How can consciousness arise from a material body?||AcharyaPrashant,with Virat Hindustan Sangam(2021)

Acharya Prashant

‍♂️ Want to meet Acharya Prashant? 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?...   Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl... ➖➖➖➖➖➖  Video Information: 11.11.2021, ASH-Talk (Online), Greater Noida  Context:  ~ What is consciousness?  ~ Is consciousness physical or nonphysical? ~ What does it mean to go beyond ordinary consciousness? ~ Why is consciousness more important than the body? ~ Are Consciousness and body different?    Music Credits: Milind Date  ~~~~~

Transcript

00:00The next question is by Meghrad Singh Thakur and he wants to know the relationship, essentially

00:14the relationship between the material world and consciousness, whether, what his question

00:21was, does, is the body, you know, just like, what do you say, putting together a few chemicals

00:30and does conscious, how does consciousness come from an unconscious body or is it the

00:37other way around?

00:39Obviously that cannot happen.

00:42That cannot happen.

00:43A sat cannot give rise to a sat, obviously.

00:46So Vedanta answers that in a beautiful way, very beautiful way.

00:51And when you will ponder over it, you will find it to be so obvious.

00:59Vedanta says there is no duality, therefore no watertight distinction between the unconscious

01:12and the conscious.

01:14This Jada Chetan duality is refuted by Vedanta.

01:21Vedanta in its essence is non-dualistic as we had said a while back.

01:27So this duality, Jada and Chetan, unconscious and conscious, as in man being conscious and

01:33the world being unconscious or I being conscious and this pen being Jada or just material,

01:40this is not accepted by Vedanta.

01:43This is there in Sankhya Yoga, the duality between Purush and Prakriti.

01:49There is Prakriti and there is Purush and these two are somewhat at odds with each other

01:55because the Purush often gets corrupted by Prakriti and such things.

02:00Vedanta takes the Sankhyan concept to a greater and more refined height.

02:10It says these two are one.

02:13These two are one, they appear different.

02:21The consciousness that is the perceiver is also the perceived object.

02:30It says that the perceiver is an illusion, therefore he thinks of the perceived object

02:36as an objective thing, an objective truth, an objective fact in itself.

02:41Therefore, Advaitavada is also called as Mayavada, we just talked of illusion, Maya.

02:50These two are not distinct at all.

02:53That what you are seeing is nothing but you.

02:58Therefore that which you are seeing has never been created at all.

03:01It is only being projected.

03:04In Vedanta, there is nothing called creation or creator.

03:10No creation, no creator, just projection.

03:14Nobody created the world.

03:16Vivartavada, Brahma appears as this myriad world because of Maya.

03:29There is just Vivartan, no creation.

03:35So this is all in unity.

03:40All distinctions that we see are really false and those distinctions that we see outside

03:47are fundamentally the distinctions within the perceiver.

03:54Because the mind is fragmented, because the mind is conditioned by several influences,

04:00therefore we see the same kind of diversity outside of ourselves.

04:08And hence one characteristic of the Brahmavid or the Jnani, the realized one, is that differences

04:18stop mattering to him.

04:21This physical apparatus called the eyes do see differences, they will see black as black

04:27and white as white.

04:29But black and white will stop being meaningful or material to the Brahmavid, the knower of

04:37Brahm or the Brahmalin, the one who is one with Brahm.

04:44These distinctions stop mattering.

04:47This is a thing of great importance if you go into it.

04:53Because our world is reeling under the tyranny of diversity.

04:59All diversity is conflict because all diversity is fundamentally division.

05:05You are different from me, A is different from B and if A is different from B, A and

05:08B fight.

05:11And today we have more and more means to fight each other.

05:18Therefore we need something that tells us that all these distinctions are fundamentally false.

05:26They will keep appearing.

05:27I know maya is very formidable, redoubtable maya is not going to leave you free so easily.

05:42So you will continue seeing differences obviously, but at least the punch in the importance that

05:52these differences carry for you would have gone.

05:57Somewhere you would realize that identifying yourself with a splinter does not make much sense.

06:09You know does not make much sense to commit yourself, put your life and all your energy

06:17into something that is fundamentally false.

06:21Then you will not want to fight the other because he carries a different or opposite

06:27identity or ideology.

06:30And this kind of a thing comes only from Vedanta where the false is not the opposite of the

06:37truth but a projection of the truth.

06:44Maya is not against Brahm.

06:47In some sense maya is the daughter of Brahm.

06:53You don't have a Saturn here who is fighting God.

06:58You have a mischievous Brahm here who comes up with maya and maya again is not evil.

07:07Maya is worshipped.

07:09We had Navadurga which is an entire celebration of maya.

07:16Maa Mahamaya, she is being respected, loved because she is not only the one who keeps

07:22you in illusion, she is also the one who will lead you to liberation and redemption.

07:32This is a much more simple, solid, authentic model of reality than anything else at least

07:41I know of.

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