Video 77

The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna read by Swami Atmajnanananda (10/29/21)

[Music] your words are like nectar bring 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're starting a new chapter chapter 21. this is uh on page 415 and it's saturday april 5th 1884 and this chapter is entitled a day at dakshineshwar i was thinking april 5th 1884 just to put things into perspective that m has now completed two years over two years two years and a month or so of visiting krishna and so many things have happened since then nurender's father passed away so he's now looking for work and in poverty and everything and most of the direct disciples have come there were a few who came after this stood still haven't come i think some a few others were only with srama krishna for a year or two before he passed away yeah he was there he used to stay with uh with rahm in his house also so uh and there's reference to him earlier so he wasn't one of the real laid ones yeah and what else was i going to say yes now it's about one year before we get the first reference to takur's sore throat yeah you remember that we recently finished the chapter on the panihati and it was when he went taku went to panichati the following year that after that he started complaining of a little scratchy throat and uh that year there was a lot of rain a heavy rainfall at bunnyhotty when he went there and he and he was singing and dancing in the rain and got soaked and everything and then he had different theories about how why you got sick one was that uh uh he caught a cold soaked in the rain and he was a little bit annoyed in rom and some of the other older devotees he said why didn't you prevent this from happening you're so you're you're mature and older you should have known something that was one thing then sometimes he said that he had had the habit of of chewing on ice and liking ice in his water he liked ice water and would sometimes chew chips of ice it seemed things like that sometimes he blamed that and then the other theory was that clergyman's throat they used that term for those who spoke too often they would get kind of a chronic sore throat something like that so i think a year after this in april in the first reference and then another six months after that he had to move to the shampoo and then kashiport gordon house so this is kind of midway we can say that uh because a.m was with him from 19 1882 till his passing away in 1886 so this is a april 1884. it was about eight o'clock in the morning when em arrived at the temple garden and found sriami krishna seated on the small couch in his room a few devotees were sitting on the floor the master was talking to them krishna mukherjee was there so eight o'clock in the morning so and most of them came from kolkata they had to come some distance it took time so they would the saturday morning the first chance to see them those who worked during the week so they would leave early in the morning to get there prank belong to an aristocratic family and lived in the northern part of calcutta he held a high post in the english business business firm this is the first time we're meeting prank krishna but he was well known to taku he was very much devoted to suramar krishna and our householder derived great pleasure from the study of vedanta philosophy he was a frequent visitor at the temple garden once he invited the master to his house in calcutta and held a religious festival every day early in the morning he bathed in the holy water of the ganges whenever it was convenient he would come to dakshineshwar in a hired country boat that morning he had hired a boat and invited em to accompany him to dakshinaswar the boated hardly left shore when the river became choppy m had become frightened and begged prank krishna to put him back on land this is where m was a little timid we know that and shy a little timid a little shy and then become frightened yeah and big front christian to put him back on land in spite of assurances m had kept saying you must put me ashore i shall walk to dakshini now remember this is april and even at eight o'clock in the morning it'll be very very hot yeah and so pleasant to go by boat with the breeze and everything but and so and came on foot and found srama krishna talking to prank krishna and the others master to prank krishna but there is a greater manifestation of god in man okay now this is another thing that uh the beginning of 1884 was another turning point in the life of srama krishna because we saw in the earlier chapter about his broken arm there's a lot of talk about that it was something very very painful i think what they did was they just wrapped it they put a board and there's some bandage and everything and probably didn't really set it correctly or anything you can see in the photograph it's his uh arm looks a little crooked and everything it was very painful and this happened when he was walking along the embankment somewhere between the uh the temple compound and the ganga and uh there's some railing there to keep people from falling in i don't remember exactly the setup but anyhow krishna his mind was wandering a little bit and he was thinking about the juggernaut and there's some tradition about embracing juggernaut the one theory is that caitanya deva when he passed away that this is what happened that he went to embrace the image the it's they're just it's the wooden images of jagannath means krishna and then his sister and then balarama the three of them and so there's there's one theory that say tanya deva merged in the image because his body wasn't found there was never a cremation or a burial or anything nobody knows really how we died or anything so that one tradition is there others say that uh he could have drowned because previously seeing the the ocean he took it for the yamana and thought of krishna and and immersed himself there and he had to be fished out you know one or two times before that so and you know there's one tradition so surrounding krishna in bhava so he lost all that her consciousness he if if he started thinking about something so deeply a spiritual thing he would lose out her consciousness and did not know where he was or anything and uh somehow in his mind going to embrace the image he himself went forward physical body and fell down and broke his arm this is this is the way we can kind of just picture the whole thing taking place and uh after that he came to a conclusion why did it happen he wanted to know why it happened he said that it seemed to him as if the divine mother had a message for him that no more of this bhava seeing god in in an ecstatic state see god dwelling in all human beings not a leelah and then he would add that this was something that vaisnava chatting who was his good friend and he respected him and then by staff chairman of course practically worshipped that christian of foreign used to tell him that this is the highest state when when you see god manifest in in human form this is not a leelah so taka said from that point onward that was a turning point that then he preferred to see god dwelling in man and do we find this especially kashipur in other places that that was his constant vision he saw the looking at people he would see the god dwelling within that was so there's another turning point so this is why i somehow i feel that this april of 1884 is significant so he says talk word of prank christmas but there is a greater manifestation of god in man now not that he didn't believe this earlier but this now becomes a dominant idea in his mind you may ask how is it possible for god to be incarnated as a man who suffers from a hunger thirst and the other traits of an embodied being and perhaps also from disease and grief this this was a common idea in those days also that these great souls these gurus and everything that they shouldn't have these physical ailments and there's another theory talker had so many theories about why he got sick also that it would be the sifting out of the inner circle from the outer circle that those there would be those who would almost give him up thinking that how can he be a holy man when he has such a disease like that and so he thought that that was a hidden purpose behind it one of the things that he thought about that so this is his question how is it possible for god to be incarnated as a man who suffers from hunger thirst and the other traits of an embodied being and perhaps also from disease and grief this is before he got sick but it's uh yes the theoretical thing he because he's this not a leela has two meanings one is his avatar that's seeing the special manifestation of god in man and the other is seeing god manifest in all human beings all men and women in all beings but especially manifest in human form the reply is even brahman weeps entrapped in the snare of the five elements pancho bhute this is a tucker like this the little expressions he was very fond of these little rhyming expressions and things it would repeat them all the time a trap like an animal trap to catch something what is it itself falling into the snares of the five elements that means entrapped in the human body as if entrapped in the human body weeps kandi yeah so and then he always he'll always talk about ramen in sita after that so he said don't you know how rama had to weep stricken with the grief for sita further it is said that the lord incarnated himself as a sow in order to kill the demon in yaksa and yeah weeping means that taking human traits tako used to say that the avatar when he takes a human body is 100 like a human being of course otherwise 100 different but still within the human mind and personality and all of those those things of course the differences are so significant that we we hardly think that they're in the same category as an ordinary human being but his point is that they also have human emotions and feelings and everything it is said that the lord incarnated himself as a sow in order to kill the demon hiranyaksa hiranyaksa was eventually killed but god would not go back to his abode in heaven that means god in the form of the of the sow he enjoyed his sow's life he had given birth to several young ones and was rather happy with him the god said among themselves what does this mean the lord doesn't care to return to heaven now this is these are quranic stories we when we say that god incarnates himself in human form we don't have this idea that god is exhausted in that human form and there's no longer any place else that this is this is just a special manifestation that infinite absolute brahmin is always remains exactly what it is exhausted in that one human form during that lifetime what does this mean the lord doesn't care to return to heaven they all went to shiva and laid the matter before him she became down and urged the lord to leave the sow body and return to heaven but the sao only suckled her young ones a lefter then she destroyed the sal body with his trident and the lord came out laughing aloud and went back to his own abode so a little bit of maya has to come and otherwise there can't be a human birth a little bit of this little slide veil of maya has to be there that means a little bit of identification which is the human personality prana krishna to the master sir what is the anahata sound master it is a spontaneous sound constantly going on by itself it is the sound of the pranava om it originates in the supreme brahman and is heard by yogis people immersed in worldliness do not hear it a yogi alone knows that this sound originates both from his navel this is this is uh what we read this is some scriptural reference and from the supreme brahman resting on the ocean of milk there's a footnote according to hindu mythology after the dissolution of the universe and before the next creation the supreme lord rest on the ocean of the great cause also known as the ocean of milk yeah this anahata literally means that which is not struck every every sound is a vibration that comes from uh something something being struck like when you play the piano that something comes down and hits a string and it vibrates there has to be a vibration so there has to be a source there has to be a medium through which it travels and then it has to hit the eardrum and then we get sound that's why they asked that question if the tree falls on the forest and there's no one there to hear it did it make a sound interesting question aria what do you think the tree falls in the forest there's no one there to hear it did it make a sound yeah but no one's there to hear it anyhow this uh ohm and 20 is supposed to be the only sound that is not caused that way that it's a primordial sound that it comes from brahman itself and of course those who believe in this theory of subdivision will say that this is the source of all creation oh the this is in uh the way that vermin will manifest itself through a vibration through this home uh because uh if it's the original sound which causes everything there are no objects to strike and there's no ear to hear it or anything so some somehow this pranava is is considered different from any other sound that way and uh the theory is that it's always going on the divine music of the sphere some idea like that and those who have a particular spiritual level of vibration somehow can hear that and we know that there are different instances swami toriyananda and some others we know that at least through certain periods of their lives we read about swami shantan that he also uh could hear this another twenty that it was something that uh and just like now there are so many sounds there that we don't hear that uh they're either the vibration is too high or too low you know about dog whistles yeah you know come on they're they're whistles that they make that are so high pitched that no human being can hear it but dogs can hear it so if you want to call your dog you don't want to bother the neighbors or anything you blow this whistle dog whistle and uh we can't hear it because we're not attuned to it or are hearing our nerve system and everything you know only hear something within a range so there'll be lots of sounds that are too low that other creatures can hear that we can't or too high that we can't hear so the same thing from a spiritual point of view that this is going on and theoretically we could all hear it if we had that they talk about the spiritual eye to see things this is kind of the spiritual ear somehow so this is that honey krishna sir what is the nature of the life after death master keshav sen also asked that question as long as a man remains ignorant that is to say as long as he has not realized god so long will he be born but after attaining knowledge he will not have to come back to this earth or to any other plane of existence sri ramakrishna did not go into too many theories about this loka that loka anything very often he would simply refer to what we read in gita and or he would say that this is what we find in the scriptures he didn't have a lot of these he wasn't very interested it didn't seem in fact in one place he's asked about reincarnation he says yes there's something like that in gita he dismissed it a little bit on the other hand we know that he had a firm belief in the previous lifetimes at some squatters and and liberation and all of that but he never emphasized it that much so here he's telling us a couple of things one that it's all a question of have we reached the goal we haven't we we keep coming back until we can reach the final goal and the second is that there may be other planes of existence so he says after attaining knowledge he will not have to come back to this earth or to any other plane of existence so we have the different locus that we we read about the all these different locus we don't know exactly different types of heavens or something uh according to the advaita vedante at least that these are not permanent places most most of it that we go there to enjoy the uh fruits of our merit whatever good marriage on punya and then after that's exhausted we come back the very standard idea we find in gita which rami krishna i basically accepted without going into a lot of detail about things so the question is what is the nature of the life after that he's not really answering that that we we travel to some other realm an astral body this and that he's not going into all of those details his emphasis is that try to attain to the knowledge and and devotion in this lifetime here and now and don't worry too much about what happens afterwards the potter puts his pots in the sun to dry haven't you noticed that among them they are both baked and unbaked ones when a cow happens to walk over them some of the pots get broken to pieces the broken pots that are already baked the potter throws away since they are of no more use to him but the soft ones though broken he gathers up he makes them into a lump and out of this forms new pots a nice example in the same way so long as a man does not realize god he will have to come back to the potter's hand that is he will have to be born again and again we have the the other illustration of the potter's wheel with regard to the that when when the pot is perfectly formed then the potter takes it off and leaves it in the sun to dry and the whole time the potter is working he has to spin the wheel it's not an electrical wheel he has to spin it and then as soon as he takes it off he stops spinning it but it spins on its own and then slowly until the momentum stops it'll keep going this is proud of the karma so the god realized soul is as if separate from the body because it's not identified with the body still living in a body but not identified so as if completely separate and the body will continue just on the past momentum of karma of the karma what is the use of sowing a boiled patty grain it will never bring forth a shoot likewise if a man is boiled in the fire of knowledge he will not be used for a new creation he is liberated according to the puranas the bhakta and the bhagavan are two separate entities now i've i've mentioned this before talker uses uh certain code words when he says the put on us he's talking about the path of devotion and dualism philosophically dualism and uh from the point of view of of spiritual practice devotion now is this isn't to say that we don't find very high vedantic ideas and even the dwight vidantic ideas in the quran it's the bhagavad-gita especially many many very highly philosophical verses and filled with it dwight vidant and everything talk where is using this and just uh to create a category that uh somebody says according to the puranas this means according to the devotional schools that follow more of a dualistic path this is all that it means and when he talks about vedanta he's talking in general about advaita vedanta and the path of knowledge not that ramanujan madu are not vedances they also wrote their commentaries on the sulturas and everything and they were dualistic tucker knows all of that he's just just giving us these two different categories and that's the terminology he uses put on its and right on to these two different categories now he's going to give an illustration that uh he's he's putting in the in this class of the devotional dualistic schools but is a classical illustration used in eduardo vedanta both i'll try to explain that let's go through it first so according to the puranas the bhakta and the bhagavan are two separate entities i am one and you are another and this is eternal in the state of liberation also the the two schools two main dualistic schools are ramanaja and according to ramanuja the individual soul becomes completely purified and there's no no remaining personality or any superimposition but still it has its own individuality in a sense and for madhuaa a little bit of of these qualities remain so a little scent of i can be there even in that stage of liberation which is more like going to heaven something like that for the vedanta dwight vedanta this distinction between egypt and brahman was never real to begin with the not that the jeeve emerges in brahmin that these these uh parties they all drop off and uh the when the glass breaks the space inside it doesn't merge with the rest of space it'll always always there's only one space mahakasha but that's so that's the radantic idea anyhow now we'll give this illustration the body is a plate as it were containing the water of mind intelligence and ego kind of a deep plate that can hold a fair amount of water so the the the plate itself represents the human body and the water that's in the plate represents mind he says mind intelligence and ego so just the subtle body this will be the subtle body it'll be [Music] just our mental life and he we don't have to go into the particulars of this however we understand it that in other places they'll simply say mind that water is the mind brahman is like the sun it is reflected in the water therefore the devotee sees the divine form okay so now this is called parati bimbalada and according to advaita vedanta what taqwa is saying is that uh when we when we look within and we see that divine presence within that divine sun we know that the source is the transcendent reality in brahman but there's still some sense that i as a body that i'm the bowl and as a mind and ego and everything that i'm the water there and i look within and i see god dwelling within now the dwightons how do they use this illustration their point is that uh if we say that brahman has become uh every jiva in this universe hey every jeeves when how can brahman divide itself among all of the different bodies and enter into all of them without depleting itself or separating itself so what we need is an illustration of how this can happen and the illustration is that no matter how many containers no matter no matter how many little suns that we see the real sun is unaffected and unchanged that's the point of that they and and and they use it it's a actually every illustration is is a dualistic and materialistic we have no other way of using it but if we say that according to this illustration that we have to have a real human body and we have to have a real mind and they have to be separate from the sun otherwise there won't be reflection we're missing the advertising point the point of advaita vedanta is that brahman can enter into all the beings as as the inner cells of all beings and itself remained completely unchanged and transcended this is our uh poor nominee that this this whole universe is is full and perfect and infinite and grum in itself full perfect but this universe it comes out of ramen and brahmin doesn't isn't affected there's no subtraction there remains full and perfect and infinite so we are trying to see the reflection of the consciousness basically in our intellect says with the only way for us to really see the sun of brahman is as it's reflected within ourselves so this is why we we turn within we we may afterwards see everything is a manifestation of roman but if we want to know the real nature of brahman the real nature of brahman is the real nature of the cells we have to turn within and find the dwelling within our hearts that way now the duelist will say that this is the divine presence within the heart the dwightin will say that this is the real self that this is this is i i am that i am that son of knowledge i really just like we have the two birds from one point of view the lower bird is is gazing at the upper bird as the lord and thinking wow how wonderful getting the vision of god the other point of view is that there aren't two separate birds this is where we have to talk about higher mind and lower mind and otherwise it doesn't make sense exactly that's why i say that the real point for the advaitans has nothing to do with that that the real point is how something can apparently manifest its manifold without itself changing otherwise we have to feel that there is a jiva that is somehow a little bit separate taco will talk about that he goes to the stick of ego that we feel we're on one side yeah otherwise we say that who is it who's looking at it who's looking within but i remember you said one time that your mind is same as intellect yeah that's a different story yeah that's a different story yeah we're not going to make any distinction here between mind and neglect we have to talk about this who who is it who's having that experience so it's the same thing with this concept of this action and the concept of the antaryamin for the dualist it's the same reality that that there is this witnessing consciousness aware of everything we do for the freddie ghani uh i am that i am that witness watching everything for the for the bhakta this is the divine presence of god within inspiring me to do the right thing that guiding me unto yamin so if we take a dualistic standpoint then it's god dwelling within is the inner guide unto yeoman if we take the standpoint of the gyani then i am that i am that self that higher self taqwar says both are true and real uh it's all the question is that stick of ego there or not he'll get to that we'll get to that in a minute so he's saying that there's a puranic idea because uh at least superficially it requires us to believe in the reality of this world it's not a dream world you're not going to have this reflection if it's just an imagined world there's a real world and there's a real water and there's a real sun and it's reflected in it uh so what the advaitan says is yes we can accept this from the viavahadika point of view that this isn't the final ultimate truth uh when we're on this this relative plane then we can understand how all of this works using this type of illustration they don't they don't take the that element of it and say that for that reason it's not a helpful illustration it's a very helpful illustration one of the most helpful there's a beautiful illustration it explains we some people will say well how do we know how many different souls there'll be and what happens to them and this and that if we say that it's not just that wherever there's a container and wherever anything can be reflected if you can reflect it is the soul if if it's a container with the water uh barely reflects it that means there's not much of a mechanism for that manifestation there it may be the lower animals maybe plants doesn't have all the question of of what can reflect that divine consciousness this is how we can understand the difference between uh the human level of awareness animal level awareness plant level of awareness and so all the mechanism different type of water can reflect it or what however we understand it now we'll get to the stick according to vedanta so now this is as i say this is the terminology technical terminology for taco according to vedanti this means advaita vedanta and the path of ghyana so for the other one even though as i say parity bin espouses this is definitely something that utilized by the advaitans uh but talk words is is uh explaining it uh as something also helpful for those who follow with divorce a dualistic devotional path works for them equally well according to vedante brahman alone is real and all else is maya dreamlike and unsubstantial not like the the pot in the water there has to be something real in order to have reflection that's his point the devotee will argue that way the ego like a stick lies across the ocean of sachidananda now how can there be a stick and ego and everything if roman alone is real or less is maya because the stick is maya his ego is mine that's how it manifests in the human plane the ego like a stick lies across the ocean of sachitananda to him listen to what i am saying now what does that mean that means get this right this is important this is important teaching [Laughter] he knows that this is awesome listen to what i am saying when the ego is taken away there remains only one undivided ocean of satyadhananda so this is why takwa was dualistic in his attitude from a practical point of view because the stick of ego does not easily disappear we may reason it away and then it comes back so he says utilize it only don't let it be the type of stick that really separates us from god or from other people let us know it's lying on the surface that's all when the ego is taken away there remains only one undivided ocean of satsang but as long as the stick of ego remains there is an appearance of two the devotee will never say an appearance of two devotee the dualistic devotee will always say no i'll never say i'm one with god let me remain a servant of god that's not just an attitude that's a that's a truth for the for the dualistic there's nothing wrong with it it's a nice idea to be the eternal servant of god to want to live in the presence of god from from the point of view of the gyani then swamiji will point this out that we're still on the relative plane it can't be any final lasting ultimate type of realization it may be a heaven an experience like that but anyhow that swamiji's uh brilliant [Music] the ripe ego and the unripe ego the ripe eagle uh has a role to play uh in our spiritual practice through this process of aruba that we assume a particular attitude and relationship in order to deepen our spiritual life so we choose that let me feel that i'm a servant of god that's one possibility child of god all the different relationships this is this is utilizing the concept of pakahami is not the ultimate right the ultimate ripe ego is after god realization then we come back and how to live in the world we have to re-establish a relationship after after realizing oneness then we come back that stick comes back stick of ego but no longer uh really can fool us no longer gives us a sense of real separation we that's gone we we live in that ocean of such other honda but still it allows us to have a relationship with god that's what tucker was called uh and the gyani also has a a ripe ego i am irman that's the right big of the of the prerequisite is is actually god realization the prerequisite for god realization of purity purity of heart purity of mind but in order to have this the ultimate right beagle that taqwa is talking about that's the state of vigna that after realization coming back down then we live in the world again assuming this ego this ego sense as a child of god servant of god if any of any relationship so to him listen to what i am saying when the ego was taken away there remains only one undivided ocean of sachitanda but as long as the stake of the ego remains and taqwa says it doesn't go we no matter how how smart we are than intelligent and and how much we say oh this ego is just a maya just imagination i'm really there's an ocean of satchel under the next minute something comes and the ego comes back there is an appearance of two here is one part of the water and there another part attaining the knowledge of brahmin one is established in samadhi then the ego is effaced so before that and it's helpful to reason about it it's very helpful it's not the same as having that experience that this consciousness of mind does not even require my mind that the mind can cease to function i don't cease that awareness is still there it merges in this uh infinite awareness but it's still there and that gives us the final and absolute conviction before that just through reasoning that through this discrimination that i'm separate from anything that can be an object of my awareness so that includes anything that comes into the mind i'm the observer of that i'm separated from that this ego sense that something i observe i am separate from that we can we can see that this ego is is there's no reality there's no substance to it it's an idea of who we think that we are but still it comes back until we have that the final realization then when it comes back after that it is harmless there is no maya to it at that point but shankaracharya retained the ego of knowledge because he was also a fully god relation perfect soul so how did he live in the world after all of that he also had to have an ego there's a footnote the ego illumined and purified by the knowledge of god that's the ego of knowledge following the method of discrimination the gyani and samathi merges his ego in brahmin thereafter he may come down to the relative plane with an appearance of individuality now look at the language he may come down to the relative plane this is that big question who can come back from somati but even then he is always conscious of his identity with the brahman this apparent ego is called the ego of knowledge what is that ego i am that soham this is a type of ego who am i i am that it's not that who am i oh i don't exist anymore i i still i feed myself i do things i talk to people everything about the following the path of love realizes his eternal relationship with god he too keeps an appearance of individuality on the relative plane this ego has none of the characteristics of the worldly ego that means there's no pride there's no other anger there's no feeling of separation there's no hatred none of the passions under the binding aspect to it and it's called the ego of devotion the two egos here described refer to the same state of realization which we call vigna but shankaracharya retained the ego of knowledge in order to teach men to prank krishna but there are signs that distinguish the man of knowledge some people think they have knowledge what are the characteristics of knowledge a gyani cannot injure anybody he becomes like a child if the steel sword touches the philosopher's stone it is transformed into gold gold can never cut it may seem from the outside that a gyani also has anger or egotism but in reality he has no such thing this prana krishna he was big and fat tako used to call them they say in the english translation the fat brahman tucker liked it very much now this is a very important idea because very often we're confronted with people who claim to have the highest wisdom and the highest knowledge there's a test huh how do they live in the world how do they behave in the world this is why our state pregnant section of gita is so important that here we have a standard to follow pramana to judge against oh you say that you're a wise person you've had the highest knowledge then why do you have these desires why do you hurt people why do you take advantage of people why do you get angry all of this so there's a test because the the theoretically theoretically the god realized soul or even someone who acts without any attachment does everything is an offering that the fruits of karma will not come to them theoretically now cochlear says yes this is true that god realized soul no matter what god realized so does that there won't be any karma that comes to him even if he killed somebody but then tucker said but he'll never kill anybody why would he do that the test that he becomes like the gold sword you can't use it in battle it's too soft it won't they won't be able to hurt anybody so this is this is the test the theoretically yes that they're beyond all karma they have no sense of i but if there's no sense of i and there's no there's no motive to do anything to harm anyone they can only why do they live they live for the welfare of others no other reason whatsoever in the gita we have this phrase sarva bhutta i like this word it means engaged it also means the lighting so delighting the welfare of all beings this is used each time in reference to the gyani not to the bhakta not to the bhaktan the devotee won't also care about the welfare of others but this view that we have gandhi doesn't care for people gita tells us the opposite that they have no other motive in in life but to live for the welfare of other people so this is the test that that ego will never harm anybody it can only do good to the world this is god real life souls so he says but there are signs that distinguish the men of knowledge some people think they have knowledge or pretend that they've not what are the characteristics of knowledge again he cannot injure anybody he becomes like a child now tucker says of course like a madman like a ghoul with different things but this is one of the things a child because a child has no real attachment to things they may have it for a minute then give it up play with the toy and then they'll give it up they can give things away [Music] nothing seems to stick to them too long are you is it true sleeping and then the steel sword so this is this is one of the different examples that tucker uses that it has the appearance of a real sword from a distance it'll look the same but it can't injure anyone this is just just beautiful to look at but too soft so the gyani the real i saw becomes like that will not hurt anybody this is taco is talking about uh god really like soul it doesn't matter whether the path of devotion or the path of knowledge yeah anybody who attains to that highest state whether through devotion or through knowledge they'll be the same way the buck they'll also absolutely if if they've really attained a devotion that means they love everyone they see god dwelling within everyone they can't possibly harm people if they've reached highest state of devotion a higher state of knowledge the same ultimate goal and the same transformation takes place this is why exactly with this this last statement the footnote the two egos here described refer to the same state of realization so whatever applies to the gyani here gandhi cannot injure anybody it replies to the real bhakta not someone following the path of devotion but someone who has attained realization through the path of devotion johnny also we use both terms jani can be somebody following the path of knowledge or a realized soul same with the bhakta somebody following the path of devotion or somebody who is attained to real devotion which is the ultimate goal of bhakti bhakti is that's why they they claim there's something special about it that there's no doesn't long for anything outside of itself so it may seem from the outside that again he also has anger or egotism but in reality he has no such thing then we get another illustration from a distance a burnt string lying on the ground may look like a real one but if you come near and blow at it it disappears all together now this also gives us a few other different things to understand we have our angularities we have our likes and our dislikes we have our personality that'll be a string on the ground it'll have its own curves and turns and things like that when you burn it it'll keep the same things it'll look the same now what's the difference between the burnt string and the real string you can't tie anything with the burnt string and if you blow on it it goes away that means that the ego is is just there as an appearance that at any time it can disappear and then one goes into the whatever higher state there is so the personality can be the same certain types of some scottish can be the same but there's no binding power to anything that's why the other station the string no binding power illustration of the sword that it can't harm anyone and of the strength that it doesn't we can't be bound but because his ego is bondage for us and these passions and everything they keep us from uh from being free we can't uh we become live at the mercy of of these passions a child is no attachment sometimes they do but it doesn't last long a child is no attachment he makes a playhouse and if anyone touches it he will jump about and cry the next moment he himself will break it this moment he may be he may be very attached to his cloth he says my daddy has given it to me i won't part with it but the next moment you can conjol him away from it with a toy he will go away with you leaving the cloth behind these are the characteristics of a gyani so like a child without any attachment without anger or hatred perhaps he has many luxuries at home couch chairs paintings and equipage but any day he may leave all these and go off to benares according to vedanta the waking state too is unreal now look at his language whenever talker talks about the unreality of the world he'll say according to vedanta or according to the yanis or he'll say let me tell you something that will will appeal to you he knew who those who like this uh this is jana there's ghana margaret those who like this this uh and analysis the dwight analysis and those who didn't and uh m himself will will say was he telling all of this to him to him because he liked we read earlier that though a householder he liked to study all that said dwight vedanta so it's for his sake because takur does this mean that he didn't believe this is the world real or is the world unreal what did takwa believe go on he liked this idea the manifestation of god that ultimately not unreal but i think the better answer is that uh he looked upon these as spiritual attitudes and each was helpful and this attitude of the world being unreal is preliminary that we need that in order to do this this vitara there's an 1818 and all of that but not a final truth but ultimate truth is neither the world is real or the world is unreal although the truth is brahman itself he didn't look upon anything it's anything that uh that forms a doctrine as truth every doctrine is a mata the value of the doctrine is that it can help us to get to the roof and that's that's it not much more than that after that we can we dig the well we can throw the shovel away or keep it for someone it doesn't matter just to get there there's a nice verse that i read years and years ago once one is crossed from one side of the river to the other what use is there of the boat anymore that's what these doctrines are the world is real the world is unreal just to get us across the other side then we can push the boat back for somebody else if we want or leave it there doesn't make any difference so according to vedanta now again that means according to eduardo vedanta not all schools will say this the the world is unreal this is a creation of god or projection of roman so according to vedanta dwight of the waking state too is unreal once a wood cutter lay dreaming when someone woke him up taco tells the story many times greatly annoyed he said why have you disturbed my sleep i was dreaming that i was a king and the father of seven children the princes were becoming well-versed in letters and military arts i was secure on my throne and ruled over my subjects why have you demolished my world of joy but that was a mere dream said the other man why should that bother you fool said the woodcutter you don't understand my becoming a king in the dream was just as real as my being a woodcutter if being a woodcutter is real then being a king in a dream is also real now if we think about this objectively that one day this dream will break when we give up this life if we give up this life and we find ourselves sitting in some other realm and we look back on it well we think it was just like a long dream so taqwa's his attitude is that there's something dreamlike about this world don't take it too literally that this is this projection my own projection of the mind and everything he said if anything projected from brahmin itself from the divine mother project in that way and we all participate in that but dream like in that everything is is floating and and we're we're just floating down this river of time and everything is passing by just like in a dream and when in the midst of a dream it's 100 real 100 real i i know for a fact that some dreams are so real that they seem more real than the waking state and i also know for a fact sometimes things happen to us in the waking state that we can't imagine it's not a dream some tragedy happens we get in a car accident first thing is oh did this really happen is it possible with some tragedies in that now i think we've all had experiences like that that the first thing is no this can't really i didn't really do that did i really just lock the keys in my car with the motor running how many times i dreamt that i did that did i really do it this time or it's just another dream this is this constitutes all these yeah i don't pay too much attention this world is floating by that's enough this is why tucker always goes back to anitia this is he doesn't like this word if we look at the terminology my my one complaint about gita sorry about the uh the gospel my one complaint with the translation is that there's too many times when uh talk we're saying anitia and they translate it as illusory yeah uh to me this is more illusion illusory and otherwise better to stick with this idea that the transitory or obviously he uses that terminology there's no substance to it but not that it's just like a complete imagination that i'm dreaming this whole world that i can do anything i could kill you it doesn't matter you're just a figure figment of my imagination you just exist in my dream and then he did like that's going too far prana krishna always talked about guyana was this why the master described the state of the gyani this is m whenever m asks these questions that means that's his opinion these are rhetorical questions yeah that's a suspicion that this is why because otherwise uh he very rarely gives this illustration unless uh he prefaces it it says that this is for you this is something you like or according to the gyanis otherwise he doesn't push this idea look upon this world as a dream he likes this idea look upon is the manifestation of the divine mother now he proceeded to describe the state of the vigyani okay we're going to stop here there's another big question we've gone through it many times but it's very interesting because this is one of the few doctrines that tucker has that i find to be a little bit original he himself never claimed to have any original ideas he always claimed that he was was simply us what the scriptures say only according to his own experience and a few times he'll say that my experiences have gone beyond they than with hunter but uh how many examples do we have of really kind of original doctrines and things these would occur with a few little things but this this vegan idea to me is really an original contribution it's very wonderful beautiful idea and how we get to the roof who can come back down what the state of the god relay soul is and he explains it in in different ways one is very highly philosophical that afterwards we see everything is the divine manifestation the other highly devotional one talks to god one sees god in that state and yeah we'll get to that next time so we'll stop here this is page 417. [Music] who was stainless of infinite nature whose heart melts in sympathy for his devotees who is an embodiment of the divine and the supreme lord and ever worthy of our worship omg peace peace peace