Transcription
[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] om s s [Music] shant shant shant the verse I'll start chanting today is verses 8 and 9, which we did last time. Those who have B s can follow [Music] meti s [Music] k [Music] me.
We've been studying this old Vedantic text D, which is an introduction to the system of Advaita Vedanta. According to Advaita Vedanta, we are not this body of flesh and blood. We are not even our minds, thoughts, feelings, emotions, ideas, memories. We are not even that. Then what are we? We are the witness of the body and mind, the witness Consciousness called the Sakshi, which literally means the witness. So we are the witness Consciousness, ever shining upon the mind and through the mind, working on the body as and through the body and mind, experiencing this universe and interacting with this universe, but we are not the body nor the mind. Just as, as much as I am not this um scarf or the shirt, so just as we are not our clothes, body and mind are coverings for our true nature, which is pure Consciousness. And what is this pure Consciousness and how are we to appreciate, grasp, understand this? This we saw in the first first class, in the very beginning, the first very first verse.
Now we have this pure Consciousness shining on the mirror of the mind, and just as if I put a mirror in front of me, my face will be reflected in the mirror; similarly, we, the pure Consciousness, the witness Consciousness, Consciousness is reflected in the mirror of the mind, and this is the awareness which we all experience all the time. Right now, feel it—the sentience, the awareness, the Consciousness which we are. We feel all the time we are conscious; we feel it inside us, in our minds. That Consciousness is a reflection of the pure Consciousness or the witness Consciousness which you really are. This face which I see always in the mirror is a reflection of my true face, which I do not see. I see only that face. And this reflected Consciousness is our individual existence. In terms of conventional religion, when you read in the Bible, “God made Man In His Image,” God, the pure Consciousness, reflected as the reflected Consciousness in the mirror of the mind—that is the image of pure Consciousness, as much as my the reflected face in the mirror is the image of my real face. God made man in his own image. The reflected Consciousness is us. It's the subtlest idea that we can get out ourselves. Think about it: physical body, flesh and blood, the nervous system, our our memories, our ideas, our thoughts, deeper than that, the blankness of deep sleep, the Consciousness that we perceive in ourselves—is that reflected Consciousness. And that is the and if you identify yourself with that, then you are an individual human being. What Advaita Vedanta tells you is that is a reflection of your true nature. You, I am not the reflected face. I've gotten into as if I've gotten into the habit of thinking of myself as the reflected face. What is the problem with the reflected face? The problem is this: every problem of the mirror becomes a problem of the reflected face. Mirror is dirty; the reflected face feels, “I am dirty.” The mirror is polished; reflected face feels, “Oh, I’m so shiny today.” I am neither dirty nor shiny; it’s a reflection, and the reflection depends on the reflecting medium. The reflecting medium is the mirror; whatever the conditions of the mirror, that will be the condition of the reflected face. Mirror is shattered; the reflection is broken; reflected face thinks, “Oh, I’m dying.” None of it is true. I’m neither the real phe is neither dirty nor polished nor living nor dying; it’s a reflection which says all that. So all the problems of the mirror becomes the problems of the reflected face; all the problems of the mind and the physical body and in connection with the external world, all of that becomes my problem once I identify myself with the reflected Consciousness in my mind. I am this limited conscious entity, mind, body, and the Consciousness within—that’s what I become. Advaita Vedanta tells me, “You are not that.”
Now, in the mind there is this eye, which eye—nothing mystical about it—the eye, the Sanskrit Aham, I, the ego, the big guy, the eye, um, that eye. The text tells us, “Concentrate on that eye.” That eye is connected to the body. That eye, our eye, the ego, I, means the vertical one, not the… that eye is connected to the body. How? I am this body; this is my body; that’s how. And that eye is connected to the reflected Consciousness. I am always aware; whenever I think of myself, I think of myself as an as a sentient being, as an aware being, as a conscious being. So the eye in the mind is attached is is identified with the reflected Consciousness in the mind, and the eye. What relation does it bear to the true eye which Advaita Vedanta tells us about, the witness Consciousness? These three questions were taken up last time. It’s a subtle topic; that’s why I’m repeating this. What were the questions? The eye, the ego that we feel in our in ourselves, how is it connected to the body, how is it connected to the awareness that we have in our minds, and how is it connected to the real self which Advaita Vedanta talks about? Advaita Vedanta talks about ourselves as existence, consciousness, bliss, and this I which we feel right now, how, what relation does it bear to existence, consciousness, bliss? And the three answers are given in the next verse, in verse number eight and then nine. What are the questions? How are they related? And the second set of questions will be, “How can these relations be cut? How can the eye be free of these things?” The answers are like this: the eye is related to the body in all of us. The eye is related to the body, body by Karma. This body has been worked up by my past Karma. As long as this Karma which is giving results in this life, called Prabhava Karma—Karma which has begun to give results—as long as this Karma is giving results, this body will live, and the body dies when the Karma gives out, that that portion of my Karma, accumulated Karma gives away, and the body dies. Up to that point, up to the death of the body, the eye in the body is related to the body. The eye in the body is related to the body. Even the greatest Saint, Sri Krishna, he says, “My hand is broken.” Whose hand? The body. So he says, “I, I, my my hand is broken. Can you tell me what I can do about it? Why does my hand get broken?” So that’s one usage. There’s also another usage which makes a difference between Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and the rest, which we shall see a little later. So I am related to this body; you can’t help it. Second, I is related to Consciousness, the reflected Consciousness. How? He says it’s natural, natural relationship. What do you mean by natural relationship? The reflected face in the mirror and the mirror, they have a natural relationship. Whenever you I put a face a mirror in front of my face, my face will be reflected in the mirror; there will be a reflection. You can’t help it; mirror will give you a reflection. And what is the relationship between the mirror and the reflected face? It’s natural. As long as the mirror is there, the reflected face is there. If the reflected face is there, it means that the mirror is there. Similarly, my the eye and Consciousness, reflected Consciousness, whenever the Mind throws up an eye function, I, I exist, and that will always be a sentient eye, conscious eye, because you, the pure Consciousness, Witness Consciousness, you are shining upon your mind. So the eye feeling in the mind will always appear as a shining eye. When will they be? When will they go? When the Mind stops functioning. When you turn the mirror and put it down face down, there’ll be no reflection. Similarly, in deep sleep, when the Mind shuts down, there is no eye feeling. There’s no eye feeling. We do not feel, “I am sleeping.” Then you’re not sleeping. So there’s no eye feeling at that time because the mind has shut down, and hence the reflected Consciousness is also not there, so you don’t feel, “I am a conscious being” in deep sleep. It explains why in deep sleep, though we are pure Consciousness, yet we do not feel like a conscious being in deep sleep. All this is secondary. The real question is a third question: what is the relationship between I, the witness Consciousness, Sakshi, and this eye in the in the mind? And the author answers dramatically: “Ally, there’s no relationship. It’s a confusion. You are not related to the mirror. My face is in no way related to the mirror. I don’t care if there is a mirror. The mirror borrows a reflection of my face, and and there’s an image of my face in the mirror, but my face has no relation to the Mirror. Mirror may be shiny, mirror may be dirty, mirror may be expensive, mirror may be cheap, mirror may be broken; it makes no difference whatsoever to my face. In the same way, you, the witness Consciousness, has no relationship with the eye, but we are completely related. We feel, ‘I am that eye,’ and that is ignorance. That is ignorance. That is the exact point, and this is a very beautiful way of presenting it. What does Advaita Vedanta do? That’s exactly what it does: that false relationship between the eye in the mind and the pure Consciousness shining upon the mind, that false relationship is cut. How can a relationship of ignorance be cut? How can ignorance be cut? Only by the sword of knowledge. Only by the sword of knowledge. You just have to become aware that I shine upon the mind, and that is the Consciousness which we feel in the mind right now. I am not related to the mind. The moment you snap your relationship with the eye in the mind, you’re free. That is the whole endeavor of Advaita Vedanta. It’s a very beautiful way of very precisely pointing, “Where does Advaita Vedanta strike? Where does it strike?” Okay, now let us go on to the 10th verse, first the Sanskrit, then I’ll explain, and then I’ll explain the Sanskrit too. a [Music]
So now the question is, “It understand the question, and then only the answer will make sense.” The question is, if I am pure Consciousness, unchanging Consciousness—the key word here is unchanging Consciousness, not subject to increase or decrease—I found in this country you have got these dimmer switches; you turn the so the light becomes dim or the light becomes bright. So Consciousness is not subject to that; you cannot dim it or make it bright. But a question should come in our minds: we experience the you know intensity of awareness at times in in the day when we are wake up in the morning, fresh and have a cup of coffee and good to go, feel very conscious, and um, when you come back at night and you’re ready for bedtime, you just can’t keep your eyes open, about to go to bed, or sitting in the Advaita Vedanta class, that that also happens. You don’t feel all that conscious; you don’t feel all that conscious. And in dreaming you feel a different kind of Consciousness, and in deep sleep you don’t feel Consciousness at all. We don’t feel any Consciousness. How can you say that we are constant, unchanging Consciousness? This is a question. How do you explain this variation in our intensity of Consciousness that we feel when we are wide awake, when we are sleepy or dreaming or in deep sleep? There seems to be so much variation in our state of Consciousness, and the answer is given here. The answer is this: Consciousness remains the same; it is changes in the mind which cause the reflected Consciousness to appear bright sometimes and sometimes dim and sometimes not there at all. It is changes in the mind. The mind, when it is awake and fully functioning, we feel, “I am conscious; I am awake, awake, ready for anything.” When the mind is tired, exhausted, we feel bored, sleepy, not so conscious, not so aware. And when the Mind shuts down in deep sleep, we don’t feel conscious at all. It’s like a mirror: when it is bright and polished, you can see a very clear reflection of your face; when it is foggy, you see only a vague outline of your face; and when it’s turned down, you don’t see any reflection of your face at all. But the face remains exactly the same. In the same way, the mind, or more specifically the author says the ego sense, the Mind itself, and the ego sense is most active in what we call our waking state, is less active, the author says half active, partially active, in what we call our dream state, and is not active; it’s in a potential, like computers these days have sleep mode. Computers are are very efficient; you if you don’t touch them for some time, they go off to sleep. So um, like Advaita Vedanta students, so uh, the when the Mind goes to sleep, we don’t see any reflection of Consciousness there, and then we feel that there’s no consciousness, but the pure Consciousness is exactly the same. And that’s what he says: the states of Consciousness are really not states of consci Consciousness. Consciousness has no states; the states are states of the mind. Waking is a state of the mind; we commonly is commonly used waking state of Consciousness, dream state of consciousness—no harm in using it, but as Advaita Vedanta students, we should know exactly what we are talking about. It’s okay to speak about the waking state of Consciousness, but we should know we are speaking about the waking state of the Mind. The mind is changing; mind gets energetic, the mind gets dull, the mind gets tired, the Mind goes to sleep. So there’s a waking state of the mind, there’s a dream state of the mind, and there’s a deep sleep state of the Mind. These are states of the mind, not states of the Consciousness. The Consciousness is always there, watching, just like Swami—I think I mentioned this, the train example—um, we have this big train in in India called the Rajdhani Express, and Swami N., who is used to come from South Africa—not seen seen him, but our senior Swami told me—he had this wonderful way of explaining Advaita Vedanta through stories. So he says, “When you go to the platform, there’s the station master standing on the platform, and there’s a lot of hustle and bustle. Why? This VIP, this big train is prestigious train is coming into the platform, and it’s the express comes in, and people get out of it, people get into it, a lot of commotion, a lot of transactions, a lot of things going on. After some time, the station master is watching. After some time, the St the train leaves the St the platform. Station master did not come with the train; did not go away with the train. After some time, another train comes in; it’s a goods train; it’s a freight train, and there are not there are hardly anybody there’s hardly anybody who gets on or gets off; it’s just the the train driver who gets down, maybe has a cup of tea, and then again the train leaves the platform. Station master did not come with the train; did not go away with the train. And then now there is no train in the platform; it’s blank. Station master watches the empty platform. Just like that, our waking state arrives in morning as alarm rings; the Rajdhani Express pulls up to the platform; so much activity—you have to get up, and you have to get ready and go to office or and get the you know the kids ready for taking them to school, and you have a mortgage, and you have taxes, and you have and you have expectations: ‘Today is the day I get my salary, or I get my promotion. Today is the day then I’m looking forward to that donut or coffee at Starbucks on the way to…’ It’s the Rajdhani Express; so many people, good and bad, and it’s it’s your life, Rajdhani Express. Come back in the evening, at night, lie down to sleep; Rajdhani Express departs the platform; the waking world disappears, and in its place comes a vague dream world; the goods train pulls up; not so much happening; not so clear and bright. You are the Watcher. And then the goods train pulls out; the dream also disappears; nothing. You are the Watcher of that nothing too too you exist, but you are not that body; you are not the mind also; the mind also are shut down. You still there; not you as Mr. or Mrs. so and so. Mr. and Mrs. so and so is the identity of the body, not you as the individual J with knowledge, memories, feelings, desires, uh, expectations; that is the subtle body inside; even that has shut down. You are the pure Consciousness which you always were. So look at the verse: in deep sleep, when the ego sense shuts down, the Mind shuts down, and the body also shuts down, and you go into deep sleep. It’s a pro it’s a function of the Mind, the Ahankara specifically that shuts down. Consciousness is still there. Ahankara, when the ego sense and the mind start working partially, dreams come up; body is still lying there, but the dreams come up; we inhabit a dream world, and we have a dream body. And when the Ahankara, the mind with the ego becomes fully active, when it’s fully active, you have a waking state, and this is what you experience. These are states of the mind, not states of the Consciousness. Okay, 11th verse: how do the dream and the waking states take place? Because in deep sleep there is it’s shut down, but dreams and waking, how do they take place? There is an explanation. 11th verse [Music] [Music] The mechanism of our waking experiences and our dream experience. What it says is, when the ego starts functioning, Consciousness reflected upon the ego, and we become a conscious, limited individual I. When the reflected Consciousness becomes identified with the active ego, then what happens in dream state? The mind has lots of Impressions gathered from the waking state: what we have seen, what we have heard, what we have done, all those things are there; memories are there; they are used to make a movie, a film; so we watch a film—that’s dream. And in the waking state, when the ego becomes even more active, body gets Consciousness, and we wake up; Consciousness spreads up to the body, and we wake up, and we use our sense organs and motor organs to sense and act and interact with the external world—that’s our waking state. What’s the dream state? Mind shut down; Consciousness as it is. What’s the that a deep sleep state? What’s the dream state? Mind starts working partially; the ego is partially active, and Consciousness reflected on the ego starts using the memories, the the stuff stored on the on the on the memory chips of your camera to make a movie out of it and watches the movie. And when you wake up, the Consciousness spreads is transmitted from the mind to the physical body also, and our sense organs and motor organs become active; sensory system becomes active, and we interact with the world—that’s the waking state. The these are the three states, and this is how it works. What about the Consciousness? Same, unchanged Consciousness. Because of you all this happens in the body, mind. It is the same Consciousness who opens a door in his house and it’s it’s the counter for a shop and sells and buys with the world outside. And when the evening comes, this gentleman closes the door, and he goes to his living room and switches on the TV and watches TV, and then he’s tired of that, he switches up of the TV and goes to his bedroom and sleeps. Three areas, three states: waking and transacting with the world, the shop—he runs a shop; the shopkeeper—we are shopkeepers; we transact; we buy and sell with the world; we transact with the world; we take take in sense inputs from the world; we see, we hear, we smell, we taste, we touch, and we act; we speak, we walk, we catch hold of something; we do things with our physical body. So this is buying and selling with the world; this is our waking state. And then we when we shut this down, we retreat into the living room of our minds, and with we switch on the TV and of of dreams and watch it for some time. When the mind is also switched off, the TV is switched off; we retreat into a deep sleep state, bedroom, but the Consciousness is the same Consciousness. So this is what is said here: the functioning of the Mind, reflection of conscious, usually Chit the word is used here, Chitti, the feminine term is used; it means pure Consciousness. So the pure Consciousness reflected in the mind, what happens? Asana Impressions, the recordings in our mind, they generate dreams. And after waking up, bod when you wake up, Ak with the sense organs, not just eyes, with all the sense organs, Bish external form, sound, taste, smell, all these we take in and we experience. So this this is our life. This is our life. The Padash, probably the work of the same author, Vid Swami, who lived in place near Mysore in Karnataka. Yes, so there he extends this idea further. He says, “This is the story of your day, which day, every day, and the story is repeated the next day, the next day, and then month, next month, same story, same same, and next year the same story: waking, dreaming, sleeping, and the years pass into decades, and the body grows older; the body dies; a subtle body goes to other worlds, and there are other lives, and but the story remains the same: Consciousness watching and experiencing through the body and the mind.” It says, “Years pass, eons pass, millions of years.” The Hindus have an enormous calendar, enormous you know vast sense of time; millions of years and billions of years are for them one day in the life of Brahma, the Creator, the creatrix or whatever you call it, who created the universe, just one day. And when Brahma goes to sleep, the world collapses upon itself, and this dissolution, but you, the Consciousness, you’re still watching that. You were there at the big bang, and you’ll be there when the universe disappears into itself as that Consciousness. Look at the awesome poetry: “Millions of years have gone; universes have been created and destroyed G, and there are many more years, millions of years to come, and universes to be created and destroyed, and lives to live, unless we get Enlightenment. You can go on repeating this. Nothing can destroy us; nothing can…” The worst of tragedies, the most terrible of sorrows, the greatest of catastrophes which can destroy worlds has not been able to destroy us till today and will not be able to destroy us. Nothing can destroy us; nothing can scratch you. So and it will go on. Vid Swami says, “The sun of Consciousness neither rises nor sets; self-effulgent Son Of Consciousness.” Just reading Swami Brahmananda a couple of days ago, we celebrated his birth anniversary. So one of the first experiences which he had with the blessing of Sri Ramakrishna, he says, “A light like a million suns engulfing me.” It’s his own light; it’s our light when we when we realize what we are really. And the tragedy is, it’s here right now and compl completely totally continuously available to us. A very senior monk told me once, he said, “Vish, we are missing it a thousand times every second. It’s there; we are missing it a thousand times every second.” Anyhow, this book intends to make us acquainted with what we already have. Now a new question will come up. A new question will come up: what about birth and death? What is born? How does birth take place? How does death take place? What happens after death? So this author is certainly God-style, you know, he disposes of these enormous questions with a single verse. So the next verse he will tell us how we live and how we die; how life after life comes and goes; what happens exactly, he’ll tell us in the next verse. 12th verse [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] It is the subtle body. Remember the Hindu view of the human personality is trichotomous: physical body, and we reflect in words a subtle body, and beyond that—I’m not talking about the causal body here—we beyond that our true reality, pure Consciousness. Trichotomous view, really we are pure Consciousness, and because of our ignorance we are identified with these two other bodies: this physical body and the subtle body dwelling in this physical body at present. Now what is birth and what is death? Birth is when the subtle body with which we are associated, when it comes and takes up residence in the mother’s womb in the child which is conceived; that is birth. And then the child is born; so a physical body is created, and I take up residence in it; that is birth. And this physical body dies; I leave this physical body and go to other worlds and other lives; that is death. So birth and death are not of the pure Consciousness as such; the pure Consciousness is completely unaffected; birth and death are experienced…
And are are relevant to the subtle body. It is a subtle body which takes birth through the birth of the physical body; it is a subtle body which experiences death. It does not die; it experiences death with the death of the physical body. Why don't you sit down? Um, so physical bodies are born, and physical bodies die, and the subtle body goes from body to body. The subtle body is called, with the Consciousness, the J. The individual pure Consciousness itself is Brahman. With pure Consciousness limited by one subtle body, is one J. So how many Jas? As many subtle bodies. And this subtle body, what is it constituted of? The subtle body has what we call, um, three aspects; three aspects: the vital sheath called pranamaya.
The vital sheath, that which makes us breathe in and out. So in yoga, you do pranayama; it's an effort to control the Prana. By controlling the breathing, breathing itself is not Prana; it's due to Prana. It's because of Prana that we, our lungs inflate and deflate, and we breathe. So breathing, the circulation of blood in our veins, the assimilation of food, transforming food into flesh and blood into this physical body, all the activ- powering this body, powering the body-mind complex, is the job of the Prana Maya kosha, the vital sheath. So when we feel hunger, it's the Prana; thirst, it's the Prana. You feel satisfied after a good meal; it's the Prana which is satisfied. You feel healthy, Prana; you feel sick, Prana. So it's the Prana, and the yogis actually, with all their ASAS and breathing and the kriyas, they try to control the Prana to get a more healthier body and mind. So pranamaya kosha, that's one constituent of our subtle body.
And another constituent of the subtle body is the manomaya kosha, which includes the feeling of I, the feeling, the egoism. It includes our vasanas, our memories, uh, the thinking: should I do this or should I not do this? And that's the mind. And another function, another part of the subtle body is the vijnanamaya kosha, the intellect, that which we are using right now to understand. Vant, where we get knowledge, where we get knowledge: should I go to the Vant class or not? That's the mind. I will go to the Vant class; that's the intellect, right? So the determinative function, which which is, that's the definition given in Vant. So these three sheaths—the sheath of the intellect, vijnanamaya kosha; the sheath of the mind, manomaya kosha; the sheath of the Prana, pranamaya kosha—together are called the subtle body. When it inhabits a physical body, it's a living body. When it departs from a physical body, we call it a dead body; the body is dead. That's why in English you say, "He gave up the ghost." The ghost here is a subtle body. When death is giving up the ghost. So here, in in the Western world, we say that you gave up the ghost; in India, you say just the opposite: he gave up the body. The subtle body gives up the physical body. The moment the subtle body leaves the physical body, it's a dead body. And we hear of so many of these near-death experiences of people; when the body is dying, you've actually experienced seeing the dead or dying body from above. So many such accounts are there; just today itself somebody was telling me. So that's the subtle body. The Holy Mother, Sri Sarada Devi, says that she left her physical body, and she felt so free. After some time, she didn't want to come back into this, she says, this "dirty cage of flesh and bone," she didn't want to come back. So there's a subtle body which takes birth by the birth of the physical body; the subtle body which experiences death when the physical body breaks apart. And this is what Krishna told Arjuna: death of the body is not final. We give up an old body, a tattered body, a non-functioning body, just as you discard old clothes, as a human being discards old clothes and puts on a new set of clothes; so also the soul—here, the subtle body, of course—pure Consciousness always is there, but unaffected, like the sun shining. The subtle body goes to a new physical set, a new set of clothes. As it were, an example which I like giving is this: imagine buckets in the garden, buckets, and the buckets have water in them; big buckets, small buckets, colored buckets and so on, good buckets and not so good ones, and new ones and old ones, and there's water in them. Somewhere the water is dirty; somewhere it's clean; somewhere a lot of water, very little water; but in all of them the sun is reflected, and you'll find a little sun shining there in all those, in the water, in all those buckets; separate little suns shining there. Now imagine the little sun is is conscious. So what does it feel? I am this bucket. So the, if it comes to Vant, you'll have to explain to him: you are not the bucket. Bucket is like the physical body. Okay, I am the water in the bucket. Here is this lots of clean water. And I am the water in the bucket. No, you're not the water, too. Okay, I'm this little dot of light shining in the water. No, you're not that, too. Look up. When you when he looks up, suddenly it finds, not looking up at the sun, it rather becomes the sun looking down at its own reflection. That is Vant. The physical, the bucket is our physical body; the water is our subtle body; and the little sunshine there is the reflected Consciousness which we feel right now, the awareness. And the Sun is the real self, is the pure Consciousness, is the witness Consciousness. We have to boldly say that is what I am. Don't say my real self like my my kidney or my lung. My my real self is is all right, Swami, but I have a lot of problems. No, problems are in the bucket. Some bucket is broken; some bucket is cracked and leaking; some bucket or some bucket is not too bad, but it sees another bucket which is much more shiny nearby and feels jealous. So we, not the bucket, not even the water. Somewhere the water is very clean, Ganges water, and feels, I'm holy, I'm I'm the holy water. And on somewhere else it's mixed with maybe alcohol or something, and it feels, I'm dirty or something, you know, or or drain water, sewage water, I'm dirty. But in both cases you are the you are not affected by the water; you are the light shining in that. Even the sunlight shining in that water is not affected by the water, but whether it's holy water or dirty water or more water, some may have a high level, super genius body; some may be dull. Dullness and being a genius are qualities of the water, of the of the subtle body, not of the Consciousness reflected in that. So you have to be, that that little sun has to be told that you are not the bucket; you're not the water. When the bucket develops a leak, what does the gardener do? The gardener picks up the leaking bucket and pours the water into another new bucket. And when the water is poured into another bucket, the little reflected sun in the water travels with it and goes into the new bucket, and the old bucket is thrown away, recycled. Yeah, God recycles. Really, everything is recycled again. So now that little sun in the new bucket says, okay, I am born, born again. So here is here is my is my body, of course it doesn't remember, but so now it has a new body, but all the while the real sun is unaffected. Another interesting thing: the little sun in each bucket cannot identify for for it the other buckets are different individuals. Here are other people, different minds, different little suns shining in each bucket. But when the little sun realizes its Oneness, it realizes that I am the real sun shining in that bucket as a little sun, it will also realize I am the real sun shining in all buckets as the little sun in all these buckets. I am the Consciousness in everything. Krishna says to Arjuna in the Gita, "Know me alone to be the Consciousness in the minds of all of all living beings. I am the one Consciousness; know me alone." To be the little sun in all these buckets, he tells Arjuna. So it is the mind which is born; it is the mind which experience—mind which I mean the mind—gets experiences birth with the birth of the body; mind experiences death with the death of the body; the mind experiences transmigration from one body to another body. To will this always go on? It has a stop. It will come to a stop when the mature mind does not want this game anymore and wants the game of life to stop. In the in the evening of, not a physical life, in the evening of our lives as souls, in the evening of a soul, it feels that the need has come to stop. Is there something beyond this? The little sun searches for the real sun then, and that's when you come to the Vant class. Yes, they said it's a sign of a mature soul to seek spiritual knowledge. I was just thinking, Vant does not push itself forward, does not advertise itself and push itself forward. Vant waits until you feel a need for it. What good is it? What good will it do? Will it get get me, will it cure my disease, and will it give give me a job, and will it give me great health? And no, what good is it then? No good. Go ahead, try your best, do whatever you like in this world, try your best. There are technologies for the Indian spiritual heritage has technologies for all of this. If you want good health, there's a most sophisticated technology, the Hatha yoga. Technologies are there. You want good health? Yes. You want wealth? You want a good life? You want good experiences in life? The law of karma tells us, the more merit you have, punya, do good, accumulate merit, you will get a series of pleasant experiences, the epitome of which is heavens; but even that has an end, that also has to come to an end, that is limited. Whatever you want, the technologies of Ayurveda, for example, just I would like to mention at this point, one scholar was telling me, even in Ayurveda, which is a technology for uh, taking care of the body and secondarily the mind, to where they say all diseases are traced back, not only to the pranamaya kosha, to what they call vijnanamaya kosha, that there is a problem in our understanding of life, in our understanding about ourselves and the world. That problem in understanding is translated into mental problems, emotional problems. That problem, which is a mental and emotional problem, is translated into a pranic problem, where it manifests as psychosomatic diseases, and that is transmitted transmitted and and appears as symptoms in our physical body. So it is traced back so far to the intellect. So they will say that if you have a tummy ache, it's an intellectual problem, not in the stomach, yes. So this is the, there are all these magnificent technologies. Whatever you want, but after all, when you realize everything is limited, everything is limited, and every everything is haunted by death, everything is haunted by impermanence, when we realize that, then the spiritual seeking awakens. Then Vant is there waiting for you. Now you can come and talk to me. Yeah, the Buddha's insight: everything is transitory. At this point, if you say, doesn't matter if it's transitory, if it is if it lasts for a while, I don't need a cookie to last for years; it'll it'll be rotten; I just need it to last enough for for me to put it in my mouth; it's good enough. Then Buddha says, go ahead and have a cookie, and you'll get the consequences of that, too. And you do it often enough, then you come to the soul comes to a deep understanding that all of it amounts to nothing. The Buddha says, transitory, transitory, everything is transitory; momentary, momentary, everything is momentary. Why? VI, everything is VI, and hence suffering, suffering, everything is suffering. Suffering is suffering, and pleasure is also suffering. You'll say, what a spoil sport, Swami Tapas! It seems a very senior monk of our order, it seems he used to say when he spoke about Buddhism, he used to start with, "Buddhism is a serious religion. You have to start, the first step is that you have to accept everything is surrounded by suffering in this world; everything is suffering." You inaugurate a new house; you're so happy. The Buddhist comes and says, "This is the first day of its destruction." He's right; he's right; he's more right than we are, which is true, to acknowledge the truth. It's not pessimism. If that's all they said, it it would be pessimism, but the Buddha says, there's a cause to this, and there is a way out of this. So it is not pessimism. Vant also is not pessimism; it shows a way out. But Vant takes a long-term view of it. You want this world, enjoy it, and we will give you all sorts of technologies to enjoy it, every kind of technology which modern man is just beginning to discover in positive psychology and all, which is well known to yoga, well known to many kinds of spiritual technologies developed in India, psychological techniques to enhance enjoyment, to enhance pleasant experiences in life, to enhance life itself, longevity. But all of it ultimately comes to an end; that also one must know; it has an expiry date. Everything comes labeled. Even heaven comes labeled with an expired date. In Hinduism, Buddhism, Indic religions, heaven is not eternal. These heavens, the lower heavens. So there is an eternal heaven, the heaven of a devotee where the soul goes to Vaikuntha or Kailasha and lives eternally in the presence of God; that's different. But heavens that we earn through meritorious action, you get joy, and then you have to let go. Swami Nishan used to give that example of of, he used to travel South Africa to Mumbai. So he says, I book my ticket on Air India, have to get money and book your ticket on Air India. Once you enter the plane, um, it's air-conditioned; it may be 40° outside Celsius, 100 outside, but in the plane it is a comfortable 65 or so, and then you, this is your seat, and then uh, you'll be shown a movie, and they'll be served good food, and you'll be all the time 40,000 ft in the air. So that's like heaven, yeah, though today we wouldn't think rail line travel is at all heavenly. But anyway, then what happens the moment, once you start getting used to it, this is nice, I'm being taken care of, this is very f—and he says, "Now we are descending into Mumbai." I said, okay. And I said, "Now, thank you for traveling with Air India, and we hope you you'll come to us again next time." No, I want to stay here. I'm sorry, sir, you have to leave. It is it is 110 with 100% humidity outside; back you go. If you want to come to heaven again, you have to buy a ticket. So just like that, all of it comes to an end, and and Vant says, then you come to Vant and search for that which is eternal, which is permanent, and which happens to be our own real self. That's what Vant shows you; that is what the core of spirituality is. We have 10 minutes; we'll stop here and take a couple of questions and conclude. There's a question there? Yes. Just trying to get my head around something. Those eyes, reflection reflected. So when you speak of the subtle body moving on, is it the reflected Consciousness that moves from body to body, from bucket to bucket? Yeah, so the I which we experience right now, the I which we experience right now has two parts. One part is a function of the mind, the ego, aham, aham, I, I am a man, I am I am an American, I'm an Indian, I'm a Californian. I was about to say Texan because I was in Texas last week, but I know that won't be taken kindly here. This is the ego; it's a function of the mind. And we always experience this ego as a shining, as a sentient ego. That sentiency in the ego is the reflected Consciousness. So when the body dies, the mind is transferred to another body, to another world. The ego goes with it, and the reflected Consciousness, the sentiency, travels with it. But the pure Consciousness does not travel; it is always, it pervades everything; it is eternal; it is omnipresent, unchanging. Yeah, does that answer your question? It's the same ego. It is the same ego. Same ego in each each mind. Each mind has its function as an ego. The I, when we when this I that experiences this presence here leaves this presence, this body, yes, in another body, but it will carry with itself all the experiences which it had in this body as stored up memories. It may not be able to recall. How much can we recall of our own say babyhood? Maybe at the most one or two memories. What did you have for dinner um yesterday at this time? You can tell me last week, to scratch last year, impossible when you were 2 years old. So what experiences did I have in my past life? According to yoga psychology, it is all stored up in the chitta, but we cannot access it so easily. But yogis are supposed to be able to access it. Yes, but I'm I feel I'm not exactly answered. You're asking a question. Carry certain as that we is part of this growth towards, like you say, true knowledge. Accessing the essentials that we are collecting as we go through. Vant is very clear about what travels. The physical body is destroyed. Annamaya kosha, it goes back to the Earth. But what travels is the subtle body, the pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya. I'm not talking about the anandamaya kosha because he has not mentioned it. I'm not talking about it. But anyway, this is what travels to the next, and Consciousness is always there; it is reflected in the pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya, and it's reflected there. But the pure Consciousness is always there. So this this is the subtle body which travels; it carries with with us with it our distinctive experiences, our memories. So we grow from life to life. You may not remember the exact details of your past lives, but be assured the tendencies that we have accumulated in the past lives are here today. That's why siblings are so different sometimes. Brothers and sisters, two brothers, two sisters, they're quite different sometimes, similar in some respects, physically similar, but mentally, in attitudes, they may be quite different. We are ancient; we are all ancient; we are incredibly ancient creatures. Even the the newest, the tiniest baby is a creature millions of years old. Yes, there's a question there. What? No, it does not travel. So the pure Consciousness, it does not travel. That's a good question. It is always there. Where will it travel to? We will see later on. All space and time and the entire universe is within this Atman. Atman is not in space; space and time are all within Atman. We'll see all that later on. So Atman exists; it does not travel anywhere. I'll just mention one thing before we go into the question. I'll just I won't elaborate this. I, why the reason why he's concentrating on the I is this I is the one which we grasp, which we are aware of. Now, question is, is this I, we are all aware of this I, we have a knowledge of of the I, this I, is it knowledge or is it error? The answer Vant gives us is, it's a mixture of knowledge and error. I exist, knowledge; I am Swami, error; I am this body, error; I am happy, error; I am sad, error; I am ignorant, error; I know Vant, I'm knowledgeable, error; I exist, I shine, I am Bliss, or the Bliss itself shines forth; that itself is knowledge. That's what we are traveling towards; everything else is added onto it, will drop off. Yes, there is a question here. I'm coming back to you. St, yes. What happens to a blind person? A blind person, you can always ask, remember, where is the blindness? It's in the physical body, and it might be a defect in the pranamaya subtle body, not in the Atman, not in the Atman. So it's it's an problem in the physical and physiological body. So and the and the states are in the physical and physiological bodies. Atman is completely unaffected. In fact, Shankara says this in in the advaita Vedanta. "I am blind?" No, rather, you are foolish; you are not blind. The particular visual mechanism associated with your subtle body and in this particular life is not functioning properly. You are pure Consciousness; how can you be blind? If you are blind, the world will disappear. Uh, I'll come back. Yeah, you had a question. I'll figuring out the difference between Atman and and Brahman and and things you talk. The difference between Atman and Brahman. The Vant says no difference. The witness Consciousness—I'm using the term because this this text uses the term sakshi, witness, and that's why I'm using the term witness Consciousness—this witness Consciousness is equal to Atman, is equal to Brahman. And we will see that it comes later on. Why use two terms if they're exactly the same? The reality within ourselves, advaita Vedanta calls it the Atman. Atman literally means myself, I, the essence within, the true I, not the ego. And the reality of this universe is called Brahman. Yes, and the two are the same. That's what advaita Vedanta is trying to tell me. One second, there's a question there. Yes. Is it possible to experience true Consciousness without the mind? Is it like without the mirror? Is it possible to, yes, to the extent that you are aware of your of your true face without the mirror, to that extent. But a specific knowledge of Consciousness requires an activity of the mind and the sense organs, or something, some activity in the subtle body which reflects, you know, we are we uh, see everybody else's face; we do not see our own faces. There's this beautiful story in Kashmir Shaivism where a devotee of Shiva meditated long, and finally um, in a dream Shiva came to him, and the devotees said devotee said that, "Oh Lord, I wanted to see you, but I can't see you. Please show yourself in my waking state. It's just a dream now, but you could just show yourself." And Shiva said, "All right, tomorrow I shall appear to you. How? Look for the man with no head." When he woke up, he lo, everybody has a head. No [Laughter] [Music] head. Look for the man with no head. If you see, you are the only one who does not have a head. The way you see see the world, you don't act directly see your own head. So that's the answer. Yes, Atman is Brahman. That Shivam, I am Shiva. That is what Shiva wanted to tell. Yes, last question, we end now. And the distinction between those two is the in the Jiva, what carries it? Paramatma is the, how how does it differ? I'll give you the precise answer in Vant. Atman, do you remember what what I began the talk with? Your face reflected in the mirror is a reflected face. The pure Consciousness shining in your mind is a reflected Consciousness. God created man in his own image. The image, the Consciousness shining in your mind is the Jiva. That's exactly what we feel ourselves to be, a jiva, a being with a mind and a body. That is the Jiva. Atman, that reflected Consciousness enables this body and mind to function. This body is a living body; the mind functions, thinks, and does everything because of the presence of the reflected Consciousness. The Sanskrit definition, jivatma, Sanskrit definition of the word jiva: that reflected Consciousness which enables the the prāṇa to function. That exactly is the jiva. If you identify with yourself with that, then you are the reflection; you become the reflection of the Lord. That pure Consciousness becomes God, then, "Lord, I am thy reflection; I am thy creature. You are the Lord; I am thy shadow, thy thy servant," literally the servant, the shadow of the Lord. What Vant tells us is, you are not a reflection; you are that which is being reflected. That makes the transition from conventional religion to the highest spirituality, where you become one. Jiva, Atman realizes itself as Paramatman. Thank you very much. We'll conclude here and take it up next, the next days is uh uh, yes, we shall uh announce the next class, and uh the next fundamental question to be taken up will be the creation of this universe, no less. We so far we're talking about ourselves and pure Consciousness, but what about this external universe? How is it created? What is it exactly? All that will be taken up next time. So we covered a lot of ground. How do we have waking and dreaming and deep sleep? What is birth and what is death? All this we have covered. So that was fast. [Music] Work. Om shanti, shanti, shanti. [Music] Om Krishna. [Applause] [Music]