Video 29

29. Vedantasara | Texts 170-171 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] i take refuge as 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 now we have reached a natural high point a kind of climax in our study that is the study of the the analysis of the mahavakya the great sentence that thou art we were on text number 169 which concludes the study of the analysis of the great the profound statement the great sentence that thou art i have said earlier that all of advaita vedanta can be summarized by these great you know quote unquote great and these great sentences they all mean the same thing that the identity of the individual and the cosmic the jiva and brahman or more directly they mean that you are this infinite existence consciousness place so this is the the central teaching of advaita vedanta and the way we studied it was we were given the sentence that thou art and this is from the chandogya upanishad where the father is teaching the son and through several examples and uh arguments that you are that ultimate reality to understand this sentence we had to go through three stages a process with three steps of stages and these stages are actually relationships um three kinds of relationships what are these relationships one relationship is uh the saman or the karangyum between the words themselves that thou art so that and thou between these two words what is the relationship samana the karanium so what's the issue here when you have a sentence a sentence has many words and those many words will usually refer to many objects and if the many objects are referred to by a sentence then you are not talking about non-duality there if you want to establish a non-dual reality in an indivisible reality in sanskrit akandar indivisible reality then even though there are many different words in the sentence you have to show that they all refer to the same reality so the first step was to prove that that and thou are referring to the same reality that does not refer to a separate god and thou does not refer to a separate individual they are in reality the same one indivisible reality that was samana the name once you have done that that and thou refer to the same reality then immediately the question comes up how are they related if that and thou are the same reality how are they related what is the mutual relationship between um that which is the creator preserver and destroyed the universe the god of the universe and thou you the individual what exactly how are they related are they different um we have said that they cannot be different are they parts of each other or what so that's why we go to the second stage uh of our processing which is called visheshana vishesha bhava the adjectival relationship what is this relationship between it's between the objects uh referred to by the words see a word refers to an object when i say pen pen is a word and this is the padarta the object this object is is the object referred to by the word pen similarly when you say that and thou you are referring to something what is the relationship between those two things that and thou so usually they are related as adjective and noun substance and property we were given the example of blue lotus is it like that you know blue and lotus both refer to the same blue flower but lotus is a flower and blue is a color and the color is in the flower i mean um so the substance and property relationship is it something like that and we saw it couldn't be like that we went through that entire process so what's the meaning of the adjectival relationship the initiation of vishesh bhava for us this is the sanskrit term for um for distinguishing that reality from everything else what do i mean by that when you say blue lotus one thing it does is the blue excludes all other kinds of lotuses it's not a yellow lotus not a white lotus not a red lotus it's a blue lotus when you say lotus it excludes every other kind of blue object it's not a blue sky not a blue shirt or a or a blue pen not it's just a blue blue lotus so you see the two words how they mutually qualify each other when you have an adjectival relationship they get together to exclude other possibilities and they point to that particular thing which you want to express so blue lotus refers to that blue lotus only by excluding all other possibilities similarly the adjectival relationship gives us an entity where that and thou that brahman and you the individual they mutually act together to restrict or to exclude all other possibilities what does it mean when it means when we are saying you are brahmana we immediately exclude the possibility that you are body mind you know the prana any other possibility the panchakoshas no you are brahman none of those things you are not a material entity the opposite is also true when i say brahman is you you are brahman and brahman is you like a blue lotus it excludes every other possibility what when we what we mean by brahman is that sentience that first-person awareness which which you are feeling right now that is brahman we are not talking about some god in heaven some other entity you know brahma vishnu kali durga if it is something other than you we're not talking about that we're talking about you and you only so it's a very radical identity you are brahman means you are nothing but brahman and brahman is nothing but you so this is what we get from the second relationship but immediately it lands us in for the trouble because the idea what brahman is is god and what you are is an individual being how can you be brahmana and how can brahman be you how can you be god and how can god be you it doesn't work in fact the dualists are right when they say that it's impossible what the non-dualistic claiming that god and the individual are one reality no it cannot be they're correct it cannot be it's contradictory so the direct meaning cannot be taken that literally your god it cannot be taken so in these cases what do we do we go to the third stage which is implied meaning lakshya lakshana sambandha an implied meaning whenever we find the um the simple direct meaning doesn't fit literally when you say your god doesn't fit then you have to take an implied meaning and the implied meaning we saw there can be different kinds of implied meaning different processes one is the jahad laksana where you give up the original meaning and take an implied meaning you know the gangayam ghosha example the the neighborhood of the cowherds is on the ganga they can't be on the ganga it's a river so they must be on the bank of the ganga you give up the original meaning of ganga and take the bank of the ganga so does it work for tattva mercy no it doesn't work because we don't want to give up the entire meaning of that we don't want to give up the entire meaning of what we want is that pure consciousness we want to give up all the limitations of the them the body-mind limitations but we don't want to give up that pure consciousness which you are the sakshi chaitanya that we don't want to give up that's that's what we want to point at in fact so we can't take the method of implication which gives up the original meaning uh of the words then the other other method was ajahad lakshana where you make sense of a sentence by adding something to the meaning you remember the example shona dhawati the brown one is running or the red is running the brown is running we add an extra word horse ashwa the red horse is running by which we mean that when you say red you mean the red horse is running in a race or something like that can we add something to man to make man god it doesn't work it's ridiculous as long as we remain individual human we are all too fallible we are all too prone to weakness and limitation and you know every human fallibility is there whatever you add to this keeping the problem it doesn't work so that process also is given up and finally we end up with a process called jahad lakshana partially giving up the meaning and partially retaining the meaning or bhagavataya meaning the same thing a partial giving up of the meaning or simply bhagalakshana partial implication so what's this partial implication where these words are contradicting each other because of which they don't fit see a blue lotus fits very easily blue is a color lotus is a flower and they can go very well together tall man goes very well together but you can't say tall short man it doesn't fit so what doesn't fit when you say tattwa mercy what doesn't fit is god is all-powerful we have so little power doesn't fit you have to give that up um god is all pervading we are limited pervasion doesn't fit you have to give that up and and so on in this way we come to that thing which is common to both which is consciousness itself and therefore we say that that to a mercy we retain that consciousness part existence consciousness bliss part we retain it and the limitations we ignore the limitations imposed by maya in the case of that and by avidyar ignorance in the case of tuam how can you ignore how can you ignore limitations you can ignore them because they are not real you can ignore them because they are not real what do you mean by that a simple example will make it clear so i have given this example earlier two friends go and they mistake you know this the classic thing about the snake and at the rope in the dark and somebody sees a snake another person sees a garland and it's of course not a snake not a garland it's a rope but if you say the garland is this the snake the garland is the snake now you have to it's contradictory garland cannot be a snake but what is meant is it's not a garland it's not a snake it's a rope the underlying reality it's uh it's a rope even in this sentence this is a snake this is a garland give up the garland snake because they're false but there's one thing true there this there is something there so that common underlying reality if you take and let go of the differences the differences between god and man god and human are appearances this is what distinguishes advaita vedanta from the other schools the other schools insist god and human that's the final reality as you're thinking today when this debate is there when the dualists the theists charge us you know that you're blasphemous you are denying god you are erasing the difference between the human and the divine actually we are not we're saying that all the differences that you talk about in all the theistic religions the dualistic religions of the world including dwata vedanta all the differences you talk about and hold on to we agree to all of them we just say that there is a deeper truth there's something beyond that we're not saying you're wrong you're right but there is something deeper than that and at that deeper level of reality the underlying that absolute as maester card put it the ground of god and the ground of my soul are the same reality uh so that the ground the foundation the foundational reality call it the absolute the infinite there there is no difference between god and human because there there's no god is not god there the human is not human there it's just infinite existence consciousness place so you reach there what is the example for this this is that devadatta and we remember the way we use this example this is that devadatta that devadatta i saw a long time ago that there was a term i'm seeing now long time ago and now i ignore he was young then now he's old world and young i ignore all these characteristics i ignore what i mean to say everybody understands so easily is that it's the same person exactly like that when we say tatwa masih we ignore that god is all-powerful all-knowing omnipotent omnipresent omniscient and so little knowledge so little power we ignored that because these are creations of maya these are projections of ma it's like a dream like a movie and what is common to both what is the underlying reality because of which maya can make these illusions the underlying reality is existence consciousness plays or in the language used here akandartha indivisible one indivisible reality one infinite reality without any difference another word is non-dual advaita so this is the process we went through three steps um sama nadikaranyam one having the same locus then the visition of the bhabha the adjectival relationship and then third lakshya bhava the implied meaning then we come to the realization that there is one existence consciousness place which in our you know the experience in our the way we have transactions appears as god man and the world god the human and the world all of this all right so this was this is what we have gotten so far now before i go on what's going to happen next next we are going to go on to another mahabakiya the great the great sentence you might ask so why are we going to go on to another mahavaka isn't it the same meaning you said they all mean the same thing that you are brahman that is true but i am brahman now they are made up sort of um for convenience post shankar advaitans have made a division the four mahavakyas you know there are four four um great sentences which are taken just as a matter of conventions there are many wahawks how would you define a mahaba great sentence the sentence which tells us the identity of jiva and brahman the individual sentient being and the absolute that's a mahavakya now um or which talks about one indivisible reality so that's the definition there are many such sentences in the vedas in the upanishads but four are taken i repeated this number of times four are taken for convention one from each of the vedas and for ease just as a matter of convention these post shankar advaitans have classified these four mahavakyas into four four types the first one from the rigveda pragyanam brahma brahman is consciousness pragyanam brahma ramana is consciousness that is classified that is termed as the lakshanavakyam that is the definitional mahavakya it defines what brahman is brahman is consciousness then from the sama veda you have tattooamasi that thou art and that is called the upadesha the sentence of instruction because the guru tells that to the disciple the teacher is telling us you are brahman that's why it's called upadesha these are not from shankaracharya it's later just for the ease of teaching that these classifications have been made up and then you have from the yajur veda i am brahman this is called anubhav this is what you realize or what i realize but when we'll become enlightened we realize i am brahmana this will be my experience your experience won't be you know teacher tells you that thou art and you you will not say that that will go back and forth all the time uh the teacher tells you that thou art and you will realize i am that that will be our realization that will be our enlightenment so aham brahmasmi is our enlightenment our realization that's why it's called anubhav anubhav the sentence of experience or realization that's what you'll realize and finally uh in the mandukya upanishad from the atharva veda there this very self is the absolute this very selfish brahman this is called anu sandhana this is the state of realization or enlightenment so this is what you have arrived at this tells you this connects you to the highest reality this tells you what the state of affairs is this very self is brahman anu sandhya navakim um why did i say that so next what we will discuss me i am brahman so why are we discussing that because the instruction has been given by the teacher what did the teacher say that thou art and then we have now gone through this long process of trying to understand that thou art having understood this we are expected to become enlightened so what will that enlightenment be like enlightenment be like you know brahmagyana at mcgowan enlightenment is an english word what is the corresponding word in vedanta brahmagyana knowledge of brahman atma gyana the knowledge of the self so what is it like what happens exactly in enlightenment and number of questions will come up then you know uh questions like um what is the nature of enlightenment and from that will come the question what is the nature of knowledge according to advaita vedanta so how is this knowledge of brahman different from other kinds of knowledge knowledge of a cup and a table and a chair how is it different from knowledge of brahman and then related question will come up is the mind um is it necessary for enlightenment or not what is the role of the mind because there are statements in the upanishad which seem contradictory one upanishad says that uh manasseh it's only by the mind that this has to be realized and another upanishad says what cannot be realized by the mind now they seem to be called contradictory so how do you resolve these contradictions many questions will arise so this knowledge which will arise i am brahman so will it stay continuously or will that knowledge disappear only brahman will remain these questions will arise so these discussions will be there what is the role of the mind in what sense the mind is necessary for enlightenment in what sense it is not necessary for enlightenment in what sense brahman can be realized by the mind and why do you say brahman cannot be realized by the mind all these things and you see how they are related once you have this contradiction set up one upanishad says it can be realized by the mind alone another one says it cannot be realized by the mind how do you harmonize these statements from there the bigger question arises what after all is enlightenment what is this knowledge of brahman from there the even bigger question arises what is knowledge according to otherwise bigger means wider question so all these issues will now be discussed before we jump into it it's very interesting many questions which we have had many weeks months ago i remember them all you do not like krishna says to arjuna we have had many births oh arjuna you do not remember them but i remember them all so i remember you all asking i remember some questions which were asked at that time i was waiting for this time to come so that we can answer those questions anyway but before we go into it uh let's just stay with that davar tatwa masi for a while longer and reflect upon what we have got here this that thou art it to me it um sort of sums up encapsulates all of spirituality all of religion what is first of all to be clear what is that and thou and that's why and we will realize why it was so important to go through that process of superimposition and the superimposition you know we went through this long process for the last few months so we realized what is the exact meaning of that what is the exact meaning of thou what is the exact meaning of that technically according to this book limited by or associated with maya or in simple words god is god that's the meaning of that the creator preserver and destroyer of the universe and thou what is the meaning of thou us technically um same consciousness associated with or limited by ignorance and what is the ignorance this is just a part of maya a fraction of the power of maya so this is the meaning of dao basically god and the sentient being the all-powerful the god of religion what theistic religions worship and us sentient beings now if you look at it all the religions will be either in the category of that oriented religions which are like that that enquiry based search for that and the self-oriented religions which are the search for the self inquiry into the self inquiry into god inquiry into self the search after god god realization or the search of the self self realization two kinds of religion other broadly speaking now all the theistic religions christianity islam judaism within hinduism you have a broad variety of shaktism the worship of the divine mother shaivism shiva vaishnavism worship of vishnu or narayana all of these are and their avatars associated avataras you know rama and krishna we are all worshippers in hinduism of samavatar or the other generally all of this falls under the category of that clearly the all of this whatever conception of god you have it falls under the under the umbrella that oriented religion and the self-inquiry based religion there are others which do not talk about god at all jainism buddhism buddhism is the biggest example within hinduism also sankhya yoga yoga immediately somebody might say yoga talks about god but yo the god that yoga talks about is not the it is a purusha sh technically speaking those who know the yoga philosophy of patanjali so these are and also in yoga attaining that that god is not the goal of patanjali yoga self-realization kivali is the goal of patanjali yoga so these are the self-enquiry-based approaches and those are the god-seeking approaches two kinds and uh the each has its advantage is it has its disadvantage each has advantage and disadvantage what is the um biggest disadvantage of the gods oriented religions this we are aware of the biggest disadvantage is the that oriented religions the god-oriented religions they all entirely depend on faith on belief that oriented religion christianity islam um judaism in fact that's the name in america faith you see that's the name for religion in america faith and that's the weakness because they depend on belief if you do not believe for a long time long process if you do not believe won't work for you if at the very beginning you ask for proof you ask for a demonstration to begin with no it won't work you have to accept the teachings of the scriptures of the you know the masters and then it works so that it is based on faith if you do not believe then the thing will not work and it's a weakness because in today's age it's even more difficult if you listen to a few talks of richard dawkins and christopher hitchens and and who else is there sam harris daniel dennett the strongest of faith will be shaken or even if it's not shaken it will be shown to be silly so that's the problem um of the god-oriented religion that problem does not have is not there in the um self-inquiry-based religions um because i exist that is beyond any doubt in fact descartes his his whole project of doubt universal doubt to set out to doubt everything one thing he could not doubt was himself because you tour gosum i think therefore i exist in fact vedanta would say i exist therefore i think but anyway my own existence is individual what is the nature of that existence can be debated but i exist nobody doubts notice in all the god-centered religion those who have studied religion they will not they'll know that in all the theistic religions there's always an effort to prove the existence of god theologians through the ages have tried to demonstrate the existence of god the very fact that they try to demonstrate the existence of god shows that there's a problem it's not obvious that god exists um so in the philosophy within acharya gives nine proofs of the existence of god in his uh in his garland of logical arguments why was he giving that because he was faced with the buddhist the buddhist was attacking the hindu schools by saying there's no god where is this ishwara you're talking about what is the proof and the hindu dualists like the niyah school were trying to establish the existence of god they're trying to establish existence of god and self atma and ishwara so proofs of the existence of god in christianity islam islam there is the famous kalam argument cosmological argument for the existence of god in christianity thomas aquinas for example gives five proofs of the existence of god theologian already before him those proofs were in existence so arguments for the existence of god there is the cosmological argument argument from um first cause the design theory all these arguments are there and these arguments are heavily battered uh in modern times by the especially by the advancement of science science especially modern cosmology and evolution theory of evolution as thrown into great doubt all those arguments for the existence of god whereas in the you know the self-inquiry based religions you never have an argument for the existence of oneself what is the nature you might think about the buddhism argues against existence of atman yes the existence of the atman as propounded by the naya by sheishika school the you know like a separate entity existing apart from body and mind but that we all have a sense of self that nobody it's undeniable even the buddhist has a sense of self what is the nature of the self is it a stream of momentary consciousness as the buddhist says or is it a permanent entity called atman as the hindu says though that can be debated but that there is a sense of self it's directly within no matter whoever gives you an argument you don't need any argument to prove it no argument can disprove it because we are always accepting we are always seeing our own experience as self so no need to prove the existence of oneself it is directly that's why you see in with this one of the contradictions between tat and thwam it was given in technical language perhaps you did not notice um it's a consciousness but it has it is associated with parochiatum it's a distant remote we read about it we believe about it but we don't have direct experience of god our own consciousness tom the individual is directly experienced as the first person experience as the self all the time whatever be its nature but it's directly experienced so there is no need to prove your own existence it's indubitable it's it's certain it's the certainty upon which all other kinds of certainty are based shankaracharya says whoever tries to deny the self it is the self of that very denier you who is denying after all you can't deny the denier you can't negate the negator of the self so the negator must be there all right now but what is the disadvantage of the self-inquiry-based approach and what is the advantage of the guard-based approach the advantage of the the the disadvantage of the self-inquiry-based approaches they are fine i understand that i exist there is no doubt about it but that's the problem it's not a great thing i exist i am surrounded by a thousand problems i exist but i am subject to old age and coronavirus and disease and death i'm subject to financial problems i'm subject to frustration in the world and unhappiness in the world dissatisfaction a hundred and thousand problems surrounded by yes indubitable existence incontrovertible existence but surrounded by an ocean of problems whereas god has no problems god is infinite omniscient omnipotent what problem does god have if god exists i exist no doubt about it but i'm surrounded by problems okay now the nature of people who practice this also the nature of people who practice is also different i have noticed that most spiritual seekers fall in either category the young men who used to come as to become monks in balor mutt sometimes you'd ask them why have you become a monk what are you looking for cleanly they fall into two categories one category says i am searching for god i want god realization another category says that i'm searching for self-realization who am i that's my question what am i so one category says whatever is not very appealing to me i sort of know what i am and it's not a very interesting question but does god exist this is the question vivekananda went to raj ramakrishna can you see god does god exist can god be experienced and who am i i exist but what exactly am i so these two kinds of seekers and if you look at the practices also they are also different one kind the god-oriented religions are usually devotional you will see they are basically they are all bhakti oriented religions all of them faith devotion love surrender and the practices are also worship and there'll be a place of worship a temple or a mosque or a church and there's worship there's ritual there's music and food and and so many things are associated with that's a ritualistic devotional religion magnificent very very nice and the self-inquiry based religions generally you will see they are generally meditative philosophical if you go to a buddhist meditation hall you will see like that or yogi patanjali yogi is more interested in stuff you know like performing rituals more interested in sitting in a lotus position and closing the eyes and looking inwards so it is a meditative philosophical approach in the self and quality based religions what else you'll notice i have not said anything about advaita so far i've not put it in either camp advaita is actually the one which says both are the same what you find at the end of your belief system and you ultimately if you become enlightened that way and what you find by self-inquiry they are one and the same this is go this goes back to that adjectival relationship the mutually exclusive excluding action of both what the genius of advaita is this is worth thinking about i'll put it out there and you just think about it call to your record to your mind the advantages and disadvantages of both paths now what advaita does is when it says you are nothing but brahmana brahman is nothing but you what it does is it takes the advantages of both and combines them and excludes the disadvantages of both what do i mean by that it takes your the individual certainty the perfect certainty of your own existence and and the infinitude of god's existence and makes them one what it does is after you think about this way isn't it isn't this what we are doing we are locating our own indubitable existence one step one step two it's showing that in existence to be infinite i'll repeat again i always say advaita has two steps the first step is to locate what exactly do i mean by i who am i i am the witness of the mind and the body and the witness of the three three bodies causal body subtle body gross body stool i am the witness of the five sheets panchayat atma this is this consciousness this drink dashta that consciousness saks in the next step what do i do i prove that this very consciousness which you are is not limited by anything all things which might limit it as bodies we are limited because clearly i am this body i am not those bodies as minds we are limited clearly i have some knowledge do not have some other knowledge but as the underlying awareness where is the limitation because all limitations are in that awareness the awareness is not a spark of awareness in the midst of limitations you are not a spark of consciousness in a vast material universe rather you are the consciousness in which the material universe appears you are that ocean of awareness in the universe appears plays around and disappears like a wave in the language of ashtavakra limitation means time limitation limitation means space limitation but time and space appear in awareness is awareness in time and space or is the time and space in event body is definitely in time and space thoughts in the mind and knowledge events are also definitely at least in time if not in space but both time and space and everything that is in the in the playground of maya they are all in awareness it that is the switch the paradigm shift which advaita is trying to push us towards not just towards when you do that you suddenly realize first of all because you are nothing but brahman and brahman is nothing but you and we see that i am not the body not the mind i am the witness consciousness one this witness consciousness not limited by time is not born with the body does not die with the body it does not age with it but not subject to change and disease and death is not limited in space not limited in time so this is the beauty of advaita vedanta so this is the meaning of tattva masih the general you know like a wider view of what's going on here that thou art let me start the next part the meaning of i am brahmana so text number 170 now is being described the meaning of the sentence i am brahman expressive of intuitive experience next hence adhuna i am brahman this is from the brazar nico panishad this um our full stop you know anubhav the the sentence which expresses our enlightenment our realization this is going to be explained we're going to take a look at that why not to analyze it you know that thou art in that way that that's done you don't think that we're going to go through oh god again that samantha karanium none of that that's gone now we're going to take a look it's very interesting what is enlightenment all those questions that i you know raised is how what is the role of the mind in enlightenment how is knowledge of brahman different from other kinds of knowledge and so on how is it even possible so all those things we will see now um okay let me read just by the way when i say something like ata next or now actually means now so atar means next hence so i sort of translate it casually and go ahead but you know when you traditionally study vedanta these texts from from a traditional teacher the way they do it is this way when you come across the word atta it will stop the word atta has five meanings in the classical embassy dictionary armor question five meanings which one will fit here they'll consider those five minutes and then take the one which fits here and the one which fits here is next so what are the five meanings for this is not relevant to our discussion but just to give you a taste when you say ata what does it mean it means mangala auspiciousness that's one meaning it means next next the meaning which has been taken here uh it means um it means like um you know in the sense of um beginning you're starting something so in the sense of beginning and then it means in the sense of um of a question another meaning is sense of completion katzny or purnatha so these are various meanings i hope i'm getting that right i want to give you some wrong information so big so auspiciousness next in the sense of anantariya then in the sense of um beginning and uh in the sense of completion yeah question and completion so and we see that in this case it is the sense of next anantharya what happens next so in the brahma-sutras for example you have a sutra attato brahma hence therefore an inquiry into brahman the word atta is there what does it mean there also it means next after this and then the question will arise after what because the text itself starts with after this suppose you have a book which starts next you will be puzzled what do you mean next there's nothing before the book so shankaracharya says once you have got the qualifications the fourfold qualifications we wake up and you're ready for a spiritual and now you're ready for spiritual life that's what is meant by next anyway now we will see i am brahmana enlightenment at last brahma gyan atmagan realization of brahman we are here we have done it text number 171 when the teacher in this way clears the meaning of the words that and thou by the removal of the superimpositions and makes the qualified student grasp the import of the sentence thou art that which is absolute unity there arises in his mind a state of absolute oneness in which he feels that he is brahman by nature eternal pure self-illumined free real supremely blissful infinite and one without a second so you can see that they love long sentences what does it mean even in this manner in which manner in the manner which we have studied so far first of all um that thou art the three steps we went underwent and before that we will say the whole process of superimposition and do the superimposition we studied so awam in this way acharyana by the teacher so clearly it indicates it's it's a it's knowledge it's not your yoga teacher in the yoga studio we put you through some physical exercises um it's not your art teacher or music teacher it's the teacher of vedanta it's a transmission of knowledge he teaches us how does he teach us first by teaching us superimposition and d superimposition what is superimposition d supreme position remember just like the rope is mistaken for the snake one reality is mistaken for this entire universe what is the nature of that reality remember we read about it the reality is existence bliss non-dual brahman brahman it really means the vast that infinite existence consciousness bliss and non-dual that is real real and it appears as this universe we mistake that for this universe just as the rope is mistaken for a snake that's called superimposition and what is the superimposition when the rope the snake is seen to be the rope you see that oh it's not a snake it's a rope it's not a universe which you're experiencing it's brahman's the absolute notice therefore we are already experiencing it we don't need to know it for what it really is the truth here so tatum ah and by this what is attained by the superimposition the superimposition the clarification analysis of the terms that and thou because direct meaning of that is god direct meaning of thou is the individual and you analyze them to be the underlying one consciousness with the help of superimposition d superimposition it's revealed to you that it is one consciousness alone um by the sentence which sentence the one which we studied all along that thou art now arises the knowledge of akhandartha akandata means one indivisible reality one infinite reality akanda indivisible this is infinite there's a technical meaning for that remember this is the this goes back to the very invocation which we chant every time we start the book a condom said on them the first word we read in the book is akandam indivisible and if you remember how we analyzed it there are different kinds of division or difference and that reality is devoid of any difference what are the kinds of difference difference in kind so a cat is different from a tree a tree is different from a human being the different kinds of things is there anything different from consciousness normally you will see of course there is i am aware and there are so many things i'm aware of which are different from me that's our ordinary understanding of consciousness that's what's studied in consciousness studies no clearly we are not talking about that we are talking about the deeper nature of that consciousness there there is no nothing really apart from consciousness no nothing this is much easier to understand when you think about existence obviously there is nothing apart from existence nothing different from existence if it's different from existence what will it be non-existent so it's it's a no-brainer from consciousness we can always think of we think of consciousness as this consciousness this which is mental functioning thoughts feelings emotions ideas different from that of course there's the body there's the world but we look at existence itself then it becomes clear there can be nothing different from existence if it is different from existence it is not then um are there many different kinds of existences or consciousnesses or blisses it would seem so but it actually isn't they're different kinds of existing things but existence itself is not not of different kinds where is the difference between one existence and another water in all the waves the waves are of different sizes and activities and shapes and you know but the water in that is not limited by the waves it's the same water everywhere same existence everywhere there's no difference of kind in our difference are there other existences no are there many existences same existence but many of them will say the cat and tree are different but among cats also there are many cats and many trees are there many existences many brahmans many infinite realities no there's only one infinite reality now fine the third kind of difference is within that same dif reality are there differences the internal differences yes i am one body but there's a difference between my arms and my leg and my tummy and my chest and my head different parts they're all different different functions they look different so different functions are there different names so similarly yes there is an absolute reality but within that absolute reality are their differences internal differences uh like vishishta dwaytha would say vishishaddhurita would say that there is one reality brahman but brahman has internal differences jiva jagat they are differences internal two brahman it's a whole with parts advaita says no there are no internal differences also so this entity this reality without any external differences differences of the same type or differences within itself to put it in one phrase um indivisible um when we realize this how do we realize by going through the process of analysis of that though art before this we must have gone through the process of superimposition the superimposition one realizes i am brahma ahambramhas me i am brahma i am brahman and here he has inserted a escape clause you know fine print like a good lawyer adhikar the qualified student one who has got fourfold qualifications otherwise what will happen we'll claim i've gone through it i patiently waited through all these vedantasara classes and uh i have gone through superimposition and superimposition i have gone through all those the three types of stages of analyzing that thou art so i should realize i am brahmana i can even recite aham ramhas me but no i'm honest i don't i don't get it it doesn't happen to me so he has this escape clause ah adhikarina you must be qualified as hikari um so the guru can say that you have not reached that level of qualification yet so it's not working yet for you what is the realization has me i am brahman what kind of realization is this me with me i am eternal check within yourself do you honestly feel that you are eternal or do you feel so they are in a kind of a twilight you know once you have read this and you really seriously thought about it you begin to see what they mean you see in a certain sense i it's quite possible that i'm i'm eternal because if i am this consciousness and i begin to see what they mean i must be eternal but it's not a living reality for me like a blazing forth directly like i feel i am this body mind it does not come to me like that when it comes to you like that i am eternal it will come little bit obvious i am pure consciousness beyond the touch of karma papa punya no beyond good karma and bad karma buddha consciousness buddha means prakash ever effulgent i'm ever revealed my own existence is indubitable ever shining forth mukta ever free servo upadhi rahita that even when the there is that glass thing i had shown you one um glass thing you know that so this one appears to be orange when i put the or yellow when i put the yellow cloth behind it because i'm consciousness and the body appears in it i feel like i am a body yes i'm consciousness but a body just like it looks like a yellow piece of glass a yellow paper weight it's not a yellow paper weight even when the yellow color is there it looks yellow it's actually free of the yellow yeah it's not it has not become yellow at all similarly i am not the body not the mind and so on then then what else is the saying satya falsifiable in the three periods of time past present future at no time can my own existence be negated i am absolutely real in that sense nothing else is um of the of this nature parama i am completely fulfilled i do not seek fulfillment anywhere else because i am in infinite unlimited infinite so remember the nature of limitation what is limitation limitation in space i am here and not there but that is not true of me as consciousness as existence both here and there are within me or they appear in me if they don't appear in me they're outside me they don't exist because i am existence and then um so i'm not limited in time also what is limitation in time before this i did not exist after that i will not exist and i exist only in this between the my birth and death that's true of the body that's true of thoughts but it's not true of me existence itself consciousness itself time appears and plays around in me i am not in time and time is also when it appears in me it's an appearance it's not real so i'm not limited by time was to parity chair i am one thing and not the other thing i am this person server priyaranda and not the other 66 people in this meeting that's what's tuparacher as server prior them different from this it's a book and this is a pen a pen is not a book pen is only a pen it's not anything else billions of other entities in the universe it's different from all of them including other pens similarly this book is different from all other entities in the universe it is only this book this is a kind of limitation it's it's this and nothing else whereas infinite is that which is not different from which nothing is different how can that be because your existence what can be different from you if something is different from you what will happen to that poor thing will become non-existent different from existence is non-existent so uh all things are you um but you are free of all of them adva non-dual because there's nothing different from you so there is no second thing different from you no second not two not two non-dual in sanskrit advaitam that brahman i am so what it means is me i am this eternal brahman aham shukda brahmasmi and this pure brahman ever free of karma am buddha brahma rasmi and this ever effulgent self-revealing shining brahman brahmasmi i am the ever free brahman i am satya brahma satya subha brahman paramananda brahma i am the nate brahman the nature of all fulfillment aham anantha brahmasmi and an infinite brahman it is a a realization in the mind chittariki means a movement in the mind whenever you come across this term earlier yogas what is yoga yoga is the cessation of all the modifications of the mind samadhi tipta vitti means every modification of the mind here chitta does not mean manabu digit that is memory here it means anything which is it is mana buddhist any movement of the mind whatever you think of remember desire feel perceive every movement in the mind is a jittery um so this brahma karavati is also chittarti enlightenment arises in the mind this will lead to question immediately in what is then what kind of enlightenment is it why do you say that it's beyond the mind in what sense is it within within the mind what sense not in the mind that all that will come very clearly later on but for the time being this will lead to achitabrity this chittariti um of the form of the indivisible reality what do you mean by that every jittery is a form so when you know a book what happens a book accountability comes in your mind of a virty a modification of the mind a movement in the mind basically a perception in the mind of the form of the book arises in the mind basically you're thinking about the mind what's happening light is reflected from the book it goes to your eyes of course here through a very complicated process of going through the camera and the computer and the internet and reconstituted again in your screen and then passes as light to your eyes and then through the optic nerves races to the brain and from there somehow nobody knows how nobody has a clue how it goes to the mind what we call the mind and in the mind a perception of the arises nothing other than mine it's not a book remember a book does not arise in your mind it's a thought about a book it's a thought whose content is a book content means it's about a book not that in the thought there is actually a book the thought is just a thought and that thought is about a book chitta vitti now that is called book aka if you see a pot a gutter then the written in your mind will be ghatakar if you hear by like you're hearing my voice in your mind there will be some movement the modification of the mind in the form of my words that's how you see hear smell taste that's how you you remember and desire and all of those things understand every movement of the mind is chittavritti and every viti has an akara form and the form is of the object of the what whatever you're thinking about that is the form okay what are we thinking about here you're thinking about brahman how are we thinking about brahman by this entire process of tatthomasi and all the superimposition the superimposition see how does it work just a couple of words and a couple of sentences and i'll end here how does it work these virtis are raised by pramana by sources of knowledge by seeing something chakshu eyes it raises a protection pramana a chaksusa protection that means a visual viti in the mind i see a form you hear something you hear an auditor there's an auditory writing in the mind about some sound so what is the pramana here eyes and ears and so on sometimes you do an inference a scientific process of inference and it um raises that kind of an understanding in the mind scientific understanding in the mind inferential understanding so mind plus eyes gives you a virtue about a form mind plus your ears gives your vitti about a sound mind plus in scientific inferential process gives you an understanding inferential understanding about some scientific you know fact mind plus what will give you a british about brahman mind plus what you are the mind the mind plus what will give you a briti a thought and you know like a movement in the mind and understanding about brahman mind plus vedantic teaching very precisely that daw art but in general mind plus the pramana here is vedanta the source of knowledge here is just as mind plus eyes gives you a vitti about this thing you are seeing this thing now in my hand and you look at it your eyes will give you the briti in the mind you study vedanta so predator is the pramana what kind of pramana is it it is one of the six pramanas accepted permanent source of knowledge six pramana is accepted by advaita uh it is called shruti pramana and that raises a gritty in the mind just as when you see this it will be book on the form of a book in your mind when you study vedanta in the way we have done so far it will raise a british in the form of brahman for you here for me does not mean physical form farm here many things don't have physical form an understanding about science or mathematics doesn't have a physical form here it's form just means your ignorance about brahman this subject is removed and there's a lot of discussion about this how can brahman which has no form what will be the form of um that british a form of the book academy we have an understanding what it means but what about brahman what form does it have what will be the nature of that british so the discussion finally culminates with madhusudan saraswati he says form of the british simply means the capacity to remove the ignorance about that object that is the form of the british literally means the capacity to remove ignorance about the object delimiting underlying consciousness that's the phrase but just the form means we study about vedanta we study about brahman how i am brahmana and we come to an understanding oh this is what is meant this is all and it will what will it do so it's very carefully phrased it it will not show you brahman but that's already there you are already there it will not illuminate it cannot illumine brahman it's impossible for the mind to actually illumine brahman but it will remove ignorance about brahman okay that is the meaning of brahmacara britti so this is the first thing that happens when illumination takes place we'll stop here and now let's quickly take a look a lot of activity in the chat does this analysis also help equate atman is called brahma yes yes this is the actual meaning of atman and brahman are the same thing and that's what we realize girish says is it fair to say that as in advaita both kant and hegel believe that we perceive only virtual reality this shop stopped short of equating that the thing in itself a spirit without correct i mentioned somewhere recently you know that kant's beautiful saying that two things fill us with wonder the starry heavens above and the moral law within the heart of man two things fill us with wonder basically if you put it in this technical terms of vedanta what is talking about is tat and tum that is the reality of the cosmos tum is the reality within us and the two places where kant fails he says that that ultimate reality cannot be known the reality of the crossboss cannot be known and the reality within us also cannot be known vedanta says it can be known not only that's one second vedanta says both are the same thing when we say like we learn all this and could be because of the impurity of the mind that it doesn't come automatic so a life of always vijara where will that take us because it doesn't come easily or automatically the only thing you can do is repeat this process of shavana manga this is the path of vichaara of enquiry and at one point what will happen is it will fall into place and that akanda karaviti will arise it has to arise only once for one instant then it becomes absolutely clear because the reality is always there it will be revealed to you let me just mention here one of the issues which arises here is eyes can show us something ears can give us the information you know the sound what we are talking about we can just hear music speech eyes can show us what's going on can words like that what reveal knowledge directly words we understand words can give us knowledge but that's verbal knowledge that's information can it give us direct knowledge aparok shagana know senses can give us what is called protection that means perceptual knowledge that's pretty direct we see we hear we smell we taste that's the most direct kind of experience we can have mind gives us even more direct knowledge that is pain pleasure you know what we directly experience within ourselves the most intense kind of experience is in the mind actually all experience ultimately is in the mind the mind doesn't function no experience is possible but can words give us knowledge it can't when what what the words are talking about is directly immediately present to you then the words can give you knowledge direct knowledge otherwise when the words talk about say something that is not directly present to you that immediately present to you it talks about what's going on in the depth of the pacific ocean now there will just be verbal knowledge you're told something by your professor but if it's something like dawah the tenth the effect of that knowledge will be to realize oh the tenth person is i and no further knowledge is required i immediately realized because i am always present to myself so what that was referring to is you yourself not a second thing apart from you it just removes the ignorance about yourself that thing which clouds us and makes us feel i am a limited being that's ignorance that limits us within the the thing about the limitation upadhi of the dao the jiva the sentient being so that's the limitation that's what it directly it removes and you have to keep doing that vijara till that brahma karate arises all these texts help us in that all the upanishads we'll be reading after this we'll keep on it's just repeating this process all right thank you [Music] in the analysis another last one uh the implied meaning uh when we were analyzing we were removing you say the contradiction which is maya and uh now are they really contradictory are they really different because earlier we uh we read about uh that maya has a cosmic aspect and an individual aspect mind a cosmic mind and a cosmic body now they the is so is the contradiction in size or what is it yes the contradiction in size in power in excellence um it's just like if you say i am einstein and take a to take a very small example it seems contradictory einstein was before my time einstein was super intelligent i am after einstein's time i'm not as intelligent as einstein einstein was a great scientist i'm not at all a great scientist he's a contradictory clearly obviously contradictory facts similarly to say i am god is obviously contradictory but intrinsically they are the same and intrinsically they are the same intrinsically how are the same intrinsically they are the same as brahman not as maya see if you say as maya the totality of the totality of maya and the part of maya cannot be the same okay because in maya and avid as you are saying cosmic body individual body but how can cosmic how can the whole body be the same as one cell yeah they are both bodies and the parts of the same reality true but one cell is tiny and the whole body is extraordinary is enormously larger so the whole cosmic body and one individual body whole cosmic mind and one individual mind and the cosmic causal body maya and one individual cosmic causal body avidya or anandamaya massive differences but they are not real that's why they can be safely ignored when i see intrinsic i meant ignorance as ignorance they are both ignorance little ignorance yes i wanted to show you something that shaker shared with me which is perfect for uh what is called avats yes now you see the sky outside there's a vast blue sky outside and there's a big window and inside of it there are there's a small hole another one down here a small hole here small hole in the wall and one big nice window in the wall outside there's the vast sky the big window gives you a nice view of the vast sky and the small hole gives you a much smaller view of limited view of the vast sky now this small hole is the thwam and this big window is the tat this bing window the sky streaming through the big window is god saguna brahman the sky streaming through the or shining through the small hole is tuam the individual being but the sky in itself is in it with the sky if you ask the sky so why are you big in god why are you small in the individual being the sky will ask what god what individual being why are you like square and large and nice and shiny in the window why are you so small and round in the hole the sky will ask what all what window i am the sky the unlimited sky what vedanta is telling you is what you are seeing in this window and what you are seeing in yourself that little hole it's the same reality the window and the hole do not matter see the interesting thing is the hole in the window do not do anything to that sky as long as you identify yourself with the window or the hole you are a limited being but you are being told you are not the whole is it and then we immediately say being told that you're not the body we immediately say yeah but i am that person the awareness in the body so we'll say you're saying that i'm this little circular sky in the hole no if you look at the nature of the sky it is never a little circular sky it is an unlimited vast sky the moment you realize that by drikdrish everything takes you to that so you have to concentrate first of all here in the hole itself because that's why that's our experience here we are in this place and this is that guard whose help we take but both are actually the same thing god is also not a window we are also not a whole we are the vast blue sky and god is also the vast blue sky but then the window is lost and the hole is also lost right and the whole excuse of god i mean the holy exists in the window i mean if you take the analogy yeah right if you take the analogy to further well what is this hole it's nothing other than a part of the the window itself actually the example often used is the window itself and the squares panes the glass panes you see here each pane isn't like an individual being like us it's much smaller and much less impressive than the whole window but suppose there are millions of such paints billions of such little glass panes in the window and everything everyone thinks of itself as a separate little window and the whole window is so magnificent but both are absolutely mistaken beyond both is an unlimited vastness which is the only reality here window and glass pane whole all these are separate for the example but in consciousness there's no separation there's nothing apart from the vast blue sky yeah so this is a good example and it's actually used in uh one theory called avats in vedanti if you remember in not in such a good example but a more clumsy example sadhana and the yogin to try to give us this example in the example of the sky and the forest and the trees again and again he mentioned and the prathibhava the example he tried to give us an example of the lake and the drops of water and the sky reflected in the lake and the sky itself the little more complicated those examples but it's basically the same thing always identify yourself not with the whole not even with the little sky scene in the whole that is called the reflected consciousness but the sky itself without any reference to the hole and then you can shine through that hole for as long as the whole remains or the little pane of class remains that means this body and mind you're always remaining aware that you are the infinite and the existence um a non-eventual disappearance of that whole of the class makes no difference to you the sky you are always what you always wear perfectly free of any problems all problems are with the little hole is that what you just said yes this will come through repeated shabana marana nudity stick with the class and we'll do wonderful things together [Music] namaste [Music]