Bhagavatam: Kapila devahuti samvadam

June 12, 2021

Table of Contents

Recorded in August 2008 in Canada.

Class 1

Yoga: communion with God means god consciousness. Because it is like communion with space. It means you feel the presence of Ishwara at all times, everywhere.
kamukha = lover, horny
All manifestation is in the form of opposites.
You cannot have a world without contradiction. You cannot have any manifestation without the dharma adharma opposites.
If a person is pursuing sukha trying to avoid dukha, he is not trying to transcend.
Meditation should always be there.
Incarnation of bhagavan as Kapila. He’s father of Sankhya darshanam.
Only RG Veda is more ancient than Ramayana.
Story of Kardama: he creates an aeroplane and travels all over the world with his wife Devahuti. He married on the condition that later in life he’ll take sanyasa. He did and Devahuti and Kapila were left alone at home.
Rich people, army generals are not heroes in India. Spiritual people are stars. Dhruva is the greatest devote of Vishnu. He’s the pole star.
Pravrtti karma. Lord takes avatara and destroys the adharmic oppressor. In nivrtti dharma there is nothing like destroying the enemy: the wisdom of the self disappears from the society.
Staying with the knowledge of self is difficult.
In any given point of time in history of mankind there is few people who take up to the pursuit of self-knowledge. Generally people go after sense-pleasures. It becomes the norm and it doesn’t occur to us that life can be lived happily without.
Sense pleasures come always with a price tag. Life of sense pleasures is a costly life - high maintenance life. By pursuing sense pleasures we have to make a lot of money. Only 10% of our income is spent on the necessities. More than 90% goes to the pursuit of sense-pleasures. That’s the life of artha kama dharma.
Once a person is saturated with the changeful he goes after moksha. Freedom of the life of becoming, of binding of karma.
In Vedanta first causality is heaven. We’re not interested.
You can either transcend both pleasure and pain or have both. Can’t have only one. If you want life of becoming you’ll have both. Understanding this is called viveka. Once this is understood, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain will a non-issue.
Number of people wanting to know the truth of the self is always small. Like PhD students.
Even nirvtti-dharma also called atma-dharma needs to be safeguarded from time to time. The message needs to be given a boost. This is how the incarnation of Kapila has to be understood.
A jnani is not a doer. He’s the being only. He is and he has a “IS” fragrance of self-inquiry. That gives a boost to the philosophy. What would have happened to the wisdom of upanishads without Kapila, Shankara, Ramana Maharsi? They came as avatara to protect and boost (atma) dharma. It has to be protected as much as pravrtti dharma. Rama protected pravrtti dharma. Shri Krishna protected both.
Greatest treatise of human philosophy is Gita.
Kapila was the first evolutionist. Darwin should be called Kapila of the West.
Kardama suggested Devahuti can be a sanyasi and stay at home and learn from Kapila, as he’s incarnation of the Lord. Devahuti asked Kapila to teach, without that there is no teaching. This is how the dialog started.
The student should be seeking it. The formality is not a point, but the spirit of seeking must be there.
If the dialogue is between a teacher and a student it is called samvada. If it is between two equals it is a vada. If it is a fight it is called vivada.
Knowledge of the world is relative knowledge. Relative of what? Senses and the mind.
Absolute knowledge is that knowledge which cannot be gained by the help of the mind. Perception and conceptualization as means of knowledge are out. That is the knowledge of the self. Atma vidya.
Without I’m the “world is” situation is not there. “World is” is relative to “I’m”, where as I’m is absolute.
The knowledge of the self is always presented in the form of a dialogue.
Devahuti’s question: what kind of bhakti most appropriate for gaining self-knowledge?
Nirvana - cessation’s of all sorrow. Sorrow - fundamental sense of insecurity and wanting in a person. You cannot fill the void by accumulation. The more you accumulate, the more you want.
Freedom is our birthright. Who doesn’t need it? The moment we take birth as human being, we have right to nirvana. But you should seek, that is expected from you.
Really speaking bhakti means God consciousness.
Our endowment from the father Ishvara: mind, organs of cognition and action. A handicapped persons is handicapped all-right, but his insufficiency can be compensated elsewhere. Mind is there, the main thing is the mind. The endowment has to be used to reach the goal. Bhakti: effort of utilising this endowment in acquiring God-consciousness.

Class 2

Bhakti: emotional power (love) directed towards an altar.
Diving (direct?) expression of ananda, fullness, is love.
We should learn to give a new direction to the power of love. Ishvara.
Bhakti as psychological development in a persons life: you learn to ignore what is visible and try to relate to the invisible.
We invest all our emotions in the world only. It is one way traffic. We love the world but it doesn’t love us back. As we love it more and more it gives us more and more misery in fact.
Motiveless love is neither impractical nor illogical. Just like a mother and a child.
For bhakti the altar must be sattvic. Sattva: you worship god in the form of knowledge. God is the repository. Raja: god is the source of wealth and pleasures. Tamasic altar: motive is himsa etc.
Ultimately it is the mind that holds the key to devotion. It is the mind that walks. All movement origins in the mind. It is the mind that directs the flow of the sense organs.
Accepted, welcomed (with love) suffering is not a suffering.
You can either offer flowers or the oblations into fire, or worship the Lord in the heart of every (human) being.
Employ our faculties in the service of the humanity all the time being conscious of the godhead. That god consciousness is a must.
Those who start near go far. Those who start far don’t go anywhere. First discover God in your heart. Normally we feel grievances and other negativity. Eventually we come to feel the endless all-pervading compassion of Ishvara in the heart.
Any kind of gossip: the main element is mental violence. Reason: we are emotionally brute people.
There is law: whatever you do to the other person you’re doing to your self. There are no exceptions. It goes for gossip as well. Medicine: listen to the glory of Ishvara, e.g. vedanta, and enjoy. Fake it till you make it and eventually you’ll discover that love.
Chocolate, coke, pizza etc. none of it is offered to god. You should only eat what is offered to god. Chocolate is addictive, makes the mind more rajasic, agitated.
Similarly, utilize the speech in singing the glory of Lord. Once the job is done, be quit, don’t use it any more. Use it in the service of others and then don’t use it any more.
Our life should be like a river. If it encounters an obstacle, it doesn’t go back. It overcomes it, sometimes it just floods it, and moves forward. It never stops and goes until it reaches the ocean. Then it loses its individuality. That is the highest sacrifice.
There is generosity of the heart and of the hand. Later is easy. The real generosity is recognition that I own nothing. Even this body I don’t own. I’ve borrowed it from the nature all around.
Every motive defines and strengthens the ego.
Rise above the crippling sense of isolation. That is the real bhakti. This leads to moksha.
kosha - cocoon. Prison house.
koshakara - silk worm.
koshakara does only two jobs. Eat and spin the silken thread in which they bind themselves and die. We spin the bonds of attachment (me and mine) and die in that kosha.
Fear comes out of attachment. We are selfish because we don’t want to suffer. We want to carry the past pleasure into future. Because of this fear of future pain we accumulate.
Real devotion: I surrender my welfare, future, to Ishvara. This ability to surrender is very rare.
One who doesn’t bother his yoga kshema (acquisition and keeping), who have surrendered, will never come to grief.
We believe that we believe in god. We believe in money, in our attachments, in worldly things. If we really believe in God than from this moment onwards we don’t have an iota of concern about future. Having surrendered, you will never ever come to grief.
Western countries have best medical facilities yet worst fears of death.
Live of glorious uncertainty - surrender to Ishvara. I don’t know where my next square meal will come from, but I’m very comfortable. A millionaire is not so comfortable.
Nobody knows what will happen in the future, really.
When we least expect it, we’ve got grace of Ishvara in copious quantity.
Crystallised ignorance - self-identity with the body.
For a true devotee Ishvara is the beloved, self, devoted son, friend, guru, suhrt, altar.
We should not look for priya, we should look for hita (that which is good for us in the long run).
mitra - friend (mutual help). suhrt - he doesn’t expect any help returned. There is only one suhrt in the universe - Ishvara.
Repetitive thing - dulls the mind, it goes to the hibernation. Quality is important, not quantity.
Physically we depend on everything. Psychologically we don’t depend on anything and anybody. All psychological dependence is directed to Ishvara.
Looking at the rising sun is never a repeating experience. If looked at in the freshness of present movement. Without memory of it; that is dead. There is joy, communion. That’s how you look at the alter, that’s how you have to repeat the prayer. Even when saying the simple name “Rama”. There will be so much love. Main obstacle is repetitive, dull mind.
Fear is always about the future. People are sorrowful about the past - shoka. Only solution - surrender to Ishvara.
Look at the sun. It always rises in the east and goes down in the west. Look at the clouds, wind, heat … There is absolute reliance on Ishvara, on the supra-personal power.

Class 3

In a person’s life there is personal order. There seems to a be a (limited) choice, freewill there. An there is the supra-personal order. You cannot postpone the sunrise. It functions relentlessly whether you like it or not. A person is in trouble if he allows for a conflict to rise between these two orders. Every desire is a conflict between these two.
Desire: you’re not satisfied with what IS. You’re not satisfied with the supra-personal order. Desire is a gulf between what is and what should be. What should be is the agenda of the mind. Never resists mentally to what is. That leads to emotional distress.
In jnani’s life the boundary between the two recedes and recedes until the two become one. Personal will is resolved in the supra-personal order. That’s how a jnani functions. Whatever comes before a jnani, he accepts. And whatever he doesn’t have, he doesn’t even think of that. One has to examine one’s life carefully and learn to surrender to the higher power. That’s what is called bhakti.
Our lives are commanded by a mysterious higher-power. When we give a name, we believe we know. But naming is not knowing.
Unless there is an identification with the body, the relationship cannot have any meaning. Love is not dependant upon a relationship. It is like rose.
I only know how to love. Whosoever comes in-front of me, I just love.
There is no problem in the bigger picture. It is totally free from the problems of living. When abiding in the smaller picture (me, mine syndrome), you can never get a lasting solution for the problems of the smaller picture.
The mind manufactures life for us. That is the smaller picture. You’d be able to consistently rise above this mind-made world. This ability is the bhakti. In one stroke, you’ll have solved all its problems.
Negation of ego - sharanagatih, true bhakti. Rising above the smaller picture and learning to visualize, understand the bigger picture. In doing so life comes to a settlement.
People generally don’t have settlement in life. They have issue with God, society, community, themselves … Settlement: psychologically settled. A person at peace, in harmony. Reason is the smaller picture becomes overwhelming for us.
When true bhakti is followed evtl. settlement comes when I realise that my true nature is brahman, divinity itself.
Self-knowledge is not knowledge of the self. It is the knowledge of what all you’re not. Ego is an entirely mind-manufactures, mythical, non-real entity. It is an image manufactured by the mind.
In the meditation you rise above the confines of the person and abide in the impersonal awareness. That is what is called sakshi bhava. You get an insight that you’re prior to the mind, ego, body identification.
Bhakti: make the rascal called ego a servant of god. As the bhakti increases the devotion decreases. This is the river merging into the ocean. This is the goal of human life.
Young people, dominated by rajoguna, before emotional maturity - give a set of rules and a target. He’ll do that. Not able to be absorbed until sattvaguna is developed.
Discovering love to the higher power, with or without a form, can happen only when you have dispassion towards the things of the world. Like pumping water upwards - there must not be any holes. Similarly mental energy called love will not go higher unless you withdraw it from the things of the world. This is called vayragyam.
Raga-bhakti: You’ve love for ishvara. You see flower, you remember Ishvara. You see sky, remember Ishvara … Beauty of moon, sun … are portals to the glory of Ishvara. Once a person is established in raga bhakti, motiveless devotion to ishavara, he’s not restricted by rules and regulations any more.
Sun is rising. Small picture: time for breakfast and office. Breakfast and office will be there. We go about doing the things we have to do. But the smaller picture will not overwhelm me. Sun is rising. Big picture: I look at the cosmic person itself. Soham. Ishvaras glory is reflecting in the solar or and at the same time reflecting here in the heart. Smaller picture has its relevance but we should never loose sight of the big.
There is fear and insecurity in the small picture, within the smaller picture.
Lotusfeet: padapadma, padamula. Literal translation doesn’t work. The meaning is self-surrender.
World has its own altars. Money, pleasure… At which we surrender day after day. There is only one place to surrender, the lotus feet of Ishvara.
Ultimate well-being. Realization of the true self. Yogi is a sadhaka. A striver. One who pursues the path. Jijnasu.
Before going to the temple I should look at my self. What is my status? What am I? Esp. when dealing with a bhakti sastra as Bhagavatam. I’m a devotee. Baktoham and only then enter. Until one does this, the temple visit is not going to bring any real transformation.
When you come to the vedanta class. Ask the same. What are you? I should look at myself and then give autosuggestion “aham vijnasu”. This vicara is not meant for a samsari!
Yoga is a very special means. Means of communion. Discovery of inner divinity.
Bhakti should always be associated with viveka jnana and vayragya. If you have atma jnana you don’t need yoga anymore. It is the ultimate. In gita, jnana is viveka jnana - knowledge of discrimination.
Knowing that the world is a trap, not real, an appearance. That knowing is viveka. Resulting dispassion if vayragyam. These two are the prerequisites for bhakti yoga.
Viveka: we take a lot of sorrow and fear from the world as we interact more and more with it. Vayragyam: interaction with the world will be to the exactly required extend only. Nothing more, nothing less. Now bhakti is in place and takes you go the goal. In this life.
Constant refrain of Shri Krishna towards an individual: try to be nirmamo, nirahamkara. That is self-surrender.
We should have bhakti that is not shattered by circumstances.
Discrimination is the ultimate means of self-realization. Sastra is not going to present self on a platter. The labor of the sastra is discrimination between atma and anatma.
There is only knowing of the non-self as non-self. There is no knowing of the self. Then if there is no identification with the non-self, then remains and shines only the self.
Ishvara is called Shesha (residue, remainder) because he remains in the process of all negation.
First vivekaprakriya. Then sarvatmaprakriya.
Laws of Vedanta: 1) whatever begins in time ends in time. 2) whatever begins and ends in time is unreal, whatever might be the length of the timescale.
Appearance only proves non-reality.
Reality has nothing to do with sentimentality. Reality does not respect sentimentality. What appears without really being there is mithya.
In the entire sastra, wherever you see the world jnanayoga, it is viveka jnana yoga. If you neglect viveka, you’ll miss sarvatma.
Both prakuruti (five elements -> body, mind) and purusha (atma) are found in the same medium. That’s why discrimination is needed. Where is the mix-up? In the mind.
Pascal: As the physical body I’m a speck engulfed by the vast space of the universe. But as the mind, I have the power to understand the entire universe. Vedantin: as a mind, I know the universe. Not only that, as atma, I’m the universe. I’m the conscious being. The subtlest entity in the universe. That is sarvatmabhava. That is moksha.
The entire physiology belongs to the nature. Not to the purusha - it is the conscious being. Body is called a city of 9 (gita) /11 (kathopanishad) gates. Sun of atma is reflecting (purushete) through the mind in the body. Purnatvat purusha - atma is purna.

Class 4

prakuruti purusha viveka - most important topic of vedanta. Purusha in vedanta means life and intelligence (not intellect) put together. Name for it is atman.
What is one hallmark of Shankara bashyas? Discrimination he emphasizes. He ended up writing a book on it - vivekacudamani.
We’re deriving a sense of self from the physical body. I’m male. I’m born in Andrapradesh …
People are so much concerned about health, well-fare of the body that the concern itself becomes a problem. Develop intelligent indifference towards the body. It will remain in its place, healthy.
I am not the body. I’m aware of the body in action. I use it as a tool. And I’m always conscious of the body as the other. I maintain it well, neither pamper it nor neglect it. Manage it with intelligent indifference. Withdraw obsessive care from the body and see what happens.
Mind is the meeting point of life and intelligence with the matter which is the physical body. Of spirit and matter. Spirit being cosmic life and intelligence. Matter being conglomerate of the five elements - physical body.
Mind, because of its crudity and ignorance identifies with the physical body instead of identifying with its source which is the spirit.
Body has a form. Aliveness is formless. As I identify with the body there is a sense of separation. The world is the other. When you abide in that aliveness you don’t experience any otherness. When you look at the body you’re in the grip of the time. Body has time imprinted in itself. Like wrinkles.
There is nothing like death. Body is formed by integration (negative entropy) and disintegrates (positive entropy). In jnanis vision death is not an event worth looking at. He’ll be happy to face death. You need not protect the body, you need not feed it. All this trouble will be ending once and for all.
True self is not tainted by the qualities of the prakuruti.
Mind is a tool, an instrument of cognition. You’re not the mind. Watch the mind. Instead of we use the mind the mind uses us. We live a life dictated by the mind, because of the identification with the mind. Mind is prakrti, it is the product of the food we eat.
If you want to do meditation, you’d have command of your food habits. Suppose you have a heavy breakfast and try to do mediation. As the food is put in the stomach you become tamasic. Further sleep. Lifestyle.
How do you know that there is a bright line in a spectrum? Because there is a dark line above and below. You will not know a bright line if there are no dark ones.
When it comes down to Vedanta, you’d have a big grip on language and pronunciation.
Without the immobile the mobile cannot exist. The motion is always relative to something.
Body is always in motion. Not even an entity. It is an flux. There is a law of Buddha: law of impermanence of forms. It looks like a form but it is a flow, a changing thing. The underlying reality that doesn’t change is the pure “I’m”.
The being doesn’t require another means for knowing. It is knowing itself.
Don’t try to derive pleasure from the mind. I don’t need mind to be happy. Then you’ll discover the real happiness. Otherwise you’ll be running after pleasures. You become happy and you will become unhappy also. Mind cannot sustain pleasure for long. It is an excited state. It will have to come down. Excited state is the most uncomfortable state.
Qualities of the mind seem to taint me but the fact is I’m not the mind. I’m the immobile, upholding the mobile. Whole life is spent identifying with the mobile. As long as you do, you remain ignorant of the immobile.
I hit the table. Both the body and the table change. If there is no change, there is no action.
I’m is the window to the truth. Hold on to it and it will tell you the true self.
You cannot expect the guru to inquire on your behalf. What we want is to give a check to the guru so he will reserve a small piece of heaven for us. Guru can only show the way.
You are not the physical body. Guru is not the physical body. You take yourself to be the body so you take the guru to be a body.
I’m - the awareful presence. It is the verification, the truth, of everything. Of all. Is there any doing in it? Doing is in the mind, sense organs, body, world. Doing is motion.
Discovery: The being, shining as the knowing, without any doing in it.
Cheerful - sattvaguna. Sorrowful - rajoguna. Dull - tamoguna.
Be at peace. Forgetfulness doesn’t belong to you. “I’m” will be forever with you. Gunas don’t belong to atma, the self.
We’re hypnotised to believe we’re the doers. A fan is rotating. Is electricity is rotating? Without electricity can there be any rotation? Atma is not the actor.
There can be action without the actor. Rose blossoms, the fragrance is spread all around. Where is the actor? Like the rose the universe has blossom. When I speak it is something like that. Body - given. Intellect - given. Language - given. Sastra - given. Speech - given. Memory - given. Nothing authored by me. Do you plan and forget or forgetfulness happens? Memory, does it happen or you remember?
If at the end of lesson I feel I’m the doer, it will be a huge burden. Let there be action. If you don’t identify with the action then you’re not a doer.
If the action is planned, there is a result. The moment a result is there, there is a will which is the doer. Another case. There is action. But there is no result, no will, no doer. But there is purpose. It is very fruitful.
Result: outcome directed towards the self. Result - phalam. Purpose - prayojanam. Result establishes you as a bhokta and bhoktrtvam establishes you as a karta. Don’t even think of the result.
Will is that which attracts the result to itself. When there is no will there is just action. That action liberates.
I’m the doer. The truth (“I’m”) got mixed up with the untruth (“doer”). Where is the motion, in the mind or in the witness? All movement is prakuruti, none in purusha. Aham karomi is the delusion.
If you are the hearer you should be able to hear when you want and not hear when you don’t want. But hearing happens regardless of your will. There is no freedom for you. Same for seeing …
Don’t feel it the blank “by whom”. You need not have a doer every time. Action can be there without a doer. There is love in such action. And then understand that you’re not the doer in any given situation. But there can be doership if you wrongly identify with prakuruti.
What you have to do, you need not be told. Right action follows right knowledge.
I’m the being shining as the knowing in which there is no doing.

Class 5

Wherever you find people organising themselves understand that they are insecure.
Identify with jnana indriyas, you’re a bhotka. Identify with the karma indriyas, you’re a karta.
You’re not the walker. You’re the knower behind the walker. Just go for walk alone and be alertful. The same walking develops a new dimension.
Samsara: being caught in the cycle of pleasure of pain. As long as one identifies with the body, he’ll be caught in the cycle of opposites (pain/pleasure, dharma/adharma, birth/death).
First reason: no vayragyam. One is a go-getter, wants to grab and enjoy.
Enjoyment of sense-pleasures always comes with a price. There is always hangover. Sense pleasures don’t come easy.
Every act of sense pleasure enjoyment reinforces the idea that you’re a bhokta/karta. Every selfish act accumulates. Present lot is the direct result of accumulation of actions.
Suffering I’m going through now is the direct result of karma (karma dosha).
Every human being is a mishra. +/- 50:50 of sukha dukha. What good try to look into future for how much sukha is there and trying to manipulate? Therefore human being, know your essential nature - brahman - and be liberated.
What you saw is unreal. That you saw is a fact. Suppose the dream is nightmarish, it makes you suffer. Suppose it is pleasant, but makes you happy.
They day you’re ego-less, the purpose of this bhakti, where there is an element of plurality, is over. Until then, you have to pursue.
Let the other people be whatever they are. Never try to command, dictate. It is for them to choose the path. Give total freedom. If they’re not choosing the right path, give advice. If they don’t follow, no problem. They will pay a price and learn and come back. We should not allow such freedom to our mind. It should be brought under control.
I use the mind, when I need to think. When the need for thinking is over, I should be able not to think. Listless thinking - just following non-sensical flow of thought. Compulsive thinking - the origin of sorrow and fear is thought. If you stop thinking, there will be no sorrow. But that is not the solution really, when you live you have to think.
The tormentor is not the boss at the office. The tormentor is sitting in your mind. It is you who allowed him to become a tormentor. Compulsive, listless thinking are the enemies. Because mind is threading wrong path, it is attached to the sense pleasures, to the things of the world. That’s why it is accumulating sorrow and fear. Turn it back. Change its character. Purify the mind.
Purity of mind is priority for any individual who wants to live peaceful life. What we really need in life is not pleasures, but peace and harmony. Develop dispassion towards the world and love towards Ishvara.
Suppose you go to a friend and tell “I love you because you did not press to return the loan you gave me”. How will he feel? Suppose he says “I love you for what you are”. Conditioned love is not love. Suppose you go to god and tell “I love you because you’re the husband of goddess of wealth”… If you love me for the sake of some other thing, you’re not a student of Gita.
Devotion purifies the mind and neutralizes the ego like nothing else.
Bhaktrhari: vayragyam eva abhayam. Real wealth is not bhagyam, but vayragyam.
A cow can eat a nice fruit with a gusto as well. A human being comes to glory only through vayragyam. Enjoyments of sense pleasures animals also have.
Vayragyam won’t come by itself. You have to cultivate it. Nature of mind is that it wants to accumulate.
Just accumulate enough so the body can be used. Not more.
Accumulation begins with wealth. Having accumulated enough, we accumulate objects of the world. Then relationships - networking - connections. For what? It makes us samsaris. We won’t be left with any energy to contemplate upon ishvara. We have to seek solitude. Meditation is the appointment with the inner self.
Live simple and noble life. God consciousness must be reflected.
Shanti - cessation of mental noise. That’s what we have to seek. It opens up reasonless spring of joy. Ramathirtha: You need a reason to be joyous? It is slavery!
Unless body and mind are healthy, you cannot transcend them. What you gain with the mind is not the truth in any case. We bother about mind so it won’t come in the way. Like dealing with a thief. To make body and mind pure you need yoga.
The backbone is line an antenna. It should not be crooked.
Brahmacarya in the context of grhastah means to be loving to your partner.
Don’t accumulate. Give away. Don’t throw away.
Put flowers into hair, dress nicely … but don’t go for fashion. Dress and body must be clean.
Forgiving: in-spite the other person committing a mistake, I don’t hold it against him.
Obsession with progress is unnecessary. Contentment with what I have is important.
Tapas - you voluntarily take up some difficulty for the body. You should never give up tapas. Sadhus: you don’t get breakfast? Take it as tapas. Shift the focus of attention. Do the same with body pains.
Surrender: I accept what is. What is not, I do not desire. You’re in harmony. Peace. Be happy for grace of Ishvara has no bounds. Whatever happens is compassion of Ishvara. He’s like a rain bearing cloud. Isvhara gives only blessing, it is us who make misery out of it.

Class 6

Sitting posture is very important. Upper portion of the body should be erect. Legs should be close to the body.
To begin with, you need some effort. Eventually the asana should become effortless. And the mind should resolve. What remains is ananta. When the mind is functioning what you’re with is the limited.
Initially we need a posture. Evtl. the posture becomes irrelevant. You’re calm and quiet. You’re watchful and alert and abiding in the svarupa.
Prana means cosmic life. Prana is not the life in this body. Living beings are many, life is universal. Just like light. It is universal yet it reflects in a particular body. Life is there in every particle. Whole universe is intelligent universe, including the matter. It is not dead matter. Life in the context of the individual body is expressing as respiration.
There are two kinds of pranayama. Willful and without.
Prana is the limb between matter and spirit.
Pratyahara - being indifferent to sound. It is not the sound that is disturbing. Stop resisting any sound, become indifferent. Not resisting nor welcoming any sensuous stimuli.
Pratyahara is important as the mind runs away through these five windows.
As sophistication increases it becomes very difficult to satisfy sense organs and we become slaves to them.
Thoughtless, not mindless.
Pratyahara you don’t practice separately. It is always with dhyana (very focused meditation) or dharana (broad focus).
You’d not enforce anything. If you don’t feel like doing it, don’t. We should not pursue puja/meditation because we fear God. We’d love it. Fearlessness is the first quality a student of vedanta should learn.
Breathing is the link between finite and infinite. Stay with it and you’ll get an insight about the infinite.
Infinite is an negative word.
Study of vedanta without devotion - sushka vedanta. Parambrahma is not sat cit alone, it is ananda also. It is rasa. Even in sadhana you’ve to bring the love for Ishvara. Fake it till you make it. Listen to the glory and exploits of Isvhara.
Healthy people are generally happy. And vice versa. Because all illness originates in the mind. If the mind is pure and loving, your immune system will be very good.
In the mind there is a habit of categorising people, life-forms etc. Rise above all of that, all life is sacred. Be equanimous towards all life-forms. Sarva bhuta samatvam.
Love can conquer the worst hell also.
It is simple, if you are attached to the things of world, you don’t love God. Don’t fall into the trap “world is nothing but God so loving them is as good as loving God”.
Love is not the same as attachment. Suppose I’m attached to the son. It is harmful for the son and for me also.
prasanga - attachment
svadharma - I do my duty with love, commitment and devotion. I have duties, not responsibilities. Krishna in Gita doesn’t speak of responsibilities. Duty is what you do in the present. Responsibility is what you seek as result in the future. The more we understand this, the more we can be at peace.
Duty + your greed for the result = responsibility.
People don’t love God. They love their concept of god. And they don’t love so much the others’ concept of the god.
Practice maunam. You’d speak in measured tones. You’d speak when you have to. Don’t speak untruth. “Speak the truth” would give license to speak 24h a day. Do it for a weak and your mind becomes so calm you cannot believe it.
Excessive consumption is unspiritual. Don’t waste water, money, food, … Always take a little less than you need and then finish it.
Without meditation you have no chance to come into contact with reality. To make it work, you have to prepare well. One of the preparations is don’t accumulate, don’t consume much and be happy with what you have. Never complain.