Video 3

3. Katha Upanishad | Mantras 1.1.4 - 8 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

may the lord protect us both the teacher and the thought together by revealing knowledge may the lord protect us both by giving us the results of knowledge may we attain vigor together may let what we learn what we study be invigorating maybe not uh cavale at each other oh peace peace peace so let's just take a quick look at what what we have been doing in qatar condition it starts up this way [Music] um [Music] [Music] so we have just seen these four verses mantras so it is said in ancient times there was this pious vedic brahman who performed a major vedic fire ritual called the vishwajit yagya yaga desires of results the word ushan means desiring results and we have seen these rituals were primarily performed for getting something in this life or the next and in this case uh we know that that particular ritual is meant for you know accumulating enough karmic credit so that you go to get to uh go to heaven you know like frequent flyer miles or something like that you go to get to heaven um and the specialty of that particular ritual was that you have to give away everything so in these rituals one of the components is at the end of it the ritual the priests who come and perform these rituals for you you hire them you commission them to perform it and you have to give them gifts at the end of it and in this case the gifts are literally everything that you own so this um pius brahmin his name was rajasthan and he had a son a little boy by the name naji keta who was maybe seven or eight or nine years old now he thought he watched when he was his little boy he watched the gifts being taken away by the priests his father distributed the gifts and the gifts were being taken away by the priests dakshinasu niyama anasu then he he sought inspired by faith and this is an important thing which swami vivekananda gives a lot of stress on this this shraddha it is foundational to all kinds of higher life spiritual life definitely but all kinds of higher life even moral and ethical life shaddha literally means faith confidence um it's defined as asti buddhi buddhi means it is such a thing is what i hear about from my teachers and from our elders what i read about in these texts i have the faith that there is something to it not just very high things like god and brahman and enlightenment but values that it is indeed a wonderful and a great thing to be truthful that it is wonderful to be simple and austria's wonderful to be self-controlled it's great to be considerate of others so these values fundamental values these are um i believe in them i believe my life i should pursue them this is this is how to live the good and great life is this kind of life this is not a small thing and not only that another aspect of shaddha is self-confidence this is what swami vivekananda stressed again and again not only these values are important not only these texts and teachers are right they are what they are saying is good and great i too can do it i must do it this is the purpose of my life i must be a good and great person and possibly a spiritual person i must pursue the highest goals of human life this kind of faith in oneself and often you know people suffer from issues of self-esteem they sabotage themselves neither anything great in this life nor in the next nor indeed spirituality nothing is possible without this shraddha a belief in higher values spiritual possibility and belief in oneself exactly the same thing krishna scolds arjuna at the beginning of the bhagavad-gita do not give in to this paralysis you are a great person regain your confidence in yourself you're a great warrior so in your dharma as a warrior and then then indeed on spiritual life i'm going to teach you about he said all that before teaching about the atman and vedanta and all that unless one is ready to change i want higher things in life i want a better life a higher nobler life and i can't do it i'm ready to try please teach me without this initial preparation nothing can come no good can come no spiritual path by spiritual path even counselling and stuff like that will not work for you unless i have this inner willingness to change so he had this this little boy had it and he thought so many other what did he think look at these gifts my father is giving away these are absolutely the worst things he owns um he is giving away so there's a sort of humorous description of cows which have drunk water for the last time which have eaten grass for the last time which have been milked for the last time which cannot give birth to cubs so they are old and dying probably so the i mean one interpretation could be that the father gave away everything and this was the last what he had and he was giving that away too but that doesn't fly because if that was so then i wouldn't have thought these things he would have just seen his father giving everything away but he clearly thinks that his father is doing something wrong because he feels if you do this my father he is going to go to the some worlds of sorrow so the goal is to go to heaven you firmly believe by performing these rituals and giving the gifts you have enough good karma to go to heaven after death wonderful but he will not go to heaven and he'll go to hell by doing this and then he goes to his father and he asks so this is the fourth mantra he said to his father father to whom will you offer me he spoke to him a second time and a third time to him the father said to death i offer you so the commentator here shankaracharya he writes so why did he say this the shankaracharya helps the story along he sort of fills in the blanks you know so many things i might say how you might say how do you know the text itself does not say this so shankaracharya he fills in the blanks and makes it a more rounded story so he is he's saying what did nasi keta think when he saw all this happening he thought um he says that from the is of shankaracharya he says my father will get the undesired results he'll get into trouble by messing up his fire ritual in this way so what should i do maya putrina sata nivaraniyam so i am his son i am right here this is literally what shankaracharya says he's nachiketa is thinking i'm right here maybe i can offer myself and complete the ritual the fire ritual can be completed perfectly by sacrificing myself i want to sacrifice myself for for my father and so he goes and asks so this is the motivation what shankaracharya wants to say is that the kid is not being cheeky and just pointing out your dad's he's ready to you know sacrifice himself uh he's saying you're what you're doing is wrong it'll get into trouble give me away you can make up so he goes and asks and then the father becomes annoyed second time third time so that's what's happened happens when you ignore little kids they're persistent so first time you ignore them and come back they don't get offended and walk away they'll come back second time third time first until his father loses his temper and shankaracharya says as much what did his father think this is some boy this is [Music] becoming furious the father says this is not the you know the nature of an innocent child is being you know arrogant or whatever um and he said i give thee to death. then what happened and then shankaracharya fills in by saying that hurt he says so he went to solitude so all this is shankaracharya filling in the upanishad doesn't say any of this the boy went to solitude and he sorrowfully thought to himself what did he think so verse number five [Music] so among many i am the best he says among many i rank as belonging to the highest among many i rank as belonging to the middling what purpose can there be of death that my father will get achieved today through me some sort of awkward construction but it's literal to the sanskrit basically he's thinking why number one why is he sending me to death because i don't deserve this i'm a good boy and so how am i a good boy among many among the students among many i am the first maybe in many subjects i am the first in many ways i am the best and in many ways i am sort of average in between implying i am not the worst in any case so why is he sending me to death so i mean he shouldn't send me to death and then he also says what is the purpose of all of this and shankaracharya fills him there by saying there is no purpose i understand my dad is mad at me this is exactly what shankaracharya says so the boy understands there is no purpose actually to this and i know this just means my father is furious with me but this uh among many i am the first and among many i am middling in between this is uh shaddha which swami vivekananda liked very much this high self-esteem just because my dad scolded me i am i i don't you know break down and collapse we have these new terms these days you have to validate me um so the teacher or in a job so if you're the superior or the teacher in a school you have to continuously provide positive reinforcement keep validating the child true that's good but there's a limit to that also and now the opposite is there that the child can hold you responsible for not validating me you are you're criticizing me you're not encouraging me um here look at nachiketa he's robust he says i am a good person it doesn't matter what my dad's mad at me or scolding me that doesn't mean make me a bad person i'm really a good person i'm a look how am i a good person look at my life among so many other kids i'm the best at certain things and in many other things i am sort of average nowhere am i the worst this is a sign of healthy self-esteem if i say i'm the best at everything that's arrogance or that's even like megalomania but the idea that i have done quite well in my life and there are things i could have done better their thing says i've done just about as well as everybody else and that's fine that shows i'm okay i'm good when we were management students we have this subject which i liked a lot it's called transactional analysis in those days it was very popular you could go to any bookshop and you would see i am okay you're okay and all of that so i learned it from a really good expert he was a jesuit priest actually and uh he taught us wonderfully i really uh the basic idea there is the life positions that we take with each other um is the worst is i'm not okay you are not okay that means i think badly about myself and i also think badly about others people are you can have a checklist they are mean they are selfish they are ignorant they are whatever all i think badly about others and i think badly about myself i'm a loser i'm a failure i'm not as good as that other kid i'm not as intelligent or as athletic or as pretty all these things i'm thinking about myself or as popular and it's a huge issue isn't it going on right now i think uh in the hearings the facebook uh whistleblower hearings one of the things she was mentioning that it seems facebook knew it was uh toxic for teenagers and so it's things like that so this is one kind i am not okay you are not okay and this is the worst position and the extreme of this position is the psychopathology you know where people go out and shoot other people and then kill themselves so you see this is extreme it's so bad i have to kill others and i'm so bad i have to die so this is the worst position the other position is also there are two other positions possible i am not okay but you are okay that's the second position so this leads to inferiority complexes and children generally start off that way it's inevitable when you're a little uh kid and you're surrounded by adults they seem okay that means they're powerful they're knowledgeable and you're dependent on them and i seem less capable than them but very soon you have to come out of that as you grew up that's all that's what growing up about and then the other one is the uh i am okay you are not okay this leads to a security complex leads to arrogance and misbehavior with others um sometimes people in positions of power they have this looking down on others so this is uh this is also unhealthy and the best position is i'm okay you are okay and the idea of this whole thing was that everybody should aspire to this no matter who you are wherever you are spiritual not spiritual in an organization in a family by yourself wherever you are in whatever situation you are the position to aspire to is i'm okay you are okay i have respect for you genuinely i respect for myself too so this is this was the basic idea of well this sounds like pop psychology but it was based on very good solid psychology done before this book became popular so transactional analysis it has a long history not so popular these days and not many people talk about it these days but look at uh nachiketa he's got this i am okay you're okay position even as a as a kid um i'm in the middle somewhere some people are better than me some people are not i'm better than some others and no point do i think there's anything wrong with me so why is my father doing this obviously he's angry [Music] and then he thinks shankaracharya adds this [Music] let the words of my father not go to waste let it not be false he said it out of anger but now i have to fulfill it so you might think that's a bit extreme but truth was a very high value and there's so many stories again and again in indian in the puranas in the upanishads themselves as you see which sets a very high store value on truth even here in this day and age sri ramakrishna says one spiritual practice in this age of kali khalid tapusha he says one spiritual practice is truth if you can hold on to that that purifies that sets the that prepares you for enlightenment so truth is the basis for everything good in life obviously ultimately enlightenment which will all come to later on but even what his father is aiming for heaven i'm going to go to heaven a better future in this life in the next life even their truth is the basis and nashiketa feels that his father is violating truth and therefore he will not get the result he's looking for and he wants his father to uphold the truth and he's willing to sacrifice himself for that and therefore he now tells his father the sixth verse so before we go ahead so what's a best disciple what's the middling disciple and what's the worst disciple this comes from a sub-commentator so shankaracharya is the commentator on the upanishads basically a sub-commentator called tikka kara who writes a gloss is ananda giri he wrote subcommentaries on shankaracharya's commentaries so he helpfully supplies the information who is the best and who is middling and who is the worst the best disciple is the one who serves the guru by understanding the intent of the guru even before being commanded the second the middling is the one who waits for the command and the guru tells him to do something he does it and that's the worst is who even being told to do something doesn't do it so that's that's the worst the disobedient one and nachiketa thinks i'm the best in many cases i've seen and in some cases i've seen i'm the middle but i've never been that other kind and so why is my dad mad at me um then he goes on he goes back to speak to his father verse number six he goes back to speak to his father consider successively how your forefathers behaved and consider how others behave now man decays and dies like corn and emerges again like corn so who's this saying it's a little boy and giving a sermon to his dad so what's his dad like and shankaracharya says there that his father is standing full of remorse so he's adding color to the story you know there's nothing mentioned in the original text shankaracharya says he spoke to his father what kind of father the father was overcome with remorse why was he overcome with remorse what did i say thus he was overcome with remorse what did i utter um so what did he say to his father think father how your forefathers behaved so you belong to this noble lineage of vedic brahmins and they have lived this devout life for generation after generation they have held on to the high values of truth simplicity you know keeping their word surrounded krishna gave a tremendous emphasis on this mon mook or he would say make your tongue and your mind one so what i what you're thinking that's what you should say what you are saying is what you are thinking not duplicitous that thinking one thing and saying something else um so truth the importance of holding on to the truth watch how your your look at your tradition look at your heritage how they held on to the truth in ancient times so this is already what four or five thousand years ago he's talking about the ancients at that time and i mean at this point let me just mention that whenever i say so the upanishads in the way it was five thousand years ago and i can hear it in my head people will go there you go swami again everything is 5 000 years old for you right but you know if you consider even the most conservative dating by modern scholarship most conservative dating most um you know modern scholarship just a couple of days back i was listening to a talk by this professor at oxford university and she said that uh so you can date the upanishads back to about 1700 bc 1700 bc if if at all it can date it so 1700 bc but that still think about it that is uh 1 200 years before the buddha buddha was 2500 years ago and she said by them at the least these upanishads are more than a thousand years before the buddha so when i say 5000 years i'm saying 2500 years before the buddha so give or take a thousand years here and there so it's not all that not such a big deal anyway look at the ancients how they behaved how they held on to ethics in their lives and look at how people behave today shankaracharya points out um what come on today look at good people in society today what are they doing how are they upholding values and then consider what you are doing um so the kid is very direct actually i can like many children he can easily make you feel bad about yourself so look at how people are behaving today so holding on to a truth holding on to even a damaging truth where you lose something um the french philosopher foucault in this last years of his life he had this something he gave several lectures on felizia it's a term which means truth telling talking basically but truth telling and he says what is truth telling sun rises in the east it's not truth telling or the law of gravity pulls things downwards that's not truth telling truth telling is when i tell you something which is damaging to me for which i pay a price in terms of reputation money or whatever if i can do that then i told the truth about myself um so that is quite different nowadays truth telling also has another connotation you know what i feel about something what my opinion is what i think about myself i should fearlessly say that it's good nobody should put me down but notice how this is more difficult to say something right now when you say speak your truth what you mean is say something great about yourself say what you feel about something but often these feelings about something which we express are often at the cost of others so i point out how bad other people are and how great i am and that's i'm telling my truth foucault says and 3000 years or five thousand years before him rashiketa says you tell a damaging truth tell a truth which which hurts your worldly prospects that gives you merit that gives you the strength of character sri ramakrishna says and slightly different variation on this he says a person who can simply confess to one's own faults you know just in an innocent way you can tell that you to see that that person has character has something in him so it's difficult and he says the ancients did it and those who are here today they are also do it they are also doing it what are they not doing shankaracharya writes they do not speak untruths even today you know about this uh monk he's sort of talking about the deterioration of values in indian society he put it very violently he said so a few generations ago if a man from the village was called you know called upon to give false witness bear false witness against somebody in court he would say i can't do that i have a family and the karma is so bad for telling a lie that we will all suffer um i would suffer my i have children and people who depend on me we would all suffer if i tell a lie because it's such bad karma and he says in the same village today the monk is saying today a man will go happily and tell a lie in court and if you ask him why did he do it he'll say what can i do i have a family this is a firm belief in the law of karma in ethics in consequence in moral consequence that has now been replaced by i don't know about all that but i know about the financial consequences so i have a family and the rich man bribed me to tell a lie in court what can i do i have to take the bribe because i have a family the same excuse you see but one is based on a firm belief this is shaddha without that morals ethics are not possible even conventional religion is not possible the kind where you want to be a good person and go to heaven you won't even believe any of that i'd rather be a dishonest person and earn extra money now rather than be a good person and tell the truth and remain poor and go to heaven later on i won't have faith in that who knows because i am cheating therefore i think everybody around me is a cheat and certainly these scriptures and texts and all maybe they are telling lies also so um that higher values are real [Music] there is a saying i don't know the original sanskrit of this the beautiful to the man of truth his words are like written on rock to the the one who's false his words are like written on flowing water the difference between the two there's another beautiful incident very telling incident in the bhagavatam the story of the life of krishna so vasudeva krishna's father and his wife they were actually related to the the royal family the kamsa the you know the king there was a who was tyrannical really like a big dictator uh he was full of love for his sister and his brother-in-law and i don't know who said it maybe in the bhagavatam itself or somewhere it just said look if a person is without self-control if a person is unethical do not depend on the love of such a person the moment his self-interest is threatened his love will turn into enmity for you that's exactly what happened when the prophecy came that the child of your sister will will one day depose you and kill you he had his sister imprisoned and murdered her children the person who showed so much love and respect to his sister and uh sister's husband becomes exactly like that and you could exactly the opposite and the bhagavatam says or where did i read it says that you can predict it it is it was not unpredictable you look at the life of that person what that person is and you can predict what is going to do to you one day shankaracharya recommends you know by being by based on untruth by telling lies or being dishonest no one ever goes to immortality that means the highest goal spiritual goal of freedom from samsara but another secondary meaning of that immortality is going to heaven also one of the promises of heaven is you know those are the realms of the immortals you live in a heavenly place with the gods this kind of secondary kind of immortality because you'd still come back to the world once your good karma's exhausted but even that kind of relative secondary immortality also one will not get if one is unethical you know people say these things are impossible to practice today the world is so full of lies and deceptions you can't survive if you're going to be truthful i'm not so sure review after review and especially i was reading stuff on corporate ethics several years back after the enron scandal and all the collapse the one thing that people wanted in corporate life from managers middle management and higher management was integrity they didn't want you to be smart they didn't want you to be extra clever great if you can increase shareholder value and all that ultimately we want you to be honest with us so integrity is valued uh but the point here is yes with integrity you will succeed in this life you will go to heaven afterwards also but if the push comes to shove if it's a choice between integrity and success you must choose integrity and truth even at the at the cost of remaining poor it'll come to that soon then he gives a beautiful example like the core in the field such as our life it's pretty biblical because in the bible you get this corn reference card of the field reference again and again and again so like the corn of the field such as our life like the corner of the field people die go to death and like the corner of the field they're reborn again what does that mean sankaracharya says just because because in this life people are dying all the time they become gina they go old and they go diseased and then they die the bodies die again and again and dying is not the end of the end of life you come back again after death one again is reborn like the corn of the field and so this is not good news you get to repeat the same stuff again and again come back again again so in this transient momentary temporary life what's the point of you know abandoning truth and who and taking recourse to falsehood what will you get by committing such terrible karmic sins because everything that you get your life itself will go away very soon why not hold on to something that is that is solid that's eternal seems abstract but it's solid eternal which is truth hold on to that and shankaracharya says hold on to your truth a very modern kind of language you are your truth he said if you have your truth or my truth he says hold on to your truth because life is short just the opposite of you know you live only once your low philosophy yellow philosophy so i can tell lies i can do whatever because you're living only once just the opposite he's saying because life is short because everything will go away hold on to something that is eternal the fact that i told the truth i did the right thing that's great i did not tell the truth i did the wrong thing whatever i got out of that that is temporary transient notice we are always in favor of being good always without without any kind of exception to make us do something wrong we need fear or temptation either out of anxiety or some kind of temptation i tell a lie is the you know fear of getting caught is too much it's fear given the choice if things were all right i would tell the truth the opposite is not true nobody tells a lie does the wrong thing just out of the you know the purity of heart and goodness of his heart that i don't want anything in return i'm just telling lies unselfishly i have i don't want anything in return i'm just going to go around doing nasty things i i don't want anything nobody ever does that it's usually we want something temptation or we are scared of something terror terror or temptation anxiety or desire without these things we would all all be happy to tell the truth is it possible to tell the truth in this society um one professor of corporate ethics here in america he said i'll tell you i'll tell you the truth swami if i taught my students to be literally truthful the businesses would collapse on the other hand if i taught them to be manipulative and conniving the businesses would collapse sooner or later so they i have to show them a middle way so don't tell untruths don't tell outright lies but don't go around unpalatable truths also spreading them around don't do that you have to take a be sort of uh common sense swamiji khan was very clear he said that society is the best where these ideals can be practiced the highest ideals self-control truth unselfishness if society and organizations help us to do these things those organizations and those societies are the best if it is a struggle if it is very difficult to hold on to the truth very difficult to be self-controlled very difficult to care for others very difficult to be selfless then um there's something wrong with the society with the organization or the family whatever somebody's asking what is the name of the professor i'm not going to tell you that's an unpalatable truth uncomfortable truth yes then what happened so hold on to the truth we are going to die anyway why not hold on to the truth and notice you want to go to heaven it's only by holding on to the truth nothing that you get here all the cows that you manage to save here are they are not going to follow you to heaven so you're going to lose all of that you're going to get old you're going to die father and the only way you want to get to heaven only way you're going to get to heaven is to hold on to the truth see you're shooting yourself in the foot by telling attending a lie you are destroying the the traditions of your forefathers you're setting a bad example to society at present and you're not going to get what you want so hold on to your truth hold on to the your truth o father and send me to the house of death because you said so send me to the house of death you see this theme coming again and again you see raja harish chandra who who is known for telling the truth and who suffered terribly the king harish chandra he had to give away his kingdom there was a test the gods were putting and the rishis were putting him to her through a test and he went through terrible sufferings for that ramachandra glad rama himself so his father had told dasharatha had to hold on to the truth because of a promise he had given and because his father tells him to go to the forest in exile he hold he does it because he wants to hold on to the um he wants to make his father's words come true truth is important here is a funny story it comes from you know like uh the oral tradition of pundits so once um i was attending this workshop on nyaya the indian system of logic and there's a school called nabyaniyah the newest neurologic the school of neurologic but neurologic remember it's india so the neurologic is also a thousand years old it comes from this who lived about a thousand years ago so it's a extraordinarily subtle system and complicated system of logic and we were studying as it was in calcutta in the institute of culture a pundit had come so so the university professors they wanted to show the university students what a traditional pandit was like so they got a traditional pandit of nablyanaya anjanaya shastri i still remember so they flew him over from banaras he stays in banaras they flew him over to calcutta to give a talk to the university students i remember there were jadhavpur university students there in that workshop i was also there so the pandit was a very interesting character the day before the talk at the institute of culture as i was staying i saw this uh rather strange looking gentleman who was wearing a vest not a shirt and a and a dhoti and i immediately realized this must be the logic the pandit of logic and he was rushing around he said swami can you give me some water of the ganga i said yes um are you anjanaya shastri the pandita series yes i've come for the so i say oh you so you have come i'm so glad you have come to give us a talk on logic and he said oh logic no no no i'm not interested in that that's just an excuse i want to go to the temple of kali dakshi bakshi nishwar khali so this is my chance to come to calcutta so i can visit the temple and worship the divine mother so you see the traditional outlook professor is having him over for a workshop and he says that's just an excuse i get a free plane ticket to calcutta and then i can go to worship kali so he comes to the class next day and he has to speak in sanskrit because he doesn't know english so he's the whole talk was in sanskrit i think a little bit of hindi in between and i had the feeling that the university students were feeling a little superior to this person who couldn't speak english maybe when he started teaching oh my god all those old texts the commentaries and the subcommentary and sub sub commentaries he has it all memorized he just it's like a torrent coming out of it and we were all we had all handouts we were all left flipping pages here and then trying to follow him because he was moving so fast and the whole thing was memorized it was such an impressive demonstration people were taken aback and they were just stunned and then he said look logic should always be studied with vedanta with the highest teachings of spirituality that to realize to attain enlightenment is the goal for to help that you need logic to study vedanta that much that's the point and he could see people were a little skeptical you know modern students so we are studying logic as logic i mean who who wants enlightenment and all that so she said let me tell you a story when the lord rama was exiled from his kingdom he went with his wife sita mother sita and his brother lakshmana to the forest and then he reaches the ashram of gautama the sage gotama he reaches the ashram now sage gotham is the founder of the system of logic he is the one who has written the niya sutras so he is the grand master of the indian system of logic so he reaches that now you can imagine they are workshopping this new thing their master has come up with it's called logic they have discovered this thing for the first time and they are the all the students you can imagine the novices in the ashram they're all full of it that what is this wonderful the subject our master has discovered it's or are invented it's called logic gautama who is himself the writer of this the sutras of logic is the master of logic himself he notices his students childish enthusiasm for for the subject he's himself teaching and to teach them a lesson he tells ramachandra you know what's your what's this problem i hear about you have been exiled from your kingdom you are supposed to you're the crown prince you're supposed to be crowned the king and now you have been thrown out into the forest it's so unjust why don't you tell your problem to my students and they'll apply logic and come up with a solution to your problems so ramchandra tells the whole story how his father had given his word and then he was tricked into exiling him so that his younger brother can now take the throne and so he has to go today he's he's a beggar he doesn't have anything yesterday he was the crown prince and his wife has chosen to follow him into poverty and hardship and his younger brother is loyal to him and that's why they are here and so they decided to do the best they can and live in the forest so the students get together you know they brainstorm workshop what do they call it focus group and then they come up with a solution and they say ramchandra we've got the perfect solution you go back to ayodhya your kingdom put your father in you know put your father in jail and uh you we can clearly see you are qualified to be the king and it is for the good of the kingdom it's not for your own sake clearly you'll be a much better king than those other people and so for the good of the kingdom for the good of many it's perfectly justified and what your father and the other people in the court have done is completely unjust so just throw them into into jail and don't worry about this you know promise and truth-keeping and all that the whole point is to do good to society so this whole thing it you know gain theory we have gained the whole thing it comes out very well and gautama who knew this would be the result he smiles and he looks at ramachandran he asks well lord what do you think of this new system of thought i have invented logic ramachandra smiles and he says he says those who have mastered this system of thought in the next life they'll be born as foxes and jackals so this is the pundits is himself a bandit of logic and he's he told this story to the stunned gathering you know don't be over fond of of your logic there's a purpose to this and the purpose is higher life of spiritual ethical life and spiritual life logic by itself is guarantees you a rebirth as a fox in the next life um so he said it is a tradition among all of us traditional pundits that vedanta and logic they go together grammar logic and textual interpretation they're all there for helping vedanta for for getting enlightenment then he goes to the house of death the little boy goes to the house of death here a skeptic might ask a logician might ask how with this body how did he go where is the house of death i have no answer to those questions he just goes to the house of death and that's it then what happens so he reaches the house of death but um all this you have to fill up the story takes an abrupt jump forward death is not there the king of death yama yama is the king of death um one little side note here on this system this kind this idea in hindu sort so there are all these gods with small g and they are in charge of the different powers of nature of the universe there's a god in charge of the sun there's a god in charge of the fire they are not god this is what many people find confusing about hinduism god with the capital g is one is exactly the same as in the monotheistic systems there is one reality behind all of these just as it is behind all of us there is one reality which is the reality of this entire universe who is the creator preserver destroyer of the entire universe that is god with the capital g in vedantic terms saguna brahma saguna brahma we read in vedanta if you remember precise definition consciousness associated with my pure consciousness associated with fire is um is is god that's only one that in hinduism you can you can worship as uh vishnu shiva are they not contradictory no they are not contradictory god is infinite in essence formless and therefore can appear in any number of forms to the devotees after all the hindu hindu idea is vedantic idea is is god alone who's appearing at this universe if god can appear as you me him and her and plants and trees and and blue whales and dolphins and stars and quarks why can't god appear as vishnu or shiva durga why not so god can appear in many forms and can be worshiped in many forms and many names and so you have this vast technology of worship of spiritual practice vast a sort of it's an incredible thing which they have generated the ancient hindus but all through there are these gods with small g's and their gods they're called see god is the only name they can use but the actual word is devas and they was literally mean the bright ones the bright ones and the bright ones live to shine the bright ones are beings just like us we are sort of dark or semi-dark ones and there are hellish beings which are pretty dark ones and the devas are the bright ones they are very satwik they have got lots of uh good karma by which they have reached positions of extraordinary power in this universe and they will continue to hold sway over these powers until they lose those positions because their good karma is exhausted so there is a god who's in charge of or deva let's say day by charge of agni agni zadeva agni means fire and there's a deva who is in charge of agni so that deva is also known as agni there is deva who's in charge of death and so he is in charge of all the dead people and what to do with them and all of that and they are all powerful beings in general is interested in goodness but they are not necessarily spiritual and so some of them are spiritual this god of death is a very spiritual one and knows the secret of brahman and all of that some of them may not be they may come back again to worldly life and to get more good karma to go back to being a deva all right so this is the idea and one of them is the god of death also known as father obvious one um he goes to the god of death god of death is not at home the god of death is on tour you can imagine garbage is very busy the people dying all the time and so i guess he sometimes sends his minions but uh sometimes he himself has to take care of business so he's out on tour and naji keta reaches that and he's told that he will not go back home he waited there i'm sure they offered him food you know and he says if the openation says he waited without food so he refused all the the snacks and stuff and he just waited for yama to come back home because he has been sent by his father to the god of death not to have snacks or to relax or something but he has to meet the god of death so that so all this is filler and now the story takes off again the god of death comes back home and somebody we don't know who maybe his wife or maybe some his secretary or somebody informs him there is somebody waiting for you this is verse number 7 has entered the house like fire for him they accomplished this kind of propitiation or death carry water for him so a guest a brahmin boy no less has come to your house and he has not been entertained at all no he has not been given food or rest he's been waiting for you for three days so you must appreciate him you must serve him you must um receive him uh with all uh ritual and and you know dignity and uh carry water for him like water and other offerings or death carry the you know offering water refreshments whatever vaishwa nara pravishati he enters your house like fire why does he enter your house like fire the eighth verse says what happens if you don't take care of a guest who has entered your house so notice it's the story but so many things are being taught with the story the importance of shaddha the importance of truth the importance of keeping one's word the importance of good karma which comes from looking after other people so here is the eighth verse i'll just read it and we'll take questions eighth verse says so what happens if you if a guest enters your house and you don't take care of him asha pratik says if in anyone's house a brahmana guest abides without food that brahmana destroys hope and expectation the results of holy association and sweet discourse sacrifices and charities suns and cattle all these of that man of little intelligence so basically all your good karma is lost if you mistreat a guest all right we'll go on from that point next time so now the lord of death is going to speak to the little boy and the story really enters uh becomes really intense because he offers him three boons you stayed here for three nights and you suffered outside my gate i'm offering you three boons and then you see what nachiketa does there's more humor there there's lots of stuff to learn and finally there is vedanta this vedanta the end of it all we're teaching about atman again you see the difference between this and the mandukyo conditions when the mandukyo openation is singularly colorless and humorless it gets down to business straight away all right um let me see the questions are there different interpretations of this peace mantra um not very different why would you say that um then gaurav says some dualist tradition see the moksha that is attaining the planets of the devata correct so not planets exactly the loka loka would mean the the the realm it's not particularly a planet or anything but yes so gaudiya vaishnava's goal is to attain goloka and brindavan eternally enjoy by having the five types of relationship with krishna i think you mentioned in one of classes that these locals are real are you making concession to people to see this world in terms of duality is locus are real in what sense vedanta has no problem with this lokas being real but what kind of reality would vedanta classical vedanta give give to these lokers the same reality as this world which is a viva hadika transactional reality look a traditional non-dualist advaitan has really no conflict with the dualist in what sense we admit everything that we are these jivas we are caught in samsara we are everything is being propelled by causality that is karma and we are caught here and uh to break this cycle to attain freedom we need the grace of god everything is here is being done by god we admit existence of god we admit the existence of this world and the higher worlds and the lower worlds we admit the existence of good karma and bad karma we admit the existence of sentient beings of all kinds all of us all of this is fully admitted and we admit the efficacy what the ancient hindus are most interested in you non-dualist do you admit that the karma kanda the rituals we perform do they work or not or in later than this i'm quoting a sadhu the traditional ritualistic hindus would suspicious of the non-tourists they said you know these fellows do they believe in pilgrimages do they believe in puja do they believe in the holy ganga and of dip in the in the holy river and this other says baba ham sub my dear fellow we accept everything rituals and pilgrimages and the dip in the ganga take as many dips as you want all of it is accepted but you accept that they work yes that they work then they lead you to moksha also yes they lead you to moksha smokes in the sense of not coming back to this world eternally existing in the plane with god with um and then the different kinds of moksha which the vaishnava schools speak of you stay in the same realm as god um in if you were a gaudiya vaishnava it would be goloka if you or another kind of vaishnava it would be the um the vaikuntha so you or if you are a worship of the divine mother devi loka i know this gentleman who has been an american gentleman who has been in vedanta for many many years decades and a very serious practitioner very quiet in inward introverted and so i asked him so your goal is what what do you think you are going to attain that liberation moksha he said no i want to go to devi loka and st and stay in the presence of the divine mother that appeals to me it's very interesting so all of these are accepted so you say i'm sensing a big butt coming after this but there is a higher reality or a deeper reality which is the paramatic of the absolute reality which is existence consciousness place there is the screen of the movie there is the waking up from the dream um so what you are talking about we don't contradict it in those we don't say that oh um the vaishnava heaven why kunta does not exist this world exists but that does not exist that's that's the materialist we don't say that we say in the sense that this world exists in the sense that you are this limited person in that sense there is a god of this universe and in that sense there are also there is also heaven all of that is uh an appearance in the absolute reality that's all we are saying in reality you are that absolute reality that alone is appearing as this world and as you the individual and as the god of this universe and all the heavens so they salukia you go to the heaven and to heaven and stay with god and that is admitted as moksha again at the transactional level sami not only you go to heaven you stay close to god you stay on the same neighborhood maybe and then um there is um sarupya you have the same form as god um then there is uh sayuja you have a oneness with god not in the vedantic sense you you're merged as if you know like you take a dip in the river and you hold your breath and stay inside in that sense you are still your individuality but you are submerged in god as it were so are you one with god and all of them you're enjoying the bliss of the divine presence and it's so beautiful why would we deny that that's all there deva harika transactional and just for not for the dualists for the non-dualists fine print says that is just that is just the politically correct way of saying false so that's it i think gaurav what he's saying after understanding advaita vedanta probably rereading bhagavatam attending conclusions of bhagavatam but purely yes correct you've seen many classical advaithic teachers they happily study and teach the bhagavatam men they see no contradiction at all it's a beautiful text which beautifully synthesizes harmoniously synthesizes knowledge and devotion correct i agreed entirely yes a beautiful thing abhijit just mentioned when you meet swami vivekananda josephine mcleod she says when i met the czar of russia she was quite the socialite so when she met the czar of russia she said i felt how great he is and how small how insignificant i am but when you met swami vivekananda she herself says when you met swami vivekaran you would feel how great he is and how great i am yeah this is a beautiful example emily excellent example of i am okay you're okay and swamijikantha would inevitably bring anybody who came into contact with him to that level of self-esteem and self-awareness and faith in oneself yes it's the name of yama and also the name of yama um says was the surrender of jesus to the crucifixion primarily demonstration of integrity on his part um you could say that regardless of the political religious implications i never thought of it that way as i generally think of it in the sense the traditional catholic interpretation that has a sacrifice of of uh god or the gods son of god which is the manifestation of grace which basically from a vedantic perspective is also very understandable that we have this tremendous load of karma on us all the teaching and all of that doesn't seem to ultimately work unless we get a push a help from god and so an avatar is somebody who can do that christ did it and every avatar can do that can help us siddhartha says mahabharata krishna asked yudhisthira to lie rather be deceiving in order to make donors stop fighting yudhishthira does this and his chariot touches the ground which i imagine to be metaphor that he is now a mortal like anyone else he was following krishna's advice when he lied would that may stop him from reaching immortality no it wouldn't but he would still have to suffer for the consequences of telling a life which he immediately saw that he's just like anybody else but the mahavarata and the ramayana there are such rich texts i was telling somebody that upanishads which we are reading now or the bhagavad gita they are very neat text in the scent that they tell you the philosophy and spiritual practices but when that upanishad meets life gita meets life then you have ramayana and mahabharata which are much more messy and complicated texts and that just shows you life is not going to be as neat as upper oak shannon bhuti or drinkdri chevy veka it's uh going to be more like mahabharata ramayana all right we'll just take a comment from prabhupada and wrap up here first of all um first of all that that was a mistake i i confused it with another mantra but i just wanted to tell you what you were talking about this the highest relationship in guru and shisha is when the shekel the disciple can actually predict what the is thinking and that's the best best kind of disciple yes so there is a talk by sami sridhara on serving and he says that he had a very difficult time to satisfy virajananda until he realized that he has to he has to predict what he wants to do and and ultimately he did that right right it's a very beautiful talk that if you look it's available on youtube i think yes speaking about his reminiscences of senior monks on on swami pirajanandaji so notice it's not that the guru needs all this it's just a way of training the disciple it's just a way of training the disciples he would scold his disciples very harshly for small things and then once he explained why he did that he said if you disobey me in small things one day you will disobey me in big things also in great things also spiritual instructions will not work unless you follow me implicitly okay [Music] um [Music] be [Music] you