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~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: 20.1.2021, Shastra Kaumudi, Greater Noida
Context:
Did God create the World?
Who created this world?
How to do the right action?
Why do we see a problem when there is none?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Video Information: 20.1.2021, Shastra Kaumudi, Greater Noida
Context:
Did God create the World?
Who created this world?
How to do the right action?
Why do we see a problem when there is none?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Your world is with you at the center.
00:15Brahm is just the substratum.
00:18It has been referred to in various ways in Vedantic literature.
00:24Sometimes it's called the substratum.
00:27Sometimes the background, sometimes the space, the ether in which everything is happening.
00:36Sometimes the watcher, sometimes the progenitor.
00:45Sometimes the mega-controller who operates only at the meta level.
00:56The idea behind all these expressions has one thing in common.
01:02Brahm has no interest in any participation at the macro level.
01:08At the micro level, it's your own doing.
01:18It's the play of your own tendencies.
01:32Your own tendencies make you see a problem where there is none.
01:44You imagine.
01:51And then you do a lot to get rid of that problem.
02:02And then, obviously, to do a lot, you create the entire space in which a lot of doing
02:15can happen.
02:20If you want to play a game, you cannot just play it.
02:30You want to play golf, or tennis, or cricket, right?
02:38You cannot just randomly and suddenly initiate the game.
02:46If you're a serious player, as we all are, then you, in fact, require to build an entire
02:55stadium.
02:56Why?
02:57Just because you wanted to play one game.
03:03That's what desire does.
03:06Because it has to do what it has to do, therefore it has to create an entire universe.
03:12That's the reason why our universe exists.
03:14So that we may do just a few things.
03:19Even if you have to play a 10-over match, you need to create an entire infrastructure
03:36for it, no?
03:39Our life is that 10-over match, amounting to nothing, nothing much at all.
03:55But what do we do?
03:56We build an entire… like somebody deciding to fly to a place just 200 kilometers away.
04:11The place might be just 200 kilometers away, but if you have decided to fly, then what
04:18all do you need to build?
04:19What do you need to build?
04:26Then you actually need to launch satellites.
04:33You need rockets.
04:37You need rockets that go beyond the atmosphere of the earth.
04:47You would be flying well within the limits of the atmosphere.
04:55Needless to talk of all the infrastructure that you need to build on the ground, the
05:01airports and such little things.
05:05Just because you wanted to experience one flight.
05:13So just because we want to live that small happy life of 60 years with two or four or
05:26six of our near ones, the entire cosmos has to exist, entire cosmos.
05:40No, it does not exist on its own.
05:44It exists because you want a nest within it.
05:49Your nest necessitates the entire cosmos.
05:58So your nest is not within the cosmos.
06:02The cosmos is within your nest.
06:05Poetically, you have always said that, have you not?
06:10But it turns out that it is true conceptually as well.
06:17Poetry meets mathematics.
06:20So when you say, you know, my little house is my universe, you are horribly right.
06:46It's your desire that breeds the universe.
06:55Else there is nothing.
07:01So there is desire that gives birth to the worlds.
07:09And then there is desire that gets fed up of the worlds and returns to the pure, the
07:21original, the immutable.
07:29The first kind of desire that brought us where we are, it's not much use discussing it now.
07:39Because the deed has been done.
07:46We do exist today, at least in our own frame of reference.
07:53Evolution has taken place.
07:57We cannot de-evolve now.
08:01What do we do then?
08:08We make use of the second kind of desire.
08:12What is the second kind of desire?
08:23Remember that Vedanta has nothing to do with stuff miscellaneous.
08:49It talks only of the one.
08:54And if the one is too difficult to talk of, it talks of two, truth and the mind.
09:03And if the listeners clamor too much for detail, then at most it talks of three, truth, the
09:15mind and the body.
09:22The Rishis were simple people.
09:31They loved relaxation.
09:36And they were too wise to indulge in needless details.
09:52When the thousand are all included in one, how wise is it to talk individually of the
10:09thousand?
10:17Like efficient mathematicians, they referred only to the one.
10:25Which one am I talking of?
10:28Mind.
10:29Why refer to the thousand things in the mind?
10:33Simply call all that as mind stuff, full stop.
10:38Otherwise there is no end.
10:43With nothing at its center, the mind still has the magical capacity to keep weaving an
10:53infinite net, innumerable things the mind can breed.
11:10The wise one says, why talk of all that diversity?
11:15Why be so interested in it?
11:18I know all those things are just one.
11:29Otherwise one can just be lost in the count.
11:40There is no end to diversity.
11:44If you cannot see the commonness behind stuff, the oneness behind things, then you will be
11:55consumed by the count.
12:01So they don't talk of too many things.
12:04So the Rishis have no business talking of food or grain, cereals, mundane things.
12:17Moment you see such a thing being talked of, you should immediately know that something
12:22else is being referred to.
12:31Never deviate from the first principles.
12:38Never.
12:40All the verses have to be read in the light of the first principles.
12:49And the first principles have nothing to do with food.
13:08Disputably the Rishis were fun-loving people.
13:16But they had higher sources than food to extract fun from.
13:30They won't be so particular about un as to give it a place of pride adjacent to Brahma.
13:47In the same verse where you are talking of Brahma, if you find un too mentioned, then
13:53you should know it's just a pointer towards something else.
13:59So what does un refer to?
14:03Material.
14:04Gross manifestation.
14:05Gross mind.
14:06So there is nothing.
14:18Then there is just the little sensation, that little vibration, that beginning of movement
14:32which is nothing but the beginning of deviation from the center, which is nothing but the
14:38beginning of maya.
14:43And then that which is in the beginning just a little vibration, a bit of a spasm, in due
15:00course of time explodes into the entire universe, which in due course of things sees its own
15:18futility and therefore recedes back into the source.
15:29Getting it?
15:34The entire curve is the movement of maya or desire.
15:40You should know the point you are standing at on that curve.
15:52If you know where you are, you will also know what you ought to do.
16:13You have already come a long distance.
16:17Cannot undo the journey.
16:21You cannot untravel the distance.
16:26What do you do then?
16:29Complete the cycle.
16:37Have the right desire that stimulates you into the right action, the right works, the
16:47right actions that lead you into immortality.
16:54That's what you need to do now.
17:00Now that you have chosen to be in the world of action, you cannot avoid action.
17:06Act rightly therefore.
17:10Act vigorously.
17:11Act rightly.
17:15Would have been wonderful had you not needed to act at all, had you not been present at
17:25all, had you not taken birth at all, but you are born now.
17:39Past is irreversible.
17:45In our own eyes we exist and we exist as creatures of suffering.
17:54Therefore what do we do?
17:58We do justice to this birth.
18:08Having chosen to be born, now justify your birth.
18:19No, but we didn't choose to be born.
18:24You see, if you know that much, I too know that you know that much.
18:36So if I am saying that we have chosen to be born, obviously there is something I mean.
18:44Kindly try to grasp.
18:53Our consciousness goes into our self only to a small degree.
19:06Your self is like a deep well, deep well, and your consciousness is like the light of
19:17a feeble electric torch that you throw into the well.
19:23How deep does the light penetrate?
19:27When the well is old and deep, it's not as if it is a reservoir of clean and clear water.
19:46There is all kind of dubious, nefarious stuff cluttered within it, and primitive spiders
20:14have woven webs that your torchlight cannot penetrate.
20:26The area illuminated by your torchlight is the conscious mind.
20:30It is only a small part of your self.
20:35Beneath that there is a lot that you do not know of.
20:39So your choices come from there.
20:44You refuse to own those choices because those choices aren't conscious choices.
20:51Your refusal means very little.
20:56They are your choices even if they were unconsciously made.
21:02So being born is one such choice.
21:06And how is it possible?
21:08When I am not yet born, how do I decide to be born?
21:14How is it even conceivable that a child decides to be born?
21:22Maybe only the body is born.
21:24Maybe the tendency that decides to take birth exists even before the body.
21:31Maybe what you are calling as birth is just the physical appearance of the desire.
21:39Maybe the desire pre-exists its gross appearance.
21:44How is it possible?
21:47You mean that I existed even before my birth?
21:51Of course you did.
21:52Not in a physical way.
21:54Not in a physical way, but you did exist.
21:58I am not talking of the Atman here.
22:01I am talking of that primitive tendency that pervades all existence.
22:07The tendency which keeps taking birth again and again in the form of every new child.
22:17The tendency decided to take birth, right?
22:20That tendency is you.
22:21So you decided to take birth.
22:24No, fine.
22:25Having decided to be born, now make good use of whatever is available to you.
22:47To put it realistically, let's make the best use of a bad situation where we may decide
23:01to entertain ourselves by thinking that it's great to have taken birth and we are here
23:10to really have a good time.
23:15It's like being invited to a party or something.
23:20No one is born on a Saturday night.
23:25Unfortunately, it's not quite that way and we know that.
23:38The first step in spirituality is to honestly acknowledge that it's not quite the great
23:42situation we keep telling ourselves it is.
23:48So let's make the best of a bad place, right?
23:56Which is that you are condemned to desire, at least desire rightly.
24:04You cannot not desire.
24:05You cannot not act.
24:08You cannot not want.
24:11The best is to obviously be in a situation where you don't need to want, but you need
24:18to want.
24:22You need to want.
24:23You need to be attracted.
24:25You need to beg.
24:26You need to practice.
24:29You need to work.
24:34You need to love.
24:40Desire rightly, act rightly, think rightly, work rightly, love rightly.
24:49The result of the right pursuit that it will be, that you will come to a point where you
24:55will not need to work or desire or act or even love.
25:19Matter exists only for the one who acknowledges matter.
25:44You cannot look at Brahm and matter objectively.
25:50When you say, did Brahm always exist with matter or co-exist, who are you looking at
25:56these two?
25:58Who are you?
26:03So truly only Brahm exists, right?
26:09It is the power of Brahm to forget itself.
26:17Brahm doesn't quite create.
26:20It manifests.
26:26And when it manifests, it gets divided into two.
26:31You and what you see.
26:37Non-dual Brahm manifests itself by dividing itself into two.
26:44You and what you see.
26:47And by you, I do not mean Anupam.
26:50I mean the I-Tendency.
26:53The I-Tendency is also the Universe-Tendency.
27:06And the I-Tendency takes various shapes and forms.
27:12Those various shapes and forms are the individual persons.
27:21Each person projects and experiences his or her own world.
27:29Each sentient being.
27:30I am not talking only of human beings.
27:34Every sentient being lives in the cocoon of its own experienced universe.
27:42Beyond that cocoon, it knows nothing.
27:47How do you think the universe of a firefly or gadfly is?
27:51Same as yours?
27:58Stretch your imagination and conceive the universe of a mosquito.
28:04What do you think?
28:05Same as yours?
28:06Even that of your pet dog.
28:13There it is relatively easier to appreciate the difference.
28:18To see that the universe of the dog can just not be the same as your universe.
28:25It's not so easy to appreciate that your universe cannot be the same as her universe.
28:32And for you, your universe is unfortunately the truth.
28:38And for her, her universe is sadly the final truth.
28:45And that's the root of all suffering, including all human suffering.
28:52Because we believe so much in ourselves, therefore we believe in the finality of our universe
28:57and therefore our experiences.
29:00That's the ego.
29:04I am surely the truth, therefore what I experience, how can it be false?
29:17Therefore the world is as real as I am.
29:22I am real and the world is real.
29:24If you are real and the world is real, what is this reality so afraid of?
29:31Why do you live in perpetual fear?
29:35The real should be the last one to fear.
29:44That's the missing link in your entire narrative.
29:48The little gap through which we keep bleeding.
30:01So Brahm is not the creator.
30:04When you desperately want to invent a creator, then you come up with Ishwar.
30:14But Vedanta is not very enamored of Ishwar.
30:22So Vedanta says Ishwar is just Maya.
30:34Because you experience the universe, therefore you feel the need to justify the origin of
30:44the universe, therefore you must have an Ishwar.
30:53But how can the creator of a false universe be real?
30:58If the universe is false, what do you say about its creator?
31:08So Vedanta isn't very enthralled with Ishwar.
31:18The creator creation theory goes more with God.
31:32God is comparable to Ishwar.
31:38Brahm is not God.
31:42Brahm is not God.
31:53Knowers of Brahm would say God and God's creation both are just Maya.
32:15Don't be deceived when sometimes you come across the word God even in Vedantic literature.
32:25Be careful at such points.
32:29See carefully whether it relates to Brahm or Ishwar.