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00:00 The 15 parts return into their foundations and all the gods pass into their proper Godheads.
00:19 The Self of Knowledge all become one in the Supreme and the Imperishable.
00:32 So what is the context?
00:36 What are we referring to here?
00:41 We are referring here to the ultimate state possible.
00:48 What is it that the mind finally wants?
01:04 What is it that happens rather stops happening once you are out of illusion and bondage?
01:23 The 15 parts pass into the whole.
01:31 The shloka says Kala, Panchadash Kala, 15 parts.
01:37 Kala in Sanskrit means parts as well.
01:51 The Upanishads have to be read in light of their context.
02:04 The student has come and the student is in illusion but eager.
02:18 He does not know but he wants to inquire.
02:26 So there is ignorance but with the spirit to inquire.
02:42 There is darkness but with a movement towards illumination.
02:54 And all that is being said by the seer is with a view to dispel false knowledge.
03:08 We have to remember that the Upanishads do not seek to bring the truth to us.
03:20 They proceed via negativa.
03:25 Their method is of ruthless negation.
03:37 They destroy the false.
03:41 They expose what is hollow and weak and hence fit to be rejected.
03:50 So what is it that gets rejected, destroyed or comes to an end as you progress through
04:03 your consciousness in an upward direction?
04:07 The 15 parts return to the whole.
04:12 Parts gain wholeness.
04:17 The inner fragmentation reduces.
04:23 The number 15 is not significant.
04:29 I could go into where the 15 kalas come from and all that but that is not significant at
04:36 all.
04:37 It could have been 14, it could have been 6, it could have been 70,000.
04:40 It doesn't matter.
04:45 Only three numbers actually exist in Vedanta.
04:51 0, 1 and the rest of them.
05:01 So when you are reading the Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita and you come across 8 or
05:12 42 or 7000, they all mean the same.
05:17 What do they refer to?
05:19 The many-ness evident in our sensory experience.
05:28 I am speaking to you today, maybe there are 50 of us here today.
05:35 This is a session in progress and yesterday there were some 80 of us here and the day
05:43 before that 300 plus.
05:48 It's the same.
05:50 It's the same from the point of view of Vedanta.
05:53 Vedanta simply says many.
05:58 Lao Tzu says the 1000 things.
06:02 He dismisses diversity with this one name, the 1000 things.
06:10 So you ask him what's there in the mind, he'll either say nothing or he'll say 1000 things.
06:17 He won't bother to count.
06:20 For us 8 is very different from 18.
06:24 For the knower, 8 is the same as 18.
06:29 Therefore he does not seek to reduce 18 to 8.
06:35 He seeks to reduce both 18 and 8 to 1.
06:40 What is that 1?
06:47 That's not the final thing.
06:50 That's not the ultimate unity.
06:53 That 1 is ego tendency, the mother aham vritti.
07:01 All things arise from the 1 and that 1 is not Brahm.
07:11 That 1 is the mother ego tendency because nothing arises from Brahm.
07:25 Brahm does not give birth or rise to anything.
07:32 The truth does not father the world.
07:40 Because of our ignorance, truth itself appears as the world.
07:47 The world is not different from the truth.
07:55 So why do we have the eyes to perceive rightly?
08:02 So all things boil down to just the 1 thing.
08:08 What is that 1 thing?
08:12 The perceiving entity, the ego tendency.
08:16 I have the tendency to perceive and because I have the tendency to perceive, sometimes
08:21 I perceive 8, sometimes 18, sometimes 8000.
08:25 All things are my own experience.
08:32 All things are to me.
08:37 Things exist.
08:38 Don't believe in the superficial objectivity.
08:44 Ask who is the subject to whom these things exist.
08:51 Something great happened.
08:52 Immediately ask to whom this exists.
08:57 For whom?
08:58 Because nothing exists in isolation.
09:02 Nothing exists independently of the perceiver, the seer.
09:08 To think that something exists independent of everything is to give it the status of
09:14 truth and that will lead to suffering.
09:22 If something exists, it exists for a particular somebody.
09:28 Otherwise it does not.
09:32 Therefore the same thing is different things to different people.
09:39 Because there is nothing called a thing.
09:42 There is just the experience of the thing.
09:47 And there is the mighty experiencer sitting within all of us, intent on experiencing diversity.
09:58 It cannot experience 1 thing.
10:01 If there is just 1 thing, there can be no experience.
10:04 If all is white, can you experience even white?
10:08 Obviously if all is white, you cannot experience red, green, blue, violet.
10:11 So that is discounted.
10:13 But if all is white, can you experience even white?
10:19 If all is white, can you experience even white?
10:23 What is the color of this background?
10:25 Brown.
10:26 What if I wear brown?
10:27 What will happen?
10:28 What will happen?
10:29 Kamlesh will not like it.
10:34 Kamlesh will just not like it if I wear brown on a brown background.
10:40 Why will he not like it?
10:44 What does that mean?
10:46 To experience, you require at least 2.
10:50 Brown and brown will lead to obfuscation of experience.
10:55 You will not be able to experience anything.
10:59 On top of that, if my entire face is brown, including the hair, the audience will actually
11:05 not see anything.
11:07 It will only see a certain brownness.
11:10 You can see a thing only when its opposite is available as a backdrop.
11:17 Otherwise perception cannot happen.
11:19 So if you are the experiencer, it becomes a compulsion on you to experience diversity.
11:28 There can be no experience sans diversity.
11:32 You cannot experience happiness if you have not tasted sadness.
11:37 There is no experience that is not non-dual, that is not dualistic.
11:45 In other words, there is no non-dual experience.
11:55 So the mother ego tendency that says I exist, for its own survival continuation, projects
12:07 a huge diversity.
12:11 And that diversity allows it to remain engaged.
12:17 That diversity allows time to exist.
12:24 Because now you can change your subject.
12:27 This exists and that exists.
12:30 Today I am related to him.
12:36 Tomorrow I am related to her.
12:40 What has come into being?
12:43 Change hence time.
12:47 If diversity is not there, time cannot be there.
12:53 Time is therefore a compulsion upon the mother experiencer, the one.
13:11 Wholeness is not oneness.
13:18 That is what differentiates Vedanta from the other philosophies.
13:27 They stop at one.
13:31 There has to be somebody at the top.
13:34 All right, we can afford diversity at the bottom.
13:42 We can have a lot of things on the earth.
13:44 But let there sit some one particular controller on the clouds, in the sky.
13:56 They suffocate without the one.
13:59 Vedanta dismisses even the one.
14:01 Vedanta says even the one is fictitious.
14:06 Because if all this that you see here is just dualistic, one thing exists only as a contrast
14:18 to the other thing, then the mother of all these things too has to be fiction.
14:30 If the 7000 things are all fictitious, then the mother of those 7000 things too is fictitious.
14:39 Therefore the one means nothing.
14:44 One God, one Eshwar, none of that in Vedanta.
14:50 No.
14:52 Vedanta will never ask you to swear allegiance to the one.
15:02 No.
15:04 Just as you can think of 8 and 18 and 8000, you can equally think of one, can't you?
15:15 So 8, 18, 8000 and one, they are all objects in the mind.
15:25 How can you call a mental object as beyond the mind?
15:36 Therefore the one is to be given no special cred.
15:50 One is same as two.
15:55 One cannot even exist without the second.
16:08 How about zero?
16:09 Even with zero there is a bit of a problem.
16:15 Zero is technically right if it means nothing at all.
16:18 But the moment you say nothing, zero, again you create a mental image, a fiction rises,
16:30 a story starts building up.
16:34 Therefore Vedanta says not many, not one, zero is risky, hence advait.
16:57 You get this?
16:59 Not many because the many are just figments of my own inner compulsions.
17:14 I see differences because I have a stake in differences.
17:19 If I do not have a stake in differences, they don't matter much to me.
17:35 You must remember that whatever you see or experience has your own desire at its root.
17:52 We just don't see anything.
17:58 If we are seeing, sensing, hearing, experiencing, perceiving, there is desire involved.
18:09 Desire begins not only after the stimulus hits the senses but actually in a deeper way
18:23 Desire causes the stimulus.
18:32 This much should be obvious that if you look at a nice pair of jeans somewhere, it can
18:40 arouse desire.
18:44 So this is self-evident that stimulus provokes desire.
18:51 But what we must also meditate on is that unless you have a latent desire, you will
19:00 not even perceive a pair of jeans.
19:02 This is more difficult to grasp but stay with this.
19:08 You will not come upon anything if it does not hold meaning for you.
19:17 It will just not blip in your inner radar even if you factually come upon it.
19:28 If something makes its presence felt in your inner world, it is because you were already
19:37 prepared to have its presence felt inside you.
19:47 If you are not prepared, the thing will not even exist for you.
19:53 It will just come and leave as nothing.
20:02 This has very deep implications.
20:05 It means we are responsible.
20:08 It means we cannot play ever the victim card.
20:13 If stuff is happening, it is happening with some kind of a latent consent.
20:25 I know we are walking into choppy waters with this because next we will be asked that if
20:32 a fellow has a heinous crime committed on him, did there pre-exist a latent consent?
20:45 And if it did, then how do we have courts of law?
20:52 How do we hold somebody guilty?
20:54 All these questions arise.
20:55 We will get to them.
20:58 But please consider this first of all.
21:00 We are not talking of events here.
21:03 We are talking of suffering here and suffering is always subjective.
21:10 No external event can provoke a response of suffering from you if you were not prepared
21:20 for that event.
21:23 Prepared not in the sense of readiness, prepared in the sense of vulnerability.
21:32 If you were not vulnerable to that one thing, that one thing could not have elicited a response
21:39 of suffering from you.
21:43 It could have caused you damage in the physical sense.
21:46 Maybe your money is robbed away, maybe your arm is hacked off.
21:53 Those things can happen surely without your consent.
21:58 There is so much in the physical world that is just random.
22:03 Suffering is not random.
22:07 Suffering is not random.
22:09 Vedant is a darshan of ultimate responsibility, therefore ultimate empowerment.
22:21 You have the power to dictate your inner conditions.
22:29 You are not a hapless thing being thrown around by random forces of chance.
22:42 Things don't happen to you.
22:47 You are an equal participant.
22:50 Rather you are the progenitor.
22:55 And if you are that, then why do you play the weakling?
23:06 Why do you ask questions in such servitude?
23:23 Why do we believe that we are victims of circumstances?
23:43 This was about the number 15.
23:55 They are all in me, through me, from me.
24:02 And this me that is projecting this great diversity has to ultimately dissolve into
24:12 Advaith.
24:15 If it remains, diversity will remain.
24:18 Diversity will mean false choice and that will mean I'll never be at rest.
24:33 Now what does the Rishi mean here when he says that the parts all return into the whole?
24:45 Being fragmented is our suffering.
24:51 And we all live in fragmented, that is, divided conditions.
25:00 We are not one.
25:02 Just as the world outside is many, we are many.
25:09 Not without reason.
25:14 The manyness of the world creates many imprints on our minds.
25:24 And those many imprints all operate from their own centers.
25:32 The many things outside of us that we perceive become the many masters that rule us.
25:44 And each of those masters has a certain province within us.
25:50 One part of us is controlled by the urge for profits.
25:56 One part of us is controlled by the husband or the wife.
26:03 One part of us is devoted to a particular ideology.
26:09 I'm a socialist.
26:13 And these parts just cannot agree with each other.
26:22 The relationship one has with his occupation just does not sit well with the relationship
26:29 one has with his religious inclination.
26:38 But they all exist within us.
26:39 They exist within us and they quarrel with each other.
26:44 We are the battleground.
26:47 We are being slaughtered daily.
26:54 We are not the same entity when situations change.
27:03 And our changing existence is not an autonomous response to the change in circumstances.
27:20 When circumstances change, we are forced into submissive and corresponding change.
27:34 These are two very different things.
27:37 Circumstances keep changing all the time.
27:39 One thing is circumstances change and I retain my autonomy.
27:46 What is that autonomy called?
27:50 Atma.
27:53 That remains.
27:54 I don't stray too far away from it.
27:59 Circumstances change and my response to them is one of freedom.
28:06 I do change when circumstances change.
28:09 But it's not as if I'm a slave to circumstances.
28:12 That is one thing.
28:14 But that's not the way most of us operate.
28:17 When circumstances change, they beat us into changing as per their demand.
28:31 When in front of the idol in the temple, we are one being.
28:37 In front of the boss in the office, we are just another being.
28:43 It's not as if choice is being exercised.
28:46 It is a compulsion.
28:49 This is called fragmentation.
28:51 This is what is being referred to in the verse.
28:54 The 15 parts.
28:55 We said it could have been 15,000 because there do exist not 15 but indeed 15,000 parts
29:04 within us.
29:07 And those parts are just not good.
29:16 How do you feel being with the boss in the temple?
29:20 Do you see the conflict?
29:26 It's easy when you are in front of the boss and you are wearing a mask.
29:33 It's affordable when you are in front of the deity and wearing another mask.
29:41 But life loves fun.
29:45 Life will create a situation when you are in front of the deity with the boss.
29:52 Which mask will you wear now?
29:55 Even if physically such a situation does not arise, internally such a situation always
30:01 exists because we have just too many masters commanding us, holding our reins.
30:13 They have to all converge into one.
30:22 And when they converge into one, the one just cannot stand.
30:30 It dissolves.
30:31 It goes away.
30:36 Do not have multiple masters.
30:39 Do not be slave to situations.
30:46 Do not be thrown around by circumstances.
30:50 That's the message of Vedanta.
30:57 It's not very skillful or clever of us to wear a thousand hats at a thousand different
31:07 places.
31:08 Do we think so?
31:13 In front of elders and the family, we live and behave one way.
31:23 In front of somebody you are wooing, or your wife or your fiancé, you are just another
31:33 personality.
31:34 Are you not?
31:35 And when we do that, we think it's very clever of us.
31:39 Look how I fooled both of them.
31:45 Granny thinks I'm such an obedient and ideal child.
31:51 Well behaved, thinking nothing of the bad things in the world.
32:05 My girlfriend, in front of her, I'm the sexy stud.
32:18 And we think we have been able to manage both of them.
32:25 From this kind of thinking arise phrases like work-life balance and such things.
32:33 People think that their profession is one thing, their personal life is another thing,
32:39 and there is no continuity.
32:41 And when there is no continuity, there can be no harmony.
32:48 One thing I've always advised those who are on the verge of choosing a career, or
32:57 even those who are deep into their careers, let there be no dissonance between who you
33:03 are and what you do.
33:06 Your work is who you are.
33:08 Do not say that you work just for money and that your real life starts after work.
33:15 Or is it possible that you are a very affectionate and soft father to your kids, and you work
33:32 in a firm that slaughters kids of animals to sell packaged meat?
33:44 There would be a bloodbath within.
33:59 Let the deed reflect the doer, and let the doer reflect the truth.
34:16 In other words, the ego should follow the truth, the I-sense, the I-identity should
34:30 not be deeply attached to anything.
34:34 It should simply be an inquirer, a seeker, a lover of truth.
34:45 And if you say you love the truth, then let that reflect in your deeds.
34:54 Do not assume too many identities, and even the ones that you do assume, let them sit
35:04 very lightly on your shoulders.
35:08 No identity is your real identity.
35:20 Have a truthful identity.
35:24 And once you have that, if that is how you internally know yourself and think of yourself,
35:32 then let that reflect in all that you do.
35:36 Do not create fragments.
35:39 It's because those fragments hurt us so badly that the Rishi is saying that in the
35:46 state of liberation, those fragments disappear.
35:51 Had those fragments been good for us, there was no need for them to disappear, but they
35:58 must go away.
36:02 The seeker is 30 years old, she is a professor, she is asking, "Sir, the ability to see
36:09 that we are in the same situation as many others before us, even though it might appear
36:16 different can save us from committing the same mistake as others.
36:22 In this sense, reducing diversity or reducing 8000 to 8 is beneficial.
36:30 Then why does Vedanta say that 8 and 8000 are not different?"
36:36 Because even the 8 are just one.
36:38 If you want to categorize, why create 8 different categories?
36:47 Even the 8 are just one, so straight away come to 1.
36:51 And being stuck at 8 is just as bad as being stuck at 8000.
36:57 How does it matter where you are stuck?
37:01 You are stuck.
37:02 There are all these vehicles on the road.
37:07 You can neatly classify them into 8 categories, can't you?
37:12 All the vehicles on the road can be classified into 8 categories.
37:21 Now which of these categories would you want to be run down under?
37:28 They are all one.
37:36 You are hit by one of those 8000 vehicles, what happens to you?
37:44 You are gone.
37:50 You classify them into 8 categories.
37:55 The result is just the same.
38:00 They are one.
38:04 They are one and all of them are to be avoided.
38:14 Avoid in the sense of not inviting a collision.
38:23 See, we are all system makers and systems we do make.
38:39 Having made systems, we think those systems are final.
38:42 No, they are not final.
38:50 You have to go beyond every inner system that you create.
38:57 You can say people are of 4 kinds and you can classify the entire 800 crore people of
39:03 the world into 4.
39:09 It's clever but not very useful when it comes to liberation.
39:14 Thank you.
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