Video 38

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (01/01/21)

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 good afternoon good evening to everybody it's thursday afternoon here right thursday and you it'll be friday so it's now 2020 for me and 2021 for all of you so i wish all of you a very very happy new year i hope that pooja went well and everyone got to see it uh this is the mystery of time huh that for them it's it's over 24 hours later than it is for us here anyhow this is our class on the gospel of srama krishna we're on chapter 7 the master and vijay goswami we've had a long section all about lust and gold and i'm going to skip a few progress because it's the same thing over and over again it was too much and so last time i apologize for all of that tako is talking to vijay goswami who was jazzed on that borderline of being ready to renounce everything so he's giving him advice that's really meant for him and it's meant for him to really get that feeling of intense renunciation but i am going to start with with taquers with his real feeling because one devotee was listening to all of this talker is telling him that please be careful about the company of women it will pull you down this and that so devotee says sir shall we hate women then now this is a very important master he was realized god does not look upon a woman with the eyes of lust so he is not afraid of her he perceives clearly that women are but so many aspects of the divine mother he worships them all as the mother herself and we know that in the life of swami krishna how close he was and how free he was with the women devotees this is something that doesn't come out in the gospel because he's talking to men the whole time and he knows that men have their problems with attachments and lust and great and everything but uh with isrami krishna he i could say had a very special relationship with women because he could identify with them and he spent a long time we know of a full year when he stayed in babu's house where he considered himself one of the women there he was dressed and acted and behaved like a woman companion of the divine mother and they all felt so free with him and even later that many of the women used to say we laugh when we hear people say that takur had something against women because he he when we would all meet together he would tell jokes and we would laugh and sing and have such a good time and everything that people can't even imagine we don't get to see these things it's a shame that there weren't more women who recorded these things at that time so we could know these things but whenever he went into any deputy's home he would take his meal with the women he would go to the inner apartment and they would all be waiting to see him and he knew all of them and was so kind and sweet and loving to all of them okay now to vijay come here now and then i like to see you very much vijay i have to do my various duties in the brahma samaj that is why i can't always come here but i shall visit you whenever i find it possible now just before we renounced everything he had a paid position as priest or acharya that means some ritual not very much ritual i don't know what they did but also uh giving some lectures which were more like sermons that's the type of uh religious practices that they had a little bit like church religion there'd be a little bit of communal singing and there'll be someone to give it a sermon uh something like that so this is this is just that very critical time in video's life when he he was starting to understand that he wasn't cut out to be a member of the brahmos homage because they didn't care for any type of devotional mood that involved personal god with any type of form so that men worship of god as krishna or as rama any of the traditional hindu approaches especially if it involves any image that they didn't even allow that and vijay came from a highly devotional and very high goswami family which meant that they traced their lineage all the way back to chaitanya deva and generation after generation they were great devotees so it was very odd fit from the very beginning for him to be a member of the brahmos homage so he suggested the point and i think it happens within a year i don't know the timing exactly where he gives that up and renounces everything and he shows up one day and taco sees him dressed fully in the garage and everything and and then takris knew that this was really what was the path that was cut out for him not only just renouncing it in garuwa but he became uh a full fledged vaisnava again the worshiper of krishna and god with form and the kirtan and everything that goes along with it master tuvijay the task of a religious teacher is indeed difficult religious teacher the words that he's using not exactly guru or spiritual leader this is this is their particular type of religious teacher where it's it's a position not that they've grown into it not that they've had some illumination and they feel some call within but it's it's a little bit like the paid priest and the hindu tradition except that they also have to give so-called spiritual advice through these different sermons and things one cannot teach men without a direct command from god people won't listen to you if you teach without such authority such teaching has no force behind it one must first of all attain god through spiritual discipline or some other means thus armed with authority from god one can deliver lectures now people will say okay then what am i doing sitting here delivering a lecture and our answer is that we don't feel that we're giving lectures what we're doing we're trying to the best of our limited ability to explain the teachings and experiences of srirami krsna of the holy mother of the direct disciples of the scriptures what we read in gita what we read in upanishads to the best of our ability uh none of us claim to have that authority that asrama krishna and holy mother and the direct disciples had they would be would be foolish of us now there's many many many sadhus of our order who perhaps themselves won't claim to have had god realization but are highly evolved spiritual souls they have every right to uh to share their spiritual experiences even if it's not done directly but there's a certain type of authority so i would say the stamp of authority will have different grades to it highest stamp will be a god realized soul but short of that there will be others who have attained to a state of nishta of some deep devotion deep commitment deep sense of dedication to the spiritual ideal this will also be a type of stamp that they'll have there will be some who maybe haven't realized very much but they're committed to spiritual life each one will have a certain level and some will be even i shouldn't say even but of course householder devotees as well that just keeping their company will be enlightening and uh very helpful and spiritual life to all of us because of their devotion and their dedication so tucker always talks about it as as if there's there's one stamp but uh i would say that there there may be you know a big badge and then a smaller badge and then a smaller badge that we can also learn from they're very foolish for us to go to a guru nowadays and say sir have you realized god first of all if they have they won't say anything and second of all who are we to know and if if they have and they can grant us whatever they want we we're not big enough receptacles to contain it anyhow and all of our gurus feel that thakura himself is the guru so it's a completely different thing for us this of course was one big objection when swamiji held that meeting in 1897 in baltimore ambose's house to initiate the ramakrishna martin mission uh he wanted to on as part of the mission work to do social service work on the one hand and then on the other hand to do this this you could say preaching with spreading the word and there was a big objection from some of his brother disciples who said but taqwa said without the badge of authority no one will listen and even with some of taqwa's own disciples swami virus swamiji wanted to send him to east bengal to do kind of a lecture tour and everything and he said but i haven't realized anything what can i tell them i don't know anything he said tell them that tell them that you don't know anything they'll be impressed with your humility but anyhow we we have we have the teachings of takwan ma and everything that we can we can try to explain this was em's attitude that uh sram a christian would actually send some of these these young boys young disciples to m and he would say go talk to him they would say he's a householder what can he teach us and he said no you'll hear nothing but words about me there so i am used to say i'm like a person sitting by the side of a huge ocean with with a pitcher and anybody who comes who's thirsty for spiritual wisdom i can take from that that huge reservoir of water and pour water for them to drink from there so that was his attitude and nobody who went to m heard anything except swami krishna's words so this is what we try to do of course so this receiving the authority from god and as takwer understands it will have to do with some type of direct realization and then some inner call i don't know exactly what it means but some feeling that of course it shouldn't be an egotistical feeling but some feeling that someone has something to to give that will be of benefit to others after receiving the command from god one can be a teacher and give lectures anywhere he who receives authority from god also receives power from him only then can he perform the difficult task of a teacher we we know this sometimes we we hear people give lectures and everything they say will say it sounds right but we don't feel anything then so some other a speaker will be there maybe the english isn't so good maybe they uh can't express themselves so well and yet we feel elevated because it's the personality it's the personality the spiritual power the realization behind everything that makes the difference it denied how clever we are with the words that we choose and and how well we can explain the scriptures the life has to be behind it this is the main difference if we hear somebody talking about renunciation or forbearance or something and we know in their own lives that they don't practice these things doesn't it leaves no effect on us so tako used to say what type of effect do these words leave he would say if you if you take a [Music] frying pan and it's been on the fire for a long time and you've put a few drops of water on it how long does the water last that's how long the effect will last so people hear it they'll say ah how wonderful and it won't leave any lasting effect on them he who receives authority from god also receives power from him only then can he perform the difficult task of a teacher an insignificant tendent was once engaged in a lawsuit with a big landlord people realized that there was a powerful man behind the tenet perhaps another big landlord was directing the case from behind man is an insignificant creature he cannot fulfill the difficult task of a teacher without receiving power direct from god these are very strong words for vijay who's a preacher and who is is a highly highly qualified spiritual aspiring but who is not a god realized soul as far as we know taqwa certainly didn't feel that he had received that so on the one hand he's exhorting him to increase his vitage that that sense of uh deep dispassion and renunciation and the distaste for the world on the other hand to uh not expend his energy with this with this lecture giving but devote his time to spiritual practice vijay don't the teachings of the brahmos hamad bring men's salvation he was a simple person he was a very sincere person he really believed that they were doing some good and did they do no good at all they must have done some good look at all the direct disciples that were inspired by keshav and ultimately came to suramar krishna because of that so they certainly did some good but it would have been very much limited master how is it ever possible for one man to liberate another from the bondage of the world see look at the language of the question that don't the teachings of the brahma so much bring men salvation so that means this cause and effect that they're getting salvation through our teachings talk with he can he can easily admit that if the teachings are sound it can be helpful but who brings anyone to salvation is god's grace that we get salvation and through god's grace through our own effort it's not it's such a simple thing that you'll give a lecture and they'll get salvation god alone the creator of this world to be witching maya can save men from maya there is no other refuge but that great teacher sachidananda how is it ever possible for men who have not realized god or received his command and who are not strengthened with divine strength to save others from the prison house of the world okay now so we have two things one that there will be certain people who through whatever spiritual explanations of the scriptures they try to give that it'll be of some benefit to people there'll be others who with a simple touch can give liberation this is a completely different category that this was something that srama krishna could do and we don't know too many other instances uh he could easily uh just he would take his hand and it would go like this and kundalini would go like that he had that power this is why they call him an avatar they don't call him an avatar for no reason whatsoever he had that power that sometimes just a casual touch they would notice that when talking to somebody sometimes he would just put his hand on the arm or touch the chest something like that sometimes casually he would walk up devotee's sitting on the ground and just with his foot he just happened to push it over and touch the foot of the devotee and they'll have some spiritual illumination some realizations some experience so this is this is a huge distinction so this doesn't mean that those who are giving spiritual advice or wasting their time or doing something harmful but they're certainly not giving liberation this is what this question was don't the teachings of the brahma somalia bring men's salivation then taqwa will give an example one day as i was passing the panchavati on my way to the pine grove i heard a bullfrog croaking i thought it must have been seized by a snake after some time as i was coming back i could still hear its terrified croaking i looked to see what was the matter and found that a water snake had seized it the snake would neither swallow it nor give it up so there was no end to the frog's suffering i thought that it had been seized by a cobra it would have been silenced after three croaks at the most as it was as it was only a water snake both of them had to go through this agony so that means both the uh unqualified guru and the the poor sap of the disciple who thinks that he's getting a cobra and he's getting a water snake a man's ego is destroyed after three croaks as it were if he gets into the clutches of a real teacher but if the teacher is an unripe one then both the teacher and the disciple undergo endless suffering one sign of of the guru who uh is is not of the caliber that tucker is speaking of and of course this is a very very rare thing but one of the one of the signs is that at the end they themselves suffer more than the disciple does because they get all puffed up with pride and they start to think that the standards that apply to the disciple don't apply to us the very very common thing that especially with regard to uh to renunciation to with regard to leading a very pure and ethical life let's say we did all of these things before these are for you we're beyond that now we can do whatever we want i've run across people like that and it says ruin is for them sometimes the disciple who falls into the clutches of this type of guru doesn't suffer nearly as much as the guru because of their devotion and if they really feel they look upon the guru of the god himself and the teachings are okay and they can overlook everything else that they can get great to benefit from that taqwa has has two teachings would seem to conflict with each other one he says that examine the guru day and night before you accept the guru and what is the other one that you should look upon the guru is the embodiment of joy and bliss and and god himself even if he goes to the grog shop and and gets drunk now how do we reconcile these two different teachings i think what talk we're saying that once you've accepted the guru after examination once you've accepted it in guru then don't look for any faults that's all don't look for any faults the other thing is that in many parts of india and bengal especially there was this kuluguru system and you had no choice this was a family guru very often it will be a married person and you're expected to take initiation even holy mother sometimes would say my child you they would come for initiation she would say do you have a family guru if they said yes she would say then why not take initiation for them or if you don't at least pay the the yearly whatever whatever gifts you would get every year if you had taken initiation at least continue that because these are poor brahmins that's how they make a living so it could be that way also that once you've taken initiation or if the family in guru or something then don't expect them to be perfect but you really want spiritual purely spiritual initiation and you want a guru that you can rely on and that you can have full faith in then he said examine the guru by day and by night then only if you see that the character is a sparkling character and that of course we say they should have some understanding of the real meaning of the scriptures and they have to be free from desire if you see these qualities there then know that this is appropriate guru for you so this is the unripe teacher if the teacher is an unripe one then both the teacher and the disciple undergo endless suffering the disciple cannot get rid either of his ego or the shackles of the world now what taku are saying is what is what is the role of the guru and what is the operative transformation that takes place on the road to realization this is this ego if the ego is in the main obstacle then we have to somehow get rid of it or transform it or defange it that that means that get the poison out of it learn how to live with it so that we don't suffer because of it so this was this was what uh these three croaks will be that this the death of the ego vijay sir why are we bound like this why don't we see god master see vijay had a very humble person he's not raising the slightest objection that other people they they would either get annoyed and leave or they would say that i know a thing or two i can why can't i give lectures i've been reading and studying these things my whole life and everything but this video is very humble why are we bound like this why don't we see god master maya is nothing but egotism of the embodied soul now suramar krishna will give many many many different types of definitions of maya and swamiji will give also his own definitions of maya to statement effect sometimes he'll say time itself is maya none of these are in conflict with each other they're all beautiful ways of understanding uh maya in a combined sense the the word maya has two slightly different but related meanings especially as used in bengali language that talk was using one of course is our philosophical idea that there's some inherent misunderstanding it doesn't have to be this cosmic delusion or anything like that but just some false identification which doesn't allow us to realize our true nature so this will be one one aspect of it and the other is that on account of that we have our attachments and we have uh our pride and we have the anger and greed and all of the all the other things stem from this feeling of i so one is just the basic fact that this eye is based on false ideas and the other is that this eye becomes a prideful eye or it can be the opposite it can be uh the eye of some of the very poor self-image it's also not helpful and very painful in spiritual life and in life in general so it's the emotional side is also very important so this egotism of the embodied soul it'll be both this this idea that uh this i is real that i i am this body mind everything i was born i'll die all of that and then this other idea that uh don't you know who i am you have to show me respect that i'm somebody important so there's a hunkada that has both meanings one is egotism and the other pride there's a different type of pride and and all of the other types of passions also get associated with it this egotism has covered everything like a veil all troubles come to an end when the ego dies there's a little bengali expression that taku uses many many times is by the grace of god amanda once realizes that he is not the doer okay so the two main aspects to this sense of ego one is that i am this body and the second thing is that i am the doer i'm the agent of action this also has the other side that uh i did it not just philosophically that i'm the agent of action but i want credit for it that i'm the one who did so this this other side this little pride always enters into it now how do we feel that we're not the agent of action is it possible there are times when it's we get some sense of what it means that we feel the body the hands themselves are working on their own the mind may be directing them but i'm simply the witness we may get some sense of that we may feel that yes the the divine presence within is the real operator of everything these are very high spiritual attitudes for most of us for most of us it's enough if we feel that yes i'm the one who's doing it but i don't care to take credit for it i don't want to be attached to the results and i want to do everything as an offering to god this is enough this is enough if we if every moment we say that i'm not the doer when we're doing whatever we feel like doing then this is called hypocrisy this is hypocrisy there's a sign that whoever really feels that mother alone is the operator that they'll never take a false step they'll never do anything harmful they'll never do anything that will not be what we would ordinarily say the will of god they will never see their ego intruding they'll never do anything with any self-interest so this is this is the test the the worst combination is when we when we claim that i'm doing whatever mother makes me do and we're doing actually whatever the ego is telling us to do and either consciously or unconsciously we're being hypocrites so if we can't reach that high level then at least we try to practice this idea of bhakti based karma yoga that yes i'm doing the great privilege for me to do it i do it as an offering to god i don't ask for anything returned i don't want any thanks or anything like that that that'll be enough if we go higher and higher if we really want to get to this idea of god realization then taka says we look in search who is this ego that's talking we say that there's nothing there we find god alone in place of the ego this is a very high type of ideal this we can feel of course at the time of meditation or the time of self-inquiry but taco will say later that good you can feel that he said the very next moment this feeling of eye comes back so the whole time he's telling us every time he says that you have to get rid of this ego he'll come back afterwards and say but it's impossible to get rid of this ego completely while we're living on the relative plane we'll get to that so he says if by the grace of god a man but once realizes that he is not the doer then he once becomes ajivan mukta free while living in the body though living in the body he is liberated he has nothing else to fear this maya that is to say the ego is like a cloud ego ignorance of india these are all very closely related ideas the sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud this huge sun think of the energy the solar energy in the sun and think of this tiny wispy cloud you fly through it in an airplane you see there's not really a cloud at all it's just little fibers and things and there's nothing there but you you go to the beach you want to lie in the sun the tiny little cloud comes sun is gone so this insignificant wispy ego that has no substance to it has the ability to completely hide the sun of knowledge it's very strange that's why we call it maya so the sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud when that disappears one sees the sun this is why it's called grace because there's nothing else that has to be done we we are not the ones who are making the sun shine we're only doing our part to try to get rid of this this cloud of ignorance cloud of ego then it happens on its own it happens on its own this is the grace aspect of it so the sun cannot be seen on account of a thin patch of cloud when that disappears one sees the sun if by the grace of the guru one's ego vanishes then one sees god now the grace of the guru takara could have easily said by the grace of god he could have said by the grace of the mind he he uses these these all these different concepts and terms at different times rama who was god himself was only two and a half cubits ahead of lakshmana but lakshmana couldn't see him because sita stood before them lakshmana may be compared to the jiva and sita to maya men cannot see god on account of the barrier of maya so that's that cloud of ego just look i'm creating a barrier in front of my face with this towel so we can picture takur perhaps his kamcha was over his shoulder and he takes it off and he holds it in front of his head now you can't see me even though i'm so near likewise god is the nearest of all but we cannot see him on account of this covering of maya so maya it means ignorance ignorance manifesting in the form of ignorance of our true nature which means this ego sense and the thing there's a light ego and there's a thin ego there's a thick ego there's an unripe ego there's a ripe ego and everything in between there's a harmful ego there's a helpful ego because the ego only means [Music] if you ask me who i am how do i enter so as all the ego is just self-image it's what do i think of myself we we get confused a little bit when we read that there's anta that is inner organ is composed of there's a buddhi and there's a chitta and manas and ahankara this ego as if this is an actual thing this is sankhya philosophy vedanta philosophy it's not a thing it's a mirage it's a false understanding of who we are it's real when that center of the ego knows that i am nothing i am a child of the divine mother or i am sachin and itself then there's some truth to this to this ego but everybody has an ego god realized so has an ego a very strong ego because it's centered in god it's centered in truth the strongest type of ego but it's not a bond binding type of ego it frees one so this is that vidyamaya vidyamaya distinction that one will will keep his mire to the world and other will release us from the world this jiva is nothing but the embodiment of satchidananda so the sachidananda when it seemingly takes an individualized form is the jiva we have different ways of understanding what is this jiva taqwa is very fond of course of the illustration of the sun being reflected in the container of the container filled with water the container will represent the body the water will re represent the mind and when we look inside and see the sun there that will be this this sense of individuality or jivahood or or our ego if we see that sun and we say oh how great i am i'm carrying the sun within me then then it's a very binding type of ego if we say we look and we see that oh this is the presence of the divine within my heart and i i want to simply act in accordance with the will of that divine presence within my heart then it's a very freeing type of ego but it's an ego nonetheless this is why takur after coming down from nirvikalpu samhaiti said that he had to take refuge with his with his ripe ego that i'm a child of god and he said shankaracharya also had an ego what was his ego i am he huh i am brahman that's also an ego that i you say say well who are you shankaracharya who who are you oh don't you know i'm brahman the sense of i is there so unless we're we're sleeping we're in the state of nehru kopasamahati some sense of i will be there so it's not just this the sense of i but what is the content of it what is our actually feeling or if what is our feeling and and is it helpful is it harmful is it holding us down is it lifting us up so it's the content that will be the critical aspect of it so this jiva is nothing but the embodiment of sacha if we actually search for this ego if we search for the jiva who is this i within we find it's nothing but the son of knowledge we find it nothing but this divine consciousness there but since maya or ego has created various upadhis he has forgotten his real self that means the jiva so now we get to this this whole idea of upadhi we had a long discussion actually tuesday morning about this upani also has two meanings one is a highly philosophical meaning that some quality that does not belong to us that we identify with this is the meaning of hadith that we superimpose something that belongs to something else ubhati in the ordinary sense can mean any quality that belongs to any substance so if we we have a chair it'll have two basic uh bodies one will be shape and shape or form and one will be color these will be the two main attributes that belong to it now in vedanta this idea of upadhi is something that we assume belongs to something doesn't really belong to it and the example that i like there are so many different examples the one that i think is very easy to understand is if you take a a clear crystal and behind that you put a red rose and you look at it from the front it will look as if the crystal has taken on the color red we may not know there's a rose behind it some will say what's the color of that crystal with oh it's red now if if it actually would wear red then when we remove the rose it would remain red but we removed the rose we see it had no color whatsoever so the the self it has it has no upadhi there's nothing none of these things belong to it they're superimposed they appear they seem to belong to it but they don't really belong to it there's a number one meaning of hupathy but just like ego it has the secondary meaning that i identify with it and it leads to a certain type of pride that even and it doesn't have to be this physical body it can be the clothes that we wear the house that we live in the car that we drive these are all upadhi's that we identify with them and they help define us in our own mind and in the mind of others so this also becomes a source of bondage you'll see when taka is talking about upati he's talking about this uh from the psychological point of view how our our self-image will change based on the accoutrements the things that we add on to ourselves the things that we buy and purchase and uh or if we're if we're intellectual people the honors that we get the titles that we can add this you know this mahadaya all these things in india how many different titles these padma bhushan has and everything can be added to somebody's name that's also an apathy and what does it do it puffs us up but we're the same people whether we have it or we don't have it there's no difference whatsoever it's just the psychological effect of it you you if any of you have seen one of my favorite movies the wizard of oz that what does the wizard do for the for the tin man and the lion and the straw man afterwards he said i can't give you wisdom or anything else you already have it or you don't have it but i can give you a diploma huh and he sees the diploma and he's ah now i have a diploma that's an apartheid and somehow he feels that now i'm a very wise person and uh same thing with the others i i don't remember it once but these are different ubhadis they have a psychological effect on us so taco taco is a very good psychologist ichubati changes man's nature if he wears a fine black bordered cloth so now not this physical body just but even the clothes we wear you will at once find him humming nintu babu's love songs i have no idea who the babu was huh but these will be some light classical things huh then huh tapa okay so uh it becomes became kind of a fattish thing for a certain class of people huh taco he in english they use this word fopish those who walk around you give somebody a cane huh and they start walking with the cane and how different they start to feel with everything so this is all psychology these are also what we mean by upathis another meaning of it then playing card and a walking stick follow if even a sickly man puts on high boots this of course that will make him feel like you're britisher he begins to whistle and climb the stairs like an englishman jumping from one step to another if a man but holds a pen in his hand he scribbles on any paper he can get hold of such is the power of the pen money is also a greater party now when he says great he means terrible is a very frightful uh party because people get changed so much there are very few people who can withstand the uh feeling of pride that comes from money and from fame and from power these things people who become very wealthy and very powerful they get transformed it's it's almost impossible for that not to happen this is why we read in in the christian gospel that is easier for a camel to pass through an eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven because it's not it's not the fact that somebody has a lot of money it's the fact that it changes them and they they want to be treated with respect so i mean there are exceptions of course there are some who are very fabulously wealthy and they live a very simple life who was it uh or a man from omaha uh the great phil the philanthropist yeah yeah yeah he lives in the same house he goes and has his meal at mcdonald's in the morning yeah yeah yeah something yeah one of the wealthiest men but very very simple humble type of so it's possible but it's very very rare it's very rare yeah what's his name nobody warren buffett yeah thank you the possession of money makes such a difference in a man he is no longer the same person a brahmana used to frequent the temple garden outwardly he was very modest one day i went to konagar with fridoy though sooner did we get off the boat then we noticed the brahmin seated on the bank of the ganges we thought he had been enjoying the fresh air looking at us he said hello there priest [Music] they used to call him sometimes how do you do i marked his tone it said to fredo the man must have got some money that is why he talks that way sridoy left a frog had a rupee which he kept in his hole one day an elephant was going over the hole and the frog coming out in a fit of anger raised his foot as if to kick the elephant and said how dare you walk over my head such is the pride that money begets yeah yeah there's one whole chapter in gita chapter 16. is it 16 huh they talked about all of this don't you know who i am i've been given so much in charity i've such a wealthy person well to do well born and everything how this pride comes and these are all parties that means they don't belong to us in reality they don't belong to us even this body doesn't belong to us how can our house and our money and our goods and our possessions and everything belong to us we we get to utilize them for a very short period of time and then it's gone and we think it makes we're such a big deal because we have them one can get rid of the ego after the attainment of knowledge okay now he's saying all of this but he's saving his uh his final opinion for a little bit later when he'll say that we can't get rid of the ego we can get rid of it for a period of time we can transform it we can get rid of the unripe ego these things are all true but some semblance of ego will will remain is it like a mark on water it won't have any any power to bind us anymore but he says one can get rid of the ego after the attainment of knowledge on attaining knowledge one goes into samadhi and the ego disappears but it is very difficult to obtain such knowledge so talkward's real teaching will be that for most people we want to utilize this ego and we want to have a relationship with god and we want to look upon ourselves in a different light i'm thinking of myself one minute as a person with a certain educational background with a certain high position with this and that and he says no if you have to think of you think of yourself as a servant of god child of god that will counteract this other false type of identification it is said in the vedas that a man experiences samadhi when his mind ascends to the seventh plane the ego can disappear only when one goes into samadhi that means it gets completely effaced because there's there's no awareness of anything the second that there's some awareness there's some awareness of myself as as the person who is aware sometimes we get very engrossed in reading a book or something else and we lose a little bit of that we get absorbed in something we become a little self forgetful but they're not the same this is this is really where that there's there's no sense of eye consciousness at all there's no actually subject object distinction as long as there's subject object distinction uh of there's the object of awareness and awareness then this idea of i creeps in that i am aware we may analyze and say no there's just the seer and the sin the drashta and the drishya and there's no room for this but still they don't that feeling immediately comes that yes i am seeing it i may analyze and say the mind is seeing it through the senses and everything but i have the feeling no i'm seeing it why should i speak such funny language i'm looking at this chair why should i say no the eyes the light is bouncing off the chair going through the eyes going to the brain going to the to the the monitors and booty and giving a message that that is a chair and all of this it's it's a big talk huh when really i feel that no i'm seeing the chair yeah there's nothing wrong with that that's not the harmful type of of ego but when the pride comes in that becomes the problem so uh it's very hard to get rid of that feeling even i am brahmana it's the ego it's not egotistical but it's a sense of i identification so it says the eagle can disappear fully disappear only when one goes into samanthi where does the mind of a man ordinarily dwell in the first three planes this is our kundalini theory these are at the organs of evacuation and generation and at the navel then the mind is immersed only in worldliness attached to lust and gold a man sees the light of god when his mind dwells in the plane of the heart he sees the light and exclaims ah what is this what is this there's still some sense of ego see he feels that i'm seeing it that feeling even in saviko samadhi that feeling of i is there that's the only feeling there's when swamiji has his beautiful him of samadhi he says nothing but this flow ami yummy that's the only thing very pure sense of eye he sees the light and exclaims ah what is this what is this the next plane is at the throat when the mind dwells there he likes to hear and talk only of god when the mind ascends to the next plane in the forehead between the eyebrows he sees the form of sachitananda and desires to touch and embrace it this will be roughly equivalent towards mati but he is unable to do so it is like the light and a lantern which you can see but cannot touch you feel as if you were touching the light but in reality you are not when the mind reaches the seventh plane then the ego vanishes completely and the man goes into samadhi vijay what does a man see when he attains the knowledge of brahman after reaching the seventh plane everybody wants to know what this experience is like and takur he he had some idea that perhaps he could give a little glimpse of what this experience is like there was a one particular day when he said okay he looked around and said you are all my very dear ones all part of the is there poor noise there's no stranger here you're all my own people today i'll tell you everything and he went one by one when when kundalini rises to this center what one sees and every time he said now let me tell you what happens when kundalini goes to the sahasrara the top of the head and as soon as he started to feel that he he went into samadhi and then he would come back down again and say oh i wanted to tell you let me try again and it happened several times and then it says with tears in his eyes because he really wanted to be able to explain it he said it's simply not possible that even to think about that the mind gets lost in that state and that experience of of oneness with the brahmin cannot be expressed in words you want to talk with favorite expressions over and over again he said one cannot explain that that that knowledge of brahman this is the only thing that is not eto the naruchishta it hasn't been defiled by the tongue because you can't say what it is the tongue can't touch it by trying to to describe it so vijay he wants to know what does a man see when he attains the knowledge of brahman after reaching the seventh plane master what happens when the mind reaches the seventh plane cannot be described because the soul doll has has melted there's one with the ocean there's no soul doll there to be able to come back and tell with the news is once a boat enters the black waters of the ocean this was some old idea that if the boat went far enough out it wouldn't be able to return so once the boat enters the black waters of the ocean it does not return nobody knows what happens to the boat after that therefore the boat cannot give us any information about the ocean now we get the salt dog once a salt doll when to measure the depth of the ocean no sooner did it enter the water then it melted now who could tell how deep the ocean was that which could have told about its depth had melted reaching the seventh plane the mind is annihilated man goes into samadhi what he feels then cannot be described in words now the salt dal illustration taco uses it for two in two different senses one will be that once the assault dog gets to the very bottom then there is no longer in the form that can uh i don't want to say experience because it is an experience but in such a way that it can relate what it experiences but uh it somehow recreates itself and can come back so it's all dal in taquer's case he could go into samadhi and come back so again he's like the saul doll in some apparently uh tangible form but can't explain the vision the other way he uses it is that the ordinary person attaining to that state of very cultural saudi never comes back that well this this happens only this is the direct portal between uh the state of jivan mukti and that we attain that the god liberation we become one with the brahmin and then the body will fall off on its own this this is a very rare rare thing we can see that it will happen with these great souls when it's time for them to depart from this world they'll depart from this world through the state of nerikopo samanthi otherwise for for even very high spiritual aspirins if it's not time for the body to leave then little karma will pull the mind back down from that state but it won't be able to be become larger than that nearly called samadhi state for a long time and then come back down again the eye that makes one a worldly person and attached to lust and gold is the wicked eye the intervention of this ego creates the difference between jiva and atman so takur talked about the stick water appears to be divided into two parts if one puts a stick across it but in reality there is only one water so the stake is separating ourselves from from god we feel that god is a separate entity and from other people otherwise there's this is one ocean of consciousness it appears as two on account of the stick this eye is the stick remove the stick and there remains only one water as before now this ripe ego is one which understands that my sense of eye is is is not a thick type of eye the the scent of i that i have is a little bit of a game that i play in order to live in the world that i'm playing this role that i i like to think of myself as a child god servant of god but i know that this i will disappear and it i'll realize there's only oneness there's nothing else so it it's really quite different this the really to the right eye tako uses this in the sense of something to cling to that means that we haven't experienced it but we're using it as an aid so i keep telling myself no i'm not so and so i'm a child of god i'm i'm clinging to the concept of the ripe eye the real ripe eye is after coming down from the god realization and then this ego has really been transformed it loses its binding power completely now what is this wicked eye it is the ego that says what don't they know me i have so much money who is wealthier than i if a thief robs such a man of only 10 rupees first of all he rings the money out of the thief then he gives him a good beating but the matter doesn't end there the thief is handed over to the police and eventually sent to jail the wicked eye says what doesn't the rogue know whom he has robbed to steal my ten rupees how dare he if without destroying the eye a man cannot get rid of attachment to the world and consequently cannot experience samathi then it would be wise for him to follow the path of brahmagyana to attain samadhi this is a statement he's making but it's really a question because we know that he really deep down as the soul of the devotee of a bhakta so he's now a little bit confused so should we all practice this if the eye persists in the path of devotion then one should rather choose the path of knowledge so he's saying isn't it true or am i making a mistake is it really it's really a question master it is true that one or two can get rid of the i through samadhi one or two means out of millions but these cases are very rare you may indulge in thousands of reasonings but still the i comes back now compare this what we read in the very beginning that we won't achieve anything unless we get rid of this i now he's saying yeah you can get rid of it you can understand intellectually and and on a deeper level but still we live in this world some feeling of who i am that will come back to us you may indulge in thousands of reasonings but still the eye comes back you may cut the people tree to the very root today but you will notice a sprout springing up tomorrow and therefore if the eye must remain let the rascal remain as the servant i another one of talk with favorite expressions as long as you live you should say o god thou art the master and i am thy servant the eye that feels i am the servant of god i am his devotee does not injure one it doesn't injure one it actually helps one this is this is the the cure this is the remedy for the bad eye taco gives the example sweet things cause acidity of the stomach no doubt but sugar candy is an exception so tako used to say that not only doesn't it increase acidity it removes it like the hinchey shock the type of grain most green causes bile he says this one type not only doesn't it cause a bile it will remove excessive bile the sugar yeah yeah don't take it literally it's still not good for you but anyhow this point is that not only is this the ego the servant ego not not only is it not harmful it's absolutely helpful because it eliminates this this unripe type of ego okay let us stop here and we're in page 170. these are all very helpful for us because sometimes we think that unless i get rid of this ego completely that i can't have any type of higher type of experience and taqwa is very kind to us he says no don't get rid of it give it a little twist give it a little transformation take take refuge with a new spiritual attitude have a relationship with god think of yourself as a child of god uh even just devotee of god if you're highly philosophical in nature think of yourself as just a wave on this ocean of satyadananda however we do it it counteracts the strong identification with the body and the mind and our position in life and everything and the pride and everything that comes from that and all the bondage that comes from that okay so we will stop here as i said before we all wish a very happy and prosperous and joyful and and healthy and blessed new year for everyone and we hope that things will get better and we can start all gathering together before too long i'll close with the chant [Music] we bow our heads before suramar 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 every worthy of our worship thank you