• source
• notes from vedantastudents.com

Class 1: 1, 2

• 2nd chapter - Mahabhuta viveka. Between elements, elementals and Atma.
• This world, before it was created, was sat alone. sat eva somya idam agra asit ekam eva advitiyam (Chandogya).
• It is difficult to see the all-pervasivnes of consciousness and ananda because it gets not manifested everywhere. That’s why here sat that is obvious everywhere is discussed.
• Consciousness is the invariable factor in all the experiences of all the three states and therefore consciousness is sat and beyond time.
• Consciousness is independent because it doesn’t require any means of knowledge to reveal itself. Self-effulgent, svayam prakahsa. Sense organs “shine” because of I. Shine = reveal.
• Chronological time - involved in the motion. Subjective time - which is created subjectively by our own mind.
• Observer is there before and after the event.
• Truth of the time = present. That present is nothing but consciousness.
• Sat being the cause of the creation is really all-pervasive. Space is not.

Class 2: 3,4,5

• If by going into sleep you’d become non-existent, you’d never go to sleep.
• The person in deep sleep, sanmatra (sat matra) - just are in the form of sat, pure existence. Same condition as before the creation. No time, no space, no objects.
• Everything that has come from the Brahman called sat, has only borrowed existence. Five elements, their gunas and the products therefrom. Through Maya the sat appears in all. Names and forms cannot add anything to the substance. Just like bangles and gold.
• Akasha, sabda (etc.) - name and form is Maya. Existence is Brahman.
• What cannot add anything is appearance (bangle to gold).
• Cause is what pervades. Sat pervades entire creation like gold pervades bangle. Therefore by knowing sat everything will be known.
• Take away the form and nothing remains (name is given by humans).
• Akasha is allpervasive thus shabda, its property, is allpervasive. But it is avyakta. Thus rishis had to do special tapas to extract the mantras and put them in words - manifest them. They made their mind so refined they could do it.
• Sound gets normally manifested by two methods: sanyoga - things are brought together. Viyoga - two things are brought apart.
• Third method. Enclose akasha in a container and sound gets manifested as echo. E.g. talking. By talking I’m not producing sound. I’m bringing into manifestation the words which are unmanifested in space. Example: like white light has seven colors and a prism can manifest them.
• Vayu has also sabda guna borrowed from akasha. If the wind is cold, there is water in it. If it is hot, fire. By itself it has no such attributes.
• Sound of wind: bee-see, fire: bugu-bugu, water: bulu-bulu, earth: kada-kala.
• Only water has the property of taste, unmanifested. The object helps to manifest a particular taste. Same with objects. They have no color, the light has all colors and objects absorb some and reflect others that are then seen.
• In a black hole the gravitation is much then even light won’t reflect and gets totally absorbed.

Class 3: 6, 7, 8

• Fragrance and foul smell are the two types of smell that belong to earth.
• Taste of pure water is madurhyam - combination of all possible tastes. This doesn’t mean sweetness.
• Color of the earth - all type of colors. Borrowed from agni.
• Skin pervades entire body. Outside and inside. Where skin is there is tvak-indriya. Two places where it is not: nail and hair.
• Sense organs have the power to sense external objects by sensing the guna of them, under the condition that they remain in the respective golakams (part of sthula shariram). That’s why when Jiva is travelling and there is no sthula sharira no perception is possible.
• Sukshma sharira travels, not reflected consciousness because it is all the time there. Any reflection you cannot separate from the reflected medium.
• When the ears are covered, one can hear internal sounds clearly.