Gospel | Chapter 3: Aug 5, 1882 (Part 7) | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it means I offered this to Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's something we do in our tradition in the Ramakrishna movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be a practice to offer something to the deity.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all our activities, if you are a devotee of Krishna for example, you would say Sri Krishna or Pandavas too.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every activity can be offered as a worship.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what we do in our tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every class, every pooja, every, you know, every meeting or whatever it is, you offer it to Sri Rama Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Rama Krishna, Arpadam, Arpadam, offering us to let it be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Rama Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: So to Sri Rama Krishna, let this offering be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we'll continue where we were doing last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the visit to Vidya Sagar, fifth August, eighteen, eight, two.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll continue from page one, two, where Vidya Sagar said, oh, that's a remarkable statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have learned something new today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Instagram Krishna said, Bramhan cannot be expressed in language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then I'm going to go on from there.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is page one, two, and I'm reading from the middle of the page.
[SPEAKER_00]: It goes on in the field that it cannot be expressed.
[SPEAKER_00]: The highest reality cannot be captured by language.
[SPEAKER_00]: Master, a man had two sons, the father sent them to a receptor to learn the knowledge of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a few years, they returned from their preceptors house and bowed low before their father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wanting to measure the depth of their knowledge of Brahman,
[SPEAKER_00]: He first questioned the older of the two boys.
[SPEAKER_00]: My child, he said, you have studied all the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now tell me what is the nature of Brahman?
[SPEAKER_00]: The boy began to explain Brahman by reciting various texts from the Vedas.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father did not say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he asked the younger son the same question.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the boy remained silent and stood with eyes cast down.
[SPEAKER_00]: No word escaped his lips.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father was pleased and said to him, my child, you have understood a little of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: What it is, cannot be expressed in words.
[SPEAKER_00]: Men often think that they have understood Brahman fully.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once an end went to a hill of sugar, one grain filled its stomach, taking another grain in its mouth, it started homeward.
[SPEAKER_00]: On its way, it's thought, next time I shall carry home the whole hill.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the way shallow mind think.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't know that Brahman is beyond one's words and thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: How great a man, however great a man may be, how much can he know of Brahman?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sukadeva and Sages like him may have been big ants, but even they could carry at most eight or ten greens of sugar.
[SPEAKER_00]: As for what has been said in the Vedas and the Puranas, do you know what it is like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose a man has seen the ocean and somebody asks him, well, what is the ocean like?
[SPEAKER_00]: The first man opens his mouth as wide as he can and he says, what are sight?
[SPEAKER_00]: What tremendous waves and sounds?
[SPEAKER_00]: The description of Brahman in the sacred books is like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is said in the Vedas that Brahman is of the nature of bliss.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is such a darn under.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suka and other sages stood on the shore of this ocean of Brahman and saw and touched the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to one school of thought, they never plunged into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who do cannot come back to the world again.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Samadhi, one attains the knowledge of Brahman, one realizes Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that state, reasoning stops altogether, and man becomes mute.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has no power to describe the nature of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once a salt doll went to measure the depth of the ocean, all laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wanted to tell others how deep the water was.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this it could never do.
[SPEAKER_00]: For no sooner did it get into the water than it melted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now who was there to report Doshan's death?
[SPEAKER_00]: A devotee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose a man has obtained the knowledge of Brahman in Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Doesn't he speak anymore?
[SPEAKER_00]: Master.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shankaracharya is a footnote, one of the greatest philosophers of India.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shankaracharya retained the ego of knowledge in order to teach others.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the vision of Brahman, a man becomes silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: He reasons about it as long as he has not realized it.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you heed butter in a pan on the stove, it makes a sizzling sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as the water it contains has not dried up.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when no trace of water is left, the clarified butter makes no sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you put an uncooked cake of flour in that butter, it sizzles again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But after the cake is cooked, all sound stops.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just so man established in Samad, he comes down to the relative plane of consciousness in order to teach others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he talks about God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bee buzzes as long as it is not sitting on a flower, it becomes silent when it begins to sip the honey.
[SPEAKER_00]: But sometimes intoxicated with the honey, it buzzes again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And empty picture makes a girdling sound when it is dipped in water.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it fills up, it becomes silent all laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if the water is poured into it from another picture, when you hear the sound again, laughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rishis of old attained the knowledge of Brahman, one cannot have this as long as there is the slightest trace of worldliness.
[SPEAKER_00]: How hard the rishis labored, early in the morning they would go away from the hermitage and spend the whole day in solitude meditating on Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: At night,
[SPEAKER_00]: They would return to the hermitage and eat a little fruit or roots.
[SPEAKER_00]: They kept their minds aloof from the objects of sight, hearing, touch, and other things of a worldly nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only thus did they realize Brahman as their own inner consciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in the Kali Yoga man being totally dependent on food for life cannot altogether shake off the idea that he is the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this state of mind, it is not proper for him to say, I am he.
[SPEAKER_00]: When a man does all sorts of worldly things, he should not say I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who cannot give up attachment to worldly things and who find no means to shake up the feeling of I should rather cherish the idea, I am God servant, I am His devotee.
[SPEAKER_00]: One can also realize God by following the path of devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Giani gives up his identification with worldly things, discriminating, not this, not this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only then can he realize Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is like reaching the roof of a house by leaving the steps behind one by one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the Vigiani, who is more intimately acquainted with Brahman, realizes something more.
[SPEAKER_00]: He realizes that the steps are made of the same materials as the roof, bricks, lime and brick dust.
[SPEAKER_00]: that which is realized intuitively as Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the eliminating process of not this, not this, is then found to have become the universe and all its living beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Vigyani sees that reality which is nith guna without attributes is also sarguna with attributes.
[SPEAKER_00]: A man cannot live on the roof for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: He comes down again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who realize Brahman in Samadhi come down also and find that it is Brahman who has become the universe and is living beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the musical scale, there are the notes, Saray, Gama, Padha, Nih.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one cannot keep one's voice on Nih a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ego does not vanish altogether.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man coming down from Samathi perceives that it is Brahman that has become the ego, the universe, and all living beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is known as Vigyana.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path of knowledge leads to the truth as does the path that combines knowledge and love.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path of love too leads to this goal.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way of love is as true as the way of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: All paths ultimately lead to the same truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as long as God keeps the feeling of ego in us, it is easier to follow the path of love.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Vigiani sees that Brahman is immovable and actionless, like Mount Sumeru.
[SPEAKER_00]: This universe consists of the three Guna, Satva Rajas and Tamas.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are in Brahman, but Brahman is unattached.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Vigiani further sees that that which is Brahman is the Bhagavan, the personal God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He who is beyond the three Guna is the Bhagavan, with the six supernatural powers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Living beings, the universe, mind, intelligence, love, renunciation, knowledge, all these are manifestations of his power with a laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: If an aristocrat has neither house nor property, or if he has been forced to sell them, one doesn't call him an aristocrat anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: All laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: God is endowed with six supernatural powers.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he were not, who would obey him?
[SPEAKER_00]: All laugh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just see how pictures this universe is, how many things there are.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sun moon and stars and how many varieties of living beings begin small, good and bad, strong and weak, some endowed with more power, some bit less.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, but this is enough to be going on with.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he has sort of poured a lot of knowledge here on Vedanta and talked about how God is beyond description.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then what happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do how does one realize God?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then again, coming down, how does one teach?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the status of the texts, the scriptures?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, many beautiful examples and which path is easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are the different paths?
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that here's mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, let's go back to where we started.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a man had two sons and he sent them to learn the knowledge of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: A few days after a few years later, they come back and one of them, his father questions them to see how much they have learned.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of them starts giving a Vedanta talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he's quoting Schlokers and giving arguments and stories and reasoning and the Vedas is giving a talk.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second one,
[SPEAKER_00]: father doesn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as the second younger son who just keeps quiet, and the father says, you have learned something of Brahman, you know a little, you have understood a little of Brahman, what it is, cannot be expressed in words.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, the beautiful story there, that they were sent to study, but it shows that what is there in the text is
[SPEAKER_00]: not the knowledge itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And knowledge itself, when one gets it, and one may get it with the help of the texts.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why they were sent to school to learn.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the sign that one has learned it is that
[SPEAKER_00]: One knows it is beyond language.
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore silence is the best expression of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Silence can be of two kinds.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody who never went to school can be quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And somebody who has mastered it is quiet because that is the best expression of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have reminded of Buddha's famous silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: And asked profound metaphysical questions, fourteen questions actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Buddha chose to remain silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: not because he didn't know, he knew, but it because it could not be expressed in language.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, silence was the best answer to those questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, here, the boy keeps silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is reminded of the Keno Upanishad, when the teacher teaches the student that which we're talking about, the ultimate reality, is other than the known, other than the unknown.
[SPEAKER_00]: An year they were taught Veditad, Atho Aviditad Adhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: So other than the known other than the unknown, because all that we know and all that is no able can be divided into these two parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever is no able in this universe, two parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is what we already know and the rest is what we do not know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, other than this is nothing, but there is something which is not an object of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the whole point.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Brahman is not an object of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is your own reality, to which all knowledge appears, to you who are Brahman, when through the mind and instruments of knowledge, you become a knower.
[SPEAKER_00]: And from the knowers perspective, there are things that you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are things that you do not know.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one may keep on increasing the range of one's knowledge and so what we do not know receives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although the more we know, I think it was Einstein who said the more I know the more I become aware of the dimensions of my ignorance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other than the known, other than the unknown.
[SPEAKER_00]: After teaching this, and then in the K&O, the teacher teaches the student that it is not an object of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet it is not unknown because you, the subject of knowledge, you are luminous, you are self-reviewed, it's like light.
[SPEAKER_00]: Light reveals everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some things are in darkness, other things are revealed by light.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the light itself does not require another light to reveal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's self-luminous.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good example.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the teacher goes on in the Kino Open issue, telling the student, so it is not something that is seen by the eyes, but that by which the eyes see that is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is not something that is heard by the ears, but that by which the ears, here that is Brahman, is not something that can be spoken of by the power of speech, but that by which the speech functions that is Brahman and so on, he goes on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brahmann is not that you very famous lying in the Kain Open Initiative.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brahmann is not that which you worship as this, may it be a little more passively.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not what you worship as Adam as this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So is it not there?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's not an object.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it nothing to worship?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it is to be worshiped.
[SPEAKER_00]: Worshiped in the sense of the highest reverence that it is the supreme reality, which is your own real self.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all of this, in the second chapter in the KNO definition, the teacher gives a test, a quiz, and says, tell me, do you know Brahman?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's a very, it's a trap.
[SPEAKER_00]: The question is a trap.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you say that I know Brahman, teacher will say, you have not understood anything what I thought because it cannot be known as an object of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you say, I don't know Brahman, then teaching has failed because then you don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what can the student say?
[SPEAKER_00]: But the student is even sharper than the teacher, and he gives perfect answer.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, naham mannisu vedi noana vedi te vedi te vedi te vedi te.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not think that I know Brahman as an object.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, so you don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but I know, I do know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do know, but I do not know it as an object, as an object is implied there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do not think I know it thus, but it's not that I do not know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he goes further, can he imagine the teacher is the quizzing, this must be the brightest of the students, and he looks around at other students, and he says that those amongst us who understood what I have said, they have understood, given us that way, that way, that way, that way, that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you can imagine the teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: Others must be sketched.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the students must be sketching the head.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: Some sounds like some kind of puzzle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the teacher explains.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, those who think it is known, Brahman is known, it's not known to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who know that it cannot be known as an object, they know Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally, it means if you translate, for those who know who think they know Brahman, it is unknown for those who know that they do not know Brahman, it is known.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it sounds very paradoxical, but it's a very precise way of pointing out what you are.
[SPEAKER_00]: A question might be that, you know, why put it that way?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why don't you just say your Brahman is consciousness?
[SPEAKER_00]: Your consciousness or Brahman is Atman, your real self.
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem is that, you know, if once you say that, then that one who is searching for Brahman, ultimately, reality out there will now understand, or it's something else in there and start searching again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But all the while the searcher is what he's searching for.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it has to be pointed out in a very vivid way.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you just use a term like Atman consciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then off goes the student again, another while goes the chase.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must be pointed out in the vivid experience of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, you are hearing, yes, it's not what you hear, but you know, he says it's the ear of the ear, that by which hearing is possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not what you see, you see, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, but it's not what you see.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the sight of the sight, it's the eyes of the eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the eye of the tongue of the tongue?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is consciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: That which makes the whole thing possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the second sense reply was what the father was looking for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: It points to Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that works only when.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody understands what's being talked about.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have gone through many Vedanta classes.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have an idea about what is an object, what is a subject, what is consciousness, what is self, not self, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then silence points to that reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you just go outside and ask somebody, what is Brahman?
[SPEAKER_00]: They're likely to remain silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean they're enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another beautiful story.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is because, calls to my mind, another similar story.
[SPEAKER_00]: A father had three sons.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a Chinese story, Taoist story, in story about violence and non-violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: A father had three sons and he sent them off to school and because this is China, it's not a Vedanta school, it's a Kung Fu school, a martial arts school.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the three kids come back and a father wants to know how well they have learned.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's really a beautiful show, you know, he tells the children that walk to this valley, in this valley there's a wild horse, you have to cross the valley, confront the horse and cross the valley.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see you do it, you're all skilled.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first son, eldest son, goes across and the horse charges at him and attacks him and he fights with that horse fiercely and subdues the horse, he walks across.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's exhausted and bruised but victorious.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father doesn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second son goes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the second son, very skillful instead of fighting the horse, he goes by the sides of the walls of the valley and avoids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time the horse charges at him, he avoids the fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: He skillfully avoids the whole thing and comes out without hurting himself or the horse.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the father doesn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, the third son
[SPEAKER_00]: He walks across the valley.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hearts comes to him in nuzzles and he pets the hearts and he walks across and crosses the valley and comes out on the other side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if as I say, the most skilled is the third one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The third one is really learned martial arts because first one fought countered violence with violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second one avoided violence skillfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: The third one diffused violence altogether, because his mind was completely at peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is there in the yoga's potentially yoga sutras?
[SPEAKER_00]: If a person is completely established in non-violence, then around him also, violence will be diffused.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, violent animals also will become friends with each other, predators will not eat their prey and things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's another story I read.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reason I'm bringing it up is, at the end of this month in October, there is a beautiful talk by Professor Jeffrey Long.
[SPEAKER_00]: His latest work is on non-violence in the major world religions, and he's going to give a talk here at Vedanta Society last Sunday of October.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's about his new book and it's on the theme of non-violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another example, Sri Ramakrishna gives now is one of his favorite ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a mountain of sugar and a little ant cause and takes a little grain of that and is delighted to find this mountain of sugar.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's pulling this grain.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all that the ant can do to pull a little one grain of sugar back to its hole to its little home.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he looks back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll come back and take the whole hill of sugar.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, that's how people think that
[SPEAKER_00]: We are going to know all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I discovered this amazing thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This ultimate reality of the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll discover all aspects.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now look, there are these two examples he has given.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first example is, it is beyond language.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only through it, if you have really understood it, the best expression or indication of that would be silence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's beyond language beyond thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two,
[SPEAKER_00]: It is enormous.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's vast and infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever you know about it is still little.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it means like the sugar which can be tasted, God can be known.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is second one.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is second thing he's saying, but God's aspects are infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first one is the Nirguna Brahman of Advaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ultimate reality absolute, which does not enter into our conceptual framework.
[SPEAKER_00]: We cannot grasp it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can only indicate it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can only point to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second one can be, I'm thinking this way, is the subunabramman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramannu Jaacharya, the great teacher of Vishisthat Vaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever he talks about Brahman, he goes into ecstasy of description.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, Anantakallya Anaguna gonna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Endless auspicious qualities are there in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's talking about Vishnu or Narayana.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, God has endless auspicious qualities.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sudham Krishna will mention some of them later on.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, God can be known or can at least be approached.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are any number of aspects.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot exhaust God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can know God in a certain way, but you cannot exhaust it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there are now already two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, you appreciate the difference between the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is God is unknowable in that sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not an object you can know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then in what sense can it be known?
[SPEAKER_00]: You are that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You intuitively, you know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second one is the God of religion, Saguna Brahman, Brahman with many auspicious attributes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is infinite.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one can only know, realize one tiny aspect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't that disappointing?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not disappointing.
[SPEAKER_00]: That example is very beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just needs one grain of sugar to be fulfilled.
[SPEAKER_00]: We also, we just need to touch God or realize God in whatever possible aspect in whatever way we can and that's enough for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just enough for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the secondary, the second thing, and that God, we can only, some aspect of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is, even the non-theistic religions, like Buddhism and Jainism, Jainism says, that Anantadharma ka was to, the reality has endless aspects.
[SPEAKER_00]: And because reality has endless aspects, we need not fight over reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it eternal or non-eturnal?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the eternal from the Hindu side, non-eturnal from the outer, and momentary from the Buddhist side, and the Jain, what does the Jain say?
[SPEAKER_00]: eternal in one sense and non-eternal in the other sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the chain of philosophy, the central practice of joinism is non-violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in philosophy also they are non-violent.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't say, this is right and that's wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is right in one sense and that's right in another sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how is that possible?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because ultimately reality has infinite aspects.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even contradictory aspects can be a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: From in different senses.
[SPEAKER_00]: then.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is the relevance of the scriptures, the texts, Upanishads and all of that, all the texts of the major world religions.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says they are like the ocean.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the person who's gone to see the ocean and then comes back and what can the person say?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, wow, what a sight, what a tremendous their waves and what sounds.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the kind of description you get in the original text.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those, the original text in the sense that those who have realized, after that comes many layers of interpretation and philosophy and all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the original text are like this Ram Krishna says, it's just a very second hand report of what those, the Rishi's, what have they have already experienced with trying their best to convey to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: and reminded of Chopin Howard, he's speaking in general, a great German philosopher.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, what's the difference between an academic philosopher and a real philosopher?
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference he says, the academic philosopher is puzzled by the real philosopher is puzzled by life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Real philosopher looks at life and is puzzled by it and things about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the academic philosopher is puzzled by his books.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the difference between a real philosopher and a academic philosopher.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then next, he gives some examples.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, one goes into Samadhi and realizes that Samadhi is beyond the discursive thought of the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a direct experience is possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you cannot reason at that point, but after that you can come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, he says, in general, you cannot come back from that Samadhi because the individuality is dissolved there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then, like somebody asked the question,
[SPEAKER_00]: Then what about teachers?
[SPEAKER_00]: See, if you do not come back, then all the reports that we have of religion, all the reports of spirituality and all those were teaching us, then they cannot be exactly right because they must be like second hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's only when you get a report from somebody who has seen, who has realized, then only that is the most genuine thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they don't come back, then what are all these scriptures?
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says, yes, they do come back in some cases.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says Shankaracharya kept the ego of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other places, Ram Krishna says they come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: because the individuality is maintained by the wish of God, by the wish of Saguna Brahman or Ishwara, where the enlightened one can still come back and still function in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what's called a Jeevan Mukta, for ordinary cases.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, like Sri Ramakrishna or Shankara and others, they are avataras.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have come with a mission in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they retain like a shadow of their individuality.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are completely aware of their reality that they are from one with God and they can teach.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he gives a few cute examples of teaching of enlightenment and teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the butter with sizzles, when you heat it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's in the process of becoming enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all the water content has gone, there is no more sizzling.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you are purified, you are enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in that if you put something else, then it sizzles for a while again, which means after enlightenment, also someone may talk again and teach again and guide people again in order to guide others to enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not that after enlightenment, everybody has to be silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: They may fall silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: but then they may again talk also.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not that, drumman is only expressed in silence, which means, so I mean, you are talking so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you are making fools of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: You should keep quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I keep quiet, first of all, it won't really work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You might think, first time I do that, you might think it's really profound.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second time you'll not come back again, anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I give you the silent treatment, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: So teaching traditions are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are texts, there are teachers, there's a whole teaching tradition called the Parampara.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not just one Parampara, one Parampara in the lineage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just one.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are many, many religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, this was the ancient thing in every tradition in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are very religious.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is, in fact, if you look at the biblical traditions, for example, that's one of the purposes of giving the names of, you know, after him came so, and so, after him came so, and so, and after him came so, and so, and so, lineage by which it is transmitted, spirituality is transmitted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the B example, that's also very nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the B is buzzing around, that's the spiritual secret.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when the B finds a flower and starts sipping honey from the flower, the nectar from the not honey, the nectar from the flower, then the B silent.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Sri Ram Krishna gives a very beautiful, you know, a beautiful expression.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes intoxicated with the honey, it buzzes again.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have seen bees in the garden, you know that it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sits on a flower.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is sipping the
[SPEAKER_00]: the nectar and then suddenly a little bit it buzzes a little bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Sri Ram Krishna says it's like the enlightened one intoxicated with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But once in a while, may burst out into a song or may teach something, may give a teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the most genuine thing because it's coming directly from the source.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these things are beautiful because they are so vividly demonstrated in Sri Ram Krishna's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see that every day in Sri Ram Krishna's life, especially in the Gospel of Sri Ram Krishna, you find the bee becoming absorbed in sipping the nectar, and then humming a little, and then maybe buzzing around a little bit, teaching others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the another example he gives is a pitcher, a jar of water, which is empty.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you start filling it with water, makes a gurgling sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it's full to the brain, it becomes silent, no more sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: But from there, if you again pour it into another empty pitcher, there's again a gurgling sound.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in the initial stage that gurgling sound is in your studying, seeking, practicing, asking questions is the first.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you are full, you're enlightened, or at least you're spiritually very deep focused in words centered.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then you teach, so you make a girdling sound again, like the water being poured from one jar to another.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he goes on to difficulty.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, this path, you can become enlightened, the path of non-dual Vedanta, but it's difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how hard the ancients work, the rishis of old attain knowledge of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: This Sunday, I'm going to speak about one of them, who is a woman?
[SPEAKER_00]: from the Rig Veda, most ancient of the Vedas.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the earliest of the hymns.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the baby soup, the hymns to the baby.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a Rishi who a woman, maybe four, five thousand years ago, the first recorded religious spiritual text and that to coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think there is any more ancient record of teaching
[SPEAKER_00]: And even here, and certainly, this is the first time we hear of a Rishika woman giving this teaching.
[SPEAKER_00]: How extraordinary that teaching will see on this Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just thinking, in a sense, the Rishika, her name is Wak.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was also the daughter, her father was also Rishika.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she talks about her experience, her realization of oneness with the Divine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's so bold and straightforward, a hum which starts every sentence, starts with a hum I. And every great advance in religion and spirituality from that time onwards.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is there already.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just thinking whatever we have understood in religion spirituality afterwards, whether it is the idea of one divinity, monotheism, whether it is the idea of the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the consciousness within us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That the art, the openish of the teachings that it is, that which shines in every, it is our own self, it shines in every act of consciousness,
[SPEAKER_00]: knowledge even that that is our true source of life and energy that it is the fuel, the inspiration for civilization, all of those things, morality for an uplifting and entire people, all of those ideas which went to form religion, spirituality, philosophy, theology later on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything is there in what she says, in that him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just thinking, what more did the Upanishads add to what she has said?
[SPEAKER_00]: this lady five who lived five thousand years ago, what more have Shankara and Gaudapad and others post Shankara said added to that nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a sense, everything she has said five thousand years ago, four thousand years ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: She lived even by most conservative estimates, seventeen hundred BC, which is like twelve hundred years before the Buddha.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that ancient.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the minimum.
[SPEAKER_00]: But probably it is much older, four thousand years or more.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then he says, in the Kaliyoga man being totally dependent on food for life cannot all together shake up the idea that he's the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Krishna and the Bhagavad-gita also has pointed out that this path is difficult for those who have strong body attachment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Abwirekta, he got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, come, they have a bit of up here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those who are strongly attached to the senses, strongly attached that I am this body for them realizing by the path of Nathan, it is difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then he gives a path, a positive path.
[SPEAKER_00]: A positive path is the worship of a deity, not so much an intellectual analysis, but a flow of love and the worship of a positive divinity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you might say, one might ask, so if it is an easier path, a more positive path, worship of the divinity, outward, that means here is God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us worship God there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then why was this not said earlier?
[SPEAKER_00]: That would have been, would have made things easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why give the difficult teaching first?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, problem is this.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is easier, but it is that much further away from the truth in a philosophical sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, what you worship as this is not that reality precisely.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the moment you worship it as this, you're already using a name and a form.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Durga, Kali, Shiva, Ganesha, or even a conceptual, our father in heaven or Allah, or the Juday God, it's still conceptual.
[SPEAKER_00]: It still, God is something, some, or some reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still your objective, I think it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still not exactly what it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Vedantic idea, the openish of the idea is much more precise, and it points you in the right direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also much more difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because it's complicated, it's actually very simple, but it's because our minds are unable to grasp it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is one reason is because we are very body-centric these days.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember a Vaishnava teacher jokingly saying, many years ago, I heard him in Beludmat.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, in this day and age, when you tell somebody,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he was talking about the different ages.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in these Hindus have this idea of cycles of time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the ages there, the yoga, the age of truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next stage is little lower.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next stage is even lower.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now in the age of, early yoga, the lowest, where we are most materialistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in every age, spirituality becomes more difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: So easy and in easier ways have to be used.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is in the earliest age, Satya Yoga, you could just tell the truth that you are that and they would realize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the next age, they couldn't realize it if you told the truth, but then you can tell them to meditate.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll meditate upon it and realize it in some other way.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the next age, the third age, they couldn't even meditate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they had to be purified.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you tell them to be just exactly what Sri Ram Krishna was saying, fast and lead a very osteo-life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the mind would be purified by that austerity and the power of that austerity, and one could realize it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is in this age, if you tell people to fast, and that this is very funny, this is now you tell people to fast the first thing they will ask is, so what should I eat?
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first question is, what fasting is what, so what can I eat?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in this age, devotion,
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a name and a form of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And God, as it were, has made Himself herself, itself easier of access.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you focus your mind and your heart in devotion to me in this way, as Krishna, as Rama, as Ramakrishna, or as Saguna Brahman, Shiva, Vishnu, Narayan, the Christian God of Islam, and God in that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it will be and by but then it requires grace by the grace of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Ram Krishna says it's the same thing because once you how is it the same thing didn't you just say it's not an object it's not an aim and form if it's not that what you what you worship as this now you are saying worship it as this
[SPEAKER_00]: Siram Krishna says, actually, what does one realize, even after the non-dual realization he says, you by not this, not this, you realize Brahman, it's like reaching the roof of a house, by leaving the steps behind one by one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the Vigyani, Giani and Vigyani, Giani and lighten one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vigyani, especially in lighten a further knowledge, the highest realization or the fuller realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Viggani, what does he realize?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is more intimately acquainted with Brahman?
[SPEAKER_00]: Realize is something more.
[SPEAKER_00]: He realizes that the steps are made of the same material as the roof, bricks, slime, and brick dust.
[SPEAKER_00]: that which is realized intuitively as Brahman through the eliminating process of not this, not this, is then found to have become the universe and all its living beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Viggani sees that reality which is Nirguna without attributes is also subuna with attributes, so much is packed here.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the highest teachings of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: The absolute transcendent is also the imminent.
[SPEAKER_00]: That which is beyond everything is also in and through everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like the gold and ornaments example I've given.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gold by itself is not a necklace or a bracelet or a ring.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you examine gold, which part of the gold is a necklace?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a necklace.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing in the gold which is actually a necklace.
[SPEAKER_00]: Neither in its chemical composition nor in its qualities.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of them is a necklace or a ring or a bracelet.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the necklace ring and bracelet are nothing but gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are names and forms and particular uses, which we superimpose on gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every bit of a necklace, every bit of a ring or a bracelet is gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if it's a golden ornament.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, the ultimate reality, Brahman is not this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not tables or chairs or human beings, plants and animals.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not stars, it's not quarks or quasars.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet,
[SPEAKER_00]: that pure being pure awareness, pure bliss, from that perspective, all these things are none other than it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just like the gold and the ornaments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or just like what you experience in your dreams.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are none of those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did not go to that place in the dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did not do those things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You saw in the dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did not eat that food.
[SPEAKER_00]: You saw in the dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: None of that was happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet none of those things can exist without you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the dreamer.
[SPEAKER_00]: They exist only because you dreamed them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that sense, the Vigani says, Brahman alone is everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything here is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here, the world again is seen as real, but real has God, or real has Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all, we start off the world seems real.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the spiritual practice in Advaita Vedanta, we are convinced that the world is an appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, Brahman alone, I'm real, or Brahman alone is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world is an appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you go further back and you see, what is this world?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is none other than Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that sense, it's real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ramana Mashi is to say something paradoxical.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is to say, who can call this world real?
[SPEAKER_00]: We normally think, enlightened person, we call this world a dream, a falsity, illusion, an illusion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's only the materialistic worldly person who says this world is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ramana Mashi says, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is only then light in one who can call this a real word.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who can call this word real?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he or she has appreciated, intuitively realized what is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then only you can, you have any authority to say what is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: The rest of us are just living in a making dream, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just walking, like walking through a dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: What reality is there in this dream?
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me look at the comments.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see before that we go on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bishal says,
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, hurry is I am not, does he refer to same ego which becomes from?
[SPEAKER_00]: And bro, ego does not become Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is from an Advaitic perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as I am identified with the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you mean identify with the ego?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I am this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Serba Priyananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my, this is my body.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are my thoughts.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my personality.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is called ego identification.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then what is Brahman is not at all clear to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I realize, I am the witness of the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ego is just a functioning of the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have repeated, I have pointed out earlier, Shankaracharya says in the Nirvana Shattakam,
[SPEAKER_00]: But more interestingly, Ahang Karanaham, I am not the ego, or literally I am not I. So what am I?
[SPEAKER_00]: Then only you can say Tidana in the Rupa, Shivoham.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then only I am this witness consciousness, I am of the nature of consciousness and bliss, I am Shiva.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this stepping back from the ego has to be done.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's of course from an Advaiti perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's quoting from Sriram Krishna, ego does not vanish altogether.
[SPEAKER_00]: So nothing really vanishes altogether.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you come back to this sword again, world will appear to you, just as it was, family members will be there, the we work will be there, your community will be there, the world around you will be there, the body will be there with it, all its problems, the mind will be there with the same old personality and the ego also will appear.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what you do with that ego?
[SPEAKER_00]: We really see the problem is why why specifically mentions the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where we get attached.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really think I am my shirt.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't really think I am this money or this house.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I really think I am this ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am I. The moment I say I, the eye is connected to the rest of the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the eye, these are my memories.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my body and my sense organs.
[SPEAKER_00]: And from through that, I relate to the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are my people and my property.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then everything, some sorrow is back.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you do with this ego when this ego reappears?
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sri Ram Krishna gives various alternatives.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is, let it remain as the devotee of the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, I am there, but I am the devotee of Bhagawan of Sri Hari or Shiva and the devotee of Sri Ram Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Notice how beautifully he says that the man coming down from Samadhi perceives that it's Brahman who has become not only his universe or living beings.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ego is also Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ego is also Brahman, thoughts are also Brahman, desires are also Brahman and good and bad are also Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Brahman actually appearing in all of these ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Rikha, she says, since some of us are householders, do lead a worldly life to certain extent, compelled by social and family reasons.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that mean we are not with to follow the path of the way the way the answer?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not at all what is meant here.
[SPEAKER_00]: What Sri Ram Krishna says, that these are the options.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can follow the path of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, so I'm Vivekananda taught the path of knowledge here in the West when he first came here.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is more and more acceptable to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, he gives three options.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, the path of knowledge leads to the truth as does the path that combines knowledge and love.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, the path of love, two leads to this code.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means he's giving three here.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the path of devotion, bhakti.
[SPEAKER_00]: That will leave it near you to the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is the path of knowledge, jana, that will lead you to the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or there's a path that combines knowledge and love.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, that will lead you to the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of us, who are in Vedanta, we actually combine both.
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody asked us in that retreat, I think, there was a question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, a very good question.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, most of us, we depend on Advaita for self knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Brahman, and we depend upon Bhagavan, God for our samsara.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it comes to the samsara, it is, say, what would a strict Advaiting do?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever will happen there is acceptable to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's very difficult without strong Advaiting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for the rest of the world, whatever appears is an appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the glory of the Lord, the Lord will take care of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that kind of strength, that kind of detachment, it comes with strong, very urgent, a dispassion for anything and everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: When everything will appear equal to you, we are own relatives and those who are strangers will appear equal to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same Bhagawan is manifesting that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your own health and illness will appear equal to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Life and death will appear equal to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then what do we do?
[SPEAKER_00]: What we do is that I'm investigating Vedanta, I'm learning and I understand that I'm not the body, not the mind, but as far as my dealings in the world are concerned, I have many sensitivities, weaknesses, past habits, responsibilities in this world, which I cannot shake off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just almost impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then how do we deal with it?
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we do, what that question is, he or she had written.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we depend on Bhagavan for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We depend on God for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this wrong?
[SPEAKER_00]: Sram Krishna says, this is not wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: This perfectly all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swami Vivekan and this said, madam always have, he told an American lady here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Madam always have these two sides.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, when I'm happy, I say I'm Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I have a tummy ache, I say mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, is this contradictory?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, ultimately not, because it's the same reality, that which is nirguna Brahman pure consciousness, your reality is also the God of this universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moment I say, I'm worried for my close relative, my father, mother, children, or I'm worried about, I'm scared about my own health.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is this, I then?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bramand doesn't have father, mother, children.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bramand is not old or sick or ill.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment I say, I am buried in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am anxious.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am unhappy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm already identified with this body mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm already a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The moment you react as a person, Sri Ram Krishna says, don't say, I'm Bramarin, that case.
[SPEAKER_00]: And from that perspective, take the refuge of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gar is there and Gar is there for the person.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can have your cake and eat it too.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you feel well centered in that I am this limitless awareness which is actually obviously true.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the powerful conditioning of our minds which tracks us in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you feel well centered and comfortable then from that perspective you can deal with the world, nothing like it.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what now you begin to see why monasticism was so valued.
[SPEAKER_00]: So monasticism actually puts you in a position where you can, where that Advaitaic philosophy is pretty, is much easier, not easy, but much easier to execute or to manifest in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I am a monk, I depend and staying in the mountains or somewhere in a little hot or a cave.
[SPEAKER_00]: My only interaction with the world is, once in a day, I go begging for food.
[SPEAKER_00]: I take a bath in the Ganga, I go and beg for food.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the rest of the day, I spend in study and contemplation and prayer, meditation, or wandering around.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whatever it is, with eyes open, eyes closed, it is all drum them to be fixed there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there will be problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: The body will get old.
[SPEAKER_00]: It might be things might be very cold.
[SPEAKER_00]: The food might be quite unpalatable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Other people might create trouble for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have got a wild animals there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those, I have to give, say, this is my past karma, my product, and that's coming up in this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not so difficult for a monk.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the worst, you'll have to bear the sufferings of one body, your own.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody else is the same to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are well-bisher for everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you are a householder, you have deep personal intimate connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, mother, husband, wife, children, and you cannot say they are literally the same as everybody else in the whole world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially when your children, they depend on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you both forge a very strong intimate bond with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then it's not so easy then.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's much better to take the help of God to depend on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, keep in mind one thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you see, I depend on God for all of these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not depending on God like an ordinary worldly person.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are many devout worldly people who are not interested at all in Vedanta, who are not at all interested in becoming enlightened, getting boxed.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are interested only in their worldly ends.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's Dharma, Thakama.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they depend on God for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should not be like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: We should be like, we can't this head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Drummond.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you tummy ache or any kind of problem, and I can't handle that from that I am Drummond perspective, it's perfectly all right to say mother protect me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take the refuge of Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: But our prayer to the mother, our prayer to Rama, Krishna or Rama Krishna is not for money, is not even for the curing of disease and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's for protection, blessings, may I have devotion, may I have knowledge, may I have dispassion for the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: By entire focus, even when I'm praying to God, depending on God, is a spiritual focus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it is not, let me see, for my enlightenment, it depends on Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, the way down to I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for money and, you know, for success in the world, and for a career, and for getting revenge on the guy I dislike, I depend on God to, you know, for all the things in the world which I want.
[SPEAKER_00]: So those things, if I'm a non-dualist, Vedant, in there must be virage, dispassion for those things, as far as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where I cannot, let me be honest, let me pray to the Lord for help, doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's perfectly all right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna would always prefer this combination of knowledge and devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: Isn't Grace necessary for even further Ghani?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, Ishvara, Nukhra, Devapam, Samadwaita, was another first verse of the most radical text of non-dualism.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have heard of Ashta Vakra exactly in the same category, there is another text called Avadhu Tagita.
[SPEAKER_00]: of the Tathra.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are the first verse is it is by these special grace of Ishwar, a by the grace of God, that you have this desire for non-demality.
[SPEAKER_00]: This interesting Vedanta also comes by the special grace of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is maintained by the special grace of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what do we pray to God for?
[SPEAKER_00]: We pray for devotion and knowledge and dispassion.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are all qualities for non-dwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path of non-dwellism.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are praying for those qualifications.
[SPEAKER_00]: Good GIF also echoes the same ideas as Sri Ramana, the title of one of his books is, life is real only when I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am will always be there except in Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even when I am is there, if I am the witness to I am, then life will appear like a dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when I am means I am identified with the eye, then life will appear very, it will be a hard reality for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Another way is you use knowledge, you apply, gana to yourself, and bhakti to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Swami Bhajanan and the Jyuz very senior monk in our order in Beludmat, Beludmat.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would scold us sometimes.
[SPEAKER_00]: As young novices, you know, he said, doctor, gana knowledge, I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the world is false.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world is an appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's meant to be applied to yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And devotion is meant to be applied to God, bhakti, devotion for God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You fools are doing just the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, you're applying devotion to yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am real, my food, my problems, my comfort, and God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that is all that is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vedanta says, I don't believe in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, all that is just, you know, for lower people, Brahman alone is real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're applying bhakti to yourself and Gyanatugad.
[SPEAKER_00]: Reverse it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to apply Gyanatugad yourself and bhakti to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, God is endowed with powers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the creator, preserve, and destroy the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Omniscient, omnipotent, when omnipresent, all the divine qualities of God and Sri Ram Krishna says, unless God has those powers who will obey God, an aristocrat is known because the aristocrat is false.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you see all these faults,
[SPEAKER_00]: then the powers of God are also false and God becomes one with the absolute.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, this is the objection of Kashmiri shybism against Advaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolute of Advaita Vedanta is an indistinguishable from a rock.
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't do anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just is infinite being and awareness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the ultimate reality has to be full of these powers which can manifest and play and make the entire universe a play.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Shiva, Paramashiva, is also united with Shakti, all the powers that inherent in Shiva and then manifested as this universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is the level of Saguna Brahma.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shrinivaswalu says, Ramanaam, she says, that the best form of worship is to avoid in the self.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a very non-dualistic approach.
[SPEAKER_00]: So realize that you are Brahman, stay there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the best worship.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.