Video 15

15. Vedantasara | Texts 75-91 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] so we are studying the vedanta sarah and the purpose of this we should not forget it gives us a solid introduction to the system of vedanta it's a very introductory text it gives us the definitions of the key terms so that we have a precise idea of we know what we're talking about when we talk about brahman maya jiva ishwara mind intellect even the physical body sense organs all of those things when we talk about it we we have a very precise idea every aspect of vedanta just the basics are given here the building blocks so the the plan is to go into the core texts the fundamental text of vedanta which are the upanishads after this now what's going on here is the methodology of teaching vedanta is called adiadopapavada superimposition and superimposition that imagine there's a rope and that it is mistaken as the snake and then we realize that it's not a snake but it's a rope so from rope to snake is called adhyaropa and from snake back to rope is called apavada superimposition d superimposition like getting hypnotized and then de-hypnotized like falling into a dream and then waking up from it again so how from the ultimate reality which is brahman how does this universe appear on the objective side on the subjective side you are brahmana but how did you end up thinking that you are a person body mind how did the rope appear as a snake appear did not become a snake how did the rope appear as a snake how did how does the absolute reality brahman appear as the changing universe how does the absolute reality brahman appear as an individual us so this is what is happening and now this from absolute reality brahman appearing as the universe three stages you can see three distinct stages in this cosmology how the cosmos appears three distinct stages causal stage subtle state and the growth stage causal subtle gross causal state maya the absolute and then maya absolute plus maya we know the definition that ishwar or god brahma saguna brahmanish for many names are given and then the causal state is the production of the five elements the five subtle from the causal state comes the five subtle elements that's the subtle state the five subtle elements we have seen space and air and fire and water and earth and out of that are produced there are various products the combinations of those five subtle elements which is a mind and life we saw the vigna maya kosha the manomaya kosha and the prana pranamayakosha this discussion is going on now and then after this will come the growth state with the five subtle elements will combine and uh further to produce this physical universe we haven't come there yet a good way of understood i just want to make highlight these three points in your mind causal subtle gross karna sukshma and a good way to understand these is to look at it in our own experience what we are experiencing right now this thing this is gross physical stulla this is thula the world outside gross physical and our own bodies this is the physical body stool sharira what we experience in the dream state that is the sukshma the subtle it's all products of mind even when we see things there and things are happening people and objects and animals they're all products of the mind there's no actual physical thing out there in in the dream so that's the sukshma state and when you fall into deep sleep blank that seed state that's that resolved state where nothing is happening it's a uniform blankness that is called causal state or karana karana the same thing is in the universe and what is all this karna sukshmas tulak these are three stages in the appearance of the snake from the rope of the universe from brahman appearance in the production of let's say production of the movie which is called the universe okay now let's get back to um going on with the construction of the universe how far had we gone we had gone up to text number 73 74 yes 73 74 i think yes so we have gone up to vigna my kosher so with the appearance of the intellect the buddhi or what we might call the vigyana my kosher we have what is called the mahari kajiva text number 73 the transactional or um it's called phenomenal jiva phenomenal jiva the transaction receiver is us for the first time we see ourselves in a recognizable way as a thinking understanding being this is this is what happens when the intellect starts functioning before this we still existed in deep sleep we exist but that's just blank we don't have any kind of individual awareness there but the first individual awareness is i and then my thoughts my personality that comes with the vigna my quotient we still haven't come to physical body yet that will be the next step but now 75 onwards so we have got ananda my quotient what is another my kosha agaana avidya deep sleep state then we have got vigyana my kosher what is the gyana my kosher the buddhi the intellect also along with the gyanendrius that's the way it's counted then we have got the manomayakosha which is the mind in this the both of them include buddhi and mind also includes ahamkara and chitta memory and ego so we have got mana buddhic these four are the constituents of what is called antakarana the inner instrument why is it called inner instrument what is why is it called an instrument to begin with because it's not really who you are it's an instrument for you the jiva and it's an inner instrument because it's not in contact with the external world what it's in contact with is it's between you the consciousness and your sensory apparatus your sense organs and your motor organs are out there sense organs and motor organs are in contact with the world sense organs are in contact eyes and contact with with forms ears are in contact with sound nose is in contact with smell and so on but the mind into which they all dump their information the mind is not directly in contact with with forms or sounds or sound does not enter the mind directly sound goes through the sense organ a sense power called the auditory organ and then it becomes a virty in the mind so the mind in general i'm using when i'm using mind it's a general term for four things that that means mind intellect ego and memory now comes 75 text number 75 five motor organs we have already seen five sense organs five sense organs eyes ears nose tongue and touch the skin the five motor organs organs of action the organs of action are the organs of speech the hands the feet and the organs of evacuation and generation again if it does strike you as strange that sense organs motor organs everything here is describing us it's very human centric anthropocentric it's not describing say a lizard or uh or a you know a squid or an octopus i'm sure they have different sense organs and different motor organs octopus will have these tentacles so what about them again i've said this earlier also remember this is not meant to be a description of of the universe it's not meant to be a foregoing physics it's not meant to be a going biology or chemistry what it's meant to be is a methodology of pointing back towards our nature as as athman or brahman a way of analyzing our present state so that we can step by step trace our way back from the snake to the rope from ourselves as body-mind appearance to the witness consciousness that's the purpose of this description it's not a textbook of biology or in which case you would find it very inadequate very sketchy it just shows us what we think of ourselves and then look looks inwards 76. so where do the motor organs come from they are all produced separately in consecutive order from the active rajas particles of ether etc so what is the constituent of these five motor organs the powers they're not physically the hands they're not talking about physically the tongue of the hands the capacities so the capacity to speak the capacity to grasp something walk and so on where do they come from they come from the rajasik parts of the five elements so each of them um the five motor organs so speech organs of action organs of speech the hands the feet and so on and so forth they come from the five elements space and and and uh air and fire and water and the rajasik parts of that why are they sick parts uh because these are organs of action so action radges connected you can see there's a very simple logic in their minds then the five pranas prana panna viana udana samanaha 77 this is the battery pack the energy pack for us which which uh powers the whole system this is called prana in the prana there are five kinds of pranas working in a living body the five vital forces are the prana apana viana udana and samana so what are they and what do they do will be told now 78 these are discussed in much greater detail in ayurveda for example so i really don't know about these and these things you have to ask dr deepak chopra pradhan this is text number 78 prana nama pragma pragma one [Music] prana is the vital force which goes upwards and has its seat at the tip of the nose so seat at the tip of the nose nothing else it's just felt in the nose when the breath goes in and comes out you feel the breath that is the activity of the prana breathe out prana upon 79. [Music] upon is that vital force which goes downward and has its seat in the organs of excretion the vital force which moves in all directions and pervades the entire body 81. [Music] udana's ascending vital force which helps the passing uh out from the body and has its seat in the throat so this is an interesting activity it has supposed to be here felt its activity is felt here and it becomes activated when we are dying so when the physical body falls apart the subtle body sukshva sharira leaves the physical body so the leaving is everything is packed up and ready to go on the journey so this this value becomes active so when you say udana why you is active it means a person is dying so it gathers up the subtle body back the suitcases we are leaving this this house so this house is falling apart you the consciousness reflected in the subtle body the subtle body will be pulled out of this physical body by the udana and it leaves it transmigrates goes to other worlds and goes to other bodies so that's the uddhanawayu 82 samanawayo samano this is an important one this is one which helps in digestion so if you have tummy problems you have problems with this this value is the vital force which assimilates food and drink and has a seat in the middle of the body what is assimilation 83 sami karanantu paripaka assimilation means digestion of the food and its con conversion into kyle blood and other materials of the body so transformation of food which is ingested into materials which are part of your physical body and that whole process is done by the samana bio further discussion 84 catch it to whenever it says kejitsu it means some people say which means it's not something the daughter agrees with but some people say naga kurma krikala devadatta others say that there are five more vital forces known as naga kurma krikala devadat and dharanjaya so he's got to be in his bonnet about prana he's dividing and subdividing further and further five other types of prana that means it becomes ten so what are they eighty-five tatranagi rakharana what does it mean the naga is that value which which is which causes vomiting or burping so when you're burping the nagaway is active korma opens opens the eyelid so it causes the fluttering of the eyelids krikala is that value which um generates hunger devadatta produces yawning and dhananjaya nourishes the body these are some definitions so in vedanta class though i think the devastation becomes active people start yawning a lot devadatta you special is connected to vedanta then number 86 [Music] others say that all these five are included within prana and the others but the first five includes these other five also so the vital forces are really five in number anyway the point being that there are five pranas uh prana is the vital force which keeps the body alive and there are five of them all together they are called prana and prana is also one of the five then where do these where does prana come from 87. [Music] um so these five forces prana etc are produced from the combination of the active rajas particles of ether etc the five subtle elements from the rajasik particles all mixed together produces the pranas what is the difference between the motor organs they are individually the rajasik particles produce the five water organs all the adjacent particles of the five elements mix together for produces the five pranas now prana maya kosha so we have enough material to put together the pranamaya kosha number 88 edam prana panchakam karmindriya sahitam [Music] so these five pranas together with the five motor organs took together the whole thing is called prana maya kosha the the vital sheath the vital sheath what have we got so far ananda my kosher the bliss sheath vigna my kosher the intellect sheath manomaya kosha the mind mental sheath and now prana my kosher the vital sheath only one is left now remember anna my kosher the physical body it will come later so this this is the subtle body subtle body has three parts um vigyanamaya manomaya pranamaya vigyana my kosher manomaya kosher pranamaya kosher you want to divide it further then 19 parts or 17 parts depending upon your calculation what are the 17 parts you should be able to say the uh five sense organs five motor organs the five pranas now you have already got 15 and the mind and intellect manabuddhi 17 you further divide mind intellect ego memory mana buddhist hunger 19 parts this is called sukshma deera subtle body and we all have that we are all feeling it all the time nothing theoretical here if you think if you remember if you have feelings of pleasure or pain if you're breathing and assimilating and you know sensing and working it's a subtle body that's a subtle body that's what is being called a subtle body then 89. among these sheets the intelligence sheath vigna my kosher which is endowed with the power of knowledge is called the agent karta this is why we feel notice a very interesting point why we feel i am the doer when do i feel that swami when you are walking don't you feel i am walking when you're talking and don't you feel right now i'm talking and i feel i am talking why is that it's because the vigana maya kosha has the power of doership and you the consciousness who by yourself you are not a doer you are just awareness in association with the big gayama kosher you begin to feel i do i speak i walk i talk i whatever i read i understand all of this i am doing i am the doer of deeds i am the doer of good deeds i am the doer of bad deeds and so on i am the doer karta it's because of the activities of the vikyana my kosher which becomes associated with which limits which colors you the pure consciousness who are by yourself you're not a doer of any deeds but of course without you nothing can be done that's also there then manoa maya kosha the my mental sheath is endowed with willpower is the instrument desire will all of that comes in the mind i want so also i love i hate um so all of that comes with the mind and that is the karna that's the instrument that's what converts that's what enables you the doer now what do i mean by you the doer you the jiva the sentient being consciousness limited by the um causal body limited by the beginner my question now you are the do or qatar and you have an instrument what is that the mind where the the desires reside i want i will do this this is kriya shaktimaan karya rupa and then prana maya the pranama the vital sheath is endowed with activity their actual activity is going on um your sense organs are your motor organs are deployed into action start walking you generate that those commands which will be executed by the physical body later on physical body still has not come so it'll come later but the prana my question is the battery pack is a power plant for all of this it will kick into action when the mind tells i want this and the mind will come get you know will will exercise its power of will when it is informed by the agent the vigyana makaosha i do this i speak i walk and the vigana my kosher it can work only when illumined by you the consciousness this division has been made according to their respective functions these three sheets together constitute the subtle body this is the important point here last bit is the important point these three sheets their sheets why they are they cover up these self cover up within quotes vedanta teacher said that these five sheets do not really cover up it's not like the cloth and the shirt and the vest which cover up my body these are like real sheets but you know what these sheets are like actually these sheets are not like there are covers and if you go deeper and deeper and finally in there there will be a little thing called the atman not like that they are a cover cover for the atman in the sense that a pot covers up the clay a wave covers up water a golden necklace covers up the gold which is swami a pot doesn't cover up clay it is clay it is true that's true but in ignorance if one does not know what is clay or what is water or what is gold one will think it's a pot it's a golden necklace it's a wave so the name and form coats i'm sorry to give air quotes all the time they seem to cover up in the state of ignorance for the enlightened person everything physical body subtle body causal body everywhere the atman blazes forth without any obstruction anyway now one take away from this this whole section is these three together are called subtle body began my kosher mano my kosher prana my kosher what is the causal body so you haven't mentioned it yes we have that is ananda my question what am i none of these you are consciousness you are saccidananda then so today and tomorrow is actually um the jayanti the birthday of bhagavan sri ramana maharshi so there's some worldwide observances and celebrations going on there are programs all over the world different centers so thanks to this online technology i've been invited by two centers from one in new delhi and one here in new york to give talks and i hope to sneak past by giving the same talk in both places because they're separated by time and space so i was thinking ramana marsha's first teaching which is recorded is called who am i so that's where his holy he is well known for his teaching of who am i so the first teaching itself is who am i i'm this young philosophy graduate the government officer shiva prakash appeared goes to ramana maharshi and asks in 1902 he was still absolutely in silence and very inward asks him a few questions the first question he asked was who am i and ramon marsh's answer was very interesting he didn't speak at that time he didn't feel like speaking so he wrote down the answers his answer was very interesting he said you are not the five pranas you are not the five sense organs or i said i i am not the five sense organs i am not the five pranas i am not the five motor organs i am not the mind i am not the intellect i am not the ignorance of india which lies beyond mind and intellect now you see why vedanta is so important you will check okay i know what he's talking about i am not all of them very interesting that his first answer was an indirect answer he did not say you are sachidan in the brahman go you are brahman go away no he started question was who am i and the answer was he told us who we are not why later on that um same person asks ramana marshy that then what am i if i'm not all all of these and what am i so you are the self what is the self raman mashi said the self is existence consciousness place sat down on that then this person asked a wonderful question he's trained in philosophy so you asked all right but this world and these you know body mind and all of that quite apart from these can't we know the self even if these are there why did you start by denying that i am not the body mind and so on and ramana namashi says no you cannot you must first deny this then only realize the self why and no and very beautiful answer he says if you want to know the truth you are seeing a snake and the truth is a rope you must first see that the snake is false there alone you will be able to see the real rope without seeing the falsity of the snake you cannot discover the real rope because it's the same thing very interesting point if there is a separate thing called atma brahman god then talk about it point it out directly why are you talking about body physical body subtle body fat prana mind intellect why you want to show me that i am something xyz brahman nathman tell me straight away why are you coming back to body and mind because in order to show me the rope you must deny the snake it is that very rope which is appearing as the snake it is that very brahman which i want to point out to you which you are seeing as body mind and all of this you are not these you are that which underlies it and that which is the reality of these so that was his answer very interesting he's used far fewer words than i'm using but again it just points to see exactly this is what we are studying right now and if you know this you understand literally what ramana maharshi is saying word by word this is what is being pointed out as our subtle body and ramana namashi's first answer to that young man was almost one but him a denial of these things that this is not who we are this is not who we are let me just see if there's any activity in the chat and then i'll come back to this a few more points he's going to make now rick is asking do you think that subtle matter of which the subtle body and subtle realms are composed might be the dark matter that physics knows exists but doesn't understand they say dark matter is thought to account for i know it does but if you ask me i think that's still part of the material universe that's the physic that's the gross universe even dark matter is the gross universe but there's an important point here if subtle matter which compose comprises our minds even prana life itself if there is such a thing and vedanta agrees it is matter it is jada it is objective so in principle it should be discoverable by science science is investigating the objective universe so if there is a very subtle kind of objective universe called subtle matter it should be in principle discoverable by science so we leave it at that we haven't come to it yet but cordelia is asking when we offer food to god we say pranayaswaha etc what's the significance of this practice yes so we are offering the food to the five pranas actually when you offer food to a deity so the deity is also conceived of having a subtle body including the five pranas so we are offering the food to the five pranas of the subtle body of the deity then sandhya asks and the uganda leaves the body time of death it enters other bodies as upon no it and it it is part of the entire subtle body of your own subtle body of the dying person subtle body and that subtle body enters the other the new physical body or the seed of the the like the uh the embryo of that of the new physical body not just the udon bio lisa says saying this is what we learned in studying ayurveda well thanks for the confirmation this is more the subject matter of ayurveda than vedanta actually sharmini how to reconcile this vedanta sarah model the fact that during deep sleep vital organs of our body continue to function very good point how the growth function when the subtle body's absent shuts down during sleep do mind and body freshly emerge from the causal every time we bake no so the question here is just understand the question that when we go to sleep we lose complete awareness of our physical body not only that when dreams stop our subtle bodies also that the mind also stops functioning what is remaining is the causal body you the consciousness limited by the causal body that is called deep sleep yet now the question is externally when we look at that person externally not from your perspective externally when you look at that person we see the physical body is there and it's breathing the subtle body is still functioning breath is going on it is true subtle but so subtle body has not stopped in that sense mind has stopped that is true now this is a difficult problem for advaitha it's a minor thing but it has to be reconciled little balancing the books so some of you look confused the question is in deep sleep we are saying that this the mind stops the subtle body shuts down but if prada is a part of the subtle body so prana should shut down also we should stop breathing we stop thinking we stop remembering we stop thinking of ourselves as an individual being we don't think that i am in deep sleep this such a thought does not come no thought is there if subtle body is shut down then the pranic body also should shut down prana my question but then that will lead to death the physical body will die then now what happens is according to vedanta we'll read about it a little later that we are not alone just as our causal bodies are part of a cosmic causal body our causal body is what again or avidya all of it is part of the cosmic causal body called maya similarly our subtle body sukhma shariras are also part of a cosmic subtle body which will come now which is the upadhi of hiranyakarba so because of that by the grace of god ishwar or by the grace of hillary garber this individual physical bodies are kept alive by breathing and on life support you don't do it mount sinai will do it for you so the the uh cosmic subtle body or the other the cosmic you know the hiranyakarba keeps us alive this cosmic prana keeps us alive the functioning goes on without our any kind of like we are not doing it anymore but it will keep the thing going why will it keep it going because of past karma the only reason why we are all there why physical body is their subtle body is there all because of our past curve the past karma is still there whether you are awake or dreaming or sleeping and that will keep this body alive until the product the karma of this body is exhausted one interesting thing rama namashi mentions here is that when the mind and the breath subtle body this all interconnected so thinking and breathing are connected that's why when you achieve samadhi breathing stops when the mind merges into nirvikalpa samadhi then the physical breath also stops you are awake and hiranya garba has relinquished control to you but you because of your peculiar yogic practices while being awake you have shut down the mind and very interesting the breathing also shuts down which shows there is something to this system which says that breath is also part of the subtle body you have shut down the subtle body through your yogic practices breathing also will shut down if you consciously shut it down like like samadhi i've actually seen this person going into samadhi breathing a chat shutting down in sriram krishna's case of course it was very obvious the doctor examined it actually seeing many times they saw no breath coming heartbeat stopped in saddam krishna's case western trained doctor examined him even touched his eyelid i'm not i did the eyeball that automatic reflex something that nobody i can even withhold my breath for some time and i can pretend to be in samadhi but i can't stop the the reflexive action of the eyeballs sriram krishna it all stopped that means the subtle body had shut down completely yet the body remained alive for some time so it would come back when he came back from samadhi he would he would gasp like a person come emerging from under underwater you know like that he would come so the two are connected if you shut down the mind in meditation in in samadhi actually some other deepest samadhi breathing also will stop in fact in a small way we see ourselves in our day-to-day activity when you concentrate very much you know just for a few seconds your breathing also stops for a short while otherwise you cannot sustain life if you see documentary wildlife documentary tiger or cheetah hunting as they're stalking that prey they become very emotionless just before jumping you feel that they've stopped breathing at that moment also just before they start chasing unless you have seen the documentary you will not understand what i'm referring to very still now is it necessary to practice these techniques pranayama and samadhi techniques in order to attain enlightenment or not surrounding krishna says no he says it can be done in by bhakti also and then he makes a very interesting statement if you remember he says bhakti kumbhaka even an intense devotion breathing stops he says why would he make such a strange statement about breathing when he's talking about bhakti is because he is referring to it's the same phenomenon mind and breath are connected then do mind and body freshly emerged from the causal every time we wake up no but drishti shishtiva if you follow then you have to say yes otherwise what will happen is every time a person falls asleep you should see the body disappearing the body will disappear everything the person except if the momentum person comes back then the body will come back again that does not happen that's because we act we follow the method of um but if you are following then nobody else exists except you and when you come back the whole world comes back including your body and just like a dream because you don't see the difference the dream body body in the dream it's produced every time you start the dream and it disappears every time you stop the dream when you come out of the dream your body is not left behind in the dream everything is gone only when you imagine then it's there so that's distributive then the next question is do worship is contained within the vikyana my question and how do we reconcile this with ahamkar the feeling of highness therefore worship yes inis is part of the you can count it with the buddha you can count it with the mind you can count it with mano my kosher you can count it with vegan my kosher so inis is there the doership and ions go together does the knowledge does the knowledge of realization appear in the beginning my question hold on to that question we'll see at the end what exactly is enlightenment or realization and what role the vigyana my kosher plays in that you're right it does play a role first of all it is playing a role right now what we are doing right now we are using the wigan my question the and also the mano my question and also the the sense organs you are after all you are seeing and hearing and reading a book plus you are using using the mind and the memory and the ego and the intellect all of those are being used when you simply read one sentence of a book or listen to one sentence also all of these are being used and all of them cannot function without the prana that gives energy to it none of that will function without the physical body which has not yet come it's like software without hardware it cannot function by itself one more thing in the waking state we are not only physical uh stool ashadh either in the waking states tulashari is there sukhmashiri right there karnashar is there and of course atma is there in the dream state sukhmashadhira karan enlightened person sees atma everywhere for for the enlightened person karna shadeera suksha sharidas tulashira and jagat all are appearances the same as individual limited awareness yes correct consciousness reflected in began my question interestingly the prana pranayaswa et cetera is also added by eating by people who observe brahminical exactly so when you offer food so that these are existing within the human body gloria says people often often people close to death will make very lucid statements even though they have not been able to speak due to illness is due to dudana of io i don't know if due to dhana by you but it's kind of flaring up of the prana when it's getting ready to leave at the point of death they suddenly seem more peaceful than ever more healthy than they were in the last few days or before death um as if they have become better uh in the last few hours so i don't know exactly maybe doctors and i with the practitioners can say more deep meditation fraction for a fraction of a time breathing stops unconsciously correct in any kind of concentration you will see when the mind becomes very focused breathing slows down and the mind stops absolute stillness breathing also stops for a short while remember when it was introduced ignorance and the uh collective ignorance and individual ignorance it was two theories like um of reflection and uh that limiting adjuncts those padma padas those two things were mentioned uh so when there's forests and the trees so as i'm thinking this trees those individual trees in the forest so that um so the reflection i can understand that one appearing as many one sun appearing as many reflux so that that's quite advaithic but that forest in the tree it sounds more like vishishta vishishta weather like it's like color yes remember forest and tree lake and drops of water those things they are not real yes they should not be counted along with the one son of consciousness it's not that there's consciousness plus many many like little trees in a forest many many ignorances plus a total ignorance called maya you should not count them right so if you count them it will become like vishishtadvaita many components of an integrated system but it's not an integrated system there's only one reality but the trees are part of that no the trees are part of the forest the forest does not exist nor do the trees the individual ignorances are part of maya and neither maya nor do the individual ignorances exist from the perspective of brahman if they exist if they have any kind of existence along with brahman if you count them then it becomes like vishishta dwighter okay okay i i think i was trying to understand in this paradigm of ignorance only what we are discussing now so let's say why are there truth here is like is it um like we have been talking about this cosmic mind and individual mind cosmic uh cosmic this uh causal and uh you know the individual or this cosmic an individual what is the relation is it so the tree analogy seems like it is the same thing first of all why cosmic an individual why are we at all talking about cosmic and individual because that's what we see look around you you you see yourself as a subject and everything else is object isn't it subject object all your exp everybody's experience forget about vedanta the very structure of experience whose experience everybody's experience from a human being to an animal to insect everybody experiences i and this even if they cannot say it this subject and object and notice the subject is an individual and the object is vast it's a total a cosmos so we all experience total and part cosmos and individual vedanta has to talk about that because after all we are trying to relate one and the many it must talk about the way we experience so if i have this question that how is the individual uh relates to the course most the cosmos then is it like all the individuals are like a sum total or yes so there is not a separate cosmos and separate individual all individuals together are the cosmos it's not like there are some things called threads and one thing called a cloth all the threads arranged together is the cloth and the cloth is nothing but the threads yeah because i think uh the confusion came because uh in swamiji's lectures on microcosm and macrocosm he says that there's a relation like one is like a miniature form of the big like whatever is in the microcosm is in the macro yes that's a different thing they have that type of relationship yes the design is the same notice when i was trying to explain causal subtle and gross karana sukshma stuhla i explained it at two levels one i explained you know maya and the subtle body all subtle bodies together and so and so forth and then i said just this little while ago i said good way of understanding is look at your own deep sleep dreaming and waking your own individual experience so the design is the same we also have causal subtle and physical the whole universe also has causal subtle and physical the design is the same okay okay thank you and in fact a good question because right now we're going to talk about cosmos and individual let's see number 90. exactly this again back to your cosmic and individual total and individual here also here also means then where did we see this earlier we saw it at the causal level now we are seeing it at the subtle level here also the sum total of all subtle bodies when looked upon as one like the forest you know when you count all the trees together and you say one forest or a reservoir you count all the drops of water and you say one lake it is called samashti or aggregate total cosmic subtle body whose body is that it's god's body my subtle body whose body is that it's servoprian and the subtle body but all our subtle bodies together is god's subtle body and at that level god is called hiranyakarpa iranda garba is not the subtle body it's the one which has that subtle body samashti or aggregate and when viewed as many like the trees or quantities of water is called vesti or individual subtle bodies can be called individual also each one of us like we have 73 people here computers count that means 73 physical bodies but 73 subtle bodies also how many minds how many intellects 73 and total all these billions of minds intellectually all together one cosmic subtle body is called hiranyakarpa um consciousness associated with totality is called sutra atma hiranyakarba and prana etc these are some of the names you find in upanishads consciousness which consciousness there's only one consciousness that ultimate reality associated with this total subtle body of all beings all of this together all subtle bodies together is called one name is sutratma sutra literally means thread so when you have many diamonds or many many flowers or many emeralds and you have one necklace a thread running through all of that so that thread running through all of that is called sutrathma here another name is called hiranyagarbha the more well-known name you can find in the upanishads another name is praana so this is what prana has so many meanings it means the breathing it means the entire life energy in this body mind prana pancha prana it means the cosmic total consciousness associated with the total cosmic body of the universe that is also called prana in upanishads you will work find the word prana which means actually god saguna brahman with at the level of the subtle bodies of hiranyagarh it's called prana and why is it called so because it is but it is in and through everything all living beings have a subtle body what distinguishes is a good point what distinguishes this pen from this person who's holding the pen we say oh you are a living being this pen is not a living being so from vedantic perspective what's the difference it's a physical body this is also a physical body this physical body has a subtle body here this one it has a subtle body in it this one doesn't because it has a subtle body with all the 17 parts or 19 parts including prana it's called a living body prana means life living body dead body means subtle body is left subtle body is left means prana life has a left from it literally dead means without subtle body living means with subtle body so all the jivas are living beings all living beings are jivas they have subtle bodies this is the one distinguishing characteristic between jiva and not jiva jiva and jagat you are sitting on your chair from an advaithic perspective it's all brahmana so what's the difference between you the human being vedanta student and the chair you are sitting on what's the difference from azanti perspective it is all same brahman even from maya perspective both are the same name and form the difference comes in the subtle body you have a subtle body with five pranas five sense organs five motor dog and so and so forth mind intellect memory ego that chair does not so it's not a living being it's not a jiva um what else did it say it has riya shakti so this hiranyakarbha or subtle this consciousness associated with all subtle bodies has three powers it can know seeing hearing smelling tasting touching all the five sense organs it is the power of knowing power of desiring icha where does it come from in the mind the manomaya kosher and the power of doing things ego is the the agent in the beginner my kosher and the power the activity is there in the level of pranamaya kosha so it is the knower it is the doer it is also the desire the one who desires wants jana and chakria are all present here in the subtle body very interesting that it all of this which we identify so closely with ourselves i am this this one what do i what am i the one who knows the one who wants wants to achieve things and do things the one who does things and vedanta says none of them belong to you they are all powers belonging to nature which you have for the time being because of the possession of a subtle body you are consciousness itself you are being itself not a something which does things or knows things or desires things all those come later with the addition of these things it's like your phone oh my phone is wonderful swami it can record things you can take pictures it can make phone calls it can play music it can show me youtube video no it cannot all those are called apps only they once they are there yeah your phone has the potential to do all that but you need the apps those apps now enable the innate potential of the phone the phone is gives you the background for for all of these activities by itself it does not do anything similarly satchidananda brahman is the reality without that nothing exists all of these subtle body and whatnot have no value at all they have no existence at all apart from brahman but brahman like the phone and the very bad example anyway um the subtle bodies have many apps which enable many kinds of activities um dimitri did you want to say something uh good evening sami yes i have a question uh so um could you reiterate at which point the consciousness uh becomes associated or limited with a specific you know jiva because like on a practical level when i reduce it like all of my experiences it all comes to the pure witness that just looks at it all but at the same time uh i'm very much limited to you know the same things it's like i experience the same things uh like uh it's always the first point person view nothing like i cannot verify that anything else is actually true okay if somebody like let's say that you have you are conscious maybe you are a dream and like i dream you and that's it like there is no way for me to verify anything in fact nothing else is true and from an algorithic perspective the only thing that is true is you the consciousness but anyway so where does this individuality start where does the unlimited consciousness uh begin to experience limit limitedness it starts uh strictly speaking at the causal level anandamaya kosha but practically speaking at the vigna maya kosha when the subtle body comes at the anandamaya kosher causal level it's only on a seed form like it's what you experience in deep sleep none of the particulars of being dimitri are experienced in deep sleep but it's it's still it's still there because the moment you wake up you wake up as dimitri um so when you wake up the vigna my kosher kicks in the the subtle body the most like the most subtle part of the subtle body began on my kosher that's why this text said the phenomenal jiva which text was it 73 it says the phenomenal jiva the transactional jiva um for all practical purposes the jiva the individual sentient limited being becomes apparent at this level vignamaya um and practically like before the moment of alignment enlightenment there is no way to verify any of uh uh let's say higher parts sort of say right because it's always like the first point of view for a first person point of view yes and that's all you need that's all you need what would you want to verify uh well for example when there is a conversation about the universe and you know multiple scientists sentient beings like all i can verify right now that uh is my experiences indeed that's all nothing else and notice something it just cleaves closely to your experience it doesn't go any further you experience yourself as an individuality and you experience a universe out there you know a cosmic universe and this just builds upon that it is in fact vedanta all this it is talking about subtle bodies and individual subtle bodies and cosmic subtle bodies and all of that vedanta really is not interested in that it's the snake it's an appearance why is it saying all that it's because you believe it to be so you believe that you are an individual you believe that there is a cosmos out there vedanta says all right let's take it for granted it's not there you're wrong entirely but let's take it for granted it's like this we are building up the snake now none of it is ultimately to be taken seriously from a vedantic perspective from our practical day-to-day perspective from a religious perspective from a scientific perspective from a political social perspective you have to take all of that seriously all those perspectives depend on these this kind this kind of belief um but from adantik perspective in fact all of this is defined is actually dismissed so how when when will i be able to verify that there is a cosmic soul which um connects all of that never because it's not there yeah exactly all right thank you thank you our byron's jivas i don't know um where in the life of uh life she was considered to emerge i don't know i don't know if the ancients knew this any better than we did i remember as school children in class six or seven we are given this exercise you know we are given properties 10 properties of living beings 10 properties of non-living beings now discuss are viruses living or non-living so whatever eric says do all forms of life have subtle bodies yes literally definition of life will be subtle body without subtle body at least prana life itself literally the word prana translates into life so without that there's no life it's in in english i'm saying without prana no life it literally means without life no life how about really elementary ones like ami but they will also have prana if nothing else may work the hardware is very limited in an amoeba but definitely life is there because it eats it moves it reproduces so prana is there maybe there is no there is no mind or intellect none of those apps will work they are all shut down the hardware doesn't have the memory and you know the processing power to make those things work this is only one person you the same as a kajiba yes there's only one person and same as ekaji vawada all right let's stop here [Music] me [Music]