Beyond thought and thoughtlessness || Acharya Prashant, on Vivekachudamani (2018)

Acharya Prashant

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Transcript

00:00:00The verse refers to that which is eternal and omnipresent, all-pervading and supremely

00:00:08subtle, which is without exterior or interior, which is the oneself.

00:00:17By fully realizing this, one becomes free from sin, free from blemish and immortal.

00:00:26So Sandeep queries, that the truth is that which is not even in the intellect, but which

00:00:41rather is the essence of the intellect.

00:00:45In other words, the self, the truth, is the intelligence in the intellect.

00:00:53Kindly explain.

00:01:04The intellect, the whole of the internal machinery, just obeys.

00:01:26It has no freedom of its own.

00:01:36The question is, who is being obeyed?

00:01:46Whom is the obedience being offered?

00:01:56Either the mechanical construction itself can be obeyed, either the dynamics of Prakriti

00:02:10can be obeyed, which would simply mean that the machine is obeying itself.

00:02:24Machine is obeying its design, its construction, its configuration, or the machine can be empowered

00:02:39by, illumined by, driven by, enlivened by, something beyond itself.

00:02:56That is the question.

00:02:58No question ever asked is more important than this.

00:03:05How is the machinery being driven?

00:03:14How is the hand being operated?

00:03:22How is the voice being uttered?

00:03:34Who is, in other words, one's master?

00:03:44The legs don't move by themselves.

00:03:48Who is guiding them?

00:03:51Who is pushing or pulling them?

00:03:54Who is breathing life into them?

00:03:59And if these appear to you as gross organs of the body, then go to that which most people

00:04:09take as their subtlest form, thought.

00:04:20From where are your thoughts arising?

00:04:24To whom are your thoughts loyal?

00:04:31Please, don't let the fantastic notion of free will hinder your capacity to observe

00:04:49the whole process of will.

00:04:57Thoughts just don't arise on their own, neither do you choose them.

00:05:06You choose on the basis of your thoughts.

00:05:11All your choices are based on your thoughts.

00:05:16Or do you choose your thoughts?

00:05:20Anybody here who has choice over his thoughts, even if you say you have a choice, did you

00:05:28have a choice over this choice?

00:05:33Whenever thought would look at itself honestly, it would find that it is subservient to someone,

00:05:50it is obeying someone.

00:05:59Who is being obeyed?

00:06:02Who is sending your thoughts?

00:06:06Who is dispatching your thoughts?

00:06:10The Kena Upanishad puts it exquisitely.

00:06:17By whom, by whom, Kena, the word itself is beautiful.

00:06:24That query is from where the Upanishad draws its name.

00:06:28By whom is the mind prepared?

00:06:37Kena Prishita, who has sent it?

00:06:47You have not sent it.

00:06:49Get rid of that arrogant assumption.

00:06:52It is not yours.

00:06:56The very thought that thought is yours is merely a thought.

00:07:02It does not go beyond itself.

00:07:09Who is the father of your thought?

00:07:20Thought can arise from two places, either the inbuilt need to continue with and secure

00:07:33the mechanisms of Prakriti or the deepest urge for freedom that you usually

00:07:49don't identify with.

00:07:57Mostly in the history of mankind, thought has been a servant only to the inbuilt physical

00:08:14and mental tendencies.

00:08:21We think how to secure ourselves, we think about the future, we think about the past.

00:08:32We keep thinking in terms of space and time, myself and others.

00:08:39All thought requires an object and we keep thinking of everything that is worldly, that

00:08:45is material.

00:08:46In fact, that's the nature and limit of thought.

00:08:55It cannot delve into something that is not bounded, not physical, not worldly, not deceptive.

00:09:17Intellect by itself, therefore, would want just one thing.

00:09:24The continuation of itself and the machinery that upholds it.

00:09:36It's a self-driven car.

00:09:39It's a Google car that knows only how to go to the fuel pump and to the service station.

00:09:51It will not take its master anywhere, it will keep serving just its own ends.

00:10:00It is pre-programmed just to keep existing and not reach anywhere.

00:10:08Keep existing, keep hanging in a Trishanku-like state, suspended in an infinite and unstable equilibrium.

00:10:36The whole thing never comes to a conclusion.

00:10:45Even when something appears stable, it is stable only for a moment.

00:10:54And the game keeps continuing.

00:10:56That's what the intellect is made for, to continue.

00:11:01And to continue means keep existing in time, keep thinking of the future, remain either

00:11:14hopeful of the future or scared of the future.

00:11:22Never settle down into meditation.

00:11:31Never go beyond fear.

00:11:34That's the nature of the intellect.

00:11:37Please see where the intellect has come from.

00:11:44This entire apparatus that we call as the body is a result of physical evolution.

00:11:54Now evolution is not a term that Vedanta uses, but it's a useful term.

00:12:04If you go to Vedanta, it will say, Prakrit is Trigunatmak, that's all.

00:12:19Time has resulted in this machinery, that's what evolution is.

00:12:26You keep passing through time, you keep passing through time, you keep passing through time

00:12:30and that has resulted in this physical form and mental tendencies.

00:12:36Time is what this form, this structure, this system, this instrument is all about.

00:12:48Because it is a function and product of time, so it is deeply attached to time.

00:13:00All that it has is coming from the past.

00:13:08And therefore all that it can think of is the future and that future that this system

00:13:18can envisage is nothing but a pale shadow of the past, a pale but transformed and decorated

00:13:26shadow.

00:13:29Nobody ever thought of anything new for the future even though apparently one always wants

00:13:36a new future.

00:13:44So that's what one exists for.

00:13:50Isn't that boring?

00:13:56To be a product of the stream of past and to exist in time only to move into a future

00:14:05that is nothing but a poor duplicate of the past.

00:14:14Is that joyful?

00:14:16No.

00:14:17And that's why scriptures, Vedanta, keep referring to Anand as not only one's goal

00:14:32but actually one's nature.

00:14:35It is to remind you that boredom and frustration are not necessary, Anand is possible.

00:14:43And if Anand is not there then man's life is nothing but boredom.

00:14:51How often can you repeat the past and that's what we keep doing.

00:15:00I ask you a basic question, do you want anything for the future that you have no prior experience

00:15:06of?

00:15:10And my experience does not mean that you have actually gone through it.

00:15:15If you have actually gone through it, it's a physical experience.

00:15:17But even if you have heard of it, it is an experience.

00:15:21Even if you have imagined it, it is an experience.

00:15:24Can you want something without having ever imagined it?

00:15:29Can you want something without having read of it or heard of it?

00:15:34So all that you want for the so-called new future is actually stale.

00:15:41That's not exciting at all, is it?

00:15:47It is depressing.

00:15:50And that is why depression is such a common ailment.

00:15:53When there is nothing new in life, when the eternal new is absent, then all that you get

00:16:03is depression.

00:16:13Man is adept at deceiving himself.

00:16:24He transforms, he reconfigures and then calls it creativity.

00:16:33Reconfiguration or transformation is not creativity.

00:16:41Movement along the same axis, progress in the same dimension is not creativity.

00:16:50The new, the creative has come into your life only when you have gone beyond your existing

00:16:59dimensions, beyond your existing basis of thought.

00:17:09The basis itself has to be violated, transcended.

00:17:17Only then you have created and there can be no newness without creativity.

00:17:25We have repetition, not creativity.

00:17:29And that's what the intellect is deft at, repetition.

00:17:34Repetition in fantastic forms.

00:17:37Repetition in forms that appear to be new but are actually not.

00:17:46Man gets attracted to woman, that was happening 10,000 years back, that's happening even today.

00:17:56Man fights man, that was happening 10,000 years back, that is happening even today.

00:18:03Then you had bows and arrows, today you have ICBMs, how does it matter?

00:18:08Has something really changed?

00:18:11Nothing.

00:18:12It's all so gloomy and dull.

00:18:19Man was born and man would age and after ageing man would die.

00:18:26That was happening then, that's happening even today, what's new?

00:18:31And you know all that because all that information is contained in your system because the body

00:18:39is arising from there, so the body already knows that and hence when you go to the body

00:18:47and tell the body and by body when I say body, read it as body-mind, these two are

00:18:53not really distinct.

00:18:58So when you go to the body, the tan, the ghat and tell it, I found a woman, superficially

00:19:04the body gets excited but deep within it keeps crying because it is thirsty for the new.

00:19:16And no man is new, no skin is new, no desire is new, no woman is new.

00:19:25When you are not new, how can anything related to you be new?

00:19:33You have been there since the advent of time.

00:19:42You have fallen in love a million times and your heart has been broken a million plus

00:19:46one times.

00:19:52And you know all that, you do not consciously remember that by way of memory but you know

00:19:57all that, all those experiences are contained in the cells, all those experiences are flowing

00:20:06as blood in the body.

00:20:15You know all that, therefore no man, no woman, no riches, no glory, no prestige, no accomplishment

00:20:21really ever gives you that which you are looking for.

00:20:33You keep bringing good news to yourself but no good news ever really fully satisfies or

00:20:41does it?

00:20:45Has any piece of good news ever been good enough to bring you to a closure, to stop

00:20:57your eternal search, ever had any such good news?

00:21:03And if you look at all the things that you call as bad in your life, you will find that

00:21:11they are inevitably linked to the supposedly good things.

00:21:22Badness is nothing but fake goodness.

00:21:30You brought in something in your life that was not really good but appeared good.

00:21:35Over time the appearance gets weaned off and the badness is exposed.

00:21:43In fact it is not bad at all, neither is it good nor is it bad because you called it good.

00:21:50So later on when your expectations are frustrated you start calling it bad.

00:21:58You brought a man or woman into your life with huge expectations, obviously that person

00:22:05cannot fulfill those expectations.

00:22:09So later on and often very soon the goodness turns into badness.

00:22:18The fact of the matter is that the other person is neither good nor bad.

00:22:24It's because you raised high hopes that now you are yelling and howling.

00:22:42And if the intellect is not illumined that's what it will keep doing.

00:22:47Please get this very clearly.

00:22:52Left to itself that's all that this internal mechanism, the antahkaran knows.

00:23:02Keep moving within its own limits, boundaries.

00:23:14Keep moving within the same dimension while strangely hoping to attain something beyond

00:23:24this dimension.

00:23:34It's like trying to attain freedom by ceaselessly wandering inside this room.

00:23:44This incessant movement has been called by various names.

00:23:55The most common of them being rebirth, the cycle of birth and death, symbolically which

00:24:06has been presented as man hopping from one of the millions of unis to other.

00:24:22All that is symbolic but extremely enlightening.

00:24:27Understand that.

00:24:28Sometimes you are a rabbit hoping that rabbitness will redeem you and rabbitness does not redeem

00:24:39you because rabbitness itself is another configuration of the three gunas of Prakriti.

00:24:50It is nothing new.

00:24:51It is just another configuration.

00:24:52The configuration has changed, the basis has not changed, the variables are x, y, z, sat,

00:25:04raj, tam.

00:25:06The combination keeps changing.

00:25:08It is ax plus by plus cz, abc may keep changing, x, y, z are not changing and by having different

00:25:18values assigned to a, b and c, you keep thinking that you are moving into the new.

00:25:29It's like a cook coming up with a new dish.

00:25:34The fact is that the basis are still the same.

00:25:41It's the same wheat, the same salt and the same vegetable.

00:25:48Nothing else has been cooked.

00:25:49All our life we keep cooking new things hoping that they are really new.

00:25:57They are not.

00:25:58The stomach knows that they are not new.

00:26:01The eyes can be deceived, the stomach cannot be deceived.

00:26:05When the stuff reaches the stomach, the stomach says same old wheat.

00:26:10Now they are calling it cake.

00:26:14Yesterday it was just flat bread, now it is cake.

00:26:19And fantastic names we keep giving to our combinations.

00:26:27This is a new dish and you say yes it is new.

00:26:31What is new in that?

00:26:33Rabbitness does not satisfy you.

00:26:37So you become an elephant.

00:26:38You say rabbit was too small and too soft.

00:26:43Maybe I need to be sturdy, robust and big.

00:26:46Now elephantness also fails to quench your thirst.

00:26:50So you move to the next uni and now you become east and then you become a fungus and then

00:27:00you turn into sand and then water and then a mountain and then a cloud and then a bird.

00:27:10Why are you moving from state to state?

00:27:14You are moving from state to state because the intellect is wandering in its own dimension,

00:27:22in its own domain, carrying the futile hope that liberation is possible within this domain.

00:27:31Within this domain lies the rabbit, lies the elephant, lies the ant, lies the fungus, lies

00:27:36the mountain, lies the water.

00:27:39All phenomenal objects, all the perceptible world lies within this domain.

00:27:51All that can be experienced lies within this domain and we keep moving from experience

00:27:57to experience, from physical state to physical state, from mental state to mental state hoping

00:28:03to achieve liberation within this state.

00:28:09That is not going to happen.

00:28:11But the intellect as we said is designed to keep hoping that it is going to materialize

00:28:16very soon.

00:28:17The intellect and hope go together.

00:28:22Intellect is afraid of despair that is one engine and the intellect is fond of hope that

00:28:30is its second engine.

00:28:33It's a twin engine aircraft that never takes off.

00:28:44Despair and hope.

00:28:47Continuously taxiing on the runway in its own dimension.

00:28:52It can never take off into the other dimension.

00:28:59So you may keep thinking, thinking and thinking.

00:29:04Nothing materializes.

00:29:05Guru Nanak Dev put it extremely succinctly.

00:29:12Sikhs recite that every morning.

00:29:16Keep thinking, keep thinking.

00:29:33That which you want is not going to come to you through the mechanism of soch.

00:29:43And the intellect can do nothing but think.

00:29:47And we are so confident of our thoughts.

00:29:55That's the ego for you.

00:29:57Extremely confident of itself.

00:30:00One fellow came to me and said, you know I am very under confident.

00:30:10I said no I don't see that you are under confident.

00:30:16He said no no I am under confident.

00:30:19I said but you have come to me.

00:30:20You believe me to be the guide, the expert.

00:30:23I am saying I don't see you as under confident.

00:30:27He says I am telling you I am under confident.

00:30:32I said but believe me friend, nowhere do I see under confidence in you.

00:30:40He says I am so confident that I am under confident.

00:30:45That's the intellect for you.

00:30:49He didn't exactly say that.

00:30:50That would have been too dramatic.

00:30:51But you get the gist, right?

00:30:52Even when we say that we do not know, we are confident that we know that we do not know.

00:31:06Even when we say we are under confident, we are confident that we are under confident.

00:31:16A fellow comes and says I am lost.

00:31:19Try telling him that he is not.

00:31:22The fellow comes to you and says I am lost.

00:31:27Try telling him he is not.

00:31:29He will say but I am telling you definitely that I am lost.

00:31:43Do you want to let the intellect be a prisoner to itself?

00:31:54Do you want that?

00:31:57And left to itself, the intellect behaves in very self-harming ways.

00:32:13It tries to act independent and keeps suffering.

00:32:20It does not want to take support.

00:32:22It does not want to admit that it needs the hand of something, somebody beyond itself.

00:32:33Do you want to let the intellect be as it is?

00:32:44If you want to let the intellect be as it is, then refer to the new born child.

00:32:55He has no social conditioning.

00:32:59He is just born and still his apparatus is fully active.

00:33:10That which you call as individuality and that which I call as mere personality is already

00:33:17active in the new born.

00:33:22Even in his or her first hour of birth, he has likes and dislikes.

00:33:31Those who can see will see that twins are not the same even when they are just two hours

00:33:45old.

00:33:46Mothers are able to differentiate.

00:33:49They see, they say this one is more noisy.

00:33:56This one relatively stays calmer.

00:34:04Even before birth, mothers know some babies are restless, even boisterous.

00:34:14They keep kicking around in the womb and some are relatively peaceful.

00:34:24The personality is there, the conditioning of the intellect is there and if you leave

00:34:32the intellect free, which is not really freedom, but if you leave the intellect to itself then

00:34:40nothing but its own pre-existing conditioning is going to operate.

00:34:53That brings me to another fallacy.

00:34:56The fallacy is that man is born pure and the society corrupts him.

00:35:01That is not true at all.

00:35:04Society corrupts only the corruptible.

00:35:09Society corrupts man because man is born corruptible.

00:35:16Society corrupts man because man is already not only corruptible but actually corrupted

00:35:23when he is born.

00:35:24Actually to be corruptible is to be corrupted.

00:35:27Were you not corrupted, how could you be corruptible?

00:35:36Even the newborn child is already corrupted.

00:35:43Corrupted and sometimes irretrievably corrupted.

00:35:50That is why Buddhahood is so rare.

00:35:57As one is born, one is born as a bundle of tendencies, pre-existing tendencies coming

00:36:06from Prakriti or evolution.

00:36:14That's what the intellect is.

00:36:16A product of evolution having the sole desire to perpetuate itself in time, coming from

00:36:25time and wanting to extend into time.

00:36:30And that is why, now you would see, man has a great desire to procreate.

00:36:37All this lustfulness, all this inclination towards sex is nothing but the desire to continue

00:36:49extending in time.

00:36:54You are coming from time and you want to extend into time, hence sex.

00:37:02The body fully well knows it won't be there after a while but it wants immortality.

00:37:11It seeks immortality in a very crooked way.

00:37:15It does not seek immortality by going beyond time, by moving into the Akal.

00:37:25It seeks immortality by prolonging time, extending time, which is a very deceptive way and also

00:37:37an obviously futile way of seeking immortality.

00:37:41Isn't that the description you often read in the myths and fables?

00:37:49Because somebody is immortal, hence he is living since 10,000 years.

00:37:55That's the intellect's definition of immortality, to live for 10,000 years or 10 million years

00:38:00or whatever.

00:38:01Extend, extend, extend and extend what?

00:38:07Extend one's own conditioning.

00:38:10Repeat, repeat and repeat.

00:38:19That's what the intellect wants.

00:38:20You will not be satisfied.

00:38:23And because you won't be satisfied by what the intellect is offering you, that's why

00:38:29those who could know, those who could see, the seers, they told you unequivocally, you

00:38:42are not the intellect.

00:38:47Because the aim and intention of the intellect does not match with, tally with, your contentment.

00:39:01The intellect is wanting something for its own furtherance.

00:39:05And even if the intellect gets what it wants, it does not satisfy you.

00:39:11So you are not the intellect.

00:39:18But we identify deeply with the intellect and therefore, we suffer.

00:39:30Please understand this.

00:39:33You are riding a cab, let's say.

00:39:36You're riding a cab.

00:39:41And the cab driver would be paid by the mile.

00:39:48So he has to increase the mileage.

00:39:52He has to maximize the number of kilometers for which the cab has been driven, right?

00:40:00That's the basis of his payment.

00:40:04You want to reach a point that is in front of you.

00:40:14Your destination is close, straightforward, obvious here.

00:40:25But you have turned yourself dependent on the cab driver.

00:40:32Now, the objectives of the cab driver do not tally with your objectives.

00:40:41It is in your best interest to move straight away and reach the destination.

00:40:46That's what you want.

00:40:50But the cab driver has his own plans.

00:40:53He has been configured differently.

00:40:56His system moves differently.

00:40:58So what does he do?

00:41:00He takes you on a long convoluted detour.

00:41:06And a journey that should have instantaneously finished keeps extending infinitely.

00:41:16You are you.

00:41:19And the cab and its driver are the intellect.

00:41:24Do not trust the intellect to take you to your destination.

00:41:27The intellect only knows to fulfill its own interests.

00:41:35You are being taken for a ride.

00:41:41That's what human life is all about.

00:41:44TakeMyTrip.com.

00:41:53You should have reached home long back and you are still meandering, wandering.

00:42:01And the cab driver is smiling.

00:42:03His meter is ticking.

00:42:10You are trusting the wrong machine.

00:42:15The machine has no recognition for your interests.

00:42:20The machine has no empathy for you.

00:42:24In fact, the machine is helpless.

00:42:26Even if the machine wants to help you, it cannot.

00:42:33Don't trust that machine.

00:42:35That machine is what you think yourself to be.

00:42:40That machine is what you are not.

00:42:48If you want your welfare, don't trust yourself.

00:42:52That's the best you can do.

00:43:00You are sitting in the cab that is you.

00:43:05One has been referred to as the false you and the other one as the real you.

00:43:13It is such an unfortunate situation, actually comical.

00:43:25The false is being relied upon to reach the true.

00:43:32How can the false take you to the truth?

00:43:45That's not going to happen, but man has been doing that, trusting that, as we said since

00:43:53the beginning of time.

00:44:04And now you would see why the word surrender is so magnificently important.

00:44:19The cab driver has to surrender to the objectives of the rider.

00:44:30The intellect has to surrender to the destination.

00:44:34The intellect cannot continue with its own goals, interests and mechanisms.

00:44:42Left to itself, the intellect will never, I am repeating this, will never take you home.

00:44:48Though it will keep promising and it's a very expensive promise, remember.

00:44:54The more you are trusting the cab, the more the meter is ticking.

00:44:59We keep paying for the ride all our lives without ever reaching home.

00:45:05That's what human life is all about.

00:45:08Just keep making payments.

00:45:10Isn't that exactly what we are doing every day?

00:45:15We are just paying, paying and paying without really ever achieving peace, silence, contentment

00:45:24in return.

00:45:27Payments we have made enough.

00:45:35We have paid through our blood.

00:45:38We have paid with our life.

00:45:44And we have been cheated and looted.

00:45:47The funny part is, the tragic part is, nobody outside of ourselves has come to rob us or

00:45:56loot us.

00:45:57We have been cheated and deceived by ourselves.

00:46:05You are the rider.

00:46:06You are the driver.

00:46:07Now, where are you going to complain?

00:46:12You are riding your own cab.

00:46:15You are the one who decided to trust that driver and the driver is sly.

00:46:24The driver is not even sly.

00:46:26The driver is just a machine.

00:46:29The driver does not know any better.

00:46:33Let's not call the driver bad names.

00:46:39The intellect is helpless, powerless, programmed, designed.

00:46:48It does not intend to harm you.

00:46:53If you are riding a bicycle and hope to take off, is the bicycle trying to deceive you?

00:47:02It's your foolishness that you trusted the wrong vehicle.

00:47:07And we are trusting just the wrong vehicle.

00:47:11Just the wrong vehicle.

00:47:12This vehicle is useful if you have to go to some place worldly.

00:47:19If you have to go to some place in this dimension, then this vehicle is useful.

00:47:26You want to solve a complex mathematical equation, the vehicle is useful, the intellect is useful.

00:47:33You want to add, subtract.

00:47:37You want to analyze, you want to differentiate, you want to tally, the intellect is useful.

00:47:49But that's not what you live for.

00:47:51Do you live to analyze and calculate?

00:47:54Please.

00:47:56If you want to come to that which you live for, then kindly do not trust the intellect.

00:48:06Now put your hand on your heart and tell me what is it that you live for?

00:48:10Stones, buildings, bodies, ideologies, places, monuments, glory.

00:48:28Is that what you really live for?

00:48:32That which you live for, that which powers the breath, the one for whom the heart really

00:48:39beats will remain elusive till you keep trusting the wrong driver, the wrong vehicle, the wrong

00:48:52machine.

00:49:02Don't turn the machine into a master.

00:49:05Let the machine be surrendered to the master.

00:49:11You must know what your aims are and let the machine be used to realize, fructify your

00:49:22aims.

00:49:23The machine won't be very useful.

00:49:26Again the right use of the machine is just that it must shut down.

00:49:34But whatever be the right use of the machine, let the machine be used only for that, nothing

00:49:39beyond that.

00:49:45You can never think your way to peace.

00:49:50You can never analyze your way to love.

00:49:55And how will you live if you do not love?

00:50:04You will never be able to compare your way to freedom.

00:50:13You cannot have God in your conscious memory.

00:50:19The internal equipment is very feeble, very helpless, very useless when it comes to the

00:50:34real purpose of life.

00:50:38And the real purpose of life is no hidden thing.

00:50:46One does not feel alright, one is restless, one is paranoid, one has phobias, one is jealous,

00:51:04one is insecure, one is ambitious and all that hurts, doesn't it?

00:51:14All that hurts.

00:51:16So you know what the purpose of life is.

00:51:21What is the purpose of life?

00:51:25To give up that which hurts.

00:51:34But we cling to all that which hurts.

00:51:38That's the intellect.

00:51:43You cling the most to that which hurts and harms.

00:52:01This discussion would be incomplete without seeing who we are.

00:52:11At the physical mental level, we are just beings having a limited time span.

00:52:2010 years, 20 years, 100 years.

00:52:29And that's just soil and time.

00:52:35That's just material and influences acting on the material.

00:52:43If you are prepared to remain just that much, then no wisdom, no spirituality is needed.

00:52:55But you very well know how you yearn for liberation.

00:53:02You very well know how you don't want to get obliterated.

00:53:07You want immortality and liberation and immortality and simplicity and freedom.

00:53:17These are not material things, are they?

00:53:23Had freedom been material, you would have been able to hold it in your hands and lock

00:53:28it somewhere safe and secure.

00:53:36So at another level, you are not the body, not the intellect.

00:53:48And that level is where you really belong.

00:53:53Why do I say that when you are two, one of the two is more real.

00:54:01The proof is evident.

00:54:02Which two am I talking of?

00:54:06The you who is the body and all that the body wants is this and this and this.

00:54:23That's what the body wants, right?

00:54:25The proof is when you are lying unconscious in a hospital, the body is still happy when

00:54:32it is provided with the right contents, right nutrients.

00:54:37Which means that the body does not even want consciousness.

00:54:43You might be lying unconscious in a hospital, but the doctor still knows what would make

00:54:48your body happy.

00:54:49Does he not?

00:54:50In fact, when your body is to be made happy, you are often turned unconscious.

00:54:59First of all, anesthesia is delivered, now consciousness is gone.

00:55:03And now the body is made happy.

00:55:07So the body has no direct yearning for consciousness, let the consciousness go away.

00:55:14Body still wants to survive.

00:55:19But do you want to keep a body sans consciousness?

00:55:24What do you do with a person who is on a ventilator since two years?

00:55:28No consciousness in coma, but the body is still surviving.

00:55:33What do you do with such a body?

00:55:36What do you do with such a body?

00:55:40You turn the ventilator off because the body is of no use without consciousness.

00:55:48That's why I am saying that between the two, the body and consciousness, you are really

00:55:55consciousness.

00:55:56And I am not talking of just material consciousness.

00:56:03I am talking of that consciousness for which Kabir Saheb says,

00:56:08Jaise khaal lohar ki saansh let bin praan.

00:56:18Jis ghat prem na sanchar hai, so tan jaan masaan.

00:56:25Jaise khaal lohar ki saansh let bin praan.

00:56:32It's not even about consciousness, it's about love.

00:56:40On one hand, you are the body.

00:56:42On the other hand, you are that which loves that.

00:56:51You are that to which only a feeble reference can be made.

00:56:58So the Upanishads utter in all their glory and equally in all their helplessness,

00:57:03Tat tvam asi.

00:57:06Nothing more can be said.

00:57:08How do we say that you are Shwet Ketu?

00:57:26So you are the body, yes.

00:57:30And you are something beyond the body.

00:57:35And that does not need to be taught to you.

00:57:37When only the living body remains and that becomes dormant,

00:57:44then you take the body and go and burn it.

00:57:49Because you say now keeping this body alive is of no use.

00:57:55Turn off the ventilator, go and dump him.

00:57:59The real thing is gone.

00:58:00The bird has gone, the cage remains.

00:58:02What to do with the cage?

00:58:04The bird is gone.

00:58:06Throw away the cage.

00:58:10And that is why several lovers of freedom often decide to give up the body

00:58:23if the body cannot be a host to freedom.

00:58:32Fighting great wars, they decide to give up life

00:58:37because they know that there is something more precious than physical life.

00:58:41So physical life can be sacrificed for the sake of that which is more precious than body.

00:58:50So now you are two and out of these two, one is definitely and infinitely more precious.

00:58:59The body has to surrender to that which is more precious than the body.

00:59:05When I say body, I mean the body-mind apparatus, the whole thing.

00:59:11You are two out of which one must be subservient.

00:59:28Otherwise, as Kabir said, the bag of the iron smith, the leather bag of the iron smith,

00:59:40that too seems like breathing.

00:59:43जैसे खाल लुहार की, सास लेत बिन प्राण.

00:59:50The iron smith uses a leather bag to pump air into the furnace.

01:00:00And because it is pumping in and pumping out, so the leather bag appears to be breathing.

01:00:07Kabir, in his own unique ways, tells us most of us are like leather bags.

01:00:16Air comes in, air goes out, but there is no life.

01:00:21Air comes in, air goes out.

01:00:24जैसे खाल लुहार की, सास लेत बिन प्राण.

01:00:29But प्राण is not there.

01:00:34जिस घट प्रेम न संच रे, सो तन जान मसान.

01:00:39That body is just like a graveyard, शमशान, मसान.

01:00:49Something comes in, something goes out. Is that called life?

01:00:54But that's how we live.

01:00:57The body is surviving, the body is happy, the cab driver is very happy.

01:01:01The meter is ticking.

01:01:04But there is no life.

01:01:08The real thing is missing.

01:01:13Do you want to continue living and missing the real thing? How many of you?

01:01:25And is there anyone here who sees that the physical life,

01:01:32this life period of 60-80 years or sometimes less than that is being totally wasted.

01:01:41If the real purpose is not being achieved, anybody here who sees that?

01:01:50Then stop trusting the driver.

01:02:21Don't throw the driver out of the vehicle.

01:02:25Just ask him to move straight.

01:02:31That is another exquisite foolishness.

01:02:39To blame the intellect so much that it shrivels and collapses.

01:02:47And that is often seen in so-called spiritual people.

01:02:51They are left with no intellect at all.

01:02:54They have cursed and abused the driver so much that he runs away.

01:02:58And now they are very happy. They say this is nirvichar.

01:03:04Now no thoughts arise.

01:03:07No thoughts arise now because you are brain dead.

01:03:11You have lost the capacity to think.

01:03:15You do not need a state where no thoughts arise.

01:03:19You need your thoughts to be aligned to your real purpose.

01:03:27And if thoughts are aligned to your real purpose, then they are sattvic.

01:03:33Then they do not dominate.

01:03:35And then they also don't keep lingering.

01:03:40They come, they do their small duty and then they go away.

01:03:45That is real nirvicharita.

01:04:12No part of this recording may be reproduced

01:04:14without Mooji Media Ltd.'s express consent.

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