Video 32

32. Vedantasara | Texts 181-190 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] i take refuge in the self the indivisible the existence consciousness bliss absolute beyond the reach of words and thought and the substratum of all for the attainment of my cherished desire so come to text number 181 text number 181 um we have actually completed the teachings so congratulations there you have made it through what we have been given so far is an outline of advaita vedanta and the definitions of all the important concepts you remember brahman atman maya the subtle body causal body physical body the universe um then you know consciousness and the nature of the ultimate reality and uh nature of superimposition and how to overcome that so all of that has been talked about and now we will uh what is ahead of us is shravana manana nidhasana what we are supposed to do is as long as we do not reach enlightenment we do not get that insight we are supposed to study this contemplate it and meditate upon it sravana is contemplation or reasoning and needed hassan is meditation so that's what they're going to talk about that is one and the last thing that will be there will be will be jivan mukti which is the result of all of this is freedom enlightenment and freedom so this is what is ahead of us now text number 181 till such realization of the consciousness which is one's own self it is necessary to practice hearing reflection meditation and absorption samadhi therefore these are also being explained so in this manner until we realize our own nature which is consciousness so swarupa means a direct realization of direct knowledge what does it what does direct knowledge actually mean in this case it means recognizing something which is always and continuously present to us so remember the story of the tenth man we discussed it uh i think last sunday and the sunday before that the tenth man you know the ten friends who cross the river and then they think that have we all crossed or did somebody drown and they count and uh they find only nine people each counter of course is not counting himself does not realize that he is the tenth man until somebody comes and points out the tenth man is still there tenth man has not drowned you are the tenth man now the tenth man was always present even when i was counting with the counter was counting and finding only nine the tenth man was present all the time so in the same way we are consciousness right now existence consciousness plays unlimited is what we are right now but we don't recognize it so what was enlightenment the enlightenment was when the tenth man recognizes i am the tenth so this is what is called means a direct cognition or a direct introduction to something so in hindi also in sanskrit sakshat is a direct introduction to something when you directly realize what it is that i am there are a couple of points i'd like to make here one is that this sakshat car this direct realization of who i am this directness is of two kinds again the directness is of two kinds it's easy to understand this if you look at the the story the parable of the tenth man the tenth man being the person who was counting being himself the tenth man was always directly present to himself was always there at no time was he not there so that's the first kind of directness that the tenth man is always present exactly in this in in that way we are all the time obviously consciousness this infinite existence consciousness place and what more happened that the tenth man realized with the help of the person who was showing them is realized that i am the tenth one two three four five six seven eight nine and then i am the tenth so that's the second kind of directness what's the first kind of directness the naturally existing tenth man i'm always there so the naturally existing ever shining consciousness which i am that's the first kind of directness the second kind of directness is when the tenth man realized oh i am the tenth so that second kind of directness is what is called enlightenment or it is called sakshat kara here when we will realize oh i am brahmana so how is that possible you know it's because i am already brahman but i do not recognize it because of the of ignorance and that is overcome in that second kind of directness the sakshat kara where that flash of enlightenment so when we we are doing vedanta we call that second kind of directness we call it enlightenment as consciousness you're always present and you're directly present the direct availability of your real nature is not appreciated not recognized when we recognize this directly available own nature it calls it swa swarup our own nature directly available all the time like the tenth person that is enlightenment that enlightenment is an event the directness of our own nature is not an event it's always present but the in what we call enlightenment or direct realization that's an event that happens it removes ignorance and our real nature is realized so until that happens he says paryantham up to that point what what are we supposed to do then till then start the hearing and what what are these and how to do that we will all see now all that will be talked about manana reasoning and or reflection as it says here needed hassan a vedantic meditation culminating in samadhi samadhi is not a separate practice vedantic meditation which culminates in samadhi um so usually you will see shavana manan and indeed and samadhi being included in needed house and here the author has specifically saw uh you know emphasized samadhi samadhi naha practice it is required you have to go to go through this as long as you do not have realization so practices are of two types one is um that you know depending on the result one is called drishta drishtavala another one is adrifala so the adrishta follow means these are terminologies from the ritualistic portion the vedic ritualistic portion the yagyas so there are two kinds of rituals one which gives you a result here and now in this life another one which gives you a result which promises your result hereafter so if you perform these rituals you will go to heaven now you don't know you haven't gone to heaven yet so uh what uh how long do you perform those rituals as long as you're alive you keep on doing that uh but the ones which give you drishta immediate result in this life immediate result in the sense in this life itself how long would you perform so for example there are rituals which promise you there'll be rainfall or you'll have a child or you'll defeat your enemy in battle rituals like that so though all of those defeating the enemy in battle or getting rainfall or having a child those are drishtavala that means something that you see in this very life so how long are you supposed to do that practice until you get the result because you are expecting the result in this very life why am i saying this this practice where we're going to talk about shavana manana dhyasana hearing reflection meditation how long will you do it depending on the result what kind of result are we expecting here drishtavala vishtapala means result in this very lifetime where we can actually experience enlightenment so you keep on doing it till you experience enlightenment not till the end of life unless you do not experience enlightenment till the end of life let's hope we will get enlightenment before that so you keep on doing this until enlightenment comes how will i know if enlightenment has come you believe me you will know sram krishna says don't worry you will know um so these these steps shavana manana needed hasanah and especially samadhi these are now being described we're going to talk about them in detail a little bit about spiritual practice at the risk of repeating myself ad nauseum remember the structure the paradigm ever given you the three cross three metrics of spiritual practice problem solution method three columns problem solution method and then three rows the problem being ignorance solution is knowledge and the method is gana yoga the path of knowledge so what is mentioned here hearing reflection meditation that is ghana yoga so that's at the highest level of practice way of knowledge then in the second row you have problem is um is the flickering mind the disturbed mind or or the what is called big shape with the unfocused mind solution focused mind method upasana or worship or meditation this meditation is different from the vedantic meditation and then that last of the ground level the the foundational level of problems impurity of mind impure mind and the solution pure mind method karma yoga so you have these three levels of practices designed to give you solutions to three levels of problems now we will see shravada manana needed remember this is the highest and the final level of practice the path of uh of knowledge and remember all of these practices go on together it's not that you have to do karma yoga for 40 years and then come to avedanta class all of it goes on together before i enter into this a tibetan buddhist teacher said how do you listen so they have the same method of practice so when you apparently when you enter a tibetan buddhist monastery the practice is hearing reflection and meditation it's there in their texts also and one tibetan monk said that when we in our first class uh the monastic master said how do you listen so the instruction was how not to listen do not listen like an empty like a like an upside down part a leaky part dirty part don't be like a like an upside down pot leaky part and dirty part what's an upside down part so the upside down part is when you pour water into it everything you know like it goes slides down the sides nothing goes into it because the pot is upside down similarly there might be somebody whose mind is so blocked is is not at all receptive to the teachings and whatever is being said not going in at all nothing it's not being absorbed so for example used to tell this joke when he was in the ramakrishna mission in new delhi so he would give classes which were very popular now one day this lady who'd come come very enthusiastically for the classes he asked her as she was leaving so did you did you like the class and she said yes swami i liked the class what did you like about it he shouldn't have asked that but he did ask what did you like about it and she replied i'll tell you in hindi and translate oh hamka samjaya bharibadi vedanti bhatta like in class what do i understand they're all big vedantic talks but anyway the class was very good so i remember a friend of mine once i gave a talk in our main monastery a friend of mine another monk who's from nepal very simple mankra he is he doesn't know english so after the talk i gave the talk and talk was in english so after the talk he came up and said that was a great talk uh and would have been even better if i had understood any of it so that is of course a problem of language but upside down part means i have not got i have not received anything of the teaching don't listen like that the second is a leaky part a leaky part is when you pour water or something into the pot because of a hole or something the the contents leak out so after a week after a month nothing is retained in it i i don't have any understanding or any recollection no no holding on to what was said um to overcome this the traditional teachers is to recommend memorization so before every class you would have to recite what was taught in the earlier class i was reading about swami chinmayanandaji who is the founder of chinmay mission so he wanted to learn vedante the traditional way and his guru swami shivananda of the divine life society told him that i'll send you to a guru swamiji mananda was from kerala so uh so i'll send you to a guru who by the way he's also from kerala that was tapovan maharaja who was a very great non-dualist who is to live in gango three at that time uttarkashi and gangotri um so he teaches he's one of the few who will teach you in hindi because you can't and you can't learn other there are other great teachers also but they teach only in sanskrit so swami that goes along to toppo one maharaj maharaja says i'm not going to teach you in maliali malayala is the language of kerala so he says i'm not going to teach you in malayalam i'm going to teach in hindi and so the classes started and the rule was you have to recite whatever was taught in the earlier class and then you are allowed to attend the next class and it seems once swami chen manon actually failed and if you fail to recite it that's it you're barred from future classes for this lifetime you're excluded so which in mind in the world almost got checked out once he couldn't recite some particular verse and these uh uh others um the other monks begged in his favor so so he was allowed to stay back yeah so one one way of making sure that we we uh retain what is taught but it's a very difficult requirement actually and the third thing is um is a dirty part the dirty part uh is where a person has sort of made up his mind that this is wrong or i know better or are skeptical not giving the teachings of fair uh hearing so that's a dirty part whatever you pour into it you might pour pure water into a dirty pot but what is retained there is is dirty water because it gets mixed up with the dirt inside another interpretation of the upside down part is the old story of the zen master and the tea ceremony you know where the student goes to the zen master and um asks for teachings and the zen master starts teaching and the student whatever the zen master says the student says oh that i know that this and finally the zen master says all right let's have some tea and so he starts pouring tea into the student's cup and it overflows and the student says it's enough it's overflowing stop stop and the zen master says unless you empty your cup how will you taste my tea so that's another um another meaning of the upside down part where i'm not taking in anything because it might be that i'm full of my own concepts it's full of my own kind of theories and i'm not it happens a lot these days where we go to classes and courses and uh we're already full of preconceptions our own reading we know a lot already and we keep trying to integrate it you won't believe the number of you know people who um send me books and articles and you know suggested reading either written by themselves or reading for me i'm not interested you are supposed to listen and and uh keep your mind on what is being taught here so uh one must empty myself empty oneself and receive the teachings one must retain the teachings retaining the teachings is important retaining is a very deep thing you know one must be able to hold on to it and stay with it sri ramakrishna at one point you find in the gospel of srinama krishna a vedantic discussion is going on and sriram krishna listens carefully it doesn't say anything at the end of it he says the words are good but they must be assimilated what you are talking about is good but must be assimilated so assimilated means retained and retained you stay with it um and then yeah so uh that is shravanam now there is a method to it shravana does not mean just hearing it means systematically studying studying what studying the texts which which texts well primarily the upanishads which we will come to next after finishing vedanta sarah so there is a system of studying it what is the system meant to do we'll talk about it detailed description of the system is given here the system of studying it what is the system meant to do it's meant to extract the meaning from the text think of the system which will talk about the system as six components or six stages you can think of it as an algorithm with six steps so these six steps or the six six component machine will extract the meaning from a text why would you want to extract the meaning from a text well the i mean why not just ask the person who's written it and the problem is the answer is not always available when you're looking at the something like the vedas the authors are not around you can't ask them what did you mean to say so you have to interrogate the text itself so this is called hermeneutics it's a word which has come into vogue recently especially with studies of the bible in europe i think 18th 19th century the developer germans developed several methods of studying the text uh biblical texts finding out which part goes with which part and what is the point of the whole thing the ancient indians had developed hermeneutics very sophisticated hermeneutics methods of extracting the meaning from a text why did they do that because they had to find out the meaning of the vedas this whole religion was based on the vedas so they had to extract the meaning from the vedas and often it was very difficult the ones who specialized in extracting the meaning from a text was the school of purva me mamsa purva so the six orthodox schools of hindu philosophy niya vaishaishika sankhya the word meemamsa means a reverential inquiry reverential enquiry a revelation inquiry into what into the text what does what is the text teaching me meemamsa means that means earlier uttara means later earlier revelational inquiry or earlier inquiry into the earlier portion of the text what is the earlier portion of the text the ritualistic portion of the vedas what we call the karma kanda is it the bulk of the vedas are full of rituals which are mostly obsolete now we don't do them hindus we have replaced the vedic rituals mostly by our modern pujas the ceremonial worship of deities of course in hinduism nothing dies out as nothing is completely replaced so always there'll be layers and the way the criticalism is still alive in our pujas but the point here is the school which specialized in finding out the meaning of the texts which talk about vedic rituals they are called the purvami mamsa and we vedanta we are called uttarami moms are the later meemamsa because we deal with the later text what is the later text the the upanishads so how to extract the meaning and reverential inquiry into the meanings of the later part of the vedas that's the meaning of of uttara meewams and that's the name of our school what we are doing here now is uttara memsa the machinery for this investigation was developed thousands of years ago by the school of the the earlier school the purva memsa those who dealt with the ritualistic portion of the vedas so they developed sophisticated ways of looking at texts and finding out the meaning what does it mean when the text say this and so here is the method method that is followed and what the what they will do here is they will take up as an exercise as a sample one part of of an upanishadic text and it will be the sixth chapter of the chando gyopunisha which is a classic text because it contains the that thou art that thomasi so um so we'll see that now that's how shravana is done that's how shabada means hearing but it's a it actually means a systematic study of the text and by the way before we go into it as we see as you shall see this this method which will be given here the six components you can apply them to any text today if you have an essay or a book you want to understand if you apply these six components you will get the meaning of the text it's it's quite it's a very systematic scientific way of approaching a text of course it has to be a well-written text you know sometimes talks or even writings are all over the place so we say that sometimes maybe swamis give talks so there is a there's a hanuman monkey model of giving a talk the monkey model of giving a talk you talk is you start here then you jump to the next branch and from that branch you jump to a different tree altogether you start in one place and end up in another place so if you do that it's very difficult to extract the meaning from the whole talk because there probably isn't much of a meaning to the whole talk but if there is a systematic text or systematic teaching you can use this six step or six six part algorithm to extract the meaning all right let's see what is this method [Music] [Music] is the ascertainment through the six characteristic signs that the entire vedanta philosophy establishes the one brahman without a second all right one more thing each of these steps study of the text reflection and meditation has a specific purpose what is the purpose the purpose of shravana the first step is to ascertain the meaning of the text is to ascertain the teaching itself what is the text telling me what is vedanta telling me to answer that question you have the first step so when do how do you know you have completed the first step you have completed the first step when you know yes i understand what vedanta is telling me what the upanishads are telling me what all the vedantic text gita the brahmasutras vedantasara i know i have a clear idea of what it is telling me and we know what it is telling us that da'wah tattoo see me we know that um you might say okay i know it's right so that means i don't need to study the text now we just know it in you know it won't do to know it superficially we must know it thoroughly in the sense that how does this text tell me i am brahman how does for example the cut open he should tell me that i am brahmana how does the chandragupta tell me that i am rahman so which are the sentences which tell me directly that i am the absolute which are the sentences which are indirectly connected to the teaching which are the sentences which define the absolute reality which are the so with all those things we must know that's the purpose of the first step shravana it tells us the teaching and the first step is complete when i know what the teaching is then what's the problem the problem will be that i know what the teaching is but i have many questions i have many doubts i don't understand lots of it so now i go into the second stage which is called mananam reflection i have many questions i have many objections things which are not clear about things i don't understand and things i don't get things i i think are wrong i i have got a different point of view different take on it so all these this is clarified in the second step when is the second step over when you can say not only do i know the teaching now i get it i am convinced i'm sold i get it it's clear i've got clarity now i'm convinced about it now i know the teaching and i understand it then what is the problem after that what is the need for the third the third step meditation i know what the teaching is and i get it i have no more doubts but it's not a living reality for me it's i cannot honestly say that i am brahman i cannot honestly say that i have got the benefit from it i have overcome suffering i know honestly that i am beyond death this is not a living reality yet for me so to make it that living reality that is needed the final step the vedantic meditation in technical terms the first step gives us the teaching the second step overcomes an obstacle called the the assam bhavana asambhavana means the impossibility obstacle after i know the meaning of the text my reaction is impossible brahman an infinite existence such a thing is there no i am that brahman no it's an impossible thing teaching what it's saying is flat out contradictory so that's the impossibility problem that is overcome in the second step and the third step overcomes uh another kind of problem called viparita bhavana contrary tendencies contrary tendencies these are tendencies ingrained patterns of behavior where even after understanding even after clarity i still continue to behave as a body mind i still continue to behave as a person as a limited person subject to frustrations and misery and ups and downs and problems so that is overcome at the third stage when you assimilate the teaching so anyway called it assimilation he said tell yourself again and again i am that until it tingles with every drop of your blood so it becomes a living reality so the point i wanted to make was the first shravana it gives you the teaching manana nidhasana in in vedanta are seen more as overcoming problems manana overcomes what problem problem of impossibility i don't get it this is impossible what you're teaching and the needed hasan overcomes what problem the problem of contrary tendencies that pre-existing conditioning of the mind that has to be overcome you have to soak in assimilate make it a living reality all right so this is good now we can go ahead sravanam nama what is shavana sharvida lingai with this six-fold method or the which is called charvita linga means literally six signs six signs are used remember vedanta basically refers to upanishads so of all the upanishadic texts the clarity that will come that all of vedanta ultimately refers to one non-dual reality brahman and i am that brahman this is what vedanta is teaching me and it won't do to say that yeah i know it you just told me i am brahmana not so fast when you are actually confronted with the upanishads show me how does it show that you are brahman show me how does how does this sentence um tally with the other sentence how do they go together how did they come to come together to show you that you're brahmana now what are the six signs this is very interesting the six signs this the six components of the algorithm for extracting meaning this is vedantic hermeneutics 183 linganito upakrama upasangasa the characteristic signs are beginning and conclusion number one reputation number two originality number three result number four eulogy number five and demonstration number six and he gives a quote in the form of a verse [Music] text number 184 thus it has been said in ascertaining the meaning the characteristic signs are the beginning and the conclusion repetition originality result eulogy and demonstration okay so what does that mean and how do we use it so from now on he will tell us what what these steps are and how do we use it for understanding a text especially the upanishads um very quickly before we go into each of these steps i can just tell you what they mean when you you get a text like the open issues or any text you have a you know like a philosophical essay to read take a look at the beginning and the end the beginning literally doesn't mean need not mean the first sentence and the end need not mean the last sentence look at the first paragraph look at the last paragraph that should give you some idea about what the essay is about it's not conclusive but if it's a well-written essay it will definitely give you um an indication what's going on in this essay beginning and the end opera beginning and upper samhara conclusion look at the beginning look at the conclusion in fact there is a text called upakrama parakrama the power of the beginning i have not read it myself but it it tells us how to look at the beginnings of text to get an idea about what the text is all about oh funny story that reminds me i had seen this picture in a national geographic magazine in a tibetan buddhist monastery so they have huge collections of manuscripts old texts and it's you can imagine an amount of time it takes to study all that so there was this beautiful picture of the old manuscripts have been they are they are periodically bought out when there's sunshine so for their to protect the manuscripts to dry them out i guess they bought out kept on wooden benches and the young llamas little kids they crawl under the benches so it's like a ritual all the knowledge goes in is supposed to soak into your head if you crawl under the benches which are loaded with all the books you know so if only it was so easy so that is beginning and end then the next one is repetition what is the point which is hammered again and again and again throughout the text if it's a well-written text the central point will be mentioned more than once what what they're trying to say you know if you look at a politician's speech give me votes vote for me so that he'll come around to that again and again classic example is the sixth chapter of the chandelier nine times that thou art that what nine times so that must be the central teaching then so abhyasa means repetition and then apoorvata what's the unique message in that because it will talk about many things but we'll talk about something unique to it something that you don't find elsewhere and that will be the special teaching that's another sign of the teaching of the text is the uniqueness something special unique message we're trying to get from it then another good way of look finding out the meaning of a text is a good way eulogy praise what is being praised what is being advertised what is being sold in that text or in that essay so a politician who's giving a talk about you know a political talk would talk about his or her achievements and the point being that you should vote for me similarly what is being sold here you will see that in upanishads enlightenment brahma-gana the knowledge of the absolute that is being praised again and again as that which solves all our problems so then you know all right this is what is being advertised so this must be the teaching of the text which means praise or eulogy and then palam pala means result by looking at what is promised what is the benefit of it what is the purpose of it what do you get out of it by looking at that you'll get a clue about what the teaching is and then um upapatti look at arguments you will find in a especially in a philosophical paper um or even a political speech or whatever you will find certain amount of reasoning is going on there so if you try to see what what is the author of the speaker trying to prove so the what that person is arguing for like a lawyer are going for so my client is innocent that all the arguments are going to show that the person i'm defending is innocent so by looking at the arguments you realize what the lawyer is trying to say so if it's a text which is arguing for a particular position by looking at the arguments you get it this is the teaching they are all all the arguments are going to show that you are brahmana right so these are the six uh components and now he was he's going to give us a demonstration the sixth chapter of the chandelier panisha is a pretty good you know like a case study also because we took the that dao what mahavakya from the sixth chapter so he's going to take the sixth chapter and show us how to apply these six uh this these six signs text number one hundred eighty-five the beginning and the conclusion mean the presentation of the subject matter of a section at its beginning and end as for instance in the sixth chapter of the chandra gyopanishad brahman one without a second which is the subject matter of this of the chapter is introduced at the beginning with the words one only without a second and again at the end in the words in it all that exists as itself so pretty self-explanatory whatever is the point of the whole section whichever you're studying the text the beginning at the end it will be presented so this is called upakramopakrama beginning upasanghara conclusion so take a look at the beginning and the end of this it could be a book it could be a chapter of a book it could be an essay it could be a speech whatever yata like example chandogya in the sixth chapter of the chant of gyopunisha this is the chapter where shweta ketu comes back from school and his father asks him his father asks him did your teachers teach you that by knowing which everything is known and so on and then finally the father will tell him there is one reality which you are that thou art so that's the chapter so when you look at that chapter at the beginning and at the end you will find the mention of brahman the absolute reality so the beginning and very interesting so one without a sake second one without us one only without a set second akam one eva only advertim without a second but if you look at the chapter actually it doesn't start with the first word is not one without a second it starts with the story of uh so therefore it's not just the first line of the first word you have to look look at you look at you to read it a little bit to see the beginning and it ends with um this reality we are talking about the one without a second is the self of all beings so what is being taught in the sixth chapter of the chandragyo brahman non-dual reality which is you yourself so this is the power of the beginning and the end then the next sign is one hundred eighty six text number prakarana pratipadhyas tuna [Music] is the frequent presentation of the subject matter in the section as for instance in the same section brahman the one without a second is repeated nine times in the sentence thou art that pretty self-explanatory um another clue to the meaning of the whole section is what's being repeated again and again so in that sixth chapter you will find father the father tells the student his son nine times that thou art that thou art that dawah tattoo see that was pretty much the point of the of the whole section now it's not always this easy sometimes you may find the point made just once or twice in a section it no not every section has the central teaching repeated nine times for our benefit then text number 187 uniqueness originality means the subject matter of a section is not available through any other source of knowledge as for instance in that very section brahman the one without a second is not knowable through any other means except the shrutis again pretty much self-explanatory that the section is teaching us something that's unique that's the purpose of the section you don't so you hear it for example it teaches about brahman or you are brahman and you don't find that elsewhere now you have to be careful elsewhere you do find it in all the upanishads all the upanishads are teaching that and you find it in all the vedantic texts you find it in all the translations of the vedantic text you find it if you read it in hindi or bengali or english you find the same teaching it doesn't just mean the original upanishad alone in the sanskrit but this is the teaching of the um the unique teaching of the upanishads so this is where you find it so and this would be the the point of the whole teaching point of the whole section another clue is result what do you gain out of it if you look at the result what is being promised what is being advertised by that you will what is being promised the benefit you will understand what is being taught result means fruit palam fruit text number 188. [Music] the result is the utility of the subject matter of a section that is self-knowledge or its practice as mentioned at different places as for instance in the same section the words the man who has got a teacher knows brahman he has to wait on only till he's delivered from the body then he becomes united with brahman here the utility of the knowledge of brahman the one without a second is its attainment so in other words result is enlightenment and liberation he says what is being taught there what is taught in the section upanishad self knowledge i am brahman that thou art what is the result of that you see there itself in that section you will find the result has been mentioned what do you gain out of it this is called prior the benefit the purpose of this study what are we looking for by looking at that so when you look at the result you will understand the teaching if the result is moksha liberation then the teaching must be self-knowledge why because we have advaita vedanta says that ignorance is the cause of bondage ignorance about ourselves so if the result is liberation then the teaching must be self knowledge knowledge must be the teaching knowledge about what knowledge about the self i am that and this is actually a quote from the sixth chapter which goes on to say ajar yawan purusha veda it is the student who has a teacher who becomes enlightened so that's a way for teachers to remain relevant no but it's important i have seen so many cases of even um serious students you know who try to read it for themselves it's easy to be misled um the subtleties which if you're just reading the book if you're just reading a translation you don't get it and a teacher can point out the subtleties different slight differences interpretation either a person does not get what is being taught here or gets it wrong even worse gets it wrong simply it gets it wrong so that's why acharya van purusha veda it is the student who has got an acharya teacher who becomes enlightened and after getting that enlightenment he talks about video mukti and jivan mukti of course the moment you get enlightened i am brahmana you are liberated that's jivan mukti and then he talks about that's understood here and he talks about vide you live in this body this life continues as long as prarabdha karma the the karma which has generated this body is not exhausted so you live as an enlightened being and after that is what you call attainment of um the bodyless liberation from the point of the liberated person it's the same thing there's no difference having the body and dropping the body at death is a minor thing for the minor matter for the enlightened person is nothing of consequence but it's a big deal from our perspective then one more is praise or eulogy advertisement what is being advertised what is being projected here whatever is being taught here the uh praise prasansa the praise that is called basically is vedic eulogy so certain in the ritualistic portions certain rituals yagyas they are praised so these examples are also archaic examples are meant to make a thing easy but these examples are so ancient um they have lost relevance for even hindus let alone people in the modern age here even traditional hindus also don't get the examples the example is why ur wake shape is among the vedic gods the god of wind is the fastest what does it mean that you perform this particular ritual because the god of wind is the one who gives the results fastest now what is what's the point of it the point is that this particular ritual is being advertised by praising the god of wind you are being encouraged to offer a sacrifice to the god of wind i can see your mystified expressions but it will become clear eulogy is the praising of the subject matter of the section at different places as for instance in the same section which section are we talking about sixth chapter of chandragupta have you ever asked for that instruction by which one hears what has not been heard one things what has not been thought one knows what has not been known what are we talking about here consciousness one that which is behind which is which enables all hearing all understanding all thinking but which itself is not heard of which you cannot hear see smell taste touch consciousness you cannot think about it also it it illumines all our thoughts and perceptions so have you been taught that thing it's a kind of advertisement for the subject matter so these are praises which have been spoken in praise of brahman the one without a second then finally the text number 190 arguments logical arguments like a lawyer's arguments if you look at the arguments themselves you understand what is being said here is demonstration is the reasoning in support of the subject matter of a section adduced at different places basically the arguments which you come across as for instance in the section in question which section chapter six of the chandragupta nation the words my dear as by one lump of clay all that is made of clay is known every modification being but an effort of speech a name and the clay is the only reality about it furnish the argument that modifications are merely an effort of speech to establish brahman the one without a second what does this mean you find that in the sixth chapter of the chandragyopanisha basically what it means is this the father told the son did your teachers teach you that by knowing which everything is known um by one knowledge you know everything the immediate reaction is how can we know everything by one knowledge by knowing botany i know all about plants but i don't know about animals i don't know about the stars and the planets by knowing astronomy you know about the stars and the planets but you don't know about particles in particle physics who was that even when you know it's the very nature of knowledge is is it's um thompson he got the nobel prize somebody was giving a talk about the constant flux in which science finds itself so thompson in the i think cavendish laboratory in cambridge where they discovered the electron right there's this i don't know it's cambridge or oxford they showed me a little lane uh a very narrow lane where they said that the modern world was established was was is founded on the discoveries made here swami the first was a lab where they discovered the electron so all our electricity and all of that is based on that and then there was this pub um i think it's called the eagle where watson and crick they talked about the dna the double helix structure and then one more where i think something which talks about uh the semicon our whole information technology anyway three discoveries each of them leading to nobel prizes which is the our whole world is based modern world is based on these discoveries now where was this is it cambridge or oxford i think it's oxford cambridge cambridge cambridge yes cambridge yes it's a very narrow lane you can't even take a car inside it it's and it's all within walking distance yes and so somebody was saying in a talk they discovered uh professor thompson there he discovered the electron he got the nobel prize for it 20 or 25 years later his son made a discovery that the electron is um you know his father had discovered electron is a particle his son discovered that electron is a is a wave it's not a particle and he got the nobel prize for it and then i think it was uh schrodinger who said that it's a vehicle and he got the nobel prize for it and then heisenberg before that actually he had said we do not know exactly what the electron is and he got the nobel prize for it so um but the arguments in favor of what you are trying to establish so argument is like this do you know that knowledge by which everything is known our immediate reaction is what could be that knowledge by which everything is known you know one branch of knowledge you don't know anything else you know only that so he gives an argument here just as going by knowing a lump of clay you know everything made of that clay in the sense what would you know that it is clay alone from a lump of clay you make the potter can make a wide variety of pots pottery different designs and all but you know one thing if it is made of that lump of clay you know for sure it is only clear not nothing else but clay all the forms and names are just that their names and forms they have no substantial reality whatever pot is made out of fit pottery is made out of it you touch it you'll be touching the clay you weigh it you'll be weighing the clay so the reality is that that what is what the potter does is give a shape to it uh a form and a function to it so the foundational reality remains the same and that's the argument there is one foundational reality and the entire universe is nothing other than that and that that foundational reality is existence so everything else sat sat means pure being everything else is nothing other than that it is just name form and function so if you know that sat you know the reality of this entire universe you know that that pure being that infinite absolute being didn't know everything because nothing in this universe can be different from that being i was reading uh high diggers introduction to metaphysics and he says so heidegger was is the one western philosopher in in modern times who has gone back to the greatest of questions the question of existence itself and he says very nice analysis he says he says this question of existence is the greatest of all questions how he says it is the first of all questions and he says it is the widest of all questions and it is the most profound of all questions so first because before existence there is other than existence before existence there's nothing you have to start with existence itself uh why just because it includes everything what could be outside existence only non-existence could be outside existence and non-existence does not exist so it the question of existence includes everything and then he says the most profound of questions what is a profound question a question which questions itself so when you are questioning the nature of existence that question itself is an existing thing so it's questioning itself it's self-reflexive so because of these reasons he says high ticket says this is the greatest of questions that what is existence and the argument here is just like a lump of clay you make thoughts out of it um the parts are nothing but but that clay similarly the entire universe if you would know existence what existence is you would know the entire universe by the no by this one knowledge everything is known you ask would you know the different kinds of names and forms and functions no that is the province the providence of maya but one thing would be sure you would know it is brahman only it is that one existence only yeah so that's an argument and by that argument what do what do you get what we get is that this whole section is about brahman is about the absolute existence um okay i think we'll stop here and take a look at the activity in the chat so today we saw what is shavana sravana is the systematically studying the text in order to extract its meaning what is a system the system has uh six components uh upakram opa sanghara beginning and end first repetition third is uh is palam result what do you get out of it fourth is uniqueness what is the unique message of this section fifth is the praise what is what is being praised here what is being advertised here and finally upapatti what is being argued for here with these six we can extract the meaning from a text all right let's quickly look at uh rick says haven't many enlightened people continue to do shravana mananananandhyasana yes but not to get enlightened you're right they continue to hear reflect and meditate but not to get enlightened you mentioned the buddha and others meditating all the lights correct so it could be as as an example setting an example to others that this is what you need to do or it could just be you know after enlightenment the body mind continue in the mode which they are most accustomed to so you would never find an enlightened person saying all right that's done enlightenment i've ticked the box now i'm going to go back to my job in wall street or just something else let me go ahead in life and do something uh you know which i'm not not done yet no once you you have attained that you stay with it not forgetting anything more you've already got it but that becomes your mode of life and of course it has a secondary function as a teacher as a person who stands as a beckon as a demonstration to others patrick says how does an object arise and disappear in consciousness through names and forms how does a pot arise and disappear in clay how does a wave arise and disappear in water krishnamurti says sravana manana nidhiddhasana are meant to make us realize that the universe is a projection of that which i am correct also for someone who is still on the grip of ahamkara bhakti yoga teaches us to practice ishwara alone exists i do not not quite advaitha tells us that the implied meaning behind both of these statements are the same that tumasi however as both bhakti yoga and ghana yoga go in parallel how are these two reconciled in practice day to day all right so bhakti yoga does not teach you that you do not exist that would be disastrous but yoga teaches you that god exists and you are the devotee of god so the lord is my master i am the servant the lord is my father or mother and i am the child the lord is my friend and so on these are the attitudes that if i don't exist then there is no point i do exist and i have a relationship with god and that is very helpful in spiritual practice until we get we are ready to claim i am brahmana we still remain in the dualistic mode of i am a jiva i am a i'm an individual sentient being and so i have a relationship with the absolute that relationship is my relationship with god even after you are ready to claim that i am one with god i am one with god is is only from the ultimate perspective from the personal you know the even after enlightenment the body continues because of past karma the mind will also continue at least for this lifetime and so in case of many enlightened beings their continued existence is often the existence of a bhakta of a devotee not compulsorily so sriram krishna puts it beautifully the even after enlightenment the ego comes back the eye comes back it floats back again just like the body comes back into our awareness of the mind comes back the ego also will function now what do you do with that ego so it can continue in two ways he says one way is the way of the devotee where it says i am the servant the lord is my master though i know i am one with the lord like hanuman says as atman as pure consciousness i am one with you or rama but as hanuman i am the servant tawat my master so that can continue or the ego can continue to say i am the nature of pure consciousness pure being that is also this the you know the state of a jivan mukta this discussion we have had in the three meanings of the use of i what does i mean i for an unenlightened person an i for an enlightened person so i for an enlightened person is i am this person this body mind that's it but i for an enlightened person has two meanings one is i am brahmana in the ultimate sense and it ultimate means not later on right now and the secondary sense of i would be i am this person whom you might consider enlightened but i am this person and from that secondary sense the enlightened person can still relate to god as as a devotee i am the devotee the lord is my master yeah so until that point my relationship with god continues as devotee and god would also teach any topic once and the students were not allowed to take any notes i didn't read that but yeah that sounds in quite in character with him he was a very tough teacher and you got to you were given the privilege of attending classes that was there were two classes in a day and you had obviously you had to be a monk only monks were allowed and you had to find your own hut or your your cave to stay in and you had to beg for your own food and so these are the rules and um what else um yeah you you couldn't hang around after the classes to ask questions so one one student a monk after the class he was waiting to ask some further questions to tapo and swami he asked the question swami said oh brahmacari novice go back to your ahat and mananam the second stage don't ask questions think about it srinivas asks what is the difference between needed which is a spiritual practice pre-realization and staying with the post realization to purify the mind as we said needed dihasana is meant for overcoming the contrary tendencies of the mind see what happens is by the teaching you get the knowledge i am brahmana and nidhihasana is something that enables you to manifest that knowledge in your day-to-day life otherwise it remains sort of you know like firewalled in a kind of understanding but you can't live it and until you live it you cannot be said to be fully realized a fully realized person is called jivan mukta so nidhyasana helps you to become a jeevan mukhtar and that can continue after the initial breakthrough so you're asking post realization so that can continue after the initial breakthrough the initial breakthrough is i am brahman that happens how do you know the initial it's a breakthrough it will never go away i've heard people saying oh i've had multiple spiritual experiences i've felt oneness with the world and it has come it has gone if it has come and gone in vedanta you'll be asked the question to whom has it come and gone that one to whom this realization has come and gone this spiritual experience has come and gone is that one does that one come and go no so you are that not the particular feeling mystical feeling which you got at one particular time if it has come and gone that's the mystical experience but in vedanta we are talking about the one who is having that experience or one who is in whose light that experience arises um yeah so that is the breakthrough after that breakthrough one should stay with it and you see that in the lives of great teachers like ramana maharshi sriram krishna day after day week after week so they remain absorbed in samadhi so that overcomes every vestige of you know that that individuality which was there earlier sravani says pranam maharaja from a question from a previous class the final stages of jatwa masih analysis using implied meaning we remove the differences in tut and tum that's caused by mayan avidya respectively since both are unreal and false correct before enlightenment we haven't realized that these are false then on what basis are we calling maya and avidya false is it better based on authorities and shruti no it's based on an understanding of the shruti see you have not realized means what when you are studying it the upanishad all the vedanta texts are enabling you to see how the upadhis the limiting adjuncts are false or appearances um i in my dream i am running through a forest being chased by a tiger or something like that you know or i'm running to catch a subway to a more more realistic example in manhattan i'm running to catch a subway train i'm just going to miss it just now now when i wake up i realized that it's perfectly all right there is no subway there it was a dream and there was no train and i was not late now all of that is an appearance notice i was there in that dream too but all the circumstances of the dream were appearances now the arguments will be given in advaita vedanta will go to show in the waking world also from the perspective of consciousness how do these things this body and this mind and this world how do they limit consciousness they don't limit consciousness they are in consciousness consciousness is not limited in a body or a mind a body mind appears in consciousness and these arguments are meant to demonstrate to us the falsity of these limiting adjuncts so we are supposed to grasp it not take it on authority if you take it on authority the world is false won't work for you you must come to see that that maya and its products are illusions or appearances the clearly appearance is in consciousness is it not is does that have to be argued you just see everything in this world including your body including the mind are they not appearances in awareness do you need to be you know you have to believe in it or do you you can just see it it's a fact right now another argument from the perspective of existence just like clay and the pots if you look at existence as a clay then is it not true that everything in this universe which you are experiencing are just names and forms imposed on existence then girish says advaita buddhism or sankhya for that matter models of reality correct conceived by the human cognition of evaharic domain correct isn't it possible that with onset of an enlightenment even one may realize that reality is quite different from these models yes and no the moment it's a good question i'll talk about it this sunday actually the question is that before enlightenment we are studying these models after enlightenment are these models falsified two things will happen one is you are set free from the models you can happily move between the models once you make the breakthrough from that perspective you see the different models and you see their interplay you see their advantages and disadvantages you see their pedagogical value their instructional value because they help others to understand what you have got but are they wrong they are not wrong this is again something that vidyaranya discusses indirect knowledge like the knowledge that you get gained by studying vedanta this indirect knowledge of parochial ghana is it wrong knowledge after becoming enlightened do you see that this is wrong no it's not wrong why is it not wrong because he says because it is not falsified see i am the body mind after becoming enlightened i realize what i thought earlier was wrong it is falsified but if i read i am brahmana or there is some brahman after becoming enlightened will that knowledge be wrong no it will just be confirmed so these models are confirmed after enlightenment none of these models will be falsified after enlightenment can you see this entire what you what you are beginning to see now can you see this entire thing as a play of consciousness and matter yes why not can you go a step further and see all of that matter as appearing in consciousness yes why not can you give overwhelming importance to the consciousness aspect of it so that the appearance nature becomes dwindles to nothing to inconsequentiality yes why not you go to extreme non-dualism it works um yeah so you'll also see that the relative advantages and disadvantages of the models you will see that sankhya is a sort of limiting instance of advaita for example advaita would be a wider model and sankhya would be a more narrower perspective um alpana says what in the subtle body decides or knows it is time to leave uh not in the subtle body leave means leave the body you mean aft at death so it is our karma so when the physical body dies the physical body dies because karma is finished the karma is finished for that particular body then the subtle body will transmigrate it will go on to other bodies other locals propelled by past karma only for the unenlightened then rick has given us a link to yes cambridge history trinity college jj thompson was a cavendish laboratory who discovered the electron in 1897 but i think he got the nobel prize a few years later after that good so we have seen what is shavana the six components of systematically studying vedanta [Music] namaste [Music]