Video 24

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (09/18/20)

[Music] your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and removal sin they are auspicious to hear wonderful and exalted those who spread these words throughout the world are truly giving souls welcome everyone to our class on the gospel of swami krishna we are on the chapter advice to householders this is page 129 and the date is sunday october 22nd 1882 and if you remember from last time this was the vijaya day this is the final day of the durgo puja celebration where the image of mother durga is immersed usually in a lake or in a river and srama krishna was talking to some of the devotees and of course m is there most of the conversation is with m here and srama krishna is talking about some of his earlier experiences and pilgrimages you remember he was talking about two different types two different classes of yogis those who travel from place to place bahudagas and those who stay in one place they finished with all of that traveling here and there and they have no more curiosity for things these are considered a little bit higher but he's talking about his days of of traveling almost exclusively with matur babu and family that mature had arranged a couple of pilgrimages and partly in order to take sramakrishna but also the family and many many other people they had a whole retinue of people to serve and undo all of the work and everything as well so asrama krishna is talking about when he accompanied mature babu to brindaban so i'll start there but one undoubtedly finds inspiration in a holy place i accompanied mature babu to brindavan and the ladies of mathura's family were in our party no sooner did i see the kaliya domangat than a divine emotion surged up within me i was completely overwhelmed friday used to bathe me there as if i were a small child now we'll we'll see that uh when sharomi krishna went to certain places he would get into that mood and also the mood of srama krishna the activities the of srama krishna the different states of consciousness uh are so similar to what we find uh in the descriptions of caitanya that there's something very interesting about it you know the history of vrindavan is that uh by the time of caitanya deva so this will be say 14th century late 14th century prince was completely overgrown just an overgrown jungle and all of the temples that we see today most of them were from his just after his time because he when he went there he would get inspired in certain different places and feel the divine presence and remember the divine play that took place there so it was because of him really that they knew or at least we have that feeling that these things took place at the particular places and he sent uh the six goswamis sanatana rupa and others uh one of them was jeeva goswami uh he was the only one who wasn't chaitanya david's direct disciple he was a nephew of rupert sanatana and yeah he sent them there to build temples in all of these places that in his spiritual mood he could identify and recognize as places where this particular incident in krsna's life occurred that particular incident so many of these places are there now when temples are there and we identify them with different parts of this divine play of sri krishna because of caitanya deva and we'll we'll see even philosophically even though caitanya dave is painted as a duelist even philosophically from uh if we if we look at the uh the school of vedanta that is connected with the titanic tradition we'll see many similarities and we'll get a chance to look at that uh tonight a little bit so he said in the dusk i would walk on the bank of the yamana when the cattle returned along the sandy banks from their pastures at the very side of those cows the thought of krishna would flash in my mind i would run along like a madman crying oh where is krishna where is my krishna god holy shi bengali may be hindi also they say that godholi this is the the uh hour of the raising of the dust by the cattle uh somebody told me once this the the auspicious time for weddings also but anyhow it creates a mood in the mind to think that dusk is associated with the time when the cowherd boys and that meant going to krishna and in the form of govinda would take the cattle back to their homes after grazing them in the fields and i went to brindaven on my very first visit to india it's a wonderful place the tremendous atmosphere there but very dry place and it was it was so nice to see just walking along the banks of the of the yamana in the evening to see the dust rising and uh just because of the air and and the angle of the sun and everything you can almost see it the little particles of dust in the air they call that gold it's very very nice so all of these things arouse these ideas and and taku's mind this is something which we've seen before called udipana that he had trigger consciousness it was a trigger that things would just trigger something they would uh he used to say like very dry kindling if you if you get it anywhere near the fire it'll just blaze up so his mind was like that uh in terms of associations so if he saw something that was associated with any divine aspect of god or mood or anything it would trigger that there were so many instances uh if he would see the zoo he would see a lion he would think of mother durga and then lose all outer consciousness so he was constantly going in and out of ecstasy in all of these places because these different pictures would come to his mind of this divine play of sri krishna in all of the different places i went to syamakunda and raj kunda in a palanquin and got out to visit the holy mountain so these everybody uh in at taqwa's time who had any interest in spirituality knew all of these things these are all written in the the bhagavad-gita but that was translated into all of the local languages it's not that people had to be great censored scholars there was a very good early translation in bengali and it was very common for uh these uh kind of minstrels these uh uh cut-ups they they were people who could recite verses and tell stories and and almost play act these incidents and people would come around and they would go in different places in the villages and that would be the evening entertainment they would they would tell about certain events in the life of in this case krishna could be rama and ramayana and they would sing songs that would go along with these incidents and that's how everybody knew and learned about these things it became part of the culture so suramar krishna would have known all of these things what does maligo alton mean how the torrential rains were coming and they didn't everyone would be drowned and they asked govinda to do something and he picked up the whole mountain and he covered the area to keep the rain from so all of these things as soon as he doesn't even have to see it as soon as he hears the name of it but then seeing it also so he'll go into a spiritual mood so he said at the very side of the mount i was overpowered with divine emotion and ran to the top i lost all consciousness of the world around me the residence of the place helped me to come down on my way to the sacred pools of shamakunda and ratakunda when i saw the meadows the trees the shrubs the birds and the deer i was overcome with ecstasy my clothes became wet with tears this will be literally true he could shed tears like that i said oh krishna everything here is as it was in the olden days you alone are absent seated inside the palaquin i lost all power of speech taco used to go by palinguin for uh two reasons one uh he his body was very tender and the skin and everything to touch and even for walking and the other thing is that no one knew when he would go into some divine ecstatic state and he could tumble and fall and someone would have to hold him the whole time and the third thing we can say is that mata babu couldn't bear the thought of srama krishna undergoing any type of a hardship so he would do whatever he could money made no difference to him whatsoever to make sure he had every comfort so he would go by palin quinn from time to time in these occasions friday followed the palanquin that tucker's nephew who was his regular attendant in those days he had warned the bearers to be careful about me gangamayi became very fond of me in brindavan she was an old woman who lived all alone in a hud near the nidubun this is another place that has many many associations with sri krishna and play with the gopis referring to my spiritual condition and ecstasy she said he is the very embodiment of radha she addressed me as a dulali my darling when i was when with her i used to forget my food and drink my bath and all thought of going home one day red i used to bring on some days friday used to bring food from home and feed me gangamayu also would serve me with food prepared by her own hands now we we know with the gopalama that she saw takur as shri krishna the baby there's the gopala now this gangamaya is seeing him as radha is there any special significance to that in brindaban rath is queen rai she's the queen and i've always felt in many respects that the character of radhes is far greater than that of krishna that sri krishna was the play made of the of the gopis and the gopas and uh we don't see him uh showing tremendous spiritual moods we don't see him doing spiritual disciplines even the lord himself he came and he played and enjoyed things of course it got a little tougher when he went left vrindavan and went to matura and had to go into battle and kurukshetra but this this phase of his life the real ideal of bhakti that we find in the vaisnava tradition especially according to this urupan sanatana gosvami the tanya dev school is all based on the experiences of radha that radha is the one that is always looked up to when we try to understand spiritual moods and devotional moods that she is the one that would have this uh bhava imprima mahabhava and undergo all of the physical [Music] transformations that take place in that state and we know all of this because these are written in in the books and because the brahmany bhairavi brahmani she knew all of these books and when she came to dakshinishwara and saw these different physical manifestations of the divine mood in sriami krishna she could compare what she saw in him to what they saw in radha and the other thing is that chaitanya deva also had these things he also experienced these things i mentioned on one of our weeks that taku says sometimes that ordinary person cannot experience mahabhava the very high states of devotional to ecstasy and we may think oh that's not fair that we would like to experience these things but we have to be careful what we wish for when we see what it really means that a lot of it has to do not only with this divine ecstasy but this divine agony this is about kuluta and that state that comes before realization something which is called this virah bhava this the feeling of separation that rata had separation from krishna when she wasn't with him which is followed by this meal in abhava this mood of union with the krishna because she would undergo such such agony that the body would shake that blood would come out of the pores tremendous weeping burning sensations all of the things that we see in taquer and in caitanya deba and our human bodies most of us cannot withstand these types of emotions not to speak of the the tremendous joy that comes after this when this is followed by this this this union with god surrounding krishna used to say that this human body for the ordinary person is like a straw hut and if an elephant goes into it and moves around a little bit the hut will be completely destroyed so this this human body is not made for these types of divine emotions sri ramakrishna had that ability to withstand all of these spiritual practices and spiritual emotions divine emotions so gangamayi looking upon him his radha means that she recognizes that he's reached the height of these devotional and spiritual moods now the theory behind the birth of chaitanya davis is something very very interesting because they claim that sri krishna seeing the tremendous devotion of radha became a little bit envious and jealous and thought oh how nice it would be if i could also experience this divine love of god he was a god himself he didn't have to think about experiencing it because he was god himself this was the the idea that we find behind all of this so he was born as caitanya deva hiding inside outwardly he was radha now they explained this in terms of his complexion because radha is supposed to be fair in goda so he was called gauranga his his complexion was very fair his limbs were very fair so they say anta krishna so he who within was krishna able to experience this but outside that means having all the physical manifestations of the divine mood he was like radha so they explained it that way it's very interesting so this is this is on some level even a greater compliment to look upon him as the embodiment of radha herself that means that he had uh she saw all of the signs of the highest form of devotion in srama krishna gangamai used to experience trances at such times a great crowd would come to see her one day in a state of ecstasy she climbed on friday's shoulders the elderly woman were trying to picture this i didn't want to leave her and return to calcutta see sometimes we think tucker couldn't bear the company of women but it's uh this is a bit of a show on his part uh in order to inspire these young boys to take to monastic life and uh and not go into the householder life anyhow i uh of course there's some truth to it but uh when he was in the company of these great souls and even our uh golotma and yogen ma and others the great women devotees he was very comfortable in their presence and whenever he went to visit the householders he would go into the inner apartment where the women were staying they couldn't come maybe they could peep in in here and listen a little bit but at that time they had this system this uh uh zenon this was a kind of from the muslim influence perhaps but where the the women would stay in a separate area and the men wouldn't go there but he could go there because they didn't look upon him in that way and he would always go and take his food there and mix with the women and joke and laugh with them and have a nice time with them and then come back and pretend that it didn't happen everything was arranged for me to stay with her i was to eat double boiled rice and talk with a very very sensitive stomach this is considered something easily digestible and we were to have our beds on either side of the cottage all such arrangements have been made when friday said you have such a weak stomach who will look after you why said gangamay i shall look after him i'll nurse him as friday dragged me by one hand and she by the other i remembered my mother who was then living alone here in the nhh that means i remember he's sitting in his room in dakshineshwar before holy mother moved there and lived in the hubba taka's mother also stayed there she stayed on the top floor and takwa would go and visit her every day and looked after her and stayed with her until she passed away from there on the banks of the ganga so i remembered my mother who was then living alone here and then of the temple garden i found it impossible to stay away from her he had tremendous love and and devotion to his mother and said to gangamai no i must go. and then he adds i loved the atmosphere of brindavan we of course have a very nice center there and a big hospital center there because just just as many devout hindus and we can say those who have special devotion to shiva will go to uh kashi waranasi in the very final days and and try to pass away there with the feeling of belief that they'll get liberation there many many elderly vaishnavas invasion of widows especially also will do the same thing go to brindavan with that same feeling so there was a great need for a hospital there these elderly people who had left their families very often went there if they felt ill there would be someone to look after them one of the great swamis of our order gopesmarat swami sharadeshwanandiji he was there for many years i saw him there a couple of times and he was the embodiment of this very deep spiritual atmosphere that one feels in these holy places about 11 o'clock the master took his meal the offerings from the temple of kali after taking his noonday rest he resumed his conversation with the devotees every now and then he uttered the holy word om or repeated the sacred names of the deities after sunset the evening worship was performed in the temples since it was the day of vidaya the devotees first saluted the divine mother and then took the dust of the master's feet okay we have a short entry october 24th which i'm going to skip and go to the next chapter you can read it if you like there's some things that are not so terribly important this is chapter 5. we're in page 132. this is the chapter called the master in keshob keshob chandrasen he was the founder not founder he was head of the brahmos homage and we'll we'll get a little history here how this samaj had to be divided and separated in some little problems that came up okay october 27th 1882 it was friday the day of the lakshmi puja so this is the time of year with all the different poojas for the divine mother the durga puja lakshmi puja then we get kali puja we also get anything else is escaping me right now okay uh keshob chandrasen had arranged a boat trip on the ganges for suramar krishna they did that from time to time i think i think i read or we read that this boat was the one that was given by his daughter's father-in-law and this was the big thing how his daughter was given a marriage to the mirage of kuch bihar who of course was was very wealthy uh so acacia would arrange these these trips they were outings little picnics they would take food and they would go up and down genjis maybe stop someplace but it was especially uh wonderful for them when they could stop at dakcheneshwar and pick up surami krishna and it would be on the spur of the moment most of the time he would know about it but he'd be happy and he would go and they would listen to him talk and it would be a wonderful atmosphere like that what is the other the the worship that holy mother did injured this is also that same time thank you kumar about four o'clock in the afternoon the steamboat with the keshav and his brahmo followers cast anchor in the ganges alongside the kali temple at dakshineshwar the passengers saw in front of them the bathing heart and the chatni to the left in the temple compound stood six temples of shiva and to the right another group of six temples if you if you go by boat to the dakshinaswara kali temple there's a bathing hot you walk up that ghat and there's an entrance way there's a little covered entranceway this is what they're talking about this is how one can enter inside the the compound and you're really splitting the six shiva temples that run north to south on one side and on the other side another six so this is how they they went in and this was the main way to walk into taqwa's room there were two uh outside entrances also uh from the east and from the north sorry from the west and from the north but this was the main way to go the white steeple of the kali temple the treetops of the panchoati and the silhouette of pine trees stood high against the blue autumn sky the gardens between the two nohbots were filled with fragrant flowers and along the bank of the ganges were rows of flowering plants we only know of one nahbat this is the one the northwest aqua's room where holy mother stayed where we just saw where ataku's mother stayed but there was a one on the south gate also i've never gone there or seen it i don't know if if there's even access to it or if it's still there this was the one near jodo mulik's house that if you left the gate there that's how they would go to to his house the blue sky was reflected in the brown water of the river the sacred ganges associated with the most ancient traditions of aryan civilization the outer world appeared soft and serene and the hearts of the brahma devotees were filled with peace suramar krishna was in his room talking with vijay and now this this is strictly a coincidence or part of the divine play however however we want to understand it but uh one leader of the brahmos homage kesha is getting off the boat and inside the room is the leader of the brahmos homage that split off from it vijay krishna goswami and there was tension between them because uh obvious obviously it was a big slap in the face to uh to keshav uh what had happened was he he had married given his daughter in marriage to this as they say the the son of the maharaja of kuch bihar and she was a little bit below the designated marriageable age and this was something that the brahmos themselves had fixed and that kesha was responsible for that so he broke his own rule not by much but a little bit i don't know why they were so anxious to get everything arranged why they couldn't wait a little bit but anyhow he did and uh it it looked very bad uh talker never blamed him for it he said he's a father this is obligation to arrange a good marriage for the daughter but anyhow because of that there was a split and vijay became more or less the head of this this other group so now we have this they were different first it was the adi brahma-samaj that they called it the original one we call the adi brahma-samaj and then we get uh after the split we get this shaddhaar on brahma watch the general promise all right and what they call this the new dispensation that's what keshav called the other group so this will be an embarrassment they haven't seen each other they haven't spoken to each other and they find themselves in the same room and uh pretty soon they'll find themselves in the same boat so suramar krishna was in his room talking with vijay and haralal i'm not sure who that is some disciples of keshav entered bowing before the master they said to him sir the steamer has arrived kesha babu has asked us to take you there a small boat was to carry the master to the steamer no sooner did he get into the boat then he lost outer consciousness in samadhi now m is very tricky sometimes he doesn't say did takwa asked vijay to come did he want to come on his own what did he feel anything it simply says vijoy was with him so probably he took this opportunity to come and regardless of the embarrassment or anything he couldn't bear to lose the opportunity to have a company of srama krishna plus he still had tremendous regard for keshob there was still a mutual respect between them this was more politics and he must have of course he knew all of the other people members on the boat so there was a hard feelings this and that but they had a very common bond and probably a deep friendship among many of them and was among the passengers of course otherwise we won't have this and he would follow in those days nobody needed any special invitation if you were with takur wherever he went you could go and and taco used to say that just mention my name and you can you can go anywhere where i go so am was among the passengers as the boat came alongside the steamer so the little boat had to go the steamer was too big to to be able to come close to the shoreline as the boat came alongside the steamer all rushed to the railing to have a view of srama krishna so keshav and a few others had come but most of them stayed back kesho became became anxious to get him safely on board with great difficulty the master was brought back to consciousness of the world now we know when taco was in that mood he could easily fall he he chipped his tooth once he broke his arm once there must have been many other times where he was very close to falling that hriday or somebody else had to catch him or had to hold him up he had no awareness of the body at that time so anything could have happened so naturally they were nervous what happened if he fell and fell into the water and drowned god forbid so they were they were very nervous about this so acacia became anxious to get him safely on board with great difficulty they had practically as hard to picture how taco could even walk or move in that state i had an experience of of someone who went into what we would call a catatonic state devotee of ours but he suffered from from some type of uh condition where this would happen from time to time and he was really unaware of anything but you could stand him up we had to get him in the car and you could help him move and if you pushed him forward one lake would go in front of the other and then so he could he could help you a little bit without being aware of anything really just the the body without body consciousness could somehow function so perhaps taco was like that a little bit that not that they had to carry him but they really had to help him to to get on so he walked mechanically this is an interesting term still in an abstracted mood he walked mechanically leaning on a devotee for support keshav and the others bowed before him but he was not aware of them his mind was someplace else we don't know what what triggered it but his mind was in a different realm at this time inside the cabin there were a few chairs and a table he was made to sit on one of the chairs so they took him over and they helped him down kesha and vijoy occupying two others so obviously they had given a vigil a place of respect even though they were part of the other group or who knows maybe maybe it wasn't such a deep split as we think it was maybe the members of both we don't know anyhow they had reserved two chairs uh well of course they didn't know vijay was going to come but they they brought one so any of the two of them occupying two chairs the others perhaps were uh here it says some devotees were also seated but most of them on the floor while many others had to stand outside so probably they could look through the window and see them that way or yeah they appeared eagerly through the door and windows tsunami krishna again went into deep samadhi and became totally unconscious of the outer world now it could just be the presence of so many devotees and and kesha he had great regard for kesha takwa said one time that just seeing a crowd of people would throw him into ecstasy why because he sees the divine presence pulsating through all living creatures and to see so many people that made so many reflections sun reflected in so many uh pools of water that would throw his mind into ecstasy as the air in the room was stuffy because of the crowd of people keshav opened the windows he was embarrassed to meet vijay since they had differed on certain principles of the brahmos homage this is mostly this this marriage i don't know what other things there might have been and vijay had separated himself from keshob's organization joining another society vijay i don't know how much was his principle uh how how responsible he was for the split i doubt if it was mostly him it sounds to me like uh one section just uh objected so much that they split and they asked vijay if he'll come and be the leader of that group we die not that he had any great thirst for becoming a big shot anywhere but he also had a family to support and he had to earn his living somehow and they could pay him just a small stipend but enough so he had to consider that as well the brahmo devotees looked wistfully at the master gradually he came back to sense consciousness but the divine intoxication still lingered this was the best time to catch him when he he was just coming down from that ecstatic state maybe even nearby culpa and then some lower type of bhava ecstasy and coming down and he'll have this the type of intoxication intoxication and speaking from that mood these divine words would come out this is really when he felt that it was the mother speaking through him that she was providing all of the words and he was just an instrument at this time so gradually he came back to sense consciousness but the divine intoxication still lingered he said to himself in a whisper mother why have you brought me here sometimes he would say that especially in fact when he went to on pilgrimage to to kashi to varanasi uh and got stuck in that room you remember with uh all of the big babus there and they're talking about their properties and their uh how much work they have with their being landlords and everything and then he we he wept said mother why did you bring me here here it's not quite like that because he knows they're all devotees but he also knows that the members of the brahmos homage as he used to say held onto god with one hand and held on to the world with the other hand so they weren't able to fully dive deep into spiritual life spiritual practice so he said to himself in a whisper of course ann would be right by him in order to hear mother why have you brought me here they are hedged around and not free can i free them so he's thinking that maybe he's not just complaining why did you bring me here he's asking did you bring me here for a special purpose did the master find that the people assembled there were locked within the prison walls of the world did their helplessness make the master address these words to the divine mother srama krishna was gradually becoming conscious of the outside world nila madhav of ghazipur and abraham devotee we're talking about pava hari baba okay he was a very well-known figure even though he was a real recluse but he had a tremendous reputation during this period he lived in a place called gazipur which is very close to benares uh i haven't been there but i know some of our of our monks and devotees have been there to see the place where he lived as kind of a pilgrimage place now and swamiji after takwa passed away developed a very interesting relationship with him he he had such regard and respect for the baha'i rawa that nobody knew what he ate because he never left this this enclosure they say sometimes a cave it wasn't a cave it was kind of a house where there would be like a big just unfinished basement just dug out so it felt like you were in a cave but he lived there and uh where and how he got food people didn't really know so this this kind of legend grew up around him that he lived on air so that's how he got the name haribaba and how swamiji became very attached to him almost to the point where he was ready to ask for initiation from him until taka showed up in his dream a few times and scolded him a little bit but then swamiji said a very curious thing that after visiting him day after day i found that he was becoming more attached to me than i was to him and in the hell he felt it was time for him to leave but he was very highly regarded and really a great soul we have a couple of very nice stories about him one is a story that i believe swamiji heard and someone was telling us he heard from asadu and the saudi was telling him that at one time a thief entered into this this house or this cave whatever where father baba lived and he stole some pots and pans and was running away and ran after him and said wait wait i have more things to give you something like that and this man uh and he caught him and this man was so transformed by the the generosity and the kindness and and the complete lack of anger of this saint pravhari baba that he renounced everything and became a sadhu became a holy man and then swamiji said how did you hear the story how do you know this and he said i was that thief yeah very nice very nice story they say one time he was a bit by a snake and they came somebody came and saw him in pain and everything what happened how did that he said it was a messenger from the beloved and the his passing away one day people saw that there was a tremendous amount of smoke coming out from the house and a very bad smell and they didn't know what it was and they finally broke down the door to get in and they found that uh it was probably he had come to the end of his life didn't want to disturb anybody or anything he made a fire and self-cremated himself this is how he was supposed to have ended his life so they were talking about him as i say very highly respected by one and all so uh this uh neil mother of ghazipur so he's he's from the same place that was so he'll know and that's why he'll be discussing it they came from the same village or town and the brahma devotee we're talking about hadi baba another brahma devotee said to the master sir these gentlemen visited he lives in gazipur so he was still alive at that time he is a holy man like yourself the master could hardly talk he only smiled the devotee continued sir baba keeps your photograph in his room pointing to his body the master said with a smile just a pillow case [Music] so don't put too much importance on this this physical body that for everybody it's just the real self is contained within nothing external should be of considerate of great value the master continued but you should remember that the heart of the devotee is the abode of god he used to say this very often the boy would talk kind of the drawing room sometimes he would say the master of the house can be found in any room sometimes he'll be in the bedroom sometimes the kitchen this and that but generally he's to be found there so the heart is the kana is the the drawing room of the devotee that means search for god within the heart he may pervade the whole body it may be within the head the top of the head but this is his drawing room a landlord may at one time or another visit all parts of his estate but people say he is generally to be found in a particular drawing room the heart of the devotee is the drawing room of god he who is called brahman by the gyanis is known as atman by the yogis and as a bhagavan by the bhaktas the same brahmin is called priest when worshipping in the temple and cook when preparing a meal in the kitchen now i don't know how helpful it is but to me it's interesting that every once in a while sriram krishna will say things that we recognize as belonging to a particular philosophical tradition that sometimes he'll say things will say oh that he must have he must have read gita or heard it did we find exactly this idea or from this upanishad or from that we were seeing before with this bahudaka and kutichaka that this is something in this diva muktiv and things like that this is something that is very particularly mentioned in the bhagavata purana and highly featured in the school of vedanta connected with caitanya david called a chintya bheda bhedavada and i know this because this is what i had to study when i was in doing my graduate work this was this was the uh the field that i ended up doing my dissertation in anyhow there's uh one verse from the bhagavata that says this the knowers of the truth they call truth what what is it that they call truth this the non-dual consciousness they call the highest truth now remember this is full of these legends of the krishna and highly devotional things but also highly philosophical with a lot of adoiting knowledge in it also and then it says this one non-dual consciousness which the knowers of truth call truth it's called by three different words brahman paramatman and bhagavan and then we find in this caitanya charitamrita himself making the same distinction here he'll say that yes that which is called brahman by the ghanis and that which is called paramatman or atman by the yogis and that which is called bhagavan by the bhaktas the devotees one in the same reality they are not three separate things so highly liberal doctrine highly non-dualistic doctrine and this jiva gosvami when uh he did his major philosophical text it's called shot sundarba there are six different sundarbas that means it's six different volumes and what did he do he based he he wrote six volumes of of the philosophical detection based on this one single verse from the bhagavatam so one of them is called the the paramatma one the brahma salmon bhagavat sandharva one tatwa sandharva all taking turns from this one single verse and spun out the whole of uh vedantic philosophy uh which was the kind of the official doctrine there's a tintia of other of the chaitanya school so takwar must have known about these things now we can say that through his divine vision he would have had the same understanding of course of course nothing nothing that he would have heard or read or talked about or anything that wasn't also his own experience that doesn't mean that he didn't hear these things and that they didn't leave an impression on him and he didn't try to practice them and experience them so perhaps we find a nice little connection between srama krishna and caitanya caitanya deva through the jiva gosvami the nephew of sanatana and roop goswami who wrote the philosophical works of the school so he who is called brahman by the gyanis is known as atman or paramatman atman by the yogis and is bhagavan by the bhaktas the same the same reality they are not different things even when we talk about brahmin and ishwara and hiranyagarh we have all these different terms they refer to one in the same reality they're not two different things not that and and even sometimes we'll say well brahma vishnu shiva they do they're not three different deities these are three different divine functions we give three different names too but it is all that that power the shakti of the of this divine reality which we call brahman so the same brahmin is called priest when worshipping in the temple and cook when preparing a meal in the kitchen the gyani sticking to the pet of knowledge always reasons about the reality saying not this not this that means that if we if we define brahmin and truth is that which doesn't change then we eliminate everything transitory and since brahman is nothing that we can get hold of all we have to do is eliminate everything that's non-vermin and what remains is roman so this is that idea and with regard to the self that we eliminate the body mindset of all of the exterior coverings of the body what we're left with will be that same brahmin this is why this atman and brahman are considered to be non-different identical so this is the the gyani always reasons about the reality saying not this not this rama is neither this nor that it is not in the universe nor it's living beings reasoning in this way the mind becomes steady then it disappears and the aspirin goes into samadhi this is the knowledge of brahman it is the unwavering conviction of the gyani that brahman alone is real and the world illusory now i always make a big fuss over this so forgive me if you get uh if you've heard it too many times but uh this this one term mithia which sometimes is substituted by this term assat sometimes by alastu sometimes i think that's i think that covers muslims anyhow how it's understood and how it's even translated and how it's interpreted is is how we can uh tell what different philosophical schools we're speaking about so uh this word assat if we say that sat means that which is eternal and unchanging then assad can be everything transitory but if we if we want to say that sad is that which is real then assad is that which is unreal so we can take this as this unreal it can be something imaginary it can be something that is real but misunderstood where we superimpose something on it it can be something which is real but changing it can be something which is connected with the brahmin it can be something which is separate from brahman in the dualistic schools so there are many different ways of interpreting this uh there are different schools of of vedante and different types of ayani's i'm saying this because on the very next page which we won't get to now but the very next page shurami krishna will start talking about this universe for the gyani that this everything we see is a manifestation of shakti now that means that we'll have to take assad in in his understanding to mean transitory and not absolutely unreal nobody says absolutely unreal but in any event uh this term maya will come in so this is another thing whether we say maya or shakti or prakriti well then all we're doing is giving different degrees of reality to it a little bit of material reality shakti is energy reality my a little bit of just appearance so they all occupy the same category that which stands side by side with with brahman so brahman and maya or purusha and uh and prakriti were shiva shakti different ways of looking at this but here he's saying for the gyani and there will be some like that that will look upon this this world is just a dream something unreal now there's another thing is that we mean literally like a dream that it's only existing in my head what do we mean as a dream like quality they could be interpreted differently so all these names and forms are illusory like a dream so again we can all have this feeling that there's something dreamlike about the world without thinking that it's just a projection of mind like a dream and that no one else is real within it nothing like that but still dream like quality because it it's fleeting by and it doesn't have that substantial feeling to it what brahman is cannot be described one cannot even say that roman is a person so this is that idea of this brahmana's impersonal consciousness not even his feeling that brahman is a being it being itself there's there's no sense of i within that consciousness even within us our consciousness is also impersonal every feeling sense of i comes from from the mind reflecting on the nature of activity and and the self-reflective nature of consciousness but the consciousness itself uh is pure there's there's no ego within it there's no i within it it's the observer of the ego so uh one cannot even say that a brahman is a person this is the opinion of the gyanis he's not making any judgment on this he's not saying this is good this is bad this is their opinion moth again jyotomo toto part this not opinion in the in the way that oh i have an opinion i like this i don't like that this means that this is the philosophical system that they follow but it's not to be taken as absolute truth this is their view of the world this is their view of the world this is the opinion of the yanis the followers of it onto philosophy so non-judgmental for those who like it and for those who can follow it it can take them to the highest goal he has every conviction about that but we'll get another but here but the bhaktas except all the states of consciousness they take the waking state to be real also they don't think the world to be illusory like a dream they say that the universe is a manifestation of god's power and glory god has created all these sky stars moons sun mountains ocean men animals they constitute his glory i he likes this word he is within us in our hearts again he is outside so everything we see is a manifestation and again he enters into it we have two different things like the spider first thing the spider will do will spin the web second thing is he'll go and live there enter into it the imagery we find in the upanishads he is within us in our hearts again he is outside the most advanced devotees say that he himself has become all this now this is interesting because taqwa he'll he'll talk about three different classes of devotees those who worship god from afar look up to heaven pray to god there this is the lower the next highest class is those who see god dwelling within the heart now we may say this should be the highest claims but he says no those who say that god himself has become everything he says that's the highest class of devotee so the most advanced devotees say that he himself has become all this the 24 cosmic principles the universe and all living beings now how he becomes this this is another place where the philosophers will come to blows is it the way milk turns into curd it can't be then what happens in god god is no longer god he's become the universe somehow this brahman can manifest as the universe without ceasing to be brahmin [Music] somehow the the the light of the sun no matter how many times it's reflected and it doesn't reduce anything from the sun it remains the same infinite unchanged reality something like that the devotee of god wants to eat sugar not to become sugar now we're just about ready to stop but i want to go back to this first thing the bhakti accepts all the states of consciousness they take the waking state to be real so this is one distinction that takwo's making that for the the gyani uh the different states of consciousness uh will have different levels of reality but they'll take this dream state as a kind of paradigm for all the states so that unjust as the dream state is unreal uh this waking state is also unreal so they swap nabat they'll use that term taco very often says i don't like to use this term i don't like to call this world unreal like a dream he never says that it's not true or it's not a good philosophy it's for him this he doesn't like it that means personally his his his spiritual nature is such that he prefers this devotional mood but he appreciates it and knows that it's also a path it's it's a ladder to the roof just as valid as any other way of getting to the roof but i mentioned this just because i'm going to do a little self advertising that we recently started our class in mandukkiyo punishad based entirely on this idea of the three states of consciousness waking dream and dreams dream to sleep and how the one self is the is transcendent beyond all of them witnessing the three states of consciousness and also going beyond to a four state called turia so i won't go into too much with now because we we've been having long discussions on that let me see do you know how a lover of god feels his attitude is oh god thou art the master and i am thy servant so he likes this this dualistic relationship now again takwa is not going to say like the duelist that it's not a relationship it's truth god and man are separate this is the ultimate truth and there's no bridging that gap except through devotion you can come into some state of union some nearness or something like that for taqwa it's as long as the center stick of eye is on the surface of the water there's a feeling of separation so the gyan is always underlying the the the bhakti for swami krishna do you know how whatever god feels his attitude remember attitude bhava is oh god thou art the master and i am my servant thou art the mother and i am thy child or again thou art my father and my mother thou art the whole and i am a part he doesn't like to say i am brahman now again this liking business this i think is a very wonderful truth to consider that our belief system is based equally on logic and equally unliking how do we choose what we want to what we want to believe part of it it has to appeal to our sense of logic but part of it is it has to appeal to us on an emotional level also and very often if we look at our belief system we find that it's something that that works for us and we we may not say that there's any absolute truth to it that there are other point of views we want argument figure but for us it's the best okay now let's get to the third because you remember talker mentioned three there's the the gyani who thinks of the reality is brahmin there's the bhaktiv thinks of the reality of bhagavan and there's the yogi who thinks of the reality as atman or paramatma the yogi seeks to realize the paramatman the supreme soul his ideal is the union of the embodied soul and the supreme soul the school of yoga is the practical side of which the school of sankia is the philosophical side so without arguing too much about it they accept more or less this dualistic position that you have prakri and you have purusha and they both have their own level of reality being dependent upon purusha but not identical with it so from that point of view they are trying to form a union to have one realized not the oneness but to come and do a state of union the yogi seeks to realize that in the supreme soul his ideal is the union of the embodied soul and the supreme soul he withdraws his mind from sense objects and tries to concentrate it on the paramatman the self within which is the self within all therefore during the first stage of his spiritual discipline he retires into solitude and with undivided attention practices meditation in a fixed posture but the reality is one in the same the difference is only in name he who is brahman is verily atman and again he is the bhagavan he is brahman to the followers of the path of knowledge paramatman to the yogis and bhagavan to the lovers of god okay very good place for us to stop because now they're going to continue to continue with this timber and some descriptions and things really this uh this phrase that these words can do us like a shower of nectar there's something soothing but even if we don't fully understand them we were kumar and i were reading today that someone was saying you read this gotham that let it enter into the ear even if it doesn't enter into the heart in the beginning or into the mind and it's not fully understood it will at one point but let it enter into the ear it has a soothing quality to it and it'll it'll work its magic the swamiji says in one place it's like corrosive acid not specifically with the kotam judo but just these spiritual truths that somehow they'll burn their way through they'll eliminate whatever whatever this this hard crust is there preventing us from realizing that reality it'll it'll get eliminated through this so this is our kotambruto and i will close with our chant um [Music] who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees and who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship so i thank all of you for joining us and we will see you next week