Video 18

18. Vedantasara | Texts 110-121 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

i take refuge in the self the indivisible existence consciousness please absolute beyond the reach of words and thought and the substratum of all for the attainment of my cherished desire so in vedanta sarah we were saying that um probably bob already has a question all right sorry i'm going to read this question to you because i've been thinking about this is bugging me okay so you know we we talked people have given up the bad name because of this maya thing because if you know you said somebody about the maya body now we have studied mandika then karika and uh it can be established that can be established the philosophy can be established without invoking maya we can just use aveda with so my question is even gita 2.16 you know if you just start asking you can establish what we are trying to say so why did what draw shankaracharya to bring in this my concept all right was it a mistake no of course not my eye is a mistake but bringing in my my means of mistake but bringing in my but we don't need it but we really don't need it no we do define maya now i'm going to throw these questions back at you we have studied it uh enough now what is the definition of maya you see it is it's ignorance ignorance right samashtyagyana the cosmic ignorance that is why that's the definition of maya so when you say we don't need maya we can use ignorance you said we can use vidhyavidya organa that is ignorance it's the same thing so why do we get a bad name this maya body and all that stuff i've heard him at least two people i mean you know i talked to him he's a devotee of hanuman the same thing oh you guys don't yeah i mean we are just being polite there's just about no philosophy on earth no theology which can hold a candle to advaita vedanta i don't even know why it's a bad thing if you're maya body every day everybody else is superstitious all others every other dualistic philosophy anything any religion any philosophy let me be plain what is the proof that it's true where is this god of yours all the things in your books they're just in the books they're all contradictory to each other where is it grounded in personal experience it's no no ultimately we will see uh god well ultimately i don't know i mean there is no no guarantee of that and those who have seen how do you know they are not hallucinations or aberrations only advaita vedanta and uh to some extent i would say the yoga chara madhyamaka synthesis of tibetan buddhism which says basically the same thing in my view they are grounded entirely in the phenomenology of our experience phenomenology means a description of our own experience lived experience it's entirely about what is right now it is it's the one philosophy which uh satisfies the demand for proof experience and like no other and it is also the one philosophy which satisfies our demand for rationality this is the one philosophy which is comfortable with science with modern science so yeah the reason people say that is from a dualistic perspective from a theistic perspective it's very scary when uh when you look confront something like advaita vedanta that we have ignored see ultimately if we are brahman we do not know it we have to admit that we don't know it the moment you admit we don't know it that's that's ignorance that's what we're talking about thank you thank you very much um in fact it's just the other way around where there is this old saying in among the advaita vedanta teachers that the jackals of all the other philosophies in the forest of philosophy all the jackals they run when the lion of vedanta roars advaita nothing comes even this it's not even in the same category in the same uh you know i mean at the same level at all with advaita vedanta what else is in fact you know if you think about it carefully even science would be superstition compared with advaita vedanta because it would be in the realm of maya it's in the realm of appearance yeah right so now what we have studied is that ultimately advertising is pretty simple i keep saying that you can always reduce it back to the first principles that is there is only consciousness or awareness the reality is existence consciousness plays the non-dual brahman everything else is an appearance now we saw that first my our ignorance this consciousness associated with ignorance is um is is at the causal level ignorance is the causal level it's called the causal body consciousness associated with the causal body um is ishwara on the cosmic scale and pragya or the individual sentient being at our individual scale from this cosmic ignorance is produced or appears by five subtle elements so for these five subtle elements are combined and recombined to form the subtle bodies so the same consciousness the one real consciousness in association with the subtle bodies with all the subtle bodies is called hiranyagarh the con or the cosmic mind and association with each individual subtle body is called thai jason us the sentient the our individual minds or subtle bodies and then again from the combination remember the five-fold quintiplication combination of the the five subtle elements we have the five uh gross elements pancha mahabhuta which are combined to we saw in the last class combined to form the 14 worlds the physical universe our bodies you know four types of bodies you remember born from the egg born from the womb born from moisture burned from the earth and in in connection same consciousness limited by this physical body is called vishwa individually and total all physical bodies taken together consciousness limited associated with that is called virat it is still the same consciousness and that's the only thing that's that's real remember what is going on here superimposition and desuperimposition uh there is the like the rope is mistaken for the snake that is superimposition and then you correct the error that it is not a snake it's a rope that is called de-superimposition similarly here brahmana consciousness is mistaken for this world subtle bodies causal bodies physical body gross bodies external universe multiple jivas all of this is the like the snake which appears when we correct this error it's not a word it's not jiva jagatishwara world individual god it is actually that absolute reality and you are that absolute reality that will be super imposition so that's the goodie though the goodies are coming the supreme position part is coming right now we are world building but remember the world in advaita vedanta is not ultimately real it's an appearance we are sort of snake building we are now superimposing the snake on the rope we are mistaking we are making a mistake now how did we get from the rope to the snake that's what's going on right now um and we're almost at the end of the process the snake in all its glory is going to cover we have got the subtle bodies we have got the we have got the causal bodies we've got the subtle bodies now we are getting the gross bodies that's where we are at and i want to i'm sorry for hurrying us through this actually we should have taken more classes for each section but i'm impatient eager to get to the the good parts which are going to come the really interesting stuff remember when i said it's entirely comfortable with science i've been mentioning this earlier advaita vedanta all of this you're talking about the 14 worlds and the four kinds of bodies and you know the various gods at different levels devatas all which will be mentioned today also since it's part of the appearance advaita vedanta is not committed to that in principle i'm not i'm not being like you know over clever or slippery here i quite admit that 500 years ago 700 years ago when this book was written um if you ask did these people actually believe the world was like this 14 worlds and the variety of gods and and the way it's described in this world was it like is it like this did they actually believe or not or did you think it's just a super imposition yes they believed it they believed it was this was a fair description of the world they didn't have the advantages of modern physics or chemistry or biology but but here's the big difference unlike every other theology unlike every other realistic philosophy realistic means which considers the world to be real this this philosophy has no uh has no investment in as nothing at risk here if you say that no no no forget all your 14 worlds and all this quintiplication you know mixture of subtle elements with the gross elements we have a much much more powerful worldview modern science gives us a much more powerful worldview very good take that it has absolutely no problem with that as long as it is all reducible back to being itself or consciousness itself fine even today is this valid yes but you would have to do a lot of clever reinterpretation uh in the sense that these are symbolic of um you know maybe of a different way of looking at the same world and it's quite possible it's not crude it's it's a pretty sophisticated way of looking at the world actually did you notice how the five elements are connected to the five senses they serve as basis for five types of sense experience so it's a very um phenomenological way of looking at the world phenomenological means our subjective experience the way we experience the world this is actually a description of that and as a description of the way we experience the world in terms of forms and sounds and smell and taste and touch it's a pretty good description actually now we're going to go to text number 110 we're going to go ahead on our journey and i'm not going to take my foot of the gas we're going to speed ahead and complete this section little bit as fast as possible all right so now this is what we have got the gross universe subtle universe causal universe and the ultimate reality pure consciousness we've got the rope and its appearance as the snake now what 110 text number 110. steve here also all the gross bodies in their fourfold variety may be spoken of collectively or individually according as they are thought of as one like a forest or a lake or many like the trees and the quantities of water um here also here also means in this physical level when we've got these physical four bodies of physical bodies if you say what are the four kinds you remember the very kind of basic kind of biology of beings born of the womb and of of seeds what of eggs and from the earth and from moisture and so on they may be spoken of collectively or individually according as they are thought of as one like a forest or like a lake uh one hour like a forest and jalasha like a lake you can talk operated about it as samashti total or um vesti individual the same lake you can think of it as drops of water or one lake or the same thing you can think of it as thousands of trees or one forest similarly you can think it off think of this as billions of individual bodies or one cosmic body notice here i'll just remark um this idea of a cosmic person which is the idea of god in advaita vedanta the idea of a cosmic person there's an element of faith involved here i exist i know and you all exist my senses reveal you to me that there are these uh i can see now 67 participants i'm sure there are 67 physical bodies and 67 subtle bodies in those physical bodies so 67 sentient beings are participating but all of these 67 plus the 7 billion people and billions more living beings all together there is a unity there is a being which considers itself as i am all of this the god of this universe that is not revealed to me directly i don't know i only hear about it on the one person who experienced it was arjuna he wanted to experience it and he asked krishna could you show me that cosmic form this is what we're going to talk about the cosmic form what did arjuna see and krishna did show him in the 11th chapter of the bhagavad-gita that is called vishwarupadarsana vishwaroopa and virat are the same thing so and for all the good that it did arjuna he was terrified when he saw that he was a mind-blowing experience he immediately prayed go back to your earlier uh individual point of view maybe we are not we are not uh meant to see that it could blow our fuses if we saw the entire universe as one being and then imagine the being turning and looking at you what would that be like arjuna says every hair on my body is um standing on end and my you know like i'm stunned and horrified like literally seeing this sight [Applause] what are the names of the individual and the cosmic hundred and eleven eighth [Music] consciousness associated with this aggregate of gross bodies is called vishwanara and virat on account of its identification with all bodies and from its manifestation in diverse ways respectively so totality either this which this one this totality of this universe which we're seeing right now consciousness associated with this entire universe is called um veishwana one name virat another name virat literally means the vast virat other names are there also there is vishwaroopa which we saw in the bhagavad-gita this is these are the names multiple names are given because it is identified with all bodies nara literally means human body but not just human bodies all living creatures animals and plants and um gods and demons and living and human beings all of it together avimani it considers all this i am just like when we look at our own body and we think this is who i am beyond my body i don't think i am that but this much i am when we are identified with our physical body imagine a consciousness identified with the entire all physical bodies all living bodies and then again transcending time so all living bodies in the past present and future and indeed also the non-living universe so which considers the universe itself as its body that is called virat or vaishwanara in all this all its glory all its you know magnificence and glory imagine a being with the universe as its body from quasars down to quarks from galaxies to you know like little birds and insects all of it is i am it shines in these diverse ways so put it together what have we got consciousness associated with three bodies causal body which is ignorance or maya a subtle body which is the you know we've read 17 parts mind and sense organs and intellect and prana and all of that and then third the physical body here this physical body again this consciousness at every stage associated with causal body subtle body and physical body can be thought of as individual or total individual like us we are individuals or total which is god just as we have um a causal state in our deep sleep you you have a causal state in your deep sleep from your perspective there is no world there is no mind there is no physical body just blankness that's your causal state in deep sleep similarly the cosmic being god also has a causal state which is called ishwara which exists at the time of by itself at the time of cosmic dissolution when the entire universe is dissolved vishnu alone in sagar that's that's the idea then we exist with our with the mind in dreams you the conscious being you exist with a mind and you dream a world created by your own mind that is uh called the individual subtle state um in in sanskrit the taijasa there is a cosmic subtle state where that consciousness exists with all the minds together like an internet of minds so that is called hiranyagaru and then finally this is what we are talking about we exist with our physical body the name given to us is vishwa and these are all terms from the mandu kyopanishad the name given to us is vishwa similarly that cosmic being exists right here with identified with all physical bodies and the name given to it is virat vaishwanara vishwaroopa many names are given one more point they all exist together so right now for example you are not only consciousness plus a physical body right now you are consciousness plus causal body plus subtle body plus physical body it's very obvious right now you don't you're not just a body you're thinking feeling breathing so prana is there intellect is there mind is there subtle body is there and causal body is also there so all three are there together in when you're dreaming from your perspective you have causal body and subtle body when you're in deep sleep you you from your perspective you have got the causal body only so this is how it is now number 112. this aggregate gross body of his is called the elementary sheath annamaya kosha on account of its being a modification of food and is said to be in the waking state on account of its being the medium for enjoyment of gross objects all right some names are given to the body the cosmic body the cosmic being consciousness is called ishwar at the causal level hiranya garbha at the mind level subtle level and virat at the gross or physical level the body of that cosmic being the physical body the gross body is called multiple names are given it's the collective causal body a collective growth or physical body is called annamaya kosha the food chief for us under my kosher is our physical body for god also this entire physical universe is kosher why anna vikaar because it's a modification of food for us it's a modification of food i mean what we have eaten and drink what we drink but for god of course is not eating and drinking what you can call is it's a modification of matter it's a material body so god has this material body of this universe then because it's the medium for the experience stu laborga means experience of physical entities is a medium of experience of physical entities therefore it is called stool physical body or gross body also this is the waking state jagrat this is the waking state where one consciousness experiences a physical universe through sense organs all right so this is the at the cosmic level what about the individual level we come to 113 text number 113. consciousness associated with the individual gross body is designated as vishwa on its on account of its entering the gross body etc without giving up its identification with the subtle body what does this mean it's talking about us now already has finished the talking about the cosmic now the individual us what are we called right now working you're all in the waking state sitting there in a physical body your name now you the consciousness you are called vishwa and what have you done you were identified with your causal body then you became identified with the causal body and the subtle body where in your dream state where are you identified with the causal body deep sleep state in your dream state you are identified with causal body and subtle body and in the physical state now in the waking state right now you're identified with causal bodies subtle body and physical body the gross body without giving up identification with the subtle body you now enter into an identification with the physical body and you're given a technical name vishwa each of us we have our names but all of us all sentient beings in the waking state in the embodied state we are called vishwa in the subtle state in the dream state what are we called in the deep sleep causal state what are we called they're called pragma these are terms from the mando kyopa nation the deep sleeper the dreamer and the waker our names then what about the body itself physical body hundred and fourteen same name annamaya kosher the food sheath asiya vyashti the individual gross body or physical body of the sentient being is also called the elementary sheath on account of its being a modification of food and is said to be in the waking state so our physical body its name is annamaya kosher the the material sheet or the of the food sheath food sheet because literally what we eat and drink is modified into this body um and this is the waking state i hope you see the grand symmetry of it all how the whole thing has been developed imagine one consciousness in association with maya the totality of ignorance it now becomes ishwara with parts of ignorance becomes prague individual sentient beings from that maya comes subtle matter which develops into subtle bodies to say that same what one consciousness in association with all subtle bodies cosmic mind an association with one subtle body is each of us each a single every one of us has a subtle body and from the subtle matter evolves further gross matter physical matter from which physical bodies this universe comes same consciousness in association with all of gross matter and subtle matter and causal matter is called virat and in association with individual physical bodies like us it is called vishwa so on one side ishwara um on the other side individual side pragya vishwa yeah these are the names if you want to say in english that pure absolute consciousness now on one side of the cosmic level is god cosmic mind and the universal being on the individual side is the deep sleeper is the dreamer and is the waker yeah these divisions are according to causal subtle and gross what is it all this whole thing the snake an appearance what's it actually what's the real thing there the only existence consciousness place brahman only all right then what do we have now 115. let me just give a little background otherwise it will scare you it's one of the longest sentences in the book it's just describing our experience in the world exactly what you're experiencing in the world it's just describing it but in the way those ancients were used to thinking you are now experiencing the world you the consciousness are now experiencing the world through your mind and intellect and memory and ego the five sense organs the five motor organs experiencing a world of sight and sound and taste and touch and thought and intellect and memory and ego and then the activities of the five motor organs like walking and grasping and talking this is our experience of the world and that's going to be talked about here except the twist in the tail is the ancient hindu idea was all natural activities are presided over by devatas or gods and these gods are the small g is not the ultimate reality we already talked about god don't get confused between god capital g and god small g god capital g is ishwara which we talked about the absolute consciousness associated with maya that is the god of religion these are small g's they are like um the closest equivalent in america would be the superheroes you know superman um and you know all of the batman and things like that so higher beings much much more powerful than us in charge of different aspects of the universe they have got enormous powers so our natural functions of our body they are parts of cosmic powers so our ability to see or hear or smell or taste or touch our ability to think or remember they have all got cosmic dimensions and consciousness associated with those powers are what are called devatas the whole theory of gods small g gods devatas in hinduism is pretty sophisticated and it's connected to our our actual experience of the world so what you will see now is going to tell us how we experience the world will talk about us our sense organs our minds our intellects what are the functions of the sense organs what do they do or experience and the gods small g gods associated with each of those functions that's what it is and all of it in one sentence so that's why it's a long sentence so i always have to take a deep breath before i read this sentence [Music] [Music] in english that will read both vishwa and vaishwanar at that time perceive the gross objects namely sound touch color taste and smell respectively through the five sense organs such as the ears etc controlled respectively by the presiding deities the quarters air sun varuna and the two ashwins they also perform the functions of speech acceptance walking excretion and enjoyment respectively through the five organs of action such as the tongue etc controlled by respectively by fire indra vishnu yama and prajapati they also experience uncertainty determination personality and remembrance respectively through the four inner organs namely mind intellect egoism and memory control respectively by the moon brahma shiva and vishnu witness such shruti passages as whose place in is the waking state who is conscious of the external world okay that's really a mouthful breaking it up what's going on here karan aim at that time at what time when you are identified with the physical universe right now for example you're talking a robot right now how you experience the world not only you but the cosmic being virat viswa and virat vishwa and vaishwan are the two of us individuals like us and the cosmic being also so um first the five sense organs we experience the world through five sense organs five motor organs and four functions of the um the undercurrent inner instrument what are the five sense organs the organs of seeing hearing um touching then tasting and smelling and what do they experience they experience um sound they experience form experience of sound touch form taste and smell and they have their individual deities devatas then we have the five motor organs you know grasping of speaking first of speech and then grasping hands and then walking hands feet and then then we have the organ of excretion and the organ of procreation the five motor organs and then the four aspects of the internal organ that is uh the mind intellect ego and memory 14 what has been left out are the five pranas pancha prana five pranas which power the whole thing like the battery pack that is not mentioned here and each of these um organs has its own uh deity so the deities are mentioned or the deity means the devatas are mentioned here i'm not going to go into the breakup of argan deity it's very symmetrical so let me do a little bit and then i'll drop it so first the five um sense organs it says these are the five deities the deity of the of the directions the deity of um of uh air arkham is sun god varuna means the the god of the oceans and the ashwin twins what do they control they control the five sense organs or the they are the power behind the five sense organs controlling in sequence shrotra um years so who controls the years the deity of the uh of the quarters the dick uh a particular god or devata then the sense organ of touch is controlled by the god of wind water the sense organ of ear of eyes is controlled by the god the deity the sun god uh arca and in this way it's all arranged symmetrically so i think you get the general idea which sense organ what does it experience and who controls who powers or controls the whole thing what's the natural force behind it what do we do with these sense organs he says kramat in sequence shabda notice deity is the quarters the sense organ is the ears and the what it senses are sound is sound sound and then sparsha the deity is the the wind guard and the sense organ is the organ of touch and what we sense with that organ the skin but which sense with that is touch like that very symmetrically five deities five sense organs five objects of the senses similarly noun i'll just do this much and then we'll see the question answers whatever is there 16. atrapiana yoho here also the individual and collective gross bodies are identical like before like the trees in the forest or like the quantities of water and the lake and so are vishwa and vaishwanara which were respectively associated with those bodies identical like the spaces enclosed by the trees the forest or like the reflections of the sky in quantities of water and the lake this is something that he has done at every level three levels causal level subtle level and gross level he ends by saying that there is oneness there that it is it is it's one reality how does he do that he compares it because of two sub-schools of vedanta reflection school and the limitation school pratibhimbawada our chair because of that he uses two examples one example is lake and drops of water how is it one all the drops of water the millions and billions of drops of water together is what we call the lake it's not that there is another lake and there is a there are other drops of water it's the same thing similarly all these physical bodies together is the cosmic body each of our bodies like a drop of water and all of them together is the cosmic body so this is one way of looking at oneness the other was the forest and trees example so what we call the forest is nothing but all the trees taken together apart from the trees there's no separate thing called the forest exactly like that apart from our bodies there is no separate entity called a cosmic body all the trees taken together is what is called the forest all the bodies taken together is what is called the cosmic body now what about us the consciousness that is compared to space it is just like the sky which is reflected in the drops of water is the sky which is reflected in the whole lake similarly consciousness which is shining in each of our bodies and minds is the same consciousness which is the cosmic consciousness in all the physical bodies together the virat the consciousness called virat is nothing other than the consciousness which we all have only in our case the same consciousness feels limited to one body in the case of the virat the same consciousness is limiting itself to all bodies that's the difference or you can take it as the space which is limited by the trees in the forest and the space which is limited by the whole forest the same space and the space stands for consciousness only area of space don't get confused because only one tree occupies only a little bit of space and the whole forest occupies a lot of space that's the size of the tree and size of the forest not size of space space is unbroken and continuous so it's the same space consciousness is not more consciousness in one body and less and more less consciousness in one body and more consciousness in the cosmic body it's one consciousness good 117. [Music] thus the gross phenomenal universe evolved from the five compounded elements five compounded elements grows sky grows air grows water grows grows fire grows water and grows earth where did they come from from the subtle uh elements and how did they come you remember that complicated way of making into five dividing and combining with each other and now from that patti the physical universe has emerged through the prevention physical universe has emerged what other kind of universe is there there's a subtle universe of all our minds this is the causal universe at the level of ignorance or maya all of them they have all emerged this is the snake it is nothing there's nothing going on there it is brahman the pure existence consciousness bliss and that's what we all are each of us is is the entire ocean of its entire absolute there's no parts in absolute that will be shown what is the point of all of this the point is we have now been brought to a vantage point which we can recognize okay this is our world maybe our ancients and sisters that's the way they saw it but they were referring to this world which we are experiencing now we know what they are talking about this here body mind world from here how do we go back and recognize that we are brahmana and that everything is brahman we want to be they want to tell us it's not a snake it's a rope but first point out the snake then i'll know what you are calling a rope you say the only reality is the rope i'm going to say what do you mean what i mean is look that which you are seeing as a snake is actually a rope so first you have to point out the snake now the snake has been pointed what's the snake this world which we took to be real which we took to be the only reality that is no it's not the reality at all very far from the truth and remember the ultimate objective of it all to transcend sorrow to attain satisfaction what we have been trying to do because we inhabit a world of ignorance and error and deception we are unable to find happiness because we are making mistakes we are unable to find happiness when we see the world as it is truly god brahman absolute when we know ourselves as we are truly infinite and immortal spirit then automatically all sorrows are transcended and at a fulfillment fulfillment attained how do we do that that's the journey back we'll start that next time but we'll take a quick look at the questions and there's a little bit i want to finish before we go let me see if this what is the activity i know i rushed you through this but believe me it's it's not all that importance with regard i can see the frowns of my teachers who will be really scandalized by the way i'm saying you can dismiss it all and replace it with modern science i had a senior monk who whom i shared this idea with several years ago maybe or 14 years ago and he did not like it at all there's a reason why let me also share that why he did not like it he said the way back from here from this physical universe to your reality as brahman is smooth an entire universe is nothing other than the five elements the five elements are nothing other than the five subtle elements and the five subtle elements are nothing other than maya maya has no existence apart from brahman you are brahmana that's how it will go if you on the other hand if you ditch the whole thing and you take up something like big bang and string theory and things like that modern physics there is um no direct door open to brahman from there but there is actually because the moment you say something exists something appears in my consciousness existence and consciousness are the doors to their infinite so that's that's my argument let me see acknowledging endurance is one of the most sensible things about advaita absolutely everything else is just superstition yes and be careful i gave vent to my inner feelings but it can very easily lead to arrogance and a dismiss dismissive attitude towards other philosophies religions spiritual practices only to our detriment we need uh the you know bhakti and meditation and a strong ethical foundation otherwise these things will not work out for us so knowing so the non-dualists or advaitans always have a inner sense of you know superiority this is religion for intelligent people everything else is religion for dummies so that kind of feeling is there the problem is it is justified but one should be careful it's no use knowing these things and yet being unable to overcome one's problems personal problems and and still saying that look i know better so i'm vivekananda put it powerfully one ounce of practice is better than 20 tons of tall talk so he said that we should always check where we are when you know when they say in america when the rubber hits the road walk the talk so that is a good check and swami vivekananda also said this is not the spirit of the upanishads when you have got something higher you don't ditch the lower his vivican is very clear this is the higher this is the highest perspective that human beings have come across in all history and civilization advaita vedanta he is very clear in fact he goes more than further than me he's talking about dualism to qualified monism to non-dualism when he goes to non-dualism he says i'm afraid i cannot stay with falsity anymore we must come to the truth at some point or the other so look at the harsh words he dismisses every other kind of dualistic approach so but he says the upanishadic spirit was never to dismiss with what went on before it all of that was useful for me and it is useful for millions of my fellow brothers and sisters and so i should not you know pull the rug out from underneath just because you have climbed up on the you know to the roof of the house don't kick the ladder away kirishi is asking what is that vedic answer to the question if a tree falls in the forest unobserved does it make a sound yes from a phenomenal perspective or an absolute perspective is right to is it right to answer with another question what tree what forest correct does it make a sound literally no because a sound what is a sound we just saw a sound is a sense experience so you have these waves in uh generated by the falling the crashing falling of the tree but until it enters into a sense organ and we saw presided over by the what the the deity of the dick of the quarters and is revealed to mind and consciousness and then only you see it as a sound otherwise what will it be if there is no sentient being around if the tree comes crashing down it will be a propagation of waves in the air but there will be no conscious experience of sound so sound definitely requires consciousness it's a part of experience so in that sense no but the physical counterpart of sound will be there the waves being propagated of course it will be there it's a physical event but from the absolute perspective from even from a phenomenological perspective from your own experience notice there is a forest nobody is observing not even birds and beasts a tree comes crashing down will there be a sound or not all of this is taking place in you the consciousness who is talking imagining this scenario consciousness even if you say millions of years ago when there were no human beings no living beings and only the world was there but this is this very scenario who is doing that you are doing that right now it is still in consciousness the very idea of a world without any consciousness is also being set up by consciousness it's a very simple thing many people don't grasp what is being said here it's a stunning thing you can never jump out of consciousness for anything at all even to discuss the possibility of a non-conscious universe you have to do it in consciousness where else will you do it to make it even more clear when you say that this is a real world suppose nobody was there and uh and you know would it still be experienced what would the world still exist isn't such a scenario possible in a dream yes you could be dreaming it when you wake up from it it will be all in your mind only in a conscious mind so anyway i'll leave it there rick says baby there are 14 worlds science doesn't know everything not have the tools to know everything it is true if you say if you push a little further so are these all you know our ancestors were superstitious and they had just wild imaginations no notice they mentioned that these fourteen worlds one of them is our physical universe and the rest are all as one very common to say states of vibration right here until we have a much deeper understanding of psychology mind let alone consciousness we cannot dismiss these these ideas you can think of them as fields of experience for example there are varieties of fields of experience even now somebody like from a very secular perspective christophe koch was talking about i can never pronounce that that drug cylon um cylo cytin psilocytin or something um so he took this drug and he experimented on himself he's our leading consciousness studies researcher he's the chief scientist for the paul allen brain institute and he talks about varieties of experience of the same world extraordinarily different ways of experiencing the world why can't you call it a different world altogether then vishwanathan says regarding the scientific model if sadhananda wrote the book today he would say the quarks etcetera came out of maya ultimately formed the physical universe you can you can relate it to that pradeep bose is saying maharaja pranam the universe however large is finite so bira to be sure is also finite virat's body is finite just like our bodies are finite viral body is as finite as the finite universe but without the consciousness itself is unlimited just like we as consciousness are unlimited you can ask the same question about ourselves are we finite as bodies we are finite definitely we are very limited limited in space limited in time there's a point where we are born there's a point where this body will die there's only a limited amount of space that it occupies so limited in various ways but i the consciousness who am at present identified with this body i'm not limited a much vaster existence is the existence of virat which is nearly infinite but nearly infinite is nowhere near infinite it is still a finite thing it's a physical universe the physical universe is also finite and so in that sense yes virat's body will be finite it is subject to birth change and death the universe itself subject to birth change and death prabhupada touched mathura we went into lahai state we're seeing virat or what really happened i don't know which particular incident you're talking about definitely what what krsna's uh made arjuna see was the virat bishop darsun is virat shekhar is saying akiran is saying ishwara these three are names and forms and appearances in consciousness is that correct no no no um well yes and no the question is virat hiranyagar and ishwara are these names forms appearances in consciousness these are nothing other than that one consciousness associated with causal body subtle body and physical body cosmic causal body maya cosmic subtle body all the minds together cosmic physical body all the physical bodies together those bodies and minds causal body subtle body and physical body they are names and forms they are appearances and because of them consciousness itself gets these names virat hiranyakarbha and ishwara it's like when i show you this this piece of this is transparent now i'm going to call it yellow crystal you see does it appear yellow to you now i'm going to call it orange crystal and i'm going to call it red crystal now orange crystal red crystal yellow crystal these are names because of the presence of this this and this this thing at no time did the crystal become um yellow or orange or red you just look like that at no time does consciousness actually become virat here in negara bharishwara consciousness is consciousness so these are yes these are names and um names given to consciousness when they are when it is uh related to associated with causal body and subtle body and physical body so virat hiring ishwara are not appearances in consciousness they are actually consciousness itself it's like asking you is kiran am i an appearance in consciousness no you are consciousness itself advaita vedanta will say you when you know yourself really you are not kiran because of this particular body personality and causal body now you brahman you are now called kiran but what is the reality about you you are the absolute reality you are you are the infinite awareness existence please like that so ishwara is not an appearance in consciousness ishwara is the absolute consciousness but he should all right just put it this way the godness of god is an appearance in consciousness then is not god god god is the absolute something higher than god also we are not demoting god we are promoting god srinivas is saying ishwar is unlimited infinite in his real nature yes can it be personified yes according to hinduism ishwara can also is also the personal god does chidavasa illumine the cosmic mind does to individual minds yes it does all of them they are i'm not well up on my tantra but they are all saguna brahman suram krsna said kali and brahman are the same reality what you call he says to the vedantins what you call saguna brahman or ishwara i call that kali for others are the ten forms of the goddess or you find in the shakta tantras gabriel says i find using google earth gives a beautiful visual visualization to the cosmic down to the individual level oh yes yes that's a very very interesting visualization i know what you mean girish says does witness count consciousness refer to saguna brahman and guna brahman witness consciousness refers to nir guna brahman because that is let's call it the door to nit guna brahman what is nir guna brahman witness consciousness itself except that there is nothing left to witness sakshi chaitanya is the need brahman sakshi chaitan is what you discover in the first step of advaita vedanta i am not the body i'm not the mind i'm using drigrishya viveka the discernment between the seer and the scene or the inquiry into the five sheets of the physical body or the inquiry into the three states of consciousness waking three states of mind waking dreaming deep sleep you discover the witness consciousness and that witness consciousness alone is nitkuna brahman when you appreciate the infinitude of that witness consciousness that is nirkuna brahman if you do not appreciate the infinitude if you think it's the witness of one body and mind that's the sankhya purusa the consciousness which in sankhya is called pollution all right i'll won't deal with the the comments on the chat right now i just want to finish in a few minutes the final concluding remarks which sadananda gives about this whole world building exercise the snake making exercise 118 what is he going to do here briefly so that you don't feel lost he has talked about three universes notice this physical universe which we are which we see and the subtle universe the universe of all our minds together all subtle bodies together which is and the universe the causal universe which is maya which is karanaprapanja now can you combine them all together into one vast universe mahaprabhu that's what he's going to do all of it together the snake in its entirety [Music] i will translate myself give a faster free translation rather than read the english of all of this all of what whatever you've been reading about till now of the physical subtle and causal universes samashti take them all together totality eko mahan prapancho bhabhati is one vast universe physical universe subtle universe gross universe i mean no sorry physical universe subtle universe causal universe sukhmakar suppose this we talked about the tree and the forests but imagine now there is another forest near the this forest and there's another yet another forest near that forest you take all those forests together you get a great forest well amazon or something like that and then if you take if you talked about drops of water in a lake but suppose there's another lake and a third lake called nearby all connected can you not talk about one vast lake just like we talk about the pacific and the atlantic and the indian ocean but they're all connected and then it's actually one vast ocean like that all the physical subtle and causal universes together as one appearance then 119. um again consciousness now what happens to consciousness when you talk about the vast universe the virat the hiranya garbha and the ishwara the consciousness associated with the subtle and the causal and the gross it is the same consciousness just like the sky in the all the three faults together is the same sky just like the sky reflected in one lake is the same sky which is reflected in all the three lakes all the lakes taken together similarly it is the same exactly the same consciousness which is ishvara which is hiranyakarba which is virat which is the cosmic consciousness in at the causal level which is the or in english let's put it the god of religion the cosmic mind and the cosmic physical person it is this entire universe all of that is actually one consciousness and the same consciousness finally this is actually he's stating the conclusion of the entire vedanta here in technical language which will only become evident to us at the end of the book what he's saying hundred and twenty ab mahan prapanchata upahita chaitanya which two the entire universe and consciousness these two prakriti and purusha uh snake and rope of these two so really you will say just a minute they are not two snake and rope aha that you have got the right thing is not two there's only one reality what's there rope only consciousness only not this universe anyway let's for the sake of on the system we have developed so far these two um the entire universe and consciousness when it is not distinguished taken together is the direct meaning of the mahavakya the great statement that thou art and when it is analyzed it becomes the indirect meaning or implied meaning of that what is direct meaning what is implied meaning and where does this that thou art come in all of that is going to happen at the end when we put all this together the the direct meaning is this universe and consciousness indirect meaning or the implied meaning will be the absolute reality need gunabram and that is going to be the grand conclusion but before that lots of fine things are going to happen things are going to get hot and exciting and very interesting very subtle discussions are going to come up uh very very soon real advaita which is the negation of all of this world building going back to the reality uh is going to start very soon um let me read his concluding remarks here he has shown us the snake evam so this has been shown in general sort of overall view how um in on reality the unreal the appearance has been imposed this is called adhyaropa just as how on the rope we have a superimposed snake we have mistaken a rope for a snake we have mistaken the absolute reality for the universe that has been shown till now this started the whole thing started on text number 33 you know 32 from 32 onwards and now we have come to the to the final limit of that the snake in all its full glory his hissing and has raised its hood we are now confronted with samsara just right now what we are seeing right now next time onwards it is going to take up the question who am i and investigate into so what exactly am i and then we'll be given a whirlwind tour of indian philosophy what do the different philosophers who are of course all dummies we are the heroes we're going to show what the dummies think about who am i and then we'll show what what really we are and so that's going to a very nice chapter is going to come up next so do join us good we'll discuss uh more later on and then i'll slow down after uh when we start that question we'll really enjoy ourselves [Music] namaste [Music]