Video 86

86. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 6 Verses 30-32 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

uh raise your hand prabhupada was already raised his hand private did you want to say something when we start yes i have a question regarding last class um so the the lecture talk so my question is that you yeah i'm just quoting you actually i've actually transcribed your lecture she says you said that all beings in this universe are presented to you the awareness in you the awareness and has nothing but you the awareness it appears as different from you none of these things appear as awareness they appear as computer books people etc now where are they appearing from is it are they appearing because of my karma or your how is it you are asking why they are appearing and where are they coming from where is there's only one place from that from that consciousness from brahman doesn't know nothing else but why this set of things ah why um so why this particular set of things why not that why in this way why not in that way then you have causality cause and effect if you ask vedanta or any of the indian philosophies they will say karma if you want more detailed answer i would personally always go to science but why this is happening or that is happening i think the different branches of science can give us good answers if you have a deeper question of why at all anything is appearing yes that's the question see the multiple questions where is everything appearing in brahman time space causation so that is the stage on which this drama is taking place what is that stage made of there's nothing else but brahmana where is that stage it's brahman nothing else brahman means existence and this is not even just a claim that yes everything is in brahman it's a logical fact brahman is existence so if you ask where is all where are all these existing things appearing they're appearing in existence if you ask where are all the waves and bubbles and form appearing in water they are made of water where else will they appear um but if you are asking a further question of why this set of things uh why in this way you know why did this happen why did that not happen then the general answer would be karma and a more detailed answer it's much more then you are entering into the realm of science you know into the realm of physics or if you go further up in the scale when you're entering into the level of chemistry or biology or physiology even medicine and so on so these are the once you're in the realm of causality pick your system of knowledge it will give you some answer um but there is a the most complex question almost profound question is not where they are appearing or why this kind of appearance is there why is there at all an appearance because you have said that the ultimate is existence consciousness place or if you just say pure being but what we are seeing around what we are experiencing ourselves and whatever we are experiencing now is not just pure being it is existing things and activities not even a static universe dynamic activity going on a tremendous like a storm going on all around us and in the vastness of time and space so why at all anything is appearing when we are back to that fundamental question of maya we have i've discussed this many times one answer let me give you one answer what are the alternatives there are only two alternatives either something will appear or nothing will appear pure being will remain as pure being so something will appear or no or something will not appear these are the only two alternatives and notice both alternatives are fulfilled when we have sriti and the projection of the universe and existence of the universe there is appearance and when we have pralaya the great cosmic dissolution then there is no appearance one swami and uttarakhand put it very nicely rama understands i still remember he says that um in in in the cosmic dissolution when nothing exists the entire universe has been absorbed back into maya no space time let alone planets and stars and worlds and people nothing is there not even space and time only god exists in his majesty with his power maya that's it exists and that's that's like a timeless instant there's no passage of time there also at that time god is searching for us we're playing hide and seek god is searching for us where did those fellows go we're all we are all hiding in maya we have no individual existence then he finds us out and he throws us you know creates the universe and projects us back into the universe and restarts the drama of the universe a new universe is created and he hides himself so now we are in this universe we are running around now god is hidden we are running around searching for god where is god so there is this cosmic hide and seek going on for billions of years we search for god and when the cosmic resolution is there mahaprayam in ghana god does it very searching for us of course it's just a way of putting it uh so that is there are two alternatives either there is no appearance or there is some appearance and brahman is fulfilling both both alternatives look at your daily life either the world appears this is the cosmic or this world is appearing before you and you are also there that is one or nothing appears deep sleep so both are there in your life exactly like that in this cosmos also both are there both alternatives there is no third alternative now in this appearance if you ask a further question why this kind of appearance why this way or why not that way then causality karma will come into play all right one question is you used awareness and consciousness both i generally use it what is the difference between arrow and not distinct no distinction i'm not using it you can make a distinction but am not making a distinction i am just using it in the sense of brahman atman one distinction one can make is the awareness which we have right now you are seeing hearing smelling tasting touching thinking enjoying suffering waking dreaming deep sleep this is a kind of awareness this is called reflected awareness chidabhasana this is not atman or brahman so when the buddhists say that the individual is made of the panchas kandha five pillars or five aggregates one of those aggregates is vikyana skanda consciousness awareness and that moment to moment it is perishing and at the death of the body that also goes away now so where is this if your vedanta is talking about consciousness then that consciousness is just momentary consciousness and also gone in the depth of the body so that is not vedanta what is talking about so that is your basa and it is reflected in what is called the movements of the mind that is momentary moment to moment many thoughts and feelings are coming and going and consciousness is reflected there in fact that is the consciousness that is being studied in modern consciousness studies that consciousness reflected consciousness and the virtis they definitely have some correlation with the activities of the neurons they have to have they are also material and the neurons and the brain are material gross matter and subtle matter they will interact there's no doubt about it vedanta has no objection there sankhya has no objection there so i'm using consciousness and awareness interchangeably but you can make a distinction in different ways it depends on the translation some people get confused when um he says this is this consciousness you're talking about at the end of the of the physical body when the physical body dies that's gone now if you are following vedanti you think that atman is pure consciousness eternal little thing what is he saying right that consciousness is gone he means this consciousness which we have right now when the body dies as long as the mind is not reactivated anymore it's just like being in deep sleep for a time being pure consciousness is always there atman brahman so whatever because there is no direct word for pure consciousness in english i use the words consciousness awareness interchangeably swami vivekananda even used knowledge itself at one time he used awareness its intelligence itself though intelligence we now use it in term of buddhi as understanding a particular function of the mind at one time that was the only way of referring to consciousness because this use of the term awareness or consciousness was not very prevalent under 250 years ago now it's much more prevalent all right thank you thank you thank you let us go ahead have i done the chant no um [Music] last week we missed a class a new velanta center run by devotees in connecticut was inaugurated very nice program was there so i had gone for that before that we did an important verse very important verse and beautiful verse which states the whole of advaita vedanta this was the 29th verse of the sixth chapter sixth chapter 29th verse [Music] so all the atman in all beings everywhere in this existence you find that golden card of consciousness running through our existence uh odd can be used the term presence everywhere and server bhutanese all beings are also in the atman all beings are in atman not in the sense the dartmouth is like a bowl and a bowl of fruit and you put all the pears and grapes and all of it in a bowl not in that not in that sense it's not a container-contained relationship more it's like a like all the waves are in water all the pottery is in the clay clay part is in the clay all um ornaments are in gold it's a weird way of speaking but it's true where do the uh ornaments appear in gold even more direct as all the people you meet in your dreams and the places you go to and the all of that is in your mind it's basically your mind appearing in those ways similarly when you say all beings are in dartmouth it's your atman itself appearing as all those beings in the atman space is also in the atmosphere time is also in gotham how can space and time such vast things be in consciousness but it's true what happens in your dream all the places that you see the vast open places the big cities and the international travel all of that is happening in your mind literally in your mind and the time the time is passing that's also in your mind actually there's no space there there's no time there it's just the mind in itself similarly that's a dream just a dream but what vedanta claims something similar is happening here but not by the mind it is happening in the absolute in brahman in pure being into pure awareness it's an important distinction to draw just touch upon it here and go ahead there's no time to discuss that what vedanta is proposing is not subjective idealism subjective idealism is a philosophical position which states that just as everything you dream about in your dream state whatever you dream about whoever you dream about whatever happens in your dream was all in your mind and nothing but your mind nobody disagrees there just like that everything that you see here is in your mind and nothing but your mind whose mind your mind your individual mind you are creating this universe vedanta does not agree and this is an old ancient battle between subjective idealism and realism so um so there was a school of buddhists called the viganavadis or chittamatra the mind only school of buddhists and that's a powerful school as part of the tibetan buddhist tradition even now and mahayana buddhist traditions mind only school and they say the whole universe is in the mind so number of hindu philosophers attacked this the nayakas the purum imam sakas and shankara finally the nayakas and the purum imam sakas they attacked this school understandable because they are realists school of uh hinduism they are realist realistic in a sense there is a world just like in the common sense you feel that there is that there are people outside there's a world outside these people also say that the nayakas and poor there's a world outside there are real things happening real actions and all of that is very real body is real and activities in the world it's not in your mind it's not like a dream at all so they attack the buddhists because they are realistic the buddhists are subjective idealists but what is interesting is shankara attacks the buddhists you would think shankara would be in sympathy because he also says everything is not in the mind but in in consciousness or in atman just like gita said everything is in the atlanta but shankara attacks sharply attacks the buddhist subjective idealists um because he wants to distinguish his position from them he says this world which you are seeing here is not a creation of your mind you server priyanka you are one individual you have not created this world out there you have not created you have not image you are not imagining manhattan you are not imagining all these people present on zoom here no they are there and you are experiencing them through your mind but you and all of this your mind and body and all of these minds and bodies and entire material universe is appearing in one unlimited being one unlimited existence consciousness which is your real nature and also the real nature of everybody else that's what advaita vedanta says that's what shankara is trying to prove so he's not trying to say that you are dreaming now in your own mind professor randam chakravarti has written a paper about this he is he calls it nicely idealist reputations of idealism why does shankar attack the the subjective idol is the buddhist after all the buddhist is saying something very similar in godhapa and marduk when we studied we saw god of other attacks the subjective idealist because of this very reason so you have to make a distinction between what is called subjective idealism and absolutism subject evangelism world is your dream absolutism is one absolute reality in which all beings and their minds and the world all appear and they interact with each other even in the dream example not something when you're dreaming you are not aware you're dreaming you think that there are people there and walking in a space outside things are happening now when you wake up you realize that all that you saw was nothing but you the dreamer's mind and even you who were there in that dream walking around and talking with people that was also imagined in the dreamer's mind so the whole thing was imagined in the dreamer's mind but you the person in the dream you are not dreaming of the dream world you see what i mean in the dream you are also there as a character in your own dream and that character in the dream is not dreaming up that world rather that character and the dream world are both being dreamt up by you the dreamer who's sleeping similarly here in this waking world there's a background existence consciousness place there's a background absolute what meister eckhart calls the ground of my soul and the ground of god are one in the same ground the primal ground in that all of this is appearing but that one is also you that's the beauty of advaitha that's your real nature so that was said in the 29th verse now we will go to the 30th verse the same theme continues [Music] he who sees me everywhere and sees everything in me i never i'm never destroyed i am never lost to him nor is he ever lost to be so the same thing is continuing the one who sees me one who sees that absolute reality everywhere and the one um and who sees everything in that absolute reality so for that person i am not lost nor is he ever lost for me that's a very beautiful verse shankaracharya says when krishna is saying i am not lost to this person shankaracharya comments i never become parakshafa that was paraksha means indirect the reality is always directly available to the enlightened one indirect means something you've read about something you believe in that's indirect something you experienced in a mystic experience at one time at one time i saw it now i don't see it anymore but i have a beautiful memory of it that's still indirect but notice your experience of yourself you yourself that can never be indirect right now you're experiencing yourself whatever way you understand yourself and that experience is always direct you never say yeah i experienced myself but that was a long time ago nowadays i don't experience myself that's ridiculous you never say i experience myself but i have a beautiful memory of it nowadays or you don't say yes i know that i exist because i read about it some very great scientist gave a lecture that i exist no you never say such a thing you your own existence is direct for you now for the enlightened one the existence of god the absolute reality is direct like that because it is his or her own existence he never becomes indirect i never god never he says i never become indirect what happens is that absolute reality remember this is the chapter on meditation so there is you have already talked about the heights or the depths of the deepest possible meditation samadhi not only just samadhi but the highest deepest samadhi spoken about in yoga in that samadhi world is not there no experience of a material world no experience of the body obviously no experience of the breath literally the breath stops at that at that time no experience of the mind there are no thoughts there there are no memories there there are no desires no perceptions obviously no seeing hearing smelling tasting touching anything no sense of ego also that also fades away there is only a vast light which is not an objective life not a light like this it's indistinguishable from darkness if that makes any sense one a monk put it this way he called it the midnight sun just this phrase anybody who says that the ultimate reality is like like a midnight sun it's really midnight completely dark no moon moonless midnight and yet the sun is shining with undimmed glory how is that possible anybody who can say that is an enlightened person knows what he's talking about he or she is talking about that that is the experience of samadhi now when that person comes out of samadhi that person will see that same midnight sun that same endless unexpressed unmanifest glory manifest glory that which is experienced as an object unmanifest glory absolutely real but not experienced as an object that which is the unmanifest glory is now manifest as this universe and as the god of this universe one consciousness appearing as millions of entities billions of entities behind that is one consciousness and the same consciousness appearing as you you mean the enlightened one in this body mind now you see how after that enlightenment at this stage how bhakti is again possible i the same divinity now experiences the same divinity in this vastness and obviously it's a real divinity you cannot but bow down in devotion your tears cannot cannot but come to your eyes these mystics talk about every hair standing on its end you are continuously experiencing god in every experience beautifully puts it the lord says i never become indirect to this person i am always directly revealed to this this enlightened one then all this is a consequence of the last time we talked about seeing brahman in all beings and all beings in brahman the consequence of that is this then the next one and he also says such a main apprentice and the lord says such a devotee never disappears for me because he and i shankaracharya says it is he is my atma god says you the devotee you are the very self the the soul of god you are one with god forever body will die individuality will go away but you are one with god then the next one same theme is continuing [Music] [Music] the one who sees me in all beings and worships me as the unity residing in all beings it's not difficult to understand there is consciousness shining through all bodies and minds that's not difficult to understand but that one consciousness is a vast consciousness it's one it's a unity and that is god that is the absolute reality the source of this universe the existence of this universe that's continuously obvious and you are that tattoo even further than that you are that i just said little while ago the enlightened one sees that divinity appearing in a million billion different ways as one consciousness behind the entire universe as god and appearing as you with your body mind or a deeper realization would be the enlightened one sees or you see you are appearing in a billion ways as this universe and also as you in one way as this subject of this experience with this body mind what a tremendous experience this one will will this one ever be afraid of death nothing physical death is i wonder if you may even notice the death of this body of one body it's nothing to this person you can flick up a little bit of dirt from your shirt like that this enlightened one can click up one body it's it's nothing to this person now this person i the lord and this one existence consciousness in all beings in high and low in human beings and animals and plants everywhere i am this one divinity and this person worships this divinity as a unity as one not as many many consciousnesses but one and beautiful point whatever be the mode of life you are always in god in whatever way this enlightened one exists whatever where this enlightened one is living maybe a monk maybe a householder a man a woman a transgender nowadays you would say or old person a young person it could be a child in whatever state could be rich and powerful and famous could be completely unknown could be you know the head of a great religious order and giving instruction and guidance to millions could be completely unknown forgotten beggar sitting uh you know on the side of a road or in a in a cave in a mountain cave could be sick and dying you could sit in meditation and pass away in samadhi or be sick and dying in a in a hospital bed in an icu sarvata whatever the state of that individual body whatever it is that person is irrevocably choicelessly always in god no effort is necessary for that person so this is moksha freedom already attained freedom from our perspective our perspective means those who are watching this entire thing those who are maybe interested in spiritual life who want to see this person as an enlightened person we say two things means enlightened while living in this very life except this person whom we saw as the spiritual master we say he is an enlightened person this is called jivan mukti free while living and you can see all the glory of enlightenment in that person that's a person's behavior and teaching and just the personality of that person and then we also speak of we speak of the bodyless liberation when we say oh our great enlightened master has passed the body has died so now what has happened to this enlightened master he has attained bodyless liberation if you ask the enlightened master really really are you liberated by living are you liberated after the body dies say what see it's funny from that enlightened master's perspective yeah you know one monk put it this way very nicely so you see the scale of their thinking he said even brahma gyana the realization of brahman you're making it conditional dependent related to one miserable little body liberated in that body bodyless liberation after the death of that body can't you stop thinking about that body here you are talking about that vastness from which universes appear and play around and disappear still concerned obsessed about one body liberated in that body bodyless liberation so you see that's the scale you're thinking when you think in that scale it's completely unimportant he says it's completely unimportant how this body lives or goes so vivekananda says his famous song of the sannyasi the song of the sannyasi at the end of that last verse he says he'd know more than how body heat no more how body lives or goes its task is done let karma float it down its task is done it has set you free you are now the infinite the bird has flown there's an islamic mystical song about you know sufis in eastern bengal this they sing about this they say the bird of the spirit has the spirit you even in this body was there has flown now the cage remains empty and broken and so it's so beautiful touching it says that when the bird was there the bird came from the infinite and was caged in this cage of flesh and bones so the bird stayed in this cage but what happened you know when the bird was staying what means the spirit you but the bird was imprisoned in this cage it was sitting in this cage the poor cage which is mata material cake the cage fell in love with the bird but now the cage is broken and the bird has flown into the heavens and the cage misses the bird terribly the cage is crying out to the bird that you are hard hearted and that you have no pity on me here i lie empty and broken and you fly in the heavens and in the light above uh so it but it's a mystical way of speaking this cage cannot say that don't worry don't don't think that the poor or the poor body uh i must go back to it it's feeling sad without me don't think like that because the body ultimately is just name and form it's nothing other than you yourself as every body you see in the dream is nothing other than the dreamer's mind even this body is also nothing other than you the unlimited consciousness it's an appearance in you but it's a it's a very nice poetic way of putting it whatever the condition this person the particular body may be dying out of disease in icu maybe even in in coma we have seen it so many times amazing things happening amazing things need not happen the person may still be enlightened but sometimes amazing things happen i know of this monk some of some people may have seen he was a disciple of the holy mother unfortunately by the time we became novices he was very old he was already in a coma and he passed his disciple of the holy mother and he established a beautiful ashram in jamshedpur very big ashram in in the eastern part of india many schools did a tremendous amount of work and apparently for those who have known him senior monks many of them didn't know him he was a very very loving person and he occasionally had visions of the whole uh holy mother of mashaaratha so you would know that he had a vision when he would declare a feast and feed everybody all around so that would be a nice location for him because he saw the holy mother but everybody else because they would get a feast now this is i didn't see it myself but it happened by the time i was already a novice but unfortunately i didn't see it myself he was in a comatose state and there was this durga puja worship of the divine mother which is performed annually it's a big festival in bengal for five days the worship of the divine mother durga is performed god as mother all the monks and we also used to do that we used to offer lotus flowers at the feet of the image of durga in those days and uh so this swami who was a disciple of the holy mother and he was in coma and he was wheeled out in a wheelchair and there was an attending monk and the procedure was obviously the swami is not seeing anything hearing anything he's obviously in coma he's just sitting there like a vegetable you know but the procedure is to take the flower put it in his hands and then take it and put it at the feet of the divine mother so on his behalf sort of and then you wheel him back to the to the hospital bed so they put the flour on his hand the swami somehow the hands and they sort of grasped the flower maybe like a reflex holding on to the flower and after a long time the attending monk tried to get the flower out of his hands and kept saying trying to pull it out and saying in case the swami could hear swami let go let go i will put it on the feet i will do it we'll put it at the feet of the divine mother and to this you know this stunned reaction of the people all around this swami who hadn't spoken in years who had no reactions smiled sweetly and said in bengali he said when the time is right i will give it to you wait he spoke to that attendant they they were stunned and they looked at him but that's it he never spoke again who knows what these what is going on there but even more than this um the what krishna says here suppose he did not speak suppose he was in coma entirely from his perspective there's the spirit which was there the cage is broken or about to be broken the spirit has flown into the infinite so it doesn't matter even if there's no such such spectacular demonstrations of you know bodylessness or transcending the body transcending the body i have seen so many times but what really transcending the body means i learned when a disciple of swami vigyananda it is swami viganda's birthday yesterday and i'm going to speak about him on sunday the disciple of swami began whom i saw a very old monk in his late 80s and 90s imagine he was paralyzed in both legs for many years he was blind in both eyes i think one hand was paralyzed probably after a stroke and he was like this for years and years of course we the monks took care of him but what i want to say is i saw him closely in the hospital for several weeks and the most spirited man i've never seen at no time was i mean depression was just the opposite he was always encouraging everybody scolding us he couldn't see us and you know so i remember one evening in the hospital we were sitting all around and as it happens the monks it's evening is coming they're sitting and gossiping about this and that in the ashram and the monks who are in the hospital taking care of the patients they also drop in in that particular place that monks jayda the sick monks so they talk but it was evening time for arathi the evening worship and this old swami was lying in his bed paralyzed blind i don't know how he knew it was evening he shouted from that corner hey monks shut up time for meditation keep quiet he was like that if you go to him he wouldn't give you an opportunity to ask about how he is about his health he never spoke about his health his sufferings he would immediately ask you to introduce yourself where are you from which ashram and how are people in that ashram how are the devotees doing please convey my best wishes my prayers for their welfare he would always be in the position of the giver of the advisor of the inspirer i realized that is transcending the body completely beyond being unaffected by the problems problems of the body there is unforgettable anyway here krishna says whatever the condition of the body whatever the condition of your life whoever you are or you wear before enlightenment it matters nothing this person is choicelessly forever centered in god effortlessly now the next verse next verse is of central importance 32 atmo [Music] so how does this person interact with others what is the ethical standpoint of this enlightened one he says who by comparison with himself looks upon the pleasure and pain in all creatures as similar that yogi or arjuna is considered the best who sees the pains and pleasures of others as the same as myself it hurts when i do this to myself it will hurt them this makes me happy it will make them happy what creates misery and pain in myself will create misery and pain in others and therefore you act like this this is called the golden rule this i want to say a little bit about this this is a high one of the the highest ethical principle common principle in all the religions of the world in every religion of the world this is found this is called the golden rule here you find it in the gita but let me quote this is a book about the different principles which are common to all religions it's called oneness great principles shared by all religions but anyway i want to quote from chapter one it's called golden rule the golden rule is expressed almost word for word in every religion so fundamental is it to all religious thought that founders and enlightened teachers of every religion have commented on it directly jesus referred to the golden rule as the law of the prophets um muhammad described this as a noblest expression of religion rabbi hillel stated in the jewish talmud that the golden rule is the whole of the torah and the remainder is but commentary vyasa the enlightened hindu sage called it the sum of all true righteousness the buddha referred to it as the sum total of all righteousness and confucius deemed it the one principle upon which one's whole life may proceed let me uh shared with you this link if you go to the united nations headquarters here in the visitors center you will find this this very beautiful um there is the chat i'm sending this link to everyone this very beautiful mosaic i've seen it some of you who have visited the un headquarters and seen it i think peter might be here he might speak to it um peter dawkins so it's very striking you can't miss it if you go to the even headquarters you'll see it's a very beautiful mosaic and it it states the golden rule there you do unto others as you would have them do unto you and that's made by i think it was commemorated and given to the united nations by nancy reagan during the reagan administration also there's a lot of resources on the golden rule under on the net so you find quotations from every religion in ancient sanskrit tradition we just saw the gita um this is a tamil tradition from the quran do not do unto others what you know has hurt yourself why does one hurt others knowing what it is to be hurt very beautifully stated in ancient greece thales said avoid doing what you would blame others for doing sextus the pythagorean he says what you do not want to happen to you do not do it yourself either plato says may i be of a sound mind and do to others as i would that they should do to me zoroastrianism it says that nature alone is good which refrains from doing to another whatsoever is not good for itself judaism christianity we also islam then the gospel itself you find directly more than once matthew 7.1 to do what do to others what you would want them to do to you this is the meaning of the law of moses and the teaching of the promise luke 6 31 as he would that men should do to you do ye also to them likewise in luke 10 25 a certain lawyer stood up and tested and you know he asks jesus teacher what shall i do to inherit eternal life and jesus said to him what is written in the law this lawyer means who is a expert in jewish law you shall love the god with your lord your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself and jesus said you have answered correctly do this and you will live eternally so love your neighbor as yourself the golden rule um islam baha'i buddhism jainism [Music] jainism says just as a sorrow or pain is not desirable to you so it is to all which breathe exist live or have any sense of life sikhism precious like jewels this is guru arjande pressures like jewels are the minds of all to hurt them is not at all good if you desire your beloved beloved with the capital be god then heard thou not anyone's heart taoism in the doubt aging also sage has no interest of his own this is like a jivan mukta but takes the interests of the people as his own his kind to the kind is also kind to the unkind for virtue is kind he is faithful to the faithful he is also faithful to the unfaithful for virtue is faithful then african religions not only that greg epstein you know recently there was a controversy if you see he is the humanist chaplain at harvard university and he was elected as the head of all the chaplains and at harvard university and all the religions chaplains are there so the head was a human is chaplain who is an atheist basically so there was a um you know there were a lot of controversy so how this is where we have come that an atheist becomes the the head chaplain of all the chaplains but he says greg epstein he says about the golden rule do unto others is a concept that essentially no religion misses but not a single one of these versions of the golden rule requires a god so his point is that the golden rule to be true does not require a car and that becomes the the basis of ethics in mahayana buddhism that to love all beings not as they treat you as you would have them treat you um so the buddhist why and about this their practice wonderful meditations one of the most touching ones is that we have all had endless lives all of us so it stands to reason that anyone you meet you know at one time or the other that person in some lifetime that person would have been your mother would have taken care of you and would have loved you endlessly so all beings should be treated as your own mother and you should work to um to serve and free all beings and the greatest service of course is liberation word for the liberation of all beings what about a beautiful sentiment so let me see if there are any questions so this is called the golden rule says yes we were taught this in school to do unto others as i would that they should do to me correct bill says swamiji says goodness is a transcendental value it cannot be proved by materialist reasoning it is true because notice how goodness is proved here right now the golden rule why does it come here in in vedanta in the fullest vedantic realization on that from that follows the golden group that because it is the same divinity everywhere it is you yourself everywhere it is the oneness of all existence and it's a divine oneness therefore there is no limit to the goodness it does not depend on how others treat you or what you it's you are dealing with your own self whether they know it or not and swami vivekananda says this is the basis of ethics it's a huge huge question in ethics why should i be good what is the foundation of goodness i at harvard two years back i had the opportunity to attend a class on the philosophy of ethics conducted by none other than uh professor amateusen the nobel prize-winning economist he's also like economist and also teacher of philosophy at harvard university and he was the master of trinity college also at one time very distinguished teacher so he had a course on ethics and he was kind enough to permit me to attend so there you see how mostly from a western perspective how people have been struggling to find give a foundation for ethics the foundation means on what basis can you derive ethics why should i be good there are multiple approaches so there is famously economics mostly is based on a utilitarian approach mills bentham utilitarian approach because if you are good then it increases happiness whatever increases happiness is good and whatever you know reduces happiness is bad now immediately you will say that it's not a question of individual happiness because my individual happiness can increase at the expense of the unhappiness of so many people so in economics it's applied in a sense of the whole society and that's the basis of for example the taxation policies followed by all societies that you tax the rich more and tax the poor at lower rates because um you know a hundred dollars for the rich has very little impact but the same hundred dollars has much greater impact on the lives of a poor person in terms of food transportation shelter medical help and all so it will increase so the amount of satisfaction lost by the rich person by giving up a hundred dollars in tax is uh offset by the amount of satisfaction gained by the poor person who's helped uh by the time a hundred dollars in public spending so there's basic economics you know government financial policy which we all learned whoever studied economics in school um so that's based on utilitarianism but there are problems with that there are a famous um trolley problem the trolley problem you know where it uh suppose there's a trolley coming on rails and there are uh and you can see that at the end of the track there are uh you know 10 people standing and you are in the position where there's a lever if you pull the lever the trolley will be diverted it is out of control it will be diverted to the next track but at the end of that track five people are standing now what will you do if you pull the deliver then the trolley will not go and kill the 10 people but you'll go and kill the five people now utilitarian ethics says that you should pull the labor and let them let it go and kill the five people but it's tricky you see suppose your personal ethics is that you should not directly hurt or kill anybody but if you pull the lever you're actually you're actually killing five people if you don't pull the believer you might be responsible but you did not actually i'm just giving a a counter factual argument and another kind of argument that uh you did not actually kill anybody because you did not interfere in the process but then um so this is a typical problem that is set up in any ethics class but here always you see the struggle is what is the foundation of ethics on what basis will you decide um what would be the answer and the professor ramakrishnan put this question in in the ethics class there but because it's harvard you get a different answer neither this not that because one one student said that neither so professor asked how what do you mean neither there are only two choices either you pull the believer or you do not pull the lever and the student gave a very beautiful answer he said both are nasty options if we are deciding public policy we should think out of the box for looking for a better um solution for everybody babe is bound to be i mean liver this situation is a artificial situation but in public policy it's so complex in this world you have to think what is you know like instead of one nasty solution another nasty solution what is a good solution for everybody anyway um this long story now there is deontological ethics there's utilitarian ethics there's teleological ethics so many many ways you know one might be deontological means it's a big word just means duty my religious book has told me thou shalt not kill therefore therefore i will not take part in anything pulling the liver this way that way nothing so that but but how do you know that's right and what's the problem with that kind of approach the problem with that kind of approach is my religious book has told me another person's religion may not have told that person that and this may not be acceptable suppose somebody is an atheist and does not believe in any religion whatsoever or believes in a different religion so this cannot be the foundation for ethics for everybody you know so we go on and until uh swami vivekananda he says that vedanta provides a basis for ethics and then he brings in this that this from the experience of oneness not you you might say then you have to experience oneness not necessarily from this understanding that we are one reality on that you can base ethics all ethics he says actually all ethics can be based on the oneness of existence it is see naturally i don't hurt myself nobody doubts that i will not hurt myself but what do i do with others that's the whole question of ethics now if i can in some way understand the others as myself so the same care that i take for myself i will take for others that is where the golden rule comes from but understanding others as myself requires advaitha so that is one solution of ethics um then let me see charlie says if someone ignores you would you ignore him also someone is nice to you would you be nice towards him it depends on the situation first of all your attitude should be one of uh empathy respect and kindness towards everybody now in a particular situation whether you will ignore somebody or pay attention you see sometimes ignoring can be hurtful sometimes paying attention can be intrusive am i paying attention to that person because that person requires attention or because i am bored and restless i'm i'm nosy that's why i'm paying attention and i'm saying it is because of the golden rule in the gita and all religions and the united nations which which forces me to interfere in your business no it doesn't but the attitude can be a one of sympathy and respect is it better to live with self-respect always why will you not have self-respect imagine what yourself is it is one with god it is divinity itself of course you will have respect for yourself abhijit says regarding sri shankaracharya's argument against subjective idealism the subject of is the subject subject revitalism dispute here or is it something more uh i don't know what you're asking are you asking what are the arguments in paper and against a widget is there no yeah i mean these things are found in the philosophy textbooks i remember um one of the assignments i had to do was actually this we had uh a course at harvard taught by professor patel on classical indian buddhism and one of the assignments that i took up was [Music] the subjective idealism of dharmaketi it is a text ancient text about sixteen hundred years old i think um which is called aalam mana pariksha an examination of the support that there is an external support for our perceptions and when you're seeing things there is something which makes us see these things that means there is something outside our mind and dharma kitty the great buddhist master attacks this there is no external reality it's all in your mind he wants to show this and he gives a series of arguments some positive um some negative negative means he will challenge you you say this these things exist outside here he challenges both buddhist realists and also by implication hindu realists release means external world exists often like in the common sense where we very we think about it there is an external world so he challenges those who think there's an external world for example one of his arguments is so there's an external world these computers books tables chairs they all exist outside the mind they are not thoughts they are actual things yes what are they made of so they are made of atoms at that time atomic theory was developed by sheishika so they even coined the term atom anu so they are made of atoms what are atoms they are the smallest possible particle the particle which cannot be divided further subdivided so they didn't discover this through experimentation obviously but just by thinking logically if things are made of particles and they can be divided they can be further subdivided you must come to an end at some point um so the particle which cannot be divided any further so this dimensionless particle is an atom but then obviously the logical difficulties if that atom does not have dimensions then it will be so tiny it will have no extension no breadth height with anything so if you put two atoms together which are dimensionless you will still get a dimensionless point no matter how many atoms you put together you will still get at infinitesimally small point do you see what i'm saying it's the same problem which we had with geometry a point is a this geometrical entity which has no length no breadth but if you have if that and then so many number of points makes a straight line that's that's logically not possible if you remember our geometry which we learnt in school so he attacks the concept of atoms that if this is your concept of atoms no matter how many atoms you put together you will not be able to make a table larger they're the concept of atoms and molecules he says that it's not possible so he demolishes your idea of indivisible particles making external entities so that's a that's one kind of argument we dem it shows that your idea of making externally existing object is not valid then he shows why his idea is better that all objects are in your mind he says blue and the experience of blue the cognition of blue and the cognition of blue are indistinguishable but what he means by that is notice all our experiences and all that's all we have in life just experiences the experience the object of experience and the experience are the same thing think about anything that you are seeing here right now you are seeing people computers but they are all in your experience all the objects are your experience have you ever had an experience of an object outside your experience the moment you have an experience of an object outside your experience becomes part of your experience it's it's logically impossible to experience anything outside experience so everything that you can have experience till now and you can possibly experience ever in future has to be part of your cognition otherwise you can't experience it and therefore there is no grounds for thinking there is anything outside cognition outside the mind outside experience yeah and external to the world so like this he argues and shankara hits back hard and demolishes all of this the assignment we had to do was not with shankara it was by the great um that i chose to do was a great poor meemamsa philosopher kumari who was a elder contemporary of shankaracharya he is a realist the world external world exists and this is madness to think that there is no external world but it's all the dream and so he gives multiple arguments for example his subjective idealism does not work for example why not he says kumar alabata now he's attacking dharma kitty kumari bhatta lived about a couple of hundred years or 300 years after dharmakirti he has this essay called an examination of the theory that there is no external support no external entity so the arguments are like this so there's nothing external it's all internal in your mind yes then where did this distinction between internal and external come why at all is this distinction there in our lives between the internal and external another question how would you distinguish truth from falsehood i imagine i i eat a cookie and i imagine eating two more cookies so have i eaten three cookies or one cookie you would say you ate one cookie swami and the other two you imagine but according to you o buddhist mind only philosopher the cookie which i ate was also in my mind and the cookies i imagined in the mind but also in my mind what is the distinction between imagination and reality in your system like this so many attacks is sort of like a forensic thing tremendous attack mounts on and tears it apart the mind only arguments of dharma kitty um what else and shankaracharya follows with multiple more arguments against the mind-only philosophers nitin says since nothing is ever experienced outside of mind what is the real need for maya to go through the trouble of projecting things outside and then perceiving them through minds it seems sufficient and more sense sensible to simply project minds and things within those minds does shankaracharya support srishti shtivada only because it's easier to explain to people or is there irrefutable shruti support for it there is no irrefutable support for this nor these srishti rishti means the world has been created and we are experiencing a common sense approach the way we think about it history means the whole thing is in your mind there's nothing outside just like the buddhists were saying now from an advaita perspective which one is true is there a world outside our minds or is it all in our minds perspective none of these is true from an advaita perspective there is no external world there are no minds also there is only consciousness and the whole thing is a play in consciousness so adopting one or the other shankaracharya is just a matter of taste and convenience because ultimately shankaracharya does not want to say there is an external world no ultimately he wants to say brahman alone exists but but then why doesn't he take the buddhist way out is he doesn't think that will lead him to that ultimate reality so he he wants to protect this method and the method basically is the skillful master will start where the students are we really really feel there's an external world and so the master wants to help us and show that there's only one absolute reality the master has to start at our level so yaya there is a world and here is the body but you feel you are a person in the body so that person is the mind and then beyond the mind you try to take us to consciousness itself and then show us that all that we thought were external are only appearances in consciousness that's uh that works if you start by saying everything is in your mind all this is a dream it's not the way we normally you know think behave or believe it might be nice as a thought experiment like a movie matrix movie but we will not act on it we cannot build our spiritual life easily not all of us there are some okay who who will which method will will suit whom so the saudis in uttarakhand are very clear about this in himalayas the various grades of methods srishti durstivada that's a common approach for everybody why because everybody believes like that we really believe there's a distinction between waking and dreaming we really believe there's a world out there we really believe this is body if you don't believe that if you try to force yourself into this mind only kind of thinking i've seen people go into depression people lose all kind of interest in the world outside those who really try to do that they lose motivation and drive they start misbehaving with others because the others don't exist right they're all in your mind so if that led to enlightenment there'll be nothing like it it doesn't lead to enlightenment that leads to tamagonna a person becomes thermal sick so it doesn't help but not that that path is wrong but that path is difficult it's a little more advanced who will whom will it suit drishti shrivada that you can reject the world as a dream dream as a dream breaking also a dream godupath does that actually for godot father it's distribution the world is like a dream and who can do that the difference is in vairagya dispassion it's a very monastic thing and among monks also the higher grade of vairagya the dispassion for the world desirelessness a peaceful unpolluted mind they can for such a mind the world can actually practically seem dream like it happens also you're sitting high in the himalayan cave i've experienced it myself very soon the world seems to be dreamlike you can dismiss it but just because you're sitting 10 000 feet up and from there the planes of india covered in clouds basically or smog so you can't see the complexities of light from there anyway even higher than that why even in your mind there's nothing in your mind it's like deep sleep there's no world at all only brahman is but that is suitable only for the highest grade those who have extraordinary dispassion for even their own bodies and minds for them it works directly why have these sophisticated ways or very subtle ways if they are not useful they are useful for higher grades of seekers their use is they are faster and more direct they lead to the realization sharply straight away because they are very much closer than actually believing in an external world okay so this last one let me take this or there are more messages coming in hold on to that let me take a couple deeta dev says i need a small clarification every time i'm seeing anything in this world or more generally sensing other objects or beings in this world i'm constantly being reminded of being aware and being nothing but pure awareness itself and that all other objects are also nothing but pure awareness ultimately since they appear only in my awareness and not anywhere else is that correct if this is the case then how do i keep this in the forefront of my mind while interacting with the world how to distinguish between the beverages if everything is reminding of you the pure awareness then everything becomes meditation whatever the mind wherever the mind goes wherever the mind goes means whatever the mind thinks about that itself will lead to samadhi every thought every experience becomes samadhi then the keynote says when you realize brahmana in every experience that means many experiences are coming walking talking eating these are all experiences thousands of experiences are coming throughout the day and in each of these experiences brahman is revealed why should it not be so isn't the water revealed in each wave 10 000 waves each wave reveals water pots of clay each part reveals the clay each ornament reveals the gold does it not naturally because it is good every experience is under nothing other than pure consciousness so that itself is a meditation but it's a pretty high meditation rick has given up or oneness principles of uh religions yes but don't rush to buy it because i bought it but i found it's just basically a collection of quotations from different religions not bad but but all right then ubiquity of the golden rule must surely indicate a common origin is the common origin advaita non-duality it might be the intuition of non-duality which i believe is there in every genuine spiritual tradition of the world including the indigenous the first people's traditions elders actually mentions that you know he says in his book perennial philosophy the idea that there is one non-dual reality the ultimate reality of the universe is this oneness we think it's a sophisticated development you know at the end of the upanishads you find it the highest philosophy of advaitha but he says i believe it's a timeless realization even primitive man a prehistoric man must have had it they may not have your language your poetry your philosophy your logic but that intuition they had of the one reality behind this multiplicity rick says to me the best argument against subjective idealism is inter-subjective agreement doesn't work because let me finish if each person's mind fabricates its own world there would be as many radically different worlds as there are people and life would be utter chaos no it doesn't work because god father considers this he says in the mandu kakarika consider your dreams again it's the best example in your dreams there are so many subjects you say no but there's only me that's there's only you after you wake up but in your dreams you did meet people you were going you're sharing a cup of coffee with your friend or friends and you felt there were your friends and all of your friends saw the cup of coffee they agreed on their inter-subjective agree agreement you didn't you don't experience this in your dreams that um you know if you tell your friend that um here is a cup of coffee have a sip and your friend says no it's in your mind i can't see it no he doesn't say he sees it it's because the same mind is projecting both you and your friend and the cup of coffee so that's why inter-subjective agreement is possible you can still have inter-subjective agreement and yet snap out of it and wake up and say oh it was all in my mind but even in guardapad's dream example all the dream friends see the same world that's true that's why they have intersubjective agreement and yet it's a dream that so you see there are there are not multiple subjects there there's only one subject and they projected so many things so it was all in the mind yet it seemed to be many subjects and they all agree that that is a common so inter-subjective agreement is not an argument for an external world a common public external world the argument is because we perceive this external world all of us we seem to agree therefore it must be there but it could be a dream you could just wake up and see the oh i didn't i missed the vedanta class i was dreaming so and we in the dream we had intersubjective experience agreement inter-subjective agreement siddharth says okay i'll stop with this siddharth says sometimes we fail to accept negative facts and delude ourselves that did not happen doing this is helpful in keeping one happy one accepts everything in the mind the task becomes easier something bad never really happened okay this is an important point actually what siddhartha said one sadhu in uttarakhand said this quite apart from all the philosophy you are discussing one good way of facing problems in life subtle way but a powerful way notice that every problem that you have faced even every annoying person you have faced and the the the bad treatment that you have received by that person the nasty word somebody has said to you or even an ache or a pain which you have suffered all of that had to come in your mind and appear as thoughts and perceptions in your mind for you to experience it nobody can deny this now whether that person's exists outside or not whether that person what that person actually said outside your mind whatever it is what actually impacted you what actually hurt you what actually disturbed you and insulted you well entirely in your mind can you understand this it's a simple fact it says so but that person is there he did insult me who knows but that insult if you are realist you will say there is a person outside who said in nasty things insulting things but the fact is even if that person exists even if that person did all those bad things you have no direct experience of it whatever you experience has been presented by the mind so siddharth is pointing out something very subtly very important it's your your mind which creates nice people and lovable people and hateful people and miserable experiences and nice experiences whatever that is created the entire magic panorama is it's a buddhist it's a magic display of your mind and like a cosmic illusion generated by your mind all the time and that helps to give you some peace of mind okay let's just end here there is newton says there's no process of creation preservation just resolution brahman still shines forth and appears as the world itself by its very nature isn't it so that the world is the powerhead of the shining fort like a flame shining if so can the shining fort be explained as district while still on upholding ajayata alright let me put it this way one sadhu put it very nicely he said these three views these are three approaches to the same advaita veda by let me the english translations creation experienced swishtv experienced creation these three each more radical and more sophisticated than the other these are methodologies or pathways they will all lead you to the same realization by taking the common highway which everybody takes you will not get a lower grade of brahman and by following you don't get a brahman plus plus you know you don't get a you're out of no how do you understand the difference between these three paths one swami put it so beautifully i'll leave you with this idea fantastic idea he said he said with the waking world paradigm if you try to understand advaita vedanta it is srishti with the dream world paradigm if you try to understand advaita vedanta it is drishti with the deep sleep paradigm if you try to understand advaita vedanta it is this is the secret it's a profound secret all right [Music] too