Video 70

70. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 5 Verse 24-29 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] guru we're studying the bhagavad-gita we are almost at the end of the fifth chapter and we saw in the verses we're going to do verse number 24 today uh before that we saw by here it's verse number 21 yet to come so this tendency we have of flowing outwards of trying to attain satisfaction or fulfillment from uh from external objects from the other so from taste and smell and sight and touch sense pleasures it never works no amount of it will will satisfy you it just increases restlessness so the person who is who withdraws from trying to get pleasure from external uh you know from sense uh pleasures that that person is fit for um for enjoying the bliss of the atman what is meant by the bliss of the atman is the very infinitude of the atman this unlimited being unlimited awareness this is the source of fulfillment and it is experienced not as an object so it is the source of all joy all of our joy is because of the atman and the enlightened person also experiences joy fulfillment in the mind so it's not that the one who has become enlightened will certainly stop um having any kind of objective mental happiness the kind we are uh accustomed to that question arises you know as people think that you are sort of sidestepping the issue tell us directly is the enlightened person happy or not yes very happy and continuously so but again we must remember that happiness is also reflected is an arising in the mind because of the satwik mind because of the sense of fulfillment because of the sense of unlimitedness arising from the realization that i am unlimited being awareness that is the joy that comes to the enlightened person from i'm speaking entirely from an advaithic perspective and then in 22nd verse and 23rd verse sri krishna again emphasizes the importance of the pleasures born of contact senses with their objects sight with forms ears with sound so the pleasure is born of that the variety of pleasures with the panorama of pleasures we get if you depend on them for fulfillment they will be sources of sorrow for you they will never give us fulfillment and they will give us frustration restlessness addiction pollution of the mind and ever increasing thirst which can never be fulfilled by anything outside on the other hand if and if you are centered in the self you have clarity that you are this unlimited being and you see it as a fact in that case one can happily interact with the same subjects you can the pleasures of the senses they may come and go you do not depend on them foreign if they are there fine they are not there also fine you do not chase them you do not miss them if they are coming you may note yes this is pleasurable yes that is painful so sense contacts this is pleasurable that's painful even the enlightened person can note sriram krishna liked jalebi the sweet uh slime very kind of like ice cream so did did they feel the pleasure of eating a sweet or a candy yes they did but that is not something neither that or nothing else in the world they do not look to it for satisfaction they do not look to it for fulfillment i remember once a young man it happened in front of me that like many young men who come to become monks this young man had come to our main monastery to become a monk and the senior sadhu they are referred to a senior monk who guides them so i i had gone to meet this senior monk and i entered his his room where he was talking the office with one such young person who had come who wanted to become a monk and the senior monk was sort of interviewing isn't it it's oddly a little bit like a job interview you know who are you why do you want to become a monk uh what have you done before this and things like that now uh the senior monk wanted to give tea to this young person and he asked for tea he asked somebody one of the workers in the office to bring tea and then the tea came at that moment i entered the room somebody bought the tea and that monk was telling that young youngster said look here we ask for tea and the tea has come but the tea may not have come and if it's both are exactly the same to you you can become a monk now i know what he meant but the young man just looked confused what does that have to have to do with becoming a monk he didn't i could clearly see he didn't get the point then twenty third verse he says shaknotti haiva again emphasizing the point shri krishna says that the waves the the waves of desire or anger also may come in the mind of passion and anger the thing is how do we react to that if we let it go or we give in to that then we are overwhelmed by it and we we strengthen those tendencies but if we do not let um uh let go we do not surrender to those waves do not act upon those thoughts and impulses then we begin to control they can begin to come under our control we start developing the opposite samskaras the control samskaras and this is at the level of practice we'll see later he will refer to this again and say there is another level which comes after enlightenment where even those waves will not arise that person though so it's not that at all times such thoughts passions anger will keep on arising in the mind no no there is a stage where one goes beyond that also but for a long time this is the proper advice for us till the very end of this as long as we live in this body make it a practice not to give in to waves of either desire or anger this is a sign of a mature person now let us go on 24th verse so from here onwards 24th verse up to the end of this chapter he will tell us about the various spiritual practices and the result of all of that the result of all of that is brahmagyana the result of brahma-yana is jivan mukti enlightenment and the result of enlightenment is being enlightened while living jivan mukhti so let us see verse number 24 yo brahma okay the translation is he whose happiness is within whose rejoicing is within and whose light is within that yogi established in brahman attains emergence in brahman this is enlightenment so what is what does this mean whose joy or delight is within antar arama who's who's rejoicing literally means play uh rest um recreation is within under jyotis whose light is within now all of this sounds sort of similar almost synonymous so how do you make sense of this uh i'll give you um an interpretation in case you're wondering in case you wonder where these interpretations come from they come from various sources primarily adi shankaracharya's interpretation sometimes madhusudan saraswati's wonderful sort of encyclopedic commentary on the bhagavad-gita sometimes modern commentaries like swami ranganathan energy or ram swami ramsar dasji um sometimes more obscure commentaries so one thing i do not claim to is being original it is always rooted in some kind of appropriate textual commentary traditional mostly traditional sometimes i do say things which i feel uh instinctively that this is an appropriate interpretation so here and what i'm going to say it comes from madhu sudhana saraswati's interpretation so what is what he says is anta both shankaracharya and mr sarasota say that whose joy is the atman the self that you are being this unlimited being that you are this infinite existence not subject to creation and destruction birth and death not subject to change age and disease and all no it is infinite being which you are this perfect existence you know it comes from a sense of ultimate security i've repeated this many times but i really think wittgenstein was on to something he said religion is the search for ultimate security for absolute security and is it possible it is possible when you realize yourself to be being itself what can hurt you you are not subject to being born or you're not subject to death you're not subject to change um so old age modification not nothing therefore this being and which is always which is awareness which shines all the time this is this is the source of your peace that from that ultimate security comes a sense of peace and fulfillment so that is who sees the the fulfillment in the self in the real self arama in modern indian languages means relaxation which also means in the original sanskrit meaning would mean recreation even play so what would that mean normally where is our play our play is in the senses so we seek recreation in the world outside in in seeing things we like to see you know beauty in nature or a movie or something in spending time with friends this engagement pleasurable engagement with the world is our sense is is our idea of play in the world or recreation or rest in the world and here it's just the opposite antararama whose whose joy whose rest whose recreation is within it makes very good sense if you interpret it in a dualistic in a devotional way whose joy is in in one's lord in the beloved lord ishta devata whose interactions plays with always with god not with with the with world or people of the world so antar arama antar jyoti so until jyoti here you i mean the tendency would be to or the temptation would be to interpret it as consciousness itself antar jyoti but here mother sudan saraswati says this awareness of awareness that being from moment to moment you are aware that you are consciousness you are not a body not a mind so one who is like this antar jyothi so he is indicating nidhit dhyasana vedantic meditation and it's i think it's um a useful interpretation because the subject of nudity is coming up fast very soon so antar jyoti would mean one who is absorbed in in the self in vedantic meditation um and not in sense objects and mothers and society there very nicely points out that um even a monk who has no positions and who has no um you know who's does not indulge in sense pleasures you know who's not trying to attain pleasure in the world outside even that monkey he says very very evocatively would that monk not get a sense of pleasure in the in the cool breeze you have to imagine a hot indian summer so cool breeze a drink of the cool ganga water or the fragrant smell of this the fragrance of a particular flower he stays that comes unbeaten so the touch the taste and the smell won't they give pleasure even if the monk is not not seeking it so there is the senses are interacting with objects in the world and automatically a sense of pleasure will come and also implies pain also will come if there is unpleasant contact with the sense object isn't that possible and the answer is because the attention is inward directed at the that i am brahmana and it is stabilized there so madhusudan saraswati says two things either the person is in samadhi absorbed in samathi in which case there is no contact with the world outside or so in which case the person is obviously not enjoying sense pleasures or the person is aware of the external world this is called in vedanta means arising back into the world appearance so he said well i also do that i wake up in the morning from sleep that's not viktana i i arise into a world which i consider to be very much real but mother service says this person when this person comes back from deep meditation from samadhi and experiences the world and the body and the and the my activity of the mind for this person all of this is an appearance is a and you know like an appearance in consciousness not real in itself being not real in itself there's no question of actually seeking pleasure or satisfaction you would not seek pleasure or satisfaction in um even in the most delicious food you see on a in a movie or if you see the your friends in a movie you wouldn't start trying to make conversation with them or spend time with them the people you're seeing in the movie um so in that way there is no expectation of any uh you know i will get fulfillment from these people or from these things like the example of the princes of kashi i've told that story earlier it's you see it but you know it's nothing different from me so that is called antar jyoti so what sarah yogi such a yogi here yogi simply means a spiritual seeker an advanced spiritual seeker who has become enlightened brahma nirvanam brahma bhutto this person attains brahma nirvana notice the word nirvana is well in use in vedantic traditions even before it is used in in buddhism buddha makes that the goal of life nirvana spiritual goal of life and it was used in exactly the same sense in in vedanta also so brahman nirvana attains nirvana in brahman that means oneness with brahman identity with brahman literally it means being extinguished in brahman nirvana means nirvapita being extinguished in brahman you only the absolute remains my limited individuality disappears forever that is the goal of um of advaita vedanta now this is not an any physical event it's not even a mental event because you are brahmana so what happens is the confusion the idea that there is any separation between me and brahman that i am an entity who has to somehow merge into brahman that confusion goes away you realize you always wear brahman that is called brahma bhutto brahma nirvana was always the absolute now attains to merger or oneness with brahman means the confusion the apparent duality is extinguished at india that's a good way of putting it the apparent duality is extinguished so it's a beautiful verse whose joy is within whose recreation or delight is within whose light or attention is within within where not within the body not even within the mind within the self existence consciousness place it's even easier to understand if you interpret it in a theistic dualistic devotional way whose joy is in in your beloved lord or who's you know delight who delights in the company of god and whose attention is always on god so antar jyoti then number 25 brahmanir [Music] huh sages whose sins have weighed away whose doubts have been dispelled who have controlled their mind and who are devoted to the welfare of all beings attain absorption in brahman this talks about jivan mukti a person who has become enlightened in this very life so what is this person like like and it talks about all these spiritual practices leading up to that this should not be new but the structure is what the structure we talk about the three tiers of spiritual practice you can see it here again the interpretation i will give for this verse is again based on madusu and saraswati brahmanir they attain nirvana and freedom spiritual freedom oneness with brahman who are they how do they attain it first it says we are rearranging the words sheena kalmasha means whose impurities have been attenuated literally mind has been purified purification of mind and having attained purification of mind which means the strong passions have been quelled a certain amount of serenity of mind has been attained and you know one begins to attain the qualifications for spiritual life the discrimination between the real and the unreal a dispassion for chasing worldly goals and the disciplines of the body mind and senses the six-fold treasure and a genuine beginning a genuine desire to realize god we all feel that i wish i had that strong urge to realize god and we sort of leave it it's god's will whenever god wants it will happen no it just that just means we don't want it for things which we want we don't leave it to god let it be god's will that i will get it but then i am up and doing and that's exactly what we should do for god realization yes by god's will i will attain but i'm up and doing because i want it let me do whatever i can so that that purity of mind comes and a genuine desire to realize god arises then what does one do um efforts makes efforts spiritual practices so after a certain level of purification of mind has been attained spiritual practices like meditation prayer and vedantic study they become effective and you feel like doing them before that before the purification of the mind one sign is i would really like to meditate but when i meditate i feel bored i would i'd really like to listen to devotional music and read devotional texts but you know i start yawning after 10 minutes of reading that stuff what happens it's just the mind is not refined enough pure enough to enjoy that so it takes time when when we begin to enjoy it and then um you you are in that that level where japan meditation reading devotional texts listening to vedanta all of these become attractive and you feel like doing more and more more effort is put in this direction then one comes to the final level of spiritual practice that is one shravana mananananana and these are indicated soma means systematically studying vedanta and manana means you know getting clarity about vedanta by dispelling all doubts whatever we don't understand we get we ask questions we discuss it argue our way through it um and then we are clear about it and then finally what we have learned and what we are clear about we meditate upon that till we assimilate it that is called needed and we realize that and then we come become jivan mukta basically and those stages are indicated here rishaya rishi rishi means sage but here rishi literally means the one who has got knowledge of brahman another knowledge that i am brahman i am the atman and that comes from shavana from the systematic cultivation of vedanta then um chin advaidha whose doubts have been dispelled not a theoretical knowledge not the kind where i say yeah i read that book i sort of get it but all those buts are gone now i get it it's very clear to me and this comes through a struggle a certain process of thinking it through and a growing sense of this is real so doubts have been dispelled chin advaitha this is the result of mananam reasoning and questioning and finding out the answers and then finally he says the brahmanir varanam attains absorption in brahman through nadidyasam that is understood so this person becomes liberated here and now in this very body i think shankaracharya says in this in this very existence itself not after death after that of course but right now and the result is such a person is dedicated to the welfare of all beings what does this mean it means that this person would like to be of help the life of such a person would be a blessing this is the most mature way of relating to other people not in the sense of wanting something from them not in the sense of disliking other people you know running away from human company that's immaturity running demanding human company i'm not happy unless there are people around me that's immaturity but i'm happy whether i'm in the midst of people i'm happy whether i'm completely alone and my attitude towards people is what can i do for you or how can i be of help i have often repeated swami rangana tanji's simple formulation of spirituality he was the 13th president of our order swami ranganathan so he said what is spirituality when i close my eyes i find peace within when i open my eyes my attitude is what can i do for you so this is spirituality if you contrast it with what is not spiritual what is worldliness it's just the opposite when i close my eyes i don't find peace with them i find restlessness people say that i seem to be better before i started closing my eyes and meditating now i started closing my eyes meditating the mind seems to be more restless than ever before it's just that we have become aware of how disturbed the mind is earlier we have never paid any attention to it then it's only if you flow with the current you don't feel the strength of the current it's only when you try to swim against it one feels how difficult it is and the when i open my eyes not what i can do for you what what can i get from you what can i get from you no wonder we don't have any peace no wonder we don't have any peace i also repeated this from the imitation of christ i like that part where you know the disciple is asking jesus how do i get peace and jesus replies that if you want peace my son do these four things if i remember correctly always seek to have less rather than more and all the four things are very difficult for us it is you can see exactly why modern people are not at peace they're exactly the opposite of the four things we mentioned there always seek to have less rather than more always seek to be last rather than first always seek to do the will of another rather than your own each is more difficult than the earliest one and finally in all things try to see and accept the will of god you will get peace we think we'll get peace in the world today we are taught we are brainwashed into thinking the more we have the more likely we are to we will be satisfied no it's just the opposite we are taught if we are first likely to be happy no notice that the bird who tries to sit on top of a pole and flies up there sits there can't sit it's always restless it's always being blown away by the wind or being attacked by other birds or something like that so this the mad race to win the rat race somebody said if you win the race you're still a rat so the maturity is that you run the race you see what the world has to show you and as quickly as possible realize that satisfaction does not lie in this direction that's maturity i have seen it you earn money i know what is earning money you um you know you have husband wife children fine that's it you have or even if you don't you've seen it and we've all been in families so we have seen what it's like and you've seen a little bit of power you've seen organizations you've seen learning all of that you've seen and you see that none of that in itself gives you nothing is wrong and bad in them but what why the problem is we seek ultimate fulfillment in them that they cannot give you we're trying to find from them uh people and things of the world ultimate spiritual fulfillment which they cannot they are not designed to give you that so then you turn to spirituality that this can give me ultimate fulfillment and it can and it's also it's a wonderful thing about spirituality is it's not not that it's all or nothing every day moment to moment day to day uh it gives benefits gives a series of blessings where you read the lives of holy people you read devotional texts you read these wonderful texts of gita and the upanishads you meditate you pray everything gives a little bit of peace and joy and strength so um why was he saying that i think i lost the thread there so so um oh the opposite of the four i'm talking about imitation of christ and because we do not do these things we try to accumulate more we try to be first rather than who wants to be last who wants to tell the kids be last other than first last thing you have to understand in what sense in the in the race to accumulate enjoy and push others aside don't do that if you want peace of mind and then um the will of another you always start to do what you think you is good and also make others do it impose your will upon another even if you succeed whether you succeed or fail the very impulse will make you restless and unhappy and the greatest of all practices is to see and accept the will of god in all things in our life so that is spirituality swami rangana it is finding peace within when you close your eyes and open your eyes your only attitude to people is what you can do for them and why are we talking about that because of this phrase engaged in the welfare of all beings now engaged in the welfare of all beings it might not apply to all enlightened persons not that all enlightened persons are engaged in you know running schools and colleges and hospitals or even in ashrams and you know teaching vedanta or spirituality they may be or they may not be there is no rule for an enlightened person for a given mukta swami vivekananda says that once you have attained enlightenment in his poem song of the sannyasin he says then care not how body lives or go goes its task is done let karma float floated down go dow from place to place and help people out from maya's veil i'm paraphrasing some of the sannyasin people are covered from by maya's veil they do not realize that they are one with god to help them out from maya's fail and so some may do this many may not do it actively some may simply sway vivekananda says even if they sit in a cave and meditate their thoughts thought vibrations just like physical things persist in the world physical world thought vibrations also persist in the thought world and they are of great blessings to this world even if they do not actively come into society so in any case they are engaged in the welfare of all beings i met this monk um in the himalayas he lived in a little cottage on the bank of the ganga in the high himalayas about 10 000 feet up there fast flowing river i remember i went to meet him and all he did all day long was look at the ganga he would look at the river as long it was daylight and if you talk to him he would talk to you but he would look at the river that's all he did and i found it funny that there was this phrase on the top of his cottage server continuously engaged in the welfare of all beings so he doesn't seem to be particularly engaged in the welfare of anybody i mean he might not even offer you a cup of tea if you go to his cottage because he is continuously engaged at looking at the ganga so i remembered that then so notice here the three levels of spiritual practice the three cross three metrics i keep referring to what is spiritual practice in vedanta in advaita vedanta three levels three problems three solutions three practices what are the three problems the core problem is ignorance that's why we can't say is maya's value ignorance of our real nature that's the core problem then what is the solution for that knowledge knowledge of our real nature and uh what is the method for that gyana yoga which is shavana manana needed thaasana hearing contemplating meditating so that should solve the problem it doesn't for most people it doesn't there might be a few for whom it might or for all of us it will one day but at the end of a long process the process begins because we find that this kind of thing does not immediately solve our problem so what is the problem now the second problem is uh wick shaper restless mind first problem ignorant point second problem restless mind concentrated mind focus peaceful mind method meditation all of that now what's the problem a try to meditate doesn't work what is the problem now the third level of the problem in pure mind impure mind i'm translating the sanskrit ignorant mind is avidya restless mind big shaper and in pure mind malala malavik shaper so these are the three kinds of impurities actually impure mind means the conditionings from the past all the vasanas and desires and the patterns of behavior in this life and many lifetimes past who knows these we are conditioned with it so that is the problem solution impure mind solution pure mind it's a no-brainer where does pure mind come from it comes from one powerful practice is karma yoga unselfish work its impurities are all there because of selfishness everything and everybody for this one creature that selfishness you reverse that engage the energies of this body and mind for the welfare of others and that that becomes the first level of practice so one interpretation for this verse is that engaged in the welfare of all beings is the first level of practice it's not the final consequence uh that is madhu sudhana's interpretation another interpretation is to start with that um in any case so do you have the three cross three metrics in in in your mind's eye problem start at the bottom the foundation impure mind solution pure mind method karma yoga then next problem restless mind solution focused mind or concentrated mind method meditation raja yoga bhakti yoga also a little bit applies there then finally the core problem ignorant mind solution knowledge comes from method gyana yoga all of this will not do anything to your real nature it will ultimately just remove the ignorance it will just remove the delusion that i am not the atman you will at the end have this aha moment oh i was always this that i am not this unlimited being immortal self this ignorance is removed then 26th verse [Music] sages who are free from passion and anger who have controlled their mind and who have realized the self attain absorption in brahman here and hereafter very beautiful verse this is jivan mukti vidhyamukti freedom here and freedom hereafter this here and hereafter is from the perspective of the body for the enlightened person it's nothing it is just a passing shadow so what's the nature of the enlightened person see here kama krodhav yuktananam finally one is effortlessly free of the passion of the mind the anger the impurities of the mind see earlier it was you have to withstand these waves in verse number 23 first number 23 said the waves will come these negativities you don't follow them don't don't fall pray to them don't act upon them that is your practice but does that continue as long as you live no there is a certain stage of safety actually that happens when one becomes one one makes that breakthrough and becomes a g1 mukta a jeevan mukhtar is safe so those those waves of anger and you know all negativity uh passions they do not arise at all they are gone forever this person has attained peace yatin am such means a monk or a sage yata chaitasam those who have controlled their minds from all sides they have attained nirvana freedom all sides means here in this body right now and of course after the death of the body technically known as jivan mukti freedom while living video mukti freedom after death that's just a format for us remember it's not of much importance to the enlightened person even the word enlightened person is a contradictory contradiction in terms if you ask an enlightened person so are you an enlightened person you say no first of all out of natural reticence and modesty they will not claim enlightenment and then they will say it is also technically wrong philosophically wrong to say enlightened person the enlightened person is now no longer an enlightened person enlightened person is brahman is the absolute like nisargadatta he was asked he was somebody praised him you are a brahmana gyani noah of brahman and he it seems he was a very rough kind of person there's a gentleman in los angeles radha krishna who has met nisargadatta maharaja so he was telling me his remaining senses he was quite rough when he was somebody said you are the knower of brahman he shouted you are insulting me i am not an award of brahman then then what are you this how is it an insult it's the greatest praise you can give you know in spiritual life in indian culture that's the pinnacle you're a knower of the absolute he said i'm not a knower of brahman i am brahman so that's a rare admission generally such people will will not say any anything swami ranganathan whom i referred to somebody here in the united states there is a question answer this has been published somebody asked him that have you seen god straight away in india generally people won't ask that question but americans are americans so let's get down to brass tacks tell me swami have you seen god somebody else it's been published there and he was very american in his reply he said yes he and he goes on to say then but then he goes on to say in the language of the cain opening what do you mean by seeing god it's not like seeing mr x or mrs x it is realizing uh the the self as the absolute a and you can see almost literally the language of the k no finisher that's swami ranganathanji and that was in 1980s when you think he was vice president or even before he was the vice president of the order let alone the president um yes so they will generally not say i am an enlightened person or i am free you know jivan it's even philosophically it's a wrong statement those who have realized i am that visit they who know that i am the self everybody can say we are the self we are who else will we be except the self but we don't know what we mean by the self we always it's not that we do not know the self but we have a very partial and limited uh conception of the self then number 27 and 28 are actually instructions for vedantic nidhasana and we'll read it but the detailed explanations if you will follow in chapter 6 the whole of chapter 6 is basically a commentary on the verses 27 and 28. whole of chapter six it's a famous chapter chapter one meditation it's a commentary on these two verses 27 and 28. these are these are the very advanced spiritual practices the practice of vedantic and nidhithyasana again i am i will not be tired of repeating i am very conscious i am giving an advaithic interpretation to all of this if you step away from the advaithic paradigm you will simply say krishna is teaching meditation why are you making it all about vedantic nudity in sixth chapter krishna will teach meditation but the two senses are not too different i'm saying vedantic meditation and if you don't follow the advaithic framework you will simply say it's a chapter on meditation that's all anyway uh verses 27 and 28 are about meditation we'll read it now [Music] shutting out external sense objects fixing the gaze between the eyebrows controlling the outgoing and the incoming breaths that move through the nostrils with the senses mind and intellect restrained and free from desire fear and anger the sage who has liberation as his highest goal is indeed free notice here all the components of the ashtanga yoga of panini have been of patanjali have been mentioned here patanjali yoga i mean more or less have been mentioned uh the the gate growth are free of uh of desire and fear and anger basically refers to yama and niyama the preliminary practices asana has not been mentioned here i think but sparshan kritwa for then pranayama has been mentioned and then um this withdrawal from the external contact has been mentioned mentioned as parson then fixing the gaze which is not part of the ashtanga yoga but it's a separate discipline called trotaka the final part of sangama of the ashtanga yoga has been mentioned here all the details will be talked about in sixth chapter then the last verse is is the result liberation [Music] knowing me the enjoyer of all sacrifices and asceticism the great lord of all the worlds and the well wisher of all beings one attains peace so madhu susan saraswati gives a very beautiful uh commentary on this he says when you know me krishna as what as god as god means what the descriptions are so all worship the vedic sacrifices or the modern pujas which we do they all are worship of that one reality god and krishna says i am that you have to realize me as that and server loka maheshwaram the lord of all the worlds that means the very definition of god in any theistic religion was the creator of the universe creator regulator and the final dissolver of the union universe sritis that's the very definition of god here is saying he is saguna brahman so both ways he is brahman that means krishna is avatar his incarnation of god knowing me to be that and suridam sarva bhutanam the well wisher of all beings mother susan saraswati says as the illuminate of all our might that as consciousness within illumina of all our thoughts and feelings and emotions as the inner controller antarami of all beings he blesses us all from within by giving by lighting up our body mind system and gyatva knowing here madhu sudan saraswati goes on he says further deeper knowledge so up to this is i krishna as god saguna brahmana then mother susan sarasota goes further all of this is nothing but existence consciousness please which you are so this is the knowledge which is required and why is krishna saying this because arjuna might say i know you you are krishna and brother susan says what he says not as you know me and as krishna the driver of your chariot your shafter or as a ramakrishna the priest of of kali if uh if you know me that way it's not bad but that will not give you liberation you will have to know me in my divine aspect as god i'm an incarnation of god and who is god to whom all this worship goes in all religions in all times people have worshiped that divine reality that i am i am the controller creator controller and destroyer of the universe not only that that is from externally internally within you i am the inner controller how because i'm consciousness i illumine and reveal and enable all the activities of your senses of your mind of your memory of your intellect i am saccidananda you have to know me as incarnation as god and finally the advaithic realization i am that and amazon says what he says is paramount comes with them their ultimate reality that gives you moksha then you attain true peace that is the final that is the end and that is the goal of all life the purpose of all of this is to attain that knowledge so very soaring commentary my mother susan saraswati there all right let's just see the comments in the chat box mr nathan says regarding verse 23 is it a matter of practice that someone doesn't give in to waves of desire especially and anger i feel that the former is more difficult is there a particular way to strengthen that muscle yes so many ways are there how does one control anger and desire so so many ways are there in fact all of spiritual practices they contribute to this look at how the yogas help you know bhakti yoga what is bhakti yoga after all love devotion where does it come from it is the same passion which flows out to the world that is now diverted towards god sudama krishna says to swami tiriyananda that increase passion increase your lust but direct it towards god that will help you that becomes bhakti what is the difference between bhakti and karma karma's desire and what is bhakti the difference is this the nature of kaam the form of karma is i want this and this includes all things in the world so many things in the world and it gets scattered in a hundred different things in the world that's the nature of desire it is the same i want but instead of this world the hundred different things you may put it as god i want god but the force the power is the same i want it comes from the heart or it comes from the prana desire i want this so that that is one way in which um desire is controlled another way is unselfishness the more we are about helping others less we think about our own little problems really our problems are very little so less we think about and they become mountain like if we dwell on them i mean if i cut myself up from the world the world disturbs me i want my own peace of mind then everything will just start disturbing me every little thing every little problem in the body every little you know thing which does not go the way i want it to go it's much better it's a much greater sign of strength to be in the midst of responsibilities in the midst of difficult people midst of a lot of work and yet maintain your calmness of mind that's much better and you can do that by being unselfish i'm selfish in the sense i am about helping you making your life easier making you happy you means everybody it could be the family it could be the community people in your in your job generally if you feel i don't really want anything i am fine let me see what i can do for you you will notice it's much easier to handle anger and passion than meditation if the mind gets habituated to remaining calm serene steady able to hold on to one thing not flicker it's much easier to um you know when the wave of anger or passion rises quickly to substitute it for uh for a positive thought to let to replace the negative with a positive thought there have been neuroscience studies on that i remember presentations by a neuroscientist from nimhans which is a an elite institute of neuroscience in bangalore in india so you're saying that several years of studies on the brains of of regular meditators advanced meditators versus the control population the average uh person it shows that the average person actually reacts very fast to the impulses coming in from and the meditator's reaction is lower it's not that it's a handicap it's actually much better so they can consciously react to things they're much calmer as a matter of of you know by nature they're much calmer if you're much calmer you can actually consciously deliberately control what stays at the level of conscious thought what i'm referring to here is in the yoga sutras there's a commentary on the yoga sutras called he quotes a very ancient saying ancient means more ancient than patanjali and vyasa so it goes back three four thousand years maybe this is saying uh chakram nisham bhattamanam what's going on here is our impurities we keep talking about purifying the mind and removing negativities removing passions but those negativities patterns and passions and country conditioning is in our subconscious mind we don't have direct access to it we can't take a vacuum cleaner to it and suck it all out and throw it away and dust it and clean it we cannot because we don't have direct access to it it only when it bubbles up to the level of our conscious mind we feel a wave of anger has come wave of desire has come wave of restlessness a wave of depression negativity these things have come where have they come from not from a vacuum they were there in seed form now how do you change that seed you have no direct access to it so this insight in the very ancient saying how how wonderful these psychologists were the ancient psychologists they said you know what's going on the samskaras the conditioning is out of our reach but the conditioning manifests itself once in a while as a virti as a modification in the mind a conscious thought you know a wave of anger desire depression whatever that is at the conscious level you feel it directly now what you can do is you can uh attack that conscious wave that britty you can replace a negative briti with something positive anger you can replace it with peace desire you can replace it with contentment you know jealousy you can replace it with the good will for the other something they can replace it if you do not replace it if you give in to that this is what happens is whatever you deliberately entertain at the level of your conscious mind you see i'm not deliberately entertaining these thoughts are just coming no we have a responsibility what's going on consciously in our mind now we have the power to change it and because we have the power to change it at least at this moment moment to moment we have the power to take a decision what we are going to think what we are going to say and what we are going to do notice i did not say that we have the power to control our mind for 30 minutes or one hour that's very difficult but at this moment for the next one second two seconds or three seconds i can control everybody can control so if we have that power we have that responsibility also that means whatever is going on in my conscious mind i am responsible for that because i'm allowing it to happen either i'm deliberately holding on to those thoughts or feelings or at least i'm not doing anything about it it's just there and i could do something about it and the recommendation is you deliberately if you want to be a yogi you deliberately replace negative patterns negative thoughts with positive ones and most powerful direct way which like a yogi would do is replace every thought with a mantra the name of god one beauty of the mind is it can hold on to one thought at a time and you have a say about which thought it is it's a very great secret to mind control it's something that you they don't teach you in advaita vedanta because vedanta goes beyond the mind about go straight to the witness consciousness but the yogis are masters of what goes on in the mind at the level of psychology and they made tremendous discoveries so one very big discovery is only one thing is there at any point in our minds and you have full power and responsibility about what is there at this one second at this moment everybody has the power to let go of what's going on in the mind and put in something new if you consciously put in something new and hold on to it in your conscious mind when it finally goes away it will go back into your subconscious mind at first it might be a drop it might be a lot of negativity could be depression anger passion jealousy lot of that just a drop of serenity or goodwill towards others or whatever or calmness but over time this drop drop drop it will increase and it will cleanse out the the stables you know from the greek mythology the tasks of her cue is the audience audience tables yes so it will happen and what's the sign that it is happening over time you will see the some the virtues which are bubbling up are good ones are helpful ones are positive ones a divine ones what happened that change is beginning to take place but it takes place after a lot of effort so this the it's all of this comes from that one little uh indication the cycle of vritti and samskara of conscious thought and unconscious uh conditioning this it's a cycle and it is rotating day and night aha nisham bhattamanam it's the cycle is going on day and night catch that instant okay one more thing to understand here is once the thought has come up from within if it's a powerful conditioning it's very difficult to control but there is a window when it is coming up as a bubble when you can easily replace it with something positive at the initial stage it is still very weak the thought which has come from within from the subconscious within a second it becomes powerful and very difficult to fight with it so that um neuroscientists from new mance was saying that this is where the meditator has an advantage the meditator is aware of these things happening long before others are others are just overwhelmed by feelings of sadness or a burst of anger too late too difficult to control now it's a powerful storm in the mind all you can do is let it go and then regret it afterwards so a meditator has advantages there these are the ways to strengthen that muscle and from an advertising perspective of course i would always say the advice the class is the strengthening of the muscle if you hear it again and again and again you're not the body not the mind good mind bad mind you're not the mind you're the witness and which is perfect all the time it's very good to hear this because swamiji kante said the truth is a substance of is a corrosive substance of infinite power once you have heard it it will continue to work if you do something about it it'll be much faster but even if you don't do anything about it it will work and it will take you to liberation one day then punam ji or anuradha is asking do those yogi's have to think about their real nature or does it present them there all the time think about the real nature as needed are all part of thinking or keeping their attention on the real nature does it present itself all the time it presents itself the real nature presents itself all the time for everybody even for us right now what knowledge does shavana and manana it it makes it clear what is meant by the real nature how is it presenting itself all the time after that we cannot deny that it's presenting itself we can still blind ourselves to it by remaining engaged in other things then needed dyasen is required deliberately staying with the real nature which has been identified we must first identify the real nature right now our mind is scattered in body mind and world after identifying the real nature how through shavana and manana then you're clear you know what you're talking about but then you still have the responsibility of staying with it because the mind is conditioned in roaming around even after understanding things mind still goes on roaming around in the world it's the habit it's an inertia so that is reversed by nidhasana that is the meaning of antar jyoti given by madhusudan saraswati so antar jyoti is not consciousness within it's rather awareness of awareness staying with that clarity namji says does initially in the path of sadhana detachment lead to indifference if it does how can this problem be overcome indifference is not really a problem if your goal is spiritual god realization indifference will not be apathy apathy can be a psychological problem depressed people are apathetic there is no interest in anything but you are interested you are interested you are turning up regularly for the vedanta class if the effect of the vedanta class is you lose interest in vedanta then there's something wrong but it is you lose interest in other things and more interest in vedanta then it's all right praveer babu says if i'm correct gita was before patanjali yoga sutra um yes it was but um obviously the yogic techniques existed because they are mentioned even way back in the upanishads and also the buddha when he learned meditation from his teachers these are the names of his teachers and from his um recollections we see that he was taught a kind of proto-sang here or not proto-sanka pretty well developed sankhya and proto-yoga he was not satisfied with that he went on further and he developed it further but clearly these yogic meditation techniques existed in a developed form at that time just the sutras systematization probably came later i'm not very sure about the date of the yoga sutras probably it's posed buddhistic and uh geeta is pre-buddhistic though there are many scholars who would say gita is postpodistic if it were there would be many more explicit references to buddhist doctrines but there's nothing no explicit reference to the buddha at all in the bhagavad-gita then shravani is saying is there an advaithic interpretation of i am so rhythm friend of all beings yes what buddhism saraswati has done is surridham what is rhythm i am the consciousness in all beings i bless all beings with awareness so that you know the body mind functions so i am the friend of all beings as the amitariyami inner dweller still this is still saguna brahman immediately after that he makes the transition that my real nature is existence consciousness place where i and that being we are one so that knowledge is required so that is simple in these things i am so rhythm friend of all beings i am the enjoyer of all sacrifices i am the controller of the worlds what is the advaiting interpretation of these it is segundo brahman notice how smoothly radhu susan sarsothi moves from saguna brahman to nirguna brahmandar and then asserts you must realize your identity with need so that's the advaithic commentary prabhu babu says you have a talk on decision making about this where can we find a sanskrit verse you just quoted talk on decision making yes i mentioned it once a few years ago at the gibbord center in los angeles i gave a talk three great powers within us and one of the powers i mentioned was this power of decision making actually it was inspired by this very ancient comment in the yoga sutra commentary that we always have this freedom but it's a tiny tiny gap a window of opportunity which snaps shut every moment moment to moment and if you have a calm and observant mind you can take advantage of this window of opportunity that's the decision we have we have the power to take a decision about what we are going to think what we are going to say and what we are going to do with body with speech and with mind what we are going to do you say i don't have control no you do you have control for one moment i know what you mean it's difficult to control the mind for 30 minutes one hour very difficult but for one moment nobody can say that i don't have control i have control about what i'm going to think just now so who told you that the decision can be taken only once when do we have the power of decision every moment take a decision again i failed to do it take a decision again you have got opportunity again next moment deliberately exercising this power of decision moment to moment to moment minute after minute hour after hour day after day life will be transformed very fast this enormous power we are given we don't use it we are just going on default i i use the example of computers not these computers they're too fast these days but when we first saw this they're called 286 machines 386 machines so they had a booting sequence and you were given the opportunity of interrupting the booting sequence you had to press a combination of keys very quickly then it would stop in its tracks and ask you like give you the option of doing something different if you didn't it would boot um you know we all knew this nowadays i guess youngsters won't know this applies only to very slow old computers it had a default booting sequence so if you don't do anything it will go on the default if you interrupt it then it gives you a chance to do something differently okay humorous incident humorous story this break a swami has passed away several years ago so i can take his name so he's a wonderful old swami he's in charge of the ramakrishna mission in delhi swami gokula nandiji some of you may have seen him he was a wonderful swami a remarkable character in many ways so they had installed a computer for the first time he was very humorous because he was in charge of the ashram and i was a visitor i was a new brahmacari a novice just joined a few months ago and i was visiting from the ashram i'd been sent to delhi for some work so i was a guest and like the literally the lowest in the hierarchy of monks i'm just a newcomer but somebody told him that this young boy knows computers and their new computer had broken down so he came to me and he said can you do something about it i said i can try and uh he said all right come now i discovered something amazing this is you i think only a swami can do this there was this poor uh typist stenographer long suffering old gentleman very kind and gentle person he said the procedure the way we work is the swami gives me a dictation which i take down even shorthand then i type it out in my typewriter old typewriter and then i give it to him and he corrects it and then i type it out until it's perfect then i type it on the computer and then we can take a printout i said why not on the computer directly say you can't explain it to the swami swami says it's too sophisticated you can't make mistakes in a computer it's it's such an advanced machine and you should not make your silly mistakes in the computer you can do whatever you want on your typewriter get it all correct i said but that doesn't make sense and the gentleman said just go along play along with him you can we can't explain it to him and it says like it's the favorite um child in the ashram now the computer it sits next to the swami's office chair and nobody's allowed to touch it until unless he's present and watching you like an eagle so i went there and started working and i saw there was some problem in those days you could fix it you know there was a i don't know the computer guys i don't know if modern guys will know this we knew it you could open it up in the back and there was a battery and you could take it out it would um take the you know there's a memory which would go blank and then you could boot it fresh like like a factory thing so uh i was working on it and the swami said uh are you making progress is it happening i said uh yes and the swami said give him pious pious means select that's the sweet thing it will charge his brain good good and little later is it working i think i said swami i think i've got it it'll work oh good give him a sweet a prasad from the temple so i got all sorts of things i had more progress i made more delicacies started coming for me and i quickly became a hot favorite of the swami because i was able to interrupt the booting of the computer and get it to do what was necessary now this is exactly what happens to us we don't interrupt the booty so it just goes on its default setting the power of decision is to interrupt that the default default flow um yes so do look up that uh talk it's on vimeo vimeo the keyboard center talk it was about a couple of years three three years ago i think the same place where i gave the talk on gandhi recently then as a householder it is very difficult to practice spiritual disciplines we are discussing when everyone at at home is not in the same path that is true if people are in the same path it's easier even if they are not you have your own life too a little bit of practice everybody can do the holy mother demonstrated masharadha in the midst of a busy difficult household a lot of hard work lot of just plain physical labor and you know in those days and dealing with very difficult people including some mentally unstable people in the midst of that so much spiritual practice and that spiritual practice is not in spite of that it helps to deal with that i remember a quote from martin luther the reformer not martin luther king reformer martin luther he writes that i spend an hour on my knees praying every day in the morning but when i am very busy i have no time at all i spend two hours if there's a lot of work lot of responsibility i pray even more swami bhajananda's article you have shared meditation concentration absolutely his articles are very luminous you have shared it with others rick says he knew harvey benson yes he just told people to think of a word such as what harvey benson was this very famous person is a psychologist i think he was at harvard and now the benson relaxation response is part of psychology textbooks and he got it from maharishi mahesh yogi's method of meditation which is now known as transcendental meditation you're right all right thank you so much foreign