Video 30

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (10/30/20)

your words are like nectar bringing life to squirt souls they are praised by poets and remove all 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 srama krishna we're on the chapter the master with the brahmo devotees this is chapter six part one it is october 28 1882 we began the chapter last week and it was a saturday the semi-annual brahmo festival celebrated each ottoman spring and this particular time it was being held in benimad mata pal's beautiful garden house at sinti about three miles north of calcutta so this is the same neighborhood where swami vivekananda was born in and grew up in the northern northern part of calcutta many of the devotees lived in that area also so srama krishna will be speaking to the brahmo devotees of course m is there we don't find i don't believe uh too many other of the close devotees i don't know if keshav is probably still quite ill at this time and shivnat is there so this probably means that this is the other group we know about this split we were just reading about it the other day that the group that broke away from the kesha was led mostly by shiv nachastri and he wasn't as appreciative he couldn't really appreciate sriram krishna the way that keshav and vijay could vijay and krishna goswami he became the authority for that group but not because he was a little anti-srama krishna that group was a little bit anti it seems that they blamed him a little bit for changing keisha's mind about some things and anyhow it sounds like the shiv not sastry at that point after the split really didn't go to visit srama krishna after that so this would probably be that group that is is meeting together we read also that narendra swami vivekananda that he went to this group mainly but remained on good terms with the keshav we go to see him also so i'm sure there were many who really didn't pay too much attention to that big split but at this point keisha was quite ill and then within a year or two ocean passes away so this other group probably was a little bit without any any great direction or any great leader or anything like that and then also uh shortly after keshav dies then vijay krishna goswami he'll also leave and he'll take to the pet of sannyasa which means he's no longer ramble they didn't believe any of those things and also went back to the innovation of the traditions of his forefathers he was a goswami that meant that he could trace his his ancestry back to the original founders of the caitanya movement dwight goswami you're one of one of the goswami's so astronomy christian was talking to this group of brahmal devotees we don't find the render there or any of the others especially but he's talking about the the three gonas you'll remember we began this last time with regard to uh the inner nature of people the gunas are considered to be the the constituent elements of nature prakriti both external and internal external nature taqwa is not paying too much attention to at this time but the same qualities that define external nature define the mind internal nature so and and of course much more subtle way so externally we see things that are massive that are unmoving mountains and things like that and that'll that'll be thomas and it'll be like people who are also idle and lazy and procrastinating and everything that'll be thomas and when we see in nature waterfalls and and rushing rivers and things like that this will be religious so individuals will also have that that will be restlessness and ambitiousness and things like that and then in nature there'll be sunsets and calm peaceful times that'll be sattva so he's talking about this thomas rajis and satwa with regard to the nature of people in general then with regard to spiritual people then with regard to spiritual practice and even with spiritual teachers so this is what we're in the middle of right now he's talking about thomas uh in in spiritual life of course he's praising satwik spiritual people that uh they do everything in secret they don't care if anybody knows that they spend time in meditation a very calm peaceful in the people and and uh unostentatious their rogers activities they make a bit of a show about things and then we expect thomas activities to be even worse somehow but he likes this thomas this is a a very particular type of thing this he calls the thomas of bhakti so he'll be praising it a little bit that is attitude that dakoid so we'll get to all of that so now we're in the middle of this uh idea that uh these uh aspirin have different natures i'll just read a little bit that we read earlier and aspiring possessive roger bhakti puts a tilik on his forehead a necklace of holy rudraksha beads interspersed with gold ones around his neck in worship he wears a silk cloth then he'll get to this tamasig bhakti and then endowed with thomas ivati has burning faith such a devotee literally exhorts boons from god even as a robber falls upon a man and plunders his money bind beat kill that is the way the way of the decoys now with the satwik devotee as i said very calm and peaceful now the interesting thing is that of course he praises the sattu activity raj is taking deputy he doesn't pray so much they're deputies after all it's okay but he's always warning people that don't make a show of your religion that do things in in secret uh he makes fun of people who put these big signs and everything so we're expecting this thomas bhakti also to be something that takur doesn't like too much but he'll praise it so he likes this idea of of force your demands on god yes as the the dakotas will come and catch somebody and then say i'll give me all your possessions or i'll kill you he likes that idea so we begin the master was beside himself with love for the divine mother he sang with fiery enthusiasm if only i can pass away repeating durga's name how canst thou then o blessed one with a hold for me deliverance wretched though i may be in in the both the english translation of the gospel and the way m wrote it in the beginning and generally if he gives a full song one time then later he'll just give the first few lines or maybe even one line something like that and uh so this song we know the song goes on and on tucker liked this song very much then he said one must take a firm attitude what i have chanted the mother's name how can i be a sinner anymore i am her child heir to her powers and glories this is something that takur didn't like and swamiji disliked it even more than takur this idea of calling ourselves sinners and taqwa he heard this on two fronts we shouldn't think that this was just when uh he heard people espousing christian ideas of course there's a lot of that in christianity this original sin and things like that and takur would say somebody was reading out a book for me everything was sin and sin this and that so this was one thing but we shouldn't think that it wasn't in any of the hindu traditions because the division of a tradition which emphasized humility so much also led some of the followers to look upon themselves or think upon themselves or at least say that i am the lowest of the lowest of the lowly and uh helpless sinner save me all of that and tako didn't like that attitude he said you keep calling yourself a sinner you become a sinner and the swamitti used to say that the greatest sin is calling us oneself the sinner the standing libel on humankind there's some very nice statements that he made like that so yeah takwa wanted us to be bold take the attitude that i may have done something wrong and that doesn't mean i'm a sinner we don't want to stamp ourselves with this idea we we want to accept the fact that we make bad decisions sometimes that we do things out of selfishness out of greed out of desire for enjoyment but we all we have to do is say okay i i made a mistake i am i'm going to do my best not to do it again then we forget it but the real self who i really am is pure and perfect and swamiji of course emphasized the gyani aspect that we should tell ourselves i'm the south i'm i'm the infinite absolute reality how can any sin attach itself to me now it doesn't mean that we don't have some bad some scottish that attach themselves to the mind but these are changeable it's this is not who we are absolutely and finally this is this is our starting point and we can change so tucker liked this idea take this firm attitude what i've chanted the mother's name how can i be a sinner anymore i am her child heir to her powers and glories if you can give a spiritual turn to your thomas you can realize god with its help now tucker used to say give a spiritual turn to all of our passions more fidel he said if something is going in one direction then you spin it around have it go in the opposite direction now psychologically this is very brilliant because we we know ourselves we know that if somebody says completely eliminate pride completely eliminate greed completely eliminate desires that will say it's impossible so taqwa used to say that with with these these different types of passions that uh we have to find a way to to uh utilize the energy of these in a positive way to to give a new direction to them so what is greed is the desire to have something that we don't possess so he said turn that to god that let you let yourselves be greedy for for god realization and that way you don't have to try to suppress that feeling of greed you have to increase it and then this ego this sense of i if the sense of i is there then at least remove it from i am such a good person i'm a handsome person i'm a wealthy person i'm a powerful person get rid of that whole idea identify i with one of the attitudes i'm a child of god and servant of god then feel pride proud and in being that take pride in being a servant of god and increase it so that way we can utilize something rather than try to uh to stifle it when uh when we know it's not possible we're we're pushing it under the surface of the water the second we let go it'll pop up again so this is a very brilliant psychological technique actually if you can give a spiritual turn to your tummies so these are all thomasic types of passions rajasik and thomasing the satwik ones we we can just utilize because these are generally spiritual things but anything that has to do with uh lust and anger and greed and pride and jealousy all of these things we can we can utilize them if we can direct them in a spiritual direction force your demands on god he is by no means a stranger to you he is indeed your very own now taker likes this attitude because this was the attitude of of the shaktas this was the attitude of ram prasad this is the attitude of a child a child can easily force its demands on the mother and can yell and scream and cry the mother won't give and give the child the toy or let it go play then it can do all of that if we have this servant master relationship then it's not very appropriate for the servant to do that but in this particular relationship which tucker liked so much we can do that with their mother you have to reveal yourself to me i'm your child you have to so this is this is what he's calling the the thomas of bhakti it's a bit of a thomas attitude who are we to force our demands on anybody but the child can do it to the mother so this is this is giving a turn to thomas force your demands on god he is by no means a stranger to you he's indeed your very own again you see the quality of thomas again you see the quality of thomas can be used for the welfare of others now he's going to talk about his spiritual teacher also how they can they can use this same forceful attitude to help the disciple there are three classes of physicians superior mediocre and inferior the physician who feels the patient's post and just says to him take the medicine regularly belongs to the inferior class now everything is going to be upside down here because if we ask ourselves what guna is at work here we have to say that this will be the satwik physician huh he's not very pushy not very focused kind of general person but taco is going to say he's the worst physician yeah now we shouldn't get confused and think that sattva is something in fear such was it is the best that was is one step from from the roof but just in this particular case and with this particular type of example tucker is reversing things a little he's not going to identify him as a satwik but we can we can put two and two together and figure it out so the physician who feels the patient's pulse and just says to him take the medicine regularly belongs to the inferior class he doesn't care to inquire whether or not the patient has actually taken the medicine the mediocre physician and i'm going to call him rajasik this will be registered play the mediocre physician is he who in various ways persuades the patient to take the medicine and says to him sweetly my good man how will you be cured unless you use the medicine take this medicine i've made it for you but he who finding the patient stubbornly refusing to take the medicine forces it down his throat going so far as to put his knee on the patient's chest is the best physician this is thomas huh this time he'll say it this is the manifestation of the thomas of the physician it doesn't injure the patient on the contrary it does him good so this is all uh illustration really for the different types of gurus that we find in the world like the physicians there are three types of religious teachers the inferior teacher only gives instruction to the disciples but makes no inquiries about their progress the mediocre teacher for the good of the student makes repeated efforts to bring the instruction home to him begs him to assimilate it and shows him love in many other ways but there is a type of teacher who goes to the length of using force when he finds the student persistently unyielding i called him the best teacher so he's utilizing a little bit of this thomas in a very positive way now when we come to our own gurus we may say to ourselves that our gurus are the worst they're the worst especially in india they'll give initiation and then they may not even know your name again you may never see them again they may not inquire uh this is a different scenario and they'll be praying for the welfare of all of us day and night whether we know it or not but they don't place themselves in the category of islamic krishna or any of the direct disciples we're talking now really about those who will have a handful of disciples and they'll be the very highest caliber of disciples we're talking about israel krishna or swamiji vaikananda or swami brahmananda any of the other direct disciples that also have their disciples of a much higher caliber than than most of us so the the guru will know to what extent we have the story of the guru pressing the head of the disciple under the water uh they won't do it with somebody who they know will simply be content to drown huh it has to be somebody who's gonna have such a desire for that breath of air that they'll fight the guru and come to the surface so a lot of it will be that we ourselves are not the caliber of the of the disciple and not just who was the caliber of the of the guru so this this will end this little discussion here because one of the brahmo devotees is going to change the uh the topic but this is takwa trying to tell us that we can utilize human emotions and uh let them be helpful to us that we have to be good psychologists with regard to ourselves and we have to get rid of these feelings of guilt when we find that the mind is is tending towards worldly objects and things we as human beings are born with all of these tendencies and these tendencies are not simply our own personal particularly some scottish which means that uh oh i must have done something bad in the previous lifetime these are things that come along with the human body these are things that srama krishna himself had to experience when he took a human body when he took a human body he understood even the avatar will have to live with the qualities of the human body and some of the qualities of the mind also so that means when the avatar sees people suffering that the mind will be affected and that of course the example takara was used was that even rama wept yeah when the sita was captured by ravana and taken to lanka they even rama wept for for sita so i we shouldn't feel that there's something wrong with us that we're sinners this and that we accept the fact that we have human emotions and that we have human desires and everything but we understand that we can utilize these things and it's all a question of practice it's all a question of practice when we find the mind going the direction we don't like we try to catch it and we try to remind ourselves that this is not what we're trying to accomplish in this lifetime that we want to take these these same tendencies and turn them into something positive so we we kind of end that discussion here and we'll get a question that we may wonder why everybody's asking this question and why taku is spending so much time on it we'll get illustrations here that will get dozens of times it will be repeated dozens of times the question is ibrahimodevati sir has god forms or he has none the brahmos were almost obsessed with this and it it goes back to a couple of things one we generally say that this was british influence and christian influence that during that time the the british were so much against uh what they called idol worship and the brahmos also i won't say an imitation of the of the british uh but certainly influenced by them uh they couldn't bear this idea of image worship in in temples or in homes or anything like that and generally when they're asking about god with form that's in the back of their minds we know this from em's first conversation with srama krishna when they're talking about god with former without form and and finally blurts out uh but shouldn't we tell people not to bow down not to worship a clay image that was their conception when they say that they're against the worship of god with form it means what they call idol worship and i don't know how much of of this is and if there's any muslim influence but islam is deadly against this deadly against this you can't have any human representation of god even symbolic or anything like that they're very ardent worshippers of formless concept of god but with a certain conception that god is father they have this image of god as father maybe with qualities of goodness and love and compassion but no form and no avatar even the prophet muhammad one is not allowed to portray him with any human form they don't even like portraits and things like that and you know these recent stabbings and things and that took place in france this all goes back to the same old thing that caricatures of mohammed that people are doing and it's just waving a red flag in front of a bull i don't know why they do it it's not respectful under under free speech i understand the concept of free speech but we should be respectful that people who have this idea that we should refrain from from making fun of it anyhow so there are other traditions that we're very much against idol worship even in in judaism the very beginning of judaism there was worship of the golden calf this is and when moses came down from mount sinai with the ten commandments and he found that some of them had brought a golden calf and were worshiping it and and uh he saw that these these ideas don't leave very easily so the really the three main religions of the west judaism christianity and islam are all anti-what we can call the image worship and christianity of course christ is is not the same as an image of god the father because that's more on the lines of of god is uh the as the sun the incarnation or the messiah however we want to look at it but even there uh we'll find that in catholic traditions very often you'll see christ on the cross whereas in protestant traditions more uh often or maybe always will just see the cross without christ on it is that right yeah so for whatever reason so they're asking this question now surrounding krishna will i answer it uh his reference will have nothing to do with the images or idols or anything like that so we'll understand that uh his conception of god with form is a much more sophisticated and a very beautiful doctrine that he has his way of understanding it and his understanding that this is applicable to those following the path of devotion and for those following the path of knowledge they don't really have to get involved in this concept so much if they don't want to it's not necessary that one can think of god as as formless but then he'll say but then we don't get the full weight we don't see the beauty of the different types of manifestations so this is the question abramo devotee sir has got forms or has he none master no one can say with finality that god is only this and nothing else okay so uh we can't put a limit even in trying just to describe a person huh we have a friend somebody says what's your friend like can can we fully describe anyone we will miss something we and it will all be according to the limitations of our understanding so with regard to god how much more applicable is this idea that no one can say with finality that god is only this and nothing else he is formless and again he has forms now you remember earlier i made a reference to a statement tucker made about god being like water to me this water is the perfect example of something that can be both formless and yet have form perfect example that not only can it have form it always has form and yet it's formless it has no form of its own but it always takes a form that whatever the container is it'll take the form of the container and the surface of it will always be perfectly horizontal they will never find a lake that's on an angle this is just by the force of gravity this is the way it works that it'll be perfectly horizontal and the rest of it it'll take exactly the form of the of the the bed of the river or the lake or whatever it is uh and if we if we if we access it we take it in a pitcher or a bowl or a bucket the water will take that form but that form is not essential to it you pour it from one bucket into a pitcher and the same water now has the form of the pitcher same water huh if we freeze it that's a different story and we'll get that illustration when it's frozen but this this illustration to me uh gives us some idea of how the form uh belongs to it's equality but formlessness is the essential quality and the form that it takes uh there's nothing absolute about it and it'll depend on the container and the container is the human heart so however we conceive of god uh we're getting the reality the form is is secondary but not secondary and we go how do we how do we is it like saying that the the bucket is very secondary in getting water out of the pond no it's critical but the the what we want is the water but we can't do it without the bucket we can't we can't access god except through this human mind unless we transcend the mind we can dive into the ocean that's a different story but if we want to access that water we want to take it we have to use a container and it'll give it a certain shape so this is a taquer's understanding of this idea of god with form for the bhakta he assumes forms but he is formless for the gyani that is for him who looks on the world as a mere dream now he's not going to say that one is right one is wrong this was his understanding that different people have different ways of looking upon one in the same reality the bhakti feels that he he is one entity that is the devotee and the world another therefore god reveals himself to him as a person but the gyani the vedantist for instance now remember taqwa has this terminology when he talks about vedanta he's generally talking about advaita vedanta and the upanishads we can say well isn't gita part of vedanta and gita is full of talk with personal god yes of course but taqwa is not using this term vedant in that sense he's using it in a very traditional sense of veda vedanta shruti and upanishad when he talks about uh the gita for him will for more for fall more within the category of what he calls purana it's belongs to ittihasa but also there's a christian everything this belongs to the bhagavata the other puranas and that'll be more of either dualistic or qualified non-dualistic even though taco will say everything ends in oneness so now we're talking about different conceptions in different paths not talking about any final type of conclusive position or even realization okay so the bhakta feels that he is one entity and the world another therefore god reveals himself to him as a person but the gyani the vedantist for instance always reasons applying the process of not this not this through this discrimination he realizes by his inner perception that the ego and the universe are both illusory like a dream then the yani realizes brahman in his own consciousness he cannot describe what brahman is so for the for the gyani as i say it's like diving into the ocean we don't have to think about uh that i'm separate and i want to realize god as a separate entity therefore i have to take it out with a certain container it'll take a certain form none of that you remember uh when taco asked narendra if you become a fly and there's a cup salute and syrup and and you want to drink it what we do and then they said i'll sit on the edge and i'll lean over and he said why would you do that he said if i fly in the middle then i'll drown in that and that nectar and talk with no my child that this is the nectar of immortality uh if you you can't die in that you'll become immortal in that so narendra there was thinking that i'll follow this this reasoning that if i want to realize something that means some separation has to be there now remember that the brahmos were not stricted whitens that they they weren't always saying i am he they were worshipping brahman as as god with form without form but with qualities so they didn't really emphasize this idea i am he so in the beginning two things narendra didn't like one that i am god and the other is everything is god that he would make fun of these ideas that everything is a manifestation of the roman and ultimately the individual self is is one with it with the supreme of course that one he very easily realized uh it took taco's magic touch for him to see everything as a manifestation of of consciousness or of brahman okay so he's saying for the gyani if this ego disappears then there's no separation this is why takur ultimately it's really a gyani he's a gyani uh and a bhakta together but uh the the dualistic type of of bhakta will never be able to say that this ego is is just a stick on the ocean of consciousness making me falsely think that i'm separate from god the the duelist will maintain no there's an absolute distinction that is a blasphemy to say that i'm one with god they'll have to say that if they want to maintain this attitude for srama krishna it's a choice i like to feel that way he used to say but he could just easily he could go off and then his ego was gone and what's left only oneness nothing else is left so that way he was a real gyani that i don't know who said it first but we have this idea that swamiji maybe swamiji himself probably said it that uh externally i am igni but within amma bhakta and the srami krishna externally he was a bhakta but within he was a and you know they were both a perfect blend okay so that's the the yani and then he says do you know what i mean now instantly he's going to switch to this this idea of what does god with foreign mean for the bhakta how do we understand that do you know what i mean think of brahmin existence knowledge bliss absolute as a shoreless ocean through the cooling influence as it were of the bhaktas love so uh we're starting out with this is really the conception that that the brahmos had when they say the goddess is ocean of pure consciousness and everything they didn't say that brahman alone exists they say no i'm i'm in devotee i also exist but i'm worshiping this ocean i want to meditate upon this ocean so talk we're saying that uh when we think of brahmin existence knowledge absolute we don't have to say that brahman alone exists that the ego is unreal we can also start out with this idea that yes my conception of god is one of pure consciousness an ocean of consciousness my conception of myself is i'm in devotee i i won't go beyond that i don't want to heat up my brain with too much deep thinking oh simply say okay let's just start with that so he says through the cooling influence as it were of the bhaktas love now the brahmos were trying to feel this love a little little difficult to understand uh how this the brahman of the upanishads could be an object of love it wasn't traditionally this is why the the devotional traditions in hinduism bring in so much of the avatar this rama and krishna and everything with the personality aspect so it is not simply we can say well the upanishad department is also the creator a creator but still a faceless creator nameless and faceless no no stories of playing with gopis or taking a human birth or anything like that so this will be for the for the bhakta and so this will be something very appealing to the brahmos that they'll be thinking yes this is our conception of brahman and at the same time we want to meditate on the brahman we want to worship that woman through the cooling influence as it were of the bhaktis love the water has frozen at places in the blocks of ice now this is going beyond what the brahmos believe they they'll want to keep this ocean just ocean formless they want to keep it formless takara is explaining to them but don't you know there's some devotees who have strengthened it has such tremendous love for their chosen ideal that they can make turn this this ocean formless water into some type of form not simply the form of the container but at least in their belief system that it's something that at least for the time being maybe in each and every age will have an actual form so through the cooling influence as it were of the bhaktis love the water is frozen it places into blocks of ice in other words god now and then assumes the various forms for his lovers and reveals himself to them as a person but with the rising of the sun of knowledge the blocks of ice melt now there will be devotees who will say stop stop do you just spoil the whole thing what we want to say is that god is manifest in this form and that this is eternal so taqwa is saying that you may think that but the mind goes higher and higher and higher and you melt away and it melts away and there's only oneness i know that i experienced it but they won't like that idea so he's he's it now the end of between stage he's a little bit higher than the brahmos they won't like this idea of even temporary form and the real buck does one like this idea of it melding with the son of knowledge he accepts all of them this three different schools of vedanta are all represented here but with the rising of the sun of knowledge the blocks of ice melt and then one doesn't feel any more that god is a person nor does one see god's forms what he is cannot be described who will describe him who he who would do so disappears he cannot find his eye anymore so this is the salt doll at the bottom now he was thinking about this i do from time to time and i think that perhaps of course the using our our understanding uh is extremely helpful uh but there's something here that goes beyond all of that and i think we have to understand that sriram krishna is speaking out of his own direct experience and when he's talking about different forms of god these are things that he experienced in what we call or what he called bhava samadhi or bhava and without this understanding uh we either are stuck with this idea that the the forms of god that takur is talking about are hallucinations this is monum hull this is the word that narendra used to use he would say sir these forms of god and all the things you're talking about you have some problem this is your there's some some hallucination some monav this is some mistake in your mind taco would say oh really and then he would go and say but i talked to mother she told me no this is real so we either accept that or we go to the other extreme and say that if taqwa saw these things it's because they're real because they exist taku's mind is going to a different loka he's ascending to the place where these deities dwell and and have their permanent dwelling place that he's actually seeing him somehow who knows that this subtle body leaving the astral body going and traveling to a different loka and all of that we can have those types of explanations the fact that sri ramakrishna is having all of these experiences to me as one way of understanding that everything we experience in this world is dependent upon the level that the mind is at and when the mind ascends to a higher plane we can have different types of visions now are these visions hallucinations are they absolutely real are they the combination of subjective and objective this will be our own third person examination for those who experience it they're real but again taco will say real doesn't mean that absolute it doesn't mean that everyone will have exactly the same experiences if something is absolutely real then everyone will experience it the same way if there's some subjective element to it we'll have our own personalized type of experience when the mind goes higher now those who aren't bhaktas they may go from our normal consciousness to some type of sabby called the samadhi to some type of nirvikalpa samadhi they may have no visions not that everyone will have these visions of gods and goddesses the very curious thing is that swami praying of of all the disciples of swami krishna he was one one of the ones who was most uh devotional in nature and loving in nature insensitive this and that and and yet he was not having any of these visions many of the disciples were having different visions even swamiji he said how many visions of of mother kali have i had how many mantras shiny and gold i've seen he tells them but still i have no peace of mind so uh so elizabeth went to srama krishna one day and said sir everyone is having visions and everything why am i the only one not having anything so taqwa thought and he said yeah that's a good question let me talk to mother so then he went back he could talk to mother and and we we of course will be will be the greatest fools in the world if we try to explain it and understand it but we can't deny it because he used to say that but it all turns out to be true whatever she tells me so we can't dismiss it very easily but in any event he came back to babaram and said mother told me that you won't have visions you'll have knowledge and of course that satisfied him to a certain extent i'm sure but so it depends on on the nature that we have that some people they'll have a beautiful picture and the water they'll take out will take that beautiful shape and form others there's an ocean it'll form some some just block of ice or almost formless in itself no special shape others it'll be some exquisite thing so these have to do with the nature of the devotee also but the the critical thing is that the shape and the form and the name are secondary in the sense that they will disappear they'll be different with each and every individual but essential from the point of view that this is the only way that we can everything has to take a particular form there's no such thing as a universal form everything has to be one color or a combination of colors it can't be all colors i mean it can be a tapestry of all different colors but it has to be one or the other something has to be tall or thin or fat or about this it has to be it has to be particular if it's particular it's particular now that's why if somebody the person who said i want my color the color of the of the liquid in your vat when they're dyeing the cloth it can't be it you have to want it a particular color and i'll give you that color some people may say i want my tie dyed okay that can be done but that's also particular so those who want this formless then they have to take this other attitude that does i disappear then what remains remains and then we can't say anything we can't experience anything we'll just be in that state of oneness so talkward didn't do that when he when he went to that state of oneness it was generally through bhava samadhi generally that he would be hearing a song of the divine mother and thinking of the divine mother and would have to go through that would be his sava culpa samati it's not the sabokov samadhi of the of the yoga sutras that there's no form only little scent of i remains but with taquer he would go through this realm of gods and goddesses are they real or the unreal who can say real of course but permanently real that's a different question real the block of ice is real it's water it's real is the form real well temporarily and is it of any importance of great importance this is what the devotee wants to see and he he has this play between subjective and objective sometimes it's based on the desire of the heart of the devotees sometimes because of the desire of the devotee god will reveal himself in that form my child wants to see this form we'll get later this idea when hanuman went to dwarika i know i don't know how he did it they're in different yugas when when he was uh with rama and one yuga when he's to visit krishna another yuga anyhow he went there and rukmini was there and said to krishna hanuman is coming to see you you better take your form of rama he won't be happy unless he sees you in the form of rama so same god but desire to reveal himself to the devotee in the form that the devotee wants to see that makes it a little bit on the objective side the other one is more subjective i'm the one who's created this container the water will take that shape there's my desire to see god in that form will allow me to see god in the form not force god to reveal himself now which is true and god knows which is true it's a play between objective and subjective now he's going to go back and forth between the devotee and the gyani the very interesting conversation so now he says sorry let me go back with the rising of the sun of knowledge the blocks of ice melt then one doesn't feel any worthy god is a person nor does one see god's forms what he is cannot be described who will describe him he who would do so disappears he cannot find his eye anymore now he'll go back to the gyani and talk about this i what do we mean by i if one analyzes oneself one doesn't find any such thing as i now suppose the people ask this question is the ego real what will takko say is the ego real kumar yes and no huh it's real we can't get rid of it very hard to get rid of it is it absolutely real no and it's if it's our sense of i is it flexible is it is it adjustable is it fluid is it very fluid is it constantly changing does can it disappear yes can it reappear yes this is the nature of this of this ego that's the reality of it is it absolutely real no this is what he will say so he says if one analyzes oneself one doesn't find any such thing as i now he's talking from the point of view of the view of the gyani uh there'll be many times when he'll say that you can analyze yourself as much as you want do it a thousand times the second you stop analyzing it comes back but he's not going to emphasize that here he says take an onion for instance this is our panchakosha doctrine uh with a very simple illustration first of all you peel off the red outer skin this will be our annamaya kosher this will be the physical body then you find thick white skins these will be the inner ones prana myokosium and omaya kochi vignan myocochia peel these off one after another then we get to this ananda myekosha and you won't find anything inside now this this is very nice doctrine it starts out with a misconception it starts out with a misconception that i am an individual this i is is something real i am an individual who uh is covered by this body mind senses all of these different things if i want to to get to that individual within i remove all of these things until i find that individual there it's like i know that there's a pearl inside of this oyster i have to open the shell and i go and i search and i find the pearl there so we have this idea that we want to find that real self who am i the real self within i'm not this body not the mind we peel everything away when we get to the very last and we peel it away then we find that there's nothing there emptiness that little space that we talk about space in the heart the dimensions of that space uh are a product of falsely identifying with the coverings once we remove the coverings whether what used to look like you know a square into space huh now we find his infinite space is one with with all the space each and every one of us there's no distinction it's absolute there is no i when the false identification is eliminated then there's nothing for it to identify with we can't even say that i am brahman we can't say that at that point the eye is gone we say i am brahmana when we're trying to get there once we get there then silence we can't say anything so if one analyzes oneself so this peeling off is saying am i this physical body body is constantly changing i'm observing this body i can't be this body we do that with all of them even the mind i am the witness of the mind i am observing the mind and then this ego i'm i've been watching this ego sometimes you get inflated sometimes you get deflated sometimes get bruised sometimes sticking out his chest i've been observing it throughout my life and it's gotten me in so much trouble so i'm not that i'm the observer of all of these things but once we get rid of everything we can't even say i'm the observer even that even that ego which is a type of ego this is an ego also but a ripe one even that disappears so in that state so this means that that state of oneness we may save samadhi if we like or just that state where we don't find anything any i inside in that state a man no longer finds the existence of his ego and who is there left to seek it the the seeker is also the ego the witness of everything that's not seeking anything it's perfectly content there's not even we can't even say perfectly content it simply is who can describe how he feels in that state in his own pure consciousness about the real nature of brahman now we get the salt doll once a salt dog went to measure the depth of the ocean no sooner was it in the water then it melted now who was there to tell the depths now sometimes tucker will say by the time it gets to the bottom it's completely disappearing that means as we get deeper and deeper this this scent of ourselves as a person starts to get thinner and thinner and dissipate and subtle ears and then by the time of the bottom there's no one there to even ask that question there's a sign of perfect knowledge man becomes silent when it is attained capital i t this will be brahman then the i which may be likened to the salt dal melts in the ocean of existence knowledge bliss absolute and becomes one with it not the slightest trace of distinction is left so this this ego this sense of i is as is what causes us to feel all types of distinctions between ourselves and others between ourselves and god between our own ethnic groups and racial groups and all of that it all goes back to what we identify with talkware's understanding of the ego was was very much similar to freud and a lot of the western psychologists the ego is self-image that's all that it is it's our own self-image and it can be wrong it can be completely wrong sometimes we're the worst and judge of ourselves we think we're worthless people we're good people but that's our sense of i it's just a sense of i and that's why it's not ultimately real why it's constantly changing the real eye is that indwelling divine presence if you're the higher self that's the real eye which manifests within as the witness when it's not functioning as the witness then it's that son of berman that pure s-u-n that pure son of berman as long as his self-analysis is not complete man argues with much ado but he becomes silent when he completes it when the empty pitcher has been filled with water this is a nice illustration when the water inside the pitcher becomes one with the water of the lake outside no more sound is heard when we put the picture in there will be some club club club and it fills up you take it out then nothing sound comes from the picture as long as the picture is not filled with water paco used to get into arguments with dr sharkar he would say then why do you talk so much he would say sometimes again if you want to pour that water into somebody else's pitcher it'll make a little sound again people used to say in olden days that no boat returned after having once entered the black waters of the ocean kalopani that means that once attaining this ultimate realization of brahmin and melding and become one with it there's no coming back from that state yeah actually uh when talker talks about anybody returning from samadhi this it seems was not the prevalent idea at the time it seems that that people mostly felt that if one entered into nirvikalpu samati that one wouldn't return from it so tako was kind of arguing against that idea no that there's some who can come back down from that state that there are some who won't get so deeply merged in it that the mind won't come down again so he said people used to say in olden days the no boat returned after having once entered the black waters of the ocean all troubles and botheration come to an end when the eye dies so this is not just a philosophical statement this is this because this ego we we have to remember this ahankata it has two meanings one philosophically what is the sense of i that we have the other is pride a hung god it means pride when we can get rid of this pride that we're such wonderful people and everyone should show us proper respect if we can get rid of that then life will become very free from trouble so all trouble and botheration brotheration come to an end when the eye dies but this is what i mentioned earlier you may indulge in thousands of reasonings but still the eye doesn't disappear for people like you and me now look at tacos people like you and me it is good to have the feeling i am a lover of god so this was this was something that tucker liked this idea that uh it may not be absolutely real the sense of i but it's persistent if it's persistent then let's let's utilize it let's turn this this uh i into a lover of god have some type of relationship then we'll see that uh this is how one enjoys divine communion because of this sense of of i okay so we'll stop here there was uh page 149 and it's still with the master and the brahmal devotees this will go on for uh several uh quite a bit okay then we'll close with our closing prayers [Music] we bow our heads before srama krishna who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship om shanti shanti shanti peace peace peace thank you everyone and uh if if you didn't see or doria puja and if you don't know there's a beautiful vocal concert at the end by subhadra desai she did it just for us and if you don't want to see the whole pooja you can just scroll forward and the last hour you'll be able to watch and listen to the beautiful performance that she did for us so i thank all of you and we will see you next time