168. Bhagavad Gita | Chapter 14 Verse 21-22 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[SPEAKER_05]: O, Vasudeva, Suttam Devan, Khamsa Charnuram Adanam, Devaki Paramanandam, Krishna Vandaya Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru, Guru,
[SPEAKER_06]: So, the Bhagavad Gita, 14th chapter, Guna Treyah Vibhaga Yoga, the yoga of the discernment of the three Gunas.
[SPEAKER_06]: In we have seen how this analysis of the three Gunas wonderfully describes human nature.
[SPEAKER_06]: what we are, how we think, how we feel, how we behave, these three Guna Saktor Rajas and Tamas, they sort of comprehensively describe our nature.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then Krishna says, the central teaching, the point of talking about all of this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Of course, this knowledge about the three Guna is a great thing to know.
[SPEAKER_06]: It we can understand why we feel the way we do, why we think and behave in the way we do, how we keep changing.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's all Guna's.
[SPEAKER_06]: But that was not a central message.
[SPEAKER_06]: The central message is that's not who or what we really are.
[SPEAKER_06]: The spirit, the Atman, consciousness, our real nature, who we are.
[SPEAKER_06]: is different from the grunas, grunas is distinct from the grunas and that is what he says in this verse number 19 which we did last time.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, the most important verse of the or most important teaching of this chapter, as the teaching that Christian has given at least twice earlier you have seen in the third chapter, the 13 chapter, same thing, more or less
[SPEAKER_06]: What was that verse?
[SPEAKER_06]: Nānaṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅṅ�
[SPEAKER_06]: So you are awareness, and that also we do not deny it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Nobody denies that we are conscious or aware, but that we are awareness exclusively, that we are awareness fundamentally or, you know, that's our, essentially.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is something we don't know.
[SPEAKER_06]: We think of ourselves or we sort of naturally take ourselves to be a bundle of body, mind, sensory experiences and yes, awareness also,
[SPEAKER_06]: tendencies, but what this analysis of the Gunas does is everything else apart from awareness, apart from this, the Atman, the Vittnese consciousness, everything else is the Gunas.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, other than the gunners, there is nothing else which does.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, that means, negative way of putting it, the positive way would be everything here in this world outside, especially in this body at the physical level, at the sensory level, at the emotional level, at the mental and intellectual levels, everything is being done by the gunners and you are the awareness which experiences all of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Once you realize that, he makes a huge claim there, you muttbhava, muttbhava, muttbhava, muttbhava, you attain to my nature or my state, this divine state, you become what, basically he is saying, you become one with God.
[SPEAKER_06]: What is God?
[SPEAKER_06]: God is being consciousness, bliss, call it the absolute Brahman, the vast, the infinite whatever.
[SPEAKER_06]: So this insight is our doorway to infinity, who are what we truly are.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then he gives us the result of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: He builds upon it in the 20th verse.
[SPEAKER_06]: Guna anetana tithyatri in day he day has samut bhavan.
[SPEAKER_06]: Jannamrityu jaradu kheir vimukto vimritamashnu day.
[SPEAKER_06]: Powerful verse telling us the results of Vedanta, results of spirituality and lightenment.
[SPEAKER_06]: If we transcend these treakunas,
[SPEAKER_06]: What does transcendence mean is already explained that you are the witness of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: You are not the good ones.
[SPEAKER_06]: When you transcend the three good ones, the embodied one.
[SPEAKER_06]: Very interesting.
[SPEAKER_06]: They embody one.
[SPEAKER_06]: That means, in this body, not postponing freedom, enlightenment, moxia to, you know, post-mortem state after death.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, here and now, in this body, you attain freedom.
[SPEAKER_06]: And what is this freedom?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is the nature?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is the payoff?
[SPEAKER_06]: Jhan Mamrik to Jharadukh Kheer Bimuktu.
[SPEAKER_06]: Free of suffering, dukka.
[SPEAKER_06]: Free of birth, death, old age, disease.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whatever the problems of being embodied, free of all of that, Amritam Ashnu Thay attained to enjoy immortality.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, you know, in a very general sense, this is the promise of every religion that exists.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, this is the great promise.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, this is wonderful and of course, Arjuna's
[SPEAKER_06]: curiosity is peaked.
[SPEAKER_06]: He becomes interested, first of all, it's interesting that is it possible to transcend the way, transcend the three-gooners because the way Krishna has described the three-gooners, it just seems everything that we know in life.
[SPEAKER_06]: What else is left over?
[SPEAKER_06]: Everything is covered by the three-gooners.
[SPEAKER_06]: What we do, how we feel, what we think, but we understand our enjoyment, our suffering, everything is dictated by the three-gooners.
[SPEAKER_06]: So what is beyond the three-gooners?
[SPEAKER_06]: Is it possible?
[SPEAKER_06]: And this claim, you attained to oneness with God, my state, Brahman, infinity, and you go beyond suffering forever, this huge promise, enlightenment and its result, mocksha.
[SPEAKER_06]: And they, in the body, which means not only freedom but freedom, in the body, in this life, here and now, which is called Jeevan Mukti.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, is it possible?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is it like?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is it like to be enlightened?
[SPEAKER_06]: How do the enlightened behave after enlightenment?
[SPEAKER_06]: How are they different from us?
[SPEAKER_06]: And how does one go beyond the three gurus?
[SPEAKER_06]: So these are the questions and our junasks them in the 21st verse.
[SPEAKER_06]: That those who want you can repeat after me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Adjuna vacham, adjuna vacham Kaer lingai, stringunanetan Kaer lingai, stringunanetan Atitobhavati Prabhu
[SPEAKER_06]: Pati to Bhavati Prabhu, Kima Chara, Katham Chaitan, Kima Chara, Katham Chaitan, Thringunanati Vattati, Thringunanati Vattati, Adjunasad, yes, a question.
[SPEAKER_06]: by what characteristics O Lord is one who has transcended these three gunners known?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is his conduct and how does he transcend these three gunners?
[SPEAKER_06]: So he asks three questions.
[SPEAKER_06]: One.
[SPEAKER_06]: a how shall we know if someone I, I myself or somebody else has transcended the three goingness.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's one question.
[SPEAKER_06]: What characteristics?
[SPEAKER_06]: Second.
[SPEAKER_06]: So after enlightenment transcending the three goingness, how do they behave?
[SPEAKER_06]: How is it different from the rest of us?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because we see the embodied person is just like any other embodied person.
[SPEAKER_06]: They walk around in the talk and they eat and they sleep and work.
[SPEAKER_06]: relax.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, how is it so dramatically different from everybody else?
[SPEAKER_06]: What is this?
[SPEAKER_06]: What will be the result on the behavior of such a person?
[SPEAKER_06]: And, of course, how do you transcend the three-goonus?
[SPEAKER_06]: It is the same question of bondage and liberation, same question of ignorance and freedom from ignorance, enlightenment and freedom, but now in the language of the three-goonus, in the paradigm of the three-goonus, it is set in that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, these are three questions and Krishna will answer these three questions till the end of this chapter.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, this is a culmination of the chapter, a wonderful sequence starts now.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, in this particular commentary which I am using here, it is a commentary written by Stridhar Swami about 600 years ago, it is not one of the heavy-duty commentaries like Shankaracharya or Bansusaldhan Saraswati, but it is a commentary that we, you know, when we when novices we learn the Gita with two commentaries, one is this one and one is Shankaracharya's Bhashya, which is a heavy-duty commentary, this is the easier entry into it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, so Krishna's answer, Sri Darswami introduces it by saying in Sanskrit,
[SPEAKER_06]: Although this topic has been broached earlier in the end of the second chapter, Arjuna asks the question, what are the characteristics of the one who of stabilized wisdoms, Tithaprakya?
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the language in which enlightenment was Jivan Mukti, enlightenment was described in the second chapter of the Gita, long time back, years ago.
[SPEAKER_06]: Remember Krishna taught all of this to Arjuna in one session.
[SPEAKER_06]: We have been at it for years.
[SPEAKER_06]: So long ago, we've studied all this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sita Brakjansyaka Vhasa, Samaadhisthasya Keshavas, Tithadhi Kimvahashi, Kimaasitha, Brajaita Kim.
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh Krishna, Arjuna asked, at the end of this second chapter.
[SPEAKER_06]: What is the, how would you define an enlightened one, one of stabilized wisdom?
[SPEAKER_06]: How is that one,
[SPEAKER_06]: even that one is absorbed in samadhi and out of samadhi, how is that one, how does that one speak, how does that one walk and sit, that means all the interactions with the word.
[SPEAKER_06]: Dapta utaramopy and all of those questions were answered at the end of the second chapter of wonderful, one of the high points of the Bhagavad-gita, the verses which deal with theta-pragga, the the sage of established or stabilized wisdom.
[SPEAKER_06]: Although it's been done, here he says, Puna Ravisheshabu Bhuchya, again Arjuna asks the same question, but this time wanting to know further specifics, further insights.
[SPEAKER_06]: In a new paradigm, he says, Prakar Antarin, Prakar Antarin, a new paradigm, a new paradigm is the three goodas.
[SPEAKER_06]: Thus the election outcome, the characteristics, behavior and the method to become go beyond the three corners, all of that is being said by Krishna, should be he in six verses starting from the 22nd onwards, let us see what Krishna says.
[SPEAKER_06]: Shri Bhagavan vacham, shri Bhagavan vacham Prakasham jha pravritin jha mrakasham jha Pravritin jha moham eva jha pandava
[SPEAKER_06]: Moham, Ava, Chappan, Dava, Nathvishty, Samprabritani, Nathvishty, Samprabritani, Nanevritani, Kanshati, Nanevritani, Kanshati.
[SPEAKER_06]: The Blessed Lord said, He who does not hate when the light of knowledge, activity and delusion arise, O Son of Pandu, not desires them when they seize.
[SPEAKER_06]: Alright.
[SPEAKER_06]: Before we dive into this, remember, I had said that these things one can experience only within oneself, one cannot directly experience it in others.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this is meant to be applied to oneself, not to others.
[SPEAKER_06]: We are not here to analyze whether that person is a Rajasayk or you are under Thomas I.C.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, don't do that, and not can we really, because these are internal states.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, the question what I am raising, the question raising is, is the question which Arjuna asks, is it at all answerable by what characteristics can I identify somebody who is enlightened who has gone beyond the three gunners?
[SPEAKER_06]: You ask, you ask us to go beyond the three gunners to attain freedom, but is it possible first of all and even if it is possible, how would you know?
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, the question itself is a serious question.
[SPEAKER_06]: Would you be able to actually identify an enlightened one?
[SPEAKER_06]: The one who has gone beyond the three gunners?
[SPEAKER_06]: It's a serious question, because these are internal states.
[SPEAKER_06]: Not only that, it runs deeper than this.
[SPEAKER_06]: The three gunners are themselves invisible.
[SPEAKER_06]: Nobody has ever seen or can ever see Satuara just satamas.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because they are constituents of Maya, of Prakriti, far beyond our manifested state.
[SPEAKER_06]: This whole universe emerges from it.
[SPEAKER_06]: By scientific instruments, you might get down to the fundamentals of matter and energy, but subtler than that, deeper than that, more fundamental than that would be these three gunners.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, they are not at all perceptible or comprehensively to us directly.
[SPEAKER_06]: However, what we experience are the effects in Sanskrit, Karya.
[SPEAKER_06]: The effects of the three goners, the effect of Satwagona, when we feel peace and joy and luminosity and balance, the effect of Rajagona, when we feel restless and excitable and dynamic and energetic and passionate, the effect of Tamagona, when we feel slowing down and heaviness and inertia and laziness, these effects we feel.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, the effects of Satwara just and Thomas are known by us.
[SPEAKER_06]: These are the Vritis, which we introduced this term, we have heard of this again and again.
[SPEAKER_06]: Vritis are movement in the mind, any thought is a Vriti, any feeling is a Vriti, any sensation is a Vriti, any idea is a Vriti, any memory is a Vriti, whatever is going on in our minds is a Vriti, Vriti simply means modification.
[SPEAKER_06]: So these gunas give rise to specific British.
[SPEAKER_06]: By the British in general, we can analyze, we can take a look inside introspect.
[SPEAKER_06]: We know what gunas predominating now.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it need not be one specific guna.
[SPEAKER_06]: It could be a mixture of two or three.
[SPEAKER_06]: It could be somewhere on the spectrum.
[SPEAKER_06]: We are always on the spectrum.
[SPEAKER_06]: So,
[SPEAKER_06]: Now the question is, if that is so, how would you know if somebody else has gone beyond the three gurus?
[SPEAKER_06]: How would you really know if somebody else is Rajasik or Satvik or Tamasik?
[SPEAKER_06]: The only way we know is by observing their behavior and their language, because you can't really observe their feelings, their internal states.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's only available to us internally for ourselves, first person perspective.
[SPEAKER_06]: We don't have a first person insight into other people's first person perspective, but definition, then it would become your first person perspective.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, and yet we know, we know, how do we know?
[SPEAKER_06]: by knowing our own internal states and then by observing others.
[SPEAKER_06]: So we see somebody smiling and when we smile, when we feel a certain way inside, certain happiness or peace or joy inside.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so when we see the other person smiling and it's that kind of a smile, there are many kinds of smiles.
[SPEAKER_06]: Is that kind of a spy?
[SPEAKER_06]: Let me say that, yes, that person must be feeling something like what I feel.
[SPEAKER_06]: So by the gestures of other people, by the expressions, by their words,
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah and we can be deluded.
[SPEAKER_06]: Nowadays we know an actor can easily, easily fool us into laughing and in sympathizing with the character and weeping and all of that good actor can do that because actor knows even if I am not feeling that stuff, I can generate that stuff internally within me and act, use language and expressions and generate those feelings in you.
[SPEAKER_06]: A skillful actor can always do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we would be misled, it would be misled, we would cooperate with it.
[SPEAKER_06]: When we are, when the actor is doing that to us, we, the actor told me that it's called the circle of, of, not magic, the spell, the circle of the spell or something like that, there's a term he used.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if you have to generate that, and the other has to, the audience has to cooperate in it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then he says that he told me, it's the actors know this, they have to break out of it themselves also.
[SPEAKER_06]: Otherwise it can have a heavy psychic cost on them, it can be devastating for the actor, if they can't pull out of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So we know the Satwik Rajasik tamasik states of the other person by observing their behavior, their language, their words, expressions and so on.
[SPEAKER_06]: So we have a second hand understanding.
[SPEAKER_06]: And now about the enlightened one who has transcended the three gunners, which is how enlightenment is being talked about here, they are also it's much more difficult.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's much more difficult.
[SPEAKER_06]: See, and yet it's possible.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is the introduction to what Krishna is saying.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why is it difficult?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because until and unless we ourselves are enlightened, we ourselves become the witness of the tree-gooners.
[SPEAKER_06]: Until that time, we are being swept up by the gooners in our mind all the time.
[SPEAKER_06]: And we see other people in that, we understand others as best as we understand ourselves, not much more than that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So our idea of the closest we can get to an enlightened person would be the closest that I have got to enlightenment maybe feeling very peaceful, very pure, very elevated, sitting with a slightly goofy expression in my face and you know being very meditative and peaceful.
[SPEAKER_06]: So we think an enlightened person must be like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But if the enlightened person suddenly loses his or her temper, or we see the enlightened person is not at all calm and peaceful, is rather extremely energetic running around doing this and that and the other thing, all the enlightened person is just relaxing and hasn't shaved in five years or something like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, one of the things you give money to the monks in Himalayas, I did discover it and it's very natural, is to shave because after one or two years they have had enough and they now they have to go to the barbers and say you would job for the barbers to shave or be all the matted locks and everything.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, so by seeing that activity we might think well this person is Rajasik or this person is Tamasik.
[SPEAKER_06]: It looks dirty and scruffy and doesn't seem, and crude and rough, and that's how I would be if I were Thomasic.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it's difficult to understand the state of the Enlightenment person.
[SPEAKER_06]: The Enlightenment person, if they were locked into our general idea of Enlightenment, would be by understanding these three goners, would be something like a super-satvic state.
[SPEAKER_06]: But no, all those states are states of the mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's not what an Enlightenment person is like.
[SPEAKER_06]: even then it is possible to know how, by close association with such people.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now one might say it's difficult to find even one such person.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then again, close association, would that person even permit a close association?
[SPEAKER_06]: And such people in the plural, how would you do that?
[SPEAKER_06]: So Amir Ashoka and Andhriji, in one of his letters, so Amir was in San Francisco in 1940s, 50s.
[SPEAKER_06]: He writes to an American disciple in saying, madame, I am glad to hear that you want holy company.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the question is, do the holy one to your company?
[SPEAKER_06]: it was not kind.
[SPEAKER_06]: So how would you do that?
[SPEAKER_06]: One, one way I found, one advantage we have is that we have these the lives of the direct disciples.
[SPEAKER_06]: By reading their lives, we begin to get a sense of what it might be like.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not that they were always sitting in meditation, sometimes they were for long periods of time, not that they were always in the mountains.
[SPEAKER_06]: Swami Thuriyana and the Ji wanted in the mountain state with extremely austere life, but we were kind of there.
[SPEAKER_06]: Today, it would be jet setting.
[SPEAKER_06]: In those days, he was crossing, criss-crossing, the Atlantic and you know like a striding across the globe.
[SPEAKER_06]: Abedan and the G, who was here in the Vedanta society, we counted 17 times across the Atlantic in those years, you have to go by ship.
[SPEAKER_06]: You might say, what's the big deal?
[SPEAKER_06]: I do that every month or every year.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, in my ship, you have to go across the Atlantic.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, they seem very dynamic.
[SPEAKER_06]: Do we get lots and lots of stuff, or maybe doesn't do anything at all, seems to be quite out of this world.
[SPEAKER_06]: And yet they're all enlightened.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it's by the people who lived closely with them and have left wonderful reminisances of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I'm not just saying just these are part of our tradition, but any great person if you read the lives of the saints in any religion, those who are highly spiritually advanced, then one gets an idea of what it is to be beyond the three corners.
[SPEAKER_06]: We'll give you just one example.
[SPEAKER_06]: Swami Prima Nandiji, he was, let's see, there.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was a disciple of Sri Rama Krishna and the first manager of Beludmat, our main monastery.
[SPEAKER_06]: And he was a big draw for the young men who later became monks.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was very loving, very elevated, very inspiring.
[SPEAKER_06]: So they would come.
[SPEAKER_06]: The only thing is, once you become a monk, then you see the other side of him.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was very strict and relentless as a trainer.
[SPEAKER_06]: Once you have accepted him as your superior or your monastic director.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, this young man who later became a monk has written Ramanist senses.
[SPEAKER_06]: He says, one day, I went to Belurbat to meet Swami Prima Nandas usual.
[SPEAKER_06]: I found him scolding a Brahmacharya novice and he was very fair so he faced the turn red in anger and he was yelling at the Brahmacharya for some fault of the monk had done some fault, the young novice and this person he writes, I thought well well this monk has anger.
[SPEAKER_06]: The moment I thought this, Swami Prayman and the turn towards me with his characteristic sweets, my, and this peaceful, serene, loving expression on his face and asked about me and talked to me, I looked at him stunned, how innocent, and I was even more stunned his face.
[SPEAKER_06]: When he turned back to the premature, his face became flush to red and started yelling at him.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the sign of a three hour goonatheta.
[SPEAKER_06]: who can summon those feelings or those feelings may arise, they may not even summon it, but they are themselves untouched.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, like the water of the Gangaite flows, there is no stickyness in those feelings.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is unmistakeable when you do see it, but otherwise it seems mysterious.
[SPEAKER_06]: You would rather expect that a spiritual person is always calm, serene, always very quiet and with a mysterious, monalysis, smile, something like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, that is the background to these answers.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, this is the characteristic of the enlightened person.
[SPEAKER_06]: He says, he who does not hate when the light of knowledge, activity and delusion arise, our desires them and they seize.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, this is a shocking answer.
[SPEAKER_06]: whether if Satwaguna comes, or Rajas, or Tamaguna comes, comes means the effects are seen in the mind in the body.
[SPEAKER_06]: The enlightened one does, is not delighted when a particular gunner comes or upset with another gunner cup, or delighted or upset when a particular gunner goes away.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why is this surprising?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because we would think that the enlightened person is somebody you say sub to a good one.
[SPEAKER_06]: When the mind is calm, peaceful, joyful, pure, that's what an enlightened person would prefer.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, enlightened person would strive to cultivate that and hold on to that.
[SPEAKER_06]: If that state goes up with enlightened person would notice it and be at least mindly upset bite and get it back again as soon as possible, revert back to that state.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why would he not want to maintain that state?
[SPEAKER_06]: Why would he not be upset by the diminishing of the Sathvaguna?
[SPEAKER_06]: Why would this person not be upset by the rising of Tamaguna or Rajoguna?
[SPEAKER_06]: Why would he not strive to overcome Rajasathamas by Sathvaguna and so on?
[SPEAKER_06]: So this seems surprising.
[SPEAKER_06]: So what is the answer to this?
[SPEAKER_06]: let us go a little deeper into D3 exactly what is going on.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, we are at operating at the edge of our understanding, we are trying to think about that which we cannot cast the state of the enlightened one.
[SPEAKER_06]: The enlightened one, the one who is beyond the three corners.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, see when Satwaguna comes up, Satwaguna has these two effects.
[SPEAKER_06]: So when our sense is, when we see here, smell, taste, touch and we do it mindfully, that's a sadhwikthi.
[SPEAKER_06]: When our mind's process information comes in from the world, that's a sadhwikthi.
[SPEAKER_06]: But our intellect understands something.
[SPEAKER_06]: We get the flash of knowledge, that's the operation of sadhwaguna.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the enlightened one has this, and yet is not attached to it when it goes away.
[SPEAKER_06]: It comes and goes because of the operations of Prakriti.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is one.
[SPEAKER_06]: Rajoguna, the element which gives rise to energy, dynamism, restlessness, passion, anger, irritation, suffering, Satoguna is on the side of pleasure, enjoyment, Rajoguna is on the side of suffering.
[SPEAKER_06]: it has two aspects.
[SPEAKER_06]: One is passion, the other one is passion, what is called in Sanskrit, Raga, attraction, attachment, thirst, and the other one is activity, Kriya, Raga, and Kriya in Sanskrit, Kriya means activity, energy, dynamics, thinking, speaking, working, all of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, in the, the one who has gone beyond the three
[SPEAKER_06]: The second one, activity will be there.
[SPEAKER_06]: In those who have not gone beyond the three corners, when we get caught up by the regio corner, what happens is desire comes up in the mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want, I would like this, that or the other thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: And then I swing into action.
[SPEAKER_06]: I click that button and purchase on Amazon Prime.
[SPEAKER_06]: Or if I am more desperate, I go and stand in the snow in front of the store for black Friday or something, I swing into action.
[SPEAKER_06]: and that action is prompted by a desire.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Opposite can also be true.
[SPEAKER_06]: I hate this.
[SPEAKER_06]: I dislike this and I want to get rid of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I swing into action for that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So this is action prompted by desire or aversion.
[SPEAKER_06]: This will not be there for the enlightened one.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the enlightenment, however, action might be there without any personal motive, personal desire.
[SPEAKER_06]: as long as the body lasts, action will be done with the body.
[SPEAKER_06]: For the one who has gone beyond the three corners, when Rajoguna increases, you can see activity in the mind and the body, but it is not directed by personal desires.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is a difference.
[SPEAKER_06]: So sometimes you might see persons who are enlightened, who are quite busy.
[SPEAKER_06]: you would expect them to be in Samadhi all day long sitting in a cave or no they are going around building schools or hospitals are pretty busy you know writing letters and I live with two monks I was in office one of them is what you might consider
[SPEAKER_06]: and also we are initially, and we also felt spiritually very elevated, a very austere, very strict routine, and given to meditation study, and of course the work of the Arsham, everything very disciplined, and he was of course an ideal.
[SPEAKER_06]: Another monk I lived with was not so much that extremely busy.
[SPEAKER_06]: collecting money, building this or the other, and really, I thought in comparison, he suffered in comparison to the earlier Swami.
[SPEAKER_06]: Over time I began to see the greatness in this person also.
[SPEAKER_06]: I didn't think that he was not spiritual, earlier when I was immature, I thought he was not particularly spiritual.
[SPEAKER_06]: over time, I began to see no, this person is also spiritual in his own way, person capable of accomplishing vast things and yet not at all attached.
[SPEAKER_06]: The day he had to leave, he left the whole thing, which appeared here, worked, seizedlessly for 10, 12 hours a day and built up big stuff, transformed the place, which the earlier
[SPEAKER_06]: So I saw the merits of the other person this second Swami later, as I became a little more mature.
[SPEAKER_06]: I remember another example where in my initial days I would say that sitting in the temple, doing the Pooja, going for meditation, all of that I felt it was spiritual and going to the school in the Arsham and teaching the kids that I felt or working in the office that I felt was more like
[SPEAKER_06]: office work, you know, being busy.
[SPEAKER_06]: It didn't seem spiritual to me.
[SPEAKER_06]: And among told me, see, this is a superstition that we carry.
[SPEAKER_06]: We think that sitting in a temple with spiritual music and in a peculiar position with your eyes closed and repeating a Sanskrit mantra, that is specially spiritual.
[SPEAKER_06]: And writing a letter sitting in the office is not spiritual.
[SPEAKER_06]: We clearly feel that.
[SPEAKER_06]: I had to add bit and he says from a Vedantic perspective that cannot be true.
[SPEAKER_06]: If it is all one existence consciousness, please, if you really seriously mean it, then there is nothing that is not spiritual.
[SPEAKER_06]: What makes its spiritual or not spiritual is the knowledge and the intention behind it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so one monk told me,
[SPEAKER_06]: that who was given, which impressed me, who was given to a lot of meditation, long our meditation, and he said one day in his meditation hours, he was given the duty of supervising the study hours of the children.
[SPEAKER_06]: in the school and we thought he would be upset but he told me one day I still remember he said you know I when I am supervising the study of the children I am feeling more and more the same feeling I get in meditation I feel I am meditating at first I thought he was just being rhetorical you know trying to prove that work is as spiritual as meditation but over time I so no he is literally meant it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, work, spiritual work, the one who is beyond the three gunners, can be very busy, can be very active, Rajukudha, that comes and has, he has no resistance to it, he has no intention that I will have to convert it back to Satwagona somehow.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, if in the middle of meditation suddenly Rajaghana arises and feels restless, you make the mindset that we can go on with the meditation.
[SPEAKER_06]: But as such is no resistance, no particular attachment to the satwik quality, no particular resistance to the Rajasya's equality of the mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: because why?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because I am the witness consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Go a little deeper into this.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is from a commentary.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I am using multiple commentaries here.
[SPEAKER_06]: These insights which I am giving are from a very well known Hindi commentary to the Bhagavad Gita called Sadhak Sanjeevani.
[SPEAKER_06]: Written by Ramsok Dasy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anybody here ever meet him?
[SPEAKER_06]: I was foolish enough to have the chance of meeting him once, and I ignored him.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I thought, I was so restless, I was going to meet some other swamis, and as somebody told me, you know, that great swamis in right there, I passed by his archim.
[SPEAKER_06]: I said, I'll come back later, and he was 100 years old, so that was not wise, come back later.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I did come back later, four years later, it was too late.
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyway, his book, the Sadhak Sanjeevani is a massive book, it's in Hindi, and there is full of insights.
[SPEAKER_06]: So this insights which I'm giving are from that.
[SPEAKER_06]: But now another insight I'm going to give you, this is from a commentary by a monk called Shankaran and there written about 700 years ago, it's a very advotic commentary on the Bhagavad-gita.
[SPEAKER_06]: two, he contrasts two, an advanced spiritual seeker of Vedantin, who is sitting in meditation, who knows, and not the body, not the mind, and the witness consciousness, and is now shutting down the activities of the senses, and the mind, and the intellect, stilling the mind, and remaining just as awareness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, if Dhrishya objects of perception keep coming up, if the mind goes into Rithi's thoughts, perceptions, memories, this person will be annoyed in a sense, I mean, he will feel that he is not succeeding, he will try to shut it down.
[SPEAKER_06]: The commentator says, the one who is doing needyadhyasana, Vedantic, non-dual meditation,
[SPEAKER_06]: He's seeking to attain nirrivi kalpa samati.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_06]: But this one, the gunathita, one who has gone beyond the three gunas, is things pop up in awareness, ritthis come, thoughts come.
[SPEAKER_06]: This person has no resistance to all of that, because commentator says, Brahma Bhava knows that Brahma and alone is appearing in all these forms.
[SPEAKER_06]: The earlier one, it's like a golden image.
[SPEAKER_06]: If the gold is moulded into the image of a yogi meditating, that's one.
[SPEAKER_06]: If it is moulded into the image of say a tiger jumping, that's another one.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, the yogis, the one who wants that image to be in the form of the yogi meditating, the peaceful divine image, and dislikes the image of the tiger jumpy.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the one who's gone beyond the three gunners, sings of both of them, knows that both of them are the same go literally, doesn't matter what form it is in.
[SPEAKER_06]: His attention is on Brahman, his attention is on the Atman, his attention is on the witness consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: is on this easiness of awareness.
[SPEAKER_06]: That alone is appearing as this subject, the meditating subject and the objects which are meditated upon or which are creating disturbance, all of them at one thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: At no time is this one who is transcended the three gunners at no time has he shifted away or can he shift away from the Ottoman, from the reality which is consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Like the person who knows what gold is, if you melt that image of the yogi and make it into the image of a jumping tiger or some other not so transcendent image, not so spiritual image.
[SPEAKER_06]: The person who knows what gold is will not be upset, if the attention is on the goat.
[SPEAKER_06]: If the one traditional example they gave is when you go shopping for jewelry, gold and jewelry.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, one is so picky, I want this brand, I want a necklace of this sort and this particular design, this not this one, but that one show me this and that, that's one we are looking at the golden jewelry.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if at night a thief comes and breaks into the store, what will he do?
[SPEAKER_06]: Whatever is there, if it is gold you will put it into his sack and run away with it.
[SPEAKER_06]: He is attention is on the gold, he is attention is not on this design of that design.
[SPEAKER_06]: Whereas, the person who is shopping is attention is on a particular name and form, so even the spirit of the yogi who is advanced and who wants to center his mind on the truth, there is something that this yogi wants and something it does not want.
[SPEAKER_06]: He will certainly prefer a sadhwik state of mind and that to a refined sadhwik state of mind and will reject or shut down any manifestations of Rajas.
[SPEAKER_06]: Otherwise meditation is not possible, there will be a kalpa samadhi is not possible.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the gunatitha one can perfectly happy reciting in deep samadhi, also perfectly happy even samadhi is not there.
[SPEAKER_06]: That shows the curious passage in the couple of passages in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_06]: In one place, well known passage, when he says that with eyes closed, God is there, eyes open, God is not there.
[SPEAKER_06]: What kind of God is that?
[SPEAKER_06]: another time, more mysterious passage.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, Ram Krishna says, as meditating, but it felt tasteless to me.
[SPEAKER_06]: After all, I thought it's nothing more than sitting with eyes closed, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_06]: If God manifests in a flash, that's the example he's used.
[SPEAKER_06]: God manifests in a flash, that's different.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, there is a difference between the yogi and the one who has gone beyond the three gwners.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is the how the yogi looks at Rajas as the gunathita looks at Rajas.
[SPEAKER_06]: Tamas also, tamas creates delusion, error, darkness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Rob Sugdas in analysis says, the error take the error, error created by Thomas or Moham delusion can be put in two ways.
[SPEAKER_06]: One is a deep kind of error, the error between real and unreal, the error between right and wrong, the error between what should be done and what should not be done.
[SPEAKER_06]: That error the enlightened one will never have, the one who has gone beyond three corners will never have that error, is absolutely clear on that point.
[SPEAKER_06]: The other kind of error which Thomas produces is a more worldly kind of error.
[SPEAKER_06]: And so, for example, you mistake a snake for a rope or you mistaken about the time maybe or a little more serious, somebody comes and tells them somebody again something again somebody else falsely and they believe it.
[SPEAKER_06]: This I have seen sometimes senior amongst the spiritual really good people and yet frustratingly they seem to be naive in some other ways.
[SPEAKER_06]: Somebody comes and you know gossip again somebody else and this person is very senior wonderful Swami.
[SPEAKER_06]: Immediately believes, he believes the first report what has been said to them.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, first thing that is said to them, we believe it, a more not always they are different, sometimes they are very wise, much wise that they are not, sometimes they are childlike, they will believe whatever is told to them, there is a story about this, there was a judge in medieval times.
[SPEAKER_06]: And a man came complaining, two people came quarreling.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the first person, the complain, and said, look, this person is horrible.
[SPEAKER_06]: He has done this, that and the other thing to me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Should be punished.
[SPEAKER_06]: And the judge said, yes, he should be punished.
[SPEAKER_06]: And you're right.
[SPEAKER_06]: He should be punished.
[SPEAKER_06]: The other person said, you haven't even heard my side of it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Tell me.
[SPEAKER_06]: He said, I did it all these things because of such and such thing.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am not at fault.
[SPEAKER_06]: He's at fault.
[SPEAKER_06]: The judge said, you're right.
[SPEAKER_06]: How can both be right?
[SPEAKER_06]: So the judges' wife comes out.
[SPEAKER_06]: So in those days, it's more like a household affair, the judge sitting in the court here, comes out from the house and says, are you crazy old man?
[SPEAKER_06]: And the judge says, you're right.
[SPEAKER_06]: LAUGHTER But sometimes, seeing a wonderful swamis, they're a bit like that.
[SPEAKER_05]: LAUGHTER Yeah.
[SPEAKER_06]: But they have a different way of looking at it.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you push it a little further, it is an eye opener.
[SPEAKER_06]: This sees some teeth in different ways.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll give you one example.
[SPEAKER_06]: I've told this earlier also.
[SPEAKER_06]: This actually happened in a monastery where we joined.
[SPEAKER_06]: There was this young monastic novice.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was real trouble maker.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm told maker as far as monk's go, quarrel some with others, wouldn't get along and so and so forth.
[SPEAKER_06]: And everybody had complaints.
[SPEAKER_06]: And everybody finally took their complaints to the head monk.
[SPEAKER_06]: So everybody was annoyed with him, except the head monk.
[SPEAKER_06]: To our exasperation, he's always seemed to take the side of that grammatory.
[SPEAKER_06]: I mean, he wouldn't take action against him.
[SPEAKER_06]: He wouldn't, you know, throw him out of whatever.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ultimately, that prematurely, that novice left the order, but at that time, he wouldn't, to the exasperation of all of us.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, one day, when we asked him about the monk explained to us, he said, see, I am the last word here, if I also go against him, where will he go?
[SPEAKER_06]: So, it's right, you're all right, and I know, he's nobody's fool.
[SPEAKER_06]: He knows every little problem, but still.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like say a grandmother or a grandfather who understands everything the grandchildren are up to, but is also very indulgent.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, sometimes it may happen that the enlightened one may make these, the one was gone beyond three corners, may be under the effect of a certain, this is also the effect of Thomas to make mistakes.
[SPEAKER_06]: can then one was gone beyond treagunous make mistakes, in worldly things maybe, maybe, believe in a common superstition, maybe, might make so those day to day might not be aware of the latest discoveries of science and technology, might be quite wrong and outdated in his or her views, it is perfectly alright.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, that kind of Thomas is possible in the enlightened one, but not the other kind of Thomas, the delusion between real and unreal, between right and wrong, between what is to be done and not to be done.
[SPEAKER_06]: Things like that.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is an analysis given by Ramsok Dasy.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, these are all products of nature, just as stuff is going on in the world, this is going
[SPEAKER_06]: The enlightened one watches experiences, is the witness to all of this, does not get caught.
[SPEAKER_06]: We get caught and swept away.
[SPEAKER_06]: We identify with one, we want to maintain that suffix state of mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: We resist the tamacic or rajasic state of mind or we get swept away by the suffix state of mind is boring for us and we get swept away by the excitement of rajas.
[SPEAKER_06]: or by the relaxation of Thomas, just leave me alone, is one to one to nap.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, we get swept away, then lighten one does not get swept away.
[SPEAKER_06]: Generally because of the force of their spiritual practices, the body mind there is quite satvic, but this thing these things will cycle and they are the witness to it and they have never caught by any of these.
[SPEAKER_06]: Ramsovdas Ji makes the point there, he says there is a distinction between happening and
[SPEAKER_06]: Trains in the world are happening, from your perspective as consciousness, nature is making things happen.
[SPEAKER_06]: As Krishna says, the gunners are working, nature is working through the gunners and you see the effect in the world, in the body and the mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: Just as what is going on in the world does not directly, you are not responsible for it.
[SPEAKER_06]: Similarly, what is going on in the mind and body, you are not responsible for it until you step in and you do, when it changes from happening to doing.
[SPEAKER_06]: For us it happens automatically, in the case of this particular body mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: but for the enlightened one it does not.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, there is a difference between happening and doing.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is happening, it is arising, that is one way and the witness to it.
[SPEAKER_06]: and I am doing it.
[SPEAKER_06]: The moment I step into it and take charge of it, I am doing this or that or I am stopping this or that, then I become involved in it.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I become involved in it, it could be in a worldly way or spiritual way.
[SPEAKER_06]: If I am doing spiritual practices like prayer, meditation study, I am trying to increase up to a gunner, shut down Rajaguna and Tamoguna.
[SPEAKER_06]: Good, those are good practices, but still not transcending the three gunners.
[SPEAKER_06]: The enlightened one sees, I am beyond the three gunners and stays thus.
[SPEAKER_06]: Then this Ramsov does it makes another distinction between a similar distinction, between appearance and seeing.
[SPEAKER_06]: They cannot, when I, with the intention, I see here, smell, taste, touch, I get involved in it.
[SPEAKER_06]: When things appear in subside by themselves, it's like watching a movie.
[SPEAKER_06]: that is the difference between the one who is transcended the three corners, the one who is caught in the star of the three corners.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, what is the distinction, how do you make this distinction, this is the enlightened one.
[SPEAKER_06]: seeds that the gunners are ever changing.
[SPEAKER_06]: And if I see the appearance, the arising and subsiding of the gunners, Satuakhan's as Krishna said, Satu arises sometimes making Rajasthan tamas subside.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes Rajas predominates making Satu and tamas subside.
[SPEAKER_06]: Sometimes tamas predominates making the other two subside.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this cycle, we will see that there ever changing, I am never changing.
[SPEAKER_06]: They are an object, I am the subject.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am conscious of the Gunas, the Gunas are not conscious of me.
[SPEAKER_06]: Being the never changing, ever the witness, ever the light, I remain above and beyond the Gunas.
[SPEAKER_06]: The Gunas play in the world, in the senses, in the body, in the mind, in the intellect.
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the attitude of the Enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because of their long spiritual practice, generally they appear to us, unless you are closely acquainted with them, generally they appear to us to be very suffocate.
[SPEAKER_06]: Who is if they are predominantly suffocated?
[SPEAKER_06]: But sometimes it might be puzzling.
[SPEAKER_06]: We will come in there could be starving, angry, scouting, peacefully merged in Samathi, given to play and jokes and pranks.
[SPEAKER_06]: Swami Brahma Ananda, whom Swami Vivekananda called the spiritual dynamo, Siddhama Krishna, his spiritual son, the first president of the Ramakrishna Order, he would hardly ever talk about spiritual spiritual instructions.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hardly, so Ramakrishna continuously gives spiritual instructions.
[SPEAKER_06]: Swami Brahma ran the fish, played cards, talked in general about stuff going on in the world, and people were little puzzled and disappointed, but they thought they would get
[SPEAKER_06]: eating Ramananda was going to wash with hands and this monastic novice where the water pot was pouring water into the hands of Swami Ramananda and there were bare feet and there was the sand beneath the feet.
[SPEAKER_06]: It was hot and so it was because I could barely stand.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was jumping from one foot to another and Swami Ramananda didn't seem to feel it at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: I began to see his mind
[SPEAKER_06]: I began to see that, you know, that my mind really dwells in the body.
[SPEAKER_06]: Moment, the body is under pressure.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's too hot or too cold or too uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_06]: Too sick.
[SPEAKER_06]: I immediately get caught up in the body.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's no way out for me almost.
[SPEAKER_06]: And this person seems not to feel it at all.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that is the sign of a guna theatre.
[SPEAKER_06]: One was transcended the three gunas.
[SPEAKER_06]: Next, this equation I will talk about, the behavior of the Guna Adhita.
[SPEAKER_06]: How does this person behave in the world, in distinction, different from us, the rest of us, whether we are worldly or spiritual whatever, but the one who is enlightened, how does this behavior differ from the rest of us?
[SPEAKER_06]: We still have a little bit of time, I won't start the next verse.
[SPEAKER_06]: I was thinking that some of the dive disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, they spent years wandering in the Himalayas, in the forest, spending days, weeks, months in meditation, begging for their food, living like traditional wandering, months, intense austerities.
[SPEAKER_06]: Most of the time, they were immersed in meditation and study.
[SPEAKER_06]: And yet, towards the end, towards the last part of their lives, their lives took a very different turn.
[SPEAKER_06]: Most of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: Brahma, they they can of course, but then Abhadam and the Brahma and the Shibha and the they all became engaged in this big work of developing the whole order, the Ashrams and the work of administration, training the new generation of monks, they were busy with work towards the end of the life, still they very end of their lives.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now this might seem a strange transition, but for them it was not different.
[SPEAKER_06]: The way they spend their lives in deep meditation, they also, they built up ashrams, organizations, trained and newcomers, talked with householder disciples, inspired them.
[SPEAKER_06]: That also, from their perspective, they are what they were always is constant.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is the sign of a Guna Adita.
[SPEAKER_06]: If you are comfortable in the middle of an intensely busy street,
[SPEAKER_06]: So, I very can the case example of standing in a busy street in New York and in the calmest mountain caves of the Himalayas which is in Dalmoda there he meditated and he says if your mind is peaceful in both cases, mind is he says absolutely serene in the midst of extreme business.
[SPEAKER_06]: And it says it can work like a blast furnace in the Himalayan calm.
[SPEAKER_06]: That is the ideal of Vedanta, he says.
[SPEAKER_06]: Usually what happens is, I've seen it, monks who can live in solitude, in that great solitude, in the mountains, and many such people.
[SPEAKER_06]: There's not a small thing, many people cannot bear solitude, many people.
[SPEAKER_06]: What does solid you would mean?
[SPEAKER_06]: The solid you would mean I have to be with myself.
[SPEAKER_06]: There is no wonder that if I can't bear to be with myself by would anyone else want to be with me.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, most people cannot bear solidity, they need some diversion, how strange it is that we don't like our home company, we say I am seeking the self, the real links of the self, but I can't bear to be with myself and need some diversion, somebody, but there are banks I have seen who remain in utter solitude, but in some cases not all, in some cases they can't bear this anymore.
[SPEAKER_06]: At the many years and decades of solitary living, the minds have reached a certain state of peace and calmness which they dislike if it is disturbed, they can't take it.
[SPEAKER_06]: So both ways, they have not transcended the Kodas.
[SPEAKER_06]: The problem with that is, you know, what might be the problem, you are taking peace, right?
[SPEAKER_06]: The problem with that is, then you are trapped with Satwagoda.
[SPEAKER_06]: We trapped with Satwagoda, remember, Satwagoda will change into Rajakuna and Tamaguna also.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, the always the danger is there that from Satwagoda, it will again change into Rajas or Tamas.
[SPEAKER_06]: I know this one, yeah, I'll come to you.
[SPEAKER_06]: One monk in an ashram nearby, long ago.
[SPEAKER_06]: He was a great saadhaka, then he built a big school with thousands of students and he invited us, we and the other monks to visit that school we went and the senior monk who took us to visit the new school he was muttering to himself.
[SPEAKER_06]: We were doing well.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why fall into this trap?
[SPEAKER_06]: He is talking about that monk.
[SPEAKER_06]: You were engaged in your own spiritual practices, in your meditation, study, prayer.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, because of certain arising of Rajoguna, volcanic explosion, now you have a big school.
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, now you are trapped, you put your hand, you have a cart hold of the tiger's tail.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, he said there are some monks who are enlightened or very advanced and still playing pranks and playing cards, what is the source of that action and then what do they derive from it?
[SPEAKER_06]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_06]: There is a saying that the Paramahamsa, the one who is fully enlightened, it is very difficult to understand that person may live like a child, like a child.
[SPEAKER_06]: that person may be like a madman, that person may be like the greatest yogi forever absorbed or may be extremely dynamic like a king.
[SPEAKER_06]: You never know and you can't judge.
[SPEAKER_06]: So there were monks who are extraordinarily active.
[SPEAKER_06]: So there's a old saying in Sanskrit,
[SPEAKER_06]: Jannaka and Rama, Jannaka, Raghavogh, Rama, where kings, Krishna, was a coward by, forever dancing with the gopis, and Adhava is a great tiyagi, all renouncing monk, who had only a line cloth to wear, sometimes he was naked, had nothing in the world, completely absorbed in
[SPEAKER_06]: They are not deriving, none of them, they are not deriving anything from their actions.
[SPEAKER_06]: So even though the enlightened one who builds schools and hospitals and they also are not deriving anything from their actions, they are just manifesting their nature, maybe from a feeling of oneness with all and they see the people are suffering, this is the response to that suffering.
[SPEAKER_06]: So it is difficult to judge.
[SPEAKER_07]: I guess my question is a little bit related to that.
[SPEAKER_07]: He said, you know, you do actions, but there's not the passion or the need or the want.
[SPEAKER_07]: How does one develop insight to understand whether because there's so much bias and subconscious thoughts on why we do anything?
[SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_07]: How do we gain that understanding to see if what we're doing is?
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, we don't.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's impossible to try to imitate this.
[SPEAKER_06]: Rather our effort should be that I am the witness consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: That one can understand and not the body, not the mind, I am the witness consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Practically what does this mean, not to be affected or tried to not to be affected or overcome by the rising in the body in the emotions and in the mind, not to be swept away by that.
[SPEAKER_06]: The emotions which arise, the feelings which arise, discomfort which arises in the body due to heat or cold or disease or pain or pleasure, to know that I am the witness of all of this.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is a big, big claim to make.
[SPEAKER_06]: So if I am really the witness of all of this, just as I have the witness of this, so I the witness should not be affected or carried away by what is happening in the body or in the mind, that itself is a huge Sathana itself.
[SPEAKER_06]: Am I being affected by Rajasthama Sathua or Am I just one can delude oneself there, better not try that.
[SPEAKER_06]: In fact, this is a good point, Ramsubdas ji mentions, he says that then what about us, we are not yet, we are not transcendent in the three corners, what do we take away from this, one thing we take away is that because we are aiming to be to transcend the corners.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, we can learn from this attitude of the three of the one who has transcended the three gunners.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is a discussion in the, in Shankara's commentary to the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna asks a question about the one who has stabilized with them.
[SPEAKER_06]: And Shankara asks, what do we gain out of it?
[SPEAKER_06]: If I am not enlightened yet, and then he says, whatever are the natural characteristics of the enlightened one are practices for the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, it comes naturally for them, for us we have to make an effort and Ramsukdas in this commentary says the effort should be in the direction of not being overwhelmed by the changing conditions of body mind, changing conditions of body mind, he says Vritthi's.
[SPEAKER_06]: Basically, British in the body, in the senses, in the mind, not being swept away by them, that it is as one Swami put it so well.
[SPEAKER_06]: Before these three corners, when I am swept away by the three corners, my reaction is what?
[SPEAKER_06]: And if I am not swept away by three corners, my reaction would be so what?
[SPEAKER_06]: This movement from what to so what.
[SPEAKER_06]: It makes you, and practically it makes you a much happier, more peaceful person and much more effective person in the world, when we are not tossed away by our internal conditions.
[SPEAKER_06]: Easy to say, but a good thing to practice is to try to see in life, this somebody else was raised, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I wanted to mention about happening and doing, could you please just elaborate a little bit more on that?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes, it's a subtle point.
[SPEAKER_06]: Many things are happening in the world, and those are not our karma.
[SPEAKER_06]: what we do intentionally with this body mind that becomes our karma and we get the result of that.
[SPEAKER_06]: So that's the idea of the law of karma.
[SPEAKER_06]: In the body mind, I treat them as happening just as they are happening in the world.
[SPEAKER_06]: In that case, I will not be responsible for the arising in the body mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: But of course, one can get easily deluded there.
[SPEAKER_06]: Something is just arising.
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm following what is arising now.
[SPEAKER_06]: You're not supposed to.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, yeah, for the enlightened one, all arising and subsiding is due to the three gurus, operation of the three gurus, and enlightened one sees that I am the witness of all of them.
[SPEAKER_06]: They come and go, but comes and goes cannot be my real nature, yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you gave the variation, I'm sorry, fundamental question.
[SPEAKER_04]: You gave the variation of the Enlightenment, different kind of Enlightenment, but the central part, the consciousness remains same, that doesn't change.
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_04]: But thinking ahead, all the Enlightenment person, like all the religious leaders,
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, as a enlightened light, but the consciousness remains same.
[SPEAKER_04]: It has no variation, but the deed perceives something different.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, that difference comes from their minds.
[SPEAKER_06]: But that is part of the Guna, that is part of the Guna.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: So the minds are conditioned differently, depending on your tradition, your culture, your past karma, many, let accounts for our individual differences.
[SPEAKER_06]: But as the witness consciousness, I am the same, no matter what arises or disappears in the mind.
[SPEAKER_04]: to be in the consciousness itself is defined differently by medical people, or even just people.
[SPEAKER_06]: In Vedanta, there's a very specific definition of consciousness, which is Vedanta or Sankha, that which experiences.
[SPEAKER_06]: So this is, we are coming in at the fagg end of all the discussions, so here, everything that goes on in the body mind is the Gunas.
[SPEAKER_06]: and that which experiences these changes is consciousness, that is what consciousness itself does not change, from a medical perspective consciousness does change, right, no this is so what the way you would understand this is phenomenologically by your own experience, what it feels like from within, right, so now Vedanta has this very analytical way of dealing with consciousness and its objects, whatever you experience is an object, so
[SPEAKER_06]: If you can label it as this, it is an object and it is under the domain of the kunas.
[SPEAKER_06]: That to which this is a this, the one which experiences it as this, that one is consciousness and that can never be classified as this and yet it exists.
[SPEAKER_06]: So the world, this world, yes, this site, this spell, this touch, this pain in the body, this, so that's not consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Even the pain is not consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Consciousness is aware of the pain.
[SPEAKER_06]: Consciousness manifests the pain.
[SPEAKER_06]: The pain itself is not consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: It's an object.
[SPEAKER_06]: Even thoughts, feelings, generally they are taken as part of consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: If I'm thinking and feeling, then you say, oh, you're consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, even thoughts and feelings
[SPEAKER_06]: So, this is how we run to understand consciousness, not in the medical sense.
[SPEAKER_06]: In a more, I would say, deeper sense than medical sense.
[SPEAKER_06]: From Vedantic perspective, the medical sense in which consciousness is understood would be a compound of consciousness plus some objects, thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions.
[SPEAKER_06]: But here thoughts, feelings, emotions, perceptions, all of them are objects, in consciousness.
[SPEAKER_06]: objects presented to consciousness in consciousness and what he is basically saying here is you are consciousness, you are not consciousness plus mind and body, you are consciousness embodied in this body mind apparatus, yes, then we will go to the gentleman at the end and start.
[SPEAKER_00]: Namaskar Swamiji, so you mentioned that the enlightened ones will also be up and doing so could be.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that mean they have the Viveka to determine like which varieties to follow and which varieties to ignore, the varieties that arise out of the three class.
[SPEAKER_06]: Because they have very clear about what should be done, should not be done, what is right and wrong, what is real and unreal.
[SPEAKER_06]: So because of their past conditionings, everything might arise.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to eat that cookie.
[SPEAKER_06]: I would they follow it?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes and no, suppose it comes and they might eat the cookie.
[SPEAKER_06]: Are they might not?
[SPEAKER_06]: It makes no difference to them.
[SPEAKER_06]: But for us, in replace the cookie by anything, it could be a million dollars, it could be this relationship, it could be this hobby, anything that is there for personal gratification.
[SPEAKER_06]: We are always following up on eating that cookie.
[SPEAKER_06]: But the enlightened one, it makes no difference to them.
[SPEAKER_06]: But there might be something like, for example, responding to the suffering of the masses.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, they might end up like that, so I am building a school or a hospital or teaching or showing people this knowledge sharing this knowledge with others.
[SPEAKER_06]: The Enlightenment might do that, but may not also.
[SPEAKER_06]: You can't say that the Enlightenment now is enlightened, you have to teach or you have to start a school or a college or a hospital.
[SPEAKER_04]: No.
[SPEAKER_06]: There is no way of stipulating what an enlightened one wants to do.
[SPEAKER_06]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_06]: Because until enlightenment, there is a goal.
[SPEAKER_06]: There is either a worldly goal or a spiritual goal.
[SPEAKER_06]: The enlightened one has no goal.
[SPEAKER_06]: The enlightened one just is and whatever happens to the body mind, it's an expression of that enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_06]: So one might do one might be like Ramana Maharishi, stay near a mountain all once life, or someone like Vivekananda, tremendously dynamic.
[SPEAKER_06]: both are fully enlightened and both, by the way, are conducive to great good for centuries to come afterwards, but the motor of their existence is different and you can't determine Krishna is enlightened, Rama is enlightened and the Emperor Janaka is enlightened and Sage Shukadeva is enlightened and Rastavakra is enlightened and yet they exist so differently and if you actually look at their lives they are very, very different from each other.
[SPEAKER_06]: The last person.
[SPEAKER_06]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Programma Raj, where does this analysis in today's conversation leave free will or is free will and error according to Vedanta and the trigonathith are beyond that error?
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, so that always comes up in these discussions, freeway, very natural, in all philosophy, everywhere throughout the world, the discussion of freeway will somewhat some dipopper, because if you think about it, it's mysterious, it's taken for granted, we all feel we have freeway.
[SPEAKER_06]: But if you analyze it philosophically, even nowadays through neuroscience, through physics or the philosophy of mind, everywhere you run up against impossibilities of paradoxes, when it comes to free will.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, we were kind of the said free will is a contradiction, there is freedom or there is the will.
[SPEAKER_06]: The will is always within determination, cause of an effect.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, this is philosophically speaking, the ultimate and ultimate sense does not accept
[SPEAKER_06]: This is only reality and it is manifestation.
[SPEAKER_06]: However, for practical purposes, that is paradoxical, for practical purposes, for our purposes, certainly there is a tremendous emphasis on free will.
[SPEAKER_06]: See, it is hypocritical for us to say that our there is no free will.
[SPEAKER_06]: When it comes to our own personal desires, we are immediately up and doing.
[SPEAKER_06]: And that is Rajoguna, this is the how the analysis of Rajoguna's work so well, that is Rajoguna, I want something, Rajas, and I swing into action to do that.
[SPEAKER_06]: There, whether I have free will or not, I don't care.
[SPEAKER_06]: Even if I don't have free will, I'm still going to go and buy that thing and get it.
[SPEAKER_06]: I will not be satisfied until I have possessed that latest iPhone.
[SPEAKER_06]: So, if you think that's free will good, if you think that's not free will, I'm following some impulse, that's good, but I still am going to, my point is I'll get the one, get the iPhone.
[SPEAKER_06]: Similarly, it says, when we come to spiritual life, we need that spirit.
[SPEAKER_06]: And I want it, I want God realization, self-realization, enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want to overcome suffering, I want peace and joy in my life.
[SPEAKER_06]: I want this high spiritual life, I want it, and I'm going to take action.
[SPEAKER_06]: You call it free will, good, or call it God's will, good.
[SPEAKER_06]: But thing is to do it, be up and doing.
[SPEAKER_06]: This is one thing is sure, whenever you see the lives of great spiritual masters in any tradition, Vedant of course, but in any any tradition across the world, they work very hard for it.
[SPEAKER_06]: They were very dedicated about very hard.
[SPEAKER_06]: They displayed a lot of what one would call free will.
[SPEAKER_06]: All right.