Transcription
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] om s s [Music] shant sh shant om om
May the Lord protect us all. May the Lord nourish us with the benefits of Enlightenment. May the Lord enable us to achieve great spiritual Heights together. May the Lord illumin our study; that which we study today, let it be luminous in Our Lives. May there be no disharmony amongst us. om peace peace peace. Let's just chant the verses we have done so far. ru [Music] [Music] Sak [Music] [Music] n n and [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] sh [Music] [Music] [Music] no [Music] [Music] [Music] vant tells us that there is one nondual Consciousness, existence, Bliss, sat chit Anand. That is the only reality; the world of plurality that we experience is merely an appearance, and we indiv individual beings, human beings, we are in essence, in reality, none other than that nonu existence, Consciousness, place. The famous Sanskrit dictum: Brahma sat jagat BR Brahman alone is real, the world is an appearance, and J we we are none other than Brahman, the existence Consciousness BL, the nonuel reality.
Now, the the problem is that we do not experience reality in this way. Brahman is something theoretical for us; we are not exactly sure what it is. And not only do we not experience ourselves as existence Consciousness Bliss, rather we experience ourselves ourselves as limited beings, are these bodies of Flesh and Blood. We experience ourselves as Body Mind complexes; that's what we see ourselves as. So vanta, in order to take us to the goal, to make us realize that we are Brahman, has to show us that we are not bodies and Minds. It has to show us first; it has to demonstrate Beyond any doubt that we are not these bodies and Minds which we take to be, take ourselves to be, without any any doubt at all. Vant has to create, vant has to create a doubt in our minds: Are we really this body, really this mind? How does vant do that? There are many ways; the way adopted in this text, what we have been seeing in the past two classes, the way is this: In all our experience, whatever we experience, there is a subject and an object; there is an experiencer and there is the experienced; there is a Seer and a seen. When I look at at this microphone, the microphone is the object of my experience; I am the subject, I am the experiencer; the microphone is the experienced. I Am The Seer, and the microphone is the seen. And the subject and the object are different; they are different entities. The experiencer and the experienced are different entities. The Seer and the seen are always different different entities. And vant takes advantage of this fact; it takes advantage of the fact that two things: First of all, all our experience is subject and object, sear and seen, and the Seer and the scene are always different, number one. Number two: We always are the Seer in any experience; we always know who are we, the subject of the experience, the experiencer, The Seer.
Now, holding on to these two facts, this text has taken us on a journey. It says: Look at, look at the world with your eyes; look at the world, the things that you see are the objects of your vision; your eyes are the subject; the eyes are different from what they see; the Seer and the seen are different. Go deeper; the eyes themselves are the object of our experience. My Eyes Are Open, closed, or whatever. When the eyes become the object of my experience, I am the experiencer of my eyes; experiencer of my eyes means I know the condition of my eyes; I know whether they are open, whether they're closed, whether I can see, whether I cannot see; all these things I know. What knows the mind? The mind is the experiencer, and the sense organs, the eyes and ears and nose and so on so forth, are the experienced, and the mind is different from the sense organs. So I must be the Mind experiencing my own sensory system. Go deeper; the contents of our minds, thoughts, emotions, perceptions, ideas, memories, even the vant that we are reading, they're contents of our minds, and we are aware of these contents; are we not aware that we are happy or we are sad, that we understand or do not understand, as the case may be, but we feel it. So there is something within which is the subject, for which the mind itself is an object. So mind becomes an object, the scene, and there's a subject, the witness of the mind, which is the ultimate subject according to vant, Pure Consciousness, the witness Consciousness deep within us; that is what we really are, watching our minds with our minds. We experience our bodies and sense organs with our bodies and sense organs; we experience the world. We means that witness consciousness. This is the story so far. This is the story so far.
Now, several questions will arise. You see, it's fine to logically divide ourselves into pure Consciousness, the witness Consciousness, and everything else, Minds, sense organs, body and the world on one side, and the witness Consciousness on the other side. We are the witness Consciousness, and everything else we witness; they are seen, and we are the Seer. But if you think about it, you will immediately say: Wait a, wait a moment. You'll immediately say that there is a difference between the way we experience this book, for example, or the microphone, and the way we experience our bodies. You see, the first practical objection should be: It is true that the microphone or or that that device is different from me, and my body is not different in that way, because I feel my body; my body is part of my identity. I never say I am a book or I am an electronic device. I can say it is my book, it is his electronic device, but I do not say I am these, but I say not only that it is my body, but I often say I am the body. I am tall or thin, male or female, young or old; these are characteristics of the body. So I identify with my body, which I do not with objects outside. And more precisely, why do we identify ourselves with our bodies? Because there is consciousness in the body; we are aware; we can touch our bodies; I feel the touch; I feel cold; I feel heat; you pinch me, I feel pain. In one of the texts written by Shankar aara, when he's talking about this discrimination between the body and the and the witness Consciousness, the student says: But sir, it hurts; even after all this analysis, the body is an object; it still hurts. So why is it, if I am the witness Consciousness, why is it that I feel Consciousness in the body? Not only that, my sense organs are bright with Consciousness; I see; it's a conscious experience; it's not just a witness; I'm actually seeing; I hear; it can touch me; I feel it in the mind; I think; I I have emotions; I have ideas; these are all conscious experiences, and there's Consciousness here. So how does Consciousness come to the body from the witness Consciousness? How does Consciousness come to the body? How is it that the body feels conscious? So this is the question, and that we shall take up in the next verse. These are subtle questions; if the question is clear in our mind, the answer will be, it will be thrilling to read the answer, and we can check with facts; isn't it true what they are saying? It's true; let's see what do they say. bu [Music] okay, let's talk about this, and I'll come back to the Sanskrit.
In Indian philosophy, there is a distinction between the self, the subtle body, and the gross body. The gross body is a physical body, the body which is sitting here, the body about which I say it weighs 60 kgs or 100 kgs or whatever; that's the gross body. And thoughts, emotions, feelings, memories, personality, all of that, the subtle thing within, it's called the subtle Body. And Beyond this is the Atman, the self, we ourselves. So the the Indian philosopher, not just vidanta, others two, they have a trious view of the human personality; it's not just body mind; it's body mind self, gross body, subtle body, and the self; gross body, subtle body, and the self; trotus view, three-fold view of the human personality. The word soul in English is ambiguous; when we say soul s o l Soul, we have to make it clear whether we mean the mind or the self. The word soul in English comprises of both the self and the mind; they put together in literature, in philosophy, even in science; it's together, the body and the Soul. When we say Body and Soul, the body is the gross body; the soul, the word Soul actually includes, it can be mean either the subtle body or the self; so you have to make a distinction there. Now, in vant, we say the witness Consciousness is reflected in the subtle body; the witness Consciousness is reflected in the subtle body. Let's try to understand this: Imagine the sun; when the sun shines, light is reflected from all surfaces, from houses, from the rocks, from trees and plants, from cars; everything reflects light. But there are some surfaces like a pool of water or like a shining metal disc, all like a mirror; they not only reflect the sunlight, you will find an image of the Sun, a little Sun formed there, an image of the sun. All surfaces are not able to do that; there are certain clear surfaces which can do that; a polished surface will not only reflect the light, you will find a little sun shining there; a DW drop, you'll find a little sun shining there; um a steel plate, you'll find a little Sun; a glass, a mirror, you'll find a little sun shining there. Exactly like that, the subtle body, our minds have the capacity of uh reflecting the witness Consciousness; the witness Consciousness is reflected in our minds, and it is called the reflected Consciousness. So you have two now: witness Consciousness, reflected Consciousness. The reflected consciousness is a reflection of the Real Witness, the Atman, the pure Consciousness in the mind; nothing very fancy here. Just now we feel conscious; we all, I hope we feel conscious; is vant has a way of switching off Consciousness. If you look inside, we feel we are aware; we are thinking; we feeling; we're trying to understand; we see; we hear; all this is consciousness; and the Consciousness that we feel inside is exactly this reflected Consciousness, the Consciousness, the sensient, the awareness which we feel right now, all of us, is that reflected Consciousness. The mind gets Consciousness from this reflected Consciousness, pure cons or witness Consciousness reflected in the mind or the subtle body; reflected Consciousness, and that reflected Consciousness shines in the mind, and the mind gets consciousness; it borrows Consciousness, and the mind which has borrowed Consciousness illumines, reflects that Consciousness, sense that Consciousness, transmits that Consciousness to our sensory system, and our eyes, our ears, our nose, our skin, they all lights are thrown on, you know, lights come on there one by one; the lights, lights come on. It's just like at night when you look up there, the SC and the Earth are illumined by what, by the Moonlight; we say the Moonlight, but if if you know, we all know the moon doesn't have Life Light of its own; it borrows light from the sun and reflects it back on the earth, and we use that Moonlight to see things at night. And when we were kids in school, we have all read list of luminous bodies; before we go deeper into physics, we read list of luminous bodies in the the sky, sun and moon and stars, but we are making a mistake there, which is explained later on as we grow older; the moon does not belong in the same category as the sun and the stars because the moon does not have light of its own; it borrows sunlight, reflects it on Earth, and it's as good as light because we can use that light to see and do work at night. But we know, even though the Moon is shining for all practical purposes, it is giving us light, but we know Beyond the Horizon we cannot see it, but the sun is shining forth and its light is falling on the moon and comes to the Earth by which we we experience light, Moonlight. Exactly like that, the mind and the sense organs do not have consciousness of their own; vant say it is the witness Consciousness, the sakshi, the witness Consciousness which we arrived at in the last two classes; that witness Consciousness shining on the Mind becomes, comes the reflected Consciousness, and that reflected Consciousness illumines the mind, and the sense organs borrow Consciousness from the mind, and the body now borrows Consciousness from the S sensory system to the point that the sensory system functions. The upanishad says: At I have spread myself up to the tips of my fingernails; I spread myself up to the tips of my fingernails; up to this point I am; we all feel that right now; Beyond this I not; this is me; this is not me. How does that work? Because this body is conscious; where did the body get Consciousness from? Is it does it belong to the body? No, it does not belong to the body. How do you know it does not belong to the body? Because sometimes the body is conscious, and when the body dies or when we are when we fall unconscious, the body loses Consciousness; it does not act as a conscious being anymore. So the body does not have its own Consciousness. You see, there is this concept of intrinsic Consciousness and borrowed Consciousness. What's the difference? Borrowed Consciousness is that which comes and goes; intrinsic Consciousness is that which stays. A very simple example would be: When we cook, the fire is burning, and we put a vessel on the fire, and we put water in the vessel V, and we put vegetables in the water; after some time the vegetables are hot; they get boiled. So the vegetables, the heat of the vegetables, the the heat in the vegetables, does it belong to the vegetables? If it did, it would always be hot. But if you switch off the and when you serve it, put it out there, very soon the vegetables are cold. So the heat did not, does not belong to the vegetables; when they were in the refrigerator they were cold, and then the uh in the pan they are hot; when you serve them out after some time they become cold. So it becomes cold because it's the heat in the vegetables was borrowed; borrowed from what, from the boiling water. Does the water have heat of its own, intrinsic heat? No, because it was cold earlier; now it's boiling, and after some time it'll become cold again; therefore it has borrowed its heat; where has the water borrowed the heat from, from the pan, Which is red hot. Does the can have heat of its own? No, it's borrowed its heat; where has it borrowed its heat from, from the fire. And the fire, where has it borrowed its heat from? It has heat of its own; as long as the fire lasts, it will be hot; it has intrinsic heat; whenever the fire is there, it is hot. Consciousness is borrowed in the body from the sensory system; the nervous system, and the sensory system has borrowed Consciousness from the mind, and the mind has borrowed Consciousness from the reflected Consciousness, and the reflected Consciousness is borrowed from the sakshi, the witness Consciousness, and the witness Consciousness is borrowed from nobody; it is intrinsic Consciousness; it is consciousness itself; it's always, it's always there; it's always Consciousness, whereas the mind and the sensory system lose Consciousness in deep sleep, not conscious, and in death, when the mind, the subtle body goes away to other other worlds, maybe to other births, then the body lies dead; no longer do we say that is me; we don't say that. So uh the body has borrowed Consciousness from the sensory system, the sensory system from the Mind, from the Mind from the reflected Consciousness in the mind, and the reflected Consciousness is borrowed from the the witness Consciousness, the Sak which we are; we lend Consciousness to this, and then then up to the tips of my fingers I say I am conscious; that accounts for the difference between this body and this microphone; though this body is an object of experience, this microphone is also an object of experience; what causes confusion is there is consciousness in the body; that's why we feel I am this body, but the fact is I am not this body.
Now let us look at the verse; we'll see it's very easy to understand. For those of you following the Sanskrit, in the subtle body, in the buddhi, in the subtle body, various terms are used; in the subtle body, chit cha, literally it means the shadow of Consciousness; this is the sixth verse; sixth verse, chit Chaya means literally it means the shadow of Consciousness, or in our terms, reflected Consciousness. Reflected Consciousness shines in the mind, and and hence we get bham knowledge; what knowledge? Every knowledge, all kinds of knowledge are possible; seeing, hearing, thinking, understanding, loving, hating, wanting, meditating, all of that is possible because of the reflected Consciousness in the mind. Now he does something here: The Mind, let us divide it into two parts; now he dividing the Mind itself, the subtle body into two parts; in vant, normally we divide the inner instrument, what is called the antar into four parts: mind, intellect, ego, memory, mana, budhi, ahankar, and if you know the famous h of Shankar, so it starts off with: I'm not the mind, I'm not the intellect, I'm not the ego sense, I am not the memory also. Now these are normally, this is how vant divides the inner thear, but here the author has done something different, and on purpose, we'll very soon see what the author has done. The author says: Look inside; look at the Mind; divide it into two parts; one part, the ey sense, ego; what's that? It's exactly what you're feeling now; what I'm feeling now; the eye; just think: I, I, Ser pran, I am sitting here; I am speaking; the I; that's one part of the Mind; the other part of the Mind, the rest of the Mind, intellect, the Mind itself, memory, Manus, buddhi, and chitt; that's the rest of the mind; and the ego; he isolates the ego from the rest of the mind; that bears repeating what he has done now: Look at the mind; you will find there are many things going on in the mind; there is thinking; there is feeling; there is memory coming up; there is understanding; and there is also something called the eye, an ego sense which comes up all the time: I, I, I. Focus on the eye; leave the rest aside. Why does he do that? You see, that's what's most important to us; who is most important to us? First person: I. Okay, focus on that ey. Now, having isolated that, he goes to the next verse [Music]; it'll be very easy to understand now what he says: The I sense in our mind, the ego sense; remember what else is there in the mind? The reflected Consciousness; the reflected cons Consciousness all the time in the mind; the reflected Consciousness and the eye; they become one. How do they become one? Just like when I look in a mirror, there's a reflected face in the mirror; when I look in a mirror, there's a reflected face in the mirror; and the reflected face and the mirror are one; they become identified; you cannot separate them; whenever there is a mirror, there will be a reflection; so the reflection and the mirror are one; the reflection here is the reflected Consciousness; your face is the original Consciousness; the the witness consciousness; and the mirror is the ey sense; mirror is the ey sense, ahankara; the ahankara, the eye sense, ego, and the reflected Consciousness are one; like the reflection and a mirror, they become one; and the ego catches the reflected Consciousness and transmits it to the rest of the mind, and the mind transmits it to the sensory system, and the sensory system transmits it to the body; he's showing how this body feels conscious. You see, look at the Sanskrit now: Because of the identification with the with the ego, identification of ego and what, don't get confused, ego and the reflected Consciousness, the ego and the reflected Consciousness, because they are identified, they become virtually identical; the ego becomes conscious; just look, look inward; let's look in inside, and we feel I, and it feels like the most conscious thing we have; the most conscious thing we have experienced is my eyess; and that eyess now transmits Consciousness throughout the Mind, through the sensory system, up to the ends of the body; wherever the sensory system is functioning, we will feel Consciousness; that's what it has said. The Oneness of the reflected Consciousness and the ego sense is like what, it uses an ancient example: like a red hot iron ball; a red hot iron ball; imagine an iron ball in a factory, in a blast furnace; when you push it inside, it comes out; it's round; it's heavy, but it's also glowing red, and it's hot. Now there are two things there; what are the two things? It looks like one thing, a red hot round thing, heavy thing, but there are two things there: the heat of that iron ball, that red hot iron ball; the heat does not belong to the ball; heat belongs to fire; the round shape of the of that thing belongs to the iron ball, not to the fire; the glow, the red glow belongs to the fire, not to the iron ball; the weight belongs to the iron ball, not to the fire. So the fire and iron ball are mixed together, becomes one; it just looks like one thing, a shining thing; just like that, the ego is like the iron ball, and the reflected Consciousness is like fire; the reflected Consciousness in the mind is like fire, and the ego is like iron ball; fire is is a good example of Consciousness because it's bright and uh the iron ball is a good example of the ego because it's an insentient, a thought, and the two are identified together, and they shine, and then what happens? Because of identification of with the ey, the ey eye becomes identified with the reflected Consciousness, and the eye is identified with the mind and the body; don't we feel my thoughts, my ideas, my memory, my person; I is identified with the mind and with the mind and the body also; I, this body. So the eye which is already shining with the reflected Consciousness is also identified with the body, and the body gets this reflected Consciousness; the body feels conscious; I am conscious. Okay, e8th verse and Ninth verse, really subtle and very important; he says: Swami, you say every verse is very important; well, it's like that; I can't help it; but it's some extremely subtle and powerful ideas are given here, and I guarantee it, if we get what they are saying, we'll already feel the bounds of Maya loosening. I'll go over this material slowly; what he has done so far: He has isolated the eye; focus on the eye, I, the ego sense, me; focus on it; now what are the other things around it? One is the reflected Consciousness; another one is the actual original winess Consciousness; and the third thing is the body, body, the body; the witnessed Consciousness and the reflected Consciousness; these are the three things around what, around me, I aam I; there is a reflected Consciousness; there is a witness Consciousness, according to vant; and there's the body; I can see that; now what he's going to do is he's going to show us; he's going to ask the question: What is my relationship to the body? What is my relationship to the reflected Consciousness? And what is my this eye, what is its relationship to the witness Consciousness? Three questions: What is the relationship of the eye, the eye which I'm feeling right now, that eye, what is its relationship to this body? And the eye which I'm feeling right now, what is its relationship to the reflected Consciousness? What is the reflected Consciousness? Just the Consciousness we are feeling right now, all of us, we are feeling conscious, sensient, aware; what is its relationship? What is my relationship to Consciousness? That eyes relationship to Consciousness, and what is the eyes relationship to the witness Consciousness, the sakshi? These three questions; let us see; it is a the answer will give give us a vivid picture of our current situation, what we are right now, and what we have to do. [Music] [Music] beautiful verse; it says: I am identified with three things; I am identified with the body; I am this; I am identified with the Consciousness because every time I think I, it's a conscious experience; I am conscious; and there is the witness consciousness which according to vant I really am; so I should be identified with that also; so these are the three things with which I am identified: the ego, the eye is identified with the body, with the reflected Consciousness in the mind, and with the pure Consciousness, witness Consciousness, the sakshi. What kind of relationship, what kind of relationship do I have with these three things: with the body, with the reflected Consciousness, and with the real pure Consciousness saand with the sakshi, witness? The answers are crucial; he gives the three answers: saham, natural, Karm, born of Karma, and branti, born
Of error, first of all, my relationship, the relationship of the eye with the reflected Consciousness, is natural, just like a mirror and the reflection. Wherever you put a mirror in front of me, my face will be naturally reflected in the mirror. Mirror and the reflected face will always be together; how long? As long as the mirror is there and the face is there, it will be reflected. It's the very nature of the mirror to reflect. So the eye sense will always feel conscious because pure Consciousness, witness Consciousness, is there. The eye functions like a mirror, so there'll be a reflected Consciousness with the eye—always reflected Consciousness—and I have a natural relationship. Whenever there is an eye sense, there will be a reflected Consciousness; whenever there's a reflected Consciousness, it means there will be an eye sense. Natural; they go together.
The relationship between I and the body: Karma. Jam-born of karma. This body we have got, according to Vedanta, we have got this body because of our past Karma. We have got this body because of our past Karma. The good and the bad, together, have come together to give us results. A part of our Karma we have liquidated; a part of our assets in the bank, and that liquidated asset is our karma for this life—the good and the bad. The Good Karma gives rise to pleasant experiences; the Bad Karma gives rise to unpleasant experiences. And you know what is said in Vedanta? If you have really good karma, if you have good karma, you have pleasant experiences; if you have really, really good karma, you come to Vedanta. Yeah, I'm not joking; they say that you get a guru; you hear of Vedanta; you get a guru and a mantra, and uh, you hear of Vedantic doctrines. It's a sign of great Good Karma. So I congratulate all of you.
So the karma gives us this body. This body is born of our Karma. As long as my present Karma, the karma of this life, technically called prabha karma, as long as the prabha karma of this life lasts, the body will last. When this particular part of my karma is exhausted, the body will die. And I am related to this body as long as that Karma lasts. The moment that particular karma is finished, karma for this life is finished, the body will die, and my relationship with this body will snap. I will no longer say I am the body. They will take it and burn it, or cremate it, or bury it, or whatever. I don't say I am that. I transmigrate; I go to another body produced again by my new Karma, which, with which I will have a relationship. This is the second thing: my relationship with the body is born of karma. As long as karma lasts, I will be, I will have to say I am this body. When karma is finished, body dies, and I will no longer say I am this body.
Now comes the crucial question, the real crucial question: What is my relationship? The I, eye feeling, eye feeling, bear down here, concentrate here. The eye feeling which we have right now, what is its relationship to the witness Consciousness? That is the question. What is its relationship to Brahman, to Atman, to existence, Consciousness? Place all the same thing; witness conscious, Consciousness, Brahman, Atman, sakshat—all the same thing. What is the relationship of Brahman, sakshat, Atma, sakshat, witness Consciousness, pure Consciousness, whatever you call it, with the eye feeling which I've got right now? And the answer is: no relationship. There is no relationship. Brahman; it is born of error. We, the pure Consciousness, we feel I in this body; it's born of error. I am really not I. Yes, you see, we chant it lovingly. Do you know what it translates into? I am not the mind, manas, buddhi; I am not the intellect, chitta; I am not the memory, ananda; ego. It literally translates as I am not the ego, or, or I am not the I. The witness Consciousness which you or I really are, we are the witness of the eye. You have to take one step back from the eye, the eye, the ego. Take a step back from the eye to merge into your real existence, Consciousness, place. It is not the ego who will get Freedom, moksha, mukti, Nirvana, Enlightenment. The ego will never get Freedom or Enlightenment. You will get freedom from the ego. The eye does not become free; you will be free from the eye. When Mr. X or Mrs. Y becomes free, enlightened, Mr. X is enlightened from Mr. X, from, from being the limited individual, the ego which is identified with Mr. X. The ego still remains in the mind, identified with reflected Consciousness and with the body, but you, the, the free being now, the witness Consciousness, you are separated from it; you still shine upon it. The mind works, the ego works, the Body Works, goes on doing what it was doing earlier; you are completely free. You recognize you have always been free from it. So the relationship between the real you and the I sense in the mind is born of error, Brahman, born of error. And that which is born of error can be corrected by knowledge. That which is born of error can be corrected by knowledge. The snake which we see by mistake in a rope is born of error; it can be corrected not by chasing it with a stick, not by shooting at it with a shotgun, or trying to scare it away; it can only be corrected by knowledge of the reality that it is a rope. So only knowledge can separate us from the eye sense, the ego. That's all that has been said here in the eighth verse. The ninth verse will tell us how to be free, based on this, based on this understanding. If you have understood it till now—I know it's heavy going—yes. Who is speaking? Are, are, when you are speaking right here now, is this reflected Consciousness that's speaking, or ego that's speaking? Just look at it right now. You can, you have got all the materials to give the answer to your question. Look at this: here's the body, the body is speaking; you can see the voice box, and the mouth is moving. Behind it is the sensor, the, the motor organ, the vocal organ, the organ of speech, that is working. Behind it is the Mind, intellect, memory, eye sense, and reflected Consciousness; all of those are working, isn't it? Because I feel I'm conscious, I feel I am speaking, I am using my memory, I am using my understanding. And what Vedanta says is: in the background of all that is the real eye, the real seer, priyananda, which is the witness. Because of the witness Consciousness shines in the mind of this being, that's reflected consciousness. That reflected Consciousness illumines the eye sense in the mind of the being. The eye sense, becoming illumined by reflected Consciousness, illumines the rest of the mind, and from that the body and sense organs, they all get Consciousness and start functioning. Who is speaking then? It's a combination of all of them; it's a combination of all of them. It is the pure Consciousness limited by a mind and an ego and a body that is speaking. So if I get illumination, will I stop speaking? No. Speaking is at the level of the body, at the level of the mind; that can go on; there's no problem. In fact, this will tell us what will happen, based on this understanding. How do we snap these three relationships? I and the body; how will I be free from this body? I and reflected Consciousness; how will I end the relationship between myself and reflected Consciousness? This eye sense and pure Consciousness or witness Consciousness; how can we snap this relationship? How can I remain as witness Consciousness? These three are answered here. Each of these verses is like bombshells; so much is packed into them. We will do this and stop for questions. [Music] [Music] [Music] Three relationships: between the eye and the reflected Consciousness, between the eye and the body, between the eye and the real eye, the witness consciousness, the apparent eye and the real eye. So, on this lecture, the real man and the apparent man; so the real eye and the apparent eye. These three relationships: how can we snap them? How can we be free of them? He says the natural relationship between the reflecting medium and the reflection, between the eye and the reflected Consciousness, will persist as long as both of them are there. When a mirror is there, there'll be a reflected face; you can't do anything about it. As long as you are awake, as long as you are using the mind in the waking state or in the dreaming state, we using the mind, there will be an eye, and that eye will appear conscious only when you switch off the mind. When the mirror is turned down and kept face down, reflection will disappear. When you go into deep sleep, the Mind shuts down; there is no reflection, and there is no eye sense. So as long as the mind is there, there will be a reflected Consciousness, and the two will appear together—of the natural relationship between the eye and the reflected Consciousness. There is no snapping that relationship as long as both of the terms of the relationship are present. As long as the mirror and the face are present, there will be a reflection. Then, kakat—what is, how do you snap the relationship between yourself and the body? When karma is exhausted, at the point of death. When the body dies, the eye will be free of the body; only way, there's no other way. Karma exhausted, body dies, and the eye with the subtle body goes to another body and loses, snaps its relationship with this dead body.
Now we come to the crucial thing: What can Vedanta do for us? What can spirituality do for us? Here is the crucial thing. Prat—the third relationship, the relationship between the Atman and the pure Consciousness, the witness Consciousness and the eye sense, the ego in the mind; how can it be snapped? Prat—by knowledge, by an Awakening, by an Awakening. When you awaken, the eye does not awaken; you awaken from the eye, from the dream called the limited existence of individual. You awaken from this little cocoon; the worm which built a cocoon around itself flies out—a butterfly, a glorious butterfly. So you awaken from the dream you call a limited human life. That's why the Buddha's name is so evocative; Buddha means the awakened, meaning thereby the rest of us are either asleep or in a dream state. So awaken from the, the dream of being a limited individual, limited human being; you step back from it; you let go of it. There is no Awakening, illumination, Freedom, Enlightenment for the body. The only fate of the body, I'm sorry to say, is death. From dust it has come; it will go back to dust, and sooner than we think, unfortunately, every day it is going back to dust. There's no, no Enlightenment for the body; it will not survive death. But the subtle body survives death; the subtle body, the Mind, intellect, according to Vedanta, according to, according to every religion, not just Hinduism; religion is based on the fact that the subtle body survives death. But there is no Enlightenment for the subtle body also; it will go from birth to birth, gathering experiences. The moment that enlightening knowledge comes, that the, the reality, the pure Consciousness, the witness Consciousness remains in its, as we say, in its own Glory, the subtle body dissolves back into nature. Subtle body, like the physical body, was provided by Nature, provided by Maya, by Prakriti. If you are a Sankhya philosopher, you'll say Prakriti provided you with the subtle body; if you are a Vedantin, like most of us here, you'll say Maya provided you with this subtle body. But what has come from Maya or Prakriti or whatever it means—nature—it will go back to Nature. Physical bodies we have had many; subtle bodies, each of us has one. When we get Enlightenment, the subtle body also dissolves, and the Atman, pure Consciousness, remains in its, in its real glory as existence, infinite Consciousness, infinite Bliss, infinite. By Enlightenment, by, by knowledge. So the sword of knowledge can cut the knot of ignorance. It will not free the eye sense from the body, but it will free you, the real eye, the, the witness from the body and mind, from the eye itself. How we will do that? How will that knowledge free me, and how will I get that liberating experience when I can become free from myself? So there are, there will be these exercises which will be given at the end, and don't flip now; I can see some people flipping immediately. Let's go straight to the end; you cannot do that, uh, because we need to have certain foundation for that. Then we will go into that. Six exercises will be provided at the end; it will take us through a graded course of, um, meditation and, and thinking, and philosophical thinking, by which we will realize ourselves to be pure Consciousness. Not only that, we will realize this world itself to be pure Consciousness. I started with the, with the statement that Vedanta says there is only one reality, existence, Consciousness, Bliss. We see ourselves as limited bodies, so the ad, this text tries to free us from this conception that we are limited bodies. Once we see ourselves as existence, Consciousness, Bliss, then we look back upon the world, and we will see all that we had separated ourselves from—world, I'm not the world, I'm not the body, I'm not the mind—all of that, body, World, Body, Mind, all of that is in reality nothing other than pure Consciousness. That also will be shown. How is it? How is that possible? So this is what lies ahead of us. I know today was heavy going, but these are crucial concepts. I'll sum up in one minute what I have said so far, and then, uh, one or two questions we can take and then wrap up. What we have learned so far is the first question: If I am witness Consciousness, how does the body appear conscious? Answer: Witness Consciousness is reflected in the mind as reflected Consciousness, and that reflected Consciousness, in identification with the ego, transmits that Consciousness throughout the body, up to the tips of our fingers; we feel awareness. So body gets Consciousness, borrows its Consciousness from the senses; the senses borrow their Consciousness from the mind, and the mind borrows its Consciousness from the reflected Consciousness, and the reflected Consciousness is, is just borrowed, is a reflection of the, the pure Consciousness which we really are. That's question number one. Then the eye sense—that's what we learned—the eye, the ego, is related to the body, to the reflected Consciousness, and to the Real Witness Consciousness. How is it related? Three relationships: with the body because of karma; with the reflected Consciousness, it's natural; whenever the eye will be there, it will appear to be conscious; and with the pure Consciousness, witness Consciousness, no relationship, error. How can we snap these relationships? Born of karma, a natural, born relationship, and the relationship born of error. How do we correct them? That which is born of karma can only be snapped by death, when karma is finished. That which is natural can never be snapped; whenever there is I, there will be Consciousness, eye Consciousness. But what can be snapped is the relationship between the I sense in the mind and the pure Consciousness which I really am; that will be snapped by knowledge. Knowledge comes in the mind, and we, the Mind separates itself; we see that it is separated. I am not it; I am not even the eye; I'm not even the eye; I'm the light shining behind the eye. One of the verses of Krishna says: the witness of your intellect, that which watches the intellect from behind the intellect, and the one who knows everything but whom you cannot know—that is actually an adjective used for Sri Ramakrishna—it is none other than the witness Consciousness which you or I have all the time, which we are really. All right. One or two questions. There's a question there. Yes. CLE: mind doesn't dissipate like body, which… subtle body does not dissipate. That's what's, that's what's called, called The Soul sometimes in English; it goes from body to body. That's what we say when we… it'll come later on when we die; it's a subtle body. If you want details in Vedanta, they'll talk about manas, with theos also. So these go to another world or other bodies; this is what is reborn again and again and again; this is the individual, but we are beyond that; we are not even those things; we are the pure Consciousness. So it doesn't dissipate; it dissipates only at the end of a cycle of births and deaths when we get Enlightenment. Yes, you about Awakening, dream state… Yes, you that, there the… true, look at your experience but you experiencing the deep also. Yes, you experiencing without eye Consciousness. What Vedanta says is, in… it's a good question. In deep sleep, that mind does not function because nobody feels I am in deep sleep now. If you feel that you're not in deep sleep, you know, sometimes children are teased by parents in India, uh, to find out if the kids are naughty, especially they get very naughty at the time of, at bedtime, hyperactive, and sometimes they pretend to sleep because Mommy is scolding them. So the mommy says: if the little boy is truly asleep, his left foot will move, and if the tiny left foot moves a little, you're caught; you're not sleeping; the mind is still functioning there; you're not really asleep. If you're asleep, the Mind wouldn't function; there would be no eye Consciousness, and yet you experience a blankness. So what experiences the blankness in deep sleep without the mind? There is no awareness of the world; there is no awareness of the body lying on the bed; there's no awareness of Mind, dreams, thoughts, memories, nothing. And yet a blankness is experienced. What experiences the blankness? It is the pure Consciousness alone, the sakshat, the witness. The witness with the body and mind experiences the presence of objects; the witness in deep sleep experiences the absence of objects. The absence of objects of experience is what we call deep sleep. Witness is constant. One more question, and we're done. Yes, there's a question in the back. Can knowledge exist without the mind? Can knowledge exist without the mind? No. How knowledge frees us from mind? How knowledge will free us from the mind? Yes. So the confusion also exists in the mind, you see; ignorance also cannot exist without the Mind. Ignorance is the root state of the mind; it's called the causal body. I have not entered into that, the kshetra, and that is destroyed by knowledge. What happens is a beautiful question; this is a very deep question: Where does knowledge exist? Knowledge exists only in the mind, nowhere else. After all, let's see any, any kind of knowledge; just see physics, chemistry, English, German; where does it exist? Not in my thumb; it's in the mind. Knowledge cannot exist in the kidney or in the lungs; it's in the mind. The knowledge is in the mind, and where is ignorance also? In the mind. And where does knowledge remove ignorance? In the mind. So in the mind is the ignorance that I am this body and mind; I have, I have no idea of my nature as pure Consciousness. There comes the knowledge of my pure Consciousness, which Vedanta provides, and that destroys the ignorance in the mind, and the pure Consciousness which was always there reveals itself; it's always there. I know it sounds, it actually sounds pretty logical, you know; that's what happens. That's why in Vedanta they say knowledge will not give you pure Consciousness; knowledge will only remove ignorance. Then what about that knowledge? It remains in the mind. You, as a pure Consciousness, you have nothing more to do with that knowledge also. There, Ramakrishna uses a strange story; he says: a thorn has pricked your flesh; a thorn has pricked your flesh. Now you want to remove that thorn; you take another thorn and remove that thorn. Now will you keep the second thorn in your flesh also? You'll throw that away also. Now what does that mean? It means, he explains, the thorn of ignorance is in my flesh, and the thorn of knowledge comes and removes the thorn of ignorance, then both are thrown away. Normally, if you say that ignorance was there, I got knowledge, removed ignorance, and then I removed knowledge… normally our binary mind will say that again I've become ignorant; it's like I knew something and I forgot something, but this is not what is meant here. So the knowledge which comes is also within Maya, and it removes the ignorance which is within Maya and sets us free. Okay. One question, last question. Yeah, you asked it; I was just going to say ask if, um, you were saying how, uh, when we fulfill our Karma, then we die, and that removes that relationship with the eye, but do we always die when we fulfill our Karma, or could we die before we fulfilled our Karma? Okay, uh, Karma here is the results of past actions, and they divide Karma into three parts: prabha Karma means the karma which has started giving results; ami Karma, that which will give results later on; sanchita is the, the entire stockpile of karma which we have got. So out of all this Karma, a part of that, Vedanta says, is used to generate this present body; that much which is used to generate this present body will give us a series of experiences in this life, good and bad. When that is finished, this body will die. This body dies, and the eye, the ego sense with the mind, it goes on to the next body and to the next Karma, next set of karma. So the idea is: when karma is finished, body will die; nobody can prevent it. Yeah, we'll stop here. Om shanti, shanti, shanti, om. That infinite, that is infinite, the, the, the Transcendent is infinite; from the Transcendent infinite has come this manifest infinite. This manifest infinite arises from the Transcendent infinite; the Transcendent infinite is, it remains full, and the Manifest infinite is also full and complete and perfect. When we realize that the, the infinite in this manifestation, the Transcendent infinite alone remains. Om, peace, peace, peace. That was a free translation, not a very good one. [Applause] [Music]