Video 28

28. Vedantasara | Texts 159-169 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[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 chedish desire so um vedanta sarah and it's reached on a very crucial apart where we are trying to understand the statement that thou art tatwa masih in fact this is the very heart of advaita vedanta if you want to express advaita vedanta in one sentence it would be this you know one of the mahavakyas that thou art those sentences which express the identity of jiva and brahman of the individual and the absolute the meaning is is not straightforward actually as we have seen it has to go through three stages we have to process this sentence that thou art through three stages which are basically three relationships if you recall the three relationships are sama nadhikaranyam bhabha and lakshya lakshana bhava the first one saman ali karanyam is is a relationship between the words of a sentence so all the words are they all related to do they refer to one thing or do they refer to different things and we have decided that all the words in the sentence that thou art it's one of those unusual sentences where all the words the different words but they all point to one reality then next in such cases we go to the second stage to find out the meaning of the sentence the second stage is the adjectival relationship vishesh navisha bhava usually when words in the sentence refer to one object they're usually related as as adjective and now the second the second relationship vishesh navisha bhava is between the words of the sentence and the um and the object [Music] so between the words of the sentence that is that and thou so for example the um the um you know the phrase blue lotus so blue and lotus both refer to the same thing that blue flower but they are related as a property and a substance a color and you know a flower so the color in hairs or is in the flower and that's usually how such sentences go but we saw last time we ran into trouble doing that because the individual is not an attribute or an adjective to god to do to segunda brahman and the opposite result it just is just impossible god cannot be an attribute of an individual so just like you know blue lotus if you say blue lotus blue is an attribute of the lotus that's perfectly all right and we come across so many such examples but that's not like that thou art uh you are not an attribute of of the absolute the absolute obviously are of god you are not an attribute of god and god is obviously not an attribute of you the individual but the way we use that that uh step it's not entirely useless for us what it does is it excludes in the sense when you say blue lotus for example the word blue excludes all other kind of kinds of all other colors you know it's not a yellow lotus it's not a white lotus red lotus all other colors are excluded the moment you say blue and the moment you say lotus all other blue objects are excluded the blue sky a blue shirt or a blue pen all those are excluded you mean only the blue lotus so you see how these two terms they come together to point to one specific object in the same way we are using that and thou to exclude every other possibility for example what we are trying to say is that thou art means you are brahmana that means you are not anything else except brahman you are not a body you are not this limited individual the meaning of the sentence is you are brahman and the opposite is also true um brahman is you brahman by brahman we don't mean shiva or you know kali or durga in case you're thinking of them as gods different from you not in that sense brahman means only you you means brahman brahman means you so we have used it in that sense uh the second relationship which is vishya shin abhishe bhava now the problem still remains the problem is this at this stage what the problem we have right now is yes the sentence means you are nothing but brahman and brahman is nothing but you fine but still the meaning does not emerge we don't get at the meaning of it it's still impossible how can you the individual being the this little limited human being how can you be sagun abraham brahman brahman is god all powerful all-knowing you know not only that god is uh is is something that we we do not directly experience and you experience your own existence directly in sanskrit parochial paroxya uh god is all-knowing you the individual being are you have very little knowledge god is all-powerful sarva shaktimaan in sanskrit you the individual being are we have so little power so little ability al-pastime and so on so how can even saying that you are nothing but god and god is nothing but you what does it mean how can how are you nothing but god how am i nothing but god and how is god nothing but me what exactly does it mean what are you referring to when you say blue lotus it's pretty clear what you're referring to no other lotus except the blue one and no other blue object except the lotus yes the meaning is it fits and you can easily bring me the say here swami here is the blue lotus but what do you mean when you say you are nothing but god and god is nothing but you what exactly are you referring to what is the entity what is the reality you're talking about and can you see how contradictory it is so we need need one more step to find out the meaning of the sentence that thou art the third relationship is called lakshya lakshmabhava basically implied meaning so it's a relationship and relationship always means relationship between two or more entities so at least two entities so what are the what is the relationship here it's the relationship between the sentence that thou art and the entity referred to by it the meaning of this sentence the work came in sentence and artha means the reality or the object referred to by it this is the relationship um it's an implied meaning not a direct meaning why why not to detect what do i mean by direct meaning and implied meaning right so what do i mean by direct meaning and implied meaning direct meaning is the straightforward dictionary meaning when you take a word look at the dictionary what does it mean god okay so it look at the dictionary the creator of the universe um individual human being this limited creature how can they be the same do you you don't clearly the dictionary meanings don't fit so when dictionary meanings the direct meaning does not fit you look for an implied meaning why do you look for that you have made up your mind that the sentence is sensible the person who's speaking is not speaking nonsense um is not just you know saying contradictory things if it is a meaningful sentence and the meaning is not emerging with the direct meaning you take an implied meaning take a some other meaning and we'll see what kind of implied meaning is available to us and we and we will see we do it all the time in life when we want to understand what somebody else is saying we take an implant if the direct meaning is not fitting is not appropriate we take an implied meaning and we think that right that person means this all right so this is the third stage and at this stage the meaning of the sentence that thou art will emerge will emerge um before we dive into it i'll tell you briefly what's going to happen and then we take a look and it will be easy to follow and this is the i promise you the final stage of analysis of that what but we are not finished yet after this there is me i am brahmana so a different issue will be taken up when we take up that sentence but that thou art this is the final stage of analysis and what's going to happen they're going to look for a way to make things fit so how do we do that we look for implied meaning now there are varieties of way of ways of finding implied meaning we will look at three of them reject two of them because they won't fit and then finally find one which will fit three what three ways of finding implied meaning three techniques of finding implied meaning two won't work third one will work the first one is called is called jahad lakshana jahad lakshana means implied meaning by letting go of the original meaning the second one we will take up is called ajahad lakshana which means implied meaning by adding something to the original meaning and the third one which we will find working for us is called jahad lakshana which means leaving out a part of the original meaning and retaining a part of the original meaning then we will find the real implied meaning three there are three options available to us you either you let go of the original meaning which is not fitting and find something else which works um i know this might sound a little abstract what am i talking about well when we get dive into it it'll become very clear it's very simple and it's something that we do all the time in day to day you know when we talk with each other we do it without thinking twice about it the second one is called uh ajah at lakshana when you find an implied meaning without letting go of the original meaning you add something to it and then it makes sense and then the third one is you let go a part of the meaning retain a part of the original meaning and then it makes sense fine now um let me see the first one first one will be the jahad lakshana where you let go of part of the meaning and the example they will give is um is ganga yam ghosha this is a classical example classical sanskrit example it simply means the the the neighborhood or the colony of the uh of the milkman is on the ganga you just basically say is where the dairy farmers they where they stay that place is on the ganga river ganga obviously doesn't fit because you can't have people staying on the river it obviously means on the bank of the river and that's a common way of putting it you know like uh um where is shakespeare's house stratford on on even yes it can't be on a river but it just means on the bank of the river uh for example when swami vivekananda's um in early letters it used to say belur on ganges so the main monastery is belurumat and on ganges it's on the bank of the river ganga and that's an accepted usage but you say it's on the river but it's not literally on the river you mean on the bank of the river and you don't have to say it spell it out i'm writing from manhattan on the bank of mahatma hudson no i'm letting from manhattan on the hudson but that doesn't literally mean like that plane which was floating on the hudson river a few years back it's not like that you're literally on the river but you're on the bank of the river so that's one meaning and we will try it out does it work can you know in that case you let go of the original meaning what was the original meaning river river means this body of water you let go of that meaning and find out approximate meaning which is the bank of the river and does it fit can a community of people stay on a bank of a river of course they can so we settle for that meaning when you said these people stay on the river ganga we understand we don't take the literal meaning they understand they are staying on the bank of on the bank of ganga not on the river ganga uh will it fit here we will see it won't fit um why not we'll see there and figure means in the case of that thou art and this this won't work you can't let go of the meaning of that or thou and then get some other meaning and then it'll fit no it won't then the second option which will be offered to us is don't let go of the original meaning but add something to it it'll work and the example they use is shornad havati red is running the red is running it literally means the red horse is running so they were i think they were big on betting on horses even in those days so look the red one is running the red horse is racing well shona dharvati the red is racing now what you mean to say red or brown horse so what you mean to say is the brown horse you have to supply one more thing for the sentence to make sense i'm sure those who are aficionados of horse racing they have no problem but others might be puzzled what do you mean that brown is running or is the brown color running or somewhere or something no it's the horse brown horse you supply one more word then the sentence makes perfect sense brown horse is running a red horse is running can you do that here can you supply something to that thou art and will make sense we'll see that it won't nothing like that works finally we go to the third kind of uh implied meaning which is um which is uh you retain a part of the original meaning and let go of the part of the original meaning and then you see it will work an example given there is this is that devadatta this is a classic example we have been using again and again you see deva that this guy whom we had seen long time ago in a different city and you see him now and you immediately recognize this is that devadatta what are you doing you are letting go of the contradictory aspects past and present in mumbai and in new jersey and the young man and this middle-aged man and the fit person and this obese person you let go of the fitness and obesity they're contradictory a person cannot be in mumbai and new jersey at the same time a person cannot be passed and present together you let go of those things you just mean the person if you literally see this is that devadatta is contradictory how can the past and the present be together how can the young and the old be together how can the fit and the nuts of it be together no they can't be but you are you don't mean all that when you say this is that you just i just recognize the same person that's all we do it's a very common way of speaking another example would be i bought a mango i ate a mango i bought a mango i ate the mango when you say i bought a mango you mean the whole mango the skin and the big seed inside and of course the edible portion the whole thing but when you say i ate the mango you mean only the edible portion you don't mean that you ate the skin or the big seed inside but you're using the same word mango and everybody understands that you bought the whole mango but you ate the edible portion of it nobody has to ask for any further clarification i took a bath in a in a monastery we used to go and take a dip in the river ganga so when i say the ganga i took a dip in the river ganga if you look at the dictionary the river ganga it means the body of water flowing from the himalayas in the glacier and to the bay of bengal so did you swim all the way from the himalayas to the bay of bengal no you didn't you just took a little dip on the in the ganga on the in the from the monastery right on the bank of the ganga so that's what you did so everybody understands you leave out the unnecessary portions you just take that much meaning and it's a perfectly common way of speaking how does that help us when you take that vow art you leave out the contradictory portions you leave out that god is all-powerful you are less powerful you leave out god is you know all-knowing and you're little-knowing god is pervading the entire universe and you are just this in this tiny body leave all that out and you take the one consciousness behind god and yourself the one pure consciousness not the body not the mind the witness consciousness which is the same in you and the same in god that i am that one light shining through you that in that place you and god are the same reality and you can do that why can you do that we'll see when it when we come to it uh so that will be the final meaning of that thou art i am that nir guna brahman and sagunabranthan god is also that nirguna brahman that thou art thou means really speaking if you leave out all the unnecessary parts the contradictory parts you will be you will be reduced to the impersonal brahman nir gunabram and pure consciousness that if you leave out maya and all the powers given by maya to consciousness you will get only that pure consciousness and then they are wanted to say lenign brahman you are nir guna brahmana and god sagunavram is also actually nirguna brahman in reality and that we can do because the world is an appearance you will see why the importance of jagat mithyatu of the world it becomes overwhelmingly important at that time and we'd also tie together at that point all that we learned in the past few months how does all that help the five elements and the maya and avidya and you know the five the sheets of the human personality all those things which we learned all of it will be tied together at the third level and we'll see why we needed to know all that right this is what's going to happen now let me just just read through the final stage implied meaning implied meaning we are on text number 159 159 so we need the implied meaning now three types of implied meaning let's consider the first one which we're going to reject [Music] again in the sentence that thou art otherword that jahad lakshana is not admissible in as in the sentence the cowherd village is literally in the kanga it might have been incomprehensible if you read it directly but with the introduction which background i gave you see that it's pretty simple when you say okay let me read through it it'll make sense what about the cowherd village in the ganga what about it m in that sentence as it is altogether absurd to construe the words ganga and cowherd village literally in the sense of container and contained respectively that meaning of the sentence must be entirely abundant and it should refer by implication to the bank of the ganga hence in this case the application of jahad lakshana is admissible is it making sense that when you say the cowherd village or the the neighborhood of the cowherds it's it's in the ganga that's the literal meaning of the sentence immediately we realize that's not possible how can people stay in the ganga and so we immediately instinctively we take the implied meaning what do we say oh you mean on the bank of the ganga on the bank of the ganga i can say that my main monastery is in the ganga or is on the ganga you mean on the bank of the ganga yes everybody understands that how did you do that what technique did you use why do you at all have to use a technique because notice you are changing the meaning i'm saying it's on bellure on ganga on ganges stratford on even a manhattan on hudson if you take the literal meaning it doesn't make sense you automatically take the implied meaning it's on the bank of the hudson on the bank of the event or the bank of the ganga so that implied meaning is called jahad lakshana letting go means letting go letting go of the original meaning why did you let go of the original meaning because the original meaning that the people are staying in the river or on the river doesn't make sense and therefore we took a meaning what kind of meaning something that's reasonable you can't say they stay um on the ganga and then you can't take an implied meaning by saying oh they stay on the bank of the yamuna no that's not possible you should take some kind of reasonable meaning you know that these people you say on the ganga means on the bank of the river ganga not some other river or somewhere else don't stretch it too far but i'm it implies that you are staying somewhere else no but this will not work for us that thou art is not a sentence like the coward villages on the ganga it's not a sentence like that it's a different kind of sentence look at text number 161 bhagavan meaning the identity of consciousness characterized by immediacy or remoteness involves contradiction in one part only therefore it's not proper to abandon the other part as well and indicate something else by implication lakshana hence in this case jahad lakshmana is not admissible see it's pretty simple when you say that dawat what is that and what is thou that is consciousness associated with maya which is what we call god saguna brahman what is thou it's consciousness limited by one individual ignorance agyara us ignorance and then the mind and the body us and the two don't fit they are not equal to each other but notice it's not that they're completely opposed to each other there's one place where they fit both are the same consciousness it's the same consciousness now jaat lakshana demands that you let go of the entire meaning consciousness plus whatever it is and then take some other meaning no you don't need to do that you need to let go of only the contradictory parts you don't need to let go of the entire meaning let go of consciousness also no that means consciousness plus maya or limited by maya this a dao means consciousness same consciousness limited by one part of maya agyana the contradiction is caused by maya and agyana by maya and individual ignorance and there is no contradiction in consciousness as such it is the same thing so it does not make sense to let go of the entire meaning when the contradiction is only in a part now if you look at what is being said atratu in this case i'm looking at this sanskrit atratu in this case which case that dawaat they say tatratu means in that case in that case means the the village of the cowherds is on the ganga in that case it worked in this case in we have to understand what is being meant by that and this this case means the sentence which we are trying to understand in this case that thou art the contradiction is paraksha paroksa chaitanya directly experienced awareness what is the directly experienced awareness where do you directly experience awareness in yourself where else directly experienced awareness is my own individual awareness the jiva the sentient being and what we are talking about god is paraksha chaitanya is a consciousness characterized by maya is is indirect it's something that i have read about something that people have told me exists i have no direct experience of such a reality how can the two be the same thing that which is directly experienced by by me what is that my own existence my own awareness that which is not directly experienced at all it's i have something i just believe in it that is god how can the two be the same so this is he says um in this at this level there is a contradiction truly he says bhagavata there's a contradiction between god and the individual they can't be the same thing because of that you are you are saying that you have to give up the part where there is no contradiction also because the method is to give up the original meaning and take a new meaning you are saying that you have to give up the other part also where there is no contradiction what is the other part consciousness part there's not actually parts we're just analyzing it from the semantic point of view do you have to give up the consciousness part also no why should you do that so it does not he says it's unreasonable because it's unreasonable we can't use this method of giving up the entire meaning there is no contradiction in the entire meaning there is a contradiction only in a part of the meaning so that method of giving up the entire meaning it won't work for that thou art tatwa masi what else is on off offer or before we go to the next method there is somebody who's trying to push this method on us that look we can make it work for you this is some good salesman for uh jaad lakshana who's going to come and say this method will work for you look i'll i'm going to make it work for you how so this is an unnecessary wrinkle an unnecessary complication not necessary but anyway he has given it so we'll read through it i'm on techstick162 again this salesman who is trying to sell this method to us he's saying that look why don't you look at it this way just as the word ganga we gave up the meaning of the river and we took the implied meaning the bank of ganga so why don't you do it like this that the that and thou thou means you the individual being let it give up its original meaning and mean that god or the other way around let god give up its original meaning and mean the individual you and then it will work it'll fit but that's obviously ridiculous what does it mean how can as i said implied meaning has to be reasonable if you say that thou art what do you know what he is proposing he says let's look at it this way just as the village of cowherds is on the ganga you change the meaning of ganga to bank of ganga you totally gave up the meaning of ganga and made it the bank of kanga similarly to make that and thou equal let's take the word thou you and let it what it say what is its meaning you the person let's give up that meaning and let you mean god so you means god and that means god then the two are equal or the other way around let's take the word that which means god let it let's give up that meaning and let let's take an implied meaning let it mean you the individual so that means you the individual and you means you the individual so they're equal that does this ridiculous you can't do that and that's not permissible and it doesn't mean anything at all if you just mean me i am i this person where does that get me here's an objection we are rejecting that he said we are saying that no we don't want it it won't work text number 163 you see why this is going on i mean on the face of it it is useless it is a silly suggestion but from a semantic point of view there are good arguments where you can push this kind of an argument so that has to be rejected with with um solid reasons for why we are rejecting now you see the reasons he's giving up in that sentence the word bank is not mentioned and therefore the meaning which is not explicit can only be derived through implication lakshana but in the other sentence thou art that the words that and thou are mentioned and their meanings are explicit therefore it's not proper to use a lakshana here in order to indicate uh through either of them the sense of the other thou or that what does it mean you have to give a reasonable answer to them i mean which satisfies them technically you can't say it's ridiculous to think that thou is equal to god or god is equal to you and take a implied meaning in that way you know what they will reply to that is that you already made up your mind which we have in sort of way but you said you have already made up your mind that you are god that's what it means and that's why you're rejecting our our um preposition it could mean who knows in uh in the chandragupta that could mean literally it could mean you are you or god is god something like that so why are you rejecting it give us a technical reason for not applying what i'm saying so here's the technical reason in that sentence the the meaning which you want the bank of the river is not mentioned only river is mentioned ganga and the community of the village of the cowherds is mentioned now you want what is the meaning that you want the bank of the river not mentioned in the original sentence then you need an implied meaning to get that that meaning that meaning of the bank here in this sentence that and thou are explicitly mentioned that thou art you don't need to go around you know like do a roundabout thing and get an implied meaning to make that imply thou or dao imply that because the sen the words are already there and the rule is which everybody accepts you never use implied meaning techniques to find out something which is already mentioned if it's already there you don't you don't have to go on and take an implied meaning to to mean it so you we we can't do that what you are suggesting all right what else is on offer the second method when you do not give up the original meaning but you add something to the original meaning and then the sentence makes sense example the the red is running by which you mean if you add the word horse then the sentence makes perfect sense the red horse is running so can we add something to that thou art um applicable in this sentence as in the sentence the red color is running um here means red or brown dhabati running a sentence like this ajahr lakshana implied meaning without giving up the original meaning this is not possible for that tawart why not um because he'll explain in the next text the literal meaning of that sentence namely the running of red color is absurd in english it's not absurd when you say the red color running it makes some sense because you feel like a surface like a you know like a wall or somewhere and the color is wet and it's it's like a rain or something and the color starts running uh so that's the english expression but literally a color can't run um in that sense so the literal meaning of the sentence namely the running of red color is absurd this absurdity can be removed without abandoning the meaning of the word red red color means red color you're not disturbing that by interpreting it to imply a horse of that color you add something else red horse or car or something then the whole sentence makes sense you don't let go of the meaning of red keep the meaning of red but to make sentence sense of the whole sentence you add something horse red horse then it works therefore in this case lakshana is admissible in which case in the case of red is running fine you add something it works but it will not work for that thou art why not 166 shots but here in the sentence that the word that the literal meaning conveying an identical consciousness associated with remoteness immediacy etc is self-contradictory if without abandoning this meaning any other idea connected with it is implied still the contradiction will not be reconciled therefore in this case adjacent is inadmissible so what is the problem here when you say that thou art literally you are god that means the creator of the universe and you means this individual person i'm addressing you are god it's literally contradictory as we said many contradictions are there god is all-powerful we are we have very little power god is all pervading we are tiny um god is um all-knowing we know very little and and god is something you know beyond our experience we believe in it think about it read about it but we are within very much within our own experience the first thing we experience is ourselves experience not experienced little power extraordinary power little knowledge and all-knowing total contradiction now in order to resolve this contradiction if you whatever you add without letting go of the contradictions the contradiction will remain you see what will happen is if you add something whatever you add the contradiction still remains you have to let go of the contradiction you have to resolve the contradiction somehow then only identity is possible no matter what you keep adding the problem remains unless you're dealing with the problem of contradiction it's like that example i mentioned i think last week this couple were going to a party and the wife said to the husband that what's that awful smell you change your socks and then they go to the party and then the wife you know she comes up and whispers to the husband i told you to change the socks it's that awful smell um the husband said but i did i put on fresh socks but how is that that spell still coming you know those old ones i put them in my pocket so if you if you don't let go of the problem you have to keep the old ones at home and put on the fresh ones then only the smell is taken care of but if you don't let go of the problem and you keep adding new things no matter what you keep adding the contradiction between god and individual remains see these are not um these are not as abstract as they sound for example when you're talking about advaita vedanta what are the common questions that you face one question will be how is it that you know how can there be devotion in advaita if you are god then how how whom are you bowing down to you see the whole problem is people are taking it literally the you are god that thou art and you bow down to god the two you are different in one there's an implied meaning which is going to come the other one there's no implied meaning direct meaning if there's a direct meaning you are this individual being and god is god of course you will bow down to god you will worship god you will believe in god or disbelieve in god all these are possible but you are in no case is it possible you are god literally so most of the times when people they make this mistake when people say that you know advaita says but in what sense so that sense is being extracted now so these are actually it is without this you cannot really understand what advaita vedanta is saying these are not just theoretical exercises so we have to see what it points to and it's very useful for spiritual practice in advaita vedanta this exercise is absolutely essential otherwise we won't know what you're talking about all the charges against advaita vedanta this is blasphemy uh of all the dualistic religions in um hinduism the the madhva school the vishishta dwight school of vedanta which are bhakti schools devotional schools their main enemy was the non-dualist the advaitan why because you are saying you are one with god you are one with vishnu or narayana what a blasphemy and their madhvacharya has verses on this that you little insect you are saying you are one with the mighty lord of the universe how can you even think of what how can you even dream of making such a you know blasphemous statement and it's true if you literally take that and out to be one and the same it's it's true it's blasphemous how can it be so but that's not what it means not at all so i i think i mentioned it an interesting experience which i had um last year uh that a couple of scientists from mit they wanted to come and say that we want some we want to ask you some questions when i was at harvard so they wanted to come and so i said all right let's come meet at the library and we came and lamont library was very busy a lot of students so they said let's go to uh our lab in mit and it will get a lot of you know it's empty so we can talk there this is of course the way before the pandemic so two two scientists and i said that's great i haven't seen mit so let's go so we'll go to the lab and we will ask you the question when they said oh you haven't seen mit that then will take you on a tour and that was one of the most amazing evenings of my life they took me on a tour of one site if it's not top secret at least it's semi-secret i mean there's the public is not allowed in but they have their cards and they can swipe and they can get in it's many people in boston don't know they're sitting on a fusion reactor there are three of those in the world one is in boston that they're trying to you know hardness the power of the sun if you google it it's there um on you'll find it there the fusion reactor in boston and that is that reactor is powered by a nuclear reactor a fission reactor that's also there in boston it's all underground and we went in a massive huge huge facility i don't i'm not sure if i should be talking about it uh i took just one picture in a classroom but not outside um so it's it's an amazing something out of a science fiction movie you know just barrels there and i thought what's this some kind of waste so yes that's atomic waste it it's uh it's radioactive don't go near it just like that it's it's there [Music] um an amazing facility um and they took me to a classroom where the scientists meet to discuss problems so it was empty at a very big simple classroom but very big and completely empty so i went there and then they asked me um uh so this is the question how is it possible to have devotion and knowledge together in advaita vedanta if you are brahman then how can you have devotion for god how did shankara say that i am brahmana at the same time write all these devotional hymns the same question you see so i said can i use this blackboard no i think i wanted to write on that same blackboard which these scientists are working on so i i explained all this what i've what we are doing right now just the outlines of it i mean drawing diagrams and all and that picture is there with me one of them took a picture there so it's a question that many people have devotion and knowledge how does it go together and this analysis actually answers all of that all right literal meaning of sentences so um did we read text number 166 yes so in text number 166 what is has been said is in this sentence that thou art uh the contradictions are there without resolving these contradictions no matter what you add questions whatever meaning you imply and you import it you know like the horse red hearts you employ import whatever meaning nothing will work because the contradiction will remain god and individual are not the same again there is a salesman who is trying to push this ajihad lakshana and that will not work i just quickly read through it to get to the crux of it i want to finish this today 167 and what what's going to happen now somebody is trying to push this ajihad lakshana up upon us that no you try it you try it in this way you add this see it'll work 167. not your tat padam tuang [Music] you can't say this we are saying to that person you can't say that either of the words that or thou may exclude the portion of its meaning which conflicts with the other word and imply a combination of the other portion with the meaning of the other word therefore no no reason no necessity arises of admitting bhaga laksha nabhag election is the one which we are going to take up at the end which you are going to accept so he's trying to prevent us from doing that it won't work it's just um a trying way of trying to force us to accept the contradiction saying that just make you know that and thou so you are saying it's contradictory yes it's obviously contradictory let the meaning of thou let it give up its contradictory portions and combined with the meaning of of that and so that it you know you take just consciousness you are consciousness give up the you know that you're less powerful you're just an individual being body mind give that up and just concentrate on the constant consciousness part of it and that that's how you are one with god god with all the powers and that doesn't work if uh you give up the contradictory parts on this side you have to give out the contradictory parts on that side you can't just combine a part of the jiva with the all of god or a part of god with all of jiva again it's it's impossible 168. uh why not why don't we accept that offer because it's impossible to conceive the same word as indicating a part of its own meaning as well as the meaning of another word moreover when this meaning is directly expressed by the other word it does not require the application of lakshana and the first word to indicate it more or less the same kind of objection which we had to the first the offer in the earlier case you don't use implied meaning when the words are already there you can't use implied meaning to make a part of the meaning of tao imply that or a part of the meaning of that implied thou because that and our already mentioned you can't use implied meaning for that um if that doesn't make sense don't worry it's not not important i don't even know why he added this extra complication but the real point of this entire exercise is now in text number 169 so you pay attention to this things will be clear 169 tasmania um therefore as the sentence this is that devadatta or its meaning on account of the contradictions involved in one part of the report namely devadatta's existing in the past and in the present implies by abandoning the conflicting portions which has reference to time only the non-conflicting portion namely the mandeva similarly the sentence thou art that or its meaning on account of the contradictions involved in one part of their import namely consciousness characterized by remoteness and immediacy implies by abandoning the conflicting portion which has relations to remoteness immediacy etc only absolute pure consciousness which is common to both thou art the that thou and that if you read it like that it might sound what are they saying sounds like absolute gibberish but it's actually pretty simple it says take the example we're going to try a third method third method of trying to find out the meaning of that thou art so far we have failed we have failed in the first attempt but we give up the original meaning and take some other implied meaning doesn't work we fail in the second attempt where we keep the original meaning and add something like a red horse add horse and that also failed now we are trying another technique in which a part of the meaning is given up and a part of the meaning is retained and then we get an implied meaning which works example give us an example this that example of recognition this is that devadatta now look at that sentence carefully this they were the ten that they were they are actually contradictory in part what parts are contradictory that devadatta was in the past this devadat is in the present present and pastor contradictory that devadatta was young this developed is old old and young are contradictory you can't affirm both at the same time of same person you can't be a present past person young old person they're contradicted you can't have both of them together that devadatta was young uh was fit this is overweight you can't have them both together you can't be a fit and overweight person at the same time so these are contradictory parts and yet the amazing thing is we don't say it's a it's a meaningless sentence we immediately understand when somebody says this is that person you immediately understand we understand that you you are not um you don't mean the contradictory portions you just mean the person is the same you just mean you are implying the implied meaning of your statement is it is that same person um you have given up the contradictory portions and you have retained only the portion which is common what is common to that devoted than this just the person not the incidental characteristics of past and present young and old fit and overweight those things you can ignore and you can quite reasonably say it's the same person exactly like that when you say that thou art there are contradictions um all powerful and little powerful i know myself directly god is something i only is indirect i believe in it and or i don't believe in it whatever um god is if god exists is all pervading i'm i'm limited and so on all these contradictions what we are being what we are being asked to um [Music] understand is ignoring these contradictions underlying both is the same absolute consciousness one pure consciousness which is this pure consciousness which is where we started the entire journey there is only one reality in the non-dual existence consciousness bliss that consciousness common to both and that is what is meant by that thou art by that what we don't mean god we don't mean you as an individual but we mean the essence of god in the sense of you one and the same the real you and the reality of god is one in the same reality i mean i can't put it more beautifully than meister eckhart the great german medieval theologian who said the ground of god and the ground of my soul are one and the same it's a mohawk it's it's the implied meaning it's the this is called our bhagavataya galactian or bhagavata they all mean the same thing laksana implied meaning giving up not giving up yaga giving up partially bhaga partially all of them mean the same thing we have applied that method here and that's what that's the method that meister record applies um that's the method that the great sufi mystic who says when i searched for allah i found myself when i searched for myself who am i i found allah what does it mean literally it then it must be that the underlying reality must be one reality it must be the exactly same reality but ignoring the contradictory aspects of it now you might say how do you ignore the contradictory aspects you can only ignore the contradictory aspects if they are appearances if they are false if if on a movie screen you see a comedy and a tragedy and i say comedy and tragedy are exactly the same how can a comedy and a tragedy be the same or what i mean is it's the same movie screen which you saw as a comedy and the whole thing played out there the same movie scream which you saw as a tragedy the tragic movie none of it is real what was always there is right now it's there it's that movie screen or for example i think i had a yeah like a paperweight i was just thinking about this example today so i can um show you this paper weight and so suppose it's a colorless crystal and i've got this yellow color in like look at it look at how it looks now although it's still some yellow behind it um but if i put the yellow color right there now the crystal looks yellow the glass looks yellow now suppose i put a brown color behind it now the glass looks brown if i say the brown paper weight and the yellow paper weight are exactly the same you see how can the yellow paper weight and the brown paper weight be the same they look completely different they're contradictory brown and yellow are not the same it's because the glass in itself is neither brown nor yellow it just looks brown in the proximity of the brown background and just looks yellow in the proximity of the yellow background and this is called in vedanta upadhi upadhi means that by its proximity appears to transfer its qualities on another the yellow cloth by its proximity appears to transfer yellow color to the colorless glass appears means even when the glass looks yellow it's not yellow even when the glass looks brown it's not brown it's just colorless glass but it is the capacity of looking brown it is the capacity of looking yellow in this case of course you need something else from outside a yellow cloth or a yellow or a brown uh background to give you this color but in the case of consciousness consciousness just can project consciousness itself just like your own mind can project an entire dream consciousness you call it the power of maya or something the point is the projection does not make consciousness really into god or an individual or into a world consciousness appears as jiva jagatishwara god world and individual but at the same time it just remains consciousness itself not one thing is different in the world in the individual and in god other than that one existence consciousness place from the perspective of from the perspective of reality but from the perspective of the movie show everything is different that did now consciousness is god and now consciousness is me the little fellow and now consciousness is this huge universe and now you can have the game of life and yet at no moment is any of this i am nothing other than pure consciousness whatever i'm experiencing is nothing other than pure consciousness and the god i worship is nothing other than the pure consciousness at this time also even when it appears to be yellow or brown you don't actually have to remove the yellow color to appreciate its colorlessness if you try to remove the yellow color to appreciate colorlessness that's the path of yoga nirvikalpa samadhi you stop the world appearance individually for yourself to realize that you are the impersonal consciousness an experiential thing what vedanta tries to do is is it really once you know that is colorless crystal colorless glass plain glass is it really necessary to take away the yellow cloth is it really necessary will you say i don't believe you swami i think the glass is yellow you have to take away the yellow uh cloth and then show me the glass is colorless and then i'll believe you no you don't have to even when the world is appearing even when you feel like an individual being and you feel the presence of god you know it is one reality existence consciousness place what we did all those months we started with this and then we introduced maya and because of maya we said this plus maya looks yellow and we introduced a part of maya a limited limited entity a ghana and a body and a mind we said this plus pure consciousness looks like this now we are saying brown glass and yellow glass are one in the same glass because they are not really brown at no point did it become brown at no point did it become yellow at no point did pure consciousness become god at no point did pure consciousness ever become you today i was reading major chadwick this englishman who was very close to ramana maharshi he he writes that um at one point people started saying that i am a sage you know people there in in the local tamil people uh look how he meditates look what a glow there is on his face he's literally becoming a lumen person and he said that i didn't feel that way at all and i i knew that it was working i just i was progressing but i didn't feel that i was at all illumined or become particularly spiritual so he said i rushed to ramana maharshi and he was alone and i asked him i said look i feel unhappy there are so many people saying wonderful things about me but none of it is really true you know i mean i am not really spiritually all that advanced and and ramana mashi smiled at him and said chadwick who is saying all this he said i was turned into silence i went into a kind of absolute quietness and then a few days later there was one luxury which he permitted himself being a british officer he had his bathtub which he couldn't give up so a bathtub was there on the outside this cottage which you would fill up with water and take a bath there so he's taking a bath and very much like archimedes you know and he had its eureka moment and he jumped out of the bathtub and put a towel around his waist and rushed to ramana maharshi ran all the way and it's like a breakthrough he had luckily again ramana she was sitting alone and so he rushed in and he said i am and that's it is this it and rama ramashi smiled and said yes chadwick that is it as simple as that i am and then major chadwick says that breakthrough that never went away that shining awareness that i am that being and all my problems were solved forever effortlessly that i am colored by maya appears as that god colored by ignorance and a mind and a body appears as thou you but at no point is there any coloring really colored is just a way of speaking i am pure consciousness remains as i am so this is what is being said here one just one more point quickly and mention um technically philosophically again and again we say it is beyond words and beyond conception and that's why implied meaning has to be taken why is it beyond words and conception if it really worked if the sentence a direct meaning would be possible if it was something expressible by language then you wouldn't have to take an implied meaning you could just say you are that like you say you are server priyanda it makes sense but then server priyanka what you mean by server player is an object here it's appearing to you this person so anything that you say you are that if you who meant being a direct meaning it would be an object it would not be the pure consciousness pure consciousness can never be objectified by language it is not an entity within the world it's not that there is a world there is god there is you and there is one more plus one more entity called pure consciousness no no no language works only within this world i mean wittgenstein put it as so so well in the tractators he says the limits of language are the limits of the world limits of language are the limits of the world therefore it follows language actually cannot direct direct meaning of any word cannot express pure consciousness and therefore all this exercise of finding out an implied meaning either you abandon no language cannot at all work or you find out an indirect way one of the indirect ways is implied meeting is the exercise which we went through there are other ways there is um you know negation not this not this that's another way language can help you to realize there is another way there are um you know contradicted the very cool zen type of stories which short-circuit your intellect into making the breakthrough so there are different ways in language can help but none of them are the direct use of language that the way language works in the world that way you cannot indicate that ultimate reality yeah so that's why implied meaning had to be gone through that's it this is the meaning of tatwa masih that let me put it in technical language and i'll stop tat what is that and what is swam that is chaitanya consciousness limited by maya tuam is consciousness limited by ignorance maya ghana they are all appearances you can safely ignore them and say consciousness alone is the reality and therefore that thou art tatwa masih okay uh we'll will has many many implications it's a vast vast thing which we have done today we will explore it next time let me quickly look at the comments in the comment box um prabhupada was saying is god and jiva like golden ornaments wave and water or wood and table no god and jiva is like um not um wave and ornaments like ocean and uh not like wave and water like ocean and wave waves are like individual jeeves and all the waves taken together is the ocean that's like god god is the totality we are the individuality but what is beyond wave and beyond ocean and beyond both wave and ocean water notice the difference between wave ocean and water the entire ocean depends on the reality called water without water why is water the reality and not wave and ocean because without water could a wave exist but can water exist without a babe certainly it could be a waveless water it could be water vapor it could be a glass of water it could be somewhere else it could be without a wave but completely but the wave entirely depends on water there's nothing that a wave is or can do without the water which constitutes its reality exactly like that the ocean is infinitely vaster than a wave and it includes the wave also and yet the ocean is nothing without water the moment you take water away the ocean disappears also the ocean is god the wave is the individual but the reality through and through they are nothing but water and remember one little thing about these examples they play in our subconscious when you say oh so i am a wave and god is the ocean but what that dow art is saying that both are water but you know what will niggle in the back of your mind yeah but the wave has less water the ocean has lots of water so i guess i am water but a less of less water and god is a lot of water no at that level no less water no more water you and god um are both of you are nothing but pure consciousness not that god is a lot lots more pure consciousness and you're a little bit of pure consciousness no exactly the same even if i can misuse language i would say you are all of it you the individual are all of it each of us is all of it there's no all or part i was just reading today um in america in los angeles i think after one of the talks in swami vivekananda somebody stood up and asked so swami are you saying that all is good and swamiji said no i am saying that all is god and nothing else oh are you saying i'm i'm saying that god only is and all is not there's only one reality it's not that there is somehow this universe and then we find something uh which unites the universe it's a nice feeling that's vishishta advaita vedanta says this universe is an appearance it's not like in a movie hall in a movie it's not like there are heroes and villains and monsters and you know dragons and stuff like that and a screen no when you talk about the screen there are no villains and heroes monsters and dragons it's just the screen which appears in all those diverse ways okay um take the snake rope example somebody comes and mistakes the snake the rope for somebody sees a snake there somebody sees a discarded garland by mistake somebody sees a crack in there these are classic examples in old texts [Music] somewhere a wise man comes and says the snake is the same as the garland flower garland how can a snake and a flower garland be same they are same because the snake is not a snake it's a rope the flower garland is not a flower gallon it's that same rope you made mistakes about it but we can't tell you it's a rope because neither of you see a rope you are seeing a snake you are seeing a flower garland we have to tell you that they are the same when you investigate it you will find neither a snake nor a flower garland you will find a rope you find neither god not the individual you find the absolute brahman and you are that actually that's the implied meaning michael byrd says if i already understand that i am led gunner brahman what is the point of the faith-based remote concept of saguna brahman that doesn't actually exist be careful when you say that doesn't actually exist if you are nir guna brahman from that perspective no problem you are free but as long as you exist as you continue to appear in this limited form as an individual you will be regarded as a jivan mukta a free while living and yet the world appearance continues for you as long as this body continues if you appear as an individual being and and you see other beings then god is equally real for you to that extent that your individual appearance and the world appearance is real you can't say that that remote god-like thing so god of religion is to be dismissed but my individuality continues very nicely one swami put it very beautifully in below but you know when we are in new enthusiasts about non-dualism he says that devotion is to be applied to god and knowledge to oneself but you fools he meant these novices these fools they apply knowledge to god and devotion to oneself knowledge to god means i have studied advaita vedanta now i know this remote is an app it's an appearance it's a movie it's the god is not real what about me my food and my rest and my health and my uh and the little mosquito bothering me they're all very real if they are real god is equally real you haven't come to the screen the movie screen yet you're still very much within the movie so one has to be careful and even after enlightenment even if you you're very clear i've not only understood it's a living truth for me i am the impersonal absolute in which the world is an appearance there also as long as you live and act like an individual being either remain immersed as that one existence consciousness bliss or that i should continue as i am the devotee of the lord knowing full well that the absolute is the reality suramar krishna says after enlightenment also the ego will pop up not a real ego but still like a character in a movie now that has to be handled it will not give trouble but you have to you can handle in two ways you can say the ego in the movie can say now i know this is a movie so i know i am nothing but the screen that's perfectly all right it's still the eye of the of the movie character saying that or it can say i am uh i am the servant of the lord that i surrami krishna says also the devotee's eye or the gyani's eye he says both are perfectly all right it's that other eye which says i am this person which which traps us in samsara um rama says the mahavakya talks about the essential nature of jivatman paramatma being identical correct is there an inference here in the mahavakyam that points to jagat mithyatum absolutely jagat means falsity of the world in the universe when not false in the universe we're not a movie not a dream you could not say that jiva and brahman are the same how can you say the individual being and god are the same that's the blasphemy that dualists accuse you of notice the dualists always say the world is real if the world is real the difference between you and god is also real it cannot be dismissed by an act of knowledge you suddenly realize there's one underlying reality no that won't do all you can realize is you are the creature the lord is your lord you are the servant and lord is your master that is that's the limit of it in dualistic in the dualistic approach theistic approach this identity is entirely based on the falsity of the universe it will not work otherwise prabhupada how does that apply to this analysis is this what we are doing correct all the adhero papavada that we did superimposition and superimposition remember we started with one consciousness and now today we've ended up with one consciousness that and thou means this one consciousness only which you are feeling right now by the method of superimposition d superimposition you have realized how you can eliminate or disregard this identity with body mind that the body is an appearance the mind is an appearance the five koshas are an appearance you are the vast unlimited consciousness this would not have been possible without realizing how mind and body have actually appeared in brahman because of maya which is what we did in superimposition deep superimposition the whole process we went through technically that is known as the analysis or the clarification of the meaning of the of the term that and the clarification of the meaning of the term the clarification that analysis you must go through otherwise you cannot find out the underlying identity regarding swamiji's statement that god only is a similar question was raised by mary hale but i understand what you have taught you have taught that all is god and swami vivekananda said i have never taught such strange doctrine that all is god and she was puzzled she said you said it and swamiji said no what i meant was god only is all is not this is advaita vedanta cordelia says if you say that consciousness that consciousness are tau would ya not apply that consciousness if you mean pure consciousness you can't see it what would you say it can't be the meaning of a word a direct meaning of what we discussed this if language can express it directly then you would become an object that pure consciousness cannot be objectified look at what we can objectify what kind of consciousness can we objectify with words language we can talk about what can we talk about you can talk about your thoughts feelings emotions memories understanding ignorance all of that is consciousness limited by virtis and what you are talking about actually are the british the movements of the mind not consciousness itself bare consciousness itself pure consciousness itself can never become an object of language that swami you just said it pure consciousness itself i said it but what does it mean find out what it means you can't it's only the implied meaning will work there directly it does not then or point to anything um patrick says is the immediacy of jiva consciousness generated by the ego is attachment to that immediacy the main bond no the immediacy is because of consciousness itself you are consciousness you directly experiencing it the ego just reflects that it's like um you know when you look at a mirror yeah this works nicely look at a mirror you can see your face in the mirror it's not an immediate experience you're being reflected in the mirror what is immediate which is the immediate fade me immediate means without mediation which is the immediate face the one which you cannot see here the real face this is direct and immediate but you can't see it to see it you need a reflector similarly to actually have a vivid experience of yourself as consciousness you need a reflector like the ego mind and then you feel i yeah but the witness of the eye which can't be expressed by language that's the real you need jury says do grace and a leap of faith have any place in advaita yes by the grace of god we attain all this we firmly believe that um rita says thus apart from the statement that thou art are all predicates upadhis in that statement that what all predicates are upadhis because that and thou are constituted of upadhis and that upadhis have to be dismissed dupadis means the associates that juncts um vishwanathan says thank you for the example with the paperweight swamiji it reminds me of hanuman's statement ramchandra there were they are correct correct difference between tatwa massey and ahamramasmi next class that is the topic for the next class yes charles john has given some comments also yes all in one one in all so how is this consciousness aggregated consciousness is not aggregated aggregates are possible in matter in mind aggregates are possible don't remember where did the concept of aggregate first come in part and whole when maya is introduced before maya only consciousness saccidananda there are no parts so there's no question of you being all of consciousness or a part of consciousness there is no part and hole there part and whole comes only at the level of maya at the level of the mind at the level of the body and the universe during lesson today maharajji and us are one yet is each is separate from the other so this lesson was godliness in action yes that is true godliness in action is the next step how this manifested as a play how does the one screen appear as the diverse characters in the movie and they interact with each other they play with each other and fight with each other the ashtavakra says [Music] how strange and wonderful are these sentient beings arise they play with each other they fight with each other and they disappear back into me again that is what is being mentioned here it pointed out here all right we've gone well over time i am brahmana that's the one next time [Music] shri ramakrishna [Music] [Music] be