and ethics all of those things will come slowly but this is the central teaching so what have we got so far anything that is a modification an effect depends on its material cause for its existence it borrows a clay bar apart borrows existence from the in constituent clay this furniture borrows this existence from the constituent wood all right I will read out the original Sanskrit you will like it I'll translate of course Shankar Acharya says Ricardo he saw any entity you see is an effect modification the courage of a majority effects keep changing the atharva tally some solemn Chuck shushanna rupiah mana mid-victorian a new loop a new Paulo a new palabra hey asset he says just as a pot which you can see with your eyes that you can see the form with your eyes yet there'll be nothing left there if you take away the clay you will not perceive anything at all if the clay is taken away other than the clay you cannot see the pot other than the pot can you see the clay yes you can see it as a lump of clay if you break the pot you can see it as a broken pot the clay in the clay you can see in fact all you are saying seeing is clay literally anything that your eyes are contacting is the clay itself okay so what did he say just like he gives an example I never see he says yata it means just like just like the form of a clay seen by the eyes is not seen other than the a form of a pot seen by the eyes is not seen other than the clay constituting the pot without that no pot similarly what does he want to say similarly Tata just like that so in some channels encourages writing in sanskrit commentaries if there is a yeah hah yeah hah means just like look for the Tata just like that there is going to make his point that's her sorrow movie car a car and a battery can undo pull up the asset a son just like that every effect every product Bakara has no existence cannot be found cannot be experienced without their constituent material this is the he says a son this this is the very definition of falsity so what is this conclusion being an effect being unable to exist being unable none Abel Forex unavailable for experience unavailable for experience without its constituent cause all these products are false the term he uses asset in some in plural asana in sanskrit plural also these ones did not exist before their creation and will not exist after the destruction remember was not hot earlier will not be hot afterwards is it getting hot do you need the fan some borrowed he says janma Pat drunk sob ROM problem John opal up they not only are they not existent without their constituent materials but before their creation also you could not see them and after their creation also they are not available for experience after the destruction before destruction was not there before creation was not there after destruction will not be there even when we say they are there yeah they are not there without their constituent material so this name and formed all these things are names and forms these names and forms are appearances they are not there before they were created they will not be there after they're gone and even when they are there they're still appearances of their underlying material cause we will say yeah so the clay is there right but the clay is not there apart from its cause in the Sanskrit in the old Liu cosmology how is everything the the clay will not exist apart from the earth element they talk about sky fire space fire water air earth so five elements and today you can talk about matter as we understand it so he says so the clay does not exist without its cause and that one does not exist without its cars the clay is an appearance of it so if it's calls and that causes an appearance of its underlying cause and that is an appearance of its underlying cause so he says neither they its our clay and the whole sequence because the first one cannot be experienced without its underlying reality underlying cause and that one cannot be experienced without its underlying substance and so on the whole thing becomes an appearance then question so the guy who asked the question is very interesting often just the question which comes to maybe if you're following carefully the same question will come to your mind are you saying everything will disappear then da da ba HSR evolve our personality Jade I said wait just a minute if you say that if you do that then we are we are arriving at nothingness is everything from A to Z an appearance that cannot be the thing whole thing must be grounded somewhere you cannot infinitely borrow heat it must have come from something which hasn't rinse with is intrinsically hard similarly what is intrinsically existence existing Shankar Acharya says no it's not that everything is false or everything is an appearance there is and ground reality they are coming there now what is the ground reality he says every experience you have in every experience a pot experience a table experience man or woman or sky or earth whatever experience you have good and bad and pleasant and unpleasant in all the experiences there are two components this is very important there are two components what are the two components the there is the object of experience it's called vishaya sight sound smell taste touch these are the objects of sense experience and there is the experience of isness which we ignore you see when you see what I what are you seeing you say o'clock what are you seeing now is a book what are you seeing now you say hand what Shankar Acharya says no no in each of these experiences the two components are there clock name-and-form clock is so clock is one experience and the other part of it is it exists it is do you experience it as existing or non-existing exist use it goes without saying what was your experience car clock is book is hand is he says notice the objects of experience kept changing clock book hand the objects are different the clock is not a book the book is not a hand and the objects come and go they keep changing sometimes you see sometimes you hear sometimes you smell taste touch and what you see keeps change changing how many things you have seen since the morning throughout your lifetimes how many things you have heard these keep changing but everywhere you have the continuous unchanging experience of business now this continuous unchanging experience of business very important this is a doorway to Brahma Yana it is continuously available to us open it walk through Vedanta is over for you finished right now ya don't need anything else but keep coming to the class anyway does not work for you 80 there are 18 chapters so much of a dancer I think enough for the next few years so this doorway what is the doorway I will repeat again yours here is her our own continuous experience of existence into whose existence your existence could be mine could be anything that you see all the time we have an experience of existence now next he says these two experiences we have experience of the object and experience of existence now when you experience something the experience is in you and what you are experiencing is out there common sense I am experiencing a clock so I have an experience of a clock in my awareness in my mind and there is a clock out there you see where this is going so if you are experiencing a clock and there is a clock there and you have an experience of a clock if you're experiencing clock is that business experience corresponds to an easiness reality then you think there's a you feel there's a clock here is a clock there's a clock in your mind of the clock outside clock is that experience of easiness in your mind in yourself and that corresponds to an easiness outside in every item which you see he says there are two experiences the object itself and isness and they correspond to a reality there is an object and there is isness also now he says the object keeps changing they have borrowed existence the sense of easiness does not change everywhere any experience you have you have the feeling of being business then that isness which you in it is there in every object outside that unchanging isness is that intrinsic existence we are talking about that does not borrow exist existence from anything else that lends existence to everything remember it may sound abstract we are actually talking about our living experience every moment of our life is analyzing it the feeling of isness corresponds to a realist Ness which is there always that does not come and go so that which comes and goes we have already defined it sucked appearance that does not come and go sucked reality what is sucked a reality that sense of isness corresponding to that there is a reality everywhere all the time let's read he says yet wish i Aboudi nabiyev a charity touch sucked that entity about which your experience does not change that is reality yet which I about Divya charity does accept it II the object about which your experience keeps changing clock hand book that one is an appearance why because that has borrowed existence et saga sattvam Hollywood didn't trace it today he says in this way in all our experiences which experience every experience you have in life till now and what you will continue to have you will have a continuous mixed experience of appearance and reality appearance and reality Sud assert what is appearance names and forms what is reality is ness what do you mean by isness track your own experience that sense of being a stick to em ness then he gives an example son Curtis son Patterson has the et am serve etre pot exists clot exists elephant exists shankara's to encourage areas context 1400 years ago yes so those are the common we might say SUV exists that's the closest we can get to the elephant sir exists then he says is is is do you notice Taotao guitar d baby charity the touch of the shittim not to sad booty and in these experiences you will see the object keeps changing the sense of business does not change we Club them together and we never notice the background business Shankar Acharya is drawing our attention you think can it be that simple it's not but in essence it is pretty simple this is the smog guitar diva diva Shia isang via chart not to subdivision AB AB ba which are out there for that which corresponds to your changing experience clock book hand these are appearances why because they change what is the what's the probability if they change their borrowed existence they cannot be real in themselves but your experience your experience everybody's continuous experience of easiness point store it's not itself a reality it points to the reality which cannot be expressed it points to a reality why is that real because it does not change you never see it coming into being you never see it disappearing which one am I talking about it is ness am-ness in sanskrit a stick to sitar septum in Hindi means power but if here it means existence being now the person who is objecting is a funny guy he's got all the good tough questions so he says that's cool but I've got questions number one got a winner stay got about the questions he will sometimes never think about also he's a really smart guy got a finished a cutaway which are on Cambodia pure charity I teach eight he says just a minute you said pot exists and you're making a distinction between the pot name and form and the existence of it okay this yes but then when the part is broken part does not exist a pot experience goes and I say existence also is gone because part is broken part is gone now so your existence is not you what will you say pot is not so your ace has become is not what do you say to that he says na patada huapi he said would deduction are he says no but you can see it in the clock and can elephant that isness continues the isness continues it's only the pot name and form which has disappeared then the questioner asks a similar question and it says just a minute so that would be what got a book me up you gotta answer this shitty teach it says he's funny he says that or you say existence the experience of easiness continuous because if the part is broken the cloth is you're saying but then I can say that this part is broken but my experience of pot continues and another pot so part is the ultimate reality will everywhere there's pot in this part I cannot say it's a pot anymore but just like you said plot is elephant is I can say this the other part is the here is a part here is a parts apart continues so part is real part is the ultimate reality they'll become a pot Vedanta Shankar Acharya says nah but are the other shinnok because you cannot see you don't have the experience of a part in a clot you don't have experience of a part in an elephant but you have the experience of isness in whatever exists if you say there is something in which their experience of business is not there immediately it will not exist it is not you see logically speaking he won't let go he's like a bulldog he's got hold off in this phase going he said just a minute let me let me clarify this so would the European hashtag hurt another shhh you said isness is everywhere here's a very important point coming up you said isness is everywhere fine but when the pot is destroyed you said clot exists elephant exists but in the destroyed pot I don't see isness I can no longer say pot is that pot is gone so there I don't see isn't as where is the easiness but it is it's not a superficial question suppose somebody asks suppose everything in the universe is destroyed before the Big Bang or after the dissolution of the universe in Hinduism we talk about cycles of existence so there will be times when the universe does not exist pralaya the cosmic resolution nothing is there then where is your existence in the absence of all things where is your existence just like that in the absence of one part where did your precious existence go because we are saying is part is not then he says important point now vishay heart vitiation of ashati vishesha Ave vitiation Oh poppet O king Bashar Assad not to Pune Hisashi Shia how odd okay he says the only way we can actually experience this is Ness is in association with a name and form why because that is Ness is not really out there it's you yourself the pure subject all those things which you experience they borrow their isness from your own sense of being but to experience them you need an entity outside electricity is everywhere but suppose you say all the bulbs and the fans are they are all taken away no electrical appliances electricity is still there but how do you know it unless something is spinning something is magnifying sound something is shining you will not know the presence of electricity similarly to when all entities are destroyed it's not that existence is gone but existence has no more instances it still continues it still continues I used an example of light once I was talking about this in Nollan the university in not the old destroyed one there's a new one so they like seminar on Buddhism and Hinduism and Jainism philosophies of consciousness so I was saying an analogous thing consciousness is appreciated understood experienced when you have something to be conscious of if there is an object you feel I am experiencing it if there are no objects to experience it's not that consciousness is disappeared it's that there's nothing to experience so experience of things has stopped so how to explain that I was thinking how to illustrate it and there was conference in a PowerPoint projector so the PowerPoint projector and the light there's an intense beam of light now the funny thing about the beam of light is you can see the picture on the screen but the the camera is there or the projector is up there on the ceiling you know what I'm talking about you have seen from there to the screen an intense light is coming but if you see there doesn't seem to be anything particular it's only when the speaker the presenter is walking through that beam suddenly you see the face shining with white light awesome so what I said is right now in this pot there doesn't seem to be light it's just air we're going to thrust my hand in there you see behind shines with light when you remove my hand what happens to the light there it's still there but it's not shining because an object is not there when the object is there the light one ear it reflects and you see the object when Swami put it very beautifully what does the light do for the object it reveals the object what does the object we know this but what does the object do for the light it manifests an already existing light is it true right here you see I can show a little bit here also see if I remove it there's a light here when I put my hand you see how it's shining that light reveals my hand but my hand manifests an already-existing light similarly names and forms manifest an always existing consciousness always existing existence being without the names and forms the being is still there but there's no way of experiencing it that's what he's saying now an another important question is raised I am racing through it sort of I'm skipping a little bit so you are saying that existence is the reality and the objects are appearances to put it in more terms we are used to existence means Brahman Brahman is reality and objects means world the world is false or universe is false or in sanskrit brahma satyam jagat mithya do you see how we have led up to that you're saying this the same entity in that you are saying the names and forms are appearances the existence alone is real real because it is unchanging the existence alone is real and it manifests these names and forms it reveals or it of it gives existence lends existence to the object that's what you are saying but this reality and falsity cannot exist together how can the same thing be true and false at the same time how can the same be true and false at the same time this mic is it true or false true or false the answer will be depends you're asking from the point of view Brahman existence yes it is you're asking about the mic name-and-form without the existence it is not Shankar Acharya gives an example now Edom of the committee Murray Tiago and near Turab Xavier epistemological nadir Shah not the smart day Hadees on the search the car and acetone of idiotic how eighty he says in a mirage you see two things at the same time you say this is water now two things are there that sense of this and water water is not there the water that you see there is an appearance but there is something there hot air and the deserts and that's there so when you see this it points to a reality and when you say water that's wrong that water is not there so a reality and an appearance exist together coexist together yeah a real desert and real water cannot coexist but a real desert there's a time in the sandy one not the cake I can never get the pronounciations desert yes desert yes you you won't know is very funny there was a very senior Swami in st. Louis he came to this country in the 1930s nineteen to thirty Swami said prakasananda G he came to his country long time ago and I went to say influence in the Vedanta Society there the the room where that Swami is to stay he'd have kept it exactly like that so they don't disturb it guests are allowed to stay there guest Swami's so everything is there like the way it was in he died in the nineteen seventies I think 70s so it do everything the way it was fifty years ago so I was sort of rummaging around and in one of the dryers I saw a little notebook with pencil in written in the 1930s the Swami was trying to learn English American English in those days so one page says with the English word and the Bengali meanings desert desert desert three things in Bengali it's written more Ubu me this is the sandy place and the other one is the sweet thing which you eat and the other one and the third one is what you deserve you get what you deserve and the whole notebook was painstakingly written with full of words from the dictionary which he was trying to learn so he searched Anchorage area says desert is real when you see this there is something real there but the water is not real but what was your experience this is water one part of it is false one part of his correct you say book is book is an appearance is necessary there is an easiness there's an easiness running through all our experiences then he says therefore body mind external universe all of them they are appearances why there are products and the product are other modifications they have no existence apart from their underlying causes and the underlying causes have no existence apart from their underlying causes all the way down to easiness itself they are all coming and changing and going but ultimately down to business itself tatata at Manoa bhava a video monitor now it deities are what Revere which are oddity about Yama therefore have we said that isness is a the absence of that isness cannot be conceived of what is that isness it is you it's not really an easiness out there objects time-space all of them time is space is objects object is universe is time-space universe all our appearances of Maya that underlying isness is the is the stage on which the drama takes place is the screen on which the movie of the universe is playing and that screen you are that thou art philosophy how does it affect me it is the highest spiritual practice highest spiritual practice and just reading swami began on and the jeevan the disciples of sri ramakrishna he is saying to many people many many years after sri ramakrishna passed away he said Keysha obscene who was a great social reformer in india in those days very well known brahma so much so and he was very well known because he had actually traveled to England and met the Queen in those days so Sri Ramakrishna says to him you have crossed the oceans and seen many lands so many things you have seen have you not seen my divine mother who'd underlies everything in the universe and yoga duration my mother who is the reality of the entire universe have you not seen her do you not have eyes to see her what does he mean by that it is this is Nessa wareness which is the divine mother Swami began the explaining is after that he says go on in spiritual life advance advance you will see a vast radiance surrounding you all the time and you will playfully like a fish swimming in the ocean ocean you will playfully you know swim in this in this vast equal to the vast radiance it's here right now we don't have eyes to see it what is that vast radiance it is nothing other than the infinite unlimited business awareness the non dualist see we say our language is meant for practical use so it's a dualistic language table is book is the clock is you know what the non Duras would like to say is nest tables here is nests clocks here business books here it's not as silly as it appears if you look at the ocean a child might say oh that wave has lot of water in it this wave is small - less water in it which is more logical to say that waves have water in them or the water is appearing as waves waves do not have water in them it is the water which appears in various waves the waves arise in water play about in water disappear back into water there are names and forms and activities in water the water is absolutely one vastness there in the same way like water can you conceive of can you conceive of existence as an ocean now you see with new eyes look around you see existence as an ocean in which all people all animals all living and non-living things including the stars and the planets they are all waves in this ocean of existence ashtavakra says my Ananta muhammad o Vishu avicii swaha bata who they to us Tamayo to Nami with Dina Bock shotty now you'll understand in me the infinite ocean of existence the waves of the universe arise and subside let the waves arise I gain nothing thereby let the wave subside I lose nothing thereby when the ocean when the waves come up in the ocean does the ocean increase no when the waves subside back into the ocean does it has the ocean lost any volume of water no in the same way let birth come creation come I have not increased one bit as existence let defeat humiliation old age disease decay and death come and destruction come I have not lost one bit and still exists aim existence ever this think about the grandness and the claim is you can actually experience next he says those who understand the difference between the truth these two he Nanaia the conviction clarity such sudeva Assad Assad Ava he says the reality is real this the appearance is an appearance I the pure existence consciousness I am real that one that I and the body mind including the ego and the body and external universe is an appearance appearance of what of me in a sense all this is an appearance in a sense all this is me if you say this is real then yes it is real as you because it's reality depends on you it's borrowed from you but remember by you I don't mean this person I mean that sense of isness awareness such which we continuously experience in all our experiences then what do you have to do to warm up it up to the Shannara sh t Masha Tia says o Arjuna here Shankara is pitching in to help Krishna he's saying the krishna arjuna should what should he do take up this viewpoint take up this viewpoint that's whether she means a knower of reality take up the viewpoint of the knower of reality in your life show come mohim shahid draw a rise above delusion and sorrow I am a son eva all the waves that come in your life say that they are appearances like Merici jolivet like the water of a mirage - in is Chitti aesthetics were with this clarity with this conviction he says go back to the earlier verse he said all the afflictions in life what had he said what's the solution he said put up with them how will you put up with them with this clarity and conviction this is how you live your life and do whatever has to be done it gives you enormous freedom nothing here is thinking that professor a lady in the university invaluable it excites kid but what she said was the entire universe of you know objective and objective entities is contained in one inclusive within the boundaries of one in a perspective ground of consciousness but so this is what he's saying I'll end with one monk I know in her in the tree she cash hurried wat so there was a great teacher he was teaching about Vedanta and he didn't know much about modern science so somebody had shown him an x-ray and he said I saw this o monks we were all sitting around all monks many dekha I saw this a light which goes through the skin and the blood and the flesh into the bones through the very bones this is exactly like this I loved the way he would bring all these examples back to Vedanta exactly like this should be your vision and like super vision Superman not to see through to the bones he says see through to reality he says Mahatma ki Drishti I see who nature ye this be the vision the perspective it is nothing to do with the physical vision your perspective the perspective of a monk of a practitioner of non-dualism should be like this keep your attention on the unchanging reality and enjoy the movie there ever ever changing waves of the ocean which you are you are the ocean why are you so worried about little waves rise above the little nothing can have effective it can affect the body but you're not the body the body is a wave in you instead of thinking I'm a tiny spark of tiny spark of consciousness in an uncaring vast universe of eternal time and space all the time and all the space and all the conscious and non conscious entities are little waves and bubbles in you this is not megalomania it says it it can it is actually an open secret way kinda called it an open secret continuously available to us it requires a change in perspective today towards the end after the end of the discussion in the university one problem the philosophers had the lady who presented it did a good job but see the she gave examples of Ramana Maharshi and a circle at 10 others in that mystic experience they have experienced the oneness I mean for moment you say that what happens is the then becomes locked up in the hands of a few people the question will be why should I believe you somebody was repeatedly asking this is an enormous claim you're making where is the evidence for this there is another approach which Shankaracharya uses here I'm not talking about mystical experience you will have that also take a completely analytical point of view take a completely analytical point of view that will reveal an ever revealed reality here the non duelists in the Himalayas they say prop the see a property near it the celebrity what will be done to do to you what will you get from Vedanta what you've already got it gives you what you have already got and what does be done to remove what problem does it solve it solves a problem that was never there practice your prob propped in every decision everything yeah yes how did you go there you're you're right you're right that's ultimately answer but how do you do I've been interested in doing Hawaii yes so the clays plays the material cause of the pot in the same way Brahman is said to be the material cause of this universe but you said Brahman is not the cause of the universe why did you say that you're right if it's an appearance see if if something a seed germinated and it made a beautiful plant so you can say the seed is the cause of the plant correct it's a material which became the plant but you say the seed made a beautiful plant where is it now in my dreams usually the plant is in my dreams then you will see the seed that seed is not the cause of the plant in your dreams because that plant does not exist so if the universe is an appearance then the question will arise what is Brahman a cause off what did it produce what did it create nothing Brahman alone remains there is no universe that was created there's no universe that was created but it is experienced that's the I of it when King Kong comes and climbs the Empire State Building I saw the movie when I was a kid now all of that happened you had the experience but actually King Kong did not come into the movie hall no in the same wave what happens here is an experience created by your Maya it's your glory within you the existence consciousness so is Brahman materially a causal universe is it a creator god no it is the universe and it is you yes yes from Ramon's perspective right no time no space in fact when you say eternal Brahman is eternal you have already accepted time and then you say it but actually even time look at the logic will you say time is the moment you say time is then the easiness becomes real and it's appearing as time-space if you see space is space depends on isness because without is space will disappear you might say people might say it's a word game you're playing no because continuously the reference is to your experience look at your own experience how can you say it's a word game so this Brahman you are that is the central teaching that Krishna is giving Arjuna now there are many many issues which will come up here yes so that will be discussed 18 chapters are there plenty of time down - yes we'll end with that question yes so you step down one one step then Brahman this very Brahman becomes what is called in Vedanta the saguna brahman which is a creator of the universe which through the power of Maya doesn't create exactly projects the universe if you want an explanation but Vedanta will tell you that's the story if you want a story yes what we want to tell you is all the things in the dream which you see in your dream the people and the plans and the places where they really created by you or imagined by you they were imagined by you so you're not really their Creator in that sense knows no things were created they're projected by you in your own mind all the time when you see those places when you meet those people in your dreams they're none other than you similarly this entire universe which we are experiencing is none other than Brahman if it was other than Brahman if is that all possible then you could say bream and created something apart from itself but it did not and it cannot be other than Brahman can you tell me why if Brahman is easy then other than Brahman will become isn't a hot yes you're good good with an tensor other than is is not apart from Easy's is not will not will exist it will not exist at all yes the question of why why this has come up again and again why there are many many answers I'll give you a few to take your pick will end with that it's a very profound question in fact today in the university and one place it got stuck is so that you are saying this one again the same thing a perspectival ground of consciousness yes and from that the many have come how why and she was struggling to answer that and it's it's unfair to expect somebody to answer that immediately what we have been struggling over for thousands of years immediate but you see what's the beauty is this all the questions the difficult ones also are exactly the right questions to ask that means for the first time in New York University maybe the top philosophers of the world they are going through a question/answer process on the track of hair thousands of years ago Advaita in Tibetan Buddhists then the duelists who are opponents of the other Athens they are having the exact same debate with the exact same questions only in Sanskrit so your question is why I'll give you a few candidates see if you like it one is the theory or the most standard answer is given karma what does this world exist because of your own karma our collective karma where did this collect collective karma come from our past lives yeah but where did that word come from your past life world because of the earlier life you will say then where did the first life come from and you will say no there's no such first life it's beginningless you'll say it's a cop-out we were beginning this how can they have it beginningless there is an answer to that also but let's switch switch to the next answer the next answer is it is Brahmans play because it can Alan Watts I've told you the story and then what's said God alone existed it's a child children story but I really like it a very profound story he said God alone existed it turned it into eternity but eternity is a pretty long time so God got bored it's lonely now God wanted to play me somebody to play with but how can God get somebody to play with because God is alone this is only God is nothing else other than God and there cannot be remember ease will become is not so how does God get somebody to play around with who will be food gods buddy then God being God this is a longer second explanation he's God is awfully clever because he's God so he is too got an idea God pretended to be not God now there are two God and God pretending to be not God so the game started whoo what's the game there's God pretending to be not God what's that people and trees and plants and universe stars and planets and the problem became because God is God he's awfully good at what he does so when he pretended to be not not God he forgot that he was God and then what was a play big became a nightmare and now God is who pretending to be not God and forgotten that he's God suffering so much he's trying to search for God and this is the story of the universe beautiful story oh really all of it on top packed into that candidate would you would you like this story and you say yeah it's poetic but playing God please why would God want to play all right now we are getting serious one more option the last but one is what standard answered in advaitha Maya Maya so God has this power which allows God or let's not use the word God Brahman isness has this power which allows isness to appear as many forms clock is table is sky is earth is water is man is mind is thoughts easiness appears in all these functions business has that power to project itself it's like a blank screen which has the power to project movies upon itself consciousness can have that power that is the nature of consciousness now what is the question will arise then is it non-dual how can that power does that power exists or does it not if it does not exist you can't have the universe if it exists then are two things which are isness and power is but that power has no existence apart from isness so it's non dual it's like they call it like the fire and the burning power of fire that's an explanation you might say even then why infinite existence could the physicist Lawrence Krauss said this distilled renée's question to keep asking why why why till the last solution is go to bed but Vedanta does not say go to bed it says the question itself is wrong if you ask why Maya the question itself is wrong why is the question no it took me a long time to understand Shankar Acharya will be kinder they all dismiss it question is wrong why is the question wrong I can ask why and so saying go to bed there is an answer to that look at what you're asking this is about causation you're asking because you are asking why Maya but what is Maya according to Atlanta - Maya is time space causation now suppose you asked you keep the it's wrong because you cannot ask why why when you ask why what kind of answer will serve will satisfy you a cause why did it ray why is the grass wet because it rained why did it rain because of the clouds and so on so when you say why Maya you need a because answer why did Brahman become the universe or even appear as the universe why is Brahman even playing if you're asking that what answer will satisfy you a because answer but because answer works only after causation if you ask a question about causation itself why causation it's not a cut logically correct question why for example time space and causation it's like asking what is there outside space outside and inside our space terms once you have accepted space then you can ask outside or inside but space itself what is outside is nowhere for and outside means some space is there outside but no time if you ask what was there before time but before and after a time words they make sense only when time is started so only when causation has started downwards after Maya then the question is why this thing happened why that thing happened but why Maya happened why did Brahman appear as the universe question itself is logically wrong am i making logical sense if not psychological sense but logical sense it makes logical sense are you do you see I'll make psychological sense also Swamy treguna eternally give a beautiful answer the same question was asked he said his answers it more dear it's a really deeply spiritual answered he said on this side of my on this side of enlightenment we have the question and there is no answer possible on the other side they have the answer but no question is there notice enlightened people anybody you consider to be enlightened Amon Amarth she or any circuit that the lady you start speaking about them all Ramakrishna Vivekananda one thing have you ever noticed do they ever say ok I'm enlightened now I am a knower of Brahman I'm free and all of that but one problem still remains why this thing has happened they seem to have the question seems to have disappeared for them we'll end here shanti shanti shanti he hurry he own that sat sri ramakrishna Aparna must do in fact the answer that lady gave the professor was the final answer which I did not mention we'll just quickly mention it to you go to father in a Manduca carroca he considers all these answers why Brahman is appearing as the universe and he rejects them all including the Maya and then finally he comes to Davis CA Isha swab how I am this is the very nature of the shining one there is no doubt that his Ness is there that's the reality and there's no doubt we are experiencing this variety so that it is Nessa Stein important all these ways it's a very nature of that this is not what she said she said in this way she said this question comes because we think of that reality as an emptiness but in all the Scriptures it is thought of as a plenum as an infinity as everything is there in an unexpressed straight and then it gets expressed you asking why does the Sun Shine so very nature the process of fusion produces heat and light same of about Drummond it's a very nature of Brahman to shine forth in all these ways ok