Video 31

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna with Swami Atmajnanananda (11/06/20)

[Laughter] [Music] [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 srama krishna we are on the chapter 6 the master with the brahmo devotees part 1 and the date is october 28th 1882 and we stopped last time at the towards the top of page 149. ramakrishna is having a conversation with shivnat chastry and other brahmo devotees and of course m is there and we don't know exactly who else but there's probably a room full there's mostly shivanat and then sometimes it simply says abramovity so we don't know how many others are there exactly but we can see that takur is definitely speaking to his audience because he knows exactly what the mindset of the brahmos is he knows exactly their good points and their shortcomings and uh exactly what will be most helpful for them and what will be palatable to them so we can see very easily that the type of teachings he gives will be very suitable he had two different uh kind of teaching techniques one is if he understood the trend of somebody's mind he would he would give teachings that will be very helpful and will help someone go forward along that particular path this was one thing but if he saw that that path was a little bit skewed or it required to be filled out a little bit or there were some shortcomings and he would try to fix those things also so we'll see both sides that especially if there was any uh fanaticism or one-sidedness or bias towards any other traditions taqwa would try to eliminate those things all troubles and botheration come to an end when the eye dies now this uh is a is an expression uh that maybe might be part of the song i don't know what it's from exactly but in the original bengali is always in quotes so this is something that the taquer is citing an expression that he was very very fond of we we see that this is repeated many times in the gospel of srimai krishna but at the same time he is going to modify it a little bit so he starts out all troubles and botheration come to an end when the eye dies so this eye is this unripe ego that cockroach talks about very often this is the eye that is identified with the body and the mind and the senses this is the eye that is filled with desires that has some scottish uh this is our ordinary sense of ego uh in this psychological sense you could say uh suryama christian's understanding of the scent of i was that it's something very fluid and something that changes and something that develops so it's not exactly something that you just say this is the source of all trouble i'll get rid of it who is the eye that's getting rid of the eye that still remains so he'll follow this up with something that almost seems to contradict the first statement that he made but which it doesn't really he says all troubles and botheration come to an end when the eye dies then he says you may indulge in thousands of reasonings but still the eye doesn't disappear so he's saying that the solution everything is if it dies but it doesn't die what what he says is that we if we reason and if we look for it and we close our eyes in meditation we look deep into our innermost being we analyze the nature of consciousness we try to find something there that uh has the stamp of eye on it we won't find it he says that if you search for the eye you'll find god in its place so we don't find it if we reason about it we can understand that it's some false sense of identification with the body and the mind of the senses it's not there all of the time uh it changes sometimes it's uh very bold sometimes it's very frightened sometimes it's brewed sometimes it's it's all puffed up it does all sorts of things but there's no ultimate reality to it so he says that you try to find it you won't find it at the same time he says you may reason a thousand times the very next moment it comes up so as soon as we stop reasoning about it then somebody says something to us we get offended so he's talking about that eye the there's a higher sense of i of course we say so hum i am that i am he that means that uh if we can identify the sense of i with uh that indwelling divine presence that infinite absolute reality in brahman then this is the real eye but even that is some sense of identification it means the mind is still functioning and there's a highest state of of nirvikalpa samadhi even that sees it to function so starting out with a very beautiful sentiment well trouble and botheration come to an end when the eye dies so if we want we can say when this is this unripe eye this eye that is very needy this eye that easily offended that eye that's fully identified with the body in the mind of the senses which feels that as we're getting older that i'm getting older when the body is sick that i'm sick that eye has to disappear but i unless we're established in samadhi and even then and even then some sense of of inis comes back to us did takara have an ego yeah of course he had an ego he he identified himself with that person we called srama krishna but that person that we call and he called sramakrishna to him was a child of the divine mother so he had another theory that this is for those who enter the state of vigna for the vignas these special god realized souls that they cling to a scent of i as they have to take refuge they have to hold on to it in order to be able to live in the world but as long as we we have body consciousness now takur he was not identified with the body the way that we are but he had body consciousness when when food was in his mouth he could taste it he could see things he was dwelling within that body so some some sense of i is is also there so he says you may indulge in thousands of reasonings but still the eye doesn't disappear for people like you and me now this is a very interesting statement because they have very little in coffin one will be this ordinary jivas who are good people they're good people for sriami krishna he doesn't make any difference that he's already achieved the goal he's born perfect he's born perfect but still this show us humility or to at least let them feel that you know i'm someone that you can relate to he says but for people like you and me it is good to have the feeling i am a lover of god now this is what ramakrishna called the ripe ego or this vidyamaya now vidyamaya means that we're accepting something that's not necessarily a hundred percent free from error they were not accepting something that's a hundred percent uh universally true and and eternally true but something that is helpful to eliminate what he calls avidyamaya so with the help of this identification with or in the midst of a relationship with god if we can if we can strengthen that feeling that i'm a child of god i am a servant of god that automatically this feeling that i am the body mind senses i am this personality i am the person that you see that will automatically lessen so this this was almost taco's definition of vidyamaya is something which is not only different from avidyamaya but which helps eliminate it so he gave many different examples he would talk about different categories of desires he said most desires get us more entangled in the world but the desire for god the desire for holy company the desire to do spiritual practice the desire to live in solitude all of these things they don't create more attachment they actually eliminate attachment he gave many different examples of how things work like that but he's telling them look it would be nice if you could get rid of this i incentivize completely but it's not practical and you'll be fooling yourselves and if you want to simply say i am one with the highest brahmin you're not ready for that so better to have a relationship with god i meant devotee of god child of god one of the different moods that we can have here he simply says i am a lover of god now why does he say i am a lover of god because the brahmos didn't like to personalize things too much see if he's talking to his other devotees he'll say i'll keep this attitude i'm a child of god i'm a servant of god he'll bring in mother kali he'll bring in hanuman and rama and all of that they don't like that stuff so he's very simply the lover of god that was their attitude that they looked upon god as the object of their love and devotion but not in in any personal sense so he's tailoring his words uh that will suit them the segunda brahman is meant for the bhaktas now saguna brahman near guna brahmin these have slightly different meanings for the gyanis and for the bhaktas for the gyani saguna brahman will be brahman together with this this power of creation it doesn't mean that this it turned the brahmin into ishwara or allows brahman to function as eastward eastwood and brahman are not two separate things but it doesn't really mean that uh god has taken any particular form as the creator the the brahmos will like to think this saguna brahman will be god without form but with attributes they'll accept that much the real strict and dwightins will think that the saguna brahman is the near guna brahmin together with a little touch of maya infected a little bit by this power of illusion somehow and and dualistic or devotees who like the idea of personal god will take segunda brahmin is brahman with attributes and with form and uh in terms of krishna's case he'll say with forms because we'll get a long explanation how god can take different forms those who are are very strictly followers of one particular path uh will say with form they won't say with forms uh they'll say that krishna is is the absolute reality is the personal god now we can say different forms because sometimes we'll worship him is gopala sometimes govinda sometimes the krishna of the mahabharata and gita maybe even krishna with rukhmini and but still krishna himself or the worshipers of rama any of them who take a little narrower have a narrower understanding of things for suramar krishna this personal aspect of god is also fluid like the ego is fluid and it will depend on our understanding our longing and also on the compassionate nature of god to reveal himself or herself in whatever form the devotee wants to see this is why i spoke last time that very nice and interesting play between subjective and objective and very hard to say how much is subjective that means how much of it is i am the one who's doing it that uh it's because the the container of my mind is the shape of a picture that the water comes out the shape of the picture that's that's on me the others that uh god knows the yearning of my heart and will reveal himself to me in the form that i want to see that puts it on god and we have we have this play taco speaks in both ways and i'm not sure that there's a a real hard and fast distinction between the two they seem to melt together a little bit so he says the saguna brahman is meant for the bhaktas now does that mean that for the yanis that it's not meant for them or it doesn't exist for them or it's not real for them it's very hard to say what taqwa really means is that they're the ones who will appreciate it of course accepts it now the saguna aspect even for talk where it does not have the same absolute reality as the nierguna aspect the near-going aspect is not an aspect even the saguana aspect the absolute reality of it is that it's the same water the the uh accidental or contingent aspect of it is that the water can take a different form and go back to a formless or take another one that there's there's nothing permanent or absolute about that but still it's the same reality so that's the truth of saguna brahman the same reality that same ocean of sachitananda whether in waves or not in ways so it says sagona brahmin is meant for the bhaktas in other words a bhakta believes that god has attributes and reveals himself to men as a person assuming forms okay now he's stretching the minds of the brahmos they want to say that no they want to say that there's assuming forms that that may be your own hallucinations that's what that's what swamiji used to say about takur but the real nature of brahman is formless we don't mind saying that brahman is compassionate and loving and all of that but we don't want to go so far to say that he's assuming forms so in other words de bhakta believes that god has attributes and reveals himself to men as a person assuming forms it is he who listens to our prayers now we have a philosophical understanding of this within the vidantic system where we can say that yes how does god hear our prayers from someplace far away taqwa says this is the lowest understanding of god if god is up in the heaven someplace then how does he hear our prayers is he hearing everybody's prayers all at the same time is that possible even for god is it possible there was a great philosopher by the name of emin hussarl whosoever was considered the father of phenomenology he made a tremendous statement he said if god has the ability to perceive things he also has to perceive them from a certain perspective everyone sees things from a certain perspective that means that we see one at a time in a different direction i turn this way i see something i turn this way i see something yet we hear god will hear everyone's prayer does does he does he put it in a little stall and a queue and say oh i'll record it ahead of time then when i finish this one i'll go listen to the next one how can god hear all prayers of ah dwelling within is the enter yaman this is as the witness we have this beautiful concept of witness and we the the real yani will look upon this witness as the atman as the the higher self within the devotee will look upon this witness as ishwara we we sometimes think that this concept of ishvara is restricted to god the creator and yet when we read gita and other texts gita especially reside within the hearts of all beings so within the hearts of all beings as the under yaman the antaryamin will be a little bit more than the witness the witness will simply listen the antaryamin will will direct us it's almost almost something like the concept of conscience we don't have a very uh exact equivalent to conscience within the vedantic system we think of conscience as something which is kind of a uh internal moral framework within that tells us right from wrong that seems to be independent of cultural things so that if everybody says that uh no it's all right to do this inside something will tell us and no it doesn't seem right no matter what anybody else says uh so it's not something not cultural it's something that at least we have the feeling that there's something absolute about it and uh if we listen to it that inner voice it can direct us this is the idea of the anta yaman and if we if we personalize it a little bit then every thought that we have not simply every prayer every thought that we had is heard by this indwelling ishwara god dwelling within the heart listening to our prayers knowing everything that we do like santa claus we have to we tell the little kids he knows that when if you were when you're good he knows when you're bad he knows something so be good for goodness sake you better be good you better yeah something like that there's a there's a children's song about that but anyhow this is that idea that god dwells within and that way god dwelling within can hear each and every pair of everyone at every second because uh this is that reflected sun the real sun is beyond everything the real sun is not listening to anything the real sun is just it is what it is lost in its own glory somehow like that so it is he who listens to our prayers at least this is the attitude of the devotee whether we want to say it's uh it's something that uh is is just uh a feeling that they have an intuition that they have or is it something verifiable we can't say any too much about that but this will be a conviction at least a part of the belief system the prayers that you utter are directed to him alone now the brahmos would pray to this this absolute brahman sometimes they would refer to brahmana's father pita they they had that kind of feeling but no form that was the distinctive feature you were bhaktis not gyanis or vedantists taku tells them that all of the time and i think that probably they looked upon themselves more as gyanis and they certainly looked down a little bit on the typical bhakta who would go into the temple and bow before an image and offer food and all of that stuff they didn't do any of those things so i've always wondered how it struck them when takra said that that but your bhaktas he liked to the reason he says that is that he's identifying gyanis with these restricted doitins who look upon the world as a dream so they don't do that they were so involved in social reform so that was one of the things you were bhaktis not gyanes or vedantists now again we have to understand the context vedantis for taquer men these are dwightens it meant followers of the upanishads and the upanishads don't really have anything within personal god now is strange for him to say that because their ideal was the brahmana of the upanishads for the brahmos so their understanding might have been a little bit different they might have taken exception to the statement you were bhaktis not gyanis or vedantis they may have wanted to say no we're really not bhaktis we're ghani's to a certain extent and we're definitely vedantists but not as i say in the typical uh shankaracharya mood of vedantis it doesn't matter whether you accept god with form or not okay so taka was very liberal he never forced anything on anybody and he knew that some things were suitable for some and not for others they weren't necessary for everyone but he always would put a little footnote but that doesn't mean that that others shouldn't do it and that it's not helpful for them so he says it doesn't matter whether you accept god with form or not it is enough to feel that god is a person so he liked that idea if they could refer to to brahman as as father that means that they have some feeling that there's some personality there as a as a person who listens to our prayers okay the unto yaman idea who creates preserves and destroys the universe standard idea of ishvara and who is endowed with infinite power saguna brahman that or with with shakti with power then he says it is easier to attain god by following the path of devotion now takwa said this to everybody he said it to everybody in gita chapter 12 we have this slight little distinction that uh for those who are uh they have it says those who are possessed of a body or have some body consciousness then better that they follow the path of devotion now that means practically everybody that they have if it means an embodied being then of course 100 of people if it means attached that that means that 99.9 because very few people are born or have some natural feeling that uh this is not who i am we all feel this is who i am you're looking at me huh it's a very natural thing we may not have the the same attachment to it but that feeling of connection to it of course we all have to a certain extent so uh easier and appropriate are two different things so say in the cases from vivekananda he pushed him towards this the path of of of gyani yoga of the path of of knowledge not because he wanted him to do something harder but that he was suited for it and for those who are suited for it it's uh it's very quick and very straight for those who aren't suited for it not only is it long but we may never get there we may just walk around in circles so this was a taquer this is what he understood that it's a question of of what we're qualified to follow what appeals to us what will be most helpful for us what will fit in with our world view so he was again the perfect ideal teacher that he knew what everyone was was suited for so it is easier to attain god by following the path of devotion promotivity sir is it possible for one to see god if so why can't we see him okay now this comes up all of the time and very often people will ask what does it mean to see god huh and there's a very simple answer that we really don't know we really don't know what what tucker means exactly when he said yes i've seen god when not in that indirect came and asked him sir have you seen god that was his big question he went around to all the well-known spiritual leaders he even went to devendra and yes sir have you seen god and tagore kind of didn't really say too much but he said my child you have the eyes of yogi if you try hard you can have that experience something like that but takur said i've seen god i've seen god more clearly than i see you and i can show you how to also see god now what did he mean we don't know he saw god in so many forms at so many different times and so many different ways when he had the vision of mother kali what does it mean what was his experience we only have his description which leads us to believe that it's near guna brahmin that he was engulfed the wave after wave of consciousness and bliss and lost all outer awareness of everything was only merged in that ocean sounds like the near gona brahmin and yet when he comes to he feels on his lips of the words mother mother mama and we're told at least in the great master swami sharon it generally accepted that he didn't have his nearby cult of samadhi experience until dotopuri and that even when he met totopori and was trying to merge his mind in the absolute the image of the divine mother came before his eyes so did it mean that that for for the for the brahmos they don't believe in god with form so what does it mean to see god uh we have to take in a very general sense what does it mean to realize god something like that but takur because he had the he was a mystic that means that he saw so many different uh forms of god and and spoke to god in so many different ways and and it was real and living to him so he he could say with conviction that yes all of these things are possible far more things that you can even imagine so the master yes he can surely be seen then he says one can see his forms now taka of course he believes that brahman is is formless infinite absolute reality and uh not just form but forms that means that that the ocean of sachitananda can can form blocks of ice in so many different ways and all of them are possible depending upon the yearning of the heart this is this is his understanding of all of this yes he can surely be seen one can see his forms and its formless aspect as well so now we know that we're not talking about really seeing one can't see formlessness it means that one can have that experience somehow how can i explain that to you so this is this is the case of uh someone trying going to a kingdom of blind people and trying to explain uh what the sunset looks like something like that or uh the the taste of of something to someone who has no sense of taste it's a virtually impossible brahma devotee okay so he he accepts that and these brahmas were good people they not that they spent all their time trying to have god realization but they accepted you know to that extent that yes it's possible to have some inner spiritual realization something like that so the brahma devotee asks what are the means by which one can see god master now he'll give a very very simple thing can you weep for him with intense longing of heart sometimes he says if you can weep continuously for 24 hours sometimes three days but if you can do that you can realize god now that means that there has to be tremendous longing to realize god and nothing else so it sounds like maybe it's it's not so difficult but it's hard for us to shed two or three tears for god occasionally some emotion may come it may be very short-lived can you weep for him with intense longing of heart men shed a jug full of tears for the sake of their children for their wives or for money but who weeps for god will find this conversation many many times in the gospel so long as the child remains engrossed with its toys the mother looks after her cooking and other household duties but when the child no longer relishes the toys it throws them aside and yells for its mother then the mother takes the rice pot down from the hearth runs in haste and takes the child in her arms is it of course allegorical but takur uh experienced this his first realization of the divine mother was done without any real aid without any meditation technique without any special prayers that he'd uttered without any specific type of of sadhana it was just through longing intense longing of god that was the whole thing this what he called means that the heart is is just being rung taco gave the illustration so many times you take a cloth you dip it in water and to get the water you wring it out so that means tremendous anguish of heart sometimes we think we pray oh when will that will that be akulata come to me as if it's an easy thing it's not that we have to be very careful what we pray for that it can be the worst type of anguish in pain and taqwa experienced all of these things sometimes we think that taqwa says that the highest type of mahabhava that's reserved for these very great souls we think oh why can't i have it we don't know what it means that when taka went in had these experience his whole body would be like on fire the blood would come out of the pores of the body he would have to spend full day in the ganga because the body was burning so much we have stories about how they would they would put take the mud and make a paste out of it and put it on his whole body to try to cool it off and within a few minutes it would become caked and just as the sun will dry out mud and then almost desert desert areas like that when the when the bromine used to take him in that condition she had to put a blanket around his body because if she put her hands on his body the hands would burn these were this is not a joke when we talk about these uh the signs and the uh physical manifestations of mahabhava so the same thing with the aqualuta it manifests to the point where we shed tears fine but if we have to go through what taqwa went through and we won't be able to stand it so this is the one thing he's going to tell them because it's very easy they can understand that he's not going to say that go into solitude for months at a time spend long hours in meditation they're all householders and they're well-placed people they have responsible jobs and families and everything so then the brahmo devotee he'll continue with these with his questions sir why are there so many different opinions about the nature of god some say that god has form while others say he is formless now the brahmas were very much aware of this that they were in the minority that the generality of hindu population in those days not only believed in god with form but would would worship god through an image and this this was something that was forbidden for them so he wants to know why doesn't everybody understand like we do that god is forms i don't know if that's a little too harsh but that may be part of it where there's so many different opinions about the nature of god some say that god has form while others say that he is formless again those who speak of god with form tell us about his different forms why all this controversy good questions these are things that tucker deals with all the time master a devotee thinks of god as he sees him that means as he conceives him because we're not seeing god right now but we have a certain conception that and even even for those who don't picture god with any form they can very be very fanatical that god has to be a father figure and not a female figure that there are certain traditions that they think is the highest blasphemy to to call on god as mother now god has to be a father figure god has to be male and then if you ask them does that mean having some male organs and body and all of that they'll say no god is formless so what do they mean simply conception so a devotee thinks of god as he sees him that means as we conceive of god so do we meditate upon him something like that in reality there is no confusion about god god explains all this to the devotee if the devotee only realizes him somehow so there are a lot of questions and we have to we have to simply accept this there are a lot of questions that we won't be able to answer or fully understand through the intellect that there are many things that will clear up only if and when we have these experiences for ourselves god explains all this to the devotee if the devotee only realizes him somehow you haven't set foot in that direction how can you expect to know all about god they were all uh in in this within the category of worshipers not really sadhakas there's a difference a sadhaka means someone who is striving to have some type of realization a bhakta means someone who is content to simply worship that we're content to say oh god how wonderful you are that you're a infinite bliss and knowledge and absolute all of that and then that's it we don't expect to to have anything uh transformational take place within us we don't expect to realize anything we're not striving for that uh we're we're simply devotees of god which is fine there's there's nothing wrong with that but talk we're saying that now you're talking about a whole different thing what it's like to realize god you haven't really started along that path so if you want to become a sadhaka someone who is striving then you have to practice you have to do some type of uh spiritual disciplines in order to have that realization listen to a story now he'll tell a nice given illustration once a man enter the wood and saw a small animal on a tree now again we're going to get one of the many illustrations about form and formlessness and why people see god in different ways he came back and told another man that he had seen a creature of a beautiful red color on a certain tree the second man replied when i went into the wood i also saw that animal but why do you call it red it is green another man who was present contradicted them both and insisted that it was yellow presently others arrived and contended that it was gray violet blue and so forth and so on at last they started quarreling among themselves to settle the dispute they all went to the tree they saw a man sitting under it on being asked he replied yes i live under this tree and i know the animal very well so this is takwo tako is the one who lives under the tree and he knows the animal very well all your descriptions are true sometimes it appears red sometimes yellow and it other times blue violet gray and so forth it is a chameleon it is a chameleon and sometimes it has no color at all now it has a color and now it has none now of course we can imagine that not having color but what he means is sometimes a devotee can experience the nergon aspect of brahmin that which is a different type of thing i was mentioning last time that generally we want to access the water in in the pond we have to scoop it out with a different type of container but one can simply dive in and bathe in it then it's not taking any form but we have to immerse ourselves in it we have tan maybe we have to become one with it at that point in like manner one who constantly thinks of god can know his real nature now by real nature it means that uh his nature is such that it can appear to different people in different ways not real nature is that it has this way and not anywhere else he alone knows that god reveals himself to seekers in various forms and aspects this is what i call the objective theory in god himself is saying the chameleon itself is saying that oh the so-and-so is coming i always appear as yellow to him he seems to like that let me take my yellow form the other way would be is that this particular person has the power to see that chameleon as yellow it doesn't work that well with this illustration it works fine with the forming blocks of ice in the ocean so tucker gives both types so the person who lives under the tree alone knows that god reveals himself to seekers in various forms and aspects got his attribute then again he has none now this is the same we said well how is that possible it's the same for each and every one of us huh when i say i have attributes that means as i is identified with the mind and the body if i say i have no attributes that means the mind is identified with pure consciousness they're both true it depends on on the the aspect and and the very subtle connotations of the of the terms that we're using and what mood we're in all of these things god has attributes then again he has none only the man who lives under the tree that means the god relay soul who has an intimate relationship with god this is the vigyani only the man who lives under the tree knows that the chameleon can appear in various colors and he knows further that the animal times has no color at all it is the others who suffer from the agony of futile argument what is that argument it's red no it's yellow no it's blue this is that argument that no you're calling you're saying that god is rama you're saying god is no god is krishna i know that that's true there's feudal arguments because they've only seen it's like the blind men five blind men with the elephant the one who feels the body says that this animal is like a wall i know it i felt it i've had the direct experience but it's limited the other will say no it's like it's like a a big winning tray he touches the ear or like a big pillar he touches the leg it's all true but it's all limited and restricted because they don't have an intimate relationship they have a certain type of blindness even though they're having some type of experience kabir used to say the formless absolute is my father and god with form is my mother the second half to this expression that he says whom shall i praise whom shall i criticize both pans are equally heavy in the type of scale when you hold it in the middle and you put something on one side and you want to find out exactly how much it weighs you have to put some some weights on the other pan until it comes down and that's then it's exactly the same so both sides are that means that there's there's no greater truth when somebody says god has form or when somebody said god is formless they have equal weight to them equal validity to them god reveals himself in the form which is devotee loves most again the objective side his love for the devotee knows no bounds it is written in the purana that god assumed the form of rama for his heroic devotee hanuman now hanuman does hanuman not know that rama and krishna are one and the same he knows but he wants to see the rama form that's the one that he loves so we may know that god can assume all different forms but i want to see god is mother this is the form that i love so either we can say that that power of devotion will cause it to happen that way or god himself or god herself out of compassion for the devotee will reveal herself or himself in that particular form i don't know which one is a more valid way of expressing it i lean towards the psychological side of course [Music] the forms and aspects of god disappear when one discriminates in in accordance with the vedanta philosophy now if the forms and aspects of god can disappear that means that they're not absolutely true in the same way that the formless reality is absolutely true talkward very readily will agree to that otherwise he won't say that when the sun of knowledge rises the blocks of ice melt back into the ocean the the ocean is the is the absolute form water even in blackmon it's blocks of ice it's still the same water the other uh will be contingent will be contingent on the state of mind of the devotee nature the devotee desire the heart of the devotee and all those things but it's not unreal and it's not something to be dismissed because for most of us this is what we want we we've uh if we wanted to see the grandeur of the ocean we want to see big waves sometimes if we if we go hoping to see the waves and we say no it's not as there are no good waves say surfers huh there's no good words very disappointed even in the taqwa's time there used to be a certain tie that will come that will give big waves that would come on the shore and even break off part of the shore they got all got so excited someone would yell oh it's coming it's coming they all run out to see the wave come so there's something nice about the wave it's nothing but water but it takes a form so he says the forms and aspects of god disappear when one discriminates in accordance with the read onto philosophy so how do we discriminate well if it's if it's not permanent it's not real if it's something temporary then it doesn't have that same reality if it comes and it goes if it's dependent upon my state of mind then it doesn't have that same reality but the the devotee understands that now the reality is not in the form the reality is what we're getting with with the help of the form but still wants the form the ultimate conclusion of such discrimination is that brahman alone is real and this world of names informs illusory that means that they come and they go they're changeful it's uh it's the reality underlying that it's real it's the gold that's real not the particular form of the bracelet or the name that we give to it or the earrings or the nose ring or anklets or anything like that it is possible for a man to see the forms of god or to think of him as a person only so long as he is conscious that he is a devotee so this ego that doesn't die has to be there if this ego merges then there's only the ocean of consciousness there has to be a little scent of i as long as that is there then we think of ourselves as a person think of god as a person what was swamiji's definition of a personal god the highest reading of the absolute by the human intellect the highest reading and he said someone said it's the is the personal god real he said as real as you and i and now is a very tricky answer because are we really real we may think that yes oh okay so that means personal god is real but am i real is this personal eye real within me this ego sense yes and no same thing with the person of god yes and no so he says it is possible for a man to see the forms of god or to think of him as a person only so long as he is conscious that he is a devotee from the standpoint of discrimination the vivekan this ego of a devotee keeps him a little away from god now takur gives a completely different interpretation he says this ego of the devotee allows us to have that relationship and to enjoy it he gives a positive spin the the gianni will say this ego is keeping us from from understanding and experiencing that absolute oneness between the individual self and the supreme self taku says yes that's true but it also allows us to enjoy that relationship so he gives it more of a positive spin to it so from the standpoint of discrimination this is the gyani this ego of a devotee keeps him a little away from god do you know why images of krishna and kali are three and a half cubits and a half cubits high i believe simply means the height of an ordinary person because of distance again on the kind of distance the sun appears to be small but if you go near it you will find the sun so big that you won't be able to comprehend it yeah this is an interesting thing i was thinking the other day that you know from from our standpoint the sun and the moon are exactly the same size kumar is that true the sun and the moon are exactly the same size sometimes the moon is a little bit bigger sometimes it's a little smaller exactly the same size it's such a strange phenomenon that we may say well how can you say that that's ridiculous but if there's an eclipse and the moon comes in front of the sun it covers it exactly from our stand our point of view it may be that both of them look about six inches high if we take a photograph we'll see that the the size of the sun the size of the moon exactly the same it's not that the moon is a little smaller and we see the we may see a little bit of the whether they call it penumbra or something uh the corona is coming out from the sun but otherwise it covers it exactly yet we know that one is is so much bigger than the other all the question of distance so takur is saying that this is this is the kind of the play of the mind again on the kind of distance the sun appears to be small if you go near it you will find the sun so big that you won't be able to comprehend it why the images of krishna and kali a dark blue color people sometimes ask why is dark blue or black krishna means black or dark blue shama shama means or shama this this means the color of generally they'll explain the of the dark rain cloud huh very deep dark sometimes deep green there's a deep blue something like that aqua says that too is on a kind of distance like the water of a lake which appears green blue or black from a distance go near take the water in the palm of your hand and you will find that it has no color the sky also appears blue from a distance go near and you will see that it has no color at all so what this distance here means the distance means that we haven't had any type of higher realization or understanding that we're still far away from god and the closer we get according to the dwight in the closer we get the more the form aspect will disappear now this is interesting that the devotee has the exact opposite explanation i've mentioned this before i find very interesting examples from the invasion of a tradition that those you they'll say the opposite they'll say uh why does this krishna appear well or god they'll say appear to be formless to those to some and others they'll see the form they'll say distance same answer but the the explanation is the opposite they'll say christian c is a figure in in the distance walking and it's so far away that he can't make out who it is but as the figure comes closer and closer and closer the features of the face come into view and at one point it comes close enough he says ah it's my friend narada so he says why didn't he recognize him before because he was too far away the closer we get to god we more the more we see the attributes and the personality it just shows how many different ways there are of trying to explain this great mystery of god they're both nice explanations huh taqwa's of course is more according to the path of ghyana i say that in the light of vedantic reasoning brahman has no attributes so now uh he's filling in this other side so for the brahmos they like this idea of saguin of roman so the first thing he did was he's trying to explain you like this that's uh formless brahmin with attributes so in the beginning he's trying to show look there's there's some truth to the forms they don't simply dismiss them now we're saying there's some truth to the fact that uh that the real nature of brahman is without even attributes so he see how he's taking whatever limited view they have in trying to expand it therefore i say that in the light of it onto reasoning brahman has no attributes the real nature of brahman cannot be described now the experience of near guna brahmin means the disappearance of the ego of the eye who was there to describe it the the salt doll is one with the ocean at that point no one to describe it taqwa is very clear on that but so long as your individuality is real the world also is real and equally real are the different forms of god and the feeling that god is a person these are mysterious things i have this conviction that we can only understand these to a certain extent we can understand the analogies this is something that is very very clear to me the difference between understanding the analogy and the difference between understanding the reality and one example that always comes to my mind is this idea of the sun reflected in the different containers very easy to understand how there's only one sun and there are many reflections although they're not many individual suns there's only one sun does that mean that i understand how this one brahman manifests in the hearts of all this consciousness no it doesn't mean that that has to come with realization with some type of experience so we'll stop here and continue next time and we'll close with the final chant [Music] we bow our heads before srama krishna who is 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 peace peace be unto all thank you everyone and have a very nice week and we will see you next time