Upadesha Sahasri - Chapter 19

April 27, 2022

Table of Contents

Class 1

Upadesha is instruction. In jnanam there is only instruction, no handing over. Like there is in religion - handing over a mantra. The one instructing you can call instructor.
You need not instruct nobody to go to a physician when he’s ill. But when the psyche is ill, nobody will even acknowledge that he’s sick. And when somebody points out that you’re sick in the mind, you become angry. Diagnosis: worldliness -> frustration, agitation. The fact that the people become angry shows that they’re ill.
Psychological dimension dominates. If there is a disorder in this area, your physiological dimension never can become safe and secure.
Don’t overdo anything. It is a curse. Even for shravanam. When you do, manana and niddidhiasanam are given a go-by.
You have to lecture yourself. You have to instruct yourself. Look at yourself, look at the mind, and you give a lecture to the mind. That is the self-instruction. Watch the movement of your mind, be aware of its entire movement. Without your effort a silence will enter into you. It is the gateway into the real.
Jnanam - recognising the false as false. You cannot recognise the self. If you recognise it, it becomes the other.
Health - just cessation of roga. Becoming normal. No special benefit.
When there is a disorder in the subtle, the gross becomes the victim. Medicine for the subtle is dispassion (viraga, vayragyam).
How to get the dispassion? First viveka, then vayragyam.
Inquire. Woman might not inquire. Man should inquire. Why should men inquire. Even woman should have some gold, but not the passion. Passion is wrong. It is developed out of wrong thinking.
The fever is the trshnah, greed. Intense attachment to sense pleasures. Wealth and pleasure. All the commercials, advertisements are meant to attract people towards them. To create a sensation in the mind of a person, to occupy the mental space of the people and inject this passion, greed, attachment to pleasures into the mind. The defect by which the immunity is compromised is that the mind wants always more. Vulnerability of seeking more. Regarding any sense pleasure: food, money, watching TV etc.
Close your eyes and notice whether the sense of more is coming again and again. Finally tell yourself you do not need more. In fact, you do not need anything. It is the body that needs some food.
To realize your true self you need to have a healthy mind in a healthy body. Body has cancer. Mind has trshna. You satisfy it and comes again back and wants more.

Class 2

The fever of the mind - attachment to the sense pleasures. Intense desires. Medicine - jnana viraga bhesayam.
Body is the instrument of action and therefore needs to be put to action. Medicine for it will be physical. Mind is the instrument of cognition. Any irregularity, illness in the mind will be cognitive in nature. Medicine will be cognitive - understanding of what is the self and what is non-self.
viraga follows naturally from viveka. The combination of these two is the medicine.
“What’s in it for me?” is a fundamentally flawed attitude. You’re not supposed to work for a reward. But for the love of the work. Reward is anatma and therefore unreal. Your dispassion is in question again.
Practice viveka and vairagya just like you breath-in and breath-out. You’re not thinking of any reward. This is the very spontaneity and this is also effortless.
trsnah is the abnormal. It is the single source of illness. It will manifest in the body.
Elimination of illness is the benefit. You remain what you are, normal. There is no positive benefit for any medicine.
Identification with the desired object is the infection, the origin of the mental fever.
In Sanskrit “becoming” and “taking a birth” are considered the same.
Today’s morning person is born out of the yesterday’s desiring person.
Give up the desire for sukhah and you will not know what is dukhah.
You’re the atma, you’re aware of the movement of the mind. You’ll address, lecture the mind. You’re the guru to you. In identification you’re the mind. In disidentification you’re the atma. Buddha: be a light upon yourself.

Class 3 - center, prisoner of space and time

Opposite of being aware of your own consciousness (which is not in motion) is not alert. You’re identified with the mind. You’re one with the flow, you do not have any space with reference to this flow. You’re a samsari.
Be a witness to the mind. You’re looking at the mind. Mind is the other. In doing so you’ve discovered the mental space in reference to the mind. Now the mental states do not define you. You’re aware of them. There is sukha, there is duhka. But you don’t become sukhi, you don’t become dukhi.
Most of the people are followers. Not thinkers.
The calamity the mind has created for us is aham and mama.
Look at yourself. There is a center in you. What is it? A bunch of memories. That is the “me”. It is the result of time. A center has always a space around it. And the space is bounded. As long as there is a center, there is circumference and the bounded space occupied by limited things. You created this prison.
Some people say I’m free. I’ve free will. There is no free will separate from the supreme will. It is like the prisoner saying I’m free between the prison walls.
All the concepts outside of his space become extraordinarily important for the prisoner. In spite of acquiring all the concepts (religion, culture, family, etc.) he’s still in prison. As long as there is the center there is no freedom. There center always creates space. No matter how big it will be it will be still limited. Prisoner of space and time.
Do your job. Do everything with tremendous vitality. But you don’t need a center for it.
The moment you’re asking for a method you’re creating time.
Me is the jiva. It creates duality. There is a bigger me called God. Dvaitam is the product of me.
Look at the rising sun with the eyes of the gayatri manta. You’ll not experience any division between yourself and the sun. Like looking at the beloved person. There is no me in you. Me vanishes. You the pure being, are just looking at another expression of your self. Without center-me you’ll experience a vast space.
Me is the complex thing. The real simplicity is looking at things without me.
It is possible to live in the world without “me” and “mine”.
Sankhyas: posit the individual separate from the mind movement. There is a person called jiva and they called it atma. Atma is many. And then there is the mind moving and the mind is moving for the benefit of atma. First create me out of the movement of the mind and then say the movement of mind is meant for the benefit of this me. Mind is moving and creating sukha/dukha benefit for the jiva. All movement of the mind is meant for the multiple jivas called atma too.

Class 4 - mind as machine

The only calamity in life is “me” and “mine” syndrome. The first three purushartas are centered around me and mine and they strengthen the syndrome.
Sankhya example (wrong): chariot (mind) moves for the benefit of the master (atma). If mind moves the right way, atma gets joy, otherwise suffering. Atma is connected to pleasure and pain, atma becomes the bokta and mind is the karta.
Oh silly mind how can you create situations of enjoyment to me, the atma? You don’t have sentience, you’re jada. You cannot do nothing by itself. Also, atma doesn’t need any enjoyment generated by the mind.
Mind is a machine. Mere machine. It has a process, it functions and produces something. The thought process.
Mind receives the sensations, converts the sensations into experience, then gives a label to the experience and records the experience. Next time the thought comes out of this memory.
What is outside is always fresh and new. But the sensation goes into the mind, the mind compares and contrasts and makes it into a repetition. Even when you look at your spouse in the morning, you’re looking at her freshly. But the mind makes it a repetition. It converts the present into past. Mind can only be repetitive. It can never have something original. Original comes from something more deep down.
What is before you is fresh, the sensation is fresh. But mind makes it repetitive. The thought can never be fresh. Thought is always a response of the memory. Therefore thought can never be creative.
When you can never produce anything original (mind), better keep quiet (atma).
Controlled mind (hathayoga) is not a free mind.
When the mind becomes silent, it becomes knowledgable about its own movement. Quiet mind means freedom from thinking. Why are you sorrowful or excited? Because you’re thinking. Why are you conflicted? Because the thought produces the conflict.
Freedom from thinking is moksha.
If your mind is moving slowly, you don’t have many thoughts.
In jumping from one thought to the other you’ve become a victim of memory.
Mind is creating thoughts. Thought is from the memory, from the past.
When memory is put aside you’re experiencing freshness. That brings out the creative being in you.
Knowledge - pious name given to the memory.
When you know your mind, the limits of your mind, you’re beyond the mind.
We don’t come across human beings, but across human doings (doctor, teacher, engineer, ..).
Does your mediation spring from time or is timeless? Your meditation is also a doing. The real meditation is the essence of life. Is being aware of the mind. There is no phalam for it. It is a merger with the timelessness.

Class 5

“Be a light unto yourself” - Buddha’s last advice to his disciples.
Generally when people are alone they remain occupied. They indulge in a variety of thoughts. Instead try to watch your mind. Very soon, you’ll be bored. That means you’re not comfortable with looking at your mind. Therefore address the mind: “mind, I’m always contented. I don’t care whether you’re or not.”
As long as you’re with the thoughts of the mind. You remain discontented. Fullness you never get by identifying with the mind.
People are not contented at all. Moving from one to another. From one relationship to another. From one religion to another. For what? They’re all dogmatic. They think, that through such movement of change they will find happiness. Meaning they are unhappy to start with.
Change for the sake of change or because you’re bored/disenchanted with one thing, or because you’re unhappy to start with, will never make you happy.
Contentment is true when you remain without any desire to change. If the change happens naturally I’m not resisting.
The trouble begins with comparing what you have with somebody else and therefore you want to change. You’d live a life without comparison. First compare, next condemn and then become unhappy.
I learn to live with my lot. I do not compare, I do not condemn. I desire no change. Any change that happens naturally is OK.
When you’re not comparing you’re looking at the things as they are.
Advise the mind to remain healthy by becoming quiet. Desires make the mind dull.
Religious-minded persons should be extra careful. Entire religion seems to have one purpose - get you what you seek.
We’re speaking of contentment, not speaking of indulgence, laziness. Contentment is timelessness. Desire for change is always time. We’re not waiting for future.
Hope is no better than desire as far as creating psychological time is concerned.
When a thought or feeling arises, just watch it. Be aware of it. Out of it comes silence. That’s meditation! You’re not asking, not striving for silence. It naturally happens.

Class 6

This center, “me”, ego is as much a thought as any other silly thought. Any other thought might not have much significance. Pot-thoughts comes and goes. Whereas the me-thought stays there. Whole life it will be there unless you know yourself correctly, unless you realize that this “me” is false. And it will pick up a new body and continue to be there also. Therefore people identify with that “me”. This is the story of the ahamkara and the role of the ahamkara is the bondage of the samsara.
If you allow the ego to go, it will go. If you know it as false, it will vanish.
When ahamkara is removed by not identifying with it, mind will not stop to function. The movement of the mind will be there but it will become impersonal. There are actions, cognition, intellection, thoughts but they are not mine.
The “me” and “mine” don’t help you to live in a family, in a society, in a city and practicing a honest profession. They are only a big burden.
If you learn concepts you’re not learning anything. That’s why we discuss issues here.
Look at your mind. And you’ll be abiding as your true self. (Disidentification). You’re never away from it. In every cognition (thought) the light of atma is shining brilliantly.
A concept is never the truth. Push them aside and in their place create an issue. Cultivate a little impatience to know the truth and settle the issue of atma.
God creates chronological time, you create psychological time by pursuing your objects.
The witness of the mind knows the mind. Do you know the mind or not? Don’t try to rationalize too much, that makes a concept out of it. Just grab it and hold to it.
Hunger is there but it is not mine. Therefore it is not bothering me.
Rise above the normal identification with hunger and thirst. Don’t allow the hunger and thirst to dictate the life to you.
Don’t drink/eat for enjoyment.
Not seeking the pleasure is not a stale state, it is the precondition for self-realization. Every pain is the price for the pleasure you’ve sought and enjoyed.

Class 7

Oh, mind, please get it. I’m naturally beyond the six waves (birth and death of the body, thirst and hunger of prana, pleasure and pain of the mind). I’m the essential element. Don’t try to create confusion.
I’m the essential element not only of the body mind but also of this universe. I’m the reality of the world experience.
Mind should be receptive and sensitive.
If you think in a gross way the world is outside and you’re yourself. Look closely, is there a world without a cogniser? Can the world exist without your body? Did you ever experience the world without experiencing the body as a precondition? But you assume the world is the absolute and then speak of a creator… You’re creating a wall between yourself and the truth.
And the body never exists without the mind. What you call body is simply an idea in the mind. You’ve got it only when you think of the body. And the mind never exists without the consciousness.
You’ve got 5 senses and therefore the world is made of 5 objects. There is no 6th object in the world.
There is no world without a world experience just as there is no movie without movie experience.
What you call world (jagat) has it’s essence in the consciousness (atman). What you call world is what you’re projecting out of yourself.
Jagat is shabda. The essence of shabda is shabda-jnana. Essense of shabda-jnana is the movement of mind. The movement of the mind is the background consciousness, which is the light of awareness, the absolute atman.
We have to learn to see the world as an appearance in the consciousness. Think of the dream. Mountain in it is just your consciousness.
Consciousness doesn’t manifest, it doesn’t undergo any modification. Consciousness doesn’t become the matter, matter appears in the consciousness. Consciousness appears as matter-consciousness.
Sorrow and fear do not exist independent of the thought.
Sruti talks of unity. Smrti has divisive thinking as its essence. All divisive thinking comes from it. In smrti all the things are real and different from everything else.
Window is not the source of light.
Smrtis do not sanction love marriage. They sanction marriage organised by the elders within the same cast and all kinds of other conditions. Love marriage is a revolt against all of that.
Smrti converts the sruti into a dead letter.
You perceive a tree because you have the word “tree” in your mind and that word is associated with a form. Mind is memory, bundle of past-experiences converted into knowledge. Suppose mind is made to become quiet and doesn’t supply the word “tree”. You still perceive and you’re the light.. Your knowledge of the “tree” prevents you from the seeing the right way, seeing the truth of the tree. E.g. if you see a friend or a foo that’s the distortion made by the mind.
Your consciousness is all-knowing. When you know English, you know it. When you don’t know French, you know it too. Never underestimate its (your own) glory as the very ground of cognitions. The consciousness is always flowing through the prison of nama rupa put in place by the mind.
Acknowledge you’re the boss and not the mind. You command the mind “keep quit, I’m not interested in your movement in the form of supplying nama rupa in every cognition”. You’re coloring every cognition with nama rupa. When you try this this is shiva-drsthi. Shambavi mudra.
The mind always wants to categorize. If it can’t, it will be very uneasy. Let not the mind categorize and there still will be perception. Without categorization the perception cannot disturb you. And somehow strangely you’ll see that the perception is no other than you.
It is the joy that makes your heart innocent. Pursuit of pleasure makes you clever, cunning, egoistic.
Shankara: mind, your movement, it’s just a waste. Just keep quiet. Your heart opens to that immeasurable. That’s meditation.

Class 8

People are deluded into thinking that the movement of the mind is their essence.
Prarabda’s reach is creating favorable/unfavorable situations in your life. Then ajnana in the form of self-identification with the mind takes over.
If you identify with the mind then the changes deeply impact you and you become alternatively sukhi and dukhi. If that identification is snapped, it (changes caused by prarabda) will have no impact you.
Oh silly mind, if only you keep quiet (tvajI prashAnte), divisive thinking vanishes (bedhadhIh nAsti).
Personal. My lungs, my nostrils, my air that I inhale. The personality is entirely product of the mind. And we associate that life-giving process (prana) with me and mine. Tendency is towards division. You’re inhaling the same air that the entire humanity is inhaling. You’re connected with entire flora and fauna through this process.
Pay attention to the inhalation and exhalation and understand that they are not connected to the finite (body, mind) but to the life giving air, the universal, the infinite.
All division is in the mind (chitta), none in the reality (chit). This recognition is called joga.
I’m a living entity and the whole world is non-living. I’m a sentient being wheres the world is insentient. It is dead nature, dead world, dead universe.
All entities, we’re all so many bubbles in the ocean of cosmic light. All the objects, all the events are not excluded.
Wherever there is a sense of division, there is insecurity and fear. And therefore so much agitation in the mind. The moment divisive thinking is gone you’ll be free from all that. No more suffering.
Don’t teach divisive identification into the minds of impressionable people.

Class 9

We stand in identification with the mind and then address the world. Oh world, make me happy. Step back and look at the mind and see.
The witness of the mind is that which knows the mind. If the mind vanishes it is just the mind only.
Don’t fall into the trap of trying to control the mind. It is not necessary. Leave it alone and don’t waste the inner energy. You’ll not be creating any conflict.
The understanding is powerful enough that without any effort the mind gets purged of impurities.
You look at a person’s accomplishments and you feel happy about it. That should be the way your mind should move, you feel. No jealousy.
The situation is a fact. Not truth, but a fact. Unpleasantness is a projection.
Be the love of a husband. Don’t call yourself a husband. The word husband comes with a huge conditioning. Don’t be the householder, be the love of a householder.
I don’t know. Others don’t know. That is double ajnana. It is not necessary for the others to know the truth. It is enough so you know. Like in a dream, when you’re suffering, all problems are resolved. All others (and their problems) are in your dream. No need to assume that because the others are not knowing the truth you need a special way to deal with them. While dealing with others develop a sense of equanimity and harmony. If others are insensitive, which they are more often than not, all you need is titiksha. Endure.
Consciousness is the content of consciousness. All if the content put together becomes the world. There is no other world. The mind “inside” is the counterpart of the “matter” outside and vice-versa.
Mind is “inside” and the world is “outside”. Subject and object division. This is the moha. This moha is the product of the movement of the mind.
When the delusion is gone is understand myself as that spontaneous, effortless state of perfect silence. Nameless and formless reality. You might call it God or Brahman. In that there is no division.
Division is of two kinds. Benign like seeing different objects of the world. It is required for the transactional thinking. And divisive thinking in which you divide human beings in terms of caste, creed, religion. That is destructive.
Sakshatkara, direct perception, one’s reality doesn’t need senses. Perception requires senses. Direct knowing (avagati) doesn’t require mind. Therefore: oh mind, I’m not concerned with your movement, I’ve understood my true nature. I’m not bound.
Stepping back and watching the mind requires sattvaguna. In tamoguna you identify with the body, lose all sensitivity and become very dull. Tamas and rajas go together and are the very nature of the mind. You’ve to uplift the mind to sattva.
When you identify when the restlessness gets new energy. You’re restless you cannot disidentify. The two elements are just one. Learn the art of contentment and the mind loses its restlessness.
Mind is moha. In this creation there is no friend, no foe. There is only divinity. Nobody can hurt you. Only you yourself can hurt yourself.
Moksha is when your consciousness is full of harmony. You’re not frustrated/unhappy/hating anybody. You endure some of the undesirable situations and you respond with love to hostility. That is the freedom from bondage, from being locked-up in your mind.
Know yourself as simple and single. That is the freedom from bondage. I’m not old, I’m not young. I’m neither beautiful, nor ugly… That is the simplicity. Single - you love entire humanity but you’re alone (not lonely).
Really speaking it is the mind that get’s caught and get’s liberated. Atma is never bound.
Vikara - as you cognize the situation you’re impacted by it. Certain things are painful or pleasant. The moment you declare something painful/pleasant you’re impacted. The pleasant and the painful do not exist. In that understanding you lose the vikara and emerge as avikriya.
In giving a situation the name “pleasant” I’ve already created the “painful” situation. You’ll be always caught in the conflict of opposites. Just see facts, don’t give names. Maintain equanimity. Do not name any situation as pleasant or unpleasant. When you look at a flower don’t call it beautiful, because it will be only a matter of time until you see an ugly. Become bland, rise above the opposites as pleasant and painful. That “blandness” is called bliss.

Class 10

Critical element: participation in the teaching. You allow it to be part of your being. Don’t just “watch” like a tennis match.
Sukha and dukha happen only when you anticipate them.
You don’t have a proper understanding of the whole life. You divide the life into bits and pieces and decide sukha/dukha for each bit. Unless an ignorant mind projects sukha and dukha there cannot be sukha/dukha. Rise above the projection. Things just happen. Sukha and dukha happen around you, in the body, mind. But they never happen to me.
Worldly people just drift. Victims of ever changing society, body, and mind. Carried with total identification with the situation around the body and mind. Worldy people own up the movement.
I feel very clearly, without an iota of doubt, a distance with reference to the content. I’m the knowing element. Nothing can ever happen without me knowing.
Deep-sleep, waking does not happen to myself. Somehow there is a distance between me and these states.
Develop titiksha. Begin with sukha. When it comes, be sober, quiet. Accept the sukha gracefully and try to handover it to others. Then when dukha comes, you’ll be able to handle it.
You’d live in a family like lotus-leaf in murky waters.
Only love should guide you. First love (in spite of idiosyncrasies and misbehaviour of the others) and then you do what you will.
It is not necessary that others understand me. The other need not approve me. It is up to them. The others will correct themselves when they want to correct themselves.
Meditation begins when thought comes to an end. When you’re aware of what happens in your mind it becomes quiet. When the thought stops creating (sukha, dukha situations).
Mind is like a child. When it falls it cries a bit. It waits for your response. If you pay attention it will cry like crazy. If not, it will get up, clear the clothes of dust and continue what it did before.
All illness originates in the mind.
What you have to do is not go to the society and start reforming it. Address the mind to keep quiet. Silly mind, why are you doing all this nonsense?
You seem to be the result of your parent’s beliefs, habits and fears. You as the person are the result of the past. Of time. Time is the past going through the present to become the future.
I’m not a traditionalist. I don’t belong to any parampara.

Class 11

When you don’t see the distinction between an idea and the truth you’ll be deprived of the later.
Negative understanding is the highest understanding. In understanding how you’re in the bondage of time the door will open for yourself to step into timelessness.
Every idea has its origin in the past. All of the past is the raw material out of which you the person is created and sustained.
“I was”. “I will be”. Only “I am” has a touch of reality which the other two don’t have. And that reality is you.
Memory is time. What you see is what is dictated by memory. No surprise life is very dull for us. It is the recycling of the same memory again. It doesn’t inspire us.
I’m opposed to time, not to astrology. Because I want to realize myself as timeless.
When you are performing all kinds of actions with a result in mind, hoping for a better future, you’re sacrificing the present, the timelessless at the alter of imagined future.
Religions are the past. An organised religion is the frozen thought of the head who lived a long time ago. Truth doesn’t have a tradition. Only propaganda has a tradition.
I’m alert to every concept that is likely to catch me in the net of time.
Drop the past when you encounter a person or a thing. It will appear in a new light, without attachment or enmity. Look at the tree without nama rupa. You as subject won’t be there. There will be only observation without an observer. You experience the vastness, newness, freshness, being, awareness, life. There will be no name.
Food that you eat you should not make you feel heavy.
Life should be disciplined and orderly, and healthy body kept by exercise.
Aditiya Upasana of Rama: Oh Lord, I’m about to embark upon the performance of my duty. The battle against this asura (Ravana), that is in me only. For that I need to fight with courage, determination and self-confidence. Oh Aditya, please give me that things! Give me strength and courage to perform my duties happily.

Class 12

It is estimated that 90% of the suffering is mental and the rest physical and not evitable. Mental suffering is needless. All suffering arises from the psychological time. The mind wants to accomplish so many things in the world, which requires effort, which is time. Body is unable to cope with this demands so suffering is created. The past, which is memory, which is mind, which is time, becomes the suffering.
Death is always in the future. When the present is alive and aware there is no death.
When you understand that death and birth come together you’ll not celebrate birthday. You have put death to future and are enthusiastic about the birthday. Death is not in future, death is now. Die to the time, body identification, past, mind, me… Do that and you’re free! There is freedom in death.
By putting the death to the future you’ve created the fear of death. It is a fully. Don’t put death to future, put it now.
Death is always with reference to something.
Practical vedanta vs. armchair philosophy.
Aliveness, newness of the present moment.
You’ve taken upon you the life of modifications and they become you and so you’re now a victim of time. Atma is avikara. All our suffering is because of modifications.
In doing all the changes happen. In being there is no change, no vikara. You’re fundamental essence is “I’m”. There is no doing it it, it is only being. And in being there is no time. Just be. Do, think, move means time.
You’re timeless and everything else a process. So don’t make this cardinal sin of identifying with the process and therefore put yourself in the time.
The god that I worship is entirely created out of my own estimate of myself. Man creates god in his image and then that god creates the man in his image.
Human mind doesn’t want to admit that it doesn’t know. “Destiny” is the name for “I don’t know”. If you say “I don’t know” it is innocence.
You do not see the mind with mind. You see the mind with your own light. It is the atma that sees the mind in dream. You can repeat that experience in waking state by watching the mind. You’re the light. Therefore you’re one without the second.
You alone are real (sat), all the mind has collected sums up to zero (asat).

Class 13

When you understand it is not accumulation. Binary method (samvada) is for understanding.
Mithya - it appears, you see it and yet it doesn’t exist.
In reality it is not you who sees all the dream objects. It is the dream subject that is created along all the dream objects. And that dream subject sees all the dream objects. If you focus on dream objects it is realism. If you focus on dream subject it is idealism. Truth is neither, both subject and object are created together. Truth is the consciousness that transcends the subject-object division.
All created by the movement by the mind is unreal -> mind’s movement is unreal. Mind is the movement and the movement is the mind.
In the entire story only that you’ve sen a dram is real.
This mind is there when you don’t want to find it. Mind makes you suffer so much. You reverse and try to find it. And you’ll only see that it doesn’t exist. Mithya.
Ramana: what you consider the world is merely your conception of the world. Both are equally unreal.
Anirvachaniya - that which cannot be categorised as existent or non-existent. Something appearing. The movement of the mind.
When it appears because of movement it doesn’t matter whether you see it or not. Or should I stop it?
Always (re-)pay the service to forefathers. After sanyasa at least mother idea should be retained.

Class 14

In sleep, the person (aham), the world and the god is not there. Vedanta is about the inner most reality, not about god etc.
The known (world) depends on the knower (aham). And when you look at the vastness of the world, you’re obliged to bring about the god. If creator is in the beginning than the creator is yourself.
You know what you know and you know what you don’t know (Chinese). Therefore you’re sarvajnah, just like the creator in the beginning. This is Vedanta.
People prefer conceptual Vedanta, where brahman is the creator. And sampradaya, systems become more important. When there is a vision, a system has no value. It can be in its place, we don’t pay much attention on that. In Vedanta the focus is on you. The teaching helps you to discover your vastness, to which we give the name brahman.
Bhashyakara very appropriately named the Brahma Sutra as sharIrakam shastram. The one that is obtained in this body mind.
The way to remove misconceptions is to inquire, study, investigate.
The truth, the real cannot be measured. Cannot be captured. Drsh (view, sight - držať).
In idealism they give priority to the drashta. In realism they give reality to the drshya. I don’t fit in any category because both are interdependent only. They are appearances and the reality is one, present in darshanam, drstha, drashyam (immanent), but really speaking it is beyond all three (transcendent).
Duality as an experience is not contested. It’s a fact, not truth.
If guru and parampara is what sustains you then there is no advantage in joining Vedanta.
The dream experience is with you all the time. But you never looked at it closely. The knower rises with the known and the known rises with the knower. Waking up is simply negating the dream.
Seer is unreal -> Shunyavada. Seer’s essential nature is Brahma -> Vedanta. Seer is uncertain.
Seeing is the truth. What you see is unreal. That you see is real. You can get this conclusion from the dream experience also. All that you’ve seen incl. the subject is unreal, but that you’ve seen a dream is real. Out of that seeing springs up a seer supposedly within and seen supposedly without. What you call “seer”, the me, the person is but a thought. What you call “seen” is also an idea in the mind.
There is a world experienced by you only when you’re a body/mind identified person. Suppose you’re not a body/mind identified person, like in deep sleep, then there is no world.
When the mind is perfectly still, there is no waking state anymore. The drastha, drshyam, darshanam triad has come to and end.
The knowingness alone is real. In that knowingness the triad alone appears and disappears. The knower and known are added by the mind. Knowing alone with being is your true nature.
If you’re angry with a person. The adversary is the known / unreal. The angry person, the ego, is also unreal. The atma caitanya which illuminates this interaction is the real.
It is your delusion, because you’re imagining things. Mind is imperfect. All you need to do is to purify the mind so it stops identifying with the persona created by the mind’s movement and relegates its oneness with the light of awareness / atma. That mind is the maya.
Maya doesn’t have antecedents. Maya is not false because of something else, it just is false. Everything else is false due to maya.
Is maya satya or mithya? I do not want to answer this question. What appears due to maya is mithya. What remains after negation is satya.

Class 15

Motion is critical. Without motion you won’t see multiplicity. Something is moving, creating a sense of division. The movement which is the mind creates the experience of subject object duality.
Utilitarian (what’s in for me) approach comes from wordliness. In Vedanta we do not look at the utility of understanding the truth. It has its own value. I’m not interested in benefits accruing to me from knowing the truth. I just speak the truth.
What you call “tree” is nothing but tree-consciousness. There is no thief but a thief-consciousness. All is myself. All that exists is myself. All appearances are in me only.
Avasthu yoga: the division has no intrinsic reality.
Shakti is one power. The power to emerge as rupa jnanam and shabda jnanam are the same. Within you, the knower, there is no division in rupa, rasa, ghanda etc. That kind of outcome division doesn’t create a division in the origin (shakti). Extrapolate to multiple knowers.

Class 16

Once you negate the world the limitations of conciousness also get negated.
Jagat is known to the knower through a means of knowing. The means of knowing is mithya and the status of the knower (knowership) is also mihtya. The division is mithya, only the light of awareness in which this subject-object division shines is real.
When you assume yourself to be the drastha (knower) you assume yourself to be standing away from that brahman. Once the drahstrtavm is negated, you do not stand apart anymore and merge into the light of awareness that alone is.
If jivas are many, what about Ishvara? Sankya: you don’t need Ishvara. Believer needs Isvhara, he’s the inner need. It’s like a child, it holds on to mother. Advaita: the one atma is Ishvara.
If atmas are many -> atmas are limited -> atmas undergo transformations -> atmas go extinct -> shunyavada.
Existence of the world: you need a conscious being to have the appearance of the jagat.
Whenever you take yourself as the inner light, you’ll never experience the multiplicity, division. It’s not about experiencing some kind of exotic oneness.
Why the mind is doing the mistake identifying with separate existence? Because it is imperfect. Because it is crude (tamoguna) and restless (rajoguna), thus lacks viveka and identifies with the body. Therefore, purify the mind, make it calm and sensitive.
The world that the ajnani sees is not the same as the world that the jnani sees. The way people concretise - identify with the nama rupa, is the problem. Learn to take the nama rupa lightly, dismiss them. As long as you hold on to nama rupa you remain a body identified person and are far from the truth.
Where there is no projection of fear or desire, there is no ego also.
You’re not going to experience the infinite. The approach is rather negative. You’d look at the particularization of yourself and give it up. Dismiss all kind of projections or mental forms which divide you, make you feel small and limited. Overcome fragmentary thinking - dvaita buddhi.
If you stop the categorization you’ll instinctively feel the oneness.

Class 17

North and south pole are opposites, but they are not opposed. They are together in the same magnetic field. The differences do not separate. There are opposites but there is not opposition.
The divide and to particularize is the nature of the mind. If you give free run the mind it will divide, divide and divide. Separation is against the truth. Nature is one. Reality is one.
Anything which is limited in space is invariably limited in time also. Dualist conveniently avoid any mention of space and time. Why? Because they give a form to god. Doing so you’re doing an injustice to the whole vision. You’re putting beginning and end to the god. Therefore atma cannot be many.
The ego is precipitated or is posited in the consciousness whenever there is a desire. The desire or fear or all-is-not-well sense belong to it.
Person is the same as ago. They are not two different things.
Upasana requires duality. But only take that much duality that is needed for it. Don’t take it too far. Duality is admitted only provisionally.
Emotionalism and sentimentality are not true devotions. They are traps.
The expressions of jnana are infinite.
Vedanta is the journey from the small self to the infinite big self.
I’m prior to the mind (-> time). I’m prior to the perception, inference, scriptural instruction. I’m prior to the body (-> space). I’m prior to the world.
Before you rise a doubt whether atma is real or not, I’m already there. You cannot say I’m unreal. I (atma) can declare you’re unreal (mind). Projections alone can be unreal. Divisions are projects. It cannot be but your imaginations, your projection.
I can never ever be false. Generally what you negate is many and unreal. What remains is one and cannot be negated.

Class 18

the very existence is associated with diversity
Nowadays Buddhism has become like puranic Hinduism. Full of forms.
The dialogue between the sunyavadi and atmavadi is the very proof for existence. You cannot have any such deliberation about sunya. If atma were like the horn of a rabbit there would be no such deliberation about it.
Whatever mind projects is unreal. Now the mind will say even the atma is unreal. Now atma is saying to the mind “oh mind, you cannot say that”. Even before you rise to say anything, I’m there. Just like a son cannot you the father doesn’t exist.
You can never ever be unaware of yourself.
Doubt comes only when the mind is active. But you’re there no matter what. When you find yourself in doubt, just pass.
It is the thought that breeds sorrow, conflict, fear. Hold your ground, tell yourself: You’re prior to the thought.
To make a projection the mind has to spring up, a thought has to be in place.
Knowing is the mechanical process that is performed by the mind. The mind which is but a thought. It is the thought which knows and a thought is a mechanical movement and out of this movement knowledge happens.
When you’re thoughtless, you’re aware you’re the pure knowingness in which there is no knowingness of any particular thing.
The magnet doesn’t make the iron fillings move. When the magnet is present, they move. The world shines in the presence of the sun. The sun doesn’t make the world shine. Sun is and shines.
Act of knowing belongs to the domain of the mind, not atma. Atma doesn’t guide the mind (e.g. say “have good thoughts”). Mind is guided by its own latencies.
Whatever is known by the mind has two qualities. It is divisive, therefore dualistic and it is unreal. Therefore atma is unknown and unknowable by the mind. This very fact proves atma is real (because whatever is known to the mind is unreal).
Writing the exam and passing the exam is one integrated action. The mistake happens that we take the action which is in the present and split it. Make one part of the action in the present and one in the future (result). That is kamya karma. If you pray before the exam to write the exam well that is not kamya karma (but duty-based action). If I pray to give a good class and get dakshina that is kamya karma (desire-based action).

Class 19

The glow is the sat and the glow that you see is asat. What you see is unreal.
We have to admit the real. You cannot say shunyam is the element from which it all comes. Because it is shunyam, it is void. Nothing comes out of nothing.
The glow cannot be shunya because we’re deliberating on it. Same logic apply to multiplicity also.
If the duality is taken as real then the original real will become unreal. The real cannot be two, it can be only one.
Whatever the mind projects is unreal. But the unreal looks real. Just appearance alone should not push you into any wrong conclusions. Check, whether it is time-bound or not. Whether it is transient or not. When it is real it cannot be transient.
Upanishads are not theological, not dogmatic, not stories. Upanishads are entirely doctrinal.
Yat nityam tad eva satyam. Cardinal principle of Shankara. Whatever is timeless is real.
When you believe in it, the appearance is taken as real. If you doubt it (raise questions about it) the “reality” vanishes.
Transiency is best proof of unreality. Whatever is limited in time is limited in space.
When it is unreal, then there is no need to deliberate upon it.
In spite of the appearance of the unreal, the real is not affected.
What you call outside is very much inside the mind only. It is the movement of the mind itself that creates this schism that you call outside/inside. Jagat is apparently outside the body but is inside the mind. What you call jagat is movement of mind only.
Don’t be carried away by usefulness and TX. It doesn’t imply reality.
You have a commitment to make the world real. If not entirely, at least partially you’ve invested your emotions in the world and you want it to be real. If not as real as brahman, at least 50:50. That’s why you miss the point.
The world is a projection of the mind entirely built on memory and imaginations.
It is the nature of the mind to imagine goals and strive for those. And therefore there are goals which are very “real”.
Goal, desire, fulfilling the desire, reaching the goal, striving for the goal. These are all states of the mind. The real is beyond the mind.

Class 20

It is always the human mind that wants to know the purpose. If you minus the human mind you can remove the word ‘purpose’ from the dictionary.
Truth doesn’t serve any purpose whereas untruth does serve multiple purposes.
Student should always seek the truth without ever without ever asking about it’s purpose.
The purpose belongs to the realm of unreal. Don’t you ever bring this argument (of purpose) to truth. Purpose -> holding to unreal.
Your dualistic sat (god) is good as asat. It serves a purpose.
Not serving a purpose doesn’t establish unreality. You imagine purpose with your mind, your own thinking, based on your own latencies.
What do you want to gain by learning Vedanta? It helps you examine the reality of your experiences.
Realization of the self doesn’t serve any purpose what-so-ever. There are no rewards.
People are more credulous than thinking. Nobody has the inner space to examine the vision very closely.

Class 21

Maya - movement in the motionless Brahman.
The movement is characterized by space and time.
Maya - space time continuum. Continuum is when there are two things you cannot separate. And the space time continuum directly gives rise to variety, multiplicity.
Truth is always one. Real is always one. The multiplicity that you experience is a product of maya.
Without consciousness there is no error. Wall, pot etc. don’t make the error. The appearance of the serpent is possible only because there is the background of consciousness upholding that appearance.
What you see in the rope will depend on your vasana.
The system created by the guru is an extension of his ego.
You go to a movie and sleep off. During that sleep there will be no movie (for you). For somebody else it will be there.
You’d ask when did the world begin. You’d ask when did my world experience begin? World began 12 millions year ago. The 12 millions year ago are in your head only.
Where did this world experience begin? This morning. Where? In my consciousness. Prior of that what were you? The pure light of awareness. Prior the onset of the multiplicity there was the real. And you’re the real.
All knowledge is nescience.
What you get out of struggle is nescience. What you get spontaneously is the truth. self-realization is not a knowledge. You’re what you’re for no particular reason.
You’re what you are not because of what you know you’re. There is no knowing involved in it.
Knowledge implies the knower and the known.
neti neti. It is enough to know what you’re not. You need not, you cannot know what you’re.
You’re non-particular. You’re non-somebody, you’re non-something.
Negative understanding is the highest understanding.

Class 22

Vedanta is study of the real. Science is study of the forms. Vedanta begins where science ends.
Child has no mind and it gradually acquires it. Mind is a collection of ideas acquired from the family, society … and then putting the things together the mind comes with its own projection.
Whatever idea about the real can only be a projection. Knowing the self is not possible. If the self is known it becomes the other.
Svasamvedhyatvam - knowing oneself by oneself. There is no such thing.
How? There is no how. Atma is. The real is which is.
There is no need to know the being. It is not possible either. Because the being itself is the knowing.
Do you want to know yourself, sir? Then just be yourself! It is enough to stop imagining oneself to be this or that.
By knowing what you’re not you’re free that. I’m not the riches. I’m poor neither.
The truth is always bitter.
The richman is one who is slave to his riches.
Clever swami wanting to rest: “I will answer all questions that are not based on ID with body mind.”
By identification with what you’re not you’re not in your natural state.In this natural state this expectation to know what I’m will vanish. You’ll leave the abnormal, excited, feverish state of a worldly person.
Atma is avishesha (vishesha - quality, label, specialty, property). Atma is not something. Don’t say nothing. You’ve a fixed idea that you’ve to be something… No label apply to you.
Sanjasi feels proud that he belongs to the dashanami (bharati, saraswati …). That’s what binds you. No, you’re avisesha.
Love the family members. You don’t need to label yourself as a family person.
“You are” is same as “you know”. They are not two different things. “I’m” is the same as “I know”. It’s enough to know what you’re not.
Knowledge is always a description. Description of what? Of what is already known. Perceptually, conceptually or inferentially.
What you’re cannot be described except as total negation. Neti neti.
As you can point as this or that it cannot be yourself.
Can you be something else? How can you be something else? You can only be yourself. If you can’t be something else, how can you say I’m this or I’m that?
Remember, without you there cannot be no perception, no conception. Whatever is perceived or conceived, you’re not.
The proof of the pudding is in it’s eating. Taste the freedom that comes of the scissor neti-neti. Live it.
What helps you to know yourself correctly that is sadhana.
To know oneself correctly, to realize oneself correctly rather, is bliss, freedom, ananda, love, emancipation. Not knowing oneself correctly and taking up superimpositions is sorrow, bondage.
The family has to look on you as a family person. You don’t need to look at yourself as a family person. Don’t imagine anything about yourself.
Meditation: engaging the mind with something that is known to you (mantra, image …).
Vishnu has four hands. Gives four kinds of help (help ~ “give me a hand”).

Class 23

Not accepting atma (yourself) as being distinct from body mind, no amount of study will have no effect. You have to reach beyond verbal expression.
Body and mind are shields (koshas). They shield the atma. They cover.
Body is the doing element. Mind is the thinking element (subtle doing). Go deeper. To the knowing element.
Atma is the light of awareness, the ground, base in which the mind is thinking and organ of speech communicating this thoughts.
Shunyavadis subscribe to four elements. Akasha is void, it doesn’t exit.
Birth - was it an experience registered by the mind? Therefore I cannot tell about myself that I was born. You’d question it. You’re inferring that you’re born. People are telling that you’re born. Shastra is telling you’re not born. What do you take? Don’t follow anything. Take the clue from everything.
Follower sounds like you’re not very great. Belief doesn’t sound very good. Tradition is a better name. Parampara. You remain a follower and call yourself traditionalist.
Birth is an idea. Same for death. You don’t have the experience of death, just experience some people dying.
The power that created the body takes care of the body.
Ultimate good is not there in indestructible body, extended life, this and that.
What is whole is also holistic, holy. It is the opposite of fragmented. Go above.
Love your enemy. It means there is no enemy. How to do it? By love.
The illness of the body originates in the mind. See the ignorance of the fragmentation and get over it.
When there is no fragmentation in you as “myself” and “not myself” then the sadhana chatusthaya will come to you very smoothly.
Spirit of crucifixion is the negation of the body. That’s what Buddha and Krishna teach about.
In spite of some good points commonly held in some schools of thought some basic fundamental blemishes in some of the schools need to be pointed out and refuted so that they won’t take root in us.

Class 24

System: there will be a central figure and a few structures are built around it. You submit yourself to it.
There is no connection between Radha Krishna and Gita Krishna whatsoever.
When your mind is active, you’re not understanding. You’re collecting.
Understanding is not additive, it doesn’t accumulate. In learning, there is no accumulation, no addition.
Suffering caused by misconception about oneself cannot be eliminated by accumulating knowledge. For that you need to understand your misconception.
In Vedanta there is only one devata. Atma. People want the word devaha, the divine, somewhere away and separate from them.
You who was born is imagined (kalpita). You who was not born is akalpita.
You’re anxious to learn, you’re never anxious to learn.
Street dogs can be very dangerous, mango is very tasty … is that accumulation? No. You learn by inquiry. Inquiry is a job to be done by you, in you, for you. Submitting to something called vedanta is not inquiry.
You’re always free from death, birth, …. by your very nature.
Anybody who claims to be a jnani and others are ajnanis is ajnani himself. Mahatma says none of us were born and will die. Our nature is like that.

Class 25

The imagined comes only after the thought (movement) begins. After the thought begins it is real.
Look at yourself. You’re not an imagination.
Ideas like birth and death only appear when the thought begins. Before thought there is no time itself.
Without movement there is no time. Therefore thought is encased in time.
Thought is fragmentary, thought divides. Prior to thought there is no division.
Thinkers vs. yes-sayers.
Maya: you’re aware of body/mind but unsure of atma. Which is the only thing you’d be sure of.
You cannot question that which is prior to the thought. It is as real, as tough as a diamond.
Look into your thought process which is the thought process. Consciousness is defined here as the content of consciousness.
Don’t understand the power of your desire. It will mold your life and the one thereafter.
You want to uplift the world. Learn instead. Don’t teach. Keep quiet. You cause trouble for this and next life for the person you teach. If you have to teach, teach there is no birth, death, old age for you. You’re brahman, you’re atma.
If you believe you can do it. If you believe you can’t, you can’t. It’s all in your mind. If you say “I’m a very unlucky person” you’ll become very unlucky.

Class 26

Atma is not taking birth as dvaitam. Dvaitam is not taking birth from atma. Like ropesnake. That’s the topic.
Duality does not really exist.
Before you can settle birth or not birth, atma must be there. To make the mistake about ropesnake, there must be some light. And to fix the mistake, you also need light. The knowing element must always be there. Either to say there is birth or to say there is no birth.
Shankara is struggling a lot to dismiss the birth.
Mother remains the mother and the child is born. What kind of “born” it is?
Dvaita is only appearing, it is not taking birth at all.
Unless you resolve this contradiction (birth impossible for atma) you’ll pay a very bitter price. Develop that space in reference to body and mind. You’re never born, you’ll never die. Discover your immortality here and now.

Class 27

Accumulation of knowledge is easier than learning. You’re accustomed to it.
Ajaatavada: you’ve seen a serpent birth alright, but the serpent was not born.
Assumption of birth makes you live with the fear of death. Birth and death that’s what all religions are about.

Class 28 - ajah

Body and mind are always together. Psychology and physiology are always together. It is the dvaitam.
If it is born, it must be real. If not and it is a mere appearance, it must be unreal.
Realization - purging the consciousness of false notion.
Idea is never the truth.
Instead of saying “we’re following of a frozen thought” we prefer tho nice name “tradition”. There is no updating, no thinking.
Eliminate all the structures and systems that you’ve put in place to reinforce the notion of birth. Therefore in your consciousness the idea of birth should not even occur. It’s only required for the CV.
You’ll be able to say “shubham” when death occurs. Death has no meaning for you. The only sentiment about it is that you have to dispose off the body.
You mind find the functions of the body declining naturally, but you don’t feel the burden of being impatient and old guy. You’re immortal.
Once the idea of birth is purged the idea of old age and death will be purged automatically. Something like katrtvam is gone by itself when bhoktrtvam is dismissed.
There is nothing to do, there is only to un-do, un-learn.
Padapuja is an attempt to fill the gap until love and understanding comes.
Dvaitins fight against each other by demolishing the others argument and therefore bring up the ajatavada. And we embrace.
Karma: job done properly. Not successfully/unsuccessfully. Such a job will bear karmaphalam.
Jumping from sat to asat (death) and vice versa (birth) is not acceptable. Pair of sat and asat remain distinct.
You can say about yourself only this much “I’m”. Whatever you add to it (the “what” of I’m), all of it, is false. The “how” of I’m is false. This is the shortest path to self-realization.
Any “how”, any “what” to I’m is false. How to take things personally? You can only laugh.
Who so ever comes here to do namaskar is a hindu. But people believe the most absurd things based on the birth.
Do you live by life or do you live by memory (it’s my 75th birthday)? We live by memory and act by habits.
First get hold of ajah and then you’ll get everything else.

Class 29 - be alert

All the problems that we live with all the live are merely the problems of the body. If you realize that you’re not the body all the problems are gone for you. Yet superficial thinking won’t help here.
You created systems which bind you into a tunnel, narrow groove and you cannot come out of that groove.
Abhyupagama: when you’re not understanding what I’m not saying I go along with what you think. Instead of having a debate with you and trying to convince you.
I’m not connected with you (and your movement, one of which is the birth) silly mind - asangatah.
If you really grow up, you’d put the body aside. Like soldiers.
One should outgrow the body and body based early in life (30’s or 40’s) so you can dedicate the rest of the live to self-realization. Instead we accumulate knowledge about self-realization.
Sastra says that the soldiers who puts his body out of the way on the battlefields and a jnani who puts his body away in understanding of the true self both reach brahman.
The one who knows (looks at) the mind is the witness of the mind. You cannot explain more than that. The witness is known to you because you’re the witness.
Being the witness is same as knowing the movement of the mind and the body. Being the witness helps you to know what you’re not. You become free from false ideas and false desires.
You need not know what you’re. E.g. when you’re healthy, you’ll not know that you’re healthy.
If the mind is restless you don’t worry. Let it be restless. You (witness) have no connection with that.
You cannot and need not control the smoke (mind) coming out of the incense stick (body). Let it be in peace. You’re the glow (light).
See, you need not close the eyes. But see without raga dvesha, which is the movement of the mind - your associations. BE ALERT, BE AWARE OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE MIND. DON’T IDENTIFY WITH THE MIND. The mind comes with a response to what is heard/seen … a reaction.
When you’re hurt whatever you do is a reaction and that will show you in a poor light. If you don’t identify you won’t be hurt. And you can say “sir, you’ve got it all wrong. Have a good day”.
Unless there is self-identification with the mind, you won’t be hurt.
There is nothing worth keeping in this world. There is nothing worth worrying about if you lose it in this world.
Develop “I don’t care” approach. If the mind wants to have raga dvesha, let it have. I’m kutastah. With self-ID you only reinforce raga dvesha.

Class 30 - love

Paper -> cone. Whatever is born by speech is merely name (nAmadheyam).
Birth of the pot is merely birth of the pot thought.
(kutastah) Atma: oh mind, by your movement creating all kinds of opposites, I do not gain anything, I do not lose anything. I do not get glorified by your projection of glory. The gain/loss/glory are born from non-existence. They do not exist even, are not really born.
You’ve lost nothing. You’re just imagining. Understand this and there will be tremendous freedom.
Samsaris are always concerned with loss and gain. It is not real, it is attachment.
Animals bring up the offspring and then forget about them. With humans, there is a tremendous concern.
When jealousy is asserting there cannot be any love, there can only be attachment.
Sometimes you’re attached to your ideas and you want to impose these ideas on your children. You’re pushing the other to adopt the ideas.
Trying to dominate the other, is that love?
Abiding in that purna atma, that includes all, where there is no loss, no gain - that is love. Everything else is a projection of the mind, attachment.
There cannot a connect (yoga) between atma and manah. Atma is changeless, timeless.
In this creation nothing is connected to anything else. Get this vision of non-attachment in you. Whenever you feel that you’re attached you’re under the influence of drug called ignorance.
Whenever you make it sentimental, you lose the truth.

Class 31 - attachment

People think that they are attached to the real. They are not. They are the real. They are attached to the unreal - name rupa.
Rich man is the man who’s attached to the riches.
Learn to work without seeking an advantage to the apparent self. You’ll learn to rise above it.
The real self is not a person. This real self is the same in every human being, like one sun reflecting in a billion dewdrops. Even in animal and in all mineral kingdom.
Overcome attachment to get to the real self. That’s the secret.
Spiritual maturity: not holding to anything.
When you do not cling, no trouble arises.
Relinquish the outer the get the inner, the false to get the real.
When there is non-attachment, life becomes an inexhaustible source of inspiration and love for everybody.
All attachment implies fear, because all things are transient.
Bhagavan is nameless and formless. Disregard all names and forms. Now you’re an universal person.
Upanishads and Gita don’t offer theistic god. It’s a different god and cannot be described in words.

Class 32

“I need an apparent self to transact in the self”. You’re giving some sanctity to the apparent self. It’s like saying: “I’m a teacher because I need to be a teacher to teach”.
I need not be the teacher for the teaching to happen. When you identify with the doing, you become the doer and then you become the person.
Are you sishya or are you brahma? The purpose of the teaching is to make you known as brahma.
People know themselves through something else. But what are you as yourself? Not by a reference to a lady (husband) or what you do (engineer)?
The god that you talk about, is he a created god or not?
Mind is memory and memory is the past. Other name for memory is the known.
By defining you limit a thing. If it is limited it is unreal.
To find the thing you need to go beyond the word. “Mango mango mango” or the real thing?
The words, the symbols have become more important that the search for reality. Is not the symbol an escape from the real? A fanciful distraction from the real? The symbols, the ceremony, the festivities.
What is the true religion is not the question. What is not the true religion is the question.
To know the truth you need a very simple mind. Not a conditioned mind. Not a mind full of descriptions, words, names, rituals. A mind having an agenda for everybody around.
What is the content of the religion I hold on to? I suggest words and words only.
We don’t want to think and we don’t want to find out. That is our problem. We want some sensation, some stimulation in name of fanciful distraction. To think is very painful.
Beyond the words is the creative reality which is the atma.

Class 33 - first time / no repetition

Feeling is deeper than thinking. Do you feel like ishvara is none other than you?
Mental worship - there is no physical worship in the upanishads.
Sun shines only one time in your life. The first time. It never stops. Do you look at the sun as the sun from yesterday and day before etc. or do you look at it the very first time! Sun is ever fresh.
No repetition!
Tradition is meant to be followed, not examined.
When you fail to meet the moment with freshness it becomes repetitive. Mind loves the repetition.
When you do things mechanically you become dull.
It must inspire you, it is only a matter of paying attention.
It is the memory that creates time.
Make the transition from time to timelessness.
Mind moves or not moves. Whereas atma timelessly shines.
Understanding can never ever be in the future. If it is there, it is in the present only.
When you’re thinking, you’re in time. When you’re watchful, alert, you’re out of the time.
When there is no time you’re no more jiva. You’re brahman.
You’re not a shape. You’re the knowing element - that which makes perception, thinking, knowing, inference etc. possible. Knowing is the primary. Hands and legs will do.
Accumulative means you’ll lose it. Non-accumulative you’ll never lose.

Class 34

The atma is sama. Non-different. You’ve to reach that and that’s the purpose of Vedanta. Sukhi vs. dukhi is a topic for karmakanda.
Combining karma and jnana is a cardinal sin. Shankara used every opportunity to tell you this.
Belief is like a tram car. It doesn’t need a driver and goes always in the same groove. Belief is like that. Fully mechanical. Generally robots are made of metal, this robot is made of flesh of bones.
Life is not like a tram car. Life is new, fresh, every day, every hour.
When you heal your mind your body will be healed automatically. It is a single organism!
All sishyas go to guru for security and develop psychological dependence. And it is mutual. No. Go to guru to receive instructions and then move on. Don’t linger around the guru. Be inside but don’t become an insider.
Don’t seek security/happiness (from wife, student, son, god). Give security/happiness.
Whatever person you are imagining to be, get rid of it by knowledge. The person is the construct of ignorance. There is only psycho-physical apparatus. There is life. There is atma chaitanyam. There is no person. When you’re not a person why do you make a person out of god?

Class 35

The fact that you know it makes it limited.
Can you have a god without a devotee? No.
When you say you know brahman you become superior to it. Now brahman is not superior anymore, but you’re supreme. You made it a small, limited thing.
You mine information like you mine chemicals. Knowing is a mechanical process. There is stimulus outside, light falls on the retina, sound waves fall in the eardrums and then braincells start filling… When you go to sleep this mechanical process is stopped.
All cognition is recognition. Unless you know it already, you do not know it now. There is a SW in the mind and that kicks in.
You’re the knower, the pot is the known, in between is the mechanical process of knowing. Whatever is known through it is a concept.
Man first creates the god in his image and proclaims god created the man in his image. It is an anthropomorphic (anthropo - how a community thinks, morph - form) god.
Only he who knows that God is the unknowable knows God. Though unknown and unknowable it is supremely accessible (as your self).
You cannot get out of this humanness easily. You don’t make a god a fish, you make it a human with a fish head. That is the god conceived by the human mind. Not the real god.
Understanding, now knowing. If you go to google guru you’ll know, but not understand. Having known from the google guru, when you contemplate upon it, then you might understand. When the mind is active, there is only knowing, no understanding. When there is understanding, your mind is quiet.
When you’re thinking, you do not understand. When you understand, you are not thinking. In the understanding the sense organs become quiet. They are not forced to become quiet.
You cannot stop the mind from thinking. Try and you’ll be frustrated in two minutes. The mind can stop thinking. Don’t try to command and control. Just live it alone and be in your awareness.
Your silence is not created by the thought. It is the silence that is prior to the very idea of silence. If you’re there in the silence you become a disturbance to the silence. You can be that silence, you can access it by merging into it, you cannot know that silence. The moment you try to understand it you’ve already lost it. That is the brahman.

Class 36

World: Don’t disturb the situation. Don’t look closely.
Look closely, only then you can access the reality in yourself.
When you don’t know god, search for god in sentient, not in the insentient.
Thought cannot capture the reality, cannot objectify the real. Whatever it captures is unreal. Therefore don’t rely on though to help you reach god. Same for sabda, sparsha, rupa, rasa, gandha. Suka, duhka is thought. Drop those seven and you’re already in brahman.
Bhaktas rely upon thought to take them to god. You have to think god.
Srsthi is rajoguna. Sthiti is sattvaguna and destruction, death is tamoguna.
Shiva is god without any gunas. Shiva is brahman.
Swami Vivekandanda: if somebody kicks you, you don’t react. No ID with the body. Jesus Christ: when somebody slaps you on the left cheek, show him the other one.
I’m aware of the insult but I don’t get insulted.
The god you want to reach is aguna. So you have to become aguna.
Mind is sattva, body is tamoguna, in between life is rajoguna.
Give up ID with the tamoguna by being active purposefully. You give up ID with the rajoguna by giving up all the desire for the results of your activities. You give up sattvaguna by not ID with the mind, intellect, scholarship etc.

Class 37

Symbols, rituals, festivals, idols are divisive. Not inclusive. They divide the (Hindu) society. That’s the main reason why other religions have become powerful.
(religious Hindu context) You should not do any fundraisers. You should avoid all efforts to make money. You’d be able to manage with whatever money comes without your effort. Shivananda Maharaj: serve, but don’t ask for money. No need to collect money. Manage with what you have. Do your job and funds will come.
In Ramakrishna mission you never come across any fundraisers.
You only need a fundraiser if you have an agenda to put onto people.
Translation of “dvaita” into english - division.
Body/mind is gunas, atma is aguna.
It is always easy to follow and always difficult to think. Creative thinking is difficult.
Family, community will love you if you are docile, believing and following. There is a beautiful name for believing and following - tradition. Or you listen to whosoever says something. And then you think.
All the confusion has its origin in that “me”, which is direct product of self-identification.
How we handle external threats? There are no threats. Be free. Look at squirrels, do they look for external threats? Ask the question, what is the state of mind?
Pleasure doesn’t provide a learning opportunity. Generally people learn only from pain.

Class 38 - no ID

Atma is not the locus of any experience. That’s why mahatmas are advised (if they take to sanyasa): don’t try enjoy bikshas and all that. If you start enjoying the biksha it means you’re identifying with the experience.
Experience is not the issue. Identification is. You like/dislike and you forget the experience.
There is a name for non-identification - death while living.
You do not identify with studentship.
Moksha you need not get it. It will get at you provided you give it a chance. It is you. How? Let go your attachment to the unreal. Then the real will smoothly step into its own.
The complaint regarding work comes from a sense of doership. The delusion is I’m rewarded less and doing more. Reward yourself by knowing your true nature. Then there will be no frustration whatsoever. Do but don’t become a doer.
No identification born out of being and out of doing. And the truth will dawn upon you.
You need not decorate anything. Everything is lovable the way it is.
True religion, in which there is no scope for any fear. If there is fear, there is no true religion. Religions of the world are entirely based on the fear. In true religion, there is freedom. You remain stable inwardly and the outward events cannot touch you.
If you have fear, you cannot think.
If you become stuck with a tune/song you will not be able to listen to anything new. Openness to listen to anything new will not be there.
You should be ready to catch anything fresh. This is what is called non-attachment from ideas, beliefs, patterns of thinking. Be entirely open., all the delusions of the mind will be wiped out.

Class 39

self-identification is another name for attachment. If you can handle the self-ID, you’ll become free of the samsara.
There is no difference in the universality aspect of prana and atma. The only difference is that prana is saguna and atma nirguna. Prana related is upasana, atma related is jnanam. It is highly recommended for all students of Vedanta to worship/visualize the god of life force in oneself and all lifeforms - pranaupasana. For more information read Chandogya Upanishad, 5th dhyaya last part - vaishvAnaravidya.
Rshis never had any temples. When the universal upasanas haven taken a backseats, temples came. Mostly from 1000 AD.
Somebody is abusing you by speech. The life-force behind this organ speech is god, even though the speech is bad only. Overlook it and you’ll have no enemy in this world.
Hiranyagarbhoupasana - popular name for vaishvAnaravidya.
Attachment to the things made of the hand. Instead of having 3-4 shirts, you’ll have 30-40. Gold, jewelry etc. That’s the only bondage really speaking. If you continue with this after listening to Vedanta, with old ways of thinking, living and acting, the graha remains in place.
You have to look for your-self. It is not about promoting this culture or protecting this darma. All of that you’re just imagining. You have to find out for yourself how to look at the problem of human existence. Cultivate a lifestyle where all this turmoil and misery comes to an end. That will happen only when there is no fragmentation in your life. The moment you identify with something, the fragmentation will be in place.
When there is a reason to persist in your heart, it will persist. Graha will remain. You’ll not come out of the fragmentation. When the belief vanishes graha cannot survive. The ID, obsessive attachment vanishes. The fire burns as long as you put fuel into it.
Understand that we’re all the same. Rise above fragmentary thinking and the graha vanishes. For practical reasons there might be differences, but that doesn’t matter.
The liberation is not contained in a particular experience. “When kundalini comes to the head it becomes the liberation” - yoga gurus put wrong ideas into the minds of devotees. Any experience induced by drugs etc. is no liberation, however glorious the experience might be.
The meaning of shanti is dousing the fire. Agnihi (of samsara, of wordliness, of graha - self-ID) becomes extinct. The fire came in the first place from wrong ideas.
There is nothing positive about liberation. Liberation is from false ideas only.
Understanding deprives the attachment which therefore vanishes.
People have connected religion with big structures, rituals, ceremonies, animals, loads of flowers, gold… Break that connection by clarity of understanding. And you’ll step out of the false religion, the religion of the masses into true religion which liberates you.
Once the understanding comes the division between worldly and spiritual life vanishes. The clarity of vision sets you free.

Class 40

Vedanta is worth studying a lifetime. At least 10 years don’t talk (teach), study and study. Swami TV: I was studying Vedanta for not less than 20 years.
Anybody who has only one guru, he doesn’t learn anything.
If you’re in learning mode, a river, a child anything can be your guru. Therefore namo gurubyah.
Recommended parts of Upadeshasahasri, Swami TV already taught:
- manovilApah (vilApah - merger).
- karma vs. jnanam in the very beginning of Upadeshasahasri
- beginning of the gadya (prose). CDs available in Rshikesh ashram.
Meditation is not (should not) be isolation. Is it your love for ekanta (alones) or are you isolating yourself?
Battle with the mind is wrong. Meditation is not starting and winning a battle with the mind. It will put a lot of conflict in you and you’ll never win it. How can that be meditation?
Pursue of a vision. Vision is a play of the mind. Mind wishes for a vision and then mind manufactures the vision for itself. Mind is the stage and mind is the player.
Meditation is samadhana! Not being a victim of your sense-organs. Meditation is even as you’re relishing the thing, you’re so alert and so sensitive that the alarm rings. You’re aware of the movement of your mind - that’s meditation. Be aware! Even while speaking you’re aware.
Meditation is not an isolated effort. It’s an integral part of life.
Meditation is not doing. It will have no phalam, don’t look for it - that will introduce time into it and is no more meditation. It is being. Don’t make meditation into another job.
“Swamiji did I disturb you?” No, I’m never disturbed. You never disturb me. I’m awake - I’m not disturbed. If you get the meditation correctly you’re not disturbed by anything.
Rshis didn’t need temples. For them the image of god was all-around. That’s how they visualize.