Video 5

5. Katha Upanishad | Mantras 1.1.12 - 15 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Applause] [Music] may the lord protect us both teacher and the taught together may the lord protect us by giving us the results of knowledge may we attain vigor together let what we study be illuminating maybe not careful at each other om peace peace peace so we were studying the qatar condition and the story of yama and nachiketa the little boy naji keta has gone to the the house of yama and there he waits for three days three nights because the lord of death is not at home and when yama comes back he feels himself indebted to this little boy because he hasn't been able to take care of his guest and he offers him three boons to make up for making him wait for three days and nights although inadvertently now the three boons this is a famous story so the three boons uh naji keta asks for us very interesting to see what he asks for um i can i think i'm at no risk of spoiling the story because it's so old i think everybody knows it so the three wounds the first boon was asked for his father's peace of mind that i would go back to the world of the living when permitted by you my father will recognize me my father will love me all again and my father let my father's mind be at peace let his anger subside so all of that if you take a broad view of it what he's asking for is um this world for his affairs to be set straight in this world that things go well in this life that's one moon the second moon he will ask for now second um boon is the moon of heaven after death after this world what's the best thing one can conceive of what is the best thing one can aspire towards is heaven so he's going to ask for heaven and then finally the highest of all the third boon which is of course the point of the entire book the point of the entire story point of the entire text also third boon is about vedanta about moksha spiritual liberation the ultimate destiny of human life of life itself enlightenment freedom whatever you call it so vedanta the third third part is vedanta the second part which we are going to go into is the ritualistic portion of the vedas which is known as karma kanda karma kanda literally means the ritualistic portion karma means rituals here karma means action but in this case it means ritualistic action prescribed in the vedas and the first part was the secular part of his life that things go well in life so now we are going to go into the second boom is going to ask for how do i go to heaven so already he asked for his father's peace of mind and going back and being loved by his father again and uh yama promised him that he says exactly as you want it so so it will be now he is going to ask for heaven in the next few verses next few mantras so in the 12th mantra which we will read now we have already done the 11th mantra i think so 12 mantra which we'll read now he will set his case for heaven why does he want this suddenly what what happened why does he want to go to heaven this is after death and then also how and what can yama do for him so that will be in the 13th mantra um before i jump into it just a little bit of an introduction what is going on here one must remember that this is in the context of the vedas so this vast corpus of ancient literature the bulk of which is concerned with various rituals prescribed for getting what you want here now in this life and also ensuring for yourself the best possible life after death you might say that how do you know any of that will work after that in this life at least we can know if it works or not i perform this ritual and uh i want rainfall or i want to conquer my enemies i want lots of you know like a bountiful harvest or my children should be healthy and good i can see whether it worked or not in my life itself in the months and years ahead i'll see whether the effect is there what was promised so this is called drishta pala experienced seen or experienced where in this life we will see whether it works or not color is result of allah seen result but adrishtapala is also there unseen result so unseen result might be after death i shall go to heaven and the heavens also were categorized into multiple layers many many kinds of heavens were there many kinds of worlds so one cosmology the most popular one which you in vedantist are if you remember fourteen words fourteen words were talked about seven of them are good um including this one the one where we are better and better this is the worst of the good ones it's sort of a very mixed kind of experience samsara where we are the the mathyaloka the world of the mortals but there are uh other words above are six other worlds which are finer and finer and better and better above is not physically above us but they are a different plane of existence maybe some other universe or something like that or virtual worlds who knows will be uploaded into the cloud after death but they are all much better than us and how much better nachiket himself will tell us that i want to go to those worlds and those words and among them the best one is called brahmaloka the highest one is called brahmalok another name is satya loka basically you know the heaven which theistic religions talk about the way kunta of um of the vaishnavas the kailasha of the shaivas the the christian heaven the muslim islamic heaven even some buddhist heavens are also mentioned um they are what is uh indicated in the karma khan of the vedas as the brahmalokar satya loka the highest one where you live in the presence of god and it is a spiritual place but it's also a place of perfection all kinds of unhappinesses go away there and below the or below means worse than our present existence there are hells um so there also there are seven kinds of uh health which are awful and more and more awful as progressively so um now how do you go to these uh heavens by good karma depending upon your level of good karma and the specific good karma was the vedic rituals prescribed in the karma kanda of the vedas depending upon the amount of good karma you've got in your credit it depends on what kind of heaven you're going to go to how long you're going to stay there and so on the highest heaven is satyadoka or brahmaloka which he is going to ask for and there the idea is that if you reach there it's a very elevated state of being once one reaches there one actually does not come back to this world one does not one does not lose that until the end of creation until the end of this particular universe until the end of this particular srishti so when this universe will die at that time what will happen is all those in brahmalok or satya loka those who are not enlightened yet even after this millions and millions of years in this amazing place they will merge back into prakriti they will they're all the samskaras the individuality will merge back into prakriti or maya and for an indefinite period they will remain there's actually no time there because time also will disappear space time universe everything will disappear only what will be left saguna brahman vishnu narayana sagara the whole whole symbology of the sheishana thousand-hooded supper serpent and god taking a nap so that will be the state and that's this is a symbology but just it means it's just like a state of suspended animation no universe is there next universe when it is created all those beings will again be projected back along with all other beings who are there who have been whirling around in samsara in many kinds of worlds these are the best kinds of beings who were in brahmaloka but not attain illumination but some in during their stay in brahmaluka itself they attain illumination elimination means they realize they get moksha and so they will not be reborn anymore for them the cycle is over others will have to come back and below this brahmaloka are many other worlds all heavenly worlds but they are not of the excellence of the brahmaloka all of these are to be attained by vedic rituals couple of points here first of all this is not a very familiar territory for most of us the reason being uh even if those of who who are practicing hindus the kind of rituals and pujas which were used to are of later origin the world of vedic ritualism which was the religion that nachiketa grew up seeing which is he saw his father doing and all people around doing that world has faded into obsolescence the karma kanda of the vedas it's there but now it is mostly of academic interest it is chanted the mantras there are chanted by vedic scholars some of the rituals are still performed but the big ones which we'll talk about now those have faded into obscurity i know there are people who claim we can do those rituals but they can't really it's mostly guest work we guess work and sort of reconstruction of what people have not done for centuries or millennia even we have replaced them with the modern worship of you know shiva devi vishnu narayana krishna worship and so on that's one point so it's unfamiliar territory even one of the greatest scholars of the karma kanda whom i had met he taught us vedanta but he was actually trained in purva mibamsa he said to us that i study all this but i really wouldn't know how to perform these rituals nobody does really these some of these rituals these are the more advanced ones nobody has performed them for centuries or even millennia so it's unfamiliar territory it's more academic interest now but again i must emphasize not totally of academic interest because all these portions of the vedas are regularly chanted by thousands and thousands of vedic like practitioners brahmins even today so that it's done enchanting but the rituals themselves have become obscure um the second thing i wanted to say was that then how do i make it familiar what is going on here what is the point of this and vedanta will come later but right now all this which will be discussed now what is going on here it is nothing very odd or strange it is actually very something we are all familiar with it is conventional religion if you look around in temples churches mosques um new age spirituality most of it all of these the bulk of it the people who go to these places who are uh who are following some kind of religion most of it is for getting a good life here and for those who believe in heaven for going to heaven afterwards so this is the it's not for and so someone might ask then what could it be for it is not most of this conventional religion is not for enlightenment nirvana moksha brahma gyana the realization of my nature as the absolute no no no you are very much in a minority those who are gathered here we see 85 people so we are all in a very small minority majority of religious people devout people what do they want when they're religious they want a good life here and a enlightened life a nice enlightened means a nice life a wise life ethical life fulfilling life here and some maybe something after that something equally good or better i'm reminded of i mentioned earlier that book the secret by rhonda rhonda byrne um so she wrote another book recently the ultimate secret this neatly shows us the division between karma khanda and gyanakanda the secret the general idea there was it's a very new ag idea but the in principle it's the same as karma khanda the greatest secret or the ultimate secret rick the new one is called the ultimate secret i think or greatest secret okay um and uh and in between but we have to check because in between there were a number of other books in the secret series so many types of secrets but the ultimate one i think so the last one is about non-duality about advaitha and she has discovered non-duality she's written about that but uh the point of it was that there is a way of fulfilling our desires that's what karma kanda poi uh uh it promises you that's what conventional religion point uh promises you and that was that's what the first book in the series the secret promises you know that's why it was so tremendously attractive you can see why karma khan is so tremendously attractive and why naji keta would want to know these things so it is very attractive but it is worldly or otherworldly it's not spiritual all right one more point before i go into it the systems of hindu philosophy now they are all based on the vedas these very vedas we can talk about upanishads and before that the karma kanda they form the textual basis of all of these flowers they all accept the vedas if they all accept the vedas how are they different they sort of developed in different ways the different specialities so for example the philosophy they are all they all promise moksha they all promise ultimately ultimately they are about liberation and moksha but the philosophy specialized developed logic um you know so uh the rules of debate logical analysis all this was highly developed in the nia philosophy and other systems used it vaishyashika philosophy developed a study of the the universe the categories what is the seven categories of reality that they developed that the philosophy developed this idea of pure consciousness as opposed to nature the yoga philosophy specialized in developing techniques of meditation and contemplation the purva nimamsa so vedanta vedanta specializes in we you know upanishads enlightenment realization and brahmana and freedom through the realization so vedantes is power excellence the vedic philosophy it is based entirely on the upper issues and develops that however in between there is this entire philosophy called purvami which means the earlier analysis the earlier analysis means the analysis of the earlier portion of the vedas which is the bulk of the vedas which is the karma candle the ritualistic portion so there is a whole system very complex a very rich system of orthodox philosophy hindu philosophy based on these rituals and that is called purum mimsa so um these philosophers they were experts in they developed the techniques of textual analysis hermeneutics so there is a text there are certain mantras now what do what do these mean how are they to be used in which ritual which mantras are to be chanted what which mantras are talking about the result of the ritual which mantras are talking about the procedure of the ritual which mantras are just meant to be chanted during the ritual all of these things how do you extract the meaning from these texts what we today call hermenoytics that was developed to great sophistication by these puruam imam sakas we saw a sample of their work when we are studying vedanta sara how to analyze the mahavakya all these techniques we cannot take claim as in vedanta we cannot take we cannot claim um the you know the glory of having developed this because it's all developed by the purum imam says nuam success we are using it under license from poor me mom savers um all right having said this so what we are entering now is the territory not of not it's not our territory it's the territory of the purum sakas famous poor who lived just before or they were elder contemporaries of shankaracharya so so they sort of developed purva mumsa to its very high level of development um so when you study indian philosophy you are introduced to all the systems so we are going to study vedanta as monks our main field of study is vedanta because we are vedantic our philosophy is vedanta but we were introduced to all these other philosophies so we studied the introductory text with some commentaries we studied and then for sankhya we studied studied santiago for yoga philosophy we studied the patanjali yoga sutra with the commentary of vyasa then purvami maamsa we were introduced to by a classical text called we studied that and for vedanta we are introduced by vedanta sara which we did before this all right that's the background so we are entering an area which is not entirely our area our area means the area of vedanta what is the area of vedanta upanishads you say but this is the opponent true but this is the complexity of the whole subject upanishads are part of much broader texts the vedas so the vedic context is always reflected in the upanishads almost every upanishad you will find discussion of vedic rituals not much compared to the vast amount of discussion which has gone on before but some discussion will be there like this what's going to start now manduka is very serious so it gets down to the i am brahman business very fast and ignores all of this but all other upanishads you have to be patient this kind of discussion of rituals will be there certain meditations should be discussed which may not seem directly relevant to vedanta all right okay let's go into this now what is going to happen najib is going to talk about heaven why he wants heaven what's so great about going to heaven and then how do i go to heaven how can the lord of death yama help him to go to heaven verse number mantra number 12 mantra number 12 [Music] [Music] heaven so this nachiketa speaking in heaven there is no fear you are not there and nobody is struck with fear because of old age having transcended both hunger and thirst and crossed over sorrow one rejoices in the heavenly world so it makes a strong case for going to heaven we are all for it going to heaven no we are not for it we'll see later why why not this just perpetuates samsara it's a nice kind of samsara swami vivekananda says chains though of go gold are not less strong to bind the chains of gold are heaven spar excellence is heaven so what is so great about heaven is heaven any kind of heaven is called swarga but here he means probably we are guessing the highest heaven the final heaven loka what is loka just means a world but wherever we can have experiences where sentient beings have experiences this is the precise definition of loka world in sanskrit where you see so pretty similar to the english word look where you see but c means what it means experience not just c c here smell taste touch you are there things and people and other entities are there you can interact and you can get lots of experiences pleasurable and painful that is called a world it applies very beautifully to our virtual worlds also in computer science you are creating virtual worlds they are also locus literally we are using the term in fact virtual world so in this in this swag what happens there is no kind of fear none at all there is no fear at all why not well first of all the greatest and greatest of all fears is death so naji keta is remember he's a little boy so he's pretty cheeky he already annoyed his father now he runs the risk of annoying the lord of death he says you are not there so a little boy you know so he's not politically correct he just says whatever comes to his mind so it's a good place because you are not there i'm sure that made yama very happy you owe that you are not there no there is no old age also so we are born in this life in this world then we um we grow and then we come into youth and then the body starts decaying middle age old age and then death and there is a period from middle age to old age to death which is a period of decay actually now in heaven there's no such thing what happens exactly you might ask wait a minute how do you know all this have you been there i don't know if i've been there no memory but the texts speak about it so it's very much like our virtual worlds you just appear there because of your past good karma if you have earned a place in heaven you appear there there are no sufferings associated with birth you appeared there and you exist there for a very long time lower heavens thousands and thousands of years and the highest heaven until the end of the universe you are there but there is actually death this is the thing to be um careful about when um the the karma khan the ritualistic portion of the vedas extol heaven as this wonderful place where you are immortal where you drink the amrita the drink of immortality you are free of death he says death is not there all that it means is it's relatively free of death the commentators make it clear abec apexika relatively not like the rest of us who are trapped in samsara in this world and lower worlds we we die and then the sentient being which we are we exist in some kind of limbo some kind of uh world for some time depending of our past karma again we are reborn nazi keta pointed it out to his father like ordinary what's that what's the lot of most people with most sentient beings they're born like corn and they die like corn of the fields and they're reborn again like god if you in one of the earlier mantras he warned his father not to be unethical if you're unethical cast into the lot of this ordinary process of being whirled around many births many deaths many rounds of suffering on this wheel of samsara here however in heaven you oh lord of death you don't make your appearance so often so as a god in heaven god with small g so you'll be a god in heaven with small g the sanskrit word is very evocative deva deva literally comes from the root div to shine so these are luminous beings this is good for them you know they are us the best amongst us good ethical people they go and live like this as these luminous beings of beings of great grace and power um i think that's where the the uh the christian concept abrahamic concept of angels comes from beings of great grace and power and all so there are such beings and there are different gradations they are relatively free of death because they will continue to exist at one time they will die but that's also sudden so they appear you stay there no sign of old age no disease no decay no 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s you they are there for thousands and thousands of years and with i don't know if they get bored or something but anyway apparently there is no boredom either because they are very happy and then when your good karma runs out so they again descend back into the storm of samsara into being whirled around in samsara again so that's that's death that's there but in in the long run in the long run the usual fears are not there the fear of death is not there fear of old age is not there bill who's the oldest among us he you know his he often says old age is not for sissies you have to be really tough person to bear old age it's not there so it's a very attractive proposition no fear of old age either and our day to day problems means hunger means thirst one overcomes you one transcends hunger and thirst that means there's no hunger and thirst whatever one wants hunger and trust is just a placeholder for everything one could want so no old age no death but in the meantime you are there for thousands of years what do you do whatever you want all your desires are fulfilled and there is in the world of the mortal world everybody from the tiniest animals to us human beings we are toiling away for food and shelter and in in the animals it is most obvious all the time if you see in the wild most of the time an energy is spent in searching for food and for keeping themselves safe so that struggle is overcome whatever one wants not just food and drink but everything comes not only that there is no tiredness no disease you may you know enjoy life there in heaven and you will not get exhausted by it so all these wonderful things you have this extraordinary body there like a superman or something which will not get exhausted so it all sounds very attractive so one transcends all of that not only that whatever the commentator says whatever one may desire you get it instantaneously without effort something like amazon prime so you have a series of things which are desirable and you select one it is delivered to you it like magic it appears it is given it is delivered to you one day delivery there also not even one day one minute maybe a few seconds whatever you want pretty much like that notice how all this may sound like a fable to us modern people but it's basically we are constructing and reconstructing our world in that image it's exactly what we are trying to achieve in this world what we people want we don't want to suffer from old age we don't want to suffer from death we want to prolong our lives as long as we can live we don't want to suffer from suffering in you know from the minutest of little problems i want something i must have it not only i must have it i must have it now so look at how we have designed our economic systems commercial systems everything production to keep on satisfying our desires more and more more variety immediately and so on and so but we need money here that's true the heaven you need good karma so you have a credit your credit card is there plugged into the heavenly bank and whenever you keep on satisfying those desires you are using up that conducted good karma so you transcend all um wants all needs it's a fine place to be show karate you you transcend sorrow so all the not only all happinesses are there all the causes of sorrows also are not there so sorrow could be a physical sorrow from um you know inclement weather whether it's always perfect it's all climate controlled all the time then from physical weaknesses in perfect health extraordinary health even the finest olympic athlete will not have such health you have that all the time then um the three kinds of sorrows are not there so sorrows caused by other living beings everybody is perfect and nice to you there was a tv serial in television they called it good place i read about it right oh a philosophy they actually contacted philosophers to you know give inputs to make the tv serial like that so idea was what could heaven be like so people are nice to you i mean other heavenly beings they're because they are heavenly beings they're obviously nice to you and so everything is perfect there is no harassment from anybody else every all your heavenly neighbors are absolutely wonderful neighbors everything is perfect so you transcend all the causes of sorrow no financial problems also all causes of sorrow are transcended then you enjoy i won't you get bored no life is one long long long party modati is enjoy life there where where is this wonderful place in the heavenly world and there are grades of it so everything is wonderful you know what is american term hunky-dory everything is hunky-dory there in heaven but not entirely so there are some problems what problem um there is apparently a great problem of jealousy so the gods are jealous of each other what we find their gods are jealous of each other and those who dwell in the lower heavens are jealous of those who are in higher heavens i remember we had this novice who was very simple many many years ago um when we joined the order so this novice young brahmachari he asked our senior swamiji once about these heavens when we were studying these texts he said so the highest heavens if you are there can you go to the can you visit the lower heavens um the senior farmer said whatever for why would you want to do that he said no just to show off you know just see i'm so much better than you i'm better off than you and to scold them in bengali said they like to double they want to know just to scroll them a little bit you know they show off there and show your power it's very simple that way um yes so that's one problem they're jealous of each other they are even though they're in other words they're still very worldly people with these beings and if you look at the mythology they're always being attacked by demons so that's another problem you have a demon infestation problem you have to call pest control and to take care of the demons that's one problem there what else and it all comes to an end it all comes to an end every none all of it is entirely limited and most importantly none of it is satisfying even after all of this every possible desire satisfied you still feel dissatisfied because you are infinity none of these limited enjoyments are ever going to fulfill you so that is heaven great i want to go there so najigeta he asks for going to heaven how does will you go there we what is that particular vedic ritual by performing which i go to heaven you are the master of these rituals you have all this knowledge please teach it to me one little i would say footnote here nachiketa we have already seen he's a pretty selfless kind of kid all he wanted for his worldly affairs was his father to be all right similarly it's quite possible that he actually does not want heaven but people desire this he knows most of conventional religion is this we've seen it in his in his father and other people around him so he wants to bring this knowledge from the secret knowledge of this highest vedic rituals from the um lord of death back to the earth so that he can give it to other people so someone might say that aren't you reading too much into this how do you know because it clearly seems to say that he wants it for himself he wants that as a boon because um the next thing he asks for the knowledge of vedanta which will lead into enlightenment that requires dispassion that requires what is called dispassion renunciation pronunciation of what not only this world but also heavens in vedanta sarah be read a dispassion towards whatever the nice things you can obtain here in this world and also there it says amutra means there there means in heaven all of that you should have clear dispassion for that so nachiketa has that otherwise he wouldn't ask ask for the ask the third question he would be perfectly happy with this is the highest thing one can attain uh worldly thing or otherworldly thing so next when he asks the question about vedanta you will see yama tests him so you'll see yamaha says that what about heaven i gave you the secret i unlocked he will give him the secret now i unlocked the gates of heaven for you don't you want to go there go there and be have fun in heaven don't ask for enlightenment and you know vedantic knowledge and narcicata clearly rejects all of this all of this which he just said now all the fun facts about heaven one by one sharply he shows the faults of all of that and he rejects it in no uncertain terms so clearly he does not want it for himself yet he does ask for it it must be for the welfare of others people who want it for them and another point is that yama actually will say little later that people will know this ritual by your name which means it's to be given to the people of the world the mortals who want it and they will know it as the ritual of nachiketa now he asks for that knowledge [Music] very beautiful poetry also oh death such as you are you know that fire which leads to heaven of that you tell me who am full of faith the dwellers of heaven get immortality this i ask for through the second boom so he asks for the second what is that tell me about that agni that fire so fire here has different meanings air fire means a particular ritual and remember whenever they say fire in the vedic context just doesn't mean any kind of fire um it means the fire which has been lit or kindled ritualistically in the homo kunda in the place where it is the sacrificial altar there that fire and with the accompaniment of chanting with the priest present so that fire is mentioned is meant when they say fire another meaning of fire is the whole ritual the whole science of how do you go to heaven that's what he's asking for he tell me that whole the technique the ritual how does by performing which one gets enough karmic currency to go to heaven after death show me that literally means teach me literally it means remember but it means you remember the knowledge which you have that means you express it to me with your old oh lord of death prabhu he expound unto me prabhu he means expounded teach unto me or speak thus unto me i who am shraddha dhana i am i have faith in vedic ritualism so i am a person who believes in the vedic religion i have faith you tell me so that faith is absolutely important otherwise what today in today's world one might not be motivated to perform these rituals because one doesn't believe not that one doesn't have desires but one just doesn't believe that these things exist these heavens and all i remember um our one of our masters when we were novices teaching us some other upanishads from this thing about giving up the desire for these heavens if you want to get enlightenment and moksha freedom and we all were nodding along and he said not so fast young monks we we who cannot give up the desire for a cookie happily we say oh i don't want heaven it's only because we have no faith at all you know modern people you don't believe in such things so if you really believed in it you would understand the attraction of all this for the ancient people in every religion they would want these things these are very elevated but what we modern people have been trying to do is transform our modern societies into something like heaven and then means not the words of heaven but the dwellers in the worlds of heaven they enjoy immortality and this immortality is uh temporary temporary means it's it's pretty long compared to our lifespan that's why it seems immortal to us but ultimately it's temporary at the end of the universe everything must come to an end even these heavens and the dwellers in heavens also will come to an end a new cycle will begin after that then so this is the promise this is the request request teach me that ritual now the lord of death 14th mantra he says [Music] being well aware of the fire that is conducive to heaven i shall tell you of it that very thing you understand with attention from my words that fire which is the means for the attainment of heaven and which is the support of the world know it to be established in the intellect of the enlightened ones i will now expound on to you that said yes granted your boon is granted what you wanted is granted i'm going to teach you the highest form of vedic rituals which will take you to the best heaven listen to me carefully he says attend to me nibodha learn from me this is the support of all the worlds is the highest heaven and [Music] nihitam gohaya means it is in the it is well established in the intellects of the enlightened ones your enlightened ones means the rishis who know about these vedic rituals so it's it's rhonda when she wrote the first book uh the secret the secret she knows the secret but what kind of secret that's a different secret from the last one that was the earlier secret which fulfills your worldly desires now the the other secret which the greatest secret uh is which gives you enlightenment and freedom from from the world from samsara but here enlightened means those who are knowers of that earlier secret the karma kanda they know of these things and i'm going to tell you this yama says now the narration changes you see there are different voices um sometimes nachiketa is speaking sometimes the lord of death is speaking sometimes ashiketa's father is speaking sometimes yamas the lord of deaths minions are speaking and sometimes the upanishad itself is speaking so now the opening should take some generation what happened next so this is uh they say a teachable moment so yama is going to teach nuchi keta and the description of the teaching is given by the way if you were thinking aha let me write down the knowledge yama is going to tell us you're going to be disappointed none of that is revealed here they just said that yama taught him that how to go to heaven so that is a complex ritual some of it may be there in the vedas i mean there are he he teaches them teaches that shiketa how to uh construct the altar in which this file is to be lit um so there are some there's some guess work on how the altar is constructed anyway but the teaching is not there but the important teaching is there later on that is vedanta which is why we are here all together so that's the third room here it just says that yama taught him that's all [Music] again very nice poetry upanishad itself is telling how did the teaching proceed death told him of that fire which is the source of the world world means the heaven highest heaven the class and number of bricks by which you construct the altar as also the man manner of arranging for the fire so all the arrangements what kind of alter is to be constructed and what kind of preparations are to be made for the ritual and najib too repeated verbatim with understanding all these as they were spoken it shows you the teaching methodology the pedagogy so there are no you can't download you have to listen carefully and repeat back whatever was taught then death being satisfied with this said again so next death will take up just one little bit about a couple of points one is the arrangement of the altar i can show you the altar actually this was the altar used in major um vedic ritualism so it looks something like this like a bird constructed of bricks this is from one side this is from the other side i don't know if you can see it can you see it looks like a bird it's made of bricks it's pretty complex so naji keta must be super attentive to have learned all of that and you repeat it back to the teacher now this kind of teaching actually goes on even now not about alters but about vedanta in traditional vedanta teaching even now they expect you to memorize the texts so some of it is relaxed that some of the mantras are to be memorized so when we learned i remember when we learned they they went easy on us you don't have to memorize the entire upanishad though some of the brothers did that some of the monks did that but you memorized just the key versus key mantras from the upanishad um often the teaching even now now of course everybody has a book but the teacher comes the master teaches students gather around sit in meditation maths and listen to the teacher and you are expected to at least be able to say what was thought what did the teacher say you have to be attentive to that may not be literally strict masters would require you to literally memorize the entire text and be able to repeat back sometimes whatever is done in this class is to be repeated in the next class only then the class will start so that kind of intensity is there [Music] i know one or two masters who still do that i can see why it makes at least this much is there that it's entered into your head um i read this and it's a true story because swami chinmayan who's the founder of the chinmay mission he has himself corroborated it so when he went to the himalayas to study vedanta actually he did not originally go to study vedanta he was an investigative journalist he thought that these monks in the himalayas are all frauds and he wanted to do a piece on them exposing them all but he went there and he became a monk himself at first he was inspired and uh taught by swami shivananda saraswati from the divine life society so he says that when he became more and more aware of the um the depth and the profundity of vedanta and that the very existence of this huge body of classical knowledge that your new need so he said i wanted to go to the source the best teachers that there are traditional teachers so swami shivananda arranged for him to study under one maharaja who was a very traditional very well known teacher of vedanta at that time as a monk very austere harsh strict so all this i have heard i've read about it later so it's true uh but i've heard also directly from tapowan swamiji's attendant who was alive when i met him he told me these stories so finally so the young chin man on the g he comes to uttarkashi first and then gangotri about 10 000 feet high in the himalayas and sits with this small group of students under this one of the greatest living teachers at that time so this was the traditional teaching uh environment for vedanta first of all compulsorily you have to be a monk i mean you need not be a ordained monk but you have to be a brahmacari that means who is going to be a monk you renounce the word then only are allowed to learn vedanta then um you find your own accommodations he's not going to accommodate you into school there's no dorms or anything like that you find your own hut or cave to stay uh you will have to beg for food or sometimes they all bake together and eat the food later on and they'll just two classes it's it's terribly cold and pretty austere they're harsh living and there'll be two classes all you get is two classes one in the morning and one in the afternoon as long as the sun is warm you sit and you listen to tapo and swami and that's it i heard one incident where you're not allowed to have interactions and discussions you know with the professor a young monk once uh asked a question after the class and the master double swami just said you know in hindi jaya brahmacharya and said you have done this or novice go back to your you know your heart or cave and reflect upon this that's all no answers i'm not going to give you answers so nowadays they would get a very low rating on rate my professor now this is a website you can rate your professors and he had a strict rule every class you have to repeat back whatever was taught in the class earlier otherwise otherwise that's it you're done you leave immediately you can't come back again not in this lifetime so you're good you're done so swamiji in man industry once he missed i mean he was unable to recite to some verse and the one swami would roar he knew that he was a journalist before becoming a monk and his typical scolding would be this is vedanta this is not your journalism so he was about to throw him out when the other monks who were there in the class they begged on his behalf and and so he relented so it was that strict and chinmanji is himself written about these things one more incident which is vedanta of course we're jumping far ahead of our what what we are discussing here but again it because the discussion is about the 1g and jin mananji so jin manji is one essay he has written about tapawanji how one day he so he could never really understand that since we are that absolute reality what more is necessary i am brahmana existence consciousness place and the rest of the world whatever all this is an appearance in brahman it's inconsequential why does this add-on about ishwara maya jiva jagat why are all these things start in vedanta and what's the point i understand in conventional religion fine you may have god worship devotion fine all that but why here why only why not only i am brahmana i realize it finished that's it so one day uh he writes in the afternoon in the afternoon class suddenly the master tapo one swami said to him i need a drink of water get me some water so jin manji saw this strange normally he'd never asked for water in the middle of a class so he went with his water pot and i think a brass glass of water tumbler he went to the river which is it will go some way down descend into it's a fast flowing the ganga there in gangotri and he filled it up and he bought it back um and he offered the glass full of ganga water to the master and immediately received a heart scolding said what is this the glass of water what did i ask for he said you asked for water and what did you bring a glass of water why the glass i asked you for water and jin manji says i was stunned that's because of his uh you know highly advanced of his spiritual nature he immediately got what was being said the nature of nirguna brahman and sargon abraham it became clear to him what actually in erguna brahman is and how um it manifests that saguna brahman what is the vivahar or utility of name and form and function even for vedanta so anytime you want to deal with something you know even if it's to learn vedanta and become enlightened you need name form and function you need the world of maya you and therefore you need that absolute reality to be the god of my house of this god of religion anyway all these instructions i'm um all these corollaries i am drawing but his original description in his essay is also very nice rick says regarding fulfillment of desires is there sanskrit phrase that translates as first desert and desire actually there's one thing i did not mention when nachiketa says this i who am full of faith i ask for this teaching there is something this is all from the purum imams of philosophy it says means i am fit to have this purpose so purpose means this is what i want in life but i'm fit for it so i'm qualified for it i have faith in the vedic system i am ready i have i've got this i'm well trained i have this kind of knowledge and i desire heaven this kind of all qualifications are there you can transmit that knowledge to me otherwise it won't work just because the lord of death said i'll give you three boons and you can ask for one moon you can say this knowledge give it give that knowledge to me he may give it to you but it will be of no use to you unless you are you deserve it so first deserve and then desire correct correct we may get many things we we thought we wanted they may come to us you notice you you are not able to enjoy it properly to even enjoy the things which you desire you need some certain qualifications certain capacity certain time certain state of mind certain frame of mind to enjoy things even the tastiest food the most wonderful music the highest literature you need that qualification that cultivation of the mind that much leisure that frame and that mood of mind in order to even savor these things so i mean we're going to put it in another way a fool might collect an entire library but he will read only the ones he deserves to read and the only those books he reserves to read and i look around all the books around me and i say the veritable truth of saying we wake up in those words a fool may collect an entire library but we'll read only the books he deserves to read correct can there be only joy without sorrow only temporarily so even in our own lives there are periods of you know great uh happiness and fulfillment only temporarily for us it lasts for a short while and again it's a dissatisfactory state but those in heaven it can last for a long time and even there there will be some little problems like jealousy and so and so forth and demons shanley says does god forgive our bad past karma by representing good deeds and karma no what may happen is present good deeds and karma if they are powerful if you keep on doing good deeds in good karma they will start giving results so the bad karma is suppressed or pushed to the back also by the grace of god the the results of bad karma are minimized holy mother masha'allah said this where one might have been pierced by a spear or one might have lost a leg or something a terrible accident you'll get a pin prick so that's a vast difference it'll still suffer but much much less than what yourself so what makes a difference devotion to god and the grace of god it can minimize our suffering it can save us from a lot of pain and misery but then you have to have devotion to god and worship god jai shri says are homums like the rudram chandi who are part of karma khanda yes they're part of karma kanda but remember the way we do that in vedanta is we convert it into karma karma yoga so the same rituals without the worldly goals or other world equals you repeat the chanting you may perform particular rituals also including the fire sacrifices but without desiring worldly things or other worldly things he would do it only as a worship of god so then you will get purification of mind the qualifications for vedanta and ultimately enlightenment all those things will come see we all do pujas so one may do durga puja the big pujas for worldly benefits or one may simply do it let all beings be happy grant me devotion grant me knowledge grant me dispassion for the world or mother that means to have make me fit for spirituality then it becomes that same ritual becomes karma yoga it's not just karma it becomes karma yoga it becomes part of your spiritual practice shaavani says are the gods indra etc more like positions absolutely they're like positions so so in the position con not that indireal continues to live forever the position continues forever but the people who occupy that like the president of the united states it's a position and of enormous power and the sentient beings who come and occupy that they keep changing but these positions are not for four years or five years therefore millions of years so um and in the case of the highest god they are for the entire duration of the of the universe one cycle of creation existence and destruction but they are positions and so in one universe the one who is indra the king of the gods the one who is the god of fire or whatever in the next universe there might be a different indra different there will be a different hindrance on gloria says the swargaloka sounds a lot like near-death ex experience near-death experiences experience yes yes in which leads us to to believe that there is definitely something in all of this because in many religions these things are described and in i would say incredibly similar ways and also people who maybe today don't believe in any particular religion but have similar experiences at the verge of death or you know like a near-death experience so there is something to it so vedanta no we are not interested in these things the whole point is you turn away from these things more you're interested in object and objective existence whether this world your next world you're caught in samsara it is just an extension of samsara a better part of samsara more rarefied part of samsara but even there there are problems and there is an end to it we hear in manhattan you see the skyline from central park there's something called the billionaires row so this very tall this is a the skinniest building in the world tallest skinniest building in the world more than 100 floors and all so only billionaires lived there and somebody was telling me that what do they have in the like 80th or 100th floor it is the building is swaying a little bit so it's a little scary and some other little little problems are there and the the garbage chute makes a sound or something like that you know so somebody said these are the woes the sufferings of billionaires so there's still some problem going on even at that high high level verified level uh so they say so isn't that heaven is same as rich persons like earth correct at least the lower heavens and some of them like the brahmaloka is not just being a rich person but also being a spiritual rich person so that's a nice thing vedanta is higher than that not you don't have to be a spiritual rich person and go and live in the highest heaven for millions of years you get the highest which is complete fulfillment complete uh cessation of suffering you you get infinity itself here and now by brahma gyana by becoming enlightened far higher than all of this the problem of being rich and spiritual is i'll tell you i met this person who is one of india's leading motivational speakers young man very good personality i mean you just like him when you meet him and he inspires lots of young college students boys and girls but he's a very very dynamic speaker he's also a multi-millionaire owns a big company um the way i met him was he want he wanted to speak to me so i just heard about him he flew me out from from calcutta to delhi and bought me to his office he spent six hours i said what about your job i said oh that's in hindi said your time pass what about your in this corporate headquarters six hours you're not attending to any business he said oh swami that's just like that it's just to pass time you have to do something and do that but my real interest is in spiritual life and i could see that he's genuinely vastly well read in vedanta buddhism and a regular meditator seriously interested and some genuine spiritual insight is there i could see that but the interesting thing is what happened to us he has a group of followers one of them said to me afterwards you know they all study about him one of them said to me that our goal is to be like him i know i want to become a millionaire and become enlightened you don't have to become a millionaire to become enlightened it is just so attractive that i get both i get to be a millionaire and a billionaire and i also become enlightened spiritual master no it sort of confuses the issue i'm sure he is fine but those who it's so shiny and nice that people want all of that together whereas vedanta says not at all necessary and not in fact it can be an enormous distraction to be involved in the world in that way and also try to pursue pursue spirituality shweta singh says shri singh katy says if the pleasures of heaven are not ultimately fulfilling then why would somebody like to spend long time because of desire on earth people after having everything they want they start feeling depressed yes the speciality of this world they call it mathia loka the speciality of this world is it's that unique balance of suffering and pleasure pain and pleasure which evokes in us this question about the point of it all the reason why this question does not come to very rich people you know um hollywood nearby there are these these areas all the big stars don't live in hollywood now they all live in beverly hills one or two places i forgot the names they're very well known bel air is one place i think so they all lived there now so are you being very spiritual by living there you have seen all the desires being fulfilled no no not at all the you're so rich and so famous and so full of life is full of parties there's no time for serious spiritual person you may become curious once in a while but things are so good you quickly forget that again that discipline and that that you know the renunciation necessary to pursue this seriously not that some are not deeply spiritual some are but again it's difficult so it's very difficult for very rich people it's very difficult for people who are suffering a lot so in heaven and in hell it's difficult to be spiritual if things are going perfectly well for you then difficult to have that motivation to search for the higher tool if things are going horribly for you you don't have the time energy you know the calmness of mind to sit down and investigate this so this world where we are is a good balance for it's a good place for vedanta sri says can one decide to pursue enlightenment by reciting in the loka yes or do you have to descend at least one more time to earth can we assume that they would this would be their last but yes to all of them they are those this is called karama mukti sequential liberation you have practice spirituality in this world and you have not attained enlightenment because of great good karma you're a good person so you go to heaven after death now there you continue your spiritual quest these ideas are there and then you will there itself you will attain enlightenment you don't have to come back to this world but if a person has desires then after enjoying heaven one comes back to this world and again practices spiritual practices and krishna says that in the sixth chapter of the gita that such people will come back again but it will be their last birth and they will get enlightenment in that birth itself so all of this is possible all these alternatives so there's a link shared by pranav and a documentary to swamiji in mind yes yes i've seen that documentary is very nice you should not say stopover also did not allow in note taking in the class i i think that must be true alpena says after enlightenment can one want to keep coming to enjoy these manifestations now that kind of one thing will not be there but one may keep coming if necessary is by the will of god that coming will not be there for enjoyment of manifestation the coming will be there uh for helping others so sram krishna says there are some nithya siddhas ever perfected once they are not coming back here to practice spirituality and get enlightenment they are already enlightened they are already free and yet for some reason they have maintained their individualities they are not one with brahman in the sense that there is no more individual left they can come back as enlightened beings to help others often when avatar has come saram krishna says when avatar has come a group of companions comes with that avatar means they are also born and they come close to the avatar and they become the disciples like the apostles of christ or the direct disciples of sri lanka krishna who helped the avatar some of those not all salaam krishna identified six i think who were already they said nitya siddha they are already liberated even before they came so they have come because of the will of god to help god i mean help the avatar in the mission do they have vezant in heaven yes then it can be worth while staying there yes but not all heavens some heavens are just made for enjoyment but there are the brahmaloka for example is full of enlightened beings or spiritual beings so i'm sure they have been on the classes there you can i don't know if you can transfer credits from this class to there nitin says since heavens and hells are mostly indicative different states of mind does it indicate mean that jealousy is a tougher problem to get rid of then karma grow the lower more i have not really thought of it about it that way jealousy is a deep problem even like spiritual seekers can become jealous so it is a deep problem but i don't know if that's why the gods are jealous of each other there's a good way to understand that is actually to look at very famous very rich people celebrities the way they behave in this world is a good indicator of what the these celestial beings would do don't worry too much about them they are outside our our purview we are we're going ahead we're going to give same goodbye to them very soon nazi keta will has very harsh words about them it's going to come he will say very clearly little boy to yama i don't want any part of this he says it's he'll say it's like it's like a horror show all of it from heaven to earth down to hell the whole thing is something that you must transcend as soon as possible does everyone in satya loka necessarily get kramer mukti at the end of the cycle no it is very clear those who still have desires at the end of the cycle even in the highest heaven then they will wait for an interminable time until the next creation i mean next time when time starts space starts the universe starts and then they'll be reborn again to work out their spiritual destiny some of them will not be reborn those who become enlightened there in the in heaven itself rodrigo says so many questions about heaven just see how attractive it is it's full of questions about heaven rodrik i'll just take this and stop aren't those karma to become manusa puja then those rituals were all performed in the mind yes the idea is in the vedas you have actual physical rituals which are to be performed like this what what yamaraja taught nachiketa but at a certain stage you would evolve beyond the necessity to perform rituals physically and you could visualize them in your mind mana puja we even do that now with our modern pujas we can physically do the puja outside with flowers and and incense and the utensils for the puja instruments or you can visualize all of it and do it in fact not all both are to be done those who do physically are also instructed to do it mentally those who do it mentally you can do it only mentally without doing physically also krishna shiva brahma shweta asks are they also positions krishna is an avatar not a position so that is unique um shiva is god with a capital g not a position that is unique eternal they are not that different sentient beings can become shiva not at all but brahma is a position in each cycle of creation a new brahma brahma means the creator of the universe so that's not god with the capital g that is um it comes is manifested in each cycle krsna's [Music]