Shiva and Shakti, fully explained || Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Delhi (2022)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00 Sir, I have two questions. How do we understand the union of Shiva and Shakti from non-dual

00:09 Vedanta perspective? And the second question is how to surrender to Guru consciously?

00:17 These are symbols. Shakti represents everything in motion, everything that can be experienced,

00:28 everything that you can think of. Shakti represents the totality of that. If Shakti represents

00:38 everything in motion, one feels like asking why is everything in motion in the first place?

00:48 Why is everything moving? Let's begin with ourselves. Why does the mind move so much?

00:59 Why does the individual never rest anywhere? Why are you always thinking? Why do we always

01:08 want to reach somewhere? What is this quest for attainment, achievement? What is desire

01:19 that fuels all our movements? We move, it seems commonsensical, so that we may come

01:33 to a point where there is no further need for movement. Is that not so? No one moves

01:42 to remain moving. No one walks to remain walking. No one begins a journey with no end. So if

01:54 we are constantly in motion, both physically and mentally, that tells us something about

02:03 who we are. We are entities deeply in desire of something and that's why we are constantly

02:15 in motion. Otherwise who wants to move? Otherwise why would there be such unrest and disquiet

02:26 within? You would never find any person, even a non-human organism that is perfectly still,

02:41 whether physically or mentally. Consciousness moves. Consciousness moves and it moves in

02:55 search of a final destination, a place where there is no movement at all, a place where

03:04 there is no experience at all. The clock keeps ticking so that you can come to a certain

03:15 and ultimate timelessness. We value experiences so much, we want experiences of all kinds

03:25 so that we may come to a point where there is no further need for experience, where we

03:31 are beyond experience. We keep looking at faces, we keep meeting people, we keep entering

03:38 into relationships because we want to come to a point where there is no further need

03:45 to look at any face or form, where there is no need to further remember any names. That

03:55 point is symbolically represented by Shiva. Shakti is movement, Shiva is destination.

04:08 Those who are inclined towards having the right kind of movement worship Shakti. Those

04:19 who are inclined towards the destination, those who have fallen in love with the destination

04:26 itself, worship Shiva. The fact is that the two are inseparable. Are you getting it? Shakti

04:38 is the totality of all our experiences. Everything that is in space-time is contained in Shakti.

04:48 And space-time does not exist for itself. It exists for the sake of its dissolution.

04:57 Had it existed for its own sake, you would have succeeded in somehow at any point finding

05:06 contentment in it. But we do not know of any person who has managed to find ultimate contentment

05:14 in anything in the field of space-time. Is there anything in the entire universe that

05:21 can perfectly satisfy you? No. What does that tell you about your own consciousness? It

05:30 is looking for something beyond, something transcendental. Now that something transcendental

05:36 is not an object of thought. It is not something you can think of, ideate or conceptualize

05:45 or imagine. That which is beyond imagination, formless, nirakar, nirgun, attributeless,

05:56 that is called as Shiv. To give a form to Shiv is not a very proper thing. It is some

06:09 kind of human compulsion to always search for forms. Because we cannot think without

06:21 forms. We cannot think without names. So even to the formless we assign a form. Even to

06:28 the nameless we give a name. Irrespective of what we do, you must understand that Shiv

06:41 is the name of the final, nameless, formless, attributeless, shapeless, timeless truth.

06:54 Why are we calling Shiv as truth? Because by definition that which is changing, that

07:03 which does not remain what it appears to be, has to be called as false. There is nothing

07:08 in the world that remains what it appears to be. In fact, since things are changing

07:17 every moment and it takes time for you to perceive anything, therefore by the time you

07:27 perceive anything it has already changed. Has it not? That's the reason why the world

07:34 is called as false. It is not what it appears to be. Even stuff that we call as factual

07:44 is actually not factual. Because of the gap between the observed phenomena and the observer's

07:55 perception, there is a lag and that lag is sufficient for the observed entity to change.

08:05 Therefore what is the truth? Only something that which cannot be experienced. If it can

08:10 be experienced, it is false. You can understand it further to mean that the experiencer itself

08:19 is false. Why? Because the experiencer places so much trust in his experience. He says it

08:26 is the truth because I am experiencing it. It exists because I am seeing it. It was said

08:33 because I heard it. Because you heard it, it becomes the truth. Seriously? There are

08:41 so many of you here and I suppose I am one person saying one thing but I am so sure that

08:48 no less than 200 versions of what I am saying are being heard here right now. The experiencer

08:56 is false but the experiencer is just too self-confident. The experiencer says because I am testifying

09:07 through my ears that such and such thing has been said, therefore it has been said. I am

09:12 the proof. No, you are not the proof. Ask your neighbor. He has not heard the same things

09:19 as you have even in the last 15 minutes. Are you getting it? That is the reason why Satyam

09:29 Shivam Sundaram. Shiv is called the truth because anything that is within the purview

09:35 of experience cannot be fully trusted. Hello sir. Sir, I want to ask a question that what

09:45 is consciousness? So how can we say that a system is conscious or not? So whenever I

09:57 try to find an answer to this question, I, so people explain it very abstractly. So I

10:04 don't find any scientific explanation. So how can we say like there is a stone lying

10:12 on a footpath. Is it conscious or not? So mostly people say that living beings are conscious

10:22 whereas non-living beings are not. It is flow of energy. It is flow of energy through space

10:30 and time as Albert Einstein also said. So sir, I want you to explain it in a scientific

10:43 way. Anything that experiences is conscious. Consciousness is the entire domain of your

10:57 happiness, sorrow, likes, dislikes. Everything that is rising is in the domain of consciousness.

11:06 Everything that is falling is in the domain of consciousness. Who is the conscious one?

11:11 The one who experiences. How do you define experience? The urge to not remain who you

11:22 are. That's what makes an entity conscious. And the process of consciousness is via duality.

11:35 I do not want to remain who I am using what I am perceiving. I want to change so I want

11:42 to use this to change. This is the process of consciousness. The conscious entity is

11:48 the one that is experiencing this. Experiencing this in order to change. Does the stone have

12:01 a quest for liberation? It's a far-fetched thing to say. So even if you want to say that

12:11 every particle in the universe is conscious, then the level of consciousness is extremely

12:18 low. Who then is a highly conscious entity? The one who has a strong urge for liberation.

12:31 What is liberation? Everything that limits your experience. Mind you, a conscious entity

12:36 is an experiencing entity. Everything that limits your experience is a bondage. The one

12:43 who realizes that bondage, feels suffocated and rebels against it is a conscious entity.

12:55 There is no complication, no abstraction in it. When you want to rise higher, when you

13:04 just cannot remain the one you are, when you have a choice unlike a stone, then you are

13:12 conscious. You are lying somewhere, you are pushed aside, you have a choice. The stone

13:26 is pushed aside, the stone does not have a choice or even if it has a choice, it is lying

13:31 very very latent within the stone. The stone will one day become soil, the soil will one

13:38 day become a foetus, before that it will become food and the foetus will then turn into a

13:49 human being and that's when the stone will develop choice. So even if you want to assert

13:56 that the stone too is conscious, its consciousness is lying greatly dormant within itself. So

14:07 the stone will have to go through a lot, undertake a long journey to come to a point where it

14:14 can say it has an active choice. Till then nothing.

14:19 [Music]

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