[SPEAKER_00]: So reading from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, last time, there was a discussion on,
[SPEAKER_00]: levels of Ribramma Gandhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one gets enlightenment and then there are several levels.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are these levels?
[SPEAKER_00]: What really happens?
[SPEAKER_00]: These are all advanced stages of spiritual realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Siramakrishna talked about it from a yogic and Vedantic perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm going to read to you
[SPEAKER_00]: from this book.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Vivek Chaudhya Mani of Adi Shankaracharya, but it has a speciality.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a commentary by Shri Chandrashekhar of Harati, who was the great Shankaracharya of modern times.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the head of the Shringeri.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the 20th century, he was head of the Shringeri Peter, that means the monastery there.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he is one of those, those who hold the lineage of Shankara Charya, he is also called the Shankara Charya.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sri Chandrashikara Bharati wrote the Sanskrit commentary on the Vivek Churamani.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this Vivek Churamani has a Sanskrit commentary with an English translation also.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here, the original verse, plus the English translation of the Sanskrit coming to Stephen, at the end of it, seven stages are discussed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the sources from where the seven stages are taken are from, with the R and Nieswami's G1 Mukti Viveka.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are the sources taken from much older text called Yoga Vashishtha.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these seven stages, just for out the sake of discussion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramakrishna discussed seven stages of deeper and deeper absorption.
[SPEAKER_00]: See Enlightenment is the same, but the last few stages are deeper and deeper levels of absorption.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one level, the person becomes enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next level, the person goes into Samadhi and comes out by himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next level person goes into Samadhi and the absorption in Brahman is so deep, it does not come out anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: Only somebody else has to bring it out, bring him out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the last level is the seventh, it goes into Samadhi, absorbed in Brahman internally, and does not come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody can bring that person out anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's Ramakrishna says the body lasts 21 days, but remember, for four stages before this,
[SPEAKER_00]: All of them are enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: What good is that enlightenment?
[SPEAKER_00]: That enlightenment, anybody who's attained that enlightenment all the four stages, they are all free.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means they will never come back to this world again after the death of the body.
[SPEAKER_00]: But these multiple stages are deeper and deeper absorption in Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, the page we are going, we are reading,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is, for me, it is in page 151, it's part of a long dialogue with the Brahma devotees, 28th October, 1882, 28th October, 1882, and the page is 151.
[SPEAKER_00]: But right now, I'm not reading from the Gospel of Sri Ram Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm reading from this book of a note and appendix actually on the seven stages.
[SPEAKER_00]: So quickly, the seven stages here is called seven stages of yoga, meaning thereby.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always a Vedanta text, meaning thereby the yogic absorption, which comes after the Vedantic realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are multiple stages.
[SPEAKER_00]: Subhecha, Vicharana, Tanumanasa, Satwapati, Asam Shakti, Padath, Thubhavini, and Turiya, so seven stages.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are they?
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens then?
[SPEAKER_00]: One, Subhecha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Miniman involved in the world about him begins to reflect and tells himself what a fool am I to be does involved?
[SPEAKER_00]: Should I not study the Shastras and get the slaving glance of good persons who have the experience of the truth such a desire preceded by sense of detachment, white art,
[SPEAKER_00]: that awakening.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must take up spiritual practices for enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next one, stage two, Bicharana, is an active inquiry into the nature of reality preceded by study of the Shastras, association with the Good and the Wise, Wairagya and Meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a stage of spiritual practices focused centered around Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: You attend Vedanta classes, think about it, reflect about it, read and a life designed for inwardness, inquiry, associate with other Vedanta students and Vedanta masters.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this focus and the actual you're up and doing now.
[SPEAKER_00]: A resolve was taken in the first stage, second stage you're up and doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are, you can congratulate yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have all are in the second and maybe more.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have moved beyond that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the second stage is,
[SPEAKER_00]: mostly where we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: Third one, Tanumanasa arises when the attachment to same subjects gets tenuous.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means it's sinned out as a result of Subhachya in Vicharana.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tanumanasa literally means fineness of the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the mind becomes less gross and less and more detached from
[SPEAKER_00]: Vedanta and Buddhism and then finally grumble that but my son doesn't listen to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am drum and I have understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if your big issue is my son doesn't listen to me, my daughter doesn't listen to me, then we have to concentrate on the second stage, you know, to purify the mind, to focus the mind on enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: When that doesn't matter, son may still not listen to you, but he doesn't matter too much to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your main interest is in
[SPEAKER_00]: Enlightenment in God Realization, Tanumanasa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number four is Enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I keep saying, God realization in light and wind, that comes in number four.
[SPEAKER_00]: I often call this the break through your herd.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have mentioned the breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is number four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satuapati is the stage of establishment of the mind in the Atman characterized by pure Satuagona by virtue of the previous three stages and by non-attachment to sense objects.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will see details what happens later on.
[SPEAKER_00]: then what happens further?
[SPEAKER_00]: Number five, Assam Sakti is the stage in which the effect of attachment to the world is negated by the practice of the previous four stages and which is characterized being by being rooted in the real.
[SPEAKER_00]: But practically what does it mean we will see?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just giving you the definition as it is written here, then we will discuss a little more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number six, Padar Thabhavini, when by the practice of the F4 state five stages, a person delights in the Atman as nothing else internal or external appears to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And is awakened only by long effort of others, that is the stage of Padar Thabhavini.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember that the stage where others can pull you out, but you are able to otherwise absorb.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody, you cannot come back by yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last, Tureaga, well, on practice of these six stages when the sense of difference vanishes, and one is completely absorbed in oneself that is the goal of Tureaga, alright.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the distinction?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's going on here?
[SPEAKER_00]: There are four stages of an enlightened person.
[SPEAKER_00]: These four stages are called Bramhavit literally, no matter of Bramhavit, the one who's enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second, Brahmavit Vara, the superior Noah of Brahmann.
[SPEAKER_00]: Third.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brahma with varian, how do you put it?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a superlative degree.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the greatest number of the great number of Brahman, or even more superior number of Brahman, and then the last one, Brahma with varishita, the supreme lower number of Brahman, it's not the lower of supreme Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody realizes the supreme Brahman, but this one is the supreme lower of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one means the one who is enlightened, but what difference is there among them?
[SPEAKER_00]: The difference is, only in the absorption of the mind, one is enlightened and knows a hum drum aspect without any doubt, without any effort.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is there and because of previous practices is able to manifest that in day to day life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's according to this, that's just the breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second one is, one can get completely absorbed in that realization
[SPEAKER_00]: Third one is that absorption will be so deep, it will not come out by oneself unless something from outside prompts coming out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The last one is, will not come out anyway, either by oneself or by anything else from external.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the body will last their surroundings is 21 days.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even before that day, maybe many enlightened persons were at different stages.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, what is a note here, explanatory?
[SPEAKER_00]: The first three stages are only means or sadhana's to Brahman with the other, realization of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: And are part of the effort to acquire with the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: For in these three, the sense of difference among things is not annulled, and it means you actually not only see this difference between different things, but you think it's real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really these things are different.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the one less has not, not a fact yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have studied about it, we're thinking about it, but they're all different entities out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a real separate world out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: That feeling is still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hence, it is called the waking state.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the further complication.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hence, it's called the waking state.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll talk about that later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second, then the intellectual realization from the Vedanta text of oneness of Brahman and Jivatman, free of the Opaadis, is the fourth stage and is the result of the previous three.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is called Satwapati.
[SPEAKER_00]: Satwapati means the grasp on reality, if the first time it becomes real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Brahman, which is the material cause of the entire universe, is known to be the non-dual reality.
[SPEAKER_00]: Name and form are the features of the universe, which are superimposed on Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're understood to be mithya or false in this stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: This stage is like a dream, sokna, to the seeker of salvation, compared to the waking state mentioned earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the objects of experience are failed to have as much reality as those in a dream, in that state all sense of duality disappears and one becomes steadfast in the non-dual, seeing oneself and others as real only.
[SPEAKER_00]: one who has this fourth stage is called a Brahmavith, Noah of Brahmavith.
[SPEAKER_00]: So look at the difference which is between this and the other three stages.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the other three stages, it's just like we are experiencing the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am this person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is our look here is a computer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can see other people in this computer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here is a table and a room.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all it's all out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Where as after realization what will happen is all this is appearing, but in and through all of that there is one unity, one transcendent unity in which all of these are appearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, to help us understand the difference, the first three stages are called waking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why are they called waking?
[SPEAKER_00]: For an ordinary person in the waking stage, what do we feel?
[SPEAKER_00]: I am contact contacting an actual solid reality outside through my senses.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we feel in a baking state.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the common sense understanding of a baking state.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this fourth stage of enlightenment is called a dream, like a dream state.
[SPEAKER_00]: What is our common understanding of a dream state?
[SPEAKER_00]: That actually, everything that I'm experiencing is all in my mind, the dreamers mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: After you wake up from a dream and you look back upon the dream, what do you say?
[SPEAKER_00]: I did see all that, but actually, it was all me.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my mind,
[SPEAKER_00]: I myself dreamt it all up, the world and people and my own self, underneath it was one unity, what was the unity?
[SPEAKER_00]: Dreamer, either dreamer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I became the dream person and the dream world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, that's an example.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly like that, the enlightened person feeds in the waking state, right now, that all of this is an appearance in the underlying unity which I have found.
[SPEAKER_00]: that underlying unity is my one, one, my own self and in that all these are appearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Earlier what was the thing?
[SPEAKER_00]: There is not appearing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's there.
[SPEAKER_00]: All out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm only here.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've read Vedanta but it's not very clear to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's absolutely clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am that one, one reality like the dreamer to me, this waking world and the
[SPEAKER_00]: So, though I see, here's the thing, though I see separate things, I see so many people, I see so many places, I see so many activities, I see good and bad, but also underlying them, I know the truth that it's one existence consciousness place.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may see people and animals and all sorts of things, made of gold, little images, but you know it's all one gold.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yes, is this person experiencing duality?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's experiencing experiencing plurality, but also very clear about the full city of this difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: This difference is false.
[SPEAKER_00]: Underlying it is this oneness, which in religion is called God, when Vedanta is called Brahman, and that's your own nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this should be effortless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before that, this such a thing can be there in understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: After this fourth stage, it should be the normal state of existence, effortless state of existence all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the in the world, the person can go around in that particular body, interacting with people, living just like everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: But internally, the whole perspective, the paradigm has shifted.
[SPEAKER_00]: This person is called Brahmavith.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Brahmavith enlightened, no one of Brahmavith.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one of Brahmavith means Brahmavith.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Brahmavith.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then what happens next?
[SPEAKER_00]: The three stages in Sanskrit's audio, these are called Bhumikas, which means levels of stages.
[SPEAKER_00]: The three Bhumikas beginning with the fifth, five, six, seven are the distinctions among Jeevan Muktas.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are all enlightened by living, but there are some distinctions among them.
[SPEAKER_00]: These distinctions, this is important sense, sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: These distinctions arise due to relativ effectiveness of nirvikalpa samadhi and to the strength and duration of
[SPEAKER_00]: What is the same about them?
[SPEAKER_00]: They all know and have realized a hum drum has to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am drumman.
[SPEAKER_00]: This world is an appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's the difference between them?
[SPEAKER_00]: Due to the difference in sadhana into practice the capacity of the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some can remain deeply absorbed in drumman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some would be even more deeply absorbed and so they cannot be brought back normally.
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally, they will remain one with drumman and can never be brought back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Except, it's not mentioned.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a classical adverate the text.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramakrishna will say, even after that final one also, some may come back from that state, but that is, there are the incarnations of God that is by the wish of Ishwarra, some may remain as God teaches.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these distinctions arise due to relative effectiveness of nirvikal pasamati and to the strength and duration of absorption in Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the fifth stage, one wakes of once a chord from nirvikal pasamati, fifth stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Goes into nirvikal pasamati, but can come back also.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such a yogi is called Brahmavidwarah, the superior knower of Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is likened to sleep or suchupti.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it is like sociopth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: How is it like sociopth?
[SPEAKER_00]: The stage of the seeker who is not yet enlightened is like waking.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know all these things but still feels like a real world out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: State of the enlightened is like dream.
[SPEAKER_00]: The dream in the dream stage, I see variety but I know it's one.
[SPEAKER_00]: After waking up from a dream, you know, it was all my mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: The example must be understood in order to appreciate the knowledge of the Seer.
[SPEAKER_00]: So everything is being experienced just like the unenlightened person.
[SPEAKER_00]: But fully the awareness is there.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an appearance in Brahman, which is I, the real I.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is the fourth stage, fifth stage is this person will go into such deep samadhi that it becomes like deep sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens to an ordinary person in deep sleep?
[SPEAKER_00]: The world is not experienced, mind is not experienced, body is not experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, the enlightened person will remain only as Brahman as infinite being, infinite radiance without any appearance of the world, without any appearance of the body or of the mind.
[SPEAKER_00]: And externally, that person will see in like Sri Ramakrishna's best demonstration.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again and again, you know, heartbeat has stopped and there is no pulse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a dead body, but it's sit absolutely alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Breath has stopped, near recall for Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is the fifth stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that, quickly break, that person will come out.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are descriptions of Sri Ramakrishna coming out of Samadhi, as if he has come from a long, diving water, a long, shuddering breath he takes and awakens into external world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And half, there's some deep absorption inside is barely aware of this difference and trying to communicate with the rest of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is the coming out of the Nirbikalpur Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Such a yogi is brahma vettvara, this is like into sleep, sushupti, while I can to sleep, because in the earlier stage, difference was perceived, but known that it is not difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is one brahma.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now difference is not even perceived.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no difference perceived.
[SPEAKER_00]: In all the data in it all determinants are still different determinants means differences.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one is the awareness only of the non-dual, not awareness of the non-dual is not well-written.
[SPEAKER_00]: The non-dual alone is luminously presented, that's all.
[SPEAKER_00]: being introverted and enjoying supreme tranquility, one appears as one in sleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a description of in much better if you look at the description of Sri Ram Krishna in some of the again and again.
[SPEAKER_00]: You find this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one more in the sixth stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yogi gets up in a vacant by persons one year him, such a one is called Brahmavid Varyan.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is likened to very deep sleep, God and it done.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one attains it after practicing the fifth Bhumika, getting rid of residual tendencies vassanas.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is no consciousness of being or non-being, no sense of the eye or the Ahankara, all mental activities vanish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like a part in space, there's nothing inside or outside, or again like a part immersed in the ocean, there's fullness inside and outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: The farmer's state arises as the mind of one in a vehicle,
[SPEAKER_00]: to indulge in any imagination, perceive any impressions of external objects.
[SPEAKER_00]: The latter is to be traced to the fact that one in this condition is lost in the plenum of the experience of Brahman, which is self-evident and is such it and are in the whole and entire.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees both within himself and outside all things only has Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one makes for Shunnyatva and the other for Purnatva.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, this is the sixth stage, basically the point here is such a person will come out only when awakened by others and pulled out by others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this again, we see a number of times in Sri Ramakrishna's life, he is to teach others that if you see this kind of Samadhi, repeat this mantra and what are the mantras to chant, you can't pull him out by shaking him.
[SPEAKER_00]: something of the same power which has plunged him into a vehicle of samadhi, that must be said.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's in one sense, he's not asleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's such a deep focus that nothing else except that gets through to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that mantra of that deity can again maybe bring him back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are, it's so interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like a theoretical, but it's demonstrated
[SPEAKER_00]: The 7th one, to the yogi who has attained the 7th Bhumika, there is no getting up either by oneself or induced by others.
[SPEAKER_00]: The yoga Shastras, which explains a samplat gata samadhi, culminate in this, such a yogi is called Brahmavid Varishta and Sri Ramakrishna says such a person will not come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that state, the body does not last many days.
[SPEAKER_00]: He remains unconscious of the outer world.
[SPEAKER_00]: His milk is poured into his mouth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It runs out, dwelling on this plane of consciousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gives up his body in 21 days.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the condition of the Brahma Ghani.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is,
[SPEAKER_00]: according to those seven stages.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Brahma with Varishtha, the highest, but this highest plane or middle plane or lower plane, they are all different levels of absorption in nirvika alpa samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there is something beyond this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So some great spiritual masters, by the grace of God, or Avatara's, like Sri Ram Krishna himself, a holy mother herself, even Swami Vivekananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they retained the ability to come down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ram Krishna did it regularly, going to that stage and coming back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was somebody who is seven stage and beyond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mahashara did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swami Vivekananda struggled.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had experience, this need to be called for Samadhi, a few times and all the time was struggling to get it back.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Sri Ramakrishna, after the first is first experience, Sri Ramakrishna had said, What do you want now?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to remain immersed there and come back once in a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take a snack and go back into need to be called for Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna scolded him and said, I'll fire on you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shared many, many people will take take shelter, but you are thinking only of your liberation of your spiritual development.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then Sri Ramakrishna said, will you have seen the highest truth, but now it will remain under lock and key.
[SPEAKER_00]: The key will remain with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will do mothers work, and then only you will be released.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Swami Vivekan, there was not one to take things lying down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he sort of always like a tiger or lion, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stormed the bars of the cage, which had been set around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again and again, once he goes up to Al-Nir, Al-Mora.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a, in fact, there is a place where three rivers meet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a huge tree there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, Ray can understand that in meditated, and he got that realization, whether it was revealed to me that the microcosm and microcosm are built on the same plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he realized, we can see, they did it to two wonderful lectures on microcosm and microcosm he gave, their based on his own realization.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that tree is still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I have a picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went there once and curiously enough, somebody took a picture at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was many, many years ago in India.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this sent me that picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just remembered.
[SPEAKER_00]: The place is called Capricot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's near Almora, several kilometers from Almora.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me see if I can show you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was, this was maybe 15 years or 16 years ago, I did not get any samadhi there but do I did meditate?
[SPEAKER_00]: So our monks who visit that always are taken to that place.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a little clock there which says, Swami Vivekan, the meditate here.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't see it from here but it's in just in front of it, there are two or three reverts which flow into each other in front.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very beautiful place and surrounded by mountains.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when Vivekananda went there and he meditated, he got this realization here, then from there, he went further up the mountains, there is a cave there, it's named after Durga, I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: some David, the cave, I forget the name.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very inaccessible.
[SPEAKER_00]: We went up there, but even now, it's a difficult climb.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so on, he really came to the wind there, and he sat inside that cave and meditated, but he writes, it's as if I was ejected from that cave.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't sit there, I was basically forced out.
[SPEAKER_00]: The divine mothers will back into the world again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, we are the beneficiaries of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Krasal Devy, yes, and trying Vivekan the without mentioning the name of the cave, he mentions that how I married it in that cave, to become absorbed in it because of some of the again and As if I was forced out by the will of the divine mother again once here in on the shores of Lake Michigan in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: So a few times, he again attained Nervi Kalka Samadhi, but by the will of the Divine Mother, he was again pushed out of that state and back here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna, Marshara da, there are clear examples of how they would go into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they were that Brahma with Varishtha and beyond of the category of Avatar, who could come back by their own wish.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the their absorption was of the level of the Brahma with Varishtha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's be go ahead.
[SPEAKER_00]: Having said all this, then he says to the Brahma's, but yours is the path of devotion, that is a very good and easy path.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just now I was walking in the park and two devotees had come, the one gentleman asked me, but the path of devotion once still attains enlightenment through that, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: By itself, without reference to Advaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: See, from an Advaitic perspective, if you talk about, when I say Advaitic perspective, classical Advaita Vedanta perspective.
[SPEAKER_00]: From that perspective, if you talk about Bhakti, about selfless work, about meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer you will get is yes, all those are good.
[SPEAKER_00]: They prepare the mind, without that the mind will not be prepared, with the prepared mind, come to Vedanta Vedantic teachings.
[SPEAKER_00]: You will realize, you are Brahman, that fourth stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: at least that much you must realize otherwise no so will I not get liberation otherwise no you want you have to realize after an Advaita Vedanta spiritual logical how will you get liberation you must realize you are liberated aham Ramahasme I am free and ever free
[SPEAKER_00]: So that comes only at the fourth stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: What other kind of liberation can there be?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you still feel I am this individual being and I am devoted to God, Advaita Vedanta does not consider that liberation.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's just the Advaitic Path.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ask Sri Ramakrishna, what will his answer be?
[SPEAKER_00]: Suppose I don't refer at all to Advaita Vedanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just devoted to God in whatever form.
[SPEAKER_00]: We like get liberation, the same liberation which Advaita is a talking about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna would say, yes, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why not, how would we explain it?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we discussed that earlier, it's the same reality, whether one approaches water or the iceberg.
[SPEAKER_00]: The iceberg is the same water.
[SPEAKER_00]: It apparently seems different.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is I am infinite existence consciousness, a fourth stage mentioned here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other one is I had a vision of Kali, I had a vision of Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: a classical adwaiting, what would be the reply of someone that got a part of them so they will say did you have a vision did you see yes then it's not relevant if you saw it it's not relevant it's an object of your experience you have to realize that you are Bramman
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas cinema Krishna would say you saw because it's like the iceberg which has a name and a form which can take a form but the reality which you have touched with the reality which you have accessed is the same reality and so it will have the same efficacy you will get realization you will get freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the difference.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, but yours is the path of devotion.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says to the Brahma devotees, that is a very good and easy path.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next part, I had read, but I quickly read through, a man asked Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sir, can you teach me quickly the thing you call samadhi, softer hearing all this fixed stage, six days, seven stage, oh, so these are differences in samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you quickly teach me that?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've attended the Vedanta courses.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm Brahman.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you say that samadhi, all right, turn it also, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Teach me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me have samadhi very quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all the births start laughing, then we talk about the importance of samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a man has attained samadhi, all his actions drop away, all devotional activities such as worship, japa and the light, as well as all worldly activities, duties, seas to exist for such a person.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning, there's much ado about work, so both secular work and also religious rituals and so on.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a man makes progress towards God, the outer display of his work becomes less and less, so much so that he cannot even sing the name and theories of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he gives an example to Shivnanath Shastri was present here, the great drum or leader.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before you came, everybody is talking about Shivnanath, you know how great he is, how wonderful he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that you have come, everybody is happy in your company and they are not talking about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here is talking about the absorption, the importance of being absorbed in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: not just rituals or even attending classes or even talking about God or reading books, chanting, the outer forms of religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: But actually God becomes real, you feel the presence of God, you stay with that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing more high, nothing more ennobling, nothing more satisfying than that.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you have that, you don't want anything else.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it is in the Ghani's, but I am that one existence consciousness to this, or the Bhaktas, my beloved Lord, I'm in the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he gave in his own example.
[SPEAKER_00]: After retaining Samadhi I once went to the Ganges to perform Thurp and the ritual offering.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as he took a water in the palm of my hand, it trickled down through my fingers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Weeping, I said to Haldadari, cousin, what is this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Haldadari replied, it is Ghalita has signed the holy books after the vision of God, such duties as the performance of Tharpun, drop of his all ritualism drops away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only ritualism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And true in every religion.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is, I just just reminded of the greatest of Christian Theologians, Thomas Akinas, St. Thomas Akinas, who wrote the Sumat Theology, I think, so one of the source books of Christian Theology, one of the greatest scholars in Christian Theological History.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the book is incomplete.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really touching example is, you know what kind of a man he was, one little story about him in the early days of his life as a monk when he became a monk and at the end of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was a big man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was like slow and heavy like an ox.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his other young novices, like in our monastery of Brahmachari, so they had the Christian novices.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Thomas Aquinas, his friends, the other monastic novices, used to tease him and make fun of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was so simple that whatever people said he would believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's too Ramakrishna always said, in the last like you become simple, simple city.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's the story with the same Thomas Aquinas when he was this young monastic novice,
[SPEAKER_00]: He was slow and very simple, and all the other young monks used to make fun of him, and they thought he was very stupid, you know, anything you say he will believe.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, one day, in the class, on purpose, they're playing a prank on him.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other young monks gathered near a window and said, look, that bull is flying.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Thomas ran to the window to take a look.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was leaning out and everybody burst into laughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they shouted in joy and delight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, they're teasing him, ridiculing him.
[SPEAKER_00]: What a fool you are to believe that a bull could fly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Thomas again has turned around and he said, whether it's, I know that bulls cannot fly.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I can't believe that monks would tell lies.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's turned them into silence that you're amongst.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is even more unbelievable to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So like that, now this Thomas Aquinas is the greatest terologian of the Catholic Church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the end of his life, the masterpiece, even now, so much terologica is masterpiece.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even now, terologians, all us up, you've studied that, you're a master of Christian terologic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, that book is not complete.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people asked him at the end of his life, won't you finish it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot.
[SPEAKER_00]: The presence of God is so overwhelming.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what I've written there is like straw.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's of no interest to me anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: All the arguments and such, you know, exactly like Sri Lanka is my same work.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swami, look at Sharananda, I heard this from a young monk, my friend, who served Swami, look at Sharananda, the end of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was his wonderful Swami.
[SPEAKER_00]: disciple of Swami Shivananda.
[SPEAKER_00]: He established our the huge Ashram at Narendrapur, Ramakrishna Narendrapur.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the head of our Institute of Culture, Gold Park, we took it to really glorious heights.
[SPEAKER_00]: So wonderful, very many stories are there, especially of his sweetness, his calmness.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here is one more story, two stories then.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is Swami Lukas Ranjji, he was in the Institute of Culture, which is our biggest cultural institute in Calcutta and there he is sitting in his office and you know there was a delegation from Russia or somewhere Eastern Europe visiting him and there he was having tea with them, very distinguished gathering and somewhere from nowhere a little by burst into the office.
[SPEAKER_00]: And instead being perturbed, Swami called him, come, come here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the boy came close and started saying, I went to Beldoer, Matt.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as if Swami Locke Shwanty does not know what Beldoer is, oh, did you go to Beldoer, Matt?
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it entirely forgot in the delegation who are aspiring and sipping tea and watching him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you go to Beldoer, Matt?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's completely unknown, but.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, did you go to Belorumat?
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you see there?
[SPEAKER_00]: As if he doesn't know what Belorumat is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the boy described with joy, what he had seen with temple and the monks and the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Swami said, that's wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, here are some books.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take some.
[SPEAKER_00]: The boy was shy, but he forced him to take a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then said, come again and visit us.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the boy left with delight.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only after he grew up, he realized what a big thing that was, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: He thought it's very natural like I've gone to meet my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just walked into a room and I met a Swami.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he gave me a book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So only after he grew up, he understood that it's not a small thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody else would have yelled, you know, who let the kid in, who, aren't you, you know, there is, there is holes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can say this because I was the boy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was a little kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know that from personal experience, what he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got into that office because I think it was too small for them to stop me.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't notice me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just sort of was walking around.
[SPEAKER_00]: They even noticed the kid was walking around in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: By mistake I saw it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went into the office anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Towards the end of his life he passed in 1999.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a young monk who was my friend, used to serve him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is an extraordinary administrator who ran this very big institute, but very difficult times in the, under the communist rule in Bengal at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, more and more he was absorbed at the end of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he said to this young monk who told me, he said, you know, towards the end of his life and we would talk about this is happening in the institute that needs attention, this has to be dealt with.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would sit quietly, the Swami would sit quietly,
[SPEAKER_00]: And once he said, with a change of sadness, you know my boy, I'm trying to give my mind to such things, which no longer possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: It runs to Sri Lama Krishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's more and more absorbed in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't bring my mind down to such things anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said,
[SPEAKER_00]: Another Swami, I had seen, I've mentioned this earlier, so many stories are coming, I'm another Swami had seen Lalu Damahara, he was disciple of Swami Vigganan and she was paralyzed, when I saw him, he was paralyzed in both legs, paralyzed in one arm and blind in both eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a more joyful person, I have not still seen till today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And joyful, vigorous, if you go to him, I never, I stayed with him for more than a month in the hospital.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never heard this man completely and even once about his physical state.
[SPEAKER_00]: You interact with him either he's going to scold you or he's going to encourage you in spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd have to tell him who you were because he couldn't see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm so I've come from such a shashnam or I'm a devotee associated with this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd encourage you, you'd ask you about your spiritual life, you'd ask about how the shashnam is doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you send them all my blessings, my prayers for their welfare.
[SPEAKER_00]: very vigorous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now at the end of his life, what happened was, I remember, I was a young brahmacharya at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened was, he had been given a rosary, a malamant japa malam, which he, which the boy who worked took care of him in the ashram.
[SPEAKER_00]: he would clean the room and he would give put flowers and the pictures of Sri Ramakrishna and Mahshara then swamiraka and in which of course the Swami couldn't see because he was blind and then there would be the rosary in front of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The boy would take the rosary and give it to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would be lying down and he would keep the rosary on his chest and repeat the mantra.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the main thing is he would just lift it up and the boy would take it and put it back in front of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened was the new bike came to work and he didn't know this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when he threw out the flowers in front of the pictures, he threw the rosary out also into the, and the flowers are thrown into the Ganga.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the rosary went into the Ganga.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, hearing up this disaster and that rosary had been given by Swami Viggarna and this is his guru, the disciple of Sri Ramakrishna.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, one of our masters Archaadyas, who is to teach us youngsters in the training center.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was rushing there and he told me this is what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I know this Swami, can I go with you?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I have been went with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: and this Swami might teacher, you've been down before this blind old Swami and said, Swami, I am Swami just down in the, I have come from the training center and I heard what has happened, please don't worry.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will get a new Rosary and we will give it to President, the President of the Order, President Maharaj, I think, Roswami Ranganathan and the Jadda.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he will do japa on that and we will get that Rosary and give it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't worry, I'll get it done immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you'll have a new rosary.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the Swami said, I still remember, it's task is done, let it go.
[SPEAKER_00]: The voice is so clear, I mean, it gives me goosebumps.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's task is done, let it go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you can, you do get somebody to read from the Upanishads and the data.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, let somebody come and sit near and reach from the open nations in the Gita, and the Swami was so overcome my teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, certainly, I will come, I will come and sit with you every day and reach from the open nations in the Gita.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, see, this absorption, even the ritual of doing a japa.
[SPEAKER_00]: which we think of a very advanced spiritual practice of the mantra and the rosary given by my own guru, he says, that's gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's time to go for that to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna says slowly all these ritualistic practices, they will all drop up even the name of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the Kirtan, the devotee first sings, Nithai Yama, Mata, Hati, footnote.
[SPEAKER_00]: My Nithai dance is like a mad elephant.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the devotional mood deepens, he's simply sings, Hati, Hati.
[SPEAKER_00]: Next, all he can sing is, Hati.
[SPEAKER_00]: And last of all, he's simply sings, how and goes into Samathi.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man who has been singing all the while, then becomes speechless.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, at a feast,
[SPEAKER_00]: given to the Brahmins, one at first years, much noise of talking when the guests sit on the floor with leaf plates in front of them, much of the noise ceases.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then one only hears the cry, bring some luchy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you should see some of these feasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is exactly like he has described.
[SPEAKER_00]: As they partake of the luchy and other dishes, three quarters of the noise subsides.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the curd, the last course appears.
[SPEAKER_00]: One only hears the sound soup, soup, as the curds, guests eat the curd with their fingers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then there's practically no noise.
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, afterwards, all retired to sleep, an absolute siren strains, unless somebody snores.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this absolute silence is the complete absorption in Brahman and Niri Kalpa Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the meaning of all these examples?
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, now, therefore I say, at the beginning of religious life, a man makes much ado about work.
[SPEAKER_00]: What means two things?
[SPEAKER_00]: My external activities.
[SPEAKER_00]: job, family, all of that, but also a religious person will have many religious activities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I fast, I go on pilgrimages, I chant this mantra, I do that, Pooja, I repeat, I do japa of this mantra, all of this, it begins to diminish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that it diminishes and one becomes back to worldly life, not at all, that's ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: I met one young man in the Himalayas, he was sitting under a tree, he had come from America, so that from here, from in fact New York, he's to work in Wall Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's sitting under a tree and reading the Ashtava Kregita, so because I like that, I started talking to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I was a young monk at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a young man said to me, I'm worried.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, why are you worried?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I took a break for two months from my investment bank in the Wall Street.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have not yet become enlightened.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two months are nearly over.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to go back and join.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said, I don't think it really works that way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, you're making progress, slowly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take it, slow.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he immediately quoted Sri Ramakrishna to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna did not like this attitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of you know slowly it will happen slowly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It must happen now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Sri Ramakrishna never said that it must happen now and then you go back to your day job as a Wall Street trader.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may, but that should not be your concern.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ramakrishna says, all work drops away.
[SPEAKER_00]: not only certainly worldly work, and also spiritual work.
[SPEAKER_00]: As the mind dives deeper into God, he becomes less active.
[SPEAKER_00]: Last of all comes the renunciation of work, followed by Samathi.
[SPEAKER_00]: two examples which Ram Krishna gives at other places, one is a wound in a hand if you have a wound.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't scratch it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a scape which develops on it and slowly it drops away by itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because catch it, it's not breathing again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, work, duties in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: You withdraw a little bit and because absorbed in God, you will see over time over the years, your activities and engagements with the world will reduce slowly.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the natural way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: it'll happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't try to forcefully give it to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't try to forcefully, I will not talk to people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't, you know, do my job, I'll sit in the room and shut the door.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like scarsing the wound, it'll start bleeding again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bleeding again means you will not make progress in spiritual life.
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll just, you're forcing the mind along in a pace which is not, it's not meant to.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yes, of course, withdrawal is important, but don't cut off, let some activity, some structure remain in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was talking to senior doctors and they're saying that it's time for me to stop all this and I said don't stop immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're doing good work, so it's how benefit to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then some of them are saying that there are studies to show that immediately after retirement, people say, now I can relax, work so hard.
[SPEAKER_00]: And within two years, three years, they die.
[SPEAKER_00]: People die literally.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because of lack of meaning, lack of purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens is very interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I don't have all that pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I can relax and stay back.
[SPEAKER_00]: I won't do anything, I just enjoy life.
[SPEAKER_00]: True, but strangely enough, health starts failing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This kind of disease, that kind of problem will start coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's better to have some kind of structure, some kind of engagement, both family and job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, reduce it so that you make time and space for spiritual practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second example he gave, one was the wound and the scab.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't scratch.
[SPEAKER_00]: The second example he gave was the pregnant woman.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the bride, and when she is expecting a child, we have to think of her joint family.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the mother in law, who generally rules the house, so she reduces the work of the expecting mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then finally, when the child is born, there's no other work for the mother of the new one, except to take care of the new one.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now who is this expected mother and who is the mother of the new born?
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the advanced spiritual practitioner.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like you're pregnant with God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So slowly God will reduce your external engagements and external troubles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then once realization
[SPEAKER_00]: unless God wants you to be a teacher, which afterwards then, again, the world will come back to you or you will go back to the world and that also God will direct you so that you can help others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Generally, the body doesn't remain alive after the attainment of Samadhi.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only exceptions are such stages as Narada who keep their bodies alive in order to shed spiritual brings spiritual life to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is also true of divine incarnations like Caitanya.
[SPEAKER_00]: after the well is dug, one generally throws away the spade and the basket, but sub keep them in order to help the neighbors, the great souls who retain their bodies after Samadhi, feel compassion for the suffering of others.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are not so selfish as to be satisfied with their own elimination.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are well aware of the nature of selfish people.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you
[SPEAKER_00]: If you ask them to bring a sweet meat, what the scent from the store, they will perhaps lick it on the way back, all life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you don't ask them to bring sweet meat, but now there is Uber eats.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you have to be careful, the Uber eats diver should not eat your french fries or things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see the comments sometime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill says, what is the difference between what Sri Ramakrishna or Jesus to say not I, but Dau and that Dau are he has these are two approaches.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is to reduce the I to almost insignificant and catch hold of the Dau.
[SPEAKER_00]: God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I am not important here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I focus is on God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reverse is, expand the eye till it encompasses God.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same God, but I am that now.
[SPEAKER_00]: In both cases, notice one thing is transcended.
[SPEAKER_00]: The small eye, I told you, somebody asked me, this professor, Chris Chaffel once, he asked me in L.A. Newell, Laila Merey Mountain University in Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this path of Vedanta, won't it lead to Narcissism that you are involved with yourself?
[SPEAKER_00]: Narcissism is the involvement with the small eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: My issues, my desires, my lack of fulfillment, my problems.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is immediately translated in both.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're concerned with God, it should be God and only God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you expand the eye so that I am this infinite existence consciousness, please.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the little eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: you are free of the little.
[SPEAKER_00]: That infinite existence consciousness place, you cannot be narcissistic about that because that's not you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not the individual being.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is that one reality which appears as all these individual things.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is as much in you, the you are at must that as anybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: That can't be narcissistic.
[SPEAKER_00]: Girish, of course, you know, I think he mentioned Swami Vivekananda and
[SPEAKER_00]: I would not Mahasha, the saint Nag Mahasha is two examples.
[SPEAKER_00]: One is completely doubt-centered, that is the saint Nag Mahasha is a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna from Deobhogan, what is in Bangladesh now?
[SPEAKER_00]: his life is most inspiring is a householder entirely devoted to God and entirely complete self abnegation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm very kind of the greatest devotion, greatest respect for Nag Mahasha.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody had.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Mother had special affection for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This Nag Mahasha.
[SPEAKER_00]: His soul humble is unthinkable.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just reading his life is an inspiration.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Swami Vivekananda, Grishko said, So one made Himself so small, long, much a made Himself so small, He escaped through the nets of net of Maya, it to a two small to be caught.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when Vivekananda became bigger and bigger and bigger, till the net of Maya couldn't cover him.
[SPEAKER_00]: So these two, one is, Dawat all, Daw, not I.
[SPEAKER_00]: The other one is, I am that.
[SPEAKER_00]: In either case, we are stuck because we are exactly the size for which the net has been designed.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we get caught immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: The net has been designed to catch fish like us, because we identified with the medium-sized eye, not the tiny disappearing or not the past.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, holy mother, Masha Rada, she had extraordinary reverence for her, and she had great affection for him.
[SPEAKER_00]: She knew his calibre.
[SPEAKER_00]: So for example, if she gave anything to him to eat, she would give instructions to the attendance that after leaf plate is there, we give food, mother has given.
[SPEAKER_00]: So after he eats snatch away the plate because he'll eat up the plate too because the mother has given it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He won't let that go either.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once the whole mother gave him a dirty cloth to wear, obviously he wouldn't wear it because the mother has given.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he tied his turban on his head and sat there in deep meditation.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many stories of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: His humility, his self-abnegation.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Bangladesh is a country of rivers, huge rivers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's boats and rivers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the boatmen wouldn't let him on their boats.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he couldn't bear anybody taking any trouble in his presence.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he wouldn't let the boatmen row.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would jump and snatch their oath and start rowing himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that they wouldn't be put in any trouble.
[SPEAKER_00]: So obviously, the boatmen wouldn't have any of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: people couldn't, you know, he carried a big burden in front of him, he would be so touched, he would snatch it up and try to carry it for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once, two monks went to visit him, they had been told, go and see what a real sonyasi should be like, and go to see, and whom do you see it from?
[SPEAKER_00]: You see it from Nagmasha.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, they went to visit him, Nagmasha was beside himself with joy.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gave up, he and his wife both were so devoted, they gave up their best rooms, so the monks could rest, and all day was spent in, you know, finding the best food which
[SPEAKER_00]: there was one story of I think I don't know this one or somewhere it was raining and wet and the kindling wooden light and he was ready to cut the wooden pillars of his house so that he would burn it a food for the guests of course he was prevented from doing so.
[SPEAKER_00]: The monks were so overwhelmed and embarrassed by his service of the saintly man, they decided to escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he wouldn't let them escape.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wanted them to stay more and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So finally they forced him that we have to go back.
[SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't bear it anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: All this didn't want to take the service of the saintly man.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they went to the railway station and the train was packed as only trains in India can be.
[SPEAKER_00]: The train was packed and there was no place for the monks to sit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And not much, he stood and wept so bitterly, the people around the passengers were alarmed, they didn't know who he was, but he wept so bitterly, he says, it is, look, I'm so wretched that the holy ones have visited me and they don't get a place to sit in the train.
[SPEAKER_00]: In alarm, the passengers got up and made the monk sit because otherwise he wouldn't stop crying.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was like that, not I, but everything was God and God, entirely absorbed in God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiran says, when one is detached to the eye of the ego, he or she is stage three, no, actual detachment is stage four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Up to stage three is Sazana.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your Sravarana Manana, Nidhidhya Sain is going on, a strict moral life, devotional practices, detachment, especially again and again, you have detachment from the world, viral dispassion from the world, all that is going on in stage three.
[SPEAKER_00]: So detachment from the eye is the real detachment from the eye becomes stage four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because till then the eye is eye and this is no separation between me and the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: Separation between me and the ego is clear in stage four.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stage four is enlightenment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the breakthrough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is the realization I am permanent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then you can say Manobudhyan Karachitani Naam, mind, intellect, memory, and ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not the ego.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then only honestly one can claim, Chida Ananda Rupa, Hashiboham, I am of the nature of consciousness and bliss.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am Shiva.
[SPEAKER_00]: What stage is Sahaja Samadhi?
[SPEAKER_00]: That is a difficult thing because it's not mentioned here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a higher stage.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Sahaja Samadhi is something that is a Ramadam Harsh state.
[SPEAKER_00]: Saddam Krishna mentions two kinds of people who come back after Turya, the Turya.
[SPEAKER_00]: The one kind is the, these are great sages by the will of God, they come back to teach.
[SPEAKER_00]: He mentions now rather, an example of today's age, I think, I think personally, would be Ramana Mashi.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he mentions incarnations.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can come back because it's their mission and it's all under their control.
[SPEAKER_00]: Incarnation would be someone like Sri Ramakrishna or Mashiara.
[SPEAKER_00]: So having attained the highest, they come back.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ramya says the book that was read from was a commentary by Sri Chandrashekar Maharithi Swamiji.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, this is the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the thing is this is the English book published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it has the verse meaning of the Sanskrit and an English translation of the Sanskrit commentary by Chandrashekar Maharithi.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the Sanskrit commentary is not here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in only the English translation is here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got the Sanskrit committee is available.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got printed separately.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I can show you actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I read it together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is the book, the original in Sanskrit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you see this book,
[SPEAKER_00]: So it has diverses with the Sanskrit commentary.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Sanskrit commentary is by Chandrashekhar and Chandrashekhar Bharati, who was the great stankaracharya of this century, Laulia century in Shringeri, which is one of the four peaches, the monasteries established by Adishankaracharya.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Sanskrit original.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's also another interesting thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the shaker of Bharati was, he's regarded as a Jeevan Mukta in his life and very highly recorded and towards the end of the book, this book is incomplete.
[SPEAKER_00]: He completely lost interest, and he became completely absorbed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He would spend a long time in Samadhi, and he would not come out of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And see, it's the last verses.
[SPEAKER_00]: He usually see there are only the verses.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are no commentaries in the last few chapters.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the English book, you will find those verses with translations, but no commentary, because he lost interest in writing commentary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rodrigo says in the sword on an explanation how a bhaktag it's free.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, then sword all loses individual identity, then it's under the creationization.
[SPEAKER_00]: Rick Archer says, total kachari was also thought to be slow and simple yet in enlightened by washing the laundry down, whether you were right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned it in the talk on Shankaracharya this time with the other disciples, especially the brilliant ones like Padma Pada, there were dismissive of him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This total charge area's name was Giri, and the dismissive of him that he doesn't understand anything anyway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's start the class that he's just doing laundry.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Shankaracharya saw their arrogance, and by his grace, this young man became enlightened, and he came back with a beautiful,
[SPEAKER_00]: chant that showing that one must have devotion to the feet of the Guru.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may be learned that you may know all the scriptures, you may be famous, but so what?
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have no devotion, lotus feet of the Guru, you have not got anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Long shanti shanti hari hiyom tatsak shri Ramakrishna Rupana Mastu.