Inside the Dream of Vasistha | Prof. Sthaneshwar Timalsina

[SPEAKER_03]: Good morning, everyone, from a snowy and very chilly New York.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Diane Craftford, President of VSNY.
[SPEAKER_03]: We are so glad that our speaker today, Professor Schwann Schwa, Teammalf Scena, has agreed
[SPEAKER_03]: The professor is the Nirmal K and Augustina Matu in Dow Chair in Classical Indic Humanities at Stony Brook University's College of Arts and Science, Department of Asian and Asian American Studies.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in a steamed, traditionally consecrated teacher of Shaiwa Shakta Hindu Tantra.
[SPEAKER_03]: From 2005 to 2023, he served as professor of religious studies and philosophy at San Diego State University.
[SPEAKER_03]: He completed his PhD from Martin Luther University in Halley, Germany, with a focus on the history of advisor philosophy.
[SPEAKER_03]: His areas of teaching and research include classical Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain literature and philosophies, with a specific focus on consciousness studies.
[SPEAKER_03]: His first book, Consciousness in Indian Philosophy, is a comparative study of advisor and Buddhist understandings of the self and consciousness.
[SPEAKER_03]: He also works in the area of Tantric Studies and his recent publications, Tantric Visual Culture, a cognitive approach, and language of images, visualization and meaning in Tantric explore the cognitive and cultural domains of Tantric visualization.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has published more than 80 articles in the areas of Hindu philosophy, tantric studies, yoga studies, and comparative philosophy.
[SPEAKER_03]: In 2019, he launched the Vimash of Foundation, which hosts three semester-length courses on classic texts of the tantric tradition and offers many free video and written teachings.
[SPEAKER_03]: The subject of his talk today is inside the dream of Vassista, the fusion of tricca and advice of a danta in the yoga Vassista.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would everybody please hold your questions until the end of the talk at which point the professor will invite you to raise your hand, please do not put your questions in chat.
[SPEAKER_03]: Dr. Tim Alcina, we are so happy to be able to welcome you again in a different format.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's lovely to have you here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Diane.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pashyannat Manimaya Yahirivodh Bhutam Yatad Nidraya Yashakshah Atkuru Te Prabhoda Samayet Swatmanam Iva Adva Yam Tasma Isri Gurumurta Yet Nama Yidam Sredakshana Murta Yet
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just a perfect day to talk on yoga vassista, particularly for us living in the east coast of snowstorm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our classes are cancelled, universities closed, and I am willing this snow is not there.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I still have hot water and all the good things that I can wish for and let's create that to be real no matter how radical ideological the idea seems in the
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga-va-sister, actually, if we do a second round of reading or a third round of reading, we start connecting the dots and some deeper insight start coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: My first introduction to the yoga vassista was without knowing the book, but just some grandmother's stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And some added, not like a textually correct, some
[SPEAKER_01]: whatever my grandmother felt like adding to make it more interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I found out the book on my own when I was 17 and I was little surprised that my grandmother
[SPEAKER_01]: was actually telling stories from an existing book.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the first connection.
[SPEAKER_01]: Later, I decided to do my PSG on the central thesis of the yoga vassista because I had two teachers who were like brothers,
[SPEAKER_01]: One teaching me a do it vedanta, another training me into tantrashastra, with a focus on the trigger system.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I found that yoga vassista adds a merging point overlapping philosophy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I felt like home trying to read
[SPEAKER_01]: the deeper nuances.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was not trying to read the narratives in the Bhagavad-gavasa, either yet other stories, but wanted to find the connections, philosophical connections, and so this second or third or whatever rounds of reading I have done,
[SPEAKER_01]: I have only felt the need to read the yoga vassista one more time and again one more time.
[SPEAKER_01]: For those who have not read the yoga vassista, this is a very simple book.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are really beautiful stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: almost like fairly daily stories, some like a half history, some just like a premise for a story and some are really lengthy, voluminous stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the author starts giving philosophy in the middle of the narrative or
[SPEAKER_01]: In almost in a random way, you never know when he's going to start philosophizing the narrative.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in every account, these narratives are illustrations, archaicas, to make the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what is the case?
[SPEAKER_01]: Consciousness is the only singular reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many words in Sanskrit refer to this, C.T.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tsaitanya and there are other like a proggana, sometimes Brahman is used for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yoga vassista goes beyond these traditional words.
[SPEAKER_01]: Siddh, Citi, Citanya, Brahman, and goes beyond these words, and also uses Manas Arcita, the mind, for the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: In technical philosophies, the mind and the consciousness are not used synonymously.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mind is a product.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chipped is a product of that higher foundational consciousness, the Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yoga vasyster sometimes makes that distinction, oftentimes doesn't care.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is consciousness, it is the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then,
[SPEAKER_01]: We have three different competing models of consciousness from classical India.
[SPEAKER_01]: The odd way to Vedanta, idea is the Smadva, Etasmad, Atmana, Akasha, Sambuta.
[SPEAKER_01]: This Atman or Brahman is the foundational principle of which everything comes and waiting
[SPEAKER_01]: where everything resides, it permeates everything, it is eternal, it is all encompassing, it is the absolute.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is exactly the position also of the Trika Shiva philosophy.
[SPEAKER_01]: complicate by adding too many things today because it's cold and you know I'm happy you are here and I don't want you to run away.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when we are going to the bare bone reduction,
[SPEAKER_01]: This consciousness itself has the singular reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Non-duality of pure consciousness is the same in the adhoity Vedanta and the trikashayvijam.
[SPEAKER_01]: That yoga was used this sometimes, also as chitta or manas.
[SPEAKER_01]: That type of loose vocabulary
[SPEAKER_01]: invites us also to engage the Yogachara Buddhist philosophy, because from the Yogachara perspective, it is the mind that is consciousness, and that is the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, we now expand not between two, but now going also to the thought tradition and to tell you the truth, yoga vassista does exploit from the yoga Charlie treachery as well, but this is the trick.
[SPEAKER_01]: that even when yoga vasysta is using chitta or manas, it is not considering that foundational consciousness to be momentary.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a precondition in the yoga chara budish philosophy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this momentary meaning, not lasting forever, it is not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: the mind exists for a singular instant and within that very instant of it coming into being it ceases to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the both the trigger and the other the Vedanta philosophy is find this logically in coherent.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can something that does not even endure for a moment cause something else to give it as a sonata, as a continuum?
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that mind and entity lasted for just one instant, there is no concept even of lasting lasting.
[SPEAKER_01]: In endurance, it comes into being, but does not last, because coming into being is the same instant for lasting and then giving rise to something else.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then classical Indian philosophers found that as a field for a battle for the last 2000 years and let's not go there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, because today is the popcorn day, you know, so not like too much of her splitting debate day.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if this from the yoga, from the yoga wasis the
[SPEAKER_01]: foundational it may be, ultimate it may be, then what about the world, this world, the tangible world, is it not slowing out today, is my cold water just my fantasy, like
[SPEAKER_01]: Nama Rupa is metia, the one thing started from the Upanishad, Briadarani Upanishad, that all the names and the forms are not real.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, in how many ways we could use metia,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a big topic for all of you interested in Aduite Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please read one essay by Alex Wayman on Meteor.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's writing from this Shurnata.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, some of these ideas he has used for Nama Rupa.
[SPEAKER_01]: When he does analysis of Buddhist and Vedantic understanding of the Nama Rupa, it's kind of a good competitive study.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But going back to yoga vassistar again and again we see the examples of the dream and miras and rope and snake and then we like to jump into the conclusion that it is the same, the
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a fantasy, it's a fiction, and so it is not like the tricker.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where does the tricker side of the gem come?
[SPEAKER_01]: From the tricker perspective, consciousness is ultimate, but consciousness is free, absolutely autonomous,
[SPEAKER_01]: One, the power to will, the power of desire, we call it chashakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: To the power to know, to cognize, infinite gyanashakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the third, the power of action, the power to do, to do as you like.
[SPEAKER_01]: So from the trick of perspective, in a very simplified vocabulary, our being in the world is that very pure consciousness, now we call Shiva, that very pure consciousness, manifesting in the myriad of forms, becoming too many, many subjects,
[SPEAKER_01]: and then subject object dichotomy, duality, the world out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am transcendent to the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am separate from the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are many others like me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am not the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these all concepts are a mechanism we call self-differentiation.
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of freedom is that?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a kind of freedom when you are just all alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what do you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: You create duality.
[SPEAKER_01]: You create the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the justification.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't have to like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's say like we have to know what it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the basic idea is, there is just the singular reality that becomes manifold.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this manifoldness is not a mirage, is not an illusion, it's actually happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: the particular, yes, the both atrika and the adhuita vedanta are good, their consciousness is foundational and that is the cell, that is the Brahman, that is the Atman, fine, so far so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one says, consciousness does not change, immutable, cannot self-defense yet,
[SPEAKER_01]: No care, no sector because gannamines, student cognize objects, things, things don't even exist outside of the Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is there to know?
[SPEAKER_01]: No creative sector, there's no body of the Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the bodies are just limited Maya, productions of Ovidya, ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can we reconcile these two?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, let me speak from the trigger there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this consciousness is foundational, because it has it chashakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: They generally use rather than kalpana.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, let's read Yoga Basis, little more seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: They use the word sum kalpa overwhelmingly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything is
[SPEAKER_01]: a product of imagination, but instead of Kalpana, if we read carefully, it is a product of Sun Kalpa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anybody who has attended any Hindu ritual,
[SPEAKER_01]: would know what Sankal Pai is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before you start the ritual, you make a vow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want this to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing this performing this ritual to achieve this goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Om Tatsat, Tatsat, you may have heard something like that, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then for the sake of this reality, you are worshipping something else, some doing mantras or whatever,
[SPEAKER_01]: What is some Kalpa?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a creative construction, but the root is the same Kalpa and some Kalpa both come from the root, Kalpa, Krippu, Kalpa, to imagine.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Sankalpa, you are imagining.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Kalpa, you are imagining.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Sankalpa, you are making a constructive
[SPEAKER_01]: So, with your constructive imagination, then what you do, you create your reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your reality is, you can call it a dream.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, from the Buddhist Madhama Kha Yoga Chara to Shankaracharya's Vedanta, any time
[SPEAKER_01]: What they are saying is, it's not real.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now, they, in the yoga vassista and the drinker perspective, dream has some reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see, start from fantasy, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Please allow me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You must have daydreamt, you know, sometimes I wish I had this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people do, I, I, I do even now, that fantasy leaves a little dress behind you linger into that fantasy.
[SPEAKER_01]: It changes your mood.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the fantasy is kind of good, not a scary kind of thing, it lets us for a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: To say, fantasy has no substantiality is wrong, it does produce real chemicals in your head.
[SPEAKER_01]: That chemical is real.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it gives you readiness for particular types of action.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dreams, they can cause lasting effect in the dreamer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dreams, you, where is the money I own in the dream?
[SPEAKER_01]: How can dream be real?
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, maybe the dream gave you the motive to make money then.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you learn something in the dream, you can, there are some actual examples of people gaining insight, but I'm not even going there, I'm simply going in how our cognitive and psychological reality is set with fantasies and dreams and imaginations.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot simply talk about the tables and chairs and rocks and trees.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world of our mind, constantly interacting and creating our relationship with the world, does have reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start reading the examples that Yogavashista is giving and then see if we can reconcile.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, too many times, the word Spanda, Spanda means Spalsation, the vibration, moving.
[SPEAKER_01]: Overwhelming use of the vocabulary of Spanda.
[SPEAKER_01]: the book of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Sponda is also category in Trika Shaibijam.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the essential Sponda philosophy?
[SPEAKER_01]: The absolute Shiva pure consciousness has dynamism within itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a static
[SPEAKER_01]: non-active, not knowing nothing in Russia.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what is the point of even realizing the Brahman?
[SPEAKER_01]: If ultimately that is going to turn me into a rock,
[SPEAKER_01]: And how would I even make myself different from a rock?
[SPEAKER_01]: I am pure bliss only, but I have no desire to be in that, or I don't know, in a cognitive sense, because they're no Ganesh Shakti.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then naturally, I won't be able to do anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no ability Shakti, because Shakti is a product of India, ignorance, from the other perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoga Vassista is giving an example to explain diversity as the hemocategant that the ornaments made out of gold, gold and gold ornaments.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how many things you make of gold, it still remains the gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless you just go to shop and then let them do whatever they do, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just talking about the purity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gold is gold remains pure.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter what shape we turn it into.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same applies to the clay and the clay parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the murittica, it he ever saw them.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we go to the Briadharanikopanishad, that only the clay is the true essential thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would we be reading that all the parts and pictures and everything do not exist?
[SPEAKER_01]: They exist in whatever these names and forms, that seems to be the fundamental point of disagreement.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, another example we get is the bubbles and the tides of the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: No matter how many tides you see in the ocean, coming and going merging and dissolving.
[SPEAKER_01]: As the ocean, it makes no difference to the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can say that tides are not real, tides are not tides.
[SPEAKER_01]: are the tights real or not real?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the big philosophical battle there.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me this is not any battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you like to see the tides, you see the tides.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to say this just the ocean, you see the ocean as the ocean.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is singular as tides.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are too many.
[SPEAKER_01]: This should not make any big philosophical debate in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, with some calpa, it stores some desire comes inside of you, it stores your heart, moves, and then you create reality of your liking.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what yoga vasista is saying, and in that sense,
[SPEAKER_01]: Without deviating from the foundational singularity of the Brahman as pure consciousness, it is also accommodating the trigger philosophy, trigger philosophical essence.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are some scholars
[SPEAKER_01]: Bruno Lotturko, Names, comes to me first, you can hand it a, want a slayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: These scholars have done some good studies on the yoga vassista and also in the overlapping field of the trigger n or the itavedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will not go to the footnotes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just exactly one lead the essential points to make it is this singularity of consciousness has some culpa shakti and let's start the yoga vassista from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will give you two very quick examples.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is the sense of indu.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is this Brahman Hindu who has ten sons, but the story starts in a very disturbing way.
[SPEAKER_01]: God of creation is called Brahma.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahma is the absolute and Brahma is the manifestation from within the Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: with the role of creation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahma has subjectivity, Brahma doesn't have subjectivity.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the Brahma creates his own day is called the whole cycle of creation and then he sleeps like rest, the equal time, that is called Kalpa.
[SPEAKER_01]: For one Kalpa he creates and then he
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to start creation and then he he finds himself among ten other Brahma.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have already been creating, they are all sitting on lotus like him, they all
[SPEAKER_01]: In that world, there are gods, there are demons, there are humans, all the realms are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly the way he ever created the world, there are like ten parallel beings, other persons.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like me waking up and then in the morning finding.
[SPEAKER_01]: ten other tanishwas, you know, fixing their own coffee and, you know, enjoying their own life, and I'm able to, like, what the hell is going on here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Clueless Brahmati Ali, not really, not really, not what to make out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just woke up and then, who have these guys?
[SPEAKER_01]: They are like, they look like me, exactly identical.
[SPEAKER_01]: who are these guys now he invite one of the sun guards basket up from one of these dead universes can you tell me what is going on here
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell me, sorry, the call?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell me what is going on here?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the son, God, as you know, I'm the son of one of the universities here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what happened was there was this says, a Brahmin,
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had ten sons, and then when they were growing up, both the parents, Hindu and his wife died.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these sons realized, what is this life, so transitory, and we want to achieve something big, and they all go to Kalas, and they all decide to meditate, and they all decide,
[SPEAKER_01]: to achieve the highest goal of life and they realize that the highest goal would be to become the Creator God, create your own space, create your own time, create your own universe, create your own gods and demons, that's the best thing you can do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is why they have actually become the Creator God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The God of Creation is like, you know, not very amused to a idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you can understand that, why, how did they do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like, what do you do when you start creating?
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the sum kulpa.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the ors, you have the desire, you have your will and with your will, you create
[SPEAKER_01]: what they did is they cracked the code, they collected such strong will in their meditation that they want to become this Creator God and with their strong sum Kalpa, lasting for
[SPEAKER_01]: When you woke up to create, they became, they just woke up with the same words to create and now they have the same powers that you have and they are now the creator gods and you can do anything about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: that he also creates with his will and any one of us can create our reality with our strong
[SPEAKER_01]: say Vedanta is for after life or in this world we make money and then for the other life we also listen to Vedanta so I'm easy to explain it very well so we'll just listen to so I'm easy or after life it taken care of.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the point of telling the story of Indo is we do not need
[SPEAKER_01]: We can recognize the power of will to transform reality here in this very world.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is coffee on my table and I'm wishing for like all 5-10 minutes and no coffee coming and I think this is a wrong philosophy and you know that's a very gross misrepresentation of what we are saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it is is all the things you have achieved in your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is because you will that at one point.
[SPEAKER_01]: that imagination came first.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that determination came first.
[SPEAKER_01]: And based on the urgency of your will, you have shaped the life that you have, you have created your reality, your society, your friends, your loved ones, simply based on your will.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should not think of what we do not have and say, will does not create reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should think of what we have achieved and see all of what we have today is a result of our strong will in different points in our life.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same test of will comes, another example I'll go to.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the very life of Vassista.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not the yoga Vassista, he's the teacher of the whole book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vassista's also come to, you know, existential crisis.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is Vassista's crisis is this board?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like all these people come and you do this teaching and that and he's tired and sick of teaching, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: It just feels like, I need to find a very solitary place.
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks into all the realms, nowhere, everywhere it goes, there are all the cranky people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it goes to the land of the Brahman, you know, like the highest of the realm.
[SPEAKER_01]: A little bit of solitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: But still, you know, there's still a story, the possibility of a disturbance is coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he creates with his will, a hot, and he sits inside that hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: So nobody can find him because he's in his own imagined or fantasized, meditation hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally I have my own place.
[SPEAKER_01]: sits in meditation for a long, long time, and there he hears, after a long time he hears some melody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Slowly he is just waking up to now who comes here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am in my own creation in my space.
[SPEAKER_01]: beautiful woman, she says, are weak in some places, you know, and then who are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a video that you, I live in our own, we have a separate universe here, I'm from another, let's say galaxy or parallel reality, whatever the world you have to throw, and where
[SPEAKER_01]: and she just points to a rock or and from inside that rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you talking about?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, really.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to come inside the rock to see my world.
[SPEAKER_01]: What she's to try and feels, try and be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are finding it difficult because this rock, you know, size and shape and space and all, but just forget those things and just create that chunk of the common side.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what is the goes inside the rock?
[SPEAKER_01]: Inside the world of this video, there is a whole universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is another God of creation, right there, Brahma, creating the whole world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Brahma has this lingering, and then the vidhyadhari has this lingering wanting to mate with Brahma, and then, you know, it's like a really love story to make it short.
[SPEAKER_01]: is done with all the creations everything he has done and he is in the mood to dissolve the one, Pralaya.
[SPEAKER_01]: One after another, cataclysmic events that Vasista witnesses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he
[SPEAKER_01]: long time had passed since he left his heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was his fantasy heart, by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he created that heart out of his imagination.
[SPEAKER_01]: But somebody found it real, and somebody came and lived in that heart, and meditated for a long time,
[SPEAKER_01]: and had also died there.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was just a body, very surprised, was he still decided to come back to our realm and he remitializes himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the essential point here is
[SPEAKER_01]: this world of inter-subjective reality is not the only inter-subjective reality, Vassista's pure fiction with strong willpower can be turned into the same degree of reality with inter-subjective
[SPEAKER_01]: The space that Vassista created out of his imagination becomes the real space.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the space inside the rock is the universe within.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why we cannot reconcile this is because we are stuck with the idea of key two points.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have this expansiveness of space.
[SPEAKER_01]: The outreach space is 13 billion light years expanded.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, 45 billion light years expanded.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have measured only 13 billion light years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we find space immeasurably vast.
[SPEAKER_01]: and we have the error of time constantly progressing towards the future single directional time.
[SPEAKER_01]: What trigger and auditor, at least in the yoga vasishta, in this essential text, what they are suggesting is, this space and time is the power inside consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, where is consciousness, is a stubborn question?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because where is a space-related question?
[SPEAKER_01]: How long does consciousness last?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is time-related question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Consciousness does not endure in time.
[SPEAKER_01]: space and time are the products of consciousness, consciousness determines space and consciousness determines temporality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Time and space do not determine consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when and where are irrelevant questions?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it does not matter how fast.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Brahma has all the space, how could they create other Brahma tens of them
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we are immediately worried about the cohabitation of his face, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So Brahma has infinity space for himself, fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: He can keep creating, expanding his territory, his friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: He can put to a very, very like.
[SPEAKER_01]: And but other Brahma will have the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: Expansion, no matter how much there is the Earth, there is the desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our fundamental problems about delimitation are based on space and time and from the pure
[SPEAKER_01]: are the powers, Shakti, intrinsic to Shiva or pure consciousness, from the other way to the other perspective, space and time are still Shakti or the product of Shakti, but this Shakti is a video, a video of Shakti visrim with the manifested due to ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, because of a video,
[SPEAKER_01]: The self finds itself finite limited going in space limited in space or condition by time limited in time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of this space time delimitation, the self is roaming in the world or that timeless and specialist being as such pure consciousness finds itself temporal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the last point I would like to make before I stop would be from the adhoiter or the tricca ultimately this essential nature of consciousness remains unchallenged.
[SPEAKER_01]: creativity, spontaneity, with the power to manifest as many.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is this manifestation intrinsic within the nature of that absolute or just a simple projection from outside?
[SPEAKER_01]: These are just minor questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: in dividing trick of philosophy and all the way to Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, of course, there are some other points and sadhana and practices and all of that, but ultimately, if we want to go to the core of the division, the difference, we can sum up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so coming back, I urge you all to read the yoga
[SPEAKER_01]: But not yet, not just a storybook, a book with tremendous insight to integrate trick of philosophical notions and the aduit of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because the original writings of the yogavasistha happened in the area of Kashmir during the time when
[SPEAKER_01]: this trigger system was just emerging, was coming to the peak popularity of the intelligent minds of that era.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the, although it evident that was gaining its popularity, it is all reasonable, it just makes sense that
[SPEAKER_01]: used narratives to give a fusion philosophy of both.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you find this approach suitable, you can relate to there are many other stories like the story of Kaka, Boshunda, the story of Lila, the story of Lavana, the King, and so many major big stories there.
[SPEAKER_01]: where you can find the same philosophical trust flowing through all the narratives.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like to stop at that point, so we have some time left for the questions and answers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a road, a roadie, you have a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can unmute yourself for now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi, I was just given the thumbs up because I appreciate the professor's talk.
[SPEAKER_02]: And my faith background is not Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm learning.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know these texts.
[SPEAKER_02]: But there was always seem to be a contradiction
[SPEAKER_02]: Realizing the world is not real to creation of consciousness, but yet having desires and having to live and act and work within the same world.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I appreciate your talk about our ability to create and manifest in this world because we still have to obviously live and function in this world if you are a householder.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I could just ask one question while I have the floor, I do appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The end part of your talk, you address space and time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It just seems like once we come to this divine realization, this conscious realization, we're outside of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: we're still restrained by time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if we're trying to manifest the desire like health or maybe some prosperity or just wisdom or knowledge, it seems like we're always just constrained by this space and time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if you would agree with that professor that that's something we just have to deal with in our limited capacity while we're here in life
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's say we can address that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for giving me the time to speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let us look at this situation this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time we go to the mall, it seems that
[SPEAKER_01]: The money is the constraining factor.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like this, I would like that, but at the end of the day, it all depends on nowadays we are just in credit, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: How much of credit line I have?
[SPEAKER_01]: The same thing, this time any space seems to be like the credit line, within which we,
[SPEAKER_01]: can do our shopping of reality that we want to create.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can say money is a constraining factor, but having that is also the power, the capacity in the Catholic society where our transactions are mediated by money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why I brought that example is for the notion of Shakti power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Time is power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can we expand?
[SPEAKER_01]: Time in our life, in this realm, to what extent the space we can extend, our work is space.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are constantly expanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Me, I left the school in Kathmandu and expanded my space by working in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's, of course, very finite if we want to have the space like the Brahma.
[SPEAKER_01]: Time, yes, we cannot go back in time, but there is also some smart use of time we start doing with some call power and we have the will to create.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what does this philosophy say, because if we are entertaining their philosophy of one category, we have to use another category, another category, the story of Indu for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: They want infinity space and infinite time for themselves, they become the God of creation.
[SPEAKER_01]: The philosophical notion there at least, practically can we have that level of freedom.
[SPEAKER_01]: office space and time are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We still have to fight within this limitaries space, but philosophically what they are trying to say is, the sons of Hindu are not tied to our normal space and time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Meaning, with your strong will, you have the capacity to transcend the limitations imposed by space and time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because consciousness can
[SPEAKER_01]: But they give yet another notion, the yet another notion is a continuum in rebirth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have the strong urge to do something, what would that be?
[SPEAKER_01]: some people in the science fiction might have the odds to go to Mars, you know, settle a colony there and then we may not be able to have that achieved in this lifetime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this philosophy says then if you have this strong odds to do certain things, you will be reborn to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So our infinite lifetimes are a mechanism of materializing the wheels, the desires that we have had in multiple lifetimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: We read that as a process of punishment, because we had that desire, and then we got punished for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, it is a reward system.
[SPEAKER_01]: But how can this be a reward?
[SPEAKER_01]: would be rewarding at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, have you ever done something that I wish I had this and then actually you have that and then you start regretting buyer's remorse.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the life in this perspective is we want things and they happen and then it's just they are also not as with heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why they say ultimately, it's just good to wake up from all the chains of desires.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the banana way.
[SPEAKER_01]: But from the Sunkel Patricka perspective, yes, you can transform.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we are very limited within this special time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are asing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But within the finite time and space, we have this freedom.
[SPEAKER_01]: to materialize what is possible, we didn't the capacity that we can play.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I find even that much as a positive something, rather than finding ourselves conditioned by some other factors tossed into this place.
[SPEAKER_01]: and have no freedom, no room to play on our own.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there is this faith, has thrown us into this situation, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is, we can change our situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that situational change depends on Sankalpa, the constructive will we make.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have just a negotiation, that's all the best I can say.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a joy as always.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I hope you have a warm rest of your day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And for everybody, for everybody in the trisate area and further, please stay warm and stay safe.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't go out there trying to sled or ski or whatever stay home and be warm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you again.