Video 57

57. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 4 Verses 35-37 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Applause] [Music] [Music] guru so we are studying the fourth uh chapter of the bhagavad-gita we're talking about different kinds of spiritual practices and they all lead to the highest spiritual practice and realization which is brahma pranam brahmavi what is called the knowledge sacrifice sacrifice is a misleading term here what shri krishna has done is all the spiritual practices whether it is meditation or knowledge or pranayama all of them he has visualized them as yagya as the vedic sacrifice that's why we are calling it knowledge sacrifice but that spiritual realization that's the final goal the identity of the jivaatwa and paramatma and for that in 34th verse we saw how krishna said you should go to the spiritual masters and learn from them they will teach you the highest truth so what is that highest truth what are its results and how do we prepare ourselves for it this is the topic from now on till the end of the chapter from 35th verse what is that highest truth what will happen when we attain that highest truth and how do we prepare ourselves for it so i'm on verse 35 now [Music] [Music] acquiring which o son of pandu you will no longer be no more be thus deluded by which you will see all creatures in yourself and then in me this is it gives us the nature of that highest truth what is realization what will we realize what will it be like that's what uh sri krishna talks about same thing which he said in brahma panam ramahabi he is putting in a different way here if you go to these teachers and serve them and question them with diligence which we saw in 34th verse deep pranipate and etc and then they will teach you they will impart to you that highest vedic wisdom which is the identity of jiva and brahman after realizing that is it possible that we may again fall back into delusion again the delusion may come back he says you will not fall into delusion the way you are in delusion now what is the range of the delusion starts with the basic idea that the the basic confusion that i am the body and mind and we have that basic confusion because behind that is the ignorance of our real nature not knowing the rope we make a mistake that it's a snake not knowing that we are pure being pure awareness we make a mistake i am body and mind that is the basic confusion the basic moha first and from that comes all other moha the identity that the feeling that i am the doer of deeds i am the enjoyer or or the sufferer of the results of the of my own deeds ah these are my relatives and my money and my property this is my body and mind um then these are my friends and these are my enemies these are the ones i'm indifferent to all of it is samsara and all of it is moha from it arises tension attachment sorrow um also it is only because of our attachments and inability to overcome that that we do wrong things arjuna was about to do something wrong he knew what his duty was but because these are my relatives so suppose the soldier or the policeman will not punish the evil doers or will not punish the enemy because they are my relatives that would be very wrong that's the very essence of being corrupt i will do my duty except if they are my relative then i will not do my duty that's what arjuna was going to do so that is called mo he says evan the way you are in delusion right now you think you will not do your duty you will not fight this war that kind of delusion will never come back again once you have realized your true nature what will be the nature of that realization so very beautiful this line is so nice that all the all beings um from the highest being brahma to the lowest blade of grass you will see all of them in in that one pure consciousness which you are you will see them all in yourself and you see yourself in all of them you will see that all beings are pervaded by one um one brahmana brahman from which the entire universe has emerged he says in me the second abram from this entire universe has emerged if it has emerged from it it cannot be anything other than segundo brahman see if it is emerged from clay a pot clay pot it cannot be anything other than clay if the wave has emerged from water it cannot be anything other than water if it is emerged from saguna brahman ishwara god why don't i say nidguna brahman nir gunav brahma nothing emerges saguna brahman is that ultimate reality conditioned by maya or associated with maya again the idea of upadhi so then only we can speak of all beings emerging from that all beings existing in that and all beings merging back into that who is that i he says krishna in me that is saguna brahman so all beings are born and they play around and they merge back into second brahman and you will see all beings are in the self that they are they are appear in the self and they exist in the self and they disappear in the self what does that mean are you the same as saguna brahman self means i i myself all beings you will see all are in me all are appearing in me they are not different from me and they all merge back into me and you will see all beings are appearing in god and they play around in god and they merge back into god at no point are they anything different from god notice here says two things my in me the lord and atmanam in you the self what does it mean you the self and i the lord are really one and one and the same in reality so is arjuna equal to krishna no arjuna is that same reality conditioned by aggyana one mind and one body and that is arjuna of the person and that same reality satchida and the conditioned by maya and all the minds together and all bodies together is is actually the real nature of krishna or vishnu saguna brahman but behind both are they say is the same saccidananda so this if you those who are attending the vedantasaur class you will see the again and again the same point is being hammered with the um with the example of forests and trees with the example of lake and the drops of water with the example of the sky which is limited by the forest or the trees or the sky which is reflected in the lake or in the drops of water that again and again you see at the causal level at the subtle level that unity that oneness is being stressed so this is exactly what is said here shankaracharya makes a dramatic comment here um in his commentary shankarabhasya you will see the knowledge which is taught by which is well known in all the upanishads the central point of all upanishads what is that central point the identity of the individual and the cosmic how can the individual and cosmic be equal how can one and a billion be equal because it's not one it's not a billion behind both is the same infinite existence consciousness place he uses a technical term here is you the witness consciousness you the witness consciousness i am not witness consciousness i am server priyananda yes but please apply all the vedanta you have learned all of them point out that you are the witness consciousness in this body mind complex you the witness consciousness and he the lord um call him vasudeva or vishnu or shiva whatever you call devi they are though the two are not two both are one and the same saccidananda this apparent distinction is caused by maya again pure vidantasal how we learned that the reality is one non-dual existence consciousness bliss brahman that that's nisgana brahman that because of maya now appears to you as um ishwara and jiva as they in the language of vedanta sarah samashti and bhisti samashti cosmic total vesti individual you i separately he says all such beings all vestis all individuals will appear in you because you and i the cosmic you the individual and i the cosmic are both the same saccidana and the without any exception all beings um i think in shankaracharya's commentary yes bhutan he says you will see from brahma the creator brahma brahma down to a blade of grass all these beings billions of beings not only at present all those who existed in the past all those who are now living and all those who will come in the future all these beings plus of course also the entire non-living universe the material universe all of that you will see saksha directly you will see in in yourself as well as in me meaning you and i are one reality success so that's what he's saying this line atmani atomic it is exactly the same as saccidana same as gatwa masi or mahasmi pragyanam brahma um that ayamatma brahma the sentences which state the identity of jiva and ishwara the jivan brahma ikeyam the same meaning is of this this phrase and see the interesting thing just now i was reading the teachings of a tibetan llama he said telling the essence of tibetan buddhism he says it is this one buddha nature which exists in all beings he says from the buddha samantha bhadra down to the tiniest insect same teaching almost the same language he says all the here he says all beings exist in me the sacs and what that buddhist teacher is saying the same buddha nature exists in all beings in um in the hindu terminology shankaracharya says from brahma down to a blade of grass the buddhist terminology that lama says from the buddha samantha bhantra down to the tiniest insect i suppose there are not too many blades of grass in tibetan plateau so tiniest insect so this is the knowledge this is the teaching of all upanishads bhagavad-gita also ultimate non-dual realization and this is our goal the beauty is that it already exists and all within quotes all that we have to do is to recognize it to know it and to deepen that knowing until it's a living reality that solves all our problems now how does it solve our problems what will be the result of such realization come to verse number 36 [Music] translation even if you be the worst sinner amongst all sinners yet you will cross all sin by the boat of knowledge alone so our we are often um plagued by the sense of the wrong things that we have done in the past so the moment we develop spiritually we become sensitive to wrongdoing especially you know the people do wrong things to us we don't mind so much if i am in the right i can bear if people harass me torture me i can try it's unpleasant but i can try but if i have done things which are wrong it it really hurts it it plagues us so sense of wrongdoing it's a good thing that shows the beginning of spiritual life so in religions the sense of repentance certain sense of atonement that i have done wrong let me change my life i'm i'm very sorry for what i have done if i wish i did not do those things i wish i did not say those things i wish i did not think such thoughts and so coming out of that wrong doing but we are plagued by a sense of power what happens and how will this realization help me he says if you are the worst of sinners also among the worst of sinners and you have one commits all sorts of crimes as probably we all have done in many lives past not in this life in this life you are punyatwa because you have come to vedanta they seriously mean it but if you have come to vedanta we can generalize you've come to spiritual life in any form we have read exactly the same thing in jainism vagina teachers say that sign of a great merit is that if you have come to the teachings of jainism so exactly the same thing if you come to the teachings of vedanta or any other spiritual tradition that is the point you have to turn to spiritual life it shows punya a great deal of punya great deal of merit so basically everybody who is here 75 people we have 75 good souls here so we are all punny atma but but there's a saying that every saint has a past every saint has a past and every sinner has a future the famous old saying so we have um papa in our this life and past lives and it has to be so if it is not so we would all be enlightened right now what stops us it is our past conditioning our past karma it has twofold result one is the unpleasantness the lack of ability the struggles we have in our spiritual life externally we struggle in many ways we can struggle with ill health we can struggle with disturbing people we can struggle with um you know you know financial problem health problems so many things can happen so that's an external problem that it comes to us because of our bad karma and internal conditioning um you know desire anger [Music] envy jealousy laziness lack of interest ambition all of these worldly things rajasik and dhamma sick things they come to us because of the the papa karma we have done in the past it conditioned our mind and this together the external results of our karma and the conditioning some scars in our mind they prevent us from realizing god from becoming enlightened they are slowing down our progress so what will happen all of this will go away when you become enlightened he says when you become enlightened you will grow go across the samsara so samsara here is compared to an ocean bhavasagara so you cross the ocean full of the waves of samsara waves of samsara are birth and death health and illness wealth and poverty name and fame and you know dishonor honor and dishonor cold and heat so all of these waves which are coming in samsara are very difficult to cross over we cross over straight away how do you cross over guyana plavena by the boat of knowledge by the boat of knowledge so i remember it's of course this is in the vedantic gyan of format but i remember very nice devotional song um but i think by rajinikanth or something with the lines are that that i have come to the uh the boat stand you have to imagine the ganga where khaya means the little boats are there so you come to the um the place where you catch the cart the place where you go down the steps and take the boat which will carry you across the other side of the ganga so the poet sings that will i find oh my lord after my journey my eyes blinded by the dust of my of the path that i have traversed you know many lifetimes you have traversed finally we have come to you will i find that boat closed today all boat services suspended that means all the transportation is not available now then will i say will then this poor um traveler after traveling who knows how many lifetimes and blinded and tired by the journey of you know the dust of the journey just means all the bitter experiences we have had many lifetimes with great hope we have come to you that you will take us across but we find but today both services suspended huh so then why then why do people call you that you are the one who takes us across bhava sagar if you will not do that this much for me uh that beautiful story is there again the symbology of the boat taking us across samsara um gave at the boatman when ramachandra and sita and lakshman on their journey in exile they come to the river and they ask the boatmen to take them across and then caver takes them across and so the poets of course is not their original valmikira mind but they add so many beautiful details in when they go in the boat um then uh that cavert i think he carefully wipes all the dust from the feet of ramchandra ramchandra why are you doing this he said by the dust of your feet the rock became ahalya who was waiting for ramchandras to touch her face with the dust of your feet the rock became a woman that is the earlier story i'm a poor man if my board becomes a woman what will i do so i'm wiping out actually he just wanted to take the dust off ramchandra's feet then they are going in the boat so many nice stories the poets have added then the boat is not taking straight uh you know take across to the other side boat is going round and round in the middle of the river he asks ramchandra is be wilted why are you doing this i think lakshman asks the boatman ramjhandra knows all of it he smiles he said um let me tell you a story millions of years ago in in the the the shira sagar the cosmic ocean before the universe was created so there's a cosmic ocean on which the sheishanaga is there the cosmic serpent and on which vishnu is reclining and only shri or lakshmi is there doing pada seva and what else nothing else so this is again see vedanta sarah sachitan in the brahman with maya when the cosmos has been dissolved no no universe is there it's all there in the hands of divine mother lakshmi but there's no universe that is the what is called the cosmic sea the makshira sagar that itself will become the subtle universe and then the gross universe which you all read about in virantesara but in its in its causal state it is the kshira sagar on which saguna brahman which is vishnu stay is there with maya which is lakshmi now in that cosmic sea there's a tortoise a little tortoise so you will see the universe has not yet been created where did the tortoise come from don't ask such stories so the little um don't ask us questions so the little tower toys is trying to climb on to sheisha naga to touch the feet of vishnu that is its uh ambition after a lot of effort it does that and lakshmi who sees a little tortoise climbing up when annoying she flicks it away like this she flicks it up and it goes flying back into the sea again the poor little tortoise and he's whirled around and then the portman says that my lord i am the tortoise you made me go round and round so many times now i will take you round and round at least this much so and then they reach the other side and then that beautiful story is there where ramchandra wants to pay the boatman the boatman says no i will not accept it because we have this um it's a tradition in india if you belong to the same profession you don't it's a professional courtesy yeah so you will not accept money from somebody else in the same profession i can't do that ramchandra is confused he says how why we are how are we in the same i'm the prince of ayodhya you are a boatman how are we in the same profession he said yes we are in the same profession uh i take uh people across this little river and you take people across the uh ocean of samsara so today i'm taking recross for free when i come to your boat and when i come to your heart that means two that means at the point of death then please don't ask me for fees you should you have to take me across for free so what a very um touching kind of story another opposite very funny story i was in uh gangotri um the same story about bhava sagar and there was this group of beggars they had gone for tea in one ashram i didn't know they were beggars they all dressed in uh in geruar's so i joined them and we were waiting for tea early in the morning now i didn't know that no sadhu actually goes there only beggars go there for tea in the morning and i said when i come come milk when are they going to give us tea and one of those beggars i didn't know they were pickers he said go inside and ask so i went inside the ashram and they probably thought it looks like a educated man and said you tell us what you want i said when will the tea come then immediately that man must have thought he's a beggar he said out out stay out barney look barker go and stay outside said okay and then i went and i sat with the vegas and i was listening to their talk so their beggars have a chief sardar and there are junior beggars so one of the junior beggars was complaining against another biker the same in every organization whether it's a multinational corporation or beggars so this beggar was saying that you know yesterday i'll tell you the hindi and translate into english you know while we're sitting for people the pilgrims come and give us little bit of money that other beggar he was reading a newspaper what will the donor the pilgrims who come and give what will they think this is against against work ethics you should not read newspaper then another complaint you know that other beggar what did what did he do we were sitting in front of the temple and the donor came and gave one rupee to everybody and then he asked has everybody got and i know i saw that man he got the one rupee but he said i did not get it and so he got one more rupee out of it and all the beggars went you know plucking it's very bad and the chief beggar he said has violated all norms of immorality so he will keep floating in the middle of bhava sagar anyway those are the rule means the ocean of transmigration so i was just reminded of these stories of the ocean of transmigration by the um he said this is an ocean of sin ocean of papa not bhavasagar only virginam here is papa it is compared to an ocean which is blocking our path path to enlightenment which is keeping us trapped in samsara you will go across immediately by the boat of knowledge then next one 37 yathai dhamsi samidhogni even as a blazing fire burns the fuel to ashes o arjuna even so the fire of knowledge burns to ashes all actions so it says here another example is given like a fire burns wood so blazing fire if you throw wood into it is burned to ashes basmati root it burns it to ashes so also our sins are burned by this fire of knowledge now not only since notice he has moved from since adhar ma papa has been moved to sarva karmani all kinds of earth so this is the law of karma all karma can be divided into dharma and adharma dharma is moral action consciously done good the result of dharma is punya merit and the result of punya is sukha happiness dharma punya sukha merit a moral action merit and happiness adharma immoral action consciously done wickedness adharma leads to papa this is demerit and papa leads to dukkha suffering so this actions have consequences the dharma dharma is the action in between is the result which is generated the it's called a potency you know in ancient imams of philosophy this was called adrishta so an unseen potency is generated and that that we don't see that's the connecting link between the our action which we see and the result which we will see later the pleasant and unpleasant things which will happen to us the sukha dukkha and the present and present could be any kind of pleasant and unpleasant at the physical level emotional level wherever in between is this unseen potency that's why we cannot connect why this good thing happened to us why this bad thing happened to us we normally ask why this bad thing happened we never asked why this good thing happened to us um we can we cannot trace it back to which lives what action did i did neither we have the memory nor have we have the connecting link but it's there now not only the papa will be removed the demerits will be removed but also the punya or the good will be removed we say hey wait a minute i have with great difficulty i must have done good why do i want the good things to be removed both tie us to samsara swami vivekananda says in his song of the sannyasin chains though of gold are not less strong to bind then off with them sannyasi bowls say om that sato chains of gold chains of gold which will give us name and fame and success and wealth and praise and good health and why should i give those up well enjoy them but they will trap you in samsara and the problem is if they continued forever it would be great no it will not continue as you enjoy them they will be exhausted immediately and then back to square one by a lot of punya if you have got then after death one goes to heaven that was the idea in the purvamps the karma khan of the vedas do these vedic yagyas do these vedic sacrifices after death you will enjoy untroubled a happy life in heaven you will not be troubled by disease you will not be troubled by troublesome people or by mosquitoes or whatever when i first came to the united states a monk in hollywood was encouraging me to accept that proposal to come to the united states he said i can promise you one thing in hollywood there are no mosquitoes and so that was an attraction i was coming from calcutta full of mosquitoes from balloon mart which is full of mosquitoes so finally i ended up in hollywood and from the airport i was driven to the ashram and said we'll give you some time to unpack in your room and come back they're waiting to give you a reception so i went to my room and opened my suitcase which had come from the airplane first thing which came out was a mosquito it had traveled with me from calcutta no visa passport nothing straight away in aeroplane it has come how it survived i don't know anyway so you go to heaven there are no no trouble there is no aging no old age no need for medical insurance nothing you will be forever youthful and forever you whatever desires you want will be immediately fulfilled this is wonderful no it is not wonderful because forever means a long period of time long period of time and after some time it will be exhausted when it is exhausted it's just like it was yesterday only it's gone it's gone there there's a description tragic description of how one falls from heaven saying alas we are undone at least in a worldly life we age and the next generation comes along we have disease we have we are left behind we have solid we like loneliness and problems and slowly we go towards death and we know it is coming but suppose it comes in suddenly after thousand years of enjoyment everything is perfect gone go back to earth reborn and your past karma will be upon you so the they fall from heaven crying alas alas we are undone also krishna will say look is exhausted you'll come back so ultimately no solution it is only delayed suffering papa is immediate suffering sins will give you direct suffering and punya will give you delayed suffering it says all karmas are destroyed unless all karmas are destroyed we will still continue with body and mind one body and mind same mind different bodies body after body after body will come so it says all karmas will be destroyed by what by knowledge he gives another example as fire is burns all um wood all karmas means what the means from endless births we have done so many things not all those karma's results have been exhausted yet so those karmas are waiting they are stored up in our bank account the cosmic bank account and they will give results a part of that gets activated in and gives rise to bodies and minds because gives rise to different births so this birth for example whatever we are this body our gender our parents our health our lifetime our major events in life secular and spiritual life all these things are determined by our prarabdha karma that portion of my sanchita sanchita literally means accumulated that portion of my accumulated karma which is activated and comes out as prarabdha pradhan means activated karma that activated karma will determine this life and there is also agami which will be added in the in the course of this life as i go through this life i will do good and bad things and that adds to my accumulated karma that's called agami karma which will push me into the next life it is unending but the only way out is enlightenment you cannot exhaust karma by just going through karma you will keep on adding only and now the load is endless srirama krishna says if there is a mountain of cotton a mountain of cotton but you strike one mastic and throw it into that it will vanish in a conflagration even if it's a mountain of cotton it will catch fire and blaze and within seconds it will be burnt up similarly our mountains of past karma the only way of coming out of this the only way to gain freedom from this machine of maya is to attain enlightenment gyaan agni the fire of enlightenment what will it destroy it will destroy all sanchita karma of endless lifetimes that's the mountain of karma it will there will be no agami karma whatever has been accumulated in this lifetime and which may come in the future that will also not come it will be destroyed only thing is whatever is going on now right now that will continue prague the karma will continue and then what is the use the use is this the enlightenment um the the fire of knowledge will protect you against the effects of proud of the karma the effect of the karma will still be there the body will not disappear the body will be there illness will come the social events will keep on happening good and bad ups and downs your social life financial life all those things will continue but knowledge will protect you from it i am saccidananda shivoham so somebody came and insulted me that person who has insulted me and i this person who has been insulted both of us are appearances in the real eye will i really be insulted by somebody insulting me in my dream no because the person who came in the dream and insulted me is i myself i the dreamer appear in that form you will see all beings from brahma down to a little blade of grass in me from the buddha samantha bhadra down to a little insect all beings on me then why should i be angry at somebody so that guyana will protect me ghyana will protect me from disease how will it cure cancer will it cure kovid will it cure krishna i'm referring to his broken arm he says no but i can see the disease and the body and the pain as appearances i can see the difference between me and the level of appearances and therefore i can say with sri ramakrishna i am in great joy though the cancer is there the pain is there i am in great joy there's no problem so the the fire of knowledge will protect you against the effect of the karma it will destroy sanchita karma and also no agami karma will be added to your account on the death of the body of the enlightened person death of the body of the jeevan mukhta you will have vidae hamukti you will be one with brahman the infinite being there will be no further body mind neither body nor mind again the tibetan teacher whose book i was reading clear definition please tell us according to buddhism what is nirvana tell us he says very precise carefully stated definition of nirvana he says seizing of the five aggregates is nirvana five aggregates translate as body mind seizing of the body mind is nirvana no more bodies and also not continuation of the mind exactly the same thing here you are freed from this cage of flesh and blood this is called videja mukti so first jivan mukti and then videha mukti this is called freedom from all karmas sarva kharmani there's a difference in how parable karma is treated compared to the other karmas also one more point and stop and take a few questions a lot a lot of activity in the chat and uh some raised hands notice samid dowagni um well kindled fire blazing fire so this points to the fact that the knowledge which we have is not just something born of attending a few vedanta sahara and few bhagavad-gita classes it must be blazing knowledge it's a blazing fire you put stuff into it it'll just reduce everything to ashes but if it's just a small flame like a matchstick flame then you put um say a bundle of straw or something it will get extinguished we just have a little bit of smoke coming out gone what happened to fire of knowledge gone if it is not well kindled if it is not converted into full realization disease and pain and problems in life like you know dishonor financial difficulties political difficulties whatever it is tensions created by near and dear ones so all of that will affect and it will extinguish the so-called i've understood i am sachidan and the understood will not do it must be a blazing fire that it is an absolute fact every time a problem comes up which i recognize as a problem i immediately refer it to that fire i throw it into that fire and i see that it is overcome it happens it can be actually done i have seen great people i don't know if they're fully enlightened or not to see the problem it begins to affect them and then the problem is gone somehow i've seen one monk whom i admired very much a very senior monk one day we were walking with him and this uh this was in dogha in bihar and now it's the arkhand i the monk was there and be a group of disciples i mean novices brahmacharis we are walking together with not disciples brahmacharis and this drunk man who was dancing with a uncheated sword and some kind of show and there were two or three other people who had tied him to with big ropes and they were controlling him this man was in a frenzy some he was high on some drugs or something and he got free of those ropes and he rushed towards us and i just i still remember i saw that swami the old swami 70 years old take half a step back flinching from the this man was screaming in his face and swinging the sword around and then he stopped and he stood up straight and faced down we were behind the swami he protected us the man screamed for a moment and swung the sword in his face until the other man rushed and they caught him and pulled him back now i noticed that yes for a moment there might be and it's it's affecting you less than half a second immediately it's again calm the mind is calm and face is calm and he's not uh excited angry fearful none of them absolutely come in in the face of danger in the face of problems external problem personal problem even more calm even more relaxed so it must be a blazing fire now let me see the activity in there yes ramya says from astronomers the mother of um from brahma down to a little insect exactly can you elaborate on the papa purusa being of sin and i've just read about it in sudama krishna's descriptions that it's like all our sins embodied in a in the form in an anthropomorphic form and one can actually yogis can actually visualize it and then it's destroyed by the trident of shiva that's all i know prabhupada says bhagavatam also has a verse where this port analysis analogy is used yes it is actually a common and beautiful analogy bill says but the worst of sinners could never get that knowledge until great purification has taken place yes it is true it will take time but if as purification takes place we become more and more conscious of our sinful nature the worst of sinners in the sinful state is not particularly worried about sin who becomes worried about sin the person who decided to change the person who decided to move towards a moral ethical life and towards a spiritual life then one becomes conscious one becomes conscious of even small things one feels that even the small things are big sins when i see read about accounts of saints agonizing over their sins and you see actually what sin has this person committed you think they have nothing nothing compared to what is going on in the world but that person is affected by so much by it yamuna the teacher of ramanujacharya in one of our beautiful verse is vaishnava he is praying to vishnu and he says i surrender to thee when i consider my sinful nature i cannot even ask you for forgiveness when i consider what i am he says to god that it's illogical i mean how i cannot bring myself to ask you for forgive who is he is a saint so he says in my sinful nature i cannot ask you for forgiveness do with me what you will whatever you want whatever punishment whatever you want to do how many lifetimes it may take i i am ready for that because i cannot even ask for you to forgive me this is totally unreasonable but that's a total surrender to god very beautiful another devotee says oh lord you take the you take the examination you examine the devotees to see whether they're fit for enlightenment but in my case i will examine you if you can take meat across the ocean of samsara then you are indeed the lord because i'm the worst possible candidate i can in no way do i qualify and if you can make it happen for me so it turns the tables on god you can't examine me i'll fail obviously i admit that i'll fail but what about you can you transform me into uh into somebody fit for enlightenment so these are very beautiful examples stories valmiki rick says a good example of sinner becoming a saint correct and in our own day uh swami vivekananda told the story of pavari baba in gazipur a very austere ascetic and enlightened master who is to live in this little cave even now the ashram is there i haven't been there so there's a story of how a thief broke into the ashram at night to steal the few pots and pans the saint had and the saint came upon the thief who was going about his business and the thief saw that this pawaliba was coming in and he got a fright and he dropped the pots and pans and ran and to his horror he saw the saint pawadee power running after him he ran faster and faster and power power ran faster after him so uh the supervisor must have been really fit and through the night the two of them ran finally the thief couldn't run any further he gasped for breath and he fell down and the saint came to him bowed down at his feet and offered him a bundle up he was carrying the bundle of pots and pans said lord i interrupted you when you were going about your business please forgive me here take everything that i have now the result was that this thief became a monk afterwards he became a sannyasi and other monks met him that he became a very holy man after that um perhaps continue to enjoy merits also leaves us in samsara longer yes and opens the risk of accumulating more karma certainly we accumulate more karma also why do we want to accumulate merits see it works in this way all of us want happiness the first unwise attempt at happiness is by doing pop sin anyhow by hook or crook i am going to enjoy my life and you know pleasure and money karma and these are my goals and for that if i have to overstep the limits of dharma i'm willing to do it as long as i don't get caught by the irs by the police or something i will do whatever i want so this is called the first instinctive almost animalistic desire to enjoy life it generates a lot of power it generates a lot of sin and it's not a sustainable lifestyle in this lifetime and it leads to disaster and definitely in the and after death it leads to hell it's and then one comes back in a much worse state in the other lives to come so this is the result of power somehow not through memory instinctively we begin to learn as we gather some scars of suffering we begin to learn this is not working so we move from the person moves from a proper lifestyle a sinful lifestyle to a dharmic lifestyle so i still want the same thing i want pleasure i want success i want happiness but now in a sustainable way so i realized that moral ethical life is much better than an immoral unethical life for myself i am the very selfish reason i want to be happy but i want to be happy in a sustainable way not in that animalistic way so people move into this this this second stage where i'm performing dharma for worldly reasons i'm i am a good person this is called dharmica um samsari you're still a samsari i want things of the samsara but in a dharmic away and after death i don't want to go to hell i want to go to heaven so i accumulate lot of punya but over time a deeper maturity comes this is also not working i am being whirled around in the same game again and again and again and again endlessly repeating this so is there a way to attain final peace final freedom not limited in this way so spiritual search then one becomes a mukshu as a searcher after uh of of spiritual freedom which is what we are elisa says no mosquitoes in heaven hopefully not um vishwanath says also tells the story airplane flight to illustrate that heaven is not permanent yes and on other locations i've told the story it's a story from swami nish who was in south africa a long time ago um poonam ji says how does the ego sense ahamkar get dissolved i am doing this doing the sadhana sets in yes but as we are doing the sadhana even if there is an ego that i am doing the sadhana the result will be i realize i am not the ego that is the resolution of the ego sense ego sense will not go away literally because it's a function of the mind we read in vedanta mind has this function after the enlightenment will the mana stop functioning will the chittor stop functioning will the buddhist stop functioning no will you become brain dead after samsara after enlightenment no after samsara one may become brain dead but after enlightenment one will not become brain dead so if that is so why will the ego stop ego also will be there but you realize you are not the ego this transcendence of the ego is the death of the ego it no longer has any hold on you and that comes through sadhana at the beginning let it be there that i am doing sadhana but let the ego be i recognize it's only by the grace of god by the grace of the guru that i am able to do this with spiritual practice um by the way just so that it's an interesting fact to bring to your attention um in the buddhism classes which we i attended at harvard last year one thing that was a source of discussion and dispute what is the nature of the buddha after attaining enlightenment because some of the texts say there's no body there is no mind there is no thought some of the texts say he is omniscient all all-knowing perfect all bodies are his body and so on to which one does it become all or none you see from advaita perspective what would you say both are correct yes both are correct you are not the body not the mind as saccidananda what where is body where is mind it is also but at the level of the transactional level of course everything is there and not only functions better than other worldly persons so when the discussion hot discussion was going on they gave a name um the buddha without body without mind without thought they called it brain stem buddha brain stem buddha buddha reduced to the brain it's still a kind of very body kind of thinking it is from buddha as the buddha nature as pure consciousness that is beyond body and mind there is no question of body and mind there so charles chaw is asking oh before that the question i heard in mark india puranas punya bhogan heaven suffers by thought of hell in case he or she has gone to heaven first and had left the hell for later yes so the problems of heaven and not only the thought of future hell future birth in on earth and not only that um another thing that that the denizens of the citizens of heaven they suffer from is jealousy because there are multiple heavens there are seven heavens so i am on heaven number one but there's someone on heaven number two and three and they're better off than i have no problems but they have even better enjoyments than me and that becomes my problem why i should get that so jealousy and if you can see it here the millionaire what else do you need no but that person is a billionaire and that other person is a multi-billionaire charles job is asking about the law for abortion question whose adharma is this act to promote promote abortion if we do bad as does designated by position we will not be responsible for that bad because of a direction from higher authority so for good excuse to do more bad correct this is a difficult question um one thing is dharma is never bad so if there is something immoral against ethics it will not be part of dharma so you cannot say it is my dharma to obey and do bad things because my boss has commanded me the bad things which i'm doing are against dharma and the result will come to me and to my boss also who has given me the order just because it's an order that does not absolve me of the karma which is generated by an immoral action puniti is asking in our spiritual journey can we weaken the hold of samskaras karma's on us by consciously aligning with the witness within and see the samskaras continue the maya's play yes certainly that i am the witness the sakshi and you will notice that uh that itself weakens the hold of the samskaras the samskaras become strong when i identify with the sanskaras samskaras say here somebody said something bad get angry you have righteous anger i am angry no that thing is a thought coming from my samskaras in my mind reacting to that water comes from outside it will generate anger but if i am a witness to it anger will not be generated the hold of the samskaras will be weakened by being the sakshi or noticing that i am the sakshi all right then other these hands raised i think dimitri uh good evening uh a question um about the uh the state of the brahman and uh the from the point of view that uh of like one of the pure awareness when once uh the enlightenment has happened one realized true nature and you know that i'm always has been a brahman is it right like i'm trying kind of to use to understand it from the logical perspective if it is also at all possible of course is it so that i am the pure witness yet uh i'm able to experience everything in maya even though like without being identified sort of sort of speak with it right because like it's because what i catch myself often that my mind drifts into the uh considering awakening as a different kind of experience as a kind of a higher power how a higher experience but in reality when i look into it no it's just like i am the witness and that's it i have no power so is is that the limitation of uh being a human and having a new jiva that you know limits this awareness to this field of viewer only and once you know that comes to pass you become pure awareness and therefore like yes samsara is there i am able to see all of it and not being identified with that i'm not sure if i'm making sense it's the first class but the part you talked about as you realize that your pure consciousness and then samsara appears dream like to you and not apart dream like in the sense of being not real although experienced and also in the sense of being not apart from you nothing in the dream is really apart from you everything is is within you uh so in this way the field of view becomes like endless like i'm not anymore limited to the field of view of dmitry yes but endless in the sense it's already endless notice in a dream you the dreamer the whole dream was world endless all of it is really within you and you as the person in the dream you are also you have like a body in the dream and you have a particular point of view in the dream so from that point of view certain things in the dream are known to you and certain things seem to be unknown to you in the dream are you with me yes you have a particular point of view so yes you can see certain things that there are many things you cannot see you see some people there are many people you cannot you have the sense of a vast world out there which you are not directly aware just like the waking state right so like there is a point of view right the the vantage point from which advantage a specific privilege point of view because you to experience that you have to have a subjective perspective and the subject is constituted by a body mind so in a dream also you have a body mind in the waking also you have a body mind but what i'm saying is this sense of a vastness which is beyond you you have only a limited dimitri perspective and there is something beyond you which other people are saying there may be things which other people are not seeing also a vast universe out there notice it's exactly the same in the dream also yet when you wake up all that was known in the dream and all that was unknown in the dream a tiny bit that was known and it seemed to be that there's a vastness that was unknown all of it was nothing other than you the dreamer's mind similarly right now you the pure consciousness which is being channelized through one perspective of dimitri is now experiencing a limited you know what you can see here smell taste touch that's your particular perspective and your thoughts of your own mind and you have the sense that there is a vastness out there all these people are there and they are experiencing different things and there are many billions of people across the world and there are stars and planets in the universe um all of that is beyond my perspective limitry's perspective right now now from the pure consciousness perspective this whole thing is an appearance as known to dimitri and as an unknown to dmitry the entire universe right now will clearly fall into known and unknown to you known to you and unknown to you that which is beyond the known and unknown which is the you the pure consciousness to it is appearing the universe as known and unknown why i'm saying this is that after enlightenment it's not that you will suddenly gonna gain a kind of a cosmic perspective where you will be able to see through everybody's eyes you will get you know like a cosmic hacker you will be able to work through all bodies and minds uh that will that is not enlightenment that is that is a specific power and it's limited to god in its ultimate extent god is the consciousness behind all bodies and mind god means yes and this makes yeah this makes sense while let's say the jew is still active and alive but then jiva is dissolved and then what happened nothing what was always there is always there right now whatever is there that always continues only that that um the consciousness which seemed to have been trapped in the jiva hood it's like vast space and space in a pot in sanskrit mahakasha gatakash a vast space and space in the fort and now i'm talking about physical space now the space in the pot is actually no different from the vast space it has it has at no point been cut off demarcated it's just for our transactional purposes it seems to be that there's some space in the pot that's not true at all the part is in the space but that appearance of the part having cut off circumscribed a little bit of space that appearance is still there it's very difficult to overcome that kind of an uh you know illusion or appearance now when the part is smashed you can say that little part space becomes one with the vast space gutta kasha becomes one with mahakasha the truth being and the space was always one even when the part was there the space was always one not nothing at all happened to that space the illusion of being limited to a pot will end with enlightenment the vast space remains as vast place then you say what happens to me dimitri you are that the vast space right now and then also not the slightest difference would be there from that perspective let me put it in simpler terms which swami vivekananda so we do a morning reading today itself is being read in the morning here in the ashram and lady i think it was the famous singer opera singer who was a disciple of swami vivekananda madame calve emma khali so she asks vivekananda no i don't want to be the same person as i want to be the individual person this person i want to be and enlightened i want my personality to stay and so i will kind of smiled and he said personality we don't have a personality yet a little drop of water felt and fell into the ocean and it lamented oh i'm losing my personality where am i going and the ocean laughed and said little drop you're becoming one with billions millions of your brothers and sisters you're becoming one with the ocean you are the ocean now you are the ocean now and if you're so fond of your individuality and it says then again you can if you again want to be an individual again you can rise with the and on a sunbeam and become a cloud and rain down on the parched earth bringing love and blessings to humanity so you then what he means is like you are one of those enlightened persons like himself so essentially it's a pure freedom where you free to you know reincarnate and you know have the conscious experience and be free from it at the same time or just remain in the as the wiseness of the ocean a vastness of the ocean and remember that that freedom is not not exactly the limited dimitri's freedom that freedom is that come that comes from god because it's equally true to say at that point if you choose to become a individual and you can rise as a drop of water in the sun beam as vivekananda said to him but sri ramakrishna says that depends on he says god's will there god's will and your will are one and the same it's it's that it's not that it's a negotiation between you and uh god is going on should i go back and not but isn't it like in that state there is no individual yes it's just consciousness there is no my will or somebody else yet it can come back as individuals and why not look that same consciousness is coming as 7 billion human individuals and countless billions of other living beings now it is happening right now and they are in delhi which means that in interior what could happen the whole cycle will repeat again there will be like a dimitri 2.0 which also will be starting now as you just said that 2.0 will be an enlightened dimitri with never in any danger of samsara so for for that coming out of um of the infinite consciousness of brahman would be something like say vivekananda has come like that so that vivekananda coming is at no point was in danger of slipping away from enlightenment and getting trapped in this world of samsara but that's later advaita vedanta doesn't even go there advaita vedante is why are you asking about being in the part and the part is broken and you are the vast space and then again i want to be in a pot at no point where you in the space in the pot you're always space the part appeared in you as many parts are appearing right now and again the part was destroyed you want another part to appear in you it's it's definitely that can happen but you are always there so and this is clear the one the only one remaining on clarity for me yet that i cannot quite grasp is that then uh why did i like well quote unquote why did i began as dmitry 1.0 the answer always would be that you did not yes and you said but that's it you'll say that but that's paradoxical that's precisely so this very paradoxical thing is what is called maya if it actually happened i began as dimitri 1.0 ended it is there a problem is there a possibility a danger of coming back at dmitry 2.0 no if it really did happen those questions would be valid if it has not happened the questions are not valid anymore then the only question remains is how can i realize that by which this invalidity is shown to me that it did not happen at all that i just have to realize that then the question is at an end there is if it did not happen why even ask about it happening i told a story about the monk who was discussing in uttarkashi who who had these theories of punar janma multiple lifetimes in indian philosophies as against the middle eastern faiths you know that one lifetime which is true arguments for this and arguments for that and finally he takes the whole argument to a non-dualist teacher in an ashram outside our ashram just nearby this great non-dualist teacher he was asked by our the monk his conscious success it is many likes this theory is it true and then monk replied he chuckled and he replied oh monk when there is no birth where is the question of another birth of the question where is the question of rebirth go and read the mandooky so that monk came back he stormed back and he was grumbling to me it's useless talking to this non-dualist they'll all go back to brahman and maya and that's it you can't discuss anything seriously with them yes thank you thank you i think anuradha and gabriel can you hold the questions for next time we have really run out of time thank you very much uh let's end this at this point oh i have to remind you tomorrow we have a beautiful talk by swami atma did you receive the email and the links it's from 7 30 to 8 30. a wonderful talk on the occasion of holi mothers mash out there's birth anniversary a wonderful senior swami he of course does not publicize it but he is a he is a phd in vaishnava vedanta studies one of the classic texts of vaishnava vedanth is published he has translated it but it's published under his pre-monastic name stewart elkman so he never talks about it but in mutual binary it's dead the book is an important translation so so he will speak tomorrow stuart maharaja swami atma ghana and from our washington dc maryland center actually all right 7 30 tomorrow [Music] to