Source (search for “Vasistha”). Recordings are from the end of 2011.

Class 1

• considered highest text of Vedanta. Something like Mandukya. Generally not taught to beginners.
• requires an open mind. When you have an open mind, you will not be there. Only the faculty of cognition will be there. If you are a person, then you are not open. Keep aside satyatvabuddhi about the world - an agenda in the world and dehAbhimAna
• Pot is vAcAramabhaNaM - born from speech -> mind -> nama (mouth), rupa (mind). There is only clay.
• What you call jagat it just appears as mental image and it disappears and the mental image resolves. That’s the only reality of jagat.
• Ramana Maharsi: you don’t see jagat independent of you as a person. And you don’t feel yourself as a person until and unless you are interacting with a world outside of you. Ego and world come and sink together. Originate from the same source. And in themselves both are not real, just an appearance.
• Jagat: there is nothing. Not even the knower of nothing is there. It is all just an appearance. Both Baudhas and Vedantins come to the same conclusion.
• As long as the mind moves, the world is there. When it stops, like in sleep or samadi, the experience of the jagat is there not anymore.
• Sakshi, substratum, adhisthana. Some satyam has to be there. The knowingness, brahman, my self - I am.
• You need a ground. That ground is you. That ground is atma.
• Once you know the truth, then there is nothing more to say. Enlightened people are generally very quiet people. We, students like us, grow in silence and peace. Set aside meaningless speech and emotions. Rise above vishi-vashi sentimentality. We should not interact with the world too much. E.g. offence: it is your ego that doesn’t allow you to understand the truth. It tells you this and that is real. There cannot be hurt without ego.
• Be quiet, meditate instead of social engagement. Spend the time in silence, contemplation and shravanam.
• Family life and honest profession are never an obstacle to the truth.
• One who has raga dvesha is an egoic entity. He becomes karta and bhokta, which produces further raga dvesha -> circle of samsara.
• Words coming from silence are also silence. Words coming from the ego are just noise.
• Seer, seeing, seen. When you see a flower, is it included in the seeing? Seeing pervades the seen. And, can there be a seer without seeing? It is the seeing that pervades the seer. When you see an object. The seeing is the truth, but appears as though divided in two (seer, seen). Seeing comes/is first, then seer and seen.
• What you see is unreal. It is all mithya. That you see is real. Like movie or a dream - what you see is unreal, that you see is real.
• When the conditioned upadhi are the jnaneindriyas, then you have drastha, darshanam, drsya. When karmeindriyas are the upadhi then you have karta, kriya and hetuh (reason -> ego).
• You are enjoyer only when there is imagination that you are enjoyer. Only the space-like awareness is real. Until I know it, it is the Brahman. When I know it, it is the atma.

Class 2 - Ananda

• Vedantins: sat and cit are one and the same and real - Brahman / atma. Generally in duality they are seen separately. What exists (sat) is outside and the knowledge (cit) of existence is inside you. This is how we are divided.
• There is no outside. Everything is in you. You are the ground of all nama rupas. There is nothing outside of you.
• Cit is the nature of sat and sat is the reality. Ananda is the fragrance of sat cit.
• Generally in a pleasure situation a lot of movement of the mind happens. This is often reflected outside (talking, dancing …). Pleasure - mind is put on excited, high-state of energy. If it stays long in this state -> burn out.
• Pleasure - you are very self-conscious about it (my victory, my success …). You are not conscious of ananda. There are no attributes to be concious of, no want, no limitation. You cannot describe it in a positive way. You just merge and are the ananda. Whatever comes from outside and goes is timebound. Whatever is your own is timeless - ananda.
• Sat cit ananda = satyam shivam sundaram. Sundaram - inner beauty, a perfection of the entire creation itself. When you look at the world there is a sense of beauty which is mind-made and therefore very transient.
• Transitive verbs - bring about duality easily. Suggest there is an actor and objects.
• Tamoguna covers the ever-shining sat-cit-ananda. Sattvaguna reflects it. More rajoguna (krodha, lobha, moha) -> less ananda. Tamasic people (overeating, too much sleeping, substance abuse) -> even less ananda. More sattva = more ananda.
• Ananda - source of life. That is what makes you an animated body mind persona. That is the Iswara. It is the hub-like atma which keeps prana and apana in place and through them body is kept alive.
• How to find it? There is no how! Just try, you cannot fail. Sadhana: we have to discover it (ananda) before the body falls.
• God - Ishwara is like a sphere with infinite radius. Contains everything, includes, pervades and transcends the space. Sphere with infinite radius has the center everywhere. In every human heart. Shining in every place and shining without action.
• Thinking creates an entity. That entity you are not. I’m - being is never in doubt, or do you ever experience “I’m not”? Aham asmi is optional. Sometimes it is there, sometimes not. But naham asmi is never there, it is not possible.
• Jagat drsyate (appears). Jagat nasti. Appearance only can be negated. “Even this will pass”.
• Brahman/atma is nameless, because you need attributes for a name.
• A person of discrimination will not revel in all these sense pleasures (Gita 5:22)
• How to live life as an enlighten person. This is what Yoga Vasistha is about.
• Vedanta is like martial arts - there are levels of students (like belts).
• Once you take unreal for real your ability to see the real is strongly compromised. It is enough to negate the bhrama - (error, delusion). Name of the delusion is jagat.
• Certain questions cannot be answered. They can only be seen as wrong. E.g. when, where, how did the Big Bang happen?
• The inexplicable is explained by Maya. Like blue color of the atmosphere. There is no blue color. It’s just trick the dispersed light, senses and the mind play on you.

Class 3

• Isvara is always pointed out with the pronoun “that”. It’s that reality that you cannot perceive with eyes, conceive with mind (ideate), because it has no nama rupa. But you can feel it. You cannot miss this presence, this godliness.
• Origin of bhrama: we are so much accustomed to sensual perceptions that we think that only what can be perceived / conceived (thus has a nama rupa) exists.
• The body of Brahman is akasha. Everywhere is in akasha - it is the reality in which everything comes and go. Brahman - it is the pervasive akasha that is shining (prakasha) by itself . You don’t experience space. It is inferred by the mind. But it has to be there.
• Cit = evidence. Brahman = all-pervasive expansive cit = Isvara = that (indescribable, wonder you cannot miss)
• Mind = past and future. That which IS mind can never reach. When the mind is, there is no present. And when the present is, there is no mind.
• Citta (heart, memory, reason, mind, love) minus modification resolves to cit. Mind cannot conceive the present, but it can merge with it.
• Mind itself has many categories. Intellection, ideation, imagination, emotions, recollection, I-thought…
• Jivan mukta has no aspirations and no fear. He’s purna. He can smile at the sword that is going to kill him.
• Brahmajnani = brahmajnana = brahman.
• Purification is always karma.
• You have to move from “srsti drsti vada” to “drsti srsti vada”. Srsti is not parinama - a modification of the godhead. It is an appearance. In your drsti the srsti appears. Whenever there is appearance (modification) there must be your srsti (seeing) first.
• Seeing itself is creation. Like seeing of a daemon for a mental patient.
• In cetana parinama (change) is not possible. Only in jada is.
• In the beginning. srsti-drsti: god creates from a second substance -> god creates from nothing (miracle) -> god creates by modification (parinama vada; would make god insentient object) -> Drsti-srsti vada: god upholds the appearance of the world. Reality is that which makes the appearance possible. Without light you cannot have a movie -> soham, because jagat is only an appearance - illusion (something, that is not there).
• The child doesn’t see a blue dome of the sky. It slowly starts seeing things the way elders see them.
• Out of 100 things only one thing is registered. Same for sounds, smell…
• There is a huge difference between identity and equality. Jiva ID isvara.
• Don’t give a second thought to the thing called jagat. Just ignore and forget it. Or do you record all the dreams do you have? This is the highest state of jivanmukta.
• When you are looking outside you are dreaming. When you look within you are awake. You look out and see is my house, my people, think about your plans, past … Contemplate upon akasha, the flow of thoughts stops and start feeling the fragrance of reality. When the mind is no mind you already are in communion with reality.
• Virtual world: the jagat is born out of your imagination just like the blue of the sky. Just like digital world. Where is it?
• Brahma - adhyAsa (superimposition). It is not a bhrama as long as you are in it. And as you come out of it, there is no bhrama either. Maya. It is neither sat nor asat. With knowledge you cannot take it for real because you know it is unreal. Without knowledge you cannot take it for unreal because you don’t know better.
• I’m so and so is a vasana = mental impression = samskara. Born out of ignorance. Discover and reject them. You’ll function more efficiently as you are not weighted down by the vasanas. You’ll discover you’re in the Presence all the time. Whatever you’ll do is mediation. Meditation = communion, realization of the fragrance of the reality in everything. It’s the vasana that covers up the fragrance of reality.
• Means of cognition help you to know a thing that wasn’t known before. Sruti will not make you know something you haven’t known before. It resolves the limited idea about yourself. Along with ajnana all the vasanas are eliminated -> atma is shining.

Class 4 - bodha, vicara

• That, oneness, cannot be experienced. Experience is a process and has a division (experiencer, object of experience) associated.
• Upasakas - reaching the loka of devata is moksha for them.
• For vedantins there is no gaining. What you gain you’ll lose again. For them moksha is the svarupa = brahman = atma. Bandha is the ignorance.
• Bodha = realization. jnanam = knowledge. There is no pot realization, except understanding it is only nama rupa. That’s why we say normally only ghatajnamam.
• Flying helicopter on the screen in a movie. Is there any? It would tear the screen. Where is the flying helicopter? In myself. I’m the substratum in which the flying helicopter is seen. The flying helicopter is an appearance on the substratum of the conscious being that I’m. What is true to the movie is true to the jagat.
• Jagat na jayate, nasti. jagat drsyate.
• What makes us suffer is the attachment. And this attachment is part of the drsya.
• I can never become an object. I can only be myself. And know that whatever I experience is different from me and unreal. Strictly speaking bodha is knowing what all I’m not. It is precondition for atmasakshatkara.
• Samsara is only a superimposition, an appearance. Without this realization there is nothing like svabodha (= atmasakshatkara) in anybody’s life at any time.
• Vedanta is not a subject matter that is well settled and can be taught systematically like Newton’s laws. You have to investigate, inquire, examine, study, contemplate and come to know all in yourself..
• Devaloka - ambience of bhoga. Once you are there you’ll be busy with bhogas. Therefore the question of understanding of Vedanta doesn’t occur. Example: gala dinner.
• Why am I born in this world as a human being? Bhagavan’s reply: so you can reach me. There is no other purpose. Therefore do shravanam. And understand it for yourself so you can claim it as your knowledge.
• Generally people are experts in quoting. But that is missing the point. Sastra and sravanam is not about being a member of a club and expanding it. Thoughts we have picked up by sravanam have to be converted into living thoughts.
• “Till you know you’d listen” - very nice escape route. One has to feel a sense of urgency about integrating this knowledge. Look within, search within. Sravanam is not only about listening alone (like listening to puranas). It doesn’t make it complete. It needs also vicara (inquiry, exploration, journey).
• In other journeys the goal is important and path there only as much as it takes you to the goal. In Vedanta, there is no goal. You are the goal. It is an exploration without a goal, without a path. You don’t travel on a path yet you reach the end of a path. Any journey requires time. Here, there is no time involved. Pathless. Goalless. The entire emphasis is on exploration - vicara. You constantly explore and as you explore you’ll discover newer and newer horizons of yourself.
• Atma has infinite expressions. Where will it end? Exploration is the goal. There is no kheda - distress. You are exploring your own svarupa. Atma is the only thing lovable in the creation in itself.
• Self-love - I love my body, mind, emotions, ego vs. love of the self.
• Meditation - exploration into the unknown. Free transport into my own svarupa.
• Normal misconception: I’m is sustained by thinking, doing and speaking. (In silence) I’m.
• The word appearance and experience is the same.
• Everybody has a world vision, there is common elements but it is always subjective. My table is different than yours. Three people are looking at the same rope: one sees a snake, the other an ornament, the last a piece of wood.
• Even when you use “existence” as word, put “seeming” there. It is very practical. Makes a huge difference in a crisis. If you are in a worrisome situation, ask is this real? How many times did we face troubles in the past? They came and went. Explore, don’t conclude.
• Problem: people doubt atma. They don’t doubt the world.
• Jagat is like Aurora Borealis or rainbow - beautiful, yet doesn’t really exist. Fly into them and see for yourself.
• Minus pot-thought there is no pot. The thought is the critical thing.
• When you remain thoughtless, nirvana (the state without suffering) becomes evident. It is there, yet hidden behind active mind, which throws a screen of thoughts on the reality which is yourself. It gives a false notion there there is no other dimension except body and mind.
• Niddidhiasana - cultivating inner silence. In this silence slowly the insight will come - that opposites, duality are not so overwhelming.

Class 5 - vAsanAs, acquisition

• Unless you watch, examine, inquire you will not be able to know the truth.
• All attempt to become happy is misery.
• There is no enemy outside, just a vasana.
• Examine your vasanas - mental impressions - that make us unhappy, so you understand the causes for your sorrow and fear. Because in the space-like knowingness there is no fear nor sorrow. Vasanas rise and fall in atma and as we identify with them a flow of thoughts covers the reality which is space-like knowingness.
• Give up desires (=vasanas) -> moksha.
• What you already have given up is not important. What is still to give up is. Become empty, like space (don’t confuse blank with empty). Open space doesn’t need any furnishing and it is beautiful. So is empty mind. Empty mind is creative mind. If the mind is empty the truth comes into its own, and the truth you are.
• Mind free of all the vasanas = brahman. amanibhava.
• Don’t create new vasanas and allow the old ones to drop off. Soon the mind will melt away.
• Acquisitiveness of worldly things adds to the vasanas’ load of the mind.
• Stop thinking about the world. Do you duty, that is enough. you have already taken care of the world. You need not save the world. Save yourself. What world do you want to save? One which is a projection of your mind?
• Pearls and thread -> garland. pancha bhutas and vasanas (thread) -> body. There is no body.
• This body has to be cleaned, fed, clothed - the only vasanas that you need. Give up the rest.
• If you want moksha you have to pay the price of the finite to gain the infinite.
• Unless there is anticipation, expectation there cannot be pleasure, nor pain. Pleasure and pain are mental states, not you. They are driven by memory. In any given situation there is neither pleasure or pain. By individual’s response of acceptance or resistance it becomes one. Therefore just watch, be a witness. (It’s OK)
• Depth of my being - divinity. Width of my being - all existence.
• Fear - being unsure about the present state of comfort.
• birth is the single cause of ignorance in human life.
• People suffer because of what they acquire. Both physical burden and burden in head.
• In what way is (accumulating) punya different from money? Want to play games with god? Stop being clever, manipulative.
• After accumulation comes the problem of safeguarding. You cannot just walk away (that’s freedom). Riches are the source of endless strife.
• The philanthropy of the rich man has its origin in his inner guilt. A rich man cannot have the quality of ahimsa or daya. There is violence in competitiveness and in acquisitiveness.
• Unless you are fundamentally simple, live a disciplined and orderly life and are a humble-hearted guy, what values are you talking about? Rich man’s values are conditioned values, distorted. His god doesn’t exist in this creation.
• Life and death don’t ask what you have? They ask what you are. One has to gain what alone is worth acquiring. Inner silence and peace. Then the truth comes by itself.
• There is no imperfection in this creation. If you see some, it is your heart. Your mind. World is your projection. Therefore create harmony within. If you have it, they you find god’s glory in every bit of the creation.
• A mind which is preoccupied with thinking the whole day is a sick mind. A mind becomes an effective tool only when you know inner silence. Otherwise a mind is punishment, a curse.
• Once you know the truth, there is no question of losing it again. The child will not go to the womb again.
• The Life - state of jivanmukta where the mind is free of all vasanas. saH jivati (he alone lives). All others are just inhaling and exhaling.
• Be aware of the flow of the thoughts and movement of the ego = mananam. Reflection of what is going behind the curtain. Looking at your face. You get disturbed because you look ugly in the mirror of the sastra.
• There are two kinds of jnanam. vasanajnanam and vivekajnanam. pashus and some people have the first one only.
• sastra is a burden for people without viveka, it evaporates unless repeated.
• People think sound is the music. No. Silence between the notes is the music. That is the shanti. The inner silence. Shanti = stopping, dousing, withholding movement of the mind and yet remaining alertful and watchful. If this is not there the mind becomes a tormentor.
• You are not identified with the body/mind in the sleep. So they are not a problem for you. Arrive there in the wakeful state.

Class 6 - ahaGkAra

• You’re an ego because of your social situation, religion, culture.
• Whatever I’m I’m but I’m certainly not the egoic entity. ahaGkAra -> aham karomi - I’m the doer, enjoyer. Ahamkara means body identification.
• Once the ego is created you create a set of values that suit the ego (cementing the ego).
• karmakAnda makes you an egoic entity. Based on the phala you develop attachment to the action.
• Ego has to pursue vedanta and gain mokSa - highest distortion of Vedanta. mokSa is not for but from the ego. Teaching or studying mokSa zAstra is just another qualification for the ego.
• Child has all the sense organs functioning wonderfully, has prANa, the happiness in the world but the ego is not there. birth of ego: Raju eats food -> I eat food.
• Birth and death -> belief system - religion, not philosophy.
• Ego - unreal and amAya (disease). Most of the diseases originate in the mind, often gastric, back pains. Come from the restlessness of the mind.
• svabhimAna helps to overcome abhimAna (identification - aham mama), which is ahamkara - durabhimAna, darahaGkAra - only. It is the enemy, which projects enemies and friends to the outside.
• Unless you understand what is sleep you will not understand what is AtmA. I’m there in sleep but the ego is not there.
• Only when you are self-concious that is the ego. You are not self-concious during waking all the time.
• Let there be action, but not on the behalf of ego. That is the karma yoga. Where you are not enjoyer.
• When the ego resolves, all the agitation of the mind comes to an end. it is the egoity that makes the mind more and more agitated and brings, ambition, greed, competition, mental violence into life.
• Ego is an object, not a subject. you can get rid of the ego by watching the ego instead of identifying with the ego and watching the world.
• Relationship is like a mirror. If you find there conflict you assume that coming from the other person but it is coming from you.
• In silence and peace alone people will grow. Try to become outwardly and inwardly silent. Like Buddha I want to remain in my svarupa all the time. Shiva, Dakshinamurti, Buddha are always in meditation. That’s the only way to eliminate the enemy called ego.
• Be aware of your own being. If you are, all is resolved, there are no thoughts nothing else.
• Meditation - observation without being an observer. Centerless observation. there is also an action without being an actor. There is the awareness without the ego, thinking without the thinker. When the center vibrates the entire liquid vibrates.
• The vision that something is good or bad is bad already. Good - vision in which the opposites are not there.
• Give up bhoktRtvam (enjoyership), the greed for karmaphala, which is the foundation of the ego. Then kartRtvam, then name and fame. (fall: eva - apple, adam - snake)
• As long as the individual is there, there is no truth.
• Agitation is because of insecurity, characteristic of ego.
• Ego is just a thought. A thought is never real. It is a manner of thinking -> speaking -> acting.
• Keep the enthusiasm, give up the aham, karma phala greed. Keep the courage. Give credit, don’t take credit.
• You need zAnti, not worldly accomplishments. You are students of vedanta.
• Vedanta is about the mind, paying attention to the mind.
• Stomach pain is enough to put an end to the world of comfort you have accumulated.
• Pay proper attention to your mind. Don’t focus on the body too much, nor wealth. Conflict - result of the problem of the mind. Make the mind calm and quiet and you will come out of the conflict. You are in sorrow - watch the mind - it was the mind that put you in the sorrow.
• Smoke coming from the mind: intolerance, frustration, anger, resentment, mental resistance. Flame of sorrow, distress, unhappiness. I’m getting converted into ashes just like flame converts a heap of wood.
• Accept everything, deny the ego.
• People go crazy because of the mind. It wants something by the time it gets it it loses interest. Jumping from one thing to the other.
• The mind can be your friend or your enemy.

Class 7 - tRSNA, insecurity

• tRSNA - greed is like darkness. There is no cap, no end.
• Insecurity is there because of greed.
• We spend whole life acquiring things. Acquisitiveness is direct result of the greed that is in our hearts. If there is some, no matter how well positioned in the society, healthy, rich we are, we’ll be insecure.
• Parents are always insecure about children.
• Develop vairAgya - which is also called vaitRSNya - freedom from greed. You have to dismantle it piece by piece.
• All tRSNa, all greed is the single source of insecurity in our life. Makes us blind to the truth.
• samsara, fear, insecurity, living on the verge of sorrow. There are many blemishes in samsara. tRSNA is one of the many, yet it occupies the first place.
• Greed expresses in the form of competitive acquisitiveness. Makes us suffer for a long time. A person in the forest experiences fear now and then, a person in the palace can’t sleep because of his greed.
• Cut the creeper of tRSNA with the sword called viveka. mithya amithya vastu viveka. We come to this world empty handed and we leave it just the same. In between, what is the use of becoming a victim to the endless greed?
• For some more money a person loses his courage, stability, status etc.
• Look at birds. They collect food just required for that day. Do you come across any animal that holds things for the future?
• Insurance - paper producing industry. No wealth is produced, just shuffling money here and there. Capital for this industry is our fear.
• Basis for our insecurity is always thinking of the future. Thinking about the future -> insecurity -> greed.
• tRSNA expresses in our lives in two ways a) acquisitiveness b) insecurity.
• santoSaH - learn to live happily with what you have. Contentment is a great virtue in Vedanta.
• How much land does a person need? A hole of six feet.
• if a person gets something and is struggling to get something else it shows that he did not get any fulfillment in the first thing. srI - wealth and rAjya - power they never make you fulfilled. Whatever you acquire in this world is transient and superficial.
• Desire is the opposite of acceptance. What is is not good, what should be, I imagine. Desire is mind’s mechanism to fill that gap. foolishness: the desiring mind can never fill fulfillment, contentment in what is.
• Viveka: wisdom, strength of mind.
• What difference it makes? Time will devour. Don’t get completely consumed by what is time-bound. Try to find what is timeless.
• vairAgya: the body is not mine. The body is not for me (like rented car). Viveka: the body is not me -> all the actions of the body are offered to the whole. I speak, walk, do not for my benefit but as a offering to the whole. Those who think like this are no different from Izvara, from uttama puruSa.

Class 8 - dehAbhimAna, vairAgya

• We identify with the body, create a personality and then get consumed by the problems of personality. All problems belong to it, to the ego. In sleep, there is no body, no person (ego).
• When you go to sleep, body, person (ego), world merge together. When you wake up they emerge.
• When the person is in place, it starts fretting around issues regarding the person.
• People are not ready to face the death with a smile on the face. They are too busy, they are never ready. That’s why nobody will ask their permission.
• Body will fall sooner than we expect. People never consider the transient nature of life and the body. People want the dream to continue.
• Predecessor of movies - gandharva nagara. Hypnosis by description.
• There is no stability in the lightning, cloud, movie … body.
• Religion: comforts of the body. God: body. Shrine: place where the body is kept. Whole life is gone in catering the needs and demands of the body.
• Body is a tool. Put it to good use. Keep it in good condition. And then leave it alone. You don’t identify with a tool. Develop generous indifference towards it.
• Too much emphasis on food, on well-being of the body becomes very counterproductive. Makes life a lot more difficult.
• If you fight cancer, it fights back. Peace of mind is robbed for whatever time the person lives. Learn to accept it and learn to live with it. See how it reacts. Don’t treat it as an enemy. You’ll suffer less. The body has to fall, it is a natural process. Treat it, don’t fight it, that will just create conflict in the heart.
• Once the body becomes stricken with diseases, you’ll not have time for philosophical issues.
• You don’t fight it, you accept it and treat it. Develop some indifference. Whatever you fight it will become stronger.
• vairAgya is like vitamins. So that problems of life can be tackled properly. Without vairAgya a person’s heart will be broken.
• Settled in life - free from all desires and fears. In realising the self settlement will come. Study, contemplate, reflect and meditate. Live it, now.
• Unemployment is less painful, worry about unemployment is more painful.
• Places of enjoyment are very cruel. Pleasures created out of riches are all perishable. They are merciless when the aftereffect starts working. People are jealous, society has no mercy. Phalam is derived from perishable.
• You are not a mumukSu, till you have vairAgya.
• Develop a value system, in which there is no birth and no death. And develop a generous indifference towards the body. Then zrAvaNam, mananam, nididhyAsanam (profound and repeated meditation).

Class 9 - mental patterns opposed to mokSa

• Eyesight helps to see things but then it creates its own set of problems, like projections, desires etc.
• Hearing fills the intellect by vAsanAs by repeated hearing. Can such buddhi be made stable?
• Taste -> diabetes, heart attack…
• The real tsunami is created by the mind. Tormentor sitting inside, which makes people hate, fight each other. Those who are able to withstand this tsunami are the real heroes, not brave great warriors.
• Weapons to fight the mind are viveka and vairAgya. You do not get the sense of self from the body and sense organs. E.g. a person gets blind. If he derives the sense of self from the sense organs he’s in big trouble.
• People also derive their sense of self from actions. Atma is being, not actions. Once you establish your self as a doer (e.g. teacher), you are in trouble.
• Mind filled with vAsanAs of sense pleasures is the obstacle to mokSa. You put them in place, you have to remove them.
• Without quietude of the mind you will not be happy in life. It is the thoughts that breeds fear and sorrow. In case of heart problems doctors (in India) recommend to eliminate raga dveSa.
• Japan: vajrAsana (which automatically makes your body straight) + green tea.
• Mind is essentially sattva, physical body tamas and sense organs rajas. We fill the mind with so many (karma)vAsanAs that it becomes rajasic, hyperactive and then it becomes tamasic, toxic. Food is tamoguNa.
• In a rajasic mind there cannot be any quietude. It is very unsteady - lola. It has become like peacock’s tail.
• Formula of a samsari: Make money, enjoy, occasionally make some dAnam. You have to acquire viveka and vairAgya when you are healthy and strong. After retirement is too late, the body just crashes and whatever energy you’ll have left will be needed to take care of it. Still, better late than never.
• jagat = phenomenal world (not just “world”). Ever in flux. Never the same. Always divided into opposites.
• Never say jagat asti or bhavati. It gives a sense of reality, yet it is not sat jagat. Say jagat dRzyate (= unreal, mere appearance, mere name - nAmadheya).
• When you really feel distressed, contemplate on this “this life is a dream”. Why worry? You’ll be able to appreciate reality only when you know that the world is not real. Reality is not something you’ll gain. It is already you.
• Cause effect relationship is not really important if the world is not real, not born.
• Mind is getting distracted because you assume jagat is there. Meaning there are things to be gained in jagat (bhogavAsanA) and things to be performed (karmavAsanA).
• In vedantic meditation autosuggestion has critical importance. “This world is a collection of bhogas. I’m not interested in any”. “I’m not the doer, the jobs in the world are as unreal us the world - I need not accomplish nothing in the world”. REPEAT - abhyAsa, and you will see no difference as whether you are in meditation or not.
• Gem of human beings - his mind is space-like. Everything is cognised, but nothing sticks.
• Real - sthAyI - what is, what persists, what stays. World is like flash of lightning, it appears and disappears. You cannot hold on to nothing.
• Daydreaming.
• Life is like a long hallucination. AtmA/Izvara is real.

Class 10

• Entire samsara is because of identity with the physical body. Learn to live beyond the body consciousness - vairAgya - indifference. It doesn’t matter what kind of dress I wear, what kind of food I eat.
• Don’t identify with the body, don’t pamper the body. In the name of sadhana don’t punish the body. Be very balanced about it - be generous yet indifferent.
• Ramakrishna’s view of the body: “machine that manufactures impurities.” Anything that comes in contact with the body needs to be cleaned after few minutes. If you want to keep the body in good condition, you’d not identify with it.
• As you pamper the body, it becomes sick. (No) sedentary lifestyle -> (no) diabetes. Shoemakers sitting cross-legged -> never get any kidney disease.
• Whether you hate or love, the relationship will not be long. All relationships are very transient. Why hate anybody? It is madness. As you hate the other you become sad, stressed-out, you spoil your heart. As you love you become happy yourself.
• Even if the other is objectively doing wrong, see that it is only a small game. SvapnasaGgama. There is no fun in hating anybody, in the knowledge of the very transient nature of human body and relationships, just love.
• When you feel anger, frustration try to get rid of that. It is not good for your psyche, body, spirit. Sit in meditation, remember that person, than visualize after 40 years, what will be this and that bodies? Where will they be?
• Neutralize body identity so you can have a peaceful life for the rest of your life. In your life stand on the firm ground of the truth.
• Skeleton meditation: sit firm in meditation, be aware of the body. Then be aware of the skeleton. There is ground below and the skeleton is routed in the ground (because of gravity). Meditate for 2.5h.
• anityia - transient. Now it is and after some it it is not. asatyam. Hallucination. All the objects incl. body and mind are constantly changing and nothing remains the same.
• bAlyam - parents are insecure and they transmit it to the children. They have a blueprint (recipe for happiness) - this is what the boy/girl should become. They have a blueprint for their marriage as well. If it happens, they are happy, if not, you are not. They push the children. So the childhood is robbed - by the parents. They give wrong vAsanAs to the children. They give their thoughts instead of their love. They teach what to think, not how to think. Transference - we want to fulfill our dreams through them. Even if the childhood is happy, it is still transient. Like flash.
• yauvanam - there is energy but not wisdom to use the energy properly. It is also very transient, flash-like. Like a dream that persists for a while.
• Instead of living in a simple way, we accumulate - parigraha, saJcaya. Every house is like a museum. Ramana Maharsi: People don’t accumulate outside only, they accumulate also in their heart.
• As long as you are carried away by the changing things, the changeless remains hidden. Conserve all your energies for one great longing for the truth.
• kAla - time is like a very capable hunter, killing us effortlesly. We are its game. One look it enough, no matter what is the status of its prey. It plays without break.
• A mind in which vairAgya has taken strong roots knows no unhappiness. Events will be happening, yet the person remains in repose. vairAgya = no interest -> no desires. Not a single thing attracts some attachment from you, otherwise desire is not far. All your interest should be attracted towards AtmA only. Finally total absence of expectations: I do not expect anything from the world, from the people, body, mind. Food is for the body, not for me. I as the pure awareness do not need anything. Then you will not know unhappiness, whatever you will get is a gift, a joy.

Q&A

• There might not be a visible difference between vairAgya and depression. Depression - no understanding. Sickness. Biochemistry of the brain in disorder.
• How to be happy? a) The only way to be happy is to make others happy. b) As long as you are looking for it you don’t get it, you’ll remain in misery -> you’ll remain in constant happiness.
• Love, not attachment is needed for the life of gRhastha. Attachment - we seek something from the other person. Ego’s movement. In love there is no taking there is only giving.
• sphuraNa - shining. “I know the pot” is an action and there is division between the object and subject vs. “the pot is known”.
• Action of love is a spontaneous action. There is no actor. Body and mind might be tired, but there will be no stress - no emotional drain.
• There is no reality in all this worldliness. There is reality in your heart. There is god in you. The more you get entangled in the affairs of the world, the bigger the price you’ll have to pay for it.
• Samsara - kartrtvam & bhoktrtvam. To believe that you are sustaining the wife and children is the samsara.