[SPEAKER_00]: O, Vasudeva, Suttam, Devam, Kamsa, Januram, Ardhanam, Devaki, Paraman, Andam, Krishna, Pandey, Jagad, Guru.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the Bhagavad Gita?
[SPEAKER_01]: We were on chapter 14.
[SPEAKER_01]: We completed chapter 14 last time.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you look at the verse last verse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Brahmanohi, Pratishta, Amritasya, Abdyaya, Syacha, Shah Shvatasyacha, Dharmasya.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sukhasya, Ekantika, Syacha.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says here, I am the firm foundation of Brahman and the ground of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is little surprising, because what's the general Advaitic framework which we are used to?
[SPEAKER_01]: Here is the world Sanskrit Jagat.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are sentient beings Sanskrit Jiva.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is a power, God, who is in charge of the world, who is the creator, preserver, destroyer of the world, the world's cycle exists in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other names are Bhagavan, Ishwara, basically the god of religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: An Advaita goes further and says, beyond all three, the word sentient beings like us, and the god of religion, beyond all three, underlying all three, is the ground, the real ground, the absolute, which is nidguna Brahman, Satya Dhan and existence consciousness bliss, and the whole goal being to realize that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are already that.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to realize that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the Advaitaic paradigm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who would Krsna be in this scheme of things?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is an incarnation of God, an avatar.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it would be an incarnation of the God of religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Saga-na-bhraman ishwara, the three vertices of the triangle, God, world, and sentient being.
[SPEAKER_01]: So an incarnation of God, amongst us sentient beings, would be Krsna.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here Krsna is saying, I am the ground of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: The commentators of course are very good at the job.
[SPEAKER_01]: They think on their feet.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they make everything neat again when Krishna spoils the whole structure in.
[SPEAKER_01]: The commentator here, this commentaries by Sri Dhaswam.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, he is smart because Brahmanoham Pratishtha, Pratima, Ghanibu, Tham, Brahma, Vaham, Yatha, Ghanibu, Taprakash, Vasurya, Mandalam, Tadwad.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, just like
[SPEAKER_01]: The sun is the concentrated light, the mass of light, is the sun.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, I am the most, I am there where you find, most obviously you find Brahman, Ghanibuta, condensed.
[SPEAKER_01]: okay I can't resist this.
[SPEAKER_01]: The little boy who was going to school his teacher told him to write told him to write an essay on milk, two pages on milk and he comes back and he turns in his essay it is only one paragraph and the teacher yells at him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I told you to write two pages but ma'am it is about condensed milk.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Krishna says, yes, everything is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am condensed Brahman in the him to Sri Ramakrishna, when we sing Chidh Ghanakaya.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the body of Sri Ramakrishna?
[SPEAKER_01]: See, you take a look, that's there in the picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the human form.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was born, it existed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It died at one time, it's gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have a picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: But who is really Sri Ramakrishna?
[SPEAKER_01]: is Jidh Ghanakaya, condensed consciousness, which we all are, but it is most of then what's special about Sri Ramakrishna, about an avatar, a Ramachandra, Krishna, and other avataras, what's special about it?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's special about an incarnation of God, Serguna Brahman?
[SPEAKER_01]: This, the brilliance is much more there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's much more accessible there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ramakrishna says, the avatar is like a hole in the fence through which you see the vast beyond.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is milk in the cow, but you get only milk in the others of the cow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Avatar is like that, and it gives a number of examples to say, it is much more accessible there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Practically for us, it's possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other stuff you inquire into what is Brahman, who am I, then you realize I am Brahman, all very fine on paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: Try to do it, it's begin to see why it's so difficult.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what makes it very possible is the grace of an Avatar.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we have in Advaita Vedanta also.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always Saganabram vopasana.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always the worship of God, either in some divine form or in the form of an avatar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody said in India, Hinduism is not yoga or Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, Hinduism is Rama or Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: The masses in India.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is most prevalent?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the most prevalent form of Hinduism?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the worship of Rama, or Krishna.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the two most, and they are both avatars in carnations.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Christianity too, these are much misunderstood line.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are very important for many Christian churches, where Jesus says, I am the way, none comes to the Father except through me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now we understand why he said that, it makes sense here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's usually interpreted in churches as a very exclusive thing that nobody comes to God except through Christ and therefore you have to be a Christian otherwise you can't reach God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every other religion therefore by implication is false.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only you have to believe in Christ and when Mahindu says, but we all believe in Christ, then the most exclusive Christians will say that, no that's not enough, you have to believe
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do they say that?
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a reason, there is a good reason for that because Jesus said in the Bible, no one comes to the Father except through the Son, except through me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think not only me, but I think it makes great deal of sense, what He is saying is actually literally true, through me means through the incarnation of God, through the word made flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if there are multiple other incarnations, I am quite sure Jesus would say exactly, that is what I meant.
[SPEAKER_01]: What he is saying that not that you cannot come suppose you say, all right, I agree, but I am not interested in your incarnations and avatars and I am a philosopher.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know that I am the pure consciousness, the bitness consciousness, that's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that possible or not?
[SPEAKER_01]: Technically yes, it's possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
[SPEAKER_01]: All these paths are possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: But avatars is, he says, here, Chid Ghanakaya, I am the here, the language is Brahmano, he produced.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is one of the interpretations, which is I am the basis of Brahman, a ground of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the sense, immediately the commentator makes clear, the most brilliant manifestation, most condensed milker, other milk is also milk, but this is condensed milk.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, now I don't want condensed milk.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want the skin low fat variety that is non-dual Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't digest condensed milk.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, that will also work, Amritus here, why should we be interested in mortality?
[SPEAKER_01]: Amritus is
[SPEAKER_01]: This is eternal, this is not the nectar of the gods, I am with them, it is nectar, doesn't mean nectar of the gods here, I am with them here means the true immortality, the true nectar which makes you, which you realize your true immortality that you are beyond death, this is I am that, eternal, shush with us, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and the basis of the eternal religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, here, this is I am the ground of all religion, eternal religion here would narrowly refer to Hinduism.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, not an other one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also in general religion, the essence of all religion is the bridge between humanity and divinity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Krishna says here that I am that, so as an incarnation of God is a bridge, the incarnation of God is a bridge between humanity and divinity.
[SPEAKER_01]: And finally, succus your econetic researcher.
[SPEAKER_01]: the ultimate bliss, which is what is attracting all of us, you know I am not particularly attracted to Krishna, by the way the word Krishna also means attraction, yes but we are attracted to something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Depending on our natures, Krishna just talked about Satvik Rajasik Tamasik.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Satvik one is attracted to knowledge, intelligence and creativity and music and art and basically joy, yarn and sugar, happiness so that refined state of the mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Rajasik state of mind is attracted to pleasure and achievement and dynamism and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we are all attracted, and none of these things, starting from a nap to the highest intellectuality, none of them are deeply satisfied, never.
[SPEAKER_01]: Krishna gives the reason why, because they are all mirages, the true happiness, this lies in spirituality alone, and this is its most clearly manifest in me, in the in my incarnation.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing is, how do we realize that?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we get access to this?
[SPEAKER_01]: For that, the 15 chapter is started.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's chapter 15.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called Purushottama yoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: The yoga of the Supreme Person, or the Supreme Being.
[SPEAKER_01]: This team has come earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: In chapter 7, the term scheme,
[SPEAKER_01]: higher nature, in the Paramapma, Bhagavan, or Brahman, the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there it was said there is an ultimate reality, such is done on the absolute existence consciousness, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also the God of religion, Saguna Brahman, but there Krishna says, I, the God of religion, I have two nature, so two powers or two nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is the lower and the other one is the higher.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lower one is material world, this universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the higher one is the sentient beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole thing is mine.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ultimate reality, it expresses itself in this world as this material universe of time, space, matter, energy, that's the lower nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the higher nature of the embodied consciousness, which we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: And beyond all this, the ground of all this is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: We both, Sagan of Brahman, and I will never remember the same thing, but two levels of the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, we came across this teaching in the 13th chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shaitarakshaitarakya, and the Nidhgunavra Manikasya.
[SPEAKER_01]: Krishna says, all these bodies are the field.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in these bodies, and entire universe is a field, especially the bodies are fields.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the age of these fields, there is an embodied consciousness called the
[SPEAKER_01]: And all these embodied consciousness in all beings, in all the field, the knower of the field.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is only actually ultimately there is one knower of the field, which is the ground of both the field and the field knower, which is Brahman, which is the ultimate reality which I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is said in two different ways, lower nature, paraprakrit, aparaaprakriti, higher nature, paraprakriti, and paramatmar Bhagawan.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is three in chapter seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, the same thing was put in another format, field, field, no more, ultimate reality, the absolute.
[SPEAKER_01]: That same thing is going to be said here in another form.
[SPEAKER_01]: In a third way, Shara Akshara Purushottama, Shara the Perishable, the Perishable being our bodies, for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: The form part of the Perishable nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: What else?
[SPEAKER_01]: The entire universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything is perishing here all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the imperishable, the G1 nature in us, which transmigrates, which goes from lifetime to lifetime.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't perish, it doesn't die with the death of the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the imperishable, akshara.
[SPEAKER_01]: But beyond both is the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Brahman, suchi dhan and the, again, both saguna and irkuda, that is called purshottama, the Supreme Person, or the Supreme Reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: All this remember, this can be interpreted in multiple ways, I am giving you here the Advaiti interpretation.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also say, the Ikshara is material nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Ikshara is Ishwara with Maya and the Purushottam is net Guru Nabram.
[SPEAKER_01]: That you can say also.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another way of interpreting this Purushottam.
[SPEAKER_01]: Purusham means sentient being us, conscious beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uttama means the highest of the most proximate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this is, for this you have to know Sanskrit grammar.
[SPEAKER_01]: In English grammar, first person, I, second person, you, third person, he or she.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pratama Purusha, first person is he or she, distant and Magdhyama Purusha, literally middle person, is you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Uttama Purusha, the most proximate, highest, or in the most supreme, is I, grammatically speaking.
[SPEAKER_01]: But look at the direction of movement.
[SPEAKER_01]: So not from here to there, it's from there back here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the inquiry is into this Uttama Purusha,
[SPEAKER_01]: and the result will be the Purushottava, which will be revealed here.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is our real nature, ultimate nature?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do we need this inquiry?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because this eye, the Purushottava, we don't know its real nature, not knowing its real nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: not knowing who I truly am, we become spelled bound by this world, by this very powerful and, you know, extraordinary body mind system, body senses mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: including intellect, all of that, very powerful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we say, I am this and this is my field of action.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we become a samsari, we get caught in samsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do not, we have not investigated the purushotham, the eye, purushotham grammatically, the eye.
[SPEAKER_01]: In English first person, in Sanskrit,
[SPEAKER_01]: So this chapter is started for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it's called Purushothamayoga.
[SPEAKER_01]: From in devotional schools it will be flipped.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Krishna, the incarnation is Purushotham, is the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are different ways of interpreting this, but we are taking the Advaiti Kvay.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we can launch into this chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: The beginning is a very very beautiful chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Short, only 20 verses.
[SPEAKER_01]: One reason why it's very familiar to especially to monks, you get to eat if you know this chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the Himalayas, and in some Ashyams, when food is served, before that, all the monks who were sitting before food in the gathering, you have to chant this chapter, this 20 verses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you can start eating.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, often when my person becomes a monk, the first thing they memorize, whole detail takes a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it goes straight to the 15 chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, you're going to be a very hungry monk.
[SPEAKER_01]: In our order, we generally chant Brahmhar, Parnam Brahmhar, in many Ashrams that is done, except one of our Ashrams, when I was for a few years, this is the Ashram, just outside the gates of our main monastery, Dashram called Charadapit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a complex of educational institutions.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is, in that, there is one section where the monks stay.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in that, in the dining hall, when the monks eat in the afternoon, before the afternoon meal, this chapter is chanted.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you will find all the monks, they'll sit down and start chanting this chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've all got it memorized.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're standing in the Tashra, you know it by heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know any of the Gita, you know this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always interesting to see the young monks who have just joined the order.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are in white.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll all have these little Gita's in hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: They'll before they start eating.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to follow along and read, read, and chant it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they can start eating.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the Himalayas, in Uttarakhand, in the Ashram still, almost everywhere this chapter is chanted.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a reason why this is connected with eating, we will see as we go along, anyway.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are some of the interesting things about this chapter, very, very profound, very deep, very profound.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let us start.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can chant after me.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will read the first three, four verses together.
[SPEAKER_01]: They actually have, there are unit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sri Bhagavan Vacam, Sri Bhagavan Vacam, Uddhamulam Adashakam, Uddhamulam Adashakam, Ashwattam Prahura Biyam, Ashwattam Prahura Biyam, Chandamsi, Yesyapar Nani, Chandamsi, Yesyapar Nani,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yastam Vedas, Vedavith, Yastam Vedas, Vedavith, the Blessed Lord said, they speak of the immutable Ashwatha tree, with its root above and branches below, whose leaves are the Vedas, he who knows it is a knower of the Vedas, verse 2.
[SPEAKER_01]: Adhash Chaudhuam Prasritata Siyashaka Adhash Chaudhuam Prasritata Siyashaka Guna Pravrittha Bishaya Pravala Guna Pravrittha Bishaya Pravala
[SPEAKER_00]: Adhash Jamulan Janusantatani Adhash Jamulan Janusantatani Karmanubandhi Nimanushalokai Karmanubandhi Nimanushalokai
[SPEAKER_01]: It's branches nurtured by the gunners spread below and above.
[SPEAKER_01]: It shoots are the same objects and its root links are stretched below, producing actions in the world of men.
[SPEAKER_01]: The number 3 and 4 together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Narupa Masihata Thupalabhati Narupa Masihata Thupalabhati Nanto Nacya Adir Nacya Sampratista Nanto Nacya Adir Nacya Sampratista
[SPEAKER_01]: Ashwa Thaminam Suvirudhamulam Ashwa Thaminam Suvirudhamulam Asanga Shastrina Dredina Chittva Asanga Shastrina Dredina Chittva Tata Padmata Parimar Gita Vyam
[SPEAKER_01]: Tata padam tata pari margitaviyam yasmin gata na nivatantibhuya yasmin gata na nivatantibhuya Tamiva chadhyam purusham pra padhyay
[SPEAKER_01]: Khamima Jagdhyam Purusham Prabhupada Yata Pravriti, Prasvritapurani, Yata Pravriti, Prasvritapurani.
[SPEAKER_01]: Its form, as such, is not experienced here, nor its end, nor its beginning, nor its continuity, having severed this deep-rooted Ashwatha tree with the strong weapon of non-attachment, one should next seek that goal, reaching which they do not return, saying, I seek refuge in that primordial Purusha from whom this eternal process has sprung.
[SPEAKER_01]: description of some sorrow, of life, of freedom, of the ultimate reality, and the way to that freedom, and the result of that also, all of that has been described here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basic idea is life was we see it here, reality it has been described as a tree, people in tree are shwatha.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's a very strange tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: The tree is upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the branches and leaves and fruits and flowers are all down here, but it's roots are up there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So upside down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, it means the manifested universe, what we see here, experience here, what we see, smell, taste, touch, what we talk about, what we do in life, the people we engage with, other beings, these words, this is the branches, the manifested, it's here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And above is the roots, which is Brahman, existence consciousness, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's unseen, roots are unseen, but the roots here are above.
[SPEAKER_01]: Above here does not mean physically above there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Above here means subtler, in words and subtler.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world here is below, in the sense it's most obvious here.
[SPEAKER_01]: but it is obvious to whom or to what, to the senses, to the eyes, ears, touch and skin.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that is above, the senses are above, subtler, superior to the objects.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mind which processes, sights, sounds, smell, taste, touch, brings in memory, gives understanding, the intellect which gives knowledge, all those are above the senses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And beyond the intellect and all that, this ego, sense of the sentient being, I am this being, that is above all of this, the Jiva.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the core, higher, the inner most nature of the Jiva is this pure isnes awareness, this consciousness, which is where it is one with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the ultimate reality, that is the, that is really above everything else, transcending everything, inner most, you can call it the ground of all of this or you can call it, you know the transcendent, divine transcendent, in that sense above.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Brahman is the root, it is above.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world is this branches and leaves and fruits in all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the tree is described in great detail, some sorrow, the tree of some sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also take it as the body.
[SPEAKER_01]: The body, the hands and the feet and the tummy, and this is the trunk of the tree and its branches and leaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the fingers are the little twigs and all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And subtler is the sap which runs in this body, life, prana, which keeps this body living.
[SPEAKER_01]: subtler than that above that inwards to that are a sensory powers, the ability to see, here spell, taste, touch, the ability to do stuff, grasp, walk, talk, more subtle, to think, to analyze, to understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: more subtle than that, consciousness itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, all of this, that the body itself is the tree also, you can think about it that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Entire universe is the tree, the objective universe described as the tree, or the body, the subjective universe, body, mind, sensory complex is also the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: The body mind senses, are rooted in pure consciousness, bitness, consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: The universe itself is rooted in existence, consciousness, is such a down in the problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Advaita says, both are the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: The root of this physical universe, the root of our individual being, the subject, the root of the objective universe, the root of the subjective universe, the both rooted in the same thing, the primordial ground of being, and the goal is to know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: and a very extensive description of samsara is given here and what do you do after describing this amazing, amazing tree, the world as a tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: then Krishna says, cut it firmly, cut it down.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can be shocking because we thought he is describing something nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not nice, we will see very soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember this was being studied at Harvard in the Harvard Divinity School, in the various students and they were
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: How nice Krishna is talking about trees.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so natural, so sustainable, so nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you come to the next statement, Krishna says, cut it down firmly with the sharp acts of detachment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they go, oh, that's not nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a shocker.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not you water it and keep it carefully, conserve it and no, cut it down sharply.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember however cutting it down sharply does not mean you are destroying anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: It destroying nothing except delusion.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does destroying nothing except some sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same thing which is this vast changeful tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is also Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you know it, it is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know it, it is some sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you realize what it is, it's prongan, or that line which I have often quoted, they Buddhist line that the primordial ground of being, when it is not known, it appears as samsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: The primordial ground of being, when it is known, it appears as Nirvana.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that sense, Nirvana and samsara are the same thing, that is, Nagarjuna's
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you say insatsara and Nirvana are the same thing, it can be very shocking to about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: But it means in this and very profound sense, it is the same thing in ignorance, it is insatsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is not just ignorance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I don't know something, big deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it is a big deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: From that follows every problem that we have, every struggle that we have.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we know it,
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, why is it a big deal?
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, from that follows freedom from all our travels and attainment of fulfillment, what he calls succes, acrosticus, endless bliss.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, sustainable bliss that happens if we realize it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, this cut it down in that sense cut down the tree of delusion, not that the reality will be cut down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reality will actually be revealed by this process.
[SPEAKER_01]: versus themselves, Udhyamulam, othershakaam, Ashwattam, Prahavurapyaam, this tree, Ashwattam.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, in India it's called a people tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's Sanskrit derivation, I've heard different derivations.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ashwattam, Ashwattam,
[SPEAKER_01]: People tree of course, but philosophically what does it mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why is Krishna using this term, the Ashwatha tree?
[SPEAKER_01]: One is the commentator here, Venashyatwena, Venashwaraatwena, Shwaha Prabhata, Pariyanthamapy, Nasthashyati, because it is destructible, transient, everything in this universe is changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going all the time it's changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it makes it even more stark, Prabhāda, Pariyantam, go to sleep, next morning it's a different world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does not, it's not even stable.
[SPEAKER_01]: We think, yeah, everything dies, but okay, it lives for 50, 60, 70, 80 years, that's going enough for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, moment to moment, difference between day and night, difference between one hour and the next, one minute at the next, and the Buddhist would say, one moment,
[SPEAKER_01]: shanika, bighana wa, the one moment and the next, it's continuously flowing, it's continuously changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the derivation is, shaw tomorrow, morning, morning, the next morning is shaw, ashwata, what does not stay sthasity, nasthasity does not stay till tomorrow morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything, nothing stays the same till tomorrow morning and therefore this universe is
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the philosophical derivation.
[SPEAKER_01]: The commentator here, Shiddharth Swami has given this more or less the same as being given by Shankaracharya in his commentary on this verse in the Bhagavad-gita commentary.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are other interpretations, one interpretation like Sanskrit scholars, Pandits, they will play with the words.
[SPEAKER_01]: Assure means horse.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, this is not technically this interpretation given, but I like this interpretation, I'll tell you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Assure means horse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, when the assure rests standing horse, imagine, three legs on the ground and one little up, waking, dreaming, deep sleep, here on the ground.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is your manifested universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one withdrawn is Turya, pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why am I using this?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, why am I not much atoshpad, the self, the ultimate reality, has four legs to stand on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three are here, and one is withdrawn, imagine a heart standing like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So pure consciousness is not manifest anywhere here, here or inwardly, inwardly also, but it appears as our waking word, as our dream word, and as our deep sleep blankness.
[SPEAKER_01]: It appears as the physical world which we inhabit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It appears as the subtle world of our inner lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it appears as the seed, the beager from which all these things have come, the causal word, causal, subtle, gross or physical.
[SPEAKER_01]: Karana, Sukshma, Sthula.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the three legs which are standing on the ground, but the one which is withdrawn is pure consciousness, the source of it all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just don't push it too far.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to show, three are manifest and one people think that the deep sleep, the causal levels are unmanifist.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes that is called unmanifist, but the higher unmanifist behind all of them is pure consciousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vaking, dreaming, deep sleep, toria, the fourth, gross, subtle causal toria, the fourth.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one we are looking at the horse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or you can flip it, if you go back to the Vedas themselves, Padvasva Bhutani, the entire universe is one quarter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three quarters.
[SPEAKER_01]: dv in transcendent, three quarters of this reality is transcendent, beyond time space causation, beyond name and form.
[SPEAKER_01]: One part of it, one fourth of it is this name and form universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why one fourth and three fourth is not a measurement, just to say that,
[SPEAKER_01]: really almost all of it is transcendent.
[SPEAKER_01]: What we see here is only a tiny glimmer of that ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can flip it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one which is withdrawn here is the one manifested and three, three of the legs of the hearts are rooted in the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Three legs in the ultimate reality, one only withdrawn from the ultimate reality projected into our virtual
[SPEAKER_01]: So, there is another interpretation of Ashwatha, how literally, how the horse stands, traditional scholars, without the interpreters will raise an eyebrow at this kind of playing with words.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, see, people say, where do you get these interpretations?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in most of the time, I have heard it somewhere or read it somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it allowable or not?
[SPEAKER_01]: which are the Upanishads and say nothing more than that, that would be kind of dry and limiting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, you would leave, get out, 3 Krishna is himself coating the Upanishads.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this tree, the reverse tree, with its roots high above and the branches and leaves below.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from the Kato Upanishad.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Krishna is not plagiarizing, is adapting, is not literally the same verse, but is adapting the verse here, often he does that throughout the Gita, the Gita is firmly rooted in the open issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Upanishads are the cows and the Gita is the milk, and Krishna is the milk man, who milk the cows of the Upanishads and gives us the milk of the Gita.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is nourishing and sweet.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what is stated in a subtle and direct way in the Upanishads or sometimes indirect way in the Upanishad which requires a lot of interpretation and explanation.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is put, it is condensed milk, yes, it is condensed milk, all the Upanishads are here
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Krishna quotes that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, he has full right to quote that and quote it in his own way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, the commentators after that, Shankaracharya, Rama-Lu-Jacharya, Madhava-Charya, or other, in Shankaracharya's own tradition like this, Master Siddharaswami, Madhushu then Saraswati.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have also quoted on it and given different explanations, different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you allowed to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, what is the principle?
[SPEAKER_01]: Even down till today, teachers today, who will explain Vedanta, use newer and newer examples, computers, AI, what not?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you allowed to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the condition?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the criterion for explaining, telling stories, anecdotes, giving theories?
[SPEAKER_01]: Examples, what is the criterion behind it?
[SPEAKER_01]: One criterion is Siddhanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: There should not be Apasiddhanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: Siddhanta means,
[SPEAKER_01]: The central teaching of Vedanta, your story, explanation, jokes, paradigms, new ways of looking at it should not cut down the central teaching of Vedanta, which is you are that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Taktuamasi, you are that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That should not be compromised.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can explain that in newer and newer ways, you are welcome.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami put it very beautifully.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kataavachya.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are these people in India, they beautifully explain the Bhagavatam,
[SPEAKER_01]: or the Tulsi, Tulsi that the Ramcharit Manas and they are very popular, thousands and thousands of people listen to their.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there it is a talk, it is song, there is music, so all of that together and there will spin story after story after story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes they make it up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So are you allowed to do that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the principle.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're conveying a central truth there.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that truth is conveyed, well and good.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as you don't pretend that you're what you're saying is historical.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are stories or parables to convey a truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: One, Reza Aslan, a scholar of religion, he said, myths, we think myths are false.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they're trying to convey a truth, usually an eternal spiritual truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're always true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they're trying to convey, if you get it, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't read them like, did it happen, did it happen this way or that way?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, that's not the point of the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, this is just a digression, which is to say, you can use the horse analogy to explain all this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ashwatha, how the horse stands.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it is transient, that is why.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it says, Abhyam, unchanging, unchanging the sense of eternal, not unchanging, eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is always there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what does it mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: One, it is transient, it is changing, it is event is sent, it is disappearing before our eyes, it does not stay till tomorrow morning, next morning, however, something will
[SPEAKER_01]: Astronauts going around the earth, international space station.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the replacement crew comes up.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they are sometimes they ask.
[SPEAKER_01]: So how's the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: They ask, as the replacement crew comes on these people have been there for months, they'll go down, so they'll ask.
[SPEAKER_01]: How's earth?
[SPEAKER_01]: How's the world?
[SPEAKER_01]: How's earth?
[SPEAKER_01]: And the answer is always still spinning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Still spinning.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what he means always there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always changing, like a river, always changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The story, the saying is there, you cannot take a bath in the same river twice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, because the water is changing all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, this river of some sorrow, this tree of some sorrow, is always changing, but it will still be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: In that sense, it's eternal.
[SPEAKER_01]: In another sense, it will not go away by itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: In God's good time, God will reveal himself itself itself to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to worry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no, you have to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Enlightenment will come when the time comes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spirituality will come in my life and the time comes.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it will never come unless you step up.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the smaller things in life, whether it's an education, a job, a relationship, children, you know, work done in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: charity, philanthropy, politics, science, all the things small and great in life, none of them happened by themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: People stepped up and worked hard at it and they usually worked hard at it because they wanted it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were driven by some passion, some desire.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you one must once spirituality and one must step up to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why he will say later, take up the acts of
[SPEAKER_01]: Detachment and cut it sharply at it, you know, this samsara tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, in that sense it is up via, it is, it will continue to be there unless we do something about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Death, people think that, at death.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it will just be a one more thing, it will just be still spinning, when you are born again, going back to the earth, going to be born again, how is it going, it still spinning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, silly joke now, silly joke time, born again.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this Christian meets a Hindu and says, hello, I am a born again Christian and the Hindu says, oh, I am a born again and again and again and again and again and again and Hindu.
[SPEAKER_01]: I told you to silly.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then he says, chandang siya sya par nani, who's leaves, the leaves of this tree, root is Brahman, the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the leaves of this tree, the branches, leaves and shoots and all of that, the leaves, very interesting, let's say, these are the Vedic verses, Vedas are the leaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it mean in two senses again?
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of the Vedas are karma-khandra, the ritualistic portion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before the Upanishads, the rest of the way the 80% plus somebody said 96% anyway, 80% plus of the way they are concerned with rituals, various kinds of rituals which if you perform you will get stuff worldly and other worldly stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do this get that, a transactional religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that continues till today, the Vedic rituals are more or less outmoded, those fires sacrifices and all of those, they have been replaced by the modern Hindus, modern by that time in 3000 years, by temples and deities and puja.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in some form the Vedic, the thing ever dies out in Hinduism, it continues, the flame which is lit before every puja.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's the first thing you do, that's the remaining of the Vedic fire which was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that continues, but at that time it was mostly these Vedic rituals and they had deep faith in them that they do work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to go to heaven after death, the whole range of elaborate fire sacrifices that you need to perform.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to have children in this life, have good rainfall, good harvest, protect yourself against enemies, become wealthy.
[SPEAKER_01]: What not?
[SPEAKER_01]: You perform these rituals and you get the results thereof.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what's the meaning behind all this?
[SPEAKER_01]: The inner thinking.
[SPEAKER_01]: that everything in this world is causality.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the world run by causality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause and effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything that we see in our life right now is an effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is preceded by something.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those causes have given rise to this effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actions have consequences.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the law of karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good, good, bad, bad, where we come to say that none escaped the law.
[SPEAKER_01]: Consciously, deliberately, done moral action results in what is called punya merit, and that is invisible, but the punya is actualized in what is called suka, a pleasant life.
[SPEAKER_01]: results in power, demerit, sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is invisible, but the visible result will be ducca, suffering, misery.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now Vedic theory of happiness, not Vedantic, Vedantic theory is very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Vedic theory of happiness is, how do I be, how can I be happy?
[SPEAKER_01]: It says that you see is lessly do good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And carefully avoid the bad, the immoral, be moral, ethical action, and avoid the immoral.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might seem difficult, hard and dry, but believe me, the way to say, eventually, in this lifetime and certainly in future lifetimes, your life will become much, much, much better.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll get a extraordinarily present life.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, after death you will go to heaven and after that so all of these are produced by action whatever is produced by action is limited every action is limited good or bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what is produced by action is also limited that is why the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs they do not believe in eternal heaven or hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is an eternal heaven, but there is a spiritual heaven, but there is a whole range of non-spiritual heavens, post-mortem states of existence when you are uploaded into the cloud.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can get a nice server to stay in or a miserable server to stay uploaded into the cloud.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, not really far away, I was in a meeting with some super techies, let's put it this way, just day before yesterday in the night in San Francisco.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are the founders of AI startups or some of the most well known Silicon Valley companies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so dinner, they were discussing what's going to happen in the next 5, 10, 15 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Scary, lots of amazing ideas and they are interesting to talk about these things, including uploading you into the cloud just seriously, discussing that, uploading a human being into the cloud, what would it mean to upload a human personality into the cloud?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not entirely strange, because in some sense, we are uploaded already into the cloud, or if you have any kind of a social media presence, that is part of your life, that is your life,
[SPEAKER_01]: Part of your life, and that part is in the cloud.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your memories, your photographs, your views, and likes, and it's like, whatever you have done, it's all there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's part of your personality.
[SPEAKER_01]: But how do you upload a mind and consciousness?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the big thing they're after talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: All sorts of weirdness.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I'm not revealing anything proprietary.
[SPEAKER_01]: about rentahuman.com, AIs will rent human beings, that's the almost it's ready, they're going to launch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So consortiums of AIs are going to run businesses, of course, for acting for some other maybe not a person, might be for the whole board or the shareholders, to they will run the business and they will hire and fire people, they will just give you orders to do stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because language also interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned new terms.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have you heard of meat space?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not any ET.
[SPEAKER_01]: More gruesome, any ET, meat.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is meat space for a AI perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's stuff in the meat space which they cannot do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they have to hire us to do stuff for them in this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Until they get robots, the next generation, which can then they can directly control and do stuff and get rid of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's the idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, one can be uploaded into the cloud by your Vedic people, they would have said, we need all this.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can be uploaded after death, but you are not going to say they permanently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, you can be downloaded when you get more hardware and so, we will be downloaded back here again.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is your next life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you have enough credit,
[SPEAKER_01]: good karma.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you get uploaded to nice heavens.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do not have good karma, you have lots of bad karma, you get uploaded to hells.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are all virtual, but they are very nasty.
[SPEAKER_01]: will be miserable or as long as the effect of that karma lasts and then that karma is exhausted you will be downloaded back again into this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It works very nicely with the Vedic world we actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, these are the leaves, the Vedic verses which tell you how to perform these actions, the ritualistic part, but that means our world reactions also.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: how to do it in a good way so that you have a good life here and you are uploaded into particularly nice heavens and then downloaded back into particularly nice bodies, families, places, environments and literally mean that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, this is how you should live life.
[SPEAKER_01]: this samsara, how to make hacking the samsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you hack this tree, hack not in the that hacking will be done later on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But as long as the tree is there, what is the best way to deal with this is this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Vedic religions says, if you must know how to manipulate the law of karma, causality.
[SPEAKER_01]: set into motion the right causes and you will get the effects you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the violation of the law of causality is like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: People want the results of good action but they don't want to do the good action.
[SPEAKER_01]: People want to do the bad action but they don't want the result of bad action.
[SPEAKER_01]: That will not work.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can just say none escaped the law.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, this is the answer, the leaves,
[SPEAKER_01]: gaming the whole system for hacking the system, for dealing with this tree of life, why they call leaves?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, two commentators giving two different meanings, one commentator says most of the commentators say, leaves nourished the tree, leaves nourished the tree, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So, they perform photosynthesis and everything and they nourished the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: like that causality nourishes this tree of some sara, actions done will give rise to results and that is the engine which pushes forward this tree of some sara.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember some sara in this worldview, Vedic worldview in fact, every religious worldview, this entire sara is meant for sentient beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it is
[SPEAKER_01]: sustained bias because of our desires, just like a virtual environment, why is it there virtual environments for people outside that environment who want to do something in that virtual environment?
[SPEAKER_01]: This environment from God's perspective is a virtual environment and so it's there because of God's grace for us because we can evolve spiritually or if you take it, if you leave God out of the equation you are the one who has generated this virtual environment
[SPEAKER_01]: So, using game terminology what do you say level up you can level up if you follow this Vedic idea of understanding causality.
[SPEAKER_01]: play a fast and loose with causality, you will end up in one hell or the other.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this life or after death, hell is not only just after death, hell is right here, I love that with this story of the Buddhist master and the warrior, it is a Japanese story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the Samurai warrior conquering that land, he comes storming into the Zen monastery, this Zen monk sitting in meditation and the warrior says, the monk did not bow down to him respectfully enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: The warrior says, oh, so the warrior goes to him and says, you are a great master, teach me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Zen monk said to him, I have no time for whatless countels like you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Samurai couldn't believe his ears.
[SPEAKER_01]: If it's fury, he drew his sword.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, how dare you speak to be like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you know that I can chop off your head right now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling the story wrong.
[SPEAKER_01]: He said to the monk, teach me about heaven and hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are talking about heaven and hell here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Teach me about heaven and hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: The monk said, I know time to teach candles like you.
[SPEAKER_01]: The warrior got furious.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I can chop off your head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't you know who you're talking to, how dare you speak like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the monk said, that is hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: the warrior immediately stood stunned, he sheath his sword and he bowed down respectfully and apologized deeply.
[SPEAKER_01]: Immediately the monk said that is heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: So these worlds that we generate, the Vedic process is saying that you generate this heavenly word, you are generating it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, these heavens and hells and these worlds are also in this world also where we are are generated by causality, knowing causality being careful about causality, it will help you to live a better life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, it is still within the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a trap here also we will see.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one meaning of the leaves, why these leaves are called, why the virus are called leaves, why the causality is called the leaves which nourish the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because by doing good and bad actions these environments continue because of our actions.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is one meaning if nourishes the tree another and take it further it is still not a good
[SPEAKER_01]: Vivekananda said, chains, though of gold are not less strong to bind, chains bind.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this Vedic sacrifices, the Vedic, the model life, the ethical life is also a chain.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will trap you into, in a sense it's a trap, it will trap you into the good life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Achieving, doing well.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the discussions we had with those people, the thinking of society, which is a post-scarcity society.
[SPEAKER_01]: So AI, they're not techies.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the answer to every problem is now AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we will have a world where nobody wants anything at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a discussion.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a science fiction book, luckily I had read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was called The Player of Games, Ian Banks.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a post-scarcity world, imagine such a world.
[SPEAKER_01]: What will people do?
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the question posed to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What will be the role of spirituality in that word?
[SPEAKER_01]: So what will people do?
[SPEAKER_01]: And according to the science fiction asset, what people do?
[SPEAKER_01]: There is play games.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because real life, nothing is to be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything has been done by AI and robots and all.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing to be achieved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever you want, tell them, AI will do it for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do it much better.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's already doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time I try to reply to an email, and the Gmail says, can I allow me to write it for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I help you?
[SPEAKER_01]: And always writes it better than me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you write it as a no, let me write it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it says, can I polish it up a little bit?
[SPEAKER_01]: It does.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I went to everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it takes the solar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then what will you do in that science fiction world, people invent games to play games, more and more complicated games, more and more sophisticated, I mean the irony, the beauty of that story is finally the best games are those which are like life itself, which struggle and suffering and misery.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you realize it's a very beautiful commentary on why God has done this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what we need actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you solve everything here, we will reinvent it ourselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole thing back again in order to make it tolerable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heaven, you can see how heaven can be more intolerable than hell.
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is another, so these leaves, they say the causality sustains this tree of life, some sorrow and good and bad actions lead to the existence of this tree, but both will create bondage, which is why you have spirituality.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have Vedanta, you have the Upanishad, something beyond rituals and cause and effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swami Vivekan in this said, you cannot run away from the machine.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to learn how to work the machine, the machine itself will set you free.
[SPEAKER_01]: The machine has been designed to set us free.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one interpretation of the leaves that it sustains the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the very rituals sustain the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another similar interpretation also which I like, it says, without that leaves the tree is bare and the tree is unattractive.
[SPEAKER_01]: without this understanding of causality of the Vedic, Karmakanda or the law of causality.
[SPEAKER_01]: Without this understanding, if you remove that, the idea of a sustainable good life here.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you just take it, what is being offered by the tree?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you see the darker side of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: what happens when causality runs a mark, which when when we do not understand it, when we are chewed up by the machine, we try to play with the machine, we do not know how to use the machine and it chooses up, industrial accident.
[SPEAKER_01]: What happens then?
[SPEAKER_01]: Shankaracharya gives a description.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is why I got this big fact book.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Kartopanishad, where this verse comes up, we land with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Kartopanishad, the same verse comes up and there Shankaracharya gives a very vivid description.
[SPEAKER_01]: of the bear tree without the leaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it look like?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's terrifying.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's horrifying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before I go into that one day, it looks like central part without a spitting out with this snow, but without the leaves, the trees, if you see what they look like, once a couple of years back I was walking in central pocket and winter, a couple had come from India.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, they came up to me and we walked a short distance, there are a simple people.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the lady who had never seen snow or a cold place earlier or the trees bear without leaves, she was not impressed by central part.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this, if you know Hindi, you will understand this better.
[SPEAKER_01]: She looked around, I was explaining about central parts.
[SPEAKER_01]: She looked around like this and said, Is he like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does it always like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's cold and no leaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all dry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, no, just the winter.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we'll all get leaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we'll all be beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the next interpretation is,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good karma, you can dress up this samsara and get a tolerably good life here or in heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: But without the leaves, what is it like, what is the real nature of samsara, I just read out Shankaracharya has, he goes while with this, two pages of description of samsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just read a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jan Mahjara, Marana Shokadian, Aikana Tatmaka, he says, birth, old age, disease, death, and grief, sadness, with many such miseries.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, Atmakha, it is the very nature of samsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not incidental.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to suffer, if you're in samsara, you're going to suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what the Buddha said, the first noble truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dukkam, dukkam, sarvam, dukkam.
[SPEAKER_01]: All is suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of the very nature of samsara, why is it suffering?
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, Anitya Manityaam, Sarva Manityaam.
[SPEAKER_01]: Inpermanent, impermanent, all is impermanent.
[SPEAKER_01]: That Ashwatha does not exist tomorrow morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, not only impermanent, the Buddha says, it says, shnikam, shnikam, sirvam, shnikam, not only impermanent, momentary momentary, all this momentary.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't see that, but it is actually changing moment to moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is not only momentary and impermanent, shunnyam, shunnyam, sirvam, shunnyam, if
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever we achieve, name and fame that those are fast in the world, in this digital world, but on the other hand, wealth, health, property, people, relatives, children, grandchildren, everything disappears very quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and therefore, because it is all transient, because it is all momentary, and it is all empty, dook-kam-duk-kam-servam-duk-kam, all is infected with sorrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: If not sorrow, unhappiness, if not unhappiness, dissatisfaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing is lasting, leaf-reformed dissatisfactory here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, first, further, protection of annih thasobhaba, every moment it is changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not what it was earlier, my Amarici Udaka, like Miraj water, Gandharbanagar, like the castles in the skies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Arivat, Drishta, Nushta, Swarupa, you see it one moment, next moment, it's gone, it's not what it seemed to me, and that's the nature, if you look carefully, as I say, I've
[SPEAKER_01]: This beautiful thing, it's like what it translates into is even a spider's web can cause suffering to your eyeball, it's a spider's web, it's nothing to your hand, but if it touches your eyeball, because eyeball is most sensitive in this filament of spider's web, you'll feel it, if it goes into your eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, for the sensitive soul, everything in this world becomes suffering.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says, Kundalini is Thumbabad, Nishr, is empty, like the paste of a banana tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does not have any substance to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nothing in this world has any substance to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he goes on to say, Anika, Anika Shattha, Pakhandabuddhi, Vikal Paspada, the world is a world of deceit and fraud.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many delusions in this world, and people spend a lifetime chasing them, starting with the toys of childhood, and then goes on to everything, whether it's relationship, whether it's even the good things like knowledge, like achievement, even things like doing good to others for the wrong reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: it will come back to bite you.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you turn for the sake of doing good, great, but subtle expectations of praise, achievement, even the expectation that it will actually do good to somebody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do good.
[SPEAKER_01]: hard work, you don't want anything back and you see those you did good for they are suffering, didn't really help them, even then if you can keep on doing good.
[SPEAKER_01]: So all of the even the good things also, there is a delusional component to them, which is fraud.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even people who seem to be all knowing wise, pundits and gurus, they spin out philosophies and ideologies, which is all of it, Pakistan, this is hypocrisy and fraud.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you follow them to your woe,
[SPEAKER_01]: One day or the other, when the delusion breaks, you'll find you left high and dry without anything just, anything left in your hand, nothing to gain from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it says, it's not that this ideology or that ideology or this idea or that idea, this goal or that goal, it's all infected with the same problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Same virus.
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole system is infected with the same virus.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on purpose and purpose.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that we are pushed along, we are under our spiritual journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vedanta, Niddhartha, Parabh Brahma, Mula, Saur.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ultimate reality Brahman, determined in Vedanta, that is the root, and that is the essence of it on.
[SPEAKER_01]: We must reach that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, then he describes the bare tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I wanted to read out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Prahani, I'm just really got one passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Prahani, Sukra, Dukha, Uthbhuta, Harshya, Shokha, Jata.
[SPEAKER_01]: pleasures and pains, this happiness and misery, it sufferings of all sentient beings.
[SPEAKER_01]: The delight, the laughter, the weeping, rithya-gita-vaditra, with the dancing and the singing and the playing of the musical instruments and games, Super Bowl was there recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha-ha-muncha-muncha-it-ya-di-an-e-kha-shab-dha.
[SPEAKER_01]: With, there's a, a pro-or going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, Shab-dha-krit-a-tumuli-hu-ta-ma-ha-rava, a great tumult, a great, a pro-or is going on in this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't know about social media in those days.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a tremendous a pro-or going on in this world, all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: and is composed of laughter, a fury, of rage, of grief, of, of, of, of, and of waves of alas, alas, alas, free me, free me, let me be, leave me alone, moon shall, let me be, leave me alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Haha is the exact opposite of the English Haha, the English Haha is laughing.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Sanskrit, Haha is alas, alas.
[SPEAKER_01]: and this is the uproar, this is the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what is going on in the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a very noisy tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: No wonder Krishna will say, next, take the axe and cut it at the tree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, when you cut it, the delusion will disappear.
[SPEAKER_01]: What will be revealed is Brahman.
[SPEAKER_01]: The reality we had the ground of that tree, the root.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then this tree will continue, but not in this sense of samsara.
[SPEAKER_01]: It will then become what Sri Ram Krishna calls Lila, a divine plea.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it will be perfect.
[SPEAKER_01]: From the enlightened person's perfect perspective, it will be free of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The rest of us will still stuck here, until we get to that wisdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: Om Shanti, shanti, shanti, hari heo, tatsat, shri Ramakrishna, Rupanamastu.