Video 30

30. Vedantasara | Text 172 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] i take refuge in the self the indivisible existence consciousness bliss absolute beyond the reach of words and thought and the substratum of all for the attainment of my cherished desire so we had a short unanticipated gap you remember that we had completed the analysis of the great saying that thou art which uh sums up the entire or the essence of the teaching of vedanta um we also we started the analysis of the statement i am brahmana which is which is enlightenment so once you are instructed with that thou art the qualified student who has studied vedanta who knows what is being said who understands the meanings of the words this knowledge should flash that oh oh i am this this is what i am so i am brahman this knowledge flashes that's what we were reading last time in text number 170 and 71. now we are going to talk about the experiential statement i am brahmana experiential statement means that's the form of enlightenment what does it feel like to be enlightened that the feeling would be or the realization would be i am brahmana and then we saw that it's text number 171 so as the teacher with the help of the method of superimposition and de-superimposition um takes up the statement that thou art and then analyzes the meanings of the meanings of the words the terms that and thou tat and tum the what is the method of analysis this analysis is called shodhana what's the method of analysis we realize the essential nature of that and thou is pure consciousness existence consciousness placed in the non-dual reality though because of maya that same non-dual reality appears as both god and individual self ishwara and jiva ishwar and jiva are appearances in the absolute because of maya maya itself is an appearance by itself does not have any absolute reality i mean one might say that all right so are there four entities now you know the absolute reality brahman and maya and jiva and ishwara billions of jiva jiva has been sentient beings no sentient beings and ishwara god and all the sentient beings they are nothing other than the absolute reality there's only one right there if you look at the absolute reality then there's only one if you look at water the thousands of waves are just one reality water but yes all these appearances are coming because of maya so at least you must admit there are two things brahman and maya no you cannot count two things because maya is also at the level of vivahar a transactional reality it does not constitute a second reality apart from brahman just as all the names and forms of the waves do not constitute a second reality apart from water all the varieties of pots do not constitute a second reality apart from the clay you can't what do i mean by that you can't count them although they make an enormous difference you see nobody's denying that the if you look at the tremendous variety of pottery which you can make out of clay the tremendous variety of an act activity of waves in the ocean which comes out of water you cannot deny the the significance of it all that the the variety the spectacular show that is put up true but if you keep your as as vedantins you must be strict dry philosophers if you keep your eye on the truth on the reality there's only one reality all throughout in the midst of it and that's the fun the fact that that's what makes the whole thing a movie and that's what makes it bearable and uh you know tolerable and livable you can live through it because you know at in at the depth in reality you are safe it is all right whatever is happening at the level of the movie whatever is happening at the level of the surface so what happens akanda once this disciple realizes there's one indivisible reality whatever is appearing on the screen good and bad comedy and tragedy whatever the nature of the movie whatever the special effects it's all one underlying reality that's what you call the screen and you are that you are the the ground reality of this universe adhikari now the student must be qualified so what does it what does the student realize the student realizes i am brahman and he gives a more detailed you know like paramananda [Music] i am eternal i am pure that means untouched by karma i am consciousness i am free i am ever free not that i attained freedom i always was free i am free um satya i am the reality of this entire universe uh satyaswa power paramananda i am all fulfillment i do not need fulfillment from anyone or anything else um i am unlimited there is no limit to me because i am the infinite i am that there is the one reality of this entire universe nondual there is no second reality apart from this absolute which i am brahma ask me i am brahmana this kind of this flash of illumination means modification of the mind just like any other knowledge is also knowledge but it's different how it's different we will see now next what is enlightenment how is it different from other kinds of knowledge after enlightenment what happens does this enlightening knowledge still persists so many questions what's the role of the mind is it really through the mind then why do you keep saying it's beyond the mind so on we'll see all that now but this kind of knowledge comes and this knowledge coming is a clear event this is what at least we will call it enlightenment this is described in advaita vedante endlessly so many masters have attained it and in other other you can see it in many many other traditions especially the impersonal traditions many buddhistic traditions also there's that breakthrough in japan it's called satori a breakthrough moment where and once one makes that breakthrough it is irreversible it will not go back anymore uh it's you are true is everything done in spiritual life no if you're already a saint before this if the mind has been cultivated then everything is really done you can you can float and enjoy your pension but if it's not done if you're not already a saint to begin with before this breakthrough you have to stay with it uh till it transforms the mind transforms the character permanently so this is enlightenment now multiple questions will arise and many interesting issues will be dealt with 172 text number 172. s [Music] that mental state illumined by reflection of pure consciousness objectifies the supreme brahman unknown but identical with the individual self and destroys the ignorance pertaining to brahman then just as our cloth is burnt when the threads composing it are burnt so all the effects of ignorance are destroyed when they're caused ignorance is destroyed hence the mental state of absolute oneness which forms part of those effects is also destroyed okay a lot here what exactly happens upon in illumination vedantic epistemology we're asking is illumination is it knowledge if it is knowledge then what kind of knowledge and after all what is knowledge according to vedanta what happens when you know anything so we start with a question about what exactly is knowing brahman what does it mean and then we go to the wider question of knowing anything what does it mean so we are told that first in order to understand illumination enlightenment we must first understand what is knowledge from a vedantic perspective what happens when we know anything this is what happens there are two components to this one is that when we know something when i look at a book for example what's happening i focus my eyes on the book open the book and i focus my eyes on it and i pay attention to it and what's happening is light is reflected from the book and comes to my eyes and the optical nerves transmit little bursts of electricity to my brain from there somehow this information which is coming in from the world outside visual information is presented to the mind i'm saying very casually presented to the mind nobody has the faintest idea exactly how that happens even today we have a pretty good idea and more and more information is coming in as neuroscience develops as our instruments become more efficient and finer what exactly happens when uh um you know the neurons fire and uh these are the activities in the nerve cells in the optical nerves and then in the brain what is happening you can track it very carefully but what are you tracking you're tracking bursts of electricity tiny electrical activity when does it become color and shape and letters and meaning and the experience of i get it i am reading i am reading a book how how do bursts of electricity do that no idea nobody nobody nobody has any idea at all and that is what is called the hard problem of consciousness david chalmers calls it that and there are many many approaches to it there is a completely reductionist approach so for example a famous philosopher today patricia churchlin she and her husband i think both are well-known philosophers philosophers of mind so her perspective is i was just reading today her perspective is it's neuroscience which is going to explain it neuroscience is going to explain how we are conscious how she does not deny the force of the the question how is it that bursts of electricity are becoming text and meaning and first person experience yes we don't know yet but her answer is it's all neuroscience and the only way we will know all this is to keep doing more neuroscience in fact i read one of our papers it's part of our reading at the philosophy department at harvard and the force of the paper was just this keep on doing more neuroscience that's the way you'll get an answer to this so that's the very reductionist approach that it's all brain and it's physical matter very subtle activity in the brain but entirely physical on the other hand you have you know people like christoph koch david chalmers and all who say that consciousness is an independent entity and you cannot reduce it just to brain activity here what vedanta says is admit it all of it you can explain physically the book outside light reflected coming to your eyes all physical then to your nervous system and then to the brain vedanta does not talk about it but if you plug in that information very good no no objection to it at all in principle vedanta would not object to it because in principle according to vedanta this is at the level of the stula shadira which is made of five gross elements which we read earlier five gross elements go to make up the physical body and then it is transmitted to the subtle body here in vedanta there is no problem because the subtle bodies also matter according to vedanta and this is very interesting the mind matter distinction is not accepted in indian philosophy in indian philosophy you may have a matter consciousness distinction prakriti purusha distinction but not a mind and matter distinction because mind is also matter according to vedanta mind is part of the subtle body and the brain is part of the gross stola shadeer suksha basharira and there is no difficulty in principle for their interaction in principle if you say how we don't know but in principle there is no difficulty in their interaction so what happens is this information creates a movement in the mind called the chitta britti movement modification british means modification just in the yogic sense it's like throwing a stone into a lake so i'm very kind of uses this uh imagery throw a pebble into a lake it gives rise to concentric circles you know ripples similarly the information coming in from outside is when it finally comes to the mind the subtle body the mind itself it creates a vritti like a ripple like a wave and this ripple this wave in the lake of the mind is about the information which has come in from the outside world about this physical object this book so this is called book form modification mind modification in sanskrit it would be um [Music] modification of the mind akara of the form of the form means having the content it's not that the virty itself the mind itself becomes a book no it is about this book notice even in modern science it's not that the book itself enters your head that would be you have to call an ambulance if that happens it's just light reflected from the book that enters your eyes and nothing else and even at that moment the moment it enters your rights no longer light it the the from the cornea and all it immediately becomes the image it immediately is converted into bursts of electricity tiny tiny bursts of electricity that's all being transmitted through your neurons now that's all that is there in the brain no light no certainly no book or any other object now this information creates a it's like a pebble being thrown into the lake of the mind this is called chittati and this chittariti is always about something in modern philosophy it's called intentionality all thinking is about something you thought about so i have a virtu about the book this is called book form in sanskrit now then what happens remember consciousness is you the consciousness you the atman you are constantly reflected in the mind as reflected consciousness so that reflected consciousness which is always there in the mind always shining in the mind you're this feeling of awareness which we have all the time this awareness in the mind this has a reflected consciousness in the mind it illuminates the vrt it reveals the vrt what with the book form mental modification it is illumined by what consciousness not directly it is the reflected consciousness in the mind which illuminates the content the the virty up and then i get the knowledge i get the awareness i am seeing a book it takes me long to say it but it happens in a flash and the moment i take my eyes away and look at the screen another viti comes up i'm looking at the computer screen and the virti has changed my eyes are focusing new information has come in a new virti comes up in the mind and that one is reflected by the same reflected consciousness in the mind and i get the knowledge now i'm looking at the screen it is visual perception the same thing happens for auditory perception the same thing happens for all kinds of perception same thing happens for all kinds of internal experiences you need not have perception it could be a memory it could be a desire it could be an emotion whatever experience we have anubhav experience we have in the world all day long and even in our dreams all our waking all our dreams whatever it's a series of experiences thoughts perceptions memories um feelings desires all of these come and go even the ego that's also an experience all of these are arising and disappearing and each case each of these is a virty and that britti is illumined by reflected consciousness and we get the knowledge i know this i feel this i remember this pain pleasure desire tiredness energy curiosity seeing hearing smelling tasting touching remembering all of these are victis without victim no experience is possible everything must ultimately be dumped into the mind then only you can say it's a conscious experience otherwise not possible just one aside up to this vritti um you know all modern computers machines artificial intelligence can mimic to a great extent not i'm not saying they can mimic a subtle body they can't but notice how every function is a question for consciousness studies notice how every function of the mind is now mimicked by by intelligent machines and computers every function i i raised this question in the philosophy of mind class and there's really no answer to this every function is being mimicked except consciousness doesn't that raise a question in our minds and modern consciousness studies that consciousness is not just like any other function like thinking seeing willing creativity computers are now in a way able to see through sensors even an airport door in a way sees you when you enter the sensor [Music] so they can see they can hear but without the first person experience of seeing without the first person experience of hearing there's nobody in there who gets the feeling like we see right now we are seeing color we get the feeling of seeing color we get this feeling of seeing people and activity all of this we are getting first person vivid experience inside what is it like to see read the whole classic paper in the history of philosophy of mind but no computer has that vedanta explains why modern neuroscience should be puzzled about it even creativity there's this mathematician in oxford university i met him a couple of years back his latest book is on the creativity of of computers poems and artwork i i know one well-known philosopher who says no no no um that's not really creativity that's not uh really you know intelligence it's just mimicking creativity or intelligence but there is a limit to that kind of argument then you will have to say everything that the computer is doing is mimicking computer memory is not really memory computer seeing vision is not really vision computer intelligence is not really intelligence computer creativity is not really creativity there you are in uh in a losing argument if you do that rather admit it is creativity it is intelligence it is memory it is far more memory than we can even think about uh it is actually computers are able to see hear smell taste touch in as far as in so far as behavior is concerned but yes one thing they do not have um one thing that they do not yeah do satoi marcus do satay yes one thing that they do not have um is first person experience now what is vedanta's explained explanation of this now you can see vedanta's explanation is all of this is possible because these this is in matter british are in matter titivity is a movement in the mind and mind is material and if you can design if you are clever enough to design machines to see hear smell taste touch all the writties if you can copy if you can mimic you will get all the behavior including self-driven cars you know sophisticated intelligent behavior very sophisticated intelligent behavior one thing you will not get is the first person experience which we are getting in those machines the lights are off there is nobody home there is a clear distinction between consciousness first person experience and all other mental functions all other functions what we talked about perceptions memory uh creativity all of these are the level of the mind and you can mimic them machines can mimic it you can and you can you're free to call it intelligence you're free to call it perception but it is not there is no first person experience there that consciousness being reflected in the mind and generating a first person experience that is not possible unless you can make a mind everything else you can do so this first person experience is given by the reflected consciousness in the mind you are pure consciousness you are reflected there and it gives you uh the feeling of first person experience so this is knowledge this is knowledge any kind of knowledge it has two components the virti which is generated ultimately there has to be a virty a modification in the mind this is called vritti vyapti technically british literally if i translate into english pervasion by mind modification which is unintelligible it is better to call it simply rifty wafting pervasion by the mind the mind must be focused on the object of knowledge and there must be a vritti in the mind about that object of knowledge this much this is called virti byakti what does it do it destroys ignorance about that knowledge and parallely almost simultaneously the reflected consciousness which is always there your consciousness you are reflected in the mind the reflected consciousness reveals that vritti and you get the feeling of i know this i experience this this reflected consciousness revealing the virti is called simply means illumination pervasion by reflected consciousness knowledge comes because of two things knowledge means the knowledge we we are we are having knowledge this comes of two things one is written by one is palabrati with deep dapty there must be a mental modification about the object of knowledge created by sense organs or whatever and the phalab which is the first person experience experience of consciously knowing something that is created that is the result of the reflected consciousness shining on that british so this palab which is what we can call it the resultant illumination literally the resultant illumination which is all of this sounds a little dry and abstract it's not it's happening to us all the time right now so there's a book right here i'm not looking at it now it's in the field of my ignorance this ignorance is called agana i have ignorance about the book now ignorance about the book is removed the moment i create a written yapti i bring the book i look at it and there is a wave in the mind about the book this is called british it removes ignorance about the book basically focuses my attention on it and the almost simultaneously the reflected consciousness in the mind gives me the experience of seeing the book you know that first person vivid experience i am looking at a book so two things almost very fast very time almost simultaneous but there's a sequence first with what does it do destroys ignorance about that particular object of knowledge how does it do so by forming a vritti about it how is the written form in many many ways through senses and many ways and then falafti which is illumination revelation shining forth the exp first person experience which we have which is caused by reflected consciousness in the mind these two together give me knowledge takes me a long time to speak about it but it's happening instant instantaneously continuously all the time for us this is the vedantic idea about of knowledge epistemology vedantic epistemology all kinds of conscious experience are like this experience is always conscious experience now what about enlightenment brahmagyana all sorts of knowledge that we get external by seeing hearing smelling tasting touching internal by imagining remembering creativity memory all of these things all sorts of knowledge they require enlightenment realization that i am brahmana so before i give you the answer let me give you an example the example is this i heard it a long time ago in haridwar it was a swami was teaching ramananda saraswati so he just mentioned a phrase just a phrase and then i asked what does it mean he says that is the it's a very good example um of explaining what happens in brahma-gyana in enlightenment or as the term is used in vedanta sarah akanda karaviti a british about the one undivided reality notice book akar avriti britis about the book akanda with the one undivided reality the british about one undivided reality now the example first example and then we will see how we can apply it to our day-to-day life and to enlightenment the example is this normally what happens is sunlight is reflected from the moon and it shines on the earth at night and revealing the things suppose things are in darkness there is no other light so we are dependent on moonlight for revealing things so what's happening sunlight reflected from the moon moon shining on earth which we call moonlight though it is actually sunlight it's not wrong to call it moonlight we all understand what is meant by moonlight but it's sunlight reflected from the moon which we call moonlight and moonlight reveals the earth at night exactly like that brahman atman consciousness shining on the mind lights up the mind consciousness is like the sun mind is like the moon and earth is like earth our world or jagat or samsara so the mind shining with the light of consciousness reveals the world the world is hidden in darkness wherever the moonlight falls whatever you use to see moonlight to see so that is called creates a vritti in the mind where whatever you see hear smell taste touch the reflected consciousness in the mind reveals it for you when you have british in the mind that is with the and the reflected consciousness like the moonlight it reveals it is called phalab so the reflected consciousness reveals things at night reveal reflected consciousness is like the moonlight the moonlight reveals things in the world the dark world is illumined at night by the moon light though which is actually originally sunlight now what happens is in an eclipse in an eclipse what happens the moon comes between the earth and the sun remember what light reveals things in darkness moonlight which is actually reflected sunlight now the moon comes between earth and sun now what happens is because the moon comes in between earth and the first thing which happens is moonlight is no longer available even in daytime the shadow of the moon will create a patch of darkness we will feel suddenly the sun has become dark this sky becomes if you see a solar eclipse for example and it becomes dark everything seems to dark for a while so like that when the mind is absorbed in a conductor ability for a moment you lose sight of the world or if in nirvikalpa samadhi for example you lose sight of the all external world body mind everything and the moonlight it's still there the sun is shining on the moon the moonlight is still there will you say that the moonlight is illumining the sun moonlight where is it going it's going back to the sun but is it illumining the sun it would be silly to say that the moonlight is revealing the sun remember at all the night we were depending on moonlight to reveal things on the world just like that can we say moonlight is illumining the sun no it's impossible first of all the sunlight is a million million times brighter than the moonlight it does not require moonlight to illuminate it's millions of times brighter than the moonlight um and the second thing is the moonlight itself though reflected back to the sun is nothing other than the sunlight it's it's under it's it's its own light for its own light more important most important the sun is swap prakasha self illumined why did we need the moonlight to reveal things to us at night because all these objects were dark they were not luminous objects that's why we needed a source of light to reveal it but the sun does not need a source of light to reveal it itself it shines forth with tremendous light it pours forth light in fact it is the source of all light similarly all the time in ordinary epistemology when we know things in the world it is you the consciousness shining forth shining on the mind illuminating the mind this illumined mind whatever it is comes in the mind is revealed by the um the light in the mind the reflected consciousness in the mind just like the moon reveals the dark earth at night but when the like the moon turned towards the sun and it's been on a particular occasion very special conjunction when through shravana manana through a consideration of the vedantic teaching your attention is drawn just like you attend my attention is now being drawn to the book i'm getting a book when my attention is done drawn to the path chaitanya the consciousness within how is it drawn any number of techniques you can use to draw your attention to the inner consciousness this this awareness within when it is drawn if it clicks if it happens the lucky conjunction of the planets if it happens false everything falls in place at that moment you become aware of yourself brahman nothing no no object brahman itself your own real self capitalists shining forth with all the light of the universe everything is there it just shines forth it does not require the mind to reveal it so it it becomes it's a tremendous shattering life-altering permanent breakthrough you realize it was always there how come i never saw it it's like waking up from a dream you can understand why the buddha is called the buddha the awakened one you are awakened now and you can see there's no possibility of going back to sleep anymore it's so obvious and and you are that now vedanta says i'm like yay well done congratulations you are illumined just a couple of quick observations you know uh the fine print here notice what happened you had to do the um chitavrithi that was necessary you had to withdraw your attention from the world outside and take the help of a vedantic methodology like greg drishya viveka or panchakovic or whatever it is and notice and try to notice at least you make everything in your mind about me you know that creates that virty in your mind once that virty is created notice another thing which happened you did not require the reflected consciousness to illumine this this vitti was about brahman sachidan under your real nature which is shining forth all the time there you don't require any other victim that simply americans have a good expression mind-blowing experience it is mind-blowing you begin to see everything depends on it it does not depend on anything else all the light in the mind all the light of the senses everything was coming from it all the time and you are that that inexhaustible source so technically back to our technical words in ordinary knowledge british is required falafel is required wikivep is required to remove ignorance about the object of knowledge and falabdyapti is required to illumine prakash or give the first person experience what david chavez calls the first person experience that is ordinary knowledge in illumination brahmagyana enlightenment what happens is british is required that is the whole purpose of our vedantic study but it is required on not to reveal brahman not to know that you are brahman it cannot reveal brahman it just is required to take your attention away from the world it's just required to turn inwards just required for that particular movement of the moon to come in between the earth and the sun remember at that moment the moon is turned so to say the bright face of the moon is turned away from the earth so there must come a time when we let go of this and we are suddenly overcome by the inner awareness so british is required for illumination brahma gyana but palabryati is not required this is the difference tremendous difference between brahmagyana enlightenment and every other possible kind of knowledge or experience every knowledge is in the mind every other possible knowledge or is colored by the mind but this one is it uses the mind to overcome ignorance about the reality and then the reality reveals itself there the mind has no no further role now one more question remains so what happens after that after that you realize not only that you are infinite consciousness all that is experienced in that consciousness is not apart from that consciousness it's not that it's like a light like so the sun and the world example sun moon and world example breaks down here imagine there's only the sun imagine that there is only light kashmiri shivas have a very beautiful expression prakash light shines or even literally literally the shining shines so whatever you are experiencing in that light that is also nothing different from that light there are not two things the light and that which is lit up right now there's two things there's a light here and this lighting knee up the body but it's not like that brahman is the only reality and whatever appears is also not different from brahman it's an appearance of brahman it seems different people and bodies and minds and objects and universe is not different from brahman when the ignorance that created this difference is smashed then all sense of difference goes away you realize that there is only one unbroken reality when there's only one unbroken reality this differentiated world which we are experiencing you will continue to explain the moment you open your eyes and look back the moment the solar eclipse is over and you look back in the world you will see everything as it is but you no longer regard it as real anymore this is called badha baada is a technical term in advaita vedanta which means even after the destruction of ignorance all the products of ignorance like this universe they keep on appearing but they are falsified it's like the mirage mirage is a good example you realize there is no water but you look back upon it looks like water it's like the blue sky and blue color in the sky you realize there's no blue color out there when you look up in the sky and what do you see a blue sky similarly you realize there is no separate reality called the universe there are no houses and roads and people and bodies coronavirus not really not in that ultimate sense but it still appears this appearance is called bada which is uh the appearance of the universe is a technical term but anyway we can just call it bada bada means falsified falsified you're still experiencing the universe but it is falsified further fine fine print if everything is falsified what about the mind the mind is also falsified what about the person the person is also falsified and then the knowledge this person had i am brahman what about that does enlightenment continue do two things continue brahman and enlightenment brahman and knowledge of brahman do two things continue no that is also falsified but be careful it's not a false knowledge it's not saying that now i realize i'm enlightened i realize i am not brahman because the knowledge i am brahmana is falsified no it just means it is not a separate reality called knowledge brahmacarra i am brahman this knowledge is there no that also goes goes means badhita negated falsified falsified means it continues to appear world will continue to appear body will continue to appear mind will continue to appear the knowledge that i am brahmana will continue to appear all of it is not real for the enlightened person including the knowledge that i'm brahman that's why the mysterious thing you know that enlightened people they keep saying that i am not an enlightened person i'm not a knower of brahman nisargadatta's scolding you're insulting me by calling me a knower of brahmana i'm not a knower of brahman i am brahmana that's literally true every one of us can say even now we can say that even if we don't feel it or realize it but it's true noah of brahman means what i am this person who has a mind in the mind there is a virtue about brahman and a phalabri revealing it and i have a knowledge i am brahman not in this way that kind of knowledge is possible when i say i am sarva-priyananda that is an information generated by my mind british and reflected consciousness reveals it and i get the knowledge i am salva priyananda but underlying all of that is the continuous gushing forth blazing forth of this undifferentiated consciousness that is not a knowledge you cannot the enlightened person cannot even honestly claim that i know it it's not it doesn't feel authentic to that enlightenment so does the enlightened person then not know it we get confused there's no question of not knowing it it is the most unmistakable thing for that person we are calling that person a person so now when we look at it so all of these things we have to put together with the update it's all going to come up now um putting them all together what are the elements we have got in ordinary knowledge you need vitti vapti and follow up the update all the time otherwise you will not get the feeling of knowing something and with the update destroys knowledge that destroys ignorance and falabj illumines the object of knowledge illumines that object of knowledge whereas in brahma-gyana enlightenment britibyap is necessary to destroy ignorance about what about my nature as brahman that ignorance ignorance in the mind is destroyed in the mind by the vritti vritti byakti the second dog are everything but is not necessary that illumination by the reflected consciousness not at all necessary and after this realization the uni the ignorance is falsified and all the products of ignorance are falsified though you continue to experience them including the knowledge in the mind that is also falsified it is uh so this is the basic um you know the few elements which you have got so far so it says together with the reflected consciousness interpretee it makes brahman an object within quotes you cannot really make it an object but in the sense of you know when you are studying vedanta sara upanishads shruti you are trying to understand who am i so in that sense it is made an object by making it an object what are you trying to do and what is that they do it negates the ignorance about brahman where is this ignorance in the mind it removes that ignorance then what happens when the ignorance is destroyed then what happens just as the if you burn the threads of a piece of cloth the cloth is automatically burnt threads are the material cause of the cloth the material causes destroyed the cloth is destroyed similarly the material cause of the universe is again our ignorance when that is destroyed the universe is destroyed but destroyed in what sense is not pounded into dust or into subatomic particles or something it is it says negated falsified you have the mithya to drishti that this is an appearance though it though everything appears different there is difference between you know all the entities of the world really there is no difference just as if you watch a movie and you find so many entities in the movie there are actors there are plants and animals and cars and places and sorrow and happiness and you at the same time you know it is all badate negated because you know it's not really there it appears in this way the entire universe just as a movie appears on the screen and everything in the movie is unified by the screen unified means underlying one reality similarly entire movie of the universe appears in consciousness and is unified by the underlying consciousness which you are so patakar patakana just as the cause of the cloth threads are burnt if the threads are burnt cloth is burnt similarly akhila karani agyani badhit in the cause of the entire universe which is ignorance when it is negated very interestingly uses the word badhita he does not say it is destroyed or gone forever means negated falsified then the karyum akhila sabadi the product of that ignorance is this entire universe it is negated negative means you'll continue to experience but you realize it's not real then what will happen special mention in that entire appearance there's one special appearance called your mind and in that mind there is one knowledge called i am brahman which is which is the cause of this conflagration that is also negated that also is part of the illusion this is what we get from this it's a very very dramatic um all right i'll take it up next time let me see if there are questions krishnamurti vishwanathan asks why doesn't sakshi you may illuminate the pustakat akaravity directly but needs the chidavas as an intermediary yes the directly it cannot cannot illumine because from the perspective of the sakshi there is only the sakshi pure consciousness the entire appearance is in maya so maya that means once maya is there subject and object appear now the subject must know the object through the means of knowledge underlying all of that is one i'll give an example you are dreaming and in your dream you're taking a walk and you see other people walking they're walking their dogs maybe and their buildings and their streets and there is honking going on a typical manhattan scene you're walking now if somebody asks you do you see all this yeah so you see here do you hear the honking yeah how do you see um through my eyes how do you hear through my how do you hear through my ears but yet you are dreaming the whole thing is in imagination in your mind why do you need ears or eyes to see or hear things there you see in your dream also you you split yourself into subject and object and once you are a subject and their object and they feel different from you then you have to deploy us and a set of dreams sense organs to know those objects you see what i mean ultimately it is the dreaming mind which is knowing everything ultimately it is actually alone which is knowing everything but one subject object are differentiated the subject becomes what is called the knower brahmata and the object becomes what is called known from here and for that you need sources of knowledge pramana to generate knowledge and the interesting thing will be in your dream also very interesting in your dream also there are things which you are seeing and there are things which you are not seeing you are quite aware i'm walking down the street a lot of things behind me which i'm not seeing you don't feel they're all popping into existence the moment i look at them you get the feeling of being in the world nothing weird about it so there are known things and there are unknown things and then you can make the unknown thing a known thing by turning around and taking a look at it you're creating a victim so in the same way in this world also moment you see yourself as an as a subject with a body and a mind you have to employ uh the instruments of knowledge to know things one slice by slice one by one and uh there will be things which are known things which are unknown the unknown will have to have to destroy the ignorance by creating written dyapti which will be revealed by the reflection of the sakshi in the mind or in the britti so it needs the chidavas as an intermediary then next question can we say that reflected consciousness needs subtle matter to be manifested but all the computers are made of gross matter this is why they're incapable of ever having a first person experience exactly why do we have subtle why do we have first person experience because if you say consciousness atman it's there everywhere in the computer also that same atma must be there haven't you just said atman is all pervading so that one existence consciousness must be in every computer also so why don't they have first-person experiences but they don't have a subtle body um so if you can generate a subtle body somebody asked me that so we are talking about artificial intelligence these days what will it take from a vedantic perspective what will it take for an ai to become conscious i said if you can provide the ai with a subtle body it will become self-aware but there are many many questions everybody's many people more or less understand the problem that the ai we are talking about will it be self-aware will it be aware like the way we are aware what will it take right now the understanding is maybe complexity many different kinds of theories are there maybe recursiveness but multiple theories are there vedanta says in fact not just vedanta almost all of indian philosophy will say the subtle body such prasari is necessary what is that here it's made of subtle matter what is subtle matter i don't know what it is how do you map it to modern physics i don't i don't think yet we have any cognate of subtle matter yet but it's a very that's an area of uh research that is it should be in principle empirical findable testable rama says can be explained with relation to any object seen but how do you explain this relation to a feeling for example when somebody is terrified pretty easy when i'm terrified i'm scared of something anxious anxiety or fear so there is a virty in the mind fear britty what is the content of the fear and the feeling that i get the first person feeling the texture that feel of being scared there's a difference between the first person experience and the nature of the faith i get the same first person experience when i'm delighted i get the same first person first person-ness is the same everywhere but the content of it changes fear delight pain pleasure you see what i'm saying can you make a distinction between the first person experience and the content of the first person experience imagine a time when you felt scared shocked imagine a time when you felt happy pleased the shocked feeling and the please feeling are different from each other one is the content is different but there's one thing which is similar to both both are first person experience the feeling of direct i am lit up by this experience there's no there's no language fails there basically but this is now being recognized more or less there are reductionists who try to deny the whole first person problem but more or less modern thinkers not just charmers christophe koch and a number of others are also beginning to recognize that this is the crucial question of consciousness studies girish says in near-death experiences described recently by swami maha yogananda what is it that escapes the body witnesses the scene and returns to the body subtle body with the reflected consciousness when the physical body is dying at any time and and you don't have to be advaithic about it any um school of indian philosophy except the charvaka so any school of indian philosophy in fact any religious any theology whether it is christian or muslim or judaic they will all they all talk about a ghost body about a subtle body about a finer body all of them without that you cannot have religion tell me one religion which does not talk about that something which survives physical death so this subtle body is the one which escapes or which survives the physical death then the near-death experience will be like this only that the subtle body through that in any case right now also it's a subtle body which is experiencing things it just requires the mechanism of the physical body but maybe the subtle body has its own powers which it can use at least temporarily without a physical body without the physical body it can't interact with us but who is to say that it is not experiencing continuously itself without being able to interact with us maybe rodrigo says may be possible that machines mimic a human body so well that allow a subtle body to inhabit it that's a very good question actually i haven't even thought about that but who knows what is which in which respect do they have to mimic us one um i think dr anil said or somebody was a neuroscientist in england he said very nicely look at this crucial point observation he says makes um it does not take intelligence you don't have to be intelligent intelligent to feel pain you don't have to be smart to hurt so he says deep blue the computer is very smart can play extraordinary chess better than all of us but a mouse it can't reach us at all but you can feel pain it can feel hurt physically it can feel it can suffer the computer can't suffer what's the difference there's a difference it's not a difference of intelligence so one track is making an artificial intelligence more and more interest somebody peop so some people think intelligence and consciousness are connected may not be you might make enormously intelligent machines which are not conscious and you have a tiny mouse which is not particularly intelligent at all it's still conscious um but rodrigo is a good point can we make machines subtle uh complicated or capable mimic in such a way in such a way that it mimics a subtle body then it will reflect consciousness it will in principle that's what sankhya yoga advaita they all agree that if you can have a subtle body in that case in principle if you can mimic a subtle body should be able to reflect consciousness it should be that's but as i said mimic what alpana says even after having trying to have a conductivity why self-illumination doesn't happen keep at it keep attending classes we will see we'll make it happen uh krishnamurti vishwanathan says in the sun moon eclipse example is the locus of observation changing is it accurate to say that the mind realizes that it is not real in that case it sounds like locust must shift it to the mind to sakshi remember ultimately all experience is your experience the experience of sakshi or consciousness you doesn't matter if you bounce the light from the moon and illumine the earth it's still actually sunlight really speaking who is illuminating the earth at night it is the sun even though the sun is not seen anywhere similarly in our day to day activities when i'm seeing hearing smelling tasting talking and i have no interest in vedanta absolutely no idea who is it actually lighting up all my world it is the atman it's pure consciousness all experience belongs ultimately to pure consciousness ultimately without it nothing is because without it nothing is possible but yes for the differentiated experience which we which we see in our samsara the entire set of instrumentation is necessary the whole paraphernalia is necessary but focus one one important thing let me just point out another example which i like i've given this example at other times when we're little kids at school we used to play this game you know when we had tiffin boxes our parents would pack lunch for us now they would be shiny so after eating and washing the tiffin box we take the shiny tiffin box and you know in this playground you can reflect light in the flash the sunlight can be flashed you can reflect light you're naughty enough to on your friend's face or if there's a dark classroom from outside the window you can reflect sunlight and it will be a beam of light which goes into the classroom uh into the dark classroom but because the classroom is dark you can't see inside it if you want to see something you have to focus the beam carefully it'll be like a beam of light going back and forth in the darkness do you get the example which i'm talking about now the sun is there up in the sky blazing forth equally all around but you needed this instrument the the shiny surface to collect a little bit of that light and refocus it into a dark corner now the mind is like that shiny surface and the dot of reflected light it's like the chidavas the reflected consciousness and the focusing of the shiny surface is the focusing that we do in the mind the british what we do with our sense organs with the mind all of that we are trying to do when you say i'm trying to pay attention but i'm trying to see i'm trying to listen all of this is focusing the chinese surface we're trying to focus the chinese surface that is called vikti and the beam of light from that shiny surface that is khalab now what about seeing the sun itself if you turn around and the little tiffin box turns with you and you look up and then the sun is shining forth with millions of times more light than the little dot of light on your tiffin box it's not required anymore but you need to turn around if you keep focusing your tiffin box in different areas you will not see the sun itself yeah so that's an example all our worldly knowledge is trying to use collect the light of the sun on my tiffin box and focus it on different things but to see the sun itself you need to turn around towards the sun the turning around towards the sun is accomplished by vedanta by tatwa masih by adharu papavada by drikdrishya viveka avasthatraya panchakosha all these methodologies drawing your attention towards certain something once it's done properly that certain something takes over you don't need any more effort any any any more books and efforts or techniques the sun cannot say i'm lighted because it's the light itself brahman light yes kiran says for viktor biapti is not required needed correct the vritti is a natural modification of the mind that happens by itself without yes but remember the moment you say mind and british is automatically there if you have a mirror your face will be reflected in the mirror meera does not require your face no doubt but it's natural viveka we read the connection between the reflecting medium and the reflected object is is swab sahaja they face and mirror reflected face and mirror original face is this and mirror is there reflecting medium the reflecting medium and the reflected phase what is the relationship not with the mirror and the original phase no relationship but the mirror and the reflected ways what relationship natural so whenever you say british is implied because the mind is functioning reflected consciousness consciousness is always there automatically so rick says wouldn't all matter animate or inanimate include a subtle level but some somehow in living system subtle matter is organized so as to allow experience just as the gross bodies organized to allow experience correct but the subtle body which is the capacity for reflecting um consciousness just as a good example would be in the world outside everything reflects sunlight everything reflects on light but certain things like a drop of water a dew drop will not only reflect sunlight but you'll have a perfect little sun image formed in that which also shines which has some of the properties of the sun it's not the sun similarly chidavas is not consciousness it's a simulation of that it's a channelization of that it has some of the properties of consciousness you feel aware but it has the unique property of being used to reveal things but yes it's there everywhere because everything is made of five pancha bhuta the sukhma pancha bhuta they're everywhere but they have to be organized into the subtle body for them to collect and focus consciousness let me see anuradha raise their hand first i just i just want to say something and you may correct it that with the tattwa masi we know that tat and tuam are the same the jiva and ishwara is the same so that doesn't really tell me that i am that ishwara so for that reason we need to do the ahambram has me and then this virti bapti and we don't need the follow bhakti for this but if we do enough of this riti bhatti then the thing will come no what you do is this when you say that thou art we are told that that means ishwar or god saguna brahman i am the jiva sentient being now the whole process will go through which we all went through because immediately it does not make sense how can i be god the difference between me and god is so tremendous then i'm forced into what is called uh the analysis of the words in order to find out the meaning which will fit as you said that are the same that and thou are the same how are they the same they don't seem to be the same so to find out how they are the same you go through this process what is the process we now look at ourselves i this body mind server priyanda no no not at all then i must locate the meaning of the i which which fits with ishwar what is the meaning of the i it is not the body not the mind so i go through that that process uh panchakocha viveka or whichever any of the processes which will lead me to the uh what is uh that that process we went through semantically bhagavatiya lakshana or jahad the implied meaning which implies only the consciousness aspect the sakshi chaitanya that sakshi chaitanya is the same in me and in ishvara there we are the same so this you might say that this that thou art is a very roundabout way of pointing out this truth about us ourselves but that's how the whole upanishadic literature comes together to make this make sense you have to stay with that that daw art the arm ramashvi will become clear to you once the ambra master becomes clear as a result of the dad dao art teaching when you stay with the humbram husband the arm ramas me will make sense only when you have realized yourself as the witness consciousness if what is sakshi in our own body-mind composition the sakshi is becomes clear to us in the mind then you stay with that that is called brahma-karavathi so when you say that with the tattwa masi um i know that it is the chaitan how do i know it's my chaithan what are you i that's that's the part i'm having trouble what is my chaitanya anybody else's chaitanya means awareness that's why i always look at it experientially when you say body what do you mean don't think about it theoretically body here look here's the body look at it and then next transfer your attention to breath something subtler and more inward to the body look at it not theoretical then look inwards the thought about the breath which is the manomaya kosha not theoretically just feel yeah i was thinking that thought that is thought that is mind go deeper the intellect again experientially not theoretically then beyond that if you reach you'll reach a blankness the anandamaya again experientially to whom or what are these five koshas being revealed that is consciousness that's not even my consciousness i am consciousness don't even say my consciousness my consciousness my utman otherwise what will happen is my atman is fine but i have many money problems or i have many relationship problems no you are the atman and as the atman you have no problems you have to admit the atman is fine atman has no problems in that case if you had if you see yourself as the athman don't force yourself let it become obvious to you yes at that point i see there is no problem at all once the breakthrough is made we will see once the breakthrough is made our attention will be drawn to the fact that that reality which you have intuited does it have any problems no are you not that yes even after that problems will continue at the level if the mind has not been purified sufficiently the mind will tend to drag you back it will attract your attention back then then the practice will be needed staying with what you have discovered stay with it you have a tremendous advantage over the rest of us who are still struggling our way upwards if you've reached the peak of the mountain don't be in a quick hurry to come down from the peak stay there and enjoy the view right so that's what you have to do shavani pranam maharaj when whenever i hear that machines intelligent machines don't uh have first person experience subtle body and i i keep asking that how to prove it because um you know in hindu mythology we have so many examples of inanimate objects revealing manifesting consciousness to certain people like saints and sages and even if you take the example of the shinishwar temple where we have an image of kali it's a stone image inanimate no subtle body but then sri ramakrishna sees um actually sees divine mother who talks to him and like full consciousness blazing consciousness how how to explain that phenomena it's not a phenomenon it's the new men and it's the ultimate reality itself so sudama krishna sees it not just in an image the sriram krishna would see it in every image and without the image in the entire universe because ramakrishna has discovered that if you discover it you will also see it everywhere because that is the ultimate truth but at the verica level at the transactional level right now at our level you are looking at me you feel a certain awareness within yourself and you forget the entire um the spiritual world and all of that just right now you feel a certain awareness within yourself do you think that the laptop you're looking at has that kind of self-awareness it doesn't it's a machine you will say how do you know i know because even the ibm people or the you know like whoever apple people who have made the machine none of them will ever claim that our machine has self-consciousness this this doesn't seem to be any evidence of that i wonder does it depend on my uh my consciousness or the machine's consciousness how how does it work really like it depended on sri ramakrishna or some saints experience uh for a stone to reveal consciousness all right now let me put it this way let me take an advaithic sudama krishna did not see any consciousness anywhere he did not see any consciousness in the stone image in kali anywhere if it was consciousness that he experienced it was his own consciousness consciousness can always be can only be first person can you ever expect what would it be like to experience consciousness as an object if you say i am experiencing consciousness as an object then you don't know what you're talking about you're talking about the mind you're talking about animate behavior but that's not experience of consciousness a robot can walk around what is the experience of consciousness traveling right now where are you experiencing consciousness are you experiencing consciousness in us or even the subtle body in a uh wait wait take it slowly are you experiencing consciousness in us no no we don't seem conscious to you are we zombies i i think the root of consciousness is in me root or whatever consciousness is in you and not only that consciousness is you see where do you experience a book here i'm showing you a book where do you experience a computer look look you're looking at a computer where do you experience a body you look at your own body you can experience a body look at your own breath you'll experience breath look at your own thoughts you'll experience thoughts if you're a telepath you can experience our thoughts also but awareness you can only experience in yourself where else impossible right if you see awareness outside it is something else that you are seeing if you see it it's not consciousness it is consciousness which is seeing right so we cannot have a blanket statement that inanimate objects do not uh do not have a subtle body and cannot manifest consciousness inanimate objects by your definition inanimate it means without prada if you translate without prana means prana is a component of a subtle body you just said we cannot make a blanket statement that objects without subtle bodies do not have subtle bodies of course you just made the statement yourself yeah in theory but the all these empirical examples in our mythology and most recently like in sri lanka how to explain those i mean uh these are empirical uh examples before us true so it does not mean that the that the rock had a hidden uh subtle body it does not mean that vedanta would not say that it means ishwara is present everywhere so an enlightened person would feel the presence of ishwara everywhere in the animate and inanimate but as far as we are concerned in our day-to-day activities there is a clear difference between the animate and inanimate the animate are what we call jivas in animator what we call just jadavastu yeah so rama touches a stone and then uh not all stones not all stones all stones are not ahalya right so there's something special uh i mean but that happens right it could be it could be there could be a uh you know in the far future maybe our subtle body can be downloaded and kept in a computer chip and science fiction talks about it quite possible but then that still does not mean that every entity every physical uh object in the universe has a subtle body inside the ghost sitting inside it no ishwara is there everywhere there's no doubt about it the manifestation aspect so uh it depends uh it's it's not uh for some special cases like saints and uh what vedanta is saying is where is consciousness most directly obvious to you in yourself in your own experiences focus there don't keep looking for a stone which will jump around even if you do what good does it do to you suppose suramar krishna saw that he did what good does it do to us it did no good to him also he just saw the same divine mother which you saw everywhere but the consciousness which you are if you notice the nature of that you will be free of suffering that that's the whole purpose of it is the whole purpose of our exercise here then so uh sheikha do you have a question my question is although for the purposes of teaching this mahabharata is explained in certain way but if and when i realized this mahavakya is it more precise to say that i will have realized that brahman alone is and i am not i am not is a peculiar statement i means this personality called shekhar is not correct but what you will realize is jeeva brahman opera the reality which is you it cannot be denied when you say i am brahmana it means brahman is you and you are brahmana i realize that i am not only brahman is then who is the one who has realized it right so far for me to realize that i am brahmana i have to come down from that uh that oneness to a little bit lower level right because i have to feel my my ego after experiencing that individual samadhi you know for example not talking about those things here saying that this pointer that you are brahman you are already brahman you are that you are under this cloud of ignorance which makes you feel that i am not it that is dispelled that cloud is dispelled by this these teachings and the fact that your brahman is absolutely clear to you whether you are in nirvikalpa samadhi or not in irvine samadhi this realization it will not be there you need a thought for that when the mind starts functioning the question is is it true that you are brahman you will say yes it is true at least to yourself you will say it is true that i am brahma that is the reality about me thank you universe yes yes yeah pronounced amazing my question is swamiji when the mind is contemplating on i am brahmana occasionally when the mind is very pure very satwik uh this is brahmacary arises in the heart and effortlessly since you know allah is not there to without your effort without the ego being there sometimes momentarily the flesh comes in the heart now you have that experience the flashes of i am raman thing i don't know whether it is called brahmagar prathi or not so does it i mean can we say that you need to have so many such brahmacar british appearing in the heart to ultimately culminate with the final knowledge how does it happen uh the final knowledge is that it will never go away anymore uh so the brahmacaravity if it is truly brahmacar even one instant is enough and after that comes it is always there but what we just saw is that it becomes badita every vritti becomes badhita every knowledge becomes badhita and the brahmacar also becomes partita so now will you need to stay with that knowledge that is needed you need to stay with that knowledge that that brahmacarity which is badit also in order to purify the mind in order to remove technically in order to remove what is called viparita bhavana the contrary tendencies in the mind are purged by staying with the realization that i am brahman but if it is like a flash you feel something a feel a sense of oneness you feel a sense of an intuitive understanding those are good things but those are like experiences in a satwik mind they come and go yes one one sign of a real brahmacari would be that it will its effects are irreversible you don't feel that i had that's what i thought that's what i thought comes once it means it happens once yes it happens it doesn't have it doesn't happen many times it happens after that it will remain but it remains in a sense as it we just read in the badita as a falsified as an appearance okay so the kind of thing which happens automatically without any effort sometimes it happens you feel something where you the moment you try to go that's a good spiritual insight and but if it ever gets clouded over if it is ever doubtful again if it is not helpful for me to uh answer my questions illumine the at least the vedantic texts then it is not really brahma karavathi once you have it all of this will become crystal clear to you all these you know with at least the non-dual texts thank you so much thank you um here's an interesting comment alpana says i think srirama krishna did not experience subtle body and kali image but the pure consciousness itself everywhere no no no this is what you must realize pure consciousness is never realized as an object the moment you say i saw pure consciousness everywhere you did not whatever you saw it was not your consciousness swami bhutah shannan put it so clearly i just was reading a few days ago i'll tell you in bengali and then translate he says you get knowledge of brahman you don't get a darshan a vision of brahman the absolute reality is realized is intuited as i am that that's it it's not a specific mystical experience the moment you have a mystical experience like sri ramakrishna had that's an experience of god of saguna brahman the presence of ishvara everywhere siram krishna also had the brahma karavity and realized that i am brahman but that's not you know like i feel my what would he say i see nir guna brahman everywhere not at all you would say i feel the presence of my divine mother everywhere everything is feels this feels awareness not as an object only the names and forms are objects this is it's soaked in awareness that awareness is he himself so anyway the answer to the comment here is that no pure consciousness you have to be careful pure consciousness is not an object of experience it is the one which is enabling all experience to happen i'm choosing my words very carefully okay now let us bring it to a close [Music] up stay with this question what is consciousness i'm telling you in most our 99 percent of cases when we talk about consciousness we're talking about the mind some subtle functioning of the mind the moment you understand really really understand what is consciousness enlightenment is one step away just that that step will be i am this that's all so stay with the thing about what is consciousness then all these questions will become answers will the answers will flow easily after that yes very good [Music] krishna [Music] you