Video 14

14. Vedantasara | Texts 61-74 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

i take refuge in the self the indivisible the existence consciousness bliss absolute beyond the reach of words and thought and the substratum of all for the attainment of my cherished desire so we are studying the vedanta sara which is basically an introduction to the whole system of vedanta and let us not forget the purpose the purpose is to give a solid foundation to entry into the upanishads which are the foundational texts of vedanta the root texts of vedanta which we will take up so today especially you will see where a bunch of definitions will come our way and it's really good to know have a clear idea of at least in the vedantic terms what is a mind what is intellect what's a subtle body what's a causal body these things are so precisely defined what's the ultimate reality what is god don't look curious oh yes i would like to know that define god we already have the ultimate reality brahman qualified by maya is called god so what do we have in the play so far we're going to start with text number 61. what are the pieces in the game so far the ultimate reality of course brahman that's the most important thing to know there is only one thing ultimately in advaitha vedanta which is existence consciousness bliss and non-dual nondual literally means there is no second reality so whatever appears apart from brahman the way we see the world it has to be an appearance it cannot be the ultimate reality so brahman and then maya maya is not a second reality apart from brahman maya because maya cannot be said to exist in the same sense as brahman and yet it cannot be said not to exist also because it is the cause of all this universe which we see then brahman and maya together are called saguna brahman or ishvara god the god of religion and brahman and maya together become the cause of this universe but would remember what kind of cause a real universe is never produced subraman is never really the cause of the universe is the cause of the appearance of the universe just like the rope is the cause of the appearance of the snake which we see by mistake the screen is the cause of the appearance of a movie none of the actors in the none of the characters in the movie none of the objects in the movie nor the space time event in the movie are actually happening there and the screen remains the screen but it is it enables the movie to be played similarly the ultimate reality brahman remaining unaffected enables the movie of this universe to be played but having said that we need to know the details of how this movie comes about it is still the primordial being but now we are told that primordial being brahman the ultimate reality with maya now maya has two functions it veils the ultimate reality brahman which explains or sort of does why we don't see it anywhere why we don't know it at all it's a primordial ignorance maya that's one one function the other function is more interesting it projects that reality as this reality projects does not transform brahman into the universe raman actually does not become a material universe it is not pantheism closest would be pan and atheism there's an uh technical term and enthiesm so brahman appears in this universe because of the projecting power of maya and so brahman is what kind of cause brahman is called the vivarta karnam the without getting transformed itself it appears as the universe like a rope without actually becoming a snake appears seems to be a snake um so like that brahman appears as the universe but the maya itself is transformed into the universe maya is called parinami karana transforming transformed cause are the cause which is transformed into the effect so the constituents of maya sattva rajasthan actually appear as this universe how do they do so the first things which happened are um the five subtle elements are produced they are not yet the physical things which we call the universe but the subtle elements the fives they're called the pancha sukshma bhuta or tanmatra what are they what are they space air fire water earth these are primordial elements which are produced from brahman through maya produce means appear brahman appears as these five they have different properties how is it that if it is only brahman then how are they different the reason is the difference is caused by maya maya gives different properties and so we have different names for them they look different they act differently so we have the five elements now and remember maya has a cosmic aspect and an individual aspect maya can be subdivided brahman cannot be subdivided it's just one and only one but maya can be infinitely subdivided so each part of maya is a tiny bit of a speck of ignorance so that absolute reality channeled through each speck of ignorance becomes the the seed for individual beings like us it's what we experience in deep sleep so that is our causal state i the individual sentient being in my causal state deep sleep so those terms were also introduced pragya and these are terms borrowed from the mandu upanishad okay that's what we have got so far now the subtle body will be produced notice what are we we are brahmana but when we become associated with a tiny part of maya we become what we are in the deep sleep state that same ram covered by maya tiny aspect of my that that tiny aspect of my little bit of maya is called our causal body then on top of that comes our subtle body which is now going to be produced and on top of that finally comes our physical or gross body this physical body so the individual being the jiva the sentient being is infinite reality consciousness existence consciousness please no doubt about it but limited by um ignorance so ignorance is the causal body then further limited by the ma the subtle body what is the subtle body we'll see now and then finally by the physical body it's the physical body which is born uh it is the physical body which ages and dies the subtle body goes on from birth to birth to birth the causal body goes on from birth to birth to birth and ultimately when there is enlightenment the subtle body dissolves back into the five elements and the causal body is dispelled and so you remain as the infinite reality um that's the plot i should have said spoiler alert all right now come to text number 62. that's page number 62 text number 61 text number 61 subtle bodies so today the subtle body will be produced now we are getting to more familiar territory what is the subtle body thoughts feelings emotions ideas the person which we consider ourselves to be whatever i consider myself to be server priyanka is mostly the subtle body the personality that's coming now text number 61 sukshma shari rani the subtle bodies are what are known as the linga sharira having 17 component parts the causal body which is nothing other than a tiny bit of maya that is one the causal body then the subtle body comes which has 17 parts we'll see what those parts are and then the physical body comes which has umpteen number of parts with our organ systems and everything um okay anything else that i wanted to say yeah so in the waking state we are aware of all three we have physical body and when we look inside we find the subtle body and beyond that is the ignorance which hides our reality all three bodies are available to us at all times in dreams the physical body is forgotten but the subtle body works and the causal body is of course there in deep sleep only the causal body is there it is evident the subtle body shuts down and you have no awareness of a physical body only the causal body which is deep sleep or ignorance is there the koshers the sheaths there's another way of classifying all this the panchakosha the five sheets so the causal body is called ananda maya kosha the subtle body which we will read now is called or let me give the english translations the causal body in sanskrit karana sharira is also called kosha in english the bliss sheath now the subtle body will be produced the subtle body in sanskrit sukshma shavira is also called the three other sheets the in english the subtle body has three sheets in that the intellect sheet the mind sheet and the vital sheath sheet as in s-h-a-e-a-t-h why sheath because it's it covers so to say the atman i'm using my words very carefully covers so to say it really does not cover nothing can cover you see there's no danger of using terms like sheath covering you feel like there are multiple layers of cloth over and if you remove them you'll find suddenly find the atman not like that suppose i say the pot covers the clay it's like saying that the wave covers the water the necklace covers the gold does a pot really cover the clay not at all it is the clay alone what is the part other than the clay alone does a wave really cover the water no not at all every bit of the wave is water does the golden necklace really cover the gold not at all all it can do is if for a person who does not know what clay is or gold is or water is that person will think oh it's a wave where is water oh it's a necklace where is gold it's a pot what do you mean by clay for that ignorant person the part name and form seems to cover the reality which is clay or the water name and wave name and form seems to cover cover within coats the reality which is water for an enlightened person just like for us it's if you say look at the pot and see the clay it's a yeah it's effortless you know it's so clear look at the wave and see the water yes of course what's difficult about it for the enlightened person look at the universe see brahman yes as easy as that it's brahman alone shining forth shankaracharya says that in aparok shannon as choicelessly the clay in a part blazes forth if you have the pot you have the clay what you touch is the clay what you see is the clay what you wave is the clay there's nothing but clay there for the person who knows what clay is so for the person who's enlightened there's nothing but brahman here and it's very obvious to that person effortlessly so anyway but we are going far ahead of our story now our thing is to learn about the subtle body which is very interesting our our inner private life you know what is it made of according to vedanta seventeen parts sukshma irani subtle bodies sapta dashavaya avayavani 17 components 17 parts linga sharirani another name for subtle body is linga sharira in sanskrit sukshma shadira means subtle body or linga sharira that also means subtle body by the way these are ghosts so you say do you believe in ghosts or not yes what is a ghost according to it's just after the physical body is gone um we are there with our subtle bodies and that's a ghost if you go around and say boo to people then then you'll be classified as a ghost if you don't if you don't if you're a rather quiet and retiring sort of ghost nobody will notice you but that's that's what you are that's what we are the pure consciousness limited by the causal body further limited by the subtle body without a physical body as long as we are in that state we are what's called a ghost all right now what are the 17 parts available [Music] text 62. what are the 17 parts of the subtle body the component parts of the linga sharira are the five organs of perception the intellect the mind the five organs of action and the five vital forces it's going to be a nice description of our inner being it's the software within the computer you're going down they're describing what are the apps what are the what's the operating system what kind of software you have what's the antivirus system all of that is now going to be described within us not the hardware just a software part of it so what is it comprised of um the five sense organs the five motor organs organs of knowledge organs of action the two parts of the mind buddhi in intellect and mind it makes the same thing is divided into two parts minor intel mind and intellect buddhi means intellect manas means mind now sometimes this inner organ the mind will be divided into four parts in some texts mind intellect memory and ego you can divide it into two parts intellect and mind or into four parts mind memory intellect ego manas if you divide into four parts then the count will go up to 19. you see what i'm saying the subtle body has 17 parts if you count intellect and mind as two parts but if you further subdivide into intellect mind memory and ego you add two more parts so the subtle body will have 19 parts what's this problem of 19 and 17. remember all of this is based on the upanishads so one of the upanishads talks about subtle body having 17 parts so there's always a struggle to fit everything into seventeen the upanishad has said so but often you find um so when shankaracharya sings his famous nirvana shatakam six stanzas on nirvana he sings [Music] i am not the mind i am not the ego i am not the intellect i'm not the memory four he has dinner so he's counting four there not two so in his count it would that subtle body would have 19 parts then so that's something to keep in mind so five sense organs five motor organs um two components or four components of the mind mind itself and the intellect and then five components of the prana of the of what is called the vital force um the the vital force which keeps the body alive so when when we say a person is dead in most indian languages they will be like the praana has gone um in bengali in hindi the prana has gone by prana we mean not only the prana we mean the entire subtle body the subtle body has left so we see that that he's gone he or she is gone that means only the physical body is left there's an interesting distinction here in the west we say that he has given up the ghost what is the ghost the subtle body and uh in india we say he's given up the body so he's given up the physical body just the other way around but the same phenomenon is that the subtle body is leaving the physical body that's death death is nowhere seen as the end in no civilization of the world from ancient times till today around the world nowhere is death seen as a full stop except for a completely reductionist materialist nobody else even the most primitive um aboriginal cultures nobody they all see death as a continuation what continues clearly the physical body does not continue but the subtle body does continue um if you are saying that swami are you forgetting the causal body the causal body also goes with the subtle body so you have 17 five sense organs five motor organs five pranas we will see all of them what are the sensor organs motor organ spinals what each of them does we'll see all of that and the intellect and mind 17 if you count intellect mind ego and memory 819 now five sense organs what are the five vital forces is cordelia is a doctor so she's immediately zoned in on the life forces that's what the doctors are trying to keep in our body so uh an er doctor is basically concerned about keeping the life forces within the physical body so what are the five life forces that's that's the definition of keeping somebody alive we'll see it's all it will all come up everything will be talked about and the functions of each one and so on 63 the five sense organs well known [Music] the five organs of perception are the ears the skin the eyes the tongue and the nose remember we are not talking about nose and eyes and ears no these are the powers in the subtle body the ability to see the ability to hear smell taste touch the physical organs have not come yet until the physical body is produced these things these things are so it's very interesting in the subtle body these powers are there these capacities are there in the subtle body and they connect to the physical body the apparatus the the hardware so this is part of the hardware these eyes this nose these ears but what we are talking about here the sense organs they are not the physical organs here they are the capacities in the subtle body which will work through this so this is quite clear from a vedantic perspective this this part makes it very clear that when the ancients were talking about five sense organs they were not actually talking about the physical organs here the physical organs have not yet become at all their physical body has not yet been produced already they're talking about eyes ears men these are the powers of seeing somebody may ask isn't it very anthropomorphic the five sense organs of human beings only correct and you'll see throughout the book it's pretty much about you so there wouldn't be detailed descriptions of the universe of plants and animals no it's mostly a description of us and just defining and clarifying what we are just drawing a picture of what we are according to vedanta and then hurrying back towards the real nature which is brahman so the point of this is to enable us to use vedanta to realize to become enlightened not as a scientific description of the universe so if some other animals have two sense organs or some other animals have six or seven sense organs you know that is not of interest to sadhana who is writing this text what he's interested in is us so that we can it will help us to become enlightened the five sense organs number 64. so where do these five come from these are produced separately in consecutive order from the sattva particles of ether etc so ethani these five sense organs means sensory powers where do they come from they come from the five um elements from how how are they connected to the five elements they come from the satwik parts of those five remember all the five elements are produced from maya which has thomas so from the more satwik elements why satwik because they are they produce knowledge eyes produce sensor the visual knowledge uh years produce auditory knowledge and so on because they produce knowledge there must be more sattvo in them therefore we infer they come from the satwik parts of the five five elements how project protects separately chromata in sequence so you have to match the sequence notice in 63 it will give it a particular sequence shrotra means ears so the ears have the element of space in them then tuck touch so touch has the element of air in it and then chuck shoe eyes visual powers they have the element of fire in it how am i doing this i'm connecting these five the sequence it in which has been given with the sequence usual sequence of the five elements space and air and fire and water and earth then jiva tongue it has the element of tongue means not the physical tongue the power of taste it has the element of water in it and then um smell it is the element of earth in it so it makes a kind of logic so they come from those five elements in sequence chromata protect each is connected to a separate element okay now intellect and mind so these are interesting because they give very clear definitions of what vedanta means by mind intellect sense organs all of these things 65 intellect intellect or buddhi is that modification of the internal instrument antakarana which determines so there is an internal instrument the subtle body has ten external instruments five external instruments of knowledge five external instruments of action um and the five piranhas which can be seen as a battery pack which gives energy to the whole thing which makes it work and an internal instrument like a cpu of it's pretty much like a computer so a computer has certain input devices you have the mouse and the keyboard and the touchpad and things like that these are all external input device by external because they are in contact with the external world but the computer also has an internal um setup like the cpu and the memory which do not come directly in contact with us you can't do anything to those things you what you can do is you can do something to the keyboard or the mouse or the trackpad and things like that or the touchpad but to the internal setup of the computer the cpu and the memory and um so just like that we have an internal instrument the internal instrument is not in touch with the external world what is in touch with the external world the five sense organs the five motor organs uh this internal instrument has you can say either two parts or four parts what does the internal internal instrument have intellect mind memory ego four parts or simply intellect in mind buddhi namas intellect is what is buddhi what is intellect the determinative faculty what is it always connected to your own experience what exactly is meant by intellect here the faculty of understanding not just thinking and feeling the moment you get that aha feeling i got it clarity i have got knowledge what knowledge any knowledge any knowledge at all when there is clear knowledge it is the intellect which is active when you get the feeling i'm not getting it that's the intellect not work not being able to process when you get the feeling of i've got it a math problem or a solution to anything that you're looking for any kind of understanding of a concept that's the intellect and by the way these are different functions are not physical parts of a subtle body they are different functions of the inner instrument inner instrument they are different functions it's the same in an instrument but it functions in different ways mind number 66 text number 66 the mind or manas is that modification of the internal instrument which considers the pros and cons of a subject sankalp and vikalpa means all sorts of alternatives um the unprocessed information is dumped there so the sense organs will pull in lot of information and dump it all into the mind and it is processed there understanding comes at a deeper level which is buddhi but the simply the processing which is going on called publical but this or that there is information but not yet knowledge so that entire back room processing that is called mind emotions also will come here feelings feelings um thoughts possibilities general random chattering away of the of the mind that is the mind that's called manas then 67. and in these two the mind stuff jitter and ego egoism are included in the intellect and the mind manas so this solves the mystery four parts are not two parts so here see he still has this bean upon it about fitting the everything into 17 parts and he knows you're going to ask him what about ego what about memory he says you these are included in mind and intellect so you still you can still claim to have 17 parts in the subtle body but it's important to note intellect mind ego and memory these are actually the four functions of the inner instrument so what is the memory it will define all of these are defined memory is defined intellect is defined ego will be defined memory 68. memory chitta is that modification of the inner organ which remembers so that function which recalls records or traces left behind by previous experiences previous experiences of seeing hearing smelling tasting touching thinking feeling or understanding remembering forgetting all those previous experiences they leave traces and the capacity of recalling those traces is called memory which recalls traces left in the in the mind stuff that is called memory one little note here in the yoga sutras you find [Music] yoga is the cessation of the transformations of the chitta so what are they talking about is yoga related to memory no there the word chitta means the whole of the mind there the word chitta means the entire mind the calming down cessation of the movements of the mind is called yoga or samadhi that's yoga sutras specific meaning of chitta is memory general meaning of chitta mind whole mind is sometimes called chitta there were two words consciousness chitta mind important is the only one takara one that is mind huh it also points to the fact that the mind also ultimately is nothing other than brahman it is brahman alone with a with an overlay of maya which appears in this form then what is ego clear definitions interesting and these are remember all this all this will become useful throughout our study of simple and direct definitions what is ego 69 [Music] egoism is that modification of the inner organ which is characterized by self-consciousness this should be i don't know what you have got in your book it should be smallest not capitalist say self-consciousness is you know not capitalist self-consciousness small as self-consciousness so what is ego it is the modification of the internal organ which is characterized by self-consciousness not not a particularly good translation i'll give you a better translation is the appropriating function the appropriating function is called the ego what does that appropriating function mean whatever is going on in the body mind it is taken up appropriated and unified by the ego um you're walking walking is going on but the ego says i am walking eating is going on the ego says i am eating is the ego actually eating not at all ego is just a function of the mind you can't eat neither can it walk but it is the it the function of the mind is to this ego the function is to unify all these activities under one head and that is called appropriating it takes upon itself everything that's going on there this is i a thought arises in the mind i want a cookie i'm sorry see the ego is already working cookie want then the ego comes in i want cookie cookie comes from memory want comes from the mind and then the ego comes and says i want cookie when it comes from the memory the desire will not be there but the traces in the mind they come up and that it hooks that it's a nice thing a cookie it is a thing to be wanted so want and cookie are present then the ego comes and says i want then so remember it's the appropriating function in sanskrit function of the same inner instrument clearly it's not the real you the real you is the atman the consciousness it is just a function of the mind it works it does not work sometimes sometimes the ego is not present when is the ego not present keep the mind very busy busy you will not feel the presence of the ego you're deeply interested in your work a surgeon is doing very serious neurosurgery something very fine work maybe neurosurgery or something r after hour does not even feel i am doing it mihai cheeks in me calls this the flow experience so when you have a flow experience in sports in music in in um a you know you're a doctor or or an artist or a writer or even a meditator when you get into the flow experience the ego disappears why there's a psychological reason for it the mind has no capacity left over for generating the ego you focused it so much on something there's no capacity left over when you're intensely playing a game of tennis or something like that at that time you're not thinking i am going to smash this ball if you think that you'll miss it there is no time left over the mind just reacts in dance in martial arts in sports in music specially when you're playing an instrument you know how to play an instrument very well you know when it's going really well and at that time you don't feel i'm going to do this next i'm going to do that that'll be horrible you can never play properly if you do that uh so automatically it flows that's where mihai chicks and me got the term flow the music just flowed from that he got the term flow there the ego will not be present there's no cognitive capacity left over for generating an ego at that time afterwards ego can say i played so well i did that operation so well so that's the ego it will come in later but when the ego is not being generated by the mind are you not there you are there in deep sleep the ego stops because the mind stops the ego also stops but the deep sleep is an experience without the ego one advaita teacher said a very subtle point he says this is one of the doors to enlightenment these are some of the errors faults in the structure of maya here is one a very subtle point when you go to sleep the ego also goes to sleep because the mind goes to sleep none of the mind is subtle body sleep means subtle body stops functioning only causal bodies left so the subtle body there is no mind memory intellect ego all of them stop the four components of the uh antarctic shut down and this deep sleep and we wake up when we wake up the inner instrument starts functioning ego comes up when memory comes up the intellect comes up mind comes up they start functioning and the ego says i slept happily no you did not you the ego you did not you were not there at all in deep sleep you the ego were not there you're shut down you did not sleep happily you this deep sleep is something deeper than your existence you were not there at all and yet the ego says i slept happily that is a door it's a fault in the structure of maya maya has built up a very nice palace of deceit but there are some trapdoors here is one where the witness consciousness illumined the darkness of deep sleep it is the ego which takes over after waking up and says i slept if you can see the difference between the two you will see the difference between atma and ego anyway that was the pointer given by a monk where where do they come from ego intellect mind memory seventy [Music] so these four what are these four mind intellect ego and memory they are produced by the satwika parts of um of the five elements mixed up remember the sense organs are produced from the satwika parts of each of the five elements separately hearing from space um seeing from fire touch from air and so on but here all the five elements together they contribute to the generation of ego mind intellect and memory so these uh components of the inner instrument punah and again akashadi the space etc uh satwik ang shabya from their satwik parts mixed compounded together they are produced they appear why are you stressing that they're all from satwik apart from satwik aspect of these are all they are illumined they shine with awareness they produce knowledge which produces knowledge mind intellect worldly knowledge mind intellect memory so because of the knowledge producing ability we we understand they must come from the satwika part of the five elements remember none of this is physical all of it is at the subtle level then little bit of housekeeping accounting how do you match all this with the five sheets you know maya pranamaya and annamaya how do you match them 72. this intellect along with the five organs of perception constitutes the sheath of intelligence intellect that means that function of the inner instrument the intellect along with if you count with the five uh organs of knowledge seeing hearing smelling tasting touching that whole thing is called the sheath of the intellect began amaya kosha then 73 an important point he raises this is where we first time begin to feel like an individual being each of us where at the level of the intellect i am this is where it happens not in deep sleep we are already we have been created pure consciousness limited by one aspect of maya we that we saw in the causal level but we have no awareness of ourselves as an individual being there we can't think in deep sleep when look think about deep sleep now what are we there nothing just an awareness of blankness but no activity going on there but for the first time we are active here we can think and reflect so this is where you practically become an individual sentient being practically become individual sentient being that's what he's going to say in 73. [Music] on account of its being conscious of that that it is an agent and enjoyer that it is happy or miserable etc is called the phenomenal jiva the individual self subject to transmigration to this and the other words very important this is where you can recognize yourself here i am introduced as something understandable as myself infinite consciousness um part of my causal body none of that seems very familiar to us we don't feel like that but this is exactly us the intellect she the vigyana my kosher this is where you feel katrito i am the doer i is there doership is there i am the knower i see i hear i smell i taste i touch the five sense organs are working enjoyership or experiencer i am an experiencer i see i hear i smell i taste i touch i remember i think i feel i understand all of this is experience this is what's beginning to happen now then what kind of experiences sukhito do pleasure and pain are now experienced and understood it is at this level pleasure and pain are really understood and all other kinds of the whole range of experience happens at this level not only that more important hello kagami this is the one which dwells in this world and after the death of the physical body will travel to other worlds to other lives it has come on from other lives this is us the real us who are inhabiting this now i am serva priyananda but before this body i was still there after this body goes if i don't attain enlightenment i'll still be there i'll come back in some other form by the way just by the way i was watching this nice documentary it's called um it's called the unmistaken child unmistaken child so it's a beautiful documentary made about 10 or 12 years ago on a buddhist on a tibetan lama who so they have in tibetan buddhism they have the concept of the ring poachers who keep coming back in a very when we are reborn under conditions of ignorance we have no choice in the matter but spiritually very enlightened beings um who have not yet taken full nirvana they come back again and again because of the whole concept of the bodhisattva that they come back again and again to help sentient beings so these these very advanced spiritual beings can actually choose where and how in general terms where and how they can come back so they have a control over their own karma this is extreme extraordinarily advanced very rare you find that in the the some of the direct disciples of srinama krishna who clearly aware that we came from other other realms and they're born to help sudama krishna in his mission as an avatar and so and so forth so the story is of a um of a very advanced llama who passes on at the age of 84 or something like that in a monastery in nepal and his attendant who is a young monk a young lama who has served him faithfully for 20 21 years his disciple so he's inconsolable that he has he can't so at the time of death that lama is telling the attendant the young monk don't cry i've had a wonderful life whatever i wanted to do in this life i have done this llama keeps on telling even till the five minutes before the passing away that you come back please come back and tell me where i can find you so they finally they slam up before passing away he says all right i'll come back and so there's this documentary so there's a film crew which follows this young llama around in his search for where this his old master has come back as a new baby so it's a very interesting documentary what has come back the old lama's body was burnt they even show the commission the body is being burnt uh but now what what has gone away it's a subtle body this this began a maya kosher and that reincarnates in another body helplessly if it's an uh subtle body like most of us or if a very enlightened advanced master then with some some autonomy so i know swami ranganathan anandiji 13th president of our order would say more than once he'd say that i will come back i will come back again to do swami vivekananda's work so that coming back is not like the rest of us we come back helplessly under the the the inertia of our past karma but that coming back is of a luminous enlightened being coming back by choice for some higher purpose i remember a very old swami upani maharaj whom i you know his oldest swami i knew he died at the age of not the oldest really he died at the age of 102 103. there was another swami who died at the age of 106 recently like last year before last so there's open maharaj who was a disciple of swami shivananda and at that time swami ranganathanji was the president of our order ranganathanji also was a disciple of swami shivananda who is the disciple of one day goes to swami ranganathan the president of the order and says what will become of me and remember this both swamis are above 90 at that time what will become of me and swami raganathan under the president of the order he straight away said this is your last life you will be liberated upon the fall of this but he said literally this is your last life you um you i will come back again he said i will come back again and third sentence he said but but you don't have to you won't so these three sentences this is your last life i shall come back again but you don't have to and this i heard from one of the attendants so i wanted to verify it you know sometimes things get exaggerated so i found this old swami who was nearly 100 years old at that time sitting near the holy mother's temple on the bank of the ganga and i went up to him and asked it's a few very deep questions one i asked was swami i heard that you went to swami ranganathan and ji and you asked before i could complete it he completed the whole thing himself he said yes what will become of me and he said that and this is your last birth i meaning he he will come back again but i don't have to come back now look at the caliber of this old monk uh he went on praising swami ranganathan you see the attitude he does not want final liberation he wants to come back to do in to this world to do so as vivekananda's work to spread spirituality and so on and i said in a sort of restless hurry swami forget that you have been given i said in you've been bengali a permanent vacation so isn't that exciting and this swami was not all that carried away by emotion you know he just said yes the blessings of a maha purusha for great soul let us see let's you know about himself he was not all that worried not at all interested in fact but he really liked ranganatanji's attitude that i shall come back and and work for humanity work for vivekananda's work but i was excited i think i was more excited about his impending liberation than he was i actually asked him if he was enlightened but anyway that is a different story altogether so this is the vigna maya kosha which goes from birth to birth and this is called important important this is called the transactional sentient being individual being transactional means for all practical purposes our individuality starts here causal body deep sleep maya all that we it's it's too rarified for us but what we can immediately understand is this one which we feel right now okay then don't worry i know there's a lot of activity going on there let me just i have a plan so i'll just go a little bit more and then stop 74. [Music] the mind with the organs of perception constitutes the mental sheath so the other we are doing some accounting here what about the mental sheet manamaya kosha subtle body has three sheets vigyanamayamanomaya pranamaya gyanamaya is intellect plus five organs of perception five organs perception and uh what is the mental sheath manomaya mind five organs of perception just a minute aren't you double counting yes it is the same thing you count it in this way it is this intellect sheet counted the other way it is the mind sheet just the differences one is one function is of the intellect function one function is of the mind function and you should take them together with the five sense organs because those five sense organs dump their information in the mind um so five sense organs with the mind is called the sheath of the mind mano maya kosher all right we'll stop here because organs of action and the orga and the pranas the battery pack energy pack which keeps the whole thing alive and going those things will come next all right before we go on let me quickly take a look at the activity by the way lot of activity here many comments what would saddam and the yoginja say don't take all this too seriously none of this is meant to be taken very seriously what is the only thing that is meant to be taken seriously the reality is existence consciousness placed non-dual brahman then again starting from ignorance downwards downwards means all of this is what unreal it's a movie being played out good to understand but don't get excited about it um the screen doesn't cause the movie it's a rick i think the screen is passive and the projector which is separate from the screen causes it analogy breaks down but there's nothing other than brahman maya couldn't exist because there would be something existing other than brahman maya can't be part of brahman because brahman is indivisible and can't have parts your thoughts please yes it's paradoxical but remember in a sense the screen does cause the movie in what sense not that the screen is making up the movie the screen is giving substance to the movie without the screen there wouldn't be anything on which the movie to play um we needn't think of an old movie screen you can think of a modern in a plasma tv or something which is both screen and projector all together so it gives substance it gives reality in what in what sense is it the cause everything in the movie the actors the places the activities are actually if you just go out and touch them there is no robber or cop there is no king kong there is no harry potter there whatever you touch is the scream is the reality reality is only the screen in that sense brahman is the only reality that there is all right now maya producing all of this remember from an advaithic perspective they are not disturbed that it could be a second thing as long as maya doesn't have its own separate identity its own separate existence a second entity as long as non-duality is protected the advaita is fine with it you can call maya the power of brahman the projecting power of brahm upon realization you realize maya has no reality of its own apart from brahman and therefore brahman still remains one without a second he said yet but brahman his only existence consciousness place why don't you add maya to it because maya doesn't have a separate existence apart from that but maya is doing all of this from an advertising perspective is it in the movie and say you see the difference between fiction and fact if you say the the movie the tv is producing the magician harry potter and the villains and the magic school not really there is no magician there there's no harry potter there is no magic school there there's only a tv but it has the potency of producing a fiction that much is there and that is no problem for the non-dualist because being a fiction it is not a countable second to brahman that's all they're interested after that you can have your fun as much fiction as you want but there is no second reality apart from brahman whatever you come across in the play of maya has to be brahman yeah it can't be anything other than broken yeah if you give more importance to maya you have more stress you will slowly move from the spectrum of advaita towards something like kashmiri kashmiri shaivism for example you give a little more importance reality to the projection it's not just a fiction it's not just a projection it has validity of its own within the ultimate reality it becomes more like kashmiri shaivism you give it even more reality it becomes vishishta it is a part of brahman a distinct part of brahman each of us existing part of brahman it is anathema to advaita vedanta will never admit it but which is to come um qualified monism vishishta will say actually brahman has parts that makes it metaphysically illogical but may be more satisfying at our level ramya says difference between jeeves begins with the sukshma shadira till that point it's the same all at karna shalita important point till the causal body till the karnashara the difference between us is not experiential but still the difference is there so what difference at the level of deep sleep it's all the same it's all the same experience potentially we are different because the moment we sprout into our subtle bodies we are very different from each other which means the subtle bodies existed as potency that seed form even in the causal body that's the meaning of cause as seeds they all look the same the moment they sprout they look very different that means were they really the same as seeds no the dna was different there they just looked same they were not doing anything but the moment they sprout and start developing you see difference that means the difference was already there in a subtle or in a causal form there so in in causal body also we are different and causally we are sentient beings we are different at the causal level at a subtle level clearly different physical level here countably different you can count there are 66 people here is this the holy ghost of christianity no no don't confuse it with the holy ghost of christianity the holy ghost is a spiritual power which descends from god to all all living beings it's a much higher thing this um this ghost is a subtle body it is it is actually there's a term pneuma which was there in early christianity sort of fell out of use but that corresponds a lot to the subtle body numeral literally means air vital breath which is close to prana rick says people who have out of body experiences during the near-death experience prove that the subtle body organs of perception can function without the physical body correct they perceive things in the operating room other parts of the hospital while people are in cardiac arrest with no detectable brain activity so many things such things are reported scientists will not accept it but the amount of data is i actually heard a talk by a doctor a medical researcher in the vedanta society of dallas so about the data on near-death experiences out-of-body experiences i mean there's such a lot of data and all of it is suppressed because it doesn't fit with our our paradigm that body is everything without body it cannot function but it shows it can function one can still think and one can see and one can even experience without the body sometimes better without the body is the experience of death similar to the experience of dreaming rather than deep sleep no the experience of death will be like deep sleep it's only when the subtle body becomes active again either in this world as a ghost you go around saying boo to people or you go travel to other worlds and we talk about heavenly worlds or hellish worlds for particularly naughty people so in those worlds the subtle body again becomes active and you get a new body then a kind of astral body and then you can again think and then it will be like a dream not like a deep sleep anymore but right at the moment point of death it goes into a dream like a deep sleep like state the tibetan would this have a very detailed phenomenology of death and post-death experiences call it the bardos the dividend book of dying living and dying that book is there sravani says only his lectures he cites akash and prana's fundamental elements after creation prana being unity and from forces akasha being matter was it done by vaisheshika scholars i think so because it's not a vedantic perspective notice what is vedantic perspective is entirely taken from sankhya it's borrowed from sankhya but the akasha prana i have searched where was it it is actually in the vaisheshika system is antarctica same as mine correct but now we have already uh discussed the divisions and the now you should be able to say anta karana means inner instrument what are the components two or four depending on how you count mind intellect me ego memory if all jivas are similar during deep sleep it is possible that during dream the sukhmaria can communicate with the cosmic all jivas are not similar during deep sleep um the experience is similar during deep sleep it feels the same for everybody during deep sleep but the potential difference is always there the seed forms so when the mind awakens in dream for example now this is this is a separate question can sukshmasher communicate with the cosmic mind yes just as our physical body is always part of the cosmic the physical cosmos our mental bodies are also part of the cosmic mind part of hiranyakarpa so at some level we are all connected into the world wide web this is a much deeper internet than our computer internet sometimes messages and information percolates through from the cosmic mind into our individual minds spiritual dreams are such an example and you'll never forget those experiences they are not generated at our level what is the prabhupada what is the difference between ego and reflected consciousness consciousness is reflected in the ego the ego is a movement of the mind notice we just read the definition the appropriating movement or function of the mind or inner instrument is called ego so it's a movement of the inner instrument what are they made of satwik parts of the five elements material they are not physical matter there's subtle matter consciousness or atman or chaitanya is reflected in that reflection is just a way of speaking it's not physically reflect not like light so the ego feels aware it's not only i but it's an aware eye it's an aware eye so in artificial intelligence you need you endow a robot with artificial intelligence that also has a sense of sense of integrity it can distinguish itself from its environment so it behaves as if it has an ego so you can even say that the robot has an ego but then ego of the robot is a robot is not uh a conscious ego there is no reflection of consciousness there the robot does not actually feel like us i though it behaves like us in behavior ego intellect memory all are evident in the robot's activity if it's a sophisticated device with artificial intelligence and so on and notice intelligence memory ego mind all these can be replicated by computer science today all these can be replicated this alone should force modern philosophy of mind to accept that consciousness is not mind this is a this problem is not very clear we studied the philosophy of mind in some detail at harvard in the philosophy department there and i saw again and again this underlying confusion of consciousness in mind and leading to many problems many of the papers were vitiated by this a simple insight the difference between consciousness and mind would actually solve many of the problems in philosophy but now you'll be forced to accept consciousness and mind and not the same why will you be forced here clear example your the robots in say the google self-driving car or the artificial intelligence is being created at ibm and other places yeah and facebook and other places they will replicate all functions of the mind which we just read about already memory all our these smart devices have memory whatever devices we are using now plenty of memory better than us they have intellect what is artificial intelligence the ability to take decisions and compute and take decisions yes much better than us already kasparov was defeated by deep blue that is buddhism mind the ability to process information consider that is also developed by the something like that is going on in the in the computer in the program itself and a kind of proto-ego ego in the sense the ability to distinguish the robot itself from its environment otherwise no robot can function if it is a clear sense of its own boundaries what i am apart from the rest and yet here is the clear thing yeah which is obvious to everybody and yet nobody acknowledges it none of this is accompanied by an inner first person experience of i am i think i understand i remember no there is nothing going on in there in terms of conscious experience in the in the most the smartest ai powered robot nothing though it can duplicate in behavior all our mental activities so the mental activities and consciousness are different you feel in the inner awareness that reflected consciousness when you think when you remember when you take a decision the robot also remembers things takes a decision has no inner awareness in you there's a light on in the room in the robot the room is working which is a dark room you say how are you so confident there is no consciousness in the robot ask around ai people the designers in google and facebook and ibm are they claiming that their machines and programs are conscious nobody claims none of the experts will ever claim that our products are conscious so far consciousness and mind are different these definitions make it very clear all of these things what we just read ego memory with all the definitions make it clear that ego memory intellect mind these are all objective processes you are aware of it that which is aware of these processes is consciousness they shine in the light of consciousness upanishad says that consciousness shining all of these are shining what are all these mind memory ego intellect the pranas the body they all are revealed not so in a robot the robot lacks reflected consciousness if you know it like you just said it lacks consciousness no this atman brahman is everywhere even in that robot it's there but that reflected consciousness is not there and therefore that inner feeling of i am this this vewahari kajiva what we just read now 73 very important distinction between a robot and us in us we can be considered as biological robots what's the difference between us and a mechanical robot in us there is a vehicle transactional being transactional sentient being who is capable of being bound and of being released of seeking spiritual liberation the robot has nothing like that going on there it's it's a machine which can extraordinarily well imitate our functions of thinking feeling even recently mathematician marcus sato he wrote a book about artificial intelligence creativity people used to think the last barrier is people who do not distinguish between mind and consciousness they give poor arguments like this no no the consciousness means creativity nonsense totally non-conscious robot can create um marcus he showed me examples you cannot distinguish literature written by an author and by artificial intelligence poetry art actual art design can you distinguish is this human which is the human being and which is the robot you cannot distinguish creativity is not unique to human minds a robot can you can be creative also all of these are objective functions of the uh of the antarctica which is a material thing we just saw it is made of five elements but somehow these five elements reflect consciousness and this comes alive as a transactional jiva a sentient being i am sarva-priyananda not so in the robot but you see that the material uh five elements can reflect uh consciousness so why can't the robot's inner you know that program reflect consciousness not yet we don't know exactly where is the difference but not yet swamiji are you curious to know what's the inter mesh of various nadis not yet nadis have not yet come they are in the um either the nadis will be there they'll be mentioned later on in deep sleep is there no reflected consciousness there is but it is not active the reflected consciousness becomes active in the vigna my question where for the first time it is evident without the subtle body the reflected consciousness will not be evident uh deepa says pronounce maharaj you said you want the cookie at present ego comes and says i want what does it mean want and cookie are present are those present in awareness how can want be present no no want comes from the mind cookie information has come from from the eyes which see the cookie outside in the world now in the mind you have this um wanting coming the information of the cookie has been brought by the uh eyes and in the mind the storehouse from the chitta the desire has been brought out that it is a nice thing and navasana arises now another function of the mind is ego it will come and what does it do it comes and says i want cookie what are you you have pure awareness which is aware of all of the goings on that the drama is going on ego is doing its ego thing the mind is doing its mind thing the sensations are doing their thing memory is providing its past experiences drama is going on [Music] ego converts the big guy to smaller very nicely said ego converts the big i to small i very nicely said let me quickly look at the raised hands here prana maharaj i will ask you a question after hearing professor timal sinha when he at the end of the program where he said that we believe in um not jumping but we want to enjoy both sides and also with your question answer the last question answer session the last two questions that you said because you know we are so comfortable in our lives here that we just don't know how to take the next jump so here my question is with the what he said about the you were mentioning about the district with the anir vachanyan kathy will that help with the mithyatum of the world okay that's a very complicated question sorry it's bothering me so much after let me just give you a little hint on this what i mentioned at the end what is going on in kashmir shaivism actually you will see what is going on it's another darshan another philosophy no as a darshan as a philosophy it doesn't stand with all respect to all kashmir shivers and it just falls apart at the first blow that's why it is never taken seriously as a philosophy it never enters into debates with say advaita vedanta it can't stand um what they have done is they have imported you'll see now what we have defined as mind and intellect they've imported the activities of the mind and intellect into the ultimate reality yeah that i saw it is called prakash we must just for upper the ultimate reality is not only consciousness but it is a self-consciousness it is aware of itself and that enables them to do a lot of things but that aware of itself there it is they have put two things together which are incompatible uh so it is a logical impossibility but isn't it what is our problem now that because we are so comfortable with this life in north america correct uh it's not not just north america we are so comfortable with the life in a body as a body mind complex life time after lifetime so our tendency is to try to preserve a little bit of this also so we put it we like we are more comfortable with the philosophy which allows us to retain some semblance of being an individual being separate functioning able able to retain individual functionality swami vivekananda used to make fun of this he would say individuality you are not individuals yet that's only when you are the absolute that is the only individual possible until that time we are like work in progress continuous change only so then what is going on in kashmir shabbos and what is the real beauty of kashmirishism the real beauty is this that you'll remember towards the end i commented if you take a phenomenological account of the experiences of spiritual practitioners all the visions they have the practices they do the various supernatural extraordinary experiences mystical experiences they have and then try to give a philosophy which unites all of this that is kashmiri shaivism would you agree and timon sina said swamiji have put it better than even i could yes it is a mass of upayas look at the difference advaita vedanta you're puzzled what is the way we keep on asking and hammering out it doesn't seem to be a way it just seems to be a fact which is told to us that's it finished what is the way if you ask what is the way to advaita veda will reply consider the question you are asking you are you suppose you are anuradha you for you you are asking so with what way can i become a new radha what answer can i give you you are brahman what is the way to become brahman if you are saying that i am brahmana but i don't see how i'm confused i think something else that entirely i'm a body mind then i can show you a way of dissolving that error but i can't show you a way of becoming brahmana because you already are whereas in kashmir shaivism there is no end to methods as he said it's a mass of upayas there are endless methods take up a single text by gana bikyana bhairava 112 very sophisticated methods of meditation each one by itself can take you to enlightenment anupa these are sets of techniques to help you to attain enlightenment so that is the approach of kashmirishivism it starts with the spiritual seeker it is a very effective path methodology endless paths each one of your experiences given some importance and put into put into part of the whole structure it is given a place in the structure or you had this experience you had a vision of this kind of kali next is that kind of kali ultimately you will get shiva vision and be identified with it things like that step by step multiple very minou differentiation of spiritual experiences and it gives serious impact a serious place and regard to each of those advaita vedanta did you see it yes it's an object forget it what saw it advaita vedanta is as he says it's like taking a rocket ship i saw this you saw it right i saw this amazing vision you saw it right yes then it's an object what is the one which was seeing that's what advaita is interested sadvaita takes you to the heart of the problem so kashmiri shaivism has a great beauty of its own no doubt about it it's the way of a sadhaka a dedicated spiritual practitioner that's why are in the process of chakravati told me if you want to understand the various visions of sri ramakrishna and the various practices that you undertook you will be able to understand it much better through kashmiri shaivism than through advaita vedanta advaita vedanta will explain only a little part of what shiram krishna is saying the rest of it i saw a mother like this i practiced like that i heard that sound i saw this light these are all very nicely described in kashmiri shiva texts they're all real how real are they they're as real as this what we are experiencing now so what will be the way for the mithyatum to be like real okay hold on to that question that will be we will discuss in time next thank you uh good evening swamiji um i i wanted to ask a question so if uh is it true that like do i understand that correctly that let's say in order for brahman to experience maya as like brahma needs to have like a subtle body and the instruments to perceive it and interact with it uh is is that the right uh type of thinking yes but remember when you say brahman needs these things what are not knees but sort of like if he wishes to sort of right but remember what are these things what is the mind what is an intellect what is the prana uh all of these instruments they are nothing other than brahman yes ultimately yeah yeah so brahman does not really need anything outside of it but in a way like to play this game right to be part of the game to enjoy the game and therefore like when uh like the ultimate enjoyment is essentially being like being like becoming jim given mukhtar right right therefore kind of the is that the the whole sort of purpose of the jiva is that to provide brahman with a great experience in the game yes you're right so amiturian anderjee in one place he says there's a book up called jivan mukta sukha prabht about the life of swami turiyananda and he says the whole problem was solved he was a great non-dualist but he said i was not satisfied with the idea that brahman is somehow in bondage and somehow gets out of bondage and gets liberation why at all but when i heard of this concept of jeevan mukti free in the midst of all this appearance then i said yes this is a worthwhile code the to enjoy the bliss of uh jeevan mukti brahman plays this the absolute plays this game of the relative that is it's not philosophically it it won't satisfy a hardcore logician but it's a it has a certain poetic justice of its own poetic why not logical logically why would an absolute even want something how could an even absolute want anything even to project you know a relative universe how is it any better than how is being a jivan mukta any better than being an infinite existence consciousness place isn't it it's the same question as why maya or that right there is you cannot answer that right and i have i never found this answer but personally i stuck by thinking about it as stumbled upon a very simple and elegant answer to the question of why at all all of this the answer i got was what are the options either brahman has to project itself in a relative way or not project itself these are the only two options and that's what it is doing when there is creation and existence and life it is projecting itself when there is pralaya the cosmic dissolution and deep sleep every day it is withdrawing the projection these are the only two options that poor brahman has and it's serving the full menu to you if it did not do anything at all it's completely blank you could have accused it of you are the absolute do something then it can do this the relative world or it can withdraw the relative world both of which it's doing we have no cause for complaint from an advaithic perspective as long as it is brahman and you know that you are the absolute it's perfectly all right you are safe there is there is no harm done anywhere not to yourself the enlightened person also knows even the ones in ignorance even the ones who are weeping and crying and suffering they are also also safe in an ultimate sense right now that is of course suffering in pain in an ultimate sense they are safe everybody is safe in that ultimate sense because you are nothing other than brahman all right let's end on that happy note [Music] [Music] you