Video 58

58. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 4 Verses 38-41 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru so we are in the fourth chapter towards the end of the fourth chapter and sri krishna was saying that knowledge by this of course he means self-knowledge or knowledge that i am brahman that that final liberating knowledge that is the highest of all even the greatest of sinners is purified by this knowledge just as fire burns into ashes of wood similarly all our past karmas are karma accumulated karma is destroyed by enlightenment by knowledge so and we discussed different kinds of karma the prarabdha karma and the sanjita karma agami karma we were on verse 38 to the best of my knowledge uh is that right yes so verse 38. pavitram is so there is indeed nothing so purifying here as knowledge one perfected in yoga attains that automatically in himself in time so what is meant here that this is also in praise of knowledge and he of course means um self-knowledge enlightenment there is nothing as purifying there is nothing as purifying as knowledge itself this whole idea of purification it's very big in hinduism as we know you know from sprinkling ourselves with ganga water which i have a store going back to the time of swami tatakata and the jesus ganga water right behind me and uh taking baths in holy rivers and during holy times in the confluence of confluence of rivers at the conference of particular times um rituals to purify oneself all of this is basically um for two two reasons one is the uh the polluting effect of bad karma which is done which is in our minds so it creates uh tendencies in our minds which bind us to the world negative tendencies you know jealousy anger lust greed all of these tendencies they are the effect of bad karma on our minds that is removed by these purifying practices variety of purifying practices are there in hinduism since the past since the beginning of you know the vedic religion is something that you find in common in all religions sometimes it is called purification sometimes repentance and atonement all those things without that one cannot actually move forward in spiritual life it's like the albatross around your neck or like a stone tied to our our feet and you sink you cannot cannot float you cannot swim if there's a heavy weight tied to your feet similarly our past karmas are our burdens so this is the reason why we do this and also another reason could be that these karmas negative karmas have set up certain potentialities which will come back to us in the form of suffering so in order to ward that up if one cannot destroy karma until one becomes enlightened but with sufficient merit with sufficient dharmic karma one can set up a certain amount of positive like merit which will counteract the demand will know will not allow negative karma to rectify so for various reasons the a wide variety of purificatory practices are followed all religions i think especially in hinduism we have a a purity fetish you know like always trying to be pure and remove impurity here krishna says very clearly there is only one thing which is truly purifying he says it is knowledge is nothing as truly purifying as knowledge as enlightenment known how many times you take a dip in the ganges uh srirama krishna says what happens doesn't a bat in the in the ganga purify a person he says yes it does but what happens is um once when you go into the ganga the the the ghosts the papa that you know they they uh fly away from a person and they sit on the tree waiting for the person to take the dip and come out the one said they have come out of it they jump on you again basically what he means is when we do something some religious right some ritual you do feel an upliftment you do do feel a purity but it goes away very fast all our past conditioning comes back again um he gave a very beautiful example of elephants being taken for a bath so you take elephants i mean these are of course tame elephants you take them for a bath in the river and so they they clean thoroughly but once they are out they have a tendency to roll in the sand so they covered themselves with dirt all over again but he says if after right after the bath if you drive the elephant back to the stable where the elephants are kept then the elephant will remain clean similarly what he means is by purification by spiritual practices all of these things one purifies the mind and engages it in spiritual practice and attains enlightenment then the purity is permanent so otherwise what happens it's like the elephant which rolls in the dust immediately afterwards and all the effect of it is lost but he says compared to all of those practices whatever you're observing a vow fasting silence pujas that are you know given charity or various kinds of hoven rituals fire rituals bathing during you know the whole like the kumbha mela for example the bathing in the river i've seen the monks i also just to do quite a bit of it when i was in in belurumat so it's next to the ganga all of it is nothing compared to knowledge knowledge means enlightenment one of the masters swami akanda saraswati who whose books are in hindi he makes a uh a kind of a play on words so some of them have this tendency of finding out deeper and deeper meanings by playing around with the words in sanskrit so what he does is the two words sadrisham and pavitram pavitram means sacred holy purifying now he says it comes from the root pavi pavi he says it means a thunderbolt so ignorance is the thunderbolt which by which we have been struck in sanskrit in sanskrit or hindi vajra ignorance is the vajra thunderbolt by which we have been struck and we are suffering in samsara so much unhappiness so much struggle in samsara because we are we have been laid low we've been struck by this thunderbolt how do you overcome you need an even more powerful weapon to fight off the thunderbolt of ignorance and which is knowledge so means that which takes you across which overcomes um for example the word mantra so mantra man means if you think over it if you if you dwell on that means it takes you across samsara takes you across the ocean of ignorance that's a mantra pavitra so according to this derivation given by akanan saraswati pavitra means that which overcomes the thunderbolt of ignorance pavi thunderbolt we are hit by that we have been laid low we are suffering so you need knowledge which will overcome which you will be overcoming thunderbolt i thought is he um sort of you know overdoing it playing on the words extracting meanings which are not there so i looked up the dictionary and lo and behold pravi thunderbolt so it's a direct meaning of the word puppy i never knew this so this is one meaning this is very interesting that it overcomes the literally holy means at its core in its deep philosophical sense don't mistake me in sanskrit and in all just about every indian language pavitra simply means holy pure sacred that's it that's correct that's correct that's the standard meaning this is a deeper meaning but it is supported by sanskrit grammar and then the other um word or grammatical investigation which he does is with the word sadrisham sadrasham literally means similar or quite like there's nothing quite like knowledge in its purifying power and elevating power sadhusham like something similar to but he changes the meaning so for this you need sanskrit drisha means to see so sadhurisham means with sight means with so drishya means to see sad risha it does not mean like i mean that's one meaning but this the meaning special meaning which this swami brings out is that which has uh sight and it is true knowledge is that we just cite and specifically there he says knowledge is that which destroys ignorance by knowledge you see see that uh ultimate reality so sadrisham with with eyes one sees um and a deeper meaning here is compared to all other purificatory practices okay this is where we are on little dangerous territory don't lose your faith in the purificative practices he says in all the purificatory practices whether it is pujas or vedic fire rituals or taking a bath in the ganga the purifying power is something you believe in you don't see it actually and you feel it but it could just be because you believe in it just it could be that you're conditioned by culture by centuries of practice and culture and enculturation you believe in and it works there's no doubt about it works but his point is you don't actually see it whereas the what knowledge delivers you see it directly it will transform your entire life it will set you free from samsara moksha in vedantic terms is called drishta khalam means a direct experience result in this life you will see it the distinction is in the vedas the karma khanda and the gyanakanda the ritualistic portion and the knowledge portion the philosophical portion we are gita is is based on the upanishads which are the philosophical of the knowledge portion but the ritualistic portion you have a variety of rituals and they're supposed to give you worldly and otherworldly goals so worldly goal might be in ancient times you know you might want rainfall or a king might want to conquer his enemies or one might want to go to heaven after death so clearly there were two kinds of results which they were aiming at nothing very spiritual about it but the two kinds of results they were aiming at one kind was drishta here and now i perform this ritual and it is promising that there's going to be rainfall i can see whether there's rainfall or not did it work or not and the other kind of result was adrista unseen unseen in the sense after death i will attain to heaven because i have performed these rituals now that i do not see now i'll have to wait until i die and then and then i can't you know return it to the shop if it i don't if i don't end up in heaven and end up in the other place i said the ritual didn't work i want a full refund too late so it's an unseen result it's taken entirely on faith so they're seen and unseen results for various practices what he's saying here is sadhurisha means it's a scene result knowledge gives you a scene result right here you will see in your own life it's completely transformed it gives the result of taking you across all suffering of giving you permanent fulfillment so that is the deeper meaning of all of that he gets by playing around with the word sadrisham drisham to see but the general meaning again the actual the standard meaning of celebration is like there's nothing like knowledge which is so purifying okay one perfected in yoga so perfected in yoga means by karma yoga one attains purification of mind by worship or upasana one attains concentration focus and by the practice of knowledge which is what we are discussed in this section one knowledge means ghana yoga one attains enlightenment and gets freedom kali not many vindati it takes time in time so didn't you say that you will get a scene result immediately yes you will get a scene result immediately the moment you're enlightened there's there's no delay there but till enlightenment it takes time it takes time all right then 39 shraddha vanda [Music] very beautiful verse the man of faith zeal and self-control attains knowledge having attained knowledge he immediately attains supreme peace so this discusses what is necessary for becoming enlightened so the one um one means one who has faith in the teachings and in the teacher the guru and the sastras so that person faith will be discussed again a little later but faith here does not mean uncritical acceptance of something you can always criticize you can always question but it is one must start with the feeling that there is something to it otherwise you'll never pursue it all spiritual practice in fact all worldly activities also based on a kind of faith that i'm going to get something out of this that sustains us that that motivates us inspires us and sustains us in spiritual life very beautiful praise i think it should be the motto of our re our educational institutions what has happened in our educational institutions is just the opposite of this in the name of say like critical thinking and doubting everything and freedom of thought all those are wonderful and i'm sure they have served in removing superstition and blind belief and all of that that's great but one can overdo it that so anything that is put forward as a teaching is immediately subject to criticism or skepticism it must be somehow wrong so if you say so you know a scholar once told me see all of this comes from the west and in the west also it's a new phenomenon it comes from nietzsche it's called the hermeneutics of suspicion so whatever you say it's not right there must be something hidden underneath it a hidden narrative there and which is usually much worse than what you are saying so you talk about the lives of the saints which are supposed to inspire us in spiritual life make greater efforts no no no inquire deeply there are skeletons in the cupboard so you find that out um are whether it's the yogurt teachings or whatever it is you find a an explanation which is usually quite uninspiring quite mundane or you know cut down what has been said so this is sort of dominant in modern thought especially in academics so somehow the implied i mean assumption it's there all the time is that it can't be true there is no such thing as god or enlightenment and all now having taken that for granted that it's not spirituality is not true so why is religion there now we will find economic reasons for it or social reasons for it we will find power equations in it and so on so forth so this is the problem of starting off with a lack of faith in fact starting with positive suspicion this is quite different from questioning in vedanta one must question because one has to understand the questioning is meant for understanding the attitude is i go to class i have a rockstar professor and a course which i'm very interested in now what do i do i would like to know i would like to get it so i question i question what i'm reading in the book i question the professor i ask that's very good it's something that we lacked in indian education while growing up we're supposed to keep our mouth shut and listen to what the teacher said and that's changing here at least in the better institutions and that's all for the good but even if i don't get it it's the attitude is not that the professor is a liar not that the books are all fake news no my attitude is i don't get it that's why i'm questioning in order to understand that is perfectly all right and that must be done otherwise one will not understand but to start off with the assumption that is all nonsense and i'm going to show you that it's nonsense you'll never get anywhere and that has reached its extreme in you know the whole cult of post-modern thinking uh it's sort of um i mean i saw it especially in the in the humanities i mean i saw it and where better than i mean harvard for example so it is very damaging you it sort of sabotages learning and it converts um academics into a kind of activism not even a genuine kind of activism it's more like what they call virtue signaling i'm better than you so each person trying to show i am more socially progressive than you more socially advanced than you and everything is twisted and turned to serve that that narrative and if you're against it you know i actually spoke to uh senior professors at harvard uh personally of the record the senior ones at least they're very unhappy with it this is this whole thing they keep quiet otherwise they'll get into trouble so yeah so this is this is a problem with the present state of affairs and this is at the best institutes in the world today one has to sort of overcome that then means committed zealous dedicated up and doing that means that para means is my highest goal is my ultimate goal now is my most urgent goal tat para and sangeti indriya self-controlled ethically and morally a pure life and a person of discipline and control so shankaracharya says you'll never get anywhere unless you have some kind of basic faith in the teachings so that's shakdha having is this is from shankaracharya's commentary having the faith one may not be up and doing you see this these are the places where our religious life a spiritual quest comes to a grinding heart yeah i am sort of i understand those things i'm motivated by it but i'm too busy i mean i'll i'll do something after i retire or something like that you know i'm too busy right now tatpara means one must be up and doing it's the most urgent thing in life you have to do it now now or it's good that you're interested in spirituality and philosophy and all but that's for later you now have i i remember when i was little kid i used to go to the ashram quite often and i was scolded by my parents or aunt that's for old people you are a young boy you should you know you should play and study and whatnot and there was this old grand aunt who was like a grandmother who was sitting and quietly watching all this and when my mother and aunt left the room she called me close and she said look bye bye what you are doing that's right that's correct keep on doing that it does not work when you're old so one must be up and doing otherwise well one it will not it will precious time is lost then shankaracharya says one may be appending one may have shaddha belief in it um you know desire for enlightenment and maybe appending you go to a teacher and you you get the books and attend all the classes but in disciplined life unethical life a lose life he says not controlled it will be wasted so all three are necessary and if all three are there one shankaracharya says enlightenment is guaranteed these are his words absolutely you'll get it in fact he says compare it to the earlier ones which were said um that verse was there deeply get this knowledge by approaching the masters and by serving them and by questioning them he says he makes an interesting observation those are also practices those of course you have to have to do that but he says in that case a person may not be sincere might be going to a master or a class for for other purposes maybe i'm just bored i just need a group to hang out with i'm going there or maybe i just want to get some praise from the master so i ask questions we all i mean at least i did it when i was a kid in school uh i always had all the intelligent questions to ask not so much to know but to please the teacher i think so shankaracharya actually mentions that that there may not be it may not be a very straightforward thing which is happening one may be one who is hopefully very sincere but uh there is no guarantee that that will lead to enlightenment just because i've gone to a teacher i have signed up for a class and asking questions but after that these things are internal shaddai is internal i really have faith in these things and i am really up and doing it's an internal effort and i'm really controlled in mind and sense organs then he says absolutely certain that you're going to get enlightened this is the exact words that he guarantees enlightenment everyone has these qualities then one what happens after enlightenment after becoming enlightened what more remains to be done post enlightenment practices this i have a book here after enlightenment so several chapters and what what what are the immediate steps to be taken if you if you become enlightened um he says nothing you attain to the supreme peace gap achieving achievenbc without any um you know temporal gap without any gap in time you become enlightened you get freedom from param shanti param shanti means that literally it's almost this is biblical language the peace that passeth understanding the supreme peace you attain to that immediately if you talk about um it's who wrote after enlightenment stephen bodhian i think i'll show you the book it's it's nice if actually just as a sort of sidebar here the book i've got it here somewhere um it talks about the practices which are mentioned there after enlightenment in vedanta they will their correspond they correspond to needed asana so after you make a breakthrough and you um it's it's more of a centering practice you made a breakthrough it's become clear to you now basically you have to stay there without saying you have to stay there and that's needed meditation so that's what i mean he does not use those words he calls it after enlightenment basically after one gets an intuitive breakthrough you stay with it and all the practices he has given are um staying with it but i'm just a minute is it after enlightenment or after my one second let me see if i've got the book right here all right i was doing him an injustice it's not after enlightenment but it's after mindfulness or beyond mindfulness so uh this book it's a good book it says uh it basically deals with the direct approach a direct approach to enlightenment all right now back to our verse if you're looking for stages there are actually two stages but they're not really stages it's called jivan mukti vidhya mukti so these are common terms in vedanta jivan mukti means the enlightenment you get that is called jivan mukti you're still the body is there you're living a life now you are living the life of an enlightened being as long as the body lasts and how long will it last it will last as long as prada karma is there this is up to that it is called jivan mukti and that's basically the goal of advaita vedanta and after the body drops off at the end of the karma the body will die you are already brahman you are already the infinite so it is um um really nothing to you but from the our perspective from those who are watching you as the enlightened being all right so he has left the body we call it attainment of um bodyless liberation so swami hashanandji in bangalore he passed away few days ago seeing an announcement uh video mukti of swami hashanandaji so vidhyamukti means you're already enlightened but the body drops off now if you don't do this don't do what if one does not have um a faith in the teachings of in these teachings faith in the teacher and the teachings if one is ignorant and if one is skeptical what happens terrible things happen page four verse number 40. samshati [Music] he who is ignorant wanting in faith and of a doubting mind is ruined for the doubting man there is neither this nor the other world nor happiness so three problems are mentioned here ignorant then lack of faith lack of faith respect doubtful and he says um each is worse than the earlier one one might think that ignorance is the worst of all yes but it's a common condition we all have it and we are working to overcome it one if one is ignorant well one one has faith and the one is up and doing and one will overcome that ignorance and it is that's what spirituality is there for that's what vedanta that's what the religions are there for but if one has ashadha so one already has ignorance one cannot be enlightened and have ashadha that means lack of faith so faith is there um one observation i want to share with you before getting back to the main track of explanation what is faith at the beginning what is faith at our level as spiritual seekers becomes nishta after enlightenment i'll repeat that what starts off as shraddha becomes nishta afterwards shraddha means a deep faith this is true and it keeps us in the spiritual path and after enlightenment what happens is no longer you don't need that kind of faith anymore that this is true i believe it no you know it is true then what happens you you stay with it nishta i dwell on the truth i stay with it staying with it also means immersing oneself in it and expressing it like in life life will throw you challenges now can i respond to those challenges from my insight from my enlightened perspective that will be a struggle why will it be a struggle not from the world outside if you struggle with my past conditioning if the mind has been sufficiently purified your enlightenment will be expressed easily if the mind has not been sufficiently purified there will be a struggle so staying with it and to express your enlightenment swain vivekananda calls it manifestation of the divinity already within us very nice phrase manifestation of the divinity already within us so that is um so an enlightened person can do that one has uh ignorance but with shraddha one pursues this uh path and then one becomes enlightened one can remove the um ignorance and become enlightened suppose one has uh ashradha and then on top of that doubtful samshaya so this phrase is also important samshaya atma binashit is often repeated the doubting the doubting thomas is also a phrase so the the one who keeps on doubting uh is destroyed that's the worst why is it the worst because the ignorant person can overcome ignorance which with faith and practice and perseverance ignorance will go away that's why all religion and spiritual practices are there the person who has ignorance and no respect for spirituality and religion well that person will still won't suffer so much because that person now what does that person say oh these things are not true there's no god no religion no spirituality all this not true all that is true is this world and i'm going to make mary here and that person without any conflict will rush towards you know trying his hand at enjoying the world also a doomed project but for the time being it will keep him engaged most people are engaged in that that to find see a thoughtful materialist will always be against spirituality and religion to be completely committed to materialism to be completely committed to a hedonistic lifestyle you must deny the possibility of something greater so thoughtfully they'll cut down they'll first have to cut down religion guard enlightenment then only you can be a committed materialist so this person becomes a committed materialist is ignorant about spirituality has no faith in it and so some kind of life will go in some way will pursue pleasure power money and life will go on not so bad but the worst kind is sanchya atma who is has you know sort of congenitally doubtful skeptical suspicious this comes from a thomasic mindset suspicious of anything and everything can't trust anybody can't trust anything so um does not trust the texts and the teachings of the who knows the texts might be they were ignoring people in the past who what did they know well the masters realized it and they're telling us they could be deluded how do i know and uh so about spirituality about um you know people in the in the life doesn't trust husband wife children doesn't trust co-workers doesn't trust superiors or subordinates suspicious mentality about things in general will this person be a good scientist not at all we doubt everything in science also and everything in politics also fake news so everything is now this person notice they will believe in certain things and they usually fall victim to the worst kind of you know superstitions conspiracy theories so many things it happens tamasic mindset so he says it is destroyed by nayam lokasti this person will not attain to any kind of pleasure in this life everything is tainted by suspicion and unhappiness if one is suspicious of everybody and everything is unhappiness bound to be an instant unhappiness i have seen one interesting quality among the senior monks whom i consider to be very spiritual they are all very trusting they immediately trust and believe a person it will be cheated not necessarily there's somehow a little bit of i think divine protection is there i remember there was um a meeting after swami lokeshwaran and the g pastor swami lukashenji was the head of a big institution so in calcutta institute of culture a huge institution he was very trusting so one of the gentlemen who worked with him was saying that maharaj believed just about everybody when people came and whatever they said people he he believed them and was he cheated he said yes he was cheated he was cheated quite a number of times but he didn't that didn't stop him he believed people and he supported people he believed even when somebody's taking you for a ride often i've seen monks who understand they are no fools but they play along i i remember once in howrah station where a group of monks and this you know the beggars are there in the on the platform this lady comes along with a baby on her hip and she's absolutely you can see clothes in tatters and she looks emaciated and she has asking everybody for money and one of the monks said wait don't give them a give her any money and he sharply asked her is that your child she looked scared um should i call the police and she quickly melted back into the crowd and this monk said see these are cheats one shouldn't give money to such people and and he said i knew it i mean the moment i saw this was a scam it's somebody else's child and she's just walking around with it in order to get sympathy and money another monk scolded this month he said look it could be it is a scam all right but she is obviously poor she's not doing it for fun she's not out to make millions of you she is obviously starving she is obviously in desperate condition knowing that it's a scam we should still give money if you can't do anything you can pull her out of her condition help her do so but you can't do anything give somebody to something that will help at this moment at least don't you do that to children little babies and infants you know they often try to manipulate their parents so as parents you know they are trying to pull a fast bond on you but you humored them so i've seen very loving very wise old swamis they see right through us but the humorous and all for our welfare if necessary they scold us also so now i am but this person will have no happiness in uh in in this world without any kind of trust will only have unhappiness no paro so the idea that in the ancient times you know that you do these rituals and you'll get married and after death you will go to heaven this person won't go to heaven why because there's no faith in such such things and no moksha also there's no question of moksha and enlightenment won't even start on that path so we will not enjoy this world will not enjoy the next world and will not attain to motion this is the fate of the the perpetually doubting that is tamasic mindset that is very different from the enquiry the vedantic enquiry the questioning which is absolutely necessary for vedanta but this is a kind of dumb stubborn unbelief no matter what you say i i will not listen to you so leave these persons alone what will happen are they hopeless no nobody is hopeless god will take care of them but it's going to be a long and painful process born of a lot of suffering till they begin to learn this is not the way out so so they learn in this life our lives to come so this is so these two phrases are important the one with shraddha attains to knowledge and samshati the one full of doubt goes to ruin swami vivekananda gave great stress on this word means faith faith in yourself first he said his famous thing which we quote often old religion said he who does not have faith in god is an atheist the new religion says he who does not have faith in himself is an atheist it starts with faith in oneself then only one can have faith in the scriptures and the guru in god then number 41 yoga karma gana samshayam but he who has renounced the fruit of actions through yoga whose doubts have been destroyed by knowledge and who is self-possessed odhananjaya or jonah is not bound by actions he's sort of summing up the whole section on enlightenment yogas and yes this phrase sounds complicated literally if you take it it means one who has transcended action through uh by who has given up or action through yoga basically it means enlightenment it means enlightenment you if you realize that you are the self you are the witness consciousness then all the activities which may be going on at the level of the body mind they are not your activities the screen on which the movie is playing the screen has no identification with the happenings in the movie it does not take responsibility for tragedies it does not take responsibility for great things happening and if the audience stands up and cheers in the movie you know the screen will not you know take credit for that it's the movie and the screen has nothing to do with it except enabling it to happen yeah except this aesthetic enjoyment which you take in it so by enlightenment one transcends karma transcends sannyasa karma literally means giving up but he does not mean giving up karma because krishna is telling arjuna to perform intense activity and krishna himself in the midst of intense activity intense activity at the level of the body and mind perfect peace forever at the level of the self as pure consciousness all doubts overcome by knowledge so here all doubts overcome by knowledge operates at two levels one is at the level of the ultimate goal that i am brahman this was hidden this was doubtful that has been overcome by clear knowledge that i am brahman that is of course enlightenment but also there was a doubt with which the chapter began tell me one thing which i should do you know should i do karma yoga or should i do gyani yoga this doubt about sadhana what is to be practiced he says now that those doubts should have gone not only about the ultimate goal but also what you should do what should you do by karma yoga one should purify oneself through unselfish action moral ethical and altruistic action purify yourself if that action is devoted to god is a worship of god even better then through meditation and worship concentrate the purified mind and then with this concentrated purified mind you approach vedantic hearing reasoning and uh meditation sravana manana nudity asana that leads to enlightenment so this is the whole course and then remember when i used word then first this then that and then that it does not mean literally a sequence in time one must do all of that all the time it's not that you're going to come to vedanta class after 40 years you know after i retire then i'll join your class it'll be too late all of these things have to be done together then atmavantam centered and after enlightenment you are centered in the selves means in the midst of actions also that clear identity should be there i am brahman i am of the nature of i am bliss i am awareness i am with the nature of shiva atma one literally means with the self or possessed of the self you can translate it as centered in your enlightenment centered in your realization that i am brahman why wouldn't one be centered well one may be swept away by the problems of day-to-day life you know at our level also we should practice this that uh i get big i tend to get some kind of an intuition understanding in the class but it's all sorts of it sort of disappears in the course of the week and next class again i have to hear this no after the class also um in our daily lives at home at work now of course at home and work at the same thing so atmavantam being centered in the idea or in the realization in intuition that i am the self action does not mind we know the what is meant it unpacked the term action doesn't bind how does action bind action leads to results and the results lead to their effects and effects are sukhandukka happiness and misery which means future lives and the cycle of life and death continues that's the binding effect of actions both good and bad that will not happen if you have these three um [Music] what are these three if you look closely he has mentioned shavana manananan yoga nyasta karmanam this is knowledge by the knowledge that i am brahmana i am pure being pure consciousness i transcend activity i am not doing activity to get results for myself because i don't need it i cannot do activity through a body and mind because i am the witness consciousness i do not act it is the body and mind which act so this is the knowledge where does it come from it comes from the study of vedanta being properly instructed in vedanta then there will be a lot of doubts questions struggles that comes in the second part ganasan nasamshayam if you give stress on the samshaya about doubts it is actually mananam mananam means reasoning working it out struggling with it wrestling with it to see how is this true why are my doubts not correct answering every possible question so look questions are to be asked and overcome this is quite different from the samsya atma the doubting thomas so this has to be overcome these doubts and they have to be raised discussed threadbare and overcome you get clarity yes it is true or clarity dawns upon you at this level i was reading tibetan buddhists have a lot to say about these levels they also have these three levels here they literally talk about it hearing and debating and meditating so the debating level they say that memory and intellect are of two kinds i mean sorry memory and intellect four kinds of memory and four kinds of intellect very interesting and it's very nice for our education system also um so the four kinds of intellect is the tibetan to this talk about is the quick intellect the um clarity intellect of clarity or clear intellect penetrative intellect and the wise intellect the quick intellect is the one which can quickly grasp your your argument and quickly see the the counter arguments and the objections and the exceptions no that's a quick intellect ready we will see through what you are trying to say and raise objections in the second kind of intellect is the clear intellect which has a very clear idea of the concepts how they are linked together a map there's a very clear mind organized and clear mind note that it may be that none of them have the truth it's something common to every field of endeavor in in science and religion in law you will come across these minds these kinds of minds so there's a quick intellect there's a clear intellect then there is a penetrative intellect the penetrative intellect can see deeply can follow through a chain of argument and see deeper and deeper layers to it do you see the difference between being quick and being clear about something and then questioning the thing i remember this swami who i now realize has a clear intellect all concepts are he's a wonderful teacher luminous teacher so i mean his classes were like all the rage when we were novices everybody wanted to go to his classes everybody wanted notes of old classes and in those days the photocopier technology had just come so everybody wanted to photocopy and the senior monks pooh-poohed you know i said in our day we had to take it down write it down by hand and at least something goes into your mind and you guys you just waste money in photocopying and then you i know you will just throw away the all the stuff you'll never read it nowadays of course we have moved beyond it we have got recording devices and i saw in the class in india so there was a class on logic and there were students from different universities of india for the first time i saw this student she had come from mumbai or somewhere and she took a picture on her phone to the horror of the pandit who was writing the sanskrit verse painstakingly with a chalk and later he was grumbling to me that if at least she had no noted it down from the blackboard to the to her notebook it would have at least gone through her head once now i know she'll never look at that picture it's it's there on the phone maybe the phone will become enlightened i don't know the um so this swami had a very clear mind clear intellect now i know so every concept was well linked and all you know one sign of a clear intellect is after the class you can actually recall what was said i used to think about the classes which we had throughout the day from the different monks different teachers and this swami's class i could always recall very clearly that's because all the concepts were well put there and well illustrated well linked and there was a whole narrative to the whole thing you can you can it's like a story which has been told now all well and good years later when i was fascinated by wittgenstein so wittgenstein has one accessible talk which he gave in public it's on ethics that's the only one he gave in public and it's accessible it's pretty good you can anybody can read it and understand it so i printed out that thought that talk and it took it because um it was a challenge to the conventional theories of ethics so i took it to this swami because he had taught us one of the things he had taught us was ethics and again a brilliant presentation of all the theories and arguments and counter arguments so i showed it to him it was devastating for him he was so shaken he came back to me and he's like literally like giving up a hot potato take it back why is he doing this these these things have been discussed and nice see these things have been discussed and nicely classified and it's done the book has been written on it why what i later realized what was horrifying to him was here's this person who is tearing down the beautiful castle he has built so clear intellect is good but it might you know react when you question it too deeply if your clear system of um you know one subject you know every concept mapped he loved these concept trees and he would draw these things and so what ginstein was doing was challenging that and so that's a penetrative intellect i mean wittgenstein probably was the most penetrative intellect in the last hundred years probably but anyway this is a penetrative intellect and then there is the wise intellect the wise intellect is the one which has learned and then converted it into the wisdom of life that is what you would want from a spiritual seeker the ability to solve one's own problems overcome one's own problems and be of help to others through all this wisdom all this learning so very interesting classification quick intellect clear intellect penetrative intellect wise intellect memory so this memory classification of fourfold memory i got it from a swami um in the ashram where i joined so the sanskrit terms are vega cheera vega vega chirachira cheera vega the four kinds of memory so vega cheerio means uh the best kind of memory where you learn something very fast and you can recall it years afterwards also your retentive and recall capacities are astonishing so people can really pick up things fast and remember them for ages the other the next one is the vega vega this is learn quick but forget quickly also pick up something memorize it done immediately but next day oh i forgot and the third one is the chirachiro yeah which takes a long time to memorize but holds on to it for a long time also basically a plotting kind of person but it's hard working and sincere and acquires all this knowledge and can hold on to it for years the worst kind is the cheetah vega works really hard at memorizing something and forgets immediately afterwards i i remember once we were studying panini's sutras in grammar some sanskrit grammar sutras and at lunch a senior swami who came and asked us so what are you by studying these days we were novices he said swami panini sutras and he gave this plaintiff long suffering groan he said learn every day forget every day i think he was like sort of looking back to his experience as a novice learning every day forgetting every day panini sutras and i can't resist this um when i first came to the united states i still remember i was being driven from lax to our ashram in hollywood and in the streets i saw this in a big letters panini i was looking at it and one of the bugs an american monk sitting next to me said it's not what you think it is swami it's not sanskrit grammar it's a kind of bread italian bread so panini immediately we think it's sanskrit grammar and then uh finally atma bantam is needed so three stages yoga sanctions and yes the karma talks about it talks about knowledge arising out of sravana gyana samcinda samshayam talks about the clarifying through argument reasoning debate atma means once you've got the knowledge once it's clear stay with it stay with it marinate or as steven bodien would say um you know he would say this is beyond mindfulness you stay with the intuition within with the knowledge that you have gained for such a person karmani nanibad does not bind okay i'll stop here i'm leaving deliberately leaving one verse for next time so that we can do this first and take a look back upon this chapter let's quickly look at a lot of activity in the chat shaker is saying krishna krishna is talking about purification brought about by knowledge and contrast purification brought about by karma yoga only preliminary correct you can think of three kinds of purification the impurities of the mind the conditioning of the mind because of past karma this is the vasanas in our mind and this is purified by karma yoga but then you can think of the distracted mind the flickering mind that's also kind of impurity that is corrected by meditation by dhyana yoga and then the final impurity is ignorance ignorance about our real real nature and that is removed by um jana yoga good good question so if purification what purification does ghana do it removes agyana ignorance and ignorance is the final impurity um abhijit says in verse 38 second line could you explain the word that's yes it's a very deep thing i was hoping to avoid it i just mentioned what is the nature of enlightenment you do not see that by your eyes or you don't smell it or taste it or touch it it's the atman that i am the atman this is what i am it's the body you can touch it here if it was a personality a thought pattern a kind of you know mind you can still experience it inwardly but the experiencer itself says my dear one by what will you know the knower so here it is just said um i thought what does it say tatsuya matman even i'll not go into it if you want detailed analysis of that you have to wait till the end of the vedanta sarah class or the last ask swami which we did it has just been posted on our youtube channel so the first question there was what exactly happens in enlightenment what is the role of the mind in enlightenment listen to the question and the answer this is an explanation of what is tatsuyam atmani vindati srinam krishna in bengali he said bodhibodhara awareness of awareness awareness of awareness in awareness in which it is saying in 38 first line of knowledge the best purifier is imp implying the root of all impurity is ignorance only correct the root of all impurities ignorance ultimately all samsara comes from ignorance a related question might be is that so why not work on that first remove ignorance and the work is done it won't work that was the whole teaching of the fourth chapter it won't work it is layers and layers of ignorance either there won't be any faith in these things or there won't be any you know you won't be up and doing about it or they'll be in discipline and control of the body and mind and unethically moral life all these problems they stem from the upper layers of impurity well long before you confront the final impurity of who am i that that uh ignorance about that so one has to deal with these this is a there's a term in america they call it grunt work grunt work means the hard unglamorous work meditation direct path who am i these are all very glamorous tantra all very glamorous but swami vivekananda again and again said character making good character first foundation that's the glamorous and hard work and many lifetimes work achievement is asking oh rick is saying after enlightenment english yes steven body and yes he wrote this book after beyond mindfulness is the concept of enlightenment only in advaita vedanta no it's there in just about every indian philosophy in buddhism in jainism in nyaya vaishikasanka yoga all in bhakti schools also they don't call it enlightenment but they'll call it god realization what about other religions like christianity you have to go to the assertive parts of those religions both islam christianity judaism they're very ancient and deep esoteric mystical traditions they have the counterparts of enlightenment obviously none of them will put it in the same terms in which i am putting it i mean this is advaitic interpretation narendra's constant questioning of takur how do you explain in terms of absolutely there was shraddha there there was a he first bound narendra not to himself with the with the binding of love narendra says nobody ever loved me the way he loved me but he doubted he asked every question so that is the inquiry that is the inquiry you must ask questions one day nivedita was pressing swing vivekananda too hard and then she felt bad and she said um i'm sorry for asking so many questions swami vivekananda says let none regret that they doubt it i questioned my master for six long years he said and as a result he picked up a pebble and he says i am as i'm as hard as that so ask that kind of doubting is questioning whatever you want to know about this path you are interested you're going to take it up you're going to practice it seriously and will transform your own lives and be a blessing to others also of course i will help you out ask anything you want to ask quest comparison of dream another asking question about the comparison of dream and the um waking world no hold on to it because we will require a little bit of time hold on to it and then we'll do it next time gabriel is saying lately whenever i find myself not like rejecting something i immediately hear your voice in my ear saying movie screen accepts everything and rejects nothing that's when you get the example in class the harry potter movie has heroes and billions and all are accepted by the screen so helpful to been accepting whatever happens yes but always common sense right don't let yourself be taken for a ride exploited so don't be a goody goody or a nice person to everybody that is not what is meant by acceptance or compassion i may not have what is this there are people from different sects of hinduism and people from the religions trying to create doubt in you by the orthodox views how does one or some doubt how does one deal with them well any kind of opponent why only people within hinduism or from other religions any kind of opponent has questions you have to have the answers for those questions and it's better to have questions which are part of your own inquiry don't listen to too much you know crosstalk about it it might be disturbing or um confusing in the beginning one should after picking up a particular path one should focus on it be open i remember i was so happy to see that in our monastic training center where the novices are trained there are books of all religions you know christopher hitchens books are there richard dawkins books are there all sorts of books are there you're free to read anything but we are constantly told to focus as when you are beginning to learn something you need to focus for a while at least before you broaden out again and look at different points of view patrick says tibetan buddhism advaita vedanta seem to be very similar did they arrive at their systems independently oh this is again a big question they are very similar and again they are also different if you there are many academicians and practitioners who would say no no they are very different so how they are similar how they are different i personally feel that they are really really similar they're like mirror images to each other did they arrive at the systems independently no well yes and no um initially there was a lot of interaction between the buddhist traditions and the hindu traditions in india but once it migrated padmasambhava took it to tibet and then once the great universities in india vikram shillab taksha shilling especially when nalanda was destroyed then tibet was cut off from india india was cut off india sort of entered into the medieval ages of uh conquest and destruction by the islamic invaders and the kingdoms collapsed and so all this support for buddhist institutions all those things disappeared and buddhism sort of basically faded away from the indian scene but it was preserved in tibet so dalai lama again and again says they're totally grateful what we have in tibet is in the entirely the nalanda tradition of india what was there in nalanda so all that was taken and preserved but also developed to answer your question so is it um a product of inter of interaction between advaita vedanta or between indian philosophy and with this philosophy initially yes but the tibetan phase of it was um there was less and less interaction with india at that time yeah so there many things developed independently there all right on that note let us end that too