Video 59

60. Mandukya Upanishad | Chapter 4 Karika 25-27

[Music] [Music] we are studying the fourth chapter of the mandu kyokarika of gowdapadha and we were on the 24th verse i think we had done the 24th verse so what's the story till now let me put it in let me put it in brief in a little give you the plot just the the essence of the plot before we get into the actual context so what's going on here um consider our common sense view of the world we think that there are things in the world a world full of objects and people and then we come and see them we see and hear and smell and taste and touch so this is going on and there are things outside there are things independent of our knowing them even if we do not see them even if we don't know them this world is there this is called in philosophy realism and now the realist is asking this question that is saying that there's a world outside our awareness as opposed to this there is this philosophy this this approach which says that no whatever you are experiencing all the people and all the things that you are experiencing is only in your mind in your awareness notice indistinguishably using mind and awareness this will be the key later on so in our mind or awareness whatever you call it this whole world is in your mind and there is in one sense there is no way no denying that it's in our mind without before coming to our mind we cannot see anything everything all the information through the senses has to come to the mind and then only we experience it that's true but the difference between the realist and the idealist is this the realist says there are things in the world which our senses perceive and the information is brought to the mind so there are independently existing things in the world and that's a very common sense way that's that's how we really look at the world is science and our day-to-day activities all go on that way the idealist says something amazing says that there is no proof of anything existing outside the mind in the mind only everything is going on this is called idealism and the discussion is about this now let me bring it to the context in the context of indian philosophy there were realists and there were idealists the nayakas among the hindus were realists among the buddhist schools there are four schools of buddhism two were realists one was an idealist so the four schools of buddhist philosophy have mentioned them earlier sotrantika the vigyanavada yogacara vignavada and sunnyvada what are the differences as far a lot of differences but as far as we are concerned this realism and idealism difference by the way here idealism and realism does not mean in the common sense way we think realism means a very realistic person who is very practical and hardheaded and and efficient in day-to-day activities he is realistic not in that sense realism is a philosophical position that things exist outside our knowledge by themselves and idealism here does not mean our way we normally use idealism the word in english a very idealistic person person who has got very noble ideas and you know ideals in life not in that sense idealism means all the things that we perceive are in our ideas only all right among the buddhists saudi arabia they were realists what did they say as far as we are concerned for this discussion the um satrantika said that things are there in the world outside and we directly perceive so what you are perceiving is the thing itself so when you see a flower or a painting you are seeing the thing itself directly whether you see smell taste touch directly the objects are being experienced corresponding to this is a in modern philosophy there is a position called naive realism then there is the second this uh the vaibhasika they say that no you do not perceive things directly there are things in the world outside and they come into your mind by your sense organs and then you perceive them but there are things outside your senses are bringing information from them and you what you are perceiving is in your mind no doubt about it but they are copies representations of things outside in the world corresponding to this there is a position in modern philosophy called critical realism or representative realism representative realism in fact modern medical science and physiology would agree with this position that all that you are experiencing is definitely internal but it is caused by external objects and the vignavadhi yogaja arabic is this is called the subjective idealist who criticizes this position and saying that all that you experience is in the mind true but there is nothing outside the mind mind is only reality like a dream for example and then the last one the shunyavadi who's not directly discussed here we'll be just mentioning later on that is an another position where it says not only external objects do not exist but the internal the mind also does not exist they ah externally shunyam and internally also name servum shunyum so corresponding to this in modern philosophy there is nothing in corresponding to this there is no modern philosophical school quite like the shunyawadi it's a very deep and sophisticated philosophy very close to advaith actually all right so this is the background i've set up the frame and what was the discussion we entered the story in the middle if you remember the subjective idealist had said nothing is there outside the mind and then the realist which realist here it is the buddhist realist surrounding they come in and they protest against the buddhist idealist why is this going on remember here gowda pada is refuting other other philosophies apart from advaitha but remember his unique way of refutation governor padre's unique way of reputation is not that he will take up a challenger and then discuss it directly with he takes up say the realist and then he finds out the idealist and uses the idealist to refute the realist the idealist and realists are always fighting so each has arguments against the other he will use their arguments to refute each other then whoever is remaining he will go and refute that person so in that in that way advaita remains as the victor he sets up the battle between opponents and then finally finishes of the survivor so what he is doing here is the common sense approach the realist approach is that he is taking as an example the buddhist south ranking and against that he is playing of another buddhist the vignavadi and the vignavadi we will see defeats the realist that but this subjective idealist defeats the buddhist realist and then that subjective idealist is now targeted by godhapath himself and so and that is refuted now in this at this point the realist buddhist realist is attacking the buddhist idealist what is the attack you say that only everything exists in the mind not possible because the awareness is just awareness without external causes to give variety how are the varieties of our experiences taking place in your awareness you see a flower you smell the fragrance you touch the softness of the petals you see the colour of the flower and the shape of the flower all multiple perceptions multiple sensory perceptions unless there is something outside which is causing the perception of color and fragrance and touch how will all these varieties come in consciousness itself which is homogeneous consciousness is no variety where is variety coming unless there is something outside causing nemita causing these these changes to come in consciousness so by the very fact that you have changes in consciousness which you cannot deny all of us have a variety of experiences you cannot deny it then i have to explain how are we having all these experiences if there is nothing outside consciousness so there must be something outside dwaya he says dualist a second entity must be admitted outside consciousness not only that the second example he second reason he gave for the existence of something apart from consciousness is see pain some ex some important or powerful experiences which we have pain physical mental pain consciousness is consciousness awareness is just there why suddenly such a powerful shock comes unless there is a body and the finger body touches fire and there is a burning and then you experience so much pain unless those things are there where this suddenly this powerful experience of pain comes he says some clay chassis pain intense pain especially these are buddhists so they are discussing and their whole philosophy starts from the existence of pain and how to overcome pain so the very existence of pain shows that there must be something outside the awareness which causes pain in the awareness okay what is the answer given by the who subjective idealist vignavadi remember we are now or gowdapadha is now using the vikyanawadi so he says please reply to this person what is the answer objection external objects must be there answer no they are not there why not verse number 25 this is the answer for the realist let me read out the english meaning so some people have entered the waiting rooms and joint it seems yes they're having some issue connecting oh okay okay or they're coming in and out and joining or out falling dropping in and out here all right so this is number 25 what is being said here reply of the subjective idealist vikya navadi in accord with the perception of its cause knowledge is supposed to be based on external objects but from the standpoint of reality it is held that the external cause is no cause hold on to this phrase from the standpoint of reality from the standpoint of reality what is he saying here he is saying my friend you are saying external objects there is something real outside your awareness which is causing your experiences yes hold on to that that position hold on firmly to that position who is saying vigyanawadi why because i'm going to in the cricket term i'm going to smash the ball out of the field now that you say that there is an external object shankaracharya explains this in his commentary you remember that this text is a three layered text at the core is manduka upanishad and then around it is the layer of mandu kakarika and on that there is the layer of the commentary by shankaracharya so now i'm going to the commentary by shankaracharya where he says sure i agree your logic sounds irrefutable that because of um you know there must be some cause for different kinds of cognitions the duality which you have said second thing must exist or pain because of pain you say that there are other things which are external some real external thing is there that's what you are saying be steady in your in your objection hold on to it yukty darshanam then the opponent says bruhi kim tati yeah i'm saying that so what what's your answer it's very american way of saying it yeah so you say yes so what shankaracharya says i'm telling you he says that we do not accept that the variety of experiences in consciousness are caused by real external thing why on what basis are you rejecting this from the standpoint of reality what standpoint of reality he says what reality paramartha standpoint of absolute reality what is the standpoint of absolute reality consider this whole thing from the perspective of turiya that consciousness in which waker and waker's universe arise and disappear the dreamer and dreamers universe arise and disappear the deep sleeper and the potential the universe of sushupti arises and again passes away that one fundamental underlying consciousness running in and through and then he he says when you see that there is something external and you analyze it it's exactly like it is example of a pot he says standpoint of reality when you look at this part from standpoint of clay we have done this again and again apart from stand point of clay means when you examine the pot from stand point of clay means you see it is clay inside outside top bottom the whole thing is clay where is the pot when you say that there is a real part and then you analyze from point of view of clay no real part you see at least the clay is there in the example clay is there but if you go further clay itself is nothing other than pritivita the earth earth element and you go further back that will again be ultimately dissolved back into maya and maya is nothing but atman or brahman so in in consciousness alone whatever these external objects you are talking about which is giving rise to a series of experiences for you each of those objects when you analyze how will you analyze bhuta darshana from the standpoint of reality from the standpoint of turia you will find none of them exist apart from turiya they appear in consciousness not a bit of it is anything other than consciousness and they disappear in consciousness their appearances and they are names and forms and use nama rupa viva what is a pot apart from clay other than clay what remains of a pot the name name part is different from name clay so the part is a unique name it has a unique form part form and it has unique use you can put water in it which you cannot do for clay so name form and use belong to pot and the reality belongs to clay at this point you may still argue the realist may argue well at least a little bit of reality remains to the part because the name is there the form is there and the use is there but again do the analysis from the point of reality from the point of clay what is the form of the part apart from the clay will the form of the pot remain apart from the clay no will you be able to use the use of unique use of the pot you can put water or milk inside will you be able to do it without the clay no and if the use and the name have been used in the form have gone then what did the name the part name what does it refer to nothing it's an empty empty word so we see that name form and use have no reality of their own similar so the part does not exist apart from the clay from clay darshan from the standpoint of clay there is no external reality apart from the clay called pot and he says um there is no part when you take a standpoint of the clay from that perspective there is no nothing called pot apart from the clay yathashwa mahisha he says just as for example a buffalo and a horse are different a buffalo and the hearts are different in that way you cannot say part and clay are different i'll repeat that when you say buffalo and hearts are different two things similarly part and clay are two things no no no they you cannot say that apart from the clay no second thing called pot is there apart from so what buffalo horse pot clay what does it do to us apart from turiya there is no external object no external world the external world of the waker which you call the real world outside that appears exists and disappears appears and plays around and disappears in turia itself no there is no possibility of its existence outside um he gives some more examples your clock your shirt can it exist without the without the threads so the thread is the reality of your cloth your shirt apart from the thread what is the shirt it's a name shirt it's a form it's a particular use and none of them have any meaning any existence apart from the thread and he goes further also thread exists shankaracharya says he says the threads themselves if you look at them they are composed of fibers apart from the fibers the thread has no existence it's just a name a form and a use and he's just giving us an indication you go further and further you will go come back to consciousness everything that you apparently it seems to be outside you and and affecting you and causing different experiences but whatever you are experiencing outside man woman good bad pain pleasant nice things internally happiness sadness understanding memory loss of memory all of that these have no existence apart from that consciousness they are consciousness alone it is consciousness experiencing consciousness this very idea that i am an individual being with a mind and sense organs experiencing other people and other things this is samsara and why should we abandon this because bhuta darshana take the standpoint of reality from the standpoint of reality this is not true even right now it is not true if you abandon the standpoint of reality then you are in samsara in maya maya is that that point of maya point of reality and you can take brahman point of reality or stand point of reality bhuta darshanat means standpoint of reality and he says go deeper and deeper and deeper in this analysis till r up to cognitions and words disappear where will cognitions and words disappear in pure consciousness that you cannot name it is beyond names and it is beyond objectifying so all objectifying tendencies and all naming tendencies will ultimately disappear what will remain not nothing and the reality will remain that you the turia so other than this there is no external object which is causing us these things this is so this is analysis from the perspective of uh bhuta darshan standpoint of reality standpoint of tudya uh he gives further examples rajvadhiva sarpadi taha so when you analyze the suppose somebody says hey i see a snake there is a snake that is why i'm seeing a snake will you say there is a snake that is why i'm seeing a snake or will you say it's a snake rope example that snake which you saw it is a delusion of your mind there is no snake outside your argument there is a snake why is he saying what is the argument here your argument or dualist or realist your argument is like the person who mistakenly saw a snake and then he's arguing no there is a snake because i see the snake without the snake outside how am i getting snake cognition by error he goes further branti very beautiful point he says in deep sleep in deep sleep when the mind is not functioning no external world is seen in samadhi when the mind is in deepest first possible focus or absorption the highest meditative state no external world is seen and in mukta jihan mukta whose eyes open and ears open also claims by seeing everything claims that there is no external reality because what i am seeing that enlightened person knows it is nothing other than i the turia i am appearing in all these ways and i am tasting myself enjoying myself in all these ways in the case of a person in deep sleep in the case of a person in samadhi in the case of the enlightened being no external word second external object is is seen so then he gives an example of a crazy person so a person who is hallucinating uh who was that mathematician a beautiful mind um what's his name um john nash yeah so john nash is saying that um i am being followed by agents of an enemy country and he claims they are there why are they there because i see them because i see them that's why they are there there are there outside that's why i am getting this experience of being followed by enemy agents and then other people he hallucinated now nobody else is seeing them though those who are not schizophrenics they are not seeing it they are not seeing such things therefore even without their existing he can still see without the external existence of the object that person is seeing it is no and you will not accept john nash's testimony that there are external things which i am seeing because they are not there similarly it is quite possible entirely possible this is entire universe that we are experiencing and which is giving us so many variety of experiences in consciousness which we are having all of us it can happen without the external existence of these things you see this is fantastic i'm fantastic and i say this is crazy sounds like some science fiction you know virtual reality something you are saying is it at all possible do such a thing ever happen it happens every day to all of us and we admit it also dream yes dream god upon his favorite example in dream we see people we talk to them we go to places we have pleasant and unpleasant experiences and we have internal experiences also thoughts feelings memories in dream perceptions judgments in dream all of which when we wake up we say there was no second thing there apart from me the dreamer here also it can be directly with great clarity experience apart from youth ethereum the one awareness this enormous variety is not really out there transactional level fictional level you can say it's out there but it's not really out there recognize that and be centered in that that one awareness so that is what his reply is to the this is actually vignav's reply to the satrantika bhasheka then he goes further completes the attack on the realist twenty six so hold on to the questions many people have raised qui on the ques and uh questions so hold on to that let me finish this section i'll come to the question [Music] s 26 continuing the same attack the answer is given by the subjective idealist he continues to give the answer consciousness has no contact with objects so also it has certainly no contact with appearances of objects for according to these reasons an object has no existence an illusory object is not separate from the awareness so therefore consciousness has no contact with the objects in what sense in the same sense if i say clay has no contact with pot contact means what a contact is a relationship see these two things are in contact contact is a relationship what is the relationship requires two terms so one finger is in contact with another finger it requires two but you cannot say the clay is in contact with the part because the part is not a second thing apart from the clay two words are creating a kind of ah you know illusion in our mind oh clay is there pot is there they are in contact no if i say the water is in contact with the wave no because the wave and water are one reality two things are needed for contact here the dualist is saying that my consciousness comes in contact with so many external objects i see the flower i smell the coffee i drive the car i talk with my friend flower coffee car friend they are all external objects that's why i'm getting so many different experience what experience experience of flower experience of car experience of coffee experience of a friend if these were not separate variety of objects why would the poor consciousness which is a boring homogeneous awareness why would it have different experiences the answer is all those experiences are entirely possible within consciousness itself by projecting various forms and appearing to come in contact with them it gets a variety of experiences same consciousness projected through the eyes gets the experience of seeing same consciousness projected through the mind and the ears experience of hearing and so on and through the mind alone experience of thinking feeling desiring hating loving same consciousness it does not require a real external object you might say it requires an apparent external object it requires an apparent mithya external object so the mind is coming in contact with its uh own projections see first it was said there is nothing apart from consciousness with which consciousness is coming in contact now you are saying now the objection is you admit that there are appearances so the consciousness is coming in contact with appearances just like it may be that um when you are seeing a movie they're really the actors and the hero villain and all the car chases those things are not really there there are only pictures but at least you're coming in contact with the pictures isn't it in a movie otherwise you would not see the movie also same thing with consciousness so you are coming in contact with appearances that much you must say at least the appearances exist he says no um in the case of movie they seem to exist apart from you but in the case of consciousness when you take the perspective of consciousness those appearances are also nothing apart from consciousness where what are those appearances made of if that is difficult to understand very easy example is dream in the dream there are no external people or things but if somebody says but in the dream there are dream objects dream people are there so the dreamers mind comes in contact with dream objects and dream people as if there is some contact is there but no the answer will be the dream objects and dream people are nothing but the dreamer's mind so just like the water and the wave clay and the pot dreamers mind cannot come in contact with dream objects and dream people because they don't exist apart from the dreamer's mind ok this is the answer one more and then we will take a short break to answer the objections or questions which have been raised now the realist comes back with a counter-attack so see these are all little samples of the fierce debates which were going on fierce debates were going on there between nayakas vaishashikas on one hand and the sautrantikas vaibhashikas vigyanavadis sunyawadis on the other hand meemam sakas the subjective idealist vasu bandhu he writes a book to show that everything is mind only and the great kumari lavata you know mimamsaka he wrote a book um which uh refuted which refuted uh all those uh uh objections of uh of asu the buddhist mind only philosopher i saw i know this because i had to write a paper on the whole thing in at harvard this time what is the position of the subjective idealist and what is the how did kumarila refute kumar labata refute them and i found that there is a book about this um i forget the name i have got it an ex student of harvard philosophy department several decades ago he took the uh entire arguments of uh vasubandhu and kumari 10 made a very exciting little book about it you know like a gladiatorial battle between uh these philosophy philosophical schools anyway now so counter attack from the realist really is not so fast wait here's the counter attack um how will you distinguish between true knowledge and false knowledge see somebody sees a snake by mistake and then you show that there is no snake outside outside there is only a rope so correct knowledge is it is a rope your favorite example oh advaitin here is hiding behind the vignavadi so you there is a rope outside and now you say oh correct knowledge is it's a rope false knowledge is it's a snake but if according to you or subjective idealist everything is internal then what is the distinct difference between correct knowledge and false knowledge do you see only because there is a real rope outside and i can experience it then i can correct my mistake i thought it was a snake now i carefully look outside real rope mentally error snake i correct the error and i say outside rope mentally and now i know it's a rope this is correct knowledge earlier what was there outside rope mentally i thought it was a snake wrong knowledge but you subjective idealist my dear fellow how will you distinguish because for you there's nothing outside how will you distinguish between correct knowledge of rope and false knowledge of snake and then the answer from the subjective idealist we will see 27 nimit [Music] um let me translate i'm taking swamigambhiranji's translation so the answer to this objection what was the objection uh the appearance of consciousness in the form of a jar for instance even when there is no jar must be a false perception this is shankaracharya's commentary so you you ideally should point out that how will you distinguish between right knowledge and error the answer is this consciousness does not ever come in contact with external objects in all three states there being no external objects how can there be any baseless false apprehension of it so this is a subtle answer what is the answer answer is this your whole objection does not hold for us what is your what is your understanding or realist of the difference between error and true knowledge your understanding of true knowledge is outside there is the rope and inside in your mind you understand it to be a rope you'll say correct knowledge outside there is a rope but in your mind you understand it to be a snake you will say incorrect knowledge but in our philosophy we have just shown that there is no outside insight it is all in the mind so this difference between false knowledge or error and true knowledge based on the existence of external things that difference does not apply to us how you know suppose somebody sees snake and you go and correct him look carefully there is a rope you had an error it is not a snake its a rope and that person says oh i see now i have corrected myself its not a snake its a its a rope and next moment you wake up and sit up in the bed now what happened that person your friend and the rope that person saw and the mistake that person made about the rope and the snake that error the correct knowledge the rope the erroneous snake the person who made the error and who got the correct knowledge the whole thing is in your mind when you wake up you see the whole phenomenon was in your mind will you say error was corrected into correct knowledge no there was no rope outside there there was no no really error about a snake at all so this whole issue about your correcting error that works only if there are external objects and you make mistakes about those external objects for us so what is ah error in the gyanavada in subjective idealism actually their their idea of error is what is internal is misunderstood to be external what is internal is misunderstood to be external that is the only error that's the major error we think i am this bag of skin and bones and outside the skin there are other things other people this is the world and i'm inhabiting and interacting in this world suffering and enjoying mostly suffering so this is uh this is the reality this whole thing is an error according to veganawada so he rejects your category of error and truth now with this much vigyanavada has refuted the saudranti kawaii bhashika the idealist subjective idealist is taken to have refuted the realist now he happily turns to advaitha governopa the godhawa says now i'm going to take care of you so even you are wrong this is a subjective ideal big grandmother will be totally smashed now so before that let's quickly take giant can you tell us who is asking questions yes my question is uh modern science deals entirely with realism and uh has idealism in any form been subject to scientific inquiry or for that matter can it withstand scientific inquiry in terms of experimentation and repeatability and all that yet what we're talking about mostly here are thought experiments yeah you know snake and rope and all that right but it's is is is there is is there any movement at all that you know of that or talk about that is where scientific principles are applied to idealism of any kind um the answer is in modern thought from say 18 19th century onwards with the overwhelming development of science and technology and the increasing prestige of science and technology philosophy in the west took a big beating and and so the scientific perspective is a realist perspective that's how science functions so though if you see in western philosophy it is realism which is uh in favor in the last 200 years last 100 little more than 100 years so the last great idealist in western philosophy where like hegel and in england t.h green what's his name our bradley appearance in reality bradley and by the end of 19th century they were gone so from early 20th century onwards bertrand russell and others dominated who were realists who bought philosophy in absolutely they wanted it to be in tune with scientific perspective science scientific world view so the idealistic perspective sort of was downplayed ah but it did not entirely disappear i was surprised just recently i discovered there was an idealist at uh in the product of oxford tls sprig let me write down the name in the chat you will see um yes theories of everything i am reading that book too then i did not write just show that book others can see uh yes it just say something so the picture will shift to you yeah can you see it now others you can you can give a thumbs up yeah bring it back a little bit go back a little bit so are you reading it now uh girish yes i just got it today oh i've been reading it also i was amazed to see there's another book he has written which is about the triumph of absolute idealism he was a fully com convinced idealist and he said uh from his perspective science is compatible with idealism um going back one step your actual question was can we scientifically validate either idealism or realism realism seems to be compatible with science but can we scientifically have a test no actually when you think about it there is really no way of testing um you know like bill bill conrad again and again objects to idealism so he thinks idealism and advice are same now in this verse you'll see godopath will reject idealism also it's very interesting advaita is fully compatible with realism and idealism and it actually rejects both of them but anyway so what are the experiments he suggests for example bill suggests but i'll show you why they don't work the classic one was samuel johnson so samuel johnson uh of the dictionary fame so when he was told about berkeley george barkley's philosophy of subjective idealism that everything is in the mind existence of things is their perception only essay is persistent um then do you see how interesting it is in the in the gospel of sriram krishna also this thing is being discussed berkeley and our subjective idealism so anyway so ah samuel johnson's reply was he kicked a rock and he said i refute it thus here is the solid here is the solid rock how can you say it's an idea i am kicking it see i feel it it hurts my toe so it's so solid the answer to that from the idealist perspective any one of us can immediately get you could exactly do the same thing in a dream and it would not be real out there out apart from the mind that does not prove anything bill conrad he suggested a more complicated experiment he said suppose swami we leave a camera on in this room and then we'll walk out of the room all of us human beings and then we come back and we examine the film on the camera it will show everything still existed so far chair fan light all of us are still there so without anybody observing it to things that it's not like a dream if you don't see the things in your dream they disappear your dream if you do not see it it will disappear but the external world even if you don't see it even none of us see it also it's still there the answer to this is a little more complicated but it works from advaitha or even the gyanvata point of view what they will say the vigyanvadhi will say ah but this entire experiment you performed including walking out of the room coming back to the room examining the film of the camera all of this is in your mind it for example the whole thing could have been a dream also how would you know you would have to have an experiment where there are no minds at all and yet there is clear proof of an external world and at no stage beginning middle or end a mind is involved but that's impossible by definition who would be how would we are minds we need the proof to come to us and once it comes to us it's in the mind that's why there is a standard joke in philosophy departments about mind and matter ah there is the question so what is the real is matter real or mind is real that is the whole old fight between subjective idealism and realism the joke is what is mind no matter what is matter never mind so that's the old old joke in philosophy departments this tl sprig so he wrote another book triumph of idealism in this book also it's a very good book theories of existence he has taken i think 10 or 12 theories very very well written of course maybe it's little to my way of thinking so i like it very much but i liked it um and he says clearly that out of these 10 theories i think he's given 10 or 12 theories one is materialism and the rest are all idealistic theories and he gives a very deep searching analysis of this and he says how only idealism actually works so it's really worth reading that very nice book the other book triumph of absolute idolism is actually even deeper book i found a copy in the amazon and you will see though is very expensive even second-hand copies i found a copy in the new york public library i read the first chapter but it will take a lot of hard work that book is very deep um our professor arundham chakravarti he studied at oxford under professor strassen pf s rawson so peter strossen so i asked him did you ever meet a person called tls sprig when you went to study as a student in the 70s 80s and random chakra was just so excited said of course he was an extraordinary person when i had just got married at that time and i and my wife we went and stayed at his house he was our host and he was he was absolutely crazy about advaita vedanta amazing i didn't know that arithmetic told me and he said he visited india he came and stayed in the institute of culture in gold park he met swami lokeshwarananda and he was his main question was that how is shankara also a devotee i understand the advaita vedanta shankara but how is he devoted to god this combination and in india he would go to a shiva temple and sit and meditate so all this is about tls spring i didn't know all this and chakravarthy told me okay so this is the state of idealism and realism let's see who else giant yes well i would say supposing that we took a picture of the potty and then we uh it had water in it and we dumped the water out and we took a picture of that and uh would you could you at all say that that was all in the mind well if you took a picture and you saw the picture and you see the water and the pot so obviously what you are seeing is in your mind right if it was not in your mind you wouldn't see it what you are asking is it is in the mind you have to admit it but is it there outside also that's the question isn't it well yes but i mean dumping the water out of the pot is in the outside yes it's not an interpretation i can feel the water say on my foot or whatever the answer would be pretty simple i mean both george barkley and the this buddhist subjective idealists 2000 years ago they would say is this this whole thing is it possible in your dreams and you would have to admit yes i could have dreamt the whole thing and then there though there seemed to be water outside it wouldn't be true there would be no water outside but but supposing i had uh electrodes on my brain yes uh well while i was doing all these things yes and uh i could say that that's something that i was obviously uh observing something happening i mean i assume that you can make that distinction of uh when uh when the brain is quiet there are no there should be no electrical signals from it and then that would uh refute the idea that it was a dream would it would it be possible to conduct this entire experiment in your dream and when you wake up we would say oh all the electrodes and the guys in white lab coats and the results printed out and all the proofs and demonstrations of brain activity were something that i dreamt about see there's no way of there's no way of refuting this actually i mean you can't jump out of your own skin to use swami vivekananda's language in fact in western in philosophy they call it the standing scandal of philosophy i think can't use these words the standing scandal of philosophy is that you can't refute idealism there is no way of defeating all right we'll move on bill has had this question for 95 years or at least 60 of his 95 years so it's not going to be settled so easily next uh the question is regarding shloka or samantha [Music] and he also says how can something that is non-existent come into existence yes or a mixture of existence and non-existence come into existence yes but that is exactly what the idealists are saying right something like for example even governor says using the three stages that in your deep sleep there is nothing yes and yet it is considered a bigger state yes it does not exist there is nothing there in there yeah but the waking and dreaming and everything comes from this yes so when god himself says that existent things or even apparent things come from non-existent why does he bring these sex arguments i mean it sounds very good six good arguments yes but why does he even say it when it when on a little bit of thought it appears wrong right actually this is good about this position and when you say from the dream the deep sleep state emerges the dream and the waking all the variety you know but gaurupala is in fact attacking that do they really emerge or only appear to emerge what emerges from the deep sleep as your dream and into the waking world which we are experiencing are the real happenings [Music] not non-existence from the unmanifest the deep sleep is the unmanifest not from it's not non-existence from the unmanifest it becomes manifest but whether or not manifest or man manifest or manifest from object to vector uh the sankhya would say something is really happening from pralaya to srishti something so prakriti is being transformed into this world what god says it's only apparent because prakriti is not real that which was unmanifest is unreal that which becomes manifest from the unmanifest that's also unreal therefore this becoming this causality the unmanifest state is cause ishwara and the manifestate is your hiranya garbha and virat all of that is an appearance of what then what is there then what is there thuriya is there us yes which is neither cause nor effect if you say something is happening at some level then you are into causality and godhapath's whole attack is on causality so remember the six things he said um how is a thing born from itself from something else or from a mixture of itself and something else from an existing thing from a non-existing thing or from a mixture of an existing and non-existing and he goes on to show none of these six alternatives are possible so there is nothing that is born his favorite thesis of ajati unborn nothing is born in fact it's good you raise this because godupath is now going to use it to smash vignavada all right any questions yes yeah it's a similar question only swamiji so when on the transactional level when we say brahman is eternal we are accepting time yes and when we say brahman is like all for waiting we accept space so in our understanding does brahman gives existence to possession true gibbs means it is all borrowed existence and remember in advaita vedanta borrowed existence is mithya falsity so that's why we say the world is world including space time and causation are false so as you said an important point you pointed out that we say brahman is eternal to the atman eternal and in fact the the fourth buddhist the shunyavadi they attack advaitins on this very ground they say there are two things which are false one is nihilism nothing exists buddha never taught that the other one is eternalism there is a god or something purusa or prakriti or brahman which is eternally existing that is also false now so that is what advaita says no only by accepting time we speak about eternity why because to to remove the misconception that that brahman is something that is born and dies everything else is non-eternal but actually brahman is beyond time you cannot speak about the eternity of what we know what eternity what comes to our mind that there is something which exists for all times throughout time it exists it's a very long lasting thing it was there earlier it's there now it keeps on going on and on and on no not at all time appears in brahman brahman is beyond time they say time eats everything according in vedanta everything is eaten by them whatever you see in this world all that is beloved to you all that you like dislike everything is eaten by time and the buddhists call it impermanence nothing none of this will exist none of this will will uh uh will carry all of this disappears anitya manityam sarva manityam so in contrast to that brahman is said to be eternal but brahman is actually not eternal in that sense in vedanta we say brahman is that which eats up time also time having eaten everything thinking which is very powerful turns to brahman and brahman eats uptime because what does it mean brahman transcends time we do not mean brahman is actually ultimately eternal in time so is brahman all pervading you have accepted space then only you say brahman is all pervading but what it really means if you go to the original criteria upanishad satyam gyanam ananthambram anantha means limitless so space is not something that can limit brahman time is not something that can limit brahman brahman transcends space and time brahman is everything we say sarubam kalvidham brahman that's also not true that's only by accepting everything we are saying brahman is everything there is no everything if you say you the dreamer you are suppose somebody says you dreamt of so many people all those people are in your mind if somebody says then you are the sum total of all those people say no no not some to lamb only me i am poor old me all those people are not this was the big subtle point that swami vivekananda pointed out mary hale the american disciple she wrote a poem to swan vivekananda saying that i have understood what you have taught you're taught all is god swami vivekananda wrote back in the poem saying that i have never taught such queer doctrine that all is god that strange doctrine that all is god i've never taught that she was stunned you yourself said it that all is god this is what i meant of course he always meant many times he has said everything is god but this is what i mean is god only is all is not it's not that there are lots of things and that you add them all up and you get god no and not even that the dualistic view is there are lots of things and there's one more great thing called god that's dualism vishishtadvaita there are lots of things all of them taken together is god advaita is there are no lots of things the only god is existence belongs to god only and what about me you are that god that's the great thing about advaitha good point hold on to this let's dispense with that pesky subjective idealist and then we will take up the other questions now what is gaurav are they going to do with the subjective idealist let us see tasmania [Music] this is verse number 27 now 28. verse number 28 hence consciousness has no birth and things perceived by do not pass into birth those who perceive the birth of that consciousness may as well see the foot marks in space itself what is he saying here what anandiji just mentioned earlier the 22nd verse those six ways in which a thing can come into being and it shows consciousness cannot come into being in any of those six ways consciousness is not born why does he say this now we have to ask the question what is the difference between the subjective idealist vignavadi and advaitan both seem to be saying the same thing consciousness is all consciousness is the reality everything else appears in consciousness then what is the difference between them and us huge difference very big difference because of the similarity you need to refute these people carefully they are subjective idealists is not a subjective idealist advaita vedant is not saying that you are imagining this world in your in your mind so what is the difference what they are saying is the vigyanavadi consciousness is all is the reality there's no external world apart from consciousness but this consciousness is momentary advaita vedanta says this consciousness is changeless it's neither born nor does it die nor does it change so changeless but less deathless consciousness pure consciousness that is the claim of advaita vedanta but what these people are saying is consciousness is not only born it is born and it dies and it's continuously burned and dying moment to moment to moment consciousness is born exists for exactly one moment and then dies and then another consciousness is born and it dies it's called shara stream of consciousness that's become a big thing in modern literature stream of consciousness that very phrase was used by these subjective idealists nearly two thousand years ago asubandhu and others our reality is a stream of consciousness and there is nothing apart from the stream of consciousness so look at what we experience sights sounds right now when you're experiencing even what i'm saying word word word meaning meaning meaning they're flashing together and you put together a sentence at one point then start the next sentence they're all coming one after another and they're all instantaneous flashes so difference might be unchanging flood light or like the sunlight that would be an advertising idea of consciousness and this strobe light flashing strobe light you know like it flashes second to second to second like flickering light that is the idea of the vikyana body you know actually why they say that they say that because they at least that's what our analysis is they fail to distinguish between consciousness and mind notice here again and again for consciousness they are indiscriminately using the word chittam normally the word chittam in vedanta is used for mind chit is used for consciousness here again and again chittam is being used for consciousness what they say is that there is a continuous stream of cognition instance kshanika vigna dhara what is the cognition instant flower like red shape that's my cognition so that's the written the mind and it is lit up by consciousness this packet packet is a good word this packet which has this dual aspect awareness and a content awareness content packet it comes from for a moment next moment i smell the fragrance pregnancy content and awareness awareness smell and the awareness of that smell that's the next flash and so on it takes time to say it but in real life it it is very very fast and would this say that when meditation you can slow down your mind till you perceive the each instant of changing awareness and you see this is the ultimate nature of consciousness instantaneous consciousness momentary consciousness transient consciousness they will say to us we are we agree with you consciousness is the ultimate reality only thing is if you agree that consciousness is born and it dies then we agree with you that is something that we never agree with we say you are making a mistake it is the virty the cognition which is bored and dying moment to moment because of the activities of senses and minds you are getting lots of vitis instantaneous british are coming and going flashing in and out that is true you are right so far vijayanavadi but the consciousness which lights up those with these that is a separate thing in my terms i would say the vignavadhi has not completed you have to push it to the limit to have the idea of a pure subjective awareness which then there is no change in fact logically there can be no change because if there is a change ah who or what will note that change i will come to that that is the way shankaracharya refutes these big but the central argument of against vivianavadis is given by godopathy earlier already consciousness cannot be born you are saying consciousness is born dies burned dies burn dies consciousness one two three four five six and so on in a continuous stream how is it born is it born from consciousness is it drawn from non-consciousness mixture of consciousness non-consciousness is it born from something existing from something non-existing from something existing and non-exist each of those options is not possible birth and death of consciousness is impossible so it is actually constant consciousness unchanging consciousness lighting up all this and all of this as you vignovati have said that part we agree it is all within consciousness i like this beautiful phrase by aurobindo sri aurobindo so these things show that the person who has written such poetry must have deep spiritual insight he says in one place the world drowned in the white glare of an immortal gaze the world drowned that means all the objects gross and subtle drowned as if they have been drowned in an ocean what kind of ocean is it white glare look at the words like a constant intense light infinite light an intense of an immortal gaze imagine an eye which is glaring at the world and the entire world is drowned in every hindu puja starts with this conceive of god as as the i a sky-like eye which is luminous in the sky which shines upon everything and that which shines upon is not different from the glare of that eye that immortal glare is what you are is what we are and it can be experienced once you experience it it's done forever it's always there for you so here shankaracharya comments the vignavadi says that um there is no self in consciousness empty of self these are the claims of the vidyanvadhi buddhist it is not true you have to separate consciousness and mind to understand it and he says those who think that consciousness is born and dies who are they began about this it's as good as trying to find it gives an example of impossibility birds are flying in the sky trying to trace the footprints of those birds impossible they leave no footprints at all and then shankaracharya goes further he just touches upon the shunyabadi the last of the four remember four buddhist groups sautrantika vibhashika viganavadhi sun nevadi godapada does not touch but shankaracharya here mentions just in passing he says the other one he says those who are the our professor partial in harvard used to call them the emptiness people now come the emptiness people those are the emptiness people sarvashunyatam who see the emptiness of all things not only external world but also the internal subject they are even more crazy than these big ghana bodies why these people are at least trying to see the footprints of birds in the sky these people the the shunyavadis kham mustinavi that they're trying to grasp the sky with their hands they're they're so crazy now he does not refute them here but there are different ways in the advaitans in which advertents have refuted for example in panchadashi though it's not the topic here i just mention it and let it go because just for the sake of completion let's repeat all the buddhists ah to the annoyance of but this is not so easy sort of half humorously with diyaranya swami and panchadashi when he comes to the topic of the sunni awadi he gives arguments against them but then he gives this very nice argument just like this he says in every debate in ancient india you had the wadi and prativadhi vadi means the one who holds on to a thesis but he means who controverts or attacks that thesis so you have to have these two positions siddhanta and purva paksha siddhanta means your established thesis and the purupaksha is the opponent now according to you or shunnawadi the entire world is empty emptiness yes you too the subject subject is also empty yes there is no subject is no object if the subject is empty then you the opponent you are empty too if you are empty you do not exist if you do not exist i need on whom will i debate with i did not refute you you don't exist you have yourself proven that you don't exist so i did not need not debate with you in the absence of in the in the emptiness of the opponent there is no need to give a reply so that is he just being sort of facetious i think little bit of course very sophisticated debates are there and this is not i will tell you i spent um sort of intense three months studying this position the sunivada position when i would enter the class the professor would say swami leave your advaith out of this and then we enter into this so uh suniva the actual position of nagarjuna the sunni wadings it's a very well thought out very deep and profound philosophy very close to advaith actually so it's not as simple as the way we sort of summarily dismissed it here that brings to an end the godupath's engagement with buddhism or at least the schools of buddhism next he will now remind us of the central message of advaitha by his again the same thing by attack on causality which we have done in second chapter third chapter but he will sort of review it okay let us quickly deal with remaining observations questions giant so i had a question about mind when we talk about something as appearing we must have experienced it at least yes but uh mind is such a thing that we never experienced directly because we only all that we experience is either some gross sense perceptions or thoughts which are certain just because certain thoughts are there we assume there is a subtle body or there is a chitta actually i would stop you right there um both the vignavadis advaitans and also some of the realists would say the only thing you directly experience is mind even from a scientific perspective the gross perceptions sound sight smell taste touch right if you actually trace them step by step physiologically at one point you will see it comes to the sense organs then it comes down to you know neurotransmitters little bursts of electricity in nerve endings then if you ask the subject that person will report sight sound smell taste already have gone into the level of mind the first thing that a person experiences is not the physical burst of electricity is actually something mental but i understand that like after the brain we say it has gone into the mind my question was that we don't experience the mind directly in the sense that we only infer it based on the fact that there are certain thoughts we are experiencing or some thoughts are intelligent so we assume there is an intellect there is there is an eye thought so we assume there is an ego there are some thoughts about past remembrances so we assume there is a memory but i don't experience my memory direct like i cannot see my memory directly and see for what is stored in them for example so if there is a subtle body appearing why can i not experience it directly is the question that i was trying to answer i don't really understand your logical word we used to describe yeah do you directly experience the body sense perceptions yes do you directly experience the body and sense perceptions or do you directly experience if you point to the body i will say no no this is a cell this is a hand this is an eye where is the body you see body is just this this conglomeration of parts which is acting together so mind is just this this lake of thoughts of british a variety of british so then if it is just a set of british that goes away whenever goes away and then why are we worried about its uh like i know at the absolute level there is no bondage or liberation but even at the money level why are you worried about its bondage and liberation because your mind is just a stream of thoughts one thought goes away others come that's why we say that there is a mind it's not that one thought is the mind just as one drop of water is not the river so river is a stream of drops of water so the virtis are continuously there that's why you talk about a mind even when you restrain the vitis in samadhi even when somebody falls asleep in sushupti the mind is still there that there is no viti at all still the mind is there because it comes back so you have to admit it exists in a non-active non-kinetic state in an unmanifest state because everything all thoughts feelings emotions memories tendencies they all come back when you wake up so what is that so you're saying mind is nothing but this stream of breakfast yeah but i mean that's no i'm not saying that i am saying that there is a mind because without the stream of brittis when it is in seed form after death when it goes into seed form and transmigrates that's still the mind in a deep sleep when it goes into a seed form that's still the mind but there are no obvious no writings there i mean obviously nobody's are there but it's still the potentiality is there so you have to admit a mind you should not directly you are not experiencing directly you are experiencing the virtues yes i put my question in the channel so if you want to read along how do idealists deal with intersubjective agreement if the world were a fabrication of individual minds right then there should be as many radically different worlds as there are minds with dreams so it seems that the world must be a fabrication of universal mind which we all share or which we all are yes okay um this was the subject which would a question which was raised in the second chapter wait a test where god uses his dream example you know whenever such questions come up just think what would god say and it's very easy to think what he would say because he will immediately bring up the example of a dream now imagine so here what is the question he's asking here we we are sitting in a room and we see the same thing you're all sitting in different rooms but you see swami so all the subjects in this zoom discussion agree that there is swami because we inter-subjectively agree so this must be real but if you were dreaming and you dreamt of some person you know meeting some person and then afterwards when you when you wake up and you say nobody else saw that then you have to say it was a dream it was not real that's what we say common sense the way we do it that's how we make the distinction between imagination and actual perception between dream and waking what would god father say he said you are making a mistake in your dreams in the dream paradigm there is inter-subjective agreement in your dreams you are there your friends are there people are there and you're enjoying a cup of coffee and nobody there claims that oh there is no inter-subject agreement and there must be this must be a dream then no everybody sees the same cup of coffee and they are enjoying the same you know game or something like that and it feels like a baking world it feels that there are subjects and there are objects and there is inter-subjective agreement about those objects and it seems in every way like a reasonable world it does not seem very illogical in the dream itself do you see what i am driving at i think so um maybe not certainly not as clearly as you see it when you wake up and you see the what god party would object to is you're waking up looking at the dream world and saying that there is a discrepancy between what i saw in the dream and all the subjects my friends in this waking world they didn't see it that's why it's a dream but what gorupada is saying imagine the dream itself in the dream was there inter-subjective discrepancy those waking friends were there in the dream no only the people in all the subjects they were subjects in the dream itself you were a subject in your own dream and there were other people in your dream and they all seem to get along very well and function very well in the world they agreed upon so can we ask whose dream is this ah here in this case uh whose dream is it it's the dreamer's stream if you say there's a cosmic dreamer then you come to you know the um you know like the hiranyagarh the cosmic mind which dreams of the structures of this entire world that's why i say that the vedan advaitan is not a subjective idealist advaitan is not arguing like the buddhist that this world is your projection buddhist says this world is your projection and the buddhist complicates matters by saying there are many people and then how is their inter-subjective agreement if everybody is projecting it so they will go into convolutions and show that the lot of these mind streams flowing in parallel and those ones which have the same kind of karma tend to experience a similar world not bad i mean for example if all of us enter the same virtual reality there are no objects and yet we agree that we are seeing the same kind of virtual reality if you bought the tickets for this world show in 2020 2020 we'll all see uh we'll agree that there is the kovit 19 pandemic yeah so that way so there is this cosmic dreamer and cosmic dreamer and that's why narayan or vishnu in hindu iconography he's a couch potato he's always there on his cosmic serpent and he is sleeping and dreaming dreaming the universe of this world so advaita would agree that there is some cosmic dreamer yeah but again god from god upon this perspective false it's there but it's that's also a projection the only thing that there is is you the consciousness what godu father would say is you know it um i don't know if the occasion will come but let me just mention this comes of asking why too much why is there this ordered worldly ordered world logically arranged world there must be a cause to it it's our intuitive feeling when you have this strong feeling that that is the source of not only all science but also a religion religion says because god made it so and science investigates and finds causes gaurav other cuts at the very root of such thinking he shows the idea of causality itself is false this asking why will give you an answer and that answer is of no use to you ultimately ultimately yeah all right anybody else giant abhijit yes i had a question about the other the stream of consciousness this instantaneous flashes of consciousness yes and the argument that consciousness is never gone and is eternal when we say this is eternal we are using time in some respects and in our experience only in the present the the instantaneous flashes of consciousness that is the experience which you are getting yeah so we both things can hold at the same time in the sense that in the that is instantaneous flash and it does not contradict the consciousness true but is instantaneous flash if you look even more closely um so i did not go into the refutation of vignavada instantaneous blast is flash of consciousness or flash of thought what is changing instantaneously thoughts perceptions feelings cognitions right these are activities of sense organs and mind but not of consciousness consciousness is a constant light which illumines all of this this is advaithic position the vignavadi is saying that no each cognition comes with its it's like a packet it comes with its own burst of illumination so the shot is there and it's it's shining by its own light it goes another thought comes it's it's a very subtle philosophy very sophisticated and it's very close in some ways to advaita vedanta that's why to work closely on it let me give you one refutation which shankara gives you say there is a series of flashes of consciousness c1 c2 c3 momentary consciousness who sees the series shankaracharya says what is the proof of the existence of this cities there must be knowledge of the cities how will you see the cities the first consciousness cannot see the next one because it has not yet arrived the next one cannot see the first one the first one is gone no consciousness can see the preceding and succeeding consciousnesses how will you see the series on what basis will you claim that there is a series you have no uh we have and many more objections are raised not only by shankaracharya but by nayakas and bhimam sakas how does memory function how does karma function how does even language function because each consciousness hears only one word say who hears the whole sentence who puts together the sentence to get the total meaning of a sentence so in linguistics in memory in karma there are many objections which are raised to the gyanvat and they have answers also so it is a long process the whole argument against it is this continuity again its time is what then they are not able to explain this instantaneous flashes yes time uh and god apartheid's argument goes deeper he says you are saying consciousness is born and destroyed flash flash of consciousness how and he says being born and destroyed means causality is there something caused the arising of consciousness something and then it died and caused the arising of the next consciousness so what what caused the arising of consciousness was it consciousness was it not consciousness and so on was it an existing thing non-existing thing you can find never find this link but can it happen that in the experience we feel always like that right it seems to be if you certainly think about it the vigyanavada seems to be almost the final thing that we can say people keep asking me if you think about it without vedanta you will end up with something like vigyanavada people keep asking me so why not say this is mind why are you saying one more thing called consciousness it's the witnessing is also part of the mind let us say it's just the nature of the mind because it feels like the mind i said i say that you actually you are unable yet to distinguish between consciousness and mind is a vast difference you're not seeing it that's why it seems to be the same thing buddhists will go so far as to say some they come very close to the atma idea they say it is the real nature of the mind they will never say atma that's absolutely taboo in buddhism they say there is the mind and this is the real nature of the mind we use interesting words um pure light of the void okay one more thing flash of consciousness flash of consciousness going on but there are gaps in samadhi there is a gap in deep sleep there is a gap so the gaps between two thoughts advaita can explain because consciousness is shining on the gap on the blank how will the ghanabad explain deep sleep and samadhi gap between two flashes by what is it known if it's not known there won't be a gap if there is no gap it's continuous consciousness if the gap between two flashes is known then there must be a continuous unconsciousness to know it in either way you have to admit conscious continuous consciousness yeah thank you thank you all right we have really run out of time today so next time again we will take up gowda pada's reiteration of the teachings of of mandukya so that he will he is making sure we have not forgotten in all this niyah sadkaryawada [Music] foreign