Video 72

72. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 6 Verse 1 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru okay we were on the sixth chapter we are about to start chapter six of the bhagavad-gita have a little personal fondness for this chapter because when i became a monk this was the first chapter i was asked to memorize this it depends on the swami under whom you start your training first so the swami under whom i joined the order he would ask us to memorize a verse of the gita every day each each of the novices but we would be given different chapters um and i don't know why he selected whatever the way he did but for me he selected the sixth chapter and i started with this and the first first verse i memorized after joining the order was the first one we're going to do today so i have this little um and the funny thing was there was another novice who had a hot temper so he was uh asked to memorize one verse and one verse only i think from the um that verse yasman no duja one who is not disturbed by the world and one who does not disturb the world that's the meaning of the verse such a one is dear to the lord and he had to recite that every night he was given one verse to do so the sixth chapter is on meditation if we remember chapter 5 ended with a couple of verses on meditation we were told that um in verse 20 7 27 28 that you shut out the external world uh control your breath do pranayama presumably sitting steady in a meditation posture and then withdraw your senses from the external world it just means don't pay attention to the external world shut down your senses as much as possible and then with the breathing even with the mind calm then you focus on your object of meditation and in this way attain samadhi and such a one easily attains to moksha so the introduction to meditation has been given our indication has been given that he's going to speak about meditation usually these chapters would start with a question from arjuna but you notice there is no question from arjuna in this chapter one reason could be that already sri krishna wanted to teach this so he has introduced it in the earlier chapter and he continues what he started in at the end of chapter five so chapter six is uh the chapter on meditation before we launch into it a couple of observances uh observations what meditation is and what it is not in vedanta um generally meditation is for many many things and it's not wrong that meditation is for relaxation it does relax one a person i mean some of the most deepest profound relaxation you can have is in the experience of yoga nidra those who practice hatha yoga you have experienced yoga intra relax deep relaxation it is good for combating anxiety it is good for fighting against depression it is good for fighting mood swings it's good for for boosting immunity in the body from what i hear and what i've heard of medical literature is actually been studied it's good for focus before examination is good for relaxation after examinations so meditation is good and it's a good tonic for the mind morning and evening um but all of that is not the concern of meditation proper all these techniques of meditation which all the benefits i mentioned are true they do give all these benefits it's true there's no doubt about it but that's not the purpose of meditation if you go to the manuals of meditation the most ancient text like the patanjali yoga sutras which is the classic manual of meditation the purpose was always spiritual it was god realization enlightenment self realization whatever you call it but spiritual that was the purpose of meditation and [Music] spiritual ultimately means liberation in the terms we are using in vedanta it means moksha liberation so the purpose of meditation is spiritual and in spirituality also meditation is used in different ways um in uh vedanta what exactly what does meditation do advaita vedanta we'll talk about that before entering this chapter just to give a better perspective so um even in in all of spiritual life meditation has different um it's viewed in different ways the purpose of meditation what is the goal what is the point of meditation techniques are many but what's the whole purpose of this practice this um we may in general say well if it's for spiritual life let we can safely presume it is for liberation moksha salvation freedom whatever you call it the answer is no it is not no practice can give us freedom or moksha and we are talking in the vedantic context now whatever be the way it is understood in other systems of in meditation in different religions within hinduism outside hinduism but in vedanta advaita vedanta no practice including meditation can give us moksha because moksha is our very nature the atman is ever free we are already free atman was never born was never bound never experienced bondage so in fact never was an ignorance either so none of this is is you know for none of these things is meditation necessary to give freedom to us freedom cannot be attained because for the simple reason it is already it's ever attained we are the very nature of the athman is freedom so meditation does is not meant to give us moksha then what is the problem the problem is ignorance and we know that avedy or ignorance of our real nature is the problem and vedanta proposes to solve it through knowledge so the next thing would be yes so that's what we mean meditation is meant to give us knowledge self-knowledge knowledge of brahman knowledge of atman enlightenment whatever you call it meditation is meant to give us that kind of special spiritual knowledge again the answer is no meditation is also in vedanta is not supposed to give us that spiritual knowledge or or vedantic realization that point also has to be understood knowledge guyana or knowledge or valid knowledge is always a product of pramana a source of knowledge so an instrument of knowledge generates knowledge for example eyes are the source of the uh the knowledge called v visual perception seeing of forms is due to the eyes the instrument called the eyes will give us that mind plus the properly functioning eyes and of course there must be light and there must be the object which is fit to be seen and then the eyes can see it but basically the eyes are the instrument and they give you the kind of knowledge called visual perception seeing to put it in simple terms ears for hearing so the sense organs are the sources are the pramara's instruments of knowledge for what is called perception in sanskrit pratyaksha literally means the eyes but in general it stands for all sense organs so in sanskrit each perceptual instrument has its own kind of perceptual knowledge but all of them are perceptual knowledge directly you can experience something see hear smell taste touch of course there's always the possibility of error but as long as things function well you could expect valid knowledge and then there is um there is uh inference using uh logic the way you know in greek logic it was deductive and inductive inference in in the indian philosophy it is called anumana by seeing something we infer something further so there is smoke out there it means there is fire i don't see the fire actually i see just the smoke so seeing the smoke is perceptual knowledge but by that perceptual knowledge i can use my my background information which i've got and my understanding and i deploy a new method of new instrument of knowledge called anumana or inference and i infer a further piece of knowledge that there is fire there which i don't see how do i know this fire if i don't see it by inference and there are other sources of knowledge what is of interest to us is the source of knowledge which is called upanishads the upanishads are taken as a specific kind of knowledge which is not inferential knowledge which is not perceptual knowledge of course you have to read the openish of the hebrew nation that's there but the knowledge contained in the upanishads is a revealed knowledge like a scriptural knowledge but here one must be careful when we say scriptural knowledge or reveal knowledge in india it has always been understood that the scriptural knowledge of revealed knowledge points to a direct experience it shows you something that you did not know or realize earlier it's not meant as it is generally understood in something to be believed in just as when the eyes show you something i see the computer and i see all these people on the screen now am i supposed to believe it or i said i know it before i saw you all i would i could have said i believe they are on the screen now but now that i see you i don't use it would be odd for me to say that i believe you are on the screen as i see that you are on the screen i know that you're on the screen there's a distinction between knowing and believing so the upanishads are a special instrument of knowledge which will enable us to say i know that i am brahmana i mean within courts there are technical difficulties involved there but i realize that i am brahman brahmas means knowledge for me not believing so this upanishads it's like this eyes plus mind reveals to me forms ears plus mind reveals to me sound mind plus inference reveals to me the fire that is to be inferred by seeing the smoke and just using an example inferential knowledge accounts for a vast amount of our knowledge and there are other sources of knowledge in vedanta advaita vedanta there is upamana there is i'm not going into those but the primary source of knowledge which we are interested in is upanishads is called shruti the the vedic revelations so upon his mind plus what will reveal to me that i am brahman so mind plus upanishads not mind plus meditation not mind plus puja not mind plus japa not mind plus belief not mind plus sheet shashan or you know surya namaskar no no amount of religious rituals no amount of secular work no amount of physical exercises or breathing exercises or mental exercises will reveal to me that i am brahmana because they are not meant to they are not instruments of knowledge i'm telling you the vedantic framework in vedantic framework upanishads are regarded as the instrument of knowledge which reveals to me that i am brahman that's the purpose of the upanishads how do they reveal so every instrument is a way of way of using it eyes have to be open you know you have to pay attention to what the eyes are showing you and you have to focus your eyes on what you you say look here there is this person and the person you are showing it and maybe a little kid doesn't look where you want the kid to look so the kid has got eyes but the kid won't see because the kids looking somewhere else so it is a way of deploying the instrument of knowledge so the ways of seeing of hearing i was reading this story about a famous music composer um i forget the whole context but the student writes that we were told um to listen to this music teacher playing um a certain piece on the piano and then hearing the same piece played on on a cassette tape in those days that recording was made by one of the great great virtuosos you know like a grand master maestro and then the teacher said to the students do you hear the difference no he is himself an expert i mean one of the top experts i am playing it to the best of my ability and here is just a casual rendition by that legendary you know piano master do you hear the difference and then he says if you do good you can continue attending the class if you do not there are other honorable professions like being a shoe shine or something which is very very contemptuous of sure of the shoe shine by but but this is the way to deploy an instrument of knowledge so much cultivation and refinement is necessary so there is a way to deploy the instrument of knowledge called open issues what is the way the way we know is sravana manana needed asana is to systematically study the way um the upanishads and associated texts think about it deeply and then meditate about it so knowledge um is produced by instrument of knowledge meditation is not an instrument of knowledge uh it is if you noticed i i mentioned shavana manner and idiots in a study contemplation meditation so it's a part of the way of deploying the instrument of knowledge the instrument of knowledge itself is open issues and the way to deploy it is to study it and to grasp what it is saying so meditation by itself does not give knowledge um so here you might notice it's it's a technical point but it's important to notice in the way the spiritual path which emphasizes meditation the most which is patanjali yoga there um there also if you follow it closely at no point does patanjali say that meditation will give you liberation patanjali says that meditation will give you um what will give you liberation is the knowledge of the separation of the distinction between consciousness and matter uh purusa prakriti viveka kayati this is the sense the technical term viveka means the illumination or the revelation of the distinction between consciousness and matter you are consciousness therefore you cannot be the world you cannot be the body is matter you cannot even be the mind which is matter you cannot even be life which is still matter and when you see this distinction you are ipso facto free of nature of material nature coronavirus can't do anything to you to you consciousness it can do a lot to your body to the body to the you know to the living system there but consciousness itself it's distinct so this distinction is not clear to us at all we are so mixed up with it with the body mind that whatever happens to the material part of our nature we think it's happening to us so notice many we say i'm saying material part of our nature but i have no nature actually i am consciousness and nature is not mine nature is an independent entity which cooperates with consciousness this is the sankhyan view and the yogic view so the point of yoga is yoga it's yoga means union but in patanjali yoga it means yoga it means the separation or the clarity we have in confusion mixed up matter and spirit the clarity of the distinction between consciousness and matter this is patanjali yoga and that um meditation cannot do only knowledge can do that because the problem is ignorance mixing up two which are not actually mixed up and that ignorance can be removed by knowledge what kind of knowledge knowledge of the distinction between consciousness and matter it may sound familiar to many of us because this is the first step in advaita vedanta we have always thought of this as the first step so this the drig drishya viveka for example even their meditation is not going to um separate consciousness and matter but what will meditation do then why is meditation stressed so much in patanjali yoga because it gives rise to that knowledge that viveka kathy between consciousness and matter purusa prakriti viveka purusha is consciousness which you are and prakriti is the entirety of the universe up to mind but vedanta disagrees here vedanta says even that knowledge it comes from the upanishads it does not come from the meditation itself meditation can only help so so even from a vedantic perspective even knowledge is not coming from meditation moksha is not coming from meditation knowledge is also not coming from meditation in vedanta meditation is not for moksha meditation is not for yana also meditation is not for visions of devatas meditation can deep meditation can give you a vision of your easter devata it is entirely possible but that's not the purpose of meditation in advaita meditation is certainly not for generating spiritual powers occult powers meditation can do that patanjali yoga clearly mentions a whole chapter on all sorts of extraordinary superpowers you can get you can easily be part of you know marvel comics dc comics and like be a superhero but that is uniformly condemned in all the in in spirituality in all religions in all religions both um you know in christianity in judaism uh islam and art and indian religions definitely buddhism the buddha took a very harsh view of any monks who displayed these powers these powers generally come on the spiritual path and they can actually be cultivated and meditation can cultivate it so all of these things which i'm saying meditation is not for this not for that all of these things are possible with meditation but not in vedanta it's uh vedanta is very clear about these are not the purpose of meditation without see come to it what it what meditation is i remember about uh so in my early days as a novice about around the time when i was starting this chapter um another so this isn't yoga there's a very ancient shiva temple there called baidenartham very very old um it's an extraordinarily spiritual spiritual place very powerful and uh in spring millions of people gathered i hope they don't do it this time there's a terrible corona virus pandemic there um and there are all sorts of yogis and you know sadhus and babajis who come there they sense the power of the place and they have a now that is relevant let me just mention the first thing that will strike you if you go there is it's a typical hindu structure with the central deity in the middle it's a small temple actually and the other deities all around the smaller temples all around it so shiva's temple vaidhinat is shiva the shiva's temple is in the middle and then there is a temple of the divine mother of ganesha and you know all other deities all around now there is you will find streams of like strings colored threads from the top of the temple of uh vedanath shiva to the top of the temple of the divine mother parvati so they're they are you'll see hundreds of hundreds of like streamers there the idea is that people go there with uh wishes and the wishes are always worldly wishes almost always i think 99.99 very few will go there for moksha or brahmagyana as a wish though the monks do go there for that now those who go there with a particular worldly wishes see how it works the idea is shiva is brahman sachidan existence consciousness place now that is the reality of this universe and you're praying to shiva let it be like this you know let my coronavi be cured or let me get a job or something or let my children be married some some kind of worldly big issue in the family or let me let the fields yield plentiful next year so once you've done that then you have to go to the divine mother's temple and offer the same prayer and then you have to connect the two with that colored streamer the this nobody explained this to me this much is true everybody knows this but what would be the underlying idea behind it shiva and shakti the shiva being sachi dharanda is the reality everywhere if your fields are fallow and there's a feminine it's the same sachidananda and if your fields are bountiful and there is a bumper harvest and you're rich it's the same such from from this perspective of brahman nirguna brahman sachidananda there is no difference at all it's just the play of maya brahman is perfectly happy no but we are miserable in certain circumstances and we are happy in other circumstances so if we want to be happy and we want a set of circumstances which make us happy the the officer in charge of that department is the divine mother who can fulfill our wishes all our wishes are think let things go this way or rather than that way so the divine mother everything from uh you know becoming rich and married and uh you know becoming famous and winning the election and uh yeah the politicians are big they make a beeline for it before they before every election two monks praying for enlightenment so uh all of them they they depend on the divine mother whether it's a spiritual wish or a worldly wish so you have to connect the divine mother to to shiva because then it it will be shiva will manifest through maya in the way you want it to to happen that's the idea basic idea i think that's just sort of the paradigm and it's there's a cute ending to that story that if your wishes if and when your wishes are fulfilled you come back to the temple and one day someday in your life or even sometimes people pass it down to the children or grandchildren to come back and untie one of those streamers where you connected so nowadays it might be wi-fi but in those days you had to have a like a cable connection between the divine mother and shiva and there is a dedicated family of priests not everybody can climb the temple so there's a dedicated family of priests for who for hundreds of years only the uh the boys of that family are allowed to climb on the temple they're incredible they climb up those the sheer walls the the walls of example are like this and they just hold chains and they run up the literally run up the you know vertically like this and they connect the the streamers from one temple to the other and they'll run across the courtyard to the divine mother's temple and then they connect it there now in this comes a wild variety of spiritual practitioners so my story is a long bonded story but the point of this is once came a brahmacari a very extraordinary brahmachari he was a part of our order at one time but he left and he had come there to practice meditation and he used to come to our ashram which was near the temple so we were quite impressed by him because he was so austere and he spent all his hours in in the temple meditating he was extraordinarily looking also i think he was around seven feet tall he towered above the rest of us was skinny tall and rather formidable looking he hardly spoke he had wild long hair and he could see him i mean he looked like one of those deities sitting there he would see it sit in the corner all day long he would meditate whenever we went and he would come to our ashram sometimes one day we heard our head that swami in who under whom we had joined i heard him scolding this brahmacari fiercely i never heard that swami raised his voice you know and he was literally shouting at him and then i saw this brahmacharis striding out and he was in tears and he left and i never saw him again later i asked the swami what happened it seemed that this brahmacharya had been practicing he was convinced that there was some specific powers he wanted to develop and he had been doing that and he finally could perform certain miraculous act i don't know whether it's a levitation or mind reading or what and in delight he came to the swami thinking the swami would be happy with him and he demonstrated it and this islam scolded him so harshly that the brahmacari left in tears so anyway the long and short of it meditation in vedanta is not meant for acquisition of those powers people might be mistaken there are many many monks who do that even the kumbha mela and all you come across these monks who are seem to be doing lots of meditation but they're doing it to acquire certain powers i remember meeting someone who straight away read my mind and i asked him what does your guru say about these powers and he smiled and said guru says they are nonsense but he could i mean just to form to convince myself i asked him what's on my mind right now and he told me so these powers are there but um they come in spiritual life they come but meditation is not meant for that but meditation will generate those powers why i'm going on and on is i've come across these several times in my life and uh i've always seen in one case i saw a young monk who developed the powers of just looking into other people's minds and the power was uncontrolled so we couldn't deploy it at will but he just began to know things which were not it's impossible for the for him to know and then he asked the senior monk what you should do and senior monk said stop meditating for a few days in in swami vivekananda's life also these things happened and in so many such cases so many many cases so i guess it's almost impossible to you know like disbelieve these things i just i don't think they are supernatural i think they are natural just that we our definition of nature is still not wide enough then what is meditation for so by all of this one might think that so they don't need to meditate no we need to meditate this all this discussion is just technical philosophy to be philosophically accurate if you're meditating and i'm sure most of you are i am too and we are supposed to continue that regardless of what philosophical niceties are raised or so what is vedanta what is meditation meant for in vedanta two things in advaita vedanta meditation does two things one is preliminary one is advanced preliminary and advanced what is preliminary we have already done this when we study vedanta we hear about the fourfold qualifications the discernment between eternal and non-eternal dispassion for the non-eternal the six disciplines and intense desire to be free in the six disciplines one of them is samadhana focus staying with something settledness literally samadhana means samadhi being absorbed in meditation so this power of focus in fact all the six disciplines they're all meant to develop this power of focus this one-pointedness this ability to grasp something deeply deeply and hold on to it and be absorbed in it in fact if you look at the six treasures uh shama calmness of mind dhamma physical calmness calmness of the control of the organs of uh action uh and sense organs also and then there is titiksha a fortitude don't be restless don't be upset by the problems that the world throws at you that people throw at you your own body throws at you even the mind throws at you don't be upset by that kind of toughness hold on to this practice for the rest of your life then the third one is um uparati to withdraw from too much involvement or activities in the world and then the fifth one is samadhana focus the sixth one is a faith in this teaching in the teacher in the tradition which enables you to hold on notice all of these six are basically meant for focus they all help you in focus that's the whole point of them and then so that is one purpose that is the preliminary purpose of meditation in advaita vedanta and this preliminary purpose is fulfilled in all of in many of our lives either we have got mantra deeksha many of us we have got mantra deeksha we have got an easter devata and vedanta fully approves of this because the first thing it will do for vedanta is it will give you adhikari will make you a qualified a qualified student of iran one of the most powerful ways of becoming a qualified student of vedanta is to have an ishta devatha to have an ishta mantra and to regularly do japan and dhyana morning evening sit and carefully do japan dhyana these are powerful methods of acquiring fourfold qualification specifically the focus required for vedanta this is called ekagrata focus of mind ekagratha it overcomes the problem called chittavik shape the restlessness of the mind so restlessness restless mind overcome by focused mind if you will it it brings to your mind certain discussions in the past you are right we have discussed this again and again in the past so this is the preliminary purpose fulfilled by meditation at this level meditation is called upasana technically then you remember what happens in advaita vedanta the qualified student undergoes vedanta classes like we are doing upanishads gita associated text brahmasutras and other associated texts and once you gather the teaching you begin to understand it all the elements are in place which is why i am taking up the vedanta sara classes it puts all those elements a little bit of a dry text but it puts all the elements at your disposal if you consider them as a whole you will begin to see most of the questions which come up you can easily find the answer or at least not so easily but the answers are there then one goes into the second stage which is clarifying getting clarity no doubt should remain it should become absolutely clear that this is true what else can be more obvious and more clear so this clarity this confidence will come through reasoning it out asking questions and resolving it in your discussions in the classes asking yourself also and finding it out some things only become clear with the passage of time i have seen i studied the books talked with the teachers attended the classes but you know it is our own experience weeks later months later is oh that's one that's what it was so we get it it takes time sometimes um there's the famous verse that knowledge is acquired one foot from the teacher uh one fourth by discussion with other other students you know in the classroom basically classroom environment one fourth by your own efforts and thoughts and one fourth in time time gives you the last fourth completes it so this is the second stage it overcomes all doubts gives you clarity and then this clarity it will mature into a living reality notice i'm using the words carefully i'm not saying it's an it will be a new kind of spiritual experience which i already said where meditation is not meant for that i'm not even saying it will give you some spiritual power it will give you knowledge it will give you liberation i already said without meditation not for that what meditation will do is it will make it a living reality so that the the problem which we face or often we raise i get it i'm clear about it but it does not my life is still continuing the way in the old mold i'm unable to overcome suffering i'm still reacting to the world as a body mind you know as this person how do i overcome that how do i be naturally identified as spirit and live my life accordingly so nidhidhyasana vedantic meditation at that level makes it this amramhasmi knowledge i am brahman it makes it natural just as right now i am this fellow sarva-priyananda is natural to me i don't have to do any spiritual practice for it the daily morning once a day and in the evening sit down so that i don't lose my grip on sarva priyanda no it's natural to me similarly the realization that i am brahman should be natural to me then it will be natural expressing it in life also will become natural if you can express this knowledge in life that is called jivan mukti liberate liberated while free while living liberated while living before the death of the body can i live this life so for that purpose there is vedantic meditation that's why at the end of vedanta books drik drishya viveka it concludes with six techniques of meditation concludes with 15 techniques of meditation but you see it all of them boil down to the same thing you realize something you get clarity about it the teaching is over now stay with it that is what vedantic meditation is so that's the second purpose of vedantic meditation one is a preliminary purpose to make us fit focused for vedantic study and the second purpose is advanced purpose of meditation needed asana which makes us which makes our our study living you know it becomes effective to remove the the contrary tendencies of behaving like body mind behaving like a jiva that is overcome by uh the advanced practice of pedantic meditation needed dhyasana so the two terms are upasana preliminary practice and nidhasana the advanced practice this is the purpose of meditation in advaita vedanta so it's a technical point if you say that um fine i get it but in hindi they say motivate tell us tell us the general conclusion what's the point am i supposed to meditate or not i don't understand all those five philosophical distinctions yoga sanctions vedanta spiritual powers what not should i meditate or not answer is of course one should definitely one should meditate one good way of solving these problems is looking at the lives of people you consider to be spiritually advanced do they meditate or not certainly they do almost always you will see they are very meditative people even after full enlightenment buddha all his life he meditated he had this pattern of engagement and withdrawal so if you see the year uh if a daily life start with meditation then they would be engaged when do some activity like you know talk to the big shoes then they would go out for begging for food never come back and eat and then they would withdraw again in meditation and again come forth and meet people who had come to meet them lay people kings poor people that come then again withdraw into meditation so this this was there and meditation is there in the lives of all spiritual seekers and seekers and fully realized people also so definitely we should meditate fine now sixth chapter chapter on meditation before going into it sri krishna once again says the preparation meditation requires preparation why for bhakti nobody says you have to get prepared start straight away karma yoga nobody says you have to get prepared start straight away you're already doing karma you have to convert it into karma yoga we already have the power of desire you need to convert it into love of god and one can start doing it straight away and one should meditation start doing straight away not a bad idea but it will not work meditation in say patanjali yoga for example is the seventh of eight limbs eight steps or eight limbs ashtanga yoga the seventh one is dhyana so we try to jump straight into it and we expect meditation will be good it's usually not good because the mind is not prepared how to prepare the mind christian christian has been talking about it since the second chapter chapter two three four whatever he has said five also he mentioned it karma yoga he said that is actually the foundation for meditation so karma yoga is the foundation for meditation then the next level will be meditation what kind of meditation the preliminary focusing meditation and then the next level will be vedantic shravana manan and eddie dhasan including the advanced level of meditation and this three tier spiritual practice um converting action into spiritual practice converting thought into spiritual practice and then knowledge into spiritual knowledge basically if you look at it this way this should sound familiar because we have come across it again and again now you can see why this structure has been set up it's basically been stretched as set up based on an in implicit structure provided by krishna and which he has taken it's it's implicit in the vedas themselves look at the structure of the vedas the vedas are we see it's divided into karma khanda gyanakanda but if you look even more closely it is divided into karma upasana karma means rituals upasana means again work action but mental action worship and of course that worship is different from the deity worship which we have right now that was a vedic kind of worship but that was mental so physical rituals mental meditative exercises that's upasana so the vedas themselves had this three tripartite structure and krishna also has that same implicit structure in the bhagavad-gita that is later formalized into what i keep talking about that three cross three matrix so it is no wonder that while teaching uh meditation before he starts he is going to give us a couple of verses reemphasizing that's good to be a karma yogi before you start meditating let's start shasta dhaya sixth chapter sri bhagavan anashrita karma falam [Music] the blessed lord said he who does the prescribed work without caring for its results is a sannyasi and also a yogi not he who is without the sacred fire and without action so what did krishna say here basically he said a karma yogi is as good as you know a traditional monk or a yogi that's what he has said here anar srita karma karma yogi he's describing here in the way what he's saying here is the general idea that people have of monks and yogis a monk is somebody just you see the picture the immediate picture that comes especially if you're from india is somebody who has walked off into the forest or the mountains who wears a particular kind of dress and usually has either lots of long hair and dreadlocks or no hair at all or and has no job has given up his job no house and no relatives no possessions so this is a monk sannyasi literally means the renouncer the all renouncer so it physically renounced all actions and the results of actions what are actions a job all the duties in the family these are local worldly actions there are also um religious actions like your regular pujas and you know the rituals traditionally the brahmins were doing the agni hotra rituals which was compulsory so that would that's what would have been meant here actually when krishna said this niragnee without the sacred fire what he's indicating is which was something prevalent and absolutely common throughout society at that time you had worldly duties like arjuna would have had worldly duties you know as an administrator as a general and as a family man also some religious duties scriptural duties which would include the fire sacrifice and things like that and daily oblations to the sacred fire so that's the fire he he mentions here as a monk you give up all this you don't have a family you don't hold a job and you don't have that sacred fire you have given it up because that is for the householder now you don't have the results of that also the structure is very elegant what are the results of that the results of a family job and the sacred fire are in this life you will get material wealth and prosperity and children and family and progeny to to continue your family lying and after death you go to heaven because you have accumulated enough good karma through that performances of the rituals so those will propel you to heaven after death all of that you give up when you become a seeker of enlightenment which by the way you have sort of signed up for so you are giving up all the goodies now all of that and why would one give up that because ultimately they all are temporary and they do not lead to any kind of permanent happiness or satisfaction one sees through all of that and one one seeks the infinite release from this cycle so if you give up a job if you give up a family and if you give up the sacred fire you're not going to get money and house and children and wife and husband and uh and heaven after death all of that is gone uh so that is the sign of a traditional monk and what is the sign of a yogi a yogi is somebody who sits in meditation and you know the general idea is who's very calm and mind is in who's doing yoga meditation basically a peaceful mind and here krishna says the person who is actually doing all that who is in the middle of family life and holding a job and maintaining a sacred fire and fighting even fighting a battle and having a family is a sannyasi and a yogi how you can see the the paradoxical nature of the statement now how startling it appears so when you see the context you see how how great it is at even as literature how great it is it starts with a bang which is something that originates absolutely paradoxical for arjuna how is that possible this is completely contradicts what we think of as a sannyasi and as a yogi how can you be in the midst of all of this and be a sannyasi you have not given up he says no anashrita karmaphalam without desire for the results of these activities not motivated by the desire for the results of these activities whether it is the the scriptural activities or your worldly activities where you can still do your job and be in the midst of family and do even rituals even regular religious rituals you can do all of that but your purpose is no longer the same as other people around you other people around you are doing it for worldly gains and other worldly gains and that's the whole purpose of it there's nothing more to it for them so like the millions who go to the vaidhana temple and put up those colored streamers 99.9 of them are going there for this only for things of this world or things of the next world that's it but you are the point zero zero one percent you are still there and you're still doing those activities but now you are doing it for the purification of the mind so that you're ready for the next level in spiritual life which is meditation which i'm going to teach you and if you do it if you stay there and you do it you gain the qualification for vedanta and you are as good as a monk and a yogi so arjuna could explain we are also a little curious yeah i understand you're advertising karma yoga that's great but aren't you overreaching yourself how is this person the same as uh sannyasi sonya's given up this person is actually doing those things he's actually earning money in a job in a family and even doing the sacred fire rituals or whatever how so he says the essence of giving up is giving up the motive behind that the motive the monk gives up the actual action and the desire behind it the desire behind it is to enjoy um in the worldly pleasures and go to heaven after that the monk has given up that that's the essence of giving up in being a monk and therefore the monk has also given up the activities themselves they've given up the activities given up the relationships given up the positions and given up the desire behind those positions if the monk has not given up the desire and has given up the external things only then he's not truly a monk he's asking for serious trouble because the desires are still in the mind you if you give up those desires and you can remain there you are as good as a monk sannyasa because the sannyasi is is the one who has given up the desire for the the results the worldly and otherworldly results so i'm when am i getting all these explanations shankaracharya he explains all this very nicely how are is he equal to a yogi because what is the distinguishing characteristic of a yogi what does what comes to your mind a peaceful person sitting in meditation so this person has given up the source of restlessness the source of restlessness of the mind is desire you have given up the this worldly pursuit the desire of worldly goals and you're doing your duty in the world in that case your mind will not be restless it will not be elated with one or two success a couple of good words a little bit of praise it will not be depressed well a couple of failures you're not doing it for success and failure in the world you're not desperate for success in the world you're not terribly scared of failure in the world all you want is the pure calm strong even mind which will be very useful for meditation in that case whatever you are doing in the world it will help you i remember in our order whenever we grumble i mean younger monks making rumble to senior monks this is bad maybe the food is bad or um there's this classic story of uh you know a monk who went to a monastery and joined and they were i think it was a medieval european monastery where you're not allowed to speak trappist probably and uh you're allowed to speak only one word in um in in ten years or something like that or five years so after five years this month he had got here earned his right to speak one word um so he went to the head of the monastery and he said bed that's it he can't say anything more. and then five years later he comes and says hard bed is hard then he goes back 15 years later his past and then he says food 55 more years past 20 years in monastic life he comes back and he says cold so bed is hard food is cold okay we've got the facts now 25 years later he comes to the head of the monastery who might have changed by that time now he's a senior monk himself 25 years later he says i am and then 30th here he comes and he says to the head who might be younger than him by that time he says leaving so 30 years it took him food cold bad heart i am leaving so uh um i lost track why was i saying this that uh because of this um will come back to me there's a problem with telling too many stories yeah so i was saying that the uh thank you you're asking for trouble if desires are there in the mind this is asking for trouble what will happen is we'll become some monk and then these problems are there in the mind and then how will the monk meditate how will the monk meditate these bad hard food cold issues will keep coming up in the mind the monk cannot meditate if these chittavik shape these causes of the fluctuations of the mind this list of the mind is gone then the mind will become um a meditation is easy o swami o mahatma i'll give you samadhi in one minute this sounds like the typical you know samadhi in seven days crash course in meditation no he was serious monk said i have only one condition come with a purified mind that come with the purified mind is lifetime's work on many lifetimes work so that is what krishna is saying um with uh with the desire it's notice it's not purposeless work why would see the monk who gives up everything because the monk does not want children and worldly pleasures and money and house does not even want to go to heaven after death and so he gives up all the activities which are associated with this and decides to meditate and pray and study it seems clear logical but then it does not seem clear why should if you don't want the results why should you remain in the world at all it's a very it's a very obvious question and shri krishna's insight the paradigm shift he bought around is actually remarkable when you appreciate it in that context so even today i come across so many number of people who have asked me so i'm going away so serious spiritual life has started which means is making a beeline for the himalayas giving up a good job in the united states or canada and retiring and backing up everything and off i go um so i tell them to be a little more little cautious and try it out yourself once or twice first before you go anyway so it's the same question it persists even now krishna's insight was that you need preparation even to genuinely give up and be a monk like that it's not at all that easy you need preparation i see that how things have been made easier for novices to have ashrams to have to replace the samsara with karma yoga exactly what krishna suggested the moment i entered my idea also was when i entered the monastery that i will meditate and pray and study vedanta and i will become illumined and enlightened so sort of some kind of vague idea was there like that and what i was made to do was just the opposite lots and lots of work and when you would complain to the senior there's too much work not enough time to meditate the answer would be good good i remember one monk very brilliant man here he joined one of our order ashrams in our order many years before me a senior to me a brilliant scientist trained in one of the leading universities in the united states with patents to his name so he gave it all up and he became a monk expecting so he will meditate and all of that luckily he joined the this very good order uh so he was sent to one of our ashrams and then he wrote to the general secretary and there's too much work i'm working 12 hours or 14 hours a day this is hardly enough time for meditation and general secretary wrote back a single line that i'm i'm very happy to know that you are devoting your time to the service of sri sri taku sri ramakrishna's was a service you will be blessed by this so this is the idea and this is this incorporates shri krishna's great insight that karma yoga is essential for a life of meditation it's essential for a life of monasticism also as a preparation if you cannot avoid this all right um oh we've run out of time let me just quickly look at the questions wikipedia oh abhijit shared a picture from baba dham rick archer says if these are verboten why does patanjali devote one chapter four chapter book to them true now patanjali himself warns against the siddhis he says it's only if you can go beyond them if you can reject them then the higher samadhis are open to you maybe because the patanjali yoga sutra is a sort of very accurate phenomenological description of the path of meditation of the higher experiences possible in finer states of the mind which would include a lot of these experiences by the way again let me emphasize it's very easy to misunderstand or misconstrue what i said the visions of deities these are very very powerful helps in vedanta also i said it's not the purpose of meditation it's not the purpose of meditation as far as attainment of brahma-gyan is concerned but it is part of the process so if you have an ishta mantra nishta devata the goal is definitely to get a vision of the ishta devata this is not you said it's not a part of vedanta no no i never said that what i meant was that that will develop a mind which is for for which mind the vedantic realization will be easy will be far easier in fact in advaita vedanta this is called kritavopasti pritopasti means a person who has completed every stage so person who has completed karma yoga a person who has completed meditation to the level of having a vision of his or her chosen deity to that level for that person classic example is srirama krishna so he had continuous unimpeded vision of his chosen deity mother kali and from there it took him just one effort to attain nirvikalpa samathi it was like smooth for him to realize that i am brahmana so that's a of course an extreme demonstration of a cryptopasti he always said that you need to do only 1 16th of what i have done um also these spiritual powers they are forbidden but one must admit that in the lives of uh enlightened people and in our religious scriptures in the documents in every religion there are there are accounts of these that these were demonstrated and they did work and uh even srinamar krishna sort of tempted swami vivekananda he said look i've got all these powers so he said that whatever powers are mentioned just in these and will be mentioned in the patanjali yoga sutras he said i have got all of them do you want them and swami vivekananda said will they help me to realize god become enlightened he said no but after you do notice the connection between what i said at the beginning that it's not the purpose of meditation to give you these powers he said no uh but after you do become enlightened it will help you to in your teaching in your work and then vivekananda said he was narendra not at that time he said that in that case let it be i don't want them now or i don't want them he said but he got them because later on in america also there are numerous such incidents one disciple who came to him and she notes rather that you know he looked at me and then rather shyly he said if you permit me can i read your mind can i see into your mind what an amazing thing that for us it's an amazing thing for him it's he's rather you know like diffident about it i have myself met a number of people monks and non-monks who definitely had some of these powers in fact speaking to rick's question even the possibility of attaining states of samadhi through drugs specific drugs is mentioned by patanjali this was a bone of contention between the early movement of you know the lsd movement and all when um aldous huxley and um and you know timothy leary himself but timothy leary definitely and aldex actually uh against swami prabhupavanandaji in hollywood prabhuwanji took the orthodox trans stance that don't try these things and yet it's mentioned in the patanjali yoga sutras which i think aldous actually and try providence it's translated together in fact recently in a conversation at the organized by the harvard bookstore professor christoph koch christophe kosh he um he has been trying out those the the scilob psilocybin yeah and he also mentioned that these things are meant that these are ways of attaining higher states which are mentioned in texts and he himself talked about a number of experiences which he himself had so yes it's mentioned and also it's privated in the sense in the same breath that this is not the way to attain sustainable spiritual development so sustainable is the key word there then krishnamurti says vishwanathan krishna krishnan says according to our advaita framework shruti pramana is essential for removal ignorance deployed through shravanam and underneath the arsenal correct in the case of an example like ramana maharshi seemed to have received this knowledge without the shruti is there a way to fit that into framework any number of ways people try to fit it into the framework like uh he must have done all that in his past life it just it bloomed or blossomed in this life who knows but exceptions prove the rule so the person one person becoming spontaneously awakened but the rest of us do not so we need some pointers which show us what they realized and it's possible and i do believe there are people more and more people who have got that awakening including some who get it spontaneously you cannot totally dismiss you know like the power of now and the gentleman i mean i have read it i have not met him personally but it sounds quite authentic and he is i mean he has a very good feel to it very genuine feel to it and yet he had it completely spontaneously he has vedanta but that's much that's afterwards after the initial breakthrough sri ramakrishna his initial ecstasies were spontaneous as a child then gloria says is it possible to renounce worldly desires through an act of self-pill seems impossible to me renounce means make up your mind and if you are saying that it seems impossible no it isn't you have done it all of us have done it you are saying that no but the result the desires are still there that's a different thing the vasanas the conditioning of the mind is the material thing a physical thing it's like a recording in our some scholars in our subtle body that will not go away immediately that's why karma yoga is necessary but the renunciation is an act of is a decision is a clear serious decision that god realization is my goal satisfaction joy happiness lasting peace bliss overcoming suffering that's the general definition of the goal of all living beings from the person who's running after money to the person who's running after nirvana all of us are chasing the same thing but some are doing it more wisely than the others so why should it be impossible we are doing it all the time we are going from one level of understanding to a deeper level or a higher level of understanding throughout our lives i thought my happiness would be complete if i got that remote controlled car when i was a little kid and the nothing else would be needed to be to add to my to my happiness but i understood very soon that no i need those superman and batman comics and then i understood that i need to you know i need books which are for teenagers and then i needed i was interested in philosophy books and this and that so what am i doing here it's renunciation basically you are solidly moving ahead in life um the things which you thought you really felt they will give you happiness you see that they don't will it remove all the traces of desires not so not so fast it will take time that's the whole of the the process of spiritual purification abhijit asks it seems sri krishna in the first verse is telling us that veva hadik view of pure consciousness we read that consciousness is though filled in and through the waking world is still perfectly asanga and translated to a practical standpoint this would mean work in life as early as stated in life as earlier but without attachment just like how philosophically the pure consciousness behaves right point of view to see the connection between karma yoga and gyani yoga you are right but that what you are speaking about is the final stage is the stage of a jivan mukta this is not the meaning at this stage because you'll immediately see in the third verse krishna will say so this is preliminary now to go to a higher level you've got purification of mind through this kind of a practice the higher level will be meditation but the higher level beyond that is the realization that all is consciousness and then when you have realized that all is consciousness you see the play of consciousness everywhere so that's the jivan mukta level here it is the uh it is reaffirming the teaching of karma yoga rick says it seems that genuine saints sometimes perform siddhis but they're discreet about it not showing them showing off or using them to attract crowds yes generally i've i've also come across such cases where they have actually done something and then cautioned people are all around never to reveal this to other others and which they inevitably do they go the first thing they go is go on twitter or something nowadays it would be immediately a worldwide sensation that's why saints are very careful because one thing they hate is drawing crowds around them i i once had a very senior monk he's passed away so i'm going to do the same thing of broadcasting something he told me never to talk about but he's gone now so he told me about how he actually had a vision of sri ramakrishna and and it affects when you hear it from somebody who has genuinely had such a an experience even when he tells you it creates such an impact on your mind let's see that even now i remember it so clearly i can see the swami standing there the room the look in his eyes when he told me and uh it was a very old swami and so now when i walked out of the room he came to the door again got up from the bed and he came walked to the door carefully and and again called me back and he said don't tell anybody this is the first time i'm telling people but of course i'm not giving any details [Music] foreign