Saddarshanam - Swami TV

May 08, 2020

Table of Contents

source classes
source satsang

1 & 2: Seeing. Exploration vs. Accumulation

Outward simplicity with inward fragmentary thinking (caste, creed, lingam…) -> obstacle to the truth.
If mind is the origin, it isn’t truth, only concept/idea.
Products of the hand (objects) and of the mind (ideas) have taken over our reality. Give up all of those.
(3) Always open, always learning, no conclusion. Conclusion means the truth is truncated, no longer infinite. Mahatmas do not arrive at conclusions. Atma has infinite expressions. Suddenly you come across a new person who presents a new facet of the infinite. There is only exploration. When you conclude about atma you miss the whole thing. In Vedanta there are no conclusions, this is a journey without a goal. Timeless journey in a partless land without a goal.
Knowing is dangerous, it makes you a person who believes “I know”. Knowledge accumulates. If something accumulates it is not the truth. Therefore seeing the truth.
In learning there is freedom. In knowing, there is accumulation. Knowing is measuring. Learning like a putting finger in the fire.
Satyam is what you understand. Sat is what is. Advaita: Sat and Cit is one and the same.
(1) What IS is the truth. The beauty of truth is that it is very simple. To find/understand what is you must be a very simple person. When you make truth complex, you remain away from it.
Do you have preferences while looking (image in the mind, looking at the thing through the image)? Do you name it (is it not an image in your mind)? You don’t know how to look. Division - mind thinks object of the world are different.
(2) When you look at something through the image in the mind you position yourself the knower -> Division. You’re looking more with your mind than with your eye. You’re looking at the present through the images of the past - you kill the present.
The eyes become a conduit for the inner light. There is only looking.

3 & 4: sat

You do not cognise the pot, you cognise the existence of the pot. The existence conditioned by the name of name and form of the pot. The absolute existence you cannot cognise, it is not available for senses/mind.
Pot is not born from clay, it is born from your mind. It is born, when the pot-thought happened.
It is not the pot that is but the ISness in the form of the pot. The substantive is the ISness. Demonstration: closed eyes + touch -> perception of ISness, and mind will supply the image (nama and rupa), that which is not.
Can there be a thing without the knowledge of the thing? There is a thing called “atom of uranium” only after people discovered uranium.
There is a thing called world only because of the light (cit) in you. Vedanta: arrive at, discover this “light within you”. “Light” of knowingness, awareness, due to which you are aware. Without this light there are no cognitions of sat (we’ve just dropped the name, rupa). And this inner light (cit) IS (sat) = Paramatma = the one being, because of which your world is put in place.
Dealing with unintelligent people: if people take nama rupa too seriously, they cannot be taught Vedanta. Do namaskara, apologise, wish luck and walk away. How can you satisfy them…? If you don’t like metaphors, you cannot be taugt Vedanta.
You’re jealous because you compare yourself with somebody else. Probably since high school. Definition of a parent: he/she handles his entire ajnana to you. Why are you a hindu? Because your parents were … (all this are images only, not real).
“There is” - “sense of being” (sensing of existence) - outer. “I’m” - sense of being - inner. Both are “sense of being” (sense, cognition, chetana). Existence as we normally understand it is jada - unsentient - which is not possible without chetana. Sense of being that shines as the knowing. No separation. Both jiva and jagat have their origin in it.

5 & 6: hrd - harati dukham

Vishnuh (means “allpervading”) - allpervading light - sat. Everywhere (space) is sat, always (time) is sat. Everything (objects) is sat. It is the mind that divides.
For a student of Vedanta, Vishnuh is in in the heart (feeling, living), not in the mind (memory - repetition - conditioning, thoughts - rupa, nama).
You seek happiness but you end up with sorrow -> Maya. We want to live but we fall dead -> Maya. Somebody wants to die but he lives -> Maya … Maya is the explanation for the inexplicable. All contradictions, paradoxes of life can be explained only by one word - Maya. That’s how the infinite is located in the heart.
We are born as “heart” people but grow into head people. Language (nama), thoughts (rupa). Ramana Maharsi -> come down from the head to the heart. Discover the truth (sat) that is in our heart. Stop searching outside.
When there is too much thinking, the quality of thinking suffers. Hyperactivity of the mind has become a disease.
Whatever you plan is samsara. Whatever happens, is God.
Thought process breeds sorrow and fear. You have a health issue only because your thought-process is messed up. “Love your enemy” (bless him) is the best thing for good health. Forgive others for their transgressions so that god will forgive me for mine.
An impure mind is hyperactive, like a disturbed bee hive. A pure mind is calm.
Sit straight up, close your eyes and samsara is over. God is here in spite of you (person).
hrd - harati (avert) dukham (sorrow). If you don’t remain there, you’ll be in the mind (generator of sorrow). Sruti never speaks of sin (papa), only about dukham.
Fearlessness is godliness, desireless is godliness. Desire covers your svarupa. It makes you a beggar at the door of the useless, unreal world.
The right kind of religion should make you full, fearless. That is the meaning of hrd, haraha, hari, hrim.
Head is the world. Heart is the ishvara. There is no other world - your conception of the world is the world. And you’re roaming in that world, not doing any good for yourself. He’s saying this and that about you … God bless him and you move to your heart. I’m older, he’s supposed to respect me -> god bless him …
World - linguistic (nama), observational (rupa), but not existential (sat). Advise the mind (mind addressing the mind, it works): oh, foolish mind, mind enjoy the bhagavan in the heart, don’t go out to the world seeking him. Slowly your personality will obtain a new dimension.
Those who discover god in their heart are called rishis.
Your heart is the center of the cosmos. What you call cosmos is presence - chetana. When you feel joy, you feel it in the heart. You experience sat as chit only in the heart. GhaTa is sat. GhaTajnanam is in the heart. GhaTa doesn’t have existence without knowledge of it.
As child you were innocent. Then you became cunning, crafty, manipulative (Prometheus). Undertake the spiritual journey - reverse journey - (Odysseus) back to the heart and lose all those qualities of the head. Understand there is nothing to lose in this world. A poet said: child is the father of the man.
People should be simple and single.
Child-like not childish.
If they exploit you, let them exploit you. And enjoy! There is nothing to lose.
For ease you don’t need a reason. Sat, fearlessness is your svarupa. Uneasiness needs a reason.
Children have the same amount of problems but they are somehow invisible connected to the sat. In a matter of second they can put them away and play. We became people of the head and lost the connect (Průša Connect).
Go back to your heart. If you need the mind it will come. Like a camera that goes up on a cellphone. Truth, love should command your life. Not the mind.

7 & 8: mind and its silence; no future

Natural state of the mind is silence, not thinking. Like natural state of the body is healthy body. That’s the goal - mind reverting back to it natural state once an experience passes.
Ramana Maharshi: You don’t want to run behind the running mind.
Meditation: 1) watch the mind, the movement of the mind - movement of the waking consciousness. Here is the greed, here is the identification with body, status, role. This is the ambitions, conflicts … Don’t judge, don’t condemn. The moment you want it, it becomes slow, without your effort.
All that needs doing can be done slowly. When the mind is quiet, the strength to do work will come, the right motive will come.
Don’t peek into the future. Don’t try. There is no animal called (psychological) “future” in this creation of God. “Along with this anxiety I’m surrendering the future to you Isvara”. If somebody is right about the future - coincidence. And he will make a system of it.
Stop seeking. It is a very bad habit that we constantly seek something from somebody. Many people think “1) please god 2) get something for it”. God doesn’t work like that. The infallible is the god. Love. In love, there is no seeking. In attachment there is. Seeking breeds conflict. Trading “favours”, expectations.
Have patience. Take your time.
You need erstnenness, fortitude. Don’t lose heart.
Meditation: 2) then remain in silence.
Journey has a goal only when there is a journeyer. If there is no journeyer, there is no “who” left. This is a journey without a goal. That “inner” reality will take you in. Like river merging in the ocean.
To recollect something/someone, to meditate upon it there must be a division. If you me meditate say upon god, can it be real or only conceptual? The real comes into being only when thought ceases - thought no longer creates.
If the talk is substantial, the crowd will be small. Crowds want entertainment.
The real cannot be object of thought. It is unknown and unknowable. Paradox: the unknown would become known if it could be thought of. Here the name can help. Thinking of the name (of the God) will prevent thinking of the world which will allow the real to arise.
Bhaktas prepare in a way that he is sure he need not and he should not understand.
Thought moves from the known to known only. And what is known is not real. What is known is in time. Real is timeless. Thought means time, if there is no thought you have no time (like in sleep, meditation). Once a thing is called in the net of time it cannot be real anymore.
The misfortune of vedanta students is that they don’t remain students. They are in a big hurry to become acharyas. You have to remain student till the last breath. Never become an acharya, be a simple soul. Suppose you say “I know” and look into you consciousness -> the mind is moving.
Can you say “I don’t know?” It is the most truthful statement you can ever make.
You cannot invite the truth. To invite it, you must stand apart from it. The moment you stand apart from it it is not truth any more. To know truth is to deny the truth.
In action, in living, where there is no small, seeking self, the truth can be found. Truth is found in an action that is inspired by desirelessness. That’s why desirelessness is godliness. There is truth in dharmic, non-violent life.
You’d not induce, enforce, impose the silence. Allow the silence to take over. Like sleep - it takes you in.
When you say “I’m” you are asserting your reality. Mind acting like a whale.

9 & 10: one without the second. smaranam. aneya. nistha.

Ekam. One without the second. No division. It pervades all. Like space or gold => many ornaments. Child (Brahman) playing with a mirror (Maya) - when it breaks his friends multiply.
Identifying with the body induces you to no end.
Karma - mechanical.
Aprameyaya namah. Ameyaya namah.
mana - to measure. I see the pot = seeing, knowing, limiting. Measuring = limiting in time, space and form.
Whatever is limited in space is limited in space also. It was born and it will die.
PramAna (pra + mana) = means of knowing. Knowing is measuring, limiting.
What all you know gets dropped. Your mind is alert. Empty, not blacked. Alert - ready to learn/know. That’s why you listen to a speaker.
Atma is the knowingness in which there is no knowing. There is no second to know. The sun doesn’t illuminate nothing around itself - because there is nothing around itself (Gn 1:3?). Maya has to come into the picture to convert the not-knowing knowingness into a mechanical process of knowing.
Pramana can be reduced to two categories: pratyaksha (knowing primarily through the senses - mind is there too). Anumana (you know primarily with the mind). The pramanas only help you to know the limited.
People are waiting for happiness. Are they waiting for happiness or for death? Knowledge will never happen in future (there is just waiting to know).
As long as the desire to know will persist, you will not know. Just like in sleep - as long as the desire to sleep persists you are not sleeping. It should drop, the effort, the one who makes the effort should drop. Everything should drop and then there is sleep. Atmajnanam is like that. Suppose you know atma than it’s like: “Are you sleeping? Yes I’m sleeping”.
I’m what I’m but I want to know atma - schism.
Draw the boundary so you don’t depend on a limited means of knowledge to know the unlimited.
Aham is known to you. Is it known to you by speech? Is it known to you by eyesight? Is it known to you through thought (like ghaTa)?
You’d have the ability to learn from suggestive hints. Shastra says “aprameyah” for atman.
All that comes from mind and senses - all science = aparavidya, avidya. Atma is outside of categories. Knowledge oscillates between two states: known -> unknown. unseen (avidita) -> seen (vidita). Atma - outside of this classification. Atma is the drg! Don’t wait for atma to become known from unknown. Some questions don’t have an answer. “Did the sun rise? I don’t know because it is very dark outside. Fool, take the lamp and go see outside!”
GhaTa - pramanasiddha. Atma - svayamsiddha. Not even veda/sruti is the pramana for atma.
Pramana is used to know a thing that is not known. That doesn’t work with atma. Do you know you are?
There is nothing like knowing atma. Atma is not perceivable, not conceivable.
When the effort is dropped atma reveals itself.
Self-knowledge - knowledge of all what you are not. And that is what sastra is good for.
Negative understanding is the highest understanding. Know atma as ameya - that which is not measurable.
smarah - recollection. Thinking about (meditating on). Acintana eva brahma cintana. Look at the mind, watch it, allow it to become quiet. Once the mind becomes no mind you become one with the brahman. Like a wave reducing its amplitude until it becomes one with the ocean.
Not mine. Drop mine. Use Bhagavan’s. Ultimative addition - now I want to put atma into the “mine”.
It is a contradiction to say I know the truth because whatever is known cannot be the truth.
When you induce the silence - yogic samadhi - you’re separate and the silence is separate. “I’m the one who created silence”… Are you conscious about yourself being silent (fullness), then you’re not silent. When you are you’ve created the other. The fullness/silence becomes the other.
Atmasmruti is not like recollecting brahma/atma/isvara as the other. Here it is merging. Also it is called nishta.

11 & 12: continuity vs. presence

light of awareness illuminates the mental space. Ask yourself what is this “light”? Instead of being preoccupied with the objects that appear in the light.
You cannot substitute enquiry done by yourself with some ritual (mechanical). Be self-reliant. Help yourself and the higher power will help you as well. If you hand over to some other person (guru) it is not going to work.
Continuous means time. Awareness is outside of it. Also beyond categories pure / impure. It is homogeneous, uninterrupted, monolithic, immutable.
Everything is changing. Mind - the knower. The known - objects. Only the light is not changing. Illuminating witness.
Hurricane: lightning and thunderstorm all around. But it is calm in the eye of the hurricane.
That light gives existence to the mind and the mind gives existence to the body and the world. That is the God, Bhagavan, Ishvara.
To know it is to be it. Abiding in it. Nistha (abidance).
If the motive is not compatible with vedantic learning, give up the ritual.
Vedanta doesn’t require any rituals. Sadhana means qualifications, not ritual.
Vayragya: don’t abide in pleasures, better avoid them.
Viveka: Don’t glorify the body. Don’t identify with the mind.
Treat body like a machine. Keep it clean, healthy and ignore it. So you can live mostly beyond the body-consciousness.
Atmajnanam - total dissolution of the person. That person it not real. It is entirely a construct of the ignorant mind. Nishta: be a pure, calm witness to that person, not the person. Just be. Can you? As long as you remain as the pure being the obsession to do something (what next?) is gone.
Prakrstam (magnificent, great) krtihi (creation, making) = prakuruti. Just doing. There is no krti in Purusha (atma).
In being, there is no time. In doing, there is. There must be movement for time. In being there is no “What next”?
As long as you are speaking, bhagavan won’t. Just be (silent).
Mind should not be obsessed with doing this, that, planing. It should learn that there is the pure, immutable awareness behind it and it should respect it. Then it keeps quiet.
Bhakti is jnanam. Love and understanding in the heart.
All accumulation ends in disintegration (death). Death is written all over. Fear of death is because of desire for continuity. Name, family, business. You write on stone on the grave - because of desire for continuity.
You don’t have children? You are blessed… But people want both, continue family tree and atmajnanam.
Death cannot do anything to the present. But death can break the myth of continuity. Only when the mind is caught in the net of continuity there is the fear of death.

13 & 14: death, surrender (control and responsibility)

We generally take a thing for real. Mind needs to learn that the body is a living process, not a thing. So the mind can think of it differently and be calm. This living process is integration, rest and disintegration.
In death only the body dies, not the life, not the consciousness, not the reality.
Are you sorrowful? Then you are deluded. That’s all the matters in the Gita up to the 2nd chapter 10th verse. Only then Gita really starts with saying that people who grief over death are muddy headed people and people who know don’t grief.
When the bulb is fused it is the witness of it who says it is getting fused, not the bulb. Similarly with the death of the body.
People should stop giving undue importance to death and abandon the illusion that we are body and mind. So death is allowed to become part of living. There is death all around.
Inhale - life, exhale - death. Existence consists of both. Don’t separate.
Death - fear of unknown? We don’t know what was before birth and what will come after death. Religion system has sown misinformation into the society about what comes before/after.
Knowledge is not traditional, knowledge is timeless.
Fear of death comes from the projected loss of the known. You lose everything.
You don’t own anything. You came simple, single, naked, not owning anything. You go like that.
What about god and the time before he was known? -> has birth -> has death -> is limited.
god - idea created out of fear of death (seeing oneself as limited jiva) as that which is big, powerful, knowledgeable, deathless, etc. Swami Vivekananda: God is which the ideal. Ideal is always connected to the actual.
Thinker vs. follower (has introjected other’s idea).
Juliet: “What is there in a name”. The rose by whatever name you call it smells sweet. Take the spirit of it…
Surrender (saranagati) is not a ritual but understanding.
First you have to do saranagati, then worry about advaita.
Surrender - think, contemplate of the one mover behind everything and then leave everything to him. That is courage, strength of mind, bhakti. If there is hesitation, that’s the jiva. The insecure ego.
Saranagati is the shortest route to self realisation. It itself is the liberation.
Stand without desire and fear. Desire implies you’ve not surrendered. Fear implies you don’t know how to surrender. Relinquish all control and responsibility (don’t confuse with duty). Karma is duty. Phala is responsibility.
Teaching is the duty. Checking if they have learned is responsibility. Don’t try to control situations, people. Don’t feel responsible - if you do, you’re playing god.
Sri Ramakrishna: relinquishing all control and responsibility = Divine Madness. But then only mad (not crazy) people can create history…
Personal control is not a fact, it is only an idea in your head. Same for responsibility.
Do not give up duty. Duty is not personal, it makes you impersonal. Give up personal control and responsibility.
Spiritual beliefs are based on lack of proper understanding.
When personal control and personal responsibility are gone a new life dawns. Life becomes full of love and there is beauty in self.
Watch your daily life and see how little surrender you have in it.
Ritual = checklist (done).
Ritualized reverence comes in the way of learning.
When you surrender first a thing dies. The “me”, the me which is the anchor for all fears and desires.

15 & 16: death of me-sense. Living without periphery and center.

Once the illusion that I’m body mind is gone death becomes part of living. The purpose of the fear of death is to surrender.
Mahatma is dead to the world (world = very self centric, ego-centric lifestyle). He’s death to the past, he lives in the present. If a person he had bad experience which comes before him, he deals with it as if nothing ever happened. Every day for him is fresh and cheerful.
Only rituals born out of the greed of the devotees and priestcraft should be abandoned.
Surrender is not a ritual, it is understanding that there is one (prime) mover outside and inside. Shiva.
Extravagant humanisation problem: converting gods into humans (w. place of being, marriage, children, marital fights…) instead of finding god in you. Steer clear of these elements of popular religions. Follow vedantic religion where the act of understanding is a religious act.
You create “me”-sense witch is very artificial and unreal. Described often as egocentric, self-centric, hot-headed, arrogant in people. Without center there is no circle and without circle there is no center. Me-sense is the center, mine-sense is the circle. Example: spool/spindle of string. You are that unreal center. Only the space is real that is all-over. That circle is your prison.
“My” -> exploitation. -> Putting above.
In sleep the center and the circle is not there. There is so much joy. You are one with the infinite.
People take the house as the boundary of love. I love my children, wife, parents, religion, my garden, rose from my garden…
Swamiji: I listen and keep quiet, don’t say anything.
When the center (aham-matih) is there, you’ve created (your limited) space. And with space you create time. -> bubble, cocoon of consciousness.
Dismantling: My religion -> entire humanity is my religion. Na matah, na janma, na dharma … My house -> a house. My body -> a body. Living the live with tremendous vigor. This is the glory of self-surrender.
Understanding: everything happens because of the will of the higher power. There is no mine, there is no me.
Can we live without desires? Without groceries you can’t live. Without desires you can. Funny fact: with all the groceries and desires you live a miserable live in-spite of the first due to the later.
Model: I’m asking the question and you pose it to yourself. You investigate. And don’t be in a hurry, don’t ask others for the answer, ask yourself. Worst model: I’m the teacher and you are the students. Then any learning stops.
Center is creating space and time. A method (how to surrender) belongs to time. And the truth is timeless. Method is no good. You must be able to see it. Like there is no end to the sorrow. But seeing the meaninglessness of the sorrow it stops. In seeing psychological time is not created, there is no time. In doing, there is time.
My caste… How do you know it is your caste? Ask yourself. Second-hand thing … Tell me one thing about you that is not second hand. More than “I’m” (sat) which includes that “I know that I’m” (cit) all is second hand labels.
Ask: What do you mean by “my caste?” We’re all human beings.
Without periphery the center goes too. Unwind the periphery (me, mine) and tremendous vitality comes into your life. And you revert to your natural state (to “tat tvam asi”, divinity, deathlessness). Gita says “nirmamo nirahamkarah sa santim adhigatchati” (BG 2.71) and the teaching is over.
Every single time you dismantle the “mine” you grow. Alert mind is required.
There is death all around, there is no death for you. Your father did not die. The body died. What is your father? The body or the consciousness. If he is the body you killed him - you burned/buried the body. What kind of consciousness was your father? Human consciousness. There is the same in you, me, all over. That did not die, the glory of it is everywhere. When the bulb fuses nothing happens to the grid. That’s why Krishna says “death is an impossibility, nobody has ever died, nobody can ever die”.
Vedantic class initial question: What are you? A physical entity (go home)? An emotional entity (you are disturbed and will disturb the guru as well? Go home)? An intellectual entity (go home)? An spiritual entity? Death and life is one for spiritual entity. No difference.
Egoity: identified with memory, property, ideas…
Why do you celebrate birth? Because it is your birth … you’ve lost the game. You’re not part of Vedanta.
Somebody said something unpleasant to you. Are you not hurt? Answer: I’m thinking about it. What is it in the consciousness that got hurt? The ego, the center. Let it get hurt. It deserves.
Let the ego die, the earlier the better. You’re deathless. You’re not concerned about birth any more. You never again condemn death. Death is the acharya of vedanta (kathaupanishad)! Only the Lord of Death can impart the knowledge because only he knows the self (Jesus and crucifixion). Understand the significance of that and be the Lord of Death. Tat tvam asi.

17: higher power and personal order

Two people are quarreling. Which party do you join? Neither. Both are talking something out of the head. Don’t interfere, rise above those kinds of opposites.
Birthless = timeless
Buddha was atmaavadi. Buddhists …
Higher power - the moment you bring in “personal” you bring in duality. Duality is obstacle to bhakti. Because in duality you want to remain yourself as separate entity. Separateness is selfishness, not bhakti.
There are two natural orders in your life. Personal and predictable - you decide what you’ll do (have coffee for breakfast, attend class …). Supra-personal. You purchase a ticket but the flight gets canceled because the fog is too strong. God. Higher nature. As the understanding grows, the supra-natural grows and personal diminishes. Once there is only supra-personal such person is called bhakta, jnani.
Illusion of the personal order (control, volition). The unknown and unknowable higher power acts and you image you’re acting. You’re not acting. So much is done upon you, nothing is done by you. You were made to do.
Can you wonder? Do you ask yourself “how come”? If not, go sit on the tree. You only collect words to create mental structures. That is not vedanta, that’s devanta.
Everything is done by that mysterious power (American Beauty). Mysterious - you cannot describe it, you cannot imagine its glory. It creates everything. It moves everything. Bhakti: realize you’re not the mover, the doer. You’re the watcher. Realize that and you’ll be at peace. Jnanam: that power is not separate from you.
Scientist is a dispassionate observer. There is no “I want this result” in it, no trading with god. Remain a dispassionate observer and a wonder arises in your heart.
One who doesn’t know how to wonder cannot be a devotee.
Wonder is bhakti. Not naming. Once you name it, the wonder is gone.
Higher power is real. Its output - jagat and aham - is not, it only appears, otherwise there is duality. They’re one and the same (Trinity).
Snake illusion: The rope must be there. The light must be there, but not enough. Knowing that there is a thing called serpent in the world. You must also know that the serpent resembles the rope. Only then you can see serpent where it is not.
Higher power not only creates - he’s not extra-cosmic. He’s antarjami. He creates and moves.

18 & 19: light and the moving picture

God need not be a matter of faith. Can be a matter of understanding. External principles posed by tradition convert an understanding into belief. In belief the mind is crippled, mechanical, stops functioning. In understanding there is exploration - you try to find out for yourself.
True religion - realizing of God. Like a scientist. He doesn’t prejudge what he is going to find. He explores with an open mind. In belief, you prejudge.
Desire to know the truth.
Vishvam = Jagat = calana citram = calana citram.
What you call world is but a collection of memories. Jagat is a succession of mental states. Maya - what is inside (of you - body / mind) is projected outside. Just like in a dream. Dreamer and the world are contained in the dream consciousness. The same consciousness appears as the subject and object.
Projection = serpent that is in the mind is projected on the world.
When you wake up the movie called Jagat begins.
All you have to do: see the dream as a dream. The dream vanishes - it doesn’t bother you anymore.
World - very glittering (jagat!) and empty show. It appears, it is not.
Once you lose interest in the world it just vanishes. Like in quantum physics: the thing is there as long as you are observing it.
Chetana (light) cannot be transformative cause of the jagat. Only jadah can be. The light remains what it is yet it makes the scenes appear on the screen.
Cause-effect model works only for transformations. Time is very important … so give up cause-effect model. The model vedantins love is drg-drshya model.
Jagat is relative to the sense organs and the mind. When they are not functional the experience of the world comes to an end. Therefore sense organs and the mind = seer, jagat = experienced (seen).
When you see it, it is there. When you don’t, it is not. When you take part (interest - positive and negative) in it, it appears real. Quantum mechanics.
PIE: en:to look ~ sa:loka. Therefore what you look at is loka. Bhuloka, Svargaloka, Vishnuloka.
What perceives is the atma? No - mind only. But the mind must be illuminated by the light of consciousness. The mind, being very subtle and pure captures the reflection of atma and becomes the subject. Yet mind and matter are of the same stuff - jadah.
Film analogy. Lense focuses the light. Film is the moving mind. Lense + film is the subject. Scenes on the screen - jagat. Only one thing is missing. Like in a flight where plane, stewards, passangers everything is ready only the pilot is not there… The light is missing. Prakaashah - the light of awareness. Screen is the canvas of space time. Can you have an object without space? When you say an object you cannot separate the object from the space. It is the object in space given the shape by the space. Once space comes, time comes. Space time is continuum. Like nama and rupa. Desha kala provides the screen, canvas, the here and now.
The scenes continuously changing constitute what is called phenomenal world. Moving mind and the sense organs constitute the subject.
Lense - light focused in a particular way. Therefore lense is light only. Light passes through the film and gets conditioned by the imprints in it. Before entering the film, it is light, after it emerges from it it is still light only. Light appearing as the scenes on the screen - hero / heroes on the screen - all are light only (their essence is light only). Screen is also light only. Everything is light and light and light. Nothing else is there. What about you? You’re absorbed in the movie.
Everything is light but light is none of them. This is the maya. The magic of the show. When you look at everything you have to see the one light in all.
You’re part of the show by being attached by good/bad (desire/fear). In the process you miss the real. Failure to see the one is cause of the samsara, bondage.
From the light side when you come to the all you have to see the same light in all. From the all side you should be able to negate the all (there is nothing in light, only appearance. It doesn’t stick to brahma, it doesn’t affect brahma).
When is the creation? Today morning is the creation. The window of the mind is slowly opening. Light of the sun of atma is slowly coming in. Now all what is there in the mind comes to the light. Mental states start to shine in the light of atma. One success the other, as mind is not a static thing - it still moves. When there is movement, you get space and time. You cannot have space and time without movement. The resulting experience is called the world.
Whatever we talk of the Brahman you can apply to yourself. Brahman is appreciated based on the understanding of yourself.
There is nothing wrong with the world, with the show. The problem is with the way you look at the world. Jnani is the one who doesn’t throw flowers at the cinema screen.
Without imagination (=projection) there is no world, no serpent. Your conviction that you see the world is the world.
You see a mountain in a dream. Its essence is dream consciousness. You see a mountain in the movie, its essence is light. What is the essence of the mountain you see in the waking state? Waking consciousness - light reflected through the lense (of the mind).
What you call matter is consciousness. What you call mind is waking consciousness - which appears as both object and subject. They come and vanish together. When you go to sleep there is neither. Both have the same origin, the pure light(cit), pure being (sat) in which there is boundless peace (ananda) when you abide in it.
Ramarshi is not a in a hurry to give name and form. He says sah (because prakasha is pumlinga), ekah. Give a name - weakness of the mind. Leave it open, open-ended.

20 & 21: examining clearly

Seeing - knowledge - understanding. Information can be anything. While being body/mind how can it be I’m aware of body/mind all the time?
Birthday? How can you say? It’s a label of the body and that thing was 75 years ago. Not each year. Invitation: should say? All of you come and look at this body.
Siddhanta - conclusion. Mata - opinion. Mata is used also for “religion” in the south. North calls religion dharma.
Popular religion vs. true religion. The later should help the masses to look at the religion they are practising.
Don’t answer any question. Let the question incubate. Don’t be in a hurry to answer.
How come this religion came into my life? India: We believe the way we do because my granddad, father believed so. Nothing bad with starting the life with a belief. But investigate.
Examine the belief. Religion as belief divides people.
In true religion the Truth is the god. And it’s all-inclusive. There is no real division.
Ceremonies and celebrations. Are they religions?
All religions are pursing the same, the nomenclature differs and they fight. All religions proclaim a triangle, the vertices being:
1. Jiva (individual - like indivisional - self, “person” only provisionally). Jiva is that principle which keeps all the sense organs and the mind together. Prana. No reason to see it separately from the cosmic power. Like electricity powering this bulb is not different from the electricity in the national grid. It is only apparently a separate entity. Don’t convert to a person with a birth and death or you create one more hurdle.
1. Paratma. The supreme self. Every religion calls it differently (to obscure the “self” connection). When you say “I” the huge hurdle of “body/mind” is there - identification with the body/mind. Because of this identification another term another term for that cosmic reality was needed - Paramatma. “Pure ghee” is needed in a society that adulterates everything. Actually you don’t need para. Atma is good enough.
1. Jagat.
We should rise about fragmentary thinking. We have to look into the movement of the consciousness and then examine every element of fragmentary thinking.
Candidate for Vedanta is mahushya (human being). Not conditioned to be a citizen of …, devotee of a certain religion …
Aham-matih (me-sense) in you is which makes you think fragmentarily. (me - crooked like m. vs. straight I). Examine that.

22 & 23: religion vs. spirituality; me-sense, the triad and their dissolution

Abrahamic faiths: world is real, god is extra-cosmic. God sentient, the individual (the person) sentient. World is dead matter (no soul, no life in it). Plants dead matter. Animals not dead yet, but they don’t have a soul.
Life begins with religion. But it should not end with religion. Vivekananda: nothing wrong in taking birth in a temple. It is wrong to die in a temple.
We’re born in to religion. We should grow into spirituality.
Religions are organised. Spirituality is organisationless. It is individual, not a group thing. It is formless.
There is no society outside of you. The individual encompasses the family, community, society.
You want to bring a change into a family? The change you bring first into you, because you include the family.
No matter how many students are around, spirituality always starts with two. It is 1:1 first - guru and shishya. But it gets merged into one later. Thus individual.
Religion objective in its approach. God, the real is objective. Spirituality is subjective, focus on the self.
Word traditional is religious in content, not vedantic. Vedanta is evolutionary: animal-man -> normal-man -> super-man -> divine-man. Inner transformation is highlighted, not the time (tradition) content. Not traditional, transformational.
Aham brahman asmi. You begin with the isolated (due to ignorance; divided) “I’m” and explore it. That emerges as brahman. asmi, not bhavisyami, because it is timeless. “I’m” is the seed, God is tree.
Traditional - frozen thought.
Religion being a belief is exclusive. Spirituality is inclusive.
The movement of the mind is like a tram car in religion. A tram doesn’t need a driver. No thinking is required. That’s how it has to be done. Things stands where they stand. Critiquing, not criticising.
Spirituality is change of heart. Egoism is replaced by divinity. Spiritual experience is what matters. You experience the other person as your self. A tree as your existence…
Religion is founded on fear. Spirituality is founded on love. Not knowledge. Not intellectualism. Yet some vedantic people engage in a lot of intellectual gymnastics - hair splitters. … What difference it makes?
The triad - jiva, jagat, parambrahma - is only relevant as long as the “me”-sense persists. They have the same duration.
Me-sense: like a cylinder (body like) made out of thread of habits and idiosyncrasies. But you cannot divide space. Space has no parts (so it is able to contain other objects with parts). Just like the self. … false entity, fantom, shadow of the real. Although only a shadow the glory of the real persists in it. The “me sense” happens also to be a being, knowing, bliss-experiencing entity because they are connected (image).
As long as you identify with the shadow-self so long you’ll suffer in life. Nobody suffers because of the real, only because of the falsehood. Everybody but a few mahatmas are suffering. Intellectuals are the toughest.
The me-sense parades as the subject, even though it is the object of your witnessing. Objectify it (falsify it)! And you cease to fret and worry. If there is no me-sense nobody can hurt you.
In falsehood (me-sense) there is psychological security. In truth there is no psychological security.
me-sense is not a single entity (then it would be as good as real). It is a composite. It is the sum total, thread of memories (Castaneda: recapitulation - unwinding).
Content of the mind = memories. Mind is memory, past. Thoughtlessness is present, not mindlessness.
You wake up and the mind becomes illuminated. Illuminated by knowingness - becomes known. The past that is known takes the shape of a person. Me-sense comes into being. This is the first delusion (original sin). Why it takes the shape because of a person - because of habit. Where is the first delusion? There is none - it is anadi.
The more you you examine the person the more it falls apart.
You don’t need the me-sense. To have a cup of coffee you need a cup of coffee, not the me-sense.
The me-sense kicks in only when you’re self-conscious. E.g. I’m an acharya! Self-consciousness = I’m the doer.
In religion, in the (whole) world nobody will tell you that the me-sense is false. Religion fixes the me-sense in you. The god who created the world and your relation to that god is essential essential for the me-sense.
In waking state, are you self-conscious always? Be aware of what’s happening, not thinking of what you are (not).
Humans need to laugh (hAsya). In that short time they are free from the me-sense.
When you’re not self-conscious are you a person? You’re not (you “are” what you know - what you think of). But you’re there! To be a person you need memory.
Who are you without memory?! You certainly exist… Except that I feel that I exist what else can you say about you?
In between, in the gaps of the memory, you’re impersonal existence.
Me, the dualistic god and the world rise and sink together.
Suppose you stand desireless and fearless the me-sense will not be there. The god-sense will not be there as well. When you are desireless and fearless you don’t recollect yourself as a person nor you need to think of god. Only when there are desires and/or fears which put the me-sense strongly in place there is a god to reward/punish. Otherwise only fullness remains.

24 & 25 - aham matih shunya nistha

Jiva - living entity. Pranadharane - functions are there. Prana governs both action (creator - create - karma = action) and knowing.
Jagat - phenomenal world. Changeful. Annectode: 100 letters, one manages to reply 2-3 -> Silence is the best reply. World is like that - the more you pay attention to it, the more real it will seem.
Isvara - boss. Higher power (Ish-). Ideal derived from your own self (knowing, being, happy). The ideal you’re worshipping is your most inner self. Just stop superimposing body and mind on your self.
You’re not a tiny guy. Your body is a tiny guy, limited in space. Learn to live the body alone. Body is space, mind is time. When you take space and time upon yourself, you become a thing.
Religious identity in India began around 4-5th century. If all the pots are blue, there will be no blue pot. Just pot.
True religion should help us to experience directly the true reality behind all of names and forms. There will be peace and cheerfulness. By giving up the me-sense (1. vayragya, 2. viveka) you’ve reached home.
I’m an acharya! Picture of me in the foreground and Shankara in the background. Do away with it. Do I need it to take a class?
Suppose you want to love your wife, or work in the office. Is egoity needed? Do away with the ego and devote yourself to the work you have to do. Do you duty there and do not look for result.
Swami TV: there is racism in India, all kinds of divisions. But not in America.
Swami TV: I don’t do teachings in temple (out of respect; wrong place for Vedanta). I keep quit there.
Essence of true religion is change of heart. Transmutation. Replace egoity with divinity (love). Replace selfishness with selflessness. As long as you are the ego the divinity is the other and is away.
Beliefs associated with birth and death are popular religion, not vedanta. I was not born, you were not born, nobody was. I will not die, you will not die, nobody dies.
As long as the religion serves the ego it remains perverted and useless.
“Aham matih shunya nistha” is true religion.
You don’t need to make any effort for the nistha. Just see to it that the “aham matih” doesn’t dominate and mess up the life.
Listen with open mind. Do you want the speaker to confirm what you already know?
Aham matih - I want to be come something other than what I’m. I have an opinion about what I’m and I’m unhappy with myself. Brahmacari is not happy that he is not married. The married guy is not happy that he’s not been promoted yet. The promoted guy is unhappy that he is not millionaire yet… The guy is unhappy that is not a father. The swami is not happy that he’s not a bigger acharya…
Why there is so much struggle in life? Because the life as we know it is endless process of becoming (Samsara). Moving (focus) from what is to what is not. That’s how the ego is playing the game.
There is virtue in being, not in becoming. I don’t need to become anything. I’m what I’m. It is better to know what I’m than struggling to become what I’m not. It is better to use what I have than struggle to acquire what I have not.
Being is recognising what is.
Target - what is, is not satisfactory. (target - sin - christianity?). Bhagavan Buddha was always walking. But he never walked to reach a goal. By making a goal you focus on becoming, future, not what is.
In nistha you realise what is. Then accept what is. Beauty of marriage is accepting the weakness of the other. Live with what is.
Illness. First you welcome it and stay with it. In resisting it you do yourself no service … It’s OK. It’s a guest - atitih devo bhava. It’s not about wanting or not wanting. Welcome everything. And then befriend it. Then if it’s becoming a problem in life then deal with it.
Always “what next”… - game of the aham-matih.
Instead of becoming, can I (just) be? In being there is the radical transformation in you. It’s not a stale state, it’s the most powerful state. Being is everything, ever with you. You need not search for it, it’s ever with you. You need not struggle for it. That’s the God.

Satsang 2020-05-12

Why are you listening to Vedanta? Do you want confirmation of your thinking? Then listening has no meaning at all.
Discovery is only possible in a light, open, curious mind.
Concentration is exclusion. Don’t concentrate. Just sit very quietly without fixing attention on anything. Mind is very quiet, really still. You hear everything. There is no choice in it, if it were it is concentration. Mind is not directed, focused through a channel, but open. There is ease, no strain is involved. There is only listening, you as a person are not there.
You can listen to the silence also.
You don’t name anything. This kind of listening is called shravanam. People don’t know how to listen, they know only how to hear. Even when they are listening, they are hearing a person. When sishya is listening to the guru there is no listening (importance is paid to persons).
Shankaracarya: reality reveals itself to you. You don’t invite it. Water takes care of the thirst, you have no role to play there, your role is just sipping the water.
I don’t listen to the clock ticking. The sound of ticking is revealing itself to me.
Shankaracarya: shravana manana niddidhiasanam should become one.
When consciousness is empty, it is spacious. Not directed to a channel. In such consciousness discovery happens. In such consciousness shravanam mananam niddidhiasanam is one.
Listen to Vedanta by putting aside all the paraphernalia of guru, sampradaya, etc. Something will happen in your consciousness without you seek for it, without you wanting it. The truth will reveal itself to you. This is real shravanam. Just listening, professional shravanam, won’t help you. Volume (amount) is also not important.
Buddha: spiritual emancipation.
Do Upanishads a particular God to be worshipped? No.
The other is all negation in the Upanishads. Nothing specific. Buddha doesn’t say nothing specific about the other either. BG 12th chapter there are 20 verses, 19 of them speak about “this” end and only one about “that” end. And this one line is all negation.
I cannot say anything about god. To know god is to deny god. God is unknown and unknowable.
The other end is kept open. Convergent series vs. divergent series (the other). Convergent series goes towards a result. Convergent is particular, time-bound, unreal.
Don’t prejudge god. You have to discover it. And when you do, you’ll discover that the world that you think is before you is a mere appearance. It is not real. And also you’ll discover that you don’t stand apart from th real.
Should the chick inside the egg speculate (judge) about how it will be outside of the egg or should it break the shell and liberate itself from the bondage?
Inspiration by Pujaswami. The one who causes obstacles and creates problems, we should bless that person. The setback, difficulty, sorrow etc. caused we have to receive as the will of the higher power - Isvara.
Ivwara is not the other end. It belongs to “this” end.
People pay lip-service to that Krishna say and in their hearts they do what they want. This is how people are.
The other end is avyayam (imperishable).
It is easy to come around an American, Indian etc. but not around a human being.
Advaita is not an intellectual affair, it is something felt deeply, as one’s being is felt in the heart.