Isavasyam Idam Sarvam

Class 1

• Message of hindu dharma to the entire humanity can be summarised by this single verse.
• IshAvAsyaM idaM sarvaM - all this is pervaded by God.
• anta - essence, end. Vedanta - essence of Veda. Essence comes at the end, just like dessert.
• pramA - correct knowledge, correct understanding. Vedanta - means of knowledge.
• Veda is a body of knowledge, collections of words that help us to know. Thus it is a means of knowledge.
• Human being is a knowing entity. You cannot but know. You cannot help it. Like a flower that cannot help but spread fragrance all around. Knowledge is the most important thing. Human being is essentially the life and capacity to know. Body is the instrument for expression of life. Suppose there is no life the body is a cadaver and not worth keeping around. It is the life and knowledge that is the essence of a human being.
• Karma + jnanam = human being. Jnanam is more important. Action which is not supported by knowledge becomes blind action. That doesn’t glorify anobody.
• Life (vitality) and light (knowledge) is a human being. Light of knowledge is the most important.
• Human being is endowed with means of knowledge: pratyaksha - perception, anumana - inference. They make the process of knowing possible. In the case of animals they are less developed.
• The entire science is based on inference. Electron itself is inference only.
• Knowledge obtained through perception or inference is not enough to give fulfilment though. Can’t answer most fundamental question: What am I? What is God? What is the world? While perception and inference will help us to understand the world to an extent, they cannot provide correct information on real nature of the world. Perception and inference are just useful to lead some life.
• You can gain an understanding about those important things using the source of knowledge called Veda. Veda throws light on these areas which remain hidden from perception and inference.
• Human life is nothing but karma and jnanam. Accordingly the body of knowledge - Veda - is divided into these two areas. A human being cannot but act. Thus the first part of Veda deals with karma - how to channelize it into a higher goal.
• Capitalism and communism appear opposite but have the same materialistic premise. Artha and kama. Therefore there is one more, most important aspect of life. Dharma - moderation, which includes legality and morality of earning money. Dharma is appropriate action, composing the karma kandha.
• Action definitively attracts result. But when action is performed with knowledge, the result will be more glorious.
• In life all suffering has its origin in the smaller picture. I’m so and so and I have my job, my family, my credit card. Everybody needs a smaller picture, even a sadhu. But one should at least pay some attention to the bigger picture - mystery of the world (jagat), essence of what am I (jiva), ultimate reality/origin (ishvara)? An understanding of the bigger picture makes mind fulfilled. Any time you gain a little bit of happiness you have knowingly or unknowingly transported yourself into the bigger picture. When you come again into the smaller picture, you make yourself sorrowful.
• upa - approaching close, going near. shad - destroy. As you approach the body of knowledge it destroys ignorance.
• Knowledge cannot help you in getting anything directly. It won’t buy you a coke. But it can remove ignorance.

Class 2

• Sat, cit, ananda. These alone are one thing only. Suppose you are speaking about a tasty, fragrant, most enjoyable thing - ladhu. It is only one thing. Similarly there is only one reality. Sat <-> mrtyu, cit <-> ajnana, ananda <-> dukha. What alone is death that is suffering, ignorance. Suppose you take care of ignorance you’ve taken care of death and suffering. In knowledge there is no death and suffering. Correctly you’d be most afraid of ignorance.
• In jnanam there is no belief. There is only understanding. Understanding brings out terrific amount of hidden energy. There is infinite potential in every human being. You’re potentially divine, infinite. You do not know your worth. You’ve misunderstood yourself.
• There is nothing as sacred, as valuable as knowledge. It is the only thing important in life, everything else is secondary.
• Highest disadvantage of technological advances is obesity.
• Disenchantment is a very important aspect of human life. Mind sees toys and gets excited when it gets it and then gets annoyed and seeks for more. Nobody can satisfy the mind by fulfilling the desires.
• Most of the theologies of the world have a stamp of superstition on their face. To an extend they can relieve a tired human mind, but they fail to bring lasting peace. They cause more problems than the good they bring to one’s life.
• What is the single factor responsible for largest amount of violence in social life? Religion.
• As long as science, religion and philosophy are not integrated it is a danger. Science and religion can serve us better only when they are integrated by philosophy.
• Schopenhauer: in the whole world there is no study as beneficial as the study of upanishads.
• Without knowledge of the upanishads life can be a burden. Fear of death and struggle of livening cannot be handled with knowledge of the world only. It is not enough to face death with a smile on the face.
• Isha - by Ishvara.
• Newtons vision of the world - mechanistic. The world is a huge machine consisting of totally separated parts, objects.
• In theology, how the idea of space and time are explained? In theology, the effort is made to understand the known (world) starting from the unknown (god). Nietzche: God is death. When a theologian says “A god in heaven created the world I can similarly say he’s death”.
• In Decarte’s philosophy spirit and matter are totally divided realms. Then add Newtonian world view and theology with a monocratic creator god in heaven to that. Division is complete. Everybody and everything is divided from each other. Isavasya idam sarvam in one stroke negates this.
• As long as our world-view is based on division there will be no end to conflict and violence.

Class 3

• Decartes: a person is what his mind is. We identify ourselves so totally with the mind that we lose touch with the reality about ourselves. Joke: Decartes not able to choose from the menu disappears after answering “I think not” to “do you know what you chose?”
• Division is established because our total identification with the mind. In such vision there is no solution for the problems, conflicts and turmoil of life.
• Body is glorious manifestation of universal power called Ishvara. Glory of the body is beyond words. Any organ reflects the glory of the universal power so wonderfully. We fail to recognise that glory within ourselves. We do not identify ourselves entirely with the total organism only with few ideas, with the ego. Thus we lose communion with the Ishvara. Mind has separated from the body and now it tries to control the body. Body doesn’t need desert, it is the mind that goes for it. In this way we’ve developed a conflict between the body and the mind.
• For us nature is there to be exploited not to be observed and worshiped.
• Philosophy of division formulated by Decartes and classical Newtonian physics have downed an era for technological development which has proved to be disaster for environment and social ethos. Parallel to this there is the vision of monarchic God living in heaven enforcing the divine upon these hapless masses and the world.
• Vedanta is entirely opposite to this vision.
• Vision of Isavasya upanishad: God is everywhere. It is not a matter of belief or faith, like God in heaven, to which we have to submit ourselves based on revelation by a divine messenger or messiah. It is a belief system, there is no consensus about the messiah. Isavasya idam sarvam is a matter of understanding. In vedanta we talk of visualising Ishvara and understanding Ishvara.
• Word God has an undesirable connotation. It refers to an gentlemen in the heaven. I’m here, my uncle is there and god is in heaven. With this understanding you can’t deal with the statement of Isavasya idam sarvam, thus we prefer the word Ishvara. If it needs to be translated, we use Godhead.
• A theologian starts from the unknown and tries to explain the known in the terms of the unknown. He constructs a verbal structure (system) and tries to fit everything known into it. He’s a prisoner of his verbal structure. So the world was created 5000 years and the fossils were put there by god to fool us. This is how theologians and politicians function. Whereas in philosophy we start from the known and try to understand the unknown. This is brahmasutra method in trying to understand Ishvara. We start with “this” and from it we try to visualize the unknown which is Ishvara.
• A worldly person is not interested in the unknown. He only is in the known and he lives his entire life in trying to manipulate it to his advantage. There is no lasting solution in the known, only in the unknown. What is all known is unreal. Whatever is known to you is mithya.
• Unknown means not available for perception and inference.
• Before arriving at the principle called Ishvara we’ve to understand “this” world a little better. Every object is a karyam, effect. In has a beginning and end in time. Pot, mountain, sun, the entire universe is a product. Galaxies are like spots on a balloon.
• Scientist calculated the universe to be 4.5 billions years old based on the expansion of galaxies discovered by Hubble. BG 8th chapter or Bhagavatam dvitiya dhyaya say, there are four yugas. Basic unit is kaliyuga: 432 000 years. Double is dvapara, triple is treta, four times is krta. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10x. 4.32 mio years is one mahayuga. 1000 mahayugas is one kalpa, one cycle of creation. Thus based on Hindu scriptures the universe is 4.32 billions years old.
• The Rshis knew this is an expanding universe and that’s why they called it brahmANDa - brahma (expanding) - aNDa (egg -> elliptical). Elliptical form is more stable than spherical.
• Every effect must have an cause. You cannot have a product and claim it has no cause. There is material and efficient cause. A sentient person, desiring person. Desire is important. It is the desire that is the cause of the creation of pot. In vedic vision all creation has its origin in a desire. That’s why in the upanishadic statements talking about creation the word kama is always used. A desire cannot be there without a desiring individual. A desire is the faculty of a concious being. Therefore he’s the efficient cause of a pot. The universe also must have two causes. For vedanta for the universe the two causes are not different, but one.
• If you say god in heaven created the universe you’ve already ignored the concept of space. Universe includes the concept of space. Space, time, material of the universe cannot be absolute because they would acquire the status of Ishvara and thus create parallel reality. Time, space, object are one package. Always together.
• Before creation, there was no space, no time. There is a reality which has manifested as space, time and also the material universe.

Class 4

• Ishvara is the material source (prakuruti) of creation also. It is a challenge to relate to this idea. A lazy mind can accept a faith. A mind ready to think can accept this challenge.
• All religious beliefs of mankind of all times have understood Ishvara as all-powerful (sarvajna) and all-knowing (sarvashakti). Also sarvabhavana - all-being. The painter is in the painting. We’re not talking about an external ishvara. We’re talking about intrinsic Ishvara.
• The entire variety of the universe has its origin in one single non-dual reality. What you call energy is appearing as matter and vice-versa. Like one actor in two roles.
• Maker and matter are one. One without a second. Ishvara. Matter + intelligence + power. In a theological mind god is bahiryami - external to the creation and exposing laws from above.
• sa:tantra = structure.
• Brhadaranyaka upanishad presents Ishvara as antaryami. He’s everywhere. yat sarveshu bhuteshu tishthan, sarvebhyo bhutebyah antarA.
• Chemistry or physics model of the universe ignores the observer. Vedanta model of the universe takes the observer into account.
• In vedantic model the universe is what you see, touch, smell, taste, hear. All the five correspondent elements are called bhutas and Ishvara is antaryami in all these. antar -> enter, entry. When you worship Ishvara without recognising this fact your worship is incomplete.
• The entire universe is the body of Ishvara. This is how the fact of Ishvara being antaryami is presented.
• There is a seed. This seed has an intelligence to manifest as a sprout, then stem, branches, roots, leaves, flowers, fruits… All that intelligence and power is inside the seed. Intrinsic to the seed. Not in heaven.
• People want to know future. It doesn’t come from somewhere else. The future of the flower is encoded in the flower itself. Similarly, the intelligence, the power, the material is there where the universe there.
• The future of an object is within the object. The reality of an object is within the object. And that reality is Ishvara.
• Imagine how much energy is released upon splitting an atom. Where does it come from? Outside?
• A true devotee is one who consistently wonders at the glory of Ishvara. Every particle of the universe signals Ishvara to you.
• Special creation, out of nothing, is not acceptable to Hindu philosophy. Indian philosophers are evolutionists, not creationists. Manifestationists in fact (manifestation over a time scale is evolution).
• pakistan - holy land.
• Example for advaiya (one without the second) is space. Ishavara is one without the second.
• People are interested in names. Water, pani, aqua … do they mean different things? Same for Ishvara. People care for names, not for the thing itself. Name is meaningful only as long as it signals a thing to you. If it is disassociated it loses its meaning. You can drop it as well then.
• Ranga give an example for an amphibian! Frog. Very well. Give another example for an amphibian! Another frog… Human being is an amphibian. You live in a world of matter, life, consciousness (in Ishvara) as a person. That is one world. But we don’t live in this world. There is another world. World of names and forms. I’m an Indian in America. White/black. Male/female.
• We’re totally ignorant of the fundamental unity and talk as though the differences as real. In fact this division is so deeply engrained in our psyche that we cannot think without bringing the gender into the picture. There is only life, matter, consciousness.

Class 5

• Our world is a very subjective world. It has nothing to do with the reality. It is manufactured from our imaginations, likes, dislikes, mental weaknesses. What ever is within, that is the raw material. We project that world outside. We have to shake that world vision. Nobody else fits within that world vision. And nobody else holds on to the same world vision.
• Every description of a world has a signature.
• Other observer-based model: The world consists of five elements corresponding to our five sense organs. Every object of this world, living or not living, consists of a combination from these only. We have to reduce the infinite number of the objects of the world for the sake of understanding.
• As long as you cling to the idea that only names and forms are real, the way reality behind them won’t be recognised. Names and forms are empty shells. It is the falsehood that binds us. Truth never binds anybody.
• The five elements are the same reality. Undivided, invisible existence absolute. The same godhead is behind most subtle akasha and most gross prthivi. There are not five different things only one thing appearing as five by the method of tapering. Just like ice, water, steam.
• Universe is just like jeweller’s shop. The same gold (“IS”-ness) is behind all the items. We miss the IS and hold to the name and form. Example: “What is there? Hand. And now? Nothing.” We’re only conscious of the hand and lose sight of the light and space.
• Where the necklace IS there is gold. It’s not like necklace is here and gold in heaven. Isavasyam idam sarvam.
• There is life all around us and all life is Ishvara. Ishvara has eyes, legs, heads … everywhere. All are his. There is no trees standing around - only Ishvara. There are no humans going around - only Ishvara. There are no rivers flowing around - only Ishvara.
• Entire universe is the temple and every life-forms is glorious manifestation of Ishvara.
• For a theologian god is definitively not here. It’s impractical to have god all the time around.
• sa:kanya = young unmarried lady.
• If lose the spirit and hold on to the customs it is like holding to an empty shell and losing the kernel. In Hindu culture every symbol reflects the all-pervasive nature of god.
• Inner-most reality of the pot is IS-ness, daivam, Ishvara.
• You’re the knowledge, knowingness, conscious being. That’s why knowledge of pot happens. It means you the consciousness has modified into the form of pot knowledge and so it takes place. In every cognition the essential matrix of that knowledge is consciousness and that is God. It is in your heart.
• You want to touch god? Just touch any object only. God is all around. There is nothing other than god. This is god-consciousness. There are many aspects of this God. Jiva, jagat, Ishvara. Who’s the seeker? I. Who’s the seeing? I. Who is the speaker? I. Who is the person that walks? I. The “I”, the godhead, has many aspects called a devata - idol, godhead.
• There is so much wealth, beauty in the creation. It is Ishvara’s. It is Ishvara manifested.
• You can never think of Vishnu without Lakshi. Never of Shiva without Shakti. God has no gender. God of knowledge - sarasvati. In the Veda presented as sarasvan.
• Ultimate truth. I’m not ever separate of Ishvara. I’m the whole, I’m sarvam.
• While desiring a thing, you’re going against your salt - your essential nature. Suppose a millionaire is begging for 10 dollars. Is it the appropriate thing to do? He’s denying his own reality, his own status! Wanting - unless something comes from outside to us, we cannot be happy. It only manifests the inner lacking. There is nothing that you need, lack, need to be afraid of in this world.
• Every time you’re afraid, you desire something, you’re going against your own nature. You’re harming yourself.
• Menu: where there are too many items, you cannot enjoy anything. When there is only one item, you discover a wonderful thing.
• You can look at every situation in a positive way or in a negative way. Every situation has two sides.
• Desirelessness is fullness and complete happiness.
• Philologists are also political people :). Swami TV: I feel English originated from Sanskrit. Greed - gRDhah. Geriatry - jara. Spy - spasha. Mother - mata. Brother - bhrata.
• The entire universe is not enough to fulfill the greed of one person. Yet it is enough to fulfill the needs of all lifeforms. Don’t be greedy.
• We should carefully look into our heart and pluck out all the wrong ideas. Under any circumstances we should not fall prey to the weakness of mind.
• One should carefully grow into god / cosmic consciousness. One should not stay a prisoner of local consciousness - I’m a human being, I identify with physical body, go after my likes and run away from my dislikes. And if God helps me with this, I don’t mind praying to him.
• Sahasranama: primary name is “Om”. Every other is secondary. “Om” is a cosmic sound and bhagavan is a cosmic person. Mind has a fancy for variety so you can add some other name, but original name is “Om”.
• Namah - “na me” iti namah. It means “Oh bhagavan, in my ignorance I have assumed I’m an individual separate from you. You’re all pervasive, you’re all. I assumed there are some things that belong to me. And this is wrong”. At least at the time of puja I relinquish what all I thought as belonging to me. You don’t have to say all of this belongs to Ishvara. That’s clear. You have to say none of this belongs to me.
• tyAga - relinquishing, sacrifice, resignation, renunciation, divorce.
• Abhimana - certain things you take as “I”. “I”-sense. And certain things you take as “mine”. “I”-sense and “my”-sense put together is called abhimana. Another name for abhimana is ajnana.
• It looks like some things belong to me. But nothing of this world belongs to me and I don’t belong to this world. I belong into Ishvara. Now and here. We should grow into this. Ishvara and jiva are eternal friends.
• We’re very aware of the world, of the relationships, but all that is wrong. We’ve to grow out of the local consciousness. It covers up the reality. God alone is here.
• We’re so busy with the world we forget Ishvara.
• God consciousness is called ishvariya vyavahara.
• We help a child to grow into local consciousness. All we know is hearsay, not knowledge. What is the basis of our “knowledge”? Mother hearsay.
• After marriage and living with a young lady for few years, he’s reached a point. One has to grow into god-consciousness.