Video 20

20. Katha Upanishad | Mantra 1.3.1 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] may the lord protect us both teacher and taught together may the lord give us both the results of this study may the lord make our study illuminating will we attain bigger together may we not cavale at each other om peace peace peace so we have been studying the cut open ishad and we have made some progress we have actually completed the the second section so qatar finished has two chapters each chapter has three sections called valleys so we have completed the in the first chapter we have completed the first section first worldly and the second section second worldly now we are about to start the third section in the first section we were um told about we were introduced to the story the little boy nachiketa goes to the house of death yama and asks his questions and that's the context the main thing which we introduced to was the third question of naji keta the mystery of death what are we really which he rephrased later on we saw in the second section that he rephrased the same question more precisely that reality within us which is beyond body beyond mind beyond duality beyond karma beyond dharma and dharma tell me about that reality the real nature of the atman so that's the question it's a question which introduces vedanta and then we saw how the teacher first tested naji keta to see whether he has the requisite qualifications whether this knowledge will at all lead him to enlightenment will it do him any good at all so after testing and finding the little boy to be completely qualified then uh he tells him about the preliminary qualifications of what we later systematize as the fourfold qualifications in vedanta but in a more general discussion we find about that and then he starts teaching naji keta about the nature of the self about the atman and that's what we saw in the second section now the third section will start again with the same topic the nature of the self what will happen here is is a very very elegant powerful teaching about the nature of the self here what is enlightenment how can we get enlightenment the method and the result of enlightenment the result of this study and the result of that enlightenment which we will get from this study those will now be discussed in the third section of the first chapter so what is enlightenment what do you mean by self-knowledge and then um how do you get that enlightenment and that's really the unique thing about vedanta it is not that the way the sadhana the practice when it's the moment when you say practice and religion you bring them together we immediately tend to think oh certain kinds of rituals you know you perform this puja this kind of offerings with flowers and incense or something like that chant these mantras rituals no the method here is not a is rich ritual it's not karma ritualistic karma or other karma doing good deeds is that what is going to be taught no it's not doing good deeds either of course not doing bad deeds either then is it um belief in a deity belief in god faith in god surrender to god and waiting for the grace of god no not even that it's not bhakti it's not devotion which is going to is the method all right is it meditation and you sit quietly and withdraw from the external world withdraw from the experience of the body mind and then if i discover something no not even some kind of extraordinary experience gained through meditation not even dhyana so the method which will be taught by yama the method of vedanta is not karma ritual action it's not bhakti devotion faith it's not meditation coming and focusing the mind no what is it then it's not karma it's not bhakti it's not dhyana it is vichaara inquiry inquiry inquiry into what enquiry into our experience and he will show us step by step by inquiring into what we are already experiencing what we are experiencing all the time he will point out something to us yama the teacher the vedanta teacher is going to show us is trying to show us something and by that if we if we do get it that getting it that realizing it is called enlightenment uh realizing this true nature which is always available to us open secret but we don't see it it has to be shown or pointed out to us that is the method and that method will be shown here by the famous analogy of the chariot so this is a well-known thing in the upanishads something that you find in other civilizations also in greek philosophy also the chariot example is given so obviously chariot was common and today it would be an suv or something but in those days chariot the chariot example you will find in this chapter in this section also you will find the famous mantra that is based upon which draws upon the mantra which is found in this section of the qatar finisher so a beautiful section and powerful section an elegant tightly argued with powerful pointer to our real nature the essence of vedantic enquiry will be given here yes remember vedanta does not dispense with ritual or karma does not dispense with devotion it does not dispense with it does not it does not tell you to avoid meditation meditation is helpful devotion is helpful um karma is helpful but only helpful they are marginal the core what is what is actually vedanta is what is going to be presented here in this um section all right now let us start the first mantra it introduces us to the nature of the self as consciousness of our real nature what do we know about ourselves and what we really are what do we know already everybody knows that and what we really are what vedanta wants to show us both are introduced here first mantra tritia valley the third section of the first chapter ritam so what is being said here these two which two the supreme self and individual self have entered into the cave of the mind into the cave of the heart and the experience the results of karma this is a very poetic language instead of saying results of karma are experienced which is saying they drink the the truth they drink the reality what is reality here the results of our karma because they are certain that it is said this old old ancient saying that without experience without giving their results without paying for our karma those karmas will not be exhausted even in a million births we have to experience it oh so the enlightened one you know well enlightened one all future karmas will be destroyed with what is not yet activated but what has been activated in this body that will be experienced even by the enlightened one only the enlightened one is not affected by it we are affected by it but anyway whatever it is it's a hard truth there is a greater truth than karma but there is a hard truth that's why it is called truth drinking the truth what is this truth here in this context it means swayamkrita that means what has been done by oneself that which we have done in past lives the the web which we have spun in past lives in that we are now dwelling we are trapped in that the cocoon which you have spun around ourselves lifetime after lifetime that's where what we find ourselves in and experiencing that where where lo okay literally it means in the world but it actually here it means in the body in this body in this body experiencing the results of our past deeds and misdeeds results like pleasure and pain uh who two there are two who have entered into this cave of the heart in the the sacred space of brahman paramedic in the transcendent space of brahman in the supreme space within the cave of the heart that means in our minds within our conscious experience there are two what are the two we'll see and these two they are very different from each other one is like darkness the other one is like light one is blazing forth with light or the other one is like shadow like shadow and light these two very different but they are within us that constitutes what we are actually who speaks of this of course the teachers of the upanishads brahmavida the knowers of brahman the enlightened ones and the teachers of brahman they speak of it but also so do the ritualists those who perform the rituals of the five fires or the three nachiketa fires who have performed a narcissist of sacrifice three times you remember this phrase was the particular sacrifice was taught by yama to nachiket a particular ritual and it was named in honor of nashiketa who have performed it tries in their lives or those who perform the five sec who perform rituals with the help of the five sacrificial fires this is just a code word a kind of designation for the vedic ritualists the vedic ritualists speak about this and those who are the teachers of the upanishads of vedanta they speak about this so they are saying this we are just quoting this yeah am i saying i'm quoting this so what has been said here for this what i will do is i will go to another text the text is called the brahmasutras i i have not referred much to it but it is a very very important text of vedanta advaita vedanta is based on three three texts one is a group of texts called upanishads which we are reading so that's primary the foundation of pedanta is upanishads but the practical teachings of the upanishads have been collected choices teachings and given in a practical form in the bhagavad-gita so the bhagavad-gita is another basis of the upanishad of vedanta but the third one which i have rarely referred to only once in a while is called the brahma sutras the aphorisms of brahma therefore isms of the supreme reality one of my friends swami narasimha and he called it the god sutras so what are those sutras they are very short um statements very compact and you have to they're like what you call zip files in computers you know if you expand them then a lot of things will come out of it but it looks tiny seed like and a whole wealth of knowledge is packed into each of those sutras the reason it was put in that way is because it's compact i suppose it was easy to memorize as a notation to keep in mind the whole knowledge system packed into these cryptic sayings so each of the philosophies traditional philosophies india had their own sutra system sutra text so the niya system has the niya sutras composed by the sage gotama the vaishyashika system and its veishishika philosophy has its veisheshika sutras composed by the sage kanada canada literally means one who eats atoms they were the first to devise a term for atoms really kana means atom anu atom so kanada then the sankhya the sage kapila is said to have composed the sankhya sutras the original ones are lost now but it was there then the well-known sutras of patanjali which are pretty famous because yoga is of course very famous the yoga is actually based on the sutras of patanjali yoga sutras and then there is there are the jayanini sutras which deal with the ritualistic portion of the vedas the that portion which precedes all these upanishads we are doing which is the bulk of the vedas actually those that has been systematized into a set of sutras by the sage jaimini but to our purpose what we are interested in is vedanta so the knowledge of vedanta the philosophy of vedanta has been systematized in 555 sutras 555 aphorisms they are called the vedanta sutras also known as brahma-sutras the sutras sutra means aphorism thereforeisms sutras of brahman or of vedanta what do they do they take up different issues which emerge out of the study of vedanta when you study upanishads then questions arise and these sutras take up these individual questions and and try to answer them and to understand the sutras it's very cryptic so what does it mean you will have to go to the commentary on the sutras all these sutras yoga sutra all of them they have extensive commentaries and subcommentaries and sub sub commentaries explaining every word in detail and considering alternative interpretations arguments for and against and so on all of that is involved in the study of the brahma sutras and that seems to be a huge undertaking but normally when you become a monk up in the vedanta tradition you are expected to study the brahmasutra just the first four sutras in our tradition makes it much easier a shortcut the first four sutras sort of give you a foundation of vedanta philosophy that's why it's called chatu su-3 fourth sutras literally means the fourth sutra the first four sutras with first four citrus are very easily said in you can say it in one sentence but with the commentary with the commentary of shankaracharya so monks will study that of course we will study the upanishads with the commentary the gita with the commentaries of shankaracharya and the first four sutras at least if you can study the 555 sutras great but at least the first four sutras is compulsory before you become a monk why am i bringing up all this it just so happens that one of the topics selected in the brahma sutras for discussion who wrote the brahma sutras vyasa the great sage vyasa so our full name badarai and abhayasam so one of the sutras takes up this particular mantra from the qatar upanishad which we are going to study today that particular mantra is taken up by one of the sutras in the brahmasutras and the commentator shankaracharya discusses it in detail and what i'm going to say is drawn from the commentary of shankaracharya on this mantra and commentary of shankaracharya on that sutra from the brahma sutras so to give you an example what does we just heard the mantra uh just now now let's look at the sutra which is from the brahmasutras this is the beautiful english translation this is the sanskrit original you can see it's very densely written sanskrit now if you translate it into english it becomes much more voluminous by its translated by swami gambhira namdaji i remember this book very well because it was the first book i borrowed after becoming a monk i went to the library after becoming a monk within three days and i looked looked for the biggest shiniest book on vedanta i thought i have to masturbate answers i pulled it out and then i was going to my room a monk asked because i wasn't i was this new boy in the in the monastery said what are you studying i said swami i brought this brahmasutras and he said great you won't understand a single word of it i was so scared i've again went back to the library and put it back it was only three years later when i went for our training in our training center in the main monastery in belu where this is studied so i studied it and i realized it's not all that frightening all right one day we will study it at least the first four sutras and the introduction to the brahma sutras by adi shankaracharya he writes his commentary on the brahma sutras on all the 555 sutras but he writes an essay of three four pages introducing the whole brahma sutras and introducing all of vedanta philosophy that introduction is called adhya sabhasyam commentary on the concept of superimposition where which is basically you have to get that to understand advaita vedanta with that advaita vedanta makes sense and one philosopher once told me that the first sentence of that introduction of that introduction to the brahma-sutra commentary in the brahma-sutra by shankaracharya that first sentence is the most profound sentence i have come across in all my studies of the sacred and philosophical texts of the east and the west professor jay and mahanti he told me that anyway so today we are not concerned with that today we are concerned with one of the sutras which is the sutra number in this brahma sutras is sutra number 1.2.11 first chapter second section 11th sutra you don't have to bother about it i'll just extract essence of it and present it to you in english but the sutra itself it's nice to hear the sutra which considers this this open this topic not what does it mean if you literally translate it this very short it means the two who have entered into the heart are the individual self and the supreme self for that is what is seen in other texts not very cryptic it's more or less explanatory all right i'll just present to you the essence of the discussion which goes on why am i presenting this to you it shows you how these interpretations which i keep giving to you this mantra means this how did you come to these interpretations how did you arrive upon this final conclusion this is what it means this shows you um the interpretation being built up it shows you the building under construction all right so what what does it um what does this sutra tell you it says this mantra which we are studying it says two have entered into the space sacred space of the heart you know the transcendent space of brahman to have entered the sacred space of the heart they drink the results of god they experience the results of karma in this body they are entirely different like light and darkness and the you know teachers of vedanta and the ritualists they all speak about it now the question is what are these two what are we talking about because the mantra itself doesn't tell you that these two are brahmana and athman or paramatma jeeva supreme self and individual self it doesn't tell you that how do you get it so the question that is raised here is what are we talking about are we talking about the consciousness and the intellect tattoo so when we look inside ourselves what most what's most obvious in our own experience what is at the core of our existence is mind and consciousness i am aware but i'm also aware of thoughts feelings perceptions and later senses and further than the body and then through the senses and the body and external world and other people but primarily when i look at my experience just now at any time when i look at my experience i am aware and aware of thoughts feelings emotions ideas memories desires so my primary experience of myself always is consciousness and mind so are these the two that you are talking about two have entered within us and who experience the results of karma basically experience life so are we talking about the individual self i will use the term jivatma jivatma means individual self i'll be talking about individual self and the intellect buddhism are we talking about these two or are we talking about the individual self jivatma and the supreme self paramatma jivatma here would mean i the consciousness in this body-mind especially i the consciousness associated with this mind or this intellect in our terms which we have learned reflected consciousness consciousness reflected in this mind is this this one option the other option is the individual consciousness i and the unlimited consciousness brahman are these the two which have entered into this sacred space within the heart or within our with this body mind so these are the two options now what is what are we going to discuss well um the very first it makes shankaracharya in his comments i'm drawing all this documentary just a few observations the central ones he says well um it can't be really the intellect and the jivatma the sent the individual consciousness why uh because it says the intellect that the two experience the results of karma they experience life pleasure and pain but the intellect by itself cannot experience pleasure and pain it cannot experience anything only consciousness can experience only consciousness can experience anything the intellect by itself is not conscious it says it is jada jada means insentient the individual self has consciousness you are conscious and in your life with your presence intellect and mind function but by themselves intellect that is intellect mind memory these are not conscious they are part of the subtle body so they cannot experience anything by themselves but remember what does the mantra say the two are experiencing in this body are you clear what is the question what is the point being raised here and it's such an important point fourteen hundred years ago adi shankar is shankaracharya is raising a point which is now at the cutting edge literally of consciousness studies this distinction between consciousness and mind consciousness and intellect this is not yet clear and speaking from a survey of all the you know writing on the philosophy of mind today from what was one of the papers i studied at harvard two years ago this primary distinction that the mind intellect in itself they are not conscious and to experience anything you need consciousness consciousness can experience you the conscious being can experience mind by itself cannot experience anything intellect by itself cannot experience anything and here the mantra says two are within us experiencing the results of karma why i'm saying that is this is not clear to many thinkers right now but this distinction is absolutely important this neuroscientist dr anil set he's a very well-known neuroscientist in england and he writes he writes and speaks about the problem of consciousness and he has written some books recently also so he put it very nicely he said you don't have to be smart to suffer so he says the computer deep blue can defeat a very intelligent person you know in chess chess grandmaster can be defeated by a computer computers have done that they've defeated chess grand masters so in that sense a computer is smart now you have artificial intelligence and it can perform how do you know it's intelligent it can perform all the activities of intelligence by its by its behavior you can see it can go and beat a chess grandmaster that's smart it can take decisions it can guide a missile uh smart weapons you know that's why you call them smart weapons it can guide the weapons it can take you know guide you can drive a self-driving car or land a spacecraft on mars so it's really really smart in terms of behavior and performance but it doesn't suffer if the grandmaster beats deep blue in a chess match deep blue doesn't feel depressed but if deep blue beats the grandmaster and chess matter grand master is devastated that have been beaten by a machine so a computer can be smart but anil said points out a mouse is not at all smart in that sense it can't play chess let alone defeat a grandmaster but it can suffer it feels pain when the cat catches the mouse the mouse you can see it feels pain it can suffer it can experience pain and presumably pleasure also to experience anything you need consciousness anil said i'm quoting 1400 years ago shankaracharya is saying that in a commentary you can't talk about intellect and consciousness here because intellect cannot experience anything it is consciousness you need consciousness to experience pain and pleasure [Music] this distinction is so important today we have machines which can duplicate every activity of our mind machines which have tremendous memory i mean your calculator has more memory than any human being can i mean at least you know the way to it it's fast and you can recover data so fast computers our little devices are more memory than us they have decision making powers intelligence they have creativity nowadays they're writing poems and music and making you know art so every function of the mind these machines are not duplicating except one they don't experience anything they don't have that first person conscious experience which we have that first person conscious experience consciousness in sanskrit caitanya that is the unique nature of the individual you or i or the mouse the individual sentient being jivatma in this case individual sentient being that consciousness gives us the ability to have first person experience none of these machines even the smartest ones have any first person experience 14 centuries ago shankaracharya makes that point you can duplicate you can have intelligence without sentience you can have memory without sentence you can have creativity all the things we thought only sentient beings can do all of that he says doesn't require sentience doesn't require consciousness you can have all of that without conscious experience but conscious experience requires consciousness that first person experience requires consciousness so this distinction i just wanted to show that this was well understood in ancient times this difference just as an aside here this is where i think advaita vedanta very clear and kashmiri shaivism confuses the issue here in kashmir shaivism what happens is these powers of intellect creativity desire all of these are powers of consciousness you need consciousness plus these things so thinking understanding remembering desiring all of these are vibrations of the play of consciousness i had this discussion with professor randam chakravarti once and i said in that case when a computer you know takes a decision computer has memory recalls memory and all of that you would say it's not really memory it's not really intelligence it's not really creativity none of these activities in the computer are real according to kashmiri shaivism because they all require consciousness with them without consciousness they are all imitations and he said yes according to kashmir shaivism artificial intelligence is artificial it's not intelligence because without consciousness it can't be introduced it's just a mimicking of intelligence it's a mimicking of memory it's a mimikim of decision making or mimicking of creativity that does not hold ground anymore it is very difficult to sustain that in the presence of so much evidence now of the presence of high performing artificial intelligence machines however one thing that's very clear which sankhya and advaita vedanta point out that these computers artificial intelligence they do not have first person experience it is only the jivatma wherever there is sentient even without memory or without intelligence like a mouse without much memory without much intelligence it still can suffer pain and pleasure anyway so that's my rant but here only the only point we are taking away from it is you can't say the two which have entered within us it is um intellect and the individual consciousness because the intellect cannot experience anything and the mantra says both are experiencing pain and pleasure then another reason it says is that vibe you can't say it is supreme soul that is infinite consciousness brahman and individual is so is that what is being referred to as the two here well there's a problem with that view also because though the individual i the individual can experience and am experiencing the results of my karma but aren't we taught that the infinite pure consciousness existence consciousness place does not experience the pain and pleasure of the of karma so then that is also you can't say those two are the ones who are experiencing it so anyway this is the problems now the way these sutras work is so what is the meaning of this what how will we interpret it a prime of ac view is presented an opponent's view is presented first and then the vedanta view will be our view but conclusion will be presented so what is the opponent's view the opponent comes and says that look the two here means what you are experiencing right now you are experiencing mind and consciousness you are a conscious being and you have an intellect these are the two terms and i will show that it fits the mantra how well the first objection was you then a sentient being jiwatma you can experience pleasure and pain because you're conscious but the intellect cannot experience pleasure and pain by itself because it's not a conscious entity how does it experience apart from your pleasure and pain here shankaracharya uses an old indian example which literally translates as there go the people with the umbrella the people with umbrella what does that mean it's a little quaint but you have to imagine suddenly you see a group of like pretty important people you know walking this uh one man is in front with somebody holding an umbrella over his head and remember in those days umbrellas with the big parasols you know i'm sure they were made of bamboo or something so one man is going with umbrella over his head and he has a retinue of people accompanying him and people see that and they say there go the people with the umbrella there go literally umbrella people the umbrella people chatrina the ones with the umbrella the umbrella people are going there what does it mean only one person has an umbrella but everybody else is they're all taken as a group and called the umbrella people chatri in plural similarly so what how do we apply it here although actually consciousness is giving rise to first person experience but since mind intellect are always together with it we can include it just like people with umbrella only one umbrella but everybody else is said to be a person with the umbrella because they are in the group since consciousness is accompanied by the intellect so the intellect also you can say it is something that is experiencing the pleasure and pain so it is no harm in saying the two are experiencing pleasure and pain they're drinking the results of past karma or you might say that the two are experiencing pleasure and pain because one of them consciousness that is pure consciousness is making uh the other one experience if one makes the other one experience you can still say both are experiencing like you know one person is cooking but you are the one who is like the head chef or something so you're not doing anything yourself there's somebody else who's doing the cooking but people will say you are cooking other guys cooking but he's cooking because you have set him to do the cooking similarly consciousness pure consciousness by itself may not uh be directly experiencing pleasure and pain but because of it it is reflected in the in the mind and the reflected consciousness is experiencing pleasure and pain or the other way around the sentient being in the mind you the individual you are the one who is experiencing pleasure and pain but because of your presence and you are using the intellect and the mind to experience pleasure and pain so you can say the intellect and mind is experiencing pleasure and pain the mind is suffering the mind is happy you can say that there's nothing wrong in that you know the whole doubt is how can an insentient thing like the mind the intellect experience anything so one example is given here is saying there's nothing wrong figuratively as if so the an example is the fuel the wood cooks now who's cooking the cook is cooking but it's burning the fill burning the wood so there's an indirect way of referring to it as that the wood is cooking the fire the rice you are cooking the rice but you have lit the wood and you put the pan and the rice in that and but indirectly you can say the wood is cooking the rice the wood is burning and it's cooking the rice in the same way you the consciousness you are experiencing pleasure and pain but you can say the mind the intellect is experiencing pleasure and pain because you are using it as an instrument so there is no harm in saying that within you are these two consciousness individual consciousness and mind together they are experiencing pleasure and pain the two of them um further here is the argument why are you saying that the two means you the individual being and your intellect it's because um it is said entered into the cavity of the heart or entered into the heart guha cave of the heart now who has entered into the cave of the heart what is here embodied individual consciousness and mind not the supreme consciousness supreme consciousness in infinite existence consciousness places all pervading why are you saying it's embodied here in the in the heart so therefore we must be individual consciousness and mind the two things which are actually present in this body it clearly says entered into the cave you see the argument here the next it says experiencing the results the mantra says experiencing the results of karma good and bad karma are being experienced by it now the supreme self why would it be limited by the law of kaaba and you know we are often quoted to you swami vivekananda saying good good bad bad and none escape the law but whosoever wears a form where's the chain too that means who whoever is embodied whosoever wears a form whoever is embodied just like this mantra says where's the chain chain is past karma good and bad results are coming and our life we are experiencing it then swami vivekananda goes on to say in that poem but far beyond name and form is atma never free no thou art that sannyasi board say om but far beyond his atman ever free here they have 1400 years ago the commentator says the opponent says aha that means the supreme self is ever free of karma and the mantra says you are experiencing the pleasure and pain of karma so that supreme self cannot be meant here paramatma is not meant here saccidananda brahma is not mentioned it's only you the individual being plus your mind or your intellect that's meant here then again all these are arguments to show that it is youth individual being an intellect which is meant by two another argument chaitapo light and darkness you are consciousness and your companion the intellect is not not conscious you are chit and the internet is jada you are sentient and your body mind all the apparatus is insentient like light and darkness like light and shadow it matches what the mantra is talking about and so therefore we must say when the mantra says two have entered into the sacred space within this mind on the cave and they are experiencing the results of karma the two are you the individual sentient being the jeevathma and your intellect or in general you can say intellect mind the whole inner instrument sounds convincing now comes the vedantic and says no you're totally wrong why it is actually in the youth individual being and the unlimited pure consciousness our real nature your apparent nature and your real nature these are the two which are meant here you what you know yourself to be and you what we are yama is trying to teach us what you truly are these are the two which are meant here how so we've got we have shown you a battery of objections you have to answer all of those questions well because first argument is that when it says 2 have entered whenever you have a grouping with number 2 10 50 then you're counting things of the same kind if i say go and count how many are there in the hall downs nobody's there in the hall downstairs but suppose in person class is going on how many are there you'll go and count maybe 50 are there but you you meant 50 people you didn't count the kitten and the and the uh you know spiders or or whatever you don't you don't count anything else you just count that the same kind of thing you're having a cup of coffee you say i want one more you want one more what everybody knows you want one more another cup of coffee you don't want something else so when the upanishad says two have entered they must be of the same nature and so the argument is the individual self and the supreme self the limited consciousness which you think yourself to be the individual consciousness and your real nature the infinite consciousness both are consciousness therefore you can say both you can't do that to something which is consciousness and not consciousness and then put them together and say both you can't say individual consciousness and mind but they are of different nature this is a subtle argument but simple argument then um he puts it very beautifully shankaracharya here what is after all going on here first of all catch out catch hold of what you experience yourself as you are certain i am a conscious being with a mind and intellect and senses and a body experiencing pleasure and pain with results of my past karma you know this yes right now yama will show you this conscious being its real nature is infinite consciousness ever free so these are the two he wants to talk about he's not interested in your physiology or your psychology he's not interested in your brain and spine and kidney no so he's interested in you the consciousness and your ultimate nature as pure consciousness why is he talking about it as to ultimately it is one reality but for the purpose of teaching you have to start with what you experience yourself as and then show you your infinite nature that's why talking about two then the opponent says but um didn't we say that doesn't the mantra say if entered into this body how can the infinite enter into this body well he says there's no problem there because if the supreme self paramatma is all pervading then it must be here in this body also it must be there in your mind also and you need a particular place to experience it so it is said to have entered into your mind and being beyond your mind also in fact as we have already seen not only it is all pervading in fact all of space is appearing in pure consciousness in in consciousness all of time is appearing in consciousness so only when you accept space then you say consciousness is all pervading when you accept time you say consciousness is eternal but as a matter of fact even time and space are appearances in consciousness so the point here is there's no harm in saying supreme infinite consciousness has entered into the sacred space of your heart of course it has it has entered everything so it is there there and that's the place you will experience it and then further he says gives a series of quotations throughout the upanishads again and again this very phrase is used the supreme self having entered the cave of the heart dietary open issues i've often quoted and shankaracharya quotes here haven't you don't you remember the openness it says [Music] so infinite existence consciousness where is it you have to realize it in the sacred space of your heart so sacred space of your heart means in your mind actually so this is the phrase which is used often to point out brahman so there's no harm in saying that that infinite brahman is available in the sacred space within the cave of the heart okay of the heart here shankaracharya says you can take the body as a temple i mean which like the deity within a temple um consciousness is present in this body or you can actually take the mind itself as the cave of the heart in the mind consciousness is available then so there is no contradiction in teaching about any place as suitable for the realization of the omnipresent brahman if it's an omnipresent thing then in every place it is available and then you realize it within yourself then um but what about the other objection experiencing the results of karma you are you saying that the supreme brahman experiences pleasure and pain the results of karma then it's no good it has not escaped from the effects of karma how do you get out of that one it says two things experience results of karma individual now you are saying two things means individual self which we agree and the supreme self brahman infinite existence consciousness place there he definitely plays the opponent back he says have you forgotten people with umbrella so the umbrella is on the head of the individual cells and the supreme self tags along you the individual self is experiencing pleasure and pain and because the supreme self is the individual self is ultimately nothing but the supreme self therefore you can say in association supreme self in association with appearing as the individual self seems to be experiencing pleasure and pain no problem shankaracharya just says have you forgotten the people with the umbrella we can use that right here then what about light and shade if both are consciousness how can you compare light and shade with the mantra says the two have entered into the sacred space of the heart and they're different like light and shade and in our explanation consciousness youth individual consciousness and mind they're different because you are consciousness and the mind is not conscious they're different like light and shade but now you are saying supreme consciousness and individual consciousness paramatma jivatma how can they be different to light and darkness and then the explanation is it can be the paramatma is free of samsara it is it has no uh it is not touched by pleasure pain is not touched by birth rebirth it does not it's not subject to birth and death and the individual self suffers the results of past karma subject to birth and death goes through aging and experiences all of that so one is in samsara samsari the other one is asamsari not samsari not not transmigrating in samsara so they are like light and darkness that he says the first one individual self is what we think ourselves in ignorance we the same one we will realize i am that infinite self unlimited consciousness in knowledge so the state of ignorance in the state of darkness we think we are the individual self in the state of light of uh realization we think we are then we realize we are the infinite self or infinite consciousness so it's like light and shadow that's done therefore he says consciousness identified with the intellect and consciousness which is infinite these are the two who have entered into the cave of the heart so this is the way they come to these discussions this is a just a sort of summary of the discussions i've given you less than one third of what shankaracharya said in that discussion now we are back to the upanishad where were we all this time we were in the brahmasutras uh discussing this very topic what was the topic two have entered into the cave of the heart just that word two explain the two what are the two because the open issue doesn't say clearly what are the two what are the candidates for explanation first candidate was you and your intellect these are the two the second candidate was you and your real nature what you think yourself to be limited conscious being and your real nature is unlimited consciousness those are the two what did we decide we decided the second one but what is what is in what is within us i apparently limited consciousness limited by mind and intellect and all but really the unlimited consciousness like shankaracharya himself sings when i extract myself disentangle myself from mind and intellect and ego and memory then what do i find i am of the nature of unlimited consciousness i am the nature of bliss i am of the nature of shiva i am shiva those are the two the shiva and the jiva who have entered into this were in this body-mind complex that's the meaning of two then the rest of it is easy to interpret they drink the truth the truth here is to truth of karma karma is inflexible cannot be broken but two things first of all practically god is more powerful than karma who is god saguna brahman ishwara karma and the results are given to us results of karma are given the ishvara so by the grace of ishwara karma results can be attenuated and you know you can tide over bad karma that's not something upanishad is saying that's i'm just adding bringing it from outside but what the upanishad says is your real nature is beyond karma you are actually not limited to karma now they enjoy the results or suffer from the results of their own karma sukrita means done by oneself in past lives and have entered gohan pravish to have entered the cave what is the cave you can take the body itself as the cave or you can take the mind as the cave like light and darkness um one more point here i must point out later when we study the munda kopanisha there is the famous example of the two birds sitting on a tree in the mundo kopanisha 3.1.1 which is the famous mantra dwa superna sayuja sakaya samanam riksham what does that mean on a tree what is the tree our body on a tree there are two birds of golden plumage they're shining for the two birds consciousness among them one is hopping around the tree and enjoying or experiencing the sweet and bitter fruits imagine one one bird hopping around and pecking at different fruits the other one is not consuming the fruits it's not tasting pain and pleasure bitter sweet and bitter it is watching and we know what is they're trying to tell us there's only one they're not two but it seems to be two first of all is i the individual being and i'm experiencing the various results of karma so i'm very kind that says the lower bird it tastes a bitter fruit and then gets a shock and what is the meaning of this life it's so terrible it's so horrible then it looks up at the higher bird which sits in glory and peace and serenity and say i want to be like that and it hops towards the higher bird this is all swami vivekananda's commentary hops towards the higher bird but then it gets distracted by a specially luscious shining looking fruit so it sets aside the spiritual quest towards the higher bird then it hops laterally and lateral movement to the to that other fruit and packs it and it's very nice so it forgets the higher bird then it takes out another fruit that's very nice but then it comes to another fruit which is especially bitter gets a shock oh my god what am i doing i forgot my spiritual quest that is the real purpose of life this miserable thing i have started doing it again so comes back to spiritual quest i had stopped doing my meditation i had stopped doing my devotional practices i had stopped attending vedanta classes no i must get back to it again and so again hops towards the hired bird and so it goes on till it comes near the higher bird and sees for the first time it becomes real the the unlimited perfect awareness our real nature call it buddha nature atman brahman whatever and then amazingly it finds there's no lower bird always there was the higher bird alone so this is the spiritual journey and we will come across this mantra in the munda cooperation but it creates creates a special problem for this mantra because there it's very clear two birds one is eating the results of past karma the other one is not one is getting pain and pleasure shocks kicks and blows the other one is not but here both are enjoying the pleasure and pain of the past uh karma how do you explain that then what is what are these two it exactly means the same thing but then you have to use interpretation like people with umbrella chatrina one umbrella only one is holding the umbrella but on whose head is it okay then what else who speaks of this where are you getting this all the vedas speak of it dopani should speak of it brahmavido vadanti the knowers of brahman those who have the rishis of the upanishad they speak of it but also those were the ritualists they speak of it only the rishis emphasized the upanishads noah so brahman emphasized the higher consciousness pure consciousness unlimited consciousness and the ritualists emphasize the individual consciousness which is getting the results of karma the ritualists are all about karma do good karma have a better life don't do good karma then suffer get kicks and blows and terrible life and so for a better life do good karma and you the lower that lower consciousness your individual consciousness will get fewer bitter fruits and much better much bigger harvest of sweet fruits that is the whole ritualistic approach instead of saying the ritualists it uses two terms those who perform sacrifices of five fires or trinarchy those who have performed the nachiketa sacrifice what is nashiketa sacrifice we talked about it earlier that great sacrifice vedic ritual which was taught by yama to nachiketa and he said you perform it thrice in your lifetime basically ritualists those ritualists who perform these things they also mentioned the same theory of the two consciousnesses advaita will say actually not two consciousnesses as if two what you see yourself as right now and what i'm going to show you what you really are why five fires just as a note there are two interpretations why five fires one is every traditional vedic ritualist used to have these fires at home one they were just rattle off the names of the fi fires the fires had their names in which the in which fires the rituals were performed gaara patiagni the household fire aha agni so these are the five fires which are mentioned here or it could refer to in chandogya upanishads and video there are this idea of five sacrifices or five meditations which are called five fires punjab nividya those are not actual rituals those are meditations not not pertinent to us but just to explain the term five fires what do you mean five fires so a particular kind of meditation found in chandragupta is called the five fires meditation and the other five fires are not fires actually one fire is swagger heaven another fire is um the mega the atmosphere the clouds another fire is pretty the earth another fire is uh purusha the male another fire is nari the female the five fires and you meditate on that in a particular way that was one kind of technique taught in the upanishads anyway so these are all techniques performed by either actual rituals or meditations performed by the ritualists they speak of these two within us experiencing karma and the knowers of brahman of course speak of these two within us experiencing karma this is the meaning of the mantra am i thinking too much detail i don't need so much information but just to give you an example of how these things work you know the background if you lift the hood open the box what's inside it how do you come to these interpretations i could have just said there are two within us experiencing the results of karma pleasure and pain infinite consciousness through the mind and body it appears as the individual consciousness those are the two but how do you know they are the two and how do you match all the things which i said in the mantra light and darkness experiencing pleasure and pain entered into this one body how this is reading the life of swami um shanandaji was a very great swami of our order many many decades ago in bangalore bengaluru now in so in his he used to be known for this his voluminous his tremendous knowledge vast education so his classes would go on and on with endless information about every verse there there are descriptions of the monks they all used to sit on the floor even when i joined the order we used to sit on the floor and attend classes from the pundits so you sit on the floor and take notes and the swami would either walk around he had a cane he would walk around and talk or he would sit with his eyes closed on the floor and talk and he would go on and on and on this is an uh there's a description of how one class a sunday class is supposed to start at four and end at five started at four and five came and went and then six came and went and seven came and went he ended at eight o'clock in the night four hours and one monk says in his later years that i still remember we used to be nervous wrecks at the end of the class because if you try to pay attention there would be so much information so much depth in his classes once in a gita class he started explaining the term yagya the sacrifice yagya and it's a very important term in the vedas so the whole class went in explaining that one word these were sunday classes next sunday when they came for the gita class the whole class again went for explaining that yakya and so did the third sunday and then the fourth sunday and every sunday thereafter for two whole years one word literally one word he went on and on somebody asked the question swami some question and swami said well you wait when we come to the last chapter of the gita 18 chapter it will be clear to you and that gentleman said many lifetimes hence i presume so what i did today it would be insignificant compared to what that swami was doing [Music] um i've met some who is to attend his classes and then they all speak about this enormous irritation and extraordinarily simple lifestyle if he was funny also the story he tells he knew mahatma gandhi so once mahatma gandhi had come near the ashram and this swami tagishanji went to meet him and jagashanji if few photographs up in black and white photographs you can see has a long white beard and long flowing white hair she goes to meet mahatma gandhi and an austrian lady had come she was a well-known journalist writer painter she wanted to interview mahatma gandhi but when mahatma gandhi was speaking this lady kept on interrupting him so mahatma gandhi at one point he chuckled and he got hold of the nose of that lady and said listen to me you are not listening look at him and he pointed to the monk tag see how he's listening then that lady looked at the monk tag and she really liked his long hair and beard and said can i do a portrait of you swami and i'll come to the ashram tomorrow and we sit for a portrait so she went to the ashram the next day and then she couldn't recognize the swami because he had shaved off that magnificent beard and all the hair he knew that was what had attracted her and she lost all interest in making the portrait after that anyway these are stories i was just reading yesterday shared it with you good let's now quickly look at the comments shawwani says is this reference to two similar to the two birds analogy in one duck exactly as we did and she raises the pertinent question in this words do both enjoy the fruits of work or only one of the two enjoys see this is the problem if you see the moon she has got it exactly the munda kopanishad birth says mantra says that why do we say mantra instead of verse verse is all right for gita they're sloka versamine words means shloka mantra means the upanishads and vedas they are mantras we don't say verse there so to enjoy our one enjoys and that was the whole issue which we discussed today parul says swamiji in hindi we say uh which what is this one one means the mind mind intellect anything that changes so in the mind we see series of thoughts series of ideas series of memories so these are components of the mind mind is a general term and so in the technical term in vedanta would be instrument and that changes continuously you the witness consciousness you do not change good so that was this was a more of a traditional kind of class only in traditional class we would go through the sanskrit and then teach but basically this is what they would do in a traditional class [Music] namaste [Music] you