Video 55

56. Mandukya Upanishad | Chapter 4 Karika 5-10

out for your raised hands by now i think uh most of us we know how to raise hands there's a participant button if you click there'll be an option to raise the hand um if you prefer not to do that you can also type your question in the chat there's a chat option you can type the question or if nothing works just sort of wave your hand around like this you know so somebody will not even notice that you want to say something and shashank will unmute you call your name so that you can ask and we can have a back and forth um we were studying the mandukya karika when we are on the last chapter the fourth chapter allah ah there gorda pada is dealing with a number of philosophical opponents multiple schools uh which were prevalent at his time who opposed non-dualistic vedanta vedanta you know why is it important to study these ancient philosophical schools some of which are not active anymore they are of academic interest so what is it too especially if we have a spiritual interest not just we are not we are not here just to learn an ancient philosophy just for the fun of it though it is fun but still we are interested in our own spiritual development in our own spiritual growth what good is it to know those things well those questions are our questions many of the questions which we have we'll see that they are asked by these various philosophical schools i remember a monk a friend of mine many years ago in in our beloved mutt we were talking about this and he said that though we don't come across a nayaka or a vaisheshika or a sankhya in our day-to-day life today um but there is an ayaka inside us there is a buddhist inside us there is a sankhya inside us and we ask these questions sometimes questions are so deep and so profound so subtle we wouldn't have never thought of these things the questions anything that we can think of and many things that we cannot think of these are asked by these schools it's good to deal with them um especially since this is the way of knowledge it's good to clarify things often our understanding becomes much deeper when it is challenged so there is a it's called tuna nikon in sanskrit a figure of speech which means when you drive a pillar a post into the ground you have to ram it into the ground so it's firm the way we do it normally is we drive it and pull it out and then again drive it in back back again so this the second time or third time when you pull it out and drive it back in it's even more form it goes deeper and stays steady similarly when we are asked questions and we deal with these questions we at first you may even be shaken you may think that i never thought of that it seems to be a serious problem in our philosophy and when you work out the answer then these ancient masters give you the answer or show you what is the solution your understanding our understanding of advaita becomes deeper so that's the purpose of these dialectics even as a spiritual seeker it's very important it clarifies there are even if if you study it and you feel that we have understood it there are still depths uh angles to it aspects which need to be clarified so this helps um so there were these two different schools of causality one is the satgiabada the other the assad cardiac after he starts the chapter by saluting guru and god god as the first guru and then salutes the teaching of atma with the other self-knowledge itself and then takes up these different schools there is this the whole question is how did the many come from the one these all of these schools say the world was created how what is the what is the causal process so there is a cause which gives rise to an effect there is some cause god who created the world the question is how and there are basically two big players in this on this question two big schools one is the those who say that cause itself becomes the effect the cause is transformed into the effect the effect pre-existed in the cause in a potential form so this pre-existence of the effect in the cause is called school is called sat karya karya means effect cause karanam is calls so the plant the seedling existed in a potential form in the seed and there are arguments for this and today with our modern genetics and all we would tend to agree yes at least the information which led to the development of the plant that's all there genetically coated in the seed itself though in the seed if you open it up you don't see leaves and fruits and flowers and you know the roots no but the entire information potentiality is there so that's one group the effect the world pre-existed in brahman and brahman was transformed into the world that's one uh satikarya the other is the effect did not pre-exist in the cause it's a new product it's something new that has emerged as non-pre-existence of the effect so the first group are the sankhyas the sankhya philosophers and the second group are the nayakas niya vaishishika school just a little note here advaita vedanta is also classified as satgaryawada but it's not the way the sankhyas understand sabkaryavada the sankhyan say the cause is actually transformed into the effect so milk becomes transformed into curd or yogurt and the seed actually becomes transformed into the seedling the plant but what advaita vedanta says is that the cause only appears as the effect the rope does not become transformed into the snake the desert does not become transformed into an oasis it looks like water it it's mistaken for a snake the rope is mistaken for a snake the dreamer's mind actually does not become transformed into a dream world no it only conceives of it imagines it so these are the two different approaches um the approach of the advaitan is called vivarta this is unique approach of advaita vedanta to causality means appearance not a real transformation the cause only appears to be an effect and i must add again it's not that the non-dualist disputes that the seed becomes a plant in our day-to-day life the non-dualist admits satgaryawatha like the sankhya yes the seed does become transformed into the plant yes milk does become transformed into curd the advaita never argues that milk is appearing as the curd the seed is appearing as the plant no really the seed has been transformed into the plant milk into curd but what the advaitan is saying at the root of it before there were seeds and milk and this entire universe from brahman this universe emerges not as a transformation of brahman but as an appearance of brahman i'll repeat that the transformation theory is admitted by advaita vedanta at the transactional vehicle empirical level in our day-to-day dealings if you ask the non-dualist forget about your brahman and turian all that day to day is milk transformed into curd does the seed blossom into a plant or is it only all appearance no the other way to say that it actually happens just like you would admit it the sankhya says that accepts it but the whole thing is an appearance of brahman it's not a transformation of brahman in sanskrit it's put very compactly um brahman appears as this universe and my our prakriti is transformed into this universe so within the universe in our day-to-day life whatever theory of causation you want to take up advaita is comfortable with that especially with the sankhya and satgaryawad enough about that that's it now what god or father did was he said look we don't agree with either sadhkarya bhadra sabkari ultimately he's his approaches he says these philosophical schools are they contradict each other whereas is not debate is not involved in any debate or any controversy he says and to show it is aviva beyond controversy beyond debate he shows that these schools cancel each other out he says the satire of him says that the effect was pre-existing in the cause but it also says that when your opponent say that the effect was not pre-existing in the cause the sadhkarya badhin denies that so you are wrong when you say that effect was not pre-existing in the cause it was and the assad career was in the opposite they said that the effect was not pre-existing in the cause it came new it's something it's new product so they cancel each other out the satiri about the cancer south carolina with many with many reasons which we will see with many reasons and the assad cardiovasculars who say that the new world emerges and they cancel the sadkarya with many reasons since they mutually cancel each other out they are mutually refuted and that dwetian says i don't have to do anything the sadhkaryawadin has shown the falsity of the uh asap the assad karya wadin has shown the falsity of the south korea and later you will get the reasons why it was a long long debate hundreds of years but what god happened is doing he's taking it neutrally issues all your reasons are good i admit it there's really good reasons you have really good reasons to show your opponent is wrong and your opponent has really good reasons to show that you are wrong so both of you are wrong and i win because i never got involved in all of this now you may say that's pretty clever but what do you say how did the world come from thuria from brahman what's your point you are these are the two options you agree with neither then what do you want to say so now father brings forty advaithic position but first he sums up the non-controversial or non-debate non-debated nature of advaita in verse number five in verse number five the dualists they uh debate each other and cancel each other out and the non-dualist is the victor so this is what number five says he let me read out the translation so translation we approve of the birthlessness the non-origination theory that is revealed by them by whom by those philosophers we do not quarrel with them o disciples understand that this philosophy is free from dispute this philosophy is free from little bit of humor here also you can see so what are these philosophers proved by their debates they have proved that our philosophy of non-origination that the universe did not originate because how how did they prove they will immediately protest we never said anything like that you don't have to say it every possible uh theory of origination is proved to be wrong by one or the other of you so if every possible if it is not possible that there can be origination exactly what we are saying non-origination the universe never originated from brahman that's what we have said in the second and third chapters earlier and that's what you have shown me unwittingly you don't want to show me that but you have shown me that and he says this ajayatim the theory of non-origination which has been shown by or or the non-origination nature of the ultimate reality or the non-origination of the world let's put it this way non-origination of the world which has been shown by you or revealed by you we we give us give it our stamp of approval you have shown us and we say good we agree we didn't even try you showed it to us and we do not dispute with you with them we do not dispute aviva thus you understand the non-con non-debatable or non-controversial nature of advaita so all this was in trying to i was he was explaining the term aviva how is advaita beyond debate all right very good now what is the advaitic position so in the next few verses he gives us the advaithic position what is the ultimate reality and what is this thing that we are experiencing what is the one and what is the many what is the relationship between brahmana and the world according to you oh god since you are so clever please do tell us now what he will say here in the next three verses actually is a repetition verse number six seven and eight you will see it's uh it's complete copy and paste from third chapter verse number 20 21 and 22 i think um yes 2021 and 22. so the advaitha theory of non-duality and non-origination is repeated here but very nice verses let's go through them quickly number six verse number six [Music] the debaters or the philosophers they vouch for or they they show or they vouch for the birth of an unborn positive entity but how can a positive entity that is unborn and immortal undergo mortality what they are all saying is that there is an ultimate reality all of them say some god or brahman or something and they say that this reality is it becomes this world it becomes the world and us jagat and jiva there's an ultimate reality call it god and god becomes or produces whatever you call whatever your theory is from that god has come this world and us also we have come but he asks how is the unborn going to be born how is the changeless going to change how is the immutable be going to become the world and us individual beings if the immutable the unchanging becomes something it is i mean i can't resist this it's very unbecoming of the absolute to do that uh all right so what is this theory um what what is this uh that god is objecting to he's saying that all the dualistic theories they do agree that there is some ultimate reality and many of them are theistic religions which call it god ishwara from god has come this world god creates the universe and god creates us sentient beings individuals all right what's wrong with that what's wrong is if you ask all these philosophers is your god immortal yes of course god cannot die is your god unborn is there a birth of god you know the children will ask who created the world god created it who created what children will keep on asking who how where did god come from if universe came from god then where did god come from with that question all the theoristic schools dualistic schools will inflexibly they will say that there is no birth of god god is the first cause there is no cause philosophically speaking first cause christian theology um islamic theology you know vaishnavas shaivas shaktas anybody who believes as god as the cause of the universe will say god is the first cause there is no cause of god god is unborn nobody gives birth to god god is also immortal god never dies i was studying buddhism and it's very interesting they insist that everything changes and there's a reason why they say everything changes moment to moment everything is changing there is if there's something that's unchanging that cannot be real what is real is always changing for them because what is real well how do you define reality for the buddhist that which can produce an effect is a reality that which can produce an effect is a reality um so water in in your glass is real because when you drink it it produces the desired effect quenches your thirst but water in the mirage is not real because when you go to drink it you cannot it does not produce the desired effect or expected effect so it's not real um producing an effect is the sign of reality number one we are now this is buddhism number two to produce an effect the cause must change always the cause remaining unchanging cannot produce anything reduction is a process of change so to be real something must be a cause it must produce an effect and to be a cause one must change therefore all real things change all real things change change also means perish so all real things will be born and they perish cause and effect is all that there is so this is the basic buddhist view of this universe this arising that arises this not arising that does not arise this is buddhist view of causality but why i'm saying all this is the interesting thing is even the buddhists who do not admit god even the buddhists if you ask them what is the ultimate goal nirupana nirvana now is that nirvana unchanging or changing unchanging nirvana is unchanging so you'll say if it's unchanging then according to your philosophy it's unreal no nirvana is both real and unchanging so there they will make an exception so for every why i said buddhist because it's a non-theistic philosophy it's not they're not talking about god in fact many of them are outright atheistic but even in their philosophy there is an ultimate reality to be attained which is unchanging and of course all the theistic religions talk about god now god of others objection is this you are saying that the ultimate reality is unchanging immortal unborn always existing and then you are saying it transforms into the effect it produces something production can be of in two ways um according to the nayakas the cause is changes and produces an effect different from it and according to the sankhyas the cause itself changes into the effect but in each case there must be some change in the cause how can the unchanging change this is what god upon is pointing out look at your own contradiction oh dualists you all admit unchanging god and then you all admit that god produces the universe with production according to your own philosophy means change then god changes if god changes then god is subject to change and then we got to be subject to increase and decrease birth and death not god anymore by your own definition because you you admit an unchanging god so this is what he is saying look at the here some of these words are very buddhistic so he uses words like dharma by dharma he does not mean the way we understand her moral or religion or ethics here but this but this meant these sentient beings they called him dharma he again and again uses this term we jivas what we in vedanta called jiva the buddhists sometimes called them dharma sometimes called them power and godopathy uses a lot of buddhist terminology there is some ultimate unborn reality this philosopher say that unborn is born they will say no no god is not born world is born yes it comes to the same thing if the world is born from god then god must change in some form or the other there must be some change somewhere ajata hima ultimate reality how can you say it it is born you see why the dualists get into this tangle i mentioned ellen what's the clay and pot example see the the whole idea is when you start with the part then the way you proceed remember it's not about a part it's about the world and god but let's start with pot the example is part when you start with the pot you are told that there is a cause of the part part is subject to beginning and destruction but the cause of the part is not subject to beginning and destruction part is created part is destroyed so what is this wonderful cause the cause is clay cause means material cause material out of pistol part is made there is a material from which in which the spot is born cause is clay effective spot effect comes and goes where does it come from from the clay where does it go when it is broken back to the clay so this clay is immortal within quotes but the effect part is mortal it can be broken it can be made can be broken so wonderful there is such this effect that this cause must be wonderful now if you stop there there this is dualism you have established cause and effect god and the world god on one side on one side god on the other side the world and us individuals what is the problem the problem is now that this becomes if you stop here it becomes a problem the problem is where is this card we seem to think that the play is separate and part is separate god is separate and the world is separate and now this god becomes a matter of faith religion will teach us there is god in vaikuntha in heaven think about god and believe in god worship in god god is the cause of the universe and therefore all powerful and god only can rescue us and all these things will come up and any rational investigation just like gordo pada is saying but modern atheists if you take this idea god is the cause of the universe every modern scientist and atheist will laugh at it and will prove it will take five minutes for them to disprove the whole thing ellen watts calls it the crackpot theory not that the theory itself is wrong the theory itself the problem is you stop too early what advaita vedanta says is yes part stage one stage two clay is the cause what is the effect stage two stage three investigate the effective ask now where is that uh cause where is god uh advaita says look at the effect the material cause will always be there in in the effect so when you look at the pot you will see clay you will find tray there where will you find clay outside the party i mean on the outside on the inside on the top and the bottom through and through you will discover that it is clay and clay only the part is clay and clay only this means that there is no part apart from the clay there is no such thing called a pot apart from the clay this is advaita is doing this the dualist has all just stopped in the second stage itself cause and effect god and the word stop advaita is saying look at the part you will find the clay everywhere in it not only everywhere now if you ask what is this thing called pot which is supposed to have been produced from the clay apart from the clay where is this thing called pot you say pot has been produced show me here you're holding it no i'm holding clay every bit what i'm touching is clear what you are seeing is clay then where is this spot you realize suddenly that there is no part apart from the clay there is no effect apart from the cause in fact advaita says go one step further and say actually this is all the third step when you go one step further you see that the part is only a name it's only a name given to the clay it's only a shape a form and it's only used in clay you can't store water in the pot you can store water this is the form rupa and this is the name pot name form use but materially the substance wise reality-wise it is clear and clear only then the final conclusion if the clay has not really produced a pot apart from it if the cause has not really produced a effect apart from it without effect why will you call the cause a cause let me repeat that why do you call something a cause because it produced an effect but the effect effect has not really been produced there's no new thing called effect no new second thing called a pot apart from the clay you can't show it if the effect is not there really then the cause is not really a cause it doesn't mean the cause will disappear only its name the term cause will disappear reality remains neither cause nor effect beyond cause and effect similarly atman existence consciousness place pure being or pure awareness you discover it in every aspect of our experience then you realize this world which you are experiencing is not apart from consciousness there is no word you experience other than other than in consciousness then you realize this world is simply name form and used nama rupa gavahara superimposed on consciousness right now and therefore consciousness is not turya is not a cause and world is not an effect thuriya is cause and effect vilaksana the reality is other than transcending cause and effect this is the advaita position we have done all this earlier now this is what god is talking about now as we go through these these verses are very good just a reiteration of what we have done it might be disturbing to dualistic conceptions that's why theistic or dualistic philosophers religious people they dislike advaita if my approach is basically dualistic i will find this disturbing what do you do what i feel is either we adopt this approach if you approach adopt this approach you can still be devotional at a transactional level there's no problem shankaracharya is devotional there's no problem at all but your primary your when you're pushed you will admit that this is the reality this is what advaitans do this is how we see it in transaction of course there is a temple or a church and there is devotion i enjoy it i love doing that but i know ultimately at the most fundamental level as the ultimate truth i am that if we can if you're comfortable with this attitude go ahead there's no problem this is this is really for you then and this is the most i would say that is the best situation but there are some there are many in fact who are deeply devotional by nature and this kind of approach hurts them and it may actually be damaging to their spiritual practice so for them if you are there in a manduka class um what i would recommend is you go ahead with your nishtha that means your devotion to god that itself is very helpful and that will give everything this one you sort of bracket it off as study of of advaitha philosophy yes this is what advaita teaches now i know it why i'm saying this is in the class i will not make a compromise when i'm teaching mandu ke karika i will teach mandook i will not try to water it down or dilute it by saying now let me fit god upon the back into my krishna bhakti no so my theological framework no he smashes all of that and if i in this fourth chapter especially he smashes all of that and if i don't show it i will not be fulfilling my responsibilities as a teacher so yes now all right if your questions hold on to that let me go on arjuna has a question wait you have to be unmuted yes so a lot of it's little off topic but i needed some clarification so a lot of people consider mind and ignorance as synonymous but mind is kind of inert so am i right in saying that mind is a product of ignorance not the other way around mind is a product of ignorance and ignorance is also inert the first definition of ignorance of advaita vedant which we all memorize the only reality is the non-dual existence consciousness bliss brahman that's the only reality ignorance etcetera the entire set jara samova the entire set of inert entities to unreal so the first unreal product the product itself is unreal is uh and maya is not a product maya is the cause and everything else is a transformation of maya so starting from maya or ignorance from there and all its products they are all um appearances thank you thank you um omg there's also a question on the chat from just let it be there uh we'll take it up let me just do a couple of more verses the reason is this is one topic he is repeating the conclusions of advaita vedanti which we have already done in the third chapter so let me just repeat let me just go through the other two two other verses seven and eight [Music] my let me read the translation the mortal cannot become mortal similarly the mortal cannot become immortal the mutation of one's nature can take place in no way whatsoever so what is one's essential nature can never change which means tudya or the atman can never be bound can never be an effect and what is born can never be an ultimate reality so what is being said here you see the way we understand it the dualistic philosophers and all dualistic frameworks there is an ultimate reality god and god has created us separate from god so there is god separate from us and we have been created you are right god cannot change god is unchangeable but we are changing and we are separate from god so god is not harmed by that you know your original idea that uh the original objection of god or father how can the immortal change into something so we are saying that the immortal god does not does not change into anything god is immortal unborn and immortal and undying but god has created us somehow we are separate from god and here we are sentient beings we are individuals um and we are we go from life to life suffering because of our karma in different bodies in different life experiences and finally we by the grace of god by our prayer and meditation and good works we finally get moksha and in moksha we the different kinds of moksha these are all dualistic philosophies so salukia in the same world as god that means we go to heaven and stay with god closeness that means we stay in the presence of god we all very devotional relationships then um sarupya by meditating on god we become god-like we attain the form as if like god then there is sayudya becoming oneness with god by meditating we feel a oneness with god we don't literally become god but we feel this oneness with god we have a and there are different ways of describing it so this is the world view of one group of dualists now the problem is if god has created us and we are separate from god and we have somehow fallen from heaven or we are trapped in samsara and going through all this and finally we will go back to that place and if you are separate from god then god is not here god is there in heaven this is not um where god is god is somewhere else separation in space god is in some other time right now i am not with god then i will be with god after death post-mortem spirituality or um after uh you know after the pralaya when the universe is destroyed finally cosmos cosmic dissolution then i will be one with god then pretty long time or in different ways we are in many of us we accept these things like um or after i attain a moksha subtle point after i attain moksha i will be one with god which i am not i'll be one with god now then after moksha after salvation after um liberation i'll be one with god after enlightenment i will be one with god another mistake now i am not one with god after enlightenment i will be in the presence of god or one with god after samadhi or in samadhi then only i will be one with god not now now i am in samsara all of this god father says is a deep deep mistake because if you think like this then you have limited god think what you are saying god is not here god is there so there is a space there is a place where god is not there this world this universe which is all that we know when god is not here there is some other world some heaven where god is god is not now god is then after cosmic dissolution after samadhi after enlightenment after moksha then not now and god is something else we said i will separate from god god has created a separate but if god is created separate from god you are admitting oh dualist be careful of what you are admitting you are admitting there are things which are apart from god there are things which are not god there are realities which are not god then your god is limited god is limited means there is a place where god is not there there is a time when god is not there and there are things many many things billions of entities and all of us which are not god which are apart from god such a god which is limited in time space and object limited by time space and object is within maya is not above maya everything within maya is limited everything limited is subject to change everything subject to change is subject to destruction then your god will die god will be born and you'll die thing which you started with that immortal god is not possible within maya this is one approach the other approach is they say no no i understand i'm not saying i'm separate from god i understand that i am brahmana and this world is nothing other than brahman but now before this creation of the world before my birth before i was created i was one with god now i have become this jiva i am brahman but now i have become jiva before creation i was born with brahman but now i have become this jiva i am going from life to life and after my spiritual practices after i gain enlightenment i will again be one with brahman and i will say yes i am brahman but right now no again a big mistake god apartheid says that brahman immortal which can be transformed into a mortal being subject to birth and death that brahman infinite which can be transformed into limited being like me limited in in space and time in power and capacity that brahman which is one and non-dual which can be actually changed into many billions and it is all duality and plurality that brahman is not brahman at all it's an impossibility if it is possible then that brahman is no longer important so brahman if you admit the nature of turi or brahman cannot change then you must admit brahman is here brahman is now and brahman is you yourself that brahman which is everywhere he must be here that brahman which is at all times must be now also and that brahman which is everything nothing is different from that brahman just like all pots are not different from clay nothing is different from brahman then brahman cannot be different from me i must be that brahmana ahmram asked me when now right now not after moksha right now not before creation right now before creation during the so-called creation and after the end of creation creation makes no difference to your brahman nature you are that trauma so this is the seventh verse that which is immortal can never become mortal that which is mortal matyam can never become immortal the essential nature can never be different fire never becomes cold typical example so whenever there is fire it must be hard brahman as such if you are brahman then you must eternally be brahmana right now whether you you understand it or not in uttarakhand sadhus say i've heard once others understanding punjabi he said this is a very strange paradoxical philosophy or swamis you know it or you do not know it you accept it or you do not accept it you are god you are rama you are god a few days ago dora i i hope she is not listening i don't know she's there anyway it doesn't matter she came to my door and she was banging on it and then she left a little note very urgent um then i've kept the note very interesting she says she generally uh any phone calls come she deals with it but and she's not supposed to transfer phone calls to me but she's this is very urgent because this gentleman he's been calling he called nearly 10 times i think that morning and he has got a question the note says he he wants to know who he is and i told him dora said i told him that he is he is god but he is not satisfied so uh yeah if dora goes on that way i'll be out of a job it's my job to tell you tell everybody that you are god you know it or not you accept it or not the fact is that you are drama all right there are a couple of let's take the yes if you have got questions there are some questions in the chat but before that let me do the seventh one eighth one also it's all one set eight number eight yes number nine all right can't find the translation here uh number nine says that which is by nature immortal though that that ultimate reality are you the the atman which is immortal by nature and it becomes smarter did you not say that i was brahmana now i am a jiva i will become brahmana again by my spiritual practice then by such an artificially gained immortality krita kenobi how will that be firm how will that be absolute how will that be forever so what he's asking here is um god upon the saying all right let me grant what you are saying because many people think in this way gauravala says let's follow it follow that track i was brahmana but after creation in samsara i have somehow or the other because of my or something i have become a jiva i'm a sentient being now jib an individual i was the absolute i am an individual being now i was brahmana i am a jiva now so and by my spiritual practices over many lifetimes maybe ultimately i will realize that i am brahmana and when i realize i will become brahman again i will become the absolute the individual will become the absolute again what gaurapada objects to hear is he says an immortality which was lost and you became mortal and then by effort you became immortal again what guarantee is there that it won't be lost again if you were really brahmana and you somehow you became ajiva and then again by all this attending lots of manduka classes finally you become brahmana what is to guarantee that you will not become a jiva again if you are absolute and you slipped into individuality into into an individual being and by spiritual practices you become the absolute again actually you become the absolute then why will you not come back again the question what is being asked here is is moksha liberation an actual event that happens in time there are many events in our lives so will one day an event come which is called moksha liberation i was bound so so long now i am liberated it seems to be like that the whole way we are taught whether in all indian philosophies that we are in the cycle of birth and death and then finally one day we will be liberated all of this was real and now that liberation also will be real or in every religion that we are now entrapped in the world we have this worldly existence and one day we will be liberated from it we will attain salvation now god of allah again objects to all this he says that which is an artificial moksha will be is is always vulnerable to being lost that which is produced will be lost one day if moksha is not our nature if it is something that comes it can again go away if it is our nature moksha is our real nature then it must be here now i had moksha earlier i have moksha now and then i will i will have moksha forever amrita means immortality you see the very word immortality means there cannot be any mortality you cannot say at one time i was mortal then i became immortal no i was immortal i am immortal i will remain immortal immortality has nothing to do with time it's always there moksha is not an event in time it's always real and what does advaita do only this delusion of not having moksha of being born in bondage this delusion is dissolved that the problem of not having moksha and then seeking moksha what happens is when you get enlightenment we realize that we always we're free and the seeking for freedom the seeking for moksha seizes because it is my nature i always was true and now i am free and always will be free i just did not know it did not feel it did not realize it i was not one point here moksha is your real nature you don't have to attain moksha all this is advaita vedant remember godapada it's quite different from everything else that you hear from god of other perspective from advaita vedanta perspective you don't have to work for moksha you don't have to do spiritual practices for moksha it is already there it is ours you are always beyond samsara never were affected by samsara never had a birth never had a death only thing is that we are not yet enlightened advaita remember it does not say that you are already enlightened also no some why i'm saying this is some new advaitans make the mistake there's nothing to be done you are not only you are the athman or brahman you're also all enlightened being wrong big mistake you've got already an enlightened being then you don't need anything you're already as even booked but honestly can we claim that if you cannot claim it if we really feel that i am not a jeevan mukhtar now if i am not enlightened then advaita vedante is for you and all this effort is to show us that our uh that our real nature is motion it is not something produced so the immortal does not become mortal and does not have to become immortal again and though you have never fallen into bondage you will never gain freedom so there is no bondage and there is no gaining freedom it never says that there is no freedom there is freedom and that's your real nature moksha is our real nature moksha is another word for atman in fact one swami put it very beautifully just as pot is only a name for what is actually clay jiva is only a name for brahman you are brahman you just have taken on a particular name form an activity called jeeba okay so this is the restatement of advaita all of these verses are there in third chapter 20th 21st and 22nd before we go on to the next one let me take a couple of nobody has raised the hand but chat so one is harpreet is saying uh what logic does asankian use to disprove advaita i never thought of that i always think about it from the advertising perspective what logic does advertiser use to disprove sankhya yes um many things for example one thing which advaita disputes with sankhya is the plurality of cells advaita says we are one atman one consciousness one absolute reality non-dual without a second non-duality means there cannot be many uh beings we all appear to be different but we are only one we appear to be different because we are associated with uh these products of maya different bodies different minds and therefore like light shining through different colored glass panes in a church from inside you will get different colored light which is the same light which is streaming through them so the colored glass makes a difference not that the light is different similarly we are one consciousness but we are streaming through different filters body mind maybe appear to be different sankey says no no no each body mind behind each body mind is a separate self separate purusa so there are many pure consciousnesses now you say what logic argument sankey says your oneness argument does not hold ground why because if you are oneself then the birth of one would be the birth of all the death of one would be the death of all if one is happy then all would be happy one is sad then all would be sad even worse if one is enlightened then all would be not worse good in one sense if one is enlightened then all would be enlightened if one is ignorance then everybody will be in ignorance because with all these all of these pertains to the self i am in ignorance i am happy i am sad if i am one with everybody and everybody will have the same effect if one is sleeping the other everybody will fall asleep [Music] now what will you say to this logic i think let me you know see how do you respond assignment anybody if you raise a hand or unmute yourself or something devonic yes i think the difference is in only body mind and uh and mine and the the athman is the one that is unchanging so correct when you say birth but one is the birth of all immediately the simple answer is what is what is this the birth is of the body consciousness is not born with the birth of the body birth is of the body one is sad yeah everybody will become sad no sadness is in the mind gorda pada would say remember the example of different parts in space if in one pot there is dirty water will the water in all pots become dirty no in one pot uh it's smoky will all pots become full of smoke no so what is in one mine need not be in all minds enlightenment knowledge comes in the mind of the guru it would be very nice if everybody got the same enlightenment but that will not happen because ignorance and enlightenment are both in the mind they are not in in consciousness so all of these arguments don't hold good um so yes this is just one one of the points the second point in which sankhya and advaitha dispute is the reality of the universe remember when advaita says consciousness is non-dual not only does it mean that there are the many selves which appear our appearances they are only an association with body and mind are we different but actually we are not different but it also means this this huge universe with billions of different entities it must be an appearance because non-dual knows second so from brahman's point of view there is no second entity all these entities in the universe are actually appearances in brahmin um so sankey ever disputed sankey will say no they are all real and there will be a debate the debate boils down to the same satiri versus that of the difference is the solution which advaita vedanta gives is advaita vedanta accepts two levels of truth at least two or even three levels of truth paramatic absolute reality brahman only turiya without a second nothing else is there a transactional reality where the entire world jiva jagat is always admitted there is ishvara god is there world is there we are all there everything is all dualistic practices they can go on religious practices secular activities all of them go on in this transactional world but is not ultimately real ultimately only brahman is real and there is also a third level of reality which is illusion dream appearance right so um sankhya accepts only one level that means basically one level they do not make the distinction between paramatic and here is this world and it is all prakriti real and you are consciousness separate from it this has to be realized that's it this is where the real clashes um there's a question rabbit bob i think yes can you hear me i can hear you so gaurab did not use the baba harika argument right he he did not use the baba harika argument so for him um then he he you're saying that the all the all the dualism or all that stuff is in the body mind am i correct so yes for goda father he does not talk about the paramatic of eva harika and prativasika three levels he actually talks about two levels for him there is the ultimate reality and everything else is an appearance so in fact at one place the three states waking dreaming deep sleep he reduces them to two states sleep and dreaming so for him dreaming is dreaming waking is also dreaming and sleep is deep sleep so yeah that's what godfather does okay let me just finish the next two very beautiful verses have come when uh number nine and ten um we'll take the question after after these two verses number nine viki [Music] is talking about your essential nature as as brahman as tudya is a very nice verse it reminds me of oh let me give you the translation first number nine by the word nature it is to be understood that which is permanently acquired or is intrinsic instinctive non-produced or unchanging in character okay that sounds pretty dry but actually it's pretty uh pretty inspiring i was reminded when reading this verse dr radhakrishnan server radha krishna had once said our ultimate goal is to become what we are and that sounds paradoxical you see well it makes total sense to to us here in the manduka class our ultimate goal is to become what we are and here he says what we are historia that is our real nature this is our spiritual heritage we are that already and he says it can never be lost we are choicelessly we are drummond we are ever immortal ever free of death no coronavirus can kill you the tudia and uh ever free of misery ever free of the cycle of birth and death ever fulfilled that we are hungering going around with a begging bowl in the world for a little bit of happiness no you're ever fully already fulfilled so this is our real nature and for that he gives um examples gauder patha gives examples what is this real nature like that you are brahman you are turiya what is it like sam said this request little explanation thank god that shankaracharya has given us a commentary siddhi here means the supernatural powers acquired by yogis so in patanjali yoga sutras in the third chapter siddhi father there are descriptions of multiple supernatural occurred powers you can fly you can levitate you can read other people's minds you can control other people and all those things are there so these things you find in every religion actually for serious spiritual practitioners whatever your path will come across these extraordinary phenomena they are called um esp extra sensory powers now what shankaracharya means here is there are people that there are yogis who by their past lives practices are born with these powers from their early childhood they spontaneously manifest these powers which have been acquired by yogic practices in past lives and they will retain these powers throughout their life in this life remember these powers do not mean mean that a person is very spiritual may not be there are very spiritual people advanced spiritual practitioners who may not display these powers there are people who display these powers who may not at all be particularly spiritual maybe pretty worldly also now i met a person many years ago in india so there is a university dedicated to studying yoga it's called s vyasa it's near so there was a seminar there i went i was one of the speakers and um they have a whole section dedicated to the study of these extraordinary powers interesting um so i went they took me on a tour they use a lot of modern gadgets and all to study whether it's possible or not now there was this one person an american guy there who was one of the speakers he demonstrated a lot of these several of these extraordinary powers and in front of us he was mind reading and predicting and all these things now you know that many of these things are magic tricks so any magician any illusionist can give a very um convincing spectacular demonstration so there are such people everywhere in the world magicians and there's a there's a trick this it's a an illusion it's not really as they're not really super powers or anything like that so i wanted to know how much of that was magic tricks and how much of that was a real power so one day after breakfast and this gentleman was the disciple of a guru of actually an advaita guru so this gentleman american gentleman after breakfast i was walking the lawn i saw him and i went up to him started speaking with him and then i said just for my own conviction simple test just right now just right now just tell me right now what's on my mind so nothing complicated more complicated easy to trick you so what's on my mind and he said think of a number i thought of a number and then he wrote down something on a piece of paper and gave it to me he said now tell me your number i said 19 look at the look at the piece of paper you written down 19. now that's a very simple test and can you read the mind yes okay immediately that can be a little scary to see that somebody who can actually read your mind straight away um i asked him so how much of what you displayed was an actual um you know like siddhi spiritual power or this supernatural power not spiritual supernatural power how much of it was magic tricks some of it was magic tricks how much was spiritual power us this supernatural powers how much magic trick he smiled and he said i'll never tell you that it's a mix of both then i asked him what does your guru say about these things he smiled he said he said my guru says it's all nonsense that we shouldn't do these things now what is shankaracharya's commentary here what what does god want to say just as these yokes some of these people oh i asked him when did you get these so he said something interesting he said i did not get these powers by any spiritual practice i got them from a childhood they just automatically they started happening one day and they have been there every time i want i can do these things so he says coming from past lives these powers spontaneously manifest just like that your turin you have the greatest superpower of all which makes you immortal nothing can kill you nothing can destroy you you the pure consciousness there's no chance of it at all it makes you the reality of this universe the entire universe appears in you like a movie you are the reality of the universe universe depends on you you are not a tiny little creature which depends on the universe not at all it makes you completely ever fulfilled as thorium you do not need anything from anybody from life life and death are the same to you we have to stay alive no our life is horrible i have to die no neither attraction nor repulsion you are ever fulfilled you are the infinite what is one small life to you what is one little death to you nothing that is your superpower and you are born with it much greater than all these supernatural powers sam siddiqui means every object has its own nature swab however so like fire the classic example fire is hot whenever there is fire it's hot similarly similarly whatever you think you are you're actually in that sense your very nature is that you are touri your pure consciousness then sahaja yoga things which are born with so he gives an example of shankaracharya gives an example the way the birds fly at one point the chicks of the bird they develop and they launch maybe sometimes the mother might nudge them into up the nest and they start flying around exactly like that that my nature is thorium and that i can manifest it and live a life of being a given mukta it's exactly like that it is in born it's your own spiritual heritage it's your birthright sahaja you are born with it and then akrita not artificial natural he gives the example of water falling down down so water rolls downhill natural nothing has to be done about it it's because of gravity it rolls down exactly like that thorium is natural for you and then shankaracharya says all of these whether it is supernatural powers of yogis whether it is the heat in the fire natural property whether it is the instinctive ability to fly in a bird whether it is all natural actions have happening like water rolling downhill all of these are still within maya they are all appearances your real nature is higher than these it is paramartic you are brahmana prakritis you this is your real nature which you can never give up these are certain examples how many [Music] translation tenth verse so intrinsically by nature all souls all of us all sentient beings are intrinsically free from old age and death but by imagining old age and death and being engrossed in that thought you lose your or you appear to lose your intrinsic nature he says so you are thorium birth death disease old age these do not affect you in gita sri krishna 13th chapter he says the first thing is to see that birth is sorrow death is sorrow old age is sorrow disease is sorrow maturity means you must see these things that you must understand viscerally understand bill who is 95 years old yesterday he was telling me he was quoting betty dave betty davis and he was quoting very nervous and said uh old age is not far sissies old age is not for sissies only this tough chronic disease and pain is tough so this sorrow one must see the nature of all of these is sorrow these these are the things which the bhagavan buddha saw as the prince siddhartha that's what set him off on a spiritual uh journey he saw a sick person he saw a dis as an old person and he saw a dead person with three sides and then he saw a monk so these four sides set him up on a spiritual quest these four we are at the end of the quest god of father says you will realize your real nature which is free of these free of sorrow and that is your real nature right now the problem is not knowing our real nature as thuriya the witness of waking dreaming and deep sleep ever separate from waking dreaming and deep sleep ever the ground of waking dreaming and deep sleep the the gross subtle and causal universes appear and disappear in you but you're free of all of them at all times not knowing this we superimpose body and mind upon ourselves we think not only think we may make it our living reality i am this body i am this sick body i am this old body and it will drag on like this for a few more years until i die no right now you are not you are the witness to that i am this mind which has got so many defects desire and restlessness you are the witness the ever restful witness of the restless mind the ever desire free consciousness which is the witness of the mind with desires you don't have desires if you are aware of the desire in your mind then it's an object in the mind you are the witness ever free of the object i think not knowing this superimposing identifying with body and mind mind javanteitan manishaya with this kind of worldview manisha means wisdom or philosophy with this kind of worldview these poor fellows they they lose what is their birthright that innate natural instinctive ever there we lose it as if it's not really lost never lost always there but as if for practical purposes it is lost it's like a billionaire who is on on welfare why i don't know where my billions are i don't know you are actually a billionaire but you have to go and ask for a handout why because i can't access my billions why can't you access because you don't know where are kept here we don't know how to access our turian nature that's what vedanta what governor father wants to introduce us to okay so this was nothing new just he's reminding us he knows we have been out of touch for eight or nine months so uh he's reminding us of our real nature two questions it seems yes in the chat as well there were two questions which came early let's see the ones who have raised their hands yes swamiji i wanted to know the difference between sakshi important question difference between knower and witness gyatta is the knower and remember both of them refer to you it refers to us so when am i the gyata and am i the knower i am the knower when i see i am seeing i am hearing i taste i smell i touch i think i know my thoughts i remember i know my memories so i in all of these cases i am the knower and then whenever i do sakshi all the time i am the consciousness which lights up all this knowing that consciousness which shines upon the mind and through the mind gets connected with the eyes and now calls itself the consciousness itself with the mind calls itself i am the seer or i am the one who is hearing or smelling or tasting or touching so the sakshi is the witness which becomes the knower or appears to become the knower in identification with body mind in day to day the jiva is the knower yata all of us we consider ourselves with the knower we don't give such a philosophical epistemological term to ourselves but we practically consider ourselves to be the knower i am the one who reads mandukki upanishad i listen to the lectures i operate the computer know a doer but what am i apart from computer apart from body apart from mind apart from thoughts what am i consciousness that ever shining consciousness is the witness now this is the often it is a mistake the knower tries to be the witness nowhere says all right i will stop hearing listening talking thinking now i am the witness within a few seconds again here thinking something some thinking will come some hearing smelling some desiring will come it becomes over again noah does not become the witness the real witness in advaita vedanta the real witness is permanent always there you don't become it you don't start it and stop it notice witnessing is constant knowing is ever fluctuating every episode of knowing hearing smelling tasting touching it starts and stops it begins and ends sakshi never begins ends behind every knowing sakshi is there all throughout our waking life when we are knowing many things the knowing means objects of knowledge are changing many objects of knowledge here and our instruments are changing hearing smelling tasting thinking sometimes sense organ sometimes mind and the virtues in the mind are changing seeing something seeing the coffee is different from smelling the coffee is different from tasting the coffee is different from touching the coffee each victi is different so knowing is full of change continuously throughout the day we have thousands and thousands of knowing these all of them are lit up by the one constant consciousness but that consciousness is not objective it's the pure subject which you really are advaita vedanta does not make you the consciousness it makes you aware that you are the consciousness this is what it in terms of what we just read that by this kind of philosophical thinking of the dualistic kind one loses once or appears to lose one's real nature as touria what kind of thinking always being identified with the noah identify with the consciousness which is always there you are free that is your heritage that's that instinctive natural non-artificial ever-present own nature essential nature what is that sakshi noah is the same sakshi but in association with these other instruments of of body mind important distinction what is the distinction sakshi gyata distinction witness and noah distinction which one are you both actually witness and depending on your pleasure whenever you want whenever you need you can be a knower these are your instruments the mind is your instrument body is your instrument you can be you can hear you can smell you can taste and touch but but know one thing that you are not done you are free of the knower the noah depends on you you don't depend on the lower you sakshi and noah are not two different things sakshi is separate from the word but the knower is not separate from sakshi noah cannot function without the sakshi there can be no knowing without consciousness that one consciousness alone makes the noah possible remember nowhere disappears in deep sleep no knowing is there no one disappears in deep sleep but sakshi is there sakshi is the sakshi of the presence of the knower sakshi is the sakshi of absence of noah witness is the witness of presence of noah witness is the witness of absence of noah also no one comes and goes noah is the jiva witness sakshi is brahman which one am i you are the sakshi in reality and because of fun you can happily function as the knower nobody can stop you but don't confuse yourself with the knower the knower is trapped in samsara and nowhere functions at the level of samsara very good question this one simple thing if we see from moment to moment if we say just meditate upon it or just notice it nowhere has all the problems sakshi has no problem at all noah is a character in the movie of your life sakshi is the light or the screen on which the movie plays good any other question another person has raised the hand it seems yes yes uh i just wanted to share two things for not question but two things uh one thing in relation to what the lady just said i read a quote by meister eckhart who said god is when you are not right and i think in this sense he met god as brahman brahman is when you are not you means here in that that sense yes yes and i thought it was very beautiful and the other thing i wanted to share i don't know whether you would approve of it uh through you or through your podcast which i've been listening throughout the year while you were gone at harvard uh i found buddha at the gas pump yes and uh two days ago i watched an interview with uh tony parsons who to me struck me as the modern british version of gowdapada as radical if not even more so in a way i i mean even rick archie did a great job i thought interviewing but he struggled through the interview because tony parsons i think is so far established he has no sense of identity whatsoever and he went as far as gaudapada saying there is no spiritual seeker there is no uh spiritual path uh so it was just and then i'm glad you brought that up um i mean with all respect to tony parsons i've heard some of his talks a little bit of what he's written i saw it online somebody recommend you send it to me one thing you have to be careful there yeah whether he's enlightened or not supposing he's also he is enlightened but what he does is he keeps the teaching at this level uh at the level of there is no path there is no seeker there is no but he refuses to teach he said he doesn't want to teach he just answers questions all right that itself is the teaching now the problem there is there is a constant mixture of the ultimate reality level and the transactional reality level so for example you know for me it was clear but i think yeah i know for you it's clear i just threw my ipad against the wall because he's so radical and people asked and then i watched another interview with with his students they're just so frustrated but for me was enjoyable because i studied right if you have a background of shankar or gorapada advaita vedanta somebody like tony parsons you can easily digest you can see where in what sense you have to understand 20 persons because as you notice all the other students as you said you'll be very frustrated with those teachings what's happening nothing is getting answered um the advantage of a traditional teaching like god apartheid or god of others is is at every level the the whole system is built up and finally the system is swept away but system is built up so that it makes sense if you start off at the top so gura pada for example in the second chapter he said there is no there is no origination there is no cessation there is no liberation that uh there is no one who is seeking liberation no one who is a spiritual seeker or practitioner and this is the ultimate truth all right now if you say that and you keep saying that and nothing less than that then it will not make sense see if you stand at the top of the roof and people are standing down down there on the ground floor and you say come up here but you refuse to send down a ladder if you refuse to then it's a it's it's a problem uh in a traditional teaching like advaita vedanta like gaurav or shankara the ladder is there it takes you up there otherwise it can be very frustrating for this and it can be very confusing for the student also you will have you will see in many of the cases of the students you'll notice not only tony persons but there are other teachers like that in you'll see in case of many of the students they they are attracted because they get something but not everything and so there is great confusion and great struggle and unhappiness also yes but good he pointed it out yes one more is there anybody else no all right we have run out of time yes many of these observations um are really useful and each of them you can spend um you know time considering it and exploring it further so dave like what she just said about tony parsons or what punemji said about sakshi and the uh gyata the witness and the knower these are doorways to enlightenment if you explore them you walk through it and at least at least clarity will come maybe you can't claim that i'm enlightened but a lot of clarity will come the zoom is actually quite uh quite amenable to such use i think let me do ashanti um [Music] very good let me see all of you in the grid view namaste everybody take care stay safe stay safe everybody thank you we'll meet again