Video 69

69. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 5 Verse 22-23 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru all right so we are studying the bhagavad gita fifth chapter and we are in a very powerful section where brahmagyana the real realization of brahman the identity of the individual with brahman that is being spoken about and what it is like to be enlightened and he has said some wonderful things like one sees the same reality everywhere vidya vinaya sampane brahmani gavi hastini in an enlightened person um with you know with spiritual knowledge and all the virtues humility and all the other virtues and then an in animals you know an elephant in our cow and and even in an inferior person you see the exactly the same spiritual reality um then the yeah and once one attains that the realization that there is this one divinity everywhere it's not a theory you actually feel it that way they say that this cycle of birth and death comes to an end right here you don't have to wait for going to heaven foreign for salvation or moksha so even while living you have attained to that state attained to that state means that is our actual state we just really we happen to realize it um this faultless brahman is radiantly present everywhere then the 20th verse we did 20th and 21st also we have done i think we were about to come to the 22nd yes 20th verse it says that so what is the result of this kind of knowledge um life continues for the enlightened person also life continues in the sense that the body will still continue uh under the force of prarabdha karma the force of the accumulated karma which gave rise to this particular body that we continue working that will not be changed because you have attained enlightenment so um pleasant and unpleasant things will keep happening just as they have been happening before enlightenment after enlightenment also they will keep happening but the difference is in the reaction one does not become elated delighted at um if things go your way and one does not become unduly disappointed or miserable if things if you hit a rough patch in your life because your happiness no longer depends on that [Music] so of settled realization buddhi means understanding of settled understanding what is this understanding i am brahman assam mura is not deluded anymore having perfected in needed dhasana so the contrary tendencies cannot take over anymore am just reminded of um this thing which professor arundham chakravarthy had shared with us a few years ago at stony brook um in his talk there he said the buddha was once asked by some of his monks you had promised that you know the problem is suffering and by following you we shall overcome suffering but we see people who are not buddhists or who are not even monks or buddhists we were not monks were not even buddhists they suffered they grow old and diseased and die and we were buddhists and also monks we suffer we grow old and diseased and die so how is it that so didn't buddhism work and then the buddha answered he said suffering is like a man being hit by two arrows the first arrow is what the world throws at you imagine how it stings to be hit by an arrow and on top of that to be hit by a second arrow so that's the nature of suffering this first arrow is what the world throws at you disappointments pain coronavirus and the natural aging of the body and decline of health and all of those things that's what the world will throw at you and the second arrow is the reaction from within how we react to unpleasant events how we react to pain and suffering that that differs i mean especially those of you are doctors or in health care you have seen patients who have suffered and all are suffering we've got disease but you can we have you have all seen that the way people react to suffering is very different there are many kinds of reactions there's a whole spectrum of reactions and that reaction actually determines how much or how less we suffer so bhagavan buddha says what buddhism does is that it takes care of that second arrow i still remember professor chakravarti's smile and he said that like a gentleman bhagavan buddha admitted he cannot do much about the first arrow the first arrow is our karma which gives rise to results cause and effect in this material world of ever changing the causes and conditions the buddha himself said this being that will happen this not being that will not happen this is the whole basis of the causality the whole circle of what he called pratitya samut father dependent origination but put it to what it's a 12 linked chain but to put it very simply this happening that will happen this is not happening that will not happen causality or karma same thing but in a more general framework is karma because of that that's the first arrow and that will come to us but what we do with it how we react to it how we frame it how we see it and how we react to it that will really determine whether we are really suffering or not that's the difference so the buddha says his promise is that there still will be old age still will be disease still will be natural disasters and coronavirus all of that will come and death also is inevitable but the very big thing is that we will not suffer we will be able to transcend that suffering or overcome that suffering the suffering will come but the way we will react it will help us to overcome that suffering and it's also not one all or nothing as we practice little by little it does help of course there's a breakthrough we call it bodhi or brahmagyana or enlightenment or whatever you call it after that breakthrough it's much much easier it gets it gets much easier it becomes very natural um i i think i've mentioned this many times swami turian anandiji in his old age he had a number of operations when he was in benares also once in 2d and he would boyle said to be lanced and things like that and he would always refuse the local anesthetic which was offered and he would sit through what might must have been excruciating pain physical this just gross physical excruciating pain and you would sit through it with calmly every time it's not just once so number of monks saw this devotee saw this if you see the remnant senses of swami thuriyan those were writing about the last days so there are multiple accounts of this doctors saw this multiple doctors saw this and one interesting incident is where when they are offered to anesthesia put an anesthesia he said no and they operated on his finger i think scraping a wound or something it was very painful he sat through it very calmly the next day when the doctor came to dress the wound he opened the bandage and started cleaning it and immediately the swami shouted in pain stop what are you doing the doctor was taken aback he said i'm sure this things it hurts but nothing compared to what was going on yesterday and yesterday you were absolutely calm and we know what he replied he said you have to tell me first i'll take my mind away from the body um so i don't know what it means but you see this is what he's talking about the reaction the two arrows the operation the cutting that is the first arrow it's a very vivid uh first arrow but the reaction is the second arrow now i recently came across another incident with swami turian under similar incident but this is this is interesting because the monk who has written this he asked swami toriyananda how are you doing this he actually asks and is it that you don't feel it so taking your mind away from the body can mean different things it could just mean it's like a meditative anesthesia you actually do not feel the pain and it can be done yogis can concentrate their mind because we have a limited cognitive bandwidth the amount of information that we process is limited uh if you occupy your mind completely with one thing your mind will not take in information coming from elsewhere suppose you concentrate deeply on uh you know the heart center and you meditate um on your easter devata whatever meditation you are practicing your awareness is such that the the impulses of pain do not come to the level of your conscious mind so you actually do not feel pain that can also be done but that requires a great expertise in meditation long dedicated meditation that is yogic meditation now there is another kind of meditation the vedantic one so anyway what was swami turian anandaji's answer you can do it as a bhakta you can do it as a gyani a bhakta would actually suffer and go through the suffering but surrender everything to the lord that it is your will it is true it's your will so what if i feel pain i'll feel pain i will even cry out in pain or even cry but i'll hold on to keep holding on to the lord that's the devotee's way of dealing with it but what turian and jesus said was interesting he said that i do feel the pain but i have got that by getting which there is nothing greater to be gotten and established in which the deepest of sorrows cannot shake you he's quoting from the gita young lab having attained which there is no greater attainment to be had in life that means you have realized your brahman um and he says established in which being uh established in which guru nader in sanskrit it means heaviest of sorrows cannot shake you so he says that the pain of the operation and all which i feel it cannot you cannot shake me because i have got that by which i cannot be shaken so yes that's how it becomes possible but not by sheer willpower there are people who are brave who are strong nerves who can actually withstand a lot of physical pain uh that's just willpower that's just but that is not reliable because for that there's always a limit and also it depends on many things on your mental state on your physical fitness a young fit soldier can put up with a lot of pain the same person when he is in his 80s and in poor health can't put up with that kind of pain so that's just physical vitality and mental toughness that's one thing but what turiyanji is talking about is actually experiencing pain just like anybody else first arrow and because of spiritual realization the second arrow has no effect there's no actual suffering which comes from within he's completely at peace because he knows that he is brahmana and all of this the body and its pain our appearances in that one unlimited existence consciousness bliss which i am what is this little pain to me so he was quoting from the gita so that's how he did it but that that depends on making an actual breakthrough and being established in it if one has not made the breakthrough and not established in it one better not try it so i heard the story of a monk of our order who was to undergo an operation and the doctor said i'm going to cut a little deep so we'll put a local anesthesia there and the swami said no no need you see i am not the body i have read about it and i know i understand it's an object and even the pain in the body is an object i'm aware of the pain and swami turian in this experience i understand it all it's it's very clear go ahead are you sure swami he said huh go ahead yes the moment the knife bit into the flesh he shouted stop stop stop what happened swami you are not the body no you put anesthesia what happened you said you're not the body you're not even the pain and so he said in hindi and i'll translate for you he said in hindi that all that book learning is in the book it stays in the book it didn't come here it must become a living reality the pain is a living reality the suffering is living reality your realization also must be a living reality not something that you are convinced about here not something that you've read about and you even feel convinced but that's not enough so that that breakthrough must be made all right another example i remember another great monk whom i had seen ramananda saraswati i told these stories earlier but it's good to repeat these because i've seen this with my own eyes he had undergone operation in his stomach for cancer which ultimately came back and killed him later on but at that time he had undergone an operation and he was released from the operation from the hospital the next day he came to the ashram where in in haridwar so where we monks and devotees we would gather around him every day to ask him questions he was no longer teaching anymore but we could ask questions and he would reply so he came and sat down he was bare bodied wearing a dhoti he came and sat down on a cot the moment he sat down his bare body so it was you know like glistening with sweat obviously he was in great discomfort or pain inside so one of the monks nearby said uh swami you need not do it go back and rest you just come from the hospital yesterday then the swami told us a story he said there was this elderly lady very poor woman in a village indian rajasthan you know and she is to have a little vegetable patch and when the birds would come to eat the vegetables she would she had this thin container and those were from india if you have come from india you will see in earlier days the dalda tin containers were there and she would they were big cans and she would bang it make a terrible sound and the birds would fly away to scare the birds now one day an old camel wandered into her vegetable patch and started chewing the vegetables and this lady rushed out and she brought out a tin and a stick and started banging it to drive the camel away the old camel replied of course it could speak maybe in sanskrit who knows the camel said oh you foolish woman do you think i'm going to be afraid of you banging that little piece of tin listen i was a war camel so in rajasthan in in addition to elephants and horses they used camels for war even now i think the indian army has a camel core or something so i was a war camel and the big drums used to be played on my back war drums used to be played i am used to that and you think i'm going to get scared with your little bang you're banging a little tin it does nothing to me in hindi it carries more punch [Music] this sort of rustic in the tina said am i going to be scared of your little tin box and then the swami said i am that reality on my back universes are created they exist and they disappear am i going to be afraid of a little stomach pain no we will have the class and so he went on with the class so that way so he's clearly feeling the pain and yet he's got something which enables him to overcome it and but just that caution footnote you must get that before you try these things out you know take it out for a spin uh be careful to some extent it works i have seen people who have studied vedanta thought about it deeply and then they try it out you know like a drinkdrishya vehicle that i am the observer of the pain in fact in in upper description the student asks this very question i understand what you mean that the body is an object just like this object like a pot the body is an object just as i see the part i can see the body i can see it touch it smell it you know it's an object it's not me i am the awareness but there's a difference between the part and the body students of objection there's a difference between the part and the body if you break the part it doesn't hurt me i'm aware of it but it doesn't it's not a problem for me but if you if if the body is burnt he uses the example of burnt it hurts there's pain you can't equate but that's an object this is an object and so you should be absolutely calm cook you know cool about what happens to the part and what happens to the body is the same then shankaracharya says this is an important point here he says aha but that pain is that not an object too when you say it pains and it hurts and i am in pain what have you identified yourself with just as you identified yourself with the physical body you've identified yourself with the subtle body with the pranic body with the senses and the mind which there's a flash of pain i am in pain no you are aware of pain being aware of pain you are not the pain you are not in pain you are the observer of the witness of the pain therefore you cannot be in pain you can reveal the existence of pain in the body in the nervous system in the pranic body but how can consciousness be in pain this is just just the opposite of what we normally think all right now but this is what all we did last time now we move on to 22 yay sangsa [Music] the enjoyments born of sense objects are indeed sources of misery they have osan of kunti a beginning and an end the wise man does not rejoice in them all right so this verse 22nd and 23rd he is saying something important after making the breakthrough i am brahman becomes a living reality for me there is a final point to be kept in mind the control of the senses will come naturally but still you have to keep your mind on that you will see vedanta here we normally think that vedanta means you realize i am brahma when you become enlightened that's the point you know we always talk about shravarna manan and sana hearing and reasoning and meditating but a very important part of vedanta is sense control control of the senses command over the senses and this has already been taken for granted in your sadhana the fourfold qualifications especially the third one there the six-fold the six treasures asampathi shama dhamma all those things are there calmness of the mind control of the motor organs and the sense organs titiksha putting up with suffering and trouble a spiritual fortitude all those things are taken for granted and a pretty high level of excellencies is required there why and that you see here he says literally means actually experience you often translate it as enjoyment here also it's translated as enjoyment bhoga literally means experience because in indian languages you see bhoga suffering is also bhoga sukha is bhoga and he's suffering a lot enjoying a lot suffering a lot both both are provided by the senses so the senses contact the sense organs contact their respective objects eyes form ears sound skin touch touch means including pressure and pain and you know heat and cold all of that and then the tongue is taste nose is of course a smell and the this this contact of the senses with the objects provides two kinds of reactions sometimes they're pleasurable and those ones people seek out all conscious of all sentient beings animals of course and human beings also and sometimes they are not pleasurable they are painful and these things all sentient beings they avoid animals as well as human beings so we we seek after pleasurable sensations we seek we try to avoid unpleasant or painful sensations these sensations are they arise with the contact of the senses with the objects now this is a very simple way of putting it but this principle applies for all the happiness that we seek it's not just eating a cookie which is nice taste i'm seeking it something bitter and i i don't want it at all i remember this neem i don't know what it is in english so this neem it's very bitter but it's very healthy now in the ashram where i joined the order the swami the head swami there would have a neem sharbat but it looked very enticing it was green and it looked like some kind of you know very nice cool drink or something and there were a lot of little kids who studied in the school there and they would they would watch the uh when one little boy would watch the swami with longing you know thought maybe just because he's the swami he's getting a special cool drink which we are not getting nobody gives it to us and the swami also said noticed it he said you want it you do you want it let's share and he poured a little bit into the kid's glass the kid immediately drank it and made a priceless face you know twisted the face like this and ran away to spit it out and never again did he ask for it again it's extremely bitter so but it depends on the person for the kid for it it's bitter but after some practice for the swami he says he likes it it's healthy so why was saying this yes so it's not just the pleasant and unpleasant tasty and not tasty but also you know other things like people contact with people we like is pleasurable contact with people we do not like is painful it's also situations there are certain jobs activities which i like um there are some activities which i do not like i find it unplea unpleasant or boring so all of this could be people could be situations could be activities jobs it could be it could be thoughts their thoughts which i like to think you know pleasant daydreams and the thoughts which i find boring to think so all of this contact with the objects produces pleasure and pain and normally uh just about everybody chases those contacts which are pleasurable and chases and runs away from those contacts which are not pleasurable not which are painful what's wrong with it what's wrong with it is it's it's it's a project doomed to failure the project is i will maximize my pleasure and minimize my pain it doesn't work why this trying to get pleasure from sense contact just take pleasure trying to get pleasure from sense contact has many many defects uh one defect is that you have to accumulate it you have to accumulate nice food and drink and nice environments and air conditioned or depending on where you are in india you need an air conditioned room if you're in new york in the cold you need a proper heating so all of this you have to accumulate so what's wrong with that accumulation but notice how difficult it is how few people in the world even today out of seven billion people how many can accumulate enough and consume enough to have even a decent standard of consumption of decent standard of enjoyment of life not many there are millions or hundreds of millions who are struggling who are struggling to just accumulate enough food clothing shelter education um comfort in life to pass their days it's difficult to accumulate having accumulated it's difficult to maintain it you see everything is changing the buddhists are big on this everything is subject to change the objects which you have worked hard to accumulate very soon they change the the person who was so young and beautiful at one time is now old and not so appealing anymore the um you know the the gadget which was so shiny and the latest and advertised after five years it's just old and slow on the phone is outdated and obsolete so the objects that you gather um it could be a person a relationship um a job people were telling me that all the fancy degrees they have got in the new economy everything is outdated by the time you join the job or within some time whatever you have learned is just outdated you have to keep learning new things so whether it's knowledge it's something as gross as a car or as subtle as knowledge everything changes and it gets outdated not only that our mind changes objects of enjoyment also change what you have accumulated our mind changes after enjoying that object after enjoying whatever you have accumulated whatever you have gathered around you mind changes you get people get bored people get new desires people do not find it satisfying anymore whether it's food and drink whether it's a job whether it's a movie or a book or a hobby or a relationship then they're no longer happy in that anymore so objects change which you have accumulated and the mind which wanted to enjoy that that also has changed nachi keta was on to something the little boy who confronted the god of death the god of death said i will give you lots of pleasures in life which people even in the other worldly pleasures which only the gods can enjoy an educator got onto the crucial problem which krishna says in the gita he said to the king there are a lot of death sarvindriyani all these enjoyments you're talking about our capacity for enjoyment is limited our it wears down the body and mind the mind and the senses get worn out by continuous enjoyment i mean i am fond of repeating somerset mom's line you know he says if you pursue if you pursue pleasure single-mindedly very soon you find nothing pleasing anymore i read recently world record for watching tv okay so people want to watch tv for enjoyment relaxation world record let's watch tv so the world record one gentleman here in the united states he watched you have to watch at a stretch it is very interesting there are doctors who will take care of you so that you don't collapse and you can stretch but your eyes have to be on the screen you can't look away and i think maybe they allow bathroom breaks i'm not very sure so there's a whole process process you have to go through and you're observed continuously to see whether you're just staring or actually listening and you're experiencing the tv this person watched tv without a break for 94 hours that's what um three for nearly four four days um so four days yes without a break without sleeping and so you should be really happy at the end of it is his conclusion in fact the news report that the headline of the news report is i feel horrible i feel horrible and there are doctors there because they know the person can collapse for from what from enjoyment from happiness not not happiness anymore any economist can tell you every bit of consumption reduces what this is not the total happiness but the marginal utility the law of diminishing marginal utility is the first thing that they teach you in the economics class that from every unit of consumption you keep getting less and less happiness satisfaction till it becomes one cookie lot of satisfaction second one maybe even more third one not so much fourth one power fifth one no sixth you begin to feel sick and seventh one it will be torture maybe eight one you throw up so now it not only becomes zero the satisfaction becomes negative then it eats into your total satisfaction so all of this consumption it does not lead to happiness they are sources of unhappiness not only that they are habit forming as we it's like drugs sense pleasures if you take something and after that whatever pleasure it is after some time that that thing will not be enough you need a bigger dose of it better food better gadgets better vacations whatever it is better cars it has to be a different variety so you get habituated to it so all these are problems of sense enjoyment um so he says there are sources of sorrow contact with that is source of sorrow then don't have it give it up so that's one way but the problem is we are caught this is the what frying pan in the fire rock and a hard place this day so give it up won't work so there's a story about a dog which has fleas so when the dog goes out into the sun the fleas start biting and it has to run back into the shade so the fleas will sort of become i don't know they become inactive or something but when it sits down the shave it's shade it has got a virus in its brain and the virus starts biting in its own brain it's agony for the dog and the dog runs out into the sun and in the sun the virus doesn't bite anymore but the fleas become active so the poor dog runs back and forth the shade and the sun what is that that's our condition if you plunge into the world hoping to get satisfaction people and money and education and success and activity and all of that um it's troublesome troublesome to accumulate unsatisfactory to enjoy habit farming so many problems are there in sensor enjoyment and by sensing german i don't just mean eating a cookie it's all kinds of contact with the world and if you say i don't like it anymore i'm going to run away to the himalayas and lead a simple life of a monk there and go there what will happen so i'll get peace only for the first few days after that if the mind is not prepared what's there it's just rock and wind and sky and ice and utter loneliness not solitude there's a difference between solitude and loneliness and a person becomes unhappy um i mean most people don't run up to the himalayas but little bit one can see you know people say i i just can't stay still i have to do something it's a minus marks we are going to deduct marks from you it's not a good design at all i can't stay by myself means i am not happy with myself if you don't enjoy your your company who else will enjoy your company why why should others enjoy your company why should people like you if you don't like yourself you can't remain by yourself i've seen a monk who told me so i'm i'm perfectly at ease and happy with all people around me and happier still when nobody's there i've told you about this monk i met in gangotri with uh you know like children used to come and play with him because he had this long like hair and beard and he said you're very happy now but what about the winter months for six months you don't see a human face it's just snow and ice and blizzards and he says now i am happy and then i am happier still tab how is that possible normally where the person is caught trying to enjoy the world suffering and no no satisfaction no satisfaction is there running away from the world again suffering two different kinds of suffering people may think that running away as the monks and all that will be very nice to stay in a cave in a mountain no it doesn't work unless the mind is trained i met this young man in the mountains in gangotri he used to stay in a cave he worked for an ngo uh what it is called like a what would be the american thing a non-profit he worked for a social cause a non-profit and in every organization there are politics so he told me that he was disappointed so this is the problem with idealistic people so when they uh want to change the world they suddenly make up their mind one fine day i'm going to change the world and when they jump in and try to change the world and the world kicks back they are stunned why isn't the world praising me as its savior why are they playing politics with me why are they ungrateful why don't they allow me to save them no it doesn't work that way anyway he got disappointed and he ran away to the mountains and he wanted to spend his days in meditation in a cave and he came and after some time he confided in me he said he's terribly terribly unhappy in the cave he's bored out of his mind and it's a hard and harsh life and so he's just stewing there sitting and stewing it the bhagavad-gita says having given up external activities who sits in meditation but thinks about the world why arjuna when he wanted to give up the battle it wouldn't have worked krishna knew his nature he's a warrior and a doer if he had run away from the battlefield field of kurukshetra and gone to the mountains and sat in meditation you know what would have happened to him within a few days he would in his deepest meditation he would think that durian that villain i wonder what he is doing right now i should have killed him when i got the chance that's what will go on one of our senior monks swami primition the rights to this young man who left the ashram and made a beeline for the himalayas i don't like these ashrams and you know schools and hospitals i want to sit and meditate and attain samadhi in the mountains so you wrote a letter so information this is the 1940-50s do you not no do you think i do not know what's going through your mind you're sitting there in meditation and thinking my mother and aunts in the village they must be thinking thinking about me now and thinking ah the poor boy whatever spiritual child he was and how holy and wonderful he is sitting and meditating and you feel very pleased thinking about that sitting in the in the mountaintop that's what you're thinking isn't it and it was actually the young man got such a shock i think he came back to the ashram um no it doesn't work that way then what will work if you cannot if jumping into the world will not give you satisfaction if running away from the world will not give you satisfaction then what will work so srirama krishna gives the answer shri krishna also here gives the answer the answer is this sriram krsna's the parable of one and the zeros no matter how many zeros you accumulate it's still zero but if you have the one then even if you don't have any zeros it's still the one you've got something and you keep on adding the zeros all of that you can enjoy what krishna is trying to say here is what you need is spirituality spiritual enlightenment brahmagyana self knowledge of the knowledge of brahman if you are a ghyani or if you are a devotee and this complete dedication love bhakti to god holding on to that one either your self-realization as i am the atman being centered in that one or complete devotion to god here he means the atman he has not come to bhakti over here but both will work after that if you sit in meditation in the mountains you will be at peace you will enjoy that life thoroughly and if you decide no you decide or your your karma is such that you are in householder life you are married and you have a job and responsibilities there also all the troubles of the world will not affect you because you are centered within you have the the strength the steadiness to navigate the ups and downs of life the pleasures and pains of life not being affected by it and if you give up all that and sit in the mountains in meditation there also you will not you will not be you know as one monk use the phrase loneliness bites you loneliness loneliness pricks you he told me i was reading dashtavakra so this monk who who was actually the sevak of tappawan swamiji he lived in the next cottage sundaran so i used to go and talk to him he said he asked me what are you reading and you would observe when are you getting up and you're meditating and what kind of life you're leading keep an eye on the young monks and he's very harsh in scolding also you have to put up with all of that but a great blessing to see such people and get their blessings so he said ashtavakra is very good but you take this he went into his room and he got me that vishnu sahasranam a devotional text with the hindi translation he said you read this also otherwise he said akilapanchu he knows he's a young man with all sorts of idealism come rushing out into the mountains but you need that balance anyway whether it's knowledge or devotion or both even if you're not enlightened at least if you are if a life is organized around that you will enjoy a monastic life there i was so happy in the mountains see there's nothing a log cabin you have to beg for your food it's bitterly cold and for company you have a few old monks some are older some are young that's it and um a mountain wolf next door that's your company and you're you're very happy full of joy because if you are centered in some kind of spiritual practice some your whole project is spirituality nothing else or in the world you're back in the ashram in your household you have husband wife children things to do pleasant and unpleasant sense contacts objects people experiences in all of that you can navigate it if you are centered in that one here he wants some special job hoga the enjoyments the experiences which you get by contact your senses all of them are they are sources of sorrow unpleasant ones are unpleasant to begin with pleasant ones are only deceptively present even they will disappoint you finally why are they sources of misery because they have a beginning and an end it's just indicated they're beginning and they're in they are impermanent they're transient so he has indicated the deep fault in this kind of uh enjoyment enjoyment of the world through the senses the buddhists have developed this very very thoroughly the first noble truth of suffering you know pain everything is pain everything is suffering impermanent impermanent indeed all is impermanent not only impermanent impermanent we can put up with i mean permanent cookie i would expect a cookie to be important an eternal cookie would be a problem um i know our lives are impermanent but that gives us 50 60 70 years enough to you know set up samsara with so the impermanence is not a problem but buddha says that impermanence is a problem because it's momentary momentum moment and ultimately he says empty empty wide void all is void impermanent impermanent all is impermanent momentary momentary all is momentary void void ollie's void therefore dukkham comes around it follows from that things are suffering but things are suffering krishna points out here only if your whole philosophy is a whole world view is i will try to get happiness from these things this is what krishna warrants against the wise do not dwell on them do not um ramat here means wallow in them like big swallow in mud the wise do not wallow in sense sense enjoyments that does not mean you'll throw away a cookie if somebody offers it to you some monks are like that they'll throw it away make a big show of throwing it away also but you have to do that but your happiness does not depend on it and happiness does not depend on you you're not looking for you are happy with the cookie if somebody gives you and you're happy with the dry chapati and roti if somebody gives you that that's also fine what else did i want to say about this yes so centered in god centered in self knowledge both are fine whether it's in the world or in sitting in a mountain cave then you're not like the dog which runs into the shade and then runs back into the sunlight again runs back and you are cured cured of the fleas and the virus in the brain okay then next one twenty third shaknowti brakshari ravi mokshanath he who is able to withstand the urges arising from passion and anger in this very life before the fall of the body is a poised and happy man um poison happy here is jivan mukta you will enjoy the bliss of jivan mukti if you can manage the ups and downs which will come to you how will you manage it on the basis of your realization this is what swami vivekananda says is a very profound definition of religion manifestation of the divinity already within us not just knowing it not just experiencing it but living it he said another place my mission in life can be put in a few words it is to preach unto humanity their inherent divinity and how to make it manifest in every movement of life in our thoughts in our speech in our the way we deal with people and things in the world is the divinity being manifested or just our patterns of behavior which we are conditioned to so if you can manifest that divinity you will be able to navigate the ups and downs the problems that this world will bound the first arrow the first arrow then you are you able to withstand the secondary are you able to change the reaction then you'll overcome this suffering caused by the second arrow so shaknowti in this life itself if you are able to sodo means withstand bear with it the ups and downs the pains the disappointments the shocks that life will it will come to us you know why will it come to me i'm a holy person enlightened person if you're enlightened that does not make a difference the world operates on causality on karma it comes to everybody's lot look at the lives of saints and great spiritual masters death came for all of them old age and disease came for all of them people misbehaved with all of them perhaps they had more suffering than us in many cases i remember swami ranganathan the 13th president of our order one day i saw that he was lying down on the bed and a senior swami was massaging his feet and was talking about his experiences in a long life you know um and the swami was saying when i came into the room the swami was saying to swami ranganathan he was saying oh you have lived 10 lives in one you have lived 10 lives in one and swami rangana tanji said yes this is the last life he didn't say that he meant it he just said yes because it's the last what it means is the more spiritual you are probably more your karma is accelerated sort of so you have lots of experiences in one life and swami bhutah sanji said that that it is my the last life i told you the story of a you know some funny incident which buddhism mentioned and everybody burst out laughing all the monks when he told at that time budas and he was the 12th president of our order he was 98 years old 97 98 so somebody said swami you have had so many extraordinary experiences in your life and he would speak in the slow draw so he said yes because it is the last one and that changed atmosphere in the room so much i still remember vividly a kind of deep presence and something transcendent came into that room with just those few words all those dozens of monks were laughing and joking they all fell silent be quietly bowed and you walked left the room um this is the last one all the experiences in this life itself shaknowti here in this life can you transcend prague sharira emotional before the fall of the body after the fall of the body the enlightened one is going to get moksha anyway and the ups and downs will not be there anymore because the karma is gone there is no further birth no further karma for that problems will not appear the one remains as brahman as the absolute reality there is no further you know has attained nirvana but before that before attaining the video mukti the bodyless liberation as long as the body is there ups and downs will be there problems will be there how do you deal with it so especially karma krotham the the waves of anger and desire these are the main sources which disturb us can you remain unmoved not to lash out in anger not to be terrified when this it's scary not to be tempted when it is tempting in his famous the introduction introductory essay to the brahmasutra commentary on the brahma-sutra he says he says in day-to-day affairs you make a distinction between ajivan mukta and those who are not a given much even if you have read vedanta even if one is well read and very highly educated and everything he says there is no difference between such an intelligent educated person and animals and then he gives an example so just like a cow a harita trina with a if you go to it with a handful of green grass the cow comes to you um purusha if a man comes with a raised stick to beat the cow the cow runs away from that man and he says human beings no matter how educated how well learned how philosophical um often you find in life they behave exactly like that when there's something scary terrifying they they run away they give in they compromise and when there is something tempting they violate you know ethics morality they overstep the limits of what is decent why because there's a strong identification about body and mind and somehow deep inside convinced this will make me happy and i will chase that sense of contact this sense contact is going to make me unhappy i'll run away from it who are people of character who are people they admire we're talking about mahatma gandhi a few days back you stand on what you know to be right and take the blows if the world's going to give you blows take it it's unpleasant it's an unpleasant sense contact no i shall hold on to what i know to be right and if i hold on to what unless take a stand on what is right and i forego sense pleasures let them go i'm not chasing temptation i'm not running away from terror so i'm not chasing the handful of green grass and i'm not running away from the man who's coming to beat me with a stick that would be an enlightened cow this is an enlightened person will not be moved it's so interesting that um the swami i mentioned who told the story about the camel and was you know gave a class in the midst of terrible uh stomach pain after the operation one day in a question answer where all these subjects being discussed for spiritual life especially vedanta mostly philosophical and about spiritual life somebody asked what seemed to be um irrelevant not quite directly related to what was being discussed one gentleman asked a question swami what is true education and others became i also i remember we felt a little restless that what sort of question is this this is this is a general question this is not related to vedanta or spiritual what's true education swami immediately replied with this thing what i just quoted from the abdia sabasha so i thought it so he has got replies for everything from uh the commentaries of shankaracharya this shankaracharya says in the sabasia it is at the when the person no matter how many degrees and how many books a person has read if you run away from terror and if you run towards temptation and overstep morality ethics do not you let go of the ideals of your life then the person is not educated what is education true education is what you have learned what you have understood the intellect has told you it is true and good you will hold on to it in spite of unpleasant circumstances in spite of terror in spite of temptation that's true education so that really i thought that how we what we think is philosophy and advaita and at the most you know something to be practiced in spiritual life and he connects it to immediately to education and that's that's true that's the way to understand things okay and this is how one should live as spiritual seekers prague sharira remote before the death of the body until that point even whether we are enlightened or not enlightened let us try to navigate the ups and downs of our life day to day moment to moment on the strength of our spiritual conviction whatever your spiritual path you may not be a non-dualist you may be a devotee on the strength of your devotion to god faith to god faith on god you may be a meditator you may be all of these a gyani a devote devotee a meditator a worker for the welfare of the world on the basis of all of these can we face the pleasant and the unpleasant in life and remain steady up to this point is enlightenment and from here till the end of the chapter is jivan mukti the life of the enlightened person all very nice stuff all right let's see the comments dr sharkar's observation of thakur how could he bear such pain that's right even more than turian energy sudama krishna demonstrated where is this coming from it's probably over there yeah you talked about he talked in operation until the end he said uh karya karan of teach to uh sat read this to chit now i understand the first two but i didn't understand the third one yes so this is the um this is the key to it um i was quoting from swami akanda saraswati it was a great scholar and saint but actually most of his works almost all of his works are in hindi some in sanskrit none of it is in english he had wonderful insights into vedanta and he was a master of both advaita vedanta and the bhakti of the bhagavatam anyway so here here's the answer to your question how is that leads to ananda he says uh what does it mean where the substratum and that which it supports is one reality that is pure being normally it is not so normally one thing supporting the table and the cup are not one reality table is a supporting cup is one but existence itself whatever the object it is one existence everywhere so the existence is not something different from the things which exist or the things which exist are not something different from existence itself you when you think about it that way you understand what is otherwise in the normal way we understand existence is existing things tables chairs spots and pants and stars and you know quarks and quasars these are existing things that's how that's how we understand existence that's not what sat pure being means it is the existence itself so normally the knower and the known are two different things in our day-to-day activities we i am the knower there is no no known thing and there is knowledge of that the triputi pramata pramaya and uh brahmana and the brahma the knowledge generated by the by the process of knowledge but uh when what you you the consciousness what you observe that what you observe is not different from you it's the underlying reality that consciousness is underlying reality of the knower and the known that is chit and bhokta and bhagya when it is one one means normally we think this this kind of sense enjoyment for example which shri krishna is condemning here lukayoni the source of sorrow senses contact an object a tongue contacts taste and gives a burst of pleasure that's what we understand as pleasure this is no where the senses the the enjoying person and what you enjoy they are one reality so there's no limitation there there is this this this unlimitedness that is ananda this you'll understand if you see anandam imamsa anandam where you know different kinds of ananda are explained this sense object ananda then they are this is called vishayananda then there is something called bhajananda the island of giving up this and pursuing spirituality and then finally brahmananda so that brahmananda is what is meant by bhoktav what is if you say what is this book you go to anandam imams actually what is done there ananda meemamsa will you find in titanium second chapter last part neem in english is indian lilac is that some or everybody calls it neem that's why yes margosa margo say yes even those who are ultra super rich are poor because they don't have enough right and even the knowledge that there has to be enough that also is not there people think it's a good thing to keep on accumulating to keep on enjoying stuff more and more and more but it's um and the suffering multiplies and people don't know why they're suffering people don't know why they are empty they're looking in the wrong place for fulfillment trying to accumulate zeros doesn't work what has not worked and just keep repeating it and expecting it to work the next time that's the definition of insanity this should not say is when this this verse feels like a continuation of sentiment in 2 14. yeah i did not mention it yes 214 you see there are krishna asks arjuna to bear with the context of the objects and suffer duality this verse focuses on the apparent choice yes so ultimately what do you do if you're a spiritual seeker or an enlightened person in both cases what do you do with this world you have to bear with it but bear with it in what way not with uh not with you know like how that little kid put neem in his mouth and was like that you know somehow i have to drink it no you bear with it like swami turian and she did like sriram krishna did established in the highest spiritual reality established in the knowledge i am brahma or established in the knowledge the lord exists i love god and that's it i will put up with anything else which comes and goes you will not be shaken as thurianji said i have found that by by which in the deepest the greatest sorrows cannot shake me rick says regarding last life for that sami when the postman knows you're going to move he tries to deliver all your mail i've never heard that one yes that's true you get a lot of mail bill says in 23 the implication seems to be that there will be passion and anger but they can be withstood yes not that they'll be a person who's enlightened will get bursts of anger and passion like others but all the movements of the mind you can manage them you can they can come and go you're completely serene you're not moved by that um already by that time this person is has a very purified mind so the problems are much less compared to people in the world i mean in that case could we do that that let there be a need and negativity and depression in my mind let me just quickly get god realization i can manage all of that but you can't if there are very strong negativities in their mind strong problems in the mind they have to be attenuated thinned out first before one can move ahead in spiritual life so a lot of the work has already been done for this person for the advanced spiritual seeker let's see alpana is asking what is the difference between ghana and bigana that is for a later class all right rupa namaste