Video Information: 15.04.2022, IIT-Delhi, Delhi
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
Music Credits: Milind Date
Context:
~ What work to choose in life?
~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work?
~ How important is money while choosing work?
~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?
Music Credits: Milind Date
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Sir, I have two questions.
00:06How do we understand the union of Shiva and Shakti from non-dual Vedanta perspective?
00:13And the second question is how to surrender to Guru consciously?
00:18These are symbols.
00:20Shakti represents everything in motion, everything that can be experienced, everything that you
00:29can think of, Shakti represents the totality of that.
00:37If Shakti represents everything in motion, one feels like asking why is everything in
00:45motion in the first place?
00:48Why is everything moving?
00:54Let's begin with ourselves.
00:55Why does the mind move so much?
00:59Why does the individual never rest anywhere?
01:04Why are you always thinking?
01:08Why do we always want to reach somewhere?
01:11What is this quest for attainment, achievement?
01:18What is desire that fuels all our movements?
01:26We move.
01:28It seems commonsensical so that we may come to a point where there is no further need
01:36for movement.
01:37Is that not so?
01:41No one moves to remain moving.
01:44No one walks to remain walking.
01:48No one begins a journey with no end.
01:54So if we are constantly in motion, both physically and mentally, that tells us something about
02:03who we are.
02:07We are entities deeply in desire of something.
02:13And that's why we are constantly in motion.
02:19Otherwise who wants to move?
02:22Otherwise why would there be such unrest and disquiet within?
02:30You would never find any person, even a non-human organism that is perfectly still whether physically
02:44or mentally.
02:49Consciousness moves.
02:53Consciousness moves and it moves in search of a final destination, a place where there
03:02is no movement at all, a place where there is no experience at all.
03:10The clock keeps ticking so that you can come to a certain and ultimate timelessness.
03:20We value experiences so much.
03:23We want experiences of all kinds so that we may come to a point where there is no further
03:29need for experience, where we are beyond experience.
03:34We keep looking at faces, we keep meeting people, we keep entering into relationships
03:41because we want to come to a point where there is no further need to look at any face or
03:47form, where there is no need to further remember any names.
03:55That point is symbolically represented by Shiva.
04:00Shakti is movement, Shiva is destination.
04:08Those who are inclined towards having the right kind of movement, worship Shakti.
04:19Those who are inclined towards the destination, those who have fallen in love with the destination
04:26itself, worship Shiva.
04:30The fact is that the two are inseparable.
04:34Are you getting it?
04:37Shakti is the totality of all our experiences.
04:43Everything that is in space-time is contained in Shakti.
04:51And space-time does not exist for itself.
04:53It exists for the sake of its dissolution.
04:57Had it existed for its own sake, you would have succeeded in somehow, at any point, finding
05:06contentment in it.
05:09But we do not know of any person who has managed to find ultimate contentment in anything in
05:16the field of space-time.
05:19Is there anything in the entire universe that can perfectly satisfy you?
05:25No.
05:26What does that tell you about your own consciousness?
05:30It is looking for something beyond, something transcendental.
05:35Now that something transcendental is not an object of thought.
05:42It is not something you can think of, ideate or conceptualize or imagine.
05:49That which is beyond imagination, formless, nirakar, nirgun, attributeless, that is called
05:59as Shiva.
06:00To give a form to Shiva is not a very proper thing.
06:09It is some kind of human compulsion to always search for forms.
06:20Because we cannot think without forms, we cannot think without names.
06:25So even to the formless, we assign a form.
06:28Even to the nameless, we give a name.
06:34Irrespective of what we do, you must understand that Shiva is the name of the final, nameless,
06:48formless, attributeless, shapeless, timeless truth.
06:52Why are we calling Shiva as truth?
06:58Because by definition, that which is changing, that which does not remain what it appears
07:05to be has to be called as false.
07:08There is nothing in the world that remains what it appears to be.
07:15In fact, since things are changing every moment and it takes time for you to perceive anything,
07:26therefore by the time you perceive anything, it has already changed.
07:30Has it not?
07:32That's the reason why the world is called as false.
07:36It is not what it appears to be.
07:41Even stuff that we call as factual is actually not factual.
07:49Because of the gap between the observed phenomena and the observer's perception, there is a
07:57lag and that lag is sufficient for the observed entity to change.
08:06Therefore what is the truth?
08:07Only something that which cannot be experienced.
08:10If it can be experienced, it is false.
08:15You can understand it further to mean that the experiencer itself is false.
08:21Why?
08:22Because the experiencer places so much trust in his experience.
08:26He says it is the truth because I am experiencing it.
08:29It exists because I am seeing it.
08:32It was said because I heard it.
08:37Because you heard it, it becomes the truth.
08:39Seriously?
08:41There are so many of you here and I suppose I am one person saying one thing but I am
08:47so sure that no less than 200 versions of what I am saying are being heard here right
08:53now.
08:55The experiencer is false but the experiencer is just too self-confident.
09:00The experiencer says because I am testifying through my ears that such and such thing has
09:09been said.
09:10Therefore, it has been said.
09:12I am the proof.
09:13No, you are not the proof.
09:15Ask your neighbor.
09:16He has not heard the same things as you have even in the last 15 minutes.
09:24Are you getting it?
09:26That is the reason why Satyam Shivam Sundaram.
09:30Shiv is called the truth because anything that is within the purview of experience cannot
09:37be fully trusted.
09:38Hello sir.
09:39Sir, I want to ask a question that what is consciousness?
09:48So how can we say that a system is conscious or not?
09:54So whenever I try to find an answer to this question, so people explain it very abstractly.
10:04So I don't find any scientific explanation.
10:07So how can we say like there is a stone lying on a footpath, is it conscious or not?
10:17So mostly people say that living beings are conscious whereas non-living beings are not.
10:26It is flow of energy.
10:29It is flow of energy through space and time.
10:32As Albert Einstein also said.
10:36So sir, I want you to explain it in a scientific way.
10:45So yes.
10:48Anything that experiences is conscious.
10:55Consciousness is the entire domain of your happiness, sorrow, likes, dislikes.
11:02Everything that is rising is in the domain of consciousness.
11:06Everything that is falling is in the domain of consciousness.
11:09Who is the conscious one?
11:11The one who experiences.
11:15How do you define experience?
11:19The urge to not remain who you are, that's what makes an entity conscious.
11:31And the process of consciousness is via duality.
11:35I do not want to remain who I am using what I am perceiving.
11:40I want to change, so I want to use this to change.
11:45This is the process of consciousness.
11:48The conscious entity is the one that's experiencing this.
11:53Experiencing this in order to change.
12:00Does the stone have a quest for liberation?
12:05It's a far-fetched thing to say.
12:09So even if you want to say that every particle in the universe is conscious, then the level
12:15of consciousness is extremely low.
12:20Who then is a highly conscious entity?
12:25The one who has a strong urge for liberation.
12:31What is liberation?
12:33Everything that limits your experience.
12:34Mind you, a conscious entity is an experiencing entity.
12:38Everything that limits your experience is a bondage.
12:43The one who realizes that bondage, feels suffocated and rebels against it is a conscious
12:50entity.
12:55There is no complication, no abstraction in it.
13:01When you want to rise higher, when you just cannot remain the one you are, when you have
13:09a choice unlike a stone, then you are conscious.
13:18You are lying somewhere, you are pushed aside, you have a choice.
13:26The stone is pushed aside, the stone does not have a choice or even if it has a choice,
13:30it is lying very very latent within the stone.
13:34The stone will one day become soil, the soil will one day become a foetus.
13:44Before that it will become food and the foetus will then turn into a human being and that's
13:51when the stone will develop choice.
13:55So even if you want to assert that the stone too is conscious, its consciousness is lying
14:02greatly dormant within itself.
14:07So the stone will have to go through a lot, undertake a long journey to come to a point
14:14where it can say it has an active choice, till then nothing.