Video 80

80 Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 6 Verses 16-19 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] guru now let me read from the sixth chapter we had done verse number 14 last time 14 and 15 get done 15 last time so verse number 15 and then 16 is nothing so yoga is not attained by one who eats too much or who eats nothing at all nor by him who sleeps too much or who keeps awake too much oh arjuna so in the last verse we talked about the deepest meditation in the verse number 15 and the ultimate reality which is attained chanting nirvana paramount and from there shri krishna goes straight to food diet used to say from the sublime to the ridiculous now no it's not ridiculous it's practical um swami vivekananda is to say i know where the shoe pinches unfortunately in spite of all our high philosophy in spite of all our subtle thinking there we are also still embodied creatures they're creatures of uh flesh and blood it's no use for getting that somebody told me swami pavitaranandji used to say do not do not abuse a horse you cannot dismount from so the horse is the body you can't yet dismount no matter how much you say i am the witness i'm not affected by whatever happens to the body there's a limit to beyond which if it's pushed that philosophy doesn't work too well at least in our case we are not yet and like sri ramakrishna who can say yes the cancer it hurts but yes i'm in great place that's also i can honestly say that so until that time for our spiritual practices certain um there are certain physical aspects which we have to take care of very important they can make make or break they can make the difference between success and failure so here the question of food is taken up and sri krishna says too much eating meditation is not possible and too much starving yourself dieting fasting again meditation is not possible you sleep sleep also should be regulated and a couch potato meditation is not possible and a person who's a workaholic doesn't get enough sleep meditation is not possible you often see people trying to meditate immediately fall asleep i've seen that at one time one after another several companies in india corporates invited me to give talks on meditation so i have seen that corporate circle also in india um so i would notice when i would there would be demand for guided meditation and inevitably several people would fall asleep one reason is we do not know how tired we are many people in in this society they don't know how tired we are you get used to it and the body takes a lot of abuse so we don't know how tired they have become so any amount of little bit of relaxation little bit of calmness the mind takes it as permission to fall asleep to catch up on much needed sleep that's all right um recently i heard a talk or so i saw somewhere see how we employ and appropriate all these techniques for our own economic needs what i mean is i saw somebody with this slogan meditation is the new caffeine this is what america does to meditation meditation is the new caffeine and this person who is giving the talk very smart very well spoken i said that see what we get from from caffeine from coffee is that boost that energy and they were giving the neuroscience of it also something some kind of uh neurochemical which tells the brain which and warns us that we are tired we need sleep what caffeine it seems it does is it blocks the blocks those uh neuro chemicals they don't allow those neuro chemicals to connect with the brain synapses so we don't know that we are tired so we feel we can go on but of course there's a price to be paid afterwards and then the speaker said that meditation can do the same thing for you without the side effects so meditation is the new caffeine and the lady was introducing the speakers said i'm so glad i always thought that meditation should become one of our productivity tools just the idea the productivity tool everything has to be a part of the productivity tools uh it is it can help but that's not the purpose of meditation productivity too one of these corporate circles i was invited to speak on in india i gave a talk about spirituality about devotion meditation service and then the hr manager came in after the talk he was too busy to sit and listen to the talk he introduced me and then he disappeared and after the talk was over he came back and he said well now the swami has inspired all of us i'm sure we can all reach our targets i thought oh no this point everything the whole point of it is lost the whole thing is you must give a talk which will lead every which will enable everybody to be more productive and they will reach their targets that's the only thing bottom line is the only thing we are concerned about not productivity tools it can help see that's the thing it can help and it does help in your work life in your personal life i think there are also a lot of studies to show how it reduces stress even boosts immunity um so in this context i quote i mean it's apocryphal probably or it's just a story but i have heard this that maharishi mahesh yogi when he started teaching transcendental meditation here in the west and then it became very popular you do this it will fight against aging you'll have less wrinkles you will your immune system will be boosted you will be more resistant to disease you can manage stress you can work hard longer hours all of these things and people flock to him so the story goes that when he went back on one of his early trips he was here in us and he went back on his trips to india and he met other some other monks there um he was a monk of the order of one of the orders of shankara so the other monk said what is all this that you are teaching there that is not the purpose of meditation it seems he said that i give them what they want in the hope that one day they will want what i want to give them so i'm giving them what they want i don't want to get old i want to have more resistance to disease i want to look young and be flexible and i want to be peaceful in the midst of lot of hard work and tension so yes those benefits will come but meditation is not just the new caffeine it is the purpose of meditation is enlightenment guard realization and that requires certain um physical certain things you have to be careful about one is food and sri krishna here says you can see that it's just a general principle it hasn't fixed your diet your calorie intake for you again not relevant i was very sick once about 20 25 years ago and i was a young novice i was put in the hospital and then i lost weight i was skinny to begin with and on top of that i brought 10 more kilos so i was looking like a skeleton and the swami in charge of the hospital said call the dietitian we have to fatten this up and next bed there was a swami who was very obese you know suffering from heart disease and then the dietitian came and fixed the diet for me and for him and then the ob swami whispered to me i was i was very young and obviously said be careful they're going to make me like you and you like me so and i've never seen such a diet because i was not feeling like eating so little bits of food and i was eating 10 times a day they were like 10 or 12 meals a day little bits of food and obviously what happened was i immediately threw up and then it was reported again to the swami that the novice isn't eating he was not eating now we tried to make him eat now he has thrown up so the swami came charging was a very tough swami she said show me your diet like why did you throw up show me your diet i showed him the diet you eat 10 times a day 10 or 12 times and he looked at the diet and immediately he tore it into pieces this is a man on an animal you can't stuff him like this he'll eat whatever he likes and then he's turned out again yes so notice that just a principle has been given there's no diet chart which has been fixed here it's just that do not eat too much and do not eat too little don't starve yourself so shankaracharya in his commentary is actually quoted from the vedas a couple of very nice quotes which i'll share with you one quote from the vedas and one a popular saying or i i think from the ayurvedic texts from the shattabata brahmana he says he quotes this is from shankara's commentary and he's quoting [Music] simple statement what it says is those who take a balanced diet that protects the body that does not damage the body those who exceed the balanced diet that damages the body those who eat less than the balanced diet that does not protect pretty simple common sense and very good very good sense actually and the popular quote i've heard this many times and so it's pretty ancient because shankaracharya is coating it 1400 years ago when it's coating it so this is i'm sure it is from an ayurvedic text some ganja nasir so one-fourth of the stomach should be filled up with with your food including all sorts of condiments or whatever else you're adding to it all of that should be uh half of it half of the stomach and then the third quarter should be with water and the fourth quarter should remain empty for the movement of air so if you divide the your capacity into four parts and half of it two quarters with food one quarter with water and the fourth one should leave it empty one swami put it this way that of course is for monks whatever you'd like to eat um eat a little less than that a simple rule and the quality of food which you would want eat a slightly like a lower quality than that not higher if you're used to certain kind of food a little less one monk he told me the rule they had made in their ashram the monastery was there and attached to that nearby there was a like a dorm for children coming from poor families and the rule made by the head monk was the food in the ashram should be of lower quality than the food given to the children in the in the dorm so the principle being that we you should not be eating better than the children there you as monks these are little small rules and they're very helpful and then eating too much eating too little i think spiritual seekers have this kind of obsession about food sometimes they do some of them one of the books that i read last year was um the very famous simone bales waiting for god yes so this french philosopher mystic she died very young starved herself to death basically so she was very mystical extraordinary if you read that book it's very inspiring she was in france just before the second world war and then she escaped finally to england during the war again escaped from the nazis now her sympathy for others made her stop eating that my countrymen in france during the occupation they are not able to get good food i will not eat more than what they are getting or i'll eat less than that this thing of course are not eating predated the second world war she always had this feeling she would always eat less and less if you see the picture skinny and that's a common thing often among spiritual seekers sometimes it comes from self-denial again not relevant but one thing which touched me was she writes about one of her dreams he had a dream about god and and the oft-recurring dream for her would be god is feeding me you see i can't eat so the whole dream would be like god is somebody who's feeding me it was very touching she died of starvation she wouldn't eat i i've known so many monks like that when i was a novice my i remember one of the young monks young novices very austere at first it sounds so inspiring this young man he would you know he would serve all of us food so you can imagine it's hot and humid and physical work is really sap soup he would carry these heavy buckets of dal and rice and all and serve all the monks sitting with the others and when the their system is when the we have finished eating those who are serving they will sit down to eat and the the monks who run the kitchen itself is a huge kitchen for hundreds of monks and novices so the monks who are actually the staff of the kitchen they will serve those who had served others and finally they served themselves or the others before leaving this up this young man he would serve everybody along with the team of other uh those whose duty was to serve food to others and i have done it myself it really is exhausting you'll be soaking wet by the time it's finished and then he would serve the next batch of people his own friends who had served others they would sit down to eat he would serve them and then the monks who ran the kitchen he would serve them by the time all of us would have retired for our customary afternoon siesta he would come back not eating again he would have no he wouldn't eat and he won't believe this but i've seen it it actually happened he would come back he would collect actually collect leaves and grass from the fields and clean it and boil it and eat that and that is obviously far too much but i've seen it go to that extent sleep this particular novice he was to minimize sleep he would meditate late too late in the night and he would get up very early in the morning and in the meantime the three four hours of sleep that he got he elevated sort of inclined his bed so that it wouldn't be a comfortable bed he had put bricks on one side of the brick bed and sort of inclined like this how he found out was one day there was an almighty crash in the dead of the night and he had slipped off the bed anyway finally he was made to climb down from all of that extreme because but because he was sincere he was saved other people either they snap because of over doing such things or they just give up in frustration after some time but this boy was very sincere because the ashram he had come from a very senior monk who was the head of that ashram who had seen him from his early days as a novice when he came to the main monastery that senior swami called the principal of our monastic training center and told him you take care of please take care of this boy i'm sending to you he's a simple village boy but he is very sincere so i know the swamis who were above us are very protective about this young man ultimately he became balanced he became more to what gita says not too much eating not too much not too little eating not too little sleeping and not too much sleeping so yoga is not possible what happens is too much eating or too much too little eating it increases thomas in the body mind system too little sleep or too much sleep again induces thomas in the body mind system so it won't allow meditation all right next in the same vein he continues 17th verse he who is moderate in food and movements in his engagement in actions and in sleep and wakefulness attains to yoga which destroys misery so food sleep and then bihar actually means literally means taking a walk walk but it means exercise and recreation so exercise and recreation and cheshire here means work so four elements have been mentioned here balance in food balance in sleep balance in your exercise and recreation and balance balanced work so these four elements if you they are there in your life yogo bhavati then only your practice of meditation will help you to overcome suffering then only it will work otherwise it won't work i remember when i joined the order or 25 years ago in in the monastery where i was in djoker we had a swami who was the head of the center at that time wonderful swami i mean i'm so not only me all of us who joined under his care we are so grateful that at the beginning of monastic life we found such a good example and the if one thing you could one word you could describe him was balance it's pretty austere balance but balance balance routine every day without fail he would get up earlier than all of us and without fail he would go and sit ramrod straight in the meditation hall before us and he would leave after us he would have his food exactly with everybody else in the ashram you know in the same time sit with the there's a small kids school teachers young novices other monks and he would come and sit with us food exactly at the same time exactly the same food we ate get a precise time for studies so he would teach us now he says one hour every day in the morning in the roof of them he would sit on the floor of the roof in the monk's quarters and on mats and study and after that he would study for one more hour himself but always precisely not more not less i mean his routine he could write it down and you could you know they say for kant you could correct your watch by his routine a great german philosopher emanuel kant so people would correct their watches by when he took the took a walk in his hometown of koenigsberg in the afternoon he went to for a walk at three o'clock i think or something like that and they would correct their watches so he was so precise about his routine there's a joke about amnesty actually a real story i told you earlier so he would go up to the church and can come back to his home and at the church he would see the clock tower there big tower at the clock old towns old cities had it i've seen in india their cities which still have these clock towers and uh kant would take out his pocket watch and look at the clock tower and wait for the uh clock to strike and then he would correct his watch and you walk back one day he asked the priest the pastor in the church father how do you set your time my father said by you by looking at your walk so they were correcting time by looking at each other yes so the swami was like that exact time for going to office exact time for uh evening walk every day rain or sunshine uh exact time for evening prayer meditation only once in several years i saw him one day only i saw in the evening there was a guest another senior monk who loved to chat so i could see our swami becoming visibly uh sort of you know uh uncomfortable time for prayer came and went and this other song was chatting but because he was an imminent mug come from the our main monastery our swami had to entertain him and later he told just just that one day later he told us now he says that this is not good for you young people to see that your swami is sitting in the office in the evening instead of meditating that he did it only once but balance extraordinary routine and we thought that was normal it's only when another swami visited from another ashram and he in a delight he told us young novices your swami is extraordinary he does not have one minute to spare that means his routine is so well set it may seem mechanical but it's not just the things that you want to do in your life why not automate them if if i have to decide every day in the morning when i will get up it's a new thing for me to decide one day very early one day very late that's an awful way of leading your life so the power of deciding what to do should be used for higher things not what to eat or what to wear can see monks don't have to decide what to wear it's all set for them what to eat whatever is given when to get up exactly as the um the monastery routine suggests that gives you a structure and it's a balanced structure notice it's not an extreme structure it's a very austere balance but it's a balanced structure not very extreme not in the sense that he's meditating all day long not in the sense that he's working all day long rather i i consider it much more difficult and much more efficacious to lead this kind of a balanced life for decades and decades instead of suddenly in a burst uh seven days meditate 16 hours a day and then the eighth day have a nervous breakdown that's no good so this is balance the philosopher are in the chapter of what he said i was delighted once i went to one of your monasteries our monasteries you're saying that just today he was called he called me he was saying that um the swami who was in charge of the monastery in elderly swami once in the evening i saw him come uh perspiring profusely and so in the bhakti sastras one of the characteristics of a person going into an ecstasy is that the hair stands on the end and you perspire and so i said i asked the swami so are you coming down from an ecstasy of devotion he said no i'm coming down after playing ping pong the table tennis and he said i really appreciated that that's at this age also the swami uh takes this exercise so balanced life exercise and work all the monks so i'm vivekananda when he spoke about the four yogas karma yoga bhakti yoga raja yoga and yana yoga he he made it a point to add quiet apart from your meditation study and devotional practices it's important that everybody should take part in the work of the ashrams so work is very good very good for mental health and of course for spiritual health then next verse verse number 18 is what is the result of this kind of a balanced life when you practice meditation he says when the mind well controlled remains fixed in the self alone and one is free from cravings for all enjoyments then one is said to have attained yoga yoda vini the mind controlled in this way with a balanced life very important food balanced sleep balance exercise and play and work all of these in a balanced proportion when you sit for meditation if that allows you to sit for even half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening that's also good enough your mind will become concentrated um so he says in this way your mind settles on the self pure consciousness so i'm not the body i'm not the mind itself and i am the witness consciousness stay with that awareness that is the mind settling on the self of course those who are doing deity meditation japa mantra and visualization of the deity there it would mean your mind settles on the deity and he says nisbriya sarvaka not hankering up after satisfaction of multiple desires the satisfaction of multiple desires what the desire does is called raga attraction for things the word in hindi you know they say the s you want to sit still bhagat means it makes you run around so you want to sit still and what desire does is it prompts you to run around run around means not physically one might be sitting still but the mind is running around if you pull back the mind at the same time there are desires what will happen is the mind will if you forcefully not think about the things which you want to think about and and forcefully keep the try to keep the mind i am the witness consciousness or on the deity you know krishna or shiva mind will refuse to cooperate so the mind which is stuffed with hankerings or negativities guilt complexes unhappiness it will refuse to cooperate in meditation either you'll feel sleepy or you'll feel distracted something those are the the sullenness of the mind like a little child who doesn't want to study and you take away his xbox and make him do mathematics or something so you can see the expression on the face of the kid so that's that's the expression the mind gives you when you force the mind to do what it doesn't want to do so this prehas the only way to fix that is to to give up to stop this hankering spriha thirst mr priya free of thirst thirst for what server commander all sorts of desires desires of the senses desires for appreciation desires for material wealth and success all of those desires you are not being prompted by them then alone you are said to be truly settled i just truly settled in yoga very nice verses coming up next to [Music] even as a lamp placed in a place free from any breeze does not flicker this is the simile for a yogi of controlled mind practicing concentration on the self so the unflickering la the flame of a lamp this is the similarly used in many places to denote meditation to show what meditation is like notice it's not that the flame has gone out the flame is there that means the mind is working but it's so fine-tuned so pure that it it's like an unflickering uh flame the flame is there but there's no wind to make the flame flicker so the mind is tuned it is not disturbed by anything external it's not disturbed by internal rag advaitha likes and dislikes and complexes and negativities or strong desires those things are not there external disturbances internal disturbance is not there then the mind focuses what do you have to do the three steps the final steps of patanjali yoga dharana dhyana samadhi sudharana you focus it could be the deity meditation you're focusing on the form you have imagined the form of visualize the form of shiva by the way what is the difference between visualizing and imagining it's one thing to understand in deity meditation you have said you're told that you think of god in the form of krishna or shiva or durga and you basically are imagining it but how what is this difference between visualization and imagination in sanskrit the words are bhavana and kalpana bhavana is meditation kalpana kalpana's imagination so what's the difference between me trying to visualize the form of shiva you know the blue colored deity with the moon on the forehead and the locks of hair and sitting with a tiger skin around his waist and sitting in yoga posture in the snowy himalayas and in samadhi that's a visualization suppose now we visualize spider-man or superman what's the difference this is also imagination that's also imagination no one kashmiri shaiva philosopher makes clear the difference he says these meditation techniques suggested the bhavana suggested in various scriptures what is this bhavana there is an existing reality which you are unable to catch right now and these are hints from people who have realized there are ways hints suggestions to your mind if you think about it visualize in this way one day it will become a reality you will see it it's already an existing reality just don't see it now when the mind is capable enough it will it will be able to see that that reality that divinity whereas kalpana imagination is the creation is the creativity of an artist i can put together many ideas in my mind and create a character like spider-man no matter how much you meditate on spider-man you're not going to see spider-man because spider-man doesn't exist the fictional character so shiva or krishna or whatever the forms of god or the forms of the avatar they are not fictional characters they are actual spiritual realities which will manifest at one time so this is the difference you visualize bhavana and keep your mind there that is dharana focusing when you do that the mind will flicker so you go through four phases before phase one i keep my mind on the deity and the mantra i repeat om namashibaya and here is the deity the form of shiva which i have been taught to visualize then the next thing will come is distraction something will come up either externally or in deep from inside so internally something will come up and my third will be mind wandering the mind will start following that distraction and the fourth will be the recognition that my mind has wandered from the form of shiva and the mantra um namashivaya and i bring it back so these are the four it will go and will keep happening you're not supposed to do it now i'm going to meditate now let me be distracted and enter the second stage no that happens you're not supposed to enter be distracted but it happens as you go through it and bring it back again and again and the mind goes into dhyana meditation actual meditation so meditation is the seventh limb of eight names ashtanga yoga the seventh name is meditation again i must have mentioned this earlier i noticed in daniel goldman's book focus um there he mentioned some neuroscience studies that the four stages in meditation which every meditation manual more or less points out it's a common thing you can observe neuroscience has now confirmed that there are different circuits in the brain which are different neural pathways which light up in fmri imaging and the meditator can reports yes at that time my mind wandered at that time i recognized it at that time i made made the effort to pull it back and they see different parts of nearby parts of the brain lighting up so it was quite amazing that these four stages which are mentioned again and again even in the gita they are mentioned they actually correspond to something that's happening in the brain anyway so this is the first stage dharana our focus again when i'm saying first stage there are three stages of meditation dharana dhyana samadhi but this is actually the fifth of the eight limbs of yoga yama and niyama one and two the moral practices asana number three sitting posture then pranayama that is breathing a control of the breath that is number four fifth is and sixth the sixth one is dharana one which i was talking about focusing and that focusing is intermittent because it's disturbed when the disturbance goes away then uh it is dhyana the disturbance may come but will be very little and it will mind will flow like uh let's say oil being poured from one vessel to another so like continuous flow not discrete but continuous flow and that leads to absorption if you can hold on to that dhana and that is also effort dharana is effort dhyana is effort and samadhi also it will be achieved but it will just before that there will be a certain kind of effort very subtle focus is necessary to deepen dhyana into samadhi meditation to samadhi and that samadhi is also a step by the way a limb of the eight limbs that samadhi is called savikalpa samadhi or samadhi the ultimate samadhi assam pragyat or nirvikalpa samadhi comes after that so all of these eight limbs are meant to achieve that difficult samadhi or assam pragyat samadhi so of these eight the final or the highest is samadhi all right what else did i want to say so in that samadhi mind is also active active means it's still but it's not uh fallen asleep it's not blank it it is totally absorbed in the object of meditation it could be the deity or you're visualizing or it could be the self i am the witness self and the mind becomes steady in that in that feeling or in that um what else what can i call it in that reality mind becomes steady in that does not flicker anymore but the mind is steady it's awake it doesn't stop falling asleep so that is the example which is given in a windless place when you place a lamp and the flame does not flicker such is the example given about the yogi who has fixed his mind on the self so here the deity meditation is not being talked about it's straightforward vedantic meditation all right this is however just the surface so these things you have to hear from the teachers you know how deep it goes i'll make a few points here um a very perceptive comment was made by a non-dualist master living in india in the 1950s or 60s um atman and the krishna menon so in fact recently i was reading the remedy senses of of joseph campbell he wrote this book bakshish and brahman about his tours in india in the 1950s he went with swami nikhilananda from the east side center they went in a group to visit india and joseph campbell of course had many other interests he was interested in art and history and all so he went with uh swami nikhilan energy and he toured over india and he has given his reminiscences his experiences um interesting in nairobi india 1950s early 1950s i think he got to meet uh nehru also probably now in that there's a whole chapter where he actually goes and meets atman and the krishna mena in kerala and joseph campbell actually held athman under krishnamanian in great regard okay that's just the background one comment which he did not give to joseph campbell i read it elsewhere the comment is this very perceptive he says when the mind by whatsoever means is turned towards the self capitalists the mind loses the characteristics of mind and remains as the self this is called samadhi beautifully said it clarifies lot of problems the mind by whatsoever means it's turned towards the self atman pure consciousness witness consciousness it loses the characteristics of being a mind and it remains as the self itself that is called samadhi it's a state of the mind but in that state of the mind it is very much unmind like it remains as the server now see what problem it solves that that thing that by whatever means one of the means very popular the well-known means of doing this is patanjali yoga the ashtanga yoga by that you can calm the mind down to eight limbs of meditation reach sampragyata samadhi and finally hopefully asambra gyata samadhi when the mind becomes free of thoughts and remains shining in the light of the self swami very kinda compares it to a lake without any ripples the water of the lake is very clear crystal clear water first condition mine must be pure second condition the water of the lake must be free of ripples when the water is free of ripples and waves and it is crystal clear then you can see through the water to the bottom of the lake exactly like that when the mind is pure and still and turn towards the sun and still then the self is clear that i am this witness consciousness that is the third sutra and the yoga sutra the witness consciousness is appreciated in its real nature at that time in samadhi but that's one way only this is the controversy i often get myself into trouble there are people who say on both sides one group says that you are not emphasizing samadhi enough another group says why are you talking about samadhi and pure advaita vedanta isn't it not necessary what advaita vedanta does is it does actually the same thing it it turns the mind towards the self not by the ashtanga yoga but by vedantic inquiry drink drishya viveka if you practice it phenomenologically it means you feel it and used to go step by step it can do that our star trial the method of this year and the scene the method of the three states of waking dreaming and deep sleep the method of the five layers of the human personality panchakosh of the vehicle in this multiple methodologies all it does is what krishnaman is saying is saying it is one more way of turning the mind towards the self till it loses the at one point it will lose the characteristics of being a mind or self alone shines it's appreciated as it is that's samadhi but that samadhi achieved through enquiry not through the yogic method of you know controlling your breath sitting in lower posture whatever srirana krishna says deep devotion an intense devotion to god there comes times not just once number of times you will have the mind remains absorbed in the ishta devata out of sheer love and surrender to the ishta devatha and samadhi is achieved by sheer love by shir bhakti samadhi can achieve devotion by self-inquiry this samadhi can be achieved by yogic practices of course the samadhi can be achieved so this is but what is the nature of this samadhi it is the mind remaining in its real nature as the self the real nature of the mind is actually the self the pure mind and the self are not different what after all this is clearly in advaita vedanta itself is all that there is so the in some sense the mind also must be the self so where do we clearly perceive it now advaita vedanta goes further than this but we will see that later so that's the first point i want to make the deeper point it is not just a deep kind of concentration or absorption the samadhi which is being told spoken about here with the example of the unflickering light the unflickering light is not the unflickering mind the real meaning of the unflickering light is the light of consciousness is the atman the only thing that is really ultimately unflickering is the atman which neither increases nor decreases there is no possibility of its flickering like sunlight light and light alone no question of increasing decreasing flickering nothing so exactly like that the atman is that and when the mind is calmed and you realize i'm not the body and mind i am the light streaming into this body mind and to the body from the self from i me myself the real self then the mind tends to become still stop there there there's no difference between the mind and the real self it's the mind is no longer an obstruction to the real system the real self is the real unflickering lamp the unflickering flame so that's what there's a deeper meaning when we first approach it the first pass i took at this verse we felt that it is the mind you're talking about in the gita the mind becomes like an unflickering lamp when it flickers it is mind when it doesn't flicker it is the atman so when it flickers and it's the mind is the atman not there utmon is still there it's obscure we don't we don't uh we don't see it as it is now i'm speaking in yogic language the non-dualists will smile i give a superior smile at this point but anyway it's important to appreciate the yogic aspect of it also it's practical at other times the the mind the flickering of the mind obscures the unflickering light of atman in fact that's why sometimes this becomes this becomes a differentiating factor between tibetan buddhism and advaita and yoga in advaita vedanta because we speak very clearly about mind and atma in vedanta and yoga also in sankhyas mind and atma two separate things you are not the body not the mind you are these atman whereas the tibetan buddhist would say pure mind or the nature of the mind they are talking about the same thing because they use terms like clear light of the void what is the void the still mind what is the clear light streaming through the void the atman itself your consciousness um so this atma jyoti light of the atman it is peace itself because it never flickers the mind can uh approximate it in samadhi but other times it starts flickering but the atma jyothi never flickers so it is it neither comes nor goes neither increases nor decreases it is peace itself and that peace is real joy not the joy experienced in the mind the pleasure in the mind that we keep running across we're running after that increases and decreases and that comes and goes and usually goes up very fast so the real joy is in the light of the atman that is that unflickering uh consciousness why is a similarly used like the unflickering lamp of um unflickering flame of the lamp it's a simile why is it used the reason being what they're trying to talk about the light of the atman or the atman which is light it cannot be talked about you cannot talk about it directly and the moment you're talking about it you try to indicate it it's already within the realm of the mind working that which is beyond the mind cannot be referred to by language also only where you can use things like similes metaphors or paradoxical language things like that so that's why the simile is used because it's beyond language how do i do that expel these seven things from your mind the five inputs of the senses your mind should not the mind should not think about form think things which we see don't think about anything that can be seen don't think about anything that can be heard shabda and also the other inputs taste smell touch no no form no sound no touch no taste smell right then expel all thoughts of any kind of misery suffering pain of yourself of others anything physical emotional intellectual social political all sorts of pain all thoughts of happiness whatever pulls the mind that i want to achieve these things everything worldly and spiritual happiness you expel sukra the five inputs of the senses happiness and pain so kind of expel these from the mind stay with the consciousness which is there in that void in the absence of all of these further deeper this consciousness this light which is there in the absence already the mind is absolutely peaceful not thinking of any object quiet deeply stable silent and quiet now the consciousness which shines there also makes sure it is not a stream i mean it's a very subtle point which is being made this distinguishes it from the vignavada the buddhist viganova which talks about the self as a stream of consciousness stream means consciousness flash one flash two flash three flash four flash five when that is happening these flashes of awareness um i'm there but there's a little flickering there that flickering what is what you're aware of is the reflected consciousness which is flickering in the vidyanamaya kosha your vittis are still there the movements of the mind are still there and each of them carries or reflects consciousness that reflected consciousness in the series of british the flickerings of the mind so you'll have flickering subconsciousness if you see any sense of continuation any sense of sequence one two three four one after another pure consciousness pure consciousness pure consciousness it's not pure consciousness that which is watching that is pure consciousness so it's a very subtle point which is being made otherwise but it has to be made that distinguishes you the pure consciousness from the reflected consciousness so what have we got five elements form sound smell taste touch no thought about anything connected to that this will eliminate the material world from your mind and then all sorts of subtle forms ideas feelings emotions are there but they can all be basically boiled down to pleasure and pain reject that then you will get a stillness make it absolutely quiet and still you will that you know that there is awareness make sure that awareness is not a sequence the sequence will be there because the mind is still active and keeps on reflecting pure consciousness your real nature then in that ultimate stillness it that's it that's what you are you can't use language to talk about it what are you supposed to do then uh four things liar vikshay pakashaya rasa these are the obstacles to meditation so don't let the mind fall asleep when you make all these efforts whether in a deity meditation or you're trying to settle on the pure consciousness mind at one point the mind will fall asleep falling asleep is not meditation or it may not fall asleep it may just be quiet no being quiet is also not meditation i have to keep the mind turn it and keep it on the witness consciousness or on the deity i'm meditating that is what i'm supposed to be doing not being quiet and peaceful sitting quietly no or falling asleep no then the next thing is wick shape big shape is running around after some time the mind starts chattering it's the habit of the mind to chatter chatter about what everything except what you want it to focus on you chatter about the world about people about your problems about what is to be done after meditation all sorts of things will keep coming up in the mind don't allow it to chatter your mind is supposed to focus for this next 30 minutes on the object of meditation or on the self itself and so bring it back make the effort to stop the chattering again i must thank professor indub chakravati he shared a gem today from his guru the great swami shitharamdasankarna so gem is very beautiful chattering of the mind he said his guru told him um one of the instructions was the mind has a nate has the nature of chattering of speech it talks now you may go away into solitude and stop talking but the mind will go on talking chattering away or people in solitude develop the habit of talking to themselves i've seen that mumbling things to themselves suppose now you go further you are in solitude now you take the vow of silence i will not speak you'll not speak the mind will speak internally externally you're not speaking it's like a pressure cooker the moment you remove the power of silence you'll speak even more make up for all the lost opportunities so that is not the way his guru told him then what is the way to make the mind stop speaking the guru said it is it is a dictum that poison removes poison poison cuts bish bishke kate so poison removes poison and that's true all our vaccines our antidotes they are they depend on what they're trying to remove they take a little bit of that and then use it so poison removes poison what do you do if the mind is chattering you must replace chatter with chatter chatter with god you want to remove worldly chatter then fill it moment to moment talk to god internally an internal dialogue no harm there it's all for the good whatever you have to say say to god feel the presence of god your ishta devata your chosen ideal you speak mentally you convey your worries your anxieties your hopes your prayers for devotion and concentration good health whatever it is whatever is coming to your mind let the mind chatter but only to god so you will find the mind calms down you chatter about the world and with the world the mind will not come down you become more manic but start talking to god you'll see the mind slowly calms down pretty fast actually so when the mind is running around or chattering you need to calm down the mind one day is of course talk to god this is i thought i'll share this with you a very beautiful insight then um finding peace and joy and happiness well before any spiritual development that can happen also and then in vedanta in the last class we saw and two classes back when you're talking about the obstacles to meditation i mentioned it yeah a few classes oh there's somebody whose hike is on i think and then the third one is kashaya which is a kind of stillness of the mind mind refuses to move forward it's not sleepy it's not distracted it's not in a peaceful nice state sometimes they say there are complexes in the mind problems in the mind which which disturb you so much that you can't meditate and you just remain in a stunned state sometime anyway all of that you have to overcome and bring the mind the whole point is in every case bring the mind back to the object of meditation when you do that at one time this stillness will come and in that stillness it will be very clear you can think about it after you come out of that meditation but in that stillness will be very clear that you are this unlimited consciousness this is the goal of yoga sankhya vedanta and i would venture to say tibetan buddhism also this is the goal and you've got it you are there then najala that means and then the instruction is when you are there don't do anything more but then whatever you do you will throw the mind off it will start moving the mind and the mind moving is no longer with the self as it is supposed to be so this is it so is this the goal of all spirituality advaita vedanta says not at all not at all their advaita goes further says this is samadhi it's a very precious wonderful thing to have after this you will have no more doubt about the claims of spirituality you will your problems also will be at a very deep existential level problems will be at an end you know your problems whatever the problems where the worldly level they're still there but you are no longer you know that they are not really problems you are safe at that that level that consciousness being always there that is always there you are that's your real nature you are immortal beyond suffering you are there but advaita vedanta says not only in that samadhi it's exactly the same thing now also otherwise swami why are you monks insane india why are you running hospitals schools here's a funny story most really at president maharashtra inspired used to tell this story when he was a much much younger monk now he's the president of our order once he was going in the train and a gentleman seemed to be a villager but quite well to do elderly gentlemen saw a monk saw him and said so you're a mahatma monk um can you see my hand and tell me my future so that's their idea of a monk a monk should have all these characteristics can give you some medicine to cure your disease can tell you what it's going to happen in your future and can bless you so that your problems are removed and your desires are satisfied um all of which by the way are true so that you don't lose faith in mugs but that's not the point of being a monk anyway can you see my hand and tell me my future and then swami said no i don't know that i don't know palmistry and this actually the humor is much more in the original rustic hindi that the gentleman said you don't know palmistry what kind of mahatma what kind of monk are you what do you do and rather defensively swami is very gentle he said oh well we run a school for you know kids from underprivileged families and the man snapped at him run a school you're a monk what kind of a monk are you in should be immersed in deep samadhi what we talked about just now that people will say yeah that about sounds right your mind should be like unflickering lamp and you should sit in lotus posture and that's it the moment you shift out of lotus posture you're not a good monk anymore why are you running a school and giving money and i mean giving money to poor people uh treating sick people it's not the job of a monk it should be in samadhi advaita vedanta says even that samadhi is a lower thing compared to your real nature which is brahman which is shining most clearly in samadhi which is also everything else that you see with as shiram krishna said with eyes closed and with eyes open with eyes closed there is god and with eyes open there is no god what kind of god is that krishna said by closing your eyes god is there when you open your eyes god is not there is a very high advaitic you know sort of the final conclusion literally whatever we do we are always immersed in that limitless consciousness literally here now you are in the ocean of brahman right now as much as the monk who is in nirvikalpa samadhi right now in your hospital in your driving in your car cooking something talking with a person reading a book yes we don't see it that's because we are in ignorance if you see it you will see it everywhere so that is the highest advaithic realization the imminent divine shining in every condition effortlessly so you don't have to put in all that enormous effort to reach that pinnacle of samadhi which we talked about it's very subtle and difficult and unstable also you will slip away from it again it's of course very valuable very very valuable but advaita vedant is talking about something higher all right good let's quickly look at a couple of questions before we bring this to an end the quote i give people a widget says i give people what they want in the hope yes and so on he subscribed to shitty sai baba yes i've heard that right right so i said it's uh i'm not sure who said it sangeeta said this eating rule is from the yoga text yoga pradipika yeah it's the sister science of ayurveda sri atman and this definition sounds very close to what shringari shankaracharya you said when a sword hits the sun a sword hits a stone the sword itself gets broken correct it's exactly the same thing but that's again a simile and it's you have to catch what he's pointing at the shrinker shankaracharya but i think has said it so simply and directly when the mind turned towards the self by whatsoever means loses the characteristics of being a mind he now he sounds like godot amani bhava no mind mind becomes then no mind the self alone remains that is called samadhi the whatsoever means is very important that it settles all quarrels whether you do it by bhakti or by yogic meditation or by vedantic enquiry but of course after all of that after this samadhi also we don't have to claim superiority because we go beyond that that's not the end prabhupada so holy company is a tremendous calming effect on the mind how does that happen i guess because the person we are meeting is immersed in god so that has an effect in fact one of the characteristics of truly holy company a truly good sadhu or an advanced spiritual seeker is it you will see some effect on the mind of people around around you know everybody will feel calmer or inward quieter uh shravani says many enlightened person are said to die willingly mostly in a state of meditation samadhi how is it understood in vedanta context do the descendant identify with both mind or body it's just the body um yes we come across such instances many many times i've myself seen this again and again and again so it is not uncommon but again it's not necessary the person who has and who's enlightened and realized that i am rahman it's very clear exact manner of death it may depend a lot on the karma advanced spiritual seekers we know yes they often get for example they get a premonition of death we have seen this happen many times they die thinking about or meditating on god that also we have seen more than this what will i say then no words to thank you maharaj to give us good wisdom keeping our minds in peace during the pandemic suramar krishna is always protecting us that is true so deegee says isn't it that the mind is also an object so how does it focus towards a subject self in meditation so how does it focus you see all these descriptions which are given by quietening itself first you in vedanta what do you do you fill the mind with the nature of the self that i am not the body not the my mind what are you doing you're feeling these ideas into the mind itself and then talk about what what that reality is that reality is awareness not a thing it is it is not beginning it is no birth no death it is immortal it is pure it's not contaminated with thoughts and feelings and emotions not affected by papa and punya merit and be merit so all these ideas from vedanta texts you get where are where are these ideas now you have surcharged your mind with that that's turning the mind towards the self the mind can never objectify the self you're right the self objectifies the mind whatever is objectified whatever is in the mind whatever the mind thinks of is not the self precisely but the mind which is turned towards the self by first of all turning away from the world notice the the instructions do not think of forms anything that can be seen don't think about it anything that can be heard don't think about it anything that can be tasted smell touch don't think about it the material reality drops away then anything that can be thought felt remembered stop that one good way of dropping that is to stop thinking about sukhadu pleasure and pain anything connected which is pleasant is unpleasant stop that now the mind has stopped doing what it can do and yet all the awareness understanding of what you are the pure awareness is there in the mind in this silence the pure awareness becomes distinct not that the mind makes it distinct pure awareness is distinct by itself the veil come which the mind was generating has for the time being slipped away and then in the pure awareness by the pure awareness the pure awareness is recognized sram krishna uses the language being aware of events or being enlightened in the light itself it's not the mind which gives you that enlightenment it is just the enlightenment is the shining force of the self itself um in the golda pada kari kashankaracharya says of course there he talks about the method of vedantic enquiry by that method you come to it and then what does the jana yogi see at that point this is it's a mass of non-dual consciousness revealed by that non-dual consciousness not by the mind the mind is there it's just still the great abhinava gupta kashmiri shiva philosopher and saint he says notice that all these methods they are not necessary because none of the methods are they are necessary but but notice before we talk about the methods of meditation notice one thing none of these methods can reveal shiva just as a pot cannot illumine the sun now he has given you for those who understand vedanta he has given you a very powerful pointer to what you are pot cannot reveal the sun it's impossible it is the sun which shines on the part and reveals it the pot cannot is not does not illumine itself and it cannot illumine the sun it's it's absolutely impossible now what is he talking about the part is the mind using whatever meditation technique and all of that and you are the sun so keep the pot and sun analogy or simile again and then apply to yourself you know what the mind is you are aware of it internally so if the mind is like a pot what is it that it can't illumine but which is shining on it continuously you stop with that you will reach the self you will you will realize the mind will be plunged into samadhi but for that to happen all these conditions to keep the mind quiet in meditation sriram says thankful for educating enlightening us with your clear precise teachings thanks for this wonderful opportunity all right yes we will go on in the next session in the fall onion and garlic should students of vegeta take onion and garlic avoid if you can if you cannot there's no problem this is part of satwik one thing you notice about food when krishna mentions this and later you will give more details but nowhere he enters into any kind of specific details you know it gives general principles vegetarian food non-vegetarian food onion or garlic or these details are provided sometimes by later scriptures but the upanishads gita they never make specific recommendations alpana says tendency is to stop breathing because that disturbs the deep silence this breathing gets very low yet what is the way out you're right in samadhi in that moment that stops i've actually seen this not in deep samadhi that i have not seen but what you might call mini samadhi's i've seen they go into it and they come out of it in a shudder and it's not difficult to to attain that that moment a little samadhi so one tibetan master he gave a very nice recommendation he said this kind of samadhi which you're talking about in the gita yoga sutras this prolonged deep absorption it is the work of a lifetime it's hard work at a very subtle level but before that well before that what we can aspire for are those little moments of stillness and insight repeated many times many times little samadhi one time big samadhi later on but many times little samadhi is possible he says otherwise you see the problem with this prolonged samadhi is at our level is that in attempting to stay with that insight first of all you have to get that insight for that all of vedantic [Music] in the attempt to stay with that insight what happens is that insight quickly becomes contaminated with thoughts for us for ordinary people somewhere the mind will start flickering a little bit of thought will come into it better to abandon that inside take that shudder and come out of it and then dive again if you can't hold your breath for so long don't don't turn blue in the face come up take a deep breath relax a little and then start again here is the object i am seeing it with the eyes here of the eyes i am aware of it with the mind here is the mind i am aware of it with stay there all right there are so many comments and questions yes there will be cut open initiate classes but that will be online and these classes also will resume we'll see as much as possible we can keep it online so that people who are at other places apart i mean are far away from new york they can attend live and yeah in the worst cases of course everything will be recorded and uploaded all right please take care and stay safe let me end with the shanti om [Music] [Music] namaste