Video 19

19. Vedantasara | Texts 122-127 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] i take refuge in the self the indivisible the existence consciousness bliss absolute beyond the reach of words and thought and the substratum of all for the attainment of my cherished desire so now we're going to start text number 122. things will become a little more difficult now on and and also more quite interesting and in one sense the real vedanta starts from now what we have got so far is we are being taught the text or the teacher is teaching us by the method of superimposition and the superimposition ad what is ad haropa it's like seeing the uh snake on the rope it's not a snake but we mistake it to be a snake that's called a dharupa superimposition error basically error and the superimposition or apavada is the negation of that error a correction of that error to see the false snake that it's not a snake it's actually a rope so brahman the only reality is sachidan and brahman and superimposition is seeing it as this world as samsara why would we do that we don't want to do it we are already in the midst of it this is a method of correcting it so we are already in the midst of samsara and we are in trouble and we want a way out and this is the way out we have seen how from sachitan in the brahman from sachitan the brahma existence consciousness bliss non-dual reality through the agency of maya appears appears as the important word does not become it appears as you know ishvara and jiva and the five subtle elements and then there is the combination and the creation of the five gross elements and with the gross elements this universe is created the same consciousness limited by the a little bit of agana ignorance which is the causal body and then further limited by the subtle body and then further limited by the gross body the causal body is down in the microscope the subtle body is vignamaya mano maya pranamayakoshis and the gross body physical body is the annamaya kosha this is what we have got so far now this chapter what's going to happen here is basically in one sentence or one question this chapter is going to answer the question who am i it's going to provide various answers 10 answers to the question who am i why is this happening now that the universe is here and we are also here with our bodies with our physical body subtle body and causal body and be the consciousness it's like having three layers of clothing the innermost layer is the causal body then in between is the subtle body and the outermost layer is the the physical body and we are in this world of samsara now what do we think about ourselves the question is specifically us we human beings now what is it that we think about ourselves and not only just like not common people also thinkers philosophers what are the various philosophical points of view about this question who am i that is the chapter this chapter is going to answer the question who am i where does it fit in in the whole scheme of superimposition d superimposition this is still part of superimposition what is going to say is what do we give us superimpose upon ourselves what do we what errors do we make about ourselves about brahman we have already made the error what is the error we have covered up brahman with with maya and then the subtle universe and then the physical universe now about ourselves what is it that we think about ourselves we will find different points of view uh so in one sense it is part of the superimposition what are we individually superimposing upon ourselves but in another sense the journey back the correction of the error the d super imposition the upper vat has already started technically it is still part of superimposition but you will see the upper body has already started what will happen is we keep on inquiring who am i really and then we get more and more sophisticated answers till we come to the advaita cancer so a kind of going back to the source going back to our reality has already started all right now one more point here the way the chapter is organized is we are looking at the views of who am i according to many philosophers so we will come across the views of many indian philosophers of ancient times we will come across materialists char workers various kinds of materialists the crude materialist who just thinks we are flesh and blood more sophisticated materialist who are very close to the way we think normally is that we are minds we are embodied persons then we will come across buddhists two schools of buddhists the mind only school which is technically known as the vignava the yogacara or bigyanova or the school then we'll come across the another school of buddhists the emptiness school mind only school emptiness school come across means we are dealing with only one question what is their view of who am i we will come across the niya school the vaisheshika school we'll come across the meemam sukkah school the puruba mumsa school and two sub schools of imam so the bhakta school and the prabhakara school the way it is organized is first of all these schools are taken up and these schools are taken up there's a certain progression in them the progression is from the crudest most simplistic views to more sophisticated and more sophisticated views coming to and finally the most sophisticated or the most deepest view no surprise there it's the advaitab you remember it's a introductory textbook advaita vedanta so the hero of the whole show is going to be us you you are the advaitan you will win the whole battle there is no surprise there also remember this is an introductory book so all the views which will be presented will be very simplistic this is the view of the materials this is the view of the buddhist and these are the arguments in favor and this is the defect with the view and then you move on there is no sustained discussion with these schools remember these schools are not so simple at all each of these schools is an ancient school of philosophy with the vast literature with history going literally thousands of years back and they have long engagements with advaitha vedanta or and with each other so there's a lot of back and forth lot of argumentation very subtle reasoning none of which you will see here you will just see the surface view still a fair representation but surface view only just just will touch and go introductory remember more in-depth battles you know we will see skirmishes we will see later on when we go to the upanishads and the commentaries on the upanishads but still it's a nice survey of indian philosophy one more thing before we start all right important a key to this chapter to enjoy this chapter i'm giving you a key now this chapter is very very symmetrically very elegantly designed to know what is going on you have to ask these questions first of all whose view it is materialist buddhist whose view question the second question will be what is the view who am i body mind consciousness what and then the third question you have to ask is that um what is the argument in favor of this view so if somebody's saying the body is the self i am the body why please argue it out give me a reason why and then the next question will be show it in your experience how does our experience prove that i am the body or whatever mind or whatever so by experience and finally show me something in the um vedas in the scriptures in the upanishads and vedas which proves which supports your claim so this is the traditional way of argumentation shruti show me shruti means the upanishads aveda species specifically upanishads but vedas also so what is there in the scriptures which supports your point of view second anubhuti what a yukty yukti means reasoning give me support your claim by reasoning and third is anubhuti support your claim by showing me an experience how can i experience what you are saying a very very solid way of establishing a perspective um so this uh shruti yuktiyanovuti will be the way we do it i think prabhupada is asking what about examples examples will be given so about each of them shruti an example will be given look here is the example of where of the upanishads where it is supporting our position here is the example in our own experience where it shows that what we are saying is right the examples will be given for each position for each of them one more point you might ask why shruti because many of these schools of philosophy like buddhists or materialist they don't believe in your upanishads or vedas it is true one reason why this is done is for the sake of you know to maintain a symmetry in the argument all the arguments are uh the second reason why this might be done is even if i don't believe in your vedas or upanishads you believe in it so i'm arguing against you and it really supports my position if i can show you something from your upanishad which proves my point if your upanishad says body is atma well then you are trapped so all the opponents all those philosophers they will give some example from the upanishads just to show that to support their position so to quickly sum up when we go through this chapter what are we looking for whose view is it one what is the view what is self who am i what is the answer third supporting quotation from from scripture shruti fourth reason yukti give a reason and fifth um anubhuti show it in experience how it is experienced in our day to day our regular experience so these are the things you look for whenever we come across each position we're going to look at several materialists to see you can see the wide range of materialistic views which were prevalent at that time and then buddhists will come in shikas will come in um poor mum suckers will come in and finally the hero of the whole play the advaita vedantic will come in and win everything so that's the plot now let's go it's a very nice chapter and a nice survey of you know different philosophical views in ancient india text number 122 [Music] i am i now will be considered in particular how people variously superimpose on the innermost self such ideas is i am this i am this etc in the inner self in your real self this and this you know somebody will say this is the body i am the body somebody will say i'm the mind i'm the prana and so on and so forth various things are imposed by different people people means different perspectives different schools of thought we will examine that now notice the word aro that means proportion is still going on technically but really speaking you will notice already we have started investigating we have started correcting the error now first no philosopher first let's take the common man on the street just the ordinary person who is not thinking about it just look at the person and what does this person feel about who am i not even thinking not even investigating just straight away what does this person feel what does this person show in his or her life who am i 123. she so an extremely deluded man speaks of his son as his own self on account of such truthy passages as verily the self is born as the sun owing to the fact that one loves one's son as one's own self and further because of the experience that one feels one self prosperous or ruined according to as one son fares well or ill all right who is this person ati prakrita now what is the who whose position are we taking remember look at the the the five questions we were asking who is this person who is this whose position are we looking at ati prakrita the most ordinary person not a philosopher not somebody with a degree from ivy league college no just a person who doesn't even think about who am i vedanta nothing like that just a person living his or her life now what does this person say this person never even thinks who am i this question does not arise to this person so what what is it being said here by the behavior of this person by the way this person lives his or her life what is most precious how does this person define the self so so this person is saying my child is myself my son or my daughter is myself not that anybody would actually seriously would they say my son is myself or my daughter is myself no but that's how they live and it's it's not a silly thing it's it's actually literally if you see how people live their lives what are they working towards what is most precious to them what are they protecting what are they hoping for in their lives it's children so what is the answer to the question who am i my child i am my child literally if you put it lit that way it sounds a little silly but um if you look at it emotionally if you look at it realistically how our people are living it's not a bad answer it's a pretty honest answer so answer to the second question what is the answer to the question who am i that child i am that need not be a child it could be i am my money i am my uh my fame and what i have achieved in my life that's who i am my legacy my achievements in my field i am most identified with that i am most defined by that it could be my possessions so any of these things exterior to your body apart from your physical entity uh something out there and you define yourself by that that is that is the position of the this most ordinary most you know like common man on the street now please give a third third question can you justify it on the basis of propanations he says yes look at your own upanishad i think it is from the aitherio uh i tell you upanishad yeah i think it's from my teddy upanishad the self alone is born as the sun so clearly your opponent says the self is the son you are born again as your own son you're born again as your own daughter is your own child and you might say what kind of a statement is that may not be literally true but emotionally true and uh i was just reading not now long time back richard dawkins the selfish gene so there uh he shows how first we try to protect ourselves then the the effort becomes is now all focused on the child why the reason is according to richard dawkins and that's a very sophisticated that might be the latest thinking in modern science who did not believe in self or god or anything what are we according to according to richard dawkins we are genes we are literally speaking um we are machines which carry the genes so the genes are the unit of life and over time through evolution they have divine they have designed ever more sophisticated machines vehicles like spaceships you know to survive in this hostile environment the genes have deviced vehicles and what are these vehicles us little multicellular beings to plants and animals to ever more sophisticated animals to the top of the food chain human beings these these physical things we are not important who is in charge here our genes are in charge here and they have one purpose our purpose is not their purpose their purpose is um to propagate their purpose is to to live and to propagate so they know they will die very soon but then as long as their copies are going on they are fine so notice if that is the main thing then that then it explains very well why suddenly after we have children we become all about the children because the genes will make us make sure that their copies are protected that's all from richard dawkins notice how our love is first for the child then for the children of relatives whose genes are a close copy to ours and the further they go away from our genes the less love we have for them and they if they're entirely apart from our genes from another um you know race or something else or species then we have either no love or we have actually enmity or hostility towards that so it is the genes protecting themselves and their nearest copies which is what explains everything atma jaya te putra it's a pretty very sophisticated huh we will be near armenian not 5 000 years ago in the ethereum condition then please give um please give a reason please argue out your position fourth question yukty swashmin neva putrey pray mother not as you have love for yourself like that for the son or the daughter you have love so love for self-preservation if you follow the direction of that love you will discover what is the self the self is trying to preserve itself now the same man or woman who was working hard to preserve earning money eating taking care of oneself is actually working much harder to preserve that little baby sacrificing itself all your work and your energy and time and earnings are all being poured into taking care of that little baby which means what are you according to this behavior where is your love going towards that baby then wherever your love is going that is the self the baby is the self then so swashmin never just as you had love for yourself the same way now you are demonstrating love for the child that means the child is yourself or it could be your your you know money it could be your your legacy your name and fame whatever it is status can you please give some some anubhuti experience he says when the sun does well when the sun is healthy you feel good if the sun is sick you feel uh unwell unhappy or distressed every parent didn't know this when the child is physically unwell parents themselves feel unwell they they are probably more unwell than the child child itself more distressed more scared than putri pushta when the child is healthy you feel healthy and good and child is nasty means the child is in trouble in crisis you feel in trouble it need not be physical it could be anxiety it could be relationship problem it could be success or failure in life my child is done well and got into an ivy league college or something i feel good my child has failed in the examinations and is a good for nothing i feel terrible why that's the child it's not you no that deep bond is there so it shows etc many such experiences there is a wealth of experiences which show which prove our position putra at maiti vadati they would say that the child son or the daughter is the self first position but it's not a philosophical position but it's good it's a very honest look at life itself now the first philosopher comes along the materialist metalist is not before this materialist is the first person who starts thinking about what could be the self he says no the sec the first philosopher is the charvaka materialist we are going to text number 124. [Music] pradeep [Music] one school of jar workers however holds that this physical body is the self on account of such shruti passages as man is constituted of their sense of food owing also to the fact that man rushes out from a burning house even leaving behind his son and further because of such experiences as am stout and sin etc again ask those questions whose position is it this is the charvaka the materialist what is the position who am i answer i am the body not the child and notice each position will be more sophisticated in the sense that it will cut down the previous position they will show why the previous position does not work it's contradicted i am giving you a better answer so i am the body i am not the child i am the body why we will see um so first of all charvaka the word word charvaka comes from charu walk sweet talk so materialist positions are often very simple and very appealing this world is all that there is that that slogan i mentioned yolo you live only once this is jarvak slogan so these charvakas are materialist and hedonist materialist means material reality is the only reality this what we sense with the five senses that's the only reality this physical body is what we sense so i am this physical body and the purpose of life what is the purpose of life is to enjoy and enjoyment is also sense pleasure so this is a very basic there will be different levels of materialism but this is the very basic level of materialist the um so this is a you know it's immediately appealing if you don't think too critically live your life why worry about philosophy and all of that just have fun one doesn't live too long you live only once have fun take a selfie so they are generally they'll take a selfie and then give a this what you call like a label you'll yolo they will say notice how even by doing that if i'm just partying and just having some fun even then i feel a compulsion to justified by some philosophical reason why would i put that yellow that yellow why do i put it somewhere within i feel feel compelled to justify my position i feel that i must as an intelligent thinking person i must give a convincing reason i have to convince myself at least that i am doing the right thing so here is the reason you live only once make maybe the char walkers say that um so they are materialists they say that as long as you live live happily live happily how would you live happily what is the way to live happily at that time the height the top 10 drinks was ghee that is clarified butter there was like it's like coke or you know like drinks so drink a lot of ghee but it's expensive where will i get that rename kritwa credit max out your credit cards buy a lot of ghee and borrow money renames borrow money go on credit and then if you said but yeah but if i do that i have to pay back no when the body is dead the only reality is the body that the body is dead you'll be burnt where will it never come back again is going to catch you no they'll catch my children or my you know like inheritance or who cares you have had fun let them suffer so this is and it's it's not a like a silly philosophy lot of people live by it a lot of economies are based on that um once you're dead you'll never come back again it's finished basically yolo 5 000 years ago we think we are very sophisticated today taking selfie and putting you live only once 5000 years ago there were your ancestors doing exactly the same thing that is the philosophy um what about religion they say religion is nonsense this religion is made by a group of priests to exploit others and to you know live up the hard work of others i mean no neo-marxist can go further than these people same analysis thousands of years ago um i've forgotten the exact verses and even good to forget horrible verses like that the three vedas are the creation are the creations of what are the creations of of hypocrites cheats and rakshasas so they have created these to cheat people now then what about the you know the offerings that we gave in to remember the context of the vedic religion in those days so we give offerings in the fire and by giving these offerings in the fire it will go to the gods and our my father for whom i'm giving the offerings he will go to heaven so these ideas ritualistic ideas were there and these charvaka they have their verses i had at one time i read the verses it means uh if if by pouring fire pouring ghee into the fire it would the fire will take the ghee to your to heaven to two gods and the gods will be pleased and by that your father will go to heaven throw your father into the fire he will go directly into heaven then the fire is taking so that's the meaning of the verse so all this kind of they completely they made fun of religion so that was the basic the crudest form of charvakas so now what is their argument first of all do you have any quote from the upanishads yes we have everybody has a quotation literally devil quoting the scriptures so everybody has a quote from the upanishads this self the purusa you the being you are made of the sense of food what are you referring to here you're referring to the physical body what we eat and drink is digested assimilated and made into the physical body our flesh and blood and bones this is this is the body and upanishad is saying you the purusa the sentient being you are made of food or the essence which say that the body is the self now in fact in one of the places atma refers to body physical body i have told you earlier one thing in the story once i was begging for food in the himalayas i was wondering so i went into this farmer's house high up around 9000 feet up in the garwal mountains and this farmer invited me into said will you eat or will you take khaki okay like so i said i'll eat here he called me and made me sit down and he called the the uh you know daughter-in-law mataji kukula kana lago and so she put out a plate and i was eating and then i don't i'm not a good eater so i eat a little bit so the farmer observed and he said you eat like a bird and then he said paramatma first take care of the atma then only paramatma atma means self and the paramatma supreme cell by selfie means the body the physical body so now the question might be why would the upanishads refer to the body as the self so you have to see it in context all these quotations are being pulled out from the upanishads without regard to the context so when you say when you actually when you go to the taitheri upanishads and find out what is the reference why why have they said that the self is the body you will see what is going on there is the pancha start by thinking of the self as the body then you see it is not the body then you look inwards and you see the prana is the self then you see that no prana cannot be the self mind is the self intellect is the self and so on you go till you get to pure consciousness instead of doing that if i just pull out one quote see here the upanishad your own upanishad says body is the self so that's what charvaka has done now all right what is the next question we must ask reason why that person said my son or daughter is myself why show me why the son or daughter is not the self why is the body the self he says house is burning one abundance one son or daughter and runs to save this body therefore what are you saving not the son of the daughter but about i don't know how many parents would do that but anyway some might and so we since we are saving this body then this body is the self not that body that body is not myself um there are examples so there's a story that srama krishna has to tell rather depressing story of a man who wanted to get spiritual realization and his guru told him to come away with me and you know like become a monk wandering monk the man said no but i have my old mother and my wife and my children all of them to take care of what will happen and they love me so much they'll be so heartbroken if i leave them the guru said nobody cares for you you don't know that and i'll show you here take this medicine and then it will seem as if you are dead so this man took the medicine and it looked it was completely lifeless but he could hear everything what was going on then his wife started wailing his old mother started wailing the children gathered around him and at this time the guru came what's wrong the poor man he's passed away he's dead the guru said no he's just in a particular state of like no suspended animation or something i can bring him back but i need another life for that somebody one of you has to sacrifice your life for it um obviously there's no question of children sacrificing their life for the father but then the young wife said oh what what can i do all these little ones depend on me i can't sacrifice my life he's gone what can be done now and then the old mother said well what can we do i have got other children and then all these grandchildren are there and the poor widowed wife is there who will guide and look after all these people well he's gone anyway let us pray for his welfare and then this man got up and said to the guru you are right let us go i'm leaving with you so the basic idea there is that here is when you are mortally threatened whom do you rescue so you one might rescue the child or one might not one might rescue oneself on the body itself so that's the argument he's giving that means what the other person earlier person said the child is the self is not correct it is the body which is the self then can you show me from exam give me some examples from my from my experience from my daily experience how am i the body and that so many examples are available you say i am overweight too low hum i am overweight what is overweight what is 200 pounds the body is 200 pounds you don't say that consciousness is 200 pounds or something like that the mind is 200 pounds it's the body but what do i say i am overweight or i need to lose weight or i am skinny i need to put on some weight or i am sitting here quite obvious all the time we talk as if we read the body i am sitting here what's sitting here the body is sitting here i am i'm walking downstairs what's walking downstairs the body is walking downstairs so we tend to talk we just tend to talk and behave as if we were the body and we don't think twice about it so there is any number of examples which will prove that in our day-to-day lived experience we behave as if we were the body so here you have the second view which is a materialistic view if you think deep this is present in a very simple way but if you think deeply about it you have very sophisticated views actually and lots and lots of people mostly follow these views so you notice how symmetric it is whose view what is the view what is the self were any quotation from the upanishads what is the argument uh how does it cut down the earlier argument and then what is the experience let us go to one more example 125. so [Music] so this is one more char marker school one more school of materialism but more sophisticated than the earlier one upper means another school of charvak what is the english translation let us see another school of charvaka speaks of the sense organs of the self on account of such shruti passages as sense organs went to their father prajapati and said owing also to the fact that the movement of the body seizes when the organ sees to work and further because of such experiences as i am blind of one eye i am deaf and so and so forth so pretty easy to find out i'm pretty easy to grasp what's going on another group of materialist apparatcharvaka another group of materialist what do they say um and they say that indriyani atmaitivadati the sensory system is the self sights touch especially touch smell taste sound hearing all of the five senses taken together the sensory system is the self again a pretty sophisticated way of looking at it think about it when i'm saying that the body is the self but really suppose this hand is paralyzed i really feel this is me this part this hand here but suppose it's paralyzed and i have no control over it and no feeling in it very soon it will become like an object to me i'll have to lift the hand put it here slowly i will lose the feeling of sense of self in it that it is me it will become more like an object why because there is no sense sensation left there is no motor control left over it and so my sense of self withdraws from it there is uh it will become like a thing like an object it will become you one may feel i'm i'm sure if after suppose somebody is paralyzed and for years one hand not arm is not leg is not moving then i will my sense of self will be more on the parts which i can sense and control and that part will seem less and less like my own self so he says that the vincent sensory system is active when consciousness works through it when i'm aware of something then only the body feels like the self without it body does not feel like the self um suppose all our senses were taken and supply transplanted into somewhere else other than the body then that one would feel like the self so there's a whole uh experiment called biv brain in a fat we did this course in uh at harvard on consciousness studies so one paper was always some papers were on this brain in a vat brain a vet means suppose a mad scientist has removed your brain from the body and then it has put it in a like a like a solution and in a environment where the brain will survive and hooked it up to artificial senses so you feel you are in the body but you are actually not in the body brain is not in the body brain is elsewhere and it is controlling another body where will you where are you actually you are actually in that brain in that artificial environment but you will feel i am in this body because the senses are working here senses are the self senses are which generate the sense of self again pretty sophisticated view do you have any um quotation from the scriptures this is he quotes from the chandoo position so the prana the set of hair prana means senses the set of senses approach the approach brahma there's a particular context but there the senses are called the self um argument given argument why is it that the body is not the self why are you saying senses are the self the argument of like paralysis which i gave when the senses stopped working sense organ motor organ then the body does not feel like the self um again in our sleep when we fall asleep our sense of self withdraws from the body we have no awareness of it at all the body is still there if the body was there you should behave that it should behave like the self it does not at that time the self may be dreaming in a body in your dream world in a world of imagination that feels like the self not the sleeping body so um and the sensory system does not function then the activities of the body charity activities of the body also fail and can you give some experience ahambadhiro um that i am blind i am deaf uh karna hum i am blind in one eye uh badhiro aham i am deaf what is blind this eyes are blind what is death the ears do not function the same the conditions of the senses are identified with the self what is happening to the senses i am saying i am that so your own report is that you are identified with your sensory system yeah so that is also pretty good position and therefore they say indriyani atma the sensory system is the atma then one more let's do one more material see how many schools of materialistic each one more sophisticated the next school of material is says no no life is self life prana aparash this is text number 126 [Music] holds that prana vital force life vitality is the self on account of such shruti passages as different from and more internal than this is the self which consists of the vital force owing also to the fact that the cessation of the working of the vital force the sense organ sees to function and because of such experiences as i am hungry i am thirsty all right so this school of materialist says i am life itself it's uh what is the essential nature of the self it is life not in a dead body all the senses might be there but no body might be there senses might be there there's no sense of self anymore so um another school of charvaka says praana is atma can you give any quotation from shruti he gives territory opposition always readily available the poor thai terri upanishad it was doing pancha koshavichara step by step taking you to atma and these people are cherry picking one sentence out of it look checkmate your own upanishad says your precious upanishad says the inner the atman is inner to this inner to the body not to the senses it is prana can you give some argument reason it out yes when uh life stops if light goes out all your sensory system fails there is no question of being the self being identified with the self with the senses or with the body if there is death if the body dies and then the senses also stop the body also is dead and there is no self there so self comes and goes with prana with life um so there is this old story in the upanishad chandragupta that there was once a competition among all the senses who is superior and they said let's approach brahma the creator of the universe and ask him who is the best amongst us brahma said all right why don't you do one thing you by turn each of you leave the body and stay away for one year and come back we'll see who is missed the most so first the ears said i'm going to leave the body let's see how you guys manage without me so they and ears left and they couldn't hear anything anymore one year later he and the ears came back into the power of hearing shraddha indriya well how did it go yeah it was difficult we couldn't hear anything but we managed and you can see and it's sort of we can manage and similarly the eyes left uh and then it was so terrible they were blind one year later the eyes came back well what happened yeah it was really bad we couldn't see anything we went blind but we survived somehow i mean we can sort of feel our way around and you know like we managed to survive similarly each one by one the the self the senses you know sense organs and the water organs they go and come back and yes it's difficult but people carry on but then the prana life it itself began to leave the moment it began to leave the body all the injuries cried out stop stop stop you're all going to die if you're not here don't go so brahma said life is the most important of you know like life is more important than anything else so the charvak is saying look your opening should support us life is is the self self is life life itself is the self can you give me some experience day to day life where we can verify says yes look at your daily experience i am hungry i am thirsty so hunger thirst health illness energy tired all of these are because of life prana i am i can't do anything i'm very tired i'm i'm unable to get out of bed prana problem with prana or i'm bursting with energy i'm you know like what i'm going to jump out of bed and go go and do things it's prana i am hungry i am thirsty i am sick i am perfectly well all of these are activities of prana everything so no more than the senses the prana is important let's do one more the last of the materialists and i'll take some questions pretty sophisticated view this is actually where most people stop mind i am a mind i am a person in this body embodied person most people just about every even the advanced scientists you know like the deep thinkers they sort of stop here here yet another school of charvaka holds the mind is the self on account of such shruti passages as different from and more internal than this which consists of the vital force is the self which consists of mind again the poor criteria of nation is being exploited owing also to the fact that the vital force etc sees to work when the mind goes to deep sleep and further because of such experience as i am considering the pros and cons etc so this school of materialists is a pretty sophisticated school of materialist and they think of themselves as embodied minds they think of themselves as persons which i think most people do most sensitive thinking people in the world would think of themselves as persons do you have an upanishad to coat yes and there is the titanium punisher which says subtler than all of this you know body and prana and all of that is the mind a manomaya atma and do you have any arguments to prove that so here's an argument which says there's no experience of the vital force the body is there it's breathing you see it but the person when the person falls asleep and dreams or does not even dream the person has no experience of the from that person's experience there is no experience of the vital force and the sense of self is still there completely dissociated with from the functioning of the purana in the sleeping body and that's how the person that's how we experience our dreams for example how do you see yourself in your dream you have no sense of you know like lying on the bed and breathing no so i am not that prana i am the mind the whole world of dreams for example is constituted by the mind experience can you give some anub yes i'm thinking i'm feeling i'm remembering i'm desiring i'm loving i'm hating this is this constitutes our innermost experience of self what we really think about ourselves are my thoughts feelings my own personal narrative my memories that's all part of the mind my memories my sense of self my likes and dislikes my opinions all of this was what constitutes my the personality i am this although very interesting the word personality literally means a mask the word person comes from the greek for mask persona anyway but we think of ourselves as persons and this is what this materialist says we are persons we are minds embodied minds that's what we are that's probably even in pretty sophisticated modern philosophies of mind people just take it for granted that we are embodied minds and this but this is also a materialistic view um the other schools will come in later on the buddhists and the nayakas and all it'll start later i'm going to stop here and take a few questions and see what observations are there in the chat but you see how nice this chapter is it's so symmetrical if you know the key to the chapter who's who are we talking about here what is their answer to the question who am i what is the quotation from the upanishads what is the argument and what are the experiences and then you go on to the next and each one is higher than the earlier higher means it builds upon the earlier by criticizing the earlier one and at the top of the food chain will come of course the great hero advaita advaita vedanta now more advanced than god of others so girish is asking you indicated regarding professor timels in his guest perceiving creating is more advanced interpretation of advaita more advanced than governor padres so not more advanced than ajata weather the basic form of advaita is srishti the world has been created look a good example this book what would you say it is the world has been created by god you know ishwara with maya projects the five subtle elements and then from the side circle elements our subtle bodies are created these five subtle elements are combined to form the five gross elements with the five dose elements our physical bodies and the physical universe is created and then we see this universe you didn't create it i didn't create it it's ishwar a god with the power of maya who has created all this so this is sri distiwatha universe has been created and then we come to experience it swishtv but a higher and more radical form of advaita is drishti shrishti it's there because you are seeing it how is that possible doesn't it exist when i don't see it no it doesn't it's based on our dream model all the things that you see in the dream the people you see in the dream even your own body which you see in the dream all of it is there only as long as you are dreaming the moment you stop dreaming all of it disappears and that doesn't seem to be a crazy statement we understand that's what a dream is i'm eating a pizza and i put it in the fridge and then i can wake up from my dream do i feel that okay i'll dream tomorrow and go back and open the fridge and eat the pizza tomorrow and tomorrow night's dream no it's not there it's gone so that is drishti shrivada rishi srishti means seeing itself is creation sushi creation is seen seeing his creation and then comes ajatavadha godapadas which is which says that there's no creation at all nothing was ever created so the ajata vada is the highest but look this is an introductory book so it starts with srishti rishti why because that's the easiest way to understand advaita vedanta it's it follows our it allows for our common sense intuitions um then rick is saying joke related to verse 123 the jewish tradition when does the fetus become human being when he graduates from medical school correct you know there's this is all so many jokes about you know jewish parents so this is the lady is walking with two little kids um and somebody asked oh what cute children um who are you and who are you as the little little two little boys and the mother jewish mother says oh this one is the lawyer and that one is the doctor they're little toddlers another related joke about this is in our in our monastic order not just our daughter among monks you're not really grown up until you are maybe 60 or 70 years old you're still a baby monk so i am still a baby compared to you know really grown-up monks you must be like 75 years old first and then uses a number of analogies as proof statements is the analogy is same as anubhav experience now analogy is used to point to something and you have to grasp it in your experience or rodrigo is asking who where the main charvaka philosophers ancient times difficult to say in mahabharata in ramayana there's there are different people who come forward like jaibali and some others are there there are examples of char workers in each of them and they put forward these very materialistic points of view there are some in mahabharata some in ramayana um some in the upanishads many names are there the guru of the jarvakas is called brihaspati punamji is asking what are vasana samskaras and with these are they part of our causal body no they are part of our subtle body but they remain in the causal body in seed form and then the subtle body starts functioning they come out again british are definitely in the subtle body um and the vasanas and samskaras their seeds are in the causal body causal then rodrigo is asking donovan's brain is a great book peter dawkins says what is the difference between manas and chitta regarding verse one two seven isn't minus an activity of the mind not the mind itself yeah so the antarctic the technical name for his inner instrument and it has four functions manas which is normally translated as mind all kinds of thinking and then uh buddhi the the determinate determinative faculty when you get an understanding you get something you get something okay this is true um ego ahamkara which is called abhimaan which is that function of the antakarana which appropriates which is which unites all the activities into one like i am this and then chitta which is the storehouse but sometimes for the whole thing manas is used sometimes for the whole thing chitta is used so chittati nirodha yoga is the cessation of the writings of the chitta their jitter does not mean only memory all vitis must subside for yoga or samadhi and kiran is asking there must be realized souls ramagyanis even at the time when the materialistic views were philosophized is it just that the advaitha philosophy was not yet developed um where they realized so certainly all throughout history there must have been realized souls so people are at different levels of their evolution and at some level the materialistic views are more appealing now whether the advaita philosophy which we find today was developed that has that you have to look to history so the advice of philosophy is the philosophy so when the upanishads are there advaita was there but that form of upanishad one form of it so in vivekananda was clear as modern philosophers may not agree but swami vedica was clear that what buddha taught was actually the teachings of the upanishads in his own way uh he gave a new interpretation to it but essentially the same thing which modern plus officers won't agree they said no he is against the upanishads but then these two positions may not be entirely different whether he was teaching the upanishadic philosophy you're against it if you're against something you're still reacting to it you're still incorporating that same dna into your thinking anyway and then the further development of the upanishadic philosophy into a modern advaita took place first with gowda pada were early advaithans i don't know much about them a lot of discussion but the materials are not available but godappa is available the mandukya karika and mandu is available so godopath was a major step towards the development of modern advaita then of course incomparable is shankaracharya so all the bhashyas and the upanishads the bhasya and the brahma-sutra oh yes before this development of advaitha was is the brahma-sutras the sutras themselves were composed by vyasa development of advanced is the bhagavad-gita krishna taught the bhagavad-gita the central teaching of the upanishads but systematically the the philosophy developed with godhapada and then um really so solid permanent basis which we have got today adi shankaracharya commentary on brahma sutras commentary on upanishads commentary on bhagavad-gita plus a wealth of prakaranagranthas prakaranagranthas introductory text or small independent treatises and then referred the development of the advaita philosophy for over a thousand years by the followers of shankaracharya multiple schools in the bahamati school they were in a school then the attacks by the dualists which led to further refinement of the positions a lot of dialectical back and forth till the coming of the modern period new thinkers i was just reading an essay is gandhi a an advaitha and in one place it's interesting to note mahatma gandhi actually says i am an advaita vedantic so whether it's vivekananda or gandhi or so modern thinkers down to its coming to the united states of the west there is so much development of advaita vedanta till now so this is the development of advaita vedanta then so kiran was asking about this this is the actual historical development of advaita philosophy is this way but does this mean there were no brahmaganis even before god or father of course they were in the rishis of the upanishads were brahmagyanis and i'm sure many many people whose names we do not know they became enlightened just this form of the philosophy which we have got now was not there then vishwanathan is asking will the author also discuss and dispute the opinion bishop dwight in other videos no it will come in sort of incidentally much later right now it's not there but it will come in later on what is your question maharaj even if the mind is an appearance in consciousness who is it that gets liberated oh big these are big questions we'll shelf that for later these are the final ultimate questions so yes party uh there must be a different brisbane brian's party guru of the day was his guru of the child lockers also brian uh it must be a different briefcase and all you know um so that there were charvaka sutras apparently but those are lost sometimes you find quotations from charwaka sayings like i quoted a few those were known as brihaspati sutras i think yeah so the materialist school has suffered in the sense that once a school is wiped out you get their views only from their opponents so the you know the winners or the victors write the history so all the other schools if you notice whether it is advaitan or sankhya or meemamsa even the buddhists and the giants all the indian schools of philosophy when they criticize other schools they start with the charvakavers but that's the most obvious and basic thing they start with that dismiss it and then they go on to criticize other schools all right uh dimitri uh good evening um i'm trying to follow this uh this logic that was described like uh make a statement uh quotes from upanishad and then uh what is the actual experience what could stand the argument of the that from the first person conscious experience nothing exists nothing else exist yeah finally you are at the point that yes it is all an illusion all you can gain is maybe a happier illusion and you know more loving illusion but really it's still an illusion like anything there is is the first person there is nothing else like you cannot prove it that is right and at the very end the advaitan will deploy that argument to cut down every other school all these schools which will come now the other which will reply that deploy that argument from the first person experience the first person the pure first person is awareness only because everything else is an object to that awareness so whether it is the sun or the body or the senses or prana they are all objects to awareness and awareness itself is the experience of all of these or the illumina therefore the self must be awareness we're going to come to that at the very end after this the journey will continue with you know through the various regions of indian philosophy in the next class but finally yes what you are saying that that that's what the advaithin will say to one of the things yeah and it will apply to you know even a higher type of uh concepts such as ishwara and you know everything else because from that perspective perspective how can i verify that ishwar is there right in fact that dwetin will say everything you have said from the common man the poor man on the street who says my child is myself up to the most sophisticated dialectical naga arjuna who says the ultimate void is the self you know the emptiness is the self all of these are revealed to consciousness so that's what the advaitan will say whether it's god or the void or emptiness or mind or intellect or whatever you call it everything is revealed to consciousness yeah and in a sense it's such a simple thing and yet we don't see it um then arjun arjun rator yeah mar para maharaj yes so i had you had commented something in a previous lecture so i had some confusion about that especially when you had compared advaita with kashmir shaivism where you said that the self is self-aware they consider in kashmir shaivism whereas in advaitha we don't so that's where my confusion is right right understanding that the self that i am you know it must the consciousness must be aware of its existence right that's where my confusion is coming right right i understand you had written to me about it yeah yeah you know about it yes yes so you're right uh in fact self-aware and self-luminous these are two different terms what advaita vedanta says is consciousness is swap prakash it reveals itself and it reveals everything else right but kashmir shaivism goes further and says not only is it subprakasha not only it is self-revealing but it is also what is called um prakasha prakasha para prakash what they use is means it is reflexively self-aware i am luminous but i am also aware of myself that i am aware of myself advaita vedanta see it doesn't really stand it's a beautiful concept but it doesn't really stand advaita vedanta will immediately say look you're importing the activity of the mind here i mean forget all these elevated philosophies just look at your day to day life i am aware of my own existence unless you you introspect unless you pause and look back upon yourself normally you're not thinking about yourself but does that mean you're unconscious no you're luminous you're always radiant if our deep sleep what will you kashmirishim say to that deep sleep you are you are still luminous but there is no self-awareness possible because the mind has shut down the self-awareness this reflecting reflexive awareness of oneself that is a function of the mind it's like saying the face is carrying the reflection the reflected face along with itself reflected face is part of the face no it is not reflected face depends upon the mirror um so so so someone might say then then we are dependent on the mind for self-awareness yes but there's nothing wrong in it what is the mind after all in advaita vedanta mind intellect body and the universe all are products of our appearances of the self of you and you are self luminous you are not dependent on anything outside um it's like saying that uh but then another question you had asked was then what is the it's worthless if i'm not i'm aware i'm awareness but i'm not aware of my awareness if i'm not self-aware then it's useless no it's like saying i have this face i am this face but if i'm not constantly seeing my reflection then it's worthless having a face not at all so ramakrishna actually says in one place if i always look at my reflection in a mirror people will think i'm mad let's see that quote seems to be out of context there's nothing before it and nothing after it what it means is this that you constantly want to experience yourself as this luminous awareness not necessary at all you are it so again and again what kashmiri shaivism does with all the best intentions it imports activities of the mind and the intellect and the prana into the ultimate reality shiva paramashiva has the unlimited power of gyanai chakriya unlimited power of knowing unlimited power of willing unlimited power of doing advaita vedanta would say that is ishwara you are bringing in the power of maya and adding it to the ultimate reality the ultimate reality can exist without that power also nothing is lost of that ultimate reality because it does does the reality become powerless kashmiri shaivism often philosophers they say then your brahman is just like a stone not at all all these powers they belong to brahman they are not at the same level as brahman when we say that there is no such power at all brahman alone exists it's not that brahman is powerless the whole dialectic of powerful and powerless becomes meaningless from brahman's perspective yeah just one one thing but when we say aware aware implies that it's aware of its existence otherwise that awareness shouldn't it be aware of its existence at least not necessarily and look at your deep sleep experience see awareness of one's existence is already there's some function of the mind going on there you are acknowledging i exist but even without acknowledging you exist do you not exist you can exist so the question and you know what is lurking in the mind is then in the state of ultimate freedom i will be like that like being in deep sleep no you know what you'll be like you'll be like this universe this universe has this multiple stages there's a stage of complete expression of the universe the physical universe is there the causal universe is there the subtle universe is there none of this all of this is nothing but the nirguna brahmana appearing in this way through maya and at one point all of this will disappear in pralaya the entire universe will disappear back into maya nirguna brahman alone will exist throughout at that time only sagunabrahman plus maya will exist there will be no expression at all but that does not mean the reality has gone away so the reality goes through two phases a phase of uh withdrawal into a potential state a phase of expression into a manifest state sritis is going on so in a way maharaja this the self is not privy to this experience it is kind of detached from this experience or all this experience is that remember continuous experiencing the self does not need it experiencing depends on the self the self does not depend on experiencing what is experience consciousness plus object now the self through maya may manifest an object and experience itself in that way or it may not it may choose not to manifest an object and it will just be remain radiant without experiencing something that happens every day in deep sleep and that happens every once in billions of years in pralaya okay thank you i'll think about it yeah yeah it'd be perfectly fine to advise perspective and perfectly fine that the universe is not there but what does it mean the universe is not there even mind will not be there the intellect will not be there the thought i am will not be there though i am the thought i am will not be there shankaracharya discusses this in um his commentary on number of places when one commentary on the gita verse 2.16 so he says that existence itself it's never destroyed um you know like um this gutter was the pot is so suppose you destroy the part then the broken part is business is still there existence then suppose you destroy those um that smash everything all all the parts are smashed out of existence then where is the is-ness shankaracharya says patawasti the clock is a part is gone cloth is then the next question will be suppose everything is destroyed everything the whole universe is gone there's no object left in the universe then where is your easiness the whole idea is that is this must depend on some object without objects can there be is-ness shankaracharya says that even then business is there but there's no way of experiencing it anymore it is analogous to what you are asking that is from the business perspective you are asking from consciousness perspective yeah okay thank you maharaj right technically the straight answer to your question will be kashmiri shaivism holds on to wimmersha apart from prakash prakasha is light or awareness vimertia is awareness of that awareness and so according to kashmini sheikh muslim that we must also is part of the ultimate reality prakash advaita vedanta says prakasha swarupa self reflectivity will come later on and that may come stay disappear it is nothing to you the brahman yeah thank you thank you all right that's a good point to end this discussion um [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] you