Video 7

7. Vedantasara | Texts 33-34 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

so good evening and namaste everybody we are studying vedanta sara and we are on text number 33 so what's going on here is that uh we have just been told the method of vedanta of advaita vedanta is superimposition and de superimposition in sanskrit adiaro papavada so what's going on in in vedantic texts is the superimposition of the superimposition what is meant by this we find ourselves in a peculiar situation where we do not truly know what we are we have mistaken ourselves for these bodies and minds and this universe we are mistaken in the brahman for this external universe so what is it which is actually the absolute existence consciousness place we we experience it as subjects and objects i and the objective universe this is a mistake this is what we have uh where we are right now so this is called superimposition um in sanskrit adhyarova this is already done now the task of vedanta is to correct this error and remember what is the goal once this error is corrected the promises will be free of the sufferings of samsara as we when we know ourselves as we truly are we'll be free of suffering now what vedanta has to do is twofold one is it has to start from its claim that there is an absolute reality what it calls was to reality existence consciousness bliss non-dual reality and then it has to show it's not enough to say that there is brahman and that's the teaching no it has to show how is that related to what we are experiencing if we have to learn anything at all you have to relate how the one has become the many or the one appears as the many from the one to the many a bridge has to be built if i am that absolute reality how do i find myself in this particular soup that i am this body and mind subject to birth and death if i'm immortal how is it that i find myself being born and aging and dying if i'm beyond suffering how is it that i suffer from physical illnesses and social problems and mental suffering if i'm infinite why do i find myself limited so this is from my side and the world that i see if it is one reality why do i find diversity there if it is beyond good and bad why do i find good good and bad there um why do i find difference that it's different from me and things are different from each other so the many this all of this is called the many how did this many how is it related to the one that vedanta is talking about so the first part is superimposition from the one that vedanta claims to what we are experiencing vedanta must draw a bridge it will so that's what's going to happen it's going to show us vedanta is going to show us how starting from brahman through the agency of maya this entire universe appears and then the second part will start negating this this error correcting this error which is called apavada we are we will be shown that actually we are not these bodies and minds we are witness consciousness actually this is not a diverse universe actually in reality it is a homogeneous existence being itself and this consciousness which we are and this being which is appearing as the universe is one and the same so this is that atman is brahman that will be shown that is the second part of it upper water negation correction correction of an error but first the the contours of the error have to be shown how did this happen how do we come to be where we are if brahman is the ultimate reality so that's what was going on uh the text defined what is adhara papavada the method of by which the vedanta teaches us is superimposition the superimposition define first what is superimposition superimposition is basically error making a mistake taking something for what it is not um taking brahman to be this universe taking pure consciousness to be this body mind so it says just as the rope which is not a snake is mistaken for a snake in the same way brahman which is not the word is mistaken for the world is mistaken for samsara so that is called adhara superimposition now in in saying this the answer used two words taking the the precise definition of superimposition was taking the um unreal for the real of us too for was to or even more precisely superimposing the unreal on the real um so it used two words i was to the unreal and was to the real so superimposing the unreal on the real or the false on the real is what is called superimposition or adhara now having used these two terms reality and unreality or real and the false it is it now they have to define it what do you mean by what what is real define that what is false define that so that's what's going to start now what we are going to do today is beyond any doubt beyond any any comparison the most important two concepts in the whole of advaita vedanta nothing compares to what we're going to talk about today brahman and maya that's all that there is vedanta so brahman and maya the the concepts of what is brahman the ultimate reality and what is maya these are the two things we're going to talk about and both of them will be talked about today so verse number or text number 33 first brahman and next we'll look at maya so first it has to define what is reality what is reality why because superimposition was defined as the superimposition of the unreal on the real taking the um unreal to be the real so what is real and what is unreal text 33. reality is brahman which is without a second and its existence consciousness bliss unreality is nations or ignorance and all other material objects what does that mean so this is something that we have to memorize it is one take away from the entire book it is this text number 33 what is unreal and what is unreal what is real was reality is the non-dual brahman which is existence consciousness bliss and what is unreal unreal is from ignorance downstream from ignorance downwards the word used here is ignorance for a certain reason what he means here is maya so from maya and downstream from maya whatever of the products of maya everything is unreal it's false it's an appearance um so first what is real brahman is real according to advaita vedanta is very simple it's very very austere kind of philosophy the only reality is brahman and everything else is an appearance appearance of what of brahman and so all that you have to understand is brahman and how you are brahmana the world everything that we experience is an appearance and that's it the work is done what is brahman the word itself means the vast the sanskrit derivation of the word comes from a root which means to expand to expand without limit the vast that's all vast what no qualification not a vast sky not a vast house not a vast consciousness nothing just vast a vast then what else can we do we know about it brahman is sat chit ananda sat means existence that which is real that which is that which is again i want to always encourage everybody to relate it to our experience advaita vedant at its core never makes a any claim uh which is beyond our present experience always available experience so they're at the core of advaita banter so the core claim is the reality is existence itself what do i mean by this so the book exists and the shirt exists and the body exists even my thoughts exist in some sense so all of this the universe outside tables and chairs and buildings exist vast things like galaxies and quasars exist tiny tiny things like atoms and subatomic particles super strings exist now advaita vedanta wants to wants us to think of existence itself i mentioned a few days ago i talked about the um greatest of questions heidegger the great german philosopher rydega talks about the greatest of questions uh what is existence itself why do things exist at all the question of being or existence and advaita vedante is actually an answer to that question so take existence itself as the reality we never we we are so entranced by existing objects people and animals and plants and non-living things and big and small they're all objects which exist but what is existence itself we don't think it when there are philosophers who would dismiss the whole question as an illusion set up by language a common language philosophy advaita vedanta is just the other way around it says the question of existence is the only question about reality everything else that you think you're dealing with reality is actually dealing with illusion and language is with the very stuff of illusion so the very fact that language cannot talk about the ultimate existence brahman shows that that must be the real reality if it if language can designate it if language can talk about it it must be unreal anyway so existence itself what does it mean look around yourself things exist now can we conceive of can we try to change our paradigm of looking at existing things and think of existence itself when you look at thousands of waves in the water think of water itself so easy that the water itself is the reality and the waves are dependent they are arising and playing about in water and disappearances in water water is the substance there just like that just as water is the reality of all the waves and all the bubbles and form can we think of existence itself as the reality of everything this very experience we have of business this is called sat existence itself not an existing thing so is it an abstract concept no no it is in fact compared to it other things are abstract concept would you say that um a necklace or a bracelet or or a bra or you know a crown or something golden ornaments those are real and gold is an abstract concept what nonsense gold is the reality compared to gold the ornaments are abstract they are names and forms and functions designations gold is the actual thing similarly advaita vedanta insists being or is-ness or in the term used sat is the actual thing is the reality it is the reality of the universe every existing thing is nothing but name form and function imposed upon it see i'm explaining all of this the author will not explain on any of this why not the author is just going to go ahead because remember what the author wants to say asa says that this is the thing to be realized brahman and this will become clear by the method of superimposition and superimposition so you're going to launch on superimposition and start and just tell you that there is a reality like this which is existence consciousness bliss non-duality and stop nothing more to talk about it now let's go ahead and see how we have come from that to this position and then go back from here to that and hopefully in this whole process the thing will become clear i am dilating upon it what is this brahman so first of all brahman is sat the word used is sat means pure being in the heideggerian sense if you want to have a modern philosopher as a cognate so being itself business itself we always are aware of it i mean we are it actually inside outside that being is everywhere imagine you are sitting not imagine actually the fact is you are sitting in the midst of an ocean of being every object that you see is a wave in this ocean the table is a wave in the ocean of being the chair you're sitting on is a wave in the ocean of being the planet isn't a huge wave in the ocean of being so is the galaxy everything is an a wave in the ocean of being being itself is sat then the next thing it talks about is chit chat so the reality was to is chit consciousness now consider it from the perspective of our experiences what is the common denominator of all our experiences expert experiences i mean thoughts feelings perceptions ideas understanding memory desires memory all of this all our what constitutes our conscious first person life all these experiences what's the one common thing in all of them seeing something is different from smelling something else tasting something is different from listening to a talk reading and understanding something is different from enjoying a piece of music hating somebody is different from loving somebody but what is common and essential and cannot be dismissed for every type of experience it is awareness consciousness i'm using the words indiscriminately awareness consciousness this bare awareness in itself is bare consciousness in itself is what vedanta calls brahman and what is the relationship of this awareness in itself and the existence in itself they're one and the same thing they are one in the same thing it doesn't seem to be so if you look around the world you will see you'll see there are so many things which exist so there is existence there but there doesn't seem to be awareness for example in the table in the book or in the laptop is there awareness in me i am an existing thing in me there is awareness but there are so many things in the world which are not which are not aware doesn't seem to be aware at least but then again you must notice that all those things which you consider to be to be not aware you know books and tables and uh you know piece of rock all space itself all of them are appearing in awareness it is like a dream example is a powerful example in the dream example when you see a dream and you don't know it's a dream you are there in your own dream there are living beings and there are non-living beings and it will feel like the living beings are conscious they not only exist but they are also conscious they have existence and consciousness and we feel like non-living things like rocks and rivers and you know tables and chairs are non-living they have existence but no consciousness it will feel like that but when you wake up you will realize the whole thing was the projection of a conscious mind the dreamer's mind that's an example i'm not saying that the universe is being projected by a mind what i'm saying is even deeper the universe is being projected by business awareness awareness further bliss this bliss is not a feeling and yet it is so let me explain that what is the meaning of this ananda the meaning of the ananda to put it simply is purnitum wholeness completeness the lack of any limits now it is not a particular feeling just as sat is not a particular existing thing ananda is not a particular blissful feeling just as sat is not even the collection of all existing things similarly ananda is not the collection of all happy feelings all happy faces no just as chit consciousness is not a particular kind of conscious experience rather the underlying reality of all conscious experiences similarly ananda is not a particular kind of bliss but it's rather the underlying reality which which manifests as all kinds of fulfillment it is fulfillment itself it is completeness itself it is the sense of being unlimited from that comes all all experiences of being fulfilled happy satisfied so you can say it is value in itself when we seek things in the universe which have value we are actually seeking for ananda which is unlimited value so let me put it this way anandam is equal to anantam infinite the infinite nature of existence and consciousness expresses itself or can be designated as anandam does this mean it's not there won't be happiness when you realize your brahman of course there will be there will be you'll be much happier than you are now and um but that's not what is meant by another it can it can manifest as that that the happiness of the peace or the fulfillment of an enlightened person um did you notice somebody asked and what you may not have seen in a video um i wonder if it was in the conversation i had with rupert spyra or elsewhere somebody asked him so as an enlightened person are you happy 24 by seven are you like bubbling over with happiness he said no no no my experiences are very much like yours except that that he knows that that fulfillment is his uh completely uh undisturbed it it cannot be increased it cannot be reduced it it is uh illimitable and that manifests as happiness or a fulfillment but not that all the time you're walking around with a smiley face anyway so sat chit ananda pure being pure consciousness pure bliss or in other words being itself or existence itself consciousness itself and bliss itself or in other words business awareness unlimited unlimited is-ness awareness i'm actually translating from the tithe which has the best so so to say definition why i'm saying so to say definition because there's not a directly a definition you cannot define the absolute in any way the theory openation has the closest uh approach to it satyam gyanam anandam infinite existence consciousness isness awareness i will not go deeper into it those who want to you know dwell on this because the author is not dwelling on it at all i've said much more than the author has said those who want to go deeper into this most important subject what is the absolute according to advaita vedanta i will refer you to my talk defining god i've given this a couple of times let me give you the link so this is the talk in this is the talk in uh vedanta society of southern california so this talks about the definition of god brahman in more detail and this brahman is advaita non-dual by what is meant by non-dual duality means two or more more than two also so there is something apart from this apart from an entity then it's a dualistic uh it's a dualistic universe or a dualistic reality but if there's an entity from which nothing else is apart then that is non-dual how does that work so we for example when we look around i see here there are um 62 people on on zoom and we feel we are all different we are differently located we are differently named we look different so this difference it's duality each is separate from each is not the other they're countably different entities this is dualism by dualism i mean two or more entities but suppose there is an entity from which none of these 62 indeed nothing else in the universe are different then that would be non-dual with respect to everything example again the water and the wave example when you look at the waves and try to count them you may count thousands coming and going but if you count water then you cannot count any wave as a second thing water one then this wave that way no they are the same water you cannot count them apart from the water because then it will be double counting so every wave every bubble or little bit of foam everything is that water when you count water only one there is no second thing in the ocean apart from water i mean just as far as the waves are concerned in that case instead of if you look at those ten thousand waves with respect to those ten thousand waves water is non-dual water is non-dual means with respect to water those ten thousand are not ten thousand they are not distinctly ten thousand countably separate ten thousand entities they although they look like different they behave differently they are essentially all that same water you count the chairs still chairs in a room say 50 chairs but if you count the material steel then there is only one so with respect to steel the chairs are non-dual because they do not exist apart from that this is just an example similarly with respect to everything in the universe brahman is non-dual why it's very easy to understand if brahman is existence if brahman is existence now obviously it has to be non-dual because what can exist apart from existence non-dual means nothing exists that no no second entity exists apart from this entity uh apart from brahman the brahmana's existence to exist apart from existence would mean to become non-existent so obviously nothing exists apart from brahman brahman has to be nondual so this is the meaning of satchidanandam brahma brahman further details in that talk defining god now that's all very good for brahman what about this universe what about this universe i don't see anywhere i don't have any experience of this brahman you're talking about pure being pure consciousness pure place who knows what all this is this sounds pretty abstract but what i have experience of is the things that i see or hear or smell or taste or touch the body my own inner life my history my personal life and all the relationships i have with people around me the knowledge that i've acquired and i forget all of this is my experience what is all this so the next part it says avastu it's it's not real it's an appearance it's not a countable reality apart from brahman not a second thing another real thing that advaita has to talk about the only real thing we've already mentioned brahman and apart from that all that you think is apart from it is an appearance of that only again they are all of us two means not real what are they it starts with agyana literally agyana means ignorance why he has mentioned ignorance we will see later we can just say he is actually talking about maya starting from maya downwards downwards means all the products the five elements the our minds and bodies and the external universe all the stars and galaxies down to the tiniest entities living beings non-living beings life itself all of it all of our human productions literature and science and everything all joys and all sufferings all of that of us too what a stunning statement it's an appearance it's not the reality what does he call them jada samoa all the collection the collection means the totality of all of these items which which we see in the universe they're all jada in sentient material jana also means object whatever is an object to consciousness is called java so whatever that we can know think about designate they are all objects and the entire objective realm entire material the entire realm of xp experienced objects that is called jara and it's it's an appearance look at the inversion this is what we consider real advaitha dismisses all of it this has an appearance and what advaitha calls real we have no inkling about we are just being introduced to it but logically it makes sense if you think of brahman as being itself obviously everything in this universe which exists must be in somehow dependent on that being nothing apart from that being if we see it as apart from the being as we are we are experiencing this universe apart from brahman because we do apart means we're not actually seeing it apart from brahman but we feel it's apart from it because we don't know what brahman is we see that this universe existing in itself they are they all things exist by themselves no they don't without seeing the underlying reality if you think that this external universe exists by itself the way it appears to us that's what is false advaita vedanta never denies that you see people and tables and chairs you hear sounds and taste tastes all of these experiences never denies that but it says there is an underlying reality which you are missing you don't know the truth about these things the way we see it the way we take it to be that's false that's not not the reality and that's the source of all mischief so now we have got it text number 33 was to reality the reality is brahman or brahma etymologically meaning the vast unlimited vastness what is that non-dual there's nothing second nothing apart from it really though it may look apart from it it's not really apart from brahman and what is brahman actually what can you tell me about it it is being itself it is consciousness itself it is bliss itself okay now in doing this he has already spoken about he has introduced a new term in fact you'll see it has introduced two new terms brahman and agyan or maya so now he's going to talk about agyara maya what about brahman he has already said whatever he wanted to that it is existence consciousness bliss non-dual finished nothing more is going to talk about it till the very almost the very end of the book because we're going to go downstream now maya and its products why are we going to do that because we're going to come down to us how did how are we here and then go back superimposition this disopening position so we are now starting to build the castle of dreams of illusions we're starting to produce the movie which is our life now so the first step in that is maya more difficult than brahman the app more difficult than absolute is how does this absolute become the the many how does the one become the many or appear as the many notice again or ignorance etc down to this entire universe is the appearance is not the reality so two things have been mentioned here why why didn't it just say everything else is unreal why did it say ignorance and everything else because ignorance is the cause and everything else is the effect cardiac ignorance is the cause out of which everything else is coined or manufactured it's like the rope is the reality and whatever else you imagine that you mistook the rope to be and some people were walking down and they saw this thing in the semi darkness and somebody said oh it's a snake other person said no it's a crack in the earth this is a classic example from sanskrit literature crack in the earth another person said no no it's a push for mala a garland which has been discarded from the temple now what was it it was actually a rope but three people saw it in three different ways what is vedantas are saying the reality is rope and everything from ignorance of the rope and everything else garland snake crack in the earth they are all unreal the only reality there is the rope so okay similarly only reality is brahman maya downwards is everything is an appearance so maya is the cause and everything in the universe is the product cardio current cause effect brahman cause our effect brahman is actually not even a cause it will later be said that brahman is a cause but indirectly so the cause of the appearance it's actually not doing anything so brahman is beyond cause and effect the absolute is beyond cause and effect causality starts with maya in fact one of the constituents of maya is causality now we will go to the second one i'll just go through it quickly and then we'll see if we have questions okay so you use the word ignorance now he's going to define this he's going to talk about it what is ignorance what do i mean by ignorance here text 34 trigonometry [Music] however ignorance is described as something positive though intangible which cannot be described either as being or non-being which is made of three qualities is antagonistic to knowledge its existence is established from such experiences that i am ignorant and from such truthy passages as the power belonging to god himself hidden in its own qualities so what is he saying here what does he mean by ignorance by the way you might think that what's all this discussion about ignorance we are here to get knowledge which is the path of knowledge and most of the discussion is usually about ignorance there is much more discussion about maya this is the source of all our problems you might be interested to know that there is a new and exciting field of study today called ignorance studies actually i was surprised if you look it up there is a volume called the rutledge a handbook of ignorance studies rutledge is published and big a huge book of ignorant studies so what are you studying ignorance i think parents would be less than thrilled if the children go to college and take up so what is what are you studying ignorance that's what you're supposed to remove in the university and you're getting a degree like a phd in ignorance um i actually the lady who has made this uh she's an oxford she's a professor in oxford or some university in england so she came to give a talk here at the new school in manhattan so i attended that talk and she was editing this volume at that time and she was surprised to know that ignorance has received so much highly detailed extensive study in indian philosophy she did not know at all not just advaita vedanta buddhism and many many philosophies indian philosophies they dwell at length and there's so much debate this is just an introductory text but you should know that there is hundreds of years of debate what is this ignorance [Music] ramanujacharya so when he attacks advaita vedanta in his famous commentary on the brahmasutras called the sri bhasha he starts he calls advaita vedanta the great opponent mahapuru paksha and he starts his dialectic against advaita vedanta by a seven-fold attack on ignorance this arganum what you call agyan ignorance that is an impossible concept it's a faulty concept and he shows seven great faults and then of course advaitans answered all of them um so a lot of discussion is there about this this is just an outline i'm saying that because you will feel it it sounds difficult and complex not at all this is the simplest most sweeping overview of the topic so what is being said here what is this ignorance it cannot be described in words but again in a very specific way when you say anira cheney what's your name means which can be expressed in words universalium cannot be expressed in language but here it's not like brahman often we say brahman is beyond language so in that sense agyana is not beyond language is actually very there's a very precise way in this in which this term is being used beyond words what does it mean it cannot be described in language as is or is not as real or completely unreal means pure being is what is the definition of sat we have just seen it is isness itself in advaita vedanta the ultimate reality sat there's a definition that which cannot be negated in all three periods of time in the past present and future that is ultimately real notice something like the snake is negated the moment you realize it's a rope the snake is found to be false that is negation in sanskrit but suppose there is something which can never be found to be false it is always there the mirage water seems like water when you go there false it's not there so that's not real we say it's not real oh the mira it's a mirage it's not really water oh it's a rope it's not really a snake we have corrected it but there suppose there is something which can never be corrected in this way what about the world this universe so that it for example you said that it was not a snake and we saw it's a rope so it's corrected the snake has been proved to be false but the rope is true isn't it the universe is true isn't it science has given us true um true discoveries isn't it no even all this universe which we see the our waking reality which we take to be our reality this itself is falsified when brahma-gyana comes when rope knowledge comes the snake is falsified when you see the desert for what it is the water in the mirage is falsified when you realize brahman the world is falsified what we just saw in the 33rd text so the world cannot be held to be absolutely true because what is the definition definition of reality according to vedanta that which cannot be falsified ever that which cannot be rejected which cannot be negated which cannot be corrected ever think about one thing logically speaking you know this question can arise people ask this question all right suppose you realize um that this world is not real and you find this brahman whatever it is you become enlightened but what is there to stop this um process you can one day find brahman itself is false and find something else deeper than brahman higher than brahman how do you know why why will you say brahman is the ultimate there is no end there's nothing beyond that how do you know that brahman itself will not be corrected one day tell me it's logically impossible you can't do that why take for example consciousness brahman is consciousness itself now to negate consciousness this what is the form of negation this is not x it is y this is not a snake it is a rope this is not water it is the desert it's a mirage so to make a correction of this form this is the form of the correction oh i realize it's not x it's y can you do that to consciousness oh it is not consciousness it is non-consciousness how can you do that without consciousness the one thing required for correction of an error is consciousness no it can never apply to consciousness itself the more deeply existence itself the one thing required for correction is existence the correcting agent must exist you can never correct yourself out of existence this is-ness so can is something higher but one date will be proved to be false what will that falsity be like oh now i realize i am not and then will i vanish no it can't happen the one which realizes something that one must have exist that one must be conscious so logically speaking is-ness awareness sat chit cannot be corrected cannot be negated just logically but um so sad asadiyama nirvanyam that maya or gyanam is that which cannot be uh classified as ultimate reality why because when you become enlightened again ignorance is removed is negated ignorance goes away when you get knowledge aham brahma has mean knowledge arises ignorance goes away so because it is corrected because it goes away because it is negated it cannot be the ultimate reality you cannot say it is in the ultimate sense then why not say it is not it is completely unreal there is nothing there at all you can't say that but because of because of this maya for because of this ignorance we are experiencing this whole world seeing that all of this appears to us seeing that we have to read vedanta we have to we have the problem of samsara bondage and liberation how can you say it's nothing it's you can't dismiss it as absolutely nothing there's something going on here and yet it is not the ultimate reality so you cannot classify it as ultimately real because it disappears it is corrected upon enlightenment you cannot dismiss it as completely unreal because it is experienced you see it you you you are in it the ultimately real thing cannot be corrected cannot be negated brahman and you need not negate it because it's perfectly all right you cannot and you need not this thing maya it can be negated and you need to negate it or again or ignorance it has to be corrected and you need to correct it the absolutely unreal that too cannot be corrected so that which does not exist at all it cannot be corrected and you need not correct it also it does not appear at all why do you need to correct it what what is the example of an absolutely unreal thing so the classic example they give the son of of a barren mother or the square circle or the pushpass flower in the sky different things what is the characteristic of absolutely not existing in sanskrit assat it does not exist and you do not experience it it does not exist you do not experience it what is the characteristic of the absolute real absolutely real you do not experience it as an object but it exists it is and what is the characteristic of this maya and its products it does not exist and yet it appears you cannot say it does not exist at all you experience it this is very important because everything that we experience according to advaita vedanta all that we see hear smell taste touch all our vewahara our society and politics and elections and science literature warfare everything is conducted in maya it is all of this category it is not an absolute reality but it's not unreal either it's not absolutely unreal either so it is called sad assad this is the absolute reality cannot be negated and you need not negate it the absolutely unreal also cannot be negated and you need not negate it it does not come up at all why will you negate it it's not there at all but this one can be negated my our ignorance can be negated and should be negated because it is the source of all our problems this may sound very abstract but it is actually very simple consider three things speaking the truth not speaking silence and telling a lie speaking a lie so speaking the truth is like that absolute reality it it cannot be challenged because it's true you cannot correct it keeping quiet that also cannot be challenged what will you challenge he has not said anything that cannot be corrected also what will you correct nothing has been said it's silent so that's like the absolutely unreal assad but telling a lie telling a lie is like that this maya this this ignorance you have said somebody it has been said so something was said but it's not true so it needs to be challenged and corrected so this is an example i came up with it's very nice so three things telling the truth keeping silent and telling a lie telling the truth is like brahman they are absolute cannot be challenged and should not be challenged need not be challenged silent keeping silent is like absolutely unreal nothing is there at all so like a square circle or you know the examples they give nothing appears it's not experienced at all so keeping quiet it cannot be challenged and it need not be challenged and should not be challenged also there's nothing there but telling a lie it has to be challenged right something has been said but it's not true it can be challenged should be challenged and one must correct it so this is sadasad neither absolutely real cannot be classified as absolutely real cannot be classified as unreal totally unreal either a strange in-between thing and as i said like telling a lie it's not unknown to us we know many such things fiction fiction so fairy tales or harry potter story is it uh real no is it nothing no of course not it's fiction it's a story so what's the status of a story you cannot classify it as truth but you cannot classify it as completely non-existent also so it's in between art is like that fiction is like that in fact advaita vedanta insists everything that we experience falls in that category then what is this ignorance made of three qualities see this is all borrowed from sankhya so here what sankhya calls prakriti nature the source of the entire universe made of three qualities sattva thomas and they have reasons for that we're not going into that so what is maya made of what is a ghana made of ignorance made of or another name is prakriti nature what is it made of three qualities sattva that's why it is called trigonate made of three qualities its essence is basically three qualities then important ganaverodhi opposed to knowledge opposed to knowledge opposed to knowledge in what way it is destroyed by knowledge it does not destroy knowledge though it can obstruct knowledge but it does not destroy knowledge is destroyed by knowledge uh just like darkness is removed by light ignorance is removed by knowledge so one characteristic of this ignorance is it's destroyed by knowledge not that it destroys knowledge so if knowledge is there and ignorance is there what will happen will the ignorance overcome knowledge no knowledge will always overcome ignorance just like we see um in our day-to-day life i don't know suppose i don't know sanskrit moment i tried to get getting knowledge about sanskrit my ignorance of sanskrit disappears so ignorance is destroyed by knowledge that's the meaning of gayana vidhi why i'm stressing this is so at this time at this point so traditional pandits will tell a story we all read this story in india in america comics you know the story of the demon surah with asura vitrasoda was a great demon the story goes indra the king of the gods had offended had offended one of the sages who was a guru to the demons and he had actually inadvertently killed that sage's son so anyway the sage was furious and so what the sage did was he started a vedic fire sacrifice where would it would produce a great demon who would destroy indra that was the plan that it would be a supernatural being created by this power of the vedic sacrifices and this demon would go and destroy indran and all the other demons would come and they would conquer heaven and the gods would be dispossessed of heaven so those of us who grew up in india we remember those america comics that's when i first read this story but the story is interesting that in vedic sacrifices the chanting of the mantra has to be precise otherwise depending upon your intonation the meaning will be different so the gods were very worried they already had heard about this great sacrifice about to occur you know so they wanted to mess it up so like interference in elections russia is interfering like that they wanted to interfere in the great sacrifice so they i think it was saraswati the god of knowledge who goddess of knowledge who is in charge of pronunciation who came on the um tongue of the sage when he was about to chant the mantra and change the intonation made a mistake so the mantra was to be indra shattrun so there is a certain up and down to that which means let the enemy of indra emerge or or grow from this fire now the intonation was wrong the way the rishi chanted it thanks to the meddling of hacking done by saraswati and the meaning became let the enemy of let the one whose enemy is indra let that one emerge the point was to have the one who's whose enemies indra is to emerge enemy means the one whom he will destroy the demon is going to destroy indra let that demon emerge but the meaning became because of the change in chant in the pronunciation the meaning became let the demon who will be destroyed by indra let that demon emerge so ritual came up but there was a programming error in the in the very root of it nobody knew that and he was initially very successful if you see the comic books are full of fighting and uh him uh vitras was going and defeating indra and they all run to obviously whenever they are defeated by the surahs they will run to vishnu they will complain to vishnu and vishnu will give them some idea what to do he said you go to this great sage who is very powerful by his austerities and you ask for his bones with his bones of this sage you make a weapon the thunderbolt and with that thunderbolt you can kill this demon so there's a whole story story within story they go to the sage and the sage says yes i'm not attached to the body i'm not the body so if the body is going to help people let you can take my body you can take my bones he sat in meditation and he gave up his um body and with his bones indra made that his weapon the thunderbolt vajra the thunderbolt so it's made with the bones of a rishi and then he of course killed ritra the point of this elaborate story is that gana virodhi so gana virodhi means that which is destroyed by knowledge not that which destroys knowledge just like the demon bhava rupam we've almost run out of time let me quickly run through this something positive okay what's going on here the next term is bhabha rupam something positive what's going on is this the moment you use the term agyana ignorance agaana ignorance our usual way of understanding ignorance is a lack of knowledge absence of knowledge the sanskrit word uh ghana means not negation and that negation can have multiple meanings is ignorance and absence of knowledge or is it something positive is ignorance and absence this is nothing or is it something positive the non-dualist advaitan they want to prove that ignorance is something positive why bhava rupa means something positive why because first of all it has all these effects if it was nothing just an absence how could it lead to the creation of the entire universe as we see it and our samsara how can something emerge out of nothing second reason is that all the activity of vedanta all of this which we're trying to do we're doing it to remove ignorance if ignorance is just an absence an emptiness to be filled with knowledge why do all this exercise why is there so need to remove an absence you can't remove an absence but nothing is there there is something which has to be removed and it is a positive something which gives rise to so much trouble is something that modern ignorant studies experts would firmly agree if you look at the contents of that rutledge handbook of ignorance studies i looked it up before the class i just remembered that lady and thought whether it has been published or not and so it has been published and so if you see the contents all the trouble that ignorance is responsible for in economics in warfare in politics ignorance generates so much of our samsara advaita says all of our samsara is generated by ignorance it's not nothing it's a it's a force it's a it's a something so it says it's very careful here if it stresses too much on the bhavarupam it will become a reality like brahman then you can charge them with dualism brahman and ignorance but advaitan is caught in a sticky position here advaitan cannot agree to ignorance being nothing for deeper reasons i'll just trace out the nature of this ignorance as something rather than nothing um you realize where the question is coming from because when you say ignorance it could just be an absence of knowledge there's no knowledge that's ignorance nothing is no knowledge is there that's what you're calling ignorance and advaitan does not want that position why couple of reasons quickly one form of absence of knowledge could be what is called in sanskrit samanya gyana bhava absence of knowledge in general absence of knowledge in general means absence of awareness in general in general nothing is known nothing is known so no specific ignorance that i don't know physics or chemistry or sanskrit just i don't know it's blank and he says that is not possible because the very nature of the knower is awareness or consciousness even to say that there is a general ignorance about everything and that is an absence nothing is there you need consciousness to to illumine that nothing you see one kind of absence of knowledge would be a general absence of awareness a general absence of awareness like a universal absence of awareness is not possible because the moment you say such a thing is there to whom was it revealed it must be revealed to some awareness you see in contrast to that when we have a specific ignorance i don't know suppose i don't know french now i am aware and i'm aware of the absence of my knowledge about a specific thing called french but just absence of awareness in itself impossible you can't even you can you can't even posit such a thing to whom or to what will this be revealed that there will be awareness okay then the question would be all right let ignorance be an absence of specific things let ignorance be an absence of specific things but when we say i am ignorant the general form that ignorance is not of a specific thing it is the when we say i don't know when you say i don't know physics i don't know chemistry i don't know vedanta i don't know sanskrit notice something that i don't know is of the same sort everywhere to explain if you say i know sanskrit i know french then your knowledge of french and knowledge of sanskrit are different clearly you've got a lot of information unique knowledge which is called your french knowledge a lot of information unique knowledge which is called your sanskrit knowledge but when we say i don't know french and i don't know sanskrit there's nothing specific about it i don't know in both cases just the blankness there is no nothing unique about this blankness and that blankness do you see that it's a kind of underlying ignorance there is if you try to find out the texture of that ignorance how is the ignorance of sanskrit different from the ignorance of french the ignorance itself it is just a blankness you just aware that there is something called sanskrit i don't know there's something called french i don't know but then the ignorance is is not like the knowledge of sanskrit and french the knowledge of sanskrit is very rich many things are there knowledge of french is very rich many things are there the two are quite different from each other but then if you are ignorant about both the ignorance of both will be the similar thing like a blankness about each so ignorance is also not absence absence of ignorance is not an absence with specific qualities so what have you got so far if you say ignorance is an absence it could be a general absence of knowledge we saw that's not possible general absence of awareness because it's not possible or it could be the absence of specific types but there is no difference in the absence of specific type there are no absences of specific types the absence is a general kind of absence which you find in all kinds of ignorance that i don't know okay what comes up this that ignorance cannot be simply an absence see absence of two kinds general absence specific absences both are not possible there is a ignorance which is not an absence another example used i'll just mention it and stop is in deep sleep in deep sleep when we wake up after deep sleep it is actually we have experienced a blankness and that blankness is not just an absence it's not just it was not nothing it was a consciousness shining on a blankness in sanskrit they call a ghana chaitanya consciousness associated with ignorance that's what was there in deep sleep so that also proves that ignorance is not an absence it's not nothing it is a kind of something so is it a reality like brahman back to the whole problem then he says yat kinchet neither an it is an intangible something neither an ultimate reality like brahman but not untotally uh unreal either yatkin is all this theoretical or is there any experience to prove it he says of course there is all of us experience ignorance when we say i do not know in this case you are told you are brahmana and our response is i don't know this that is ignorance that is ignorance which is not there in the case of an enlightened person it is there in our case when we phenomenologically investigate our experiences we feel i don't know what is this thing we are talking about my infinite consciousness that i am an infinite being i don't know this this i don't know i don't know this is the this is the experience of ignorance it is there and then a quotation from the upanishads to prove it this is actually a description of maya devata so deva means the consciousness atma means the ultimate self paramatma shakti power of that ultimate self so own qualities what is the qualities so here is a scriptural support for this concept of ignorance which will later he will call it maya stop so the two most important concepts that we'll ever come across in advaita vedanta are text number 33 and 34. let me see giant are there questions oh yes mars shravani you can go next that's also translated as real yes and they're realized i i came across like in various discussions it's like the unchanging or permanent that is that that definition and sachet anand like what we discussed today they how how do they like uh fall in place they are exactly the same when you say brahma satyam jagat mithya it means brahman is real and the world is an appearance mithya means false and appearance that's exactly what we heard did you notice the ultimate reality is existence consciousness bliss non-dual brahman that is what you just called brahma-satyam and jagat mithya world is false what did we hear again what is unreal starting from again or maya down to everything in the universe all the material universe is an appearance jagat mithya then you said so that definition of satyathwam of of reality is this what we just heard yes what did i just say what is reality which is not negated in three periods of time past present and future which cannot be negated that is the real thing did you just didn't you just say brahman is that which is eternal permanent that which cannot be dismissed negated destroyed corrected changed in any way in past present and future that is prominent correct but then uh when we perceive everything with the with our intellect and senses if we almost reach a wall where we don't see anything that's we can't really gauge anything that's permanent and unchanged everything seems changing correct so whatever we see with our senses whatever we understand with our intellect is this universe what he just called um uh jada samoa the material universe and that he said is false and when you say it is uh changing you are saying exactly what they are saying that yes that is the characteristic of falsity that it changes so we just accept it with faith that there is such a thing which we are not able to perceive now as uh that's unchanging and that and that is the promise of advaita vedanta you temporarily hold it hold on to it as faith we are going to show you i'm actually going to show you the unchanging yeah now it is available and in verse 33 i think uh the uh consciousness is translated as knowledge right how uh so knowledge means uh here it means consciousness knowledge is um after consciousness consciousness plus mind and sense organs interacting with the objects gives knowledge here it means knowledge itself so i can't put it this way not that brahman exists it is existence itself not that brahman knows it is knowledge itself knowledge itself means what consciousness what is the one thing common is it remember what is the one thing common to all our all our knowledge whatever you see here smell taste touch whatever you think remember understand imagine in all of that one thing is common what is it essentially it is consciousness all the other things come and go all perceptions and um thoughts are different from each other but what is not different in every knowledge consciousness if you want if you are impatient how can i discover this permanent thing right here and now you know you know what your question is like you are saying that in all the ornaments that we see gold and all the ornaments that we see you're seeing a bracelet and a necklace and a ring they are all they all come and go nothing is permanent here the bracelet is melted and they made into a ring ring is melted and made into a necklace but you are saying there is something permanent in all of this called gold we don't see that we have to take it on faith do you have to take the gold on faith when you're the same piece of gold is made into a ring and given to you then it's melted you want a necklace a necklace is given to you melted and made into a bangle that is given to you and somebody says these the ornaments are temporary you see you saw yourself the form has changed the name has changed the use has changed nama rupa you are continuously changing but you are saying there is something permanent called gold but i it just have to believe in it no it is the only thing that is real you don't recognize it why don't you recognize the same superimposition disappointing position having forgotten the gold now you are seeing it as a bracelet and necklace and drink the gold is there all the time when the bracelet ring necklace name and form are removed removed means in our understanding only they are removed and you see the thing for what it is no matter what the form and name you see it is that underlying gold alone that is called dissupined position yeah just a quick uh note here that both gold and the ornaments are something we can perceive with our intellect and sense they're in that realm but here we are talking about something that's true because an example is only there's a limitation of example why where what else what example will you find now if you are the stravani is impatient for enlightenment so then you go to that link i gave you defining god and there if you follow the whole lecture you will see we are pointing out that existence consciousness please this brahman just like gold here and now in your experience not pushed to the future not a matter of belief if this is all this is right it has to be present here and now you will see it has been presented there here and now try to follow that carefully you will see how just like gold it is being presented to you not as an object of course but it is it is constantly available to us just as goliath gold is available in every ornament okay thank you you cannot mute yourself uh swamiji if i recall correctly you said before that we should not obsess too much on the nature of maya or try to figure out why it exists you should just accept it after a while and move forward is it because it's a necessary pillar of this non-dual metaphysic hello yes is it because it's it's a necessary pillar of uh non-reality i mean you cannot have non duality no it is because it's not that you you cannot uh they're prohibiting you that it is banned to discuss maya no that immediately okay that immediately has attracts all kinds of opponents uh and it has been in fact discussed threadbare discuss treadwear in great detail because that's the weak link the absolute brahman all right what can you say about it nothing much so it has been discussed threadbare even the concept of anir vachanim anil vachanim means you cannot designate as ultimately real or as ultimately false this concept itself has been examined with such great ferocity by the madwa dwightins so there's a text called where the question the very first question is raised is that what is this falsity you people non-violence are talking about and then it takes up the concept of um anirachanya that it cannot be said to be existing cannot be said to be non-existing and then gives what is the meaning of the statement and then divides it into four possibilities and shows all four are contradictory and then madusudan saraswati comes in and shows that all four are logically terrible and and so on so it has been discussed in excruciating detail actually hello all right pranam you you just mentioned that this concept of quality laguna has been taken from shank here yes but i thought the sankha philosophy is much later than advaitha no as a philosophy it's much earlier you can say it has been taken advaitans will claim that we have taken it all from the upanishads it's true it's there then for example itself talks about the gunas it is true but the whole idea of prakriti being composed of the three gunas this was developed by sankhyas was the first philosopher philosopher of the human race so advaita vedanta as it is formulated today is very much a journey come lately um so so for example when you find the great debates between the buddhists and the hindus is generally between buddhist philosophers and sanctions or nayakas advaitans come much later yes all right then anybody else i think rick was a vinod right yes yes we know you can unmute yourself somebody has been out here so so how for somebody who's for trying to follow the karma but if you assume that brahman is real and the ultimate truth how could you use it in your life for making the right decisions we are presented with choices in our day-to-day life in our job at home or anywhere so how can we use this to make the right decisions in our decision-making process let me tell you but first let me share this video with you also this is i think the talk on maya so the two talks i'm sharing with you so one was the talk on brahman defining brahman this one is the talk on maya swami vivekananda gave three talks on maya and this one i have sort of generally summarized what swine vivekananda said i gave this talk maybe a couple of years ago here in the vidanta society so those who are interested you can see so these are the two talks one on brahmana and one on maya guidelines there are many all of ethics swami vivekananda derives from this idea of brahman and maya so where did in which class did i share that swami bajan range's ontological ethics society in in this class or in the gita class in this class did you get that um article we know yes yes so you just read that article ontological ethics assign vivekananda at the end of that article after discussing theories of ethics then it comes to what is the implication of this advaitic theory for ethics as guidelines i think that you will find 10 points i have myself marked out 10 points with a pen the 10 implications like strength like service and like unselfishness these are all they are flowing from that uh this advaitic idea if this is true if this is true then how should we live our life thank you thank you all right then we'll wrap it up here today and we'll proceed next time me [Music] you