Video 37

37. Vedantasara | Texts 220-227 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] i take refuge in the self the indivisible the existence consciousness bliss absolute beyond the reach of words and thought and the substratum of all for the attainment of my cherished desire so we are towards the end of the book where we are discussing the result of all of this that is uh twofold jivan mukti vide mukti which means liberated while in this body while living in this life you're free liberated enlightened and therefore free and after the passing of this body you are the bodyless liberation final liberation so we are discussing what is an enlightened person like and we were told that if the person is immersed in samadhi of course the person will not be aware of the enlightened one will not be aware of the world but when the interesting thing happens is that when the person comes out of samadhi what what happens does that person experience the world like we do and the answer is yes and no yes just like we see things here smell taste touch so does the enlightened person because all these sense organs are present and the objects manifest themselves just as we have thoughts and feelings so does the enlightened person just as we experience pain and suffering so does the enlightened person but with this very crucial difference is that the enlightened one sees the reality sees through all of these experiences to the underlying reality that it is one existence consciousness bliss which i am i am that and therefore from that perspective the entire world is an appearance appearance of what appearance of brahman are from the enlightened person's perspective my appearance not even one bit different from me so this is the state of the enlightened one you see always there is this little doubt about do the you know does the buddha or the vivekananda or rama namashi do they see things the way we see it do they hear sounds do they think or they're always immersed in some kind of light or something like that so he says no just like us and yet not like us yet utterly unlike us uh text number 220 i'm reading text number 220 talking about this issue how does the enlightened one experience this world and how is it different from the rest of us very much like the rest of us and yet very different from the rest of us how text number 220. it's a quotation from an upanishad i don't know which upanishad um another quotation this is a quotation from upadesha which is one of the works of shankaracharya shankaracharya himself can compose this um translation witness such shruti passages as though he has ears he is as one without i though he has eyes that he's as one without eyes though possessed of ears he is as one without ears etc it has been further said he who does not see anything in the waking state as in sound sleep who though seeing duality does not really see it as he sees only the absolute who though engaged in work is really inactive he and none else none other is the nord of the self this is the truth but it's a paradoxical statement even while awake does not see anything as rest of us we see nothing in deep sleep what is that like so that if we just say that much it might be misleading we might think that that person is some maybe immersed in some extraordinary experience of the absolute reality but then immediately after that he says though seeing duality those seeing duality actually seeing duality means so when the person is awake enlightened one is awake he sees he hears he smells tastes and touches so srirama krishna he recognizes the difference between latu and naren he recognizes which is the temple of shiva and which is the temple of the divine mother he recognizes which is kichodi and which is luchi in the food so all of these differences he sees and he definitely recognizes that he remembers his native tongue bengali he he likes his likes and dislikes are still the same he likes the sweet jalebi and so on so all of those those characteristics which were there before enlightenment they seem to continue after enlightenment now truly speaking is he seeing anything at all people and objects and no because truly speaking from the perspective of his knowledge his knowledge is this is one non-dual reality he might choose to call it the divine mother it is actually all the divine mother the play of the divine mother this is the perspective which we do not have but the enlightened person has and that makes all the difference you see it's like watching a movie suppose a tragedy now suppose when someone does not know that it is a movie and sees everything else everything else in the tragedy and so one beeps one gets totally absorbed in it but one vital fact about the whole thing is that it's a movie that's what saves us from being devastated by the tragedy you see in a movie if you did not know that one vital fact about the movie that it is a movie it's not ultimately real then imagine how what your experience would be one movie in which so many extraordinary tragedies the hero suffers if we were to immerse ourselves in that without any chance of escape we would be we would be devastated we would be broken down that's what's happening to us in life the enlightened person sees exactly the same movie the only difference is the enlightened person knows it's a movie and the enlightened person knows the underlying reality the screen is he's the only one reality and that is forever beyond suffering that is forever secure you're forever free so imagine the peace and the serenity and the calmness with which now the enlightened one can watch the movie as a movie and enjoy it whereas the rest of us for us it becomes a nightmare so just like in deep sleep even in the waking state who does not see and immediately contradicts it does not see duality although he sees duality now how can you not see duality while seeing duality it seems an outright contradiction and he gives the answer because of non-duality what does that mean it means that you can see the waves in the ocean and if you try to count the waves you might count ten thousand waves in it but if you say water one reality now how many are there will you say ten thousand and one ten thousand waves and one reality water no there is only one that is water once you count water then you cannot count the waves as apart from water that will be double counting because it is all of them are water this is advaith that means from the perspective of non-duality see even as we see 10 000 waves we actually are seeing 10 000 waves in various states moving around interacting rising falling we can truthfully claim there are not ten thousand from the perspective of water there is only one similarly from the perspective of the absolute reality there is only one in our dreams can we not honestly say after waking up you know i went on this african safari and they were my friends and we went on a tour and we saw lions and zebra and trees and the savannah and the hot sky african sky and the sun and yet in the midst of all this tremendous variety can i not honestly claim there was only one thing there actually i the dreamer my mind basically that's what became all of that that's what appeared as all of that that's the dream and it's an example which god upon the uses to great effect in the second chapter of the manduka karika the uh baiter but here if you see that's a dream you apply it in our case you the awareness which is your real self there is only one thing that is you the awareness everything else is appearing in that everything there is no everything else that alone is you alone are you appear as everything when you are experiencing the world when you are experiencing the world out there uh you're just seeing your own glory you're seeing your face when you're not experiencing anything when the mind is in deep sleep or the mind is in samadhi then you are just established in your own glory you are not it's like sometimes you look at your face in the mirror sometimes you don't your face remains the same when you look at your face in the mirror that's experiencing the world you're just looking at yourself and i'm speaking entirely from the perspective of the enlightened one not from our perspective from our perspective what happens is i am this person and everything else is separate from me you are all there are 70 people here and we are all separate from each other we are located in different places the different times um we have all different personal histories and there is the world surrounding us in our communities our nations and all and this universe physical universe with a 6 billion year history or something like that all of that and that's our perspective the enlightened ones perspective is that i the existence consciousness place i am now appearing as all of this it's like looking at my own face in the mirror and when the enlightened one is in samadhi then none of this appears an enlightened one just knows i am existence consciousness place it's i remain as that does not even think that remains as that so that's the enlightened ones enlightened one's perspective not only is experiencing doing tata kuruwan na pinish kriya even while tremendously active with the body and mind the enlightened one knows that i do not actually do anything pure consciousness what does it do even if you look at the dream example of going to the african safari after waking up will you say you will say i dreamt it all but did you say that will you ever say that i went to africa and i went on the safari you did not just as the dreamer's mind did not go to africa and under safari although the whole thing was experienced and imagined similarly pure consciousness does not do anything although in the world of appearance through the body and mind a lot of action may be done enormous amount of action can be done feeling that i do nothing while doing everything so atmobit such a one is the knower of the self is the enlightened one nanya not anyone anybody else it is this conviction this clarity this is knowledge so what is the personality like after enlightenment two questions basically uh what does this person become after enlightenment what will this person do after enlightenment that's one general question a more specific question will be can this person do anything wrong so that question also will be taken up now text number 222 so these are very interesting thing you know insights which clarify our questions about this about the about the nature of the enlightened one in the case of such a liberated soul only good desires persist as do his habits of eating moving etc which existed before the dawn of knowledge or he may become indifferent to all good and evil so the person's body will continue at least continue to appear from our perfect perspective it will just continue and if the body is continuing the sense organs are also continuing and if the senses are continuing the person also can see hear smell taste touch and the mind will continue if the mind is continuing then the personality also will continue after enlightenment sri ramakrishna still has the personality of a priest a poor priest in the kali temple of dakshineshwar coming from a remote rural area of bengal after enlightenment narendranat vivekananda has the personality of a young college boy in calcutta it's not that they become the same the personalities are still very different the way of talking the likes and dislikes those things continue because that's been conditioned into the mind then the bad things also will continue no there's no question of the bad uh or evil tendencies continuing because those have long ago been overcome what continues is the the mind the personality of a sadaka the person who has been doing spiritual practices for a long time but suppose there are those tendencies it's unlikely because if the person has become enlightened imagine the amount of discipline and practice the person has gone through the knowledge itself will not arise if the personality is basically immoral or unethical so the very fact that the knowledge has arisen enlightenment is there it means what continues are the all the good qualities the virtues which have been cultivated with great effort over maybe many lifetimes those will continue and the person will continue to be like that or a person may become completely indifferent to both good and bad either the good will continue or become completely indifferent to good and bad that means the person may simply become remain immersed in samadhi or stay in a mountain cave just no manifestation of no evil manifestation of course but no manifestation of any specific you know wonderful qualities towards others they completely completely become indifferent swami gambhira ranji says basically the idea is there is no rule for an enlightened one you cannot mandate that after enlightenment the person has to go around starting schools and hospitals and kovid test sites and you know fundraising and protecting the environment no you cannot even mandate that the person will go around teaching vedanta no may not may not do that may do it may not do it often they do out of compassion for others they're engaged in all kinds of activities including spiritual teaching imparting spiritual knowledge or they might not and you cannot blame them if you cannot say they are not enlightened if they don't do that because there is no rule for the enlightened one so i mean gambhiranji says in one of his very perceptive essays that the enlightened one the g1 mukta can be of three types three types jivan mukta depending upon the samskaras of the past one type is the person realizing the utter falsity of the appearance and the reality of brahman decides to remain immersed in that immersed in that what in what sense in the sense of samadhi might remain very meditative in drawn occasionally going into samathi and external activity might be minimal almost non-existent such saints have been there say for example someone like totapuri so very little activity on the outside of course he did teach a little bit but um nothing more than that that's one kind see this is exactly what narendranath wanted to do do you remember the story when he got first got nirvikalpa samadhi and then sriracha so now what do you want and he said well i want to remain like this once in a while i might come down for a snack for a little bit of food and then go back into nirvikalpa samadhi srirama krishna of course scolded him he said that fight on you i thought you would be like a great banyan tree under whose shade thousands of people you know in the years to come will find shade and shelter and here you are thinking only about your own liberation why are you now that fire on you thank god he said that that's why we are all beneficiaries today the whole world is the beneficiary but what narendra nath was asking is perfectly all right from the perspective of classical advaita verranta there may there is a class class of liberated ones who may choose to remain in samadhi that's the first time the first time what srinamar krishna asked narendra not to become is the third type we will come to that in between there is the second type the second type is one who realizes the falsity of the world who realizes that i am brahman but yet the world appears like a magic show to such a person there's the example of the sadhu there's an enlightened one living in a little hut sriram krishna gave this example once in a while he would rush out of the hut look at the temple and the clouds in the sky and the river and shout wow wow wonderful wonderful what what a show and then go back into the hut again now for him this entire universe and all of life is an amazing appearance of the absolute it's extraordinary how one uniform being consciousness place can appear one existence can appear as multiple billions of entities one unchanging absolute being can appear as continuously changing birth and death creation and destruction from the tiniest scale to the universe that one consciousness can appear as millions of non-conscious entities objects you know how the pure subject can appear as objects how bliss itself can be transformed and appear as the struggle for uh happiness and the struggle to overcome sorrow this entire panorama of samsara what a show the greatest show on our not i can't secretary on earth earth is a part of it the universe is a part of it so it's a great show and this person is amazed and delighted by it so they are often the childlike saints who are in great joy and delight or they may be the crazy persons of god every spiritual tradition has it they may appear to be totally mad from our perspective they are mad but they are mad with god with bliss and this they are far more wise than we are but from our perspective they may appear to be mad there was this uh crazy person who came to dakshin ishwar when sudama krishna was there and people thought he was mad even dirty and matted hair and he goes to the temple of divine mother and then chants him in melee sanskrit and it says as if the entire temple shook with the power of the chanting now sriram krishna pointed him out as an enlightened being but who was mad and suramar krishna's attendant and nephew wanted to get some spiritual instruction from this liberated one so he chased this person a person was leaving the dakshineshwar changed and this yogi threw stones to dissuade him but he they pursued persisted and finally and asked for some instruction finally the this enlightened one told him when the ditch water there was a ditch there when the ditch water and the water in the ganga they seem to be they you realize they are the same reality you will know the truth what it means from an advertising perspective we understand ditch water is also not ditch water ganga what is also not ganga water both are appearances in one reality which is existence consciousness place but if you not just say it but you really see it that way um so that's the second category of jeevan mukhtar who are enlightened fully enlightened but they see the world the universe as as an amazement as a wonder as a magic show and they are lost in the wonder of it or the bliss of it um they often pass into ecstasies now then the third category is what srirama krishna advised so this is the one who is fully enlightened and looks at the world and sees us sentient beings and his or her her heart melts in sorrow for us in compassion for us he realized that we are none other than him but we do not know the truth and we are suffering in samsara and we are seeking what he has so he wants to give us that that realization he wants to take us where he is to give us that enlightenment and so he turns towards us in compassion and teaches so the spiritual teaching might be there and it can go further not just spiritual teaching to remove suffering ultimately but many of us we are suffering we are not really looking for spiritual teachings we we are suffering in many levels in samsara and the enlightened one this one whose heart melts in compassion will try to remove sufferings at every level so might even give food to the hungry and nurse the sick and give secular knowledge to the illiterate and the ignorant and of course spiritual knowledge to those who are seeking it this is the third category of the given mukta it is somewhat similar to the mahayana buddhist ideal of the bodhisattva who takes a vow to liberate all beings my mission in life can be put in a few words it is it is to preach unto all humanity their inherent divinity and how to make it manifest in every movement of life very beautiful stirring words this is the third kind of jivan mukta um so the point here which is made here is the g1 mukta may be entirely may be very active or may not be all are from the perspective of enlightenment they are all enlightened this avatar sri ramakrishna there is a distinct favoring of the third kind of jivan mukta so even when we are not jivan muktas yet the whole teaching of the ramakrishna order is oriented towards that that for the welfare for your own enlightenment and the welfare of all for your own enlightenment and the welfare of all is which kind of jivan mukta the third kind but from the perspective of the philosophy all three are enlightened this uh difference sudama krishna gives with another nice example he says there is one kind of enlightened one who is like the man who eats a mango delicious mango and then quickly wipes his mouth so nobody knows this person is enlightened that's it his or her own goal is fulfilled that person is enlightened and free and there's another one who finds the mango and it's delicious and immediately invites the neighborhood to partake in the joys and the festivities so that's the third kind so that's why here it is said may go on acting on the impulse of the good qualities of the mind which have been inculcated throughout the period of spiritual practice or may become shubha shubha or audacimba may become indifferent to all good and bad indifferent means completely absorbed in brahman or in the the real self now a specific question still the problem persists and there's always been this anxiety i think it shows from the most ancient times can this philosophy be misused and there's a possibility that's why this question comes up again and again once you begin to realize your real nature right now is free of good and bad cannot be killed cannot be destroyed is beyond suffering the impure mind is likely to misuse this that i can do anything um sriram krishna mentions this sadhu who was there in dakshineshwar who was a who was to talk a lot about vedanta but would tell lies sri ramakrishna scolded him you say so much you speak about vedanti you say i am brahman but why do you tell lies and listen to the answer of that monk he said oh the whole world is false why are we catching only my falsehoods and this ram krishna was so aghast that he was speechless he didn't know what to say to that no that doesn't uh you know that cannot be accepted so enlightened one can they do wrong things and there are these texts which he quotes two quotations to the specific question can a non-dualist who is enlightened be up to mischief buddha does [Music] so this is the naishkarna siddhi then another one brahmavitam this is from the uppadeshasri the two coats the first one is pretty harsh thus it has been said if a man who has known the truth of oneness acts according to his whims then where is the difference between a knower of truth and a dog as regards eating impure stuff this um refers to the classic example of a dog you know dog throws up vomits and then licks the vomit it's like that he says this is as bad when a person is enlightened who who really might say that might realize i am brahma and this world is an appearance and then again react to the world you know and try to pursue pleasure there and avoid pain there and even violate morality there then how is what you have thrown up like vomited out as it were you've given it up why are you again engaging in that then what's the difference between you and the dog on the street who throws up and licks the vomit so this is a very harsh kind of example basically how can a knower of brahman stoop to such levels and so this is a quote from a very well known advaitha text advanced text called naishkarnya siddhi they attain attainment of actionlessness or beyond action this was written by sureshwaracharya one of the greatest disciples of direct disciples of shankaracharya was a very great scholar there's a little bit of controversy about this but more or less the tradition is that before becoming a monk he was mandan mishra a great scholar of purva memsa the ritualistic portion of the vedas and he was always engaged in vedic ritualism and the story goes that shankaracharya wanted to prove the the primacy that the ultimate teaching of the vedas is the upanishads which which teach knowledge not ritualistic action not yagya but knowledge which leads to liberation ritualistic action was meant to keep you in this wheel of samsara just from a difficult life to a very pleasant life in this life and when you go to heaven after death then you stay there for some time and that merit gets exhausted the merit of the ritualistic actions gets exhausted you come back to this world so uh samsara but a kind of elevated kind of samsara that was the goal of the ritualism the ritualistic portion of the vedas and the opening should say that there is an there is a limit to that you cannot be satisfied by that you must come out of that and attain liberation enlightenment so this was the difference between the two philosophies and therefore shankaracharya who gave importance to the upanishads and god realization enlightenment he came in clash with the purum suckers and one big difference between the two schools was the on the purva bhi mam sakkas they said it was religion is entirely a householder affair that means you will remain in householder life perform the duties of householder life and perform vedic rituals which requires you to be married and monasticism was either forbidden or looked down upon becoming a monk whereas shankaracharya you know he promoted monasticism to the highest position because nasty system of becoming a monk is meant for becoming enlightened so when they came in contact shankaracharya went to him to debate so that if he could can defeat mandana mishra in a debate then his position would be established the position of of vedanta as against the position of the ritualists and this is a very interesting story of how he goes there and he challenges bandung mishra to a debate and a long debate ensures you know this fierce debate and mundane mister's wife uber bharati is the judge she was such a learned and wise lady she's a judge and the conditions are very difficult the conditions of the debate are if shankaracharya said shankaracharya said if i win then you will have to give up your householder life and become a monk and follow me because you have to accept my philosophy in in total so that's so she is judging a debate in which her if her husband loses her husband will leave her and go away and become a monk and the opposite was the the mandana mishra said fine but if you lose the debate then you have to give up your monastic life and give up all that nonsense and marry and become a proper ritualist uh lead the householder life so in the end uber bharati decides in favor of shankaracharya that he is right and as the conditions you know condition terms and conditions apply so uh her husband had to leave her on a household life and become a monk and the story goes he's the one who became sure one the one of the senior most and most learned among shankaracharya's disciples and he composed some wonderful commentaries sub commentaries on shankara's commentaries so shankaracharya composed commentaries on the upanishads and the brahma-sutra and the bhagavad-gita and sureshwaracharya's commentary subcommentary on shankaracharya's commentary they are known as warthika shankaracharya's commentaries are bhashya the major commentary and commentaries are subcommentaries called what tikka there's a definition of the vartika what is so whatever has been said by the commentator shankaracharya you have to explain that whatever has not been said by the commentator you have to fill in those gaps and whatever has been said in a difficult way by the commentator you have to make that easy and that's your job as the vatican another extra problem with the vertica is that form is that it's all inverse so you have to write it all in poetry in verse so in advaita vedanta tradition shankaracharya is known as bhashyakara the great commentator and sureshwaracharya is known as vatikakara the great subcommentator so if you just hear monks talking about the commentator says this they mean shankaracharya this means to talk about the wartikakara says this they mean sure sure wrote a subcommentary on shankaracharya's commentary on the taitheri upanishad on shankaracharya's famously shankaracharya's commentary on the brihadarn upanishad so the brethren upanishad which is the largest of the upanishads shankaracharya's commentary is extensive and the vartika of shureshwaracharya is massive i have seen a condensation of that made by a later master which says in modern times later means still 600 years ago um by vidyary actually he says in modern times that means his time 600 years ago people are used to a fast life and they are not ready to read read such massive books like the vertical of suresh for acharya so he's talking about something 600 years ago now if he lived in the age of sound bites and twitter i think you're limited to 26 characters so so he he says for their sake to make things easy i am compressing i am uh summarizing the uh commentary of the subcommittee of suresh for acharya and this the summary itself was more than a thousand pages so that was the book and sureshwaracharya has written another vertical on the dakshina murtis and uh independent work nishkar nya siddhi so from which this is being quoted and if all of this was to tell you something about the book itself from which this rather harsh comment is being quoted another comment this is from shankaracharya's own independent work upadesha sahasri brahmavitam tata let alone doing wrong things let alone being arrogant or you know nasty or whatever let alone that's unthinkable even the the ego of being a knower of brahman i am enlightened until one gives that up and goes beyond that one is not enlightened so to that extent one must give up all identification with this personality at the very least i can say i am at least enlightened give me that much at least no in that case you aren't enlightened this is from the canaan upanishad itself those who say that i know it as this they do not know it and those who say it cannot be known as this this specific this kind of you know like a conception they know it it is known to those who say they do not know it it is unknown to those who say they know it so on the authority of that the one who says i am a knower of ramana so i like that quote from this which makes it very clear when somebody says you are a knower of brahman he says no you're insulting me how is no being knower of brahman an insult he says no i am not a knower of brahman i am brahman noah brahman would mean something other than brahman no that's not possible i am rahman all the good qualities persist 224. [Music] after realization humility and other attributes which are steps to the attainment of knowledge as also such virtues as non-injury etc persist like so many ornaments so here the reference is 13 chapter of bhagavad-gita sri krishna tells arjuna what are the qualities you must cultivate what are the moral qualities ethical qualities one must cultivate to be fit for enlightenment so 20 qualities has enumerated so it's a long and difficult list it starts with the first verse is in that list [Music] lack of pride or arrogance lack of it's it's a variation of that um a lack of actually that means lack of arrogance overcoming arrogance becoming humble humility basically aims are non-violence kranti forgiveness of people committing wrongs to you then arjun straight forwardness simplicity straightforwardness sriram krishna valued this very much he says that in one's last life one becomes simple and there's no crookedness left in the character vivekananda said what's the ideal personality he says combine childlike simplicity with utmost seriousness combine childlike simplicity with utmost seriousness and he was the best example of that one american lady who was his uh you know who played the host while he was here she says he reminded me of nothing more than a a great big boy like a five-year-old boy where you would feel afraid for him as he goes out into the world is as simple as a child but it combined it with utmost seriousness that's our problem we our character our characters are just the opposite we combine uh a very complicated nature with superficiality our lives thoughts activities are superficial on the surface and inside we tend to be complicated you know i have complexes have in bengali they say encode bonkers crooked edges so which you need to be polished up that's what life does all the knocks and blows we get in life basically matures us we call it maturity but that's just polishing up the inner crookedness and makes a simple people might think oh if i'm simple people will take advantage of me they might but in general they won't and there is a saying that nothing confounds the clever so much so as simplicity nothing confounds the clever as much as simplicity so he says here all these qualities which are which the enlightened one has cultivated through many years of spiritual practice these are ghana these are resources for enlightenment and other virtues like non-violence etc non-injury to others along karabakh they persist after enlightenment also you will see the enlightened one is uh very gentle is is very humble one thing everybody noticed the first thing generally people noticed about sri ramakrishna when they came to visit him was that he would salute them before they even got a chance to salute him and if they bowed down low he would bow even lower to them so it's something that he taught he practiced and taught by example humility um being respectful of everybody o passanam respect and service to the guru the spiritual master that will also persist it's not like after enlightenment ah i'm enlightened now i don't need the guru anymore i'm going to give him a piece of my mind no that will not that will not happen you that same respect will continue you'll have deep respect for the guru that kabhi dasa's song is there guru govind that means guru and krishna both appeared to me at the same time to whom will i bow down of course we'll bow down to both the spiritual master and god both appear to me at the same time whom will i bow down to first and then the conclusion is i will bow down to the guru first because it's only through the guru that i got the vision of god then he goes on it is said thus it has been said such qualities as non-violence etc come spontaneously to a man who has got self-knowledge they have not to be sought after so these qualities which before enlightenment we practiced we struggled we refined after enlightenment they persist but they're very natural um so it's just an expression of the enlightened person's enlightenment he says this person is not practicing an ethical lifestyle in order to become enlightened already the person is enlightened but is is ethical is truthful is br is courageous uh is patient uh is unselfish why because that's the most natural expression of his enlightenment what he has realized if he has to live it in life it would be like that you basically you become a saint so this is the life of the enlightened one as long as this body persists swain vivekananda says he no longer then how this body lives or goes its task is done let karma float it down and this is how it ends also the last part of the text says [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so what happens in the end when the body passes away in short such a man's soul remains as the illuminate of the mental states and the consciousness reflected in them experiencing solely for the maintenance of the body happiness and misery the results of past actions that have already begun to bear fruit prarabdha and have been either brought on on by his own will or by that of another or against his will after the exhaustion of the proud of the work proud the karma basically his vital force is absorbed in the supreme brahman the inward bliss and ignorance with its effects and their impressions was also destroyed when then he is identified with absolute brahman the supreme isolation the embodiment of bliss in which there is not even the appearance of duality so this is called vide mukti the final bodyless liberation already enlightened already liberated but this distinction with body and without body is from our perspective truly from the enlightened ones perspective it makes very little difference it's just when the body is there the body will appear and the world appearance also will appear to him and when the body goes the world appearance will cease to appear it'll like being permanently in samadhi kim bao nayam what more is there to say so the other is about to conclude and having completed this journey together from the very beginning till now we are at an end so what more is there to say what will go on then deja yatra marthra whatever is necessary for the continuation of the body you know that much it might be just a hermit living in a hut or a cave uh begging his daily food that's all uh so by one's own will where will that will come from from the mind which has appeared that that mind itself will have oh there is hunger in the body let me get some food anichah might not want it disease comes so even the enlightened one doesn't want disease to come to the body disease comes all right it comes there was no desire for that but it came or by the desires of others they are often childlike so what others tell them to do they do it i remember this sadhu i haven't met him but one monk told me about him in recent times maybe a few decades ago in a monastery in punjab so when the old monk passed away the one who was the head of the monastery he instead of nominating another senior monk he nominated a young monk as the head of the monastery because he said that one is enlightened and then he told the other monks to take care of him because he said he's like a child so an example of how this monkey it seems he was an extraordinary monk how he was like a child some devotee turned up from a distant town and said swami you want to come for a spin in my car i said all right let's go and he left the monastery and disappeared so they had to search for him and bring him back again so he was like that like a child whatever somebody told him it says by the will of another the other person tells him to do so another extraordinary example is shankar shankaracharya himself the uh the vamachara tantrika the practitioner of tantra the left hand side or the black arts of magic who came to him and said to shankaracharya you are enlightened and you know that you are not the body and shankaracharya of course had to say yes i'm not the one he wanted to kill shankaracharya actually so he said i need to sacrifice uh a pure sannyasi like you and to get you know like occult powers from my rituals and uh so if you are not the body you should be willing to give me the body it should be nothing to you and shankaracharya said yes that's um you can have the body if you want but just wait when the disciples are here if they know about it they'll they'll give you a beating so let them go to rest and then i'll i'll go with you so all the disciples went to rest and shankaracharya followed as if he has no particular will about this this body here is somebody who wants it let them let the person take it you can kill this body if they want so he follows luckily he was rescued his uh close disciple padma padha acharya so there is the story you know but suddenly noticed that shankaracharya is not there nearby and he wondered where he was and with his he started following the track and then he saw that any arrangements had been made for a human sacrifice from black magic you know uh to kill shankaracharya to cut off his head and so padmu padhachar is his easter devata was missing vishnu in the form of the terrible form of vishnu so suddenly god manifests in the form of the man line the terrible form of vishnu and catches hold of the tantrika and tears him apart rescuing shankaracharya so this is a very fanciful way of telling the tale it's quite possible that in the jungle the lion might have attacked the tantra kind that might have saved shankaracharya whatever the story is why did i say that yes you can take the body if you want and i don't need it childlike on the wishes of somebody else so that's how the life of this enlightened one uh goes on pleasure and pain as they are generated by his past karma which is propelling this one bod this body all the accumulated karma has been burnt away by enlightenment just this activated karma called prarabdha karma this will go on till the end of this body it is true for us it's true for the enlightened one it's just we are caught up in this body and we really feel there's no rescue for us when um pain and misery come to us but for the enlightened one he is not this body so all the pain and pleasure which come to the body they wash over the body and go and he to him it is nothing experiencing them and what does he see himself as in the midst of all of this being the illuminate the witness the conscious consciousness behind the mind and the reflected consciousness so i am the face here is the mirror here is the reflected face i am not the mirror i am not the reflected face i am this one i am very clear about it just as we know this without any doubt and we can use a mirror we can see our face in the mirror we can shave we can brush similarly the enlightened one knows i am not the body i am not even the mind the personality i'm not even the consciousness reflected in the mind i am the witness consciousness he says here illumina illumina of what karana the inner instrument mind intellect memory and ego so i am the witness of the ego also not only that i am the witness of the consciousness reflected in the ego the consciousness shining in the ego that also i am not that is the reflection reflected consciousness remaining like the sun tadavasani when all of these seeds all of these seeds means when the body seizes why will the body sees the fuel which was running the body so long the the prana the karma the past karma which determines the lifetime of each one of us we live exactly as our as much proud of the karma we have for this body then we go it could be kovade it could be an accident it could be a whatever but that's not the real cause the real cause is the prada for this body has run out so when the prada for the enlightened person's body runs out then what happens here is the difference between us and the enlightened one in our case the rest of the subtle body the physical body falls apart at the physical death but the subtle body what is the subtle body prana maya kosher mano my kosher vigya namaya the pranic system the life forces they gather up and they gather up with the powers of the senses the motor organs and the sense organs not the physical sense organs those powers the subtle body with the pranamaya kosher the sensory powers then the manomaya kosha the mind and the memory and the ego and the vigyana my kosher the intellect all of them bundled up into a seed form getting ready to depart from this body and that seed form is is the causal body the under my quotient and in that is reflected the consciousness of the witness with the reflected consciousness this subtle body causal body with the reflected consciousness is called the sentient being the jiva and at that point the jiva will feel i am dying oh my god what's happening to me and i'm dead may not think it that thing that way may again come into awareness in some other world and we'll finally come into this world back again as a baby somewhere born again so this is the this is what happens to us usually we have gone through many such lives so we do not die with the death of the physical body that will be buried or burnt or whatever and the enlightened one this is the beautiful thing that happens at that point when the physical body falls apart the subtle body and the causal body they disappeared back into brahman they the into maya basically from where they had emerged so he says the pranamay kosha the manomayakosha bigyana my kosher anunnakosha it all merges back into the consciousness within which is the supreme brahman and so there are upanishadic texts which talk about this very poetically what happens at the death of the enlightened ones the enlightened one's body and he says the the elements of the subtle body they go back to the supreme court in the case of the ordinary person they bundle up and this trans migrate forced by accumulated karmas they go to other you know the destination higher or lower heavens or hells or whatever they go on but this one will not you are the cage is broken buddha said the cage is broken he says to maya you will not weave your house of deceit again i have seen through you so the cage is broken cage basically melts back into brahman ignorance and all of its products ignorance and all its products have long been destroyed he's already enlightened he was already enlightened so there's no more ignorance on his products then what will happen the supreme isolation the supreme aloneness the supreme oneness sky volume one is that what is it like undivided bliss pure bliss akhila bheda pratibha how is that different from the enlightened one while being alive he says the difference is it is devoid of even the appearance of the universe in the case of the enlightened one who is in this body living the living enlightenment jivan mukta at least the universe is appearing to this person and this person is acting through knowing that i am brahmana but still acting through the body and the mind the personality of the uh of the enlightened one but that once that body goes and that mind also goes so all the appearance of the universe also disappears and then what nothing no existence consciousness plays infinity uh appearance of this limited appearance of the universe you're taking one perspective that goes away the undivided brahman alone remains this is where we started you remember the infinite undivided existence consciousness please that remains remains means it was always there it is there it continues to be there then he quotes from um the upanishads the enlightened ones the subtle body does not transmigrate from going from one body to another it stops right here i remember uh swami suhitanji told us about the passing of swami premesha on the jeep and you know he served swami primition and there was a disciple of the holy mother with so much devotion and so in pramishanti has said do you want something from me and one thing he had asked for was that i've seen the hospital how when people die and they try to resuscitate at that time there was no dnr i think do not resuscitate so they try to resuscitate it and um they put needles in they cut and they do these things i don't want them to do that to your body so swami primashan just said all right so that was there was something else that he asked also but this was there so that when the time came he says he told me that he used to take care of the swami who did not see in his eyes also at the end towards the end of his life he's become like a child he had to be fed so the doctor had come to check on him and this was in benaras the kashi shevashram the doctor had come to check on him early that morning and the swami was doing quite well the doctor said he is fine today he's doing much better today and the doctor got up to leave and swami suitanji was a novice at that time he said that i will just see of the doctor and went to the courtyard to see of the doctor and he came back and he started feeding the swami again and they said he didn't eat some porridge on the spoon and uh he said that that often happened he was like a child you had to coax him you know he used to say in bengali maharaja mukta khaloon akyam khan you eat a little us one spoon open your mouth he did that no reaction sitting there just like a doll and so swami sutanji said i felt a little uneasy i'm just this moment the doctor said he's fine so he kept the bowl down and he ran after the doctor who had not even left that the precincts he was still there and said doctor come back and take a look something strange is happening the doctor came back he's gone he's gone he said so sweet and she said i was amazed he said uh it's like like the ticking of a clock you know just goes tick tock and it stops nothing more now later on he said i had a doubt i thought he would such a great one maybe he would attain mahasamathi it will be like visions of god something will happen an ecstasy which we read about but in his case nothing happened it just stopped and yet he is regarded as an enlightened one in this very life so he went and asked vishwaroopan he was a great advaitha master living in that monastery at that time who has written the four volumes of the brahmasutra translations in bengali a very great master at that time so he asked this great vedanta teacher you know i have this little doubt there's no doubt he was a great swami but i was little doubt when he passed so it just stopped like a clock ticking and it stopped nothing i thought there would be ecstasy something like that and that swami became so excited what do you what are you saying is that how it happened come i will show you and then he opened upanishads and one after another he showed these references this is exactly what happens when a person is a jivan mukta already a brahmagyani so the body just stops and then nothing more is there the the person already had merged in the infinite it's just the body and the mind and the the prana these products of prakriti of nature which merge back into prakriti so brahman alone remains in brahman alone all these body and subtle body and all their merged back and subtle body and the causal body are merged back physical body goes back to physical nature subtle body goes back to subtle nature and causal body goes back to maya so you do not have an individual existence anymore you are the infinite this is another one quotation quotation from the cut open issue beautiful it says being liberated he becomes liberated what does that mean being liberated already a jivan mukta already liberated in this life becomes liberated liberated in what sense the bodyless liberation again i must emphasize from the enlightened persons perspective these are not important i am brahman that's the that's the thing it's done long ago but from our perspective these are big events and you know it's also a loss because this person is no longer available to us in a way in which we can interact we can talk and you know be in the company of this person compare such shruti passages as his sense organs do not depart elsewhere for transmigration they are absorbed in him already a liberated soul he is freed from further rebirths so before i take up the question answer let me bring an end to this book um in our monastery when we complete a text so we at the end the last class we chant jai shri guru maharaj victory to guru maharaj victory to the divine mother victory to swami vivekananda so that's how we will end and then hang around i'll take up the questions j i pray to the lord that he by whose grace we have been able to start and continue and complete this text may the knowledge embodied in this text come into our lives may it illumine our hearts and make our lives blessed [Music] so let me quickly look at the comments here in questions sandhya and rajiv say that remind bishop 254 from bhagavad-gita yes what are the qualities of the enlightened one prabhupada says there seems to a contradiction with gita 6.2 says karma yogis and sannyasis should desire should be desiredless yes you give up all desires and the enlightened one also has no desires really but it's still the sriram krishna says it's like a rope which cannot bind a burnt rope looks like a rope it cannot bind you you just blow at it and it goes up into ashes um a sword he gives example a sword which has been transformed into gold it can't cut anybody similarly so these are impressions in the mind see without these impressions there won't be a personality how can vivekananda be vivekananda without all the you know distinctive natures so vivekananda liked ice cream and sriracha like jalebi does that mean that they had great desire with the gluttons for jalebi or ice cream not at all nothing that there was nothing there that would bind them but these are these remain as the distinctive features of the personality every saint has them so some are very peaceful by nature some may be rough and scolding by nature but none of them actually bind them that's the that's the instrument which through which they are expressing themselves and then rekha khaliker says negative tendencies are overcome prior to enlightenment yes enlightenment is not possible without discleansing cleansing yes enlightenment is not possible without this cleansing purity of mind is necessary to a great extent still certain things may be left over like tothapuri is to lose his temper but you see that doesn't bind him because when sriram krishna said scolded him you know and then nobody saw today angry anymore that's the difference if there is something that they find is incongruous with their enlightenment they can get rid of it immediately but the rest of us we can't they are really part of our of our personality we can but it takes it takes a lot of hard work for us to transform this person our personality does the context of time space causation differ in dream and waking states yes the i in dream does experience having traveled to africa for safari does the ego and dream differ from the waking ego yes all mandukka the ego in the dream is what thai jason ego in the waking is what vishwa the waker and the dreamer i call them the waker and the dreamer two different egos because they are associated with different bodies different times space different experiences and yet in and through all of them who are you because it's it's not a not that there are three persons in you one waker one dreamer one deep sleeper they're all you so if you get rid of the subject and the object in each state the knower and the known pramata pramaya the waker and the waker's universe the dreamer in the dream universe the deep sleeper and the potential universe of deep sleep other than that who are you that's the tudya rodrigo says one thing described it is that they are light as if gravity will have no power over them it's described in the yoga sutras alpana says is it that in normal state of the enlightened the person stops using the mind but can use it while dealing with the world that is true they use it like an instrument just because you have a pen does not mean you'll keep writing just because i have a hand doesn't mean it'll keep grabbing things but on your mind but it keeps keeps thinking keeps chattering most of it is useless it's keep chattering away and we think we cannot be silenced it can be silenced it should be silent when it is needed it will be used i know i remember this story about ramana maharshi he was as usual sitting in deep silence quiet somebody asked what is the maharishi thinking in ramana maharshi did not say anything somebody else replied tamar is not thinking anything rama ramashi smiled to show that yes it is true that i am the witness consciousness reflected in the mind as reflected consciousness why does the mind have to keep churning away in our case it keeps churning away because of two reasons one of course is lack of practice because we are not meditative second deeper reason because our we feel our very existence is connected with the mind the mind is not there i am not there so of course the mind has to keep on doing this or that that's not true anuraga says you gave examples of all the monks please give some for the householders they're all the examples of life to householders or monks these are people i have come into contact with or stories i've heard from other monks obviously they give examples of other monks but it's true of householders also if you see the example of girish or you know especially nagmahasha many wonderful householder disciples they attained exactly the same realization as the monastic disciples swami prabhavananraji who founded the vedanta society of southern california so when he was going to come to the u.s he was being sent to america um he went to meet master mahashaya m now m he was pravanji was young just you know like a a young monk and m was so senior he was the writer of the gospel a closed disciple of sri ramakrishna and most of these young men had become monks they were attracted by the gospel of krishna by m and m encouraged these young men to become monks but when they did become monks all these young men who had tremendous reverence for him because he was a sage those monks who had tremendous reverence for him he would never allow them to salute him to bow down to him because they have become monks now prabhavanji when he was being sent to the united states he had made up his mind he was going to touch m's feet because but m won't let him because he's a monk so what he did was he went and told him that i am now being sent sent away to the west and so i have come to seek for your blessings and m of course would say that it is krishna who gives blessings so you please sit and pray to sri ramakrishna to bless me so m being with the simple person he was he sat down in meditation and went into deep meditation and quickly prabhuanji touched his feet why did i say that yes these are people who are fully enlightened just because they are householders and because of reasons that you know they are to show respect to the monks that's why he didn't but but prabhavanji and others did they knew that m and the other householder disciples were no less than their monastic gurus the direct disciples of krishna and rajiv says so the third category of jivan mukti is the same as brahmi all of them are brahmi city first category second category third category all are brahma's city brahmiti means being centered in brahman that's what i was trying to say you should not say that one person is a great master and is teaching so many thousands the other person just sits in a cave who knows what he is uh so maybe that person is not fully enlightened not necessarily the person may be fully enlightened also you cannot make a rule about it what are the duties of the enlightened one the answer there are no duties then rick says is the mundane mishra shankara debate there was some story about the wife not being able to there the whole time so she judged by the outcome of outcome by whose garland wilted first so there's a story that she put the garlands on shankara and her husband and the debate will go on and the garland the garland which builds first that person is lost so i always interpret it this way the one who becomes nervous and is beginning to lose the debate maybe that person sweats more and the garland wilts or something like that but i'm just joking yeah there is the story so the story is very very nice sandhya says does once brought up the karma get wiped out without actually consuming it when one gets mukti proud of the karma does not get wiped out without being consumed karma is not destroyed without imparting its results or without giving its results so proud of the karma will give its results and until its results are given the body will continue in other words what if the karma still remains can one still get mukti notice for the enlightened person the united person already has got mukti is already free from the enlightened person's perspective it doesn't matter if the prayer of the karma is there or not thank you for this enlightening lectures humble and sincere gratitude thank you very much for being willing victims teacher also needs students absorbed srinivas is absorbed in supreme brahman or prakriti technically prakriti but really ultimately it is supreme brahman alone because prakriti itself has no existence apart from supreme brahman and the upanishads say they are absorbed in brahman they are original texts how liberated gurus keep teaching that is the jivan mukta that is the one who teaches there's a third kind of jihad book the who out of compassion teaches krishnamurti says advise us how we can continue the study of advaita beyond this text oh if you're just starting the journey stick around [Music] you