Video 83

83. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 6 Verses 24-25 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] in the bhagavad-gita we are studying chapter six this chapter is on meditation beware on verse number 23 and in the last few verses sri krishna has given us certain valuable insights these are profound each of them are profound insights into vedanta and into vedantic meditation what are these i will quickly recapitulate to set the stage for today's class so verse number 20. what are these insights which krishna just he just told us in verse number 20 um sri krishna said yet so one of the characteristics of pedantic meditation is chittani rodha it is the cessation of mental activity or the the cessation of the modifications of the mind so this is classic patanjali yoga in patanjali yoga the practice is to is yogas the mind is constantly being transformed into various modifications ripples are coming up on the surface of the lake of the mind so to calm it down to make it one pointed not to put it to sleep there's a difference between going to sleep and becoming one pointed so to make it one pointed not to make it continuously transformed into various writtens or modifications one pointed in what to make it one pointed in the self the atman i am sachidananda this should be the focus in a more broader sense it could be also the devotional meditation that many of us practice where we have an ishta devata the chosen deity and we visualize it and keep it one pointed in that so each successive modification of the mind is about the object of meditation not about different things which is the normal state of the mind so this is the first characteristic this is the characteristic of meditation and it's vedantic meditation when the object of meditation is the subject itself my real my own reality the atman and then it says yatra s second characteristic is what is going on in vedantic meditation is that i recognize that i am this witness consciousness all thoughts are lit up by that one consciousness that one awareness when i see hear smell taste touch all throughout i am aware that awareness is shining when i think i remember desire love hate uh imagine understand forget all confusion all of these mental internal mental modifications all throughout i am aware so the focus is on the awareness it's let us say awareness of awareness so there is awareness choicelessly continuously shining to remember you're not becoming awareness or you're not switching on the awareness or consciousness it's always it's shining it is the nature of the self the atman itself but the mind is now drawing is attending to it the nature of awareness and this is tushati it is happy there it is satisfied there it is settled there it is it is fulfilled there normally the mind moves into various modifications because it is attracted to this and that driving it all is the search for happiness or fulfillment now it finds fulfillment in the nature of of itself of atman why would it be fulfilling so i'm awareness something like light illuminating everything so why would it be fulfilling i mean why would i not want cookies and you know nice sunsets the company of friends a nice book to read so why would i not seek fulfillment in all of that it's because i realized that this atman this awareness which i am is without limit it is the reality um there is no lack there it is infinite in nature that's one second i also realize every other thing which attracts me outwards away from the self is an appearance in the self itself it's nothing other than the self in reality it is the self it is appearing as an other and as the other as the cookie as the nice sunset as the book they are all appearances they are not real in themselves all right they may not be real in themselves but can't they be satisfying only temporarily only in a superficial sense none of them because they are not real because they are not unlimited they are all limited and therefore whatever little pleasure little satisfaction they can provide will be temporary it will come it will go it will not fulfill you it will not will kill us it will not be permanent it will not be deep it will not be profound it will just leave a trace and will lead to further desires later on but none of it will be deeply deeply satisfying and the metaphysical reason philosophical reason for that is those things in which we are looking for satisfaction they are limited they cannot give us lasting satisfaction they are only appearances of the reality which we already are anyway that's a long-winded way of saying what sri krishna said in deep meditation when you are aware of awareness your mind is settled in the atman in its nature as satchitananda chidan i am of the nature of consciousness i am of the nature of bliss or fulfillment i am shiva when settled there you you are also satisfied and fulfilled there then the next characteristic he points out is in verse 21 the nature of happiness so it there it enjoys um the ultimate happiness to and how does it enjoy buddhi graham it is it is that happiness is available through knowledge now what kind of happiness is available to us one is the worldly kind of happiness we are used to which is born of sense contact something that you see here smell taste touch or imagine or expect even expectation leads to happiness an expectation of a pleasure so you're expecting your friend's visit you're expecting on these kobe days you're expecting to take a vacation and a trip so that expectation itself generates pleasure so expectation the actual sense contact expectation of the sense contact imagination memory all of these can generate pleasure so these are all the kinds of pleasures we are aware of from the grossest crudest pleasure of say some nice food to refined pleasures you know art and literature and all of that higher than this much more subtle much more refined than this is the joy of spirituality but krishna is not even talking of that but it's the joy of spirituality where the joy of the self or the or you can say the joy of divinity divine presence it's born of meditation it's born of bhakti it's born of loving service to the divinity in various ways an extraordinary happiness a very pure kind of happiness comes which is unlike the first kind i talked about the external and intelligent pressures which we are familiar with in the world purer than this much more lasting much more satisfying much more nourishing than the worldly pleasures are the joys of um of spirituality the joy of loving service to god the joy of the devotional feeling the presence of god of loving god the joy of prayer uh the joy of renunciation shankaracharya sings a renunciation dispassion to whom does it not give joy you know enjoying something is give some pleasure letting go of that i do not want it that gives even greater happiness freedom and lightness so that is the second kind of joy which is the spiritual joy and the extreme forms of that would be the mystical experiences the feeling of the presence of god actual mystical visions of god so when srinama krishna would have visions of the divine mother kali of krishna of the different forms of god every hair would stand on end with the thrill of it he said you cannot imagine the incredible fulfillment happiness the the the unimaginable joy of actually experiencing god that's the higher kind and the final kind is the atman itself which is joy itself it's not a kind of joy not even a mystical joy not even a spiritual joy but it is fulfillment itself it is infinity itself is fulfillment because it is infinity you are without limit there is no second reality apart from you this knowledge when it dawns it is the highest fulfillment it is the highest joy in itself so three kinds of joy one is vishyananda the joy of vishaya object in the world it's a worldly kind of joy bhajanananda the joy of spiritual practice it can culminate in visions mystical visions extraordinary choice and then brahmananda which is ananda which is the nature of the atman itself so here shri krishna is talking about second and third by meditation you get great joy there's no doubt about it so not just at the culmination he's talking here about samadhi but not just in samadhi even before that when meditation goes well it is initially a struggle but the moments it goes well it is it is very profound it's very deep it's sometimes it's unforgettable it's very deep and very moving that is the joy of meditation and finally uh what he's talking about the self which is ananda itself sukham this is beyond the senses it's not a sensory joy so it's a spiritual joy not even that because he says buddhism it is born of knowledge what knowledge ahamram has been not born of a mystical experience so the joy of worldly experiences the joy of spiritual or mystical experiences and finally the joy of enlightenment brahman and the full enlightenment i am that reality all right that's the next insight he's given another insight he says very interesting he says once attaining to this one can never lose it again one is firmly established in this what does it mean so even um the best of meditation in the initial stages is difficult to attain calmness of mind but one may attain a deep samadhi and then one can stay in that for a long period of time but beyond that it still goes away samadhi also comes and goes it can be developed cultivated attained and then you can come out of it in fact you better come out of it if you stay there long enough the body will die so if you want to continue living as an enlightened being you come out of it so that means even samadhi the state attained through samadhi is attained and lost it arises and then disappears again and can arise again also which means it is not um that it is not lost that's not true it is lost even the highest experiences even says sri ramakrishna's extraordinary visions of the divine mother and other deities but notice one thing they came and they went there was a before there was a during and there was an after but here krishna says once this is attained it's not lost what does it mean it means it's not really attained also it is ever attained we just we just get the realization of that that i am brahmana i am of the nature of shiva when shankaracharya sings i am of the nature of consciousness i am of the nature of bliss i am shiva it's not that i have become shiva now he realizes one's innate ever-existing shiva nature so all this sounds very mystical and mysterious also not mystically mysterious you're aware of it right now it is the same awareness by which you are seeing and hearing you're looking at the computer screen you're hearing the sound same awareness you're aware you might say but that awareness does not seem very extraordinary it is it is the famous washerman stone which seram krishna talked about the washer man who thought he had a stone strained stone with which he used to scrub clothes finally discovered it was a big diamond when he discovered what it was it was enough to you know by selling it he could he had enough money to remove all his poverty you know the story i'm referring to i've mentioned it number of times so this awareness which you are experiencing right now it's the washerman stone you have it we don't know what it is vedanta just introduces us to our own glory so attaining which it is never lost means it can never be lost the clay pot can never be anything other than prey the golden ornament can be can cannot be anything other than gold it can be a bracelet can be melted and crafted into a necklace a necklace can be melted and fashioned into a ring but all throughout necklace bracelet ring in the melted condition whatever condition it is it is gold it is cold that's choiceless it can't be anything else having realized its gold status is never lost but what it means it always was gold now the necklace did not know it was gold it always thought it was a necklace now it realizes my real nature is gold my necklace status is incidental it depends on a particular name a particular form a particular function it looks like this it's called a necklace and you put it on your neck these are just incidental but the reality throughout is this cold similarly the reality throughout is you the awareness you the existence then the next point he makes krishna makes is tata there's nothing greater than this it may not seem so god realization seems to be an amazing thing to be rich seems to be amazing to be learned seems to be amazing to be young and healthy seems to be amazing especially if you're old and sick um but to go to heaven seems to be amazing for people who believed in heaven at one time that was the goal but um this he says this is greater than all of that far greater having attained to which nothing greater remains every other kind of joy every other kind of of uh happiness fulfillment is limited in time it has a beginning it is an end is limited in space it is here and not not there and it is in one person it's not in the other person and limited an object it is something other than you that's why it came to you and goes away from you whereas this one is not limited by time space and object once you recognize it you realize it was there forever and it will be there forever it will be there everywhere and it is nothing other than you every other joy depends on satya rajasthan this is the one thing that you are the joy that is your very self which does not depend on saturation it does not depend on maya not only that every other joy every other fulfillment that we have in the world is actually a manifestation of this one it is the ocean shankaracharya says in his commentary in the upanishad brahmana one place he says all the joys of the world which for which men are mad after art but spray from the ocean the endless ocean of bliss which lies within each of us just pray from that and we look and see it outside and chase it but the whole ocean is you so nothing greater than this is to be attained then the next insight he gives is this one helps us to overcome all suffering just means being this is verse number 22 22 yeah being established in which even the most uh greatest of sorrows will not shake you notice this means the sorrows will keep coming so it's not that now i will not get old i become enlightened i will still get old i told you about that interview with his history channel i think his channel they wanted to know about immortality through yoga and so william shatner is the host he went to space yesterday for yesterday this is a very short space trip i think 11 minutes or something but anyway and he was so overcome by it if you see the statement he made he said it felt like i realized that this earth is life itself and the blackness of space is like death we must learn to preserve this life but he's practically immortal himself he's 98 years old um so old age will come disease will come there will be problems in the world kovid will come difficult people will continue to be there all problems will come but on the power of this this realization of our real nature when this becomes a living reality one can withstand one can transcend sorrow then it's all this i discussed last time and one more insight he gave tang vidyad yoga vyogam yoga what a phrase he uses the word yoga so in so many ways he says what is yoga yoga is dukkha yoga yoga it is the the disconnection of the connection with um with sorrow if you translate yoga as union so what is union union is the disunion with the union with sorrow yoga sangeetam yoga it will not affect you you can say like sri ramakrishna when he was asked are you suffering from cancer and his very interesting reply was first he said yes it hurts then somebody then the questioner said but sir i see i see that you are in in bliss and he said oh the rascal has found me out which means is it true that there is pain yes is it true that uh he says i cannot eat is it true because he play acting no all that is true is it true that at a deeper level it's perfectly all right from for him from that there's a perspective in him which from which perspective he says it's fine i'm actually in joy whatever happens yes the the philosopher arena chakravarthy told me about his guru who was a great vaishnava teacher srita ramdas in the early 20th century mid-20th century so he said he has himself seen in the last days of the saint who by the way is not a non-dualist he is an out and out devotee of krishna so when they would treat him for bed sores and tumor and all that it would hurt he would he would squeal in laughter and pain at the same time and you know he would say it hurts and i would say oh the delight of it all the fun and the delight of it all it's paradoxical he sees the whole thing as a marvelous play and it hurts it still hurts disease hurts bed sores hurt and the tumor that's killing you is hurt it hurts all right then moving on number 24 sankalpa prabhavan come on having completely renounced all desires born of fancy controlling well the senses from all sides by the mind alone yoga should be practiced so some more advanced advice for meditators basic stuff is long over you sit in this way you breathe in this way and so on what kind of place you have to you need for meditation what is the seat should be like how what is the posture all those things you spoken about but now advanced stuff so one thing about calming the mind um grammar means collection collection of the senses sight hearing smell taste touch so all of these the five senses should be withdrawn from their objects don't try to see anything don't try to hear anything and do not smell or taste or touch anything now you can close your eyes but how do you you can even plug your ears but how do you prevent your skin from feeling the cold or the heat how do you prevent your nose or your taste sense of taste so all of those things are active all the time so what is meant here the real meaning of withdrawing the senses is mentally so mentally withdraw the senses but you turn the mind inwards what does that mean we have all noticed it suppose you're focused on a book so people come and go their sounds in the background you notice after some time you realize you haven't noticed it i've seen kids back in india and school kids so focused on the cricket match on the tv it's hot and sweaty and there are mosquitoes and nothing to them now you tell them all right enough of this sit down and study and immediately how can we study it's too hot to study and these mosquitoes and it's so sweaty and i'm hungry none of that matter when you're watching the cricket match what's going on there it's because the mind is so focused on it there's so much interest that automatically the mind gets focused all the other sensory inputs don't matter they don't break your concentration similarly with the mind focused on the object of meditation whatever your practice is it could be the breath it could be the mantra it could be a visualization or specifically in this case the nature of the self focused on that turned inwards from the senses so you'd lose interest in the objects of the senses how do you do that so this is uncompromising he says by giving up our desires and he says how do you do that says these desires are born of power um there's no word for a specific word for that person he is translated as fancies it's just the conceptions of niceness in there's a technical word for it in advaitha called that which is absolutely of no use to you ultimately of no good to you yet we think it's nice i like it it's necessary for me or the opposite it's awful i can't bear it it's terrible in both these cases the mind will run rush out to that and the senses will now be utilized to direct its attention to those things and mind will become externalized meditation is not possible so sankalpa is that root the root now blossoms out into kama and kama means desires at this stage it is now i got to have it i have to see this i have to taste that food i have to meet this celebrity or something like that all of these things they are now in the form of desire very difficult to control at that level it's very difficult to control so he says at the the level of the root itself you squash it it's easier at that level all of them don't keep remnants so spiritual practitioners we make the mistake of keeping remnants all the obviously gross stuff it's it's rooted out but little bit of harmless thing the thing is a little bit of harmless indulgence now the mind will grab on to that itself as its lifeline anything to save itself from meditation so i remember once i was very sick and the hospital our our monastery hospital there so they had readers digest they had this person who would go around to the patients every week the books and things that i would read i would have i borrowed readers digests all readers judges to read i thought it was sort of innocent and harmless we had this strict old monk who was also sick in the nearby bed and once he was telling me that um you know these days it's it's um it's scandalous i've seen monks wasting their time as a what what are you doing what are you reading is it something enlightening is it something nourishing no they are reading readers judges would you think would you believe it and i had to just i just under my pillow so i i desperately leaned back on the pillow hoping that he wouldn't notice and i was like you don't say really readers digest but there's a point there sarwan without any remainder whatsoever and ashish without any remainder but also it means at the subtle levels also not just the gross ones the desires but the subtle levels you give up you seem it's difficult no it's not difficult your satisfaction comes from the object of meditation from that's why bhakti is so powerful bhakti is basically connected to desire so i love my krishna my ramakrishna or my durga this is durga puja it's the final day of bashami today is the conclusion of the durga project so i love my divine mother so much i don't want anything else when you when you have that kind of love you you it would be intolerable to think of spend time with something that is not the object of your love so vijayadashimi on this day the image of durga is immersed so we have i think it was mathur babu who was it or girish baba um in suramar krsna's gospel it's there at the end of the durga puja he is so overcome he doesn't want to let the image go the whole puja is that you worship the divine mother the image is just the just the locus the basis of your worship and so to complete the cycle you immerse it back into in the ganga it goes it has come from the unmanifest to the benefits it goes back to the unmanifest but the heart doesn't want that here is my mother she is here i'm not going to throw her into the river and show so he's weeping uncontrollably what is that and that that is love and this love for god so at that point none of the worldly pleasures the company of friends or other indulgences would make any sense they would be seen as irritants or disturbances so ashish even the subtle ones are given up all right so this is the meaning down to the subtlest desires desires give them up at the root before they blossom into full-fledged desires the root is what is the root about things in the world people in the world places in the world certain times in our life um possessions um my personal theories political convictions uh the sports team i support all of these are you know the complexes in our mind and a lot of emotional baggage is attached to each of them um things i love or hate so let that go and you replace it that the mind should flow to the divine emotions should flow to the divine in this way what will happen the result will be my effort at withdrawing from external engagement is meditation advanced instruction meditation my effort at withdrawing from external engagement and settling down on the object of meditation the breath the deity the mantra or ultimately the nature of awareness of awareness it will be successful because the mind is not pushing outwards if the mind is not pushing outwards it will not activate the sensory centers you know the sensors are like instruments in fact in vedanta they are called instruments karana karana means instrument the mind wants to go outside and picks up certain instruments like apps so here's an instrument there's an app a visual app to see is a audio app to hear or a taste or smell or touch and the mind picks up these and goes out into the world to do its thing now it doesn't want to do that so these apps remain um you know dormant so they're not active they're not pulling your attention outwards then how do you do this 25 further instructions withdrawing dust by degrees establishing the mind in the self by the intellect regulated by concentration one and one should not think of anything else so this is the culmination of yoga patanjali yoga culminating in samadhi savikalpa samadhi and finally nirvikalpa samadhi or patanjali's remember here the entire technology of patanjali yoga is being borrowed and used by vedanta the may not use may not agree with the philosophical conclusions of patanjali yoga but here the technology of patanjali yoga the ashtanga yoga is fully accepted by vedanta this is a powerful technology of concentration and focus so um it is now fixed on the atman how is it done first of all shannarish and europa are made slowly by degrees this has two meanings first of all the direct meaning it takes time patanjali is also clear it takes time systematic and consistent practice over a long period of time it leads to establishment in yoga this is one of the sutras of patanjali one should not be like hanuman who jumped over the sea to go to lanka from going from india to sri lanka now we are not most of us are not cut out that way you know even rama had to build a bridge to walk from india to sri lanka so we have to build that bridge and walk slowly systematically one should not be in hindi they say um stubborn foolishly stubborn let's say ahata means foolishly stubborn by force one should not do that there is a system to approach it because these are very delicate things it's it's um [Music] subtler than the body subtler than the prana it's its mind its emotion it's intellect and beyond that therefore you're dealing with very subtle uh levels of your personality you can't force it you can't force enlightenment you can force god and then god can give you the enlightenment but you yourself cannot force samadhi for example if you force it that itself foils the attempt at samadhi effort can take you to meditation it can take you to savikalpa samadhi also but beyond that nirvikalpa samadhi is not effort it's not an effort of the will if you do that and then you'll slip away from samadhi because that's also a movement of the mind um so here i don't know if you have time i can tell you the story i told this earlier also it's such a moving story let me tell you the story about the grace of the guru the importance of um systematic spiritual practice but yet also the beauty of you know sincerity the the restlessness of the heart for god so all these things are there in the story so this story i heard from swami ramananda saraswati he was a traditional monk in the north of india he passed away several years ago i mean not several years ago i think less than a decade ago but he was regarded as a highly evolved spiritual soul he was a non-dualist but very syncretic in the sense that he accepted devotion fully he was a meditator patanjali yogi and also he was he was very fond of kashmiri shaivism he even taught studied and taught those texts so very typically hindu open to all streams of thought but fundamentally he was his home tradition was advaita vedanta i met him a few times so once he told the story about the grace of the guru but the story has so many other aspects um so the story goes like this uh he had been told he wanted to become a monk his guru told him many many decades ago when he was a young student to go back to banaras and finish his studies so he went back to benares and he was a brahmacharya studying at a traditional sanskrit school so i'm talking about ramananda saraswati this is brahmacari studying at a traditional sanskrit school and one day he came across a little book this book was about a krishna bhakta a boy who was the devotee of krishna so just his life story so the swami said i read the book and the story goes like this there was a little boy in vrindavan the place of krishna and this boy grew up like everybody does in brindavan with stories of krishna and he was so devoted to krishna he thought i want to see krishna because everybody says you can't see krishna in brindavan so he a little boy he believed it and so he went to a to a tree just outside their village and he sat down there i've heard that there is a marker near the tree now anyway he sat down there and he started calling on krishna he wouldn't eat he wouldn't go back or home he wouldn't eat at first people found it a curiosity and they thought he was a nice little voice and to be so devoted to krishna but as the day went on and the next day he wouldn't come home his parents got worried the villagers got worried he tried to persuade him in all ways to come back home to eat something he said no i have to see krishna i will not eat until i see krishna so after two or three days and already as it happens in india immediately crowds start collecting you know anybody anything to do with god it will immediately attract people especially in a place like vrindavan so people started visiting this little boy who was calling on krishna and he was getting weaker day by day and so finally the villagers went to this monk who lived nearby in brindavan [Music] yes in vindavan so his name it used to call him oriyababa the monk from orissa he was a very highly regarded monk in those days a non-dualist so they went and they told him about this little boy it was already i think a week since the boy had eaten so they told him and they said we are all very worried he won't listen to any of us and so this monk said i'll go and talk to him and he went and he found a little boy already very weak under the little tree under the tree and calling on krishna and he said i'm very pleased with you my boy this is wonderful that you have so much devotion but this is not the way there is a way to do this there is a whole body of knowledge a system in which one can practice and finally you know realize god you are a fit aspirant you are you are a real seeker of god i can see that and i will teach you i will make you my disciple and i will teach you which was a very great honor because that swami was i mean there's so many people who wanted to become his disciples and here is himself offering that little boy of all people that i'll accept you as a disciple but my condition is you must eat now you must at least drink something and eat something now in hindi he said i say hata means so by force by stubbornness is there is a way to do this the boy said that all right i will i'll listen to you but tomorrow come tomorrow i'll break my fast and i will drink fruit juice from your hands so everybody was relieved and they went back home that night suddenly this monk this old monkey woke up in his ashram you know uneasily there was something he felt uneasy at the first break of light in dawn he ran he literally ran back to that tree outside that little village and he found that the little boy was dead he had passed and that night he had a vision why he was uneasy he told people later this month told other people that last night i had a i had a dream or a vision that a divine being the divine you know like they say rather like a divine chariot it came down from the abode of krishna from from vaikunta and it landed in front of the boy and it the child got on the on this celestial chariot or something and it disappeared back into the realms it had come from so that was the story now this monk who told us the story uh swami ramananda saraswati he said i was so moved by this um little boy story that uh i decided what am i doing all these studies has created grammar and all that all this is i don't want to do all this i i want to realize god and so i'm going to go away to vrindavan and search for krishna or i'll die in the attempt and they thought but but i should tell my guru because the old man told me to study so he goes back to his guru's ashram and tells the guru i'm sorry i can't keep my word i'm not going to complete my studies and i understand if you're not going to accept me as your disciple but i want this is the thing i read this story and i want to see krishna and i'm going to go to rindawan and spend the rest of my life as long as i live looking for krishna i'm searching for god the guru said same thing you know this is not the way there's a there's a way to do it and don't be emotional and then he said i was young it was emotional and i said no if that boy could do it i'll do it too i'd i'd rather die than just follow this old method of you know study and becoming a monk and all of these this old systems i just go straight to god and i'm willing to die and he said i walked away i ignored what my guru told me and i walked up i was so young and charged with emotion and enthusiastic and he says there was nearly there was you know like his eyes were moist he said that look at the grace of that old man my guru he started walking behind me and i scolded him what are you doing i just came here to tell you that i won't be i won't follow your instructions i'm going to go over to window and you don't have to come with me you have a whole ashram um you go back and stay there i don't want you to come with me the guru said you can't stop me i can't stop you from going to win the one but you can't stop me from following you i will go with you and so they went together to vindaban and they stayed there and he says ramanuja sarsothi told us that we stayed late for i would go with little cottage we stayed there in the morning i would leave and i would wander around the temple the beautiful temples of krishna there are very ancient ones with amazing atmosphere so he said i would go from temple to temple i became like a madman i would go there pray meditate weep and i would you know i don't know where i was like i was possessed by a storm and the evening i would at the dark descended temples would be closed i would come back to that little hut exhausted and my guru the old he would be waiting there with a piece of bread he had begged from you know people around and then he would share it with me and we would eat and my guru took out this book tripura which is a vedantic tantric text and very non-dualistic not very devotional at all and he said read this and i would get irritated and she said i don't want to read this i don't feel like reading such things he said no read it just read it to me and so i would read it one chapter a day and the next day would go like that i would wander from place to place like of this mad person um of course i didn't get to see krishna anyway and then come back and the same thing would be repeated that book has 30 chapters 30 days passed 30 chapters were over my madness was calmed came to my senses and my guru said let's go back and we we went back and he said go back to your studies finish your studies and come back and he said i did that and i came back and i became a monk later on and that's a long story so around that was he said i think like 60 years ago so it's a beautiful story really and it's a story of that little boy and this intense love of god and he found his reward in spite of being non-methodical non-traditional without any system without any vedanta vedanta classes just by sheer love of god he found his he found god but also the importance of guru and importance of vedanta all these vast systems of knowledge which we have developed over millennia not just centuries millennia people have walked on this path it is a path so have patience and walk on this path krishna says slowly slowly systematically slowly step by step don't jump um also another interpretation would of this would be what else was i going to tell you so yeah systematically slowly but consistently not um lazily i'm taking krishna told me to take it slow so i'm taking it slow i meditate once a week and go to a class twice a week that's it the rest of the time nothing i'm taking it slow won't work that way suramar krishna said he did not like this kind of lack of enthusiasm so enthusiasm that's that's the difficult part of it and yet systematic so krishna later will say that's the sign of a satwik mind dritiot and endowed with enthusiasm and patience you have people who are very enthusiastic but they are enthusiastic about different things each day something today something tomorrow there are people who are patient and methodical and they actually make more progress but they lack that fire sometimes they sometimes become mechanical so a satwik mind is fresh i have seen such people old monks but such fresh minds child like fresh minds they're looking at everything with the eyes of of a child so that is freshness is there enthusiasm is there and yet systematic disciplined sunnishanaire slowly slowly systematically now the other meaning would be that move from the from the obvious to the not so obvious from the physical to the subtle so notice how the pancha kosher viveka for example proceeds methodology used in vedanta i am pure consciousness witness consciousness but wait a minute not so fast start with what is most obvious what you're most confident of it's like mounting the staircase you don't hop skip and jump you'll fall if you do that you put your foot on the first step and maintain your balance there i mean you big steady there before you go to the next step and so on like climbing a mountain for example you're sure of your foothold and then you proceed further so start with the most obvious the physical body now instead of trying to be aware of awareness be aware of the body we are often not aware of the body most of the time they are in our heads thinking thoughts so everywhere of the body the sensations of the body and so and so forth where full awareness of the body this will be firmly in this step this is called the food sheath then systematically slowly turn your attention to the prana breath and why would you do that there are these understandings that the body is changing i am not changing the body is an object i am the experiencer of that object and the body is insentient i am sentient and so many arguments are there i'm not going to that but the point here is from the physical body you go to something subtler not totally subtle it's just the breath the breath is also physical but more subtle than the body the in-breath and the out-breath that is the tip of the iceberg the whole iceberg is prana the physiological process is keeping this body alive stay there for some time be fully aware of that then go to something more subtle which is the mind thoughts ideas memories emotions desires be aware of what's going on in the mind a pretty subtle level already then go even more subtle the understanding itself the whole conceptual structure we have the knowledge of i am this that is the intellect then go further behind that beyond that if you push further you will find reach a very subtle blankness and notice then from there you go to the awareness which was illuminating all of these so instead of jumping to am the awareness indeed and i am the witness of everything body shanisha on it slowly slowly breath so at each step we have a firm foothold you are confident of each step not mixed up you have not slipped away into thinking at some point you're just looking at every step is real to you body is obviously real the breath is real thinking is real and it goes from the mind attention becomes more subtle and more refined the intellect that should be clear and real what what are you talking about beyond that pushing beyond that full awareness and yet blankness of object there's no object to be aware of and from there to awareness of awareness [Music] and then and hold on buddha by understanding why not the body i'm attending to the body you're saying now withdraw to the to the breath why understanding why i cannot be the body why i am something other than the body and understanding and the quest i am looking for myself the reality self with capitalist why not the press why not mind we generally without question all of us we tend to think of ourselves as thinking beings so why not the mind see the same arguments apply and so on so buddha by understanding understanding means understanding saturated by vedantic teaching which is where all geeta upanishad rishya viveka paroksana bhuti all these classes come in it saturates our understanding with this way of thinking this helps you in meditation vedantic meditation [Music] here means focus or concentration so not only understanding maintain the focus don't slip away into irrelevances don't flow outward into the world again having done this finally you will be aware of awareness really not as a concept not unstably also establish yourself in awareness or the awareness self knock into the pitch in time then don't think anything else that means don't slip back into thinking again stay there in that luminosity so these are pretty advanced instructions actually i was just looking at this book alan wallace who writes about buddhist meditation he's a philosopher at the university of santa barbara i think ucsb so he's written a book called meditations of a buddhist skeptic so there he has very interesting two chapters i really haven't gone through it yet i'm looking forward to it so these techniques from an indian perspective and a tibetan perspective the original buddhist techniques were in india and what what were the techniques and then how they were further refined in tibet so then we are out of time almost all right we'll just leave it here let me look at the comments there many comments here awareness of awareness also comes and goes yeah so the attention to awareness comes and goes fine but notice so shweta is saying this the the awareness that i'm sweating you may think about it you may not think about it but at no point do you think that i am not sweating if i'm not thinking that i'm sweating do i stop being sweater no whether i think about it or i do not think about it i am server priyanka it seems to be obvious to me this is knowledge guyana when i attend to being server priyanka that is awareness of being served so the knowledge will tell you that i am awareness whether i attend to it or not now here this is the chapter the chapter is on meditation so you are attending to it you are trying to be aware of of that i am awareness so this is the whole attempt um unless we do this it will not uh result in full blown enlightenment but this is also an attempt that's why it can be done and it can be undone it can be not done i'm translating shankaracharya's comment um it can be done it may not be done it may be done in a different way that's the nature of meditation sankaracharya says does it mean that when this mind in waking state recognizes that i am brahman that this recognition will carry over to the states like dream state deep sleep and after death yes i understand that i am awareness is always true but this recognition is in the mind so theoretically mine can lose it having realized it as gaining or losing both are unreal true but once ignorance is removed it will never come back again notice one thing that that is persists even in dream state is uh that you're aware you're aware of things happening in the dream state when it permeates every moment of your existence in the waking state no matter what you are happening in the waking state similarly whatever your dream may be it will permeate your dreams day and in the deep sleep it's only that in the deep sleep you will not be thinking that i am awareness of deep sleep is in that case you are not in deep sleep but the awareness is of course always there more precisely it's no longer important after that this is what the vedanta sara we did in vedanta sarah that breakthrough that enlightenment which is called in vedanta sahara brahmacara it's called brahma karabithi the question was raised if you remember in vedanta sarah after that after that moment of enlightenment does that enlightenment flash does it persist or not and the answer was no it doesn't it it also becomes part of the world of appearance and you are that that brahman in which waking dreaming deep sleep come and go so you're no longer dependent upon the waking mind to tell you you are awareness you are brahman you're no longer dependent on this mind here in the waking state i am brahman no the mind is dependent upon them it is so whenever the mind functions it will be surcharged with the awareness and the awareness of awareness you know that you are that awareness brinda says being aware of awareness is the difference between samadhi and sushupti yes rodrigo says how do you withdraw the mind from the gravitational pull um rodrigo would you clarify what gravitational pull so how many unmutes we'll see patrick says sun kalpa seen translated as a resolve or firm decision this is a different meaning yes so firm decision of sankalpa is when you make up your mind to do something in the ritualistic sense when you start a puja you take a sankalpa that i am going to do this worship for this purpose it could be a worldly purpose or it could just be for the blessings of god for my spiritual life that's called the sankalpa which is in the sense of a resolve or form decision here the word sankalpa is uh refers to the root stage which finally [Music] sort of develops into a desire all our judgments about the world they start off as the sankalpas jai shri says how does this sankalpa differ from the sankalpa taken during the puja yes that's exactly what i talked about the sankalpa during a puja is a result i do this puja worship of say ganesha or durga for the welfare of humanity this is the sankalpa and i start the activity but this sankalpa is is a subtle form of which ultimately becomes a desire parul says the state of calm or bliss i experience in meditation on a particular day sometimes becomes the benchmark on another how do i press my reset button don't bother about all of that and let it be the memory of that calmness it will be there in your mind it's not a bad thing rick says the self realizes the self but it does so in the context of a human life for which a gross and subtle body are necessary correct yes correct we retire and reach the threshold threshold of enlightenment through the intellect a function of the subtle body again correct if the gross body is damaged or killed it is it the intellect by which self-realization is if the gross body is damaged or killed is it the intellect by which self-realization is not lost um as i said in the path of knowledge is ignorance the whole framework is that ignorance is stopping us from realizing what we are so ignorance is overcome by knowledge and the instrument of knowledge which we have ultimately is the intellect so it is used for gaining that enlightenment but once you realize what you are you also realize in what sense you are not dependent on the physical body or the subtle body then it does not does not matter anymore um i mean if the screen which had forgotten itself as identifying itself as a character in the movie suddenly realizes i'm a scream using the character to a certain extent suddenly it makes that shift after that whatever happens to that character doesn't matter it's i realize i'm not only that character i'm all characters and ultimately none of them there are accounts of enlightened being still functioning on some higher plane after death is that by virtue of the finest level of intellect that purified subtle body as a whole or what yes they continue to be sentient beings if they continue to be personal beings for whatever reason sudam krishna would say that depends on the will of god after enlightenment also some retain their personality and what do you mean by retaining personality even when the physical body goes the subtle body persists rodrigo says and ramananda says the guru of prophecy is astonishing no this is a different ramanujati what was the name of the book you mentioned oh yeah rodriguez mentioned it meditations of a buddhist skeptic manifesto for mind sciences and contemplative practice it's one of his recent books but he has many many good books on buddhist meditation rodrigo says i mean awareness of gravitation um i'm still not sure awareness of gravity gravitation is a physical thing right i should think about that srinivas raju says can we say aware of awareness is generally at chidavasa level before realization of the absolute or pure consciousness can we say awareness of awareness is generally a child level awareness of heaviness as a practice which krishna is mentioning is definitely being done by the mind and which means it's there the reflected consciousness but the whole point is it will it will point you out to something beyond the mind and the reflected consciousness um so it so this is a practice this is a part of the meditation which is part of the sixth chapter which is being taught krishna is teaching you some advanced level of meditation here but that's not the goal the goal is the atman itself which is there which has to be revealed once it's revealed all of this becomes immaterial rick says a question from alpana one get such waves when where one doesn't want to continue with sadhana what should one do given to stopping the practices so are there for some time come back or force oneself to continue practice without power it depends there's a certain amount of discipline which has to be mentioned maintained but if the reaction is so much they don't like it and it becomes mechanical or one is feeling upset the beauty of spiritual life is there's such a variety of practices available to us stop meditating for some time read something you know inspiring it could be it could be philosophical it could be devotional it could be the lives of um saints lives are particularly inspiring and soothing listen to devotional music or get up and do something like a service activity or something or some secular activity also but mentally offer it to god so such a variety of practices are possible i'll just take a walk at all times please realize that these reactions sometimes they're so powerful they're uncontrollable but the reactions of the mind you are perfectly all right keep that in mind that also you have to keep it in mind but you the self the witness of these reactions you are perfectly honest even when the mind is throwing up a storm the vast sky is still the vast sky even if a thunderstorm is going on namaste