Studying Non-Duality Systematically

We're going to do three things today. One, we're going to refresh the arguments that we got from our prakarana grantha—the introductory text that Shankaracharya, the great 8th-9th Century advaitic master, composed.

Remember the story about Shankaracharya and the crocodile? A crocodile was dragging him into the depths of the Ganga, and his mom wouldn't give him the blessing to become a monk. As the crocodile dragged him into the Ganga, he shouted to his mom, “Mama, give me your blessing to be a monk!” Finally, the mother said, “Okay, you can be a monk,” and the crocodile let him go. Why? Because to take the vows of being a monk already equals death. At that point, being eaten by a crocodile is superfluous. That's why you hear Shankaracharya talk about crocodiles all the time—to try to cross the ocean of samsara and yet still cling on to lust and greed is like trying to cross the river holding on to a crocodile, mistaking it for driftwood. Shankaracharya expresses a very radical, high non-duality. It speaks of renunciation in the highest tenure possible.

We are studying a bit of Shankaracharya today. Particularly, we're going to look at the seven or eight arguments he gives for why we are not the body. These arguments aim to prove that whether we know it, like it, or not, the body was never ours, we were never the body, never will we be, never are we. It's a fact, not a value judgment.

Here's the point: the person we're talking about today, Shankaracharya's teacher's teacher, Gaudapada, is one hundred times more radical. That should scare us! That's really saying something. Gaudapada left to posterity something called the Mandukya Karika, which is a radical non-dual commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad.

Remember Vedanta

1. The study of the Upanishads.
2. The practice of living in accordance with those truths.

When you study the Upanishads, you study in a gnostic way: contemplate the teachings and live according to them. That's what Vedanta is.

The prasthana trayi, the core canon of Vedanta, are the:

1. Upanishads
2. Bhagavad Gita
3. Brahma Sutras

Each text is aimed at different aspects of Vedanta Sadhana:

1. Shravana: Listening to the teaching.
2. Manana: Reflecting and contemplating the teaching.
3. Nididyasana: Actualizing and living the teaching.

These three form the very essence of Vedantic practice, and each stage has a corresponding category of texts:

• Shravana
  • Hearing the teaching for the first time.
  • Texts: Upanishads (with commentaries)
• Manana
  • Contemplating, thinking through, and debating the teaching.
  • Texts: Brahma Sutras, Bṛhadāraṇyaka, Tattvakaumudi, Advaitasiddhi
• Nididyasana
  • Internalizing, actualizing, and embodying the teaching in your own life.
  • Texts: Bhagavad Gita, Ashtavakra Gita, Avadhuta Gita, Yoga Vasistha, Mandukya Upanishad

The Upanishads

The Upanishads are the ultimate source text for Vedanta: Vedanta Nama Upanishad. Vedanta is the study of the wisdom of the Upanishads. They represent the highest flights of human philosophy. The Upanishads themselves are sufficient:

1. Shravana teachings: tell you the truth, like the mahavakyas. For example, “I am Brahman,” found in the Chandogya Upanishad.
2. Manana practices: tools for contemplation.
3. Nididyasana practices: tools for meditation, like in the Mandukya Upanishad.

You heard it here first, folks! The Upanishads say…

The Brahma Sutras

The Brahma Sutras, composed by Vyasa, untangles the various logical knots of the Upanishads. It is a very dense, heavily intellectual text using logical language to deal with contrary schools of thought.

The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is a practical manual for living the Vedantic ideals. It is the essence of the Upanishads placed before you in a how-to manual.

Prakaranas

There is another category of text called prakaranas—introductory texts to prepare you for the Upanishads:

• Vedantasara: This is the main prakarana, a bit boring but powerful.
• Panchadasi: A cool prakarana.
• Viveka Chudamani: An incredible prakarana.
• Atma Bodha
• Drg-Drsya-Viveka

Shankaracharya wrote most prakaranas, but Vidyaranya Swami also wrote a few.

Prakaranas provide:

1. Teachings
2. Reasoning
3. Contemplations
4. Arguments
5. Debates
6. Practices

Other Important Texts

Here are some other classifications of important texts:

Manana Literature:

• Brahma Sutras
• Brihat Prasthanaratna Mala by Madhusudana Saraswati
• Tattvavaisharadí (a commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Vācaspati Miśra)
• Khandanakhandakhadya by Sriharsa
• Advaitasiddhi by Madhusudana Saraswati

Nididyasana Texts:

• Bhagavad Gita
• Ashtavakra Gita
• Avadhuta Gita
• Yoga Vasistha
• Mandukya Upanishad

Why You Should Study Vedanta Systematically

To study Vedanta is to study it systematically! We inherit a tradition with a pedagogy, a style. Viveka (discrimination) and vairagya (dispassion) are prerequisites for Vedanta.

Gaudapada's Radical Non-Duality

What would Gaudapada, an 8th Century master, say if you asked, “How can I end suffering?” He'd say:

“There is no end to bondage…because there was no beginning to bondage.”

Gaudapada's Ajata Vada argues for the non-origination of the universe. There is no universe, no cause of the universe. There is no world that exists independently, objectively, and separately from you, the Consciousness in which that world appears.

The Dream Pedagogy

Gaudapada's central teaching tool is the dream pedagogy.

The Mandukya Karika walks you through these states of consciousness:

1. Vaishvanara (Waking State): Common to all, this is where you think about deep sleep and dreaming.
2. Swapna (Dream State): The subtle body.
3. Sushupti (Deep Sleep State): The causal body, where the seeds of waking and dreaming are stored.

Gaudapada says the waking state causes the dream state. For example, what you see in your waking life shows up in your dreams. Similarly, past births cause your waking state. The samskaras (impressions) of previous lives act upon your waking experience. Just like your waking experiences act upon your dreaming experience, so too do past births cause waking.

Think about it, couldn't it be possible that you are right now dreaming? The impressions left by previous lives are responsible for the content of your dream now. There is no way to distinguish how the past life is affecting your waking life now from how this waking life will affect your dream later. In your dream, it feels like a gross physical reality.

Gaudapada exploits this: if you took the dream to be real, couldn't the same be happening now? What if this is a dream? Like in a dream, where you can realistically talk about simulations, none of it matters when you wake up.

What happens when you wake up? You don't wonder how the dream came into being. You realize there was no design. You didn't construct it. It appeared, then disappeared. It's not worth inquiring into because it doesn't have objective reality.

Apply that to this waking life. Gaudapada shows that this waking life is not objective or independent. It doesn't exist apart from you. It is an appearance in you. You are the only reality, but not you the person—you are Brahman, the transpersonal awareness.

You Are Not the Body: The Deep Sleep Argument

Gaudapada invites us to see this world the way we see our dreams. This will:

1. Drastically do away with fear.
2. Drastically do away with craving.

How? Because nothing unreal exists. Nothing real can be threatened. The world is scary only if you apprehend it as something that exists independently of you. When you understand that this world is a dream, fear goes away. Craving also disappears because you realize there is nothing outside yourself that can make you feel better.

Here is an example from the Upanishads:

The image is of a fish swimming in a stream amidst a strong current but not touching either bank. Another image is of a bird flying low to the ground but not touching the ground.

You, awareness, seem to approach the riverbanks of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, like the bird approaching the ground. However, you aren't touching those banks. You are beyond, untouched. Nothing can happen to you.

The Ashtavakra Gita says:

“Have faith, my child. Have faith in what I've said. You are God, beyond nature. Do not be bewildered in this.”

You are not the body. Why?

1. In your waking state, you're aware of yourself.
2. In your dreaming state, you're aware of yourself, although you're in a different, subtle body.
3. In deep sleep, you're not conscious of a physical or subtle body.

There are at least two times when you experience yourself not as this body. You remain the same throughout these changes. You were there in the dream when this body wasn't. You were in deep sleep when this body wasn't. This is evidence that you cannot be this body. You must be something more!

In Conclusion

Today, we proved that you are not the body using the Mandukya Karika by Gaudapada. We will take these arguments and apply them to the mind in our next session.

Consciousness Alone Exists

The Highest in Vedanta

Today I want to do nothing short or discuss with you the highest in Vedanta.

The very subtlest spiritual ideas, arguably the ideas not only of the Upanishads, but of the treatment of the Upanishads by Gaudapada, one of the most radical, uncompromising non-dualists that India has ever produced.

So we're going to look a little bit at Gaudapada's vision of non-duality, his mystic insight that arguably can be can be said to be, I suppose, the highest flights of Indian philosophy, the most thrilling, the most exhilarating, and it can be at once liberating if even intellectually understood. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to move from that which is unreal to that which is real.

From Darkness to Light

And the next line is important because it tells us what this movement actually constitutes. So when we talk tonight about the highest spiritual truth, note that the movement, the spiritual transformation here, is really a transformation of darkness into light.

And that does not mean literally turning on a key lamp or turning on your light. Like, that would be wonderful if I could flick the light switch on and be instantly liberated. That would be great if that mantra was literal. If all I had to do was dispel physical darkness, then party time, we can do that quite easily.

But no, obviously the darkness being spoken of here is not a physical darkness. It's the darkness of the mind. The clouding over of the intellect. It's ignorance, in other words. In Sanskrit, in Sanskrit, when you put “a” in front of any word it negates that word. So vidya meaning knowledge, avidya means perennial or primordial ignorance, primal ignorance, if you will. Basic ignorance, the very fun- foundational error we've all made that has caused us to, quote-unquote, “fall from the Garden.”

The Fall from the Garden

This is important. Our, quote-unquote, “fall from the Garden” is not moral or judge- it's not moral judgment. It's intellectual error. And that is what the Christian mystics of old arguably intentionally use the word “sin” for. Sin in the Greek is to “miss the mark,” to simply be intellectually off, to have not understood correctly. It's as innocent as making a mistake on your math homework. That's what's happened to all of us. We haven't sinned and thus been cast out in an act of moral judgment, in an act of fire and brimstone, we've merely fumbled the equation and come to an incorrect conclusion about who we think we are.

This is the darkness of avidya, and avidya, another name for it, is maya, the darkness of maya, of unreality, of not knowing our true nature.

So it's a movement from that ignorance to knowledge which ultimately, as we said, must be knowledge of our true nature. If maya by definition is ignorance about who we are, a misunderstanding about our fundamental nature, then that can only be cured - not only be cured - by knowledge of what you are. Only knowledge can dispel ignorance, not action, not ritual, not prayer, not hatha yoga practice.

No amount of downward dog will dispel ignorance. It's another very very important point that I have to stress.

Why Action Cannot Cure Ignorance

Why not? Are we just saying that? Why not? Why won't puja dispel ignorance? Why won't Vedic ritual or yajna dispel ignorance? Why won't downward dog or hatha yoga dispel ignorance? Why won't meditation dispel ignorance?

You see, the reason these things cannot do away with the foundational problem of ignorance is because all of these things are actions. Meditation is something you do. It's an action. Arguably, it's a very subtle action. It's a kind of non-doing, but it's still a subtle form of activity. It's an action. It's something you do. You put it in your schedule: “Today I will meditate between this time and this time.” That sounds like an action to me, you know? And when you're doing it, other people know you're doing it. And if we define “work” in physical terms - causing change, you know, using energy, or whatever work is, you know, change, and, you know, I've - it's been a while since high school physics - but if you apply the definition of work here you'll see meditation - it meets the definition, the basic definition of work. It's karma.

Meditation is a type of karma. It's a type of work, a subtle form of work, but work nonetheless. Yajna, puja - I mean, if meditation is work, to say nothing of yajna and puja, ritual worship, waving lamps and chanting mantras - these are all very obviously works, actions. Hatha yoga, doing poses here, doing poses there, chanting mantras - these are all actions. Action is the opposite to inaction.

Now, if your problem was inaction, then action would adequately address that problem, because action is the opposite of inaction. So to get rid of an action you use action, but is action the opposite of knowledge - I'm sorry - ignorance? Is action the opposite of ignorance? What is the opposite of ignorance, if not knowledge? Only knowledge is the opposite of ignorance, not action.

So the only way to remove ignorance is through knowledge, not through action. So to give an illustration: Imagine you walk into a dark room, a physically dark room now. The only thing that can take away that darkness, may be a darkness of a thousand years, a single flash of a match will illumine the room and dispel the darkness of a thousand years, but it takes light to get rid of darkness. Only light can displace darkness.

Note, darkness and light are mutually independent or rather, where one is the other isn't. Where there is darkness, by definition, there's no light. And where there is light, there's a dispelling of darkness. So once you bring light, given that light is the opposite of darkness, the darkness will run away.

However, what if I walked into a dark room and just like clapped my hands and pretended to be a bat? I clapped my hands. I was like, just like, made sounds at every wall and clapped my hands. I wouldn't be dispelling the darkness, although, maybe if I was a bat I'd be able to find the walls through that alone, you know, it might be helpful, but it won't illumine the room.

And why not? Because sound is not the opposite of darkness. Light is - only light which is the opposite of darkness can dispel darkness. Sound, which is not the opposite of darkness, cannot dispel darkness. And, most sound can help us feel better about the darkness. Maybe we sing a song to feel better about ourselves if we're scared. maybe sound can help dispel silence, if the silence is oppressive, but it cannot dispel the darkness. You're certainly happier singing in the dark, but it's still a dark room.

That's the important thing. The main point I want to carry forward here is this idea that only knowledge cures ignorance. Nothing else, friends, nothing else. No amount of action can cure the fundamental error if indeed the fundamental error is an error of ignorance, the error of the intellect. Only knowledge can do this.

One Insight is All it Takes

And that's why I put before you now one of the most thrilling ideas in the study of non-duality. And it's this, I've said it time and time again and I will say millions of times more, God willing, because it's the one main idea that sets the soul on fire, but it can also lead to much self-delusion. And the idea is this:

All it takes, friends, for complete liberation, for the attainment of the highest bliss, parmananada, and for the attainment of freedom from fear, dukkham nivritti, the permanent cessation of all suffering, all it takes for this ultimate goal is understanding. You just have to hear it once. All it takes for us truly is to hear one time what we truly are, to be fully convinced of it, and to live accordingly from that point on. That's it.

Spirituality arguably begins after this knowledge, but if you think of spirituality as like, healing or growth or transformation, all of that ends the moment you wake up to what you are. It's like waking up from a dream and realizing you don't need to fix anything because all of that brokenness was in the dream and not in you. It's like realizing the reflection in the mirror is not your real face. So however much dust is on the mirror, however much the mirror is cracked, it's not your problem. You don't need to scrub the mirror to clean your face. The problem is with the mirror, not with your face - thoughtless and pure. You realize that what you are cannot be harmed, and that's true before this conversation, it will be true after this conversation, it's true whether we like it or not, it's true whether we know it or not, but to enjoy that truth, to embody that truth, and to live that truth for the benefit of ourselves and others, we must know the truth.

A truth unknown, can it even be called the truth? Arguably, metaphysically, yes. But our purpose is to learn it, to know it. So the thrilling thing about this study is if indeed knowledge alone is the opposite of ignorance and secondly if indeed ignorance alone is the foundational error, the problem - if ignorance alone is why we are suffering - then all it takes is insight. Vipassana the Buddha called it. All it takes is one insight.

The Insight of Gaudapada

And today we're going to look at the insight of perhaps one of the subtlest and most radical of the non-dual philosophers, Gaudapada. And the reason we're doing that is because we want to complete our, seven-step ladder. I don't think we'll complete it in this lecture, we'll probably take one more lecture to complete the seven-step ladder because I still want to revisit the five theories of causality and continue to show that they're all untrue, thereby proving this world never came into existence. That's also a big part of Gaudapada's project, which I don't think we'll get to today, but I want to maybe start with maybe the first piece that Gaudapada offers which is:

This world is nothing but a dream. Consciousness alone exists, and you are it.

That's what we're going to be exploring today, you know, so when we explore Gaudapada, when we explore Advaita Vedanta, especially at this level of subtlety, you must always remember that all it takes is one listening, one hearing, one insight. This could be the day for us! This moment could be it! We could all walk out of here free, because already we are free! We just have to reclaim it. That to me is the most thrilling idea of non-duality, and it ought to be offered first.

The Importance of Grace

Okay. So asatoma sadgamaya. Lead us from the unreal to the real, then lead us from the darkness of ignorance to knowledge.

Oh, one more piece here. Don't forget that the movement from knowledge to ignorance is not necessarily a movement in time, nor is it necessarily a movement in space. This is important because many people feel they need to go to a certain place for spirituality, you know, like they need to go to Varanasi or Vrindavan, you know? Vrindavan, there the dust is sacred or I have to go to the Ganga so the water is their sacred. I have to go and eat the prasad from the Temple of Jagannath of Puri, like, only then in those places will I attain spirituality.

But how many of us are guilty of this, this error? I certainly am. I attribute certain places to have, like - most I go I - I think that somehow I will gain spirituality only if I go to those places. Now, this isn't dismissing the truth of tanmatra. Certainly there are places that are way more conducive to meditation than others, certainly. And even in the, Avadhuta Gita, you know, I think, one writer talks about Dattatreya's teachings and other places, and Dattatreya says, “Don't meditate where it's too hot or too cold. Don't meditate where there's, like, crossroads.” You're advised not to meditate near insects or, like, there's certain considerations certainly that make some places more spiritually conducive than others, but that being said, they are not conditions for spirituality. You can be just as easily liberated sitting here in your bedroom as you could in Varanasi, and Sri Ramakrishna used to say to people actually who are interested in going on pilgrimages, “Why go here and there, you know? The sprout hasn't even turned into - the seedling hasn't turned into a sprout, much less a plant, much less the flowers.” He used to say, “What is here is there also.”

So if you have it here, you'll have it there. My Master used to say that, “What's here is there also.” And he would say, “If you have it here then you have it there. If you don't have it here you won't have it there.” So no amount of spiritual tourism will cure the lack of spirituality in you. And a good test case is this: Haven't you met all those like New Age hippie types who have all been to India? They've gone to Kumbh Melas. They've sat in certain ashrams and been with this guru and that guru, they come back the same miserable bloke they've always been. Maybe with a few more pictures, maybe with a few more stories, some rudraksha beads that they, like, get a lot of pride from because some great guru gave it to them, and then they'll kind of like lord it over you. They'll be like, “I'm more - I'm more a part of the in-community of Indian spirituality because I went to the Kumbh Mela. I am so great,” and then, “You other Caucasian white people, like, you are not real Indian, but I am real Indian because I -” you know, like, that happens in LA, this idea of like, “I have to go to a place for spiritual legitimacy.” I see a lot of people who fetishize, like, Indian culture because they feel like only in India is their spirituality.

That's not true. Yes, India is, like, the mother of spiritual traditions in the world. It's had an unprecedented - 5,000 years, I mean unprecedented in this yuga, but 5,000 years - to develop its spiritual philosophy, so naturally it's, like, the spiritual big brother and spiritual big sister of the world. But that doesn't mean that you can only find spirituality in India, but a lot of people feel that. So they feel like, “Only when I go there, then I'll get it.” That's an error. No. It's as present here as it is there. If it's not here now, it won't be there, either. That's a good test case.

Beware of those who, ascribe their spirituality to their pilgrimages or to their certain, like, tourist vacations. No. Spirituality is not about place, nor is it about time, you know? So, time is not that important, either. A lot of people think, “Oh, I must practice this much and only then I will be spiritual,” so, “Only a couple years down the road will I deserve to know the truth. I'll only be a brahmajñānī after, like, this much of practice or after this much time has elapsed or in the next life or maybe in the next three lives.”

These considerations of time also don't quite work. This is not a journey in space, nor is it a journey in time for what we are talking about, Brahman, the reality par excellence, is, hopefully, as we'll show today, outside of time and outside of space, therefore it cannot be obtained from within space nor can it be obtained from within the timescale or past, present, future. And what that means for us, excitingly, friends, is that it's as available here and now as it will be anywhere, anytime.

That's why studying this stuff is exciting, and whenever you study it you must approach it hopefully with this attitude of, like, “This could be it.” I demand to know now. And why shouldn't I know now? All the sages who have come before, they've known, they've discovered the truth, why not me? Am I so different from all those great sages in the past that I shouldn't be a brahmajñānī? No. I have faith in my intellect, I have faith in my karmas, I have faith in the Lord. Ultimately, it's by the Lord's grace that I understand this. Why shouldn't the Lord help me understand it? Why shouldn't the Lord grace me with perfect Advaitic knowledge so that I may live the truth? Yet, that should be our attitude arguably.

Desire for Non-duality Arises from Grace

Now you'll recall in the, no Avadhuta Gita, it - which means only through the grace of the Lord is - grace eva only through the grace of the Lord is desire for - for studying non-duality comes.

If you feel the inclination towards studying Advaita in any capacity, that already is the grace of God. I think it's a beautiful idea that God's grace is manifested in our curiosity, our willingness to learn, and our desire to experience non-dual truths. That alone is the grace of the Lord, that you've even been hipped to this, that we're all together here studying this together in our study group, in this place. That is the grace of the Lord that we have ears to hear it and in some cases eyes to see it and, more importantly, minds to contemplate it. You know that's a miracle! Our simple aliveness is a miracle, but even greater than that is the privilege that we get to enjoy now of studying Advaita Vedanta, for truly it is a privilege and privilege of the highest sort, arguably.

In the Katha Upanishad, there's a beautiful sloka about, you know, hearing - hearing the Self is auspicious, but better than that is talking about the Self, but better than that is understanding the Self, and best of all is realizing the Sound. So to even hear about it, even talk about it, talk about what we're going to talk about tonight, that alone is a blessing. So we must be very grateful for that already. To even hear about it is a blessing.

Now the next line is interesting: The desire for non-duality, that vasana, the vasana, it arises spontaneously in the hearts of the wise. And it's - I guess, I'm loosely translating its consummation saves one from the mahābhaya, from great fear - maha bhaya - or danger, from great fear or great danger.

So in the Bhagavad Gita you'll see Krishna is echoing this sentiment when he says to Arjuna, “Even a little bit of practice, even a little bit of understanding goes a long way in saving you from fear.”

The Four A's of Advaita

Now Swami Vivekananda said the four principles of studying Advaita - these are the four A's of Advaita:

1. Ahimsa: Non-violence. How can you injure others when you recognize that the One in you is the One in all? Sort of a Bhutanese - the Self in me is the Self in all, all beings are in the Self and the Self isn't all beings - so what harm will come? Ahimsa, that's the first one.
2. Ananda: Knowing that all beings are me, there must come ananda, great bliss. The joy of being so intimate with everyone that we're truly all just One consciousness. Great bliss and ecstasy, great oneness.
3. Asanga: Then there must come asanga, non-attachment. What is there outside of me that I need to grab to be fulfilled? What is there that I need to push away? All is me, I am all, so there should be asanga, great detachment or non-attachment. Ah, in front of sangka - sangka means to be attacked - I don't know what that means for our sangha. Okay, samsara is different. This is a good, good sangha for ultimately to get asanga.
4. Abhaya: And then, most importantly I would argue is abhaya, fearlessness. What should I fear when there's no other? I am I alone. The Self has all become and the all is I, you know, that idea that there's nothing other than me to harm me. And maybe today I'll read you a little bit from Swami Vivekananda's experience of Advaita, and that will give you a sense of what it means to be fearless.

So these are the four things: ahimsa, non-violence, ananda, great bliss, asanga, non-attachment, and arguably most importantly, fearlessness. These are all things that come about from the study of non-duality and is by the grace of God alone that we've come to it, that we have the privilege to hear it and more importantly if we understand it.

Again, that's outside of our control. Like, we can hear it all we want, we might not have the subtlety of intellect to understand, truly understand, the implications of what we are hearing. So that, too, requires another act of grace. So not only is it an act of grace to be alive, it's also an act of grace to listen while alive to the Upanishads, to contemplate the Upanishads. It is a further act of grace to even understand what the Upanishads are saying. Without that grace, we might hear it - it might go into one year, come out the other year as a Buddhist master said - we might hear it like a leaky pot, like a broken pot, or an upside-down pot, or, like, a dirty pot. We might pollute it with our own misconceptions, thereby dangerously misguiding ourselves. That's a dirty pot. We might be a leaky pot: We might hear it and then forget it, not being able to retain it or, like, an upside-down pot, we might hear it but, like I said, it comes in one ear, goes up the other. It means nothing to us. That happens often. We hear it, but we don't hear it. “Had he but ears he could hear that he who had ears, hear,” that's the idea.

So who gets the earth? Well, obviously, only those of the Lord favors, apparently. So it's not only grace to hear this, it's grace to understand it, and the ultimate grace, arguably, is the grace to realize it, the grace to realize it, the grace to live it, to live according to what you hear. So this is my invitation to you all: If you have understood it, declare it. Not to, like, publicly, obnoxiously, but to yourself, in the privacy of your own intellect, say, “Ah, I know the truth. I know the truth. I'm convinced that I am the Self nor am I the not the body am I, nor am I the mind unattached am I attached unattached or attached again and again I reclaim identity as that unattached One. I know it so why should I not act according to that? If lust comes, I deal with the sledgehammer blow of knowledge. Say, ‘I know I am the Self. What is this tingle in the body to me?' If sickness comes, endure patiently and bravely, giving the body its rest and medicine and what it needs, but internally knowing it's nothing to you. ‘Let this body live one day, let it live 100 years, what is it to you?'” you know, like, that. You must have this kind of radical, furious courage once you have this knowledge.

And if we don't yet understand it, that's why we have to argue and debate and really make sure you ask hard questions, because it's not a path of faith. Again, it's - believing it won't do it. Can it - it can, you know, but better than believing is realizing, understanding. So in the Q&A maybe after we have our lecture rigorously, ask questions and we'll let all of us together do our best to reconcile and resolve those questions.

Okay, so the ultimate grace of God will be in not only hearing it and not only in understanding it, but ultimately in realizing it, in walking the talk and in living it. That's the most important thing, living the truth arguably. So you can always tell some unbaked, uncooked brahmajñānī from one who is sincerely studying Advaita by the degree of renunciation that they manifest in their life. That's the difference. People can talk big game all day, but if there is an actual renunciation reflected in their time and their priorities and their behavior, then it's not working. And why isn't it working? Probably because it's not being understood. And why is it not being understood? Probably because it's not being heard. And why is it not being heard? Ultimately because the grace of God has not yet been actualized in that person's life. That's the thing.

Overcoming the Fear of Hubris

So I wanted to share with you a piece before we get into this very abstract and sophisticated, I hope, argument of Gaudapada, before we get into that, I wanted to offer you a piece, that my guru so graciously gave to me, and it's about hubris. So for a long time in my study of Advaita, I've been very terrified of hubris because I've had experiences in the past where I claim I am the Self, only to be humiliated the next moment. In other words, only to be proven wrong. I thought I knew, and then the very next moment I realized how much I didn't know, right? We've all had that experience. We come to a few - I write the lectures, we read a few books - and then we think we know.

But it's not so easy actually. It sounds easy, and it's simple. It's simple and it's direct, but by no means does that make it easy to realize you are the Self. It means undoing not just a lifetime of conditioning, but literal set- like, centuries of - not millennia of conditioning. I mean, arguably, every samskara from every incarnation you've ever had is bearing upon this present moment to veil your true identity for you most of the time. Some scars - some samskaras have brought us here, some - some samskaras - some of those samskaras have been conducive to us coming to spirituality and us coming to this highest spirituality, this Advaita, however, most of our samskaras arguably are taking us out into the world, these outward-going tendencies to look for fulfillment in those things that can't fulfill us. That's typically our predicament.

So just because we think we know, our samskaras the very next moment might show us that we don't. I'm reminded of a story with Marsha, once a boy put a chair in front of Marsha, sat down, and said, “I will not get up off of this seat until you liberate me, or until I am liberated.” This is the attitude of the Buddha. The Buddha sat under a tree and said, “I'm not going to get up from meditation until I do it, until I solve this riddle of old age, sickness, and death, until I solve life. I'm not going to get up of the sea.” Can you imagine that power for the Buddha to say, “This is my life's purpose and I will rather die than leave it unfulfilled, but sit here no matter what. Come hell or high water, I'm not moving until I figure it out.”

So perhaps inspired by the story of the Buddha, this young boy put a chair down in front of Holy Mother and he sat in front of Holy Mother, who by the way could in a touch or in a glance convey full brahmajñāna. You know, who can convey full understanding of Brahman. So he asked, he said, “Give it to me.” And Mother said, “Not yet.” And he said - he said, “Now.” He said, “No matter what, I'm not leaving this chant 'til you give it to me.” And Mother, whimsically, she says something like, “You can say - you can decide that you'll stay in the chair but your karma will kick you out of it.”

I'm paraphrasing. You can say all you want, “I'm going to stay in this chair until I'm a brahman,” your karma, meaning your tendencies, your proclivities, your conditioning, will kick you out of that chair. I'm sorry, but our habits don't lie. If we say we are annoying this but then we act another way, we've been proven wrong. And so time and time again in my study of Advaita, this has been the reality of my sadhana. Firm conviction that I am the Self, I'll sit and meditate in Swamiji's room in Pasadena house and then I'll step out, look around the house, be like, “Now I will roar like a lion. Why should I be a sheep anymore? I've seen my face in the water, Swamiji showed me. I am the Self.” I walk out, of course not in an obnoxious way - I haven't stooped that low, except with you people.

With you people, I'm particularly obnoxious. But in public, of course, one shouldn't walk around saying, “I am the Self, shivoham,” publicly. Don't say it. But privately, I truly thought I had this conviction, you know, truly, I know, and I'm familiar with all the arguments - how many lectures can I give on this stuff, writing books I can do, I can really talk my ass off when it comes to advice - but what does it matter at the end of the day because walking out of Swami's room, convinced I am the Self, it's not an hour or two before something shows me that I don't know it, that I haven't heard it.

You see, this is the important thing. This is our struggle. And if we're honest, we're able to see how we're not yet truly - we can talk all we want, but if the life doesn't show it, the li- then we don't know. That's what we would say. It's so easy, but if there is some gap between what you think you know and what you do, that might be knowledge in one sense of the word, but it's not gnosis, it's not wisdom, it's not jnana.

In our sense of the word, in Indian philosophy, we hold jnana to a very high standard. The bar is actualizing, living, and acting according to what you know, right? So how does that happen if not by the grace of God? For it's only by the grace of God that I hear it, it is only by the grace of God that I, understand it, and ultimately it's only by the grace of God that I can live it. So I asked my guru, I said, “Gurudev, my problem is that I fear hubris. I fear self-delusion. I study Advaita, my heart sings when I chant Nirvana Shatakam in the mornings. I feel so happy, you know? I feel that it resonates with me so much I'll chant loudly, I'll chant in my house. Hannah's the only one who suffers, but loudly.”

“I want to say that I am not the mind, I am not the intellect, I am not the ego, I am not the memory or my samskaras, I am not the body and its changes, I am not the organs of perception, like, the eyes and the nose, I am not the five or, elements, like, the earth or the air or the fire, I am not, any of these. I am consciousness, bliss absolute. I am He, I am He. I am Shiva, I am Shiva. I am blessed, I am blessed. I am bliss, I am blessed. I want to say that, and yet, is that not violating another very important principle, which is truth?”

The Importance of Truth

Let me preface this by saying it takes grace to hear it, it takes grace to understand it, and it takes grace to live it. So then how do we get that grace? Some traditions say that if grace alone is the factor, then there's nothing we can do but wait for liberation. That's not entirely true.

Spiritual practice, or sadhana, is about preparing oneself to receive the grace that is already present. Swami Sarvabrahmananda said that grace is always flowing, always present. Ramakrishna used the parable of the winds: the winds are always blowing, but it won't matter if we don't unfasten the sail. The ground is sloping downward, but walking is still important.

Picking up the Bow and Arrow

The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says, “Taking as the bow the great weapon of the Upanishad, one should place upon it the arrow sharpened by meditation…”

1. The Bow: The Upanishads are the greatest weapon. We pick them up by studying them, even though it's challenging.
2. The Arrow: The mind, sharpened through:
   • Meditation: Don't underestimate the amount of meditation needed. We have lifetimes of conditioning to undo.
   • Selfless Service (Nishkama Karma): Acts done for others, simply to serve them as the Lord.

These practices purify the intellect (Chittashuddhi), which is necessary for realization.

Drawing Back the Bowstring and Striking the Mark

Drawing back the bowstring symbolizes renunciation, primarily mental renunciation. This means understanding that what we seek is not external, but within. Only then can we strike the mark – knowledge of the bliss-consciousness-absolute, Brahman itself.

Consciousness Alone Exists, and You Are It

We'll explore the seventh rung of the seven steps to enlightenment:

1. Jagat (Perceivable Universe): Where most people start and end, without questioning its true nature.
2. Pancha Bhuta Vilasa (Play of the Five Elements): Seeing everything as the dance of matter and energy, recognizing a preliminary oneness.
3. Maya Vilasa (Play of Maya): Recognizing the world as a paradox, a logical fallacy. This leads to true renunciation, not needing things to go a certain way.
4. Chid Vilasa (Play of Consciousness): Understanding that Maya itself is the play of the Lord, accepting everything as grace.
5. Chit Vivarta (Appearance in Consciousness): Realizing that Maya is not just the play of consciousness, but an appearance in consciousness. This is where the dream analogy comes in.

The Dream Analogy

We don't plan our dreams or expect them to be real. They appear and disappear randomly, yet they feel real while we're in them.

Similarly, this world is an appearance in the consciousness that is God. Just as a dream is nothing to the waker, this world is ultimately nothing to God. And who is God, but who we really are?

Realizing that both the Self (Atman) and Brahman are appearances in the ultimate reality of Sachchidananda is key. This is where the concept of Chinmaya (all-pervasiveness of consciousness) comes in.

The Mirror Analogy

Imagine a magic mirror reflecting a city. The city appears to have diverse elements, but it's all just a reflection in the mirror, ultimately nothing but glass. Similarly, everything we perceive is an appearance in the mirror of consciousness.

There is no object independent of our seeing it. Everything is an experience within us.

There is a difference between:

• Experiencing a table
• Experiencing the phenomenon of “seeing a table”

We are not the experience; we are the experiencer.

Interiorization and the Formula for Realization

Every time we see something, we must interiorize it, recognizing it as an experience within our consciousness. This helps us to:

• Avoid finding fault in others, as we are ultimately dealing with our own mind.
• Avoid complaining about the world, as it is not separate from us.

Remember this formula:

If I am aware of something:

• Then it is not me. I am the one who is aware, not that which I am aware of.
• It has no reality apart from me. It is an appearance in my consciousness.

Therefore, consciousness is the only reality.

Abiding as Consciousness

By meditating on this, we realize:

• We are not the body, sensations, thoughts, emotions, or even our perceived identity.
• We are the unchanging awareness that witnesses everything.

This leads to Samadhi, the experience of pure consciousness.

The goal is open-eyed Samadhi (Sahaja Samadhi), where we see the world with clarity, recognizing that consciousness alone exists.

Conclusion

Continue to contemplate these ideas and practice the techniques offered. Live with the understanding that you are consciousness, and everything else is an appearance within you. May this knowledge liberate you.

DREAM

svapna-nidra jnana-alambanam va patanjali, in the first chapter of his yoga sutras, talks about meditating on dreams and deep sleep for deeper insight (beginners) and ramakrishna points out that it's the context of these dreams, not the content, that really matters (reminder)

Nothing, The Absolute Truth

Gaudapada's “Highest Truth”

Okay, so I'd like to dive right in today because we're doing nothing short of what Gaudapada calls the highest teaching – the absolute truth – in his text, the Mandukya Karika.

AcArya gauDapAda says in his kArika:_
**na nirodhaH na ca utpattiH na baddhaH na ca sAdhakaH*
na mumukShna vai muktaH iti eSha paramArthatA
**"there is neither dissolution nor birth; neither is anyone in bondage,
**nor is anyone a seeker.*
There is nobody seeking liberation, nor is anybody liberated, this is
**the supreme truth"

the supreme truth, or the highest truth. He says it's meaning this is the supreme truth, this is the highest truth.

And, as we'll find out together today, it's quite eerie. It's incredibly eerie, and in the same breath, it is thrilling. So, it is both eerie and thrilling. That's why – you know – grab someone, snuggle up. It's going to be a bit of a horror movie in some sense.

Gaudapada's Radical Non-Duality

Because, as you'll see in a little bit, Gaudapada wreaks havoc on all that we consider conventional religion. You know, to give you a taste of how radical this non-duality is that Gaudapada is teaching… if you ask him – you know – if you go to his Himalayan cave… and by the way, he lived and taught probably around, you know, the 700s or the 800s, maybe 8th century teacher. Very radical teacher. He lived in the Himalayas, and he was Shankara's teacher's teacher. So, imagine if you had gone to him in that time – maybe even now, I don't know, you have an experience of him in meditation or whatnot…

If you meet Gaudapada, you might ask him, “Sir, how does bondage end?” You might phrase the question this way, if you were in that time in India. You might say, “What is the end of samsara?”

What is Samsara?

Samsara is the wheel of birth and death, the never-ending cycle of karma that has bound each of the jivatmans – each of the souls, you know. So, remember in India, the problem is not just old age, sickness, and death as the Buddha so beautifully articulated. Whether you're a young prince or princess or the lowliest of commoners, old age, sickness, and death are the great levelers – they come for us all.

And they are the three main arrows of life – three problems – they are ultimately going to have to be addressed sooner or later. Everyone's going to have to confront their own mortality, their own – you know – inevitable sickness, inevitable death, inevitable old age.

So, these are bad enough, right? And the Buddha's whole quest in his life is to find a solution to these three things. But worse than this, arguably, is that even death is not a solution because once you die, according to the scriptures and traditions of South Asia, you're just very quickly given a new set of clothes – a new body – to live out another existence riddled with old age, sickness, and death, and on and on it goes, ad infinitum.

So, it's not like… you know, I heard a… a joke once: “There's a difference between American and French philosophy. American philosophers, in their idealism, ask ‘How can I make the world better tomorrow?' That's an American philosopher, whereas a French philosopher would ask ‘Why should I kill myself tonight?'” The French existential realism.

And unfortunately, to these, you know, French intellectuals smoking cigarettes on the Left Bank, you know, talking about Sartre's new play, to them, Buddha would say, “Ah, not so quick, that's not quite a solution.” There's no way out short of enlightenment. No way out, right? No Exit, truly! Sartre did not realize the depth of what he was saying. There is no exit! This is Waiting for Godot, you know, for… without end.

How to Escape Samsara?

So, what's the way out? You might ask this question: “How can I escape the wheel of birth and death, with its cyclical pleasures and pains? How can I escape the old age, sickness, and death that haunts my every step? What do I do, sir, blessed Gaudapada, Gurudev? What do I do to escape? When will it end? How will it end?”

You might come to him with such questions, and this man, Gaudapada, might look at you with a twinkle in his eyes and in a very cheeky way, say to you, “Well, well, my child, it never ends.” And you might be very, very upset. You might have climbed quite a ways to come and see him, following rumors and whispers, only to be told that he doesn't have a solution for you.

You'd throw up your hands in frustration and say, “What? Aren't you the greatest spiritual teacher of our time? Aren't you the ultimate exponent of Advaita Vedanta in the Buddhist period of India? Aren't you supposed to have the solutions? You know, what do you mean samsara never ends? What do you mean this wheel of birth and death never ends?”

And then, he might lean in, and in an even more conspiratorial tone, with even more merriment, he might say to you, “Child, it never ends because it never began.”

There is no end to bondage because, in the final analysis of Gaudapada, in the subtle non-duality that we'll discuss today, it never even started. The entire problem of being bound to a wheel of birth and death, of coming into existence and going out of existence, taking on new bodies – the entire problem of old age, sickness, and death is, according to Gaudapada, an imagined problem and nothing more.

It is nothing more than a dream! It's a bad dream! It's a nightmare! And there's no need to figure out how to end the nightmare because it's never real! It never has been, it never will be. Even now, it's not real.

Samsara Never Began, So It Never Ends

So that's Gaudapada's startling conclusion: there is no end to liberation, there is no end to samsara because there was no beginning to samsara. There was no beginning to body. This is the first thing he says. There's no end: “Na nirodha” Nirodha means the cessation or end. “Na nirodha” – there's no end, because there's no beginning.

Then, he says even more stunningly, he says… Now, you might be a little upset because not only has he invalidated your entire problem of samsara, he's now going on to invalidate you. Because he then goes on to say that there are no bound souls, which might feel like a bit of an offense to us who are actually struggling along the spiritual path.

Like, we truly feel ourselves to be bound. I mean, we're whipped this way and that by lust and greed and fear and craving, and life is this never-ending struggle of trying to drink water. It's like being Tantalus, you know? The water is always just out of reach, and the fruits are just out of reach, and truly we feel bound!

And the value is probably that they offer real solutions to real problems, right? I have real problems in my life. I have grief. I've lost loved ones. I have pain. I have greed. I have loss. I have fear. So, I come to spiritual life looking for solutions.

And then here Gaudapada is saying, “Why are you looking for solutions? You have never been, never will be, nor are you now bound, you know?” And I think Kian says… Kian is kind of prefacing the lecture a little bit here.

Liberation is NOW, Not Later

So, I showed Edgy exactly… “Everything that starts ends.” So, this is a very important point, which we'll tease out later because if your salvation, or if your liberation is in time – what you're saying is that it has a beginning. If you're saying, “Oh, I'm bound now and I'll be free later, at some point in time,” ah… be careful, then your liberation is a thing of time. And anything that starts ends. So, if your salvation, if your heaven, is something that happens later, maybe like after death or whatever, the problem there is that it presupposes that what – you know – begins ends. So, your heaven will end, too. Any liberation that starts later is a liberation that will end. So, we don't want that. In Advaita, we think that's not the highest.

So, Gaudapada is saying, “Look, you think you have problems, you think you're bound, but… there are no bound souls, nor are there any spiritual aspirants.”

So, not only is there not an end to suffering because it never began, and also not only are there no bound souls, there are also no spiritual aspirants. There are no people thirsting after truth, hungering for God. None of those exist.

And then, he goes on to say: “Na mukshu navai muktaha”. There are no seekers after liberation, and, startlingly, there are no liberated beings either. “Na mukshu navai muktaha”. There is no seeker after liberation, and there are no liberated beings.

The Highest Truth - Isha Paramata

And then, his mic drop moment: “Isha paramata” – this, my friends… didn't quite say “my friends.” He says it a little more deadpan, where he says – “This is the highest truth.” And you know, we might look at it and say, “This is absolute nihilism! You've been wreaking havoc! I mean, everything about religion depends on a problem, people who feel themselves to have that problem, people seeking to get out of that problem, and people eventually successfully having gotten out, and then teaching others, right? So, there must be liberated beings, there must be bound beings, there must be some… some kind of sadhana, some kind of path, and there must be some kind of problem to which that path is addressed!” And Gaudapada is saying, “No. No, no, and again, no. There never was a beginning, there never was an end. There's no bound souls, there are no liberated souls. There's no sadhana. There's no sadhaka.”

Okay, so that's what we're talking about today – the most radical non-duality, so radical that it borders on nihilism.

And that's why Gaudapada, he's spoken of in almost hushed whispers because the scandals regarding Gaudapada… is a lot of people feel like, “Well, he's just a Buddhist, right? I mean, he seems to just say that this is… boy, there's no…!” But… but no! Actually, he's an Advaitin, meaning he defends the position that there is an absolute truth, an absolute principle called existence itself, consciousness itself, bliss itself – and that that's what thou art.

So, he will say – ultimately, he will say with pathos: “Aham Brahmasmi.” I am Brahman. I am the Absolute. However, along with that statement comes the very powerful statement: “Only that is.” Or: “Only Brahman is.” Or: “Only thou art.”

So, that's what we'll discuss today: how it is that Gaudapada can come to so startling, yet so thrilling, and so radical a conclusion, you know?

Why This Discussion Matters

And why are we having this discussion? Because, friends, as you'll recall, the past six or maybe seven weeks – I think about seven weeks now – we've been discussing a model. We've been calling it the Seven Rung Ladder, or the Seven Steps to Enlightenment, or what have you.

The Seven Rung Ladder

This model that we're studying together presently comes from a fragment of a sentence, as you well know, from the current Shankaracharya of Puri. So, we just kind of said it in passing, and we all feel like it offers us a profound map that takes one from the gross, obvious truth to the subtle, highest truth.

Now, remember this must always be kept in mind: spirituality, in the Asian, South Asian subcontinent is never ultimately seen as a movement from error to truth. It's always conceptualized as a movement from truth to higher truth.

So, whatever level of development you're at, the truth for you at that level is true! And it's not an error just because there's some higher truth. So, if at any point in your spiritual life you're like, “Oh, this is the way the world appears to me,” that's true. It's good for that time. It's good then.

As you become subtler, and as you deepen in spiritual life, a new truth opens up, and then that truth is a more refined, more subtle, maybe more articulate version of a hazier truth that was before perceived, you know? And so, we move from truth to truth.

So, the interesting thing is, this Seven Rung Ladder takes us from truth to truth. It takes us from… that which is obvious to that which is not so obvious. And that's what good pedagogy is, right? It takes you from the known to the unknown. It places before you that which is obvious to you, and then holds your hand and slowly takes you, step by step, to that which isn't. That's learning! You know, you can't go straight to that which is unknown. You have to have some foundation somewhere.

And so, I like this model. I love talking about it because it – to me – does a twofold purpose: it – one, on the first hand – offers an introduction to the system called Advaita Vedanta, or Hindu non-duality. And it offers a way to compare that system with the other spiritual traditions in the world, so… like Buddhism, you know, with its void language. And like dualistic religion with its devotional language. And materialism, scientific materialism and neuroscience, and all that.

So, this model, to me, is kind of like a coat hanger, and upon its pegs, you can fasten, you know, Western materialism and neuroscience, Buddhism – Tibetan and India, and like that, you know?

So, in one way, it's a kind of system to map out different philosophies, but it also – in the same breath – gives you a tool for meditation. It shows you how you can go from your immediate perception of this manifest universe, to that consciousness in which this universe is but an appearance.

So, in many ways, my hope is that we can start to interact with this Seven Rung Ladder as a guided meditation, you know? To be able to sit down and use it to walk ourselves to the infinite, and then hopefully when we get proficient in samadhi, to walk ourselves back from the infinite to see how it is none other than consciousness that itself has become all of this in one act of creative expression. That's our goal.

And today, let's just dive right in. Let's start with our seven… with our Seven Rung Ladder, walk all the way to the top, and then talk about Gaudapada. This will be the final lecture in… seven, right? Arguably… We tried to do it in one lecture. We had even… We got together, we said, “Okay, today's lecture is the Seven Steps to Enlightenment, or the Seven Rung Ladder…” Seven lectures later, we're still doing it. It's like, you know, the… the SpongeBob skit – “Three hours later…” – like that.

So, we're still… still talking about the Seven Rung Ladder. And I think it's been a quite – if I may say so myself – exciting journey, you know, walking rung by rung up the ladder.

So today, we're – I think – going to close with the final rung of the ladder. And then, next week, we can… Yeah, many days… And next week, we can go back to some general topics. So, this will be the final lecture… And, given that this is the final lecture in the series… Usually, when I say something like this – “final lecture” – people are like, “Our Monday is not happening anymore?!” No, no, no! As long as Mother keeps his body running, and those bodies running, Mondays will continue, God willing. This is just the last in this series. So, don't… don't fear.

Next week, we're going to talk about the 17 Reasons Why You Are Not the Body and Why the Body is Not Yours. So, next week, we're going to do Shankara's Atma Bodha, and all of that. So, we'll resume regularly scheduled programming. But for now, let's just close up this Seven Rung Ladder with perhaps an investigation into the subtlest, the eeriest, and the most thrilling philosophy that arguably South Asia has to offer.

I should say: last week, we did a lot of preamble, right? Because this was a lecture I wanted to have last week, but then upon reflection, I realized, “No, no. Actually, we must not just deliver this stuff right away. We must first – like – preface it with… a discussion as to how to make this stuff actually applicable and livable. How can I realize this truth and act according to it?”

How to Integrate, Realize, and Benefit From This Teaching?

So, if… and… and I should say again, and I always like to say this at the beginning of lectures: this truth… all it takes is one hearing. It's a kind of cognitive behavioral model, there I say it, you know? So, it's the type of teaching where it… it's just a pedagogy. You hear it, and then hopefully it allows you to see things in a new way. It's a radical shift in perspective.

It changes the way you interact with yourself and with the world by shifting your locus of identity. So, it takes your identity, moves it out of the body into the mind, and then moves it from the mind into consciousness. And then from there, it re-… … packages the world, the body, the mind back to you so that we are actually free of things like old age, sickness… and… That… You see, the strategy is to show you that you are not the kind of thing that can get old, that can get sick, that can die. You are not the kind of thing that can reincarnate. And it is only because you've mistaken yourself to be that, that you feel those things to be your problems.

You suffer those things only because you've mistaken your identity for something you're not. And so, once you get that shift – meaning once you hear the teaching enough to understand what it's saying… Actually, the thrilling thing about non-duality and Advaita Vedanta is that that's all it takes.

No spiritual practice necessary. No amount of… It's not like there's an XP bar. You must do these many downward dogs before you attain liberation, or you must visit these many holy places in India like you play bingo. Okay, Varanasi? Check. Okay, Vrindavan? Check. “You know, I'm in Vrindavan now, where is…?” It's not happening.

No, it's not like that! You can't play pilgrimage bingo with it. You can't – like – yoga your way into it, or meditate your way into it, or pray your way into it. Why not? Because it's already true. It was true yesterday, it's true tomorrow, it's true right now. And so, it's not something you need to get or attain, for it's something that you already – even more than have – it's what you already are.

So, all it takes is to awaken to that which is already true. That's the thrilling thing! There are no priests who can come and say, “Give me all your money, sign up, and we'll take away your sins.” No, because you already have it! Nobody can give it to you, you know? At the very best, a teaching like Gaudapada's can hold up a mirror, which – for one suspended moment in eternity – reveals to us our true face. Then we can throw away the mirror.

That's why I love – in that Nirvana Shatakam, you know, Shankaracharya is saying…… he's saying… “I don't need any mantras, I don't need any pilgrimages, I don't even need the Vedas…” Can you imagine, for a Vedic teacher… an Upanishadic master… to toss out the Vedas, all the scriptures upon which he is basing his philosophy? Saying, “Nah. No mantras, no pilgrimages, no Vedas, none of it. I don't need any of that, because I am consciousness absolute, bliss absolute, all of that.” You see? It's beautiful. It's a beautiful kind of notion that these things – the Vedas, the mantras, the yajnas, all of these rituals, all of that – at best, it's a mirror. It cannot give you your face. It can only reveal to you the face that you already have.

So, I often… you know, preface these discussions by saying, “Be ready for that breakthrough. It could happen to anyone, at any time, for any reason, you know?” It's… the grace of God… is… The winds of grace are ever blowing, and we can only ever hope that our sails are unfastened to catch it.

So, be ready. At any moment, you could go, “Oh, yeah! I never was in a prison, right?” And then, walk out free.… So that's the thrilling thing.

What If I Don't Feel Liberated Yet?

But… and here is the disclaimer: Swami Vivekananda would say, “I know where the shoe pinches.” There is often, in our case,… undigested wisdom. So, we hear it, but we don't live according to it. And I often say, you know: “The proof is in the pudding.” If you still feel lost, you think you're the body, you still think… feel fear, you think you're the body… if you still have craving and you feel incomplete and you want to go out and get this or that… something's wrong there.

If you chafe at work, if… Like, “Oh, like, working is difficult,” then something is… You still think it's the body. And, you know, by the way, at the end of today's lecture, I want to talk a little bit about Swami Vivekananda and kind of validate that last point that I made about work.

Selfless Service as a Result of Non-Dual Awakening

Because if you know this truth, if truly you have grokked it, then not only will it be the end of fear and craving, but it would also mean the beginning of selfless service for all. Tireless work, like the Buddha walking up and down India, teaching his dharma. Like Shankara, debating this person and that person. Like Swami Vivekananda, bringing the message of Vedanta to the West. You saw… September's Wildflower, Casey. She posted on Instagram that a picture of the bench for Swami Vivekananda. And it said, “To the saint who rarely rested,” because he was always up and doing!

Now, here is a Brahmajnani, a knower of the highest truth! And look at how these knowers have lived their lives! The… Christ was intensely active, intensely teaching and preaching and… you know, he had a… he had a focus group – his core disciples – and he would sit with them and give them their highest teachings. Then, he would have general teachings for people. And he would be performing miracles, and he's trying to restore Judaism, you know? “I come not to break the law but uphold it.” He's working tirelessly to restore… restore spirituality in the Levant. Buddha, he's trying to restore Upanishadic wisdom which has been buried over by Vedic ritualism. So, the Buddha is trying to clean up India of its – like – superstitions and its ritualism, and get people to practice and meditate and take responsibility for their lives.

Shankara, he's trying to save India from the… the degeneration of the materialistic Buddhist, you know, as the Buddhist empire is corrupting. So, look at these people: they're all tireless servants of truth.

And so, if we truly know this, then not only will be… will we be fearless and without any craving, but we should also be the greatest helpers of humankind. The greatest workers. Tirelessly, we should be working, because whose body is it, after all, if not the Lord's? Like that.

So, that's hopefully what we can talk about in the end. So, that's why last lecture – last week – we spent the whole hour just prefacing this stuff! Just talking about like, you know,… “If you hear it without the ears to hear, then there won't even be intellectual understanding.” It'll just go over our heads. We won't even understand how this… this is true. But even if – by some miracle – we're able to see the truth of it, at least intellectually, that still won't be enough to radically change our experience. We might find that we know it “here,” but not “here.” That we know it, but we don't live according to it, you know?

And that gap between knowing and living – that gap between intellectual knowledge and wisdom – that gap is addressed by all spiritual practice. By meditation, by prayer, by contemplation of text, all of that is to address that gap between hearing and living, you know?

Today, though, our hope is that we've done our homework, right? Our hope is that either in a past life, or in this life, we've meditated, we've contemplated, we've prayed, and – I guess, to say it one way – we've unfurled those sails. That's it! All we can do… All we can hope for is that we've done our part to unfurl the sails. The rest is up to the wind.

Hello, Douglas! You came! I'm so happy to have you back on Monday, welcome.

Yes, the dog gets your homework. Don't worry, Gaudapada will say, “What dog? There was no dog! Relax.”

Okay, let's get into it! So, the preface is: we come to this having done our practice. We hear it in the hopes that we are thus sufficiently purified to integrate and embody it.

What happens if it doesn't work? No big deal! No biggie. Swami Vivekananda himself says that “Truth is a corrosive substance. Once it's applied, it will continue to work long after its application.” So, once you hear this, even though it doesn't become a fully embodied liberation here and now, it will be. Right as Yoda says, “Are you afraid?” Luke says, “No.” And Yoda says, “You will be.”

So, I guess you could say, “Are you yet liberated?” And you're like, “No, I'm not yet liberated.” “You will be, for you already are, you know?” So, even if this doesn't flower into a full bloom enlightenment now, it will, given time, given practice.

So, our responsibility is to hear it. After we hear it, we must challenge it. Don't take anything on faith. Faith is discouraged in this path. Debate it. So, in our Q&A later at eight, ask hard questions. You know, Swami… Sabhapren… on the… once joked. He was scared to ask the head… preceptor – not the head, but the teacher – , Vedanta questions. He was – like – afraid, you know, lest it be like heresy or blasphemy. And the teacher said, “Ask away, young monk. Brighter minds than yours have been asking questions for millennia! There are answers, you know? The scriptures are provided… plentiful answers. And they're based on reason and phenomenology, not on scripture.” That's the important thing: this is a special class of scriptures that is phenomenologically oriented, not necessarily faith-based or… you know. So, the first thing is: you hear it. Second thing is: you debate it, until you have a firm, intellectual conviction.

Then, our responsibility is, actually, after the lecture, after the Q&A, to go and sit with it, to meditate with it, to look around us and see that it's true, to cultivate silence and contemplate. And, Shankara says, “It must be a contemplation that never ends.” Unceasing contemplation! That's the only way to truly and profitably interact with this power.

Yes! So, in fact… Say there is a full bloom liberation, right? I didn't say this last week, but let's say there is a full balloon… full bloom liberation. Let me say, “Okay, before it happened, Chop wouldn't carry water. After it happened, Chop wouldn't carry water,” right? But in our context, we say, “No. Before it happened, meditate, pray, selfless service. After it happens, meditate even more, pray even more, do even more selfless service.” Because all of those actions are aggrandized and justified and made sweeter by this understanding.

Okay, so ideally, learning this is the ticket to samadhi. It's the ticket to deep meditation. If you find that you can't meditate, it's probably because you haven't yet digested this understanding, right? So that's enough for preface. Let's get into it!

The Highest Truth

We have to do three things: One is called “tvam-padārtha-śodhana”; the other is called “tat-padārtha-śodhana”; and the third is the reconciliation of the first two. So, the third is the identity of “you” and “That” – and “That” so that thou art. But first, we have to know what “thou” is, and what “That” is. By the way, for those of you… don't… I'm pointing at my altar, which is a representation of the divine.

So, that… that… God is what you are. But here, we can make a mistake if we: (a) don't understand what That is, and (b) don't understand what this is. So, these are the two steps in the teaching. And the third step is the reconciliation and the harmonization. So, let's do it! First things first: “tvam-padārtha-śodhana”. So, let's start here. Good, right? 30 minutes' preamble. It's getting better, this problem where, like, our lectures are supposed to be one hour long, they'll become like two and a half. No, I'm not kidding! There was a phase, you know, maybe about two years ago, where these lectures really were two hours long, and nobody could endure it. So, we tried to make it shorter. Yeah, right? I'm proud of that one… If I missed this… for myself now, I'm like… the rabbit, having caught up to the race, I'm – like – resting on my laurels, sipping water, and then… So, it'll be 40 minutes.

Okay. So, let's do it: preamble out of the way. There are many ways to do this. I'm going to do Gaudapada's, but before I do Gaudapada's, I'll give you a preliminary one, which is Vidyāranya Swami's 15th century text, Pañcadaśī. It's not like exclusive to Vidyāranya Swami; it's a pedagogy that appears way before Vidyāranya Swami, arguably as early as the Taittirīya Upanishad. So, this teaching is maybe at least 2,000 years old, but it is articulated in a systemic way around the 15th century AD by Vidyāranya Swami. Yes.

What Are You? Not The Body, and Not The Mind

So, this is called the discernment between that which is seen and the one seeing it. It's a very simple, yet powerful technique. Even if we've heard it before, let's all listen to it now as if it's our first time. As if this is the first time we're interacting with this teaching. I know all of you are Vedanta veterans, so this is – like – “Oh my God, again?” but… but bear with me here, it's quite thrilling. Think of this as a kind of guided meditation, a guided noticing, so to speak. So, notice this…

First thing to notice – very important! If you can catch this next sentence… Roxanne is saying, “That become two hours? Yeah, yeah, I know.” For a while, they were just an hour, and then they became two, and now they're somewhere in between.

Okay. So,… this next statement is the most important. If you can catch this statement, if you can feel it to be true… Search your heart, Luke. Search your feelings, you know it to be true. If you can catch this statement, then the rest becomes easy. It all hinges upon this, at least for now.

Okay, notice: there is always, in your experience, even now, a distinction between what you… … see, and you, the one seeing it.

So, there is always a distinction between the seer and the thing seen. There's a distinction between the eyes and the objects that the eyes are seen, right? This should be, in the very beginning, obvious. It's a truism. This should be a truism. So, if I'm looking at – like – this cup, I know that I am something other than the cup. I mean, this is an intuitive thing. I know that because there is a relationship between my eyes and the cup. My eyes are the seer, and the cup is the seen. I cannot meaningfully make the sentence “I see a cup” without there being two things – the eye and the cup – and without there being some distinction between the eye and the cup, you know?

So, on one side of the verb, there is the subject. On the other side of the verb, there is the object. You know, they say Vedanta classes sound like dry grammar classes sometimes, or they sound like pottery classes. Everyone's always talking about pots. So, anyway… in the age of the internet, whenever I use the “pot” example, stoner bros are – like – [stoner voice] “Yeah,” and I'm – like – “I need a new example.”

So, anyway, here, I've got a cup, and the cup is obviously an object. And my eyes are obviously the subject. The eyes are the ones seeing, the cup is being seen. This distinction is everything. It's so important that we notice this distinction… so much so that… I don't really think about this cup after I've set it down. Even if it's my cup, I think it's… My cup… it's not really that big of a deal to me if you were to come to my house and break it because, ultimately, I know the cup is something other than me. I'm wholly convinced of that. I'm wholly convinced that this cup is an object and that my eyes are a subject quite a thing apart from the cup.

Now, the next principle we should note… The first principle… principle is that there's a distinction between the seer and the seen. The next principle is that the seen are typically many, whereas the eyes – or the seer – is relatively one. So, I don't mean that I have one eye – like a cyclops – more to say that the… eyes' vision itself is a unitary experience that unifies a manifoldness called “the objects of vision.” So, while there are many objects in my room – haha, look at me acquiring… what… the great American Dream… anyway – while there are many objects in my room, there is one pair of eyes that sees it. So, I don't feel like I'm looking at my objects from different vantage points. I'm looking at it from one vantage point. So, the objects – the seen – are many, whereas the seer is one.

And here, I'm just talking about… like… naively, I'm talking about eyes and… eyes and their objects.

Okay, the third thing I should identify is that the objects change at a rate faster than the eyes. So, my vision… And, by the way, I wear very thick glasses because I spent a lot of time on my laptop, so obviously vision is changing. But not as quickly as some of the things in… in my life. So, like, the scenes of my life are changing very quickly. I go from one room to another, people are changing, everything's changing. Yet, my… the… the fact that I'm seeing it has not changed.

The Eye Cannot See Itself

And finally, this is the most important thing: there's only one thing that the eyes cannot see, arguably. And I'm talking only in terms of materiality here. The only thing, in the realm of material existence, that the eyes cannot see is the eyes themselves. Have you noticed that? This is the key point!

You can look at your eyes in a mirror, but that's just a reflection of the eyes, not the eyes themselves. You can look at your eyes in a selfie, but again, that's not really the eyes in real time. Try to see your eyes now, in real time, with your eyeballs. Try to see your eyeballs! It's impossible. In philosophy, this is violating a law of self-reference, you know? It's… You can't… You can't… you know… if you were a screwdriver, you couldn't screw yourself. If you were a doorknob, you couldn't turn yourself. If you were knife, you couldn't cut yourself. If you were a finger pointing, that pointing finger cannot point to itself! Maybe some people have that long finger thing, but typically this self-referentiality principle in philosophy works for many things. You know what I… cannot literally see itself. So, the only thing the “I” cannot see is itself. That's key. It can see everything else.

In fact, the only thing it cannot see is itself. The fact that it can see something implies that that something must be other than it, because of our first principle.

So, hold on to that: four principles.

1. The seer and the seen are distinct.
2. The seen are many, whereas the seer is one.
3. The seen changes at a rate – relatively, at least – faster than the scene.
4. And, the scene can never see itself. The subject can never be made an object unto itself, and neither can the object be made a subject.

We can demonstrate that… Greg Goode – who is an American Vedantist – he says, “Hold your hand up like this. Are you looking at your hand, or is your hand looking at you?” Notice… Unless… I know some of you come here – as always… I always make this joke, and I'm almost always right – but some of you come here on a lot of acid, and maybe for you, it might be true that you're looking from your hand. But generally, from a mundane consciousness point of view, I feel myself to be over here, and that hand is over there. I never feel like my hand… looking at my face!

Hello, Nish! How are you doing? Someone said on Friday that this voice is the “gingerbread man” voice. I don't know how that happened, but… never do I feel myself to be a gingerbread hand, talking up to a face! I always feel to be the face, looking at the hand.

The Mind Cannot See Itself

So, this is very important because the object – the inert hand – can never be made a subject. I can't literally see things through my hands. I can feel through my hands, but I feel things… the things that I feel and see… They don't become first-person perceivers like my eyes are! Very important point.

Okay, so now, let's apply all of this. This is obviously true; all of us feel this to be true with our everyday life. We see a car go by; we never say, “I am a car.” We always say, “I see a car.” Obviously true!

So, now, the thrilling and eerie thing is that all of these four principles – they all apply to the body itself. So, while my eyes were the seer of the world of seeing objects, I now notice that the mind is one degree subtler than the body, and the mind acts in regard to the body as the body does to the world.

So, while the eyes physically see things, the mind subtly sees – or experiences – the body from inside. So, it feels like when my eyesight becomes worse, I see that from the point of view of the mind. I am aware of the eyes deteriorating over time. I am aware of changes in the eyes, and I'm aware of everything going on in the body. I'm noticing a smell, I'm noticing a taste, I'm noticing textures. I can feel a pain in the knee, or a pain in the lower back – which becomes increasingly the case as we get older. Like, I notice these things, I feel these things, I'm experiencing these things.

Now, the Indian word – or Sanskrit, I should say… the Indian sense in which we use that Sanskrit word “see,” we mean it in terms of experience. So, the eyes experience things, and therefore, the eyes… the experiencer is a distinct phenomenon from the experienced. The same way, I can say that I must also be able to concede now that the mind is the seer – or the experiencer – of the series of changes called “the body.” If indeed these four principles hold true, they also hold true for the mind's relation to the body.

So, “I” – the mind – am experiencing the body. So, I can, therefore, not be the body, for the seer and the seen are always distinct. Done! As they would say in Bengal, “Bus!” Finished.

What's the fear of old age, sickness, and death? It's no longer something that happens to you. You should no more fear the death of this body than you should fear the breaking of this cup. It's got nothing to do with you beyond the fact that you're experiencing it. Just because you're experiencing something doesn't make it you, nor does it make it yours. That's the key here.

So, the seer and the seen are different. My mind… this… or the mind that I take myself to be… the embodied person… sees the body, experiences the body. Therefore, it is not the body. Not only that, it feels itself to be one. Very rarely do we say “we” or “us.” We often say “I,” when we speak about ourselves. So, I feel myself to be one, whereas the body is a composite. It's got many different parts, it's a series of changes.

Thirdly, it's changing very quickly, from the young baby's body to the adolescent body to the young adult body and – God willing – to the older adult body, to the old man, tottering on a cane body. You know, all of these changes happen… but not to me! They happen to the body. I… I remain ever the changeless witness of that body.

And, finally, the only thing the mind cannot see is itself – at least, from the point of view of the mind. So, I am the mind, not the body. The body is the seen, I am the seer. This much is good.

Going Beyond The Mind

But, the next step is where enlightenment happens! This next step is the key because enlightenment, by definition, as we've said before, is not the liberation of the individual, it's liberation from the individual. And let's qualify that: the individual is a mind. The individual is a collection of thoughts, it's a conglomerate of ideas, what you take yourself to be, this “person” that you consider yourself to be.

Personality is nothing more than a haphazardly bundled-together collection of thoughts – some handed to you by your parents, some by society, some you've acquired for yourself. But, it's a very fraught structure, you know? Personality – this egoity – it's very fraught because it's always kind of negotiating itself against the world, and against… against circumstances. I'm kind, and then someone cuts you off in traffic and you act not so kind. And then, immediately, you become defensive and say, “No, no, I'm kind! It's just… I'm having a rough day, and today is one instance in which… and plus, being mean to them is kindness, right?” We go into the self-justification mode.

So, personality is a bundle of thoughts, and it's in the mind. This is key! Personality is entirely in the mind. Aren't you aware of personality, right? Like, aren't you able to sit and watch the mind, the way the mind was able to watch the body, the way the body was able to watch the world? There is a point from which you observe thoughts coming and going, you know?

And in that series of thoughts, there appears one thought called “me,” “mine,” “I,” “you know,” “Nish,” “Tejas,” “Bernal,” like that. That thought is something that you are aware of.

Are you not experiencing the phenomenon called “Paul,” who plays piano and… and loves jazz? Like, isn't that… Not… is that not known to you? Like, all of these are experiences! I am experiencing the “Nish, the Jimi Hendrix experience.” Like, these are experiences. They're something that you are seeing, something that you are aware of.

Now, let's apply our four principles: I am not what I am aware of. I'm aware of Nish, so I'm not Nish. I'm aware of thoughts, so I'm not the thoughts. I'm aware of the mind, so I'm not the mind.

I feel myself to be one, whereas thoughts are many. Nish is – like – Jekyll and Hyde; he takes many different characters at different times. So, I'm not Nish; he changes, I don't. I feel myself to be one. I change less, it changes more. It's many…

And, finally, I'm the only thing that can't be objectified. Nish can be objectified; I can be aware of Nish. Nish's body can be objectified; I can be aware of that. The world is certainly an object to Nish… but, this Self – this witness – is something other than the mind.

This is where neuroscience ends, because neuroscience studies the brain, which is physicality. And psychology studies the mind. But, spirituality says, “Beyond physicality and psychology is this… called the spirit, called consciousness – whatever you want to call it. It cannot be studied through the ordinary means of science, for science is good at objective study. It studies things – as objects! It makes the world into an object and studies processes like that. It makes the body into an object and puts it under a microscope. It makes the mind an object and puts it on a couch and asks it a series of penetrating questions.

All of these are good, in the realm of objective existence. Science goes very far when it comes to objective knowledge, but subjective knowledge is not the domain of science, it's the domain of spirituality. Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, yoga – they're not interested in objects as much as they're interested in this subject, which cannot be studied through an objective lens.

So, this subject that you feel yourself to be – that is called the Self. So, this process, whereby you isolate and identify the witness – which you, yourself, are… you know, that's called the “śodhana" of your identity. If you think you're the body, it's not yet pure. You know, śodhana means to refine, or to purify. If you think you're… you're the mind, that's one degree better, but not yet totally pure.

Purity, as we typically use the word in traditions like this, means identifying with the taintless spirit, the consciousness that actually doesn't touch anything. It's just aware of everything. Is it looking through a glass screen? Et cetera.

So, remember that lecture: “What is Purity?” We talked about this at length. We basically discuss… this is the philosophy of Sāṅkhya. Sāṅkhya is the name of this particular tradition in India.

Okay, anyway, let's move on. Gaudapada is commenting on the Mandukya Upanishad, which gives a very interesting way to do this. “Tvam-padārtha”… By the way, artha means “meaning,” pada means – like – “word.” Śodhana means “refine,” and tvam means “you.” So, “tvam-padārtha-śodhana” translates to “a refinement of the meaning of ‘you'.”

So, there's one way to do this, which is the way we just did it. The next way is what Gaudapada is doing now. He's saying… Notice… I mean, he's not saying… the Mandukya Upanishad is saying… He's commenting on it. He's saying, “Notice: there are – ever – in any moment of your life – only going to be three modes of experiencing: dreaming, waking, and deep sleep.”

Waking, Dreaming, Deep Sleep

I should start with waking. I mean, right now, many of us are – arguably – having a waking experience. We know ourselves to be awake; this is my waking life. And then, when we go to sleep tonight, we'll have a dreaming life – wholly different from this one! Maybe with some elements carried over from this one, but in the dreaming life, typically, we're a different person, you know? We're having a different life, where we've got dream problems. We might have won the dream lottery, and then when we wake up, none of that is legal tender anymore. So, your dream lottery money won't get you a Starbucks on your way to work tomorrow, unfortunately.

So, dreaming, waking… these are two discreet and independent experiences. And, interestingly enough, deep sleep is a third, discreet experience. In deep sleep, there is no cognition of any physical body, nor is there any cognition of dreaming body. So, there are no objects! It's just a mass of undifferentiated consciousness. The Mandukya Upanishad gives us – or, rather, the commentary gives us – the image of cows seen in the dark. The cows are there, you just can't tell them apart, you know?

Indians… we love talking about pots and cows, I guess those things were just very present in our situations. But… these cows… you will see them in the daytime, when the sun rises. It's just, in a deep, black night, you don't tell the difference between one cow and another – so much so that you might not even know they're there.

That's deep sleep: the seeds – or the bija – that would later sprout into dreams and waking experiences, they're there in deep sleep. It's just you're not aware of them.

Who Are You in Deep Sleep?

Now, notice… And, by the way, none of you are new to this. I'm moving rather quickly through the “tvam-padārtha-śodhana,” but… notice, as Gaudapada wants to say: there is something common in all three! You – the one who is aware of the waking life – you – the one who is aware of the dreaming life, and you – the one who is aware of the absence of all waking and dream experiences in deep sleep – is one and the same person – or Self, or witness. This is key! You feel yourself to be the one who dreamt, you feel yourself to be the one who is now awake, and, stunningly – the test case for Vedanta is – you feel yourself to be a no one in deep sleep!

Don't you say, when you wake up in the morning, “Ah, I slept deeply. I slept dreamlessly.” The very fact that we, together, can talk about deep sleep shows us that it is not an absence of experience, it is an experience of absence. That's key! Now, who was that? That's what the Mandukya Upanishad is asking: who was that?

It could have been Bernal, right? It could not have been, because Bernal is only legal tender in waking life! Hrithik is only a waking life phenomenon. Hrithik is not there in the dream, and the dream Hrithik is… I don't know, some rishi, or something, reliving his past life, you know?

So, which one are you? Are you the rishi of last night's dream, or are you the Hrithik of now? Or are you going to be the absence of both Hrithik and rishi in deep sleep? Which one are you? And, ultimately, you have to say, “Well, I'm only Hrithik when I'm awake. I'm only the dreaming person when I'm dreaming, and I'm only the deep sleep person when I am deeply sleeping.” Why can't I be all? You are all!

Because aren't you aware of all? That's the key. You can't be any individual one, because you have to include all three. You're aware of all three, so you're all, and none. You can't be all, because they're changing. So, the waking is changing into the dreaming, the dreaming is changing into the deep sleeping, and vice versa. But, for change to happen, there must be some relatively less changing thing, and that less changing thing is you – the witness. The one who was there, who is there now, who is listening to this, the one who will be there… and dreaming… and the one who will be there in deep sleep – that's one and the same thing! It's none of them, and all of them at once!

The True Self: Turīya

That's the creepy thing about this: it's something other than the waking self. Feel that! Search your feelings, Luke, you know it to be true! Feel that! Behind your notion of “waking self,” is the true Self, the witness. It's watching now – look at this experience; it's aware of it now. And it will be aware of tonight's dream, if we have dreams. And it will be aware of tonight's deep sleep, if indeed we're lucky enough to go deeply into sleep. Some mothers in the room… and they often tell me that's not a luxury we have… but… … if you're deeply sleeping, you'll be aware of that. Note it tomorrow when you wake up. Note: there was one witness in all three of these instances. What was that?

And, Gaudapada is saying… … Mandukya Upanishad is saying… is “turīya”. Turīya is the “fourth,” but really, it's the “one”. In Shankara's commentary to Gaudapada, Shankara says it's only called turīya – the fourth – because we're counting from the side of māyā, from the side of being awake. But, from the point of view of samādhi – from the point of view of absorption into the one – it's the only one that is. The others are appearances in it.

Now, we come to the key in Gaudapada's pedagogy, and it's this: I know that I am the witness, separate from the waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. So, I know that I'm something other than waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. *But, is waking, dreaming, and deep sleep something other than me?

So, to use our first pedagogy, I know I'm something other than the cup. But is the cup something other than me? This is where Roxanne will be very happy because at first, we set up a duality between me and the cup – me, the seer, and the cup, the seen. Now, we'll dissolve that duality by dissolving the seen back into the seer.

So, this next step is where the fun begins! As Anakin Skywalker says, in the beginning of Episode III… We got – I think – four Star Wars references today. This is an all-time high! All-time record!
Yeah, they just… is holding up ten fingers… so maybe there were a lot more that I'm not conscious of, but… this has been good! This has been a good one.

Spot the Hidden Mickey! So, I know that I am not… Sorry, Douglas, are you a Star Trek fan? Okay. There's the door! You see that? The door – out! I'm kidding.

Wow, why would you reveal yourself like that?

You do you. You know where you are… And Douglas will say, “Yeah, I'm not in an '80s convention, bro. It's okay to… to… to write – like – both now.” Okay. Anyway… So, Star Trek, or Star Wars? There's only one, not two.

So, look: this… scene… I am the seer. They seem to be two different things, and it's true. The seer is different from the scene, that's true. But is the scene different from the seer? That's the next thing that becomes very, very important to ask. I know that I – the seer… By the way, sorry. I have some hydroponic plants, and they're – like – really bright. So, we'll turn that off.

The seer… obviously… is different from the scene. But, there is no scene without the seer!

This is where we get into danger of solipsism. This is not solipsism, because we're not talking about the individual perceiver. We're talking about the witness that transcends the waking perceiver. Very subtle and technical point. We can take it up in Q&A… and we have devoted lectures – entire lectures – to just this point: why this isn't solipsism.

But, in any case, that aside,… follow this. This is the next kind of thought experiment. We'll kind of close out with this.

Look at this… Maybe not this cup. Let's say… let's say this cup. Okay. Let's look at this cup. So, say you're looking at this cup; it's a ceramic cup, you know? You're looking at it now. The question becomes: is there such a thing as a cup…?

The World Is Nothing But Consciousness

Apart from the shape and color of this object, is there such a thing, objectively speaking, as a cup apart from this shape and color? And if you say yes, let's put it to the test. Okay? Now the rule of this game is you can only interact with reality as it's being presented to you now. So don't go into memory, don't go into abstraction, don't go into conceptualization. This is a phenomenological approach, so you must interact with your immediate experience of now. So if you say there is such a thing as a cup apart from this shape and color, watch what happens: we've taken away the shape and color, where is the cup?

Is there like some kind of ghostly blueprint of the cup here? Can you see something called cup? No. Other than in memory and in conception, there is nothing physical, nothing objective, here called a cup. Cup is an emergent property of this shape and color. If you never saw the shape and color, you might never have the name cup. Your intellect might never have assigned the label cup if it never had any sense experience, you know?

Now we can, we can thus say that the essence of a cup is a certain shape and color. Now, the next statement is eerie: what is the essence of shape and color?

Like we said, you need shape and color to see a cup. You need something to see shape and color, and obviously the answer is perception: seeing. Without seeing, there would be no shape and color, and the evidence of this is to simply close your eyes. Where in my immediate experience, is there no cup apart from my seeing. Only when I open my eyes is there a cup. It only appears insofar as I'm seeing. Without the eyes, what to speak of cups and shapes and colors, you know? Okay, now go deeper: what's the essence of seeing?

Again, an abstraction, Brock, that wouldn't be phenomenal, phenomenology. We have to deal with what's right here, now. So, if I go further, I say, “What do I need in order to have perception?” I might be able to say ultimately, the mind. Without a mind to make sense of images, who cares how many eyes I have? I could have many functioning eyes, but if there was no mind to organize all of those images, there would be no cup so to speak in my experience. And then, even deeper than that, without consciousness, there would be no mind. Without consciousness, no mind. Without mind, no perception. Without perception, no, no shape and form. Without shape and form, no cup. Okay? This is eerie because this means:

1. The substance of a cup is shape and color.
2. The substance of shape and color is perception.
3. The substance of perception is mind: mind-stuff, chitta.
4. And the substance of mind-stuff is consciousness.

Like every wave in the world is made of the same water, every object you see around you now is, and has always been, and will ever be consciousness. It's made of consciousness, its essence is consciousness. And that's what you are. That's the eerie thing: that's what you are. You, the consciousness that you feel yourself to be now, are the very stuff of every perception that you perceive. And not only that: the world is nothing but perception.

In fact, we could say, have you ever experienced a table apart from your seeing a table? And we've devoted whole lectures, I'm just moving quickly a little bit so I can get to the punch line. You've never seen a table apart from seeing a table. There's never been an instance in your life where you've interacted with anything outside of your own perceptions, whether in dream or in waking. And that means this entire world is in perception, and perception is in the mind. So this step interiorizes all of this, right?

There's a, the same way the moon might be mistaken as a luminary body, it's a borrowed splendor, you know? The real life is consciousness, the real self. The moon just borrows the sunlight and it in turn looks like a luminary body. That's why the mind thinks it's alive and conscious when it's not. It's just a mirror for consciousness. Good. Take that to Q&A. but to get to Q&A, let me just wrap up.

So, now we get this interesting thing. This whole world—and by the way, last week's lecture towards the end of the lecture, there was a guided meditation for just this, for the ability to conceive of this world as being a reflection held in you, an experience scintillating and vibrating in you, the consciousness which is the container of all of this. Now, this is where Gaudapada strikes, and it's eerie what he does. He says, and this is Bernal's favorite lecture some time ago we had a lecture called “Are You Dreaming Right Now?” So you can go watch that lecture for a fuller, fuller experience of this.

In that lecture, we listed all the ways waking is different from dream, and we try to blur the distinction to show that, no, actually all the things you think make waking different are not actually different. By the way, think of it this way: if you came up with a criteria, say, criteria X, that infallibly distinguishes some dream from waking, right? Let's say you had that criteria. Because in a dream, you could go up seven flights of stairs and find yourself in the basement, like dreams have a kind of weird, surreal dream logic, right? So let's say you right now were equipped with a philosophical tool called criteria X that could actually distinguish between waking and dreaming, right? How do you know criteria X is itself not susceptible to being in a dream?

In other words, all you're distinguishing between waking and dreaming could just as well have happened in a dream. In other words, you have no way of telling whether you are now awake or in a dream. Because in the dream, while you're in it—bar, barring lucid dreaming—it feels real to you. You feel yourself to be the one in the dream. You feel yourself to be having this dream life, and it feels quite real to you during the duration of the dream. As long as I'm in the dream, I'm actually being chased by a tiger. I'm actually Jamie Lee Curtis running from a serial killer. I'm actually winning the lottery and celebrating, right? I'm actually doing these things while I'm in the dream.

But, and here's the key, when I wake up the next day, I can say—maybe with relief, or perhaps maybe with disappointment— “Ah, it was only a dream. It wasn't real. It was all just in my head. It was in me. I was never in the dream, the dream was in me. I projected the dream with my mind-stuff.” You know? That's the interesting thing.

So let's say I was in the dream, let's say I was Jimmy, okay? I was Jimmy, having a dream experience. Beautiful. I was Jimmy. Now, in the dream, Jimmy is having his life, right? Now, let's say Jimmy thinks he has problems, real problems, like he's in debt and the loan sharks are chasing him or something. And let's say Jimmy is in love, you know, he wants to woo some damsel that he's very much infatuated with. So all of this is true in Jimmy's life. Am I really Jimmy? Well, I guess you could say I am in the dream. But then when I woke up, did Jimmy wake up? In other words, did Jimmy wake up from the dream world called Jimmy's world, Jimmy in the middle? Did he wake up from that?

Nish woke up from Jimmy. Nish woke up and realized he was not Jimmy, so he didn't have any of Jimmy's problems, he didn't have any of Jimmy's like ambitions, he never was Jimmy, he never will be Jimmy, he's not Jimmy. Jimmy was just a figment of his imagination that—just like some spontaneous happening—appeared in his dream and disappeared just as readily. There was no rhyme and reason to Jimmy.

The moment Nish fell asleep, Jimmy just—yeah, exactly, Brock, you got this—like the moment Nish falls asleep, Jimmy just appears, right? The whole world, Jimmy's whole world, appears just like that. And Jimmy lives his life. And just as quickly as it came into being, when Nish wakes up, Jimmy is gone. That's why this isn't solipsism. Solipsism would be Jimmy alone is real and the whole dream world of Jimmy is in Jimmy's head. No. Jimmy is a part of a real, objective world as long as he's in the dream. But once Nish wakes up from Jimmy, that whole world, including Jimmy, is dissolved into Nish. In other words, it's seen as nothing real or objectively, independently real apart from Nish. It was in Nish. The whole dream of Jimmy and his life was in Nish. Nish, as he wakes up, inhabits a higher order of reality than the dream.

That's why I'm able to say, “Ah, this is real and the dream wasn't.” Most of us feel that, right? Most of us feel our waking life has an ontological privilege, it's more real, so to speak, than my dream. Okay? So, meditate on this, the distinction between waking and dreaming, because this distinction is how Gaudapada proves samadhi is different from waking. For when one enters a deeply absorbed meditative state, one “wakes up” from the dream of the self.

At that moment, consciousness reveals itself to be the most real, most vital, most alive thing. And, in comparison, the waking world—which only a few moments ago seemed so real—now no longer does. What the dream world is to the waking world, the waking world is to—Nish—I'm sorry—what Jimmy in his dream world is to Nish in the waking world, Nish in the waking world is to me, Brahman. That should be your attitude. I, the Self, am now dreaming this waking dream. And me, the waking dreamer, will soon dream a dreaming dream.

Like Rumi says beautifully, “This world is a dream. Only the sleeper considers it real.” This is the—I forget which translation, maybe Helminski, Kabir Helminski maybe, or Coleman Barks, I forget which one. But the, the this, “The world is a dream, the sleeper—only the sleeper considers it real. And one day death comes like a swift dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you once thought was your grief, was your bondage, was your spiritual struggle, was your desire for liberation, was all the drama of being a spiritual seeker.” Once knowledge, jnana, comes—like the sunlight of dawn, it comes and it rids you of the dream—and you laugh. You love to think that you thought you were bound, that you needed to be liberated. You were always the waker: before the dream, during the dream, after the dream. You were always, ever, the witness. That's the joke, right?

So Gaudapada is saying this like just like Rumi: samadhi, absorption into turya, deep meditation, is to waking what waking is to a dream. And, given that from within the dream, how would it change your experience to know this? Like if you were in the dream, and you had a glimpse of waking, and then suddenly snapped back into the dream, how would that change your experience? Wouldn't it make way for much more…

How This Realization Brings Joy

…easefulness and relaxation and fearlessness? You should start to feel like, “Oh, wait a minute! This whole dream is in my head. So everybody that I see around me—me, the dream self—is actually me, the real Self! In fact, I am not even this. I am the one who is having this dream.”

So all of this is God's dream, and just like everything and person in your dream was part of your own existence, so too is everything here part of God's existence. It partakes of the one same substance, you know?

And now, friends, please insert all the material from four or five lectures ago, maybe three lectures ago, about why this world didn't come into existence. Remember Gaudapada gives us five reasons the world didn't come into existence? It's all the—remember the category error lecture we had? How can nothing create something? Asatkaryavada. That doesn't work! Nothing can't create something! That's a category error. How can something create something? Another category error. How can an eternal prakrti create a changing world? How can the unchanging create the changing? Another category error. So he dismisses that. How can you have, you know all the different vadas. He's saying all effects have causes, then you get an infinite regress: a beginningless series is an endless series. Remember that stuff from the lecture some time ago? Vishishtadvaita vada.

How can one part of God be changing and the other part be unchanging? Like, can you slice off a chicken's head and expect the bottom half of the chicken to still live? Remember there was that, and there was artha kriya, the idea that all of this is happening, no need to explain how it's happening. Remember that was a lecture that we gave where Gaudapada systematically looked at every type of creation theory, or in other words, teleology? He says, “Was an unchanging God responsible for creating a changing world? Was there nothing, and then there was something? Was God eternal and part of God is the changing world?” Like that. He goes through every dominant theory of creation in India and dismisses each of them as a logical error. He shows via negativa that the world never came into existence. It couldn't have, because all the theories of existence don't make sense, they don't hold up to the light of reason.

So, please, friends, plug in that lecture here because it applies to what Gaudapada is trying to show: this world never came into existence any more than your dream has a purpose. Did you, by the way—like,… what do you mean, Brock? He does this in his—Gaudapada does this in his Mandukya Karika. It's Chapter 4 of his Mandukya Karika. Today we're talking a little bit about Chapter 2, the paramartha, the highest truth.

So he's saying the dream, you didn't design it. I think I'll leave you with this. The key is: you didn't design the dream. You don't sit there and say, “I will have this dream tonight.” At least, not most of us. I know some people in the New Age community, that's like their whole shtick. But most of us just go to sleep, and we have a dream. A dream appears, incomprehensibly. It appears almost as a property of falling asleep. Similarly, when—I don't know—I am Brahman, the world appears as insensibly and inscrutably as a dream.

That's why this world is maya. This world is just an inscrutable maya. It's just a—dream, right? There's no coming into existence of the dream, you know? There is no like need to say, “Oh, I created this, I created that.” Just came into being. It just is. All of this is, you know? And then it wasn't. When I woke up, it wasn't. And when I wake up from the dream, I say it wasn't, it isn't, and it never will be. It's just a dream. And that's the way Gaudapada shows us that this—which we take to be so real—isn't! It isn't! It's a dream.

And now there are two ways to use this, two very, very important ways to use this teaching.

Hopefully now you can see if this is a dream, right? Then this person you take yourself to be is not real. This means it's all a story. Your spiritual struggles, all of that, it's like a story. It's just a story from within a dream. It will be enjoyable to you if you know it's a dream. If you don't know it's a dream, it's bondage. They say to the jnani, “This whole thing is entertainment. This whole thing is a lucid dream, it's fun! You practice because that's the funnest thing to do. But you don't stress about it because you know you're not the one to whom practicing applies. It's not you who's living the story of your spiritual life. It's a banal—it's a jiva. They are living the story, but you're not that. You just watch that, and it's nothing to you.”

Honestly, you can even take it on faith. I know earlier I said you don't, shouldn't take this on faith, it's obviously better if you understand. But this is available to you, says my child: in this, at least do not be bewildered. You are God beyond prakrti. In this, at least, do not be bewildered. Have faith. So I like to say, “Whether I know it or not, whether I accept it or not, whether I believe it or not, I'm Brahman, and that's that.” So Nish can struggle as much as he wants, he can cry and he can weep and he can rail and he can take himself seriously, who cares? It's got nothing to do with me, you know? And by the way, once you know that, hopefully Nish cries less, weeps less, rails less, because less, less you take it less seriously.

So that's, therefore there are two ways you can use this. The first is for…

How This Realization Brings Renunciation

…renunciation. So I'd like to remind you that we cannot even realize this truth without renunciation. Because if we don't have deep, deep, deep understanding that the world and its rewards are not ultimately fulfilling, we will never find…

How This Realization Brings Better Meditation

…time to meditate. And all of you, by the way, are powerful renunciants. Because how many hours have you given up on a Monday night to like listen to something spiritual? How much do you come and practice? I see so many of you on Wednesdays and Fridays practicing yoga. On Mondays you practice with Emily. Obviously, everyone in this room—a vast majority of you—will spend big chunks of your day on spiritual life. Many of you will spend money on murtis, right? Like decorating your house and, like, when you spend money, you spend it on God. When you spend time, you spend it on God. That's renunciation, actually. Because you're understanding that what's valuable is the eternal Spirit, and therefore that deserves your time, that deserves your money.

But if you think the world is real, and if you think the world has something to offer you that will be lastingly fulfilling, to the degree that you think that, to that degree you won't have time for your practices, or you will always prioritize the world over your practices. If you put God against the world, the world will win. It has more experience at being tempting.

So, if you think the world is real, right? If you think there are things in the world that exist objectively and independently and ought, you ought to go and get them, you won't be able to meditate. In other words, even if you get there—on the off chance that you managed to get there on the mat—the problem is you won't be able to be there. You'll be thinking about the world! So, if you're sitting there trying to meditate, you'll just be trying to meditate. You'll be thinking, “Oh, I have to get the casserole out of the—I have to go get the kid from,” you know, like, the mind will be going everywhere because the dream feels real, the drama feels real. So the mind busies itself with conjuring up plans and safeguards and all of that.

But look at the alternative: if, right now, all of us friends, if we could—all of us now—wake up to the truth of what Gaudapada is saying, we should be able to feel about this world as if it's like a dream, you know? And if that's the way we feel when we sit to meditate, it won't have so much of a hold in our mind. We'll say, “Oh, mind, it's just a dream. Why vacillate or fixate? Why dwell upon that which you know is unreal?”

No. I said the other day—this might be a controversial statement, but I said the other day on Thursday's class—I said, “I don't actually believe like UFOs are abducting people.” Maybe. But it's just not part of my belief system, like I don't, you know… go to bed at night afraid that a UFO is going to abduct me and experiment on me, like I don't actually think they're, like, gray ones, I don't think that. However, maybe some people do. And the people who do think about it—have you noticed the people who like believe in this stuff like spend hours talking about it, reading about it on the internet, thinking about it? If such a person were to sit for meditation, what do you think they're going to think about? But they're aliens. Why? Because for them, it's real. They really think they're aliens. So they're going to think about the aliens.

Someone who doesn't think that aliens are real, they probably won't think about it. They'll just sit there and it won't even occur to them. Right? Like, how many of you—how—what's the last time one of you thought about the abominable snowman, or something, you know? By the way, do you know the word yeti? The word yeti is actually a Sanskrit word, it means—it means monk, it means sadhu. So, likely, European explorers in the Himalayas saw my tall ancestors, like, shaggy with their unkempt hair and beard, meditating in mountains, and they were like, “The abominable snowman! Yeah!” Right? That's actually the history of the, the phrase yeti. Yeti. Yati means—yati: one who has controlled one's senses. By laya.

So, if I know that yetis are not real, or if I at least, like—here's the thing, I'm not saying they're real, they're not, right? But if I don't think they're real, I won't think about them. If I think they're real, I'll think about them. If I don't think aliens are real, I won't think about it. If I think it's real, I'll think about it. In other words, if I think, like, orgasms will satisfy me, I'll sit there and fantasize. If I think money will give me security, I'll sit there and plan how to make money. If I think power will make my life better, I'll sit there and think about ways I can find leverage over my brothers and sisters. If I think power, wealth, or pleasure will really satisfy me, to the degree to which I think that, to that degree I will be distracted in meditation, you know?

So, if I know that it's a dream—and we're gonna close with a meditation to kind of show that. If I know that it's a dream, why should I think about it so much? Why should I fuss over it? Why should I reminisce and, like, dwell on things in the past? Why should I think about things in the future? Why do I even think about things now?

Like, my mind automatically goes to God when it no longer goes to the world. Once I'm purified from my desire for the world, the mind snaps to God, just like that. Like a rubber band that's been pulled, it goes back to its source. Its home is in consciousness. Remember, mind is in consciousness. So the moment the outward-going tendencies of the mind stop, then it goes right back into consciousness, no? Douglas, it's funny, but you might call me a mama's boy, because all I do is think about my mother, hopefully.

But, and by the way, consciousness. So the thing is, mind goes to God immediately if it doesn't go to the world. So this is your first victory, friends. The first victory of understanding Gaudapada's dream analogy is you should remind yourself of it. Now, hopefully, towards now—soon, we'll give a meditation kind of like—not a meditative thought experiment—in a meditative context that helps us do this in real time, so you keep refreshing this idea.

Then you'll know, “Ah, okay, I can relax. I don't have to take myself seriously. I don't take the world seriously.” That will help your meditation. And not only will it get you to the mat more, it will make sure that your time on the mat is better. You become more absorbed in meditation, more drawn into the Self. Okay?

Now, the next reason—and I want to close with Swami Vivekananda—the next reason this is so valuable is because…

How This Realization Brings Fearlessness, Enthusiasm and Selfless Service

…because you know it's a dream, there's something else that you know, too: nothing can happen to you, right? Like, nothing is ultimately going to come to heart you. You're okay. Shouldn't that make you feel invulnerable, fearless, and full of energy?

Now you're fearless, so you no longer feel shy maybe in front of crowds, or you no longer feel timid around tasks. You don't feel scared to do any undertaking because you no longer fear failure. So you become very heroic, right? And you have a lot of energy because all the energy that you otherwise would have spent thinking about your life and your story and your drama, all that energy becomes freed up! Suddenly you feel like, you feel like a thunderbolt, right? There's so much enthusiasm and energy available to you.

So now what are you going to do? That becomes the question, you know? What are you going to do with your eyes open, filled with energy and fearlessness, what are you going to do? And the answer is: you're going to be a Buddha, a Jesus, a Swami Vivekananda. You're going to go out into the world and do whatever it is that you feel like you need to do to help others. Because—and this is the key—because you know they are not different from you.

That's the weird thing. It's like, once you feel that you, yourself, are awareness, and that only awareness exists, then you feel that everyone you see around you is nothing but an appearance in that awareness. And ultimately they're nothing other than you. So we said, right? Everything is made of consciousness. So you'll respect all the objects. You'll put your books down carefully, you'll put your cups down carefully, you'll open the door carefully, you won't slam the door this way, in that way. You'll treat things with reverence because things are seen as nothing but God shining forth as a book, you know? So you'd be careful not to step on books or throw things here, so your house gets neater and neater.

That's one thing, one benefit, because you have reverence. So things become beautiful, and you see more beauty and things, you treat it with beauty. But people become beautiful. Because no longer are they separate minds, they are the consciousness that you call God shining forth as that. Now, if you love God, naturally you will feel that love—you can't fake this. You have to meditate and contemplate, and eventually you'll start to feel it. And you know Swami Ashokananda, he does say, “Fake it till you make it.” I think in our order, we do say, “Fake it till you make it.” But you can't fake it. But better than that is to see that it's true. See, in the eyes of your brothers and sisters, “Oh, wait. I am not the body, so they can't be the body. I am not the mind, so they can't be the mind. I am the witness, they are the witness.” Oh, insert here that lecture we did, “You equals God equals everybody.” Because how can you distinguish one witness from another?

Once you have that sense that that person is not a different person, then you will naturally do things to help them. Now, I'm not saying you'll be like some virtuous person, like, “Oh, helping people is good! People need my help! I'm going to go out and bring food and medicine, education!” No, no. You never feel self-important when you put a bandage on your own bleeding arm, see?

Imagine if, after I put this bandage on, I was like, “Oh, someone gave me a Purple Heart, or something! I mean, what an act of service I did to my finger! My poor finger, bleeding! And then I came and, with a bandage, I fixed the finger!” No! How ridiculous! The finger was bleeding, you take a bandage as a matter of fact, you put it on, that's it, right? Nothing else to it. With that level of effortlessness, you look at others and you say, “My brother is hungry, here's a sandwich,” or, “My sister has not education in her village, here's some learning, you know? Here's a center for learning. My fellow brothers and sisters are starving for lack of medicine. Maybe there's a, like, a disease, bring them relief, medical relief, start a hospital.”

But all of that is seen as just helping another. Someone comes to you for spiritual advice, what you, you can't say no. Because it's not like giving someone anything, it's just putting a bandage, you know? If someone comes to you, hurt and depressed, you're like, “Wow! My finger is bleeding! Time to put a bandage on it.” Because you truly see that other as your own finger, or as part of you. We're all fingers of God, so to speak.

So that's the second thing that it gives you: service. The first thing is it gives you renunciation. And in that renunciation comes energy and peace, and that will be directed towards serving others, not as a kind of helping them, but as a kind of matter-of-fact bandaging a bleeding arm, you see? That's the two superpowers you get here. Yeah, I know, so many fingers! These are the two superpowers, right? Only one God, so many fingers.

Anyway, the superpowers are: renunciation and the service of others. Renunciation and service. These are the two things that you get. So let's now see how we can use all of it.

By the way, in the dream, if you know that it's dream, then you could say all of this is made of mind-stuff. So whatever you touch, you're touching your own mind. Have you realized everything in the dream is made of your own mind? So whatever you touch, you're touching your own mind. This is chinmayam. We discussed chinmayam. So last week, we talked about cit, cit, chinmayam: cit, cid-matram, chinmayam. So now, just to close it all, let's list it from jagat up to the top. I…

7 Steps To Enlightenment, One by One

…think we have all the, all the philosophical juice now to make sense of this seven-rung ladder starting with jagat. So let's go. Start with the universe. Here we are: jagat, the perceivable universe. Look: a chair! Look: a guitar! Look: a book! Look: murtis! It's all, so many things, all around me! And here I am, a little Nish, a mouse in a big world, you know? I'm like Babe: Pig in the Big City, something like that. Here I am, surrounded by all of these objects. I am in the world. Okay? Go deeper.

But what is the world if not five elements? If not strings? If not atoms, you know? If not some basic physical structure? Energy! Isn't all of this energy? I mean, that book is as much energy as this is energy, this mic is as much the five elements as that guitar as the five elements, this body is as much bone and blood and atoms as that body is bone and blood and atoms! So wherefore should I want? Why do I want that and not this, you know?

Why do I stop my feet and say, “Daddy, I want an Oompa Loompa now?” Why do I say that? Because the Oompa Loompa is made of the same stuff as a squirrel? I should settle for a squirrel instead of like slavery and owning one of my ancestors? Leave Uncle alone! Next to the Philippines? Like Indian? So why would I want any of these things? Leave Mama alone! Stop taking our spices! You only use the pumpkin spice, you know? You don't even use them! What, my grandfathers built railways just so you could just use pumpkin spice? At least put a bit more paprika!

Yeah, but you see, you won't say I want this and not that because you know it's all just that on a material way, okay?

This bunch of Buddha velocity, your jagat, the perceivable universe. One step higher: the manifold world is nothing but, nothing but energy and matter, or something. You go higher, and that is nothing but maya: inscrutable! Absolutely—and that lecture is called “Why You Should Renounce the World Completely.”

Then you go up higher, it's the play of consciousness. So this maya, which was an inscrutable paradox, is the playful game of consciousness who is God. God is playing, and God so desired to play that she created all of this and is playing, you know? Then you go deeper, and there are no states, God is playing a holy, illusory and imaginary game. God is dreaming. You go from God is playing to God is dreaming. That's how you go from cid-vilasa, which is rung four, to the vivarta, which is rung five, you know? So cid-vivarta, that's Gaudapada with the full force of Advaita Vedanta: that this world didn't come into existence, it wasn't created, it won't be destroyed. Forget all of that childish stuff. That's what you tell toddlers, babies in religion. No, the real truth is that it just appeared like a dream. It's nothing!

Because this is the absolute truth: there never was a bound person, there is no sadhana, there is no desire after liberation, there are no liberated persons, you know? There's no world, and therefore no end to bondage, it never started!

“God apart,” aham. Now you get it.

Enlightenment vs Dissociation

Enlightenment vs. Dissociation: Are You Really Not Your Body and Mind?

One common conception when it comes to spiritual life is that this is about transcendence. There's a sense in which we all want to transcend the various limitations imposed upon us by life. So of course, in the very beginnings of spirituality, we do feel a kind of oppression - maybe a lot of it is social oppression. We feel oppressed by our family structure, we feel oppressed by our cultural structures and institutions, and most of all, we feel oppressed by our own predicament of being a mind-body ego complex.

So, the body oppresses us. You know, some of us in the room are discovering this with all of its various ailments. You know, the body oppresses us because it seems to convey a sense of decay, of old age, of infirmity, or at the very least, even in a young, healthy, beautiful body, of limitation. I'm here and not there. I'm confined to being just where my body is. So we get that sense of being confined in some way by the body.

Now there's also the mind. Of all the various things, the various stories that I tell myself about myself and about the world around me, I become a prisoner of them sooner or later. I build a very elaborate structure called a personality, and I simply have misplaced the key, and the doors all lock from the outside, so I don't know how to get out. So I'm a prisoner of my own mind, my own storytelling, and my own fantasies about myself and the world.

So naturally then, when we first come to spiritual life, it's with a desire for transcendence that we take any of this up at all. We want to transcend those limitations imposed upon us by culture, by our institutions, by our parents, by society, right? We want to overcome those impositions of the body and mind. We somehow, deep down inside, feel like we are... Our birthright is to transcend these things. We're almost offended by any kind of limitation placed upon what we essentially feel is our god-given freedom, so to speak.

So notice, spiritual life, for most of us, has a very deep intuition, has to do with transcendence. It's about transcending limitations, transcending factors, transcending anything that might keep you stuck or confined, right?

Naturally then, the language that we get from many spiritual traditions in the world is exclusively transcendental. It's about going beyond the body, going beyond the mind, becoming spirit or becoming soul, or letting go of that which is, a fetter, or that which is holding you back, etc., etc. That's the language we get from spiritual life, and it's true.

However, the thrilling reframing that we get from Advaita Vedanta, or non-duality in any of its forms (you know, not just the Kevala Advaita of Shankara and not just Advaita Vedanta, but also other types of advaita, non-dual philosophies, like the non-duality of Tantra, which we've been discussing together over the past several weeks, like all the kinds of non-dual philosophy that we have in the world). Almost all of them, with Advaita Vedanta I think being at its forefront, they almost all say that transcendence is not a matter of tomorrow. It's not a matter of, attainment. It's not like you have to do x amount of spiritual practice and one day you will transcend the body-mind-ego complex after some practice, after some meditation. Then you will transcend your political structures and your cultural structures and your social structures of oppression, like, after you win the good fight psychologically and socially, then only you will have this transcendence.

No. The language of Advaita Vedanta is not at all like that. The language of Advaita Vedanta is as follows: You already are, even now, already as you are, fully, wholly transcendent to any one of your experiences. So, the body has an experience; you're wholly transcendent to that. You're free of that, whether you know it or not. The mind is an experience; again, you are transcendent to that, wholly free of that. All your political and cultural and social institutions, you're already free of them, whether you know it or not. You, at your essence nature, are ever pure, ever free, stainless spirit through and through. And that's not a matter of becoming. You don't have to become that, and nor is it a matter of losing. You can never lose that. It's already, even now, what you are. It's what you always were, it's what you always will be, whether you know it or not. That's the fundamental essence nature of your being: free, transcendental, stateless.

Okay. The thrilling thing about Advaita is that statement that it's not a matter of becoming, it's not a matter of practice, it's not a matter of progress, it's not a matter of healing or growing or fixing or changing. It's not a time-based solution. It's here and now. It's as here and now as it will ever be.

So in making that claim, Advaita then further argues that if indeed it is here and now, it should be available to you now. It's as simple as that. If indeed my essence nature is transcendent, is pure, is free, then I should know it. It's only of some value to me to say that if you also provide a way in which I, too, can come to see that truth. "So beautifully said: if there's a soul, I must be able to feel it now; I should be able to feel it now. If there's a God, I should be able to see Him; and if there's a truth, I should be able to realize it." And the claim of Advaita Vedanta is, right now, right here, you can. And all you need is an honest inquiry into your current experience as it is now.

Not in some exalted state like samadhi, not during a vision of Krishna, no no, none of that is needed. I mean that can be helpful, but what's actually needed is just an honest inquiry into your experience as it presents itself from moment to moment in your ordinary state of being.

So, waking, dreaming, and deep sleep are all states common to all humans. Necessarily, most humans have dreamed something at some point or other. Maybe they don't dream as much anymore because of a certain herb, but some of them at least are still connected to dreaming, and they do dream often. If not, at least once in their life they must have dreamed, and almost everyone has had a deep sleep experience, and almost everyone right now hopefully is having a waking experience. So these three states are not exclusive to mystics. They're not exclusive to spiritual practitioners or aspirants. There are three states that all of us experience, and Advaita Vedanta is bold enough to say that that's all you need.

You just have to use these three states and, through an honest inquiry into what it means to experience all three, you'll understand the truth of your being. Heck, you don't even need three states! You just need this moment. This waking moment right now is all it takes for you to realize, in a flash of insight, what you are, and by having that realization, you recognize that you're already wholly transcendent to the body-mind-ego personality complex, that you're already free. It's only a matter of remembering that.

So what comes to mind is that person who feels themselves to be poor but actually has millions and millions of dollars in the bank; they just forgot the PIN, or they just don't know that they have millions and millions of dollars in the bank. So, that joke of, I, I think it's Eckhart Tolle's kind of like opening joke in Power of Now? I think there's a guy sitting on the treasure chest... It's actually an age-old parable that we get from the non-dual traditions of India, this idea that you're sitting on the treasure chest, and you're complaining of being poor and and struggling in life, but all the while, under you, is this treasure chest. It's like that.

So, Advaita is not interested in giving you something; it's interested in showing you what you already have. That's the simplest way to put it. It's interested in showing you the transcendence that is already your nature.

But, whether it's a progressive path, type of tradition that talks about transcendence in terms of like a time-based, linear, practice-oriented model—like, one day, maybe after death or after some practice you will transcend—whether it's that tradition or whether it's this tradition, which argues that you already are, at your essence nature, transcendence, it's just a matter of recognizing that—whatever the language might be—transcendence in and of itself is problematic for a variety of reasons. Centrally because it means being something other than the body and mind. It means going beyond the body and mind in some sense. It almost pits itself against the imminence of the body and mind.

So here it lies the rub. If I am indeed a transcendental… transcendental being, a spirit, a soul, awareness, Purusha… What's my body got to do with any of it? What's my mind got to do with any of it? And isn't it kind of violent, and maybe repressive, to say, "I am not the body and mind?"

So here's the predicament: when we talk about transcendence, we must, at some point or another, confront this dilemma. And it's a matter of dissociation: to what extent is this a violent repression and denial of my imminent nature as a body and mind? To what extent is it actually dangerous for me to say to myself, and to others, perhaps God forbid, that I am the spirit, that I am the witness beyond the body and mind? Can I actually say, "I am not the body and I am not the mind, and I am not this person" safely? Like, is that even healthy and desirable to do?

Many, in the course of our conversations, have accused this philosophy of being dissociation-inducing: to say that you are not the body, not the mind, but pure awareness can be thrilling to some, but also flat-out insane and scary to others. It smacks of dissociation.

So today, I'd like to draw a very crucial distinction between enlightenment—it, in the Advaita Vedanta tradition—and dissociation, as it's popularly understood by the Western, like, audience you know, to whom this spirituality is being given. So that's the main purpose of today's lecture: what's the difference between a dissociative, dysfunctional experience of not identifying with the body and mind, and enlightenment, which is an experience full of joy, sweetness, easefulness, and beauty? What's the distinction between dissociation, enlightenment? That's where we're going. You know that's... and and the way we would like to have this discussion… Yeah, I think Marcia Kali… I think she's right also, there's some conversation there we're going to have as well, God willing, but I think a lot of what we're going to discuss today… the reason we're discussing it is this… I like to give a bit of preamble just to explain why we're having a conversation before we have it.

The reason we're discussing this stuff today is because some time ago—many of you were there—we had a lecture called "19 Reasons You Are Not the Body." Do you remember that? Some of you were there; it was some time ago though. "19 Reasons You Are Not the Body."

Now, a big part of spiritual life is proving this insofar as you think you are the body: old age, sickness, death, rebirth—they're all your problem. You get old, you get sick, you will die; these are all real problems. And as we discussed in that lecture, there's so many fears that come up because of those primordial fears of old age, sickness, and death. So, like we said, the the deep desire to belong and have others like us is probably a fear of death, because maybe that's premised upon an ancient, primordial memory of being exiled from the tribe for saying the wrong thing or being socially awkward or whatever.

Now, the desire for legacy, the desire, to have progeny is probably also a veiled fear of death, a veiled fear of extinction. And of course, the desire for various pleasures and all that is is really just… the craving… that craving is really just the way to mask those underlying fears of change, of death, of decay, of sickness, etc.

So as long as I am a body, I will suffer horrible fear. Fear at my own death, fear at my own old age, fear at my own sickness. And I would feel a lot of craving as well, insofar as I identify with the body. I'll crave a lot of different things. You'll notice whether it's Christianity or Islam or Judaism, and certainly the slew of South Asian traditions that we discussed together in these evenings together, almost all of them are showing you that you are something more than the body, you know, that you are the spirit beyond the body. In the language of Sankhya, you are Purusha, wholly apart from Prakriti. In the language of Advaita Vedanta, you are Atman-Brahman, the Self, and in you, the body-mind-world is but an illusion. It's like a dream; it comes and it goes in a flash. You are not… not at all affected by it.

And even in the more imminent, kind of embodied, tantric language that we get from like Shakta Advaita, or Advaita Shaiva philosophy actually, the world is also dematerialized. Matter is instead re-imagined or rather, rediscovered to be nothing but consciousness. So it's Mahakali who is pure consciousness, you know, the absolute, transcendental Brahman that Kali is identified with. The world… insofar as she embodies herself as this world, she becomes the 24 cosmic principles, as it were.

So, a tantrika, post-samadhi, is able to open her eyes and see that the very world that she previously saw as a physical, objective world is nothing but, subjective experience clothed in this or that form. So it's like a dance of consciousness, a play of awareness, if you will. But it's still awareness! It's still a transcendent principle scintillating and shining and doing various sorts of things.

So notice, in all the types of traditions, whether it's the Abrahamic faiths or the South Asian traditions—from the dualistic to the qualified non-dualistic, to the wholly non-dualistic, even to the kind of trans-non-dualistic types of philosophies—they're… almost all of them are about transcendence, about being something other than the body.

So that's why Advaita Vedanta says, "That's already the case." It's not something that will happen to you. It's not like you're the body now because you endured some kind of fall, all from some state of Grace, and then through sadhana, through spiritual practice, then you will transcend the body. No. As I said in the beginning of this talk, that's not the way that Advaita Vedanta conceptualizes spirituality. You already are, at your essence nature, perfect. There's nothing that needs to be added on to you, nothing that needs to be taken away. All that's left is a recognition of your own true nature.

So, you're already not a body; you just think you're a body. That's what that lecture… The point of that lecture was to show, here and now, that you cannot be a body, that it would be insane to consider yourself a body! It would be illogical. To use Shankara's language, "What greater ignorance could there be than mistaking oneself to be this body?"

And so that it wasn't just an opinion, or a statement, we offered no less than 19 levels of argumentation. Rigorous, layer—if I may say so myself—argumentation, proving right now, here and now, in the light of your own reason, that you are not a body, right? Many of those arguments we drew from Shankara's Upadesasahasri, a text that we're studying together on Fridays, by the way. You should come to that. Just open to the public. And it's Fridays at 6 p.m. It's kind of cool, it's like a verse-by-verse, Sanskrit-word-by-word kind of commentary on the... Well, it's a study group, the study group, but the approach… So, that happens on Fridays.

So we're studying that text, and so many of the arguments that you heard in that "19 Reasons You're Not the Body" lecture came from Upadesasahasri. Some of them came from the Mandukya Upanishad, some came from various other non-dual sources, you know, and we brought them all together in no less than 19 arguments, spelling out your predicament as Purusha, as a spirit, as Atman, wholly apart from the body that you might have previously taken yourself to be. Okay.

However… At the end of that lecture, you might have had one of three experiences. The first experience might have been, "Okay, this all went over my head. I don't see the the the force of this reasoning at all; this is just nonsense, some crazy guys talking at me at the internet." That's a valid response.

The second experience might be, "This is thrilling! This this is liberating! You're right! I can see, clearly, in the light of my own reason, that I am not the body! I couldn't be! I couldn't be this body any more than I could be a car driving by me on the street, for 19 reasons! I know I'm not the body, and that's thrilling because that means I don't grow old, I don't get sick, I don't die, I am not reborn, I have never associated anyway with these changes and so I'm quite free, free of them, you know?" So it can be thrilling! It can be thrilling to understand that we're not a body, especially when it's shown clearly in this in this way, not in mystical language, or kind of like religious jargon, but just in straight-up, no-nonsense, dry, hard reason. You know, oh, yeah, okay, that… that's a realization we can all have, here and now.

So we had that lecture, right? However, the third experience we could have... It's not the experience of, "Wow, this is thrilling," but it's the experience of, "This is kind of eerie. This is uncomfortable, and this feels like dissociation." So that's why we're having this conversation.

So, after we had that lecture, "19 Reasons You Are Not the Body," I was going to follow it up with this lecture, "Enlightenment Versus Dissociation." The reason we didn't get to have this lecture until now is because then, shortly after, Durga Puja came about, so we just did a series of talks on Mahakali, right? We just talked about Mahakali for like the last six or seven, or maybe eight weeks, I don't know. Sometimes, we… spent some time on Mahakali, just talking about various question parts of the iconography, and we'll probably return to that. And after all, what do we talk about here if not Mahakali in so many different ways? All we ever have to talk about is Mahakali.

So we're still talking about Mahakali today! Just today, the way we're going to talk about her is in drawing your attention to the distinction between enlightenment—recognizing that you are spirit, not a body—and how that's different from being an ego, violently pushing the body away.

So, the way I hope to have this discussion is by drawing upon Vidyaranya Swami's text Jivanmuktiviveka. There we get three terms, and I'll explain them in the course of the talk. One is karmajam, which explains the link between you and the body. In what way are you, actually linked to the body? You, as an ego, you as a person… In what way do you belong to the body, and in what way does the body belong to you? Swami, in this text, says karma: "Through the link of karma." As long as there's karma, you and the body are going to be linked.

Then, what's the link between you and the rest of the mind? By you here, I really mean the ego, the sense of being a person, the appropriative faculty whereby you gain self-referentiality in life.

So, you, the ego… In what sense are you related to the rest of your mind? Meaning your memory, how are you linked to your memory? How are you linked to your intellect, the buddhi? How are you linked to, the other parts of the mind, like the processing part, the manas? How are you linked to any of these? That's also explained by Vidyaranya Swami using the word sahaja. Naturally, there's a natural link between you and the other parts of your mind.

And finally, there's a third word that he uses, and this word describes the link between who you think you are and who you really are.

So thus far, we've just been talking about the link between who you think you are and the body, who you think you are and the rest of the mind. And actually, there's a third link: between who you think you are and who you really are, and that link he calls… by the way, bhrānti in Sanskrit means "error." In the Chandi, there's this beautiful verse:

"Oh Mother, You who abide in all beings in the form of error…"

That word in Sanskrit, bhrānti, means "error." Means a link founded upon error. So, the link between you, the ego, and the body is karma. The link between you, the ego, and the mind is natural, sahaja. And the link between you and who you really are… that's an error. There's no actual link there. There's no link between you, the witness, the Self, and the you that you take yourself to be, the reflection of that Self in the ego. That is… strikes… It strikes… The link between you, the witness, and you, the ego… It does not strike at the link between you, the ego, and the body. It does not strike at the link between you and the ego and the rest of the mind.

So, my central claim in this lecture is that… this is Vidyaranya Swami's claim… is that… well, no… It's… This is my language, but the central claim is this: it would feel like dissociation if you try to break the link between the ego and the body. It would feel, also, again, like dissociation if you try to break the link between the ego and the mind. But it's enlightenment if you leave those two links intact, and you simply dissolve that link that wasn't there to begin with between you and you.

See, that's the difference. Enlightenment is not, "I am not the body, I am not the mind." Enlightenment is actually, "I am not the I to whom the body and mind are attached to naturally." That's the very subtle, and very crucial, distinction.

Now, of course, today's lecture is going to be some pretty high vid out there. We're going to talk about… like… it's an introductory text to Vedanta, but the philosophy is subtle. It's very deep, very, very profound philosophy. So I'd like to have a slightly longer Q&A. So my hope is that we can end the lecture a little sooner and have a longer Q&A. Why? It's because you only need to hear this stuff once. This is the most thrilling thing about Advaita: you only have to hear it once. Once you hear exactly in what way you are not the body and mind, or more importantly, in exactly what way you are not the ego… It's done. I kid you not, it's done. Like, once you see it, right now and right here, in the light of your own reason, you cannot unsee it. It's like seeing that trick image, and from that point on, the way you relate to the body and the world will be forever altered. You will not be able to seriously take yourself to be this body and mind anymore, any more than you could seriously take yourself to be this, kind of destroyed flower that I'm holding up here, you know? So, as I know that I have not… this flower, with that much clarity I know that I'm not this body and mind. That should be the feeling that you have at the end of this lecture, and if for some reason, that feeling is not yet self-evident, you must ask about it! The only way this can work is if you push back on the argumentation presented to you. This is an intellectual-based system. You're using the thoughts in your mind, I should say this: you're using the intellect to study the data of your mind, the thoughts and the experiences that you're having, and via the intellect, you're going to escape the internet, you know? So that's that's why we're gonna have to use the intellect here, and ask questions, and understand that what we're looking for is not in the mind; it's the one that's looking. Okay?

Anyway, that sounds overly mystical. Let's just get into some more grounded, practical, direct stuff. And the rule here is, "No mystical language allowed." We can't resort to like the the religious allegories or mythologies or any of that language. No, we're just going to stick to dry, hard reason. Sorry. Vivekananda said, "I offer you dry, hard reason, soaked in the syrup of Love, made spicy by work, and cooked in the kitchen of yoga." Of course! Jnana Yoga: dry, hard reason. The syrup of Love: Bhakti Yoga. made spicy by karma, because Karma Yoga is always spicy. And of course, you've got to have the kitchen of yoga to cook it in: Raja Yoga. And yes, Claire, we could put some raisins in there too. What are the raisins? Okay.

Okay, so yeah, no no, yeah. You're going to… spicy, dry, hard grease.

Okay, so let's start! I think this is a good place… Oh, disclaimer before we start: There is a very precise and clinical way to talk about dissociation, is there not? There's a kind of a DSM-5-like, kind of psychological way to discuss dissociation. So I have to give you this disclaimer, okay? I am not at all going to talk about it in that way. I'm coming at it from the point of view of Advaita. So in one sense, I'm not interested in picking up the DSM-5, or having like a technical, psychological conversation about it in that sense—nor am I qualified to have that discussion, having only taken like two or three classes in college regarding, like, that… I took through… I was a psychology major for like, this much. Okay, like, I dropped it almost immediately when I realized it was basically statistics. I was like, "Peace out!"

So, I'm not at all even remotely qualified to talk about psychology in that Western, academic sense… to say nothing of, of of of, psychiatry. Okay, so this… this talk is not at all really, a replacement for maybe seeking help in that sense.

So, this is a medical advice, and it shouldn't be taken as medical advice. So in this sense, Vedanta does not… in this sense, it does not engage with the models and paradigms of like, modern psychotherapy, psychiatry, psychology… this, in that sense. But in quite another sense, I'm bold enough to say that this will help there too! Because Vedanta is not a philosophy. As Divyananda Pranamataji said so beautifully, this weekend, it's not some hoary philosophy coming down to us from the past. Rather, it's—as she said—the science of consciousness. And the way she meant that was: it's a it's a tangible, observable, immediate, universal experience of your own subjectivity. It can be verified by anybody, anywhere, and it's always true, here and now. It's not true later, it's not true in the past, it's not true because some scripture or some guy on the internet said so. It's true because it's obvious. It just needs to be pointed out. So, in that sense, yes, this does deal with that too, because this philosophy is… is not a philosophy! It's a much deeper system of thought; it's an existential inquiry that does apply to every one of our experiences in life, even those!

You see, so my my disclaimer here is that I'm not at all qualified to offer psychiatric or, like, psychological advice, and I don't intend to today, and I don't think any of this should be seen as a replacement for any of that. As always, be practical, and as always, work at your level, you know? But also, don't think that this won't apply to that because it does! It, in a very deep way, this does address every single experience that we have as human beings, and it offers us a way to experience all of those things with more poise, grace, inclusivity, and beauty, you know? So hopefully, at the end of the class, we can discuss how to make this practical, in the sense of, "How can I apply this to each and every one of my experiences, even the ones that feel like dissociation?" You know? Yeah, exactly. So, that's the thing: we have to say that there's a specific way of talking about that in therapy, circles, and I don't mean to talk about it that way. And in what way I choose to talk about it, I think will become clearer… clearer as we go along. It's a popular kind of conception of feeling estranged from the body and mind, or or not feeling like you have attachment to the body, feeling kind of not grounded, you know, untethered, right? So, but in any case, this cannot be denied: it's a difficult thing to feel. It's uncomfortable. I've heard the languaging around it is: numb, cold, scary, flustered, fractured, terrified, you know? I've talked… I've talked and talked to a lot of sleep paralysis people; we worked closely with some people here who have had sleep paralysis, and so, in the course of those discussions, one thing cannot be denied.

Although the experiences of dissociation vary widely from person to person, one thing cannot be denied: dissociation, properly understood, is not nice. Nobody wants to have that experience. It's not fun. It's kind of, disruptive and and painful and contracted.

In so far as dissociation is a painful, contracted experience, Vedanta has everything to do with it, because Vedanta has everything to do with any experience that causes pain. It offers the way to reconceptualize that and become free of it. So if anything, we can speak of this as a kind of cognitive behavioral model, a different way to see yourself in the world, but not an artificially imposed way that forces the world to be something it's not, rather, it's a descriptive metaphysics that shows you the way the world actually is, here and now. And the truth, as the Christ said so beautifully, will set you free, right?

Okay. Let's start. So, let's start from the beginning. I'm just going to outline, very quickly, super quickly, some Sankhya and some basic Vedanta, and explain what, liberation really is, what enlightenment is according to this tradition.

By the way, towards the end of this class, please do remind me to reference Jivanmuktiviveka by Vidyaranya Swami. I think it's quite important to make this more grounded and to to reference that. So, Jivanmuktiviveka… That gives us kind of the like, check for what enlightenment is, and and whether or not we can, you know… understand what we have as enlightenment or not, so that we can have a three-pronged criteria for what it is to be liberated while embodied.

Anyway, by enlightenment… when I say enlightenment, I'm only talking about knowledge of reality, you know? So for those of you who are familiar with the language, jñāna basically means "knowing, knowing the way things are," you know? Just understanding the world for what it is. That's called jñāna. Again, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll be able to live according to that vision, or act out that view, or enjoy that view, you know? There's there's more beyond just that work, so… right now, when I talk about enlightenment, I'm just just going to talk about jñāna, okay, just to kind of… That's my next disclaimer for the Vedanta, okay?

So, let's let's see: what is… what is reality? Let's figure it out now, here and now, together. Let's investigate just our experience, and let's all, together now, come to the conclusion—and remember, you must fight me on this if it's not immediately clear by the end of all of this!—let's all, together now, come to the conclusion that: I… I'm not a body. Never was I a body, never will I be a body. Nor am I a might… right? Never was I mind, never will I be a mind. Let's just come together to that conclusion now, and that is the first part of… Let's call this… According to Sankhya… Just maybe for the chat, I'll put it here…

According to Sankhya… As you know, Sankhya is a particularly ancient school of Indian philosophy, it's a very, very foundational school of Indian philosophy though because so much of what we discuss in Vedanta, and certainly in Tantra, and Shakta, and… is premised upon Sankhya. So, a proper grasp of Sankhya will be of will be indispensable to you in your study of South Asian spirituality, but deeper than that, in your trying to be free, you know?

So, don't study this in an academic sense of, like, just trying to understand philosophically what these things are saying; study it in a deeper way, in a kind of existential inquiry way, like, "This really has the freedom to free me, here and now." So don't study it as a mind; study it as a heart desiring liberation, because it will give you that if you but follow these lines of argumentation honestly.

So, let's start. Jñāna according to Sankhya…

The rule here is: we must approach everything phenomenologically. Meaning we must approach this as it's being experienced by us in the first person now, without any kind of, grasping after concepts. So we have to put down all of our preconceived notions about ourselves and about the world. We must, in… just for a few moments, suspend a disbelief, and suspend belief in, belief structures that we might be coming into this with. So some of us might have a deeply, like, Abrahamic belief structure, some of us might be like, dualistic in another sense, like Vaishnava kind of dualism or something, some of us might be like, deep in the neuroscience, kind of Western—I don't even say "Western," but—material reductionist kind of worldview, others amongst us might think we already know what Advaita is, we might think, "Oh, I've heard this before! I've heard this before! I already know this argument, I've heard this over and over and over again," you know? So, don't… I… Have to leave all of that behind. Otherwise this won't work. You have to come into it with as much openness, spaciousness, and receptivity as possible.

So, insofar as that's true, let's come into a slight meditation, if you like. It's totally optional, but let's come into a slight kind of,… Yeah, exactly, kind of centering sort of moment.

So, I'm going to ask that you, if you can, if it's available to you, sit up now such that there is a clean line of energy between the crown of the head and the perineum, which is the reason… region just between the anus and genitals. Now, of course that might sound a little esoteric: "Clean line of energy," etc., etc. Whatever. Instead, let's just say: Let's sit up tall, with the spine erect and with the chest broad.

So, just notice, by sitting up like this, there already comes into your experience perhaps an alertness, a kind of presence. Or… really, any spiritual philosophy ought to be studied in posture. If we're slouching, or draped about this way and that, there might not be the necessary alertness to interact with this as anything more than a curio, or an intellectual philosophy. For it to have its liberating potential in our life, we must approach it with this air of poise, majesty, structure, alertness! So, sit tall in the spine, climbing the crown of the head up to the ceiling, sit broadly with the chest spacious and open, and then, begin to relax into that shape. Softening the corners of the mouth, relaxing the jaw, closing the eyes if you feel comfortable, maybe the hands are resting in the lap or on the knees. Just let the fingers curl and let the palms soften.

So, it's not just that we have to be alert; we also have to be receptive, spacious, and open, and for that we have to be very relaxed.

So to notice now the way breath is moving in and out of the nose, just note how cool and dry the inhale is, note how warm and wet the exhale is, and just note that as you bring your attention to the breath, it naturally becomes slower, more deliberate, deeper, country…

Now, as you start to attend to the breath, become aware, I suppose, of your immediate sense of being here. So, in other words, become interested in your own subjective experience. You're here now, and you're certainly having experiences. Series of experiences are coming and going, and you're here experiencing them.

That sounds rather obvious, and it's often taken for granted, but for a moment, just become curious about your own innate aliveness, your own being, or your own being here, in this…

And then, gently start to open the eyes, and we'll proceed now slowly and meditatively. So while continuing to sit tall, taking these deep and measured breaths, notice the following.

If you are aware of something, it is, by definition, an object to you. An object, by definition, is anything you can become aware of. So, anything you've been aware of in the past, anything you will be aware of in the future, and all of those various things that you are aware of now—they are all, categorically, objects of awareness.

For instance, in the sentence "I see a pot," the word "a pot" is an object, okay?

So there are two types of objects you can experience. The first is physical. For instance, if I hold up this red flower here—it's a very famous example in Sankhya: red flower and a white crystal. But if I hold up this red flower—there are many ways that you can become aware of it. In one sense, as a sight object. So, there's a patch of color that you can see; there's, like, a flash of red in front of you, on the screen. So you're aware of it as a color. It's falling apart here, but you're aware of it as a color, a patch of red. Then, if you were touching it, you're aware of it as a texture. You might even be able to smell it, you might hear it rustling, you might even taste it. So, all of these are various ways to interact with this object, physically. I can smell it, I can taste it, I can see it, I can touch it, I can hear it. Okay.

So, almost everything that you perceive around you… is a hearable… is… a feelable… is a seeable… is a tastable… is a smellable. So, the entire range of your physical object experience is confined to these five senses. These are all physical objects, and this is how you become aware of things in the world around you.

So, let's just stay with this category first, before we move on to the second.

Now, in this category of physical objects, is it not immediately obvious to you that you are none of them? In other words, you are not the rose that you see.

Can any of you, right now… I mean, and remember: we have to keep aside all our previous conceptions. Okay? So don't bring any philosophy into this, just for now, in this moment. Do any of you feel like you are actually this rose? Can anyone here, with confidence, like, claim that they are the rose? That's the question, yeah. Can anybody deny that you're seeing a rose? Again, remember: no philosophy, no, like, weird kind of, "Ah, but I'm gonna be skeptical about my experience…" No, no, just naively, almost. It's obvious that I'm holding up some object; I'm calling it a rose; it… it's that… Oh, dear! Okay, we'll have to investigate that. But if I'm holding this up, nobody will deny that you are seeing a rose, right?

So my question then, Holly, is: Are you seeing a rose? Are you, right now, experiencing a patch of color red that's called a rose? Or, like, are you, right now, seeing this object? And you can type it in the chat: yes or no. Are you seeing an object?

Okay, good. So just stay with that. You are, right now, seeing an object. And instead of "seeing," I'm just going to say "experiencing," because obviously this isn't confined to just seeing with the eyes. You could be touching it—maybe a blind person could be touching it. You could be hearing it, you could be tasting it, you could be smelling it. So I'm going to use the word "experience" to mean any of these various faculties.

It's undeniable now that you are experiencing this rose. Okay. Stay with this! This is this is very, very profound. It will sound so pedantic, so—dare I say?—semantic, that its depth might be missed.

You are seeing something; you cannot be it. You must always be separate from that which you are aware of, otherwise you cannot become aware of it. And this is very easy to demonstrate.

Can a knife cut itself? In fact, a really sharp knife might be able to cut everything… a diamond knife might be able to cut everything but itself. Try to cut your IKEA knife using that same IKEA knife. It cannot be done!

Haven't you noticed…? You can try it, it's a good experiment. I mean, be careful. I ended up… just the other day, the kids at my middle school all came away with some cut toes and cut… they were climbing the trees or whatever, so there was blood in the closet like, "Oh, man! I'm so getting fired!" So, maybe don't go and play with your IKEA knives, but notice: you… cut… cut the knife with itself. It's impossible. This is violating the principle of self-referentiality: you… cut… cut the knife with the knife. Okay. So keep that principle in mind.

Now, think about your eyes. Your eyes, when they see the world around them, they can see so many things. Someone, tell me: what is the one thing the eyes cannot see in the physical world? I mean, don't worry about thoughts, or whatever; I mean, just in the world of like, physical objects, what is the one physical object that the eye cannot see within the range of vision, of course?

Exactly. The eye literally cannot see itself. I mean, it can see a reflection, it can look at a picture of itself, but it cannot literally see itself in real time.

Because, just like a knife cannot cut itself, so too can the eye not look at itself. So the only way the eye can look at things at all is for those things to be something other than it.

So, when I say, "Are you Rose?" Rose will say, "Yes." But hopefully we'll see that's not true also.

So anyway, I… I'm now seeing this, and, Holly, you admitted that you're seeing this. You said, "I am now seeing a rose," but wait a minute… Yes, exactly, and and and it's the… Yeah, you're back. Hello, Didi, welcome! Didi is here. So, yes.… This is associated with fire. Chakshu is associated to fire, and in Tantra, it gets even more complex because I'm projecting out into this world the experience of a rose, right?

Remember, we're not engaging with philosophical systems or schools of thought in their entirety. Instead, we're focusing on direct observation and a philosophy-free approach.

I. You Are Not What You Observe

Think of a flower, a simple rose. The act of noticing the rose implies a fundamental separation between you, the observer, and the rose, the observed. Just as the eyes cannot see themselves or a knife cannot cut itself, an object cannot possess self-awareness.

The very fact that the rose is an object of my perception means it must be distinct from me, the subject.

Consider the sentence, "I see a pot." This simple statement reveals a fundamental duality:

1. The Pot: The object of perception.
2. I: The subject, to whom the pot appears.

This "seeing" acts as a relational property bridging the two. Similarly, when you see a car drive by, you say, "I see a car," not "I am a car." This inherent understanding, this intuitive feeling that you are not what you observe, forms the bedrock of our exploration tonight.

You are not what you are seeing. You are the one seeing. This separation is crucial. To perceive something at all necessitates a distance between you, the perceiver, and that which is perceived.

II. Disentangling the Self from the Body and Mind

Let's apply this understanding to the body. Just as you experience the rose externally, are you not also aware of your body? We have language to describe the body, to discuss it as an object of experience. However, have you ever sensed your body from the outside? Our experience of the body is always from within, through the lens of the mind:

• Taste: "I am a body because I taste this tea."
• Touch: "I feel pain in my knee, therefore, I am a body."

Notice how these statements reveal that our perception of the body, like the rose, is based on experience. If you are feeling it, experiencing it, it cannot be you.

This might initially feel like dissociation, this concept of the body not being you. However, I'm not advocating for dissociation. I'm simply highlighting a truth: you are not your body. You are the subject, the experiencer, and the body, like the rose, is an object within your awareness.

Dissociation implies a separation from something you were once part of. You were never your body, to begin with. Just as you are not the rose, you are not the body. Both are objects in the field of your awareness.

This realization is liberating. When you deeply understand you are not the body, you are no longer imprisoned by its limitations. You don't age, you don't get sick, and you certainly don't die. These events happen to the body, not to you, the subject.

The Mind: A Collection of Objects

Now, let's extend this understanding to the mind. Just like the body, the mind, with its thoughts, emotions, and memories, is also an object of your awareness:

• You are aware of your thoughts.
• You experience emotions.
• You recall memories.

All these mental phenomena are objects appearing within the field of your awareness. Therefore, they cannot be you, the subject.

Think of the word "hippopotamus." Now, envision a rose. You just observed a mental image, a subtle rose appearing in your mind. You are aware of this mental rose; therefore, it is not you.

The mind, like the body, is a collection of objects appearing within the space of awareness. This awareness itself, this capacity to experience, is what we're trying to understand.

III. Awareness Cannot Be Aware of Itself

Can awareness be aware of itself? No. To be aware of something, that something must become an object. Awareness, by its very nature, is the subject, the backdrop against which all objects appear.

Just as the eyes cannot see themselves, awareness cannot be aware of itself. It is the silent witness, the ever-present space in which all experiences arise and fall away.

The moment you grasp for awareness, the moment you try to make it an object of thought, it slips away. What you grasp is a concept, an idea, not the raw, unmediated experience of awareness itself.

IV. The Ego and its Links

Let's visualize this using a diagram:

[Diagram displaying Ego, Body, Mind, and the "X" representing the True Self. The ego has links to the Body (labeled Karmajam), to the Mind (labeled Sahajam), and a dotted line to the True Self, indicating this link is not real and can be broken.]

1. The Body: We've established you are not the body. This link between ego and the body is called karmajam, the link of karma. Our past actions, thoughts, and intentions create the blueprint for our present body and its experiences.

2. The Mind: The link between the ego and the mind is sahajam, meaning natural. The ego (Ahamkara in Sanskrit), is a part of the mind, one of its four aspects. The ego identifies with thoughts, emotions, and memories, creating the illusion of a separate self.

3. The "X": This "X" represents the true self, the Atman or Brahman, which cannot be named, defined, or grasped. It is the silent, unchanging awareness that witnesses the play of the mind and body.

The link between the ego and the "X," the true self, is illusory. This is where Vedanta, a non-dualistic school of Indian philosophy, steps in.

V. Vedanta: Dissolving the Illusion

Vedanta doesn't seek to break the link between the ego, body, and mind. These are natural connections. Instead, Vedanta focuses on shattering the illusion that you are the ego by severing the link between the ego and the true self.

Shankara, a prominent Vedanta philosopher, famously declared:

"I am not the mind, I am not the intellect, I am not the ego... I am not even myself (as I typically understand it). I am that pure awareness."

This realization, "I am not the ego," is the key to liberation.

VI. Freedom Through Practice

Intellectually grasping these concepts is just the first step. To truly embody this understanding requires dedicated practice.

• Viveka (Discernment): Continuously observe your experience. When thoughts, emotions, or sensations arise, recognize them as objects appearing in the field of awareness. You are not these passing phenomena. This practice creates space and allows you to meet your experiences with greater peace and acceptance.
• Vasanā Nivritti (Dissolution of Proclivities): As you practice discernment, your reactivity to cravings and fears naturally diminishes. You realize you are not the body that craves or the mind that fears.
• Manonāśa (Quieting the Mind): Through meditation, you become increasingly able to rest in the stillness between thoughts, experiencing deeper levels of peace and contentment.
• Bhakti Yoga (Devotion): Surrendering to a higher power, whether you call it God, the Divine, or simply the ground of being, can be a potent tool for dissolving the ego. When you surrender, you acknowledge that you are not the doer. This practice cultivates humility, gratitude, and a deep sense of peace.

These practices, combined with a sincere desire to know the truth of your being, will lead you to a life of freedom, joy, and unwavering peace.

VII. Conclusion

The journey of self-discovery is a process of dismantling the illusion of separation, of recognizing that you are not the mind-body complex but the awareness in which all experiences arise and fall away.

The path is clear, the practices are available. Now, the invitation is to turn these teachings into lived experience, to embody the truth that you are, and always have been, free.

May this understanding bring you closer to the peace and liberation that is your birthright.

Concepts in Kashmir Shaivism and Related Philosophical Systems

Nish explores the intersections between Kashmir Shaivism, Buddhism, and Advaita Vedanta, relating them to Analytical Idealism. It also discusses the significance of dreams in spiritual practice and the levels of discussion within Tantra.

Now, this is very important. When we say Tantra, we have to also accept that there are different levels. Not only are there different schools within Tantra with different approaches, but there are also different levels of discussion within a particular school. So today, in our discussion, I was speaking from a very absolute point of view, talking about awareness. On that level, it's not the content but the context that matters, right?

So, whatever the content is, doesn't matter. You see, because content is what you saw in your dream. Whether there was a holy person there or a deity, what happened in real life, maybe you had a mystical experience or something like that. In waking life, you saw light, you saw colors, or there was some synchronicity. All of these are valuable in spiritual life. Now, from the point of view of the absolute non-dual truth, it doesn't matter. Content is not at all important; context is important.

But let me step down a bit. When you look at, say, a text like Tantrasara, on one hand, Abhinavagupta says you don't need to do any spiritual practices. He says, “Who by ajalam,” meaning can any spiritual practice reveal Shiva? In other words, can an earthenware jar reveal the sun? There is no way that a jar can reveal the sun. It's the sun that reveals the jar. Similarly, it's consciousness that reveals the mind and body. It's not the mind and body that reveal consciousness. So nothing that happens on the level of the body and mind really matters for consciousness technically.

But that's not really our experience, is it? In our experience, we don't feel ourselves to be consciousness. We feel ourselves to be the mind and body. As long as I feel like a mind and body, then the experiences of the mind and body are all important. So after saying this in chapter two of Tantrasara, and then paradoxically from chapters 3 to 22, he gives practices. And even chapter 22 is not the end; there's actually more that was lost. The rest of the text includes more practices.

So how can you go from saying dreams don't matter to suddenly saying dreams do matter? Notice, this is what I want to point out. There is no definitive answer here; it only depends on what level of the conversation you want to have. If you want to talk about dreams from the absolute point of view, from the point of view of awareness, then they absolutely do not matter. Why don't they absolutely matter? Because they're just context, right? Whatever happens in the dream is just an experience, but we don't care about the experience here. In this non-dual discussion that we just had, we care about the experiencing. And I could ask you this: What experience of seeing would you need to have to know that you are seeing? Let's try that. What particular experience of seeing would you need to have to know that you have eyes or that you can see?

To be blind for a second, would you need that to know that you are seeing? So let's try that. What particular experience of seeing would you need to have to know that you have eyes or that you can see? To be blind for a second? Like a person, could it be but not necessarily, right? It's not like a person has to not see to know that they're seeing. That's true. A person could presumably go through their whole life without ever not seeing, but they would still know that they're seeing.

So what particular experience, this is very subtle, but what particular experience would I need to have in order for me to know that I have eyes? Could it be, but isn't it possible that without pain I can also know that I have eyes here? Okay. Mirror. But are you saying that without a mirror… that's my practice. That's not my truth. My truth is that I'm doing Puja right now. I'm speaking to you.

Hi, we're just one located, a Josh. See him here? I just missed him, I guess. So, Kali, this is very important. Awareness. Any experience of awareness is an experience of Kali because any experience of awareness is awareness. Therefore, all is there. So, this is so key, right? Like looking at them, I'm looking at you, I'm looking at anybody, looking at anything because of awareness.

So don't privilege any one experience, go from the experience, the content to the context, whatever the content might be, that's the Ramana kind of approach as it was. But now let me take one step down. The dreams that we have, and this is the second response which is a relative response, appealing to the body and mind. Now, the second response is this: The kind of dreams that we have is indicative of the kind of mind that we have.

So, if in the dream, we see very specific forms like a god or goddess, a particular form of a deity, this is very inspiring. Or if we see a saint, sage, monk, nun, or if you see your teacher, your Guru, you're not actually seeing your Guru. I actually know someone who was deeply disappointed when we spoke. They thought that we had been speaking every night for many, many nights. They were under the impression that I was aware of all the things that I was saying to them in their dream. You know, I'm like, sorry Baba, I don't have that siddhi. And even if I did, I think I have better things to do than come to your dream every night and tell you this.

Anyway, what happened was they were disappointed. They thought that what they were seeing was association. The point I'm making here is this: Divinity and Holiness come to us in our dreams, in the imagery that we associate with it. So, it could be God in the form of Kali or in the form of Krishna. Once, I spoke to someone, and he asked, “Do you dream?” and I was like, “Yeah.” He asked, “Do you dream of me?” and I said, “Yes, I see you many times in my dreams.” He got excited, leaned closer, and said, “Remember, it was God alone who you saw in your dream.” In one sense, what Ramana is saying is that I am God.

I think that's relevant. So, it's real. But here's the thing: it's not more real nor is it less real than waking life. It's equally real. Now, I'm going to give you a helpful metric for experience. These are experiences both for dreams and for waking life. Here are four or five ways to understand whether or not something spiritual happened.

The first way is this: it changed you; it transforms you. For instance, somebody might do drugs and have an experience but then go back to being the same person they always were. Alternatively, someone might do drugs and have an experience, and they are permanently transformed after that. So, it's not that drugs are spiritual or not spiritual. During a psychedelic experience, you might have an experience that's transformative or one that's only seemingly transformative but not actually transformative. If in psychedelics you have a transformative experience, we recognize that it's valid and spiritual. You see? So, the target tradition won't say psychedelics are bad or drugs are bad. No, no. In psychedelics, people's entire religion might be premised around the use of psychedelics. Yoga, for example, will use psychedelics; Patanjali talks about the use of psychedelics at the end of his Yoga Sutras.

Anyway, it's not that psychedelics are inherently good or bad. It's just that in the experience of psychedelics, it's possible to have a spiritual experience. But what makes the experience spiritual? These four things:

1. It will always be fresh in your mind. In other words, it doesn't go away. Once you have that experience, you will always remember it vividly. These experiences have a quality of eternity to them where they're always ready and fresh in your mind. You can always go back to them and see them just as they were the first time; you never forget them. So, a spiritual experience is something you never forget.
2. It always brings joy, upliftment, and nourishment. If an experience makes you feel scared, anxious, or disempowered, it was not a spiritual experience. It was a mental projection. But if it makes you feel ennobled, strong, and inspired—not necessarily happy and cheerful, but inspired and strengthened—then it was a spiritual experience.
3. It meaningfully transformed you. If you feel meaningfully changed by the experience, then it was a spiritual experience.
4. It can be corroborated with others. If a similar experience happened to someone else or if it's recorded in the Shastras, then it's a verified spiritual experience. Reason, not just analytical reason, but also reason in the context of the tradition and the guidance of a Guru, is important. You must run it by your Guru and see what they think.

So, when I have a spiritual dream, I consult the Shastras to see what they say, or I talk to my Guru. Mostly, I just go to my Guru and tell them about it. In almost every case that I've had a spiritual experience, these are the metrics that I used to call it spiritual: Is it fresh in my mind? Does it bring joy and upliftment? Has it meaningfully transformed me? Can it be corroborated with others or in the Shastras?

Yogananda said, “I feel like that's very true.” At least, well, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, and it's a great question. Notice in the Yoga Sutras, in the first chapter when it talks about all the different ways to meditate, it says you can meditate on your dreams. So, if you had a spiritual dream, you can meditate on that in your meditation. If you close your eyes and think about what happened in the dream, that's a very good way to meditate because it will give you spiritual edification.

There was once a nice story worth visiting. There was a groundskeeper at the temple who used to clean the roads, the parts between various places. At that time, Ramakrishna was living at the temple. This temple groundskeeper would see Ramakrishna every now and then walking between his room to the Panchavati, where he went to meditate, to the Bel tree, and other places like that.

Late at night, he would see Ramakrishna moving around and meditating here and there. One night, he suddenly woke up from his sleep with an irresistible desire to go to the Bel tree grove. So he got up, and in the middle of the night, he went and peeked inside. You know what he saw? He saw Ramakrishna in deep meditation, surrounded by blue light. He got scared and ran away.

The next day, he met Ramakrishna on the path, and Ramakrishna, of course, knew what had happened. He read his mind. “So you saw me yesterday, didn't you? At the Bel tree?” The man replied, “Yes.” Ramakrishna said, “Okay. Meditate on that and keep this road clean,” and he went away. Those were the only two instructions this man received: meditate on what he saw and keep the road clean.

Years later, Swami Vishuddhananda was walking down the street. He saw an old man pulling out grass from the path in the full blaze of the sun. Swami Vishuddhananda, one of the great presidents of our order, thought, “Oh my God, this poor man is pulling out grass in such hot weather.” He went to the man and said, “Baba, why are you here in the hot sun, pulling grass?” Then he heard the story. Out grass. It's so hot, so visual. One of the great presidents of our order went to this man and said, “Baba, why are you here in the hot sun pulling grass?” And then he heard the story. Can you imagine, for like 60 years, this man did nothing but think about that and keep the road clean? That was his wholesaler. And the thing is, be sure that in another city, his eyes were glowing. He was a very spiritually elevated being, you know.

So that story is important because it shows you how you can meditate. Not just what happens to you in your dreams, but what you see in real life. Sometimes I think about the great spiritual people I've met, and I close my eyes, and I imagine them. I see how they eat and how they walk and how they talk, and then that alone draws me into a deep state, you know. It's not enough to just meditate on one object. Usually, just keeping the mind fixed on “Oh my Lotus” doesn't work.

If you want to really meditate, then you should take the help of what is called Leela Dhyana, meditating on scenes and images and spiritually uplifting episodes. And that can come in a dream. So, we say, okay, from the absolute point of view, I want to give you two answers here. From the absolute point of view, any experience of seeing will confirm that you have eyes. Jnana is knowing about your eyes. Some thoughts are more reflective than others. So, coming down a little bit, some dreams, some thoughts, some states are mirrors, and you need the mirror as long as you don't know your face.

So, constantly look in the mirror. Practices often create the conditions for these dreams and experiences to occur. Spiritual practices are very important. So keep looking in the mirror, and in fact, you have a beautiful face. Every time you see a deity in your dream, you're seeing your own face. Every time you have a spiritual experience in meditation, you're seeing your own face. The dream, the experience, the meditation—they're just like mirrors. But there's no reason why you should throw the mirror away just because you know about your face.

I think it's better to know that you have a face and constantly look at it in the mirror. You know, before you're enlightened, you do sadhana. Why do you do sadhana after you're enlightened? Two answers: out of habit, maybe, because it doesn't matter one way or another, so you might as well continue living the life you lived before enlightenment. But I think the better answer is so you can continually revel in and enjoy your enlightenment.

So, before enlightenment, meditate. After enlightenment, meditate. But before enlightenment, meditation was to attain enlightenment. After enlightenment, meditation is to enjoy enlightenment. So you're meditating all day, all your life long anyway. In this life, the flavors—yes, very good. Yeah, or you can shut up. You can enjoy the show, you can wonder about it. You can feel the bliss of all.

In verse 10, Abhinavagupta describes Shiva as the ultimate principle. Shiva can be understood as Shambhavaya or Anubaya. One can experience liberation just by listening to and entering into the feeling state conjured up by these words. This is the profound claim being made here, so let's look closely at these words.

Shiva is described as being of the form of light. This is not merely a reference to Bhairava, not just the Destroyer of fear, but the form of light itself. The word “Rupa” means form, and here, the form of Shiva is not a blue deity seated on a meditation mat in the mountains; Shiva's form is light, consciousness. These words imply light. What is this light? It's unique; it's Paris, it's exceedingly full.

Don't think of this in a theoretical or conceptual way; experience this for yourself. This is the meditation: the light of awareness is aware of all. This means exceedingly full, super full, abundantly full. Full of what? Full of this awareness. Just notice that you are aware. What are you aware of? You are aware of your mind with all of its various thoughts. You are aware of your emotions, memories, impressions, and projections. You are also aware of your body with its various smells, tastes, sights, sounds, and textures. You are aware of all of that, and now you are aware of this world. Just notice so many things: the vast sky, the radiance, the sunlight all around, and all the objects in the room. Each object is so unique, so stunning, and so thrilling. All of that is here now, and you are aware of it.

Awareness is full of its contents—past, present, future. It contains time, it contains space, and within time and space appears all of this. So, in that sense, it is full. Remember, this is a realist school of philosophy, spiritually. We are not saying all of this is merely name and form or an illusion. It's not a void, nor is it an illusion. It is an appearance, but it's an appearance of you. You are full of that appearance, that manifestation. It is your very own self. That's the claim.

So, Shiva is light, and that light is full. It might make sense to think that God is pure light and that light is full of everything. But this is a non-dual tradition, a theistic non-dual tradition. The profound next step is to recognize that this God, this light which is ever full, is your very own self. Feel it. The “I am” thought is very different from the “I am” sense. I am appealing to the latter, not just the thought “I am”—that's merely an appearance in the mind. The word “Ahangara” refers to nothing more than the “I am” thought: “I am Patrick,” or “I am Julie,” or “I am Annie.” Even if you get rid of the names, just saying “I am” is still Ahangara. That's not what I mean. I mean the innate feeling prior to that, called “Aham Spurana” or “Ambhava” or “Vimasha.” Just that sense that “Ah, I am.”

This form of light, Bhairava, is truly interesting.

Very own self. And what do you notice? Now, you are aware. You are awareness itself. And what does this awareness do? This is really interesting—it rests (vishrant), it abides, it just is. It abides in pure being. So you, who are awareness, you are and you rest in that. To rest in that is supreme Bliss. Shiva is not just light; he is also Joy, Freedom, and Bliss itself, and it seems you are Shiva too. Simply rest in yourself, repose in your Essence. Nature is to experience fullness and Bliss, supreme Bliss. In fact, you realize that everything that's ever been blissful in life has only been a glimpse of that true nature.

When you eat chocolate cake, experience an orgasm, look at the Grand Canyon, or something else, depending on what your definition of Bliss in the body is, or when you get a trophy or praise or some kind of status—whatever Bliss might be in the mind—each of these experiences is just opening into the truth of your being. Once you access that, as we are doing now, then you no longer depend on conditional happiness, because all of those conditions only open you up to that unconditional Joy, which you are. That's why it's Maha Anandam.

But this is where it takes a step beyond Buddhism in the sense that it's full. But there's one more step that we're going to take, and it's this: this awareness, which is full and Blissful, which blissfully reposes in its innate fullness, is endowed with icha (creative urge) as it were, with playful nature, whatever you want to call it. It is also full of unending power. So, this awareness, which reposes in its innate Blissful freedom, is endowed with the powers of willing, knowing, and doing. This is what we call Shiva, and this is what you are. But now the meditation gets deeper. How do you access this Shiva? It tells you through emptying yourself of all thought constructs, because this Shiva, by definition, is free of all vikalpas (thought constructs or limited adjuncts).

If you can be free of all thoughts, emotions, and perceptions, then you will understand Shiva. But what's really profound about Shiva is going to come in the next verse, which we're going to explore in today's class. So, Shuddham: it doesn't arise nor does it fade away. It's without laya (dissolution) and without udaya (arising). Notice thoughts come and go, but they come and go in what? The world is changing, the body is changing, but for there to be change, there must be something unchanging. Just notice that.

If a river is flowing, is it conceivable that the river can flow without a riverbed? There needs to be some ground for there to be some change. So, the idea of change without ground, change without changelessness, movement without stillness, is kind of preposterous. You need some vantage point to actually make sense of that change in the first place. So, knowing this, Shiva is that ground. We can say Shiva is without change because he is the host of all change.

I shouldn't say “he” or “she” here; I should say “you.” You, Shiva, the ground which doesn't change. And this is the meditation: What stays the same in all of your life? What stays the same and you can stay with that? The body is changing, the mind is changing, but there's something that's not changing, and that's this sense—not thought, but sense—that “I am.” So, I am here, and that “I am” was there when the body was a child's body. When you had child thoughts, that “I am” is here. When the body is older and you still have child thoughts, that “I am” is always here. The “I am” never goes, though the body and the mind change. So, stay with that. Now, that therefore is pure.

Like we discussed yesterday, the sky is not stained by the blue color. Into the sky, I would come back blue. There's no actual blue there, yet you see blue.

Yesterday, we discussed an important concept related to the solar system and the sense of individuality. When practicing non-duality, it can feel as if everyone or the entire universe is inside your head, leading to a solipsistic sense due to the contraction on the level of self, known as “parusha agyana.”

In Sankhya philosophy, each purusha (individual self) is unique, like stars dotting a singular sky. Despite this individuality, all purushas experience one singular prakriti (nature). This separation is considered an impurity, or ignorance. This particular form of ignorance, parusha agyana, makes you perceive yourself as a limited individual, disconnected from the limitless Shiva.

At the core of this misidentification is a fundamental thought or vikalpa: “I am this.” This attachment to content or objects, rather than the subject or the ground from which subjects and objects arise, causes the parusha agyana. This ignorance is essentially the voluntary contraction of the ever-free Shiva into an individual self, caused by a specific and deeply-rooted vikalpa.

This vikalpa can be subliminal or even unconscious, but it's powerful enough to make you feel like an individual. Spiritual practices, including diksha (initiation), aim to uproot this vikalpa. When a purusha experiences prakriti, it is explained in detail in the texts, emphasizing the importance of understanding the causes of bondage and liberation.

The next three verses are crucial as they reveal the mechanics of why we are bound and how we can attain liberation. Understanding these verses alone can provide significant insight. According to Abhinavagupta, this knowledge, or gyana, on the intellectual level, if refined, practiced, and maintained, can lead to a deeper non-conceptual ground of being. Thus, intellectual understanding can ultimately free one from the parusha agyana.

This brings us to the Mala Theory, which we'll touch upon today. The supreme veil, called Anava Mala (with a retroflex ‘n'), is a subtle covering composed of Maya and its five kanchukas (limitations): limited agency (Kala), limited knowledge (Vidya), limited desire (Raga), limited time (Kala), and limited spatiality (Niyati). These limitations bind us, and understanding them is key to overcoming ignorance and achieving liberation.

Knowledge, limited agency, limited temporality—all of that. So, these are the six conditions of Maya. Maya, combined with the five other conditions, gives us the illusion of differentiation. The feeling that there are many different things here, not just one luminous awareness shining non-differently in the mirror. Similarly, my love is another kind of Mala.

Interestingly, what links us to this body and keeps us in the wheel of birth and death, the Duka Chakra, is karma. The adjectival form of karma would be karmic. So, here we get karma. Mala is the external physical body. These three things—the Supreme Veil of Maya, the Supreme Veil of Shiva's spontaneous freedom to self-contract (called anava mala), the differentiating veil of Maya (called maiya mala), and the karmic cycle (called karma mala), which is associated with the physical body—these are the three malas that cover the self.

Yoga Raja, who is the commentator here and a disciple of Abhinavagupta's disciple, says this causes the vikaswara, the all-expanded, to appear as samkuchita, contracted like space in a jar. Space is not actually in the jar, but because of the jar, you get the sense that there is space in the jar. There isn't actually space in the jar. Just think about this for a moment. There is no space in the jar. There is a jar in space.

The illusion is created by putting a jar in front of you. You think there's space in the jar. That's what the jar does; it encloses, it delimits. You know, and so you feel like an individual, you feel like a person, you feel like a boundary, because within the bounds of the body and the bounds of the six sheaths and the bounds of audevamala, space becomes, as it were, delimited. But in truth, there is no space in the jar. There is only a jar in space. Just stay with that.

If I had a cup and I put a cup on the table and moved that cup, would you be able to say that the space in the cup moved? You know, there's space in the cup, it seems, and I'm going to move the cup. Did I move the space? So, here's the cup—actually, it's full of matcha—but it's the cup that's moving. You see, but you think that the space in the cup is moving.

That's why, Joel, I think yesterday you said in walking contexts, it's important to stay with this. It feels like when we move around, it feels like we're individuals, and each of us is awareness. But no, we are moving in awareness. It's not that awareness is moving as us. It's not that space is moving in the jar. It's that the jar is moving in awareness. Isn't that profound?

This is very important. Why do I feel like this particular individual? Why do I feel delimited because of these malas? So, in the Kashmir Shaiva world, I've been studying with Abhinavagupta. Abhinavagupta doesn't actually think malas are real. So, let me explain this a bit. Now, in the Shaiva world, in the traditional Shaiva understanding of malas, there is this sense that malas are actually ontologically there. Let's say there's a cataract or something in the eye, and that's causing you to see in a funny way, but there's an actual cataract, right? So you have to actually go and get surgery, you have to actually go and get the cataract removed. That's exactly what tantric diksha is supposed to do for you. When you take diksha, when you do spiritual practices like that, what's supposed to happen is that a real ontological entity called mala is removed. And that gives you union with Lord Shiva. The word yoga just means union with Shiva or union with the absolute reality.

So, in classical or dualistic Shaivism, mala is considered to be an actual entity. Abhinavagupta goes to some lengths to prove that there isn't such an inherent quality. There's no actual thing called mala. There's nothing that makes food inherently impure because the same food could be pure for one person and impure for another because that quality changes with context, setting, and the individual. It cannot be absolutely true that there's such a thing called mala, which is absolutely real because of that. And he says, this is not my idea. He says, this is in the Malini Tantra. He says, in that Tantra, we learn actually there's no inherent thing called mala. Oh, sorry, not mala, mala. So, Abhinavagupta never considers mala to be a real entity. He says, mala is nothing more than not knowing.

Now, like I said earlier, at the beginning of this lecture, he moves mala away from ontology, away from metaphysics, and towards epistemology. It's not an actually existing entity. Now, it's just a matter of not knowing. If you don't know that you are Shiva, you have mala. If you think you are this body, you have karma. If you think you are this subtle body, this mind, then you have maya mala. And if you think on a causal level that you are bound as this individual, then on that level, you have anava mala. So, these three malas—anava, maya, and karma—are not at all real in that sense. It's just, yeah, I like that. Space of the mind and the space of the mind itself in awareness.

So, what is the cup? It's not even an extra sticky form of Shiva. It's just Shiva. In fact, there is no extra density to the cup, any more than there isn't a thought both shine and awareness. Isn't that a wonderful thought? There's not dense parts of existence that become cups. It's just the same consciousness shining. You can't say dense light; it's just an appearance of light. Behind that actually is a sense of individuation, being a limited individual, and the result of anava and maya. You could say karma, this sense of doership. And because of karma, there's going to be karma. Karma in the not adjectival sense, but karma in the sense of I do something, I have to reap its fruit. So I have to keep being born over and over and over in this endless cycle. And the problem is not the endless cycle.

The problem is thinking that I'm a person in that cycle. Consciousness in that sense, everything exists which shines in consciousness because consciousness gives it reality. It has no intrinsic independent reality apart from consciousness, though. So yes or no. No. Dreams don't exist because you're not any more special or any more real than anything else. Right. Dreams are not more real than waking for some people. I would ask them to take more interest in their dreams. Why? Because they take waking too seriously, they're so attached to waking that they should take their dreams more seriously. But once they start to realize that dreaming is just about as real as waking, then they stop taking both of them seriously or they might start to take both of them equally seriously. Those are both good outcomes because both of them are nothing but shinings in awareness, like the cup whether you're dreaming of a cup or looking at one. Actually, in a sense, it's just something appearing to you, you being consciousness.

Mala, like darkness, doesn't actually exist. Notice there is nothing in this universe called darkness opposed by light. This is why we're knowing. So, I'm awake on this: there's no such thing as evil. There's no such thing as bad. There's only one reality and these two things are not different in type, they're different in degree. They're just expanded and contracted forms of one another. So take, for instance, evil. What's evil like killing someone's entire family? Why would you do that though? Why would someone kill another person's family? Well, probably to protect their own family. This happens in gangs and tribal wars and things like that. You would go out and kill some rival gang or kill some rival tribe often because you felt like they were a threat to your own gang, to your own tribe. Do you see that? It was love actually that promoted that action. It was not hatred necessarily or evil. Love for my people, my tribe, my family, my gang is what caused me to go and kill some other people. So, the sinner as it were, the murderer, is acting from the same motive as the saint; both are acting from the point of view of love actually. But here's the difference: the sinner has very contracted love. If they love only themselves, they're capable of the most evil because that's the most contracted form of love. If they love their family, they're still capable of evil, but it's slightly more noble than living just for yourself. If you love your tribe, which is a collection of families, it's a slightly more expanded love and still great evil can come through that, but not as much as if you're only living for yourself like that. But then if you love your nation, that's better because that includes many tribes, it's an entire community. All different communities are collectivized under the nation state, but then you make war with other nations. And if you love the globe, so much the better. But if you love all being itself, that's the most expanded form of love. Then you're a saint. Notice the difference between the saint and the sinner is not one of kind or type, but one of degree. And that's a really beautiful thought that the difference here in love is contraction or expansion. Similarly, the difference is not knowledge and lack of knowledge any more than light or lack of light. The difference is just different forms of light, different forms of knowledge. Expanded knowledge is liberation; contracted knowledge is Mala (impurity), which keeps you in bondage.

There are three kinds of Mala. If I think that I'm the doer, I've got mamala; ignorance is the cause of karma. If I think that the world is differentiated and there's plurality and not a unity, I have karma. If I think that I'm an individual separate from others and separate from the world, then I have anavamala. So this should really simplify the Malas. The Malas are not actual things; they're just lots of lack of knowledge, a kind of ignorance. That's what Mala means.

With that said, now Abhinavagupta is going to make a startling point about Malas. This is why, as I think Rowan Davi asked about the Malas, why aren't the Malas mapped onto the tattvas? It's because they're not really things. You can derive them from the tattvas. Now, here's where we get something really profound: the self experiences itself as a plurality of subjects and objects on account of union with the darkness of ignorance. This union with the darkness of ignorance, I want to focus on it a little bit. Timira means darkness, but it particularly implies a medical condition called diplopia or double vision. Just like a person with double vision sees two moons, it's a defect in the eye.

The drishtantha here is another metaphor. The absolute nature of reality is just like the juice of a sugarcane, jaggery, refined sugar, molasses, and candy. They're all various forms of the sugarcane. They're all just different names and forms of one thing. Similarly, all the seemingly differentiated things or states are different forms and names of the same thing. This is stressed in the Advaita Vedanta tradition. In the Chandogya Upanishad, you get three metaphors: clay and pots, gold and ornaments, and water and waves. Notice all the different pots; they're all made out of clay, but they all look different from one another. They have different shapes and names. A potter might take great interest in the names and forms, but actually it's nothing but clay. Whether you call it an urn or a jar, they're both nothing but substance. There he just saw the names and forms and he understood the substance out of which the names and forms were created. So, gold is a thing apart from the ornament but the ornaments don't exist apart from the gold. The pots cannot exist apart from the clay, yet the clay is something other than the pots. It's a very unique idea that we get in the Chandogya Upanishad. Everyone's good with this. This is a very important idea. Think of the waves. This is a nice one. Waves come and go. They rise and fall. Each wave is unique. Every wave has a certain character, a certain flavor, a certain personality if you will, but they're all nothing but appearances in water. They're expressions of water, manifestations of water.

So here we're using sugarcane. I think it's interesting, instead of appealing to the well-known metaphors in the Chandogya Upanishad, especially in Advaita circles, he appeals to jaggery and candy. This is a very important idea because awareness is bliss itself. He doesn't want you to think it's just some kind of substance. It's awareness, and its nature is just as all of these things are sweet and tasty and delectable and delightful. Just like that, awareness is tasty, sweet, delectable, and delightful. And so are all the names and forms. Everything that appears in awareness is just as sweet as awareness.

This is key, you guys, because in other schools of non-dual philosophy, you can start to regard the world with a bit of condescension or suspicion or fear. The world is now an illusion. Therefore, reject it. Renounce it in that sense, like, like have a problem with it. So, this is a world-negating approach where the world, if it's seen as an illusion or as a framework of illusion, as it were, you know, there was a philosopher-poet, Ramprasad, a great devotee of Kali, who called this world a framework of illusion. And then, another thinker, who is like a satirist, immediately retorted, “No, here I can eat and drink and make merry. This is a mansion of bliss.” A mention of mirth, not a framework of illusion.

It is for the jnani on one stage of the journey, but for the enlightened one, the truly enlightened one, the vijnani, it's actually a mansion of mirth. So, rum is a distilled spirit made from fermented sugarcane juice. Known as pinga, not pingala, but pinga. It's the most popular spirit among distilled alcoholic beverages in Brazil. Isn't that so cool? So, I think that's nice. If he had known about that, he might have talked about that because it's also intoxicating. It's sweet and intoxicating. So, how should you feel when you're realized? Joyous, delighted, full. Because the whole world is nothing but sweetness, because you yourself are sweetness itself. You are bliss itself. Why are you bliss, by the way? Why should you be bliss? Well, because you're non-dual, you're infinite, independent, and ever free. That innate freedom that you are should give you a sense of joy. And joy itself is nothing but freedom.

It is, you know, your vibe in the vast. There is joy. So because you are literally the vast, think about how vast the sky is. Isn't it contained in you? Where is the sky, if not in you? Have you ever experienced a sky outside of you? Think of how vast the sky is. You're vast. And think about how vast the universe is. Would there be a universe without you? If you were not here to experience it, it would not be here to be experienced. The vastness of that universe is contained by you. Yes, little old you. How vast are you? So, Vivekananda would say, if you only knew what you were. If you only knew, you don't like that idea. So, that vastness is synonymous with joy, and because this world is nothing but names and forms, appearances in that vastness, that vastness is none other than what appears in it.

And what appears in it is none other than that vastness. Actually, the first part of the sentence is not quite right. The vastness is something other than what appears in it, but what appears in it isn't something other than it, just like the gold is something other than the ornaments, but the ornaments aren't something other than the gold. There is no jaggery or refined sugar without the sugarcane juice. But the sugar…

After mastering the 64 arts, he practices non-duality, and then he masters Islam in the Sufi form, Christianity like that. He goes through all the different schools and traditions, and he's like a spiritual glutton as it were. He just wants to experience God in all of these different ways. Recording stopped. Whoops. And he comes to this conclusion. I ran out of space. He comes to this remarkable conclusion. The conclusion is, well, all of these traditions must be true. They're all true because they all work. That is the claim. None of them are actually absolutely true. That's a remarkable point. None of them are actually absolutely true. Each of them is functionally and empirically true because they're all means to attain what is actually true.

And that truth is infinite and inimitable. And because it's infinite and inimitable, not only can it be reached in unlimited ways, but it can be expressed by calling the same thing by different names. You've probably spoken about it. All religions, I'm going to leave you with this. So, in this verse, a few different schools were mentioned. The first is called the Mind-Only School. Oh, by the way, Jayaratha, in the commentary of the Tantraloka, says the realization attained by the Chittamatra Buddhists is the same as what we attain, which is really interesting. He says they have the same level of realization. But anyway, the Mind-Only School is of course, a million dollars. I might win a lot for it, but that's your vitality too. It's always changing you. Everything that I see, I'm seeing with an awareness and everything that I see is nothing but awareness, awareness appearing to itself.

Therefore, everything is the juice of the sugarcane. Everything is sweet. Everything is holy. Everything is God. That was the realization, including all the thoughts that you can think. And what are schools of philosophy if not just thoughts that you can think? Therefore, they're all true.

Content vs. Context

In the context of spiritual discussions, particularly in the teachings of Ramakrishna and similar traditions, the distinction between context and content is significant. Here's a detailed explanation:

Content vs. Context in Dreams and Spiritual Experiences

Content

• Definition: The specific details, events, characters, and scenarios that occur in a dream or experience.
• Examples:
  • Seeing a deity or a holy person in a dream.
  • Specific actions or interactions within the dream.
  • The narrative or storyline of the dream.
• Spiritual Perspective: The content is often seen as less important because it can be influenced by personal subconscious processes, daily experiences, and mental impressions (samskaras). It's more about the specific symbols and scenarios that appear.

Context

• Definition: The underlying meaning, emotional tone, and spiritual significance of the dream or experience. It's about the broader implications and the feelings associated with the dream.
• Examples:
  • The sense of peace, joy, or spiritual upliftment felt during or after the dream.
  • The transformative impact the dream has on the individual's spiritual journey.
  • The insights or realizations gained from the dream.
• Spiritual Perspective: The context is considered more important because it reflects the deeper spiritual messages and the state of consciousness. It's about the experiential quality and how it relates to one's spiritual growth and understanding.

Why Context Matters More than Content

1. Transformative Impact:

   • Context: Focuses on the lasting impact and transformation the experience brings.
   • Content: May not always lead to deep, meaningful change.

2. Emotional and Spiritual Tone:

   • Context: Emphasizes the emotions and spiritual feelings (e.g., peace, joy, clarity) that arise, which are crucial for spiritual growth.
   • Content: Can be varied and sometimes confusing without offering clear spiritual insights.

3. Insight and Realization:

   • Context: Helps in gaining profound insights and realizations about one's true nature and spiritual path.
   • Content: Might be symbolic or literal but doesn't necessarily lead to deeper understanding.

4. Universal Relevance:

   • Context: Spiritual truths and realizations are universal and can be shared across different experiences and individuals.
   • Content: Specific to the individual's personal subconscious and life circumstances, making it less universally applicable.

Practical Example

Imagine two people have dreams involving a river:

• Person A (Content Focused): Dreams of a river with various events happening around it—boats, people fishing, etc. They focus on the detailed events and scenarios.
• Person B (Context Focused): Dreams of a river and feels a profound sense of peace and unity with the flow of life. They focus on the feeling of peace and the realization of interconnectedness.

Person A might be caught up in the specific events and details (content), while Person B gains a deeper spiritual understanding and a sense of inner peace (context).

In summary, Ramakrishna emphasizes the importance of the context over the content because it is the context that brings true spiritual insight and transformation, reflecting the deeper spiritual reality beyond the superficial details of the dream.

Who Created The World - Vedanta vs Tantra

What's Really Real

So today we're going to explore the Tantric, or rather Shaiva, perspective on creation, or the question of metaphysics, ontology. What's really real? What's there really? Is this world real or is it not? And remember, this is an issue that has been hotly contested by every school of Indian philosophy. There are a whole range of responses to the question: Is this world real?

Exploring Different Schools of Thought

1. Materialists (Charvakas): Deny the reality of any higher, transcendent principles like God, like Soul, like Spirit, but wholly affirm the imminent reality called matter and energy. This would be, I think, akin to modern-day Dawkins, Hitchens, like the kind of spiritualist, sorry, scientific materialist framework. This would be a kind of realism, a type of realism that is often associated with materialism, to scientific, scientificationism, stuff like that.

2. Dualists: Will often say that this world is indeed real in two senses:

   • It's the real creation of a real God. So unlike the materialist, a dualist, a religious dualist will accept a higher, transcendent principle which they often call God. This God is not some Consciousness Bliss principle, but rather is a person, is a being, with innumerable attributes. In Islam, there are 99 names to describe God, and this is by no means an exhaustive list of God's attributes like al-Hakim, the judge, the just and all that. So the dualistic conception is that is a, there's a real God, and that God is invested with many attributes, benevolent, sense potency, all of that, and through some creative Earth, through some act of love, this world comes to be created by that real God. This world, this world as such, is a real creation of a real God, and God in the world are separate in the sense that cause and effect are separate.
   • It's real but not as the creation of God, rather as the body of God. So a sort of panentheistic view that says God is a being whose body is the whole universe, whose soul is pure Spirit, but whose body is the world. So when you look around, it's called an Indian philosophy, the Virat, the universal form of God, what you're seeing is a real world as a real manifestation of God. So this world is the body of God and this view you find in many different schools. It's often found in this school.

So that's another way a dualist might picture this world.

1. Vedanta: There's also a very interesting view, a view that you might be very familiar with, and it's unique to Kevala Advaita, meaning the non-dual only School of Shankara and others. So in this school, if you ask them, "Is the world real or not?" they will look at you with a merry twinkle in their eyes and ask you, "What world?"
   • No world existed to have been created.
   • No world is here now to be accounted for.
   • No world will ever be that requires an explanation.
   • There is no world. You're seeing a world, not because there's an actual world, but because you, in your ignorance, have concocted one.

So this is the Kevala Advaita position: that the world is a result of ignorance, not any actual creation. So this is called Vivarta Vada, which means "Appearance Theory", the doctrine of appearance or illusionism. And this stresses that this world appears to be a real cause of a real effect, sorry, this world appears to be a real effect of a real cause, but in actuality, the cause is not real (ignorance is not itself a thing), and as a result, the effect too is not real. There's neither an effect, nor is there a cause. There is no world whatsoever, which seems rather strange, but it's a very powerful and effective spiritual philosophy for our progress in spiritual life. So we're going to talk about that of the Advaita.

Because this is, I think, the third or fourth lecture in a series of lectures on Kashmir Shaivism, today I'm going to take the position of the Shaivas, the non-dual Shaiva Tantras, like Abhinava Gupta, the Tantric Masters. Like, today we'll introduce you to Utpaladeva, So this is his param guru. So today we'll look at one of the founders of Kashmir Shaivism, one of the granddaddy mystics of this tradition. We'll look at some of his teachings on this matter, and they articulate a spiritual philosophy that is wholly unique from all the other schools of Indian philosophy and thrilling because it seems to say the world is both real and not real. In one sense, it's not real, but in another sense, it's realer than real. It's more real than we could ever have imagined it to be! This world is a real manifestation of a real, Divine potency inherent in Consciousness in and of itself.

So in some sense, we're going to compare all of these different schools:

• The hedonists, Charvaka, scientific materialist school
• The dualistic schools of religious philosophy
• The Vedantic schools - also I forgot to mention the Buddhist schools, we're going to discuss the Buddha schools
• Finally, we're going to discuss the Kashmiri Shaiva position, which is thrilling, that this world is indeed a real manifestation of the creative potency of Lord Shiva.

So we'll take a journey, a journey through all of these different schools and ultimately I'm going to advocate for the Shaiva position.

Three notes to make before we have this discussion.

Three Important Notes

1. It's Going to Sound Debaty - Like I said last week, I'm going to take a particular position and defend it against other positions. But here's the disclaimer: no one school is right, and no one school is wrong in Indian philosophy. Although, for a lot of its history there have been polemics and arguments between schools, different schools asserting their dominance over other schools. Basically each school says, "Our view of reality is the one right view. Yours is sort of right, you got some glimpse into truth, but it's not the ultimate truth. It's not the absolute truth. We have that." So you, Vedanta, you think this world is an illusion, huh? That's a lower realization. It's valid, but it's a lower realization. Higher than that is to realize this world is an actual creation of an actual God with a personality. That's what maybe the achintya bheda abheda school might say to the Vedanta, you know. And the Samkhyans will say, "Fools! Why do you think God created this world? Why would God create this world? As a perfect being, it has no desires. Why then would it desire to create the world? If it is all love, all peace, all truth, then what could be lacking in such a being to move it to create a world? What could it have to gain from creating a world?" The Samkhyans will deny that God ever created a world. The Samkhyans will stress what sounds like a scientific materialist view: that the world just kind of generates itself. The Buddhists will deny all of this. They'll deny the existence of God. They'll deny the existence of Soul. They'll deny the existence of world. And what will they assert? Nothing. Nothing. So all of these debates are happening, and it might sound like these schools are trying to prove the others wrong and leverage themselves as the right school over others. But it's not like that, as I stressed in the previous lecture. Though my tone in this lecture might be a little debatey, I want to do a comparative study of different schools, just remember that we don't actually believe that different schools are right and different schools are wrong. Rather, we see each school as a stage in the spiritual unfoldment of each and every sadhaka. So each school is right in its own place, meaning at a certain time in your journey, different schools of thought will appeal to you because, because they corroborate the insights and realizations you're having at that time of your sadhana, at that time of your journey. So that school as such is right for you in that moment. It will no longer be right once you attain a different level of realization, which might not necessarily have to be, in a hierarchical sense, a higher or better realization, just perhaps a different realization. So let's think of all of these different schools as maybe not a hierarchical ascent to ultimate truth, but as different ways to enjoy one thing. It's like Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors, you know? You can just eat chocolate, or you can try mint choc chip every now and then. So I invite you all, even if this Kashmir Shaiva view doesn't immediately appeal to you, it's not, you know, your proclivity, just kind of sample it, taste it. [Name of Guru] used to say, "I enjoy all attitudes. I, I enjoy it all." So, when he's an invitation of a temple he will chant. When he's in a Shiva Temple, he will pour water on the lingam and chant Om Namah Shivaya and go into deep Shaiva non-dual absorption, you know. when he's with Shaktas, he will sing songs to the Divine Mother and talk about the inebriation of Mother worship, and when he's with the Muslims, he will talk like a Sufi. With the Christians, he will discuss Christianity. Different ways of enjoying one thing.

2. It's Going to Sound Nuanced - Remember, this is the deepest issue in Indian philosophy, if not philosophy as a whole: What's really real? It's a metaphysical question. It's an ontological question. But it's also an epistemological question. It's also an aesthetic question, you know, like, it has to do with beauty and and and meaning. So it's an axiological question as well. And after all of this, we have to admit that it's also a linguistic question. If there is a reality, can it even be described? Can it even be talked about? I mean Wittgenstein would say no. The thing in and of itself could never actually be described by language, language itself being limited. Nagarjuna in the 2nd century would agree, you know. In bad texts Nagarjuna, the great 3rd, 2nd and 3rd century Buddhist Master, shredded to pieces, as every school of philosophical inquiry in India, you just put something in front of Nagarjuna, tear it all up. He would show you that every proposition is inherently illogical, kind of like a Kantian antinomy, you know. Kant also proves, much later, that something similar like that, that language is self-defeating. Logic is self-defeating. So Nagarjuna tears to shreds every school of philosophy that he comes into contact with and proves that no school of philosophy, first, has any monopoly on the truth, but second, can even come close to describing the truth. He doesn't deny that there is an absolute truth though, you know. He says, in that there is an absolute truth. The Buddha taught both this absolute truth and the relative truth. Relatively speaking, nothing exists. Absolutely speaking, what exists cannot be described. So don't try. Now if you ask him, Nagarjuna, what his position is, you know, after having torn to shreds all of these schools, what he thinks the truth is, he'll just remain quiet. And if you say, "Isn't that a position?" he'll say, "I'm not asserting any position, nor am I denying that there is a position here to be asserted." So according to Nagarjuna, if you make something out of nothing, then that too will be a trap, you see. So much like Nagarjuna, Wittgenstein argues that if there is a truth, it cannot even be described. So this is a linguistic issue as well. So tonight we're going to have the discussion that only happens within the intersection of metaphysics, the philosophy of what's real, ontology, the philosophy of what exists, epistemology, the philosophy of what we can know about what exists, and of course linguistics, what we can say about that. So this is the ultimate intersection of various things, so it's without, without any hesitation, that, with some hesitation that I jump into it, but without any further ado, let's jump into it!

3. This Discussion is Taking Place in a Special Location - Also, I'm coming to you live now from the Tantric Kingdom of Ubud, Bali. I don't think there could be a better place in this world to be having this discussion because all around me are these beautiful stone temples. In every household, there is a beautiful stone temple. And really this town, as we were saying a few moments ago, is like the ultimate ideal of the Tantric kingdoms of old. So as you know, Indonesia, a lot of the kingdoms here were founded by the Chola Dynasty, Indian. So this was during Ashoka's reign. There were missions that were going out of India and establishing time to kingdoms abroad, as far as Coptic, Egypt actually, and certainly as far as southeast Asia. So in this region there were some kingdoms like Sri Vijaya, the victory of the goddess Sri, very Tantric name, Majapahit, all of that, and they established a Tantric kingdom here that till this very day retains that wonderful nectarian ecstasy of Tantric ritualism. So today, in Bali you will not only see temples, but you will see a thriving ritual culture where everyone in the town participates in rituals. So marriage, going, going to school, eating, working, it's all integrated into the wider net of Tantric spirituality. And so you get a lot of discussion here about energy. Just yesterday, on my way up to the hotel room, the bellboy and I were having this discussion about Tantric principles, and he was explaining that there was a festival coming up soon in which they would do a series of rituals. And then in my naivety I said, "Oh, to banish bad energy?" because we were talking about energies. And he said, "Oh, this ritual is about bad energy." I said, "Oh, to banish it?" He looked at me with abject horror and he said, "No, no, not to banish it! To transform it." And we had this wonderful discussion about Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana approaches to energy, you know, because in one way you could repress and push aside something. In another way, you could harness it, embrace it, and give it a godward turn. That discussion I had with him was reminiscent of Sri Ramakrishna's discussion with Hari Maharaj. You know, you remember Hari Maharaj, young sadhaka, Brahmin, you know, is interested in overcoming lust. So he approaches Ramakrishna and asks, "How do I overcome lust?" And Ramakrishna says, "My boy, why would you want to do that? Increase your lust! But give it a godward turn. Redirect it towards God." So in in other words, whatever is present in your experience, that is a means, not a hindrance, to attaining your ends of Enlightenment, you see. So this is a wonderful place to be talking Tantra, to be talking the deepest subtlest issues, the tranquil Tantric Kingdom of Bali. So thank you for joining me here.

Understanding Category Errors

Let's get right into it. I want to do three things.

1. Introduce the Notion of Category Error. What exactly is a category error?

2. Use the Principle of Category Error to Debunk Various Schools of Spiritual Philosophy.

3. Understand Three Main Types of Causation Schools in India:

   • Satkaryavada - A real effect arising from a real cause in the sense that there is a real God who created a real world. Or in the sense that there is a real quantum form out of which arises a real world. There's a real big bang out of which arises a real world. So these are all forms of satkaryavada, meaning, you're very welcome, Timothy, meaning the arising of something from something. So let's just call this "something from something philosophy," okay? That's what satkaryavada is. "Something from something philosophy." The school of philosophy that we're going to be championing today, Kashmir Shaivism, or Shaiva Tantra, is a kind of satkaryavada. It's a special kind of satkaryavada that's distinct from other forms. So this will be our main topic of interest.
   • Asatkaryavada - Nothing; something from nothing. Let's call it that. Something from nothing. So this is the idea that there is a real world, but there is not a real cause for it. It itself is the cause and the effect in one. It just appeared. It appeared out of nothing. Funnily enough, this is a little bit like The Big Bang Theory, you know. I mean, not anymore, in modern quantum mechanics, as I've come to understand.

   Yeah, exactly. Creation ex nihilo. Out of nothing comes creation, like there's that idea. Not no thing, by the way. It's not a special something that is not, like, it's not that this is actually nothing, you know, because you could say, "Oh, yes, creation does come out of nothing, but that nothing is very much a something. It's just not a thing in the sense that things are things." Okay? That's obviously the Buddhist position. We're not going to get into it now. It's enough to say that this is literally nothing. There's zero, then there's one, okay? So it's out of nothing that something comes. This, by the way, is one of the most dominant theories you'll find in both philosophy and science. So as I've come to understand, the most modern form of quantum mechanic is, Michio Kaku argues in his book, I think it's The God Equation or something, he, he, he sketches out what is currently being discussed in quantum mechanics departments all over the world, and it's the most modern theory, and it's the idea that there's something called a quantum foam, or quantum flux. It's an unstable medium out of which particles arise. So it's not that something is coming from nothing. But for the vast majority of history, this has been the view of science: that there was nothing and then there was suddenly a Big Bang, and that's the starting point. That's the origination of the universe, the singularity in nothing. So this is actually a view that was championed by the Nyaya, by Vaisheshikas. So both the Nyayas and the Vaisheshikas, who later got merged into one school because of many similarities, but they were, for much of Indian history, two separate schools, and they both championed this idea that there was nothing and then out of it came something. This is okay.

   • Vivartavada - Yeah, exactly. Clear light of the Void. If it's a void, how can it generate clear light? That's some Buddhist refutation to maybe some Northern Buddhist schools, like Shentong Buddhism like that, okay? This is, this is "something appears to come from something, but it's nothing really." Something appears to come from something. So this is an appearance doctrine. It's like, yes, there appears to be a real cause, and there appears to be a real effect, but in actuality, there was neither cause nor effect. And this is the view championed by Advaita Vedanta, or the Kevala Advaita of Shankaracharya. So here, this school is actually called, and we did a class a while ago on this. It was called Did God Create, How Did God Create the World (He Didn't). In that class I spoke to you wholly from the point of view of Ajata Vada, of saying this world seems to be here, but like a dream, the moment you wake up, it's gone. It never came into being. It never went out of being. It's just a temporal experience at a certain point in your journey. But it's a journey, not from the world to God, but a journey from ignorance to knowledge. And in knowledge, one discovers that no world was there, nothing needed to be transcended. There was nothing there actually, in actuality, binding you.

Okay? So that's, so these are all these different schools of Indian spiritual philosophy. Before we jump into any of them, let me just introduce you this idea of category error. This is a tool that a great philosopher Gaudapada, who composed the Mandukya Karika, one of the most beautiful commentaries in the Upanishads ever, and it's been given so much attention. Shankaracharya, the disciple of Gaudapada's disciple, composed the commentary to this commentary. And then there was an Anandagiri who composed the commentary to the commentary to the commentary to the Upanishad. It's a very, very robust scriptural tradition around this very mysterious Upanishad.

Anyway! Gaudapada, in the 4th chapter, dismantles every theory of creationism ever in Indian philosophy, philosophy, and and you know, these principles are of course inherent in other schools elsewhere in the world, but he dismantles all of them, mostly using this tool called category error.

What is a Category Error?

So let's just introduce it. A category error is when one thing is described in terms of another thing that is wholly, categorically different from the first thing. So for instance, if I say the number two is red, I would have committed a category error because numbers and colors are categorically different from one another and cannot really be described in terms of one another. So I can't explain the number two using colors. I can't say number two is like green. I could if I was, I don't know, composing some Green Eggs and Ham, a Dr. Seuss thing, right? I could if I was a member of The Wiggles. Is it the Wiggums, or The Wiggles? Maybe I could if I was on a children's show, shaking my butt in like some spandex, maybe I could, to entertain you. So in the context of art and fiction, yeah, I can do it. I can write a poem, because there are no rules in poetry. So I could write like a Seuss-esque poem and say that number three is yellow, and you'd all get very excited because of the synesthetic effect that would have in your experience. So sure, from an aesthetic, from a, from an artistic point of view, yeah, sure, you can do it. There's no reason why you can't. But reason will always object to it. Reason will object to any attempt to describe two, or three, or four in the context of green, or red, or blue. It just doesn't work because they're categorically different, and no matter how much we want that not to be the case, it is the case. So you could sit there and watch oil and water all day, waiting for the poetic moment when oil becomes water, but the fact remains, in mundane experience, oil is just not going to mix, the water, mix with the water. No matter how much you stir, you see oil and water exist on different planes, so to speak. They're categorically different.

Also, in your own experience this could apply to the difference between dreaming and waking. In a dream, you might, I don't know, inherit some money suddenly. You're a millionaire in the dream. Now when you wake up, you're not going to be able to spend that money. It's not like you can go to the bank and withdraw your dream money. If you tried, the banker will look at you and kind of be very afraid and might be calling for security, and you might start screaming, "No, it's mine! It got deposited yesterday in my dream! I demand my money!" No. Obviously, the dream money is categorically different from waking world money. All dream expenses are categorically different from working experiences, and as a result, there's not that much currency between them. Dream money cannot be spent in waking life, okay? Even though dreams arise from the samskaras of waking, still, they remain rather distinct. Okay? So this is, let's not get too metaphysical about it. It's enough to say that oil and water are different, numbers and colors are different, and as a result, if you try to conflate the two, you've committed a category error.

The Category Error of Conflating Purusha with Prakriti

So there's one category error that we're all now actively committing and actively perpetuating, and it's this: the category error of conflating Purusha with Prakriti.

So let's just be sunk in a little bit. Remember, this is the fourth class in our series on Kashmir Shaivism. In the first class we asked the question: What is Shiva? And there we really launched into a deep question, inquiry into Kashmir Shaivism, if I may say so myself, rather it was, it was an investigation of Consciousness. We do this a lot, which is to arrive at Consciousness as distinct from its objects, right? So we said the seer and the seen are different. And we did a series of exercises to prove that. We've done this together many, many times, and you can do this in various ways. you can do it by simply investigating the contents of your experience and in a moment of insightful realization come to the conclusion that you are wholly distinct from all of that. You, the seer, the one who experiences all thoughts, all sensations, all objects, that one is something other than the objects which it experiences. So in any case, conflating yourself with the objects that you experience is at the source of all of our misery. So it's kind of like eating dog food when you're not a dog. It won't nourish you in the way that you hope it will. So this is why we suffer in this world, because we want to live as bodies, and we want to enjoy the things that bodies enjoy. What do bodies enjoy? Well, sleeping, eating, drinking, sex. Bodies enjoy pleasure, you know. Bodies enjoy comfort. And then we find when we fill our lives with pleasure, with comfort, we're not yet fulfilled. We might be fulfilled for a time, but we find, ironically, that we could be sitting in an air-conditioned room, in a state of post-coital bliss, after a wonderful meal, in a state of having every physical need met, and still be horribly dissatisfied, as the case with many celebrities and and famous people, rich people, right? Like, that's the irony of life. You could have fulfilled every physical need only to find that you're nowhere near happiness. In fact, you might be meaningfully further from it as a result of having spent so much of your life chasing pleasures, because you have to pay for them up, right?

My Guru often says, "All pleasure comes wearing a crown of thorns," you know. If you're, you're enjoying sex, it's wonderful. Orgasms are wonderful, not to demean them. But it can be dangerous because it can, first and foremost, create a craving, such that you want to have repeat experiences that might never be as good as the first time. So you're always chasing a mythical high, as every heroin addict will tell you, so repeat expenses will become a fascination and a fixation. Even when you have the expenses, they come and they go very quickly, often leaving a sense of dissatisfaction and craving in their wake. And sometimes you have to pay in very real ways, like with you know, I don't know, STDs, or what have you, or or whatever other ways in which, in the olden days, where there wasn't a lot of birth control, you would have to pay for your sexual indulgence with having to work more, because you now, you have more children to support. So your life becomes, you become actually literally poorer, right? There's a financial punishment in those days. And today, too, in many parts of the world, too much indulgence. So there are all these actual consequences of enjoying pleasure. So even if those weren't there, let's just hypo-buys-a-world, hypothesize the world in which there were no such consequences to indulging, to enjoying pleasure. You didn't actually get any calories from the chocolate cake. You couldn't get STDs or get pregnant from the indulgence of, this is not a dare commercial by the way, this is not a sex ed talk. But let's just, let's just say there was a world in which that didn't happen. Even then, you might find that the body, in peak experiences, doesn't represent happiness.

So then we have to say, "Ah, there might be a category error here! If I was a body, I should be satisfied every time the body is satisfied. But given the body satisfaction is not enough to satisfy me, that must mean I'm categorically different from the body."

Then we can go to the mind. We could say, "Ah, the mind enjoys certain things. The mind enjoys being praised. It doesn't like being blamed. The mind enjoys intellectual delights, like hopefully the ones we're going to have tonight in discussing these subtle philosophies." And Shankaracharya says this is the ultimate trap because it's so elevated, right? The intellectual inquiry into metaphysics is so refined that it's, it often feels like spirituality, because it is indeed quite transcendent to body and mind. So you might get this sense that we're being very spiritual because we're intellectually dealing with subtle and nuanced issues, but Shankaracharya says this is a trap, too, because this is in the mind! It's a very refined part of the intellect, the buddhi.

And we've beautifully expounded on true meditation, Zen approach, which says, "Be careful of states, mental states." Remember we said, by the samyak, correct vichara, inquiry into what both are, into awakeness one realizes...

...svabhava shunyata. Svabhava means intrinsic, bhava means essence. Baba means like, like, reality, or or whatever. So you realize the void nature, or lack of essenceness, in every mental state, including highly refined ones such as samadhi, etc.

Okay, so be careful of intellectual gymnastics. If you can feel spiritual, and it's incredibly intoxicating, it's very pleasurable to think, and to talk, and to debate, and to reason, but it's not yet Consciousness. It's just a lofty, refined form of the intellect. So you can start enjoying that, and you can crave that, and you can, and you know what happens typically to people in this, this loka, I guess you could say, this bardo? Typically what happens, they read a lot, they talk a lot, the 10 lectures a lot, they give lectures a lot, see, and then they they they they they, they just basically they, they're bookworms, right? They're like armchair spirituals. They read, read, read. They sit in their armchair. They debate. When you actually look at their lives though, when you actually go with them throughout their day, you don't see a manifestation of that realization, meaning they talk big game, there's a strong intellectual realization, but it's not actually manifesting in their life. And I don't mean for us to judge them. It's not like we can actually really ascertain the inner state of anybody anyway. And it's very easy to fake being a holy person, right? But I mean, in their own inner experience, there might not be that, be that joy, that depth, that meaning, that should naturally arise from these insights. So these are intellectual joys.

Now notice, you could have all the intellectual joys in the world. You could be every day engaged in deep discussions, and you know, the Buddhists and the Advaitins got trapped here for thousands of years, you know. They just started having these debates with one another. And this is why the authors of Kashmir Shaivism are often speaking out against both Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. Not that they had a problem with Lord Buddha, or Shankaracharya. In fact, [Guru], which we're studying together, he says, "There's nothing wrong with the teachings of Lord Buddha. It's only the Naya logicians that have corrupted it." He says, "[Buddhist Group] are like, totally Tantric masters! Look at their poems to Mother!" Rather, it's the logicians, like Sriharsa and others who followed in their wake, who turned Advaita Vedanta into a kind of logical, like, polemic, pedantic kind of thing, you see. So this is the trap that you can get into if you think you are a mind. And most of us think we are our mind. That's so ingrained in our experience. So in any case, if you are a mind, you should be fully satisfied with mental activities, but you're not. The fact that the mind and body could be fully satisfied, and yet you yourself aren't fully satisfied, is an indication that somewhere, somehow, a category error has occurred. I, the spirit, the Purusha, have conflated myself with what I am not: the body and the mind, Prakriti. As a result, I'm living for things that don't actually make me happy.

This realization should manifest as a radical change in my life orientation. If I know this to be true, if I know that I'm not a body, or rather if I know that the body's happiness is not my happiness, why should I continue to pursue pleasure? Ask, ask yourself this. If you truly knew that you weren't a body, why would you live in such a way as to maximize the body's pleasure? The only reason you could be doing it is because you don't know that you're not a body, right? Or, you don't know that you're, at least let me say it this way, that you don't know that you're more than a body, right?

So then this should, in the Buddhist and the Vedantic sense, this should change radically your orientation to life. Once you realize the category error that's being made here, you suddenly realize that any pleasure the body can have cannot be the goal of my life. That any pleasure that the mind can have cannot be the goal of my life because however good it might get for the body and mind, it's ultimately not good enough for me. Nothing is good enough for me, short of God. So the moment a person can say, "The purpose of my life is God realization/self-realization/no-self-realization/whatever you want to call it, the Salvation, Liberation, Moksha, whatever you want to call the attainment of the Transcendent," or I would prefer the phrase, "recognizing," recognizing the Transcendent already inherent in my experience, call it that, but the moment you say, "The purpose of my life is to rest in that, to recognize that, to abide in that, to be in that. That's the purpose of my life," ah! You've solved the category error! But for the whole time that you're actually pursuing things that would be good for the body and mind, then you're still committing the category error.

So what's the category error? It's a spirit thinking itself to be matter, okay? These are categorically different. So this is the Samkhyan explanation for why we're so unhappy, even though we might have it all. This is the Samkhyan. So notice now we get an axiological claim, right? This is an axiom meaning, it's a claim regarding ethics, values, meaning. So according to the axiological view of Samkhya, we are unhappy because we are spirits parading around like bodies and minds. And Enlightenment is simply recognizing that I never were, never was, never will be, and am not now a body and mind. That alone constitutes, for Samkhya, constitutes full-blown Liberation. And you know, naturally meditation arises from that, okay? So Yoga is a technology, as we described some time ago, in verifying for yourself the truth. So if I am a spirit, I should be able to feel that. I should, just, deduce it in these ways. I should actually come into a tangible experience with spirit.

This is called called Yoga. Yoga, yoga, that's the test case. If I exist without the body and mind, then truly I am from the body and mind. My problem now is, I've never been something other than the body and mind, except in deep sleep! So in any case, even that might be a refined form of the mind. So in any case, Yoga, yoga is there to teach you Samkhya, and thereby solve the category.

So thus far we've only been speaking from the point of view of axial, axiology, the philosophy of ethics, values, meanings. So life is meaningful if you're pursuing God, which means abiding in the spirit that you are. Life is not meaningful if you're living for matter, for pleasure, for powerful, wealth. This is a simple axiological category error.

Applying Category Errors to Metaphysics

Now let's take the same concept of a category error, and cross apply it to a metaphysical question. What's real? So take the first theory, satkaryavada, according to Samkhyas. So now we're going to dismantle Samkhya from within. According to Samkhya, these are Gaudapada's arguments by the way, the end of Mandukya Karika. According to Samkhya, this world was not created by God. Why would God create the world? This is weird! "God," meaning Purusha, the pure spirit, who is unlimited, who is uncircumscribed by space, unfettered by time. This spirit, because of its unlimited nature, naturally will have no desires. I mean think about desires. The reason you desire stuff is because you feel limited. If you feel limited by the current financial situation you're in, you're going to want more money. So the reason you want more money is to escape the limits of your current financial predicament, the reason you want to move to another country is because you feel your neighbors are too noisy. They just blast Iron Maiden at 4 a.m., and you want to move to a sleepy Spanish village, or something.

So in any case, you want to move because you feel limited by your neighbors, you see? So any desire you have is a feeling of limitation, you know? "I feel limited in the body, so I want to transcend this body through expenses of orgasm," what have you. So the desire to transcend limitation is at the height, or I would say root, of all desires that you might have in this world. So if God is truly unlimited, then what limits, what constraints, could be there to arouse, in him, in you, any desire whatsoever? So for God to be God, God can't have desires. If God has desires, he's no longer God! He's lacking! His insufficient! Who wants that kind of God? A God who's jealous, who wants people to pray to him, who's somehow insecure if there aren't people on their knees praying, and it's kind of perverse, right? So Samkhya doesn't want to demean God in that way. It doesn't want to make God seem like some despo guy, like, blowing up your DMs because they met you once at a party, you know. "It's all I got, like, this like, notice me, Senpai!" Like, what a weird conception of God, that there is such a thing. So, so an infinite God cannot have desires, according to Samkhya.

if an infinite God has desires, it's not infinite because it implies that there's some change happening within it. Some lack that needs to do for, etc. So any case, if indeed this God has no desires, why then create a world at all? That's the first Samkhyan argument against God creating the world. God couldn't have created the world, because God has no reason to. That's one.

Secondly, now here comes the, even if, a good debater won't just give one argument. They'll give another argument. So even if, assuming but not conceding, even if God did desire to create the world, God can't create the world. Is this putting limits on God in some sense? God is infinite. So God, as an infinite, cannot come into contact with the finite. That's a category error. So if Purusha is infinite, how can it work within the medium of the finite? That's like saying, how can you convince a schizophrenic to do something? You don't live in the reality of the schizophrenic. The schizophrenic lives in your own reality, governed by its own laws, that you are excluded from. So you, as the outsider, watching mental illness from the outside, don't really have the authority or the power to do anything about it, often, right? Because you don't live in that reality. It's a bit of a crude, or a cross, metaphor, but it's the best I think that comes to mind. This is why God can't do anything because God doesn't understand, in some sense. Or, or, even if God did understand, God is categorically different from this world and so cannot have a hand in it, do you see? Isn't it elegant?

So, on one level, God is infinite. It's, it's the whole. It's perfect. So why would it want to create the world? And even if it did want to create the world, it's categorically different from the world anyway, so couldn't possibly appear to the world, to create the world. Would, would cause God to be mixed up in the, in the finite, which again, would limit the infinite nature of God. So this is Samkhya's beautiful argument for why God could not have created the world.

So then, who created the world? Remember, Samkhya is a kind of satkaryavada, so they do believe that something came from something. They do believe that this world did come from a real cause, just that they don't believe that cause is God. So far, so good. So what is that cause? If the cause is not God, what is it? The answer is simple: it's matter itself. Here these Samkhyans are very much like the scientific materialists of today. They, and the Buddhists. They don't believe that an explanation is really needed from outside this creation. The explanation is inherent in this creation. So you don't have to go to some transcendental principle called "God."

[Commentator] What's that? What's different? I just said creation, because these are, it's not a creation in these ones. Yeah, yeah, correct, correct, exactly.

So, yeah. You don't need an explanation for creation, huh? You know, the Buddhists will say, but the scientific materialist is, if you say "creation," you just ruined their entire career, because they're studying this creation. They're trying to get grants. Their whole life is spent trying to secure grants to study this creation! So they're not going to take too kindly to, to us, calling it a creation! The Buddhist doesn't mind, right? The Vedantin doesn't mind. But the scientist might mind. And the Samkhyan might mind, too, because they, like the scientific materialists, do believe that this world is real, and it comes from a real cause that's wholly imminent in the creation. You're not to look for God. It's enough to say that there is something like, you know, physical processes, and they perpetuate this unending cycle of physical nature, material nature. And by physical nature, actually, Samkhya, which is much broader than the scientific materialist position, includes also subtle realities, like lokas. So there can be subtle beings that exist in other planes. Scientific materialism won't go that far, maybe not yet, but in Samkhya, this is still a kind of subtle matter. So it's still matter, just a subtle matter. So mental experiences are totally legit, in Samkhya, as an ontological category in and of themselves recognized as realities. However, they don't come from God. Intellect, mind, memory, ego, and all the various things you see external to the mind, these things don't come from God. They come from matter itself, both subtle and gross. So notice, this is the satkaryavada, right?

So this is meaning something called Prakriti is creating something else called jagat, or world. Okay?

Debunking Samkhya's Argument

Let's debunk this. Can anybody here tell me the problem with this argument? According to Samkhya. So Samkhya posits that there exists a beginningless, endless, changeless entity called Prakriti. So remember they're, in Samkhya, as we discussed in the previous class, that's why I'm kind of going quickly through this. There are two types of entities. There is Purusha, and there's Prakriti. You are Purusha, not Prakriti. And Enlightenment is simply Purusha Prakriti viveka. But both of these, Purusha and Prakriti, are beginningless and endless. They're both eternal categories, eternal tattvas, that exist alongside each other. They can never interact. They're both changeless and infinite, really. They are. Prakriti is infinite, too, because she infinitely creates all of this. And one is male (Shiva, Purusha's male gender pronoun noun), and the other one is a feminine noun. So she is infinite, too. Shakti is also infinite. But she just creates all of this like, randomly, okay?

So what's the error in saying infinite Shakti creates this world, at least on the Samkhyan point of view? In other words, can, can you spot the category error here? So, Purusha we definitely know, this, Timothy, Purusha didn't do it. He's like, "I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy!" Okay. Purusha put his hand up and said, "I did not create this world!" So we know that the heads did not move the tail. So my question is, how did tails create this world? How did Prakriti? How did she, being changeless, infinite, eternal, how did she create this changing, finite, limited world? Can, you, spot the category error here? A beginningless, endless, changeless, infinite being called Prakriti is giving rise to a changeful, finite, limited world! That's a category error! How can an infinite create a finite, you see? So notice what happened in Samkhya. They realized the problem with God as Purusha creating the world, so they basically outsourced creation to Prakriti. Like in America, they just give all their tech jobs to Indians, right? So it's like, they just outsourced it! They outsourced the job to Prakriti! But the same philosophical problem inures in so far as, like Purusha, is beginningless and endless, it too is subject to the same category error that Purusha is, you see. So that's why Prakriti cannot have created this world either. So that's why Samkhya has to, to fall. Because if, if truly changeful, finite world, obviously this is the changeful, finite world. If truly there is, here before me, a changeful, finite world, it could not have been the effect of an unchanging, infinite Prakriti. That would be a category error. So again, how can the infinite become finite? How could it? So that's the end of something from something. So this satkaryavada, this type of satkaryavada, is proven false through category error.

It's almost like, I don't know if some of you studied formal logic. In order to prove a proposition, you just have to prove the absurdity in its negation's opposite. So to prove P, you just have to prove not P is absurd. So you've now, thus far, in our discussion, proven that, through category error, through this contradiction, you've proven the absurdity of saying infinite Prakriti creates finite world. Done. That's it for Samkhya. Next!

Addressing Other Schools and Theories

So the nothing coming from something, or something coming from nothing, schools, this doesn't even need to be given due consideration according to Gaudapada because prima facie, they're already category errors here, right? How can nothing, which is categorically different from something, create something? That would be absurd! How could nothing create something? So Nyaya and Vaisheshika fall. Also, Big Bang Theory falls because that would be so weird to posit that something can come out of nothing! That's inherently a category error! Now, interestingly, this has been problematic in science for a long time, too. If science can trace, material science can trace the, the beginning of the universe to the singularity called The Big Bang, they're stuck there. They have to raise their hand and say, "I don't know what comes before that," you know, but in order to kind of overcome this category error, there have been recent theories, as I said earlier, formulated from within science itself, like quantum flux, or quantum foam, that do, instead of positing, posit a kind of satkaryavada. So there is this form, this flux, I don't know too much about it. Not at all! It's not my area of expertise, in any way! But from what I've heard, from what I've read, Michio Kaku and all that, and Swami Sarvapriyananda also references this in many places. We, we know that there is perhaps now in science, this theory. There is some field, or flux, or foam, and it's highly unstable, and from it arises the basic particles that eventually cause things like Big Bang, and those great stars, and all the other stuff that you need to create a universe. So notice this idea of quantum flux, or quantum form is eerily similar to the unstable gunas of Prakriti in Samkhya. So, a lot of overlaps actually between Samkhya and scientific materialism, as far as Prakriti and the explanation of the universe is concerned. The only difference is that Samkhya posits a transcendent principle, and and claims that you are that, now, that's the difference.

Okay. So we've done with that. We've done with, right? We've totally rubbished those things. Why, why would something come out... So we don't need any nonsense! Done, finished! So obviously, other arguments, too. If this is the beginningless series, it also would be an endless series or how would you achieve Moksha if Karma's endless, etc. So there are many arguments made. But thus far, the, the effort here is to show, through neti neti, and the world could not have been created through satkaryavada, nor could it, could it have been created through asatkaryavada, and that leaves you with only one possibility: that the world was not created at all. See? That's the way Gaudapada uses vivartavada to prove that the world was not created.

Okay? But you know what? This is, this is weird for the reasons we spoke about last week. Because you know what he's gonna have to say now? He's gonna first prove that the world doesn't exist, but then he has to offer an account for why it appears. Sure, it's all well and good to say the world doesn't exist, right? But then why do I see it? Sure, there's no such thing as a world! You've proven that! A world could not arise, there could be no real cause, so there could be no real effect. But why do I see an illusory effect at all? Explain this to me. This is the account that Tantra demands from Vedanta, and that Vedanta, according to Tantra, cannot provide. You know what Vedanta will say, as we explained last week? They'll throw up their hands and say, "Maya!" What is Maya? "Oh, it's nothing." Because if they say it's something, they're back to Samkhya! They've just given a new name to Purusha and Prakriti, now called Brahman! Prakriti is now called Maya. Convenient! But it's the same scheme, right? It's a dualistic model where there's a, as an endless, beginningless Brahman, and there is a beginningless, but albeit ending, Maya. Maya ends when you wake up from Maya. So Maya can end, which is also weird, as somebody pointed out last week. How can Maya have an end, when it has no beginning? So something can't be beginningless and not, at the same time, endless. How can you have a beginningless series that somehow has an end? That would also be a logical problem. So notice there are so many logical inconsistencies inherent in this description of Maya. So the world is a beginningless, is, is the cause of a beginningless ignorance, funny that, also sounds like an endless ignorance. So gone is your notion of Moksha. Secondly, this world arises from something called "ignorance," interesting! So there is something causing something! This is not asatkaryavada, because this Maya doesn't exist, okay, which is it, Mr. Vedanta? Either it exists and gives rise to the appearance of the world, or it doesn't exist, in which case you have not yet provided me with an account for why I see any of it!

So I'm just gonna briefly go over those arguments from last week, because remember, part of our series, we want to be as close to the scriptures as possible. So you want to avoid people on the internet just saying whatever, right? So you want to make sure that anybody on the internet that says something should be able to cite what they're saying, according to some actual stuff, right? So let's look at this argument here. This first one is from the...

"Since Brahman is describing described as having avidya," so I put here, "Brahma pistam..." "Since Brahman is described as having avidya as another beginningless element along with him, this cannot be accepted as a monistic doctrine."

In other words, it's not Advaita, insofar as there are two real entities. That was the first sort of objection to the Advaita of Shankaracharya, according to Abhinavagupta.

Here's the second problem.

This is a contradiction. It's a contradiction to say that avidya is indescribable, and yet it brings about the manifestations of diversity, because that itself is a description.

To say that something is indescribable, and then to describe it as that, is a contradiction. So iti...

Okay. Then, this, this one is perhaps my favorite one. It's my favorite one from Abhinavagupta, so...

"Brahma svarupa jnanam..." "Brahma" is of the form pure knowledge. "...katham avidya bhavet? Meaning, how can I become ignorant? So how can Brahman, who is pure knowledge, assume the form of ignorance? "Avidya.**" "In reality there is no other embodied being, there's no jiva, apart from Brahman, who could have, it become avidya. Who could become ignorant."

So if Brahman is all that exists, who exists apart from Brahman to whom ignorance applies? Are you saying that Brahman became ignorant? If you're saying that, how could pure knowledge become ignorant? Again, contradiction! So proven wrong, and then the final argument we looked at last week, from Tantra, arguing against the conclusion of Maya in Vedanta, is this. So this is a kind of you know, dialogue, so a discourse. So the first argument is from...

"Samvid rupam Brahma abhinam chakas..." Samvid means Consciousness. Rupa means the formal, rupam Brahma abhinam chakas. "So Brahman, pure Consciousness, shines alone in nirvikalpa samadhi, as the one true entity, and diversity is simply due to thinking and obscuring."

Because I don't know how to translate that, I just translated "thinking and obscuring," okay. So this is ultimately the mystical claim of Advaita Vedanta. When you are in nirvikalpa samadhi, when you're having this special experience of deep meditative absorption, there, you realize that Brahman is the only reality. And after that, when you open your eyes, you see this world as a shadowy noting, okay? But now the response will be this.

"Okay, fine! In nirvikalpa state, when you don't have any thoughts," meaning in deep samadhi, when there's no consciousness of body and mind, "fine. In that state, you're experiencing pure Consciousness, and you're calling that Brahman. Fine. But then diversity arises when you come out, right? So...nama..." "...kasya punah kalpana vritir va? Who then constructs, conduct, such thinking and obscuring? When you, when you do come out of samadhi, who is it that's thinking? Who is it that's obscuring? Is it Brahman? How could Brahman be thinking? If Brahman is thinking, then Brahman has been stained by his avidya. But since no one other than he exists, who could really be conducting such a thing?"

The Kashmiri Shaiva Perspective: Spiritual Realism

Okay. So let's move a bit forward from where we left off last time. So these are all the problems that are pointed out by Abhinavagupta in his [Name of Text] and and all the citations are there. So this is what Abhinavagupta says in response to the Vedantic schools. He's saying, "There's some, something really wrong with this Maya doctrine because it doesn't offer us an account." So what then is your answer, Abhinavagupta? Last week, we didn't really talk about it. Now let's talk about it. So now what's going to happen is Kashmir Shaivism is going to posit a new way of looking at this. It's called spiritual realism, maybe you can even call it pratyabhijna, or paramadvaita, but spiritual realism in the sense they're going to say that this is real, but not in the way the materialists say that it is. So the materialists say that matter and energy is really, really real, and it's like the foundational building block of universe. What Tantra, or Kashmir Shaivism is going to say is that no, those aren't real. Those are rather appearances, or better yet, apostles, shining for forth of something that is real, which is pure Consciousness.

Let me sketch out the argument for you before we look at some scriptural citations, briefly. So we know that everything I have ever experienced, ever, I have only ever experienced in Consciousness. How about that? Everything I've ever experienced, ever, I have only ever experienced in Consciousness. So even the things I don't know, I know that I don't know them. So even the infinite unknown, it too exists as pure potential within my conscious experience. So I'm not saying there isn't something out there! That probably is Alpha Centauri. I'm not saying it exists only if I look at it, but from where I'm standing now, Alpha Centauri exists as a pure potential. Not anymore, because we talked about it, so now it does have a kind of existence in the sense of a concept, or whatever. But let's say there's X. There's something called X. Even now, I'm giving an existence by calling it "X." But let's say there's something called X, and you haven't yet come into contact with it in any way. You haven't thought about it. You haven't been told about it. You haven't seen it. In other words, you've had no qualia regarding X. You've had no cognitions regarding X. It too exists in this form of potential. It could come into your experience from this vast space of non-knowing that also exists within knowing. So what you know, meaning the sensations you feel in your body, the, the thoughts that you can think, the emotions that you're having, the space around you, what's immediately available to you now, and what's not, both of them exist in Consciousness, is that fair? Also, if you hear sounds, you never hear them from outside of your experience. This is subtle, but you almost always hear sounds from within your experience, from within, and that means the sounds, even though they appear to be coming from the street out there, are in actuality, shining in you. So often, I mean, this is like, kind of my TikTok hook, you are not in the world, the world is an experience in you. Right? This is, this is the ultimate conclusion of Vedanta, Advaita. So this is what they have in common. It's monistic absolutism. Consciousness being the absolute.

[Commentator] There is an absolute! Exactly, and it's Consciousness!

Remember, please refer to the "What is Shiva?" lecture where we described why this Consciousness is valuable. Because it's Consciousness, as we describe, is full of bliss! It's, it's saturated with this innate joyfulness, this innate bliss, okay? So just note that, that Consciousness is blissful. So this absolute Consciousness is blissful and it alone exists, and everything either appears or exists within it. Okay? So that's the first claim.

Now, Advaita Vedanta is going to say everything only appears to exist within it, but because everything is changing, I mean, just like we did the experiment last week. Look at your memories! Are they not dreamlike? How real are your memories, really, you know, because everything is coming and going? There's change everywhere. It's hard to say, you know, "This is it!" There's no body. How can you reify a body when it's a flow of sensations? There's no mind. How can you reify the mind when it's a flow of thought? Because everything is changing, therefore, nothing is really there. In actuality, there is only this Consciousness Bliss absolute.

Now what you're going to hear from Advaitins, from, from Kashmir Shaivism, in contrast to that, is that, no, there is something real, and it's this: it's the creative potential, inherent in awareness, that expresses itself as this world of things. So this is a real cause: the creative power of Consciousness, and that real cause, called Shakti, which is higher as a tattva than Prakriti, or Maya, this Shakti uses both Prakriti and Maya as tools to create this world. So it's not that Prakriti or Maya are different from Shakti. It's not that Shakti is different from Shiva. And it's not that Shiva has anything other than the Consciousness that you, right now, feel yourself to be. So you, the conscious, that's a lot of words, right? You, the Consciousness that you are right now, have innate and intrinsic to you, this creative urge to express yourself as this world of cognitions, thoughts, emotions, sensations, etc.

Okay. So everything that you come into contact with, you come into contact with because you put it there. You manifested it. And not the new agey kind of "Law of Attraction" way, but I mean like, in a spiritual, realistic sort of way. It's, it's all inherent in you as potential, and it arises as a result of your curiosity. So here's the claim that I'm going to, hopefully by Mother's Grace, expound upon more next week. And the claim is this. Next week's lecture will be called "Brahman vs. Shiva." Because they're the, in Advaita, it doesn't do this. Brahman doesn't have this quality of curiosity and creative urge, or whatever. In Kashmir Shaivism, though, Brahman is here, describe the Shiva. The words don't matter. It's the same principle, has something in it called Spanda. This is an innate function. I don't say function, but let's say, I don't even want to say "quality," because we're still talking about, so this is not an attribute, okay? It's not a quality. It's not an attribute. And I'm getting to the end of time so I'm not going to go too deep into it. But it's not a quality. It's not an attribute. It's just an intrinsic nature. It's, it's intrinsic to awareness to have this thing called a Spanda, which is a stirring, a spiritual stirring. And that spiritual stirring, innate to Consciousness, expresses itself in three ways:

1. iccha shakti The will, or the urge
2. gyana shakti - playful desire to know
3. kriya shakti - to do

These are unique to Kashmiri Shaiva descriptions about Consciousness. They don't exist in Advaita Vedanta characterizations of Consciousness. There are no such. There's only chit, Shakti (the power of Consciousness to be inherently self-aware), the power of Consciousness to be inherently blissful. So it's just awareness and bliss. Nothing else. In Kashmir Shaivism, you get a new theory, which is this: Consciousness, if you, if you meditate more deeply, if you enter more deeply into the experience of Consciousness, you will feel within yourself, in the depth of your meditation, this subtle stirring called this Spanda. And you will feel that this Consciousness is intrinsically playful. And in a spirit of play, it has the potential to manifest anything and everything. **Why does this world look so diverse? Because it's the reflection of the manifestation in, the shining forth, in an infinite being. An infinite being creates an infinite reality. What's real about this world is not the various things, but rather the potency whereby these things come into being. I'm going to explain that statement more later.

A Non-Dual Hymn to Shiva: The Bhairava Stava of Abhinavagupta

Let's explore the Bhairava Stava, a powerful hymn composed by the renowned tantric master, Abhinava Gupta. We will probe into its legend, its significance within the Kashmir Shaiva lineage, and its continued relevance today, particularly within the community of Swami Lakshmanjoo.

Worshipping One's Ancestors During Pitru Paksha

The period of Pitru Paksha holds special significance for honoring one's ancestors. This sixteen-day period, culminating around October 14th, is dedicated to offering pindas (rice balls) to ancestors, particularly at sacred sites like Gaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment. This practice serves as a poignant reminder of lineage and ancestry.

The Legend of the Bhairava Stava

The Bhairava Stava stands as a testament to Abhinava Gupta's profound devotion. Legend has it that he composed and chanted this hymn as he consciously departed from his physical form. Walking into a cave symbolizing the primordial darkness, his voice reverberated through the space, eventually fading into a distant echo. This poignant image underscores the hymn's power and the depth of Abhinava Gupta's realization.

A Few Words About Swami Lakshmanjoo

Swami Lakshmanjoo, a revered figure within the Kashmir Shaiva tradition, is often regarded as an incarnation of Abhinava Gupta. He held deep reverence for the Bhairava Stava, frequently chanting it with his disciples. Notably, Mark Jakowski, a prominent scholar and disciple of Swami Lakshmanjoo, produced a beautiful English translation of this hymn, which continues to be recited within the Lakshmanjoo community every Sunday.

A Few Words About Sothilingam Vaithilingam and the Origin Story of this Community

This exploration of the Bhairava Stava is dedicated to the memory of Sothilingam Vaithilingam, whose passing inspired these gatherings. His legacy, along with that of countless masters, fuels the transmission of these profound teachings, ensuring the flame of knowledge continues to burn brightly.

Swami Vivekananda's Last Day

Swami Vivekananda, a renowned spiritual figure, exemplified a yogi's ideal departure from the physical realm. On July 4th, 1902, he engaged in his daily practices, radiating a sense of peace and acceptance. Witness accounts describe him joyously singing hymns to Kali as he moved through his day. His passing was marked by a profound vision experienced by Swami Ramakrishnananda, solidifying the yogi's liberated state.

A Story of Swami Lakshmanjoo and Swami Vivekananda

The connection between Swami Lakshmanjoo and Swami Vivekananda deepens the significance of the Bhairava Stava. Swami Vivekananda's encounter with the family who would later become Swami Lakshmanjoo's parents, his immersion in the chanting of the Bhairava Stava, and his spontaneous composition of additional verses demonstrate the living transmission of this sacred hymn across generations.

The Bhairava Stava of Abhinava Gupta (and a brief discussion of Bhairava's iconography)

The Bhairava Stava is a hymn to Bhairava, the fierce and awe-inspiring aspect of Shiva. Often depicted dwelling in cremation grounds, adorned with a garland of skulls and accompanied by a dog, Bhairava embodies both destruction and transformation. He guards sacred spaces, embodying the protective and powerful energy of Shiva. Yet, Bhairava also represents pure, non-dual consciousness, the very essence of being.

Key features of Bhairava's iconography:

• Dwells in Cremation Grounds: Symbolizing the impermanence of the physical realm and the transcendence of death.
• Adorned with Skulls: Representing the dissolution of ego and the liberation from attachment.
• Accompanied by a Dog: Symbolizing loyalty, protection, and the guidance offered on the spiritual path.

The Bhairava Stava is a journey into the heart of consciousness, guided by the fierce compassion of Bhairava.

Explanation of the Stava

The Bhairava Stava is steeped in imagery that evokes both awe and liberation. Drawing upon the symbolism of cremation grounds, where life and death intertwine, the hymn confronts us with our fears and invites us to transcend them.

Key themes and terms:

• Anaka (Angel of Death) and Pischachas (Demons): Represent the forces of mortality and the challenges on the spiritual path.
• Vetalas: Creatures inhabiting the liminal spaces, symbolizing access to hidden knowledge and the power of transformation.
• Fearlessness (Abhaya): A hallmark of enlightenment, representing the liberation from fear and the recognition of our true nature.

This hymn, while acknowledging the formidable presence of these forces, ultimately emphasizes the triumphant realization of oneness with Shiva, eclipsing all fear and aversion.

Verse 1: All-Pervasive Consciousness

The Bhairava Stava begins by establishing the all-encompassing nature of consciousness, represented by the term vapta (pervasion). This concept aligns with Abhasa, the doctrine of reflection, where the universe manifests from the unchanging source of pure consciousness.

• Anādi Ananta Chin: The beginningless and endless one consciousness, present in both the moving (dynamic) and unmoving (still) aspects of existence.
• Anatha: Often translated as “lordless” or “helpless,” it can also evoke a sense of being orphaned, emphasizing our innate longing for union with the Divine.

Key Takeaway: The hymn sets the stage for a journey into the heart of our being, guided by the unwavering presence of Bhairava.

Verse 2: The Universe as My Own Expression

This verse reveals the transformative power of grace (anugraha) in unveiling the true nature of reality.

Key Takeaway: Through grace, we recognize that the universe is not separate from us but rather a manifestation of our own being, reflecting the non-dual nature of Shiva.

Verse 3: Fearlessness in the Cycle of Samsara

Even within the cycle of birth and death (samsara), the realization of oneness with Shiva eradicates fear.

Key Takeaway: Knowing that there is nothing ultimately separate from our true self, we move through life's experiences with a sense of equanimity and fearlessness.

Verse 4: The Lord of Death Holds No Power

This verse boldly addresses Yama, the Lord of Death, asserting the power of devotion to neutralize fear.

Key Takeaway: Absorption in Shiva (through practices like meditation and contemplation) dissolves fear, even in the face of mortality.

Verse 5: Transcending Aversion

Through the grace of Shiva, all aversion (biṣa) disappears, even towards perceived negative forces like demons, death, and karma.

Key Takeaway: The recognition of oneness dismantles our judgments and aversions, allowing us to embrace all aspects of existence as manifestations of Shiva.

Verse 6: Awakening to Bliss

The fruits (phala) of devotion begin to manifest, leading to an experience of profound bliss (ānanda) and the awakening of inner knowing.

• Marichi: Represents both the ray of light (revelation) and the lineage of enlightened masters transmitting the teachings.

Key Takeaway: Devotion cultivates a state of lasting joy and unveils the interconnectedness of all things.

Verse 7: Finding Solace in Remembrance

Even amidst fleeting moments of misery, remembering our true nature brings immediate solace and joy.

Key Takeaway: The practice of remembering our unity with Shiva serves as an immediate antidote to suffering.

Verse 8: The Supreme Sacrifice

This verse highlights the transformative power of recognizing oneness as the highest form of sacrifice (yajña) and the path to realizing Shiva.

Key Takeaway: External rituals and practices pale in comparison to the profound inner shift that occurs when we directly experience our unity with the Divine.

Verse 9: Dancing with Ecstasy

The experience of Shiva's presence awakens an overwhelming sense of joy, expressed through spontaneous dance and song.

Key Takeaway: Union with the Divine is not a dry, intellectual pursuit but a vibrant, ecstatic experience that permeates our entire being.

Verse 10: The Hymn's Purpose and Power

Abhinava Gupta reveals his intention behind composing the Bhairava Stava:

• To express his love for Shiva.
• To offer a path to liberation for all beings.

He emphasizes that through meditation and contemplation on the hymn's verses, liberation from suffering is attainable within a single moment.

The Ultimate Secret to Happiness (Four Principles of Non Duality)

Now we are going to explore the four fundamental principles of non-duality, the foundational ideas of the profound and subtle philosophical school of Indian philosophy known as Advaita Vedanta.

These four distinct ideas are really the foundation for relaxing into renunciation. If you grasp them even just on an intellectual level, that alone is sufficient in opening you up to the possibility of living your life in a new way. The mere intellectual understanding of these four ideas can create a profound sense of relaxation and spaciousness.

You see, renunciation is perhaps not what you think. Renunciation is not necessarily a practice. It is a recognition of a fact. This is the beauty and subtlety of Advaita Vedanta. The philosophy of Hindu non-duality is not here to give you dogma or belief. It's not here to hand you a set of rules so you can win some favor in the afterlife. It's not even here to show you how to “get better.”

It is a philosophy aimed at getting you to realize what is already true in this moment, what is already a fact in your life. The startling claim of Advaita Vedanta is that enlightenment is your very nature. It is what you are. It's not something you can have in the future, it's not something you need to work toward, it's not something you need to heal or grow into. It is already the case.

Enlightenment is a simple recognition of what's already here. It's a fact now. All of the ideas I will present to you today are ancient, and they are all designed to awaken you to what is already the case.

The Impermanence of All Things

The insight here is as follows: anything that has a start time will have an end time. Anything that comes into existence is subject to going out of existence. This is clearly the case with everything in your life so far. Every relationship, every material possession, every fleeting pleasure or joy, everything that started had to end. Eventually, all of these things will, in one way or another, leave you. This is a startling revelation.

The impermanence and transiency of the world is deeply troubling, but worse than facing that fact is living in denial of it. There is something far worse than looking old age, sickness, and death in the eye, and that is living a life ignoring that those things are there. If we live this way, when our loved ones do eventually leave us, when our body does eventually decay, it will be a source of tremendous grief.

Advaita Vedanta says: take a look at that fact now.

Given that everything that starts must end, what is the value of enlightenment, salvation, or heavenly rewards that have a start date somewhere in the future? Advaita Vedanta does not deny that there are perhaps heavenly enjoyments. It does not deny that at the end of this body, the soul might go on to enjoy supernal realms of celestial bliss. It simply questions the value of those things.

Advaita Vedanta says any enlightenment or salvation that is a function of time is subject to end. If you're waiting to be saved, if salvation is something that will happen later down the road, then it's the kind of thing that starts, and if it starts, then it must end.

What use do we have for such a thing? Instead, Advaita Vedanta points you to something else, something that is already the case now, yesterday, and tomorrow: the enlightenment that is already your essential nature.

The Four Principles of Non-Duality

Before we uncover the four principles, a quick note on why we are doing this, why it is we have all come together to discuss these ideas.

The Indian seers of ancient India were, first and foremost, curious about the natural world. The beginnings of Indian philosophy were an honest inquiry into the nature of the world. Early Indian philosophers were interested in understanding, and eventually mastering, the forces of the external world. However, they soon tired of this.

Far more interesting than understanding the external world was understanding the inner world. Far more interesting than understanding the how of existence was understanding the why of existence. This is the question that captured the imagination of all the earliest Indian philosophers. As early as 4000 BCE, Indian philosophy made a sharp turn away from a mere material understanding of the world and turned toward a more inward-seeking philosophy, a philosophy aimed at the psychological realm, a philosophy looking to answer the question: How might a person live meaningfully and happily, how might a person come to enjoy a life of purpose and dignity in a world of impermanence?

After millennia of philosophizing, practicing, and experimenting, here is the ultimate essence of Indian philosophy, the ultimate insight: renunciation.

Renunciation is the highest ideal in India. All the paths of Indian philosophy– Jnana Yoga, Karma Yoga, Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Buddhism, Jainism –any flavor of South Asian spirituality, even East Asian spiritualities like Taoism and Zen Buddhism–all are designed to cultivate renunciation.

Renunciation is the beginning and end of all spiritual life.

Today, I want to clarify what we mean by that word, renunciation. As I mentioned a few moments ago, renunciation is not really a practice. It's not something you need to work toward. It's already a fact, it's already true of your life, and if you realize this, it would totally change how life feels, it would totally change the quality of your encounters with life. It would introduce a spaciousness and a relaxation most conducive to creativity, to compassion, and, most importantly, to meaning and to joy.

We talk about renunciation because we are convinced that renunciation is the ultimate key to happiness, that there can be no lasting fulfillment in this world without a proper recognition and cultivation of renunciation.

The four principles of non-duality I will introduce you to today are principles of renunciation. To understand them is to understand renunciation.

When we speak of renunciation today, do not think you need to change anything about your life externally. There's nothing you need to do. You might just go on doing the same thing that you've always done day in and day out. You might stay in the same job, you might fulfill the same duties. However, the way in which you go about all of that will be radically altered.

Make no mistake, I hope that today's lecture will be nothing short of transformative.

Principle #1: Upadhi - Mistaking Yourself to be What You are Not

Let's look at the four principles of non-duality:

1. Upadhi
2. Sakshi
3. Adhisthana
4. Viverta

The first, Upadhi, is perhaps the most exciting, perhaps the most important. It's a rather difficult word to translate into English. I've seen translations that call it “accidental identity” or “limited adjunct,” or my favorite, “incidental adjunct,” which doesn't really say very much.

The best way to describe Upadhi is: the phenomenon whereby you take yourself to be something other than what you truly are. It's a moment of false identification. It's mistaking the reflection in the lake for your actual face. It's like looking into a funhouse mirror and being incredibly distressed by the distorted reflection that you see. Imagine if you went into a funhouse and saw your reflection get shorter and wider, and you began to cry. Someone next to you would say, “Don't cry, it's only a reflection, you're mistaking yourself to be something you are not. You are the one casting the reflection, you are not the reflection.”

The traditional example we give in our tradition of Upadhi is the phenomenon of the transparent crystal and the colored flower. This is a popular metaphor from Sankhya, a school of Indian philosophy that emerged around the 5th or 6th century BCE.

Imagine you had a clear crystal, a beautiful, pristine, see-through, transparent gem. And then I gave you a flower, a bright, red flower. If you held the crystal in front of the flower, even if the crystal and flower are not touching, it might appear that the crystal is a ruby. The crystal might appear to be red.

Is the crystal red? Is the crystal the flower? No. The crystal isn't even touching the flower. The crystal is categorically different from the flower. They are entirely separate realities, two entirely separate things.

However, in this accident of perception, you have confused one for the other. By placing the crystal in front of the flower, the red flower “gave” its redness to the crystal, and you assumed that it was a red crystal.

The reason the crystal appears red is because of proximity. If the crystal was in one room and the flower in another, you wouldn't mistake the clear, transparent crystal for a ruby, because there's no proximity.

The problem arises when they are in proximity to one another, when the flower and the crystal are near one another. Then the crystal looks red. Then the crystal takes on the properties of the flower.

The technical term for this is Adhyāropa, meaning superimposition, to project or add on to something what was not there. The redness in the crystal is a textbook example of Adhyāropa (superimposition) or better yet, Upadhi (incidental adjunct).

Awareness and the Body-Mind

The Upadhi that Advaita Vedanta wants to point out is the incidental adjunct of awareness with the things that awareness is aware of. The body and the mind are objects of awareness. But by proximity, awareness, like the crystal, comes to mistake itself for the body and the mind.

You think yourself to be a physical being. This is an Upadhi. The only reason you think you are a body, the only reason you have bought into the delusion – make no mistake, we call it a delusion – of physicality, is because of a proximity error. There's no punishment here, there is no original sin. It's a mere intellectual error, a failure to recognize what is the case, a misunderstanding.

The body, when it comes into proximity with awareness, is much like the red flower that comes into proximity with the white crystal. The crystal takes on the property of the flower, and similarly, awareness takes on the property of the body. It's even trickier with the mind.

The psychological entity that most of us take ourselves to be is another Upadhi. We actually say there are three Upadhis, technically speaking. The three Upadhis, or three knots that keep you trapped, are:

1. Sthūlaśarīra (physical body) - the belief that you are a physical thing.
2. Sūkṣmaśarīra (subtle body) - your internal, subjective experiences: thoughts, emotions, dreams, your imagination.
3. Kāraṇaśarīra (causal body) - the blueprint of your psychological and physical being, where your seeds of karma are stored.

Think of the Kāraṇaśarīra as the code, the Sūkṣmaśarīra as the apps, and the Sthūlaśarīra as the hardware of a computer. You are not your computer, yet you think that you are.

Think of it like a 3D printer. The code (Kāraṇaśarīra) creates the software (Sūkṣmaśarīra) which then directs the 3D printer to create the hardware (Sthūlaśarīra).

The Kāraṇaśarīra is the body that you inhabit when you are in deep sleep. In your waking world, you predominantly experience yourself as a physical body. The waking world is predominantly a physical experience. When you go to sleep, you forget all about your physical body and enter into the Sūkṣmaśarīra. Dreaming is a Sūkṣmaśarīra experience.

The Kāraṇaśarīra is too elusive to describe, as it is experienced as a void, the absence of all objects of experience. Perhaps it is enough to say that it is the deep sleep body.

Think of the three Upadhis in terms of the three states of consciousness:

• The physical body in the waking state
• The dream body or the Sūkṣmaśarīra in the dream state
• The Kāraṇaśarīra in the deep sleep state

The subtle inheres in the gross. Two rocks can't occupy the same space at the same time, but two fragrances can. The rock, the water, the air, the sound – they all exist on different levels of reality, and these different levels of reality can interpenetrate one another.

What matters is that there are three Upadhis, meaning they are all convincing depictions of what you are, but they are not at all what you are. You taking yourself to be any of these three is a mistake, an Upadhi. It's an error that results as a consequence of proximity.

When awareness comes near a body, it thinks it's a body. When awareness comes near a subtle body, it thinks it's a subtle body. And awareness, when it comes near a deep sleep or causal body, it takes itself to be that. It takes itself to be the void.

You are Not the Body, Nor are You the Mind

Let's try to prove that you are not a body. Let's try to prove that the body is indeed an Upadhi. And then we'll try to prove that the subtle body is also an Upadhi. And then we'll try to prove that the deep sleep body is also an Upadhi.

In order to notice change, in order to be aware that change is happening, you must be standing outside of the change. If you were a particle of water in a river, you wouldn't know that the river was flowing. It is only from the vantage point of the river bank that you can meaningfully say the river is flowing.

The very fact that you are noticing change in something implies that you are not in it. You are outside of it, apart from it.

The world is changing. You notice this. So, you are not the world. You look at the world, and you know you're not the busy street outside. You are the one watching the cars go by. You are not the flowing river. You are the one sitting on the bank watching the river flow by.

Notice the body. Is it not a flux, a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of change? The very fact that you notice the body aging shows you that you must be standing somewhere apart from the body. You must be observing it from a relatively less changing vantage point in order to adequately make the statement “the body is changing.” It's not even about making the statement, it's about noticing, it's about perceiving the change of the body.

If you were the body, you would not perceive the body changing. You must be something other than the body to intelligibly notice the body changing. You were a baby, then an adolescent, then a young adult, and then perhaps you noticed the first gray hairs, or smile lines, or wrinkles. The posture becomes a little crooked, the muscles don't have the strength they once had. All of this changes, and you are aware of it. Being aware of the change is enough to notice that you are not the changing thing.

You are on the platform, you are not on the train. The body is the train, you are the platform.

The mind changes even more quickly than the body. The mind is a constantly vacillating thing, moving from one extreme to the other. The mind is always restless, moving from one idea to the next. Emotions are always restless, moving from one feeling to the next.

Notice how fragile happiness can be. We're excited at Disneyland, and then our kid says something hurtful, and now we're upset. Emotions are changing so quickly, thoughts are changing so quickly. Because you notice this change, you must be something other than the mind. What is a personality other than a conglomeration of thoughts in the mind?

So, if you can recognize that you are not the mind by virtue of being able to observe the mind and its changes, you are able to realize that what you took to be you, that psychological personality - that's not you. That's no more you than the body was you. All of that is a changing flux, and you are not it. You are the awareness that is aware of it.

The motto of Advaita Vedanta is: Realize what you are not and relax into what you are. Or, in other words: be aware of what you are not, because what you are aware of, you are not. Do you notice this? What you are aware of is the object; you are the subject. You are the awareness.

The very fact that you can be aware of the body, that you can be aware of the mind, means you are not the body, nor are you the mind. You are the one who is aware of those two things.

And so, too, with the Kāraṇaśarīra, it is something you can be aware of in deep states of meditation. Some people, when they meditate, feel void, the absence of all things, and they ascribe to that void an identity. They say, “I am the void, I am the no-thing.”

But Advaita Vedanta wants to make this point: void, emptiness, is something you experience. It is something you are aware of. Therefore, you must be the one who is aware.

Upadhi is anything that you mistake yourself to be by virtue of awareness coming into proximity with it. When the crystal comes near the flower, it appears red. When awareness comes near the body, it takes itself to be the body, and as such, it freaks out when the body is in pain. It thinks itself to be in pain.

The Second Arrow

When you get a cut, there is pain in the body, but we make the statement, “I am in pain.” No, you are not the body. Pain in the body is not pain in you. But, as long as you take yourself to be the body, then certainly pain in the body is pain in you. However, if you remember this teaching in times of physical pain, you might notice a spaciousness opening up between you and the pain.

Resist saying, “I am in pain.” Resist identifying with the body, resist the Upadhi, and you might perceive a spaciousness that allows you to endure the pain a little more.

Pain does not have to be suffering. There's the age-old adage, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

The Buddha said, “I cannot remove the first arrow, but I can remove the second.” The first arrow is old age, sickness, and death. These things happen to the body, however, they need not happen to you. The second arrow is your identification with the old age, sickness, and death. You say, “I am sick,” “I am old,” “I am dying.” That's what the Buddha says he can save you from. You need not suffer, although you might certainly feel pain.

The next time you feel something in the mind - grief, remorse, boredom, resentment, or even energy, excitement, pride, or shame - remember that all of that is happening in the psychological realm, in the mind. Don't be too invested in that. There's nothing you will learn from it. It's not you.

You can live your whole life trying to create a powerful, healthy, beautiful body. You can spend your whole life trying to heal and grow the mind with wisdom and knowledge. None of that will help you, because neither the body nor the mind is you. Ultimately, you are the one who is aware of those two things.

As long as there is an Upadhi, as long as we take ourselves to be the body and the mind, there is necessarily suffering. We make “I am” statements like, “I am sad,” “I am happy,” “I am in pain.”

There is a virtue to studying psychology because it allows you to see yourself objectively. If you can objectify the mind, see it as impersonal, then your study of psychology will be fruitful. But if you are busy psychoanalyzing, rewriting the DSM-5 to give yourself new labels, then you have fallen into the trap of thinking yourself to actually be a psychological being.

Give the body what is due unto the body. Let the body have its medicines, let the body have its food. Don't think that you need any of that, though. Give the mind what the mind needs. If it needs a label in order to organize itself better, sure.

But you never at any point in this process of tending to the body or the mind conflate yourself with those things.

It is interesting, though: the moment you stop identifying with the body, the body assumes perfect health. Most of the illnesses in the body come from contractions in the mind. It's fear, stress, tightening. When you no longer take the body seriously, the muscles ease up, the lymphatic fluid flows, blood circulates, electrical impulses race unobstructed. The body inheres in health when you no longer consider yourself the body.

Have you ever noticed the harder you try to win someone's heart, the more elusive their love becomes? Desperation is the most unattractive thing. Why should that principle be any different with the body?

Really trying to keep the body alive will ultimately kill it. When you obsess with making the body healthy, you will find you are sicker than ever. You must just let the body assume its natural state of health.

The mind stresses out only if you think yourself to be the mind. The harder you try to have a perfect day, the worse that day will be. The more you relax into the day, the more you allow it to be just what it wants to be, the more likely you are to be surprised by its beauty.

When you relax, when you give up your attachment to things, they come along much more smoothly. Whether you're dating, playing music, dealing with your body, dealing with your mind - it seems like nature sees to itself when you step out of the way. This is the grand theme of the Tao Te Ching: Wu Wei (actionless action), backing out, surrendering your involvement and being surprised by the miracle of life living itself through you.

Decisions become effortless when you no longer take yourself to be the body and the mind.

That's the first concept: Upadhi. It is very important because it is the reason for our suffering. As long as Upadhi occurs, suffering is. The moment we sever the link between us and our body and mind, the Upadhi is gone, we have dissolved it, and we are able to be aware of it, recognizing that we are not that, and so we can relax.

Principle #2: Sakshi - The Witness

The second principle is Sakshi, which means to witness. The pure, compassionate witnessing of life is a grace of the non-dual practice. Rather than being overly attached to the psychodrama of life, why not sit back and watch it unfold in a spirit of warm, compassionate curiosity and humor?

It's not happening to you. It's happening to your body and your mind. So rather than get entangled in the drama, why not just sit back and watch?

You cannot enjoy a movie if you really think yourself to be the characters. Imagine watching a horror film and not realizing it was a film. You'd be horrified! But because you recognize it is a film, and that the characters are actors, you are able to enjoy it.

When you can recognize that the body and mind have very little to do with you, then you can actually start to enjoy them. As long as you're caught up in your mind, you're not able to enjoy your mind, to enjoy its experiences.

Advaita says: Don't shy away from the beauty, don't ignore the delight of being a mind. There is a sacredness to the happinesses of the mind. However, there is also a tremendous frustration when those happinesses go away. The ability to enjoy the mind is contingent upon your ability to witness it in a non-attached way.

If happiness comes, enjoy it while it's there. If happiness goes, bid it adieu, with the understanding that it has nothing to do with you.

If sadness comes, you might be able to enjoy it while it's there, too. You might be able to appreciate sadness and grief as an artistic experience. We don't just make art about happy things.

You can truly enjoy anything as long as there's space between you and it. So, if you notice every sadness arising in the mind, and if you cease making statements such as, “I am sad,” and instead you say, “Ah, I am witnessing a feeling,” or better yet, “There is an experience now occurring in me, the awareness. There is an experience of tightening in the chest, there is an experience of shortness of breath, there is a pit widening in the belly,” if you use that language, you will no longer be tyrannized by emotions. You will delight in them.

You can truly enjoy everything that happens in the mind because you know it has nothing to do with you. Sakshi. Witness it.

Even the body has its pleasures. One must not be frightened of pleasure. The beginner in spirituality perhaps needs to cultivate a healthy skepticism when it comes to pleasure. In the beginning, pleasure can trap you in endless cycles of craving.

But for the advanced practitioner, as long as you have cultivated a healthy amount of non-attachment, you should be able to enjoy any pleasure that arises without fearing its dissolution. As a pleasure comes up, you understand fully that it is transient, you understand fully that it cannot satisfy you, because you are not the mind, and pleasure is of the mind.

How can dog food ever satisfy you? It's dog food!

As long as you can be the Sakshi, the pure, non-attached witness, you can truly enjoy what comes without fearing its going away, and you can enjoy what is there knowing that it will go away. “This too shall pass” will become a lived experience for you.

If something bad comes, you can smile and enjoy it because you know it's not forever. When something bad happens, you usually act as if it's forever. But things come and go. When we're sad, we think we'll always be sad. However, if we are purely the witness, if we're used to simply witnessing things come and go, then when sadness comes, not only do we know that it's going to go, but because we know that it's going to go, we can open up to it, we can appreciate it for what it is, we can truly be with it. We don't resist it as much, we don't fear it as much, and there is tremendous spaciousness in that.

When happiness comes, you can truly enjoy it. William Blake wrote: He who binds to himself a joy / Doth the winged life destroy; / But he who kisses the joy as it flies / Lives in eternity's sun rise.

The more you cling on to happiness, the more it will elude you. The moment you relax and allow things to come and go, the happier you will be. Sadness becomes beautiful, and happiness becomes so much more delightful and meaningful because both are seen as passing, transient phenomena. You are the witness, you can calmly watch them come and go. Recognizing Upadhi awakens you to Sakshi.

Here's another thing you must know about Sakshi: The witness is unchanged by the event being witnessed. This is very important to remember. The sadness doesn't change you, and the happiness doesn't change you either. Nothing has anything to do with you, the awareness. You are pristine, you are pure.

What does light stick to? If I were to turn a lamp on in a room, does the light get harmed by what it shines upon? Does the light become tarnished by shining on a bowl of moldy bread? If the light shines on a bowl of flowers, is it any more or less beautiful than when it was shining on the bread?

No. The light is beyond touch. The light doesn't get tarnished or changed by what it shines upon.

You, the Sakshi, are a light shining into the universe. Whatever your light of witnessing alights upon, your light remains unchanged, unaffected. Sadness cannot do anything to you, death, pain, old age, none of that can affect the light of witnessing.

Knowing this, you are completely pure. You are untouched, unsullied.

Understanding the point of Sakshi moves you beyond judgment and self-loathing. You are unsullied. Recognize this and you awaken to the pristine grandeur, innocence, and invulnerability inherent in the act of witnessing.

Savor Sakshi. Savor its purity. Savor its invulnerability and invincibility. The light is not affected by that which it shines upon. You are the light, not the object that is lighted.

Principle #3: Adhiṣṭhāna - The Ground

Adhiṣṭhāna, meaning the ground, is the third principle. It explains how it is you are connected to the things you are experiencing. You can never prove – and I mean this categorically, you can never prove, you may try, but you can never prove – the existence of anything outside of awareness.

You can never show me an objective thing. Everything you claim to be objective requires a subject to make that claim. You show me scientific data on a computer, that data is still within awareness, within perception.

You can't prove the existence of anything independent of your awareness. Does that mean there's nothing outside of your awareness? According to Sankhya, no. Sāṅkhya says there could be something, there probably is something. But the something out there is not the something you think.

You can never perceive the world as it is. You can only infer its existence. You can infer the existence of a something, but you will only be able to interact with it through your own psychological delusion.

Sāṅkhya doesn't deny the flower. Remember the crystal and the flower? It's a Sāṅkhya metaphor. It says: the flower is real. It just wants you to see that you are not the flower, but there is a flower. You can never truly know the flower because you, the crystal, are not the flower.

Advaita Vedanta goes even further. It says: Prove it. Prove that something is there. It makes no sense to talk about something that cannot be proven. It's irrational to say, “You know what, in the other room, there's a floorgash board. Are you afraid of the floorgash board?”

“Can I see it?”

“No, it's not something that can be seen or experienced. You can't be aware of it, ever.”

“So, then why talk about it?”

It would be insane to suggest that there is something that cannot be experienced. Fortunately, God is very experienceable, not to say that God can be seen or heard, or tasted or smelled, but God can be experienced.

In this experience, the one indispensable principle is awareness. Without awareness, nothing else could be spoken of. This is the essence of Advaita Vedanta, what distinguishes it from Sāṅkhya: given that we cannot prove the existence of anything apart from awareness, it is better that we renounce believing in it. It is better that we say nothing exists apart from awareness.

This is a phenomenological approach. It is not a logical approach. It is not a philosophical approach. It's a very simple approach: Let's look at this moment.

My favorite example is the “Ayurvedic copper water bottle argument.” My concept, “Ayurvedic copper water bottle,” depends on there being such a thing in the world, an object with shape and color and texture. Without this object, I could not have the concept.

The same is true for “Tibetan singing bowls.” If you've never seen one, that concept might not correspond to anything in your reality. However, if you see one, you think, “Ah, I get it.”

The essence of a concept is a sense event. Without the sense event, there would be no concept. This is true for fictional concepts like “unicorn,” too. You need to have seen horns, rhinos, horses, and be able to put those ideas together.

You can't talk about a “floorgash board” because I would have to explain it to you in terms of things you have seen.

“Well, it's a little like a frog, but it's like a frog that's like a jaguar.”

Concepts refer to, and emerge from, sense events. Sense events emerge from sensing. No matter how many things there are in the world, if I had no eyes to perceive them, they wouldn't be there for me. Imagine if you had no eyes, ears, nose, mouth. It would make no sense for you to think about these things, they would not exist for you. No one could even tell you about them.

Sensing is the root of the sense event, and the sense event is the root of the concept. The world of concepts depends on the world of sensation, which depends on the organs of sensation, which depend on awareness.

Without awareness, you wouldn't be able to speak of all of these things. You are not able to dispense with awareness because even if you say there's no awareness, who is the one to whom that realization is occurring? There must be something, some principle.

Now, a Buddhist might say, “No, it's just an aggregate,” part of a matrix, and it can be dispensed with. But this runs into problems.

Buddhism and the Void

In Buddhist thought, the opposite of Saṃsāra (the cycle of birth and death, suffering) is Nirvāṇa (liberation from suffering). Nirvana and Samsara are diametrically opposed. But another tenet of Buddhist practice is the emptiness of Saṃsāra: Śūnyatā (emptiness, voidness). The world is nothing but an empty appearance.

The problem: if the world is unreal, then the opposite of an unreal thing must itself be unreal. If Samsara is void, then Nirvana too is nothing. If Nirvana is nothing, then it cannot get you out of Samsara. And if Nirvana is nothing, then what is the point of Buddhism?

Early Buddhist schools, Sarvāstivāda and Yogācāra, spent centuries debating this problem. Sarvāstivāda took a realist approach: Samsara is real, and its opposite, Nirvana, must also be real. Yogācāra, in contrast, took a more idealist approach: Samsara is not real, and Nirvana is also not real. It's all empty.

Neither of these answers were particularly satisfying.

Then, along came Nāgārjuna, a brilliant philosopher who emerged in the second century CE. He proposed the Mādhyamika school, which means middle way.

Mādhyamika, or Śūnyavāda (the void) Buddhism, says: yes, Nirvana is the opposite of Samsara, but what if Nirvana is Samsara? What if they are not diametrically opposed, but simply two ways of looking at the same thing?

Nāgārjuna gives a third thing: the void. The void appears to the unenlightened as Saṃsāra. But that very same void that is Samsara to the unenlightened is Nirvāṇa to the enlightened master. Nirvāṇa equals Saṃsāra, depending on which side of the fence you're on. Problem solved!

The only way to solve this problem is by positing a third thing, what Nāgārjuna calls the void. Śūnyavāda Buddhism is “void knowledge Buddhism.” It is the precursor to Advaita Vedanta. Many people call Gauḍapāda and Śaṅkarācharya, the great non-dual masters, “crypto-Madhyamikas” because they believe Nāgārjuna laid the foundation for Advaita Vedanta.

Nāgārjuna makes the classic “snake in the rope” argument. He is saying that the one rope appears to the unenlightened as a snake. The one rope is the snake, but it is also the rope. It is not as if the snake and the rope are two different things. That is why we say Mādhyamika Buddhism, or Śūnyavāda Buddhism, is foundational for Advaita Vedanta.

Advaitins might ask the Madhyamikas: where did you get that void? Is that not the Ātman (the Self)? Is the void more appealing to one who is interested in ending suffering? If you want to end suffering, you are on a negative quest, you are seeking to destroy something. But if you are seeking the Holy Grail, you are on a traditional quest. Because they are asking different questions, the Buddhist and the Advaitan necessarily formulate the answers in different ways.

Is there a real distinction? On the level of experience, if you walk the Buddhist path to its culmination, and you walk the Advaita path to its culmination, would you end up in the same place? Or would you end up in two different, but equally satisfying, places?

This is something I am playing with right now. I cannot answer you because I am still experimenting, particularly with Christianity. I am trying to discover if the agapé of Christianity is in fact different from the spaciousness I feel upon realizing the Self. There might be different enlightenments appealing to different people, which makes the game of life so much more fun. If I succeed in an Advaitic path, I might be able to play again and try a Buddhist path, and then a Sufi path.

This is why Ramakrishna found so much delight in practicing all the different religions. He went deep, to the end point of all those philosophies, and delighted in them all. Can you, in one lifetime, experience the agapé of the Christians, the complete innocence and knowing of Allah of the Sufis, the complete freedom of the Advaitin, the ecstasy of the Tantrika, and the insurmountable peace of the Buddhist? Maybe not.

Back to Adhiṣṭhāna

Adhiṣṭhāna: Awareness gives rise to the sense organs, sense organs give rise to sense events, and sense events give rise to the world. Thanks to awareness, I have everything else. Everything is premised on awareness. So you might say everything is made of awareness.

Everything I see is me appearing through me. I don't mean the limited, psychological “me,” but the awareness in which that illusory self appears.

This is not solipsism. Solipsism says the world revolves around you, the psychological you. We negate that. We are talking about the awareness in which the illusory self comes and goes. That awareness is you, and as such, everything appears in it.

Everything is made up of awareness, so you can step back and appreciate life in this unified field of awareness. This is the unified field theory of spirituality, the idea that everything is connected.

We are not saying to dismiss differences, to ignore that bodies are different, to look at Daniel and see Nish. Daniel and Nish are different. But it's nice to notice that. It's nice to notice there are physical differences, and mental differences. Everyone has a specific personality, and that makes life exciting. Every time you encounter someone, you encounter yourself in a new way.

You are able to appreciate these differences with perfect love and unity if you can feel into the underlying unity that is there. We're not saying gloss over differences, ignore differences. We're saying contextualize your differences in the unified field of awareness.

Because without awareness, none of it is. Awareness is the ground out of which everything arises.

The Movie Screen Metaphor

Swami Sarvapriyananda gives a beautiful metaphor of the movie screen. The movie screen is the ground of the movie. Without the movie screen, you would not have the movie. But the movie doesn't affect the movie screen.

The awareness that you are is the ground of your everyday experience. However, that doesn't mean your everyday experience can affect you.

You might say, “If everything is made of awareness, then if someone dies, I die a little bit. If someone is sad, I should be sad, too.”

No. Whatever happens, even though it depends on you, is of a different order of reality and cannot affect you.

Principle #4: Viverta - Appearance

Viverta, which means appearance, is the fourth and final principle. Viverta is what distinguishes Advaita Vedanta from Tantric non-duality.

Tantric non-duality asserts that awareness is inextricably linked to the thing that it is aware of. The Tantric non-dualist says: Śiva-Śakti, awareness and its object, are part of one continuum.

If that's true, though, you lose your peace, because that means something that happens to the object happens to you, too. Now you have to become invested in other people, in the world.

Advaita Vedanta says: relax, it's not you. It's not an emanation of you, it's not a projection of you, it's not real. It's appearing, and therefore its appearance leaves you unscathed.

The bombs and missiles and all the things that happen in an action movie don't actually harm the movie screen. The movie screen is the ground upon which the movie is projected, but nothing that happens in the movie can leave any imprint on the screen. The movie screen is totally unaffected.

Did the movie screen create the movie? Not really, the director did. Is the movie screen responsible for the hero's actions or the villain's malice? No.

The Problem of Evil

In Tantric non-duality, it is the screen's fault. This leads to the problem of evil: God (Śiva, awareness) created the world, and that includes evil. In Tantric non-duality, evil is seen as just another expression of the infinitude of Śiva. It's all just Śiva turning into the aggressor and the victim, because Śiva desires to experience both. This can be a difficult concept to grasp, especially for those who have not yet had experience with Tantric practices.

Advaita Vedanta offers an answer that may be more palatable: God did not cause evil. Evil is an appearance, a movie.

The screen did not cause the movie. If you ask the screen why the movie is there, it will say, “I don't know, it's a movie. It comes and goes. I didn't direct it.” The reasons for the movie are contained within the movie itself.

This forces humans to take responsibility for their actions and not ascribe them to God or some divine plan. If there's evil in the world, it's only on the level of the movie, of the play. This is why Krishna says to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita: “He who thinks that he is the killer, and he who thinks he is killed, are both ignorant of the truth.”

If you are invested in the movie at the expense of the movie screen, you have missed the point. No one is actually dying. You can kill a body, you can kill a mind, but can you kill the being, the awareness? It is an Upadhi that you are killing. If a person is not the body, if a person is not the mind, then what is there to kill?

Viverta and Peace

Viverta is the understanding that the order of existence of the appearance is different from the awareness. Therefore, nothing that happens in the appearance can affect the awareness. The light is not affected by what it shines upon. The movie screen, even though it is the basis for the movie, is ultimately not the author of the movie, nor is it affected by the movie.

These, my friends, are the four principles of Advaita Vedanta. As long as we remember them, we have an opening into relaxation, spaciousness, and renunciation.

Remember, you are not the body and you are not the mind. When you feel pain, when you feel grief, remember that your suffering is an innocent error. It is not a punishment from God, it is not the result of some past karma.

Advaita Vedanta is a rational, profoundly incisive, logical tradition. This is all superstition! What value is there in a God who punishes?

There is no need to be masochistic. Karma may be real, but only on the level of the body and mind, not for you. When you experience pain, it is not because you are being punished. The body is caught in this karmic cycle, but you are not the body.

Stop making statements like, “I am in pain,” “I am happy,” “I am sad.” Instead, make neutral statements. See how that changes your experience. Notice the spaciousness that arises, the spaciousness that makes each experience of the mind and body more delightful.

*Be the Sakshi*. Witness it all compassionately. Be open to it. When you know that you are not the body and the mind, you will not resist anything. You will not be frightened. When you observe things from this place of fearlessness, then you can truly delight in it.

You can be open to everything. The danger of being a spiritual practitioner is that in the beginning you may need to learn how to avoid pleasure, and in doing so you may end up becoming frightened of it. You might develop a complex where you fear the world will drag you back into suffering.

“Oh, alcohol… I don't drink alcohol, but sometimes I have a tendency to fear it. I worry it will ruin my bliss.”

Wow. What is the worth of your bliss if a sip of wine can destroy it? No, I want a bliss that is unsullied, untouched by anything that happens to the body and the mind. Tie me down and pour a barrel of wine over me, I will remain untouched - spiritually speaking!

In the beginning, maybe not. But now? I am chill. I don't crave it. It's very subtle. It's the ultimate stage in Tantra, to be able to go back into the world. You did not incarnate to simply renounce the world, but to enjoy it.

But you can only enjoy it when you realize you are not of it.

Be in the world, not of it. Then this world becomes your prize. The Kingdom of Heaven is here, it is within. It is a matter of perception.

You must eventually be able to enjoy your life, otherwise, what is the point of all this philosophy? Life negation? No. These philosophies are deeply life-affirming.

So, how do you enjoy life as a witness? Spaciously. Beautifully. Whatever comes, you delight in it. You can be open to enjoyment without it trapping you. Life is often a mixture of enjoyment and pain. You can be open to pain without suffering.

"Ah, nice, cool sensation," you might say. Not pain. Even the word “pain” might have a negative flavor. In India, we distinguish between duḥkha (suffering) and kliṣṭaha (pain). Suffering is when you ascribe meaning to the pain. Pain is just a feeling. You've come to a very high place when you can experience pain simply as sensation!

Why Maya?

Why Maya? Nobody knows, and nobody cares! I know it sounds like an anti-intellectual response, but it's not. You cannot answer the question, “When did my ignorance begin? When did I forget? Why did I forget?”

Let's say you never learned Sanskrit. You were ignorant of it. Then, you took a Sanskrit class and learned the alphabet. You can now point to the moment when your ignorance ended. But can you pinpoint when it began? You were in perpetuity ignorant of Sanskrit until you took that class.

Nobody can answer for you, according to Advaita Vedanta, why Maya, when Maya, or at what point Maya, because there is no Maya.

Maya only appears to exist. So the question “why the mirage?” is unanswerable. It's just some shimmering. But why is it an oasis? Who knows? You just thought it was, and the moment you stopped thinking it was, it stopped being an oasis. And now, trying to answer why it was an oasis doesn't matter. It becomes just another intellectual curiosity, and you are no longer the mind, so you're finished with all intellectual articulation anyway!

Tantra offers an answer. Let's accept Ātman or Brahman as Śiva, a kind of… well, actually, Brahman has no will, awareness has no will. It doesn't want to be aware, it just is aware. It's just a fact. Do you want to be aware? There is no choice in the matter, you just are.

But Śiva wants to be aware. So, according to Tantra, Śiva created the world, and then, in order to experience that world, Śiva became you. But God is so good at playing pretend that even God forgot she was God!

So here you are, you forgot because you overdid it. You made this world too delightful. But don't worry, you left hints. You knew that when you incarnated you would forget. In fact, forgetting was the point.

You can only enjoy a movie when you become invested in it, really invested, when you think you are the characters.

Tantra says: The best way to enjoy the world is in it but not of it, just like Advaita. But the reason you forgot, the reason for Maya – they don't even call it Maya, they call it Śakti – the reason you fell into this state is because of Śiva's plan. It was all part of the game.

It was fun to forget. It's fun to remember. Because it's fun is the reason Tantra will give you.

We are not always serious about our religion. You will notice that in Eastern spirituality there is a tremendous sense of humor.

Conclusion

So, don't worry about Maya so much. Let Maya be Maya. Let the scientists study it.

I speak to you now as a spiritual being, as awareness. I am hoping to speak not to your body, not to your mind, but to you. And to you, I say: let the body and the mind do their thing, you simply resist nothing. Be open to everything, recognize it all as you appearing to you in the medium of you. And therein lies the peace of God.

How This World Came Into Being? (It Didn't)

Now, we're going to look at five different theories of how the world came into being and then, one by one, do away with them from the standpoint of the highest, most radical non-duality.

You'll recall that our current project is to map out the 7 steps to Enlightenment. Thus far, we've reduced Jagat, the perceivable Universe to Pancha-bhuta-vilasa, the play of five elements which we reduced further to Maya, by summarily rubbishing notions of time and space. This alone is potent medicine for worldliness, and already there should arise a renunciation having realized the full implications of what has been said so far.

But we can and will go further. Because we have left to ask: “where does God fit into all of this?” and for some of us, more importantly: “where do I fit into all of this?” In tonight's lecture (and also next week's talk), we will begin to sketch out an answer to both questions. The thrilling thing is that the answer is the same!

As such: tonight, we will discuss Creation. How did God, the Infinite Consciousness, create this world and why? Where does Consciousness fit into all of this?

And next week, we will explore the Viverta Vada, the Doctrine of Appearance, much more, and I hope to offer an argument to show that it is impossible, in an absolute sense, for you to be any different than God!

The Ladder

1. Jagat
2. Pancha-bhuta Vilasa
3. Maya Vilasa
4. Chid Vilasa
5. Chid Viverta
6. Chinmayam
7. Chinmatram

Five Ways to Experience God Directly

So today, friends, we've got some very interesting studies ahead of us because we're going to ask the question: what is it to see and experience God directly?

And to even answer this question, we must first be very precise as to what the word “God” means and in what sense we intend to use that word.

In this lecture, I'm going to propose that there are at least five ways to conceive of God. They are, namely:

1. Nirguna Nirakara - The formless Godhead which cannot even be spoken about. It's far beyond the realm of all thought and speech and is typically experienced in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the highest absorption in meditation.
2. Saguna Nirakara - This is typically the God referred to by the Abrahamic faiths who is formless, and yet is a type of person, a kind of cosmic personality. Although formless, this person, this being, this spirit creates, maintains, destroys, listens to prayers, answers prayers, is the bestower of grace and judgment. This God both redeems and binds. This is the sort of active God.
3. Saguna Sakara - Sa Akara meaning “with attributes.” That is the God that creates, destroys, and maintains but also comes in a particular form, an aspect. These are the Shivas and the Kalis and the Durgas, and all of that. These are all the aspects of God that appear in a certain way. They appear like a blue-skinned fellow on a tiger-skinned mat with matted locks, or like Kali with however many arms, holding however many weapons, a garland of skulls. These are forms that appear to people in mystic vision. They're called Saguna Sakara.
4. Incarnations of God - In the Vaishnava tradition, the incarnations, that is, God Bhagavan taking form, in the way of Rama. Rama is actually a human man, but he is not just a human man, he is literally God embodied as a human man. So this is an incarnation of God. Then Krishna is, in the same vein, an incarnation of the highest divinity but clothed in the form of a fellow, a guy who actually existed in history. So to say then there is Buddha, Lord Buddha is seen in the Vaishnava tradition as also an incarnation of God. And then there is, of course, Shankara, Chaitanya, and you can't leave out Jesus, the other big tradition around an incarnation. So Jesus lived, walked, was happy, was sad, for all intents and purposes, acted like a man, like a human being, and yet he was the highest divinity, non-different from God itself. So that's Krishna, Rama, Jesus, Buddha, and of course, Ramakrishna. These are all incarnations.
5. The Effects of God - Whatever God may be, incarnation or no, Kali, Shiva aspect or no, personal or impersonal, whatever God may be, there is also a way in which to speak of God with reference only to the impact God has in our lives. So this is like feeling the providence of God, or sensing the presence of God, or just getting a sense of the sacred without at all articulating or conceptualizing the sacred in all those four ways we just discussed.

These are the five aspects of God I'd like to discuss today, and then from there, I'd like to propose that there are five different and distinct ways, by no means an exhaustive list, for experiencing God directly.

You know, if there are five different types of God, or rather five different ways in which God can be articulated, there must at least be five different ways to receive that God, to experience that God directly, right? At least!

And now who can limit God? This is by no means an exhaustive list, but our survey today is kind of a survey of the theology of some 5,000 years of South Asian spiritual philosophy. So we see in the scriptures of India, in the Upanishads, in the Puranas, we see all over, different depictions of God as the formless absolute, which is the favorite of the Upanishads in Advaita Vedanta, as the absolute with form which is the favored of Abrahamic faiths and other like monotheistic fates in India, and also a favorite of like, I guess, most of the world, this idea of God is a person yet formless, one step removed from Godhead or the formless absolute. And then, of course, in South Asian spirituality, there's no end to aspects of gods and goddesses like Kali, Shiva, however many, you know, so many in the pantheon, and finally the incarnations itself.

So these are all different ways that we're going to talk about God, and these are all ways that have appeared in Indian spiritual philosophy, so we're not making these up, we're kind of deriving them from these sources, and we'll try to cite these sources as much and as far as possible. However, the world of spirituality is, it's like a galaxy, you know, you can't limit it to just these five. So it's a working model, it's not an exhaustive list, it's just a working theology and a framework to talk about that which ultimately cannot be talked about, you know. So this is a vain attempt of expressing the inexpressible, and for all intents and purposes, God, whatever she may be, will probably laugh at all of this, and yet it will delight her anyway, and thus it is worth doing.

Five Ways of Conceiving God

So three things, right? The first step in the lecture is to describe these four aspects of God. Oh, and by the way, by the end of this first part of the lecture, my proposition, not my proposition, but the proposition of this tradition, is that they are all the same.

Do not be, there yet Westerners like, do not be deluded by those narrow, dogmatic sects that say God can only be worshipped as an incarnation, or only as an aspect, and not just there's this aspect, God is literally this fella and not all the other fellows, right? Like, be careful of those types of attitudes, be careful of attitudes that say God can only be the formless absolute or God can only be the formless with person personhood because any of these sects who say that our god is the only god have committed the ultimate blasphemy by their own admission, and this is true of most sects and most religions. By their own admission, God is the unlimited being, and then in the same breath, these people would try to limit God to their narrow sect, to their narrow creed, to their narrow dogma. “Oh, God can only have form, who are you to say that? Oh, God can only be formless, wait what? So now you're the leading authority on what God can or cannot do?” So this unlimited being is about to take all of these different aspects, and suddenly because you said God cannot have form, he's suddenly like, “Okay, sorry, sorry, I'll just be formless,” right? Like that's ridiculous, it's ridiculous to say that God is this and not that. So if anything, God is an inexhaustible list, and these are five ways we can articulate God, by no means exhaustive, however, all of them are the same way of looking at something that cannot be looked at directly, right? So that's kind of the proposition of the first part of the lecture, five different ways of conceiving of God and how ultimately they're all the same, okay? You know, in fact, this, this part of the lecture alone is very interesting because, you know, in the West especially, we're not used to thinking of God in more than one way. We're kind of pigeonholed here in the West, of seeing God only as the Saguna Nirakara, the formless person who creates and destroys. There have been innumerable mystics in the West who have proposed the idea of the absolute God, the formless Godhead. One such mystic is Meister Eckhart.

The ground of my being is the same ground as God's being.

Notice he's not saying, “I am God,” he's saying, “What I am fundamentally is what God is fundamentally, it's one in the same reality.” Notice Meister Eckhart, completely independently in his own tradition, is coming to the conclusion of the Upanishads, Atman equals Brahman, or better yet, Atman and Brahman are both appearances in God, which alone exists and you are it. That's what Meister Eckhart was saying, he was talking about Godhead, he was talking about Brahman. And, of course, you know, a lot of these mystics who discussed Godhead, who discussed identity with Godhead, were very quickly, you know, like burnt at the stake or excommunicated. So the religious history of the, you know, Abrahamic traditions have been full of mystics such as these, it's just that politically speaking, many of them, their books were burnt and they were killed. The difference in South Asia is that there were mystics like this, and for the most part, they were celebrated and given like a voice. So in the case of the Buddha preaching, largely an agnostic philosophy, he was allowed to teach this philosophy in temples, theistic temples all over India, you know? And, and people were able to receive that. So as Swami Vivekananda says, the West is very socially liberal yet religiously conservative, conversely, the East or South, South Asia is very socially conservative yet religiously liberal. So the soil of South Asia is very fertile for these theological discussions that can kind of handle varying different ideas about God.

So already the first part of the lecture might be of supreme interest to you because it gives you new ways of considering God, and maybe the way in which God was packaged and sold to you by your culture did not meet your particular predisposition of proclivity. So offering more flavors on the table, includes more people in the world of spirituality, it admits more approaches, so I think the first part of the lecture itself is worth spending some time on, it's very cool and very exciting. However, the next part of the lectures is what I really mean to do, which is to tell you a few stories. I'm going to tell you stories about mystics in the Indian tradition, but also in like the Abrahamic traditions as far as I can. I'd like to share with you instances that have been recorded, recorded history, of people who have experienced God in all of these five different ways.

That's kind of the, the main thing, that the main course in today's lecture. The first thing is a necessary appetizer, the main course is yeah like all these different flavors that people have experienced all throughout history. And some mystics like Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda have, in one lifetime, experienced more than one, you know. Some mystics experience just one, but there are like, you know, some musicians, they're just guitar players like I am. I'm the most non-versatile musician you'll ever meet because I only play guitar, and not very well at that, so I'm kind of like stuck to my, you know. But other musicians like, like Victor Wooten, oh my god, he's got like, he'll be like playing guitar with one hand, and then playing piano with the other, and then ukulele with his toes, and then he'll be singing, and all the while, I'll be praying to the lord in that empty church which you now see him, see him sitting in. So some mystics are greater than others, right? So the, the mystics that we're going to talk about today are mystics who can play lots of instruments, in other words, can, can I suppose experience a lot of different aspects of this one God.

If There is a God, I Must See Him

So like there are mystics though who don't just play one instrument, you know? They probably are proficient in many, so that's why the music that comes from them, oh, it's thrilling! So I hope to share with you today a glimpse of that music, of all these different accounts of mystics who have seen God. Why do I want to do that? Because you'll recall last week we talked about seeing God with eyes open, right?

Last week we called the lecture “How to See God With Eyes Open” and really our approach was a Jnana Yoga approach, a gnostic approach. We explored how God is Consciousness and how Consciousness alone exists and is all-pervading, and so everything you see is an internal experience appearing in Consciousness, and therefore everything you see is nothing but Consciousness appearing to Consciousness for the sake of Consciousness. That's a particular way of talking about seeing God. This is a gnostic way to see God. Like I might actually be seeing a like a guitar, you know? I might actually be seeing a guitar, but because of all my effort in Jnana Yoga and my inquiry, I know that guitar to be none other than an appearance in Consciousness. So what I'm actually seeing is, through that guitar, to the Brahman that really is there. It's like I don't stop seeing a snake, you know, in the pre-dawn light, I just recognize it for what it is, a rope. And thereby having that gnostic understanding that it's a rope, is that a redundant statement? Gnostic understanding? Maybe. But having that insight that it's a rope, not a snake, that would qualify as seeing God in the snake, which is none other than the rope, right?

So that's what we talked about last week. Last week we kind of really just barked up the Jnana tree and discussed knowledge, the path of knowledge and the path of gnostic revelation, one particular way of seeing God, arguably the highest way of seeing God because this is a way of seeing God that is true of all times, not only in the isolated instance of mystic experience. However, today I want to talk about mystic experience. So today I want to talk about the Raja Yogi approach, which is the mystic's approach of actually seeing an Ishta, meaning a chosen aspect of the divine, like actually seeing Krishna.

Like what does it take to see Krishna because I want to say to you in the third part of the lecture that all of us can have this too, that the vision of God in the form of like Krishna is not limited to Lord Chaitanya, you too can see Krishna. The vision of the Lord in the form of the absolute that Moses spoke to in the bush, you two can see that, you know. The idea in Indian spirituality is that spiritual experience is not locked up in the case of a few mystics that only like, I don't know, are special prophets or something. No, no. Indian spirituality stresses that while there are great Rishis and Avataras, the stature of which we might never ourselves measure up to, Indian spirituality stresses time and time again that by following in the footsteps of those Rishis, of those Avataras, of those prophets who left behind a blueprint of practice, by doing that we too can come to have the exact same experiences, experiences they had. That's the important thing, there is nothing any mystic anywhere has experienced that you yourself cannot experience with the right, practice. That's it. Like this is the central claim of Indian spirituality, we hand you a how-to manual, you go off to the corner, you figure it out, and then you also have that vision. And until you have that vision, Indian spirituality is not finished with you. Indian spirituality, largely speaking, is a path of experience, so that's why I'm excited about the third part of the lecture because once we discuss all of these stories, all of these different ways in which people have experienced God, then we're going to discuss how we to ourselves could have this experience.

So if we have time, this will be probably the very last part of the lecture. I think in itself it's a lecture so we'll squeeze it in if we can, God willing it will be a kind of, “What do we do now? What's the path to having these mystic experiences?” Because we can and we should have these experiences.

So that's where we're headed now. To start, I'll remind you of Swami Vivekananda's thunderous proclamation. So we'll start with this proclamation, it's kind of the working principle of not only our lecture today but of I argue all Indian spirituality. And here's what it is:

If there is a God, I must see Him, if there is a truth, I must realize it.

That's the thunderous proclamation of Swami Vivekananda. Religion is not about priests, it's not about books, it's not about blind dogma, it's about experience, direct personal experience. I will have nothing to do with that kind of faith that does not culminate in experience, you see. And I think what Swami Vivekananda is doing is echoing the needs of our time, he's speaking on behalf of all of us because there might have actually been a time in human history where faith was the approach. Faith without any experience because, “Blessed are they who believe without seeing.” So there is, in fact, a valid approach called the path of faith that does not rely on experience, and the beauty of that path is that the love and the faith is stronger than the experience, so whether experiences come or not doesn't matter, you love God and have belief in God all the same. That path works, it does work, and it is offered in Indian spirituality as well, it's largely the path offered to us in the West. Like the Abrahamic religions largely offer us the path of faith, not necessarily the path of experience, and not necessarily the path of knowledge though those two exist within the wider tradition, generally, on an exoteric level, these traditions, both in India and abroad are about just believing and that's all, professing belief and holding on to that faith irrespective of experience.

The Path of the Mystic

And you know what, arguably experience is discouraged in this path because if you do have an experience, it kind of, you know, proposes that the transcendent God is immanent, which, in some cases, is blasphemous. So take, for instance, Teresa of Avila. She was having experiences of Jesus, which should have been celebrated, right? If Teresa was an Indian saint, she would have been celebrated, no doubt about it. But because she was in a rather, you know, bigoted Spanish kind of place like at that time, you know, to say you're seeing God, “Whoa, be careful, it's probably the devil” people will say, and they did say that, you know. All her people around her, maybe out of jealousy because she was having some, disciples and obviously like she was enjoying her spirituality. So all the other crotchety nuns and father were all really mean to her, they kept invalidating her experience and telling her that what she saw was the, the devil or something, you know.

So anyway, today we're going to talk about what Swamiji is talking about, Swami Vivekananda is saying:

If there is a God, I must realize Him, if there is a truth, I must realize it, or rather if there is a God, I must see Him.

Spoken like a Yogi, right? Only a Yogi would say this, a mystic. Swami Vivekananda has a mystic's attitude and like we said earlier, he echoes the sentiment of our age of reason where we want a scientific, empirical way to do religion. In fact, in the West, because there's only one way in which religion is characterized, it often comes into conflict with science whereas the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali shows us that no religion can be just as scientific, not faith-based or scriptural based but practice, experiment, and experience based.

That's the type of religion we're going to talk about today. Though last week we talked about the path of knowledge, today we're talking about the path of the mystic. So it's good, friends, to keep these kind of Yogas distinct, although there are many overlaps, and to practice them all together is the best way really. It might as well cover your bets, but it's nice to keep them distinct just to see that there are different approaches and they are all valid, okay? So in talking about the mystic's part, we're going to offer now, these five types of gods, fight, or rather say five, ways to conceive of God.

Five Ways to Experience God

So what does Swami Vivekananda represent? Notice Swami Vivekananda in the 19th century of Calcutta where, you know, Western education is prevalent and people are becoming more scientific, you know, it's important, this is also an important development in India, the Western education and the British colonization, all of that. Swami Vivekananda, tutored in the Western way of thought, is a skeptic, but at heart, he knows there's some truth, so he has faith in the traditions of India yet he's skeptical about the forms in which it's presented, you know? He's like kind of, he feels it's kind of sus for people to be like praying to all these statues and if he feels like it's overly superstitious and overly formulaic and it's all about rules and, “You know who has had a genuine experience?” Swamiji, this is inquiry, there must be something to it, but, “Who has had an experience? Who has seen God?”

So his quest begins with this inquiry, “Who has seen God?” So he goes around, you know, asking people this, he would ask the leaders of the Brahmo Samaj, a kind of modern revivalist, it's Brahmo Samaj is kind of like Hinduism but dressed in Christianity, so it's like basically Christianity with Upanishadic passages. so he was a member of that Brahmo Samaj, and he went to these Brahmo Samaj leaders and he was like, “Have you seen God?” And one of them said to him, “My boy, you have the eyes of a Yogi. You're interested in experience, so you have the eyes of a Yogi, you should go see Ramakrishna.” Right there was a professor, Hastie, who, in Swami Vivekananda's school kind of hipped him to this phenomenon of this fellow who used to go into Samadhi and trances and would see God. And so there was this rumor that there was a fellow, a priest, who every day went into Samadhi, the highest spiritual state in Yoga, who actually saw Gods and commune with Gods and all of that. So Swami Vivekananda, at that time, he was just young Narendra Nath, came to know about Swami Ramakrishna, and he had this desire to go and visit him. So as chance would have it, Ramakrishna was visiting a house in which there was like a Brahmo Samaj festival, and I think it was Swami Vivekananda was singing a song anyway. They met, and upon their first encounter, Swami Vivekananda wastes no time, he asked, “Sir, have you seen God?” And, legendarily, Ramakrishna responds to the effect of:

Yes, I have. I see God more clearly than I can see you now. And you can too.

And you know, when people speak the truth, sometimes you just feel it. So you see what Ramakrishna was saying is not, “I uniquely see God, I am a prophet, believe me, follow me.” No, he's saying, “I see God, and I see God more clearly than I see you, which is something I hope we can discuss today, and you can too.” That's what the Yogi says, the Yogi says, “I can, I've seen God, I've had experience, that's my credentials, I've experienced God, and I am currently experiencing God, and there's a path, if you follow it, you will experience God,” right? So the Buddha is a Yogi, he did not want to be deified, he just wanted you to like, if you could do the Jnana and understand what he's saying but, better yet, just meditate and have his experience, be the Buddha yourself.

Okay, so enough said about what's the distinction Swamiji is kind of driving at what we're talking about today, the path of experience, the path of the mystic.

So there are five ways then we talk about God in South Asian spirituality and that means there are five ways that you can experience God. So let's start by like kind of like sketching them out. What are these five ways?

First and foremost, let's talk about the formless absolute, Nirguna Nirakara. This is arguably the highest, loftiest spiritual idea in South Asia.

Someone once said, “If Indian spirituality is a garden, then Vedanta, specifically Advaita Vedanta, is the most favorite flower.” I know that sounds rather sectarian, but the reason I say that is because it admits and includes all other traditions too. Ideally, in its fully fledged form, Param Advaita, non-duality, it allows for every other thing as well. So it's kind of like anbrella, it holds under it all the other moods and attributes, each ascribed to a different stage of your spiritual journey but, undeniably, the highest experience of spirituality is Nirvikalpa Samadhi, the absolute absorption in meditation beyond all form, beyond all thought, the absorption in the Self, the complete identity of the individual with Brahman, and arguably, to be technical, the dissolution of both into something that's beyond both individual and God. There's a lot of words for something that cannot be spoken of.

Nirguna Nirakara

So Ramakrishna used to give an example of this Nirguna Brahman, he said:

Who can describe it? It's the only thing that hasn't been defiled by the tongue. Everything else has been defiled, Vedas, Puranas, Tantras, they've all been defiled because we've spoken of them. This thing cannot be spoken on because it's beyond language, it's beyond mind, it's incomprehensible in any sense of the term.

Yeah, so this is totally inconceivable to the human mind, this is Nirguna Nirakara. In fact, to even talk about it is, a disservice as Ramakrishna would say. It's like an ant taking home one grain of sugar from a sugar hill and saying, “Tomorrow I'll come back and take the whole hill.” That's laughable. There's no way you can wrap your mind around that which is beyond mind. But there are a few things we can say about it, and it's this:

So we get from the Upanishads:

Prajnanam Brahma

which means, “Consciousness is God.” That's interesting. This Nirguna Nirakara, this absolute principle, Consciousness is it, you know. That's one thing that we get. Another thing we get is:

Ayam Atma Brahma
**Tat Tvam Asi

“I and you are it, Consciousness is it, and you are Consciousness.” So it's the formless absolute which is none other than Consciousness which is your fundamental nature. You are, at your fundamental nature, Consciousness. You are the seer, not the scene. There is no scene apart from you, the seer. All of this is an appearance in you, the one Consciousness there is.

So we're not really going to talk about what it is to be Consciousness, you already are acquainted with that quite thoroughly. But this is the idea that Consciousness alone is, it's the basis of your individuality, right? Consciousness. Now what about God? The basis of God's individuality is existence. God is the most inclusive category, it's existence itself. In principle, everything exists by virtue of existence itself. Then we come to the ultimate synthesis: existence is inextricably linked to Consciousness, in fact, they're one in the same thing. Existence is Consciousness and pure Consciousness is existence, you know? And that is called the Sat Chid. And, interestingly enough, so we have one more attribute here which is that this Sat, this existence, and this Chit, this pure Consciousness, is also the stuff out of which all joy, felicity, goodness, and beauty is made.

Nirguna

Let's look at the word itself. Let's explore this etymologically. What do we mean when we say Nirguna? Nir guna means no gunas. What is a guna? Attributes. No attributes. Nirguna Nirakara means that God which is beyond all attributes. So when I say Sat Chid Ananda, existence, Consciousness, bliss, you might get the sense that we're attributing this to God, we're not. God is existence, God is Consciousness, God is bliss, and already that's saying too much. These things are not properties of God, right? Like God is not blissful, God does not exist, God cannot be known, at least in the Nirguna Nirakara sense. God is knowledge, God is existence, God is beauty. So to speak of attributes, or like adjectives, or anything makes no sense, those require mind, those require relations because if you say, “These are attributes” and you're saying, “This” and the attribute both exist, that's no longer non-duality. It's an attribute-less God and also formless, it's indivisible like the sky is indivisible.

So let's say one more thing about this thing that you cannot say anything about, and that one more thing is from the Mandukya Upanishad, its name is Om. Why? Let's explore this. This is probably the most, the most esoteric part of today's lecture. Arguably the highest thing that we have to say is a culture. The Mandukya Upanishad arguably represents the highest, loftiest idea in 5,000 years of Indian spirituality, and I'll summarize it just very briefly for you just to give you a flavor of what is being said.

It opens with, “Hari Om, Om is all there is, all this is verily Om.” That's the opening of the Mandukya Upanishad. “Hari Om,” the Lord is the formless absolute and it alone exists. All this is it for it alone is, and this is about an appearance in it.

OM

How do we understand the word “Om”? The first letter, “A,” references to, references this waking state that you are currently experiencing. This state is called the Vaishvanara which in Sanskrit means “common to all men,” nara means men, Vaishvanara means just common to all men. It's also called Jagrat, the waking state. Now this state, “A,” is the first of all states, and the reason we say that is because it's in this state that we analyze all the other states of, not conscious states of mind. It's in this state that we do Vedanta, that we learn and practice spirituality. It's the waking state that is somewhat privileged actually in spiritual life, it's the, it's a state in which we have, I guess arguably the most control, not much at that, but arguably more than like in a dream, barring lucid dreaming or anything.

So this Jagat, Jag, sorry, this Jagrat, funnily enough Jagrat and Jagat are kind of close, universe and waking state are very close because the universe is what you experience in your waking state. Anyway, this Jagrat, or this Vaishvanara is, the first letter or matra in the three letters of Om. Then the second letter is “U.” Now notice, “A” is sound at the very back of the throat, it's like the origin of sound, then, “Uh,” goes in the middle of the mouth, it becomes, so “U” is sound in the middle of the mouth, and it represents in this tradition, or rather Swapna.

Taijasa represents, dream, or Swapna, subtle reality which is what you experience when you're dreaming at night. Now that's also a universe, but it's a dream universe, and it's in your own head. The experiences that you have in your dream are wholly subjective, they're idiosyncratic, not like this rather inter-subjective, public world that you experience when you're waking. So clearly there's a distinction between “A,” waking, and dreaming.

And finally, the third state that you can experience is Sushupti, deep sleep. So that's “M,” “M” is the closing of the lips, it's the end of the movement of sound in the mouth. In fact, the Sanskrit alphabet is arranged like that “A,” notice that the “Ka” is at the back of the throat, “Gu” is that the front of the throat, no like that, it's like just kind of like this idea of going from the back, sound moving through the mouth from the back to the front anyway. And “M” represent like the primeval sounds, these are the three sounds out of which every other sound arises. So these represent the three states that you experience: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep.

Now, interestingly enough, you take yourself to be the waker, this person who is currently now having this waking experience. Therein lies ignorance. If I think I'm the waker, then I think I'm really this person, I don't know what I really am. Now when I go to sleep and I enter a dream, I really think myself to be the dreamer, I really take myself to be the person that's there in the dream, and I take the dream to be real. So what then is the real distinction between waking and dreaming? Waking is just a waking dream and dreaming is just a sleeping dream, in both cases, I'm taking something to be real, and I'm taking myself to be an individual in that reality.

And then there is an experience, very cryptic, of not being a body in a waking world, or not even being a dream body in a dreaming world, but somehow yet still aware that I am. So much so that when I wake up, I can say, “Ah, I slept deeply.” Who was that that slept deeply? That's where Vedanta starts. Who was that? It couldn't have been who you were when you were awake because that person is not there in deep sleep, it couldn't be who you were as a dreamer because that one is also not there in deep sleep, and somehow you, the waker, are aware of you the dreamer. Which one are you, the waker or the dreamer? Probably neither. Something wholly apart from those two, the witness.

Turiya

There is one, Consciousness arguably in which the experiences of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep come and go interchangeably. That witness is not who you are in the waking world, is not who you are in a deep sleep state, the absence of a Self, nor is it who you are in a dreaming self. It's the one to whom all these three states occur, right? That one is called the formless awareness. It can never be made an object, for it is the supreme subject, and thereby it resists deification. It's not something you can look at or talk about or experience, for it is the ground in which all experience happens. That's Nirguna Nirakara and Turiya. It's called the fourth, the fourth state. The matra is silence. So if “A” is waking, if “U” is dreaming, and if “M” is deep sleep, then anything you can articulate only belongs to those three realms. Silence cannot be articulated, but it is the ground of all the other three. Without silence, you won't have sound, without silence, there's no “A,” “U,” “M.” Without Turiya, there is no waking, dreaming, or deep sleep.

This Turiya, according to the Mandukya Upanishad, is Shantam Shivam Advaitam. It's, or actually no, it's the Shantam Shivam Advaitam Pancha-parshaman Shantam Shiva. It's the silence of the universe, or rather the cessation of all phenomena. It is, it's peace itself, bliss itself, and non-dual. So this is about as, as much as we can say about that which is inexpressible, and this is a great question. The main difference is that in Sushupti you are not aware that you are Turiya. It's a kind of dull state, it's called chid-ghana, massive Consciousness. It's not, it's not that it's not Brahman, just a massive Consciousness. It also changes, Sushupti changes to Jagrat and to Swapna, whereas Turiya is changeless. So you should be as aware that you are Brahman in Jagrat as you are in Swapna, as you are in Sushupti. However, if you are in Jagrat, you are not in Sushupti, if you are in Swapna you are not in Sushupti. That's the main difference. Sushupti is one of three, where Turiya inheres in all three.

Nirvikalpa Samadhi

But wait, let's not talk about it, let's experience it. So let's approach this as a Yogi. How would you, as a Yogi, experience this Nirguna Nirakara? The answer is in Nirvikalpa Samadhi alone is this experience possible. So Nirvikalpa Samadhi, etymologically speaking, is absorption beyond all thoughts. So nir-vikalpa, without any vikalpas, thoughts or conceptions, when the mind is totally seized when there are no thoughts, no memory, no sleep even, it's beyond even deep sleep, but we can say it's sort of like lucid deep sleep just for, I guess, illustrative purposes. There was not all that, but let's say, the Turiya is lucid deep sleep, it's alertness. That's Samadhi, right? So Samadhi is when there are no thoughts whatsoever, yet you are fully alert, fully aware. In Samadhi alone are you Consciousness aware of itself. The only in Sushupti, I mean sorry, only in Turiya state, only in this Nirvikalpa Samadhi does Consciousness stand alone without any object. That's the highest state, it cannot be spoken of.

Krishna says to speak of it is as ridiculous as like a salt doll going to measure the depth of the ocean, who will come back to report what the ocean is like? The salt doll dissolves once it goes into the ocean. Similarly, you dissolve completely once you enter into Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Ramakrishna further says:

The bee buzzes only when it's not sipping honey. Once it lands on the flower and it starts to sip honey, it stops buzzing.

The ghee cake will only sizzle on the pan as long as there's water in it. Once the water dies up you don't hear, dries up, you don't hear the sizzling anymore.

If you immerse a jug into water, it goes up until the point when it's full, then it won't make any more sound.

You see in the moon, sorry, Mandukya Upanishad, the definition of this Brahman, this Turiya, this formless Nirakara, Nirguna is silence. The definitive experience in Samadhi is silence, the silence of all thoughts. The Yoga Sutra calls it Yogas chitta vritti nirodhah. Yoga is the complete cessation of all thoughts. Isn't that inconceivable? Isn't it inconceivable to be aware but not aware of anything? Have you ever been aware of nothing? I mean deep sleep doesn't count because that's aware of an absence of things, it's not like that, it's much deeper than that, it's awareness of awareness alone, awareness standing by itself with nothing to be aware of. Who we're just talking, all of us, right? We're just talking about this, it's nowhere near to this experience that cannot be described.

So Ramakrishna would be asked about it again and again, he would say, “What can I say? It's like a salt doll going to measure the ocean,” or he would say, “Imagine trying to describe the taste of ghee to someone who's never had it. What would you, what would you say?” There's nothing around you that you can use as like a metaphor for it, you know? It's inexpressible. Nirguna Nirakara is inexpressible, and that's why in the Jewish tradition, there's this idea that you cannot even pronounce the name of the Lord. YHVH is an unpronounceable name because it makes no sense to express the inexpressible like that. When they say YHVH, they're kind of intuiting this, this absolute state. So it's silence, its name is silence, and it's what you are. It's the subject, cannot be objectified with language, to do so would be idol worship according to the Jewish tradition, right? Okay, Nirguna Nirakara, we've got it, it can only be experienced in Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

Ramakrishna's Experience

So the first story that I'd like to offer, I mean I have been offering some stories as we've been moving along, but it's the first story proper. It's the story of Ramakrishna's experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. So what ends up happening is he longed to experience this non-dual absolute. I'm being very anachronistic with you because at this point he's already seen Kali, and he's already had like a Saguna Nirakara experience with Kali which we'll talk about in a bit. He's, by the way, already experienced like baby Rama, and he's experienced all these different, for, he's experienced Sita and Radha, he's had all these other mystical experiences. So this is kind of like the, the sort of culmination of, I mean there's one more step after this called Bhajan, but we won't really talk about it for now, just know this. He desires to have this experience, Nirvikalpa Samadhi, which, in our tradition, is seen as the highest now.

It just so happens, as is the case with Ramakrishna, that a teacher appears when the student is ready. A teacher appears, teacher's name is Totapuri or Naganatha, meaning “the naked one” because he was a Naga monk, a naked Naga monk, who had attained this Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and he would, in his life, just walk around, not spending more than three days in any one place, walking up and down India. He would light his fire, you know, his dhuni, it's called the dhuni is like a sacred fire that these nomadic Vedantic monks keep burning all the time, and he would sit next to his fire and just meditate on Brahman, which is actually a paradox in, in terms because Brahman is that non-dual absolute, meditation is a dualistic endeavor. So it's probably better to say he would meditate and enter into Nirvikalpa Samadhi and just be Brahman, he would just be there in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and he, somehow or rather happened to be in Dakshineswar, a temple, when Ramakrishna was interested in practicing Vedanta. He, Totapuri himself approached Ramakrishna and said, “You look like one fit to study Vedanta.” And Ramakrishna actually said, “Let me ask my mother first.” So he went home to the temple, and he went to Kali and asked, “Ma, Ma Kali, can I, can I practice this?” And Ma Kali said, “Yes, go do it.” You see, a dualistic god, true dualistic god will always want you to have non-dual experience. Krishna himself says in the Bhagavad Gita, “Gyanis are my best devotees.” So Ma Kali is telling, he's not saying Ramakrishna, “No, no, no, no,” he said, “Go, go learn the impersonal absolute.” So he goes back to Totapuri, he asked to be taught, he gets initiated into Sanyas that night, I think, and that very night he's, he's being taught Vedanta, which by the way is like Mandukya Upanishad, the stuff we just discussed. Turiya, the fourth, Pancha-parshaman Shantam Shivam Advaitam, like just what we talked about, they were talking about late at night around a fire in a room, they were talking about this. He taught Ramakrishna Vedanta, then he taught Ramakrishna to meditate on Om, which is the technique par excellence in non-dual Vedanta, meditating on Om. It's there in Patanjali also, in the Yoga Sutra, the practice is to meditate on Om.

Why? Because as you know, you know what Om represents. When you put them together, it forms a diphthong, which means it goes, “O,” so, “O,” you just sit and you meditate on Om, and you contemplate its meaning, and sooner or later you become so proficient at that that the only thought in your mind is Om, everything else is gone. In fact, Swami Ashokananda says that if you would long to experience the formless God, you better start living formlessly, which means try not to have a lot of possessions and to the extent to which you wander around India naked, like Naga, like a Naga monk, right? So formlessly was he living, not in one place, he wasn't wearing any clothes, he ate whatever chance would bring, he wasn't interested in like a nice steak dinner or like this or that object, his whole life was lived according to the ideal of the formless. He meditated on the formless, in probably the form of Om, of the mantra, and he was skilled in going into Samadhi, so he taught Ramakrishna this.

Now, Ramakrishna had gone to Samadhi many times before, but the type of Samadhi that Ramakrishna was experiencing, which we're going to talk about in a bit when we discuss these other forms of God, is called Savikalpa. He had not yet experienced this highest Nirvikalpa Samadhi. So we'll talk about Savikalpa in just a bit. For now though, note that the obstacle Ramakrishna faced in this Sadhana was his attachment to the form, Ma Kali. So when he would go into meditation, Ma Kali would appear before him, and he would get frustrated, he would say, “I can't access the formless absolute because I'm too attached to Ma Kali.” Can you imagine? This man's only attachment in the world was to God, and even that was an obstruction to Vedanta. Can you imagine your attachment to God as an obstruction to spirituality? That must be some pretty high spirituality, anyway.

So Ramakrishna is there, he's experiencing Ma Kali, and he's like, “This is preventing me, this is the last thought in my mind preventing me from being absorbed in Consciousness.” You see, he was conscious of nothing but Kali, and even that was an obstacle. So Totapuri, in like some desperation and excitement, picked up a shard of glass and pressed it on his third eye and said, “Meditate on this spot, do it, you must, you must get to the formless absolute, you must pierce through, you must, you must.” And he's sitting there, and he's like meditating and apparently says, “He took the sword of knowledge, Jnana, and he slashed Ma Kali in half.” Can you imagine cutting your mother in half like that with a sword? That level of renunciation he had, and you have to have for this Nirguna Nirakara. You can't play at Vedanta, my friends, it's the highest spirituality for a reason, it has the highest barrier of entry, the highest renunciation is required, the renunciation of even God. Even the Buddha you must kill on the road, apparently.

So Ramakrishna, he cuts Mahakali in half, and lo and behold he goes into Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Why would you want to do this? Why would you like, it sounds so nihilistic, right? Also, I should tell you that if you enter into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, your body is dead to the world. In Ramakrishna's leela, doctors like Mahendra, sorry, Mahendralal Sarkar would do experiments on him like poke his eyeball while he was in Samadhi, and apparently, there would be no blinking. He would take his pulse, and there'd be no pulse, the skin would be cold to the touch, for all intents and purposes, the body is dead, and by the way, the mind, needless to say, is dead, no thoughts, no movement. You're immobile like a corpse. That's why Lord Shiva is, has a lot of mortuary symbolism, one of the reasons why.

So Nirvikalpa Samadhi, it's like, for all intents and purposes like death, body is dead, mind is dead. Why would you want it? Why would you desire this experience? One answer is that you don't need to desire it, you're naturally going to be drawn home anyway, whether you know it or not. You can desire any other thing in spiritual life, and as you progress in spiritual life, you will inadvertently fall into the Ganga even if you don't dive in, even if you don't understand what it is to take a bath in the Ganga, spiritual life will ultimately take you to Nirvikalpa Samadhi. This is home, or I should say this is Om, this is where we all end up whether you know it or not.

So there's, there's an irresistible attraction that Nirvikalpa Samadhi has for people, and it's what you truly want though you don't, you might not know it, you know? But anyway, why is it worth wanting? Because it represents the highest ecstasy, the highest bliss, the highest experience possible. That's why Ramakrishna says it's like the bee sipping honey and becoming quiet, it's like the jug becoming full, it's like the cake being fully cooked because in that state, there is an authenticity and a veracity, a beauty and a truth unlike any other, and everything else you've experienced in your life, in that final analysis, is seen to be nothing but a shadow imitating that state. Why do you like chocolate? When you eat it, there's a moment of oblivion, mind goes away, forget where you are, like all beauty is the end of body and mind, it's just like a moment of pure awareness, but it's a glimpse, tiny glimpse. It's like Shankara, Shankara says it's like a spray from the ocean of existence-consciousness. So when you ex, you can't talk about this until you experience Samadhi, this is all just talk, right? But Ramakrishna, who is, you know, way beyond any of us, he understands the value of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and he longs to have that experience, and lo and behold, he does. He meditates on Om which is the technique whereby you have this experience, he enters into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and he's there for three straight days immersed in the highest bliss. If you read Swami Vivekananda or even Swami Yogananda Giri, not Swami Yogananda Puri, Swami Yogananda Giri, he has a poem about Samadhi, read any poem about Samadhi, and you'll see that it like represents an inexpressible joy, which still poets try to express. It's joy in and of itself, the highest joy. So he's just there for three days straight. He did in three days what Totapuri took 40 years to do. This is Nirguna Nirakara, and the only way to experience it is Nirvikalpa Samadhi. I'm not saying Yoga of Patanjali is the only way to get into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, mind that's not what I'm saying, there are many paths, but what it means to be in Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the same in all those paths.

So I'm not saying that Patanjali Yoga Sutra is the only way to get to Nirvikalpa, no, there's also Zikr, the Muslim path will get you there just as well, right? So like I'm not saying one path gets you there, but the destination is the same, which is dead to the world, mind is seized, thou canst not look upon the face of God and live, for it is thine own face, and all things fall away then and there. Okay, so that's Nirguna Nirakara, and it's represented by Nirvikalpa Samadhi. I spent a lot of time talking about this because it is the highest, and it is the hardest to talk about, and so that's why I'm trying hard, I'm working around here. Some people are like Taoists, they're like, “Okay, I'll put the pen down here.” No, no, I will attempt, though I will break myself against the silence, I will attempt over and over and over again to do what we cannot.

Yes, somewhat. He's teaching. In fact, in the Kena Upanishad, someone says, “Teach me about Brahman,” and the teacher is silent, and the student says, “Teach me about Brahman,” and the teacher is still silent, and again the student says, “Teach me about Brahman,” and again the teacher is silent. You see, then the teacher finally says, “I am teaching you, you just don't listen, for his name is silence.” So yes, this is Nirvikalpa Samadhi, and until we have that, we won't really know what we're talking about here, but Ramakrishna did have that. In fact, in another instance, he was wrapped in Nirvikalpa Samadhi for 60, sorry, six months, just crazy. Birds were making nests in his hair like in the Buddha's case, and a monk used to come and like actually beat his body with a stick so that he would open his mouth, and the monk would shove food into his mouth just to keep his body alive. Because he was so in a lofty state that he couldn't even eat, and in many cases, the body just falls away in the weight of that spiritual force. “Thou canst not look upon the face of God and live.”

So that's Nirguna Nirakara. This is the formless absolute, and friends, it is somewhat ridiculous or laughable to talk about that as if we know what it is. We don't. It cannot be known, it is knowledge itself. It's what we've said, I mean, what it's like a caricature of a, of a ghost that none of us here have seen, we're just painting what we think, you know, from what little that we've heard from the sages who have experienced this. So this is silence, it's experience is silence, and beyond the realm of even experience because notice, experience requires experiencer, experienced, and the relational property called experiencing. So experience requires duality whereas this Nirguna Nirakara is beyond duality, and therefore not only beyond speech but beyond our ordinary ideas what experience is. It's experiencing in and of itself. In fact, experiencing alone is Brahman. It's not experience or experiencer, it's not the relationship, it's experiencing alone. It's when both experiencer and experienced, both soul and nature, dissolve into something far more. Okay, that's experiencing, and I think enough said about that which cannot be said anything about, Nirguna Nirakara.

Saguna Nirakara

So let's take a step down. So we talked a little bit about Ramakrishna's Samadhi and his experience in Nirguna Nirakara Brahman, and his thoughts about it, which is, “It cannot be spoken of.” It's the only thing that has not been defiled by the tongue, the only thing that cannot at all be spoken of.

So now let's go one step down to the second conception of God, which is Saguna Nirakara, which is formless, still formless absolute, yet not as absolute as this attributeless God, which is more Godhead than God. Now we're coming into the realm of God proper, who is the creator, preserver, destroyer, being, person, if you will, to whom you pray, to whom you implore for intervention and grace. This is the God spoken of in the Bible, in the Torah, in the Quran, in the Bhagavatam. This God, although the Bhagavatam does talk about Godhead a bit, not yet, not yet though yes, arguably yes, arguably yes, but technically not quite. That is Saguna Sakara. This is actually Saguna Nirakara, which yes, ultimately, to the Shakta, it's the formless Kali. So if we're talking about, we're not talking about Kali with the hands and all that, that's Saguna Sakara, this Kali is Tantra Kali, non-dual Tantra Kali is not, or this is Shiva Sachidananda Shiva, maybe you could say, who is not the meditating blue guy, that's a different aspect. This, this thing is beyond any of that, you can't say it has this many hands or this color or, no, no, it's beyond all those. However, it is a personality. So notice if you like go to a person in the Abrahamic faiths and say, “God plays a flute, he's blue in color,” they like slap their head. If you say, “God is black in color and has many hands and has a skull around her neck,” they will colonize you and drive that out of your country. No, it's ridiculous to say, “God is this or that.” This is the formless God but it's a person. It's like a person you can talk to, just not a person you can articulate imagistically, you can't represent it in an image.

Why? Because if you put it in an image, you're saying it's this and not everything that, like everything else, the all-pervasiveness of this God depends on not image-making. So this God resists all idols, and arguably it's a very difficult God to meditate on because it's still formless, right? It's not quite the essence, which would be Godhead. That Godhead is the ground of God, which is even harder to meditate on. That's just like Om, this one you can meditate on, maybe a name, but still, you know, probably the closest meditation on this God like, this God is greater, this God is just, you can't even understand what it is, but there are 99 names and all of them only circumambulate this one formless, who knows, right? The unspeakable God. Now, this God you pray to it, you talk to it, you, him, her, I can't really say that yet, maybe you could say so, maybe, but I wouldn't, I don't think you could call, it's dualistic. I would argue most of the traditions that like worship this God, arguably like Islam, and Christianity and dualistic traditions, Judaism, mostly dualistic. The Vaishnava sects who worship this Vishnu as an other is dualistic but it's seen as formless Vishnu, the all-pervading, not literally the guy who has the shankha, no, no, all-pervading. However, it creates, maintains, destroys, and can be prayed to. So this is like best visualized as a mass of light, that's like kind of the images that we get in the mystics who have wrote, or described, or spoken about, or sung about this, this God. I think the lingam is the closest thing to this. The lingam is like Sadashiva, the first bubbling up of Godhead which is this formless God with personality.

So this is the God that Moses is speaking to when he's talking to the bush, right? Like the burning bush is saying, there's a non-dualistic reading of this like, “Moses entered into Nirvikalpa Samadhi and he realizes God is pure I am-ness,” but probably not, there's still a duality here. Moses is experiencing God, meaning he, Moses, is the experiencer, God, the Saguna Nirakara, is the experienced, and this name is “I am that I am-ness.” So notice, Kashmiri Shaivism, it's like, “God is non-dual, but God is non-dual.” It's not so much “I am non-dual,” yes, that's there too, but it's more about God's non-duality than my non-duality. So this is the non-dual, all-pervasive absolute, yet it creates, maintains, destroys. So notice Ramakrishna's first experience of God was actually this. Or maybe some people argue Nirguna Nirakara, but I think it's this, right? Like Saguna Nirakara. Because notice, Ramakrishna, he had a period of skepticism where he was not sure whether Mother Kali existed or not. He was a priest in a Kali temple and he is desperate to have the vision of God, like a Yogi, he desires to experience God. So he would say, “Are you anything more than a stone statue? Is religion just a mass of superstitions, or is there any truth to this? Can a person actually experience Kali?” And his whole life was, was kind of guided along that one burning desire to actualize religion, to realize religion's the one thing that he wanted, and such renunciation he generated in the pursuit of that quest.

And, interestingly enough, it achieved culmination one day in the Kali temple when Rama, Ramakrishna decided to like end it all. He couldn't stand anymore, he had tried and tried and tried and meditated and done all these things, and he hadn't yet experienced God in any meaningful way. So he said, “Okay, that's it, the purpose of this life is to experience God, and I haven't experienced God, I just can't take it anymore.” He runs and he takes a sword hanging on the wall, which is used in the worship of Ma Kali, he takes the sword, and he's like determined to fall upon it, or end his life or whatever, and just as he's about to do that, he goes into Samadhi, his mind becomes so single-pointed that he goes into Samadhi. This is a closed-eye Samadhi, he went, he like, in the sense that everything was dashed away from his experience, the whole world faded away, and all he saw was like this field of pure light. Be very, very precise here, he's not seeing Ma Kali with the hands, no, he's seeing a mass of light. He's not seeing the image of Ma Kali dressed in a sari, which he would see and talk to many times later, but that was not his first vision. His first vision was this massive light. So to, the subtle point that is being made is, notice when Ramakrishna quote, “comes down” from this Samadhi, when he returns to ordinary consciousness, or like some semblance of it, the first word out of his mouth is “Ma.” And he would say to people like, “What you call Brahman, I call Kali. Kali and Brahman are one, as a snake is one with its wriggling motion.” Even beyond that, this would be beyond the trinity, but I was thinking that too, if Father and Son are the relation between experiencer and experience, and maybe experiencing would be the Holy Spirit, that reconciling principle between experiencer and experience, maybe. But I think it's one category up, the trinity, that tripartite force is like a bifurcation of this one Godhead, which is Nirguna Nirakara. This Saguna Nirakara is like the Father arguably, and arguably Holy Spirit and Son are one with the Father. So I would say it's Father hyphen Holy Spirit, it's Shiva with his Shakti, maybe that's the best way I would know to cram these two together though I think there are distinctions, and some pundits might be rolling their eyes at me right now from both sides, so not to be overly glib, maybe the Q&A will be a little more precise.

Anyway, this Saguna Nirakara is like, at best, a mass of light, and it has been experienced by mystics all over as a mass of light. Arguably, this is what Lord Jesus Christ is in communion with when he goes up into the mountain, and he prays, and he meditates, and he spends 40 days in the desert meditating, arguably this is the formless God that he's coming into contact with. I don't know why I'm saying that, but I think there's like a flavor that I sense that's kind of there, you know? It's like the, Jesus's bhakti is a formless God bhakti, it's the bhakti of Judaism, right? Jesus is a Jew, like we have to remember, Jesus is a perfected Jew. He's like the greatest rabbi of his time, so he, of course, is relating to YHVH, who is a formless God. He's having this non-dual bhakti for this formless God, and he says, “I and my Father are one.” But we haven't yet started talking about avatars, actually we have, we've been talking about Ramakrishna, so technically. But these avatars like Ramakrishna, Rama, Ramakrishna, Buddha arguably, and Jesus, they're all experiencing this Saguna Sakara, though they constantly go into Nirguna Nirakara as well.

So when they are in this non-dual state, they're in Samadhi, you can't talk to them, when they come down, they relate to that state like you would to Saguna Nirakara. So how does Ramakrishna talk about Saguna Nirakara? He says, “This God, who is the person who creates, maintains, and destroys, is not different from the principle.” And that's really difficult to wrap our head around. “What do you mean, you know? How can this God, who is the personal God, be different, I mean, be the same when it seems so different from that principle that cannot be spoken of?” And you know what Ramakrishna says is:

It's like an ocean. Imagine an ocean far and wide, and then ice blocks of ice. He says, “The love of the bhakta, the devotee, is like a cooling influence that crystallizes the ocean into icebergs.” Now, the iceberg is water still, it's nothing but water. So the same water, which was formless, has now taken a shape, has now got an attribute.

So God with form is not different than God without form, or the snake can be both still and wriggling, don't say the wriggling snake is different from the still snake, it's one in the same snake but in two different modes. When the snake is still, it's Brahman. In other words, when you are in Nirvikalpa Samadhi, you are in perfect stillness, you are Shiva, only then can you say, “I am Shiva,” right? If I say now, “Shivoham, Shivoham,” I'm totally lying. No, what, this is, okay, it's not Shivoham, I'm like this monkey, I can't, “I am Shiva,” I'm Shiva. What nonsense? In Nirvikalpa Samadhi alone can we say that. Short of Nirvikalpa Samadhi though, the correct attitude is Shivathvam, which is, “That which I truly am, at my essence.” As long as I take myself to be this person, this apparent self, that which I truly am appears to me now as the iceberg, which, in Samadhi, is the ocean but, in anything short of Samadhi, it's the iceberg. This is Savikalpa Samadhi, it's the Savikalpa Samadhi that's like kind of edging onto the Nirguna Nirakara Nirvikalpa Samadhi. It's the highest, arguably, kind of Savikalpa Samadhi, you might call it Sa-ananda, you know? Something like that or something even higher, maybe. It's kind of hard to be very technical.

So now we can talk about Saguna Sakara, this is kind of like the landing place of the lecture, and I think many of you will enjoy these stories, this is like, like I said, the mystic stories that we're gonna hear that are like kind of cool, they're of aspects of God.

Saguna Sakara

So just like Nirguna Nirakara is not different from Saguna Nirakara, so too is Saguna Sakara not different from Saguna Nirakara. I threw a lot of Sanskrit at you, but basically, what I'm saying is that God, the formless principle, and God the formless person, and God the person with form, are all one and the same thing. In fact, a good way to think of God with form like Krishna, sorry, not avatars, let's talk about just gods like Shiva, or Kali, or Durga, or any of these. Think of them as kind of like shapes through which you can gaze at the sky. So let's say you're like in a room, and there's like a Shiva-shaped hole in the wall, and if you look through that hole you'll see the sky. The same sky is now appearing in the shape of this meditating blue guy, Shiva. The meditating blue man is none other than this formless absolute called Bhagavan, or Ishvara, who, in turn, is none other than this formless principle. Exactly, lenses.

And none, and this is key, “None can come to the Father except by way of the Son.” Now, this is more appropriate I think for the avatar part of this lecture, but I'm just saying it now because, better than meditating on the formless God for those who are not ready to just on is meditating on God with form because that gives your mind something to work with. Even if you think it's just a symbol, symbols are indispensable in the beginning of spiritual life, who can conceive of the infinite right away? The problem with the formless aspect religions, I mean the positive side is it's talking about the highest, but the problem is it doesn't give you anything to work with, it doesn't give you anything at your level to get up to that level. So this is the highest, now what do I do with that? How can I meditate on the formless absolute? What am I going to do with the infinite being, myself a finite thing? How can I fit the infinite in my head? It's like saying, “Oh, you know what, God is an ocean, and spirituality is to, with one spoon, fill up the cup of my mind with the ocean.” What, I'm not gonna get anything in there except a little glimpse, and that's not helpful. So better now to work with that which is more on our level, which is God that represents aspects of the one formless divine.

So the formless divine, the formless divine, is renunciation, right? Pure renunciation because it's pure spirit, and spirit is beyond all physicality and psychology. So if you're interested in the renunciation aspect of the formless absolute, Lord Shiva will appeal to you. So those who like, like non-duality and who are inspired by renunciation, you'll love the image of Lord Shiva. Some of you who like the playful aspect of this God in whom all of this appears like a play might like, I mean he's an avatar, but I'm talking about like maybe as a god, you might like that aspect of God. Then those of you who maybe like feel the courage and the fearlessness of this non-dual absolute might like Ma Durga, who represents courage and, you know, the pursuit of truth and all of that. So like these aspects have something to do with the divine but in a way that's particularized and specialized, you know? Yeah, exactly, you can't drink all the water in the ocean, in the beginning let's start with like just a cup full, and you could say it's, it's the same ocean water, right? So you might as well acquaint yourself with the taste of salt water in a Shiva-shaped cup, or a Kali-shaped cup, knowing full well that God is beyond even that. Okay, that's the kind of non-dual approach to Saguna Sakara bhakti. You meditate on any form of God, or any aspect of God, that is appealing to you, while understanding that this is not one god in a pantheon of gods.

So many people misunderstand Hinduism and say like crazy things like, “I'm working with Mahakali.” I'm sorry, you're not working with Ma Kali. Ma Kali is not an energy in the universe that you can just co-opt for your own purposes. People start by saying, “Ma, Ma,” they end up saying, “Me, me, me.” How much “me, me, me” is there in “Ma, Ma”? No, no. You're not, I'm sorry, working with Ma Kali. You're not working with Durga energy, I'm sorry to burst your New Age bubble, but that's never the way in which we intended to present these gods. They are not forces in a pantheon that you can invoke in a ritual and be summoned to do your bidding. Kali is not going to break up with your boyfriend for you, I'm sorry. Kali, the Mother of the Universe, if anything, works with you rather than you working with her. But when you worship Kali, you, as a Kali bhakta, see Kali as the absolute, not just as Nirguna Sakara, but also Nirguna Nirakara. You know, she is as an aspect representing or symbolizing that which cannot be represented or symbolized. So it's the, the beauty of Indian ritual idol worship is that the idol is never taken to be God but God is present in everything, so why not the idol? Do you see that? It's so sophisticated. God is present in everything, so why not here? As Swami Ashokananda says:

God is the one being that cannot run away from you.

Like, I can run away from you because I have a form, so I can go to the other room if you come here and ask too many questions or whatever, but God can't run. God, God will like be everywhere, everywhere, all the time, so where can God go? If you want him in the Shiva statue, what can he do? He's there, might as well worship him in Shiva if that's what inspires you. Now you know though that when you worship Shiva, he's not one god in a pantheon of god, this is, this is key, it's very difficult to do Saguna, Sakara practice if you think, “Oh, it's one god and a pantheon of god.” That's not typically how it's approached. You see, the reason Shaktas fight with Vaishnavas, and why Vaishnavas fight with Shaivas, because in all their Puranas, their particular aspect is seen as the ultimate. Like in the Shiva Puranas, Vishnu and Brahma are like praying to a column of fire that has no beginning or end, and they're like awed by Shiva. In the Bhagavatam, Shiva and Brahma are praying to Vishnu which is the all-pervading absolute. In the Markandeya Purana, it's, it's Ma, it's Shakti who like creates Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu. In the Chandi, it says, “They're powerless to describe her.” Even Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are powerless to describe her. So notice, in Indian spirituality, none of these gods are placed next to each other on par, each of them is elevated, each aspect is seen in and of itself as Saguna Nirakara.

So when you look at something like Ma Kali, there are two ways to look at it, and Ramakrishna gives this example. He says:

From the distance, the ocean looks black, the water of the ocean looks black, but when you go close the water is what color? Colorless. Formless absolute.

So he's saying, from the distance Ma Kali is black, Megan Keem, but even then, right? Like those of you who came to the puja today, do you know the opening line in the dhyana mantra? Do you remember it? It's devi, svambha shunyata aakasha rupini. It means like, “Mother, you are clothed in infinite space.” So already the opening mantra for Kali Ma is, “You are infinite space, you are clothed in the formless.” And then it goes on to say, “vama hasta abhayam kuru, in your left hand is a sword, you know, shava shiva.” So, and then it describes all this stuff like, “You have three eyes, you have long hair, you have skulls around your neck, girdle of human hands,” like it describes this. Why? For meditation. It's dhyana mantra, it's a mantra for your meditation. But it starts, first and foremost, with an admission that this is actually the formless absolute. So Ramakrishna says:

From afar, Kali appears black, hands all that, but when you're close she's colorless.

So that's how the Saguna Sakara can take you to Saguna Nirakara, who ultimately takes you to Nirguna Nirakara. It's a progression, we must start somewhere, symbols are the first rung on the ladder. Okay, but better than that is the avatar. So this is when Jesus says, “None can come to the Father except by way of the Son.” Because meditating on the avatar is probably the most accessible to us. We don't really know what Kali looks like, or what Shiva looks like, and I don't believe, we don't really know what Rama or Krishna looks like either, but because they're men and people like, that's probably closer to us. Ramakrishna is a good example because we have a picture of him, which is one advantage, but also, he's like, got human qualities as well.

Saint Francis achieved enlightenment just by reading the Book of Matthew, which was written in his language at the time. And he saw in the character of Jesus a lot of life-giving nourishment, like, “Oh, he, he, he,” he would just be inspired by Jesus' humility as a man, you know? So it's these traits of humanness that bridge the gulf between an unknowable God and us who desires to know her.

Avatara

The avatara then is another way in which we can talk about God. So let's talk about a few stories of people experiencing God with form. So now I'm just gonna, in, in closing, in the final moments of this lecture, just like run through something like nine stories. I think that would be cute, nine stories, not at all exhaustive like there's so many stories. And before, like, I was meditating this morning, and like all these stories were coming, and I'm like, “I'm just gonna write down nine, and those are just gonna be the nine because there's so many cool stories.” And I want, as I tell you these stories, I want you to note to which form of God does this apply, and there's one, one form that I haven't really talked about yet which is God's providence, and I'll close with that. But remember there's Nirguna Nirakara, there's Saguna Nirakara, there's Saguna Sakara, and there's the avatar. Avatars are like physical embodiments of all the above, okay? So all these stories are going to be a vision of one of these aspects, and maybe the pop quiz, you can put it in the chat, is which aspect you think this corresponds to. Okay, that's our, this is our interactive portion of the class.

Swami Vivekananda's Vision

So here's the first story. I'm going to start with Swami Vivekananda since we started the lecture with Swami Vivekananda's cry to see God, let's now end, sort of the lecture with Swami Vik, not end, but start this part of the lecture with Swami Vivekananda's experiences. Let's talk about the first one I have here, the vision of Ma Kali. I like the story a lot, it's, I'm going to be anarchistic with you, this vision comes a bit later in Nara Narayan sadhana, but I like it.

So the story goes like this: young Narendra, who has not yet become Swami Vivekananda who is known all over the world, he's just, oh, a young adult, a young 19-year-old boy interested in spirituality. So then he falls upon hard times. His father, who was a great aristocrat, a great Kshatriya, unfortunately, spent money beyond his means, he lent a lot of money out, and when he died he left the estate in horrible debt, and unfortunately, members of the family came to collect, and they tore the estate apart, and poor Narendranath was left as the sole provider, being the eldest, for his sisters and for his mother and all that. So he fell on very hard times, and from being kind of a wealthy aristocrat he descended into the lowest of the low, as a kind of impoverished person. And he's looking for jobs, he's walking up and down Kolkata, back, knocking on doors looking for jobs. Can you imagine who would later become Swami Vivekananda is now like begging for jobs from door to door because he's trying to feed his family? He would go days hungry, it was a very dark time, friend, and he was losing his faith, you know? He was, he was really struggling with his faith at this time, and spirituality was hard for him, yet even in the midst of his struggles, he kept visiting Ramakrishna, he never forgot to go see Ramakrishna.

And one day, it was, I think kind of a poignant time, they were together, and he asked Ramakrishna, “Why won't your Kali?” Remember, he was very skeptical of like gods with form, he was part of the Brahmo Samaj, so it was, to him, kind of disgusting, God with form, bowing down to Kali, Shiva, “No, no, God is formless, what do you mean God is formed like that?” He wouldn't accept that, and he used to bully Ramakrishna, he would say, “What you were saying are nothing but hallucinations, it's a weak nervous system.” He used to really bully Ramakrishna, and people would say, “Why do you take that from him?” To Ramakrishna, he'd say, “Hold on, wait, wait, wait, wait, he will come to accept Ma Kali soon, just wait.” It's kind of like Darth Vader saying, “He will be turned, just wait.”

So young Narendra one day goes to Ramakrishna in the midst of his poverty, he asks, “Why won't your Kali?” Maybe even condescendingly, you might have asked, “Why won't your Kali take away my suffering?” And maybe with a lot of pathos, yes, “Can you intercede?” You know, usually, when people fall on hard times, they're willing to maybe, you know, try, try whatever they got, so, “Can you just see it for me?” Yeah, he did. Swamiji, he said:

I used to hate Ma Kali, the image of Ma Kali.

In his own admission, he said he used to hate the image. Interestingly, in one place, he says that:

I used to be very turned off by the image.

So anyway, Ramakrishna then said to him, “What you asking me to ask her? Why don't you ask her yourself?” Really, Tuesday night, late in the night, in the small hours of the morning, maybe Tuesday is an auspicious day for Kali, “You go to the temple, and in the temple, you ask her. You go, you sit there, you meditate, you look at Ma Kali, and you ask her.” So the night came about, I'm paraphrasing some things, and he went, and he sat there, and lo and behold, that Tuesday night, in the temple, in the Dakshineswar temple, he had the vision of Kali, the, the goddess Kali with arms and everything. She appeared, Ma Kali appeared to, to Swami Vivekananda. This is, he's seeing something in the realm of ideas that is appearing to him more real than something that he sees in the realm of the sensual plane, it's just more intimate, this experience, right? So he sees Ma Kali, he's so excited, he's filled in bliss, he sings songs, singing songs, then he runs back to Ramakrishna, he's like, “I saw Mahakali, I saw her!” He's bathed in purity and peace and joy because that's one thing that differentiates the vision of the Lord from like your basic schizophrenic hallucination. The vision of the Lord almost always leaves you elated with joy, full of compassion for all living beings, it has a kind of salvatory effect on the human spirit. So he's like looking at Swamiji, raving, and he's not impressed, because he sees Kali every day. So he's like, “Okay, okay, chill, good. Did you remember to ask her though about the money?” And Swamiji is like, “What, no, how could I ask about the money? It was the last thing on my mind, I was bathed and joy.” And Ramakrishna says, “Don't worry, don't worry, there's time yet. Go back and ask her again.” So he goes back to the temple, and he has another vision of Ma Kali, so much bliss and joy and everything, again, he forgets to ask about the money. So Ramakrishna sends him back a third time, and on the third time, again, he couldn't ask for the money. You see, once your mind is exalted on that plane, none of this stuff matters, the joy that you feel there is so great that you can't think of money, and I think that's what Ramakrishna was trying to show Swamiji, that like these concerns don't exist in the plane of that spirituality. But after all of this, he comes back to Ramakrishna, and Ramakrishna says, “Okay, relax. Your family will never want for simple food and clothing ever again.” It's almost like a stamp of approval, “Now that you've seen Ma Kali, don't worry, she'll take care of you, but you don't have to ask her for this. Sometimes it's hard to ask people for this stuff.”

So that's Swamiji's vision of Ma Kali. So that would, I don't know if you want to put in the chat like what would this apply to? Nirguna Nirakara number one, Saguna Nirakara number two, Saguna Sakara number three, or number four, an incarnation. Yes, exactly, number three, because he saw a form, right? I don't know, maybe he did see like light, and he you saw in that light Kali, so maybe it's both two and three, but at least, as the story as I understand it is, he saw Ma Kali, and he came to accept Mahakali as God. And he said:

I now fully accept Ma Kali. How it came to pass is a secret that will die with me.

Swamiji said that, and he said:

My life has been consecrated wholly to the mother.

And, by the way, he had other experiences of Ma Kali too. Like there was one temple in a cave that was very dilapidated, and he was very upset with its condition, and he wanted to do like things to protect it and save it, and then that night, Ma Kali appeared to him and laughed at him and said, “Do I think, do you think I need you? If I wanted, I could make a super temple, I want it that way, I want it to be this little dilapidated cave thing, like do I need you to defend me? I, Ma Kali for crying out loud.” So he did have an experience like that, and he writes poems to Ma Kali. “Who dares misery love and dance and destructions dance,” or something. To him, the Mother comes. And so he has poems about Kali, having seen Kali.

Ramakrishna in Detroit

Okay, so that's Saguna Sakara. Now another story I like, this story a lot, and I hope you don't mind, I know we're like at time, very much at time, but I hope you're enjoying these stories because I'm getting a bit carried away. Okay guys, if you have to leave, please leave, don't let me keep you here, okay? I'm just gonna throw stuff at you and, and whatever you want to take, take and go with whatever satisfies you. So the next story I like, this one a lot, it's Ramakrishna in Detroit.

So he's now, many years later, come to America after all his travels in India and all that. He's, by now, famous, he's given his famous speeches, the parliamentary, World Religion probably, Raja Yoga has come out, I'm not sure, but maybe. So he's big, you know? J.D. Salinger, sorry, Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein is saying, “Everyone should have a copy of Raja Yoga, it's a great classic,” you know? So he's like hanging out with Ford and Tesla and Gertrude Stein, and he's celebrated in American society. You, you know, it's crazy to think how celebrated he was, we forget that but he like kicked off this whole Yoga revolution. So all the Yoga studios you see now cropping up all over the place, they all kind of can trace it back to Swamiji, was the first Indian to speak on behalf of Vedanta and all that. So anyway, he's in Detroit, and obviously, he has many detractors, many people want him dead, right? Like a lot of enemies, especially missionaries not a fan of him. And so they poisoned his coffee, and he was about to drink the coffee in Detroit at a dinner one day, and suddenly he sees next to him Ramakrishna, the form of Ramakrishna, appear, and Ramakrishna says, “Don't drink, it's poison.” Isn't that interesting? And in the Belur Math monastery rule book, Swami Vivekananda understands very clearly that Ramakrishna, the form of Ramakrishna, is still here in a subtle form continuing to work, his presence is in the order, and many people have seen Ramakrishna in, in Belur Math and, and all over the world they've seen Ramakrishna, so his form is still there.

So what would this be? Would it be which, which one would it be? An experience of? Four, exactly, an experience of an avatar, an incarnation. So experiences of Jesus, Krishna, Rama would also be this category.

Okay, another experience is once Narendra, I think quite early on, was stepped on by Ramakrishna, like Ramakrishna put his foot on Narendra and pushed him there, there are two, two cases. One, he was arguing with someone whether God could be a jug, like in non-duality God is everything, right? So Swamiji was like laughing, “Hahaha, God is this jug? How can God be this jug?” And Ramakrishna came and said, “Oh, what are you arguing about?” And he said, “Oh, okay.” And then he stepped on him or something, and sent him into Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

It happened twice early on, he, Ramakrishna did this when they were alone together, he did this, and Swamiji got scared actually, he was like, “What are you doing to me? What are you doing to me? I have my family at home, stop.” And then Ramakrishna withdraw the experience smiling and laughing, he said, “Okay, okay, not yet.” So Ramakrishna actually tried to give him this experience very early on, but he was not yet ready for it. And then, later, he would have this experience, and he would beg for it, he would say, “I want Nirvikalpa Samadhi,” all that.

And his kind of culminating experience was, he was sitting in a room meditating with someone, he was meditating and suddenly he said to his friend who was there, “I can't, I can't feel my body, where did I put my body?” He was like stressed, “Where did I put my body?” And this man who was meditating with him got up, ran downstairs of Ramakrishna and reported this, and Ramakrishna laughed and said, “Let him be, he's pestered me for this experience long enough, let him have it.” So then, when they go back up, they find that it's gone to his like, you know, lost feeling of the body, and then it's going up gone, kundalini rose, he went into Nirvikalpa Samadhi, he was just there. And when he came down from that, he said:

I longed to just stay there, I just want to stay in Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

And Ramakrishna says:

Wow, you really disappoint me here, I was thinking that you would be a great banyan tree in whose shade many would come and take refuge, but now you're just some selfish mystic. No, I forbid you, I lock the state.

So Ramakrishna locked him and forbade him from Nirvikalpa Samadhi until he did his work as a bodhisattva, you know, to like save humanity. So isn't that crazy? So anyway, he, and he would report later, when he would meditate in caves, he couldn't get over this like bleeding heart compassion that he felt for all these suffering people who are deprived of spirituality, etc., etc.

So those are two instances. He also experienced Buddha. Very early on, actually, he was sitting and meditating, and he actually got scared, he was sitting and meditating, and then he saw the Buddha, a monk with a begging bowl, like approaching him, and he was a child at this time, very young, and he already had a vision of the Buddha, he got scared, he got up and ran away. And he also went and meditated in Bodh Gaya, and apparently, he had a vision of Buddha there. He was a big fan of the Buddha, he was a very, very ardent lover of the Buddha, he said:

The Buddha was the sanest man who ever lived. No cobwebs in that brain.

He would say he didn't like Buddhists so much, he thought Buddhists didn't understand the Buddha, but he loved the Buddha, you know? So that's that, and as an itinerant monk, you know, as a wandering, itinerant monk, he had various experiences which I am now going to call the experiences of the providence of God. So he had seen God in all these different forms. Also, I'm just now remembering this, there's one story where Ramakrishna appears to him as an avatar, and then changes forms, so it's like, “Oh, you want to see Radha?” And then he turns around and Radha appears. He says, “Oh, you want to see this other god?” He turns around, this other god appears. So Ramakrishna was playing with Swami Vivekananda and showing him all these different gods. So Ramakrishna gave Vivekananda the experience of the whole gamut, you know, of avatars. Of course, he saw Ramakrishna in person like Matthew saw Jesus, or John saw Jesus in person, but then he also saw Jesus, Ramakrishna, in the subtle form, appearing to him in Detroit. But he also saw all the Saguna Sakara aspects, he has poems to Shiva, poems to Kali, he's, of course, got that experience, then he has a Saguna Nirakara aspect, then he also had experience of Nirguna Nirakara, though that was luck to him until the end of his life. So he experienced the whole gamut, right?

The Providence of God

But he also experienced one other thing, and this is the fifth thing that I haven't really talked about. The fifth thing is the experience of the providence of God. So it's not exactly a vision of an avatar, nor is it a vision of, let's say, you know, a form of God like Kali or Shiva, nor is it even a field of light, nor is it even Samadhi. It's something different, it's in waking life experiencing God's love for us through some miracle that occurs. So there are many occasions of this. Once Ramakrishna was starving, he made a vow in Vrindavan not to beg for food anymore. He's an itinerant monk, so they beg for their food, he made a vow not to beg for food, and he said, “I'll just wait and see if somehow food comes to me.” And true enough, after walking, it was raining apparently, he was like starving, after walking a long way a person does come up to him and says, “You must be hungry, here's food, here's food.” And you know, he wanted to test God, Ramakrishna, he said, “Test me as a money changer tests coins.” So he wanted to test God, he actually ran away from the donor, he like just bolted, and this fellow with the food chased him, chased after him, and because he was so hungry and tired, the person overtook him, gave him the food and left, and he just sat there with the food crying, he was like weeping, because it was obviously an evidence of the providence of God. God was looking after him. So Swami Vivekananda put God to the test, and often, over and over and over, he would have these experiences of food just coming to him when he needed it. You yourself have experienced that, right? Like you needed the money, the money came, you needed a job, a job came, you almost died and yet you didn't. Like, in all of our lives we felt, and we forget usually, we, after the miracle happens we forget about it until we're reminded, but we've all felt at least at one point the providence of God. Arguably, this is what Brother Lawrence was feeling as a young soldier looking at a dead winter tree. He felt God's power to regenerate the tree, he saw all the branches were dead, but soon new flowers would come, new leaves, new fruit, and that thought, the thought of God's regenerative ability turned him into a lifelong mystic. He went and he lived the rest of his life, he's a Carmelite monk, he spent the rest of his time in a Carmelite monastery. So this idea of experiencing the providence of God, Swamiji had it, Swami Vivekananda saw it, Brother Lawrence saw it, Swami Brahmananda had several instances of that.

Okay, let's move on. So, had Savikalpa probably Samadhi in the Shodashi Puja when Ramakrishna was worshipping her as Ma Kali. And on that fateful day, Palaharini Puja, Ramakrishna, late at night, installed his own wife as Ma Kali and worshipped her in the living form as Ma Kali. Aleister Crowley ain't got nothing on that, it's like actual worship of a woman, and he's doing it, and he has this vision of Ma Kali, and Ma Kali, who's, of course, also Ma Kali, is in Samadhi also. The description is that she's also in a semi-conscious state of ecstasy, so there's that, Ma Kali had that. But when she was young, Ma Kali had visions of a young girl playing with her, like there was like a young child that would follow her about, it was obviously Ma Kali. And in one instance, she's coming to Ramakrishna, she falls ill, and in the midst of her fever she experiences a young girl come and like massage her feet and heal her. And when she asks, “Who are you?” she says, “Oh, I'm coming from Calcutta, I'm sorry, I'm coming from Dakshineswar, meaning I'm coming from the temple of Kali, I'm coming there.” She's Kali, right? “I'm coming from Kali, I'm coming to help you,” like that. So it's cute, Ma, had those experiences.

And I want to tell you this experience which I think is so cool. She was mourning the death of Ramakrishna on the 16th of August, that cremated Ramakrishna in 1886, and that day she's taking off her bangles, as is customary for an Indian woman to do, her golden bangles, symbol of her marriage. She's taking off the bangles because her husband has died, right? Then suddenly, Ramakrishna appears to her in a vision and says, “Why are you taking off your bangles, as if you were a widow, as if I died? I merely passed from one room to another.” Beautiful thought. So, had that experience.

Now let's move on to Raja Maharaj. When he was a young child, later Swami Brahmananda, young Rakhal, was massaging Ramakrishna's feet when he saw the image of a young woman walking three times, not three times but walking around Ramakrishna's bed. So he had the vision of Ma Kali from massaging Krishna's feet. Then he saw Kali in a Vaishnava temple, a temple dedicated to Vishnu, he went in there, and he had the vision of Kali, and when he asked about it later, he found out that it was initially a Kali temple that Ramanuja's followers had built over. So that's interesting, it shows us that there's a kind of objectivity to this stuff, it's not like he would go into a Kali temple, go into a Kali mood and see Kali, sometimes he would go into a Vishnu temple and see Kali there. Why? Because it used to be a Kali temple, even though many people had forgotten about it, he had that vision of Kali. So he had the vision of Kanyakumari, the Virgin Goddess of Southern India, he had all these experiences, and he, Swami Brahmananda would go into a temple and have experiences of that god in the temple. So he was the kind of mystic who could see all aspects. And he saw Jesus on the Christmas Day puja. So he was there, it was a Christmas Day puja, and then he apparently saw a man in a long blue robe, and he was like conversing with him for some time. So he had the vision of Jesus as well. And some of his disciples would see Jesus on their way to him, and then he would initiate them into like a Jesus mantra or something. So those are just some examples.

Teresa of Avila, Moses, Saint John, Paul, Paul never met Jesus but he kept having visions of the Christ, and he went out into the ocean and spread the message of Christianity on the power of those visions alone.

You see, religion is about realization, it is about seeing God face-to-face, and coming into contact with the Lord in whatever form you choose, or maybe all the forms if we're so blessed, you know? And that means that we can, all of us, feel empowered to ourselves progress and have these experiences.

The Path of the Mystic

What do we do? Ultimately it's practice, you know? The thing about the mystic's path is it requires purification. Purification in the form of, I don't know, puja every day like, bhakti people will do puja every day, then, of course, nama japa, repeating the name of the Lord. With the rudraksha like, if you're doing it three times a day for an hour each time, add a fourth time of the day, intensify your japa until there's not a moment where you're not doing japa. Right now, you should be doing some japa, just doing whatever mantra you've been given by your guru, or whatever mantra you like, you're doing your japa, never stop doing your japa, so the mind becomes single-pointed, then sit in meditation. You're sitting there, doing your japa, meditating in the heart on the form of the god that you most, most love.

And you know one day, here's what ultimately happens: the realm of ideas becomes more real than what is seen as the sensual, material plane. By the way, this whole thing is ideation, it appears real only because we've reified it as real, but when we sit and meditate, we find that the inner world is not just as real, it's even more real. It's the inner world that's the source of this outer world, you know? From the inside comes forth, purnath inside comes the outside. And I'm just thinking in my house alone, look at all this furniture around me, these guitars, this Ayurvedic copper water bottle, it all originated in the mind of some inventor, someone had an idea and now it's this Ikea table that's doubling as an altar. Someone had an image of Kali and now it's Ma Kali, everything in my house started as an image or an idea in someone's mind, and now here it is in its gross form. So this whole world that you see around you, they're all ideas in their gross form, and when you meditate you actually enter into perhaps what Plato would call the Realm of Ideas. And the more you meditate, the more real these ideas become, until you achieve what is called Savikalpa Samadhi. Savikalpa is when the Lord that you've been meditating on up till now, just as a mere image, comes to life, and is real in your heart, and you feel that reality as if it was like a table, as if you were seeing something with your own eyes.

Tomorrow's Realization

So here's the strategy: you sit maybe thrice a day for one hour each time, maybe at dawn, maybe at noon, maybe at dusk. You choose a form of the divine that's most appealing to you, an avatar: Krishna, Rama, Jesus, whatever, Ramakrishna or Ma Kali, Shiva, whatever you like, or Archangel Michael, I don't care. Whatever you choose, sit down, have a form. At first, some of you like the formless, but it takes tremendous renunciation for that, so it's maybe better to start with the form, knowing that it is the formless ultimately. Now, you sit, and you visualize that seated upon the lotus of the heart is that form. Now the best thing to do is to have a murti in front of you also. So you open your eyes and just look at the murti, see the image, and try to really, with your eyes, download that image and when you close your eyes, try to sculpt it with your imagination with as much likeness as possible, representing the actual Murthy. So, it's nice to choose a Murthy that really inspires you, like a Shiva that truly looks like Shiva to you, not a Shiva you don't like the face of. Choose one and then visualize it. Every day, think of it as if you're a sculptor adding details. First, you start with the foot, then the shin, then the knee. Slowly, you build, build, build until one day you can hold in your mind's eye the full image of that aspect.

It should feel like you're actually looking at that image with your eyes open. That's the level of one-pointedness you need to develop. It will come if you meditate every day. If you practice every day, the image will become clearer and more tangible. One day, that image will come to life; it will be awakened. You'll feel the living presence of that image, and it will almost seem like the image has its own life. It will get up and start to talk to you. At first, this will happen only in meditation, with your eyes closed. You'll enter into this realm of ideas and communicate with your deity. The deity itself will instruct you in various ways, telling you what to say to others and where to go. It's like having an imaginary friend inside.

As this deepens, you'll have this experience with your eyes open too. For example, Golap Ma saw Krishna crawling about her room, asking for butter. After she met Sri Ramakrishna, she saw Gopala. Similarly, Sri Ramakrishna appeared to Swamiji at the dinner table. You will look around, and your imaginary friend will no longer seem imaginary; she will be there in her banarasi silks. Some of you have had experiences like this and shared them with me.

It must be really real to you, not just a passing thing. When it becomes truly real, you will experience Nirguna Nirakara, which I can't talk about here. But this at least will come if you devote yourself to a meditation practice every day. You have to practice until the mind becomes single-pointed. If now it feels scattered and you can barely hold the image for more than a few seconds, or you can't see the image at all, don't worry. Keep at it. One day, it will come together.

That's the best way to practice this path of the mystic. Let's end with Swami Turiyananda's wonderful statement: “Today's imagination becomes tomorrow's realization.” I love that. “Today's imagination becomes tomorrow's realization.” So, picture the Lord in your heart with all thy heart and might, and one day, the Lord's eyes will open, and you will have an eternal companion for this life and beyond. May this be the case for all of us.

Pick up the mighty bow that is the Upanishads. Place upon it the arrow of a mind sharpened through much meditation and selfless service. Draw back the bowstring of renunciation and interiorness and strike upon thy target—Brahman, reality itself. Om. Peace, peace, peace be unto us all.

5 Ways To Experience God Directly

To have a conversation about “seeing” God though, we must of course first carefully consider what the word “God” means and think about in what sense we are using it.

I'll propose 5 different ways to use the word God:

1. Nirguna Nirakara, the Formless Absolute or Godhead
2. Saguna Nirakara, the Formless Personal God like the YHVH of the Abrahamic Faiths or Ishvara or Bhagavan in Hinduism
3. Saguna Sakara, God with Form in a particular aspect like Shiva, Kali etc.
4. Avatara, God with Form in a particular aspect as a fully embodied human form like Rama, Krishna, Jesus, Ramakrishna etc.
5. God's Providence, i.e. an indirect experience of the Divine like in the case of miracles etc.

My intention is to show how these 5 conceptions of God are also grounds for 5 different ways of experiencing God directly! I'll share some stories relating to each level of experience, God-willing!

5 Ways To Speak of God

First, to even answer the question of experiencing God directly, we must be precise about what the word “God” means and in what sense we intend to use it.

There are at least five ways to conceive of God:

1. Nirguna Nirakara: The formless Godhead, which cannot even be spoken about. It is far beyond the realm of all thought and speech and is typically experienced in nirvikalpa samadhi, the highest absorption in meditation known to the 5000-or-so-year tradition of yoga of South Asian spirituality.
2. Saguna Nirakara: The formless Personal God referred to by the Abrahamic Faiths (YHVH), or Ishvara or Bhagavan in Hinduism. Although formless, this being is a kind of cosmic personality, who creates, maintains, destroys, listens to prayers, answers prayers, and is the bestower of grace and judgment. This God both redeems and binds.
3. Saguna Sakara: The God that creates, destroys, and maintains, but also comes in a particular form or aspect. Examples are Shiva, Kali, Durga, etc. These aspects of God appear to people in mystic vision.
4. Avatara: God taking form as an incarnation. Examples are Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Shankara, Chaitanya, and Jesus, in the Vaishnava and Christian traditions. These individuals lived and acted as human beings and yet are seen as the highest divinity, non-different from God itself.
5. God's Providence: This refers to the impact God has in our lives, such as feeling the providence of God, sensing the presence of God, or just getting a sense of the sacred.

These are five aspects of God I'd like to discuss today. By the end of this first part of the lecture, my proposition is that they are all the same. Any sect that says “Our God is the only God” has committed the ultimate blasphemy because God, by their own admission, is the unlimited being. This unlimited being is not going to be limited because of what someone says God can or cannot do.

The Gnostic Vision of God vs. the Mystic Vision of God

Last week we talked about seeing God with eyes open. Our approach was a Jnana Yoga approach, a gnostic approach. We explored how God is consciousness, how consciousness alone exists and is all-pervading, and therefore everything you see is nothing but consciousness appearing to consciousness for the sake of consciousness. This is a particular way of talking about seeing God; this is a gnostic way.

Today I want to talk about mystic experience. Today I want to talk about the Raja Yogi approach, which is the mystic's approach of actually seeing an ishta, meaning a chosen aspect of the divine, like actually seeing Krishna. What does it take to see Krishna?

The idea in Indian spirituality is that spiritual experience is not limited to a few special prophets. While there are great rishis and avataras, by following in their footsteps and the blueprint of practice they left behind, we too can come to have the same experiences they had. There is nothing any mystic anywhere has experienced that you yourself cannot experience with the right practice. That's the central claim of Indian spirituality: it's a path of experience.

The Cry of Indian Spirituality: “If there is a God, I must see him!”

This is the thunderous proclamation of Swami Vivekananda: “If there is a God, I must see him! If there is a truth, I must realize it!”

Religion is not about priests, it's not about books, it's not about blind dogma. It's about experience, direct personal experience. Swami Vivekananda is echoing the needs of our time. There might have been a time when faith was the approach, faith without any experience, but today, we want a scientific, empirical way to do religion. The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali shows us that religion can be just as scientific, not faith-based or scriptural-based, but practice, experiment, and experience based.

There's a difference between Bhakti Yoga and Yoga, though they overlap. Bhakti Yoga would be faith, not experience. Raja Yoga would be no faith, experience, and experience is what gives you the faith.

Nirguna Nirakara: God, the Formless Absolute

Let's start with the formless absolute Nirguna Nirakara. This is arguably the highest, loftiest spiritual idea in South Asia.

Nirguna Nirakara means that God is beyond all attributes. The Mandukya Upanishad says “Hari OM. OM is all there is. All this is verily OM. That's the opening of the Mandukya Upanishad. Hari OM. The lord is the formless absolute, and it alone exists. All this is it, for it alone is, and this is but an appearance in it.”

How do we understand the word OM?

• A, the first letter, references the waking state, called Vaishvanara in Sanskrit, meaning “common to all men.” It's also called jagrat, the waking state.
• U, the second letter, represents the dream state (swapna).
• M, the third letter, represents deep sleep (sushupti).

These three sounds represent the three states you experience: waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. You take yourself to be the waker, the dreamer, but in deep sleep, who is it that slept deeply? It couldn't be the waker or the dreamer.

There is one consciousness in which waking, dreaming, and deep sleep come and go. That witness is not who you are in the waking world, dreaming, or deep sleep. It's the one to whom all three states occur. That one is called the formless awareness. It can never be made an object for it is the supreme subject. It resists deification; it's not something you can look at or talk about or experience for it is the ground in which all experience happens.

The Mandukya Upanishad calls this formless awareness turiya, the fourth state. The fourth matra is silence. If A is waking, U is dreaming, and M is deep sleep, then anything you can articulate only belongs to those three realms. Silence cannot be articulated, but it is the ground of all the other three. Without silence, you wouldn't have sound. Without turiya, there is no waking, dreaming, or deep sleep.

Turiya, according to the Mandukya Upanishad, is Shantam Shivam Advaitam: the silence of the universe, peace itself, bliss itself, and non-dual.

OM: A Method to Experience the Nirguna Aspect

How would a yogi experience Nirguna Nirakara? The answer is in nirvikalpa samadhi, absorption beyond all thoughts. Nirvikalpa, without any vikalpas (thoughts or conceptions). When the mind is totally seized, when there are no thoughts, no memory, no sleep even—it's beyond even deep sleep. Samadhi is when there are no thoughts whatsoever, yet you are fully alert, fully aware. Only in samadhi are you consciousness aware of itself.

The Yoga Sutra calls it yogas chitta vritti nirodha: Yoga is the complete cessation of all thoughts.

Nirvikalpa samadhi is like death: body is dead, mind is dead.

Sri Ramakrishna's Experience of Samadhi

Sri Ramakrishna desired to experience nirvikalpa samadhi. His teacher, Totapuri, taught him Vedanta and to meditate on OM. Sri Ramakrishna's obstacle was his attachment to the form of Kali. Totapuri pressed a shard of glass on Sri Ramakrishna's third eye and said, “Meditate on this spot! You must pierce through!” Sri Ramakrishna slashed Kali in half with the sword of knowledge (Jnana) and went into nirvikalpa samadhi for three straight days, immersed in the highest bliss.

Why would you desire nirvikalpa samadhi?

It represents the highest ecstasy, the highest bliss, the highest experience possible. In that state, there is an authenticity, a veracity, a beauty, and a truth unlike any other.

Sri Ramakrishna longed to have the experience of nirvikalpa samadhi and he meditated on OM. He entered into nirvikalpa samadhi for three days and in another instance, for six months.

This is Nirguna Nirakara and the only way to experience it is nirvikalpa samadhi. Samadhi is the same in all paths. Nirvikalpa Samadhi is being dead to the world, where the mind is seized.

Saguna Nirakara: God, the Creator

Saguna Nirakara, which is formless but not as absolute as Nirguna Nirakara. Now we are coming into the realm of God proper, who is the creator, preserver, destroyer. A being, a person, to whom you pray, to whom you implore for intervention and grace. This is the God spoken of in the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the Bhagavatam. This is the formless God, but a person you can talk to, but not a person you can articulate imagistically.

This God resists all idols, and is a very difficult God to meditate on because It is still formless.

Sri Ramakrishna Experiencing Saguna Brahman

Sri Ramakrishna's first experience of God was a mass of light. He had a period of skepticism where he was not sure whether Kali existed. He was a priest in a Kali temple, desperate to have the vision of God. He wanted to experience God. He would say, “Are You anything more than a stone statue? Is religion just a mass of superstitions or is there any truth to this? Can a person actually experience Kali?” His whole life was guided along that one burning desire.

One day in the Kali temple, Sri Ramakrishna decided to end it all. He ran and grabbed a sword from the wall and as he was about to fall on it, he went into samadhi. The world faded away and all he saw was a field of pure light. He was not seeing Kali, but a mass of light. When he returned to consciousness, the first word out of his mouth was “Ma.”

He would say “What you call Brahman, I call Kali. Kali and Brahman are one.”

Jesus Experiencing Saguna Brahman

This mass of light is what Jesus is in communion with when he went up to the mountain to pray, and when he spent 40 days in the desert meditating. This is the formless God that he came into contact with.

Saguna Sakara: God, the Form with Aspect

Just like Nirguna Nirakara is not different from Saguna Nirakara, so too is Saguna Sakara not different from Saguna Nirakara. God the formless principle, God the formless person, and God the person with form are all one and the same thing.

Think of God with form as shapes through which you can gaze at the sky. Imagine a Shiva-shaped hole in a wall. If you look through that hole, you'll see the sky. The sky is now appearing in the shape of Shiva.

Meditating on God with form is better for those not ready to meditate on the formless God. It gives your mind something to work with. Who can conceive of the infinite right away?

Symbols are indispensable in the beginning of spiritual life. The problem with the formless aspect is that it doesn't give you anything to work with.

Why You Aren't “Working” With Kali

The formless divine is renunciation because it is pure spirit, and spirit is beyond all physicality and psychology.

Those interested in the renunciation aspect of the formless absolute will love Shiva. Those who like the playful aspect of God will like Krishna. Those who feel the courage and fearlessness of the non-dual absolute will like Durga. These aspects have something to do with the divine but are particularized and specialized.

You might as well acquaint yourself with the taste of salt water in a Shiva-shaped cup or a Kali-shaped cup, knowing that God is beyond even that. When you worship Kali, you see Kali as the absolute, not just as Saguna Sakara, but also Nirguna Nirakara. Kali is not a force in a pantheon that you can invoke and summon to do your bidding.

The idol is never taken to be God, but God is present in everything, so why not the idol? God is the one being that cannot run away from you. If you want God in the Shiva statue, He's there. You might as well worship Him in Shiva if that is what inspires you.

Saguna Sakara = Saguna Nirkara = Nirguna Nirakara

Sri Ramakrishna said “From a distance the ocean looks black, but up close the water is colorless. From afar, Kali appears black, but when you're close, she's colorless.”

Avatara: God the Incarnation and Swami Vivekananda's Mystic Experiences

None can come to the father except by way of the son. Meditating on the avatara is probably the most accessible to us. We don't know what Kali or Shiva look like, and we don't really know what Rama or Krishna look like either, but because they are men, that is closer to us.

#5 The Providence of God

The experience of God's providence is not a vision, but rather experiencing God's love for us through some miracle that occurs in waking life. We've all felt God's providence at least once: needing money and it coming, needing a job and getting it, almost dying and yet not. We've all felt it.

How Do We Too Have Mystic Experiences Like This?

Ultimately, it's practice. The mystic's path requires purification: puja every day, repeating the name of the lord (nama japa) with a rudraksha. If you are doing it three times a day, add a fourth. Intensify your japa until there is not a moment where you are not doing it. Do whatever mantra you have been given by your guru or whatever mantra you like. Never stop doing it so the mind becomes single-pointed.

Sit in meditation. You are sitting there doing your japa, meditating in the heart on the form of the God you love most.

One day, the realm of ideas becomes more real than the sensual material plane. When you sit and meditate, you find that the inner world is not just as real—it's even more real. It's the inner world that is the source of this outer world.

When you meditate you enter the realm of ideas. The more you meditate, the more real those ideas become until you achieve what is called savikalpa samadhi. Savikalpa is when the Lord you have been meditating on as a mere image comes to life and is real in your heart.

Here's the strategy:

• Sit three times a day for one hour each: dawn, noon, dusk
• Choose an appealing form of the divine: avatara (Krishna, Rama, Jesus, Ramakrishna), or Kali, Shiva, Archangel Michael, etc.
• Have a murti in front of you. Open your eyes and look at the murti. See the image. Close your eyes and try to sculpt it in your imagination.

Visualize that form seated upon a lotus of the heart. Sculpt it in your imagination every day, adding details: start with the foot, then the shin, knee, etc. Build it until one day you can hold the full image in your mind's eye. It should feel like you are actually looking at the image with your eyes open.

That level of one-pointedness will come if you meditate every day. The image will become clearer and clearer, and more and more tangible, until one day it comes to life.

You'll feel the living presence of that image, and it's almost like the image gets a life of its own. It gets up and talks to you. At first only in meditation, with your eyes closed. You enter the realm of ideas and you can talk to your deity.

When that deepens, you will have it with your eyes open, too. You look around, and your imaginary friend is not so imaginary.

Picture the lord in your heart with all your heart and might, and one day that lord's eyes will open, and you will have an eternal companion for this life and beyond.

I Am Everyone; I Own Everything

Now I'd like to discuss something incredibly subtle and profound. I want to talk about one of the subtlest and deepest ideas in non-dual Shaiva philosophy. The beauty of what we're going to discuss tonight is that it's all it takes for enlightenment.

That's a startling claim, and it's quite a big promise. But the idea is this: if you can use the following discussion as a lens through which you look at reality, there comes an intuitive, spontaneous, almost flash of insight, and one rests in the fullness of one's true nature, beyond both body and mind. As a result, one senses that same essential nature wholly present in body, mind, and everything else. That is the experiential realization that can be had through carefully contemplating what we will discuss tonight, by Lord Shiva's grace.

Tonight, I'm going to explore a particular model—in fact, three different models. These are all particular ways of looking at reality. Now, the means are not necessarily the ends, so these models aren't one-to-one depictions of reality, but they're pretty subtle understandings, and they're very sensitive and very tuned to reality as far as language can be. So, through them, one can have a wordless, non-cognitive, direct perception of that reality to which these models point.

I'll put the models in front of you, we'll carefully contemplate them in a kind of meditative spirit, and we'll see together the reality to which they point. Then, having perceived that reality, one attains this flash of insight, this spontaneous, intuitive realization.

And then, we'll talk about the purpose of spiritual practice—like meditation, like pūjā, etc.—in stabilizing and integrating that realization, so that you can actually live according to it. Okay, so there's two parts to this lecture: the first is to have that intuitive understanding, and the second is to discuss how one can enjoy that intuitive understanding—or embody that intuitive understanding, or manifest that intuitive understanding—in each and every moment of your life. So that's where we're headed tonight!

Are you excited? Because I couldn't be more excited. It's ripe time now that we do this, for two reasons. One, because in these discussions that we've been having over several weeks, we've explored a lot of the foundational ideas upon which we can now build the spiritual philosophy known as Paramadvaita, or non-dual Shaiva philosophy. There's so much that one needs to acquaint themselves with first, in order to be able to really, really play with this new mode of looking at reality. A lot of these authors and masters were very well-versed first in Upanishadic thought, in Sāṅkhya thought, in Advaita Vedanta—so, Vedantic thought. They were masters of all these systems. And through practice, through meditative insight, and through keen discernment, they were able to articulate this system of philosophy known as Paramadvaita.

Importantly, all these different schools of philosophy are just so many lenses through which one can gaze at reality. But each one can sometimes convey a different aspect of that infinite reality, reality being beyond words, reality being infinite. It can also be enjoyed in infinite ways. It's like if you were to cut a marble cake: each slice of the marble cake looks different compared to every other slice—there are different patterns and designs—yet they all taste sweet. In fact, they all, to some extent, satisfy you.

But, be that as it may, as we described last week, different schools of philosophy convey different senses of freedom, and some freedoms are more free than others. To make sense of that statement, you can refer to last week's lecture where we looked at freedom. We took the Chārvāka conception of freedom, compared it to Sāṅkhya, compared it to Advaita Vedanta, all the schools of Indian philosophy, etc.

Okay. So now I believe that we have enough background to enter into a nuanced and rich discussion of Kashmir Shaivism. However, even if you don't have any of that background, you'll still enjoy this discussion thoroughly, I believe, because it's not really that technical, it's more experiential. It's more… phenomenologic. I can never say that word. Phenomenology. It's more phenomenon—never mind. It's more experiential.

The discussion we're having today doesn't depend on book learning, it doesn't depend on Sanskrit proficiency or fluency. It really just depends on an honest, inquiry into your experience as it's unfolding now. As a result of this inquiry, one can become permanently free from all forms of suffering, categorically speaking. That's the promise of this discussion.

Another reason why I think it'd be nice to have this particular discussion today is because it is New Year in many of the Indian calendars. So, there was Tamil New Year two years ago—any Bengalis in the room, anyway? I'm looking around, seeing many Bengalis in the room. It's also Bengali New Year. And it was Punjabi New Year, Gujarati, it was a lot of New Years in India! And it's the first new moon, I think, of spring. It's a very profound time because the new moon, as you know, yesterday was Shivaratri, the day before the new moon. Every month there's one Shivaratri, with one big Shivaratri in the month of Māgha, okay? So, that that passed already, in February, but this new moon, like any new moon, is a powerful time for new beginnings and for deep spiritual inquiry. So, I thought today, being a new moon, being the first day of many calendars, would be quite a nice day to have so deep and wonderful a discussion.

So, by Lord Shiva's grace, my mother Kālī's will, I pray that we may sense into the subtlety of what is soon to be discussed and have that intuitive flash of realization, whereby we become free from all forms of suffering, whereby we become united with the highest and most absolute sense of fulfillment, meaning, and power, and whereby one recognizes one's own true nature that was always the case, always will be the case, and is now the case. And I pray that the divine mother—that, having had this intuition, this flash of realization—that we are able to practice with consummate virtuosity, that we may be able to absorb ourselves in practice, that this realization may be stabilized, integrated, and made manifest in each and every one of our lives. Jāy mā!

So, let's start. I'm gonna put it in front of you, we'll explore it, and then we'll make a few points.

So, the first thing to consider—first of all, hello, nice to see you all.

The 6 Layers of Selfhood: Who am I?

The first thing to consider is that I need to understand what kind of being I am before I can ask the question, “What should I do?”

So, “What should I do in this life?” is wholly dependent on my understanding of what kind of being I am, and my motivations in life will always be derived from my innate sense of being. So, whatever I think I am, that's going to inform my actions, that's going to be the motive force behind everything that I do.

Now, according to the Kashmiri Shaiva system, which is, you know, an exegetical series of commentaries—extremicatical—writing or commentaries—on several major Tantras. We can think of being, or personhood, in six distinct ways, and I'm going to mention all six, and this is going to be a kind of journey from the peripheral or surface layers of your being to the very centermost of the centermost, the very core of your being. And this core is so subtle as to be almost unrecognizable unless you know what you're looking for, and once you sense into that core, one will have this experience of being transcendent and yet wholly immanent in everything. Now, you know very well what those two words mean, so I'm just going to continue.

Okay, so let's start with the most superficial layer of selfhood, the most surface layer of selfhood. By the way, this might sound to you like pañca-kośa-viveka. It is, in a sense. So, those of you who are familiar with the Taittirīya Upaniṣad and Sāṅkhya and Vedanta, you might feel like this discussion is quite reminiscent of that: the five kośas. But it's a bit different. Okay, so I guess I should have said at the top of the lecture that this exercise works best if we can approach it as tabula rasa as possible, meaning let's just engage with this idea as if it's the first time we've ever heard it. Some of you are yoga teachers—you've heard about the kośas in yoga teacher training. Others amongst you are Vedantic academics. You know Kayam is very schooled—he's read all the books. So, many of you might have… might have encountered something like this Upaniṣad, especially this pañca-kośa. This is a little different, though. This model might not be exactly one-to-one what you're, remembering from that. So, just for a moment, put that on the shelf and let's engage with this model.

So we're going to do a kind of viveka, kind of discernment, of the kośas, but not… it's not really called kośas here, it's called the āvaraṇas, or the various realms, or the various dimensions of your being.

So, we'll start with the most superficial of them all, and that is your stuff: vastu, your possessions. Now, your possessions in many way constitute some kind of personhood for you, so you do identify yourself with the things that you own: your car, your house, your clothes, your harmonium, your various deities, your bronze statues and sandalwood statues, and your various pictures, and in my case, far too many guitars, you know. So, your stuff, in some sense, is one dimension of your personhood.

Now, many of us are actually wholly identified with our things, and we consider ourselves to be the things that we own. Okay. So, our sense of selfhood, our personhood, is premised upon possession. And this is a lot more common than you might think! It sounds shallow, it sounds superficial, and you're like, "Haha, I know better. I'm not that materialistic. You know, Madonna might have sung that she's a material girl in a material world, but I'm more enlightened than that. I'm part of the awakened New Age Instagram community. Okay? I use hashtags. Okay, well at least Madonna was honest about it. She was pointing out a deeply pervasive value system that permeates every part of our culture and is literally under our skin, in the sense that we feel ourselves to be our things, even when we think we're beyond that kind of identification.

Why do we think that? Because we sometimes feel aggrandized when more things come into our life. So, when we get a new stereo, for instance, we feel maybe like a bigger person, or some people, when they get a better car or a bigger house, they do genuinely feel a sense of their personhood expanding to some extent, and vice versa. If that house goes away, or if that car goes away, or if somebody steals your stereo—I actually had a friend who parked her car outside her Volkswagen Bug, and someone broke into the car, and it seemed like they were a very discerning thief, because they stole very specific CDs. They broke into the car, they flipped through the CDs, and they stole a pair of, fancy California-girl sunglasses and… Colbie Caillat. They stole a very specific thing: the sunglasses and Colbie Caillat, and they left the Jason Mraz and the… and what have you, and that was pretty funny, but anyway. Something like that could happen, right? Like, someone could take your stereo and your Colbie Caillat and your cute West Coast sunglasses, and then you might actually feel like—honestly feel like—your personhood has been diminished in some way. That's why there's this tremendous reaction to something like that. When someone finds that they've lost something, or something is broken, or something's been taken away, one feels a sense of threat—like, almost an existential threat. You see it on the road a lot: if someone's car gets scratched, they flip out, as if you actually hurt them, or something like that.

But in any case, notice: most of us think that we don't identify with our stuff, but we do, first two: vastu, meaning stuff. We all, to some extent, at least a little bit, invest personhood in our things. And so much of our culture—in the West especially, is oriented Iran, and increasingly in other parts of the world, too, is oriented around things. Things make us who we are, things say something about us: the kind of car that we drive, the kind of house, the kind of clothes that we wear, you know, down to the Starbucks coffee, which in the 2000s used to be a status symbol: “Hey, look at me, I have a white-collar job! I'm on my way to my office now to make more money than you,” right? So, the Starbucks cup also used to be a kind of status symbol.

So, notice: things, insofar as they communicate something about us to others, means that they're a dimension of our persona. So, in some sense, we are our things.

Now, if we are wholly identified as our things, the degree to which we will suffer when those things inevitably get taken away from us is obviously much greater. So, the more that I feel “I am my car,” “I am my house,” “I am my money,” “I am my CDs,” “I am my cereal,” the degree to which I feel that, is the degree to which I will suffer when inevitably these things break and go away. Okay?

So, notice: this is also a journey of progressive layers of suffering, with this being the worst. The worst form of suffering is to be attached to things, because things are often so slippery, you know? As the Buddha pointed out, this is a world of impermanence, a world of tremendous change. But in armor—everything is changing. And given that what I have today I might not have tomorrow, which, as the Yoga Sūtra argues in Book Two, Verse 15, that will cause tāpa: anxiety. Because of parin̄āma, there comes tāpa. Tāpa meaning this… this feeling of, like, “Oh my God, I could lose all of this today!”

So, typically, if you create a kind of pharaoh-like Egyptian pyramid with all of these things that you hope to take into the afterlife, you will always feel this tremendous sense of, what do you call it, anxiety, anxiety body.

And yes, you're right, that the thing comes to be a concretized, a symbol of your time, the time that you invested in making the money that you needed to buy that thing. So that thing becomes not only you, but your energies, your life force, is… is manifested now as this particular object in your life. Okay.

That's one layer of self. Now, we're not making any value judgments here. This is quite important, because we're approaching this from a Tantric, non-dual point of view, not an advice point of view. We're not approaching it from a Sāṅkhya point of view, so you're not saying, “This is bad.” We're not saying “Stuff is bad,” we're only pointing out that if you identify with your things, this is the unique way in which you could suffer, right? If I say, “I'm rich, and I enjoy being rich,” then I will suffer equally the feeling of being poor. And by the way, no matter how rich you are, you are always, by comparison, poor to someone else. That's the crazy thing. It's like, no matter what your standard of possession is, you'll see someone with a bigger car because… etc. And this problem is well-known to most Americans.

So, you can go to a deeper layer of selfhood. So, from there, from vastu, stuff, you can go to deha, body. So, the most peripheral, the most superficial layer of myself is my stuff. The second-most superficial, the second-most surface layer, personhood can be derived from my body, my sense of being an embodied individual. You know, the Tantric philosophers—like in the Spanda-kārikā, the Svacchanda Tantra, the Śiva Sūtra—all argue that there's no such thing called “the body,” actually. If you look closely, the body is just a series of sensations, and because those sensations are so close to one another, they give rise to this notion of substance or solidity. So, it feels like there is this thing called a body, and my body, but really, in truth, it's just a series of sensations: a river of taste, smells, sound, sights, etc.

Okay. But be that as it may, there definitely feels like there's a thing called a body, and it feels like my body. So, notice: I'm not “it” and “it,” at the same time. So much so that I can call in both “mine” and “me,” because I feel like a body. That's the next layer of personhood and selfhood. Needless to say, the more I feel like a body, the more things like old age, sickness, and death are going to terrify me.

So, notice: so much of American culture—and arguably, cultures all over the world—so much of it is premised upon these two layers of selfhood, okay? We really feel like bodies, and we really feel like stuff. That's why we spend so much of our energy and time and money in acquiring more stuff and making sure the body doesn't get old, doesn't get sick, and doesn't die. You know, as they say, “We spend the first half of our life collecting money and ruining health, and then we spend the second half of my life using that money that we collected in the first half and try to patch together this broken body that we absolutely, like, decimated in difficult corporate life.”

So, that's the irony of, like, I think, First-World civilization. It's like, the height of this civilization is that: spending the first half of your life making money, ruining your health, and the next half of your life trying to staple your face back together. Because the fact of the matter is, no matter how beautiful a person is, that's only going to last so long. Except in Saint Anthony's case, he's… he's going to be ageless and beautiful forever. But for most people that beauty, there's going to come a certain point where the physical beauty—insofar as it's a youthful face and ready, ruddy cheeks—notice that none of this will diminish in Saint Anthony. That phase will be as youthful and as ruddy-cheeked as ever. But at least for most of us who don't have, you know, that level of prārabdha karma—most of us—there's going to be, at some point, the gray hairs, the crow's feet, and all that is wonderful, right? It's all one. Except I think by the beauty standards of our culture, there are many who don't think so, who don't share the view that aging is one. They don't age very gracefully, and they certainly don't die very gracefully. There's this tremendous fight against death, a tremendous fight against aging, and certainly a tremendous fight against sickness. And one of the scariest things about the pandemic was the sense of powerlessness we all felt because we're so afraid of sickness. And now we feel like, "Oh my God, you know, there's very little that my culture can do to protect me from the onslaught of, you know, a pandemic. So I imagine that's the same case for the Bubonic plague: people feeling, like, “This is really scary,” because as long as I think I'm a body, old age, sickness, and death are really scary.

Okay. So, these are the first two layers of the self: stuff and physical personhood that I think is predominantly the experience of most people. And as many people are saying in the chat here, like, yeah, Cavs was saying, you know, many people are saying, like, “We… we know not to be attached to these things,” right? Yeah, yeah, when old age does come, when sickness does come, and when death is knocking on the door, it's rough, it's rough, like… It's easy to say when you're young, right? You're like, “Yes, old age, sickness, and death are a problem,” but we don't really understand that until we're close to old age, sickness, and death. Then we really understand to what extent we've understood. You know, it's easy to say when you're young, like, “I know I'm not the body, I know I'm not getting old or getting sick or dying,” but just wait. It's scary, this stuff is really—you know, yeah, you start to really feel it, especially when you have 40 or 30 years of life expectancy left, unless you're doing, you know, some kind of yoga alchemical practice that ensures you have the vajra-deha forever.

Saint Anthony, I'm just… I'm just joking with it. I don't know why today I'm picking on you, but it's because we're all so jealous of your youthful—[laughter].

You know, so, scary still, right? Like, even if you understand all of this, when the actuality of old age, sickness, and death comes, it's quite scary.

Okay. So, the first layer we have, I'm just going to put in the chat, is vastu, stuff. Number one: vastu, stuff. And number two: deha, body. Obviously, this would correspond to, in the Taittirīya Upaniṣad, the annamaya kośa, or the rice sheet. Okay. Yeah, exactly.

Okay. So now let's go to the third sheet. So, some of you will say prāṇamaya kośa. Not quite, not quite in this system. It's citta.

So, first, it's supposed to stuff. Subtler than that is body, and then subtler than that is a personhood premised upon mind. Now, citta constitutes both thoughts and emotions. So, basically citta, as you know from—those, I mean those of you who studied the Yoga Sūtra, you know the word—you know the word just means any kind of cognition that one has in their internal psychological landscape. So, any experience that you have inside, in a subtle way, that constitutes a citta-vṛtti. So, a certain type of vṛtti is emotional in nature. So, there might not be any words or stories or labels, but you just feel a feeling, like “sad,” or… or “elated,” or something, right? “So, I am sad,” “I am happy”—these are feelings that one can have in an emotional sense. But then there's also thoughts, like “I am smart,” or “I'm… I'm dumb,” or something—these are thoughts, or stories. Or “There are lizard people,” or something, right? Or… or… or “There's an impending financial collapse,” or whatever—these are all just thoughts. Okay? These are all stories, what we call vikalpas, which means, thought forms that we use to simplify reality and thereby make being in this infinitely complex and rich reality somewhat simpler.

So, these—because they're, at bottom, vṛttis, meaning vibrations or resonances within the citta, the mind stuff or the subtle body. Okay. So, this is the mind, and many of us are very attached to the mind. And some scholars would say, actually, this is a predominant attachment, because here lives all of the stories, and our problems.

It's very important to understand: our problems are caused by the tyranny of these stories. So, I don't have a problem if I don't have any stories. But, because I have so many stories, I'm oppressed by them. I have stories about my parents and what I think it's going to take to impress them and make them proud of me. I have stories about my culture and what I think it's going to take to be a respectable member of it. I have stories about my friends and what it's going to take to keep their friendship and keep their respect. I have stories about my spouse and what it's going to take to make sure that they don't leave me. I have stories about everything. And these stories often have nothing to do with reality!

You know, I've once told you that story. I was in a band, and the… the lead singer of that band and I were both… we went to San Diego for, like, a writing retreat—we were experiencing some kind of writer's block. We were going to the studio, and then we didn't have any songs. We went to San Diego and we were trying to, like, just relax as much as possible, which… which meant we were on the couch watching a movie that I had a cameo in. I'm not gonna tell you which one, it's like—[laughter]—which is, like, a festival thing, but I had a cameo in where I was playing a bass player in a band. And the story was, in the band, there was a singer, and she leaves her bass player and drummer to pursue her career in the big city, or whatever. And I had done the music for it, so I was very excited to show it to my lead singer and my best friend, like, “Look! The music! Isn't it so cool? Also, look, there's me, this is my first acting gig, look at me go! I'm playing bass in the background, I'm an extra.” And she was, like, so sour about it, you know? She was watching, and she was, like… And then she was making all of these comments about the music, how the music's really bad, and my feelings were so hurt. I thought, “How stuck-up of her,” you know, “to be making fun of the music and to be bashing the performance.” And I was, like, we… I put so much time, as Roxanne was saying, into—this is so special to me, it's so precious! And she was just, like, tearing into it. And for a moment, I saw her as, like, the enemy. Just an oppressive, just mean person.

And then it occurred to me that that vikalpa, that view of her, and that view of the situation, had nothing to do with the actuality. Like, upon talking to her, I realized that the real problem was that she was worried that her guitar player—me—and her drummer were gonna leave her and start a new band. And when she watched that film, which was about bands breaking up, it triggered that… that insecurity, and she became really frightened, and interfere she was lashing out.

So, notice: the actuality of it was a person feeling afraid that she would lose her friends and her band because she's watching on screen a person that she considers, you know, whatever… And then what my thought about it was is, “She's just being mean because she didn't write the music,” or something like that. But notice: our… our notions of reality don't really align with others, they're very divorced from how others are really feeling, and they're actually divorced from how reality actually is, reality by the way being non-cognitive. So, most of the time these thoughts aren't true, they don't map onto reality. And even if we, on some level, know that, we still believe in them, right? So, we still—we… we, all of us, almost inadvertently, will believe any thought our mind puts in front of us.

And one thought that the mind is very persistently putting in front of us is the ego sense, the thought that "I'm a particular person, who is a particular kind of person, who likes particular things, and who should do this and who shouldn't do that. So, this identity, the identity of being, like, “a Niche,” or “a Renee,” or “a Kayam”—this lives in the citta-vṛtti, okay? Meaning, it lives as—in the citta, I mean, in the mind stuff.

So, this layer is called the citta. Many of us are identified with it. In fact, many intellectuals are predominantly identified with it, so they might not, like, eat for three days because they're working on their academic paper. “No… No Sleep till Brooklyn,” you know, the Beastie Boys song. “No sleep till I turn it in,” you know, whatever they're working on their paper, and they're like—they don't care about their body, some of them maybe don't even care about their stuff, they're not in the game for money or prestige, or—not if you're living in Boston, and probably you're in it for the money. Anyway. [laughter] Yes, I'm kidding. But,—some people are just so interested in the intellectual domain, in the intellectual part of their life—they're not that identified with the body or that identified with their stuff—but they are certainly identified with their thoughts, with their ideas. And so these people are typically very dogmatic, sometimes, because they have a certain idea or a certain school of philosophy that they're married to. And these are the people, for instance, if you go to my comments sometimes on YouTube, you'll find, like, Dayananda Saraswati-ji followers—like, Advaita Vedanta followers, typically the Chinmayananda type, like, Chinmaya Mission type—they can be very, like, firm advice and good—that's their backbone, that's their strength, I really respect that about them—but often you'll see them in the comment thread just being really, like, angry about things. But, “Oh, you only like Shiva because you need superheroes in your life.” But notice: any school of philosophy that's different from their school of philosophy—sometimes they're so intellectually married to a certain way of thinking—that they sometimes look, and they say any other intellectual mode or any other way of thinking or being is in conflict, because they're very attached to an idea, a system, a thought. So that lives in citta. Okay.

That's the third layer of self. Now, necessarily, of course, if you suffer because things come and go, if you suffer because the body changes, how much more are you going to suffer because the mind is far more mercurial than both body and stuff? The mind is always changing, it's subject to a flip-flop all the time. So, the mind is very, very, shifty, it's shaky ground. So, therefore, if you promise your identity on it, there's also going to be some degree of suffering.

Okay, now let's go one layer deeper. So, the next layer is called prāṇa, which is called “vitality.”

Now, prāṇa, unlike citta, deha, and vastu, is a little less personal and a little more interpersonal. So, let me explain what this means. Interpersonal in the sense that it's not just your prāṇa, as maybe the yoga model might give that sense, you know? Like, the sense that prāṇamaya kośa is your energy body or your etheric body. In Tantra, in the Tantric worldview, this prāṇa is not your prāṇa. It's just all the energy available, the sum total, the oceanic amount of energy that's available everywhere and at any given time. Some of that energy is flowing through mind, body, stuff. So, even stuff kind of gets a prāṇic imprint from you possessing it.

So, like, for instance, sometimes—and I can't resist this story, I don't know why I'm in a reminiscent mood today—I'll go to a house show and my band will play, and then, after it, some other band will, I don't know, have some problems with their guitar, and they'll be like, “Brah, dude, can I borrow your guitar?” And inside, I'm like, “No.” But back then, I wasn't very good at setting boundaries. I was like, “Yeah, all right, take my guitar,” and they'll play the guitar and whatever, and then later, when I take the guitar back, it feels different. It's the same guitar—maybe you could—it's the grease or whatever—but it just feels different. There's a prāṇic imprint on the guitar from being handled by someone else. Okay. It's interesting—even stuff carries a prāṇic imprint. But anyway.

Body is powered almost by prāṇa. If body had an ad, to be like, “Brought to you by prāṇa.” So, this ocean of energy flows through the body and gives it vitality. Also, flows through the mind and it gives the mind the luminosity of thought, emotion, and dream, etc. And that prāṇa is the interface between both body and mind. It's the link between physicality and mentality.

So, that prāṇa—this… this prāṇa is… it's… it's so pervasive, because it flows through body, flows through stuff, it flows through mind. It connects all of these things, but it's not confined to any one particular individual, rather, it's just an ocean that all of us dip into and partake of. And so, the degree that we've created a vessel, to that degree prāṇa can flow in.

So, notice: prāṇa will change, and that will be experienced as a change in vitality, in mood. So, feeling very, like, enlivened and energetic and full of, you know, enthusiasm and inspiration—that's a prāṇic state. That means a lot of energy is flowing into your being, so the body and mind are just radiant with this physical and mental exuberance, which we typically call “inspiration,” or, “enthusiasm”—both of those words are very spiritual, by the way. In-spiritos: to be filled with spirit, or en-theos—I can't say it in German or Greek. Greek, which means to be… to be filled with God, something like that.

Going Beyond Enlightenment

So, the degree that we've created a vessel, to that degree, Prana can flow in. Notice, Prana will change, and that will be experienced as a change in vitality, in mood. So, feeling very, like, enlivened and energetic and full of, you know, enthusiasm and inspiration, that's a chronic state. That means a lot of energy is flowing into your being, so the body and mind are just radiant with this physical and mental exuberance, which we typically call inspiration or, enthusiasm.

Both of those words are very spiritual, by the way. “In spiritos” to be filled with Spirit or in, I can't say it in German or Greek, Greek which means to be, to be filled with God, something like that. So, these two words, inspiration, enthusiasm, they represent, in some sense, chronic states. High chronic state.

And then, comparatively, you could say there's also low chronic states, like, feeling gloomy and heavy and stuck and just, you know, skin is crawling, you just want to melt on the couch and smoke in the garden. Like that, like, there's like a low, low Prana because there are two, two states where, one, you're feeling full of energy and exploding onto the scene or just sitting there in meditation, fully alert, and another state where you're sleepy, drowsy, low energy.

Now, notice, this Prana is actually closely related, we, other layers as well because, as I said, it interpenetrates all of them. And therefore, the configuration of the mind, a satvik mind, or rajasik mind, or tamasic mind, and the configuration of the body, a satvik mind, a tamasic body, sorry, satvik body, or tamasic body, or rajasic body or what have you, all of that will determine the flow of Prana, the, the channelization of Prana, because it's a very complex thing to talk about.

But the one thing I want to convey in this lecture, for our present purposes, is that Prana is subtler than both body and mind, and it's not personal but rather as an interpersonal energy field that we all partake in. And some of us are identified with this field, you know. So, some of us will actually judge ourselves based on the level of energy that we feel. So, we're feeling energetic, we feel like we're good, we feel like good people. And then, we're feeling low energy, we say, “Bad. That's so upsetting that I'm low energy right now.”

But like all things, Prana is subject to change. It comes and it goes because the body and the mind are subject to change. So, as both body and mind change, that chronic experience will change too. Kind of like if white light was shining through some kind of prism, any little tilt of the prism will not only change the quality and color of the light, but it can also change the amount of light flowing through the prism. Yeah, so the, yeah, you could say that. I think that's a beautiful way to phrase it, Roxanne. Roxanna is saying, “The mind and thoughts open the door for Prana.” Exactly right.

There are certain thoughts, like hopefully this one that's upcoming, that is like a wide-open door for Prana. Prana will just flood in through the window or door of this thought. So, yes, the thoughts that are in our mind will largely affect the flow of Prana into the body and into our life. Okay, this is actually a deep secret. This is why I like the tantric model of putting Prana on one layer of subtlety, even subtler than the mind, because it seems to flow into the mind and flow into the body like sunlight entering a room.

The less cluttered your room, meaning the more thought through your mind, or the higher quality thoughts you have in your mind, the more light you're going to get in the room. So, the more, the clearer your window and the cleaner your space, you know what I mean. It's, it's actually quite exciting. And by the way, I could talk about this part of the lecture for the rest of our time together, but I won't. I just want to continue because we're getting to the punchline now, a very important insight.

So, this is all just preamble. Okay, now, we're gonna get to a layer that I think will interest many of you, especially meditators in the room and especially those of you interested in very transcendentalist schools of philosophy, like, Sankhya, like Yoga, or like the Abrahamic traditions. I mean, but because India wasn't really engaging with Abrahamic traditions at this time, when this model was being developed, I'll just keep them out of the conversation.

But like schools like Yoga, Sankhya, maybe Advaita Vedanta, in some cases, like those of you who are interested in these schools and those of you who've had deep meditative experiences, you're going to be quite excited about this next discussion because now we're going to get to the fifth layer of subtlety called shunya.

Now, shunya means, as you know, many Buddhists in the room, it means void or emptiness or, really, spaciousness. It doesn't have to mean void. Modern translators love to translate it as void, but we have other words in this tradition like, akasha, that make it sound more like space than anything.

Okay, void, what is this? You could argue that this is what you experience in deep sleep. So, in deep sleep, remember there are no thoughts, no emotions, you don't feel anything in deep sleep, you don't think anything in deep sleep. So that means there's no chitta in deep sleep, there's no experience of chitta whatsoever. Okay, also, in deep sleep, it's not like you feel comparative levels of enlightenment or depression. It's not like Prana is fluctuating in that state. There's no Prana feeling, really, it's no Prana, there's no chitta, what to say of deha, right? There's no feeling of a body in deep sleep.

And this is a very subtle point that we're making because not many of us actually remember what it's like to sleep deeply. It's very hard, actually, sometimes to interact with ideas about deep sleep because very few of us are discerning about deep sleep. It's nothing to us, we don't care about it, we care about dreams and we're on the internet paying people to teach us how to lucid dream. We don't really care about deep sleep, it's kind of like boring for most of us.

and so it's very difficult sometimes when you're invited to consider what your experience was like in deep sleep, it's too subtle for many of us. But in any case, if we are to pay attention to that, we'll come away with this insight. In deep sleep, I don't feel my body. I don't even remember what stuff I have, okay? Like all my stuff vanishes, the body vanishes, the mind, the thinking mind, with all of its stories and emotions and dreams, all of that vanishes. So, in deep, dreamless sleep, I don't even have an experience of Prana, there's no sense of like being energized or anything.

Though, of course, this state will replenish me because when I come out of it I'm wholly replied. So, when I wake up from deep sleep, if indeed it was there, by the way…… and got this, like, Kim Possible watch, and I can, I can talk into it and text people now. But the one thing that it does, and it's kind of like a bully because it will tell me if I've been sitting around too much, and then it will bully me. It'll say, “Hey, stand up, you slob, you've been sitting around a long time,” or something.

But one thing it does is tracks sleep, which I think is so cool. I'll wake up and look and be like, “You had 58 minutes of deep sleep,” but that, what is that to me? In deep sleep, I don't recognize that it's 58 minutes. There's no time in deep sleep.

However, when I do wake up, in the event that I've had good deep sleep, as now my watch will report to me, in the event that I've had good deep sleep, I often feel invigorated by it. I feel energized. I feel enlivened by it. But notice, I'm only enjoying the pranic enlivenment, the pranic uplift, when I come out of deep sleep. While I'm in deep sleep, I don't really feel that Prana. I don't really feel any mind. I don't sense any body. And I certainly am not aware of my stuff. So far, is that fair to say?

This is called shunya, void.

Now, this state is very important to meditators because there is a way of accessing and entering the state in a more conscious and sustained way. So therefore, the Indian philosophers, who are deep, deep meditators, were very comfortable with discussions regarding deep sleep because it's not something that they experienced only at night. Okay, it's something that they actually actively entered into during their daily meditations. They would actually meditate all night because they wouldn't go into deep sleep in that ignorant, unconscious way as many of us do. They go into deep sleep with the full luminosity of their attention. Real Yoga Nidra, you know, they're asleep, but they are awake.

Therefore, in the Bhagavad Gita, it says evocatively, “What is night to the ignorant is day to the, to the gyani,” to the enlightened, “because even in that absence of experience, there is,” as Swami Sarvapriyananda, who you like to say, “an experience of absence.” And that can be refined through meditative absorption. Okay, so, those of you who love to meditate, who have maybe had a semblance of this state, who have tasted it, will know that it is a state of profound tranquility, meaning, power, peace, because in that state you sense that you are something more than your stuff, your body, your mind, and even your energy levels. It's exciting, it's thrilling when you sense that you are this spacious emptiness. You're also empty of all the problems that occur on every other level of your, quote-unquote, “being.”

So, the stuff can come and go, the body can grow old, can get sick, can die, the mind is subject to change and different moods, you know, and Prana is subject to change. But you, as you feel yourself to be in deep sleep, at least in lucid meditative deep sleep, you have nothing to do with any of that, right? This is a samadhi experience. When you're really absorbed in meditation, you have this, somewhat of a samadhi experience, where you're just absorbed in this state, this level of reality which is called shunya, void.

Okay, so you know what Tantra says here, if you stop here, if this is as far as you go, here's what's gonna happen, you will identify with that as your true self, and you will become a transcendentalist, and you will say things like, “I am not the body, I am not the mind, I am not the world.” You'll say things like, “I am a no-self, anatman,” because that's how you'll feel. You'll feel, in that state of tremendous emptiness. So, you're going to identify with that void and actually call yourself “no-self”, which, by the way, solves all of your problems because there's no one left to get old, get sick, die. There's no one left to lose or gain. There's no one left to suffer.

So, for many different schools of philosophy, this is actually enough. The burden of spiritual philosophy was to give you a lasting solution to the problems of life. This, this rel-, this state, this layer of subtlety seems to do it, okay?

But notice, it's a refined state of deep sleep. So, to this state, the tantric masters, especially within the Shiva tradition, would say, “You can get to it, but…”, by the way they're very critical, not just from other schools of, of us, but also Shaiva schools as well. So, it's, say there are many Shaiva schools that are like stuck here. They're like stuck on this level of the voice. You know what will happen if you're stuck on this level? You'll stop engaging with the body, mind, and world. In fact, you won't even take care of the body. Because what's the body to you? You just let insects eat it. Which actually did happen to Ramana Maharshi, you know. He was just meditating, and he went so deep, and he was just there in that state that the, the insects were literally eating his skin away. He couldn't feel it because he, like, if, by the way, if you're in deep sleep, you don't really feel your body, but if I pinch you, you'll typically wake up. But if you're really deep into deep sleep, you might not even, right? You know, some of us are deep sleepers. So, there could be sound and U2 band could come in and play a really horrible cover of The Smiths or The Cure or something, and while that would wake up anybody else, it might not wake you up, right? We could throw a pillow at them. “Robert Smith! Get out of it!” You know, like, but it's, it's sometimes the case that you just don't hear that. Even if someone is pouring water on your foot, you don't hear it. You know, there's that, that trope in a slumber party, like, Mean Girls are all in a slumber party and then there's like one kid who doesn't fit in, so the Mean Girls wait for her to fall asleep and then they take her hand and put it inside the cup of water and then when she wakes up she's got all pruney hands. It's like a prank, right? So, you might not even feel your hand in the water. Maybe you'll have watery dreams if you're dreaming. But if you're in deep sleep, you won't, maybe won't even know your hand is in water.

Yeah, the pee prank? Oh, I guess you're supposed to pee? I guess I didn't, I didn't really understand the prank. Oh, I see, it's not about the, the wrinkly hands. Oh my God, I've learned a lot today. Yeah, guys, this is the point of the lecture, this was a, a humor inquiry. It started, decode this prank. We are a think, think tank, a research group.

So, wow, I never knew. Thanks, guys.

Maybe later you can tell me, what does it mean when Americans say, “It's all downhill from here”? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is that like now I can ride, smooth sailing, right? That's, that's my impression, but is it downhill because this is my peak? Okay, see, I get different people tell me different things, like, “This is, this is as good as it's gonna get.” Okay, now I'm getting the… Okay, well, no, no, I don't want any, like, super mystical Taoist riddles, okay? I don't want any koans. I just need some American to explain to me what you people mean by that phrase.

Okay, anyway, never mind that's, that's what I thought. See, it seems like the house is divided. Some of the house is divided. Some of you, some of you are saying it's good because you're smooth sailing and coasting. Others of you are saying it's bad because you'll never get to this height again. See how, how dichotomizing, how polarizing. That's the chitta vritti. Okay, this is a demonstration is so polarizing. And maybe we'll, all of us, change our minds because that's, again, the nature of the chitta.

Okay, so, if you get into the shunya state, right? You won't even feel the body enough to maybe take care of it. And that happens to people. You do see yogis who are in this state, you see the yogis who are in the state who just like leave their body after a while because they're just in deep sleep, and this state is so transcendent that you don't really feel like it's, it's like, related, to… yeah, right, it doesn't feel related to the body, mind, and stuff in any way because it transcends it, you know.

So, if you end up saying that, “I'm a no-self,” or that, “God is a monistic principle rather than a being endowed with creative potential,” or that, “I am transcendent to my body, world, mind experience,” or, “I'm beyond energy, I'm beyond Prana, I'm beyond the three gunas,” like if you make any of these kind of transcendental statements, it's actually quite an exalted state of spirituality. You've come quite far, and it's a good identification insofar as you don't suffer in it, really. because, you know, as, for, for aforementioned reasons, okay?

True Self- Transcendent-Immanent Pure Awareness (Cit)

However, this is not the end. If you get trapped here, you're in what the tantric masters call a refined form of deep sleep, and your realization will be stuck at transcendence. You would have accessed Shiva, but not yet the fullness of Shiva, which is Shakti. So, you would have access, what the yogi might call nirvikalpa samadhi, what the Buddhist might call anatman. And these are classical terms. But you might then become a world renouncer, world negator. You might even have harmful attitudes about the body, mind, the world because you just feel like that's not me anymore, okay? And since I'm not the body, mind, what do I have to do with this world? So, you're just like going to the mountains and you want to engage with the world, and it's just like, this is the transcendentalist attitude, okay? But it's very peaceful, very tranquil, you're literally, literally gang above it all. It's called vishwa atita, meaning just beyond it all, vishwa, you've transcended it all. Okay, but now, the tantric masters, and, and by “tantric masters” I mean both in Buddhism and in Hinduism, and in the other traditions into which Tantra has spread. Okay, because there is, like, tantric Jainism, Vaishnavism, tantric Christianity, Judaism, like Kabbalah, like, that. So, there are other… Tantra, by the way, is not a particular religion or spiritual path, rather it's a spiritual orientation that can be shared by many different parts and traditions in schools, okay?

But the tantric masters, first within the Shiva camp, and then secondly in the Buddhist camps, is the first, first ones, but in the Buddhist camp what they realized was: this is actually not the complete realization. There's one more layer of the self. Are you ready for it? Here's the punchline, this is the main thing, the sixth thing.

By the way, these models are typically like five plus one, so it's like five and then there's like a secret sixth thing because Lord Shiva has, like, five heads in the mythology and there's, like, a secret sixth thing, secret sixth header. Okay, so, these are five types of…

Self-Diagnosis - Which Layer Am I Identified With Now?

I want to ask you this question before I reveal the highest realization and the highest selfhood, which, by the way, you can recognize even now. Which one of these… this is the BuzzFeed quiz, which one of these right now do you feel most identified with? If I ask you the question, fill in the blanks, “I am blank,” what would you say? Okay? Are you your car?

In other words, I'm asking you, what is the one thing that you could lose right now in your life that you would feel would, like, totally debilitate you? What is one thing that you cannot bear to lose in your life right now, right?

Some of you might say, “My son.” And in that case, I'd say you're identified to your label, “mother”. So, that blank would be, “I am mother.” If you say the one thing I cannot lose is my spouse, or my son, or my whatever, that would be, “I am husband, I am mother.” You say one thing I cannot lose is my car, then you'll, you'll be identified on the bhukti level. Or you could say, “One thing I don't want to lose is my beauty. I can't imagine being disfigured or, like, losing my limbs or something.” Then you're stuck on the deja level, right?

And if you're saying, “I just can't bear losing my job. Oh, [beep] I can't bear losing my job.” you know you could say, “Hey, there Ashish has come, you know, our in-person meditation on Tuesday, right?” Okay, good. So nice to see you here anyway, welcome. So, actually I should turn on some light, actually he's here, good, good, he's come, he's come when, the room was dark so he's come to remind me to bring the light, “Come on, brothers.” Okay, so,… what the question is here is, like, what can I not with… is it my stuff? Is it my… “Oh, not anymore. West of her, I stole him.” Ashish is now coming to the house and Wednesday I took him, sorry bro.

See, West, if I can't dare to lose Ashish, he's identified on that layer.

So, just like, ask yourself this question. What is the one thing that you cannot bear to lose right… what's the one thing you cannot bear to lose? and that will, to a large extent, tell you what layer of the self you're on. What layer of the self you're identified with. Yeah, Prana. I think a lot of us, like… Yeah, I think Bhaskar Babu is correct to say that, you know, “I feel less myself when I'm tired of sluggish.” So, that's, that's the, that's the insight. When do you feel less yourself or more yourself? Do you feel less yourself when you have less stuff and less money, and more yourself when you have more stuff and more money? Then you're on the level of bhukti. Do you feel less yourself when you're not looking your best, or more yourself when you're more attractive today, when you have your favorite clothes and your makeup on? Then you're on deja, okay? Do you feel more or less when you're more intellectual? What if today you were to forget all of your knowledge, would you feel less of yourself? Okay, if you do, then you're stuck on the chitta level. So, if today, I just forgot all this, the… I just have no access to anything that I ever learned anymore, I suspend… I would feel a little less, you know, there's an identification somewhere on the level of chitta.

And you could say, I can diagnose what level I'm attached to by noticing what aggrandizes me and what diminishes me, okay?

Now, obviously, when you enter into the state of, meaning, when you enter into the transcendental, refined, deep sleep mode of meditation, that void, shunya, state, naturally that will be your identification now. By the way, again, some of you might have entered into the state only to quickly reassert your identity on any of the prior states. So, you might have felt, actually you might have felt your transcendental being and then suddenly the next thing you know you're back to being a body-mind person, okay? So, like, it's not enough to feel this once, you must identify with it, you must really, really take your stand in it if you want to identify as the vishwa atita, the transcendental. Now, that's what you would call a “spiritual master” in most traditions in the world. A spiritual master is one who really, honestly doesn't feel diminished or grandized by changes in energy levels. They really, honestly don't feel diminished or grandized by a change of mind. And, really, they don't… they don't care what happens to their body. And they don't mind what comes into their life or leaves their life in terms of stuff. Why? Because they're, they're, they're, they're established in the transcendent.

However, friends, that's not complete mastery. According to non-dualism, there's one more layer, one more step, and we're going to enter it now. Because this state of shunya is really enjoyed only when there is no experience of anything else. So, you must be in some kind of samadhi state, like some deep meditation state, okay? Only then can you really, like, like feel that. And then, then, when you're not in that, then you remember being that, and then you identify as that, okay? So, that's how it frees you. That's how you can be a jivan mukta, in like, the Advaita Vedanta tradition because, although you know, “I'm not the body and mind,” you don't mind experiencing a body and mind because you remember yourself so clearly to be something other than that.

However, now, this is a very important understanding. Every layer precedes… Oh, sorry, every preceding layer of subtlety pervades the layer that it precedes. In other words, the stuff… it's peripheral… Let's go to the body. The body is pervaded by mind and mind is pervaded by Prana and Prana is pervaded by void.

To give you an illustration: If I was holding a rock and I poured water on the rock, since the water is subtler than the rock, it's more sukshma, the water goes into the rock. And then air, being subtler than water, can pervade the water molecules, right? So, small rocks can go into a tank with big rocks. Water can go into the pores of rocks. Air can go inside the water.

So, notice, the subtler thing is the more, more all-pervasive it can be.

So, what's the subtlest of the subtlest? And here comes the teaching, the ultimate teaching, according to this tradition: You are not your stuff only. You are not your body only. You are not your… You are not your mind only. You are not your energy only. You are not the void only. Because if you come a little further, if you “enter into” that void a little more, you'll “enter into” what is called cit, pure Consciousness or chitty, goddess awareness.

Now, remember what I said, right? Like, every layer of subtlety pervades the grosser layers. So, when I say, “You ‘enter into',” that's obviously, not good languaging there. Like, it gives you the sense that you must go in deep meditation, you must somehow enter into an even deeper state of meditation. No. Awareness, the chitty, the goddess awareness that we're talking about now is literally present in every one of these layers all of the time. In fact, none of these layers could be if not for this faculty whereby you are made aware of them.

So, notice, I'm aware of my stuff, so the stuff is pervaded by awareness. I'm aware of my body, therefore the stuff, I mean, the body is pervaded by awareness. I'm aware of mind, all my thoughts, emotions, dreams are pervaded by awareness. I'm aware of, energy levels, so energy is pervaded by awareness. And I'm also aware of the void, so even the void is pervaded by awareness.

So, unlike the void, which is transcendent, awareness is both transcendent and fully, fully imminent, which means it's wholly present in each and every one of my experiences on every level of my being. This is the transcendent-imminent God that Swami Vivekananda used to refer to. We worship a transcendent-imminent God, right?

So, I think this is a very, very important insight that right now, in this moment, when you're aware of your computer screen and the people on the screen, you're aware of the people in the room, you're aware of the stuff around you, you're aware of the body, you're aware of the mind, you're aware of the energy level, and you're aware of space and silence, all of it is soaked through and through with awareness.

But this is very important: Awareness is a bit unlike all those five things that we just talked about because all of those five things are experiences. They can be pointed to, they can be labeled, they can be objectified by labeling. This awareness, I've done you a disservice because I've made it sound like it, too, is an object of experience. It, too, is something you can point to and talk about. But, actually, it's not. It, rather, more importantly, is… the most important point is the hardest to grasp because it itself is the grasper. It's the hardest to find because it is the one that looks. Okay, it's the hardest to see because it is seeing, the faculty whereby seeing is made possible.

This, this chitty, goddess awareness… And notice, in Tantra, we prefer the feminine singular. This chitty is always present. And if it wasn't present, nothing else would be.

This is what you are. Okay, you, watch it.

So, notice, you get all the benefits of the void, which is transcendence. You're not the body, mind, energy, so you are not changed by any changes on the level of the energy, body, mind. However, you're wholly present in the body, mind, energy. So, in that sense, you are the body, mind, energy. And, interestingly, you're not only the body, mind, energy, you're all bodies, all minds, all energies. Okay, wait. How do we get that?

Now comes in even deeper teaching.

Definition of Liberation and the Elastic “I” - I own everything

So, thus far you've heard this stuff before, most of you. This is Sankhya, this is… Which is, “I am not the body and mind, I am not the world, I am pure Consciousness.” But hopefully, some of you in the room can appreciate the distinction between identifying with void versus identifying with Consciousness. Do you see the subtle distinction? It could mean a world of difference in how you experience your life, whether you're an escapist or transcendentalist, or whether you're a fully embodied master experiencing yourself even amidst the body, mind, world. Okay, so this, this is a crucial distinction, but it's pretty subtle.

However, let's go further. So, I'm going to make one final point in the lecture, and this is probably the coolest and most important point.

Once you recognize that awareness is transcendent, the next recognition is the immanence of awareness. Okay, this is very important. Awareness, like oil soaking a cloth, soaks through and through every possible experience that you can have. So we say, vishwa mayam.

A particular tantric orientation, a very embodied sort of spirituality, says, “Myself is all this.” So now, awareness… one thing you're going to notice is, awareness is everywhere, right? What changes here is your identity, identification, your, your sense of “I”.

So, notice, I hope that by the, by this time in the course of this lecture, you can see that the “I” is, like, kind of movable. It can move from stuff to body, from body to mind, from mind to energy, can move from energy to stuff, from stuff to mind, from mind back to energy… Like, notice, the “I” that I sense, who I think I am, is always subject to change. It can move between these two things. So, what is realization actually? According to transcendental schools, realization is when that “I” comes to associate itself with awareness, and not the other things that I previously regarded as “I”. So that would be enough for the definition of moksha. Like, as long as I know I'm awareness and not those other things, enough.

However, Tantra says, "No, wait. If you are awareness, then you are also all those other things because all of those other things are wholly pervaded and permeated by awareness."

But not only that. Does it end with my stuff? Does awareness somehow stop with all the things around me? Does it not continue way past that also? Even beyond the things that I call mine. Anything that I see, is that not, too, pervaded by awareness?

Guys, follow this closely. Again, follow this very closely because we're about to prove that you own everything. In other words, we're about to prove that you are everything. Okay, you ready? So, all your capitalist American, capitalist sensibilities are about to be satisfied in, literally, five minutes if you can grasp what is about to be said here.

This, friends, is one of the deepest insights of this tradition, and it's the central teaching of a text that actually acharya, studying, actually, in his anga is studying this and I'm also following this wonderful course, we're studying the Virupaksha Panchasika, you know, is a teaching of Lord Virupaksha, a form of Lord Shiva, to Lord Indra. And Lord Virupaksha is teaching just this.

So I'm gonna put in the chat now, a verse. Okay, and this verse is from the Virupaksha Panchasika. So, let me put it right here, I'll just put it in the English translation now

I Am Everyone and Everything

Now, this verse from a panther primary source, with a commentary from a certain South Indian author, will show you that the primary sources are agreeing with all that we're saying.

Here is the verse from the text:

It says me you know this means well some panosami means I am rich I am lean or small.

Notice all of these phrases that end with “Smee,” “Moda,” “Manos.” They all represent a certain "I am" statement. So you start with “I am rich,” then “I am lean,” then “I am happy,” or “I am sad,” or “I am full of life,” or “I am deeply sleeping.”

Notice everything in this sentence is just the six things that we've talked about:

1. Stuff
2. Body 3, mind
3. Prana energy
4. Void shunia
5. Deep sleep or void state

Notice five things have been spoken about, right? But actually, the truth of the matter is there's something even beyond those things: awareness.

And that awareness pervades all these five things, but not exhaustively. It also pervades everything beyond these five things. So like when I look out into the world, I see trees, I see buildings, I see people, but I… I don't call trees and buildings mine, and I certainly don't call them me. But why not? Wouldn't it be a mistake to not call them me if I was awareness since these things cannot exist outside of awareness?

So this is the deep and subtle teaching: If something exists, it must exist only in Awareness, not necessarily in knowledge. So certainly, things exist that you don't know about, right? Obviously, there are entire solar systems that exist that you don't know about. I'm not saying that only exists like only knowing about it causes it to exist, and that it only exists if you know about it, I'm not saying that; that would be solipsism. I'm saying yes, you know about some things and there's a lot of things you don't know about. Those things do exist, however they exist in Awareness as the unknown.

So, in the field of your awareness, there is a set of things called the known, which is very small, and there's a much larger set of things, I guess, called the unknown, and both of them exist in Awareness. So all things known and unknown to you exist in Awareness. If you identify with awareness, and if you've been following the teaching thus far, here's what the insight will be:

• I, awareness, am wholly present in the void. In fact, I, awareness, illumine the experience of the Void.
• And I, awareness, am also present in Prana. I'm aware of low, lethargic states, as well as I am aware of highly energetic, alive states.
• I, awareness, am wholly present in mind; every thought, good or bad, is wholly pervaded by me, awareness, okay? Every dream, every memory.
• And I'm wholly present in the body, am I not aware of each of these sensations?
• And I'm also wholly present in all of my stuff, because they're all known to me, they're in my awareness.

And continue to spread that awareness outward. I'm also aware of anything that's not in my house, on the street. So like that's me too, because I wholly pervaded that car over there. I pervade, two streets over. If I go on a high building and look out, I pervade the whole city. I… I'm in and through all of those things. I could say, “Oh, I'm over here and that's over there,” but no, that's not… that's not correct, because that would be still an identification with the body. This body is over here and that building, that body is over there, but both here and there are contained within the field of awareness.

So notice if more and more my identification shifts from Body, Mind, Prana to awareness… here he was in the neighborhood so he dropped by. So, the more and more if my awareness switches to,… if my “I” switches to awareness, more and more I cannot deny that awareness is not locked up in samadhi because if it would, I'd only be aware of samadhi. But I'm aware of other things too outside of samadhi. That means I'm aware of buildings, I'm aware of trees, I'm aware of people, so all of that is me, you see? If I identify as awareness I can't help but feel like I pervade all things. Vishwa Maya. Maya meaning pervade. I pervade all things. Vishwa Maya. This is the ultimate realization of Kaula, of embodied spirituality, that I, awareness, am not just this body, friends. I'm all bodies. I'm not just this mind, I'm all minds. I'm not just these things, I'm all things. So I… I am and I have everything as awareness. Not as this person, but as awareness, as a trans person of Shiva, everything is in me, everything is mine.

So notice this is another insight: your body is both yours, and it's also something you have. So notice even now, friends, you feel both your transcendence and immanence with respect to your body, do you not? You both identify the body as “mine” and “me.” This is not true. At times you feel the body's like “me,” me, and other times you feel it's mine. In the same way, I can experience my Vishwa Taruna and my Vishwa Maya by saying “I am the world” and “I own the world.” Right? Because it's all in my awareness and I am that awareness. Okay.

What about other people? This is important. So is this some solipsistic statement that everyone is in me? Nish. No, actually that awareness which I am is beyond the mind, meaning it's beyond the personality, meaning it's trans-personal. Okay? Niche can never be Shiva, though Shiva is wholly present in Niche. Shiva Consciousness is my true nature and your true nature. And notice this: it's one in the same awareness, because there's no way to distinguish one awareness from the other.

So if I look at Westfar and I think there's another person there, then I'm identifying either with one of these five layers. But if I look at Westerfort as awareness, then I recognize that there are two windows through which awareness is looking through, pairs of eyes through which one being is recognizing itself. And it's delighted by the reflection, right? Because it knows itself to be that person, so it feels no shyness with anybody, but rather it feels tremendous intimacy with them because you are that person, and that person is you insofar as you identify with awareness.

No two awarenesses could be different from one another. And if you want to know why—Q&A, we can talk about it—but basically it's because you need body, you need mind, you need time, you need space in order to prove differences. If awareness is transcended to time, space, body, and mind, what difference could there be to distinguish one awareness from the other?

What you end up with is non-duality: the complete pervasion of all things by awareness, the complete intimacy and oneness of all beings as that awareness, and the complete primacy of awareness in each and every experience of your life.

So how does this help you?

Notice these things: These statements are not just to be heard, they are to be experientially verified. So if I say everything that you see is within you, you must ask me, “Why don't I yet feel that to be true?” Right? You might ask, “But I don't have nerve endings over there, so if something happens over there, I don't feel it.” The response will be, “You can actually, and you don't have to like, think in mystical terms.”

If a person gets a vase from their great-great-great-great-grandmother, and they identify themselves with that vase so much, then when someone drops the vase on the floor, you'll see them flinch as if there were nerve endings in that vase. So don't feel confined by your nerve endings, okay? You can actually, literally feel the pain of a vase breaking because there's a, like a kind of identity with it, there's an investment of Self in it.

Also, you can feel your children hurting when your children are in pain. You are in pain. When your loved ones are in pain, you are in pain. When your children are happy, or when your loved ones are happy, you are happy. Why? It's not like you have nerve endings extending into them. At one point, maybe you did, if you're a mother, but now you…like… I mean, I hope you feel like you know. But, but, there's something… yeah, something like that. Something like mirror neurons going on which shows you that—I can actually access…

Mirror neurons is just the kind of fancy way of saying what these Tantric masters have been saying. *“Oh no, my mirror neurons…” Oh no, I, in that person, am experiencing this." That's the metaphysical foundation for all empathy and syncope. I literally feel myself to be you. And if I don't yet, it's only because I'm not identifying as awareness.

So the only time someone would ask, “But wait, I don't feel myself as all things”—it's only because you don't feel yourself as awareness. If you identified as awareness, then you would literally feel like everybody and you would literally feel like everything. You would feel like everybody and everything was within you.

And that means, friends, there's only one thing left for you to do in spiritual life: Shift your identity away from what you are aware of through awareness itself. It's as simple as that. If you can just, in each and every moment, identify more with the awareness than with the contents appearing in that awareness, over time you will start to feel like awareness, less like a Niche and more like a Shiva. Shiva, not… And, and the more you feel like a Shiva, the more you will have this embodied realization. So notice all of this is actually neatly captured—I'm coming to the end of the lecture.

This World Is Pervaded by Consciousness

This whole world is pervaded by me, by Consciousness. Who is Consciousness? That core, that Essence that I am, beyond. Notice, inside is Consciousness and outside is Consciousness.

“This whole world is pervaded by me… Consciousness… inside is consciousness and outside is Consciousness.”

What does this mantra say? Outside is all Consciousness, fullness; everything is whole outside because inside everything is whole. The conscious wholeness within pours itself forth, breathes forth this conscious fullness without.

What a beautiful mantra, right? Notice how it captures… And now we go on. How did I do? She chants this every day and she's so good! She's got all the Vedic inflections and everything. Every day I hear her in the other room. The whole house resonates with the force of that Isha Upanishad chant, you know, and I'm sitting there in the morning, smiling out here in the room after a while…

What does the mantra mean? It says all of this is the Lord, meaning all of this is Consciousness. All of this is Consciousness, all of this is God.

Deeper than that, not only is all of this God, but the way to enjoy the world is to—I'm going to translate bhuجت now—is to eat, or to enjoy, rather than to protect. So, the way to enjoy the world is to renounce it; in other words, is to be it. To renounce being one person and step into being all the people. So the way to enjoy the world is by being all of it; never covet anyone's wealth.

That's the whole verse. It's that everything is Consciousness, enjoy it by renouncing it, and don't covet anyone's wealth. Sounds random, right? Like, suddenly you get a random ethical teaching. You get two vast, metaphysical, sweeping statements—everything is the Lord, all of this is God, it is—and enjoy it by renunciation. And then, suddenly, don't covet another man's wealth. Like, what? What a random commandment to suddenly stick in there.

But no. Notice why you shouldn't covet anyone's wealth. It's because everything is already yours. Everything is already you. Everything is contained wholly by you. So what does it mean to “have?” It means to have everything. Don't be satisfied, friends, with being one body and one mind. Don't be satisfied with only having a few things. You are not that. That's why you're here, right?

My feeling is that everything in the world is held in me and, therefore, I don't need to go out and grasp anything because I already have it. I don't need to be jealous or covet anything because it's already mine. I don't need to move closer or further away from anybody because they're already me.

Now, this tremendous relaxation goes even beyond the peace of transcendence because it includes the full, embodied realization of immanence as well.

Vishvatirana, Vishvamaya: Combine the two. Transcendence and immanence. That is God, and that is you. Even now.

Next Week's Lecture - What About God?

Now, now I'm going to end the lecture and say one thing about practice. Next week, we're going to have a really cool lecture (I love it!) which is about theistic monism. So, we've been talking about Consciousness. What Consciousness? The Consciousness that allows you to be conscious of this moment. It's both profound and mundane at the same time. It's so simple, yet so deep. And, if you think it's boring, well, let's fight about it in the Q&A because it's not. It's, it's… it's full of joy and richness.

But why? Why do I care about being Consciousness?

Okay. Next week I'm going to talk about the five powers of Consciousness and tell you why Consciousness is, by definition, the source of all bliss. So, I'll talk a little bit about Ananda (bliss), and next week we'll discuss how to be deeply, deeply blissful even while experiencing grief, even while experiencing pain. Because, you know, one thing the transcendentalist will say is that: At least I don't feel pain or grief because I'm not the body, nor am I the mind. If you want to say you are the body and mind, well, oh my God, that's gonna mean pain! That's gonna mean grief!

And you know what we say in Tantra? We say: "Thank God it means that!"

Thank God that my realization, my enlightenment, is an enlightenment that includes the full spectrum of my emotions. Thank God that I can experience grief and feel it to be a thing of sharp beauty. Thank God that I can feel pain and experience it to be a thing of my own enlightenment. Thank God I can look at the world and experience it as within me because this world is [expletive] awesome! It's [expletive] beautiful! And it's not only mine, but it's me.

This world is my Shakti.

Why would I want to sit there and close my eyes and say “Om” all day, when I can open my eyes and say…? You know? Why would I want to be absorbed in meditation all day when I can be just as absorbed in my meditation talking to people, being with people, singing and dancing with people, wandering about the world with people, right? Why should I close myself off to my Shakti when, clearly, it's here for my own delight?

So, thank God I feel grief. Thank God I feel pain. Bring on more! Because what I will feel is not suffering insofar as I know that I'm awareness.

So, next week I want to talk about Ananda, the bliss of being awareness. Hopefully in this lecture you got the sense that you are awareness, and next week I'll talk about why that's so awesome! The bliss of it, if it isn't already apparent.

Next week, we'll talk about the bliss of being awareness, why it's so awesome, why it's so freaking cool to be awareness. And then, next week (maybe next week, or the week after that), we're finally going to bring it all home to God. Because, what does this have to do with God? Right?

…He's always saying, “Where does Ishvara fit into all of this?” Well, Ishvara is non-different from Brahman and creates, preserves, and destroys in the vyavaharika reality, whereas this Brahman in Advaita Vedanta doesn't do anything. It's just pure Consciousness. Is that what I'm talking about? No. In Kashmir Shaivism, this pure Consciousness is none other than that Ishvara who creates, maintains, and destroys.

So, if not next week, the week after that I'm going to talk about why this sense of being all… why that's synonymous with being God. If, in two weeks time, you don't realize you're God, then we would have failed, right? Then we would have totally, missed the point together in this lecture series. You're not only supposed to realize that you're Consciousness, but you're supposed to realize (as a result of studying this) that you, Consciousness, are God. Not just the Nirguna Brahman, but also Brahman. Okay? You're supposed to realize that, and you're supposed to feel the tremendous devotion that comes from that.

So, in two lectures time (if not next week) we'll describe why this Consciousness is God, but next week I'm definitely going to talk about the bliss of this Consciousness, why it is so blissful to be God. Also next week, I want to talk a little bit about jobs and why you should never work for money.

Okay. So next week, I'm going to talk a little bit—it's going to be pretty self-helpy. I'm gonna say: From the point of view of Kashmir Shaivism, if you're not doing something that expresses the totality of your being, you've missed the point. You've missed the purpose of life. Right? because this—this tradition is very householder-friendly. It tells you to do stuff in the world. Go ahead and play! This is your world, enjoy your life and express yourself! Make art, you know? Whatever it is—whatever it is that you are called to do—that's… we're going to talk about that next year. I'm getting ahead of myself.

…Can you do a lecture on the shift? Right? Between finding this in meditation and finding it in real life. How about right now? How about right now we do the shift? Meaning, how about right now we experience the fullness of awareness? I'm going to suggest the role of practice now, in all of this.

Closing Meditation - The Heart Transplant

So, imagine you're getting a kidney transplant, right? Basically, what this lecture was is: Me putting the kidney on the table and all of us just kind of standing and looking at it.

Okay? No amount of standing and looking at the kidney will achieve the transplant. You have to do an operation. And, wait—not only must there be an operation, there's got to be careful diet, careful habits after the operation to make sure the body doesn't reject the kidney as a foreign—like, pathogen. Because that could happen, you know? If you're not careful, the body will reject the kidney.

So… you know… “This is… Yeah, sorry. All right, guys, open up! I'm gonna put the kid—”

No. So, here's the thing: This is a new way of looking at the world and it needs to replace the old way of looking at the world. Because, what's the old way? “I'm a body. I'm a mind. I'm just this person. This is my stuff. You're…” [expletive] That—that, that's going to be suffering! That's horrible! That's being in samsara, right?

So, you've come to transcendence, okay? Wonderful. But no. Even that must be replaced by this new understanding that I, awareness, am not only vishvatirana (wholly transcendent), but I'm also wholly immanent in everything.

So, this new way of thinking… Yeah, okay, you're right, you're right. It's not a kidney, it's a heart transplant. Okay? Yeah, good. That's good. But this new way of thinking—it's not gonna just suddenly stick (for most of us). I mean, for some of us, yes! For some of us, we're just like— Why? We're just lying there with, like, an open belly, like, ready to—the kidney—and, and you just hear the teaching once and the kidney gets put in nicely. And then, suddenly (by the grace of God) you can just, from that point on, live as an—a person with a new heart or a new kidney.

But, for most of us, that's not going to be the case. Okay? For most of us, we have to perform the surgery. Meaning, not only must you hear this, you must see that it's true. That's the surgery, by the way. You must make the incision. (Sorry if I extend this metaphor too far; maybe a trigger warning.) But you must make the incision, which means you must kind of peel back all your preconceived notions of the world: Who you think you are, what you think the world is. You have to create space and, through that space, you must experience Consciousness. This is the transfusion, okay?

But then, every moment of your life, you must revisit that understanding and make sure you integrate it—yeah, brain, heart, and spine, or whatever—you have to integrate it, okay, into your fiber—very being.

So, every moment, reflect this understanding.

What then is practice, if not this integration? So every time you sit in meditation, you're just, first of all, verifying this truth and, second of all, enjoying it—abiding in it. So, if you want to identify as awareness, you better spend a big part of your day being awareness. If most of your day is spent being a body-mind, then how are you going to, like, manifest your true identity as awareness? So, that's what spiritual practice is for! You feel yourself as awareness. Now, if you just sat there and felt yourself as awareness, you'd be doing—you'd be doing Yoga. You wouldn't be doing Tantra.

So what does it mean to do Tantra? To also do that. Don't forget, you have to do that. Meaning, you have to meditate. Meaning, you have to, like, have an experience of awareness in transcendence.

Then (this is very important, friends, in terms of practice), you have to take that off the mat. So, here's the answer, directly, to…‘s question. We can do electronics certainly, and I think, four lectures' time, that's coming. I have it kind of planned. But, for now, this is the answer:

You, just, in each and every moment, have to make an active effort to shift your attention from the content of your thoughts to the context of your thoughts. In other words, in each moment, be more interested in that you are aware, as opposed to what you are aware of.

Okay? That's it! In each and every moment, just notice awareness predominantly. Let awareness be the predominant aspect of your experience, right?

And the reason I want you to do this this week is because, by the time we get to next week's lecture, you won't even need to hear it! I don't even need to tell you what's blissful about awareness, because if you're doing this exercise diligently for the course of this week, your whole being will be just soaked in bliss! Because bliss is the natural… like, actually… it's… I don't—I don't know how to say it! It is the same as awareness. Love and awareness are the same.

It was that bliss, that deep intimacy, and joy, and meaning, and profundity… will just arise in your experience each time you care to notice it. Meaning, each time you come into awareness.

So, I'm going to leave you with this practice. It's very simple. We've hinted at it in previous classes. Try to recognize the space between thoughts and the space between breaths. That's it!

Resist the urge to fill the space up. So, take a breath… pause. Exhale… pause. Inhale… pause. Exhale… pause. Now, if you have a fancy Kim Possible watch… this is an ad for this kind of watch… If you have one of those, you can just set an alarm if you want for every 30 minutes. And, and there are actually… I just found an app that does that. I was, like, “Oh my God! Mine is so cool!” I'm like an old man, new to the game. But you could set that, you know, every few, minutes or so. You can just get a little buzz, and it'll tell you, “Okay, find some space. Breathe in… pause. Breathe out… pause.”

Now, notice: In that pause between breaths, there is something… of, like, thoughtlessness. And that thoughtlessness gives you an ability to perceive awareness. Like, almost like awareness becoming aware of itself. I don't even want to use that language! It's like awareness stands bare-naked, you know? Just stands on its… And, and then this—you know that you're doing this successfully, I guess, when there's a sense of stillness, peace, and sweetness. There's—there's a sweetness to this.

And it's… immediately… because you can't have awareness without sweetness, by the way. If—if you're not getting the sweetness, it's because you're just dissociating and that's not what you're supposed to do. Rather, you're not supposed to, like, pretend to be other than the body and mind; you're just supposed to rest in the fullness of, already, what's here now.

Another Meditation Technique

Another kind of variation on the practice is: When you inhale… you know how a tortoise withdraws its limbs? You can imagine, every time you inhale, close your eyes and feel yourself in the heart. Just imagine that you're sitting on the heart lotus (like, the base of the heart). Then, when you exhale, open your eyes and feel like this awareness is coming out, like that. I feel like it's embracing the world. Okay?

So when you inhale, take the awareness back. I'm just doing this because it's something we do in puja, in homa (fire ritual), which is to draw it back in. So, [forgetting the word]… but anyway, when you inhale, imagine you're, like, taking it all back in, like, and coming into the heart, close your eyes. And then, when you exhale, imagine awareness, like—like a mist, is coming out into the world and catching cold.

And I—I would recommend doing this at your altar, so if you have a Nataraja, or even a picture of a Nataraja… Because next week we're going to talk all about the—it's not what you think, it's a profound philosophical tool—you can look at the Nataraja and you see that circle around him. Okay? I'm gonna try to hold my hands on that circle. Now, when you inhale, the circle, it, like, comes into you. Okay? And then, when you exhale, it goes out back on him. Right?

So that means inhale… you go inwards. Exhale… you look out, and imagine as if you are, like, literally manifesting that image in front of you. We'll do a more complete exercise next week, but this is just the general idea.

And then, just keep doing this at your altar, first. Then, start doing this… all the time, everywhere. …If… I think you're aware. But when you're at lunch, you take a bite of something, and then don't swallow it. Just, like, breathe in, feel it on your tongue, and then exhale, and imagine your awareness is going out to enfold that thing on your tongue. You become aware—lovingly aware of it. Then you inhale and go back in, and maybe swallow… but practice with caution! Okay?

So this means you must be obsessed with this type of practice wherein you feel—literally feel—in each and every moment, the all-pervasion of awareness.

Okay. So,…is saying: “I've been envious of people who can just…” And you can now. You will. Okay? And if you need an alarm, that's helpful, too. In the—in the beginning, we forget, because the momentum of thoughts and everything, and the conditioning… We're so conditioned to be a body and mind that it's… And, this, literally, friends—don't be hard on yourself—this is the subtlest and most difficult thing to remember to notice! It's like a fish looking for water—the last place it's going to look is all around it! Right?

With us, as a culture—especially as a spiritual culture— we've objectified awareness. That's exactly what the Buddha was trying to avoid! We made it some kind of bizarre thing that's… there… in samadhi. Right? See, what……I knew you would like the Thursday class because it was, like, on this… We made it something that's like in some heaven, you know? Some—some loka, like Kailasha or wherever else. We've made it something that's not here.

It's too transcendent, or we've made it something too immanent because we've pretended to be the thing that it's lighting up. But to be both transcendent and immanent requires that you recognize both, in each and every moment.

That's the practice I wanted to leave you with. So if you are to digest today's lecture, if you are to make it a live reality in your life, don't be content to just leave with a new idea, right? Practice it! Make sure in each and every moment, you look to awareness, or be awareness, rather than to the things that awareness is illuminating.

The End of All Suffering - Ashtavakra Gita

Now, as you know, we're continuing our journey into perhaps the most radical spiritual texts. We're looking at the absolutely austere, absolutely sublime, and infinitely subtle Ashtavakra Gita. It carries with it a unique kind of power.

Ashtavakra is the name of a sage, and the Gita, or the song, is the teaching that this sage imparts to King Janaka. Now, Janaka, also known as Janaka Raja, is himself a realized being. He's like a master, a fully embodied, fully awakened spiritual master, and on top of that, he's a king. So, he's the ultimate example of a person who is successful in the world and yet completely detached, completely uninvolved. He's like the personification of the Taoist concept of effortless effort. He's like the lotus leaf that never gets wet, no matter how many drops of water fall on top of it.

So, he is the embodiment of the archetypical householder, whereas Ashtavakra is the embodiment of the archetypical sadhu. Ashtavakra is depicted as this mad monk who walks around practically naked, clad in perhaps the simplest of loincloths, a dusty ascetic type of fellow. The two of them meet to have this discourse called the Ashtavakra Gita. Naturally, given that this is a conversation between two of India's foremost spiritual masters, it's a very high-level conversation, to say the least.

The book, the text, the Ashtavakra Gita, focuses on non-duality, particularly Advaita Vedanta, though in many places, it feels incredibly tantric. The non-duality of the Ashtavakra Gita is a particular flavor of non-duality that is so radical, so truthful, that, as we expressed a few classes ago, it can be rather disconcerting at times. It's just the truth of this moment stripped bare of any poetic allegory.

Most traditions in the world teach spirituality with a lot of poetry, allegory, figures, and myths, and all of that is wonderful and has its place. We describe this as like the moon. The moon is so cooling and gentle, and it's easy to look at. It's the same light from the sun but reflected from the moon. Most spiritual traditions are like the moon—you can look directly at them. The Ashtavakra Gita is like the sun, and in that sense, it can be kind of uncomfortable to look directly at it, to look truth right in the eyes, because what you will hear is nothing short of the highest non-duality.

The goal is to hear it and not only believe it but see that it is true. As we said, the thrilling thing about this tradition is you are already free. That's the central claim: you are not broken and in need of fixing, you are not deficient and in need of growing or healing. There's nothing at all wrong with you. There is absolutely nothing you need to add to yourself, nor is there anything you need to subtract away from yourself. You, as you are, are already whole, complete, and perfect.

The goal of the Ashtavakra Gita is not to give you something you don't already have, nor to take away something you don't need. It simply points out what is already the case with you. All you have to do is notice that it's true, and then you're free. You're ecstatically, thrillingly free. After all, you always were. Freedom is your very nature. It's already true.

Of course, as we said last class, it doesn't really do us that much good to say we're free and not know it. It's like saying you're not in a prison but you feel yourself to be. There's old age, sickness, death, mental craving, grief, and all of that. All this suffering is happening, and then someone comes along and says it's all an illusion, it's not really happening. That might seem a bit flippant, and Ashtavakra can be like that sometimes. But there's a pedagogy, and hopefully, in this class, we'll explore that.

As you know, we're taking just one verse: verse 4 from chapter 15. There's a reason for that; it's not arbitrary. It's good to start with verse 4 from chapter 15 because it's a very sequential introduction to the philosophy of the Ashtavakra Gita. The four lines there give you the whole of the Ashtavakra Gita in a very systematic way.

The thing about the Ashtavakra Gita is that wherever you read it, it's going to be saying the same thing. As we said in the previous class, it's not a text conveying new knowledge. It's just a text saying over and over the same thing: you are already free, you always were, always will be. You are not the body, you are not the mind. You are the awareness in which body and mind appear as an illusion, a kind of scintillating coming and going within that awareness that you are, that you always have been, that you always will be.

So, you are eternal because time is in you; you're not subject to time. You are omniscient because you are the very source of knowledge itself. You are omnipresent because you are not in space; space is in you. So, everywhere is saturated with awareness, and you are that awareness.

What is that being who is omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal? God, right? God is the being that is omniscient, omnipresent, and eternal. You, awareness, are omnipresent, omniscient, and eternal. You, awareness, are none other than God. That's the claim of the Ashtavakra Gita. Not you, the body; you, the body, cannot be God. Not you, the mind; you, the mind, obviously the ego, that's not God. You, the awareness, that which you really are, that alone is God and that alone exists.

Once we wake up to it, the work of the Ashtavakra Gita is done. Throughout the text, you get the same message in different ways. So don't feel like you have to start from one specific point. Wherever you enter the Ashtavakra Gita is as good as any other place to enter it. Though for specific pedagogical reasons, we're going to enter in verse 4, chapter 15.

Alright, now today, as promised last week, we're going to explore something very exciting: nine arguments to show you that you are not a body. The pedagogy starts here. It's not a belief system—don't believe that you aren't a body, that would be ridiculous. Your experience is as an embodied being. If you follow these arguments, you should suddenly have this realization of, “Wow, that was totally bonkers. It was insane of me to act as if I was a body.” That's the effect of these arguments.

Now, Ashtavakra just kind of states it bluntly: you are not the body, the body is not yours. But to get the argumentation, we are going to resort to Shankara's texts. You recall that's the text that we picked up last week, and we're going to be using the Aparoksha Anubhuti as a kind of primer or supplemental text for understanding the Ashtavakra Gita. In its own right, it's a very high-level and sophisticated text. It's by none other than the famous Shankaracharya, the first Shankaracharya, the great non-dual master of India. So it's by no less than the foremost authority in the non-duality world. It's a pretty hardcore text in its own right. So we're going to take some arguments from Aparoksha Anubhuti and then understand, using these arguments, what Ashtavakra means by “you are not the body”.

Severing the Link: Non-Duality and the End of Karma in the Ashtavakra Gita

All right, that's where we're headed. So I'm just going to open our session now with our traditional chant. It's always traditional to begin the instruction with a chant and a prayer. Interestingly enough, in the context of non-duality, there's always a prayer to the Lord that we may awaken to our own identity as the Lord. We pray to bring to our self the awareness that we are Atman. We acknowledge our true self.

Let's start with this prayer. It's a prayer from the opening of the Upanishads, and then I'll just chant verse 4 of the Ashtavakra Gita. If you have the text in Sanskrit, the Nithya Swarupananda text, you may chant it along with me. I'll do a call and response. I'll chant one line and then give you some space to do it on your own. You don't have to unmute, just follow along.

Let's start with our opening invocation. If it feels appropriate, you might bring your hands over your heart, bow your head, and call to mind that which is sacred to you. It might be Christ, Buddha, a field of light, truth, or whatever your ideal is. Call that to mind and imagine that we are now offering this chant to that.

śrīharim paramānandaṁ upadeśṭāram īśvaram
vyāptacaitanyaṁ sarvajñaṁ śrīrāmānandaṁ upasmahe

I pray to that Lord Hari who is bliss itself, who is all-pervading, who is the teacher of all teachers, and the founder of the lineage. Salutations to that supreme, all-pervading teacher who is the spiritual cause of the universe. I empty myself out before that; I bow down to that.

asato mā sad gamaya
tamaso mā jyotir gamaya
mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya

Lead us from the unreal to the real. Lead us from darkness unto light. Lead us from death to immortality.

Peace, peace, peace be unto us all.

Now, verse 4 of chapter 15 of the Ashtavakra Gita.

na te saṁgo'sti kenāpi kim śuddhastvam asaṁśayaḥ
saṁsāravāsinam chāntaṁ kṛtārthaṁ pramodate

The translation is: You are not the body. The body is not yours. You are not the doer. Neither are you the experiencer. You are of the form pure consciousness, the witness, ever free. You are thereby without any expectation. Move about happily.

Gently lower your hands and blink your eyes open.

All right, as you recall, it's a particularly loaded verse, and we're going to take it in fragments. We'll start with the first fragment, and I hope today that we'll be able to maybe say a few things about the second part.

The first part: “Deho naiva bhavān nāham.” You are not the body. The next part is, “Na te saṁgo'sti kenāpi,” the body is not yours.

When we say, “Na tvam deho,” typically, even if you succeed in noticing that you are indeed not the body, you might then just come back and say, “I mean, come on, I always knew that. I always knew I am not literally the body. But the body is at least mine. It's my body, it's my responsibility, it's my bag of flesh, it's what I have to carry around. At least it's mine.”

Notice Ashtavakra anticipates that and he says, not only are you not the body, but the body is also not yours. Once you understand that, once you understand that the link between you and the body, whether it's a link of identity or a link of possession, is an assumption and not actually there, the consequence is obviously, you will no longer have to fear death, old age, or sickness, because those things only happen to the body.

The promise of that shanti mantra, “mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya,” is already guaranteed. Lead us from death to immortality. Death happens to the body, so it goes without saying that if you sever the link between you and the body, you will no longer have to die, get old, or get sick. That's obvious.

But there's a deeper significance. Actually, believe it or not, death is not the worst thing that can happen to you as a body. It's actually rebirth. It's karma. According to the South Asian spiritual tradition, death is nothing. Death is just a temporary end, and it picks up again with the next body.

That's why you can never commit suicide. It's the most futile thing. If you think that suicide is a solution, before you know it, there'll be a new body, typically a worse one, because the act of violence will often lead to a karmic consequence. That's why most spiritual traditions in the world are like, please don't do that. It sounds like a solution; it's not.

It's like a pseudo-moksha. You think, “If I just end it, I'll be free.” No, it doesn't work that way. You're actually eternally bound to the wheel of birth and death as a jiva. You're actually immortal; you just keep taking on bodies.

As long as you have a body, there will be old age, sickness, and death. Why do you take on bodies? Karma. The argument is that if you are identified with being a jiva, you will act self-interestedly. It doesn't matter if you're trying to win a Nobel prize, starting an NGO, or robbing a bank. In all three cases, you're still acting upon the premise that “I am an individual doing good to the world” or whatever.

However, you conceive of it, if you act as an individual, however noble your intentions, it will incur karma. Some karma is punya, meritorious, but even that karma will cause you to take birth. Other karma is papa, a demerit, karmically speaking, and that will cause some kind of suffering in the form of a cancer or a tragedy or something.

There's no such thing as karma that is entirely good. Think of the best possible action, let's say, giving someone spiritual instruction. Swami Vivekananda would say, in the course of speaking to an audience, I have committed a genocide of thousands and thousands of communities of germs in between me and the person that I'm speaking to.

To be in a body is to consume, to kill, to harm. There's no such thing as clean, good karma. That's the rebuttal to Jainism you kind of hear in Swami Vivekananda's time. He says, in some places, there are some stinking sects who don't even take a bath for fear of killing the germs on their skin. No, it doesn't work that way. There's no way to avoid bad karma.

You are going to consume, you are going to kill, you are going to hurt people, even if you are also going to help people. Karma is a mixed bag. There is no such thing as completely good karma. Even if there were such a thing, this is important, even if there were completely good karma, it doesn't change the fact that you'll still have to keep reincarnating as a body, which after all is a liability.

As long as you keep taking bodies, you'll have to get old, get sick, and die over and over. That's just part of being a body. Even if it's a remarkably healthy body, a remarkably beautiful body born into a kingdom with tremendous prosperity because of your punya, all of that, even then, you'll still have to die again.

Even then, there's a liability of doing bad karma. You're spending your good karma. This is a predicament. The predicament is not death. We're not trying to escape death; we're trying to escape something far worse, which is perpetual rebirth in a series of liabilities called taking on new bodies and incurring new karma, good and bad.

The goal then is to end karma, not necessarily to end just suffering in this life but to end all suffering in all lives forevermore.

Pretty lofty goal, right? Interestingly enough, the promise of the Ashtavakra Gita is that this goal, the ultimate goal, can be achieved if you just sever the link between you and the body, whether that's a link of identity or possession. Because if you do that, then you will no longer be the karta (doer) and you will no longer be the bhokta (experiencer or reaper of karma).

The Path to Liberation: Understanding the Cycle of Karma and Samsara

Alright, I'm going to translate bokta as the reaper of karma, but not in the sense of the grim reaper. Although, reaping karma—both good and bad—can indeed be quite a grim task. Let me explain it this way: suppose you perform an action or karma. In that case, you're the karata, the doer. So, as a karata, if I help a community out of poverty, I am the doer of that action. Consequently, I will also be the bokta, the enjoyer of the karma resulting from my action of helping that community out of poverty.

What will be the outcome? Obviously, it will be punya (merit), as it was a good deed. Naturally, this will lead to pleasurable experiences, such as wealth, health, and safety. These are typically the outcomes of punya. I might even be born in a subtler realm like Gandharva Loka, take on a subtle body, and enjoy heavenly delights. Remember, Swami Vikrant would say that the goal is not to go to heaven but to stop wanting to go to heaven. Because, whether I'm enjoying a heavenly reward or an earthly one, all rewards have an expiration date; they all end.

To the extent that I enjoyed the reward, to that extent, I will suffer the letdown when it goes away, and all things do go away eventually. I will get bored of it, or it will leave me, and I'll be left in a worse state, craving it again. So, even good karma can be bad because as the bhokta, I will have to endure both the pleasure and its eventual, inevitable departure. In fact, samsara is defined as that which goes away from us.

So, even in the best case, I as the bokta will experience a letdown. In the worst case, I might think I'm doing good—like trying to lift a community out of poverty—but I might end up doing harm. This can be seen in historical projects of colonization, where intentions might have been framed as good (bringing railroads, spreading the gospel), but the outcomes were often harmful. Even with good intentions, I might incur bad karma, and as the bokta, I will have to experience that bad karma as well.

Why am I a bokta? Because I am a karata. Since I consider myself a doer, I must be the one who enjoys or suffers the results of my actions. Enjoyment itself is a type of suffering because it is temporary and leads to eventual dissatisfaction. So, the sequence according to Ashtavakra is: from deho'ham (I am the body), comes karata (doer), from karata comes bhokta (enjoyer), and from bhokta comes samsara (cycle of birth and death, suffering).

• Samsara* refers to the wheel of birth and death, but it's also a term for suffering—the problem of life that all spiritual masters have sought to solve.

If we can break one link in this chain, we are free. The first link to break is the identification with the body. So, let's start there. You are not the body. If I am not the body, then the body is not mine. If the body is not mine, I am not the doer. If I am not the doer, I am not the enjoyer of karmas. Consequently, I am not a samsarin (one caught in the cycle of birth and death).

When I realize I am not the body, I become a jivan mukta (liberated while living). I am free from the cycle of birth and death, free from karma, and ultimately, free from suffering. This is the goal: to understand and internalize that you are not the body. When you achieve this realization, you will act without attachment, live without being bound by karma, and experience liberation.

Let's consider a simpler formula found in the Upanishads: avidya (ignorance) leads to kama (desire), and kama leads to karma (action). Ignorance of our true nature causes us to identify with the body, leading to desires, and thus, actions. These actions generate karma, which traps us in the cycle of birth and death.

If I don't know my true nature and identify as a body, I will act based on desires, even if they seem noble. As long as there is karma, there will be reincarnation and the cycle of birth and death. Therefore, tackling ignorance (avidya) is the key to liberation.

This verse encapsulates the essence of spiritual practice. Once we master this understanding, no one can bind us. We will have no reason to complain because knowing we are not the body brings peace. The body will live its life, fulfilling its needs and setting boundaries, but we, the true self, remain unattached.

A jivan mukta continues to live in the world, but karma doesn't stick to them. They wear a metaphorical teflon suit, unaffected by the results of actions. Understanding this truth is the goal. Let's probe into a few arguments supporting this, though we may not cover all today to leave time for Q&A.

Remember the prerequisites for studying Vedanta we discussed last week: viveka (discernment), vairagya (dispassion), and the six virtues (shama, dama, uparati, titiksha, shraddha, samadhana). These are essential for wanting liberation. If one desires to stay in the prison of ignorance, knowing the door is unlocked won't matter. They must want to escape before realizing there is no prison to begin with.

This is the core of spiritual practice—understanding and internalizing that you are not the body. This realization brings true freedom and liberation from the cycle of birth and death.

The Illusion of Body Identification: A Non-Dualistic Perspective
This study can be purely intellectual and might not blossom into a genuine realization. Always remember the lust test: the degree to which you are attached to the body is the degree to which you will experience affinity for other bodies. You will feel attraction and the desire to be more than just this body. Lust is a good indication of body identification. The more lust there is, the more body identification there is. Conversely, less lust generally indicates less body identification, though it could also mean repressed lust. The less lust you feel and the more love you feel for another being—not as a body, but as a being—the more progress you are making.

Last week, we talked about the lust test, which can also be called the greed test or the renunciation test (the vairagya test). It's a way to honestly see if you can say, “I need nothing.” We already covered the four qualifications and this test last week. Now, let's get to work and look at the text. Let's notice that the assumption of being the body is just that—an assumption.

If you ask an Advaitin why you should not identify with the body, they might quizzically ask why you think you are the body. They'll push the burden of proof back onto you. What makes you think this body is yours? It's a hubris of the highest order, an ignorant mistake—an error, not a sin. You didn't fall from grace; you simply made a mathematical error and now identify as a body. There's no moralizing here. It's not bad to be a body or good to be a spirit. The statement “you are not a body” is no more moralistic than saying, “Be careful walking down the stairs; you could trip and fall.” Gravity is not a moral force; it's an impersonal law. Similarly, karma is just the way things are, not malicious or moralistic.

Non-duality shows you that reality is the way it is, whether you like it or not. As one monk said, whether you believe it or not, you are Rama—you are God. You are already awareness. These arguments are not moralistic; they are not about guilt, shame, or punishment. They are pointers to the truth.

Last week, we said these arguments are not mathematical proofs. They appeal to logical faculties like the principle of self-reflectivity and paradox, but they are more like persuasive arguments. Once you see the truth, the argument becomes redundant. Holding on to the argument after realizing the truth is a mistake. The argument is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Shankara later calls these arguments childish, although they are essential in the beginning.

This is part of a pedagogy, a system of liberation. Everything has its place, like ingredients in a gourmet meal. Now, let's start with arguments about why you cannot be the body. Notice how these arguments work: I'll state something about you, then something about the body, and you'll see that both cannot be true simultaneously. This is the law of mutual exclusivity or paradox.

Consider the logic: Can white be black? If you say white is black and black is white, you're just being contrarian. Literally, white is not black, and black is not white. These two things are diametrically opposed. If it's black, it's not white, and vice versa. This distinction is clear, even if we debate about a zebra being black with white stripes or white with black stripes.

Understanding the Principle of Change and Constancy in Advaita Vedanta

Hopefully, you can understand the principle here. Now, let's consider another scenario. If someone is running, and you are standing still, and let's say you catch that person. Is it possible for them to be running and for you to be still while you hold them? It's weird, right? I know. I think a physicist might be able to solve this problem with some fancy physics, maybe mentioning Zeno's paradox and the apparent nature of movement. But I'm appealing to a basic intuition here.

If someone is running and you catch them, what are the two possible outcomes? What are the two things that can happen here? If I catch a running person, what will happen to me?

You could fall back from the collision, or you could collide and come into union. Exactly. Two things: either I move, or they stop. There has to be some compromise; one has to stop, or the other has to start. I can't both be still and be moving at once; that would be a paradox.

A running person and a still person, to be the same, require some compromise. One has to stop, or the other has to start. This argument shows that the body is a running thing, and you are stationary. You can't be the same. You know that meme: “We are not the same.” It's like that.

My middle school students have a sense of humor I totally share. They started a Discord group for a debate club, and the banner of the group is a very serious-looking guy in a suit, like a matrix agent, with his arms crossed. It says, “You pee in the shower; I shower and pee. No, we are not the same.” It was so funny. No, we are not the same. That's exactly what Shankara would say. He'd make a meme: “Body changes; you are unchanging. We are not the same.”

There are nine arguments, but let's do just three today. The first one is savikara nirvikara. Savikara means “with change,” and nirvikara means “without change.” The whole term is savikara nirvikara viveka. Viveka means to discern, so now we're going to discern between the changing and the unchanging.

This is intuitive. Search your feelings; you know it to be true. Don't you feel yourself to be the same person deep down, despite changes in your psychological being? Your sense of being this person, although this person has undergone various changes, has remained constant throughout those changes.

When you were a baby, the body looked a certain way. As an adolescent, the body looked different. As a young adult, the body looked another way, and as an older adult, it looks different again. Throughout your life, the body undergoes many changes. Yet, when you look at a baby picture, although the baby's thoughts and body are different from yours now, you still say, “That's me.” There's an innate sense that you, who were that baby, are now the one looking at the baby photo.

One master said, “I used to be a child sitting on my grandfather's lap. Now my child is sitting on my lap, and I realize I, who was the child on my grandfather's lap, am now the grandfather upon whose lap my child sits. I have felt deep down like I am the same person throughout my life.” Is that not true?

If you claim that you are unchanging, then you are nirvikara, without change. Is the body savikara or nirvikara? Does the body change? Obviously, it changes. The body is nothing but change. Every seven years, all the cells are replaced, according to biologists. Every day when you wake up, the body is different. Every moment, when you swallow your saliva, technically the body is different. It's like the Ship of Theseus. The body is always changing. How can you, the unchanging, be the same as the changing body?

Shankara says, “What greater ignorance can there be than this?” The self is eternal and of the nature of ever-existence, and the body is transient and non-existent. Yet, people see their identity. What greater ignorance can there be than this?

The body is non-eternal and transient, while the self is felt to be the same, constant, and unchanging. How can the unchanging be the same as the changing? It's impossible. It's logically impossible for the unchanging to be the same as the changing. It would be ridiculous to assert that.

So that's the first argument, savikara nirvikara. The next one is composite and non-composite. We've already established that you feel like the same self throughout your life, despite the changing body. Now, do you feel like the self has parts? Do you feel like you are one person or several people?

Lecture Transcription

You could say yes, there's a committee in your mind. Like there are all these different people in your mind. Sure, there are many different masks that you wear in different social settings. There are many different voices in your head. But you are the one to whom all of those voices occur. You are the person that listens to all the different voices and personalities in your head. You are the one who reacts to situations differently. That one, that individual, is that with parts or without parts? Do you feel yourself to be one person or many people?

Do you really feel like using the pronoun “we” or do you say “I”? Typically, you say “I,” right? You don't say “we.” You don't ever get the sense that you are more than one person. It would be weird. Maybe there are some cases, certainly, but most of the time we don't feel intuitively like we are a “we.” Although there's a committee in my mind, I say, “In my mind, there is a committee.” I am the one experiencing. Also, I feel myself to be without parts. I'm not a composite.

The body has parts. According to Vedanta, there are seven parts, the seven dhatus, like flesh, bone, and blood, which make up seven components. The body is parts. There are parts in the body and also parts in the mind: the mano, buddhi, and all that. There are parts of the mind. There are parts of the body. We won't go into the mind yet. We'll just stay with the body for now. The body is parts, right? You don't feel yourself to be parts. Your sense of the self is without parts; it's not a composite, whereas the body is with parts; it is a composite. That's why in verse 17 here, Shankara says:

“The self is one indeed, without parts, while the body is made up of many parts. But still, they consider these two as one. What greater ignorance can there be than this?”

I hope that by now you can see the argumentation style. You feel like, “What's going on?” I just wanted to highlight what's happening in this text. You're going to get two statements: one about you, appealing to your felt sense of who you are, and one about the body. Over and over, in eight different ways, you'll see that they're different. They're actually mutually exclusive; they're actually contradictory.

What should this mean for you? It should leave you with the sense of, “Yeah, it would actually be kind of stupid.” That's the feeling you're supposed to have, like, “Oh my god, I am kind of stupid if I think I'm a body.” One great sadhu, in the Viveka, one of the prakaranas by Vidyaranya Swami, perhaps attributed to him, uses this kind of linking system. I'll briefly reference it. We'll use a lot of prakaranas in our study together, so just a brief visit to the Viveka. We'll study the text next. It's beautiful. In that text, which is more preliminary than this one, Aparoksha Anubhuti, there's one part I really like because it talks about the links between me, the ego, and the real self, the Atman, the body, Deha, and the mind.

The mind is called Chitabasa, the reflected conjunction. I feel myself to be Nish. Nish is the apparent self, called the ahamkara. What is Nish's connection to the body according to the Viveka? It's karma. Karma jam is the technical word for my link to the body. Nish, I'm talking about Nish, right? Karma jam. Nish is linked to the body because Nish has karma. As long as I have karma, I'll have to take a body. So karma is the link between me and my body.

What about me and the mind? The link is sahaja yoga, natural. The link between the ego and the mind is natural. Never try to get rid of the ego from the mind; that's called dissociation and it's unnatural. Ego is part of the mind. Ahamkara, the ego, is part of buddhi, it's part of mano, it's part of chitta. It's a component of this composite called the mind. So don't try to free Nish from the world. No, Nish belongs to the mind. I just have to free myself from Nish.

Now the most important link is between the real self and Nish. How is Nish related to me? The answer is error. The link between Nish and the body is karma, the link between Nish and the mind is natural, and the link between me and Nish is an error, branti. Branti literally means error. So what does Advaita Vedanta do? It does not cut the karmic link between Nish and the body. No one can do that, not even the Buddha, except God. But God can definitely do it. What about the link between the ego and the mind? That's sahaja; no one can and no one should. That would be very disastrous to cut that link. That would be dissociation. What does Advaita do? It gives you knowledge. What does knowledge do? It dispels error. Where is the error? Between me and Nish. Once I cut that link between me and Nish, now I'm free because then I don't have to deal with my karma and my body. It's no longer my body; I'm not Nish, the one who owns that body. Nor do I have to deal with my mind. Let the mind be as messed up as it wants to be. It's over there, I'm over here. Nish is free, totally free.

Notice the link between Nish and me. Who's doing the cutting? Interesting question. Really interesting question, and it will take a whole lecture, so I won't go into it. I'll sketch out the answer. A theistic answer is God. In the opening of the Avadhoota Gita, it says:

“In the hearts of the wise, there arises a natural thing. What is it? It's the Advaita Vasana. In the hearts of the wise, there arises this vasana, this desire for non-duality. Why? Only through the grace of God. Through the grace of God, I became interested in non-duality and through non-duality, I became free of me.”

So it seems like God cuts it. Another answer, maybe a more technical one, is nobody cuts it because there was no link to cut. Error is not a thing, so no cutter is needed because no cutting actually happened. There was nothing to cut in the first place.

I want to close here by just saying that all of these arguments, this is the way they work. Now that we've explored the mechanics of it, next class we'll look at maybe seven more of them. We looked at two today. We looked at changing and unchanging, and we looked at parts and no parts. You don't feel yourself to have parts, the body has parts. How can they be the same? You feel yourself to change, the body changes. How can they be the same?

Remember that meme, “No, we are not the same,” and use it. Remember how we were saying in this class it has to be practical? From this point onwards, defeat that error of thinking that you are the body. If there's pain, don't need to fight it. If the body needs medicine, give it medicine. Don't suffer. Suffering is when you resist something. If the body is painful, do what it needs to do. Of course, get the medicine, lie down, do whatever the body needs to do, but don't be upset about it. It's nothing to you. It's no big deal. If lust comes, what's it to you? Why must it kick you into action? Must you be whipped this way and that by all the cravings of the body? No, because you're not the body. Why not? Because it's parts; I have no parts. It moves; I don't move. How can we be the same? So use the meme, “No, we are not the same.” Swiper no swiping. No more is the body going to steal my peace. No more do I think that I am it. Let the body live for 100 years, let it die today, put it to service, put it to work doing Mother's work. It's nothing to me. That's the conviction you should have at the end of these classes, at least until we get into Raga Dvesha.

What Does Enlightenment Feel Like

Profound Place to Start

One of the most thrilling and meaningful statements in perhaps all of spiritual literature is found in the Chandogya Upanishad. The father says to the child, see, the father is giving this very lofty discourse on the absolute reality, the Paramatman (Supreme Atman), the reality of the self. The boy, you know, he's like a teenager, is wondering why his dad is lecturing him; he wants to go out and play or something. Finally, the dad grounds it all home and he says:

Look, I'm talking about you. This quiet and ground of all being in which things come and go, the mother of all things, that's you right now, right here. It's the fundamental reality of who you are.

Of course, for the boy, that's a profound moment when he realizes that his father is referring to the absolute principle of reality—Brahman. Beyond mind, beyond speech, beyond thought, beyond time, space, and causality, the foundational reality of all things—transcendent, immanent—that one God, the goal that we're all seeking, is here and now, all the time, effortlessly so, immediately so. I am that Brahman.

Now, if you are a bhakta (devotee), this is very good news because it means God can never run away from you. You'd say to the gopis (cowherd girls), “Don't worry, God is in quite a pickle here because nothing you can do will ever cause God to leave you, right? Because God is you.” So you can sit in front of the altar and look at God and say, "I have you right where I want you. There's nothing you can do now; you're a prisoner because you are my fundamental nature. Wherever I go, there you are."

For a bhakta, it's a thrilling statement that the God which I am seeking, which I want to come face to face with, which is the goal of my quest, that one is sitting right here, right now, as the one who is questing. That's a wonderful thing to realize as a bhakta. I am that Divine Krishna.

See the picture of yourself in the screen—no difference, no difference. I could do a puja (worship) to that picture; I could do a puja to this person. There is no difference whatsoever between that and this, for one alone exists, and that thou art. So it's wonderful for a bhakta; it's amazing for a karma yogi.

For a karma yogi, this is the foundation upon which they do karma yoga. Right? You can't serve others as God unless you first realize that everyone is God. So once you recognize I am God and only God exists, then you plunge into work dynamically and actively, but in this tranquil, calm, serene way of serving God, of worshipping God. Right? So karma yoga is empowered by that statement.

Now, to say nothing of raja yoga (meditation), I would argue meditation is about close to impossible without some sort of realization like this. Because if you sit down as a body-mind personality and try to meditate, it will be very difficult. You'll be thinking of it as a body-mind that has so many problems—it's got children, it's got a mortgage, it's got a job. If you really think you are this body-mind, meditation is very difficult because when you sit there, you'll just be thinking about all those other things in life that need to be done. It's very difficult to meditate as a body-mind.

But if you sit there, and in the beginning of your meditation, you're affirmed in your identity as that one upon which the entire universe is birthed and extinguished, then suddenly you get this vastness where your own life seems so insignificant and small compared to the grandeur of your being. Then notice, meditation becomes natural.

Raja Yoga's Role

Okay, so what I want to talk about today before we do postural yoga is where does raja yoga fit into all of this? Especially, we're talking about like how does it help me realize that and, more importantly, what's its role post-realization?

To talk a little bit about jnana (knowledge) realization, I want to maybe just for fun explore what such a realization feels like. We have testimonies, of course, from great masters like Sri Ramakrishna. And maybe somewhat frustratingly, Ramakrishna first and foremost says what this is cannot be described. Right? Knowledge of Brahman cannot be described; it's beyond speech. So he uses the phrase:

“It is like a lollipop that has been defiled by the tongue.”

It's a Bengali and also a Sanskrit phrase. It means when things have been defiled by the tongue, it's like, okay, say I have a lollipop, and I don't want my sister to take the lollipop, so I put it aside. Now she won't take it because I've already salivated on it. You know, that's what it means—you don't want to touch something that someone has just licked.

So Ramakrishna very talkatively says, “The tantras, the puranas, the vedas, what they teach is in some sense defiled because it's been spoken by the tongue and therefore it's been crammed into the confines of language. It's not the truth; the truth is beyond all speech.” It's a very buddhistic statement, right? So you can see the Buddhist and Judaic traditions—they have this notion that God, to say anything of God would be to say too much. It's to make an idol of God, actually, to say anything about that which is silence itself. You know, so that's an important point.

And Ramakrishna, once he says that though, importantly, he's not saying that it cannot be experienced. Sometimes, you know, people come to this conclusion: because it cannot be spoken of, therefore it cannot be experienced, therefore it's not real. But Ramakrishna is constantly established in the experience of that which you cannot describe in words. But it's not for lack of trying. I mean, the whole of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna is his love letter to us from that place, from that experience.

So he then goes on to say: What it's like is ghee, but you can't describe ghee except in terms of itself. So if you say, “What is the taste of ghee?” you'll say, "Ghee tastes like ghee."

Good, right? So that's another way he first starts and says you can't describe it. But if you ask him to say, there's a taste, there's a feeling, there's a quality. Just for fun, he'll say, “It's like ghee.” But if you ask me what ghee tastes like and you yourself have never tasted ghee, what can I say but it tastes like ghee, right? That's another problem here with describing the absolute experience. It is an experience in the sense that you can be abidingly in it and say that it has a taste, a ruchi (flavor), a rasa (essence).

So this is a very important point. Some people say there's no experience there, right? Because there, there's no knower, there's no knowing, there's no known. You don't exist anymore—thou cast not look upon the face of God and live. So that might lead you to think that there is no flavor or taste in being sugar. And they say, “Why would I want that? I want to taste sugar, not be sugar.” Right?

But no, he's saying here in nirvikalpa samadhi (non-dual state of consciousness) established in the ultimate nature of the self, there's a taste. But he can't describe that taste. It's like trying to describe a color that no one's ever seen. Right? That's another problem.

Okay, he could have stopped it there. You know, if he had stopped with uchishta, he would be like a Buddhist, a classical Theravada Buddhist, or like someone in the Jewish tradition who says, “I don't have any words for it.”

But the danger of that is it leads you to believe that therefore it's not something that can be experienced.

Oh wait, it's okay. But ghee has a rasa (taste). Ghee has a taste, right? But it's an indescribable taste. So now I have to ask the question: Is it even worthwhile to preface our yoga class today with an exploration as to what Brahman-jnana (knowledge of Brahman) feels like?

He's already said it's either indescribable or its flavor doesn't compare to any other flavor. So what can we do? But it doesn't stop there. That's a beautiful thing. He gives a whole tier of responses to this question. He then says:

Imagine you're a fish inside a jar of water. Then you put the jar of water in the ocean, and the fish escapes the limited confines of the jar. Imagine that joy—the joy that the fish feels that it's now in the ocean.

Then he gives another parable:

Imagine there's an ocean—I'm sorry, a jar filled with water. So many jars—we love pots in India. Then you take that jar filled with water and you put it in an ocean. Now water is all around, water is inside, on all sides, water within, water without. Now, of course, the water is consciousness; it's chidakasha.

So the jar here, he says, is the I-sense, the ego. It's like the body-mind personality complex—that jar. Now inside the jar, I am, but outside the jar also I am. As long as I have a sense of “I,” I'm going to have a sense of inside and outside, me and them, right? Self and not-self. But imagine in samadhi you're plunged into the ocean, and you feel yourself everywhere and within as well. And then even that jar, you could see the water going in through the pores, and maybe one day the jar dissolves, and then you're the fish released.

So notice, even though he says it's indescribable, he describes it in copious terms:

Like a fish free in the water.

He says, imagine a bird soaring in the sky, the sky of consciousness, and that bird is soaring happily in the sky. He says that's what the atman, the self, feels like in that state. Isn't that beautiful? There are these descriptions.

Now, I thought just for fun, let me offer maybe a few other ways to look at it.

Haven't you ever had a big problem in your life? Like maybe debt—say you had some debt, and then suddenly one day you were forgiven of that debt. Haven't you had that feeling? Isn't there a tremendous upsurge of joy? You're like, “Oh my God, this problem that's bothered me my whole life is no longer a problem.” You know, or like when you paid off your debt, you're like, "I'm done, I'm free."

Okay, that's one. Just note that experience.

Now also note the experience of, say, you're really busy, or there's something that you have to do later today and you don't want to do it. It's weighing on you, like an appointment or a meeting that you just can't quite stomach. And then, you know, you're going about your day, and early in the morning you look at your phone, and the person cancels. Suddenly, it's like the best thing ever. Suddenly, the whole day is free. Haven't you felt that? The feeling of a day suddenly becoming free?

What about a week? Like, say you're a teacher, and then you realize, “Oh, now I broke free. I have the whole summer. I don't have to…” Isn't that a wonderful feeling?

PART 2

I'm saying this experience of ramadhyana, this experience of being not the mind, not the body, that's in some sense akin to this times a million, right? But it's that same idea, that same feeling of having a limitation and then no longer being limited by it.

You know, the feeling of having a free week, the feeling of having all your debt forgiven, the feeling of all your problems being solved – it's a wonderful thing. But there's something else.

The Vastness of Joy

Now, in the Chandogya… no, sorry, there's that phrase:

"That which is vast alone is Joy. There is no joy in small things. There's no joy in the limited. Only in the vast is their Joy."

Okay, now that example of the bird in the sky or the fish in the ocean – notice they're all examples about vastness, about transcendence, about being immersed in the absolute unlimited nature of self.

So far from just being free from your problems, which is a kind of Nirvana, a negative joy, there's a positive joy too – the joy of limitlessness in and of itself.

Now think of every joy you've ever had in the world, like an orgasm. That's the joy of release, the release from the limitations of the desire. The joy of chocolate or something – that's all a joy of release. Now imagine that times a million.

So it's important that we don't rarify these states. They're present actually in each and every one of our lives. We do have a glimpse as to what that feeling state could be, right?

So I just want to, like, I want to wet your appetite with the taste of ghee for a moment.

A Profound Lecture

The reason why I want to have this discussion is because last night, Tejasma and I had the fortune of listening to Swami Sabrina. In his lecture, he said something very, very profound and I've been reflecting on it quite a bit since last night, and it's this:

He had a dream and when he woke up, the first thing that he did, as he said automatically, was to recite the “contemplating Brahma at dawn”:

So he woke up and immediately, the first thing he did when he woke up from the dream in the middle of the night was, you know, it just came just immediately. He just started chanting it, and he said he'd been chanting it for a while.

So his practice is to first thing in the morning start chanting that satram. That's very, very simple. There are three verses, a very simple Sanskrit. It's actually good for people learning Sanskrit to start with Adi Shankara because he was a 16-year-old boy, so he writes very profound things but in such simple ways.

So it starts with, “I remember”, or I prefer the word “I recognize that I am Brahman”.

I recognize that in my heart I am that self-shining, that today I'm the fourth, which is the goal of all the Paramahamsas. That which is consciousness, bliss, absolute, which is the witness eternally of the waking, dreaming, deep sleep. That formless, that partless or indivisible Brahman, that alone am I.

You know, the first thing he does when he wakes up is saying that to himself.

I was thinking that's a practice, that's a chanting practice. Like he woke up in the morning and he did a chanting practice to reaffirm his identity as buttermathman Supreme as Brahman, right?

I was thinking about that, then I was also thinking about Totapuri.

The Role of Meditation

So Totapuri would meditate every day for insane numbers of hours. Like he would always be meditating. He would regularly be in samadhi. Remember, he's a Gyan, he's on the path of Gyana yoga, but here he's doing Raja yoga, he's meditating.

So people would ask him, "Why meditate? Meditation is for the mind, but you're established in that which is beyond the mind, right? You're paramathman, you're Brahman, so why does Brahman need to meditate knowing that untrue beyond all practices like this?"

And he said something very evocative, he said:

"If you don't scrub the Copper Pot, it will lose its shine and then it will no longer reflect."

It's a very important point.

See, he's saying that if the mind is not kept sativik through regular meditation, it will lose touch with the truth of being Brahman. Though being Brahman doesn't change, the ability to enjoy Brahman might be affected by a lack of meditation. So he meditated every day, right?

The Importance of Sadhana

Here's what I want to say: There's a very important role that sadhana plays in the path of non-duality and non-dual realization. First, it plays the role of opening you up to that recognition in the first place. Everyone is Brahman, but not everyone lives like Brahman.

So I think you would bring to mind here Jesus, how Jesus moved about in the world. You know, just from our recollection of him, it feels as if this was a person who was truly free. He loved everyone, he had no hang-ups, no qualms except with hypocrisy. You know, and he moved through the world like you would expect a breeze to blow through the town. It clings to nothing, it's fragrant, it's melodious, it's joyful, it's whistling and singing. Just comes and goes, no big deal.

Singing devotee of Krishna like that. So Jesus, Buddha, they were such light beings, beings of light, beings that were so light they came and they went and they uplifted the whole world. And even today we speak of them. Those who lived two thousand, three thousand years ago, we still speak of them. Isn't that wonderful? What a huge amount of Shakti they had.

And if you come to the temple when Swami Sarapji is there, you'll see there's such a mark of joy. It's like everyone is celebrated. There's so many people and, you know, people will be peeking through the door and whenever you're having a concert, there's always an audience around. And most of these people, a lot of times, they're not interested really in what's being said, I don't think, because they're just there to experience the Shakti of them. This is very beautiful. The beings that are very light tend to have this uplifting effect.

Sadhana and the Yoga Vedanta Tradition

So what's the role of sadhana then? Notice Jesus, these beings are established in that nature. When Totapuri gave the metaphor of the bronze vessel, you know what Ramakrishna said?

"You don't have to polish it if the vessel is gold."

It's interesting, he's comparing two different kinds of beings. There's an Ishwarakote or an avatara and then there's all of us, the Jiva kotis or the practitioners. Now we need a lot of polishing because our copper pot is brass, their copper pot is gold. But notice who they are and who we are are the same. You know this. Don't think, “Oh, I'm a brass copper pot, they're a gold cup.” No, no. This gold-brass thing just refers to the instrument, the instrument of the body and mind, which is nothing to do with who you are. You are all bodies, all minds, and so much more beyond that, right?

So Sri Ramakrishna is saying there are certain beings who can be established like that, they don't need a lot of practice. However, we do. And so I want to ask this question:

"What's the role of Hatha yoga in this path?"

First, as I've said earlier, it is about opening yourself up to the recognition of what is already true. Though everyone is Brahman, not everyone moves about like Jesus or Ramakrishna or Swami Sarap, right? Not everyone lives in this world in a light and joyous way as that. But everyone is Brahman. So then why isn't that manifested in each and every person's life? Well, because not everyone knows they're Brahman.

It's not about being Brahman, it's about knowing that you're Brahman. And knowing that you're Brahman helps you manifest your identity as Brahman. So therefore, in the Mundaka it says:

"To know Brahman is to be Brahman."

You always were Brahman, right? So what does knowing it do? It's not about being Brahman, it's about manifesting that divinity in each and every movement. So how to know? Through practices.

So when you do practices like japa, meditation, when you do your pujas, when you do these intensely with full faith and devotion, and when you practice yoga, when you meditate regularly, your brass pot becomes so shiny, so sativik, that it constantly reflects to you your true nature.

Haven't you felt that when your mind was lifted and then the problems of the world didn't seem like problems? Sometimes on drugs we feel we're like, "Oh my God, I feel like I'm in such a high state."

I don't think, man, like that. Through practice, the mind goes up like that. But be very careful, it easily drops. It can drop like this, the next moment. Like the very next moment, you could be in this lofty realm in which you don't feel your problems, you're established in your nature as Brahman, your eyes are shining. Next moment, just like that, it'll drop.

Right# PART 2:

I'm saying this experience of ramadhyana, this experience of being not the mind, not the body, that's in some sense akin to this times a million, right? But it's that same idea, that same feeling of having a limitation and then no longer being limited by it.

You know, the feeling of having a free week, the feeling of having all your debt forgiven, the feeling of all your problems being solved – it's a wonderful thing. But there's something else.

The Vastness of Joy

Now, in the Chandogya… no, sorry, there's that phrase:

"That which is vast alone is Joy. There is no joy in small things. There's no joy in the limited. Only in the vast is their Joy."

Okay, now that example of the bird in the sky or the fish in the ocean – notice they're all examples about vastness, about transcendence, about being immersed in the absolute unlimited nature of self.

So far from just being free from your problems, which is a kind of Nirvana, a negative joy, there's a positive joy too – the joy of limitlessness in and of itself.

Now think of every joy you've ever had in the world, like an orgasm. That's the joy of release, the release from the limitations of the desire. The joy of chocolate or something – that's all a joy of release. Now imagine that times a million.

So it's important that we don't rarify these states. They're present actually in each and every one of our lives. We do have a glimpse as to what that feeling state could be, right?

So I just want to, like, I want to wet your appetite with the taste of ghee for a moment.

A Profound Lecture

The reason why I want to have this discussion is because last night, Tejasma and I had the fortune of listening to Swami Sabrina. In his lecture, he said something very, very profound and I've been reflecting on it quite a bit since last night, and it's this:

He had a dream and when he woke up, the first thing that he did, as he said automatically, was to recite the “contemplating Brahma at dawn”:

So he woke up and immediately, the first thing he did when he woke up from the dream in the middle of the night was, you know, it just came just immediately. He just started chanting it, and he said he'd been chanting it for a while.

So his practice is to first thing in the morning start chanting that satram. That's very, very simple. There are three verses, a very simple Sanskrit. It's actually good for people learning Sanskrit to start with Adi Shankara because he was a 16-year-old boy, so he writes very profound things but in such simple ways.

So it starts with, “I remember”, or I prefer the word “I recognize that I am Brahman”.

I recognize that in my heart I am that self-shining, that today I'm the fourth, which is the goal of all the Paramahamsas. That which is consciousness, bliss, absolute, which is the witness eternally of the waking, dreaming, deep sleep. That formless, that partless or indivisible Brahman, that alone am I.

You know, the first thing he does when he wakes up is saying that to himself.

I was thinking that's a practice, that's a chanting practice. Like he woke up in the morning and he did a chanting practice to reaffirm his identity as buttermathman Supreme as Brahman, right?

I was thinking about that, then I was also thinking about Totapuri.

The Role of Meditation

So Totapuri would meditate every day for insane numbers of hours. Like he would always be meditating. He would regularly be in samadhi. Remember, he's a Gyan, he's on the path of Gyana yoga, but here he's doing Raja yoga, he's meditating.

So people would ask him, "Why meditate? Meditation is for the mind, but you're established in that which is beyond the mind, right? You're paramathman, you're Brahman, so why does Brahman need to meditate knowing that untrue beyond all practices like this?"

And he said something very evocative, he said:

"If you don't scrub the Copper Pot, it will lose its shine and then it will no longer reflect."

It's a very important point.

See, he's saying that if the mind is not kept sativik through regular meditation, it will lose touch with the truth of being Brahman. Though being Brahman doesn't change, the ability to enjoy Brahman might be affected by a lack of meditation. So he meditated every day, right?

The Importance of Sadhana

Here's what I want to say: There's a very important role that sadhana plays in the path of non-duality and non-dual realization. First, it plays the role of opening you up to that recognition in the first place. Everyone is Brahman, but not everyone lives like Brahman.

So I think you would bring to mind here Jesus, how Jesus moved about in the world. You know, just from our recollection of him, it feels as if this was a person who was truly free. He loved everyone, he had no hang-ups, no qualms except with hypocrisy. You know, and he moved through the world like you would expect a breeze to blow through the town. It clings to nothing, it's fragrant, it's melodious, it's joyful, it's whistling and singing. Just comes and goes, no big deal.

Singing devotee of Krishna like that. So Jesus, Buddha, they were such light beings, beings of light, beings that were so light they came and they went and they uplifted the whole world. And even today we speak of them. Those who lived two thousand, three thousand years ago, we still speak of them. Isn't that wonderful? What a huge amount of Shakti they had.

And if you come to the temple when Swami Sarapji is there, you'll see there's such a mark of joy. It's like everyone is celebrated. There's so many people and, you know, people will be peeking through the door and whenever you're having a concert, there's always an audience around. And most of these people, a lot of times, they're not interested really in what's being said, I don't think, because they're just there to experience the Shakti of them. This is very beautiful. The beings that are very light tend to have this uplifting effect.

Sadhana and the Yoga Vedanta Tradition

So what's the role of sadhana then? Notice Jesus, these beings are established in that nature. When Totapuri gave the metaphor of the bronze vessel, you know what Ramakrishna said?

"You don't have to polish it if the vessel is gold."

It's interesting, he's comparing two different kinds of beings. There's an Ishwarakote or an avatara and then there's all of us, the Jiva kotis or the practitioners. Now we need a lot of polishing because our copper pot is brass, their copper pot is gold. But notice who they are and who we are are the same. You know this. Don't think, “Oh, I'm a brass copper pot, they're a gold cup.” No, no. This gold-brass thing just refers to the instrument, the instrument of the body and mind, which is nothing to do with who you are. You are all bodies, all minds, and so much more beyond that, right?

So Sri Ramakrishna is saying there are certain beings who can be established like that, they don't need a lot of practice. However, we do. And so I want to ask this question:

"What's the role of Hatha yoga in this path?"

First, as I've said earlier, it is about opening yourself up to the recognition of what is already true. Though everyone is Brahman, not everyone moves about like Jesus or Ramakrishna or Swami Sarap, right? Not everyone lives in this world in a light and joyous way as that. But everyone is Brahman. So then why isn't that manifested in each and every person's life? Well, because not everyone knows they're Brahman.

It's not about being Brahman, it's about knowing that you're Brahman. And knowing that you're Brahman helps you manifest your identity as Brahman. So therefore, in the Mundaka it says:

"To know Brahman is to be Brahman."

You always were Brahman, right? So what does knowing it do? It's not about being Brahman, it's about manifesting that divinity in each and every movement. So how to know? Through practices.

So when you do practices like japa, meditation, when you do your pujas, when you do these intensely with full faith and devotion, and when you practice yoga, when you meditate regularly, your brass pot becomes so shiny, so sativik, that it constantly reflects to you your true nature.

Haven't you felt that when your mind was lifted and then the problems of the world didn't seem like problems? Sometimes on drugs we feel we're like, "Oh my God, I feel like I'm in such a high state."

I don't think, man, like that. Through practice, the mind goes up like that. But be very careful, it easily drops. It can drop like this, the next moment. Like the very next moment, you could be in this lofty realm in which you don't feel your problems, you're established in your nature as Brahman, your eyes are shining. Next moment, just like that, it'll drop.

Right, it seems like for most of us it's not very stable. So the first step in sadhana is achieving the clarity to know that you are Brahman. The next step in sadhana is maintaining that clarity. That's it. That's all there is to sadhana.

You're already Brahman whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, whether you want to be or not. Sorry, Megan, you're already the mother of the universe. Nothing we can do about that.

Now the only question is, are you going to live like that or are we going to suffer as body, minds, personality? This is wonderful too, but if you resolve to live as a brahmagnani then it's very important that you see practice not just as a way to have the clarity that you are that, but more importantly, I would say, having had that clarity through your shravana, manana, nididhyasana, to stabilize in that.

The Yoga Vedanta Tradition

So therefore I come now to a very important point. We belong to what is called the Yoga Vedanta Tradition. Now don't get me wrong, there are Vedanta traditions that don't require practice, like Dayananda Saraswati. There's a big movement in India of what you can call like Orthodox where, you know, meditation is in some sense a lower practice. At a certain point, you have to give it up and just do shravana (listening), manana (thinking) like that.

And by the way, these practices, according to these people, can reify your notion of what you're not.

"I don't think I'm Brahman, I practice. But if I think I have to practice, then that's me admitting that I'm not Brahman."

So I don't want you to get the idea that, “Oh, it's just this.” No, no. There are Vedanta traditions that are very against practice. However, Krishna and this lineage we belong to what is typically called the Yoga Vedanta Tradition because of Totapuri, etc. So the Yoga Vedanta Tradition is one where it has a very important place for samadhi – samadhi being the experience of yourself as Brahman in meditation. It's very important.

So Ramakrishna, if you see in the Kathamrita (the gospel), he often in some places uses the same word interchangeably – samadhi and brahmagana. Haven't you noticed? But there are many brahmaganis who will say it's not about samadhi – brahmagana can happen, samadhi or no. All you need is waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. But Ramakrishna values samadhi. He thinks that it's there only when you're on the roof. And post-samadhi, the world becomes prior to samadhi. It's a framework of illusion, you know.

So before you know the truth, it's Neti Neti. After you know the truth, it's It is.

Now I know that sounded a bit technical, but all I mean to say is that samadhi is very important. Yoga is very important. Meditation is very important.

The True Nature of Being

Okay, but please friends, let's not forget why it's important. It's not important for any other reason but for you to enjoy being what you already are. So today, I'm just saying what I said last week in a new way:

Relax. You're not here to practice. You're not here to attain anything. You're not here to do anything important whatsoever. You're here to simply express and enjoy what is already true here and now. You are the mother of the universe. What more is there than saying this, affirming this?

Affirming Your True Nature

Okay, I know this is taking a bit of time but one last thing I want to say before we practice is this: Even before you are sure about your true nature as Brahman, long before that, it will do you a lot of good to affirm that you are Brahman.

Now this sounds like a stark contradiction to what Ramakrishna said. He's like:

"You householders should not say this. You shouldn't say this if you have body consciousness."

That's true. I mean, there's a lot of hypocrisy that can come, a lot of self-delusion. But you know what Swami Ashokananda ji said?

"If you think thoughts all the time anyway, you might as well think strengthening, empowering, positive thoughts. Because if you don't, you'll just think you're a sinner or a weakling."

And now think of this: spiritual life requires so much strength. Where will you get that strength if not from this bold affirmation of your true nature as paramathman supreme? Unless you, even if you don't feel that to be true, unless you speak this way and live this way and affirm to yourself this truth, it's very unlikely that you'll have the strength even to persevere through the difficult things in spiritual life.

So long before, I would say, you have the realization, still why not, if it's already true, why not speak according to the truth? If your reason has showed you that you are paramathman supreme, then own it. And it won't do, of course, to have your behavior disagree with your realization, but in this period of sadhana, we're going to bring our realization and our behavior together.

- Thanks to Nish