[SPEAKER_02]: So this is where we take up questions for deliberation, questions which have come into us from all over the world through the internet, and questions which are posed by members here, those who are present here in person.
[SPEAKER_02]: This has become one of our most popular sessions.
[SPEAKER_02]: For good reason, where we can directly respond to questions which come up on the spiritual path.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now lots and lots of questions come up, come online.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have a team which sorts through these questions and presents a few selected questions to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: The thing is, the questions which we take up for consideration here are the more or less in personal ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are many questions which come which talk about people's personal struggles, sorrow,
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes they are too personal to be bought out and spoken about in public.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes they are not directly related to Vedanta as such.
[SPEAKER_02]: But please know that this is to people in general here and all over the world that we pray for your welfare, we pray to Takurma Swamiji to bless you and all of us so that we have this strength, the peace and inspiration to continue through these struggles to overcome all obstacles in life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, only some of the questions were taken up for discussion, those which are not too personal which are not directly connected to people's personal lives, and it'll more sometimes they are very abstract and philosophical, it's good to discuss these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, Diane has some of those questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: She'll read out a question and I'll try my best to talk about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we'll invite you from the audience here to just raise your hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'd call upon you, you can come up here, tell us your name, and ask the question, be precise.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, add one question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, please go ahead.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you Swamiji, good morning, good morning everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first question comes from Omala Pandey.
[SPEAKER_03]: In one of your discourses, you said that pure experience is Brahman, and you defined pure experience as subject without the object.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if there is no object, then how can that be an experience?
[SPEAKER_03]: As you say, experience is consciousness plus object.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you please shed some light on this?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, neatly trapped me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Checkmate.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, but no, let's look a little closer at this.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what I have said often is experience, my experience, I mean everything in our lives, whatever we have, there's no other word for it experience, whatever we experience in life, life itself basically.
[SPEAKER_02]: How would you describe it?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's consciousness plus an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we on together on this?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm aware, I'm conscious and I'm conscious of something,
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it is sensory, I see or hear a smell or taste or touch something, that's a conscious experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether I think of something, whether I remember something, that's also consciousness plus object, because what I think of or what I remember those were also, even there's subtle objects that are internal to the mind, they're not external, internal to the mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still, it's an object to consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm aware, I remember that, I'm thinking of this, I'm thinking of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I desire that, I dislike this, so that these are objects.
[SPEAKER_02]: So always experience is consciousness plus object.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes put it as C plus O is equal to E. Consciousness plus object is experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is nothing particularly spiritual.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just a general way of describing life itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I have further said that bad experience or pure experience is Brahman, what do you mean by pure it?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where the question has to be answered.
[SPEAKER_02]: This person was written the question, was asked the question they have said, well, pure experience is subject without the object.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like consciousness without the object.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me put that neat little sentences.
[SPEAKER_02]: You Swami have defined experience is equal to consciousness plus object.
[SPEAKER_02]: Next, you have said that Brahman is pure experience and you have defined pure experience as the consciousness without an object, but experience itself is consciousness with an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how can there be experience without an object and what does pure experience or bare experience mean anyway?
[SPEAKER_02]: What I was translating was the Sanskrit, Anubhava, Mahatra, Param-Bhara, Anubhava experience, consciousness plus object, Mahatra, bare, just that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The usual understanding of Mahatra in Indian languages, Bengali, Hindi, many Indian languages.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not say that it is subject without an object, a bare experience is equal to pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does it mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: What happens is this consciousness itself appears as subject and object.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then as the subject experiencing the object, let us think of ourselves as in our
[SPEAKER_02]: In our dreams, we see people, things happen, we experience these things in our dreams.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we are ourselves there in our own dreams.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're there, we are, I see myself walking around.
[SPEAKER_02]: Although actually I'm lying on the bed and sleeping, but in my dream I am there in some place and I'm walking around there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a dream subject and there are dream objects.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, one thing cannot be denied about the dream, that it is taking place, it is an experience, dream is an experience, after all, except that both the object and the subject were appearances, that part of the dream, they were dreamt up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you with me?
[SPEAKER_02]: Both, suppose I'm walking in the park in the nice snowy wonderland.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, I'm sleeping and napping in my room, but I'm walking around in the park and I see this beautiful central park and covered with snow and so amazing, and I am there also all bundled up against this snow and walk, although I'm actually on my bed and sleeping, now when I wake up, I'll realize, oh, I was dreaming.
[SPEAKER_02]: And therefore, the central park and the snow-wise saw the objects of the dream, the contents of the dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: They were part of the dream, they were appearances.
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't actually see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I dreamt it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: But equally, that guy who was walking around in central park bundled up against the cold, that guy was also part of the dream, was part of the contents of the dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both the subject of the dream and the object of the dream, they were appearances in the dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: Appearances in what?
[SPEAKER_02]: What was appearing a subject and object?
[SPEAKER_02]: Either dreamer, the guy who was sleeping in bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we together in this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Now apply it to our present experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is meant by Advaita by Vedanta is that Brahman or Atman is not the subject minus the object.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is that underlying reality which appears and subject an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I think the way I can say is one alone exists, it appears as nature and soul.
[SPEAKER_02]: Nature?
[SPEAKER_02]: All of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Soul.
[SPEAKER_02]: You.
[SPEAKER_02]: I.
[SPEAKER_02]: The experiencing subject.
[SPEAKER_02]: So consciousness itself appears as the experiencing subject and the experienced object.
[SPEAKER_02]: The so called C plus O, which leads to experience itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the experience itself, if you remove the appearing subject and object, the underlying ground is exposed, which is us, the reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is what is meant by permanent.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's come back to the question which was posed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Swami, you defined experience as consciousness an object, correct?
[SPEAKER_02]: Consciousness plus object is equal to experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: However, what was left unsaid there is there is one underlying reality, Atman of Raman, which is appearing as both consciousness an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you have defined that Brahman is pure experience, what I mean by pure experience, the experience itself without decontence, without decontence means the contents may appear, but you realize they are appearances, what is it that is appearing as the experiencing subject and the experience subject, the let us call it the ground of experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: bear experience, the ground of experience, pure experience, also equal to pure being or pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: This shift from the experiencing subject to bear awareness or bear consciousness of the ground of experience, this is enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember reading about, you know, if you have heard of Paul Branton,
[SPEAKER_02]: So, he was this gentleman who went to India, he wrote this book in search of secret India, a search in secret India.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, he became that really, for example, Ramana Marshi became well-known throughout the world partly because of that book initially in the first, first, on an
[SPEAKER_02]: and he met the Shankaracharya of Kanchi, and another person he was inspired by was none other than M, the writer of the Gospels Riram Krishna, he met and he was very much inspired by M. He met M just a dend of M's life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he went back to England, and then he settled in Switzerland, and he spent the rest of his life decades, till the end of his life in Saldana.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was so inspired to that shows the genuine nature of the person.
[SPEAKER_02]: He took that inspiration from this great enlightened ones, and that book also made him famous, but he retired, he retired from public eye.
[SPEAKER_02]: and he spent decades in a small village in a sort of in the Alps, in a house there, but he kept on writing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in one of the books, he says one powerful way, but this is for advanced seekers.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you are already, if you're well read in Vedanta, already convinced about Vedanta, then one powerful way of becoming enlightened
[SPEAKER_02]: be as if we pretend that you are already enlightened, but in any warns, pretend for yourself not for others, if you pretend for others it will lead to great deception, you will deceive others and deceive yourself also, but pretend for yourself, see how it feels, and how will you pretend for yourself, he says at three levels.
[SPEAKER_02]: He calls it faith, thought, and vision, faith, thought, and vision.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is faith in Sanskrit Shandha?
[SPEAKER_02]: Here he is directly quoting or he directly referring to Ashtavakra.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ashtavakra says,
[SPEAKER_02]: one way of making a breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is an advanced way.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will not work for the novice or the newcomer.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you already know about Vedanta, if you already have got some clarity about Vedanta, then this is for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I don't understand yet, then you keep studying and listening.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I understand, if I have got clarity, if I even got conviction, then that faith, astavakra says, that's what tātāshad-dhvasva, matra-moham-kurshva-bho.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, that have faith, my child, have faith, shad-dhā.
[SPEAKER_02]: The strong belief indicates faith, it's not that enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_02]: The difference between enlightenment and faith, enlightenment is you already know.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't need to believe.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, so I know that there is a clock in front of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to believe that there is a clock.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it is 1120.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have to believe it's 1120.
[SPEAKER_02]: I see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even more so the enlightenment knows that I am pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't have to believe it, but suppose we don't, we are not there yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Start by believing it, take it upon, upon faith, upon the instructions of the Upanishads, the great masters, they've all told you, and you have read yourself, and you admit that you are convinced by it, then believe it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's step one of the Azif method.
[SPEAKER_02]: The next component, not step one is three components.
[SPEAKER_02]: The next component of Azif method is thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep thoughts on Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: What thoughts are going through my mind?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I believe that I am Brahman and what do you think about right now all sorts of nonsense.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Aziz method will entail that its hearts must be kept on Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the Sanskrit verses goes, ah Subte Ram Rite Kalam Nait Vedanta Chintaya.
[SPEAKER_02]: Till you fall asleep, always hazard in Vedanta, you'll fall asleep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Till you fall asleep, till one dies, till one falls asleep, till one dies, keep the mind immersed in Vedantic thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: past time in Vedantic thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: Kaalam, Nayet, Vedanta, Chintaya, A. Subte up to falling asleep daily, then you have no more control over yourself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Amritay, up to death.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the thing, our world of thought must be a world of Vedantic thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: World of Vedantic thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the second component of the Azif method.
[SPEAKER_02]: The third component of the Asik method is vision.
[SPEAKER_02]: He calls it vision.
[SPEAKER_02]: What he means perhaps my interpretation is, my world view must shift.
[SPEAKER_02]: My vision now is, yes, there is one non-dual consciousness appearing as this.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this understanding, my new understanding, replace the old understanding, I am this body mind, I am this creature.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's body mind is there, but what is it really?
[SPEAKER_02]: It is one consciousness appearing as body, as mind, as personality, as the world, as subject and object.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just like a dream, the entire world is an appearance in that one limitless consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is my vision.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll put all these three components together.
[SPEAKER_02]: The vision will take care of your worldview.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's my understanding of the world at Bysel?
[SPEAKER_02]: It has shifted because of all my immersion in Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is my thought?
[SPEAKER_02]: Where is my thought right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking something to do with Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: Third, what is my strong belief?
[SPEAKER_02]: What we're really belief in my heart of hearts?
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe that I am pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Put them to all three together.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the as if method.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he says it, and he says, put it beautifully.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be reflected in the smile on your face, in the glow on your face.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be reflected there.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not yet enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is good, this is an advanced practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Swami Vivekananda insisted on this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell yourself again and again, I am that soaham, till it tingles with every drop of your blood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami, T, He was here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Swami Satakatana Ranjee, any time you ask, I have asked Him also.
[SPEAKER_02]: You say, 100% conviction.
[SPEAKER_02]: You slam the table, you can say.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, I have it, and you should also, all of us should have it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the as if method.
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Question from the audience, somebody has a question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, the person who raised the hand there, the gentleman, yes, please come.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell us your name and ask the question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, so I'm a genius, I honor.
[SPEAKER_00]: When an individual... Tell us your name?
[SPEAKER_00]: Rory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rory.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rory.
[SPEAKER_00]: When an individual reaches or receives enlightenment, they're still here in the 3D practical world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that individual, have the ability, the question is about time to then manipulate time, lengthen it, or shorten it for purposes of healing or manifestation, or are we always subject to time when we're in this physical state, even in an enlightened awareness?
[SPEAKER_02]: It does this enlightened one after enlightenment have the ability to manipulate time to lend or shorten it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The short answer is yes, but the longer answer is, you must have no answer here.
[SPEAKER_02]: The enlightened one realizes, I am that there is first of all, there is one underlying
[SPEAKER_02]: time, space, causality, object, all of these are manifestations of program.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I am that program.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in that sense, step one, as far as time is concerned, you have stepped outside time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Time is an appearance in you.
[SPEAKER_02]: This becomes very clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just as space is an appearance in you, time is an appearance in you, object is an object,
[SPEAKER_02]: So, in that sense, you have transcended time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But can you, in this world of space, time and object, can you do something about it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, to manipulate space, time and object, there are yogis, we have got, say, the yoga sutras, in various tantric texts, we talk about many sit-dais in these spiritual or occult powers, where these yogis can do these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: and the evidence or testimony of spiritual masters in every tradition of the word.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that the Yogic tradition of the Thantric tradition alone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Every tradition of the word, every religion of the word, you will see that those who are regarded as saints and enlightened ones, the great ones, they also seem to have extraordinary realities.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's all I will say.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they themselves, this much is guaranteed.
[SPEAKER_02]: They themselves have transcended time.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: That, by the way, is the meaning of immortality.
[SPEAKER_02]: The, ah, yeah, this is this.
[SPEAKER_02]: That, by the way, is the meaning of immortality.
[SPEAKER_02]: Immortality, we understand, and when we hear immortal, we think, oh, the person won't die.
[SPEAKER_02]: That means you're going to live for a really, really long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, immortality means you transcend time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that you live forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: The body will die at one particular time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what is transcendending time being?
[SPEAKER_02]: This whole question of life, there is time and I'm living through time that disappears.
[SPEAKER_02]: A good example is our dream time.
[SPEAKER_02]: When we wake up, we realize that the dream was proceeding on its own time scale.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe a long time has passed in the dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we wake up, you just been snapping for 10 minutes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that means the dream time itself was an appearance.
[SPEAKER_02]: The dreamer is not somebody who was immortal in the dream time scale, is rather someone who was beyond the dream time scale and the dream time scale was something appearing in the dreamer.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, in fact, the dreamer alone appears as time.
[SPEAKER_02]: and space, and every entity in the dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly, you limitless consciousness, you alone appear as the universe and you do observe all of the universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the time in which this universe timescale and space in which this universe is taking place.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right, a question.
[SPEAKER_03]: This question is from Daevan Shushama.
[SPEAKER_03]: diswamiji.
[SPEAKER_03]: In your recent talks, you said that we must learn to identify consciousness as a child does with his nose.
[SPEAKER_03]: Can we really objectify consciousness like that?
[SPEAKER_02]: So the reference to this is something I've been saying recently.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's actually something I heard as Sadhu say in Hindi.
[SPEAKER_02]: It says, how Vedanta has to be made practical?
[SPEAKER_02]: How can we make Vedanta
[SPEAKER_02]: You say, just like a child, if you ask a child, what's a nose?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is a nose?
[SPEAKER_02]: The child will say, this, the child will not say the organ of respiration and the all-factory sense organ is the, that's words, that's you go to a dictionary and look up the definition of a nose, that's what you'll find.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're exchanging more words for one word, nose is a word and you're given a whole set of big words for it, but what does the child do points directly at the nose?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Swami said that, this is how you apply Vedanta make Vedanta living.
[SPEAKER_02]: What did he mean by that?
[SPEAKER_02]: What he means by that is something simple and yet quite profound.
[SPEAKER_02]: It means whatever we talk about in Vedanta that it's basis at its core is always pointing to a living reality here and now.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do I mean by living reality here and now?
[SPEAKER_02]: Contrast it with other schools of thought.
[SPEAKER_02]: Say a dualistic devotional school of thought which talks about God and heaven.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now God and heaven may be present here and now but it's not obvious to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: God is where is God, not here in heaven, where is heaven, beyond death.
[SPEAKER_02]: So not something that is immediately experienced below obvious to us right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's distant.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what about heaven, yes, when you go there, you'll find out.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not now, it's then.
[SPEAKER_02]: God, yes, when you go to heaven, you will see God.
[SPEAKER_02]: or say something like yogic samadhi, or the various extraordinary mystical states mentioned in the mystical literature not only in yoga, in tantra, but in many mystical texts of the world across the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are also real, but they are available after long practice that those are particular states which can be developed and can be lost also, they will come and they will go.
[SPEAKER_02]: very few people have those experiences, you one can get those experiences of one wants, but my point is they are not here right now, unless you are one of those rare people who is in ecstasy right now, you know, this is it's not true yet for for me, I am not in that state.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas what are the weight of Vedanta claims in contrast to all of this, that what it talks about, Atman, Gremman, U.R.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bremman, is the fact here and now.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might say, I, I, it's a fact, but we are not experiencing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you are experiencing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like looking at this altar and saying, you're looking at the wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: The altar is made up wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're looking at the wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: When a touch the altar, I say, touch wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like saying, I'm looking at the altar, but it will take a lot of spiritual development before I see the wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, the very fact that you're seeing the altar is proof that you're seeing the wood here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly, the very fact that we are experiencing the word, that we are experiencing ourselves is the proof that we are experiencing Akbar or Brahma.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the danger of saying something like this is, you'll say, oh, this is Brahman, no big deal then.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the criticism against Pantheism.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the theory which says that God is what?
[SPEAKER_02]: This pantheism, everything is God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Preficia, everything is God.
[SPEAKER_02]: The criticism against Pantheism, philosophical criticism against Pantheism is, aren't you just giving a new name to the plain old word?
[SPEAKER_02]: These are just people.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is just the word, and now you're giving it a name, God.
[SPEAKER_02]: What difference did it make?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did it become better?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the name is better, but it's, people are still the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: People, the body is still the same body.
[SPEAKER_02]: A deadly mistake can be made.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you say that he this word itself is Brahman, it is so the enlightened one understands in what sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we see the world and we understand it in our sense as the world and people, subject and object.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you say, this is Brahman, we will say that the same old, me and the same old world is Brahman, what big deal, what's the big deal here?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that's why this teaching is subtle.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be misunderstood or misapplied.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good question which clarifies.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, you are saying that child points out, this is a nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, this is an object, it can be pointed out.
[SPEAKER_02]: not quite.
[SPEAKER_02]: If it could be, it would have been.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember one great Vedantic master, telling me once, long ago, it was 30 years ago, it was just a newly minted monk, telling me, you're looking for Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, one gets the feeling that the reality, spiritual reality, Akma, or Brahman is right here, but there's just this veil, if Padku'd only pierce through it, and he said to me, why veil, here it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was sitting in this room and sunlight streaming through the old monk, streaming through the one window, on the outside the window, you could see the Ganga and there was this tree there, is it here it is?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said this, this window, this tree, this river, this is permanent.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think he sort of almost sighed and he said, not quite, let it be, it will happen in its own time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like people saying, you know, if I say that wood, this table is wood, you want to see wood, this table is wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say this table.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you mean the leg of the table, this, the wood means the leg of the table, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: on the top of the table.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what you mean by wood.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not quite.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a very reality of this table, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just what it is that if I can't wrap my head around it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, how do you practice this pointing at the nose?
[SPEAKER_02]: There is something which is pretty objective in Vedanta, Vedanta starts with something obvious and objective.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, when Vedanta says, here is the body, consider well that I am not the body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then how will you practice this, this knows example.
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead of thinking in abstract, which people do, all right, I am not the body, the body is made of five elements, and I am, and body is changing, I am unchanging, the body is an object, I am the subject, all of this is in the head, which is good, but there's a more powerful way of doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just like this is the nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you do it to the body?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can we do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can we bring our attention to the body?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here, feel the body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Clench the muscles.
[SPEAKER_02]: Feel the sensations in the body and say, this is the body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now apply your Vedantic logic to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This obviously changes.
[SPEAKER_02]: and feel the change in the body, from childhood to memory, from childhood to middle age, how the body has changed, how the looks have changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And notice that I was the subject in dweller in the body, when the body was a child, a middle-aged person, an old person, and the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in that way, apply like a nose, make it object.
[SPEAKER_02]: and make it object means, make it living palpable instead of staying in the head.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what I mean when the child says, this is a nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Vedanta says, body is changing, you are unchanging.
[SPEAKER_02]: It means in a very vivid living sense, not just in a theoretical sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be a theoretical sense also, but not just in a theoretical sense, not just as an abstraction.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I say you are the subject and the body is an object, look at it as not as a philosophical point.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh Swami said I'm the subject and body is an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just an idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like the nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: The nose is not an idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the right here on my face.
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly, the body is an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am the subject.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am aware of the body.
[SPEAKER_02]: See how it feels to be aware of the body.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we will vividly begin to feel, not just see, not just understand, but also feel that the body is clearly an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I am not an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: The more we feel that,
[SPEAKER_02]: don't say prana, the physiological activities of the body are kept alive by the vital force called the prana, using Sanskrit and English and stuff, technical words, and I am the witness of the prana, therefore I am not the prana, no, no, no, actually breathe, actually breathe in, this is prana, it is the tip of the iceberg called prana.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is prana, and then notice how I am not this air going into the lungs and who's shing out of the lungs, lungs are like bellows, and the air is flowing in and out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually, without words, you know, vitally, feel it vitally, palpably, living.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's like pointing to the nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: As we do this and make it go subtler and subtler and subtler, the tendency, the temptation is always to go back into the head into ideas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Pran, when thoughts are even before that, sensory experiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: touch, sight, sound, smell, taste.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of them make it like the nose, this is the nose and then apply the Vedantic logic.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are changing, I am unchanging, they are object, I am the subject, they are not aware, I am aware, they are many, I am one, battery of arguments are there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But make those arguments leaving, like, no, this is the nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that, when you see, then when we come to, then the mind, then the intellect, then the causal body, the deep sleep experience, all of them, meet them vivid, then you will come to, I am consciousness, I am the witness, which will no longer be an object, but it will be vivid, it will be leaving, and if at one point I have slipped into my head, I will naturally it will happen,
[SPEAKER_02]: Then when I come to myself as the witness consciousness, it will no longer be with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be a vague idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: Atma and the Brahman is not a vague idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the most obvious of all things.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the most living of all truths.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is life itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's why this is a.
[SPEAKER_02]: this is an aid to Sadhana, Vedantic Sadhana, Self-Enquiry, be like the child who points to the nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: At every step, in the Panchakosh of the Chara which I just exemplified yet of levels five sheets of the personality, physical, physiological, mental, intellectual, make it obvious and living like the nose.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you come to witness consciousness, you will see that that also will become a living reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will no longer be an object, of course not, but it's you.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the same thing can be done to waking, dreaming and sleeping.
[SPEAKER_02]: The same thing can be done in the drick-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-drich-d
[SPEAKER_02]: But we must make a beginning with the object, because the object is all that is available to us.
[SPEAKER_02]: From the object back to the subject to beyond the subject and object.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody else.
[SPEAKER_04]: Bonus tree, ray.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, join.
[SPEAKER_04]: My question is...
[SPEAKER_04]: If we don't want to born again, I won't.
[SPEAKER_04]: This will be my last but what I need to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: The second one is, if I take that invitation and put the jewel together combined.
[SPEAKER_04]: But when I say put the jewel, there will be Krishna, Kali, Shiva, those images.
[SPEAKER_04]: And which is limited, then it should be Maya, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that's the question.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two part question.
[SPEAKER_02]: One is very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have said, I want this to be my last life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be born again in this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a great, great aspiration, great spiritual aspiration.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the way spirituality and the quest for liberation has been put in Indian traditions.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, one thing you notice about Indian traditions, whether it's all of Hinduism, in which it's extraordinary diversity and differences between themselves.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of Buddhism and Jainism or Sikhism, all of the Indian traditions, one thing they have in common is this belief.
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically what it means is this limited existence, subject to endless struggle and sorrow and strife.
[SPEAKER_02]: In this place where we know a little, don't know a lot, desire a lot achieved very little and we are given endless kicks and blows in this life and initially we have hope as we get little older and more mature then we will begin to lose hope.
[SPEAKER_02]: and repeat again and again and again at one point maturity must come but what is all this for?
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the point of it?
[SPEAKER_02]: I've lost taste for this reputation of more or less the same thing you might say Swamya but we don't have memories and you don't even need memories just look at the next generation and the generation after that aren't they repeating your story?
[SPEAKER_02]: and the story of your parents and the story of your grandparents.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all repeating it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we have caught in that same cycle.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the idea is that we have been repeating this lifetime after lifetime.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at one point, the soul traveling through many lifetimes comes to this understanding,
[SPEAKER_02]: are unexplained feeling, because we don't have clear memories of past births, but still a feeling, a maturity that I must grow out of this, I must be free of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not an ending, it's actually a freedom, a freedom, I don't want to be put in a cage again, this cage of flesh and blood and to go through this cycle of life and death and being born again.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is the quest for moxa.
[SPEAKER_02]: The many words in Sanskrit and the Indian tradition for this, Moksha, Freedom, Mukhti, Freedom, Nirvana.
[SPEAKER_02]: In both Vedanta and Buddhism, the word is used, the Nirvana, Kaivalya, Insankya and Yoga and Jainism.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this word is used, Kaivalya.
[SPEAKER_02]: So multiple words are there for this freedom, which you are seeking.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the ultimate goal which we aspire for.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the sign of great maturity.
[SPEAKER_02]: One may not even put it in those terms.
[SPEAKER_02]: One may put it in terms of the request for ultimate meaning in life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ultimate meaning in life.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the point of it on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there a point of it on?
[SPEAKER_01]: This psychological very famous now, Jordan Peterson, he said, what matters is
[SPEAKER_01]: What matters is, what do you mean by what matters, quest for meaning?
[SPEAKER_02]: That is more important than objects matter, material reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this quest for meaning one may say that I don't believe in all that multiple life times birth and death cycle, but yes, I am in a quest for meaning and purpose and point of it all.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am in a quest to overcome suffering like the Buddha.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know about many lifetimes, but in this lifetime, I'm in a quest to overcome suffering and find profound happiness, fulfilment, is it possible?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the unanimous answer of all spiritual traditions in the world is yes, it is possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: Many have attained to it throughout history.
[SPEAKER_02]: Many are struggling in this lifetime also to attain to it and welcome to the club.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: What must one do?
[SPEAKER_02]: All of these paths, the path of, as you said, meditation and devotion, the path of control of the mind, of stealing the mind and seeing the deadless reality beyond the mind, that will free you from the cycle of birth and death.
[SPEAKER_02]: Meditation will free you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Devonation will free you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I cannot do it on my own, take help.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take the help of that which is already free from all of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is already free from all of this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Ishwara, God, Bhagawan, the one supreme power in this universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then take hold of that, catch hold of that which is free for your own freedom.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in Hinduism, I'm answering your question.
[SPEAKER_02]: In Hinduism, that ultimate reality, the divine reality, the theistic reality is conceived of experienced in multiple ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ram Krishna is to say, he is infinite and the paths to God are also infinite.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, as you mentioned, Krishna, Kali, Vishnu, Shiva, many ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then what do you do?
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to pick one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't help me in this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Go to the guru.
[SPEAKER_02]: go to a guru and guru will initiate you in one tradition, in one mantra, one ish tadevata, then the problem is said when devotion and a set for meditation, multiple forms keep coming to my mind, yes, that's the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore that liberality, Hinduism gets the liberality from accepting that there are multiple ways to God realization, multiple ways, that's why we have the Christmas tree here.
[SPEAKER_02]: As the multiple ways to God-realization, because God is limitless and God can be experienced in so many ways and all the paths of spiritual struggle and achievement which we find in human civilization.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are all true paths.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is to that openness that broadness has to be combined with focus.
[SPEAKER_02]: How does Hinduism accomplish this?
[SPEAKER_02]: either you choose on your family tradition chooses for you or your guru chooses for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you say, I trust in you, you tell me one day in which I will practice and that becomes your practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Suppose you have a vice number guru and say God is a Krishna for you, please focus on Krishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will give you the mantra of Krishna, how to meditate and visualize Krishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the answer for, yes, make up your mind, my goal is God-realization, my goal is Mukti, Anam Mukshu.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are four levels of human beings.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is spoken about in Vedanta, in which our Sagar, for example, multiple texts.
[SPEAKER_02]: The bottom is what is called palm or instinctive life, animalistic life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want pleasure.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want a little better than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want pleasure and money and success and that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What about morality?
[SPEAKER_02]: I just enough so that the IRS IRS doesn't catch me.
[SPEAKER_02]: The police don't catch me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Up to that extent, morality, not more than that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is called palm or instinctive life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is spectrum.
[SPEAKER_02]: In this, the one might be absolutely might be an addict and might be completely out of control, helpless just pursuing some kind of sense pleasure, addicted.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or one might be pretty successful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, today would do powerful in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Still pleasure seeking and wealth and power seeking.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the ultimate goal for these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_02]: But luckily, these are not the mainstream of society.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are not the backbone of society.
[SPEAKER_02]: The backbone of society is one step higher than this.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is called, Dharmika Visayi.
[SPEAKER_02]: Visayi means worldly, but Dharmika means religious, ethical, people who think of themselves and like to think of themselves as good people, decent people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have some standards which I will not sink below.
[SPEAKER_02]: The standards could be a standard of ethics, of morality, could be the standards of religion, mostly the standards of religion, until very recently.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is called the harmi kavishayi, how are they better?
[SPEAKER_02]: They are not simply pursuing whatever comes to mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not simply pursuing the call of the senses.
[SPEAKER_02]: Rather, they are pursuing that same wealth and power, but within the limits, what is called in what we call Luxembourgica, the circle of ethics, within that, not beyond this.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the majority of people in the world, that's why society functions, majority of people in the world are trying to be good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, they are worldly, they are pursuing
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to be rich, I want to be famous, I want fun in life, I want family, husband, wife, children, I want community, all the good things in life, I want Amazon one day delivery, all the good things in life, but yes, I will not be a crook to get all of this, I think Google
[SPEAKER_02]: That is the second category of people.
[SPEAKER_02]: The third category, higher than this is, who have seen through the advantage and transient, flinzy nature of this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Even as a good person, if I go, this world, I find no lasting satisfaction in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: No peace in this world.
[SPEAKER_02]: By pursuing money, by pursuing pleasure, even ethically, what is the prize that I gain out of it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: it seems to be worthwhile.
[SPEAKER_02]: The glitter seems to attract me.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when I get it, it's not fulfilling.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, there are only two options.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I want in this world, either I will get it or I will not get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I get it, the result will be dissatisfaction.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I don't get it, the result will be frustration.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, a perpetual state will be dissatisfied or frustrated.
[SPEAKER_02]: After some time, I rise out of this, is there anything higher that that's where spiritual light comes in and says, yes, enlightenment, God realization, self-reliable, whatever you call it, it is there, every religion in the world says, which will give you very deep, high, pure peace and joy.
[SPEAKER_02]: really most worthwhile.
[SPEAKER_02]: Swami Brahman and the disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, at one time in Balulmat, or main monastery, this gentleman came in great humility, bowed down Swami, you are great, you have sacrificed the world for God, I bowed down to you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Swami bowed down even
[SPEAKER_02]: Your sacrifice is even greater than mine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I threw away a piece of glass for a diamond.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've thrown away the diamond for a piece of glass.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just to mock the person.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a blow to evakender.
[SPEAKER_02]: A shock.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe he was that person was ready to hear this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then this person is called Sadhaka, spiritual seeker.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you say, I don't want to be born again, I want freedom from the cycle of birth and death.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have become a saadhaka or saadhika, spiritual seeker.
[SPEAKER_02]: For you is meditation, for you is devotion, for you is self-inquiry, for you is selfless service or action, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, gan yoga, rajay yoga, these are all for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's one final stage, fourth.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are we talking about?
[SPEAKER_02]: The four stages of human evolution.
[SPEAKER_02]: Final stages called Siddha.
[SPEAKER_02]: This, the enlightened one.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is that one seeking?
[SPEAKER_02]: Neither worldly goals, nor spiritual goals.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that one has attained the spiritual goal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shankaracharya sings, Nadharmo, Nachartho, Nakamo, Namoksha.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want pleasure, karma.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want earth power and wealth.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want even religiosity which will take me to heaven, Dharma.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even want spiritual realization and freedom.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
[SPEAKER_02]: Chidaan and the Rupa Shiboham.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I am limitless consciousness and bliss.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am Shiboham.
[SPEAKER_02]: Shiboham doesn't want motion.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that state is the final one.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where you are, you realize what you truly are, then you are fine with all of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then lighten one exists in this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is he
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll respond to the first question I said that it can be dangerous before this.
[SPEAKER_02]: It can be dangerous to say that this is Brahman, that why people will mistake this for Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: The difference is this, the test is this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether I realize what it means by this is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: Suppose all of this were to be taken away.
[SPEAKER_02]: The world disappears, the body disappears, the death comes, everything is gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you honestly say everything still exists?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the reality still exists, I am fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can understand that statement, then you are qualified to say, this is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, if you think this world has the reality, the moment you say, this is taken away, we feel everything is gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have taken everything away from me.
[SPEAKER_02]: The enlightened one will never feel that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like the one who sees the gold in the ornaments.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a difference between the two, one who sees the ornament, the necklace or the bracelet and doesn't understand what gold is, things that necklace or the bracelet is the reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the moment the necklace is melted, you'll think that it's gone, the reality is gone.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the one who understands gold will realize
[SPEAKER_02]: Whether it is in the form of a beautiful necklace or melted, it's still the same gold and made into a new thing called a bracelet, it's still the same gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing is lost, this the form has been changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sant Ganeshwar, a great mystical saint of Maharashtra, 1000 years ago writing in Bharatitham
[SPEAKER_02]: suddenly a fold is made.
[SPEAKER_02]: In Brahman, the universe appears.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you make a fold in the clock, that's just a shape change.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's nothing else.
[SPEAKER_02]: This shape has a reason in Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Literally every bit of it is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bishayi, Dharmaka Bishayi, third one is Sadhaka and the fourth one is Siddha.
[SPEAKER_02]: The instinctive animalistic life, sensory, sensuous life, then the decent person, yes, worldly, but decent, good person, struggling, ethical, struggling person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the third one is the spiritual secret, and the fourth one is then light and one.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, we are all moving from the third category to the second category and the very least all of us must be in the second category and then move into the first category.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll ask that question that it what I ask you that it is Maya or that what that image is.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, the question about whether the image is the forms of God or Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: The name and form is always Maya, but remember Maya is of two kinds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vidya Chakut is to say Vidya Mayan, Vidya Mayan, Vidya Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: We think Maya is something that veils reality, hides reality, hides God.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Maya is also that which reveals God and reveals reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vedanta is Maya also.
[SPEAKER_02]: Spirituality is also Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Maya has two forms, Vidya Vidya, Maya of knowledge, Maya of ignorance.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Maya of ignorance traps us more and more in some sorrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Maya of knowledge freezes from some sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Both are called Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why both will be called Maya?
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember, if your real nature is Brahman or Atman, it doesn't need to be freed from some sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, if I feel that need to be freed from some sad, I'm still within Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I take the help of Vidya Maya, the Maya of knowledge
[SPEAKER_02]: Notice the perfected one is beyond this Maya of spirituality also, and the Upanishads say Yachtra Veda Veda Abhavanti, when you become enlightened, the Vedas become no Vedas for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a state beyond spirituality or do you have to do spiritual practice forever?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there is a state beyond spirituality also, where you become
[SPEAKER_01]: But then only, not now, yes, thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, so how are you?
[SPEAKER_06]: My name is Anna.
[SPEAKER_06]: My question will be a continuation of the first insert question.
[SPEAKER_06]: I am trying to look at this from another perspective.
[SPEAKER_06]: So my question, who is experiencing the world?
[SPEAKER_06]: For example, we say that subject and object happens in the dreamer mind.
[SPEAKER_06]: So I'm the subject, and to me, Qualya happens.
[SPEAKER_06]: As you understand, Rana makes this body, dead material body, life, so Qualya happens.
[SPEAKER_06]: But who experiencing this Qualya, because mind thoughts are hungry, all these are just tools.
[SPEAKER_06]: Kualya happens, because Krishna says Aham Bhaktah, Maheshwara, and we say this and Bhava Madram Brahma.
[SPEAKER_06]: No, sir.
[SPEAKER_06]: Hope who is experiencing?
[SPEAKER_06]: Short answer, you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Long answer is the exploration of the you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Short answer, who is experiencing?
[SPEAKER_01]: World, who is experiencing Kualya?
[SPEAKER_01]: Straight answer, you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you deny that?
[SPEAKER_02]: seeing, hearing, who is seeing, who is hearing, you have to say first straight answer is I, but deeper answer is the exploration of that eye, the exploration of the tube, who or what is that eye, first answer, first pass at that question, the question is, that what am I, who is experiencing, I am experiencing, no one is any doubt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Has anybody any doubt?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am experiencing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is experiencing Kualya?
[SPEAKER_02]: Kualya means the sensory experience is the subjective first person experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is experiencing I am experiencing?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is this I?
[SPEAKER_02]: First answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am this conscious being with the mind and the body experiencing an external world outside the body and he has also internally
[SPEAKER_02]: this is who I call Anna.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the first answer to I.
[SPEAKER_02]: As we look deeper, we begin to see that this conscious being has a constant component consciousness and an ever-changing
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, body mind as you said are tools.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have moved toward deeper understanding of the eye.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the earlier eye identified by self with the body mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I did not say body mind at tools.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said I am this one.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am growing old, I am depressed, but now I will say, yes, the body is growing old, the mind is depressed, but I am that consciousness which is deploying these tools, I am the passenger in the chariot which is this body mind in the language of the cartoopernetia.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that's a deeper understanding of I, what really Anna is, then go further.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the relationship between this eye?
[SPEAKER_02]: Also notice, as I abstract myself from body and mind, that pure eye, the witness consciousness, is actually free of the problems of body mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: The problems of body mind are also because I have identified myself with the body mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the body was just an object, non-leading object, like our table or a rock,
[SPEAKER_02]: Then they would not be problems there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is just matter, like Jordan, Peter and Sidney said, what is important, what matters is important, matter is not important.
[SPEAKER_02]: It matters to me because I, the consciousness, have identified myself with body mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, what is happening to this body and more to the mind, really matters to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the more I begin to see that this body mind is an object and the consciousness itself, the awareness itself abstracted from body mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: I will notice the problems are not only in the body mind but the problems are superimposed only because I embrace the body mind as I was myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: The more I abstract myself from body mind, more I see my problem free nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the exploration of Anna as consciousness in dwelling in this body mind complex.
[SPEAKER_02]: We go further and then you explore and you see begin to see this consciousness is actually not a separate reality from body mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: rather world body mind that appearances in consciousness is not that this body mind is a unit and in that is one little bit of consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, in consciousness which is limitless appears the limited world body mind and that makes experience possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: that is the ultimate understanding of experience, we are giving you an sort of experience what who is experiencing, short answer I, then I give you three interpretations of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the first interpretation of experience, I am experiencing, well I, in this living body mind I am the experience, that is what everybody thinks, that is the general and baseline understanding, materialist will think that, that is where we begin.
[SPEAKER_02]: The second answer, the I, is consciousness as the witness of body mind, who is experiencing I am experiencing with the tools of body mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now body mind becomes tools.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now the body mind becomes a chariot which I'm writing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Third, I pure consciousness, I'm experiencing this universe body mind which I am, I'm appearing to myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, I'm reminded of Sant Ganeshwar in his changadev Pasha's tea, he says, when you see a reflection of, when we see a reflection of ourselves in the mirror, we see nothing at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do we think when we are seeing things?
[SPEAKER_01]: Here is a clock.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something other than me.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I look at it, I'm seeing something.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an object.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I am seeing that new thing, but when I see my face in the mirror, it looks like same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am looking out there and seeing something, I am looking out there, but what am I actually seeing?
[SPEAKER_01]: This drumman, when it looks at the universe, sees nothing, sees nothing means, sees itself, not a separate reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: That Brahman seeing itself is the final analysis of experience in Vedant.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the three step analysis of experience and so to a question with Kualya, who is experiencing Kualya.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I is experiencing Kualya, consciousness is experiencing Kualya, Brahman is experiencing itself.
[SPEAKER_06]: But Brahman isn't changing right, he cannot experience him like.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Brahman, pure consciousness by itself does not experience, but pure consciousness appearing as mind, ego, body, senses, word, can certainly experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: When Brahman appears as body, mind, ego, word, which are all changing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But because their appearances, the unchanging nature of Brahman is not affected.
[SPEAKER_01]: Isn't that true?
[SPEAKER_02]: If the Brahman becomes a changing world, then you cannot say Brahman is remained unchanging.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because Brahman became something it changed.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when Brahman appears as a changing world, body, mind, senses.
[SPEAKER_02]: Has Brahman changed?
[SPEAKER_02]: No?
[SPEAKER_02]: It appears to itself.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just like a whole dream universe appears to you when you lie down and dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you changed in spite of tremendous things happening in the dream universe?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, I experienced it all.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's your magic, that's your Maya, that's your capacity.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the capacity or Maya or magic of Pramad.
[SPEAKER_06]: It is like many lamps of experiences happens within the Prawn.
[SPEAKER_06]: Many, many like pieces of experiences happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, but be careful about what you mean by happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Happen all this implies change, and the change is not in Prawn.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at it from Prawnman's perspective, nothing has happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the unchangeable nature of Brahman, the non-dual nature of Brahman is maintained.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you look at it, appearance perspective, everything is happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why do you say that's very difficult to understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have got some questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you're saying that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's read them one by one quickly and deal with them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, Swami, the question of AI has been trending.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we have a few questions for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first one is from Chandrashekha, from Chennai in India.
[SPEAKER_03]: The pure consciousness that Vedanta talks about is not a conscious being, but consciousness itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is like the difference between existing things and existence itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: In that case, why is there so much debate and challenge that we cannot create artificial consciousness?
[SPEAKER_03]: Even if scientists manage to give consciousness to AI, it'll still be a conscious being and won't be consciousness itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just like if a scientist creates a new existing thing in a lab, what he has created is just another thing, but not existence itself.
[SPEAKER_03]: My understanding is, even if this is possible in the near future, it creates no difference to what the dawn talks about, please clarify.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we'll answer that one by one.
[SPEAKER_02]: straight answer to this question?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: One word answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a time little while ago I might have said no, but now I'm saying yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: The reason being that I had some wonderful conversations with different parties on this debate.
[SPEAKER_02]: One, two or three, one being, blaze, who holds the head of research in, you know, Gemini AI and Google.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had a long debate with him once, then Bernardo Castro.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all right, all of that, let me put it in a few sentences, all the arguments on both sides and what is why I said yes to that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why I say, and I still hold, that consciousness cannot be created in a lab, or in AI, is because of the hard problem of consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: The hard problem of consciousness stays any amount of objective manipulation, for example, what's going on in the brains, will give a result which is objective.
[SPEAKER_02]: one object interacting with other object, the result will always be an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will never be the subject.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has never been for anything in the universe, why should it be different in the brain?
[SPEAKER_02]: In the brain with all the electrical and neurochemical activities going on, what will happen is electrical activity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Will it generate consciousness?
[SPEAKER_02]: Will you manufacture a soul?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the hard problem of consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can have any amount of objective activity going on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: The result will always be an object.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will never be the subject.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why when you examine the brain as closely as possible through modern technology and FMI-RI scans and whatnot, all you notice is electrochemical activity, electricity in neurons, tiny bits of electrical activity neurons, that's what you notice.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't notice sight, sounds, mel, taste, touch, thought, music, nothing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But people claim is or we are actually seeing the neural correlates of conscious experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: This correlation is not causation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't explain it at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: just because all of you walk through that door.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't say that the door produced all of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look at that amazing magic door produced 100 human beings today.
[SPEAKER_02]: And very soon it will absorb all of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it Brahman, the door?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, is it, does it have nothing to do with you?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, it has, it, you all walk through it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the portal through which you all walked and it has been designed for you, the height and the shape and all allows for human-sized objects to pass in and through.
[SPEAKER_02]: So clearly there is a connection between consciousness and neural activity but the crucial point here is neural activity is not producing consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this accept a few die-hard materialists, more or less people are coming around to this way of sinking now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Many, many people.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not talking about just philosophy, no, Advaitans, Buddhists, of course, these are all ancient traditions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But modern philosophers of mind, neuroscientists, AI people, many of them are coming around to this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, physical activity in the brain does not produce the subject, doesn't produce you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, therefore I would say that AI, which is of all physical, very objective, it cannot produce consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is point one.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then comes this AI expert, what he told me was, look,
[SPEAKER_02]: Vedanta makes it more probable that AI is conscious than not.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's exactly what the question is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Questionaries putting the question says this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vedanta makes it more probable that AI can be conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said to me, I'm quoting his words, let's forget Atman Brahman for the time being.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's just assume it's in the background as Vedanta says, pure consciousness is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I will, I'm interested in the consciousness which we are all talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: The question is which is VVL experience right now?
[SPEAKER_02]: What Vedanta will call reflected consciousness?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, he says that the great advantage that Vedanta gives AI people, supposing AI people are trying to make AI conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are not, but supposing they are trying to make AI conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: The great advantage that Vedanta gives is that you don't have to produce consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: All you have to do is reflect consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Consciousness is already given.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brahman is everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all you have to do is reflect consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you reflect consciousness?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, how do you living beings, you as human beings?
[SPEAKER_02]: You're all, you're all conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: How are we conscious according to Vedanta?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we have, he asked me this question.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where would you find consciousness in Vedanta?
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to say, in minds?
[SPEAKER_02]: When he asked, where would you find minds?
[SPEAKER_02]: In living beings?
[SPEAKER_02]: and then event on to what is life and can they have digital life and then a digital mind and then wood consciousness not be reflected in a digital mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was the argument for consciousness in AI.
[SPEAKER_02]: that if conscious AI number one doesn't have to create consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Materialism makes it much more difficult for AI to be conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: We materialism says that brain produces consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we have the AI has the big task of producing consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: But Vedanta says brain does not produce consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brain and mind reflect already existing consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Similarly, AI, all that AI has to do is reflect consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, look, a rhetorical argument, simple but rhetorical argument.
[SPEAKER_02]: You have huge budget for your Gemini, a chat GPT, budget for making it creative, budget for making it right, you know, creatively for processing text, for computer vision, what not?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, recently I received what is called this, this medical insurance card you have,
[SPEAKER_02]: receive that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now some of the things which I don't understand what's there, but what it means.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought I'll ask the doctor what it means.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I thought why not ask chat GPT.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chat GPT said show me the card.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I took a picture of the card and showed it to chat GPT.
[SPEAKER_02]: It explained what by what everything it explained details and he said you want me to go deeper.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how you have got huge budget for making it do this stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: My question was, what is your budget for making AI conscious?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is your consciousness budget in Google, in chatGPT, in open AI?
[SPEAKER_02]: Zero.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you like, so without this millions of billions of dollars and thousands of hours of training, you can't expect chatGPT or Gemini to do these amazing things.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you are expecting just by itself, it will become conscious without any budget without any effort on your part.
[SPEAKER_02]: Will consciousness become automatically, it will be there.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is your budget for?
[SPEAKER_02]: AI consciousness, in what his answer was, all of it, all of it, brilliant answer, he said, see Swami, you are saying all that you need for manifesting consciousness is a mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all that we have been doing our entire budget is to make an artificial mind, we will manifest consciousness there, it's all of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have to directly aim for consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: According to Vedanta, according to you, all that we have to aim for is a mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: And here is a mind, it is almost indistinguishable from a human mind in its capacities.
[SPEAKER_02]: More and more close and closer, it is an artificial mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why will it not be conscious?
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is one side of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the question, all I'm just repeating what the question person in the question has said because I'm agreeing with it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he says that why not?
[SPEAKER_02]: maybe in the near future it is possible and I might say yes in the near future is possible it's still not possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might say in the chat GPT or Gemini is conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the experts I talk to they are cleaning yes it may be that they are already conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't agree there and there I got a number of arguments from Bernardo Castro.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said absolutely not these things are clever but they are not conscious.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you explain how these things work, these large language models, you explain this actually a kind of geometry and you are very fascinating, I didn't think about it that way, you explain how these large language models work.
[SPEAKER_02]: Basically what he said was whether look at the whether model of this whether so much snow will be predicted for New York and you look at your phone which says what five inches or eight inches of snow predicted for New York.
[SPEAKER_02]: phone that news report, not even once no flick you will be able to find there, it is exactly what Sri Ram Krishna said more than 100 years, 150 years ago, they did not have modern national weather service, they had Almanax, Panjika, Almanax predicts so much rain, it is if you squeeze the whole Almanac also one drop of water will not come out, but not a customer give the exact
[SPEAKER_02]: and if you squeeze the entire model one not one drop of consciousness is going to come out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So back to then he says by what will be conscious is still now we can only say living brain circumstances that much we can say.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unless you can create life and a living organism.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so this, the second question comes from Domingo Sunday.
[SPEAKER_03]: Life consciousness manifests itself in these aspects.
[SPEAKER_03]: Each aspect has its own function and role.
[SPEAKER_03]: I watch the other day you say that previously you thought that artificial intelligence could not have consciousness, but now you are not sure about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, there is only consciousness, but in the manifestation it created the different aspects.
[SPEAKER_03]: These aspects are direct manifestations of such it, and they have their designed functions and roles.
[SPEAKER_03]: What would be the role of a machine with consciousness?
[SPEAKER_03]: It would be an artificial role, not a natural role.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if the human being can one day mix
[SPEAKER_03]: live brain cells with a mechanical device.
[SPEAKER_03]: Consciousness will operate because it's the live brain cells, not because of the device.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you agree, Swamiji?
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are two aspects to this.
[SPEAKER_02]: There, I agree with that, when you notice he says, if the live brain cells, and if consciousness manifests in that system with live brain cells, it will be because of those
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that was one of the arguments those scientists put against me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you are insisting that there has to be life for mind to function and then consciousness to be reflected.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said yes, that is what religion generally says, that life is necessary for mind and mind is necessary for consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, do you know that in our latest models of neural networks we are actually using
[SPEAKER_02]: living neurons, actually from the brain and cultured in the lab and they are living, they have prana in them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have life there and you have the components in the brain which are supposed to be the substrate for the mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you might even say there is a mind there or there could be a mind there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if there is a mind there in a living substrate, why will there not be reflected consciousness according to you?
[SPEAKER_02]: So a escape route is being narrowed down.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no way of sneaking out of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go on.
[SPEAKER_03]: This question is from Garod Ayanga, I'm a faculty member at Columbia University and I'm also the director of the Data Science Institute of the University.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Institute is the hub of Data Science and AI for the University.
[SPEAKER_03]: I listened to your podcast and I had been very influenced by your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was wondering where the Indian philosophy has a position on artificial intelligence.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it doesn't have an actual position on artificial intelligence because if look, you last be for code from which text, but an position on artificial intelligence can be developed based on the theory of mind and consciousness in Indian philosophy, in Vedanta, in Buddhism, in Jainism, there are a variety of theories and a variety of very sophisticated models of mind and consciousness found there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, it is, it will have something to say about mind and consciousness and intelligence, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just think that because intelligence is seen as a function of the intellect, which are both objective in Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore,
[SPEAKER_02]: replicating that in the objective world, in artificial means, should not be impossible from a Vedantic perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always, I'll end with this argument.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the last question.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, and with this argument, that what it does, these arguments, it shows our unique nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you approach mind and consciousness through the materialistic approach it, the artificial intelligence will show that we are nothing other than machines.
[SPEAKER_02]: Whereas Vedanta, because it says that even intelligence is objective, and therefore tadjipity and others can mimic our intelligence, that doesn't mean that they become us.
[SPEAKER_02]: The here is a way of actually testing it in your own experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: The working of the intellect appears as object to you, the consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that working of the intellect can be copied, objectively, in chat, GPT or other things, in all later versions of artificial intelligence.
[SPEAKER_02]: That does not copy you, the witness, the witness consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: It shows the unique nature of not just human beings, sentient beings,
[SPEAKER_02]: what matters cannot be reduced to matters, paraphrasing Jordan Peterson again, rather Vedanta will say, matter can be reduced to what matters, object can be seen as an appearance in consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: Consciousness, there is no way of explaining consciousness through object or through matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, these extraordinary developments and artificial intelligence, I would argue, further confirm the Vedantic, not just Vedantic, there are Vedantic theories, Buddhist, Sankhyan, yogic theories of consciousness, they first serve to confirm this, to the uniqueness of consciousness.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will end with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Om, shanti, shanti, shanti, hari hiyong, tatsat shri Ramakrishna Ruparnamasthu.