Transcription
Now, what I'm going to do now is start with the world, this world as we know it. This solid real world as we know it, and then reduce it to pure consciousness. Magic trick, huh? In seven steps, in seven steps. And this seven steps is like a tour of Indian philosophy, like 3,000 or 4,000 years of Indian philosophy. But seven steps, sweeping tour of Indian philosophy, starting with the world as it is and then ending up with pure consciousness. Which pure consciousness, which you discovered yesterday and the day before yesterday. The seer of everything. And for this, of course, I take no credit. I don't take credit for almost anything that I say, except the jokes. And some of those jokes, at least this what I'm going to say now, the seven-step thing, um, it was, uh, I heard it from the present Shankaracharya of Puri, His Holiness Nishalananda Saraswati. He just mentioned it casually in a speech in one sentence. So I'm expanding on that one sentence. To really expand on in one sentence would be a full course on Indian philosophy. All right.
So, seven stages. Start here. End up with pure consciousness. I'll give the Sanskrit words he used and then translate and explain. He says, first, step one, jagat. Jagat means world. This world, I, and this world. Step one.
Step two. This jagat, this world, is nothing but the play of five elements. You know the old cosmology of space and air and fire and water and earth. It's something. It's not just Vedanta. I think most ancient civilizations shared it. So, five elements. This is this universe which we are experiencing, and this body, they all, and the mind also, in in in Sankhya cosmology, is made of five elements. In modern terms, this universe, it's something that no physicist would object to. What he's saying is this universe is a play of matter and energy. Play of matter and energy. A play of five elements. Play of five elements. An expansion of five elements. In fact, the the name for the world, the name for the universe in Sanskrit and in many Indian languages is prapancha. Is prapancha. Prapancha means, pancha means five. Prapancha means the five in detail. The five in expansion. The universe is an expansion of the five elements. Prop in Hindi, a number of Indian, most Indian languages, we have the word propunch. It often means the world. It often means life. It often means samsara. It means it also means all the problems of samsara. Problems of life.
Funny story. In the Himalayas and and, uh, there are places which are so cold that except a few monks, nobody stays there in winter. Remember, there's no heating there. So in those places, when it comes time to shut down everything, the temples and the monasteries, the few hermits who will stay back in winter, they are given provisions, something that will see them through winter. Basic of rice and dal, and nowadays they give kerosene and a stove. Earlier they used to give, you know, some amount of oil and firewood and stuff like that. So this monk and was given these monks were given, um, a brick of jaggery. Good. Is that the correct word? Jaggery. A brick of jaggery to last them for six months. Each one got a brick of jaggery with other things. And so happily they came back to their cs and their cottages to prepare for winter. And this monk comes back with his stuff and including the brick of jaggery, and he thinks, um, this is nice. Let me, in Hindi and English, it's Hindi and Sanskrit, Hindi actually, not Sanskrit, it's called guru. Good. Um, let me taste a little bit of it. So he opens the package and he breaks it a little bit and tastes it. Oh, nice. Then he packs it up, ties it, and you have to, um, uh, tie it to the ceiling because otherwise the mice will get at it. True story. I remember when I was in the mountains and in in the cottage like that. Uh, every day I had a tug of war with a mouse over my soap. I don't know why mice like soap. I had a piece of soap which I kept near the washroom which was outside the cottage. Um, it was very basic. Now, every day I would find the soap is gone, and I knew where it was. There was a mouse who would drag the soap to its hole, and it, the soap was too big to drag into its hole. So it would get stuck at the at the hole, and the little mouse's teeth marks on that, and I would go and snatch the soap back, and you could see its beady little eyes glaring at me from the hole, and next day the soap would be gone again. So he, uh, ties the thing and, uh, you know, suspends it from the ceiling and goes to sleep. He blows out the, um, the lamp and goes to sleep, and then he feels maybe a little bite would be nice. So he gets up and lights the lamp, and then he unties it and unpacks it and takes a couple more bites, and it's very nice, and he ties it up and suspends from the ceiling, then blows out the lamp and goes back into, goes back to sleep. A little later, just a little more maybe. Anyway, next day in the morning, his friend comes and he sees there's no jaggery, and he says, "What happened to the good? What happened to the jaggery? The whole brick of it." And then he says this, his friend, the monk said this works best in in Hindi. I'll tell you in Hindi and translate. Oh, prapancha, I erase the universe. Prop means that one made of five elements. I, I wiped it out. Now, it's not a joke that would, it's a very monkish kind of joke because remember, the whole project of the monks is they're trying to go escape or get liberated from the prapancha. From so, what is this prapancha? It's pancha vasa, the play of five elements. That's stage two. But what are these five elements? And those who know Vedanta, you know, they have all been produced, projected, what we said, by maya, by the projecting power of maya. So it's the play of maya. Maya, but maya is just the power of consciousness. Your consciousness. Maya is just the power of consciousness. If it's the play of maya, that must be the play of consciousness. So the fourth stage is chidasa. It is the play of consciousness. Chidasa, Sanskrit word. But what is the play of consciousness? Does consciousness play? And it's just a way of speaking. Look at our own consciousness. Is it playing? Is it running around kicking a ball in a soccer field? No. Football field. Sorry, this is American influence. We all Indians also call it football. But if you stay in America, slowly you begin to change. Uh, in a football field, is is consciousness running around? No, no, no. Consciousness doesn't play. Consciousness doesn't do anything. It just shines. Just look, just check, you know, nose. Check into the consciousness. Is it playing? No. It's just aware. So it's not a play of consciousness. That's not logically correct. It is called chida. It is an appearance in consciousness. An appearance in consciousness. Think about it. All our life can be described in this phrase, appearance in consciousness. Whatever has happened to you in life, whatever is happening now, whatever can happen possibly in the future, all of it would be only appearance in consciousness. True or not? You don't even have to be a Vedantin to say yes to that. Anybody has to say yes to that. That's what life is. Appearances in consciousness. So the universe, the world, is an appearance in consciousness. In Sanskrit, chida. Slight twist of the words, appearance in consciousness. Refine a little bit. Appearance of consciousness. And then that which appears in something else must be pervaded by the something else. So the sixth stage is chinmaya, pervaded by consciousness. If it is appearing in consciousness, it must be pervaded by consciousness. If the objects in the dream, the places and people in the dream are appearing in you, the dreaming mind, then it must be pervaded by the dreaming mind. There itself, the dreaming mind must be there. So the universe is pervaded by consciousness. Sanskrit word, chinmaya. But what kind of pervasion? The two kinds of pervasion. One is the tent was dark. We switched on the light, and the light has now pervaded the tent. But the tent existed without the light. Or the shrine was there, and then you lit a candle. Lit an incense stick. Lit an incense stick, and the smell of the fragrance of incense pervades the shrine. Well, the shrine was there, and the the fragrance came and pervaded it. Is it like that? Is there a universe, and consciousness comes and sort of like incense pervades the universe? No. No. No. Not like that. Then like what? Like water pervades the wave. Like clay pervades the clay pot. When I say clay pervades the clay pot, what I simply mean is the clay pot is nothing but clay. It's clay on the top. It's clay on the bottom. It's clay on the inside. It's clay on the outside. It's clay through and through. This universe pervaded by consciousness. It's not like consciousness spreading around the universe. It's consciousness through and through. The Sanskrit word for that is chinmatra. Consciousness only. Chinmatra. Consciousness only. Magic. We started with the universe. Here we are. Consciousness only.
Let me repeat the seven stages. Seven stage reduction. Sanskrit word, jagat. English translation, world. Second stage, panchabhilasa, play of five elements. Third, maya, play of maya. Fourth, chidasa, play of consciousness. Fifth, chida, appearance of consciousness. Consciousness appears as the world. Sixth, chinmaya, pervaded by consciousness. Seventh, chinmatra, consciousness only.
Use the dream example to understand the seven-stage reduction. So in the dream, we will think that we don't know it's we are dreaming, and we think it's a real world. There are real people, and there's a real carpet, and there are real trees and sky and earth out there. So somebody comes and teaches us dream Vedanta. In the dream, a master comes and teaches us and says, in seven stages, I'm going to show you everything here is nothing but you. How well, let's start. Here is the world, jagat. But what, what world? Dream world. Second, this dream world is made of five elements. Okay. Third, but these five elements are are the part of the projection of the dreaming mind. But the projecting power of the dreaming mind is not separate from the dreamer. Fourth stage, play of the dreamer. Play of the dreaming mind. Play of the dreamer. But the dreamer doesn't, uh, play. The dreamer just dreams. Dreamer just, you know, the dream appears in the dreamer. Sixth stage, whatever is dreamt is pervaded by you, the dreamer. You're there everywhere in this. Seventh stage, it's not that there is a dream world and then you go around the world and pervade, be sticky in in that world. No, it is just you, the dreamer, while still dreaming. So that's what this thing is, that you, the witness consciousness, you are the world you experience. Thanks to the projecting power of maya, we don't know it. Thanks to or no thanks to the veiling power of maya, this is Atman is Brahman. >> Become Swami Vivekananda's messenger. Share the video with three of your friends. Thanks. [Music] [Music]