The Ultimate Truth | Swami Sarvapriyananda

0:02 Om Asato Ma Sadgamaya Tamasoma Jyotir Gamaya Mrityorma Amritam Gamaya Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Om Lead us from the unreal to the real. Lead us from darkness unto light. Lead us from death to immortality. Om Peace Peace Peace Good morning. Not as nice a morning as yesterday but still

0:47 nevertheless, every Vedanta morning is a good morning. This morning our subject is The Ultimate Truth, nothing less. This relates to a verse from the Mandukya Karika. Last week I spoke about the Mandukya Karika, the first chapter. The talk was based on the first chapter. Today's talk is based on the second chapter and specifically from only one verse in the second chapter. The verse goes like this: na nirodho na cha utpatti na baddho na ca sadhakah na mumuksurna vai mukta

1:37 ittyesa paramarthata. What does this mean? Gaudapada, the composer of these verses, he says: there is no origin of this universe, no secession, no creation, no destruction of this universe. There is nobody who is in bondage. There is nobody who is a spiritual seeker, who is doing spiritual practices. There is nobody who is seeking liberation and indeed, nobody who is liberated. This is the ultimate truth. The highest teaching, the ultimate truth, ittyesa paramarthata. Now this does violence to our way of thinking. This is really, really

2:24 radical. What does it mean? What are its implications for our spiritual life? That is what we shall take a look at today. The subject is taken from the, the title of the subject, is taken from the verse itself. This is the ultimate truth, ittyesa paramarthata. All this will make sense only if we remember that this is from the Turiya point of view. This is the point of view. Remember last time when we spoke about, when we introduced the theme of the Mandukya Upanishad, the Mandukya Karika. Like all Vedanta, like all Upanishads, it teaches us that our reality is the ultimate reality. God is our own reality. You are Brahman, this is the ultimate reality. And the Mandukya

3:12 Upanishad gives us a specific way of understanding this. It says that if you examine your own experience, you will come to this truth directly. What is this experience? The Mandukya Upanishad guide says, we have three kinds of experiences in our lives. A waking experience, we have a dream experience, and we have a deep sleep experience. It's common to all of us. And the Mandukya Upanishad claims that if you examine this experience which you all have, which we all have, you will come upon the real truth about yourself. It says that you have a fourth aspect, so called as fourth aspect. Actually that is the one reality. Calls it the

3:59 Turiyam, literally the fourth. This fourth is actually the one reality which appears as the waker and the waker's universe. This one. As you, in your dreams, the dreamer and the dream universe. As you, the deep sleeper and the blankness which you experience in deep sleep. All three are appearances in that fourth one, the Turiyam. That fourth one alone appears in all these three forms. In the gross aspect as this physical universe. As you, the experiencer of the physical universe and the physical universe. In its subtle aspect as you, the dreamer and your dream experiences. Why is it subtle? Because it's in the

4:46 mind. And in what is called the causal aspect. Why is it called the causal aspect? I'm not going to go into that all over again because we did that last time. The causal aspect is the deep sleep. You, experiencing the blankness, the darkness of deep sleep. All of these are appearances. They appear and disappear in one consciousness which is the Turiyam, which is your real nature. Right now, you think of yourself as this person. This seems to be the indubitable truth for us. That I am this person. What Vedanta claims is if you investigate in this method of the waking, dreaming and deep sleep. If you investigate, you will come across the real you. Not this person. But the witness of this person,

5:35 the Turiya. In which this person is arising, shining and falling again. From that Turiya perspective, Gaudapada composes this verse. You see, what is religion and spirituality? What does Vedanta, indeed any religion, Buddhism or even the theistic religions, Christianity, Islam or Vaishnavism or Shaktism, all of them. What do they tell us? We are in suffering. We are in Samsara. The word used is Baddha. We are in bondage, in suffering. The language used may be different. Some may say you are bound by your karma. Others might say you are bound

6:20 bound by the original sin. Whatever. But we are in suffering. We are experiencing suffering. The Buddhists say, Buddha says, the beginning of Buddhism is the acknowledgement that all is suffering. So we are bound. We are in suffering. And the claim is that if you go through certain spiritual practices. In Sanskrit, if you become a Sadhaka, a spiritual practitioner. It could be a various kinds of practices, depending on the religion, your particular choice, your particular approach, philosophy. It could be meditation, it could be doing good to others, it could be love and devotion and surrender to God. It could be Vedantic analysis. Karma

7:07 Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga, Jnana Yoga. It could be any kind of practice. You become a Sadhaka. A spiritual practitioner. Why? Because you are a mumukshu. A seeker after spiritual liberation. I want freedom from suffering. I want freedom from Samsara. This Samsara which I am trapped in, I want freedom from that. And therefore I am doing spiritual practices. The core teaching of the Buddha. It sums up the entire structure of religion: There is suffering, one. There is a cause of suffering. There is an end to suffering, that is moksha, nirvana. And there is a way: Sadhana, Ashtanga Marga Buddha says. So I am a spiritual seeker, I am doing

7:54 spiritual practices and I am a spiritual seeker: mumukshu. Mumukshu literally means one who is seeking freedom. And finally, I hope that after all the spiritual seeking, all the spiritual practice, one day I will become free, enlightened, liberated. I will become Jeevan Mukta, liberated while living. Or in different religions, in different languages, I will one day go to Heaven and live with God and be free of suffering. So this is the structure which we have been taught, which every religion teaches us. Bondage. Practice. Spiritual seeking. Aspiration. And freedom. And

8:45 here comes Gaudapada and says: there is nobody who is in bondage, there is nobody who is practicing spiritual practices, there is nobody who is a spiritual seeker. And how do you account for those who are supposed to be free, enlightened persons? There is nobody who is an enlightened person or free, there is nobody who is mukta. And this is supposed to be the final teaching, the ultimate truth. What does this mean? Today we shall investigate this. Do you see the radical nature? First you must appreciate, why is it so shocking? This one, if properly understood and which we shall attempt to do at the end, by this, by the end of this session. We shall try to grasp the meaning, the implication of this.

9:30 If properly understood, then really we will get an understanding of what Samsara is. A deep, direct understanding of what Samsara is. We will get a real understanding of what bondage is. When he says there is no bondage, we will see what it is really meant. We will understand what is spiritual practice and what is the role of spiritual practice. What it can do and what it cannot do. We will understand that today. We will understand what it is meant to be a real spiritual seeker, mumukshu. And we shall not only understand what it means to be enlightened, to be free. If one really understands this, grasps it, assimilates it, one will be free. By the end of this

10:17 talk. That's why it's called the ultimate truth. The final teaching. Like last time, this time also the usual cautions apply. I mentioned last time that there is an immature way of understanding this, and there is a mature way of understanding this. And the immature way will say that, oh now I realize all kinds of conventional religion and prayer and temples and churches, all of them are false so they are all imaginary or superstitious. Now I have got the real truth. Even worse, I have no need, now I know, I have no need to meditate, I have no need to pray, I have no need to do any good works or anything like that. Because I know the

11:04 truth, I am free. No. That's an immature way of understanding it. The mature way is: we get a deeper understanding of what Samsara is, what bondage is, what spiritual practice is, what does it mean to be a spiritual seeker and finally, what it means to be free. That is the mature understanding which we shall aim at. We shall see how instead of cutting at the root of religion, this actually gives a foundation to religion. That's what we shall see. Where to start? Let's start at the beginning. It says that there is no origination, no creation of the universe, no destruction, no cessation of the universe. Na utpatti na nirodho na

11:50 cha Utpatti. What does that mean? We will approach it in different ways in Advaita; let's take them one by one. Let's take a simple example which I have used often. From clay a potter fashions a pot, makes a pot, right? So our normal way of saying this is that the potter produced a pot. But if you examine the pot, what do you find? When you touch it, you find you are touching clay. When you see at the top it is clay, when you see at the bottom it is clay, inside it is clay, outside it is clay. When you weigh it, it is the weight of the clay. And you might say there is water, there and other things there also,

12:37 but fine, in principle it is the weight of the clay. The substance is the clay. It was clay to begin with, it s still clay. What has changed is a form, it s a new form which has emerged. What has changed is a name. Earlier you called it a lump of clay, now you call it a pot. What has changed is the use. You couldn't store water in a lump of clay, now you can put water or milk in the pot. Name has changed, form has changed, use has changed: nama roopa Vyavahara, in Sanskrit. But the substance, the reality is still the same. If you are not convinced, ask yourself the question. Suppose I take the clay away. You say that a pot

13:24 has been produced. You say, okay, keep the pot, give my clay back. Keep the pot, keep your pot, give my clay back. You cannot do that. There is this joke: A scientist goes to a philosopher and says that you don't need God anymore, we have produced life in our laboratory. And the philosopher says, really? Show me. And the scientist says, come to my lab, I ll show you. First you take a little bit of clay, you know, a little bit of earth. And the philosopher says, get your own earth first. God made that earth. So if I ask for the clay back, you will have no pot at all. Now, can we say that no real second

14:12 thing has been produced? The first thing is the clay. Apart from the first thing, the clay, there is no real second thing which has been produced. Though the name has changed, though the form has changed, though I admit, though the use has changed. But substantially speaking, there is no new thing which has been created. Thing. The thing, the substance, the reality is still the same. In the same way, Advaita says, Sat, pure being, existence itself, with different names and forms, appears as this Samsara. When the Samsara appears, when we see this Samsara, then just like the production of the pot, you cannot say a new thing has been

15:00 created. It is that being itself, Sat itself, existence itself, that isness itself, which manifests now as planets and stars and quarks and protons, as whales and human beings, all of these are names and forms, a network of names and forms, drawn upon that primal isness, the being. Sat. Sat means pure being. That pure being you are. The Upanishad says, Tat tvam asi. That thou art. You always were that, you are that, and you will continue to be that. Maya just draws a network of names and forms over you, and including this

15:45 particular body and mind, and we say: I am this body and mind, here is a universe that has been created. But as far as the substance, the reality is concerned, it's still that primal isness. Sat. Another way of understanding this is, in a material world, the matter is, the clay for example, is shaped into a pot. But when you come to your inner world, the world of consciousness, of awareness, consciousness does not have to be shaped into something. Things just appear in your consciousness. For example, when the classic example in which a man mistakes a rope to be a snake. In a darkness, he

16:32 sees something and thinks, it's a rope actually, but he doesn't know it's a rope. He thinks by mistake that it is a snake. Alright? And later he realizes, it's not a snake. It was my mistake, it's a rope. Now let me ask you the question. Was the snake born? Did it emerge from an egg? Did it wriggle on top of the rope? And when you saw that it's a rope, did it die and it had to be buried or something? No. The snake, you will say, no, no. The snake was never born, it was not created, it was not produced, it did not die. Rather, it appeared, and that too by mistake. And once the mistake was corrected, it disappeared. The claim in Advaita Vedanta is, this entire universe which we are experiencing,

17:20 how do we experience it? Waker's world, this one. The dreamer's world, when you sleep and dream. And the deep sleep darkness. These are the three types of experiences which we have. Variations. All of them appear and disappear like the snake in the rope. They appear and disappear, not on a rope, on you, the consciousness. That consciousness is the Turiyam. Can you really say, just like the snake was never born really, never died really, this universe which you experience, you are experiencing it in your consciousness. In your consciousness, no universe is born. It appears. No universe is produced. No universe actually evolves there. It appears, it is experienced, it

18:09 disappears. Do you see now how it begins to make sense when Gaudapada says, there is no origination, there is no cessation of the universe. This play of consciousness and matter. It's very interesting if you take the different points of view. Quickly, let's take the material, I'll go through the entire range of views you get in Indian philosophy. The materialist s point of view, which is of course very popular. It's the most popular point of view at that time in ancient India and today in 21st century in Manhattan too. What is the materialist point of view? Consciousness is produced out of matter. So matter and energy and all, they evolve into living matter, bodies, into

18:57 nervous systems and brains. And somehow mind and consciousness are produced by the brains and nervous systems. So consciousness emerges out of matter. This is the materialist point of view. In ancient India, these people were called Charvakas. The materialist point of view is consciousness mind consciousness awareness sentience these are epiphenomenal. Like you burn a candle and light and heat emerges from that, similarly, when the biochemical reactions are going on in the body and the brain, consciousness, somehow, the operative word is somehow. Till today the doctors, neuroscientists, nobody knows how, they're working hard on it. But, and they have called it the hard problem of consciousness. I often mention this, David

19:42 Chalmers here, who is in NYU, the Mind Brain Science Consciousness unit, he coined the term: the hard problem of consciousness. How can an objective piece of matter, the brain, nervous system. How can it generate a completely different thing called a subjective first person experience? We don't know, we just don't know. How does mind emerge out of matter? There's an old joke in philosophy classes, when they talk about mind matter dualism. What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist that, it's old, an old, old joke. But it goes to the heart of the problem. Now

20:30 they have called it the hard problem of consciousness, and if you Google it, it's all over, I mean, there are different branches, psychologists, philosophers, computer scientists, neuroscientists, linguists, they're all trying to understand and crack this hard problem of consciousness: How can matter give rise to consciousness? But that's the view of the materialist. Because matter is the ultimate reality, so if there is something called consciousness, it must arise out of matter, there's no other way, we will not consider any other alternative. That's one point of view. In India, it was called the Charvaka point of view. The second point of view is just the opposite. It's the point of view of religion, of theistic religion. In Hinduism, when you talk

21:19 about God creating the universe. So a universe is created. A universe is produced. It exists and is destroyed. And that's what God is supposed to do. Srishti sthiti pralaya. In Sanskrit, God projects, not actually creates, but projects the universe, maintains the universe, and reabsorbs the universe at the end of the cosmic cycle. So, depending upon your choice of deity, you can say Vishnu does it, or Shiva does it, or the Divine Mother Kali or Durga does it, or the same ideas there in the theistic religions, in Christianity, in Islam, in Judaism. God creates the universe. Is the universe created? Yes, very much so. Where is it created from? Is God consciousness?

22:08 Yes, definitely. Whatever your idea of God in whichever religion, nobody will say God is a block of stone. They'll say God is consciousness, God is sentient. So, the material universe, matter, time, space, energy, emerges out of consciousness. If you take the principle behind it, this is just the opposite of the materialist approach, Charvaka. So the theistic approach, whether in Hinduism or in any other theistic religion, that matter emerges out of consciousness. Second approach. Third approach is the eternal duality of consciousness and matter. This is held by Sankhya philosophy, by Yoga philosophy, by

22:55 Jaina philosophy. They say neither emerges out of the other. Consciousness is eternal. Matter, space, time, energy, eternal. So this time, space, matter, energy, they lump it together and give it one word: Prakriti, nature. Prakriti. That's a Sanskrit word for nature. Nature is eternal. It is not produced from something else. And what about consciousness? Consciousness is also a fundamental reality. It coexists with nature like two parallel lines. Consciousness, Sanskrit word: Purusha. Nature, Sanskrit word: Prakriti. They eternally coexist. Neither one produces the other. And they interact. The

23:41 interaction of consciousness and nature is Samsara. If that sounds too abstract, it's not at all abstract. It's very much concrete for us. Right now, you, what you consider yourself to be, right now, is an interaction of nature and consciousness. Prakriti and Purusha. You, the sentient being, with this body provided to you by nature, with this mind provided to you by nature, you are one package with the two components, Purusha and Prakriti, and this is Samsara. So, this parallel coexistence of consciousness and matter and energy and time and space, this is the view of Sankhya, Yoga philosophy, Patanjali Yoga philosophy, Jaina philosophy.

24:27 Next comes the Buddhist. I'm taking one point of view, the Tibetan Buddhist, the Mahayana point of view. Specifically, Madhyamaka and Vijnanavada point of view. What they say is, yes, matter, nature, and the objective universe and the subjective consciousness, the two, the self and the not self. Both are empty. They are neither produced from each other, nor are they continuing parallelly with each other. The real nature of both is emptiness, shunyata. They have terms for that, Dharmashunyata, by which they mean the emptiness of the objective universe. And pudgala-nairatmya,

25:15 dharma-nairatmya and pudgala-nairatmya. Nairatmya means the self, non-self nature. The self itself is, if you analyze it, it revealed as empty. There is no such thing as a self. And what about the external universe? No such thing as the external universe. So both consciousness and matter are revealed to be empty. Shunya. That is the Buddhist approach. And if anybody is philosophically trained, yes, I am oversimplifying a little bit. I can see if a philosopher might be rolling his eyes but for this purpose, it will bring out what I am trying to say. I am trying to just simplify and put the different points of view in one

26:03 framework. Then comes the non-dualist framework which we are talking about. Where consciousness alone is the reality and that which we take to be the non-conscious, matter, time, space, bodies, our Samsara, this world. These are appearances in consciousness. Not apart from consciousness. Just like a dream. When you go to sleep and dream, all the things that you see in the dream have no existence apart from your own mind. In the same way, this entire universe which we experience has no existence apart from consciousness. Non-dual. The consciousness is non-dual. Meaning, there is no second thing apart from consciousness.

26:50 Non-dual, not two. So there is no second thing apart from consciousness. If this non-dual consciousness is somehow regarded as the other, as a non-dual reality, then you get Kashmiri Shaivism which talks about the Paramashiva, Prakasha Vimarsha Swarupa, of the nature of light, of consciousness, Prakasha, light-like consciousness, and reflectivity, self-awareness. Prakasha Vimarsha Swarupa. Of course, in Kashmiri Shaivism also, Shiva is your real nature. But that's not so stressed so much as the Shiva nature is stressed. Or you can get another variety of non dualism, which is what we are talking about, which is what

27:36 Gaudapada is talking about. You are that non-dual reality. You are that consciousness, that Turiya. In you, the consciousness, the entire universe is an appearance, not apart from you, not a second thing apart from you. Hence, you are that non-dual consciousness, Turiyam. You are the universe. Whatever you are experiencing right now, it's you, the consciousness. Both of these statements are true: Either I am all of this, or I am none of this. When we are in ignorance, when we are not aware of our real nature, the sign of ignorance is that I say, I am this, and nothing

28:22 apart from this. This is me, and that's not me. The enlightened person would say, it is true to say, I am all of this, or I am none of this. To get stuck in a particular body, mind and personality, that's ignorance. You step back from a particular mind, body, mind and personality into the background consciousness, the Turiyam, that's enlightenment. So from this point of view, the universe is not produced. It is not destroyed. It is nothing other than you. It appears in you, it shines in you, and it disappears within you. Na Baddhah. There is no one who is bound.

29:08 I am bound. By every account, I am this person, I am bound by the body, I am born, I am aging, I am subject to disease, ill health, I am subject to death, I am subject to a thousand disappointments and hurts. I am bound on all sides. I have so many desires, only a fraction of which I can fulfill, and even if I fulfill them, I do not get the satisfaction I was expecting. I am bound and limited on all sides. How can you say I am not bound? Gaudapada boldly says, you never were bound. You are not bound, you never were bound, neither can you ever be bound. How is that possible? You see, just take a look at the things which you say bind you. Are you bound by the body? Are you not the

29:54 consciousness which witnessed the little baby's body, the child's body, the teenager's body, the young person's body, the middle aged person's body, the old person's body? The body keeps on changing. Can you hold on to anything? Can you hold on to a particular age? Is that, that I want to hold on to, you know, what do they say? Forever sixteen, some sort of thing? I want to hold on to that, forever sixteen. Or forever, is it some word, forever twenty-one or something like that? Forever twenty-one. Oh. It is there. Is it a clothing store or something? Yes, it's a clothing store. So, I want to hold on to that. Gaudapada

30:40 says, neither can you hold on to that, nor can that hold on to you. It came and went. You cannot hold on to it. With whatever amount of yoga and gluten free you do. It will still go, it comes and goes. Body is old and diseased and infirm and suffering. I don't want this. Don't worry. It will not stay. It will go one day. It will not hold on to you either. Neither the body holds on to you, nor you hold on to the body. The mind, I am the mind, right? No, not really. How many times the mind has woken up in the morning? How many times the mind dreamt? How many times the mind slept? And you are the witness of all of

31:28 them. The way they teach is very interesting. I will give you, it doesn't have the same force in English maybe, but I will still try it. It's very simple, almost homely, but the truths are very profound. The teacher is saying, the Vedanta teacher. Are you happy? Tell me, are you happy or are you sad? He says, sometimes I am happy. Always happy? No, sometimes I am sad. And the teacher said, how is that possible? How can you be two things? What do you mean? Follow this carefully. It might sound simplistic, but it's very profound. How can you be two things? Sometimes I m happy, sometimes I m sad. The teacher actually said in

32:15 Hindi, kabhee main gaay, kabhee gadha? How is that possible? Sometimes I am a cow, sometimes I am a donkey? And then we say, oh I see what you mean, teacher. Oh right, in that sense what I meant was, not that sometimes I m happy, sometimes I m sad, but sometimes there is a feeling of happiness, sometimes there is a feeling of sadness. Ah, now we come to the point. So sometimes there is a feeling of happiness, and you own it, and you say, I am happy. Sometimes there is a feeling of sadness, which arises in you, the same awareness. And you own it, and you say, I am sad? And yet, you cannot be both. You are that which was there before the happy feeling came. You are that which was there before the sad feeling came. When those feelings come,

33:03 you grasp it, you identify yourself with it, clutch it to yourself, and say, I am happy. I am sad. No. You are the one which is free of happiness and sadness. You are the one which is the witness of happiness and sadness. Witness of their arrival, witness of their stay, witness of their departure. Look at your experience. Is it not true? What sticks to you? Does happiness stick to you? Has it ever till today stuck to you? No. What sticks to you? The deepest misery, the greatest trauma of my life, the greatest cause of regret of my life. No. Every day when I fall asleep, suppose, I have a great sorrow in my heart. When I fall asleep, it's gone. When the mind shuts down, the

33:52 sorrow which it bears also goes away with the mind. And in fact, if I am honest, in my day, throughout the day, when I am awake, even the, this overwhelming sorrow, how long does it stay? Can I, it does come and go. I must admit, it comes and goes. It lessens and increases. So, none of them stick to me. You are the one, the Teflon, Teflon, non-stick, that non-stick consciousness to which the mind does not stick. The body does not stick. In fact, consciousness is never bound. Neither in Sankhya philosophy, nor in Vedanta philosophy. In

34:39 Sankhya philosophy, consciousness experiences a real world. But even while experiencing a real world, consciousness is not bound by the real world. It's like the blue sky, so nice and bright and beautiful yesterday in the morning, now full of stormy clouds racing across the sky. It's still that same sky. Not affected in the least by the clouds. It looks like that, we are affected by it. The sky is not affected by it. You, the consciousness, the Turiyam, you are not affected by the storms in the mind, the ups and downs which come because of the mind or of the body. They appear in the body like the clouds in the sky, and they disappear back. The body-mind

35:26 appearances come in you, the consciousness. They appear in you, and they disappear, they melt away within you again. You, the consciousness, you are the experiencer, but ever unaffected. Sankhya philosophy, which accepts dualism. What to speak of Vedanta, which does not even accept that there is a separate reality called the mind. I am so miserable. The Vedantin will say, where is this misery? In my mind. Where is this mind? In my awareness. Is it a real thing apart from your awareness? No. If the mind itself is not real, what to speak of the content of the mind, the misery, the happiness, and the desires?

36:11 Nothing sticks to you. It arises, shines, and disappears in you. Na baddha. Nobody was ever bound by anything in any life, anywhere. How do we get bound, you know, this feeling of getting bound? Again, an example they give in the, when they teach Vedanta in India. This is the Ganga river is flowing. I have actually seen this. Sometimes a dead body flows away, floats past. Sometimes flower garlands float past. Now if you jump into the river and swim mightily and clutch the dead body, the rotting body to yourself and say, I am so dirty, I am impure, I am a sinner. You have clutched it. And

36:59 then you claim that I have become impure, I am a sinner, I am dirty. Or the flower garlands, you clutch it and you say, Ah, now I have touched something purified, it was discarded from a temple, I am elevated. Both dharma and adharma, the good and the bad, the elevating and the demeaning, they float past you in the stream of the mind. You are the consciousness sitting on the banks of the river of the mind, watching. Why do you have to jump into the mind and go and clutch that one or this one? And then own up to it and then cry, I am horrible, I am a sinner, I am depressed. Or look at me, I am so religious, I am so pure, I am so good. None of them, they float past you in your awareness. You don't

37:46 have to clutch any of them. Because we get hold of that and hold it to ourselves and then we cry, I am bound. Consciousness, this is the principle, consciousness is never bound, it seems to be bound only when it imagines an other within itself and then establishes a relationship with that other. In your dream, how can you be bound? You see so many things and so many people in your dreams and then you establish relationships with those people and things in your dreams, then you are bound. But really speaking, all the people that you see in the dream, all the things that happen in the dream, they are you only. They all appear in you and they disappear in you and they are not really there. They

38:34 are imagined in consciousness. I ll give you a definition of falsity, a technical definition but a very powerful definition. It s used in Advaita Vedanta, in advanced Vedanta philosophy. Listen carefully, it sounds complicated but it is actually very simple and very powerful. The original Sanskrit is this: svatyantabhavahasamanatvam mithyatvam, svatyantabhavadhikaran svatyantabhavadhikaranabhasa manatvam mithyatvam. What does it mean? Something which appears in the locus of its absence is defined as false. I ll repeat that again: Appearing in the locus of its own absence is falsity. Explain. Yeah, many

39:24 of you are getting it. Take the classic example of rope and snake. The snake appears in the rope, but really there is no snake there. So the snake is appearing where it is not there. In the rope there is no snake at all. It's a mistake. But you saw it by mistake. Just for a flash maybe. So it appeared in the locus. Locus means the place. The place means that rope. In the place where there was no snake, a snake appeared. That snake which appeared in the place where there is no snake, that snake is a false snake. This world which appears in you, the consciousness, the dream is false. Why? Because it appears in the mind. You are lying down and sleeping. In the mind many things take place. And you ve

40:10 forgotten that you are sleeping. You think it's a real world and real people and real events. And then you interact with them, establish relationships with them, love and hate. It feels real. When you wake up, your first reaction is, Oh, it was a dream. Meaning thereby, it appeared in the locus of its own absence. So atyantabhava adhikarane bhasa manatva mithyatva. This entire universe, the Advaita Vedanta claim is, like a dream, like that snake, this entire universe is appearing in the locus of its own absence, which is what? You, the consciousness. After realizing this, when we wake

40:55 up from a dream, the dream disappears. When you see that it's a rope, the snake disappears. But in this case, this dream will continue. Like a blue sky. You know that it's the color blue, is not really there in the sky. Once you realize it, and look up, you still see the blue sky. Mirage water. Same definition. Water is appearing in a place where there is no water. So atyantabhava adhikarane bhasa manatva mithyatva. Appearing in the locus of its own absence, is falsity. The water appears in a desert where there is not a drop of water. That's why you call it a mirage water. It's not really there. After you realize that, when you look back upon it, what do you see? Water. It still looks like water.

41:42 Similarly, when you realize this entire world, body, mind, this person, and all other persons, they are all appearances in me, the one consciousness. They re appearances in the locus of their absence, which is me. Then the falsity of the world is realized, and yet, you continue to experience this. Then all things become entertainment for you. For a jnani, everything is entertainment. Everything is fun. Life becomes joyful, full of fun, full of, it becomes a blissful, they call it a river of bliss. Na baddha. There s no one who is bound. I'm just reminded of something in the earlier point, that

42:30 consciousness is fundamental. We were talking about consciousness arising out of matter, or matter arises out of consciousness, or consciousness is fundamental to the universe, neither arises out of the other. David Chalmers, who is here in the NYU Mind Brain Consciousness Unit, he says in one place, in an interview, he said, quite humorously, that, if you contemplate the hard problem of consciousness long enough, you become a panpsychist. Panpsychism means consciousness is fundamental. It's not born out of matter. It exists along with matter, space, time and energy. Either you become a panpsychist or you go into

43:15 administration. You begin to believe that consciousness is fundamental. It is not originated from matter. Here is a person who is not influenced by Eastern mysticism or Eastern philosophy. Here is a person who is not at all a mystic of any sort, but he is a very hard-headed philosopher, and would be happy to describe himself as a materialist. But he says, you cannot, we just cannot accept that consciousness was born out of matter. There is no way of explaining it. Anyway, going ahead. Na Sadhaka. Now we are beginning to get the hang of what Gaudapada is doing. He is using these provocative words: there is no universe which was born, there is nobody who is bound, nobody who is a spiritual practitioner. But basically he is pointing

44:02 to Turiyam, the ultimate reality in all of these. Na Sadhaka, there is nobody who is a spiritual practitioner. About spiritual practice, let me make a quick, few quick observations. The word Sadhaka, it relates to another word in Sanskrit, Sadhana and another word, Sadhya. What do these words mean? Sadhya means a goal which I have to reach. Sadhana means the instrument that will take me to that goal. And Sadhaka means one who operates that instrument. So, I want to come to the Vedanta Society. The goal is that, Sadhya. Then what is the Sadhana, the instrument? The subway. And then I become

44:51 the Sadhaka who uses the subway to come here. So, basically it is cause and effect. If I do this, this will happen. If this, then that. This is causality. All spiritual practice depends on causality. And Gaudapada says Turiyam, the ultimate reality which you want to realize, is beyond causality. You cannot do something and get it. Shankaracharya in one of his commentaries says: what can, any kind of spiritual practice, any kind of work, causality, what can it do? It can do four things. It says: Utpadya Apya Samskarya Vikarya, four

45:38 words in Sanskrit. You can produce something, you can get something, you can change something, you can refine something. These are the meanings of the four words and he gives examples. So, the farmer puts seeds in and produces crops. Can you produce the ultimate reality? I am Sat Chit Ananda, can it be produced in some way? Can you make it? No, it can't be made, it's already there, it's ultimate reality, it exists. It's because of that everything else comes and goes. Or if you cannot produce it, Apya. Can you get it? Can you buy it from a shop? Can you import it? Can you borrow it? Can I get it from my Guru? I

46:28 am Sat Chit Ananda, my divine nature, can I get it from somebody? No. That's something that you can do, but no, the Atman cannot be got in that way. Can I modify something into the Atman? Like, he gives the example of milk being modified into curds, into yogurt. So here I am, a sinful fallen person. Can I modify myself? Can I change myself into divinity? I am a body, and a mind, can I become pure consciousness? Can I change myself into? No, that also you cannot do. The fourth option is refine, samskarya, so the building needs a face-lift, and you paint it. Or you extract

47:14 ore or oil from the ground, crude, and then you go through a enormous process, complicated process of refining it into the kinds of products you want. Can I reform myself, a fallen being, into, can I refine myself into divinity? Scrub and scrub and scrub until I shine. No, you cannot do that. One reason you cannot do any of these things is, all of them are strictly temporary, so whatever you produce, whatever you get, whatever you produce will be destroyed at one time. Whatever you get will be lost at one time. Whatever you change will again change into something else after some time. Whatever you refine will again degrade after some time. If Atman, the

48:03 Turiya is something like this, it would be something that is produced and destroyed; which is got and lost; which is refined and degraded; which is changed and changed and changed. That would not be divinity, that would not be enlightenment, that would not be release from Samsara. You cannot do any of these. It is not something that you can do by spiritual practice. Here is note of caution. Then I will not do spiritual practice? Thank God, I am saved, I thought I had to do lots of meditation, and prayer, and be a veritable saint or something. Now you are telling me you cannot get it by spiritual practice? Good. The swamis, they say, they put it very nicely: bahut bade gaddhe mein girogay, you are going to fall into a very big pit you

48:51 have dug for yourself. No, don't do that. All of these spiritual practices, remember, they are instruments designed to achieve a goal. So from a Vedantic perspective you begin to understand what these spiritual practices will do. See this teaching if it takes hold, if you feel that you are the Turiyam and you actually experience life in that way. If you can honestly claim: I transcend my sorrows, I understand, sorrows at the level of body and mind. I am the unaffected witness of it, I have no more problems, thank you, swami, this is the last time I am coming to Vedanta Society. I have realized everything. Then you don't need it, then you don't need spiritual practice. But, if I say that, my mind, I just can't

49:42 grasp this, you know, I have so many problems. Well if you are Turiyam, the pure consciousness, you don't have problems. If you have problems then in some sense you are still identified with the body and mind. Then you definitely need the spiritual practices. Selfless work purifies the mind. Deep devotion and surrender to God takes all the desires which flow into the world, collects them and directs them to God. Bhakti is of great use to a person walking on the path of knowledge. This is a great insight, devotion, bhakti, love of God is a powerful thing for those who are walking on the path of knowledge. What is the big obstacle for, practically,

50:29 what is the big obstacle for people walking on the path of knowledge? Our desires continue to flow out to the world. Desires operate at the level of the heart, desires do not operate at the level of the intellect. Here you are using the intellect to understand these concepts, and after some time, if you keep at it the intellect will understand these concepts and you will get a lot of peace. But, the desires still remain and they continue to flow towards the world. So bhakti operates at the level of the heart. The problem at the level of the intellect is ignorance, knowledge can cure, at the level of the intellect. But the problem at the level of the heart is desire, greed, lust for the world. The

51:14 intellect cannot cure that, at least not directly. Love of God can cure that, all the same desires. Instead of world, put God there. Same desires will now flow to God. What is God other than this very Turiyam? With a particular name and form. With, in Sanskrit they are called upadhi. I will not go into that. The idea of God in religion is an indirect way of indicating your own reality. When in Upanishads you say Tat tvam asi, That thou art. One swami told us, we keep saying That thou art but we don't realize how radical a statement it is, you know what it means? That thou art means: you are nothing other than God.

52:02 Which means you are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not even this little person. You are nothing other than God. And even more stunning, God is nothing other than you. One swami in Bengali he said, oi tumi chhara kono shala Bhagavan Nahi, other than you, the real you, there is no rascal called God. You are veritably God, and God is veritably you, but remember, the real you not the person. Otherwise it will lead to arrogance, that is crazy. That I am this little person of flesh and blood, I was born in such and such date. I am God! This is megalomania. This is why the dualists distrust the

52:53 non-dualists so much. They charge the non-dualists with sacrilege and blasphemy: you are saying you are God but, you misunderstand us, sir. I am not saying as a little person. When I say that I am God, I mean all of us. When an enlightened person realizes that he or she is one with God, realizes that everybody is one with God. God, Brahman alone shines in all these bodies and minds. Not only me. So, na cha sadhaka. Na mumukshu, there is nobody seeking moksha. Moksha means freedom, moksha means freedom. Freedom from Samsara. That's the story we have been told. That you are in Samsara because of your past karma, you are born in this life,

53:38 whatever karma you do now, good or bad will give you results in future lives, and you keep going through this cycle of birth and death. So all Hindus, and Jains, and Buddhists, Sikhs and Indian religions believe in this cyclic theory and we want freedom from this. The cognate to this in the semitic religions would be salvation, going to Heaven and staying with God. And here Gaudapada comes and says: na mumukshuhu, there is nobody who is seeking moksha. Again you understand he is talking from the Turiya point of view. Shankaracharya, in his beautiful hymn: Chidananda Rupah Shivoham Shivoham: I am of the nature of Shiva, I am pure consciousness, I am pure bliss. What does he sing? Na dharmo na

54:26 charto na kamo na moksha. The four goals of human life: pleasure, power and wealth, and morality, decency, religion, Dharma Artha Kama. And the ultimate goal is moksha. Here Shankaracharya says: I don't want pleasure, well, alright. I don't want wealth, ok, you are a monk. I don't even want the conventional morality, goodness, dharma, alright. I don't even want moksha. Why? Because you are, you are always free, you are Brahman, right? Chidananda Rupah Shivoham. Does Brahman want moksha? Does Turiya want moksha? No, why would Turiya want moksha? Why would

55:13 the ultimate, absolute reality want moksha? Freedom from what? Where there is only one reality, freedom from what? But you are that one reality right now. What freedom are you seeking? And from what? A great teacher once told, wrote actually, from an enlightened person's perspective the same consciousness merged without any names and forms in the deep silence of samadhi, it's like an ocean without any waves. And now the ocean breaks out into waves, names and forms, people and animals, and things, and the body and the mind, and stars and planets appear. They are waves in the same ocean which that enlightened person is. Now, here is the crucial

55:59 point Agraha nahin hona chahiye, the enlightened person must not have a preference for this or that. To erase the universe in the silence of samadhi, that also shows ignorance. Because you ll think that this universe is something different from what you get in samadhi. To prefer this universe and not samadhi shows an extroverted mind: I want these things. But these things are exactly what is there in samadhi, na mumukshu. Alright, follow this carefully, very interesting point. I will use a few terms. You know, Brahman is regarded as Sat

56:46 Chit Ananda, Existence Consciousness Bliss. Because we do not know ourselves as that immortal existence, Sat, we have a desire to live. I must continue living in this body. Why? Because I do not know that I am that immortal Sat, pure existence. In Sanskrit the word is jijivisha, desire to live, continue to live in this body, struggle to preserve this body. Because I think I live only in this body. Somebody went and reported to Ramana Maharshi that such and such person is dead, and he said it's very good. Your own

57:33 existence is indubitable, why would you want to preserve the body? You exist, in the waking; you exist in the dream without reference to the waking body. You exist in the nothingness of deep sleep also. Why would you want to hold on to a particular system of flesh and blood? We, somehow, in spite of all philosophy, we think our only existence is this one. It's not. Jijivisha, desire to continue existing in this body. Another term, Jigyasa, a desire to know. We think we know this much and there are many, many things other than what is known that we

58:20 would like to know. Jigyasa, desire to know. But we do not know that we are that one Chit, one consciousness, in which everything is appearing. Suppose, in your dream there are many things, some of which you have seen, and you get the feeling, there are some things which I have not seen, I must see that. But when you wake up you realize whatever you saw in the dream was your own mind. All the time, the things known and the things unknown are all in your mind, is it not so? In the same way, Chit, pure consciousness, is the one reality in which the entire universe appears. Not knowing that, we think we know this much and there are things which we do not know. In detail it may be true. When you are enlightened,

59:07 you realize everything is that one consciousness. The details you may not know, but you know it is one consciousness. But anyway, Jigyasa, desire to know. There is another word, bubhukasha, desire to enjoy. Why? Because I think my joy, my bliss, depends on the things of this universe. The food, and the drink, and the company, and the movies, the pleasures of the senses that I get. From gross pleasures to refined pleasures of the arts, and the sciences, and literature. All of that, they will give me pleasure. But I am Ananda Swarupa, I am the nature of bliss itself, it is my bliss which is reflected out there, and I borrow it and taste

59:52 it. I go out hat in hand begging for my own money. I am borrowing, my own bliss is lent to the world and then, like a beggar, I seek that bliss outside. The word is bubhukasha. Now three words jijivisha, desire to continue living in this body. Jigyasa, desire to know the particular things of this world. Bubhukasha, desire to enjoy the particular things of this world. All of them stem from the ignorance of my nature as Sat, pure being, immortal being. Chit, pure consciousness. Ananda, pure bliss. In order to make me realize this, a new term is put forward, mumuksha, desire to be free.

1:00:44 Desire to live in the body, desire to know things separately in the world, desire to enjoy things in the world, all based on ignorance. Mumuksha, desire to be free is also based on ignorance. What ignorance? That I am already free, I don't know that. Desire to be free, but this mumuksha cancels the other three. It replaces the other three. The desire to continue living in this body, desire to know particular things in the world, desire to enjoy sense objects, they are all replaced by an overarching desire to be free of Samsara, that's mumuksha. But when we realize we are Sat Chit Ananda, that mumuksha also

1:01:31 is gone, because we always were free. That's why he says, Na Mumuksho, there is nobody who desires to be free from Turiya point of view. And finally he says na muktaha, nor free. Is there is nobody who is free. So what does that mean? How do you explain the enlightened people, all these people, Ramana Maharshi, and so many others throughout history they were free, enlightened people, how do you explain that? What he means to say here is, there is freedom but nobody who is free. What does that mean? To explain that let me give another example. I have earlier mentioned this example.

1:02:19 Nisargadatta, somebody pointed out to me, he was regarded as an enlightened being, he lived in Mumbai a few decades ago in a slum, which is regarded as an enlightened being. That book is there, very popular: I am That. Somebody said to him: you are an enlightened being you are Brahma Jnani, you are a knower of Brahman. And immediately he reacted in annoyance and he said, just as a way of teaching, he said: you are insulting me! Insulting you? Knower of Brahman, that's the highest praise you can give in our civilization. The knower of the Absolute. He said I am not Brahma Jnani, I am Brahman. I am not a knower of Brahman, I am Brahman. Pointing out thereby the secret of

1:03:06 enlightenment. When you are enlightened, when you know that the Absolute, Turiya, it's not as an object, I know the Turiya I know the Sat Chit Ananda, I know the Absolute, I know Brahman. No, no, you are that. That's what you realize. You are not a person who realizes the Absolute. If you are a person who says, I know the absolute, then you do not know. The Kena Upanishad says: he who claims that he knows, does not know. He who knows that it cannot be known as an object, knows, truly knows. So, you are not a person who lives eternally, you are that eternal existence itself, Sat. You are not a person who

1:03:53 knows that ultimate reality, you are that knowledge itself, Chit. You are not a person who enjoys various kinds of blissful experiences, you are that bliss itself. Swami Vivekananda put it directly. Not that it exists, it is existence itself. Not that it knows something, it is knowledge itself. Not that it is happy, it is happiness itself. Sat Chit Ananda. When you become an enlightened person, you are not a Brahma Jnani you are Jnana Swarupa, knowledge itself. You are not somebody who lives eternally in this particular body, you are eternal existence itself. You are not somebody who has lots of bliss in the mind, you are bliss itself. In the same

1:04:40 way, you are not somebody, follow this carefully, you are not somebody who has become free, you are freedom itself. You are not a person who is mukta, literally the word mukta means a person who is free, the person is never free. You become free of the, you become free of the person, the person does not become free. You think of yourself as a person now? You will see, when you step back from that into your real nature, Turiyam, you are free of the person. The person will still appear, do its job, every night it will disappear in deep sleep. And one day in death of the body, that personality also will disappear. But you, the infinite existence, which is

1:05:26 the background of the person, you still exist. That is freedom, not a person who becomes free. In that sense na muktah. You are not a person who becomes free. This is ittyesha paramarthata, this is the highest teaching, ultimate truth. What is this ultimate truth? One reality. See one reality in samadhi, in the deepest meditation, in your waking world here, one reality. In the highest heaven, and in the lowest most infernal hell, I will say boldly, see that one reality Turiya. They appear in you and disappear in you. In the heights of happiness and success, in

1:06:12 the depths of misery and frustration and failure, one shining reality, Turiyam. And thus, you are free. Stand upon that, establish yourself in that, your real nature. All these are mirages, and dreams which come, enjoy them, when they come and go. Don't try to, one Zen saying which I liked very much, playing of one thing against the other, desiring one thing that it should be so, and it should not be so, this is the disease of the mind. Why is it the disease of the mind? Now we realize, this should be so and that should not be so, I like this and I do not like this, both of them are you, the consciousness. It shows an ignorance, a preference for this and a dislike for the other, it shows that you do not realize the

1:07:00 one reality behind both of them. Such a person will not criticize. Everybody that you meet, everything that happens to you, is a manifestation of the light of the divine, your own light. You yourself appear, whom to blame whom to praise? Vivekananda s lines: one only exists, whom to blame? Whom to praise? Praiser, praised, blamer, blamed are but one. And that one is you. This is the ultimate truth. Vedanta points this out. And now, if you ask Vedanta. You made everything false. There is nobody, bondage is false, spiritual practice is false, the seeker is false, liberated person is false, everything is

1:07:48 false. Then what about you, Mr. Vedanta? Are you true or false? I am translating as Mr. Vedanta because the swami originally said, who taught this, he said: Vedanta Babu Mister or Master Vedanta, what are you? True or false? And you know what Vedanta replies? I too am false. Then what is the truth? You are the truth. My only job was to show the falsity of the world, Jagat Mithyatva and point towards the truth which you always were. Having pointed that out, please excuse me now, release me, let me go. I am also false, don't hold on to me as the truth.

1:08:36 Even Advaita says, it's also a methodology to point out the truth, the one truth which you are. Once you have got that, then let this go also but warning, Vedanta leaves with a warning: before you realize the illusory nature of the world appearance, before you realize the falsity of the world, before that, if you consider me to be false, then you are trapped forever. You are trapped forever. You must use me to dissolve the world problem and leave yourself as the background, the Adhishthana the ground of that appearance, you are the only reality. This is the ultimate truth. I pray to the Lord that

1:09:21 may we get this intuition in our very life, make this breakthrough. When, once you walk through these doors and you look back upon the world and see it as yourself shining forth, the work is done. In Buddha's Edwin Arnold, the song, it is a beautiful poem he wrote: The Light of Asia, no more is birth, no more is death, no more shall delusion weave her charms, I have known thee, this delusion of the world. Thy rafters and the roof of magic and spells is broken forever. I see the truth now I am the awakened. I am

1:10:07 paraphrasing, his original words were much more beautiful. May we all get to say that, in this very life itself. Realize the truth which is already ours, it is already ours, it exists now in full measure, right now. We just have to see it. With prayers to Thakur, Maa, and Swamiji, with their blessings may we realize this great consummation, this great, this greatest of all adventures, may it come to a culmination in this very lifetime of ours. Om Shanti Shanti Shantih Hari Om Tat Sat Sri Ramakrishnarpanamastu