Video 53

53. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 4 Verses 25-28 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] guru so in the fourth chapter we have just seen a very very important section the section where the highest non-dual realization how we can live it in our lives the secret is given in the 18th verse the verse which talks about karma karma yapashiya who sees in action in the midst of all activity and how to live it is given in verses 19 20 21 22 23 both for the jeevan mukhtar the free wild living who is in the householder life also for jeevan mukhtar who is a sannyasi completely detached from mundane concerns in both cases krishna makes it very clear that even as a warrior in arjuna a fully enlightened person could continue to do that indeed as he krishna himself is living one can do that also or one can be completely detached and remain immersed in the place of brahman as a monk both are there then the fullness of vision the fullness of non-dual realization is given in that wonderful verse um four point two four brahmar panam rambhavi that using the paradigm of the yagya the vedic fire ritual the highest non-dual realization is put before us very poetically the ladle with which offerings are given is none other than brahman the fire is brahman the offerings are brahman the one who is offering is also brahman and we discussed it last time in details what it means now from the next verse onwards from 25 onwards what sri krishna will do is um he is going to use that same paradigm of the yagya the vedic fire ritual why he is using this yankee term comes up again and again why is he talking about the vedic fire ritual is because that was the kind of religion that people were used to in those days the basic idea of religion was that you were a vedic person who would perform these fire rituals and you can be considered a dharmic a religious person so he's using that model which people were comfortable with but now he's elevating it to spirituality here a whole range of spiritual practices ultimately leading to the full realization aham brahma asked me i am ramahan that fully up to that full realization all of that will be described in terms of yagya using that model um all kinds of spiritual practices like um meditation like maybe fasting or even even eating or you know like all religious practices all secular so-called secular activities all of them can be spiritualized so a whole series pranayama the yogic meditation the vows of fasting and whatnot all kinds of practices which many people do actually i mean not only in hinduism every religion has a whole kind a whole set of practices all of those practices sri krishna is casting them in the mould of yagya the vedic fire ritual what's the purpose ultimately all of that leads up to the final non-dual realization that's the purpose of everything all devotional practices all ritualistic practices all moral ethical practices all social service all that will be mentioned including social service everything and the and there they'll all be uh described in terms of yagya vedic fire ritual and that they all point towards the final yagya the highest yagya what is that brahma pranam ramahabi to see everything is brahman to see god everywhere to realize your identity with the absolute and live like that jivan mukta life of jivan that is the final goal all of that the whole range will be described as yagya from 25th verse onwards so let us come to verse number 25. [Music] the sacrifices to the gods alone these yogins they resort to still other spiritual seekers offer sacrifice by the way of a sacrifice in the fire of brahman alone sacrifice of the self into the higher self what does this mean so these are two kinds of two kinds of practices have been mentioned here two spiritual practices first the highest one the second this is the so in all of them consider that there is a fire and into that some offering is being made in all of them that's the paradigm that was the original form of the vedic ritual of sacred fire would be lit offerings would be made there would be chanting of mantras and so on and so forth so the highest the final one is what we have seen brahmapanam ramahavi that alone is mentioned in the second line of verse number 25. imagine the ultimate reality brahman that's the fire the fire is brahman and just like we saw in verse 24 then what is being offered our individual self we we are being offered i am being offered into the fire of brahman what does that mean am i going to jump into a fire no what is meant here is the individual self the limited self is offered into the unlimited self the jiva is offered into brahman what does that mean offering that limited self into unlimited self offering given to brahman what is this offering it is nothing other than self realization realizing that i am not the limited self i am actually the unlimited self i am not a body i am not a mind i am not this body mind complex i am the infinite existence consciousness place italy i am not the mind not the intellect not the ego not the member the mind stuff the the memory but i am of the nature of shiva siddhan and the bliss consciousness place this is the offering of the individual self into the higher self after all the individual self is nothing other than the higher self i sarva-priyananda and in reality brahman under delusion under ignorance under not knowing my real nature i think i am this individual being this person this body mind with a history you know personal narrative this all together this bundle i think i am this one yes i am very convinced this is the limited self this is the self and the delusion but this very self not a separate god this very self itself is the infinite existence consciousness place so this realization itself has been imagined or reimagined by krishna as a vedic sacrifice like the fire is brahman and the individual being is the offering by self-realization you are realizing your own infinite self that's the meaning of this and this is nothing more than what was just said in verse number 24 brahma panam brahma that's the highest that's the ultimate krishna will say after giving a series of spiritual practices each of which will be presented as a yagya a ritual at the end of it he will say actually the one i mentioned first brahma pranam brahma habi that's the purpose of everything and that's the highest form of then this is one type of yakya then the second one and in the first line of verse 25 he says the other kind of guy is the one the ritual itself which you are used to is he discarding the vedic fire ritual and saying you have to perform all these other kinds of spiritual practices but forget about the vedic fire ritual no no no he's saying the vedic miracle itself is a yeah of course it is it's the prototype so means the the yagya which you are all used to you go and offer a lighter sacred fire and offer ghee into it with the chanting of mantras people have desires to be fulfilled you know they want this worldly desires or other body desires if they have the worldly goals but you are a spiritual seeker so you can do it for the purification of the mind see i'm pointing out something that all the rituals in religion till today people do it for two reasons one reason could be a worldly reason worldly or otherworldly reason worldly reason means i want success i want to get money i want to win elections i want to you know solve the problems of my life this is worldly reason otherworldly reason i want to go to heaven after death all of these are still worldly this world you are otherworldly they are vishayam objects desire they are trying to fulfill some desire this is this is not for us krishna is not teaching that krishna is saying you be spiritual seekers so as spiritual seekers can we perform yagya can we perform the original rituals yes we can why would we perform it we don't want anything from the world and from the vedic gods yes so if you perform it without any desire worldly desire or otherworldly desire it leads to purification of the mind what will that do that will give us the fundamental prerequisites the four world qualifications of vedanta they come they come as a result of the purification so the performance of religious rituals also is a very powerful way of purifying the mind by the way there's one thing i might i can show you i came across a quotation from swami vivekananda where he is saying you know his famous exaltation to have faith on yourself then he says here of course the self means the higher self brahman but also the lower self because the lower self is nothing other than the higher self under delusion let me get that original quotation i want to read it out to you the original quotation is from volume five page three hundred fourteen so i'm vivekananda says what is the true meaning of the assertion that we should depend on ourselves here self smallest means the eternal self capitalist by selfie means eternal self myself he means brahman but here even dependence on the non-eternal self that means the jiva the individual being may lead gradually to the right goal how as the individual self is really the eternal self under delusion let me repeat that the individual self is really the eternal self under delusion i the jiva because of ignorance i have forgotten or i do not see my real nature as brahman this is exactly i mean just what we are studying in vedanta sarah the basic concept is exactly something we can do saying that in simple english okay rituals perform to the vedic gods worldly people perform there for worldly desires we we can also perform rituals for purification of the mind now in today's world most most of us do not perform vedic rituals we do not perform the vedic but many of us especially the the observant hindus we perform pujas or we participate in pujas so that takes the place of the vedic rituals so as a vedantin as a person who is doing shravana mananananandha should i or is there any reason for me to take part in pujas or do pujas certainly he says that is also a yakya and that will give rise to preparation for you know making your vedantic study effective so that is so two have been mentioned here the highest final yagya which is brahmagyan enlightenment and the other one is the ritualistic air gear that also is very useful that is also very useful then verse number 26 [Music] others offered the year in other senses and sacrifices in the fire of self-control others again offer sound and other objective senses in the fires of the senses all right two more um two more practices two more girls have been mentioned here one is control of the senses the five senses seeing hearing smelling tasting touching now our sensory activities can be converted into spiritual practice what is the spiritual practice there it means uh consider it it means control of the senses sense control so what is the yagna there always remember there has to be a fire and something offered into a fire what is the fire the fire is control of the senses and what is what is being offered each of the senses so when we control the senses that is the fire and the sense itself which is being controlled is the offering into that fire so eyes and ears and the activity of hearing smelling tasting so controlling the the sense of taste for example very important practice that the yogis do i have given this example earlier of how a very delicious sharbath was offered to swami turiyananda in the hot summer in in bellurmat many many years ago more than a century ago and he took one sip of it and he said take it away and the novice the monk who had bought it said isn't it good said yes it is good that's why now he did not need that practice but he was teaching it so what is the practice there the fire of control that the sense says it's very nice let me have a little more i will taste more i want more one cookie is nice two more one more cookie i will take that is the uh eagerness of the sense reaching out for its object now what is the practice light the fire of self sense control no stop it has nothing to do with my spiritual life it is extroverting me making me making a useless habit which will harm my spiritual practices stop so withholding that flow outward flowing uh activity of the senses i will not take any more that is the that is the fire and you are offering the sense activity into that i um remember once many many years ago when i was a novice so there was this so a wonderful swami in dogher vidyapeet where i joined the order and um we used to every night we would walk with him for about half an hour and we would have to we had to recite bhagavad-gita shlokas each of us um so one night i remember we were walking uh it was late in the night maybe 9 30 or 10 and going back to the the monks quarters where the swami's room was and we were surrounded by these white robed brahmacaris and there was a beautiful creeper with a fragrant flower and one of the novices sort of leaned forward and smelt it very casually and the swami so alert and observant immediately he scolded what is this this is not the characteristic of a yogi this is a characteristic of a bhogi yogi is a spiritual practitioner bhogi is a person who wants to enjoy worldly pleasures so just because something is available do you have to taste it so that kind of alertness that is called sangyama means control restraint the fire of restraint my nose tells me it's nice let me go and smell it no the fire is that no into that you offer the activity of smelling the fire is no and into that you offer the activity of tasting so minimize control don't be pulled along by the senses my nose says i want to smell that my eyes say i want to see that my my hand says i want to touch that no why should you be pulled along there is a beautiful sanskrit verse which says alas what is my condition by the servants of my servants i have been made a servant um kinkara king that the self which is pure consciousness the servant of the self is the mind and the servant of the mind are the five senses but the five senses have become so powerful they have made me the self their servant kingkara thinker kinkaram in servant so the servant is the five senses is the mind and the mind servant of the five senses but those five senses have made me their servant i am the emperor of the city of the body mind complex and i have been made into a servant no that should not be and to recover my independence these practices practices are there saying a magnesium so what the monk said to the novice in bengali as i translated in english those who understand bengali will enjoy it he said oki ray [Music] and in bengali he said further have just because it's there you have to eat it just because it's there you have to smell it just because it's there you have to see it no so that is one kind of practice sense control then the second kind of yakya which is mentioned here is the opposite actually sensing seeing hearing smelling tasting those are also ideas very interesting just the opposite instead of stopping myself from eating actually eat this is stopping myself from seeing or smelling actually see or smell or touch and then what you do at the same time be conscious that i am um offering this into the fire how this is now the sense organs they themselves become the fire so the eyes are more precisely the capacity for seeing the visual activity the the capacity for hearing the auditory activity uh capacity for tasting so these powers imagine them visualize them as fires into which you are offering the respective sense objects so i'm eating cookie very nice i like it very good then imagine the the taste buds as the fire into which you are offering the taste of the cookies now that visualization itself is a spiritual practice don't do too much of it that i'm keep on eating they'll get a sugar problem then uh but it's a practice so it's it's the conscious experiencing mind nowadays mindfulness is very important so mindful experiencing of whatever you experience whether you are tasting or hearing or smelling or whatever it is so these are two ways two different kinds of practices one is the fire of restaurant with which we restrain the activities of the senses one the other one is let the activities go on but visualize it consciously um visualize that the power of of seeing or hearing or smelling that's a fire in which we are pouring the uh offerings the respective sense objects forms into the fire of eyes sounds into the fire of ears food into the fire of taste um fragrances into the fire of the smell and soft nice touch into the fire of touching skin so this is another type of another visualization see all of these spiritual practices all of them are being reimagined as yagya then one more another set of practices in verse number 27 others offer the functions of all the organs and the pranas in the fire of yoga of self-control lighted by knowledge all right this is a deeper practice first the other practices which we have just seen by the way another kind of practice which one we often do in our order many devotees also do it is food you um consciously eat before eating you mentally offer it to god to your ishta devata and then it becomes prasada sacred food offered food and then then you eat it so it is food which has been offered to god so the food which you get as prasad from temples every food that you eat whatever you're eating even a cookie even a cup of tea mentally offer it first and then you sip the tea then you put the cookie in your mouth so all food never never eat anything never drink anything without first offering it to god so it becomes prasada that's that's also very powerful practice it's related to this practice which we are just reading earlier now number 27 a more subtle little more difficult but more important practice now the earlier two yagyas were at the level of the senses one was in the level of senses by controlling the senses stop another one was not stop yes you say yes we will enjoy it but visualize that it's a offering into a fire and now the control is not at the level of the senses but the level of the mind so he says sarvindriya karmani prana karmani the sense organs five sense organs five sensory powers and prana karma here means the activities of the five motor organs here parameter motor organs activities of five motor organs so five sense organs five motor organs 10 in all all of them are like offerings all those activities are like offerings into what atma sanya magni here atma means mind in the in the mental restraint not just at the level of the senses at the level of the mind itself that's a subtler and deeper form of control a deeper form of control where we are not just saying stop i will not enjoy this or stop i will not see this rather from inside mentally itself i will not i give up the desire for uh enjoying or or you know following up on this or that particular activity or this or that particular enjoyment so difference would be so one activity for example is um like speaking so there are various kinds of such um practices speaking vow of silence mahatma gandhi used to observe a power of silence once in a week i think so ami ranganathan used to observe it i think on thursdays he would not speak now the draw of silence can be observed at the level of the motor organ tongue i will not speak but it it the deeper silence is at the level of the mind just the desire to speak also has to be let go i was just reading a very beautiful quote from carl jung the great psychoanalyst he says conversation is conversation with crowds is so damaging that i require days of quiet and solitude to recover from to recover from conversing with people i require days of solitude so a lot of nervous energy is expanded in speaking there is a rule so what kind of rule should we observe the rule is speak less so put it to the filter of is this at all required you find lot of things are not required you speak less but not much uh swami bhutashan vijay maharaj was the 12th president of our order so he spent many months in the himalayas in doing tapasya and spiritual practices austerities he says i reduced my speaking to the minimum i would always ask is it necessary to speak of course you would have very few occasions to speak when only when he came across a few other monks otherwise no and he realized that almost nothing has to be said really and he said days would pass without speaking even once but that's from deep inside that desire for speaking also is not there only when required so mitham little he pointed out see i was not observing a vow of silence the vow of silence will come later actually in the next verse but here from inside there is a restraint inside from the mind itself there's no desire to talk so that's a much deeper level of practice he said i was not observing the way of silence it was just that i was saying is it necessary to speak that itself reduced my speech to such an extent that about days would pass without speaking a single word so that's mytham hitam is it useful or beneficial what i am going to say is it any good any does it serve any purpose does it do any good to people so hitam and priyam it has to be sweet it has to be affectionate it has to be kind not harsh i like that statement of mark twain where he says those who claim to be fond of the brutal truth they seem to be more fond of brutality than the truth so i'm brutally honest no you're fond of brutality more than honesty often you'll see people who are very harsh and they say i'm very straightforward they can't take much straightforwardness themselves they are often very sensitive to their criticism directed at themselves that monk i mentioned in in dyoger who under whom i was so lucky to join the order in the first initial years so let me give you one example of what is meant here the internal control not just at the level of the ears or the tongue one day we were walking past a group of students the usual path he would take for a walk and the monk suddenly said that let's take by the other path now so he went in a different path i asked why and he said look they were talking about me and so i don't want to listen you see it's just the opposite of our usual tendency what are they saying about me good or bad good i'm very happy bad i must listen i'll get very angry with them but i must they're criticizing me i must listen no don't listen don't listen at all good no need to listen bad even less need to listen don't listen similar thing i i've told the story earlier in the himalayas i met this monk people are so worried about what other people are thinking of them just the opposite i meant this monk in the himalayas very daring kind of who lived alone in the mountains there so there is one incident where a group of other monks you must know that in this the monastic community is also small small and also very gossipy so the group of a couple of monks came to him this swami and his they said swami do you know what they are saying about you in that ashram in hindi book and this swami replied it's all true without even asking what they're saying in hindi it's all true the the monks were taken aback but swami you are getting you are annoyed with i said no no you want to know whether there is any truth whatever the rumor is take it that it's all true do you have anything more to say than the other monks those monks they beat a history retreat so you must be like that from internally from the mind there is no desire to listen to your praise of yourself nor is there any desire to listen to uh you know rumor mongering or scandal mongering no not at all not at all so i am a servant of god i am a bhakta devotee i am a seeker after spiritual realization what do i have to do with the praise of the world or even the criticism of the world it's all meaningless just drop the whole thing praise and criticism both as meaningless and remember if you are related by praise to that extent you will be depressed by criticism exactly the same way if few good words makes me happy a few critical words will bound to me it's bound to make me unhappy swami vivekananda says slaves we are slaves to a good word slaves to a bad word we must be independent then so that is that's the rule about speaking mitamcha hitamcha speak less speak what is beneficial and say it sweetly these are the things which come from inside now a variety of other practices in verse number 20. so let me just give you this verse what did we read survey indriya karmani the activities of the five senses prana karmani chaparri and the activities of the five sense orga or the motor organs in the fire of internal restraint that is mental restraint mental control illumined by the knowledge the the light of viveka here it does not mean enlightenment it means that vivek has arisen i must realize the eternal i must realize god by that viveka by the light of that discernment i practice these this kind of control so which one should we practice level of senses or at the level of mind first level of senses then level of mind first level of sense is the tumult the the noise must be quietened a little bit otherwise i cannot directly practice at the level of the mind then a set of several other practices all uh imagined as yagya are mentioned in verse number 28. yoga yaga there are others who sacrificed through gifts brothers again who sacrificed through penance and still others who sacrificed through yoga while there are others as parents of austria vows who sacrifice through knowledge from scriptural studies so multiple uh practices the rabbi here yagya means not the practice of doing something the one who practices um this yaga is called the yagya the one who has this kind of yagya practice the person is being mentioned here the practitioner what are the guys what are the practices the yagya vows of austerity sorry our penances third is yoga patanjali yoga is mentioned here and how do i know that that is what is mentioned you can see shankaracharya's commentary so um the yogic practice of meditation that's one another kind of yagya swatihaya chanting recitation memorization that's one kind jana yagya what we are doing study of the scriptures sravana mananananananda sana that's another kind of all of these are practiced by yataya sang those of firm shot vows who consciously deliberately follow these practices vows strict routine and regime they follow yata yati means monk here anybody who practices these ones they're called monks they're like monks monk like how do you know that only monks are not mentioned here because something like dramjiya yagya is mentioned means giving away of material positions donations so obviously monks can't be meant here because they don't have they're not certainly supposed to have material positions which they can go around donating so what are the what are the practices case the sacrifice or the giving of material goods so you give possessions you give you know money donate to good causes or to you know like worthy people or people who need it and that is that is the kind of that's like so what is the fire the persons who are receiving it is the fire and what is the offering your possessions are the offering it could be your positions it could be money it could be service whatever you are offering your time energy so those specifically here drabya means material goods offering of material goods or money that's one kind of spiritual practice itself you have put hard work effort into that and that you're giving away i'm um one gentleman who lives in texas was saying that they were very badly affected by floods a couple of years ago and their house was flooded and they lost a lot of their belongings they were all damaged by the waters which they had collected in their life over 20 30 years and the gentleman said i felt so relieved afterwards all that junk in my life i mean they're good things also but i i never really used them you're just there they have collected over the years they're gone he said i feel lighter and that's a very interesting thing when we have positions this is mine even a small thing a little bit of our mind has gone there our mind gets scattered into possessions fewer the possessions the better give away swami vivekananda is a very in his intense this poem um give and give and never look back he who looks back his ocean dwindles into a drop you're given like an ocean but you start calculating i've given so much this is the ocean dwindles into a drop so never look back let it go one must learn not only the art of accumulating working hard and getting money and positions and land and you know goods material goods but also the art of letting things flow it comes into your hands and then you divert it and you let it go into useful channels where they will do good many people have the ability to accumulate but not the ability to let go and this is really nothing to do with people who are rich or poor or you know middle class it's a mentality somebody says another prosperity mentality and a poverty mentality prosperity mentalities you feel empowered by whatever you have you feel empowered i've got this much money i've got this kind of positions and this is my power to do good to others power to make others happy with this kind of money and goods and the poverty mentality is i have got this much only and others have got so much more i must accumulate i am unhappy just by looking at others and and trying to get more and more remember the more we hold on to drag the other material good the more we are trapped when i'm holding on to something so i'm holding on to a particular object my phone i'm holding on to it then i'm also trapped so i'm not free also i'm holding on to it and it is holding on to me then so one must be able to let go and i've noticed how interesting it is in this country for example in the united states there's always has been for a long time the culture of um you know public charity so there have been this super rich people who have accumulated a lot of money and then they've given it away i go to the new york public library the schwarzman building and really i don't think in today's world any government would have that kind of spending power to spend on a project like a public library you know like of that that grandeur so uh it is these people who collected money you know earned a lot they were the super capitalists but they also became philanthropists the classic example of um john rockefeller and so there's a interesting connection with swami vivekananda when he first came i don't know was it in new york he was staying with somebody and rockefeller at that time was an upcoming young capitalist already on his way to making his first millions very brash and ambitious and sharp and aggressive he had heard that an indian philosopher monk had come so he went to meet swami vivekananda and swami vivekananda was rather brisk with him and he said look all your positions are given to you all your wealth is given to you as a trust for the welfare of others you should give to others rockefeller did not like that at all he stormed out it does not in his you know like psyche his makeup too that i'm going to do good to others at least not at the beginning but something must have struck a chord in him sometime later he came back and he said i want to see that monk i said he's in the library so he goes to the library of that house and he sees vivekananda sitting with his head down writing or reading something i forget what and rockefeller goes up to him and throws a check down in front like a check he made out for a good amount to some worthy cause he says see i've given this this money maybe it was his first big donation and he says to vivekananda you should be happy you should thank me and vivekananda looked up and he said it is you who should thank me and he went back to you know his uh reading or writing whatever and it's true that nowadays why do we know rockefellers because of the rockefeller foundations the enormous philanthropic activities worldwide that's why he's known today if he did not do it he would just be another forgotten rich person interesting connection to india and swami vivekana in india the when india first started the green revolution the kind of hybrid wheat which was used for the green revolution it came from the work of a geneticist norman bodlog norman borlaug he developed this kind of hybrid beat which became which powered india's green revolution making itself sufficient in food and this scientist was actually sponsored by rockefeller grant so you see the connection to rockefeller vivekananda india and coming all the way down to our presentation making india self-sufficient in in food anyway why did i say giving away another nice uh story i i mean real thing is that there was this monk i don't know if he's still alive in india who lived under a tree in fact he i think he's still alive he lives under a tree has no positions except his little piece of class and from early in the morning till sunset people keep coming to him he's a wonderful teacher people keep coming to him simple villages and they keep bringing gifts food and clothes and money and the whole system is that he starts with zero and his system is he calls it zero zero so he starts with zero and ends the day at sunset with zero so here's this group of volunteers who immediately keep giving away everything that comes so by the time the sun sets nothing more is left and the monk is still sitting under the tree so zero zero now that is of course he's a monk householders don't try to zero zero it'll be in deep trouble especially in this economy in this in this world today but the idea is consider giving away of material goods and money as a spiritual practice as a yagya as a sacrifice austerities vows taken so for example i mentioned the vow of silence so here the vow of silence is mentioned what is the difference between what i mentioned earlier what i mentioned earlier is a deeper practice from the mind itself there is silence i am not you know i'm not repressing a desire to speak but here at the surface level also one can take up wow i will not speak no matter even if there is a desire to speak i will not speak for a day or three days or a week be careful it should not lead to repression or to to suppression one day is good or two days is good vow of silence fasting is a typical example of this kind of a valve so i will not eat today so in shivarathri for example in our monastery we fast the whole day and we do not sleep the whole night we engage in in meditation and enchanting and observing the shivaratri puja so that not sleeping that particular night and fasting throughout the day that's a wow literally consciously deliberately controlling the body and mind what they normally want to do at this time i want to sleep at this time i want to eat no no harm will be done but if you do it for one day or two days like one day let's see or half a day i don't eat no heart will be done in fact a lot of good is done to the uh body if you if one fasts a little bit tapo so there are many kinds of tapas tapas means literally it means heating the heat or energy generated by restraint yoga the whole meditation system of patanjali yoga itself is imagined as a yakya as a fire ritual where you have asana how do you sit how do you breathe how do you withdraw your mind from the external world and how do you focus your mind dharana then how do you concentrate meditate dhyana and then finally samadhi the whole system is taken as um as a lack of it's like a fire ritual swadhyaya literally swaddhihaya means self-study technically the meaning of swadhyaya in vedic times was vedic chanting vedic chanting proper vedic chanting with training that was what they had but in a general sense you can extend it so any kind of recitation of hymns uh any kind of restoration of stotras memorization this is another kind of yakya swat dhyaya is a kind of yagya so literally self-study but especially recitation chanting why can't it be just self-study reading books no because that is mentioned in the next one the yagya of knowledge by knowledge here it does not mean generally does not mean reading encyclopedias or something like that here it means reading up the scriptures read upanishads and gita like we are doing now shravana mananananana systematically study these texts think about it and meditate upon your conclusions this is this is a practice and this is the practice which we are doing right now in fact this is yatayah the so those who do this consciously deliberately some chitawata samson literally means sharpened so sharpened in the sense we are deliberately and consistently doing sometimes once in a while listening to a spiritual talk or reading casually reading a spiritual book that anybody does that does not mean one is a spiritual seeker systematically doing it as a lifelong practice this is called samsritavata of sharpened vows and such people are as good as monks they are monks yaki means monk okay let's look at the activity there's a lot of activity in the chat when we forcefully control the sense of taste and the rust or desire i mean subconscious mind how do you that will be overcome later on in all sense organs when you control it the desire for it will remain in your subconscious mind it's a tendency that's not so you easily overcome gita shri krishna says overjump the desire the subtle taste of it is left behind in the mind only after enlightenment is the final you get freed from all kinds of worldly pulls but up to that time one must struggle that struggle itself is the yakya one must not give in one must not become a servant to the senses you say that you know how we are tricked i am fulfilling my desires not my desires anybody who has battled with addiction knows the difference between my desires and an addiction the sense organs you know eating a cookie you might not might not think it's an addiction it's that same thing in the in a milder form it's the sense organ which is demanding and we are rushing around to fulfill those demands so um to make an effort to control that is uh yagya raphael is asking how can we make sure that the sense control doesn't turn into mere repression which can that is true one has to be careful but in these days the danger is the opposite there is less repression and more sort of letting go and do whatever you like that is more a danger these days then you know very strict discipline and self-control leading to repression um so common sense is good common sense is good balance is good oh gabriel said i keep breaking have i been breaking up no no prabhupada saying what is the purpose of the second kind of numbers second kind of ja verse 26 second kind of what oh you mean the visualization of offering also yeah so when i'm actually enjoying something in the world you cannot stop it you have to eat you have to talk with people you have to do activities in the world how do you can you convert those into spiritual practice you can have this practice of whatever i'm seeing is an offering into the fire of my eyes whatever i'm hearing is an offering into the fire of my ears it's a visualization and that itself is a very elevating practice notice how it uh gives you a distance between those activities and yourself you are the awareness in your light these activities these yagyas are going on otherwise what happens is i am seeing i am hearing i am smelling tasting touching walking talking fighting no i am the consciousness in which these yagyas are going on a little psychological gap appears because of this practice it's mindfulness also one is aware of what one is doing giri says control the senses you'll maintain krishna became a vegetarian result of his studies of consciousness extension does give one of them invariably become vegetarian and or is vegetarian is a necessary condition no it is not it is a good practice but it is not a necessary condition i mean you can just look at it this way um in just about in many many religions so for example most of the buddhists would people are amazed to know that most of the buddhists are actually non-vegetarians including uh the um the tibetan llamas they are all meat-eating people naturally the tibetan plateau you don't get many vegetables i think the dalai lama himself became vegetarian much later when he actually came down to the plains in india um so most of the avatars rama or krishna um jesus or um or the great prophet or whatever all of the great founders of religion you'll see majority of them were actually non-vegetarian and it's just a matter of your culture your food habits so is vegetarianism good or bad it's not necessary no it's a good practice swami vivekananda who made it a point to eat non-vegetarian food he always said that deliberately practicing vegetarianism is actually a better practice it's a good practice but one must not make it a matter of overwhelming in importance why he consciously destressed gave less importance to it is because in hinduism we give a lot of importance to it it is overwhelmingly important and so that it becomes as if it is totally indispensable for enlightenment no not at all nothing like that but it is a more satwik state i have seen practically among the monks i have seen in our order for example the monks who come from bengal or from the eastern part of india many of them they come from non-vegetarian food habits but many of them those who take non-vegetarian food also after some time you know in years of monastic life they do give it up it's not as a deliberate practice they just don't feel like it anymore they don't like it anymore that also happens that we have seen what about offering our karma of course offering our karma is karma yoga that is the biggest thing um in reference to this you mentioned the broadcast paul krugman economists comments on philanthropy versus taxation yes that is true i forgotten exactly what it was but i remember mentioning it which translation of the gita is being used you can use any translation i'm using a very this is not a particularly good translation but it's small it's a small book so it's published by ramakrishna in chennai many translations are available you can use any one oh it was in reference to a church trying to invest in money and kurgman said something about blind so giving it back to the people you're right it was a church in california which is a very wealthy church and they are called milton friedman chicago school of economics he's a nobel prize winner and they had called him i said we are calling from such and such church and um we have so much money um so much assets so can you please tell us you're the best possible like nobel prize winning economist so can you please give us some advice on how to invest it and milton friedman said softly um have you thought about giving it to poor people so that there's a shocked silence and the gentleman from the church said are you sure you are milton friedman and so the economist said equally softly are you sure you are a church that was the story here gabriel remembers nietzsche is asking if you are silent in talking to others but keep talking to yourself the mind so not much thought control is it considered by our silence yes at least externally so it's a vow of silence tapa where you are imposing external silence upon yourself but as i said uh chattering away in the mind so really still the kind of self-talk is going on if that is also silent like bhute sanji maharaj said mind feels silent there's no there's no desire even without a vow of silence there was no particular desire to talk for days on end he would not even utter a word to anybody that is real internal silence the opposite what you are saying is forcefully controlling outside that may be good for a day or a half a day once in a while once a week maybe i've seen monks who practice that not just amongst others also that's good saves energy but too much of that can lead to depression so there might be a lot of mental talk going on we are used to talking i have told you the story of a monk uh how he was following a vow of silence for more than a year i think we would not talk he would talk only with science in sign language so i was his roommate for in one ashram and the monk he went to bed and all night long he talked he fell asleep and started talking verbally next morning i said to him swami you were talking in your sleep at night he was so shocked he immediately denied you know in sign language he said who me no no impossible impossible so that's repression that one should not do it's good to do it once in a while is it any use at all even if there is mental talk going on yes it is of use many of us we are chatter boxes so the physically shutting down talking is also good it's a form of restraint in krishnamurti abhishe nathan says in burst 4.28 is a particular is there a particular attitude to be held yoga yoga yes the attitude is that it is a spiritual practice see what krishna is doing here is all of these spiritual practices they are your guests one thing he's doing is is also elevating our conception of spiritual life from rituals to higher spiritual practices don't just be stuck in ritual like the yagya or the puja so study is a spiritual practice sense control is a spiritual practice vow of silence is a spiritual practice doing good to others is a spiritual practice these are higher spiritual practices higher than just ritual even ritual is is a yagya but others are also imagined as or they are visualized as your guest you may not have a separate one more separate attitude we are studying vedanta and some special one more attitude do we have to keep in mind this is no no not at all not necessary you are doing it already that's all right that's what krishna is saying study itself i wanted to say it's such a wonderful spiritual practice i was reading the advice given by swami bhutesha nandaji he's telling the monks in bengali poor bay poor beckham you should read read a lot and he says it is where the rare highly qualified spiritual practitioner who can do without spiritual study we think that study of upanishads and gita and all of that is meant for advanced people not at all he says it is meant for mediocre people like us and for ordinary people like us we need this serious intense study there are it is the advanced ones very few rare advanced ones with a little bit of instruction they can go straight forward to enlightenment rest of us have to keep ourselves immersed in this kind of study i have seen many monks who took up spiritual practice study as a spiritual practice one of our teachers monastic teachers when we were novices told us see you don't read what the read reading which you are doing is not spiritual reading you are flipping flipping means flipping pages going up reading book after book then he pointed out one monk his name was swami shikshananda he was very old swami when we saw him says go and see how he studies so whenever you go to the swami's room he was very old and advanced in years you'll be sitting on his long arm chair with the commentaries of shankaracharya open before him you go and bow down to him he will look and he will nod and go back to his study all the time those who have seen him they know i also remember i cannot forget it there was an atmosphere in that little room where he would stay something like a very elevated rarefied atmosphere he wouldn't say anything you'd just nod and you'd say are you doing well good that's it back to the thing so is it something that he has not read he has read those things all his life again and again and again he's keeping his mind there that is reading that is spiritual reading not reading new things all the time you can read new things also that's very good i've seen a monk very austere swami it was marathi in yoga vidya pete when i was just swam in italy so he had a very and this room is also was very bare and austere a wooden desk a wooden chair one wooden cart and that's it two hour change of clothes and uh a very thin blanket on which you would lie down and all the time doors and windows would be open no concept of privacy you can all the tablet is sleeping sitting whatever it is doing anybody can see at any time he's totally open to the world and he would his reading was unique i liked it because i read so many different things he would read one book at a time he would borrow one book from the library keep it on that wooden desk the wooden desk would be completely bare and there would be one book he would sit and read it for hours and finish it cover to cover return it to the library take the next book so he would read many things but there also there was this focus and discipline swami ranganathan and who would intensely read all his life all his life at the end of his life he was the 13th president of our order when he passed away most of his large library a part of it was donated to the brahmacharya's library in bellurmart where i was the librarian for a short while so i saw those books two things i noticed how active reading how all those books he has read them they are underlined comments marks remarks uh you know a person who's engaged with the material which he's reading all the time and whatever time he could get he is reading that book so all the books had been read and you know underlined uh with you can see his thought progress his his comments on what his reading that's one thing we noticed second thing i noticed was notebooks from his early days where ordinary books which are now available you can always buy them on easily on amazon or something he did not have money to buy the books so with the pencil he has copied this upper rook shana bhuti we read and drink this viveka he has copied those books because he didn't have money to buy a cop like a printed copy of the book he borrowed a copy and he wrote it down with the pencil and paper you just so that itself is useful see we may have a wonderful library only 10 percent read 90 not read books are there just for sure i think who called it anti-library you have a library and an anti-library anti-library is the one you have not read that is there imposing looking down at you so much knowledge not read so in ranganathanji there was no anti library he had read everything and one reason was he would copy it down one monk told me that often the an excess of means are at the expense of the ends when you have money and books and internet and all knowledge is there for you means excess the actual amount of learning and absorption seems to have gone down compared to some of those older scholars i remember the first time i saw this modern technology being used i was learning nyaya from a navy from a pundit in the asiatic society a traditional sanskrit scholar he would come and teach so he would painstakingly write out the sanskrit verse on the blackboard and for the first time i saw at that time those mobile phones with cameras had come so this young student so there were students from all over the different different campuses i was the only bunk who was there others were there so this young student he would take a picture so the scholar the pandit wrote something painstakingly and instead of taking notes students would take a picture of it half a second done and the pandit was so furious he said if they at least bothered to write it down at least once in their lives the material would pass from that from that board to their minds to the notebook now it has gone straight from the board into the memory of the of the phone whether he will ever read it or see it again is doubtful even if you write it down once ranganathanji all his life when he was in advanced age a president of the ramakrishna order most of the day was spent in study all kinds of things serious study when the doctor told him not to read so much he made a system of that attendance they would read to him by turn so there would be reading going on for him for six seven eight hours a day because he was not allowed to read himself more than one hour or two hours a day because of the doctor the stress one of his attendants told me a new book on the holy mother was published and said swami ranganathanji told me to read it out to him so daily for and for 30 minutes or so i would read out that book and other books also were being read out after the book was finished the swami said to me that attendant monk said swami rangana tanji said to me all right give it to me now i'll read it and the attendant once said but swami we've been reading it all this time the last one or two weeks we were reading it every day and the swami said that was for you now i'm going to read for myself so he made that that monk read it also with on the excuse of reading it for himself um swami sweetheart used to tell me how swami premeshananda was a great inspirer of young men who became monks later on his disciple of the holy mother mashaaratha how he would his techniques of making people read he would these young students who were spiritual seekers who are interested in spiritual life would come to him and he would say to some of them he would say there is this very interesting verse it says one or two words i remember i can't remember the whole verse can you find it out for me and this young man would rush and look through the whole gita look searching for see curiosity searching is a very powerful motivation if i just say if you just read the gita person may or may not read but the swami has asked me for a verse and when you are searching for something there is an extra energy and inquisitiveness which powers your study so this young man would go back and read the whole gita trying to find the verse obviously it was a trick because the swami knew the all the verses by heart every verse it was just just like that for him they would make people read on the pretext of searching for something swami ranganathan many many stories about his practice of studying the last book he was reading and we got it as a donation to our monastic library later on after he passed away the last book he was reading was zen and the brain it was a neuroscience and spirit and spirituality big thick volume and the reason he was reading it was he had suffered a stroke and so he was very interested in knowing what was happening in the brain at that time i remember we all went to offer our pranams to him here's this 96 year old monk who would pass away in a few weeks we bowed down to him and he's explaining what has happened i felt something was going on there and then you know this is the loss of blood supply to this part of the brain and then the death of some cells there and he's explaining it very calmly the whole process of a stroke what happened now you can see in that book which was donated to a library he is underlining and the underlining has you know it's like this straight lines and then slowly going down like this i had seen him studying lying in the icu bed like an icu bed with the thick volume the book uh with his glasses the volume and a pen and he's underlining it and his hand is shaking like this and then he's underlining it the hand is going down i can't control it the line is going down like this till almost the last day of his life he was studying this is a practice all right so all right gloria says success of all these practices seems to be dependent on knowing the goal accurately and desire for the goal yes accurately knowing the goal and desire for the goal of god realization enlightenment that comes slowly even without that many of us we start these practices as you know just spiritual practices this innate desire to gain back control of the body mind system that itself is a goal even before we have very sophisticated philosophical understanding of the final goal of enlightenment even before that um i think i've seen some raised hands dimitri i think uh good evening a quick question uh on wednesday when you had a lecture i asked a question and you mentioned that there is uh later that it will be explained and there is some literature about about this intuitive step like in order to get to the point of the true self yes could you tell me where is it reckon is it with sarah itself just ask me in the vedant sarah class i will point out the passage you can jump ahead and read it if you like but we will discuss it in detail when we come to that but it's towards the end of the book remind me in the villains our class next time i'll give you the exact text numbers but if towards the end of the book you can skip ahead you can read it if you like thank you all right before i end uh i'll request giant to put in that yeah a link for our to make donations to the vedanta society of new york so whatever you can contribute these goes a long way towards sustaining the center in these difficult times so we leave it on it's in the chat giant has put it in the chat i can see it i'll leave it on for a minute oh foreign