[SPEAKER_02]: Om, tabakatham, ritham, taptaji, vanam, kaviviri, tam, karmasa, paham, shravanamangalam, shri Madata, tam buvigrananti, puri dhajana.
[SPEAKER_02]: So in this class, as you know, we study the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, this book, which is actually a translation of the Bengali, three, three Ramakrishna Katham Rahta.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's basically a record of the conversations of Sri Ramakrishna with devotees, taken down, based on notes, which M Master Mahasha, Mahindranaka, he had taken down during the conversations
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are now in the middle of a long discussion that Sri Ramakrishna had with Brahmaw devotees.
[SPEAKER_02]: The date is 28 October 1882.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the page in my book, the page is 146 page 146.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the discussion, Sri Ramakrishna is saying
[SPEAKER_02]: He gave the example of how Chaitanya and Nithyananda had attracted devotees towards God in different ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now he's talking about different kinds of devotees, the nature's.
[SPEAKER_02]: So page 146 in between.
[SPEAKER_02]: As worldly people are endowed with Satwar Rajas and Tamas,
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a Vedantic framework, very common to, so from the Upanishad itself, but primarily you'll see a lot of it in Sankhya.
[SPEAKER_02]: From an Vedantic perspective, ultimate reality is existence consciousness plus such it ananda.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is enormous variety in this universe of people, of kinds of people, of different kinds of creatures, of the physical universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And what is the material which constitutes this variety?
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll answer that and since it says it's Maya or Prakriti, Maya, Prakriti means literally means nature.
[SPEAKER_02]: But what's this nature?
[SPEAKER_02]: This Maya made of, what's it made of?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's made of, it's made of Saturajas tamas, the three qualities or aspects of Maya or Prakriti.
[SPEAKER_02]: You find this very predominant in the Bhagavad-gita, for example.
[SPEAKER_02]: Srikrishna uses this Saturajas tamas paradigm to explain almost everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vishri Ram Krishna is doing the same thing here.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is per se will first tell us what is Satwara just in Thomas.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he will not give us a philosophical or academic introduction.
[SPEAKER_02]: He will give us a very practical introduction.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what does it feel like in life?
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he will tell us how do you see this in spiritual life?
[SPEAKER_02]: In spiritual life also.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are people with Satwara.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are rajasik devotees.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are tamasik devotees.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he will talk about gurus.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they are, see, normally Satva Rajasthan Tamash, Satva is supposed to be really one aspire for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is what is helpful in spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_02]: But when you come to the devotees and the guru, then, you know, Rajasthan Tamash are not seen in a pejorative or a critical life.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Rajas Sikh and Tamash Sikh devotees are also devotees.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are genuinely devoted to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Rajas Sikh and Tamash Sikh gurus, you'll talk about, they're also gurus.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are different kinds of,
[SPEAKER_02]: And their difference is more of power, the kind of attitude one has.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see.
[SPEAKER_02]: First, he gives us a very simple introduction to what does Saktu or Rajasthan Thamas, what do they feel like?
[SPEAKER_02]: So first, ordinary people with Saktu or Rajasthan Thamas, and then devotees with Saktu or Rajasthan Thamas, and then the Guru,
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what a worldly person endowed with Satwai's like, perhaps?
[SPEAKER_02]: His house is in a dilapidated condition here and there.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't care to repair it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The worship hall may be strewn with pigeon droppings and the courtyard covered with moss, but he pays no attention to these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: The furniture of the house may be old.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't think of polishing it and making it look neat.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't care for Dress at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything is good enough for him.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the man himself is very gentle, quiet, kind and humble.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't injure anyone.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, among the worldly people, there are people with the traits of a ruggess.
[SPEAKER_02]: Such a man has a watch and a chain, and two or three rings on his fingers.
[SPEAKER_02]: The furniture of his house is all-speak and spam.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the walls, hang portraits of the queen, the prince of waves, and other prominent people.
[SPEAKER_02]: The building is white washed and spotlessly clean.
[SPEAKER_02]: His wardrobe is filled with a large assortment of clothes, even the servants have their delivery and all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: The traits of a worldly man endowed with Thomas are sleep, lust, anger, egotism, and the light.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he has traced out rather vividly, three kinds of people, worldly people, not spiritual,
[SPEAKER_02]: There are people who are very good.
[SPEAKER_02]: We not be particularly spiritual, but generally a good person.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you will find gentle, honest, kind, self-controlled.
[SPEAKER_02]: And no particular greed or lust or this worldly passion and no desire to impress anybody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: These people are generally maybe scholarly or artistic
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not tamasik, however, which is easy to mistake, subto and tamas.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the way he describes it, the house is in a dilapidated condition and pigeon droppings in the court here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to go to these big old houses in Calcutta to see exactly this condition.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are dilapidated and they're pigeon droppings everywhere.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a very vivid description.
[SPEAKER_02]: but he's a good person.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually met people like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know what kind of person he's talking about.
[SPEAKER_02]: Often they come with, you know what's called old money here, old money as people with who in many generations they've been rich.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they don't flaunt their wealth, but you see a certain dignity, a kind of aristocracy about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Although they may seem very simple in their dress and their house may seem maybe as a grand house, but run down.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are such people, I've seen such people in Calcutta, belonging to like ex royal families.
[SPEAKER_02]: Their condition is not at all good, economic condition.
[SPEAKER_02]: But you can see there is a gray-centered dignity and a nobility to all of them, even the kids.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he pays no attention to these things, the furniture is old, he doesn't think of polishing it, making it look neat, doesn't care about dress, anything is good enough for him.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now all of these things are signs of Thomas.
[SPEAKER_02]: is giving them a sattva, but you know, everything is disheveled and run down, but if you look at the person himself, it's not lazy, not sleepy, not disorganized.
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, maybe highly intellectual or creative or, but he's not describing a spiritual person here.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have seen a number of professors like that for example.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't really care, they're
[SPEAKER_02]: what they were, it's I think also a part of the image of a forgetful professor, you know, some people wear the image on purpose and they look disheveled.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they are always in the realm of ideas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes they may not be, but they like to pretend they are, but some of them are.
[SPEAKER_02]: So some of them really live at the level of ideas and creativity and the themselves very intelligent
[SPEAKER_02]: but not particularly concerned about world-eating.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's red things run down.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was reading about this professor, Amos Tersky.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was, I think he and Daniel Kahneman got the Nobel Prize together or something for economics at one time.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is past, but there was somebody who was talking about him that he is correspondence.
[SPEAKER_02]: This professor, he was a professor of psychology in Israel.
[SPEAKER_02]: So his correspondence, he would open up everything, even the male came in the morning and he would arrange everything neat piles.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ones which interested him, he would answer those ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: The rest would remain in those neat piles and he would keep getting pushed down the table as newer, newer male came in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Finally, at the end of the table, they would fall off the table, all the correspondence, and then he would throw them into the garbage.
[SPEAKER_02]: somebody asked him about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your principle or how do you organize your correspondences?
[SPEAKER_02]: See, if it's urgent, I attend to it and I have realized that if you ignore urgent stuff, very soon they are no longer urgent.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good way of solving things.
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's not that he's lazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is, I mean, he was supposed to be enormously brilliant and productive in his time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Ultimately, I think he got the Nobel Prize for he was nominated for that if I am not strong.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the second kind is,
[SPEAKER_02]: who is Rajasik, dynamic, ambitious ones to things in the world, maybe wants to be rich, wants to be successful and powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you see such a man's shoes would be polished.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he has a watch and a chain.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the latest gadgets at that time.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now this, if you would have the latest iPhone, not only an iPhone, but the latest iPhone.
[SPEAKER_02]: And two or three rings on his fingers, jewelry.
[SPEAKER_02]: and all the funnish of furniture is polished and speaking spam.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you have portraits of the rich and powerful.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember, it's the colonial times, the British way rulers in India and Calcutta was the capital of the British Empire in India at that time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So these people, and they would be Indians, but rich and powerful Indians under British rule.
[SPEAKER_02]: So who photos to the have or pictures to the paintings to the have on their walls, the Queen of England,
[SPEAKER_02]: and other prominent people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not only here's a huge wardrobe, lots and lots of clothes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure the latest duties in fashion maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even the servants have their uniform.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he said, Selam Christian extraordinary eye for all of this detail.
[SPEAKER_02]: He noticed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he says the Tamasik person in contrast
[SPEAKER_02]: He may seem similar to the sadhvik person in his unconcern for worldly things.
[SPEAKER_02]: But things are run down and his life is a mess.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because he's lazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, he's lazy, he's asleep, last, anger, ego-tism.
[SPEAKER_02]: You might think, ego-tism is the sign of a worldly person, a Rajasik person.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, not really.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, Rajasik person is probably very ego-testical, but would not display that.
[SPEAKER_02]: to be pleasant and nice when the occasion demanded it because it is after success.
[SPEAKER_02]: This person is stupid and stupidity often manifests as a kind of crude egotism of obstinacy and egotism.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is Thomas in a worldly sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: One more little caution here, and we were given this caution as new Brahmachari says, new novices, Swami under whom we joined, he told us when he introduced us to us, the Gita, the Guna Threya Bhibhaga Yoga, the analysis of human character on the basis of Satu Arajas and Tamas.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, the first thing he told us before teaching it to us, he said,
[SPEAKER_02]: These are meant, this is the whole text is meant for liberation, for enlightenment, and all this knowledge is meant to help you towards enlightenment, not to be judgmental of others, take a look, ah, so that person is Rajasik, ah, I see a lot of Thomas in you, don't do that, don't play those games, it is meant for self analysis, and does not matter if I am Thomas Shik or Rajasik,
[SPEAKER_02]: If I recognize that in myself, Tramas and Rajas can be and should be transformed into Subtua.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the whole purpose.
[SPEAKER_02]: Dame.
[SPEAKER_02]: Commentaries on these texts, they make it clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is Krishna pointing out all this?
[SPEAKER_02]: Not to be critical, not to be judgmental.
[SPEAKER_02]: Just recognize, if your sadpek well and good, congratulations, you are a spiritual life will be easy for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: But if person is not sadpek, Rajasika, Tamasik, no problem, I would stop problem, but it's not that spiritual life is impossible for you.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will just be that much harder.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just have to notice that this is the problem and I have to struggle.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have seen among the novices who come to be monks, you see, I was there for eight or nine years, eight years or so, in the institute which trains the new Brahmacharis, those who have come to be monks.
[SPEAKER_02]: And these are all young men who have come for God realization, so they are all spiritual, and they all have come to be monks, but they are different, they are different.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of variety among them, and that variety is because of Saturajas and Thamas.
[SPEAKER_02]: How does it manifest?
[SPEAKER_02]: It can clearly see it there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very strict routine of meditation, and worship, and prayer, and study, and manual work.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that routine, there are some
[SPEAKER_02]: For whom meditation is a joy and getting up early in the morning, they get up even before the rising bell rising bell is at 3.40 a.m.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's pretty early.
[SPEAKER_02]: And these there are some who get who are ready to have already taken a bath in the morning and raring to go for their meditation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then devotion comes easily to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: They feel an attraction towards Sri Dhamakrishna and the deity.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then service, they are naturally, they are, they have the service mindset of helping people and going out of their way to be helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then study, they find it very fascinating, whether it is a text on bhakti or meditation or on Vedanta, the path of knowledge.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I know all of it, fascinating and very interesting and they study maybe more than what is prescribed.
[SPEAKER_02]: In contrast, you will find the Rajasik mindset.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this person may not be particularly interested in early morning meditation, but still, it's not lazy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is up and doing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you give him the work of maybe cleaning the temple, you know, a lot of hard physical work, he's ready to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He finds sitting there and meditating maybe a little boring, but this is ready to do.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've told you a funny story sometimes, long time back, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know this person,
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a good monk, but let's put it this way, very energetic.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a high energy particle, so making him sit and meditate is a little difficult.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you'd get up very early in the morning and we'd go to meditate like everybody else.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then he would look around what's going on in temple and not much is going on because everybody's full of monks were meditating so that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all that's going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he would he saw this a more junior novice bremachari who was junior to him sleepy nodding off the sleep and that's a common site to.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this poor young man, he's had straight and the tribe is best.
[SPEAKER_02]: The next day, this younger brahmajari, he changed his seat.
[SPEAKER_02]: He went elsewhere and put his meditation mat there and sat there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this other one, the restless worm monk, he looked around, where was his victim.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he located him.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's difficult.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many monks and he's dark.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he'd picked up his own meditation mat and went and sat behind him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so whenever this other Bramacharya would do so, he would talk, he took it as his duty to make him meditate well instead of himself, make this other one meditate well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it went to extremes.
[SPEAKER_02]: After a few days, this younger Bramacharya, he changed his seat and went out of the meditation hall, outside the temple and sat somewhere there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this other one, located him and came and sat next to him, outside the temple and made
[SPEAKER_02]: And I heard it went to an extent where this younger primary theory, event away from the temple all together and sat on the bank of the river to meditate and low and behold the next state is his, you know, guardian angel, unbelcum, was right there beside him near the river and making making sure that he stayed awake.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now this is extreme, you know, excess of energy.
[SPEAKER_02]: and such people are often good karma yogis and they can turn out huge volumes of work and and they are responsible people and get things done.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then there is a third kind of monastic I saw who's struggling.
[SPEAKER_02]: If come to be spiritual, they want to realize God.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they're struggling.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's difficult to get up early in the morning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Meditation is boring.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the work that is given the service just barely doing enough to get by.
[SPEAKER_02]: Certainly not going beyond once, beyond what is required.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the study is, you find everything seems very theoretical and boring.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, why is it happening?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's because of Thomas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now what you do?
[SPEAKER_02]: If I noticed that there is more Tamas or Rajas in my makeup, I will try to convert it into Satu and there's a way of doing it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a basic principle is, Tamas should be converted into Rajas by activity.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I am bored or lazy or sleepy or distracted,
[SPEAKER_02]: I should throw myself into activity risk karma yoga which is selfless activity, some work which is of benefit to the ashram and to others.
[SPEAKER_02]: That will drive away the Thomas and convert it into Rajas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then when Rajas is there predominant, I should try to restrain it and convert it into
[SPEAKER_02]: Now he's changing the topic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Having, if you have understood what is Rajas Satu and Thomas, now notice Satu is good.
[SPEAKER_02]: If your spiritual speaker Satu is good, Rajas and Thomas have to be worked upon.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are not helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're obstructions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now he's using that paradigm to talk about devotees.
[SPEAKER_02]: And remember, here it's not that Rajas and Satu, Thomas are bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're all genuine devotees, but there are attitudes at different.
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see.
[SPEAKER_02]: similarly bhakti devotion has its sattva, a devotee who possesses it, meditates on God in absolute secret, perhaps inside his mosquito net, others think he is asleep.
[SPEAKER_02]: Since he is late in getting up, they think perhaps he has not slept well during the night.
[SPEAKER_02]: His love for the body goes only as far
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no elaborate arrangement about his meals, no luxury in clothes, and no display of furniture.
[SPEAKER_02]: Besides such a devotee never flatters anybody for money.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all of these are very acute observations on the path of part of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: an aspirin possessing possessed of rajasik bhakti, put satilak on his forehead, there's a footnote, a mark of sandal paste or other material to denote one's religious affiliation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, satilak on his forehead and a necklace of holy redraksha beads, interspersed with gold ones around his neck, all laugh.
[SPEAKER_02]: At worship he wears a silk cloth.
[SPEAKER_02]: all these are observations.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you are an India, you have seen priests who might be dressed in this way, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that shows a Rajasik temperament, display.
[SPEAKER_02]: A man in doubt with tamasik bhakti has burning faith, such a devotee literally exhorts, extorts wounds from God, even as a robber falls upon a man and plunders his money.
[SPEAKER_02]: That means he starts the Divine Mother, he starts God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you must give me your grace?
[SPEAKER_02]: You must show yourself to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So all these are good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Subtour as a Senthamas in the attitude of the devotee.
[SPEAKER_02]: But not in the personal makeup.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the personal makeup is Rajasika or Tamasik, one has to struggle to convert it into Sathwa because otherwise devotion is not our spiritual practices are difficult otherwise.
[SPEAKER_02]: saying this, the master began to sing in a voice, sweet with rapturous love, his eyes turned upward.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why should I go to Ganga or Gaya to Kashi, Kanchi or Prabhas?
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Bengali song, Gaya, Ganga, Kashi, Kanchi, Prabhashali, Kiva Chai.
[SPEAKER_02]: So long as I can breathe my last with Kali's name upon my lips,
[SPEAKER_02]: So, could notice these are five places of pilgrimage.
[SPEAKER_02]: What need of rituals has a man?
[SPEAKER_02]: What need of devotions anymore?
[SPEAKER_02]: If he repeats the mother's name at the three holy hours, three holy hours are done, noon and dusk.
[SPEAKER_02]: rituals may pursue him close, but never can they overtake him, charity, vows, and giving of gifts, do not appeal to Madhan's mind, footnote, Madhan is the composer of the song, the author of the song.
[SPEAKER_02]: The blissful Madhan's lotus feet are his whole prayer and sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who could ever have conceived the power her name possesses?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sheva himself, the god of gods,
[SPEAKER_02]: The master was beside himself, with love for the divine mother, he sang with fiery enthusiasm.
[SPEAKER_02]: If only I can pass away repeating Durga's name, how can thou then no blessed one withhold me from deliverance, wretched, though I may be?
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he said, one must take the firm attitude.
[SPEAKER_02]: What, I have chanted the mother's name.
[SPEAKER_02]: How can I be a sinner anymore?
[SPEAKER_02]: I am hurt child, air to hurt powers and glories.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, remember when he, with so much love when he sings these songs, he is teaching us.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is instilling us a deep faith in the name of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: Why should we doubt?
[SPEAKER_02]: All these great saints, all these scriptures, the traditions of so many religions, they proclaim with one one
[SPEAKER_02]: God listens, God is aware of what we want and what is needed for us and what we ask for.
[SPEAKER_02]: All that is needed, of course from our side is wanting it and expressing our want in in prayer and devotion and song.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, he is teaching us how to take the name of God with what attitude and what conviction and what completes surrender.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean with what hope,
[SPEAKER_02]: If you can give a spiritual turn to your Thomas, you can realize God with its help, force your demands on God.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is by no means a stranger to you, He is indeed your very own.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, you see the quality of Thomas can be used for the welfare of others.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, our Guru or a teacher can use
[SPEAKER_02]: There are three classes of physicians, superior, mediocre, and inferior, the physician who feels the patient's pulse and just says to him, take the medicine regularly, belongs to the inferior class.
[SPEAKER_02]: He doesn't care to inquire whether or not the patient has actually taken the medicine.
[SPEAKER_02]: The mediocre physician is he who invasions ways, persuades the patient to take the medicine and says to him sweetly.
[SPEAKER_02]: My good man, how will you be cured unless you use the medicine?
[SPEAKER_02]: Take this medicine.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have made it for you myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: But he who, finding the patient, stubbornly refusing to take the medicine, forces it down his throat, going so far as to put his knee on the patient's chest, is the best physician.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the manifestation of the Thomas of the physician.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't injure the patient.
[SPEAKER_02]: On the contrary, it does him good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but in this country, you can get sued.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're a doctor, if you try to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And not only that, a doctor was telling me about billable hours and the insurance company will be after you after if you are the doctor, the insurance company will be after you're wasting time with the patient, this extra care where the physician goes and tells the patient, do take this medicine, I've made it for you or whatever, the extra time and effort and concern expressed for the patient, it can't be built.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the insurance company will tell you not to do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now apply to spiritual teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the physicians, there are three types of religious teachers.
[SPEAKER_02]: The inferior teacher only gives instruction to the disciples, but makes no inquiries about their progress.
[SPEAKER_02]: The mediocre teacher for the good of the student makes repeated efforts to bring the instructions home to him,
[SPEAKER_02]: But there is a type of teacher who goes to the length of using force when he finds the student who persist in the un-eilding.
[SPEAKER_02]: When he finds the student persistently un-eilding, I call him the best teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So you have seen all of these kinds.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've seen monks who are good teachers.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we used to attend their classes.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the classes were good.
[SPEAKER_02]: others who would express concern about our own spiritual practices.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was always a book writer, but it's just very senior old monk, Lilith Maharaj, his past now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, he was this very interesting, look at this short man, dark as completely round.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he was round face a big belly, you know, and he was in his, uh, late 70s or 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still remember I was a young novice in Beloit, but the evening had come.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had been studying all the time in library libraries before the evening are at the.
[SPEAKER_02]: bookworm that I was, I would wait till the last moment to library closed and then I would leave.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was walking away, not attending the R.C.
[SPEAKER_02]: and walking away back to where I was staying.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this old monk, he was with his walking stick, he was walking down, he saw me walking the other way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he said, won't you come to the Arathi?
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, no, I've been here for quite some time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going back to my room.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he got hold of my arm and very affectionately.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lovingly, he said, Jhalon Arathi.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he wouldn't let go of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we walked back together with that affection.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that sweetness and that affection.
[SPEAKER_02]: When he was ill and dying in the hospital, he had cancer in the stomach and he was dying.
[SPEAKER_02]: So most of the day he would like quitely.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought he was under anesthesia or under painkillers or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, but he was quite all day long.
[SPEAKER_02]: But at night he would talk.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was in the next bed, I was sick at that time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was young man, I had just some problems.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was sick in the hospital, but I would stay awake at night.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I could hear what was going on.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the ward was full of monks.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were all sick elderly monks, mostly at the verge of death.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he was there in the next bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I could hear him talking to the Holy Mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: All day long he was silent, and at night I heard this, he said, mother, it hurts, will the body go now?
[SPEAKER_02]: Then again, I'm hearing only one side of the conversation, he's saying, oh, not now, after a few days, all right, this I remember very clearly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet, holiday, uncomplaining, absolutely quiet.
[SPEAKER_02]: As if I don't know whether it's pain killers or it was absorbed in an inner mood in some kind of meditative mood inside, he would lie absolutely quietly.
[SPEAKER_02]: When I left, the hospital was discharged a few days later, he passed.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was literally true.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if he was mentally imagining it or whatever, but that's still wonderful.
[SPEAKER_02]: This old man in his 80s and passing and the verge of death is no complaints bearing the pain stoically and his mind must be full of Sri Ramakrishna, the Holy Mother, because he's talking
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had some amazing experiences in those 30, 40 days I was in the hospital.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was very sick, so they kept me there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I observed, and all the others were much older than me.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good to see these monks who have been spiritual seekers all their life at the end of their life.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good to see them at the end of the life.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can see the value of spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lifelong dedication.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know who was, how advanced they were,
[SPEAKER_02]: that lifelong spiritual practice makes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It don't have to be a monk for it, but anybody can do it, but if you consistently do sadhana for all your life, they are remarkable difference.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's an ordinary man, but they become remarkable because of lifetime of spiritual seeking of practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: So many things that I saw.
[SPEAKER_02]: I knew this monk, who had just come for a cataract operation.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was very elderly, I mean he was in his 70s or 80s.
[SPEAKER_02]: And here, a little box of tin, about this big tin box.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was curious what was there in it.
[SPEAKER_02]: One night, I saw, he thought everybody was asleep.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they were, except me, and I noticed, he got up, and he thought everybody was sleeping.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then he opened the box.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the box, there were pictures of Sri Ramakrishna, Marsha, and so on, we were kind of there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he sat on his bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: and he did japa and meditation all night long, quickly just before the sunrise, when the first, you know, the medical staff would come into inspect the ward and he quickly shut the box and he went to bed and pretended or actually fell asleep or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: So next day I told him, so I mean I know what you do at night.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was all Ben was so embarrassed, he said, in Bengali, he said, oh, Amit on Ishachar, that means a term meaning a demon.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ones who walk at night, no, like, so like a, this is something like a vampire.
[SPEAKER_03]: I become a wake at night, nocturnal.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ishachar.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was another one, I saw so many.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, another thing that comes to mind is, one of the Swami was somewhat younger.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was in his 50s at that time and he has passed now, very devoted person.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, he was my master teacher in a training center when I was a Brahmachari.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this Swami, he could sing well and he had good sense of rhythm.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was, um, a huge, you know, you know, you know, bulky.
[SPEAKER_02]: He wouldn't think a man like that could dance, but he could dance so sweetly.
[SPEAKER_02]: once in the hospital where he was hospitalized and he was appealing better, good enough to sing and dance, I guess, in the evening and this is only you can see only in a group of most remarkable group of patients.
[SPEAKER_02]: not, by the way, not one of them was scared about dying, not one of them was complaining or, and somewhere complaining about their physical initials, but not one had regret or, mentally no one was seriously unhappy or anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And most of them were, were happy and jolly, and although they were literally just about every one of them was dying, except a few.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this Swami, I can tell his name, he has passed now, just on and he was an Acharya, master of the Outraining Center.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very great scholar, but very devotional.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember him, so this was on the sixth floor of the hospital.
[SPEAKER_02]: So outside, it's high up on the Talqatah skyline.
[SPEAKER_02]: So outside, it's in the evening, sometimes it's dark.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember him singing and clapping his hands to keep rhythm.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the song was the disciple telling the guru, singing to the guru that the darkness has come.
[SPEAKER_02]: He would point to the darkness outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: Darkness falls the evening of my life has approached.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the darkness falls thick outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh Guru, I can still see the vibrations of his voice I can hear.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh Guru, I am afraid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Fear stalks me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hold my hand, my master.
[SPEAKER_02]: And take me into the darkness, guide me into the darkness.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is time to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: My master, come and take my hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he would, you know, dance and clap his.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we are all entrants.
[SPEAKER_02]: We would listen to him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have endless stories about those one and a half months, it was ever sick, it was a spiritual journey for me to see these people.
[SPEAKER_02]: and they would complain also the complaints were funny with this Swami who had to have physical physiotherapy.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was after his operation.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think pacemaker was installed.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was ill.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the physiotherapist would come and the Swami didn't like it one bit and he would yell out this, this is torture.
[SPEAKER_02]: Stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is torture and then he would go on in Bengali, a musulini rota chare, a hithilari rota chare.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is musulini's torture and that is hithilar's torture.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the physiotherapist was, I think he was a fascist probably, he was completely merrily.
[SPEAKER_03]: He said, no swam, you have to do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me look at the questions before I go on to the next part because the next part is different.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a change of topic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Garra of Cays, even though the matter including body is product of the mind,
[SPEAKER_02]: he has to be real because these mental objects behave in consistent current, and then this is Maya, due to Maya, this appearance is deeply rooted as living reality in me, is this understanding of Maya, okay?
[SPEAKER_02]: Matcha, including body's product of mine, better not say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is, that becomes something close to subjective idealism.
[SPEAKER_02]: In Vedanta,
[SPEAKER_02]: guard or issuer of the power of Maya creates this entire universe.
[SPEAKER_02]: One kind of creation is called subtle or sukshma, and that's mind and you know the in Sanskrit danta karana, the inner instrument, prana which is life, all of these subtle aspects are part of the subtle creation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there is the gross or physical creations, Tula, which is this entire world and matter and energy and all of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And both are creations of God.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not that my mind is creating this body or my mind is creating this world outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: That would be a misunderstanding of Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: Vedanta doesn't say that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That would become idealism.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's much closer to Buddhism.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even in Buddhist Vigyanavada, the mind doesn't create a body.
[SPEAKER_02]: It projects.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no real body outside the mind or there's no real world outside the mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is Buddhist mind only school.
[SPEAKER_02]: Patrick says, do Rajasik and Tamasik devotees realize Brahmin in the same state or will they have to convert to Satva?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, in one sense, all of these devotees are satvic, otherwise they wouldn't have so much devotion.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they would have their expression of the devotion, it might be sometimes Rajasik or Tamasik.
[SPEAKER_02]: they are elevated souls.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they will all realize Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have to convert something into such a spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Remember, Brahman is beyond such a religious center, which is the time to tell the story about the three decoids, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: There was this traveler who was caught by three decoids in a forest, three thugs, and they
[SPEAKER_02]: said, let's loot him, let's kill him.
[SPEAKER_02]: The second one was more compassionate and let's not kill him, let's just bind him to a tree and then snatch away all his possessions and beat him up.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the third one was even more compassion.
[SPEAKER_02]: He said, oh, you're hurt and you are miserable.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I'm going to set you free.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll show you the way back to your home.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he guides him to the forest and shows the road back to his city.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the traveler is grateful to the third decade.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think today they would call it
[SPEAKER_02]: Stockholm's syndrome or something, so the traveler says to the third decade, we have been most kind to me, sir, why don't you come with me, come home with me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the Decide says, no, I am a Decide, I can't go into the city.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the end of the story.
[SPEAKER_02]: The three Decides, the first one who wanted to destroy the man, Killing, was Thomas.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thomas destroys his
[SPEAKER_02]: The second one, who bound us, who bound the mantidim of is Rajas.
[SPEAKER_02]: It binds us in greed, in ambition, and power, and engagements, 100 different engagements in the world, distraction, tremendous distraction in the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the third one, who set him free and showed him the way back home, but could not accompany him back home.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was Sathva.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and such to a point out that I cannot take you all the way to Brahman, that means to your home, to reality, because I'm not allowed there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm part of Maya, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, both of all three of us are part of Maya, but there's one part of Maya which helps you to get free of Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's also the play of Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: In another sense, you can say, Avidya Maya and Vidya Maya, the Maya of knowledge or spirituality and the Maya of worldiness or ignorance.
[SPEAKER_02]: So Rajas and Thomas predominant in Avidya Maya and Satua predominance in Vidya Maya.
[SPEAKER_02]: But with the caveat, it's not that Satua is always spiritual.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bhagavad-gita makes it very clear.
[SPEAKER_02]: What does Satva do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Sukrasanghi nabhadnati, on Janaga, Gyanasanghi.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sukrasanghi nabhadnati, Gyanasanghi nabhadnati, Gyanasanghi nabhadnati.
[SPEAKER_02]: Satva also binds the man to what to two things, to happiness and knowledge.
[SPEAKER_02]: So happiness means, such people, you will notice,
[SPEAKER_02]: They are fond of a pleasant, untrubble life.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have too many demands.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't want like enormous amounts of money or pleasure or thrill-seeking.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are feasible good people, but they also don't like too much trouble and hassle.
[SPEAKER_02]: They like a pleasant life.
[SPEAKER_02]: a troubled, free life, generally happy life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sukhasanggainabhadnaati, they often become pleasureed seekers.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why the gods in Heavens cannot be spiritual, the devathas.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have, they are partying all day long.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then where's the time for spirituality?
[SPEAKER_02]: They have no problems at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing which binds a sadhvik person is gana sanghina, to knowledge, the person may want to read lots of books, the person may be very interested in all sorts of, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: all sorts of cultured pursuits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe interested in music and the Broadway theater and in the issues of the day in a salon type of conversation, maybe in science, and mathematics, and philosophy, so what's wrong with that?
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's really good, but it's not spiritual.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's still not, it will not take you to God.
[SPEAKER_02]: only seeking God will take you to God, only being spiritual will take you to enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, that is Satva, that is the danger of Satva going on, unless the Satva is hardness to spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel Satva, elevated, light, calm, inward, peaceful, good.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me use that for meditation, for prayer, for scriptural study, and for karma yoga.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sangita says, just a comment here, there is just symbols context, some of the most austere events, it's a tradition of Sanya Sanya Sanya Sanya Krankaracharya's or committed to strictly Southvik lifestyle can also be said to be anointing themselves with symbols like Tilik, Dilak and Vasma regularly has ordained by the scriptures to honor what they stand for and to serve as a reminder to others.
[SPEAKER_02]: Correct, absolutely correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: That they are doing because it's part of their practice and they're expected to do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's not that anybody who puts on some religious symbol is Rajasik, it just might be part of their regular practice.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are people who would do it to show their spirituality and their how spiritual religious they are.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what Ram Krishna's pointing out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lisa says, when you are in a hospital, did you ever think your body might die?
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you ever have spiritual experiences?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I had spiritual experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had medical experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: But do you ever think the body might die?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, in fact, many people thought I was dying.
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember this monk who came to see me in the hospital and he said, so the monks, they have a weird sense of humor, which might seem the objectionable to people outside.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this monk comes and tells me,
[SPEAKER_02]: We still alive, we are getting, we are putting the good together for the funeral fire in Bellwood mud.
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: So like it's my fault for being alive, so many people thought, and there are many months from Belurumatu came to see me, who thought that this is so sad that this young brahmacharya is going to pass a way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they came to see me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I never actually felt I was going to die, I guess that was very young at that time, and you have an internal vigor, and even if you're very sick.
[SPEAKER_02]: At one point, I was thinking, and I still remember that very clearly, how you lose its tremendous weakness, even your thoughts are chaotic and you are unable to control, there is no way of directing your thoughts towards God.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is very clear that I was just as aware then as at any other time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was not particularly well trained in Vedanta at that time, so I didn't take advantage
[SPEAKER_02]: Another experience which I had was I couldn't eat for 15 days.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was on an IV for 15 days and yet, and if anybody gave food, I would throw it up immediately.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet, I watched with Wonder at night when I drifted off to a somewhat half asleep state because I didn't sleep too well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would dream and dream of all the kinds of food which I loved as a kid.
[SPEAKER_02]: which had forgotten, which I maybe hadn't had that kind of those dishes for years, maybe, but they're all deep there, it will reveal to me what clear layers of the mind are there, which we are not aware of, it's only an extreme pressure or trauma they become revealed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, interestingly, all that kind of food, if somebody had actually bought it and offered to me at that time, I would have thrown up.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wouldn't have been able to eat any of it at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: and yet that the lesson I took away from that is a good deal of food and a desire for food is basically desire.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's sensory, it is mental.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not actually the body doesn't need it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Body doesn't need it at all.
[SPEAKER_02]: What the body needs for a healthy life and what the mind desires can happen to be two very different things.
[SPEAKER_02]: mind is conditioned after through many lifetimes and at least one lifetime of conditioning.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those are all there.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are like layer after layer of conditioning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Most of it is useless or bad.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why spiritual life actually is difficult because we have created too many obstacles.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they need to be cleansed to some extent at least one beam of light.
[SPEAKER_02]: penetrate through all that mess, and that one beam of light is enough for us.
[SPEAKER_02]: One tiny little ray of light, that's enough to liberate us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, spiritual experiences more than myself, but the other monks, that was more valuable.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, many monks that I saw there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Once the general secretary, funny things happened out, once the general secretary of the order came to visit, then we were all scared of him, of course.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were warned, the general secretary is coming to visit the sick monks.
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was a monk sitting next to me, who was a monk, Cassiniacian.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was a premature.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was absolutely a novice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think just a few one or two years into my monastic life.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this monkey was sitting and reading the newspaper on his bed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Moment he heard the general secretary is coming, he sat up quickly and he folded the newspaper and threw it on top of me.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was lying down with the ivy stuck to my arm.
[SPEAKER_02]: I couldn't do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at that moment, before I could do anything, the general circuitry swept in.
[SPEAKER_02]: To find this monk sitting rigid and straight on the bed with a beatific expression on his face.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this little rascal of a bremagerie, who has the temerity to lie flat on his back with a newspaper of all things on his chest.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the genusic didn't say anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: He glared at me and then he swept past.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I never understood why Thakur called these like this doctor who pushes the medicine through the throat is a tamus sick and that's a good one or even the doctor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is he calling them tamus sick?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because only for one characteristic which is common to a tamasik person and this Bhaktar or the Guru is the attitude of a force of being obstinate, of not taking no foreign answer.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that might be and that's the only reason.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: it also the it's similar to the attitude of that first decoite who says, you know, beat and kill, you know, so that kind of like fierce attitude towards God.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want God realization here now.
[SPEAKER_02]: In Sri Ramakrishna's own attitude also you will see once there's a clear story of where he goes now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want your vision, otherwise I'm going to cut off my head
[SPEAKER_02]: that would be actually be a Tamasic attitude towards God Realization.
[SPEAKER_02]: But don't do it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know of one monk who I'm I really missing a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was my student.
[SPEAKER_02]: A very subject person.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know why he did it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He killed himself.
[SPEAKER_02]: The few years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was very tragic.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I heard the whole story.
[SPEAKER_02]: He went to one of the
[SPEAKER_02]: the greatest and contemporary spiritual masters of this age who is among the living today.
[SPEAKER_02]: The day before he, this young monk committed suicide, he went and said, I want God realization, otherwise I'm going to kill myself.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this master told this monk that, no, this is, don't be obstinate like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: You carry on your spiritual practices, it will happen in its own time.
[SPEAKER_02]: But obviously this one did not listen and then the strategy happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not good.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one must carry on with one spiritual practices.
[SPEAKER_02]: See, it's many lifetimes of bad conditioning we're trying to overcome.
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes a few years to overcome what of it?
[SPEAKER_02]: What of it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Be patient.
[SPEAKER_02]: A Brahmo devotee.
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a change of topic now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Brahmodevati, sir has God forms or has He none.
[SPEAKER_02]: Master, no one can save it, finality, that God is only this and nothing else.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is formless and again, He has forms.
[SPEAKER_02]: For the Bhakta, He assumes forms.
[SPEAKER_02]: But He is formless for the Gany.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is for Him who looks on the world as a mere dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Bhakta feels that he is one entity and the world another.
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore God reveals himself to him as a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the Gany, the Vedantist, for instance, always reasons applying the process of not this, not this, nati nati.
[SPEAKER_02]: Through this discrimination, he realizes by his inner perception that the ego and the universe are both illusory, like a dream.
[SPEAKER_02]: When the Giani realizes Brahman in his own consciousness, he cannot describe what Brahman is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Think of Brahman existence knowledge, please absolute as a showedless ocean.
[SPEAKER_02]: through the cooling influence as it were of the bhaktas love, the water has frozen at places into blocks of ice.
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, God now and then assumes various forms for His lovers and reveals Himself to them as a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: But with the rising of the sun of knowledge, the blocks of ice melt.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then one doesn't feel anymore, that God is a person, nor does one see God's forms, what He is, cannot be described.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who will describe Him?
[SPEAKER_02]: He who would do so disappears.
[SPEAKER_02]: He cannot find His eye anymore.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot that's going on here.
[SPEAKER_02]: We go on this section, but let me just talk about it a little.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, the most important thing Sri Ram Krishna says at the very beginning, that God is infinite.
[SPEAKER_02]: When a question is God without with form or without form, with qualities or without qualities is God male or female, it's God beyond gender, it's God of a human form.
[SPEAKER_02]: All of those things Sri Ram Krishna's first answer is that listen, God is infinite.
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing that he did not like is that anybody's saying with finality, God is this and not anything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: Who are you look at the enormous arrogance of this attitude?
[SPEAKER_02]: That my philosophy, my theology, my religion is the truth and anything outside it is wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't know anything at all?
[SPEAKER_02]: Is a theology or religion or is that the truth or is God the truth?
[SPEAKER_02]: What is central to us is God's central or is my particular point of view or religion or doctrine or theology important?
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: So even so all of them they make this miss error that we have the truth and everything else is false.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Ram Krishna says you are committing a huge huge error and a sin of trying to limit God.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the Ram Krishna called it a dogmatic view and
[SPEAKER_02]: So, what about the question and answer becomes clear now is God with forms or without forms.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says God is with forms and without forms.
[SPEAKER_02]: How is that possible?
[SPEAKER_02]: Many give the example is classic example of the ocean, a boundless ocean.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that doesn't seem like a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, it can seem like a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: If the devotee wants to experience in that way, once means the whole culture, training, sadhana has been in that form.
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to see God.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think of God as Krishna and I have studied the Vaishnava Shastras and I have chanted the Hare Krishna Hare Rama Mantra and I have sung and danced and repeated the mantra of Krishna and I've read about Krishna all my life and prayed to Krishna all my life.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the boundless ocean of impersonal ocean, of existence consciousness, please.
[SPEAKER_02]: It says it like water freezing into
[SPEAKER_02]: similarly, that ocean now appears to the devotee in the form of his or her beloved Krishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that imagination?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, because every bit of that image, that personal god Krishna, every bit of it is what, every bit of that iceberg is water.
[SPEAKER_02]: is the very thing which is the ultimate reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, and then he says, when the sun of knowledge rises again, the form melts away and the ocean alone remains.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here also one may be misled into thinking, okay, so ultimately the ocean is real and the farms where unreal the farm has to melt away, not necessarily.
[SPEAKER_02]: because the form is made of the same thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: See there, even at the right of the answer, according to the right of reality is non-dual.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no second thing apart from reality.
[SPEAKER_02]: What is reality, existence consciousness, please?
[SPEAKER_02]: So anything that is experienced is nothing other than Brahman.
[SPEAKER_02]: and what to speak of divine forms like Rama or Krishna or Christ or the firmless God with attributes, which is worshipped as the God in some of the Hindu traditions and in Islam and Christianity and Judaism, is God which does not have a physical form but has many blessed qualities.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that is called
[SPEAKER_02]: all of them are nothing but the absolute reality, existence consciousness, please.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would just say this in favor of Advaita because of my predictions, we notice in order to harmonize this, you need to have the ocean at the background, if all the different icebergs are the same reality, what is that reality?
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's water.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is possible only when you
[SPEAKER_02]: that on the basis of Advaita, you can harmonize these things.
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, one will say, my iceberg is real, and that guy's iceberg is false, not knowing both are made of the same substance, the same water.
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot more has been said here, and we will do it next time.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has given a very beautiful insight into Advaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_02]: What exactly is Advaita Vedanta?
[SPEAKER_02]: why does this happen for the Bhaktan?
[SPEAKER_02]: That why does the Bhaktan devotee see a personal God?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Ram Krishna.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you noticed it.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says he introduces a simple point here.
[SPEAKER_02]: For the devotee he assumes forms.
[SPEAKER_02]: He says the Bhakta feels that he is one entity in the world another.
[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore God reveals himself to him as a person.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I feel, I am one entity, here I am, and this is the world.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I have identified myself the part of the world, this body and mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: The only way then I can experience the absolute truth is through the God of religion.
[SPEAKER_02]: What about Buddhism?
[SPEAKER_02]: Notice what Buddhism does.
[SPEAKER_02]: It first deconstructs the body mind identity.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I am this entity.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is one entity apart from everything else.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the field is one entity in the world, another.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am an entity, here I am.
[SPEAKER_02]: This here I am, Buddhism first attacks that and shows you there is no self in this combination of body and mind.
[SPEAKER_02]: So as long as one is identified with body and mind, the easiest, the only and the easiest way is to see the absolute reality as another entity.
[SPEAKER_02]: or the adroitic approach, we will see that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Alpanas is quite often at night and dream of getting enlightened to pick up out of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Problem is the whole day, I try to recreate it, it defeats the whole, the purpose of need in the astronaut.
[SPEAKER_02]: How do I forget to use those dream experiences?
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't worry, if you can use them, in fact, there is a whole discipline in Tibetan Buddhism for using dream experiences for spiritual enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't matter.
[SPEAKER_02]: You don't have to forget them.
[SPEAKER_02]: that the same one which experience those dreams is the same one which is experiencing this waking state and the problems of the waking state, you are the same and that same awareness is actually free of these experiences free of these states.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's simple,
[SPEAKER_02]: And now the experience of a waking life that this problem has come, I am the same light and free of the dreams and free of the waking also, just the same light.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yesterday at NYU, we were there for a discussion with a couple of scientists.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a very nice panel discussion.
[SPEAKER_02]: At one point, one of the scientists his name is Pascal, which is very nice because it's one of the greatest friends scientists.
[SPEAKER_02]: So his name is Pascal.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was a very interesting person, very lively, extremely intelligent who got Vedantic teaching, just like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: He understood.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to my surprise, actually, he said, when I talk about what consciousness is from a Vedantic perspective, he said, actually, I agree with everything that the Swami is saying from neuroscience and data science, and artificial intelligence perspective.
[SPEAKER_02]: at one point you are saying that it's true it's quite possible we are having this experience now and it's possible that we may have a completely different experience later which we have no idea about now tremendously different experience maybe heaven maybe something else the topic was do dogs go do all dogs go to heaven so
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe we can have a completely different experience.
[SPEAKER_02]: Any gave an example of a larva which becomes a pupa and then a butterfly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Imagine the tremendous difference of experiences of being a larva and then a pupa in a cocoon and then being a glorious butterfly, how different that experience would be.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we also maybe we can have extraordinary experiences later, who knows?
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I said to him, but notice whatever experience you have, you'll be still be awareness.
[SPEAKER_02]: You need consciousness for those experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the consciousness is the same.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what Vedanta is interested in.
[SPEAKER_02]: not replacing this one with more extraordinary experiences as you like, you know, the Americans have a phrase, knock yourself out.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have as many extraordinary experiences as you like, you still need consciousness for that and think about it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That consciousness is independent of those experiences, makes those experiences possible and is free of those experiences also.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not touched, not tied down, not deformed, decreased,
[SPEAKER_02]: Enhanced by any of those experiences, that consciousness you are, that's the meaning of taktuamasi.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, more of that later on.