Video 10

10. Vedantasara | Texts 47-50 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

we have been studying the let us say the abcd the building blocks of vedanta this is the beginning of the journey we started at the very end with mandu kyo panishad in mandu kakarika but the beauty of vedanta vedanta is that it's not like you know learning a subject where you start with the basics and then you go to something very advanced and you'll know more and more and more and more rather it's a very simple single teaching that you are brahmana and what you learn at the beginning in this book is also exactly what you learn throughout the journey and what you learn at the end of the journey so what this book will tell us is what we have been studying in the manduka and in all the other vedanta texts that's why virante is very simple easy to summarize that thou art i am brahman brahmasmith that's it now what are the building blocks that we have uh got so far essential building blocks of vedanta we were told that in vedanta the method is in english superimposition and d superimposition there's just fancy words for it's just a fancy way of saying making an error and correcting it superimposition is making an error and d superimposition is correcting it another word for a dharupa technically more popular in in vedante is that swami vivekananda uses the word hypnotization and de-hypnotization not that we are trying to hypnotize you we are already hypnotized and vedante is showing us a way out of this this error this samsara which is a kind of self-hypnosis which we we are under so the method of superimposition and de-superimposition now what is adhar oppa it is taking the false to be real there is the real but we are taking the false we are taking the false to be the real an example was given taking the rope to be a snake so you mistake the rope to be a snake the rope is real the snake is there's no snake there but you think it's a snake you make an error that is called superimposition adhyar and what is upper vada what is the superimposition correcting the error that seeing that it is not a snake it is a rope that is the superimposition um upper other so in this case seeing the false instead of the real is superimposition and then correcting the error seeing the reality that the correcting that the false if that's not true this is true that's the nature of d superimposition so real and false now two new words have been introduced in sanskrit was two of us that which is and that which is not what is the real and what is the faults our told us the real is existence absolute consciousness absolute bliss absolute non-dual brahman that is the reality what is the false then the false is everything else says starting with ignorance ignorance of the reality starting with the ignorance and all the products of ignorance which we'll talk about now that's like the snake that's the fox remember false here is a unique thing false is that which appears but is not real that which appears but but not real so there are different categories there is that absolutely real which is brahman there's absolutely false that absolutely unreal absolutely real brahman absolutely unreal which is like a square circle or the classical example of a a barren woman's son or that of a sky flower kapushpur or um these are the traditional examples impossible that does not exist at all neither exists nor does it appear nobody has ever seen such a thing like a square circle or a sky flower or a barren woman's sun it's impossible that's unreal that's not there at all and what's totally real absolutely real ultimately real is brahman in between is our existence this this world of samsara it is not absolutely real like brahman but it's not totally unreal either in the sense that it appears though it is not there like the snake in the rope though there is no snake it appears it looks like a snake the snake appears we seem to experience a snake similarly though there is no samsara though there is no ultimately there is nothing like a body mind external universe it appears like that so that which does not exist but appears is called false i'll repeat again that which does not exist but appears is called false the totally unreal neither exists nor appears and the absolutely real brahman exists but does not appear it's not an object of appearance and the example which i gave was is also particularly apt it's the example of telling a lie so one can tell a truth one can remain silent and one can tell a lie so telling the truth is like the absolute truth brahman it's true and you cannot change it you need not change it also and that which is silent when nobody speaks that's like the completely unreal in the sense that um you do not experience it you don't hear anything and nothing needs to be done about it either you don't have to correct it silence is silence there's no need to correct it you cannot correct it also and then there is the lie in between is the lie telling a lie so telling allies it appears you can hear it you actually heard something but it's not true and it needs to be corrected and it can be corrected that lie has to be contradicted and can be corrected so our samsara is like that in between the lie why does this happen a new term was introduced ignorance agyanam and this ignorance also known as maya we were told that it is neither absolutely existing like brahman nor absolutely non-existent it's in between you cannot say it exists it you cannot say it does not exist why you cannot say it exists because when you get enlightenment ignorance is not there so it can you cannot say it's an absolute existence like brahman but you cannot say it's not there at all because it it produces this illusion this movie this dream of the world is there to some extent practically you have to take it into account so sanskrit sadh asad bhaam aneer vachanyam cannot be expressed as absolutely existent cannot be expressed as absolutely non-existent um also we we learned it was trigona it is composed of sattva rajasthanis it's something borrowed from sankhya cosmology also we learned it is cancelled or negated by knowledge knowledge of the absolute reality knowledge of this of the rope negates the ignorance about the snake knowledge of brahman negates the ignorance which this samsara and all of this is negated by knowledge of brahman all right then what happened then we were told that this ignorance agaanam or maya has a total aspect and an individual aspect it subdivided brahman the absolute reality cannot be subdivided it's one without any division a condom but maya has innumerable parts uh you can think of maya as being individual or you can think of it as being total that that brahman that pure consciousness that reality in association with limited by maya is called god so that's when we now have god we have got the absolute we've got maya and absolute and maya together as a god and the absolute through a part of maya remember maya has parts so part of maya called individual ignorance is jiva sentient being like us the absolute maya associated with maya god has extraordinary powers superpowers omniscient omnipresent omnipotent and in limited by one individual ignorance us is very weak has limited knowledge is ignorant about our real self even about the world also we know very little there's very little power is subject to birth and death is under the sway of karma cause and effect this is what we have got and remember two examples were used one example was a forest and trees and sky sky is like pure consciousness and all the trees taken together is called a forest is like maya individual trees are like individual ignorance so what is god what is the absolute like the sky what is god the sky which is in which is enclosed or which is covered by the forest sky and forest together dead sky and which is covered by the forest is like god consciousness plus maya uh what is individual being that space that part of the sky or the space which is covered by work or enclosed by one tree is called a jiva all right this is what we have so far we have adiabatic superimposition the superimposition we have the absolute brahman we have god saguna brahman we have jiva and of course the qualities of god and the jiva now going ahead we are done up to text number 46 now we are going to text number 47 this aggregate and individual ignorance are identical like a forest and the trees or a reservoir and the water so just as if you say all the trees taken together or if you say the forest you are referring to the same thing you understand they are not do different things all trees taken together in a particular forest all the trees taken together or you can say the forest you are speaking about the same thing they are one and the same thing or in the case of a reservoir all the drops of water millions of drops of water or you can say one reservoir you're talking about the same thing you can call it many you can call it one but you're talking about exactly the same thing similarly all the ignorances all our ignorances all taken together you can say all ignorances or you can call it maya it's the same thing so that's what it says or like the reservoir and the drops of water they are one and the same no difference okay then forty-eight eight upon is the akasha sky enclosed by the forest is identical with the akasha enclosed by the trees or as the akasha reflected in the water is the same as the akasha reflected in the reservoir similarly and pragya associated with these aggregate and individual ignorances are identical there are such shruti passages as he is the lord of all he's omniscient he's the inner controller he's the source of all he's the cause of origin and destruction of creatures etcetera from the mondo kyopa nation so what has been said here just as all the trees together and the forest is one and the same similarly the sky uh in all the trees and the sky enclosed by the forest is one and the same just as the drops of water i and all taken together and the entire reservoir is just exactly the same thing the sky reflected in the drops of water is exactly the sky reflected in the entire reservoir so what it means to say is that absolute consciousness reflected in our individual ignorances separately as all sentient beings is exactly the same consciousness which is uh associated with the totality of ignorance or maya what is the individual consciousness reflected in each of the are associated with each of the individual ignorances it is the jiva the sentient being what we experience in deep sleep what we are in deep sleep not what we experience in deeply what we are in deep sleep in deep sleep remember manduk we have the advantage of having seen the end of the road manduk what does it say consciousness the consciousness in deep sleep at the individual level is called pragya what we call in english the deep sleeper do you remember mundo consciousness associated with individual dream state is called taijasa what we call the dreamer i when i'm dreaming consciousness associated with this body in the physical waking world with individual person is called vishwa what we call the waker so the waker the dreamer and the deep sleeper now it says the deep sleeper pragya and at the cosmic level ishvara consciousness associated with maya are one and the same exactly like the sky associated with the individual or in in the you know like covered by the individual trees is exactly the same as the sky covered by the forest or the sky reflected in the individual drops of water it's exactly the same sky which is reflected in the entire reservoir consciousness in ishvara and consciousness in pragma is one and the same so this is what has been said is building up to something as we go to the final point he wants to make here which is inverse in text number 49 and 50. before that let me just stop here he said something which is a little bit troubling what he says is troubling is first he said individual ignorance agyana and maya are the same and then he said the individual waker deep sleep and uh in deep sleep an individual not vehicle individual deep sleeper pragma and ishwara are one and same but obviously they are not i mean that's what we have been discussing so far that did we not say that the individual being is like like each of us we are um limited and we have less we little knowledge we have little or no power and so and so forth and god is um has extraordinary powers omniscient omnipotent how can they be the same if that's what he wants to say then it's a little it's troubling because on two counts that the problem i'll i'll give you the problem first and then we'll see if you have understood the problem and go for the answer it's just a little clarification there's a reason why he said it but we'll see the problem first what is the problem here and what is the answer for that the problem here is this that if you say pragya and ishwara are the same pragma means remember deep sleeper nishwara means god the god of the universe are the same it leads to a problem we know that the individual being has for example limited knowledge and limited power we know god has unlimited knowledge unlimited power omniscient omnipotent if they're one and the same then that same one in the same entity will have contradictory qualities it will be at the same time little knowing and all knowing it will be at the same time little powerful and all-powerful powerless and powerful that's illogical we are powerless we know little as individual beings god is all-powerful god is all-knowing that is understandable how can we be one and the same if we are one and the same then we'll have contradictory qualities that entity which is one and the same as individual being and god you see it can it cannot be little knowing and all knowing it cannot be um omnipotent and like no strength no power at all it's impossible so that's one big objection what exactly how is this possible second big objection will be see this whole arrangement of upadhi was meant to explain the differences between ishvara and jiva between god and us upadhi you remember i just this is a concept which i have explained earlier but i'll just remind you all this is going on is about this term upadhi upadhi means something which comes close to you and seems to impart your qualities qualities of that on you without actually doing so if you remember the talk i gave the unattached self assange there i spoke about the example of the orange juice and the glass and all uh so there you remember the example let me show you this example here so i have this this thing can you see it now suppose i put it with my orange cloth here okay now if you see it does it not look orange orange or yellow to you from your side yeah and it has not become orange see it's colorless it's colorless and if i put it here it looks orange or yellow why because the yellow which has not entered into this glass this glass is absolutely clear and colorless but which is not entered into it because of the proximity the yellow color or orange color of my shirt is appearing in the glass appearing not entering appearing in the glass this is called upadhy what is upadhi this orange cloth this orange cloth is the upadhi of the colorless class what does it do in sanskrit upper same episode remaining in close proximity appears to transfer its own qualities into the object into the entity so this is the entity this is like consciousness and here appears maya maya appearing with consciousness now it appears like god consciousness plus maya appears like so consciousness plus maya is like this colorless glass appearing to be orange yeah consciousness appearing to be all powerful through maya so this is the upadhi this the shirt is the upadhi or a tiny part of maya the ignorance associated with the same thing makes it appear like a jiva like an individual being i wonder if i can access the in fact in that lecture i could not show the beautiful picture sent to me by uh jordan pete um what's his name jackson peterson but now i think i can show you because you can share the screen all right can you see the orange juice in the glass yes [Music] so he's sitting this he's a buddhist teacher he's sitting in vienna in austria and he is showing this this thing so he has got two glasses you can see the orange there's a clear water and the other glasses are actually orange juice can you hear this why is also now orange that seems to interrupt the nature of the clear glass and somehow defiles this perfect clarity but if we look closely we can notice that dizzy [Music] but it looks like it's defined completely and so our thoughts our emotional states our perceptions our images everything negative or anything positive we experience it doesn't change the clarity it only is an appearance that seems like it's within and has modified our clarity all right so that's an upadhi now this whole concept of upadhi has been introduced in advaita vedanta to explain how in one nondual pure consciousness how does difference appear how do we appear to be individual beings how do we appear how does god appear to be all powerful how does the difference between god and individual come how does the difference between individual and individual it's because of these upadhi's because of the appearance of body and mind so in pure consciousness appears the body mind so imagine so some like this appears the color similarly consciousness now seems to be identified with the body mind with and if with all bodies and minds then that becomes ishwar or god now back to our problem so the whole arrangement this this whole um this structure of upadhis this has been thought of in order to explain the appearance of difference actually there is no difference and remember in the case of the orange juice or in the case of this um paperweight and the orange cup under the shirt there's actually a paper bit there's actually a separate orange shirt uh so this comes from a sanction perspective where there is a separate consciousness and separate material nature and they seem to be in close proximity and material nature is reflected in the consciousness just like the orange in the clear water or orange color in the glass and then consciousness gets duped or uh makes an error about itself in advaitha this prakriti this there is no external nature in consciousness itself appears these things but the effect is the same upadhi the effect is the same now the problem is if you say that um they are one and the same maya and individual ignorance are one and the same god and the individual deep sleeper in each to each person in deep sleep is one and the same then the whole point of having upadhi is to explain differences is lost do you see the problem why is it a problem if you say they are one and the same maya and individual ignorance are one and the same ishwara and pragma are one and the same there's no difference there's oneness there this is the problem do you see the problem um let me see the interaction i'll get to these questions later but this problem what scripture was the term myo back in the rigveda remember the quotation by his maya appeared in many forms so that's from the rigveda itself but it's yeah it's you're right very little reference to my eyes there in the upanishads for example but anyway this problem is it clear it just said it made it went to great pains the vedanta sarah to distinguish between god and individual being on the basis of upadhi that maya associated with pure consciousness is god um part of my associated with pure consciousness is individual being now it seems to say they are one and the same so you see the problem why why this this can be problematic and if you have no objection here i don't see any wildly waving hands and angry faces all right so let me give you this the solution what is these these are all from the t cars which are sub commentaries on this book so the problem the solution is this take the word veda means difference abhidha means non-difference that's the sanskrit word which has been used take it as meaning veda difference maker difference maker so maya and individual ignorance they are supposed to make a difference they actually ultimately do not make a difference in pure consciousness ultimately they do not it's like putting um a pot classic example is of a pot and there's some space in the pot and space outside so you make a difference between mahakasha and khattarakasha the space all in closing space the external space and internal space now external space and internal space when you use a part actually has space been bifurcated and the commentators say when you take an axe and cut a piece of wood you have two pieces of wood now has space actually been bifurcated by putting a pot what do you think here is space then i take a glass of water or a pot and then it seems to be there is some space inside and there is some space outside in sanskrit gatakasha mahakasha it just seems to be like that really has space been cut up even here in all these brown stones all these apartments little little apartments are scattered throughout new york all the space of new york has it really been chopped up into hundreds and thousands of little apartments no it just looks like that and you can use the name apartment so and so you can have addresses apartment number and you can even live in them you can decorate them to your to your liking and so use is possible viva hara nama rupa is possible nama rupa viva is possible name form and use transaction but in reality paramartha no difference has been made to space is the space example clear example about space and that you cannot actually cut it up but though it looks different similarly maya and individual ignorances the upadhis they do not actually make any difference to pure consciousness very important point a beautiful point the orange juice which you keep near the class of clear water does not actually make any difference to the clear water though it looks very different to us this orange shirt red shirt yellow shirt nothing no difference does it make to this cube of clear glass even when it looks orange or yellow it's still clear colorless similarly all these upadhis they make no difference ultimately to the ultimate reality ultimate reality hence they are one and the same hence the ultimate reality of god and the individual beings are also one and the same just like the part so called space enclosed in the pot and the so-called space outside the pot are one and the same thing really similarly consciousness which you call god and consciousness which you call individual being you are one and the same ultimately that's all that's the solution if the problem made any kind of sense to you uh then the solution will make sense if the problem didn't make sense you are saved you can be happy now let's go ahead and we'll bring this topic to a close he's driving at something we'll see now text number 49 [Music] [Music] [Music] so like the unlimited akasha which is the substratum of the akasha enclosed by the forest and the trees or of the akasha which is reflected in the water in the reservoir there is an unlimited consciousness which is the substratum of the aggregate individual conscious ignorance as well as of the consciousness issuer and pragma associated with them this is called the fourth as such in sriti passages that which is tranquil auspicious without a second that the y is conceived of as the fourth aspect the amount of upanishad again okay so what's the point here now keep in mind the examples let us say um let's first take the lake example or the reservoir so you remember millions of drops of water taken together one reservoir now in each of those millions of drops of water sky is reflected and in the total reservoir sky is reflected now there is a sky quite apart from the water in the reservoir the sky itself which is not reflected anywhere just the sky itself similarly take the forest example okay let me just apply the example so what did you get you got millions of drops of water you got the whole reservoir you got the sky reflected in millions of drops of water you got the sky reflected in the whole uh reservoir and you finally got the sky by itself no reference to water or lake or reflections nothing like that just space apply five things apply millions of drops of water are like the individual ignorances which we all have each one of us individuating differentiating us the ignorance is itself all the drops of water together the lake or the reservoir is maya and the consciousness reflected in each individual drop of water is like us the individual consciousness with with one ignorance each one of us and the consciousness reflected in all of the water taken together is god ishwara and sky itself is like consciousness itself brahman itself no question of um individual ignorance cosmic ignorance individual being god nothing did you get it five things drop of water is like individual ignorance all water together the reservoir is like maya consciousness the sky reflected in drops of water is like consciousness reflected in in the individual ignorance or associated with individual ignorance the sky reflected in the entire lake is like consciousness associated with maya god and sky itself no question of lake drop of water reflection nothing just sky itself is like pure consciousness brahman with one added thing here remember in this case um in the case of the example there is actually a sky there is actually water there is actually a lake and there are actually reflections but in the case of advaita vedanta when you're talking about pure consciousness there's only pure consciousness maya individual maya individual ignorance reflected consciousness all of those are appearances they are not ultimately real only the original consciousness is real all right this is example one this is the so called pratibhimbawa the reflection theory the example two forest and trees and sky example so what do you have there individual trees and you have the sky enclosed space enclosed by this or covered by the individual tree you have the entire forest and the space enclosed by the entire forest which is like so the the um individual trees are like uh our individual ignorance and uh the space enclosed by the individual tree is like um the individual being the pragya the individual deep sleeper then the total forest is like maya and the space associated with the total forest is like ishvara and space itself no forest no trees no associated with forest and trees just the space itself is like nir guna brahman sachidananda brahman okay that itself now look at the sanskrit we'll quickly go through that just like forest trees and enclosed space jala jala shayat drops of water entire reservoir and the sky reflected in that the reality the underlying reality of all of that is one sky one akasha exactly like that there is this individual ignorance and the total ignorance and the consciousness associated with that underlying all of that is one unassociatable without supreme position unassociated pure consciousness it is called anupahitam chaitanya upaitam on which something has been superimposed anub without any superimposition at all which is pure consciousness alone that is called the fourth go back to mandukya consciousness associated with individual ignorance is called pragya consciousness associated with individual mind to rear consciousness associated with individual body is visual of course individual ignorance plus individual mind plus individual body just like us don't think what is he talking about going on all abstract stuff exactly like what we are right now what are we consciousness limited by individual ignorance plus individual mind plus individual body server priyananda all of them are separate um there the consciousness itself without being associated with individual ignorance mind or body consciousness itself the fourth is called thuriya in waking state the same thing is called vishwa in dream state same thing it's called taijasa in deep sleep state the same thing is called pragya but apart from these three underlying these three making dreaming deep sleep is the fourth one turiya surya literally means number four it's like the example beautiful example is which makes it pretty clear is the gold which is on the three ornaments the same gold is made into a bracelet which you put on here the same gold one second the same gold which is made into this melted and made into a necklace the same gold is melted and made into a ring bracelet necklace ring names are different forms are different use is also different they look different and you use them differently but they are literally the same thing the same gold itself the gold itself is like pure consciousness but with an associated with particular names and forms you call it waker dreamer deep sleeper but the fourth the gold itself which is the underlying of the first three the reality of the underlying the first three so that is pure consciousness and he says none of this is i'm not making it up it's in the upanishads mandukyo panisha mantra and we can all say most of us we have been there in the mandukya classes so we all know yes we remember hopefully the seventh month of the most important mantra of the mandu kyopunisha [Music] the last part is what he has quoted it is known as the fourth and shantam beyond all sorrow of samsara shivam auspicious or bliss all bliss advaitam nondual there's nothing apart from it why swami you just mentioned one two three four so how can it be non-dual but the one two and three are appearances of that fourth one they are not a second entity apart from the fourth no more than is uh the bracelet or the or the necklace or the ring a second entity apart from the gold they're not they're not countably second you don't have three ornaments and plus a fourth one called gold gold is not a fourth kind of ornament it's the reality of the three ornaments it is said to be the fourth that is the self and that is to be realized um let me just do number 50 then we'll stop and discuss things we are bringing this section to a conclusion he has introduced the ultimate reality pure consciousness of turiya number 50 is [Music] this pure consciousness which has been known as the fourth when not discriminated like a red hot iron ball from ignorance and the conscious consciousness with which it is associated becomes the direct meaning of the great vedic victim and when discriminated it gives us its implied meaning okay a lot has been packed in that we need not understand it now it's going to be unpacked throughout the rest of the book what did he just say example red hot iron ball red hot iron ball imagine a ball of iron which is black in color and heavy and cold now it's heated up in a furnace what happens it glows maybe orange or red and it's not cold anymore in fact it's it's cat it's it scales it it's terribly hot blazing hot it's lit up emits light and heat um so what has happened fire has entered into it now this whole red dot iron ball is like consciousness associated with totality of ignorance or maya consciousness plus maya is like that red hot iron ball ishwar or god also us individual beings associated maybe we are tired tiny iron balls see the difference is this in the iron ball red hot iron ball there are two entities some of the properties belong to the iron ball uh some properties belong to fire but they are indistinguishably mixed up in that red hot iron ball for example when i say it's round what is round is the ball round or is fire round immediately say the ball is round the red hot iron ball is round but the roundness belongs to what to the ball if i say it's orange now what's orange is the fire orange or is the red hot orange is the iron ball orange it's a fire if i say it's very hot what's hot is the iron ball hot or is the fire hot the fire is hot but it appears to us as one mass round and orange and hot if i say it's heavy what's heavy is fire heavy or is the iron ball heavy the iron ball is heavy all these properties are there together with the red hot iron ball everything is together similarly in our present condition um if i say i am a conscious being server priyananda body mind consciousness now think there are two things here you have to discriminate one is that it exists it is it is a man it is a monk it is uh it talks gives talks on vedanta and it is aware now gives talks on vedanta it's so whose property is that body mind it it exists whose property is that property means uh characteristic is that it's borrowed from brahman it is aware where does this come from brahman it thinks of itself as a monk called sarva priyananda where does this come from body mind so just like the red hot iron ball these are all mixed up together in the case of god pure consciousness existence consciousness bliss just these three it's also all-powerful creator of the universe all loving and just and all beneficent and merciful and so and so forth all the auspicious qualities of god now they are like the iron ball and existence consciousness bliss is like the fire they're all mixed up together like the red hot iron ball okay so what take the essential teaching what is vedanta trying to tell us now we'll be we get a better idea what is vedanta trying to tell us take the great teaching of iran he says that great mahavakya that thou art that thou art what does that refer to that refers to god what does thou refer to thou refers to you the individual being the vedanta student and it is saying that thou art you are god now this is the direct meaning of the literal meaning of the great sentence that tawat and there is an implied meaning so it says so the means literal meaning literal meaning means that the what you are god you the individual being are the god of religion it's one and the same and what's the implied meaning the actual meaning the underlying meaning it is when you separate them they're like the fire and the iron ball when you understand the difference between brahman and all the upadhis you are existence consciousness place god is also existence consciousness place so you are not you the person you i am not i this body mind vedanta talk giving sarva priyananda but i am business awareness bliss infinite is awareness and god is not the creator of the universe is not the all-powerful all-knowing beneficent you know shiva vishnu allah whatever no god is business awareness bliss infinite and therefore that thou art so all it says is if you look at the sanskrit either maybe thorium this fourth this turiyam which we just talked about in the 49th text should the chaitanya is pure consciousness awareness associated with ignorance and maya which are the two one is jiva one is ishwara individual being and god they all appear together like what like a red hot iron ball if you do not distinguish brahman from its appearances what are the appearances god and jiva god and sentient being is do not distinguish that's the direct meaning literal meaning of the great sentence that thou art which obviously doesn't work you are god doesn't work you're not god obviously and the implied meaning of the great sentence is when you distinguish between fire and the iron ball when you distinguish between brahman on one hand and ishwar and jiva and maya and all of that on the other hand then that is the implied meaning of that thou art that's what is meant here of the great sentence what is the great sentence that thou art chandragupta or any of the great sentences from from the upanishads means literal meaning viviktamsat when you separate ironball and fire when you are able to separate brahman from its appearances lakshyam then you get the implied meaning the underlying meaning the real meaning of the great sentence that thou art okay that's a lot to be going on with but that's nothing much more than what we learned in mandukya and it's going to be explained in the rest of the book what's going to come now what's going to come now now we'll go back to maya and we'll be told that maya has two powers the power of covering up the reality in the power of projecting and like ignorance has two powers it covers up the rope as it were and it projects it as a snake covering power projecting power and then you know what follows next the plot is very simple the projecting power will now project brahman as the five elements in space and uh you know air and fire and water and whatnot brahman itself the absolute itself appears as a material universe and that's mixed up in many ways to create minds and bodies and worlds and stars and planets and and then these minds and bodies think of themselves associated with consciousnesses individual beings and engage in action and samsara starts and goes on until you decide to come to a vedanta class so all of this will come from now on go on for will build up the universe okay let me now take a look at what's been happening in the chat okay girish says maya is said to be not unreal what is the significance of the double negative why not simply say real instead of not unreal you cannot first of all it's a logical contradiction if you say maya is real and unreal notice what has been used the words used has been maya cannot be described as real cannot be described as unreal that's exactly cannot be so expressed cannot be expressed as what as real why not because unlike brahman after enlightenment maya doesn't isn't there there's no separate reality called maya it cannot be expressed as unreal why not because it makes all this difference this whole samsara so why not say why not simply call it real and unreal no then they'll be contradicted the same thing cannot be real and unreal okay um then rama says swamiji pranam maya the totality becomes the power of sagunda brahman correct ignorance at the low individual level counts with the samsara and really not a power it's a limitation why are they being said all right did you um so rama steps um you must have listened to the whole problem which i set up and then i uh resolved it yeah you notice the question problem yes yeah just uh clarification swamiji so uh when uh you spoke about the uh pragma and ishwara they are identical in the sense of their real nature that's very clear but when it comes to maya and avidya at the individual level and totality level so are we saying that they are identical because of their nature of being upadhis uh i'm still not yes that this discussion is there it's good that you caught it um it's there in one of the tikkas it says how are they identical they are not really identical because maya is a great power it's a glory of ishwara and our upadhis are very mean and insignificant things are very limiting so how are they the same yes as as an upadhi and a subtle point was made in the tikka they are supposed to make differences upadhi makes a difference colorless water appears as orange colorless glass appears as orange or red or whatever so it's supposed to make a difference to consciousness make it into individual beings and make it into ishwara but unable to make a difference finally it does not actually make a difference hence they they lack veda this is a little bit of subtle argumentation here the upadhis are supposed to have veda veda means difference making ability since ultimately they do not make a difference you know because ultimately ishwar is also not ishwara jiva is also not jiva pure consciousness was not differentiated remember the example it was not like taking an axe and cutting a splitting of log of wood into two does a pot split space into two parts outer space outside and inside no it looks like that similarly does maya or um individual dupadi does it really make pure consciousness into jiva or ishwara no since it does not it does not have veda does not have the ability to differentiate not having the ability to differentiate they're not really different maya all right so that that sense now remember this is all explanation post fact i mean after we have this text then all the explanation is coming why did the author create this problem there's a reason because the mandooku upanishad creates this problem the mandu cooperation which he has quoted um when you are in deep sleep you are being called god in manuka upanishad sixth mantra you will see before the seventh mantra before turia the deep sleep state individuals when we have gone to deep sleep we are being identified with god asia is the lord of all instead of saying you are the deep sleeper it says that you are the deep sleeper then asia survivor it is the lord of all how can you the individual be the lord of all lord of all how are you this one as one with god that's what is being true to the upanishad one reason is if you look at it phenomenologically your experience in dreams they are all different in waking we are all different clearly you are all spread across the world you have different bodies different minds different personalities our dreams are also different but notice in deep sleep all of us have exactly the same experience all of us upanishad says even an aunt or a mosquito or an elephant in deep sleep you say does mosquito have deep sleep actually it apparently does so in deep sleep the experience is it has to be same when there is no subject object distinction what distinction will there be it's just a blankness so the experience of deep sleep is the same so there you can say individual and cosmic are one and the same in that sense so that's why it's uh ishwara and pragma creates this problem for us there is a lot there's a big backstory to this there is a whole sub-school of vedantins which consider that you actually become one with god in deep sleep and it's fully placed based on chandu gyopunisha then brother undergo so deep one uttarakhand sadhu put it nicely i'll tell you in hindi and transl these are superficial states the really profound state is deep sleep now this is just the obverse of what we normally think we think waking is the most important thing and dreaming is okay maybe you can take it to your psychotherapist and they'll make some sense out of it deep sleep absolutely unimportant it's nothing it's just we just ignore it completely there's nothing to be said about it anyway it's blank and here is the monk saying just the opposite it is actually in deep sleep that you are closest to the absolute closest in i mean figurative language um in waking and dreaming because of the presence of so many upadhi's it's disturbing therefore we are taken up by so many body mind activities thoughts feelings emotions all limiting factors and the same consciousness it's like a movie screen when it is on movies on and when the movie is not playing same screen but the movie can be a disturbing factor if you want to understand what the screen is when the movie is not playing then it's much easier to understand what the screen is like there's another sadhu one of our monks used to go to this sadhu is called shankara vikshu sankarananda in 1950's he passed away uh one of our monks used to go to him he was this shankaran the viktor was regarded as a great as a paramahamsa as a liberated being given mukta in um in those days about 78 years ago so this monk from our ashram who is to go to him and note down his teachings you know he has mentioned it in his diary once he asked this big sushankarananda swami you are a non-dualist vedante so why don't you have books i mean there's a general idea you know the people on the path of knowledge will have plenty of books they'll have libraries and things you don't have any books and that monk said uh he used to live under a tree under you know what a chat toy is in it's like a open bed like when you see in india just made of wood a wooden frame and choir ropes so he said yes i do have books i have three books i have three books waking dreaming and deep sleep and i read this and i know all that i have to know so i have got three books baking dreaming and deep sleep and i read them all right so uh swamiji so the potentiality that we have in the deep sleep also kind the understanding is it also kind of merge with the maya and becomes the cosmic cosmic potentiality i mean when we say yes right when you talk about the potentiality there is difference because from there only all our waking dreaming differences come out now um what would you call gabrielle's is what would you call the space tiny space between your shirt and the cube asking this because the silence experience in a state of no mind and ego space and the cube actually you don't have to extend the example so far and what she's asking is here is the queue when you're seeing it is orange normally colorless but when you put it here it seems orange so there's a space between this shirt and like yeah that kind of idea will come only when you have a separate shirt and a shepherd separate cube or a separate orange glass of orange juice and a separate glass of water that idea you don't have to extend the example so far um this but the question might arise notice that um the shirt is different and the cube glass cube is different therefore you have this effect um so it's not non-dual it's still duality so that's sank here you're right it's sankhya in advaita vedanta there is no separate shirt or there is no separate orange juice class it's an appearance in the in the featureless brahman itself and appearance is due to ignorance uh shweta is asking what about god's mind individual mind so mind will has not yet come notice we have got pure consciousness and ignorance pure consciousness and maya mind will come next we are going to come build minds next and then the physical body so far minds and bodies have not yet come they're going to come next um this space all right she's referring to the earlier question anuradha is asking in punjabishive with the arena divided into four kasha jalakash yes okay so this is a very complicated example which i'm not going to go into now poonam she is asking since our mind has a habit of objectifying everything it seems like consciousness is universally present and we are as individuals are moving around in it can you expand on this i'm not very sure i understand the question or the remark you think about it the giant the people who have raised their hands we can go to those questions now um you can go next yes i have two questions one is does ignorance resides in the mind that is in the mind right um no the mind resides in ignorance according to an advice from advertising perspective because ignorance has come first notice what is the relationship between agana and the sukramashira it is like the switched off a reserved version of the mind look at your own experience in deep sleep in dream and deep sleep what's the difference mind is active in dreaming and waking in deep sleep the same mind when it becomes resolved when it shuts down that itself is called deep sleep or from a yogic perspective the mind takes on abhavarithi blankness that means no activity mind shuts down its activities and that is deep sleep it's the bijavasta seed form of the mind the other question is knowledge always is have a subject an object yes correct but what does operation knowledge who's this what's the subject and what's object there you are the subject and you are also the object but uh that's why the ultimate realization will come what exactly is the nature of approach that will come later we are not going to go into that right now um the technical words there are how is this different from ordinary knowledge how is enlightenment different from so there'll be a whole section discussing it very interesting you'll see how precisely enlightenment has been understood and how is it different from other knowing ordinary knowing i know a glass of water and now you're listening to me talk all this kind of knowledge i read a book so this is knowledge but enlightenment that's also knowledge but what kind how is it materially different how is it significantly different a whole section will be there and you will begin to see what is meant by uh upper okra bhuti or direct realization when you are saying that we want to remove ignorance what where are what are we doing i mean is it you are it's not everything on the mind it's not in the mind so yes so ignorance see specifically ignorance about brahman is what we want to remove the ignorance not the ignorances of many kinds again all this has been um discussed in detail in other texts there is relative ignorance there is the ignorance about brahman there are individual ignorances about different things in the world what we are talking about is ignorance regarding our real self so that ignorance our mind is ignorant of that that can be removed by knowledge which is generated in the mind by these practices by the study and the contemplation and meditation that we can go through thank you thank you again namaste uh swamiji you said in the beginning of the session today that the underlying message uh contained in in vedanta and also in the upanishads is is simple and and it's a matter of actually realizing it and then uh you know making it a a living reality and uh you you also taught in the past that uh making it a living reality is is a matter of uh the the southerner basically that if we if we have those qualities in in an adequate amount then it can become a living reality you've explained the the qualities in in extensive detail as well in in talks in the past i'm wondering for ordinary uh you know seekers like me is there a book that can tell me about how to actually increase these qualities starting from from the very beginning like for example is there a particular practice that i can do so that i can improve on how much we make i have i understand that it may be a large answer to give so i'm wondering whether there is a book that can instruct me and how i can systematically improve it all of these systematically improve it means just that much will be told to us what is viveka and that will be illustrated vividly um so for example vivek chodamani that talks about that defines nicely each of these qualities and how to increase them if you want more detail a more intensive discussion then there is a text called jeevan mukti viveka by vidhyaranya swami there there are whole chapters on this how do you increase viveka how do you increase vairagya so jivan mukti viveka what the book tries to do is to create a dispassion for worldliness and create a generate an urge for freedom for enlightenment that's what it does okay thank you so much i was listening to your talk on maya that you told us to listen to earlier in one of the so there you mentioned about swami vivekananda talking about the uh clinging to life and denial of death and you also mentioned the book of by ernest baker the denial of death how we end up doing various silly things under the spell of just in denial of death now uh so that's understood what my question is does it give a clue in the sense that let's say if i try to visualize imagine uh my death ray i'm dead so what we see is really a body i think everyone says that there's a body lying senseless and i am looking at it so i exist even when i try to visu so it seems like we are just not able to visualize that we are non-existent right that is that what which acts at is that the deep root of what where the denial of death comes from that we are ever existent and we are correct and is it also i'm sorry but is it also like a clue or to connect even in our waking and in this audit mundane awareness with that existence basically the ever existence correct because we are infinite existence we do not want to accept death it's just because we are identified with the bodies i the infinite existence not knowing myself as infinite existence i now identify myself with the body but i'm haunted by the memory of by the notion of infinite existence so i want this body to continue that's why i don't want to die that's an advaithic way of vedantic way of looking at resistance to death it the root is in our real nature except that the expression of it is wrong because of our ignorance this body will die no doubt about it our real nature is awareness that's why we cannot take not knowing if somebody tells you that all right you will be kept alive you will not die but you will be in coma you will live for 100 years in coma no not acceptable i must be aware why what a strange thing of course i must be aware because our very existence is awareness i cannot choose to lose that but we are because we are confused with the mind i think i want awareness as the mind then bliss so we all know we detest misery unhappiness and somebody will say to you yes we will live or tells us that you live in the body and you will be aware but you will be we will be in great pain in icu for the next 100 years is that acceptable no i must live i must be aware and i must be happy this comes from sachidananda yes correct sorry maharaj i am harping on the same string and the reason being i know what is ghatakasha jalakasa and mahakasha but because it the megha kasha is not going in my head i know so it will not go in most people's heads because it's a complicated example when i first read it i was puzzled by it also and it's just because someone like vidyar india is so super intelligent so they come up with these incredible examples so there is uh sky and there is there are clouds and the sky that the cloud occupies and then there is the water particles in the clouds in which sky is reflected so that that is so that becomes very complicated that's fine i never use that example maybe one day if you do sorry if you want to do punctuation maybe we will take it up that's why i don't want to introduce that example oh okay but say i don't okay so fine i wouldn't take it but with the three is it enough you don't have to go don't take that example up because if you take only the three there will be a partial example it will not work it is actually i mean i'm just making fun it's of course a very good example but it's complicated that's why we get to understand the example itself takes a little bit of just just think uh drops of water in the cloud form in that drop of water sky is reflected so that thing to wrap our heads around that itself and that's an example after that we have to understand brahman and maya so that's why i don't want to do that okay all right then yes swamiji i wanted to ask like in the forest example uh it seems like there is a space and we individually as trees are there so is it seems like the consciousness is like space universally present yes and we are there as trees so it's difficult to uh not to objectify it um take yourself as the universally present consciousness sky not tree not tree what has happened here is the cube in the orange color you are not the orange color you are the colorless cube you are consciousness you are not body and mind in you the consciousness body and mind have appeared like in the colorless cube orange color has appeared even when the orange color appears in the cube it looks orange cube looks like an orange cube it is not an orange cube there is not the slightest touch of orange in the cube similarly right now there is no touch of body in you male body female body young old no touch of mind in you happy unhappy ignorant realized non-realized nothing is there in you it but the whole thing the whole punamji personality appears in you the pure consciousness you are not like the tree you are like the sky you are pure consciousness you are not the body mind called punamji after knowing that you can still embody punimji and go on with your life but you'll be very happy you'll be free of that personality thank you thank you so much let us uh abhijit has a question this is related to 48 so previously we have always maintained that at the deep sleep level we have seeded form of ignorance which is different from what i have versus what a mosquito has yeah difference we have always maintained that the unity only exists at the substratum level which is the transcendental reality which is brahman but here it it clearly says that it's same as at the deep sleep level which is apparently at least contradictory from the right so remember what i said it is the same phenomenologically phenomenologically means as experienced so as experienced the same blankness is experienced by everybody in deep sleep it has to be because that's the very definition of deep sleep if we experience any kind of difference then you are not in deep sleep so our experience of deep sleep is virtually the same for all beings that's what is what is being meant but the seeds which are different from each of us which differentiate us those seeds are there why are you ignoring that then they are ignoring that because they are not in play in deep sleep they only the differences are expressed only when you go to dream state or waking state but potentially the differences are there if those differences when they're not there you would become one with brah you'll be one with brahman once you go into deep sleep you'll never come out again yeah and remember didn't say but still if you object why are you straight away saying that there is in the causal state in the karana shadida they are all one you know the individual ignorances are all one maya same with maya because of that one example like one reason i gave which i got from the tikka veda is not there the ability to actually make a difference in pure consciousness is not there in that sense they are all abhidha non-different so they are both cases we can make a case for both of them that there is a difference in terms of potentiality but there is sameness because it's a experience of absence it's an experience of a uniform experience of absence because absence is the same everywhere yes but um it's the potential difference is there because you see immediately afterwards difference comes when you wake up and you go into dream state or waking state the difference comes but the second reason i gave why there is why you can ignore the differences in deep sleep is because they are unable to make any difference actually it's like saying you have many kinds of pots and jars a big ground pot a small one a long jar you know various kinds of pottery suppose you have and the space inside that seems to be exactly like the pot itself round or longer but actually the space has not been affected in any way so have the jars made any veda difference are they difference makers or are they making an appearance of difference because space has not become round space has not become tall space has not become small or anything space is space so since they they are unable to make any real difference in that sense these difference makers are all the same in that sense you know like uh upadhi's are all the same in that sense this is a subtle point actually [Music] krishna foreign