Video 1

Mandukya Upanishad - 1 by Pravrajika Divyanandaprana

[Music] [Music] welcome to pangord and welcome to the classes we are as you know we are starting the mandu upanishad those of you who have it please open the shanti mantras we will be starting from there madram karne but before i start with the shanti mantras we will i would like to give you an introduction to the upanishad itself because i can see some of you are newcomers and a good introduction to what why we are studying the upanishads here uh we can discuss that for some time and then we go straight into the mandukyo punished because mandukyo punished is the most important upanishad the shortest and the profoundest and we are starting with the most profound thing and upanishads as you know that's the essence of the vedas the upanishads are the essence of the vedic literature so we are diving into the very essence of the vedas you can say with this upanishad so uh let me tell you what the upanishad exactly it actually means sitting close to a teacher and understanding the truths of the vedic the vedas you can say that is the meaning of upanishad sitting close to a teacher and grasping the truth of the vedas now why upanishads are so important see vedic literature is very vast as you know you'll find the vedas in this library also there are four vedas and huge books and then the vedas are a kind of mixture of karma khan and nyan khan which means the mantras associated with rituals and sacrifices and the upanishads the mantras associated purely with knowledge these are mixed up in the vedas but in the upanishads those mantras which have been used for the rituals have been separated from the mantras which we use for this pointed inquiry into the nature of human existence it has been separated so that is why the upanishadic literature is the essence the rest are mantra is used in rituals sacrifices for various purposes so that is called the karma khan that which is to do with work the work portion and this is the knowledge portion upanishad is the knowledge portion of the vedas so the entire sanatana dharma please remember is based on finally on the upanishads on the vedas and especially on the upanishads everything that you see today in the form of whatever rituals and festivals and whatever you observe in your homes somewhere it is a it is a condensate of these ideas and with a lot of mixture of admixture of yoga tantra all this has happened and but this is the essence so we are going directly to the source of hinduism if we understand this portion and if it appears very relevant to our everyday life and thinking and if we are able to apply it that way you will see that everything else makes sense why we are performing a particular ritual why are we worshiping the gods what exactly is the idea why do people perform homa and yagnas and all this why the agni hotra ritual which so many even now perform why the gayatri mantra all this will fall in place why do we observe diwali festivals and all this it will all fall in place once you understand the spirit of the upanishads otherwise it appears like hinduism is a hodgepodge of many things isn't it some things are well we don't know what is the history behind it why we are doing it still we do it as a custom so that is why we are going to the very source and this literature is so profound you see a whole lot of western thinkers and scientists they have also gone deep into this and they have said this is the most profound piece of literature in the world and when was it created at least five thousand years back in fact rigveda goes back to more than eight thousand years and the because the dates are not like finally fixed you know actually indian chrono we are not good chronologists so we don't have the exact dates when these were written but they are the oldest literature available to us that you can say and it's so profound it's doing it's the inquiries are about the human personality structure and the core of the human personality structure you just imagine this those rishis in those times how they thought of this they were living in the forest just imagine the harappan if you have read those portions the indus valley civilization so much before that and in this delhi punjab belt all this inquiry was taking place in the forests of the himalayas right here these places and from where we've come so these were all forested and the hermitages of the rishis and the yagna fires and this enquiry was going on when the americas had not yet been discovered when europe was a vast forest this was happening in this northern belt of india and this inquiry is so profound and so relevant to our present age see today we are bringing this into universities can you imagine this after nalanda this never took place why we are able to bring this into the university setup and mainstream academy is because it is the signs of consciousness that they are talking about and if it was not that nobody in today's scientific setup would accept it isn't it if it was some horry literature which doesn't make sense which is not relevant which is talking of some ritual would it make sense today i'm asking you but everyone is taking it iit's are taking it okay that's the cream of india's intelligence why are they taking it because this is the signs of consciousness and there's a technology to it you can realize these truths even today because your consciousness is the essential part of you isn't it if you just ask the question who am i don't think this was the rishi's question today also how many of us put this question isn't it so it is ever relevant these truths and what the way they are conducting this enquiry and the methods they invented to they discovered in order to make this possible they are very very relevant even today this i can tell you a whole lot of people are using them and it makes it makes human life meaningful what's the point in knowing everything without knowing yourself isn't it see this this is the whole point science is focused on the external world these subjective sciences are focused on the inner world if i don't know who i am what what's the point in life about human life and it won't make sense in knowing who the other person is what his thoughts are what it doesn't make sense if i don't know how i function there's no point in knowing how this world functions if i know what's happening on jupiter and what's happening in other galaxies but i don't know what's happening in myself what's the point so that is why this literal piece of literature is so important so profound so meaningful there's absolutely no belief system here please understand this there's no belief system there is no faith which you are expected to have to get this it is a logical approach of inquiry into the nature of your existence so there is no mention of a god as we popularly understand him there is only the mention of the ultimate you can say background of this existence which is consciousness and that cosmic consciousness is called brahman in the upanishads there is only mention of that and no mention of the traditional gods or their worship forms temples all this came much later in the post vedic age but here it is an inquiry into the nature of my existence and what what is the meaning of this existence and who am i when i don't identify with anything what is the nature of my existence what is the crux of human identity these are the questions of the upanishads so if you have interest in this if you really want to pursue this this is the most important piece of literature you have in this world in fact thinkers shoften hover they all said that this is the most profound piece of literature we have but you must conduct this inquiry by yourself not because it was done by some rishi here but if you do it yourself you get the first person perspective you can't understand these truths in the third person are you getting the point through somebody's thoughts and somebody's writings you cannot get this knowledge you can only get it if it is a first person research within yourself and if the enquiry has arisen within yourself so this is what makes the upanishad very scientific logical and you can say it's it's pan-human anybody can pursue this it's not like especially in the hindu religion or only we can do it indians can do no such thing can you say gravity is english it's not it's for everybody it's the universal law of life isn't it so also this is a universal law and no it's not for a particular people and an ethnic group not like that at all this is the truth about human life and the inquiry will show you this this is the way they are penetrating into the nature of human existence and through that they understood the nature of this cosmic intelligence which is responsible for this world of manifestation so that they called brahman and the you can say the individualized or localized aspect of that same cosmic consciousness is the atman the real nature of the human being so get these words clear brahman means cosmic consciousness atman is you can say the individualized or localized consciousness which is your real nature a reflection of the same thing in you so this is your real nature according to the upanishads you are the atman manifesting through this body and mind you are not the body and mind see this is a huge paradigm shift in thinking isn't it because everything about your thought process has to do with your identity are you getting this point your sense of yourself determines the the importance you give to your things in your life to your thoughts and where you are attached where your sense of identity lies there you will emphasize there you will understand better isn't it so this is actually penetration into that eye sense itself uncovering the crux of human identity so it is it is a process of which are which are means inquiry penetrated a kind of penetration into the core of your existence it is not a belief system it is not a religion it is not any a faith or anything of that sort it's a simple logical rational inquiry and the discovery is again impersonal of the nature of consciousness now there's a huge difference between these words consciousness which we use in the indian uh paradigm psychological paradigm and what the way we use it in the western paradigm their thoughts emotions whatever is happening in your mind is called consciousness there's a blanket term for everything happening in your mind but in the indian context this indic perspective consciousness has nothing to do with mind mind is illumined by consciousness standing behind it and it starts thinking so thoughts and emotions are not to be called consciousness consciousness is the atman the very essence of your conscious experience because it is conscious by itself it is called consciousness your existence sat its nature as it is conscious by itself nothing else is conscious by itself see this point also we will explore as we proceed what are they exactly trying to say by this that is why it is pure consciousness it is the atman and your mind only functions because it reflects that light light is a wonderful metaphor for consciousness it reflects that and it becomes aware in that awareness you you start thinking you start feeling willing every the mind starts functioning and that thought process has a tendency to identify with things so you get a sense of self identity a concept of yourself as it were and you make sense of the outer world you start identifying objects with name and form and their relevance to you according to them you classify them in your mind so thought process will start working like that based on your sense of your identity but the crux of that identity is not in the mind the source of that identity is not in the mind it is in the atman this is what the upanishads are going to tell you that is why this is the most important piece of literature it is not to do with your mental capacities and capabilities it is not to do with your creative thinking your memory no it is to do with the source of your mind the source of your thought process and you can reach it through a process of inquiry that's the beauty of the upanishad if you make a penetrating enquiry into this you will reach it so that is the spirit of the upanishad and you that's why you should distinguish this path from the other parts which we popularly uh you know on an everyday basis which we are applying in our life like for example the pujas we do the yoga yoga snaps we do the meditations we practice all of them are essentially the this process of the upanishad it as you see over the ages many elements got added into it the yog sutras came in the second century bc so a large part of yoga got integrated with this inquiry process then you had the bhakti movement so a lot of um with this as the essence a lot of things got added on and today we are practicing them like that see we don't have a concept of vedic inquiry but we very well have a concept of temple worship isn't it they're not a common person this is only because of this but temples were never there in the vedic age much much later in the post vedic age the gods brahman condensed into the gods as it were then the sagun aspect of brahman all this came up and then you had temples and later on temple worship started so you see you must understand the whole um right from the vedic age to the bhakti movement how things developed the the religious spiritual scenario how did it develop why is india called a country where where all these things flourished is only because we invested our best minds for the longest periods in human history in this research okay actually speaking in vedic india and even in the post vedic age till almost the 15th century all our pandit class and the in fact one of one class was set aside for research into this and committed to this kind of a life lifestyle and pursuing this knowledge spiritual knowledge that is why this tradition was retained so this is a very unique paradigm no country has such a history actually such a strange history where the emphasis was given on spiritual knowledge so this is our spiritual heritage and today in our homes we don't see things this way we are we don't hindus especially are not used to giving these ideas and values to the future generations that is why things are going down isn't it today's youngsters don't have much idea about all this at all they don't know the source of what they are doing and what's the purpose of doing that so as a responsibility you should see that something of this comes into your homes what we are going to study in this retreat as part of this retreat some form of that should be should come into your home should come into your contacts so that you keep this tradition alive otherwise the essence will be lost and we will be just juggling with the peripherals so that is why we here we focus mainly on the upanishad and not on other things you may ask me for other things like some people had asked me once we should have retreats on bhakti on yoke sutras okay that's fine for some time we can discuss on that but the vedic tradition and especially the upanishadic tradition that is the source of everything and you must keep hold on to that if you lose that nothing else will have meaning please understand this and if you don't uh uh sort of discover this for yourself you lose one of the most profound things about human life because as i told you if you don't know your own eyes sense what is it about what is the point in knowing other other things so that is why upanishad is the thing to study especially in a setup like this when you are in the lap of the himalayas and you have enough time here when you don't have routines don't waste a minute either study or meditate dive deep into this what we are going to discuss but don't waste one minute here i am telling you because the place is very vibrant we are in the lap of the himalayas and the rishis actually discovered these truths here and they practiced all this for long periods of time over centuries here so it's in the air so try to get the most out of the seven days that you have here let's go into the shanti mantras first why the name mandukyo upanishad because a rishi called manduka gave us these mantras see each of the upanishadic whatever you say sentences are called mantras they are not called sentences or anything else slokas or they are mantras but why mananath mantra that's the definition of a mantra which means just by contemplating on it it will liberate you only the vedic mantras vedic observations are called mantras and no other piece of literature you can say is a mantra not the yoga sutras not the bhakti sutras not the nyaya sutras only upanishads are the mantras because that is the power of the upanishad they are realized understanding of the vedic rishis so you can contemplate on that and you will realize it that is why it's a mantra are you getting the point that which liberates you just by thinking of it is a mantra so they are very powerful observations direct realizations of the vedic rishis that is the upanishad who's a rishi seer how different is he from the ordinary mind exactly that's the definition of the rishi he sees things as they are and not colored by the thought process the the emotions there the bias there the prejudices of your mind your attitude not colored by anything of that because the mind has been cleared completely so he sees things as they are that is why they understood the existential truths about human existence existential means not that which is not psychological see this is this demarcation this difference is there only in indian philosophical thinking in the west you know there is no such thing as existential and psychological psychological is existential i told you the co the idea of the atman was developed here alone in this literature alone you won't find it in this form elsewhere you will find it in the writings of some mystics of other religions also like thomas martin some mystics have come arrived at this but not everyone so it is not part of western psychology and philosophy this kind of thinking but here there's a clear distinction between existential and psychological you generally live in the psychological world please see this with your thoughts and emotions they are the primary thing about you isn't it all our emotion is for our thinking our identities our attachments this will not do for this study the very nature of life is existential not psychological so you must learn to put down the mind that is why yoga is the means to this knowledge yoga is chitta vritti nirodh isn't it see this is how this is the great understanding which vivekananda gave us that he gave us four yogas the other means to this knowledge if you can't go directly to inquiry learn to handle your mind properly first your thought process properly put it down check it stall it and you will come to this naturally so yoga is the technology and upanishad is the science of consciousness yoga is the technology of consciousness the method you use and upanishad itself vedanta is the science of consciousness upanishad means vedanta how it got the name vedant you should know that also see when the vedic rishis discovered a whole lot of these truths they see they were not people who would bring out this literature of course there were no books it was a shruti tradition it was by word of mouth that the the tradition was kept up the knowledge was transmitted which means a rishi would give it to his disciples the disciples would retain one part of the it had to be bi-hearted they they would retain one part of the literature the vedic the vedas in their memory and transmitted to their disciples so this was the tradition which was kept up so it's called the shruti that which is heard vedas means shruti and much later on these vedas were compiled all these mantras were brought together which were in the hands of so many families of rishis each family had the tradition of maintaining one portion so then these were compiled together and much later to this they condensed into six philosophical systems this is between 500 bc and 580. six philosophical systems what we call shad darshan so the names of those six philosophical systems you should just because it is a it was based on the brahma sutras which were the logical support of the upanishads so upanishads means vedanta okay keep all these equations so that when i keep uh explaining the upanishad there should not be no gaps in your understanding now what i'm trying to say exactly the best way to understand this literature is you must do this along with meditate meditation meditative practice so a form of guided meditation also we will discuss in the question answer session okay learn to still the mind stillness and awareness go together in stillness you will understand all these truths by yourself and not through this third person perspective then what is the purpose of this to corroborate your understanding to tally to help you understand better so this is how this literature was always used it will help you inquire deeply into what you're searching for but the search begins with you not with a book not with somebody's thoughts that's why i told you first person research is vedanta we are making this clear distinction even in the academic work you know because this form of understanding is not there anywhere and it's never coming to the university set up so every single term has to be thought of and meditated upon and then put into the the whatever scores we are structuring and then it is to be passed through ugc and then converted into actual literature for university students so every term actually which we are using has is a product of meditation otherwise not possible to translate this level of knowledge into something which our students can practically use today and to structure courses out of this as a real effort but because this is so true it is coming out you see this knowledge will not be lost in this way it will come out in a big way once our youngsters start the courses the names of the courses you will be amazed we don't call it vedanta courses okay we call it like the signs of happiness you have already seen the next course the fifth course now in iit would will be the science of focus then we have um this mind management and mind management techniques these are the kinds of courses coming out of this literature self inquiry and self knowledge so in the these ways this same knowledge is coming out in the absolutely modern idiom so let's go into straight into this mandu upanishad look at the peace mantras there shanti mantras i don't have a clock or something here and we are supposed to chant that uh chant those peace chants and then go into the upanishad itself because what is the purpose of a peace chant it is actually a prayer and it calms your mind without this inner calmness you can't actually do make a process of inquiry actually work for you isn't it if you're doing 10 things all at once we do that you know we have many tracks running in our head then you can't do this process of inquiry so first is calmness bring peace to your mind so the peace chant is there it's a prayer also get into the mood of real vedantic inquiry and meditation and then we proceed right oh gods may we hear auspicious words with the ears karnaby with the ears may i hear what is auspicious may i see what is auspicious and good uh may my limbs be steady and firm may not be chanchal may i not be restless calm down that's the message and maybe enjoy a life which is beneficial to everyone and to the gods to brahman may i live a mature authentic life may i live like that so you see everything is put into this mantra a satwik lifestyle of dedication inner research steadiness of limbs and good exposures for your eyes and ears you don't treat your mind like a waste paper basket anything getting into you and not like that that's what many are doing isn't it see you can erase very easily on your laptop on your phone you can't erase sanskas from your memory so easily so take care a spiritual aspirant lives carefully that is the meaning may i take in only what is auspicious like you see the food we eat we take in that which is really good and nutritious isn't it we don't take unhealthy stuff so why take this is also food what you take through your eyes ears so taking good food if you have nutritious food you will have good health if you take in nutritious intake from outside you will have good mind because your thoughts are determined by your sense intake that's why this was called ahar you know aha is not just what you eat what you consume through all your senses is aha so you see the prayer is for that here in the shanti manta you will find the names of so many gods then what how come there are names of so many gods here see this is there in the upanishadic literature although they believed the the source of all this manifestation is only brahman brahman comes to us in various ways these gods for example they are aspects of sagun brahman which means brahman with attributes it's the same ultimate reality coming to us in all these forms under all these names this was the understanding and these gods are gods because they are in touch with that ultimate that is why they are gods so they are not different from that impersonal reality this was the understanding so swastina indra vridha may indra be auspicious to us and he's called ridha shawa it actually means one who has heard much one was established in this knowledge that is the meaning it's actually the god the one who rules this earth this planet he is pushing may he be auspicious to us garuda may he destroy all evil all around me anything that is evil around me may he destroy it and swastino and may bri ensure our welfare presbytes was the guru of the gods isn't it so it's a prayer that let only auspicious things be around us may all the gods be auspicious to us may we have the blessings of all the gods and may we proceed with this so it's a powerful prayer you see the essence is put in the first two mantras that how how will i handle my body and mind that how will i handle my mind and what kind of a life style i will adopt in order to make this inquiry this is the prayer now i'll go straight into the upanishad see this upanishad is so profound it has a huge commentary you might have heard of it manduka karika okay now since we have one week retreat it's not possible to go into the karika it is huge lots of verses but you can do that for homework once you are back home since you would have studied the upanishads you can always go into the karika by yourself or some other time we can study it but we here we will take up the upanishadic mantras and of course a lot of ideas about the karika also will come into this these discussions undoubtedly so now this upanishad has two parts there are twelve mantras only in this upanishad and the two parts the two things which it covers are one one important thing is it's a meditation on om omkaru past night is called this is the first part of this upanishad how om which is the sound symbol of brahman takes us to the ultimate truth of brahman this discussion is there and the practice is there and what the uma indicate that is there mention of that is there and then then how he the rishi relates it to our three states of everyday existence what are the three states of which you experience every day jagrat swapna and sushupta the waking state the dream state and the deep sleep state these are what universally all of us every day we experience these states now they are going to go deep into these states and who is the waker dreamer the nature of the waker dreamer and deep sleeper and then what do these states actually indicate they are not interested in your dreams or whatever they are interested in the dreamer the nature of the dreamer the nature of the waker the nature of the deep sleeper and through just this much data they will draw enormous conclusions through a logical technique when we come to that point i will i will demonstrate that technique too it's called anviati so they will go into that and show you that what is your real nature then so this is called the avastha which are this is the second part of this upanishad mandu kyo panishita the first part is omkarupasana the second part is avasthatravichar which is most important upanishadic technique vedantity technique for discovering the self and you must not miss it here in this class you must feel the reality of it you see that is the purpose of holding these classes we are not going to just do an intellectual exercise you must feel the reality of what they are saying and how stupid our mind is in not intuiting this reality by itself we must at least understand this much that they are talking about something which is available to me but i keep missing it out because i'm wrongly identified with a whole lot of things and i can't stop my thought process see the whole problem is we think we are our thoughts and i can't stop my thoughts in fact this is such a wrong conclusion drawn by a whole lot of philosophers uh in in the western philosophy this is taken for granted you can't stop the mind who said you can't stop the mind you tried right here okay this is no theory in in this ambience during your meditation hours just see if you can objectify your thought process or not can you distance yourself from your thoughts can you see them for what they are and can you periodically still the mind stall the thought process see if you can do this if you can do this all this will make tremendous sense and if you already have a conclusion that you can't do it this will mean nothing so you must experientially understand the upanishad evening class will be only question answers based on this and the meditation technique which they are recommending only this much we will do but i am telling you here you must feel the glory of stillness you can do it here and how awareness and stillness are connected and how stupid our usual restlessness is this you must understand for yourself this excitability mode is not happiness you will naturally arrive at this conclusion if you catch this much in the first person this is an insane idea given to our youngsters the more excited you are the more happy you will be very sorry the very nature of happiness is it is a function of your awareness the more that comes into full bloom the more happy you will be whether there is any object in your life any person in your life or not so you will understand this by yourself if you just do what i'm telling you in your meditation hours get a taste for stillness the power of stillness it's right here brahman is right here just now our mind is too busy with something else this is the whole problem isn't this true tell me is your awareness ever apart from you your thoughts can be apart from you your emotions your will all this can you can objectify they can be apart from you your awareness cannot be apart from you in awareness you are thinking in awareness you are emoting your awareness can never be apart from you so stillness is your real nature so then shouldn't you make it your default state or default should be super restless and occasional stillness no stillness should be your default state then you know your thought process at any given time will be perfectly clear your decision making your memory everything will improve your concentration naturally isn't it because you have touched the source but if you assume no only the thoughts are real and i can't stop them that is a huge mistake see we have made certain fundamental mistakes in our understanding first mistake is the cards that cause it to ergosome i think therefore i am so if i don't think i am not this is the most fundamental mistake in western philosophy but you won't understand it without the power of yoga because yoga developed here we for us it is natural to understand this mistake but there it is an assumption it's it's a something they have digested for centuries they believe in it and western philosophy is built on that the cartesian dualism is coming because of that so awareness has no place it's all mind body the duality is there so it's a huge paradigm shift in in thinking that is why today this uh it's uh there are there's a huge portion of the thinking population in the west which does not really subscribe to this because it's not they have never thought of it or it's not part of their experience as yet consciously you should experience these realities by stopping the thought process then you will understand upanishad is the reality about life and what we are doing is really very strange our thought process is highly conditioned please see this with elements from all sorts of things and that is why when the thought process is not clear how can you make a vedantic inquiry then the upanishads appear abstrused and even outdated and all this because you are not able to do it it is most practical most relevant and supremely scientific if you you can do it in the first person so you see fundamental requirement is this unconditioned mind and absolutely calm clear mind capable of inquiry this is the you see all now whoever traditionally went for a vedantic study you know there are many gurukuls where this is taken up in a very traditional way there the four-fold qualification of vedanta is insisted upon initially here we don't do all that because we are taking it up as a study but of course we will be practicing it but the four-fold qualification for vedantis does any one of you know of course hindudi will be knowing all this yeah that vive without this qualification you can't enter this this is the standard way of entering vedanta there must be discrimination discrimination not in the western sense it is discretion or philosophical discrimination you know what is real you know what is assumed what is unreal this sharp distinction you have and vairagya means you are capable of giving up what is not true not what is not permanent you can distance it from your mind shad sampati is a group of six qualities shama is calmness of the senses dhamma is control of the mind uparati turning away from what is unreal the strong means detached attitude of mind uparati is great forbearance ability to stick to what you have taken up deep faith in this literature faith in the sense that it is doable for me not a blind kind of faith that i can do it this idea and samadhan is ability to focus it's not contentment here it is the ability to stick to that focus on that deeply so this six-fold qualification is compulsory and finally is mumuksutwam which means you are extremely desirable desirous of a completely unconditioned state of mind liberation means liberation is always of the mind not of the soul soul is always liberated mind is what is bound isn't it so mumu means you seek the liberation of the mind a completely clear unconditioned state of mind you hanker for that is momakshitwa so if you have this these prerequisites then vedant this is the traditional format what i'm telling you so something of this we must possess in fact you possess it others why would you come here at all isn't it this will help you penetrate into this study and practice the technique otherwise avastha travis is an intellectual exercise that is all doesn't get you to the our in s they the sadhus there they say this it is also there in one of the gitas i think rama gita or something when hanuman she asked this question this was the answer that this one upanishad alone is enough for the liberation of the human being because it is so profound but you must get it in the first person then it will it's done you don't require anything any other study for self-knowledge so avasthatra travisha is a very powerful technique but we will go into it see today uh we of course we will have six morning classes so um i think second i will do this omkaru pasna then from third onwards to six we will do only our that which are bit by bit so that you get a complete grasp over what they are saying the whole purpose is to take you to the knowledge of the self so clear your mind that just the process of inquiry is able to assure you into the state of pure awareness so then you will yourself know what consciousness means it won't have to be told pure awareness is conscious by itself it's the only thing which is conscious by itself that's why it's called consciousness just now our awareness is of what kind it's all mixed up with the thought process with your memories with all kinds of mentation and emotion and ideation and all sorts of things it's not even clear not to speak of empty so this complicates the situation like anything and through that filter you are understanding the word no wonder it's only a kind of bias or judgmental way you will understand things that is not the purpose yes enormous superimposition is taking place at every level this idea also will come and we will discuss it superimposition means you are imposing something where it is not it's a very deep concept in vedan the way they study superimposition it's called adhyas which means now you must understand imposition to understand superimposition suppose i keep this on this book i have imposed this on this book but if i think this book is this and this is the book that is superimposition i am taking something to be what it is not and taking something else to be also what it is not mixing up the two so according to vedant we have mixed up reality and unreality we have mixed up the true and the false in our own mind because we are not clear in our minds mind is dense with all sorts of thoughts emotions this is the only problem i'm telling you and the day you really feel like getting out of this you know when when we actually go for um holidays and wherever getaways we call it greater races we are only trying to get out of our silly minds we are only trying to do that because it's it's so full now of all sorts of things we want to get out of it in your homes if your if your room gets too filled with objects you want to get out of it into the guest room isn't it something like that so if you feel this the sheer density of your mind due to reckless living then you will try to clear it you actually can't get out of the mind even if you go on long getaways but you can clear the mind of all this density and that is the way then to go into the upanishad so these fundamentals have to be observed otherwise it will not be a real study you know a real study is always transforming there is no actual teaching of the operation there is transmission of reality there is no teaching isn't this true how can you teach what is already there you can just make a person aware of it you can create pockets of awareness through the study in the mind so punish this like that so preliminary qualifications are a must in our own wh as much as we can in our particular niche in in the way you can clear your mind in your the time you will spend here in the retreat center keep your mind away from newspapers or news channels a bit let it go because you know too much of thinking will only hamper this process occasionally you saw something or you try to get some information but not all the time not constant exposure to these things because leader concentrated life here and use every minute here it is there in the air i told you if you can catch it it's such a huge advantage so let's focus on the method uh we will go into the first uh mantra of the upanishad see this is also a method don't think avasttatravichar is the method and omkarupasana is just the introduction no no no um okay so let's pay attention to the first method first this letter that is om is all there is of this a clear exposition is started with all that is past present or future is verily own and whatever is beyond the three periods of time is also verily oh see now at first glance you can clearly see it is the experience of the rishi he's just saying something which he has known he has realized knowledge means realization in the vedantic sense don't think knowledge is objective knowledge here it is a realization it's an intuitive understanding of something very deep what is the difference between intuition and deliberation intuition is that which is born without deliberation you just know no intuition can come out of deliberation but the final point of intuition is where there is no thought process you just know so you see here you can see clearly he is just saying as a matter of fact om is all that there is it is what was in the past what is the present what will be in the future see it is a statement of fact he's just uttering isn't it he's not saying i think om is the final reality or let us discuss if om is the fi is not saying like that it's like a mahavakya the letter om is all that there is it is the past it is the present it is the future and whatever is beyond the three periods of time is also verily own see how many of you have done omkar upasana she does all kinds of meditation do you do have you tried for a long time and anybody else you have done no anyone else you have done jyoti very good chanting of ob for long time if you do it you will understand really om has such power it will still your mind automatically because it is the sound symbol of the ultimate just uttering the symbol you will see the mind becomes still long drawn out oh see in places like this this is what you should do long drawn out home today evening we'll practice it in the question answer session just do it and you will see the mind comes to a level of stillness you won't experience it with the thought process om has that power so the observation here is the rishi is saying om is verily the past present and future see where our past present and future they are in your mind is is there anything called time beyond your mind apart from your thought process there isn't recently somebody was asking me about the theory of relativity in this vedant so i told them that you see your mind keeps record of time when the mind is not there or when the thought process is not there let's put it like that there is no time for you when you leave the body you can't say well to take another body did it take me 10 minutes or 10 years or 10 centuries because time is not there it won't matter time is the record kept by your mind when mind is shut down even you pause it and see here in the shrine room pause the mind the thought process you will go beyond time you don't know whether you sat for 10 minutes or 45 minutes usually you would have sat for a long time but it appears like i sat only for a short time you just go beyond time so time is when mind is and when you go beyond mind there's no time so also space so also causation these are parameters through which your mind works they are not the ultimate parameters they are not the nature of existential reality so your time machines and whatever relativity physics is trying to do we have not understood this fundamental aspect of time time is to do with your mind it is some kind of a record of events maintained by your mind which gives you a sense of time even your body has it after one hour of class you want to drink some water maybe you want to go to the bathroom your body keeps trying your mind keeps time but nothing else keeps time in you your soul has no time so then don't try to measure with time that's a mistake so you must understand all this from these mantras time is up [Music] it's 11 20. so we'll stop here tomorrow we'll continue