[SPEAKER_01]: In this class, we study the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, which is an English translation of Sri Sri Ramakrishna, Kathambita, which is a record of the dialogues of Sri Ramakrishna, the teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, as noted by M.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maitanat Gupta, who was a school teacher when the closed disciples of Sri Ramakrishna, who saw Sri Ramakrishna in the last four or five years of his life and went regularly to listen to him, and went back and took notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna actually encouraged him.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it sounds like a grand plan because he would ask him to repeat what he, Sri Ramakrishna had taught.
[SPEAKER_01]: and would correct him once, you know, that I did not say that I said it in this way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Almost like he wanted this book to be, I wouldn't say almost it's certainly that he wanted this book to be written because Swami Shiva and the
[SPEAKER_01]: Another disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, who became Tarak at that time, who became a monk, Swami Shiva, and then later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: He, to one, started writing down what Sri Ramakrishna was saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna looked at him and said, what are you doing?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, I'm writing on what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so valuable.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm writing it down so that I don't forget.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna said, it is not for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stop that.
[SPEAKER_01]: and so Tarak Swamishivan and he threw away his notebook into the Ganga.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he just goes to show that there was this plan, call it a divine plan, behind this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we are, in early days yet, it is 22nd October 1882.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a Sunday.
[SPEAKER_01]: So most of the times you'll see a Saturday or a Sunday, because that's when M, who was a school teacher, would have a holiday.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, many of the household activities they had, it was not a work day.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were able to visit Sri Ramakrishna on weekends.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is page 126 in my book and the date is 22nd October 1882.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the day of Vijaya, the last day of the celebration of the worship of Durga, when the clay images emerged in the water of a lake or river.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the most important religious festival in Bengal, worship of Durga.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on Dasha Mi, the 10th day of the worship, actually the actual worship is done on five days from 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th days.
[SPEAKER_01]: So on the 10th day, the worship is concluded, and you say goodbye to mother Durga for the year.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the image in which she was worshiped.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the image is now confined to the river to the water.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it melts back.
[SPEAKER_01]: The form melts back into the formless.
[SPEAKER_01]: About 9 o'clock in the morning, M was seated on the floor of the master's room at Dakshineshwar, near Sri Ramakrishna, who was reclining on the small couch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rakhaal later became Swami Brahmananda.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rakhaal was then living with the Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Narendra, who became Swami Vivekananda and Bhavanath visited him frequently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Baburam, later Swami Brahmananda, Baburam had seen him only once or twice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you have any holiday during the Durga Puja?
[SPEAKER_01]: M. Yeser.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to Keshav's house every day for the first three days of the worship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master, is that so?
[SPEAKER_01]: M, I heard there are very interesting interpretation of the Durgapuja.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master, please tell me all about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: M, Keshepsen held daily morning prayers in his house, lasting till 10 or 11.
[SPEAKER_01]: During these prayers, he gave the inner meaning of the Durgapuja.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said that if anyone could realize the divine mother,
[SPEAKER_01]: There is to say, could install mother Durga in the shrine of his heart, then Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartik and Ganesha would come there of themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a footnote.
[SPEAKER_01]: According to Hindu mythology, Lakshmi and Saraswati are the daughters, and Kartika and Ganesha the sons of Durga, associated with the image of Durga, they occupy positions on both sides of the divine mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, those who have seen the traditional Durga image in Bengal and many Durga temples also.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there is the iconographies, there is the central image of the divine mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on two sides, are the two daughters, Lakshmi symbolizing prosperity and service-fifty symbolizing knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then further on both sides of the sisters are the two brothers, Kartika symbolizing a valor, a courage, and gunnace of symbolizing wisdom and auspiciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he said that if anyone could realize the divine mother, that is to say, could install the mother, Durga in the shrine of his heart, then Lakshmi Saraswati Kartika and Ganesha would come there of themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lakshmi means wealth, Saraswati knowledge, Kartika strength, and Ganesha success.
[SPEAKER_01]: By realizing the divine mother within one's heart, one gets all these without any effort, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna listened to the description, questioning him now and then about the prayers conducted by Keshab.
[SPEAKER_01]: At last, he said to him, don't go hither and hither.
[SPEAKER_01]: Come here alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who belong to the inner circle of my devotees will come only here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Boys like Narendra, Bhavanath and Rakhaal are my very intimate disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are not to be sought out thought lightly of.
[SPEAKER_01]: feed them one day.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a footnote.
[SPEAKER_01]: Feeding a holy man is considered a meritorious act.
[SPEAKER_01]: Feed them one day.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think of Narendra?
[SPEAKER_01]: M. I think very highly of him sir.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: Haven't you observed his many virtues?
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not only well-versed in music, vocal and instrumental, but he's also very learned.
[SPEAKER_01]: Besides, he has controlled his passions and declares he will lead a celibate life.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has been devoted to God since his very boyhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you getting along with your meditation nowadays?
[SPEAKER_01]: What aspect of God appeals to your mind,
[SPEAKER_01]: M. Sir, now I can't fix my mind on God with form.
[SPEAKER_01]: On the other hand, I can't concentrate steadily on God without form.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master, now you see that the mind cannot be fixed all of a sudden on the formless aspect of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is wise to think of God with form during the primary stages.
[SPEAKER_01]: M. Do you mean to suggest that one should meditate on clay images?
[SPEAKER_01]: Master, why clear, these images are the embodiments of consciousness, and even so, one must think of hands, feet and other parts of the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, I realized that the mind cannot be concentrated unless one meditates in the beginning, on God with form.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have told me so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, God can easily assume different forms.
[SPEAKER_01]: May one meditate on the form of one's own mother,
[SPEAKER_01]: Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the mother should be adored.
[SPEAKER_01]: She is indeed an embodiment of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amst sat in silence.
[SPEAKER_01]: After a few minutes, he asked the Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does one feel while thinking of God without form?
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't it possible to describe it?
[SPEAKER_01]: After some reflection, the Master said, do you know what it is like?
[SPEAKER_01]: He remained silent for a moment and then said a few words to M about once experiences at the time of vision with God, with and without form.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, these right now what just happened, he said a few things to M about one's experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: And M doesn't mention it, what he said.
[SPEAKER_01]: And M knows exactly what was said.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's some very, I would say, a sort of thing, which he felt, he took what is called a judgment call.
[SPEAKER_01]: He felt it should not be shared publicly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he just touches upon it and then he moves along.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a little frustrating for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway,
[SPEAKER_01]: there is more than enough material which has given out to all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: This happens sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember again what it means I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just remember this.
[SPEAKER_01]: To very senior monk with whom I under whom I joined the order Swami Suhita Nandiji, who is now the vice president of the order, he spent a lot of time serving Swami Pramishananda, disciple of the Holy Mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: one day when he was a novice, this is when the 1960s, two very senior monks came from Bellulmat to meet Swami Pramishananda.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they expressed
[SPEAKER_01]: concern about, you know, what would happen to us after this life and Sri Ramakrishna has said that anyone who has come here, this is the last life for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it exactly mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the last life?
[SPEAKER_01]: What sense?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does it mean just anybody who's devoted to Sri Ramakrishna's last life or anybody who's become a monk, there's a last life or anybody who's got the mantra from, you know, of, of, of, of, in the lineage of Sri Ramakrishna is the last life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what exactly does it mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Some such question was asked, and that's all that, this Swami who told me that's all he heard, because Swami Primashanandiji became a little excited, and he said, what are you saying, listen, and he then he told Swami Switam and the who was that tent and the young Grammager.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, you leave the room, step out of the room,
[SPEAKER_01]: And so so I'm going to switch them and collect the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's all I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he said something to those senior monks, which was only for their years, which was apparently very satisfying for them to hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what he said to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are certain times I have seen in a few incidents or a herd of certain incidents.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are things which are not given out for the risk of misunderstanding for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, one must practice spiritual discipline to understand this correctly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Suppose there are treasures in a room, if you want to see them and lay a hold of them, you must take trouble to get the key and unlock the door.
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, you must take the treasures out, but suppose the room is locked and standing outside the door, you say to yourself, here, I have opened the door, now I have broken the lock of the chest, now I have taken out the treasure, such brooding near the door will not enable you to achieve anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: You must practice discipline.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Giannis think of God without form.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't accept the divine incarnation, praising Srikrishna, Arjuna said, thou art, Brahman absolute, Srikrishna said, follow me, and you will know whether or not I am Brahman absolute.
[SPEAKER_01]: So seeing Srikrishna led Arjuna to a certain place and asked him what he saw there, I see a huge tree said Arjuna.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on it, I notice fruits hanging like clusters of blackberries.
[SPEAKER_01]: then Krsna said to Arjuna, come near and you will find that these are not clusters of blackberries, but clusters of innumerable Krsna's, like me, hanging from the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, divine incarnations without number appear and disappear on the tree of the absolute Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why should I worship him?
[SPEAKER_01]: The gopis would clap their hands while he performed a monkey dance with a smile.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I accept God with form when I am in the company of people who believe in that idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also agree with God with those who believe in for the formless God.
[SPEAKER_01]: M smiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are as infinite as he of whom we have been talking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Master Smiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, I see you have found it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you one thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: One should follow various paths.
[SPEAKER_01]: One should practice each creed for a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the game of Satrancha, a piece cannot reach a country to center square until it completes the circle.
[SPEAKER_01]: But once in the square, it can't be overtaken by any other piece.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is true M, that is true sir, master.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are two classes of yogis, the bhavadrakas and kutichakas.
[SPEAKER_01]: The bhavadrakas roam about visiting various holy places and have not yet found peace of mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the kutichakas having visited all the sacred places have quite a dare mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Feelings, reen and peaceful, this settle down in one place and no longer move about.
[SPEAKER_01]: in that one place they are happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't feel the need of going to any sacred place.
[SPEAKER_01]: If one of them ever visits a place of pilgrimage, it is only for the purpose of new inspiration.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to practice each religion for a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hinduism islam, Christianity, furthermore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I followed the paths of the shaktas, vishnavas and Vedantists.
[SPEAKER_01]: I realized that there is only one god towards whom they're all traveling, but the paths are different.
[SPEAKER_01]: So long, section.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let me read through it, but we will take more than one class to go through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me finish reading it.
[SPEAKER_01]: While visiting the holy places, I would sometimes suffered great agony, once I went with Mathur to Rajabhavu's drawing room in Banaras.
[SPEAKER_01]: I found that they only talked there of, that they talked there only of holy matters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Money, real estate, and the like.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this I burst into tears.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said to the Divine Mother Weeping, Mother, where has Lao Bhatme?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was much better off at Daksine Shwar.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Alabad, I noticed the same things that I saw everywhere, and I saw elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same ponds, the same grass, the same trees, the same tamarind leaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one undoubtedly finds inspiration in a holy place.
[SPEAKER_01]: I accompanied Mathur Babu to Rindavan, Ridae, and the ladies of Mathur's family were in our party.
[SPEAKER_01]: No sooner did I see the Kaliya Dhamman got that a then a divine emotion surged up within me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was completely overwhelmed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ridae used to bathe me there as if I was a small child.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the dusk, I would walk on the bank of the Jemuna when the cattle returned along the sandy banks from their pastures.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this very site of those cows, the thought of Krishna would flash in my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would run along like a madman crying, oh, where is Krishna?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is my Krishna?
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to Shama Kundan, and rather Kundan is a footnote.
[SPEAKER_01]: Klay's near Mathura, associated with episode of Krishna and Radha.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to Shama Kundan, Radha Kundan, in a palanquin, and got out to visit the Holy Mount Govardhan.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the very site of the Mount, I was overpowered with divine emotion and ran to the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: I lost all consciousness of the world around me.
[SPEAKER_01]: The residents of the place helped me to come down.
[SPEAKER_01]: On my way to the sacred pools of Shama Kunder and Radha Kunder, when I saw the meadows, the trees, the shrubs, the birds, and the deer, I was overcome with ecstasy.
[SPEAKER_01]: My clothes became wet with tears.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, Oh Krishna, everything here is, as it was in the olden days, you alone are absent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seated inside the palanquin, I lost all power of speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had warned the bearers to be careful about me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ganga May became very fond of me in Vindavan.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was an old woman who lived all alone in a hut near the Nidhu one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Referring to my spiritual condition and ecstasy, she said, he is the very embodiment of Ratha.
[SPEAKER_01]: She addressed me as Dullali.
[SPEAKER_01]: When with her, I used to forget my food and drink my bath and I'll thought of going home.
[SPEAKER_01]: On some days with her, I used to bring food from home and feed me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ganga Mai also would serve me with food prepared by her own hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ganga Mai used to experience chances.
[SPEAKER_01]: At such time, times a great crowd would come to see her.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once, in a state of ecstasy, she climbed
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to leave her and return to Calcutta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything was arranged for me to stay with her.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was to eat double boiled rice, and we had we were to have our beds on either side of the cottage.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the arrangements had been made when Ridae said, you have such a weak stomach.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who will look after you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why, said Ganga Mai.
[SPEAKER_01]: I shall look after him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I shall nurse him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll nurse him.
[SPEAKER_01]: As Ridae dragged me by one hand,
[SPEAKER_01]: I remembered my mother, who was then living alone here in the Nahabat of the Temple Garden.
[SPEAKER_01]: I found it impossible to stay away from her and said to Ganga Mai, no, I must go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the atmosphere of Rindavan.
[SPEAKER_01]: About 11 o'clock, the master took his meal, the offerings from the Temple of Kali.
[SPEAKER_01]: After taking his noon day rest, he resumed his conversation with the devotees.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every now and then, he uttered the holy word, ohm, or repeated the sacred names of the deities.
[SPEAKER_01]: After sunset, the evening worship was performed in the temples.
[SPEAKER_01]: Since it was the day of Vijayah, the devotees first saluted the divine mother and then took the dust of the master's feet.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a footnote, a form of reverence elutation in which one touches the feet of a superior with one's forehead.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the custom and the last day of the Durga Puja, where you bow down and touch the feet of elders or in our order, the senior monks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everybody hugs everybody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something not generally done in Indian culture, but there are special days.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the day on which everybody is supposed to make up and be friends with everybody in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so there was a long portion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go back to the beginning of Sunday, 22nd, October 1882.
[SPEAKER_01]: So notice that Sri Ramakrishna asks M about his, how he spent the Durga Pruja.
[SPEAKER_01]: And M replies that he went to the Durga Pruja organized by Keshav Sain.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now one thing one must keep in mind, Keshav Sain was the leader of the Brahmosa March, which was a reform movement in 19th century Bengal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And many of the young disciples who came to Sri Ramakrishna at that time, they had joined the Brahma Samaj.
[SPEAKER_01]: And being a reform movement, they had certain rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, you are not supposed to worship images, only guard without form is based on the Upanishads.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so worship of Kali, Durga, it's a no-no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Keshav Sain had become much more moderate, especially under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's interesting that he performed the Durga Puja in his house with the images and all, but he also gave this interpretation that, yes, it's like a symbol which is outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the real thing is to feel the presence of the Divine Mother within.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the rest of the interpolation, if you feel the living presence of the divine mother in your heart, along with that will come knowledge, Saraswati will come prosperity, well-being, that is Lakshmi, will come courage and cartica and success and auspiciousness, which is Ganesha, all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice Sri Ramakrishna carefully asked all these things with interest, and then he slightly dismissive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice that he says, at last he said to him, don't go here and there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, which means not that this interpretation is wrong, but it still misses the core of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: that the core idea is God-realization, that the Divine Mother is real and you have to experience the Divine Mother, it will go on and develop the scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: All these interpretations are fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know what what Keshav was doing is look you Bengali's traditional Hindus you have these images and you bring them home and you worship them and there's so much of rituals and singing and food and finally it is immersed in the river all that's fine but it's very external that's still crude that's still gross more subtle more refined is this understanding that I'm giving you.
[SPEAKER_01]: you know divine mother symbolizes God and if you have God in your heart all the other powers like knowledge and success and all of that will come to you automatically all very fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: But not so much to Sri Ramakrishna's liking.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was Sri Ramakrishna's approach was whether you are worshiping in the through rituals and song in an image or symbolically or without any form at all, through devotion, through knowledge, through meditation, through ritual, win whichever way God must become real.
[SPEAKER_01]: There must be actual spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just the ritualistic worship is not enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just giving lectures or fine interpretations like what Keshav was doing is not enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the point at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Point is to the God is real.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one must experience God directly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you are all of this reform and this quarrels.
[SPEAKER_01]: God with farm, God without farm.
[SPEAKER_01]: You worship ritualistically in images, or you worship in your heart and feel the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: You meditate in this way or you meditate in that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these, he notices there are all powerful, effective ways of enlightenment, but you must take them as ways to enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna will develop this theme later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's what had happened is what happens with reform movements, that you find people are too ritualistic, too involved in these little image-work shape and, you know, all sorts of little customs.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a condition of Hinduism at that time in all over India, was a mass of local customs.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is religion?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the eternal religion?
[SPEAKER_01]: The little custom that I have in my family, the little custom little image, the little temple I have in my village, and the way it is worshiped there, the name of the God of the Goddess there, that is Hinduism for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's true, but it's only a tiny, tiny aspect of a vast culture and spirituality stretching all the way back to the beginning of civilization and even before that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these reform movements came under the impact of the new sought from the West, the British had come to to Calcutta, they were, the colonial power was there, English education, western
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the idea, we must have a reform Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have these groups like Keshabh Sains, Brahma Samaaj and there were other groups also.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahma Samaaj itself was divided into two major groups.
[SPEAKER_01]: But their trust was that is wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the refined Hinduism that we are giving you is the right one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna's approach was, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: right spirituality is whichever path you take.
[SPEAKER_01]: You may be worshipping in a little village temple, but if you have, if you shed tears in the name of God and you have the vivid presence of God, doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then religion you are much more spiritual than the greatest reformer who is giving
[SPEAKER_01]: look at the way he emphasizes Keshab, well-known religious speaker, scholar, or social reformer, who was famous because he had traveled to England and apparently met the Queen, which was like the very, very big thing at that time, if you go to England and meet the Queen.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he had done all of that and yet Sri Ramakrishna, notice how he suddenly says, boys like Narayendra, Bhavanat and Rakhaal are my intimate disciples, they should not be thought
[SPEAKER_01]: M is the school master and these boys are school students.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he is telling, he is correcting a certain hierarchy in M's mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who is great?
[SPEAKER_01]: Keshav is great.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm impressed by him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these boys are nice, but they are students.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are my students.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where is Keshav?
[SPEAKER_01]: And where are these boys?
[SPEAKER_01]: And who's valuation was right, unfortunately, which was a great man, but unfortunately hardly anybody remembers him now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they were kind of everybody knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Brahman, and so these boys whom Sram Krishna mentioned, his valuation was right, they are not to be thought of lightly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he focuses attention on Arayendra, what do you think of him?
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is M's redeeming quality that he had, he was readily able to appreciate to see things to the eyes of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: The way Sri Ramakrishna saw things, him side quickly, instead of unnecessarily arguing and sticking to his own position, he saw it through Sri Ramakrishna's valuation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna valued Narayendra Nath Vivekananda, so highly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And M also says, yes, he is a wonderful boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, having praised Sri Narayendra Nath, this is later Vivekananda,
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna asks, how is your meditation going and M has to say not too good, not not very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you see the subtext underlying this dialogue, it's amazing how M's whole paradigm is being shifted.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is praising Keshab, then Sri Ram Krishna asks him in detail about what Keshab has said, then puts that he does not decry what Keshab has done.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does not denigrate it, but he puts it in perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says, these boys are even more important than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: These young men, which came out to be true.
[SPEAKER_01]: They became these great spiritual masters later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then also further, gently he points out, your own state is not particularly good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You, how is your meditation going and M, of course, is always scrupulously honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, no, not too good.
[SPEAKER_01]: You fix it with farmer without farm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, M, being a follower of the Bramma so much, was always, you know, attracted to the Bramma idea of God without farm and even more the Vedantic idea of
[SPEAKER_01]: And then M admits it's difficult to even meditate on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's difficult to conceive of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let alone meditate upon it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Saddam Krishna says, now you see that the mind cannot be fixed all of a sudden on a formless aspect of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: So meditation, it's a slow process.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, it's
[SPEAKER_01]: Sadhana, spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_01]: How is it different from any other kind of practice, any other kind of activity in the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: One Sadhu put it nicely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sadhana, Pichehatkar Hothiya, in Hindi.
[SPEAKER_01]: The crucial thing about spiritual practices is you have to step back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything in this world and the other world, whether a secular activity or religious activity, whether you want to earn money or you want to have a relationship, you want to go on a vacation, you want to acquire stuff, everything you have to do something, you have to go out there and do something, get a job, get married, go get your tickets and go on vacation, you have to do something, go out
[SPEAKER_01]: even the religious rituals.
[SPEAKER_01]: So somebody wants the traditional idea of I will go to heaven after death.
[SPEAKER_01]: So perform these rituals, which were massive ritualistic affairs and the goal was that after death I shall go there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even that requires going outwards and doing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: But spirituality, whether it is bhakti or yoga or Vedanta or whatever it is, is stepping back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, from the world and in yoga, from the body, you have to quieten and settle down the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: From the senses, you have to shut down the senses and even the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: So meditation is quietening and settling the mind down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Melante is even more deeper than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is meditation, the yogic meditation?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
[SPEAKER_01]: with the mind, mind basically has these five states.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is basic yoga sutras.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mind has these five states.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is called Moodha.
[SPEAKER_01]: the dull, the gross, then there is kshypta, the scattered or the kind of dream like, I'll explain each one separately.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kshypta, kshypta, ekagra, nirudta.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the five states.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one type of classification of whatever goes on in our minds.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this classification is on the basis of focus of meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts with the motor.
[SPEAKER_01]: The motor is, you know, thinking anything in particular, it's often the default state, especially when we are Thomas sick, when we are sleepy, when we are feeling dull, you know, thinking of anything in particular and couch potato.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it is what the mind does at that time is, it sort of settles into the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're quite aware that I am this thing, not thinking that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not thinking I am the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody thinks I am a body.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, we are so identified.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are sort of mixed up with the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no, no particular thinking is going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very, very conscious that I am this person, this being here.
[SPEAKER_01]: So with the body and the senses, the mind is mixed up with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no particular thinking is going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly, no deliberate attempt to think anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mooram, it's a tamarist state.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then a little better than that is this uncontrolled thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is sort of default state for most people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if it's not moved, a mind is going on turning.
[SPEAKER_01]: This that and the other thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Day dreaming, fantasizing, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a like a waking dream kind of sign.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind floats along here and there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is a ship the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: When wick shifter, wick shifter is a normal activity of the mind, where you are thinking, but thinking of many things, you're thinking of the job, you've had it, I put my keys, is there gas in the car, what's the traffic like on the road and did I get my mask, then the bus, and the food, and the weather, and then what will I do later on,
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is quite different from the earlier shift the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shift the state is kind of uncontrolled floating, green-like-roating.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's transition between Thomas and Rajas.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shift the state is very much Rajasic, scattered.
[SPEAKER_01]: Typical our normal state when you're working or doing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, these are the three states where most people's minds are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then an attempt is made to focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is called the Ekagra.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that attempt, if you're making it for a spiritual purpose, when it is meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the whole science of meditation is to attain this acreagorous state, based this focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: To sit down, you have to cut yourself away from the external world, then focus on a particular thing and try to hold your mind on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be the breath, it could be a mantra, it could be a form of a deity, whatever it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a struggle.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the struggle to attain a carburet, focused, concentrated, one-pointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: A carburet literally means one-pointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then this one alone, from the A carburet state, real meditation is possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And real meditation is the fifth state, which is Niruddha.
[SPEAKER_01]: to the floating dream-like ship, then to the big ship that the usual scattered state which we are mostly in most of the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then a cargo, in the focused one, and especially focused for a spiritual purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we are very focused when you're creative, when you are seriously studying something that's focused.
[SPEAKER_01]: But focus for a spiritual purpose, a cargo,
[SPEAKER_01]: and mind is becoming focused.
[SPEAKER_01]: And finally, the meditative state, nearudha.
[SPEAKER_01]: When nearudha itself has what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Five states.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there is a Savitar Kalamana, Savichara Kalamana.
[SPEAKER_01]: then there is anandalumana and then there is niralumana, 4 states I think, as far as I remember, all this is in yoga sutras.
[SPEAKER_01]: If the focus is on CF form,
[SPEAKER_01]: or a sound, like a mantra, like we do in meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's deeply deeply focused.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the mind is not flickering.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first state of the neural mind is stilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's the support is a form or a sound of a mantra, the form of a deity.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it is even more subtle, the support.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, say something like I do like a drink dish of Vivek or Panchakosh of Vivek and I focus inwards conceptual focus.
[SPEAKER_01]: then that's the Savi Chara.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even deeper is the bliss that flows from being still in the Akhman, Anandalam.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even that experience bliss is also shut down or you step back from it and you're the witness of everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is Neeralam, Neeralam, without any support.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there again, there are this Neeralam Pana, Neerukhda state that is the deepest, absolutely
[SPEAKER_01]: there also there are two types, the cervical power and cervical power.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the cervical power also there are two more types anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that goes on.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of this is what Sri Ram Krishna is asking M, how is it going?
[SPEAKER_01]: And M says not too good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Sri Ram Krishna is saying that if you want to jump to the state of
[SPEAKER_01]: meditation without a support, you can't do it directly, you need a support first.
[SPEAKER_01]: So somebody has to near the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: be equivalent of a sum per gata sum of the yes, but near the state is the equivalent of samadhi and in that there is sum per gata sum per gata both are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: The four types of nearoth that I talked about, three are sum per gata and one is a sum per gata, but I have to look check it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to look at the yoga sutras all these are nicely deleted there.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, none of this is actually the core of Advaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many people think this is the practice of Advaita.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does Advaita say?
[SPEAKER_01]: Your mood, state of the mind, your ship to state.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bixip to state.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Akagra state.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the meditative need of the states are all Dhrisha.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all playing about in the endless radiance which your own nature is, your witness consciousness, the Atman or Chaitanya.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are that, and to you, these states are appearing and disappearing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, where aren't the steps further back, you know, I said to you that spiritual practice is like that Sadhu said, what a peachy heart care hotel, by stepping back.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, when you step back from the world, from the body, from the senses, into the mind itself, and then withdraw the mind into the still state that is yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you step further back, from the mind, from the still mind also.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are the witness of that still mind that is Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here Saddam Krishna is asking about his meditation and you cannot go from a support without a support meditation to a support list at state, near Alamada, at a jump.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's too difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should use a farm as a support, he says.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a farm, a mantra, and we do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we are initiated, we have a deity meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you have a place to meditate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Often it is the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, these depends upon the instructions given by your guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: Often it is the heart center.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you'll be asked for visualization.
[SPEAKER_01]: Certain visualization is given to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a lotus and got to be the color and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then these are all activities of the mind and then the visualization of the form of the deity.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then the mantra given to you by the guru and then to repeat the mantra and be focused in the form.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where you are going to meditate here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are you going to meditate this time to this time?
[SPEAKER_01]: What you are going to meditate on this form and this mantra?
[SPEAKER_01]: In this time, you will not think of anything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will not go anywhere else except here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You means the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you will not think about anything except that form and that mantra.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the mind is locked in space here in time between this time and this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in object in this particular form and mantra.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a meditation with support.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a support for the meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Higher than this would be meditation, with the support is the concept is an understanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Higher than that is the bliss.
[SPEAKER_01]: Higher than that is no support.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet all of that is still activity of the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the witness of the mind is what you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if, of course, he's not talking about that here, he's talking about the meditation itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So with support is necessary.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then from that, you can go on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But M is interested in God without form.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he says, so what is it like to meditate and God without form?
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sri Ramakrishna tells him something, and then he tells him why the problem is,
[SPEAKER_01]: in most cases who want to jump ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want the most sophisticated kind of meditation are the absolutely still state, nearer the state of the mind and that too Swami said without any support, okay, I'll go straight there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't, you can't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you try to go there, what is happening is this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sriankrishna says, it's like there is this
[SPEAKER_01]: there is a treasure in the room, instead of making any effort, I stand outside the door and I say now I am opening the door, now I am stepping inside and just saying it, now I am breaking the lock on the chest, now I am taking out the treasures, I am doing anything of it, I am just standing near the door and thinking these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does he mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: He means that this is conceptualization.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've heard all of these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I heard, there is the nearer state, and that has these different categories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I'm moving from this category to that category, to the deepest nearer state without any support.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not doing anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just moving from concept to concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the proof of that is, let alone nearer the state within 10 seconds, the mind will be back thinking about what's for dinner.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that is happening, I know we are near the end of the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am not even a Kagra, and the struggle is going to make the mind a Kagra.
[SPEAKER_01]: A Kagra first, then near the end, near the deeper and deeper progression, which
[SPEAKER_01]: And just make a statement here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I won't go deeply into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Recently, I read this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have always had an interest in Tibetan Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a scholar and a practitioner recommended this particular book to me, which is not well known, but it deserves to be those who are interested.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you the name of the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Progressive stages of meditation and emptiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is Sultrym Rinpoche.
[SPEAKER_01]: Short book, not particularly well known, which one of the best I've found.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what it did was sort of quite a lot of reading that I've done in the vast literature of Tibetan Buddhism, philosophy of Shun Yavada and Vigyanavada.
[SPEAKER_01]: This book sort of,
[SPEAKER_01]: put things in perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it does is this book, very briefly, and then I'll relate it to what's going on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it does is, intubating Buddhism, there are these multiple schools of thought.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the central concepts in Buddhism, especially in Mahayana Buddhism, is emptiness, Shunyata.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there are these progressive, deeper and deeper stages of understanding of Shunyata,
[SPEAKER_01]: So he goes through these five stages.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are these different five schools in Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one is the, what is called the Hina Yana, or the Shrava Kayana understanding of Shurnyata.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, again, this is from the Tibetan Buddhist perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure the Terava, the schools would have will object continuously to this kind of, you know, showing that they are the lowest of the most outwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the teacher says there, that these teachings, five stages, they are like, suppose someone wants to find a needle on the side of a mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what you do is, first needle on the side of a mountain is impossible to find.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so tiny.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what can be done is, first set of instructions will tell you, you go up this side of the mountain and go to that part of the mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the first instruction.
[SPEAKER_01]: The next instruction will be when you have reached there,
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, the next step of instruction will be come to this particular part of the tree look at that root near come and look here, then you look there suddenly you will see the need here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you see three levels of instructions, multiple levels of instructions, one is broad you go like this, then you have to do that, next is more focused you go there, third one
[SPEAKER_01]: And then after all of that, after that final instruction, you still have to see with your own eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: That has to come suddenly.
[SPEAKER_01]: That final set of instructions is the final highest non-dewal teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before that, all of these instructions are useful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a very good example, you see, even from a non-dewalistic perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So very good example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why all those other instructions are useful?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you just say that at that side of the tree, there is that particular root near that root, you look carefully on its left side,
[SPEAKER_01]: But if I am standing at the foot of the mountain, that instruction is useless to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is that tree and where is that different tip of the root?
[SPEAKER_01]: So all the stages are imported very quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the stages and what are the what is the meaning?
[SPEAKER_01]: first is the shower care and understanding of of Shornata where you examine the body mind and I am giving in terms which we use, I am not using the Buddhist terms.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes,
[SPEAKER_01]: The book is a treasure, it deserves to be better known, it's, I guess it's written in such a simple and unpretentious way and it hasn't been promoted so people don't know about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But one can appreciate it a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: The more one reads about Tibetan Buddhism, all the common trees and books, you begin to see how powerful this little book is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of essence of all that huge amount of literature.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, five stages quickly, and then we will move on.
[SPEAKER_01]: The five stages deeper and deeper, from broader, more general instruction, the more precise, more precise, till final instruction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll relate why I'm telling this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first stage is the Shabakhayana, where you see Shunnyat, our emptiness, first examine the body and the mind, in the Buddhist terms, the Panchaskanda.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you see that I, the Self, the so-called I, the Self is none of these.
[SPEAKER_01]: None of these, I can be none of this, it's impossible.
[SPEAKER_01]: The physical body, the sensations, the feelings, the thoughts, even the feeling of awareness which we have all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: That also, because it comes and goes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, none of them is this self I'm looking at.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is called anathma.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you begin to see that it matches the way the Advaiti idea very well.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no problem at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Panchakosha Viveka is actually even more sophisticated
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the emptiness is that there is no self in the five, the punches can, the body mind, body mind, in the body mind complex, there is no self, it is not here, none of them is the Atma, that emptiness.
[SPEAKER_01]: He uses very powerfully the dream example.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the dream example is,
[SPEAKER_01]: When we wake up from a dream, I was in a dream, I did many things.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we wake up from a dream and I think of myself in the dream and I realized, oh, I was not there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was not myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, myself was not there in the dream person, step one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then go deeper.
[SPEAKER_01]: You come to the step called the Vigyanavada, or the mind-ownly school, or chitta-matras schools, mind-ownly school.
[SPEAKER_01]: They say that not only is there no self in this body, there is no Atma here, there is no world outside also, both body and mind are appearing in the mind, in one stream of awareness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Using the dream example, how we can understand?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only I was not there in the dream person, but all those things which I saw, body, mind and the objects outside and the people outside in the dream, none of them were actually there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are all appearances in a stream of dream consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is a stream of flashes of consciousness?
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it the chanikavigyana.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, the difference between this one and subjective idealism, subjective idealism in philosophy says that the mind is imagining the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here it's not like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here in a series of flashes of consciousness, both mind and world are appearing.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, that is called the mind-only school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then this is, so this is the emptiness according to mind-only school, not only personal emptiness, but the world is also empty.
[SPEAKER_01]: is called the Mathematical School, the Schoenewa School of Emptiness itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: This school is divided into two steps.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is called the Swatantrika Mathematical, and the other one is called Prasangrika Mathematical.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Swatantrika Mathematical says that actually the
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a very subtle argument, it wants to show that, but notice that this mind and the object subject to an object derives in dependence with each other, which was a great philosophy of a genericity.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says he gives the example of sheeps of hay, which are leaning on each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, subject and object are leaning on each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a good argument to refine our understanding of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Often, a mistake in Advaita Vedanta is, I just subject alone, I'm real, and the object is appearing in B.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here, the Madhya Makadeh, the Shundeva, is Nagarjuna, he says, no subject and object are appearing together.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's only because you have the experience of something, either in the waking world or in the dream,
[SPEAKER_01]: that you also have a feeling of I am the experienceer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here is the experience object, I am the experienceer, Dhrashta and Dhrishya rise together and fall together.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why in deep sleep for example, when no Dhrishya is experienced, it's very difficult to think of yourself that in some sense I exist, because I, the sea, does not exist in that sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Dhrashta and Dhrishya rising together
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are saying, both are appearances, they arise in a stream of consciousness, no, there is no such stream of consciousness apart from the seer and the scene.
[SPEAKER_01]: The seer and the scene are arising in dependence on each other and they fall together.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is nothing else.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am that is the real nature of things, emptiness, shouldn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything is empty, that's all.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is called Madhyamaka, understanding of Shundeva, then of Shundeva.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there is another school of this, this one is called Svatanthraka Maktamaka which tries to prove that all things are empty.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there is this final most sophisticated school which is called the in fact the dream example will be interesting here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not that
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a person and there is an object imagined in the dream or both are arising in the mind of the dreamer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, in the mind of the dreamer, nothing is a reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you went and had a cup of coffee in a restaurant.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and then you woke up, will you say that I was there, restaurant was there, and a cup of coffee was there, they all arose together in my dreamers mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did they actually arise?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing arose.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were seen in respect to each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that is the, the Swatantrika School of Mathematica.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you go further.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the reason why I am bringing this up.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is the most sophisticated development of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the school of the Dalai Lama.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called the Gallup Pass School.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called the Prasanghika Mathematica.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are just, they just use logic to cut down everything,
[SPEAKER_01]: They say even this Pras, the Sotantri Kamat Damaka, this is a just concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: All things are empty, it's a concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have analyzed that nothing is arising, there's no stream of consciousness, in that there's nothing is arising, things arise only in dependence on each other, that subject and object arising in dependence on each other, these are all concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, no things arise, is it that things are arising in the mind, the Prasanghika say that no, it is not that things arise in consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then nothing arises in consciousness, no, it is not even that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then things both arise and do not arise, no, not even that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And things need arise, not do not arise, no, not even that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is called the Chattu Shkoti.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever concept you can think of.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is one pure consciousness in which entire universe is appearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So nothing is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is all zero.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is both there and not there.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even the idea, see, if you have an ultimate reality and an appearance, but I'm a septum jagatmithya, they will say no.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are also concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So are you saying there's nothing through at all?
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's also a concept that there is nothing is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a nailistic concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very delicate thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: A Nagarjuna war in Sinus, Bulam and Demakarika, 2000 years ago, that be careful at this stage.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do so, that he says misunderstanding of Shunnyata, emptiness is like Yatha Sarpodur grihita, like catching a snake at the wrong end.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it like?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is misunderstanding?
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, shunnyata.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, shunnyata is the medicine for all the ills of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will cure all suffering of the world by this shunnyata.
[SPEAKER_01]: But those who take shunnyata to be a reality, for them there is no cure.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, shunnyata is a medicine which kills everything, but it's all itself also, it's not a real.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, shunnyata, shunnyata, emptiness of emptiness, that's a big topic in Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, at this point what they are doing is they're clearing away all the concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have the reality, but don't think that it's a reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't think it's unreal also.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a huge amount of logic, which is deployed here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of my studies at Harvard were about this Prasangic Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the school of the Dalai Lama.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the school is called the Gallup Pras School.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're distinguished by their, they were the yellow hats like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're called yellow hats.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then what is there?
[SPEAKER_01]: The last understanding of of Shanyata, that is called the Shentong or Johnang School.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this book, it's called the Shentong School, but this other name is also Johnang School.
[SPEAKER_01]: They two different schools, but if you read what they're saying, it'll band in Tibet, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: The books were burnt.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you read what they're saying, it's literally exactly the same as
[SPEAKER_01]: It says that this entire universe not that it arises in the mind like a tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's the display of one consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a magical display of one consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: One unlimited consciousness is there.
[SPEAKER_01]: They call it the clear light of the void.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emptiness, emptiness is pervaded by one clear light.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is basically the way of describing pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that, there is a magical display of this universe body mind, everything, every experience, and there are no existence of their own.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is beyond all conceptualization.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there are many more concepts to support this, so there are beyond all conceptualization.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, that's the final understanding of emptiness, which is, I mean, if you read it, you just will think that we are studying Ashdavak.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the final school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, according to this, it's very, we are grateful to this Lama that he has put it in this way, normally traditional Tibetan teachers will stop at the present.
[SPEAKER_01]: According to them, the highest most sophisticated is the Prasanghi Kamak Damak School.
[SPEAKER_01]: That last one is Ben, don't talk about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's too much like Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, now why did I bring all this up?
[SPEAKER_01]: because, of course, main reasons I enjoy it, but there's one relationship here.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Sri Ramakrishna is saying, you're standing outside the door and you're thinking these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what is happening is you're not actually tracking it in experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not experiencing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're thinking this, I'm breaking, I'm opening the door, breaking the lock, taking out the treasure, but you're not doing anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: one must actually follow it in experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, follow it in experience does not mean having amazing new experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is mystical.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here this is what is being pointed out already exists.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you must see it's like going to find that tree and the needle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm climbing the mountain
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm coming near the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm being pointed out the needy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm seeing the needy.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you're not doing anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is sitting there and thinking all these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are concepts.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are concepts are finally destroyed by person Gikamak demokam.
[SPEAKER_01]: Setting the stage for a direct experience of reality, which is already there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brother, recognition of the already available, ever available direct realization of your infinite nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna says, all of this, he just says, such brooding near the door will not enable you to achieve anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is, I think the whole sum and substance of pressing become a demagogical discipline.
[SPEAKER_01]: You must practice discipline.
[SPEAKER_01]: That means actually experience these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, let's leave it here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's look at the comments.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now next we are going to go on God with form, without form and incarnation, another huge topic.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me see now, look at the comments, Sanghita says, what according to you was the thought behind topward stopping, so I'm going to show you one of the tasks of undertaking writing and encouraging him to do so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thakur felt there would be a non-monastic perspective to get better reach a broader audience, who knows?
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know if he's hot in that way, because Sri Ramakrishna's activities will mostly inspire by the Divine Mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, if you ask him, you'd have probably said the Divine Mother told me to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Khalid told me to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would the Nirudhna state be equivalent of An-Sambranghatsama?
[SPEAKER_01]: Did we talk about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Nirudhna has all the states.
[SPEAKER_01]: Siddharth to say is, when is the ultimate state Neeralamban is there any knowledge as in conscious awareness of facts that make up knowledge, no, not knowledge as we know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is nothing, no, what is already available there is recognized.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our own nature is recognized.
[SPEAKER_01]: The result of final result will be what is called Kaivalya.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's also called Kaivalya Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_01]: So near Beja, Sam Pragya, Samadhi, resulting in Kaivalya or Kaivalya Samadhi, that is the goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all of this is not Advaita Vedant.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of this is Patanjali Yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: One would need to have the knowledge mentioned yoga sutras in order to take the steps where one reaches
[SPEAKER_01]: Kiran says meditation of the formless is the same as being a witness to any such without making any sunkel for result correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Meditation of the formless for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: it would be like the six types of meditation given in Drick Dhrisha Viveka, the 15 types of meditation given in at the end of a parokshanavoti, a multiple Vedant technique needed the asanas given in Panchadashi for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are many, many such approaches Tibetan but this also have many such methods.
[SPEAKER_01]: Abhijit say the silence part of the teachings of practice in Prasanghi Khamandhema Kaskul.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they have both meditation and reasoning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Prasanghi Khamandhema Kaskul is heavily reasoning based, but that reasoning is not meant to establish any particular conclusion, that to show that my philosophy is better than yours.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am reaching this correct conclusion.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the reasoning will be to destroy any concept that you may have.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for whom is it meant already you must have a very clear philosophically trained mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not to continuously defeat you in debate and puzzle you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is to set you free from conceptualization and to see directly see the truth as it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one way.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they combine it with a lot of practice of meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: They practice for long hours.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is reasoning and meditation.
[SPEAKER_01]: is very close to the way the way the answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually the next step which this book mentions the John Ang School or the Shentong School which was banned that is literally the same as the way the way the answer.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that helps in giving a proper understanding but do it every other time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, see, this is a distinction between the Shentong school and the earlier mind-own-risk school.
[SPEAKER_01]: Often, the mind-own-risk school, if you read the literature, it sounds a lot like a do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is still very much limited within mind concepts thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna says,
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Ramakrishna practice to all religions realized that they lead to the same card, but wouldn't that always be the case once you had realized the self does that religious path really matter after one is achieve realisation.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it doesn't, but it matters for the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the purpose of an avatar.
[SPEAKER_01]: The demonstration was necessary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, what we would think is, look, this person is enlightened.
[SPEAKER_01]: He walked down this path, this path is the correct path.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the enlightened person shows that, look, I'm walking down, walking up the mountain in different paths, in reaching this top, here I am again at the top, and I've seen it with my own experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it validates to me, that the claims of all the other paths, of all the other guides, that it's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need not walk in myself, but at least his experience shows me the truth of all religions.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an important thing to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: especially in today's work, when we have so much quarrels between religions, and it all comes down from ancient times.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, if you see Shankaracharya, if you see all of these ancient philosophers, whether Nagar, Junash, Shankaracharya, you know, it seems that they are always quarreling with each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are always debating in a time to defeat the other, and there's a point to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It refines the teaching.
[SPEAKER_01]: One teaching must be distinguished from all other teachings
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it shows that this is exactly the meaning of the teachings in Advaita Vedanta, as distinguished from Nyaaya, Vaishaya Shika, yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to distinguish Advaita from yoga, in order to understand what yoga is and understand what is Advaita.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, if you mix it up, so it's important to distinguish and part of the distinction is distinguishing is to criticize the other path.
[SPEAKER_01]: but the beauty of Sri Ramakrishna was that what was already there in the general spirit of Hinduism that the different paths can lead to the same goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is one reality which is being appreciated in different ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: It we needed somebody like Sri Ramakrishna in this day and age to reaffirm the truth so strongly so positively.
[SPEAKER_01]: What he does is basically the spirit of Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's what was implicit, not only in the texts, but in the general culture of Hinduism, that implicit understanding was made very explicit and strong and positively sestated by Sri Ramakrishna and of course, they become another's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, shanti, shanti, shanti, hariyom tatswat Sri Ramakrishna Rupanamastu.