Video Information: Month of Awakening, 13.10.2019, Advait Bodhsthal, Greater Noida, India
Context:
~ What is the significance of visiting a spiritual place like Kashi?
~ Can a body exist at multiple places?
~ Why is it special to be in Kashi?
~ Why do we never question our own situation?
~ Is their something special or abnormal in spiritual places?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Context:
~ What is the significance of visiting a spiritual place like Kashi?
~ Can a body exist at multiple places?
~ Why is it special to be in Kashi?
~ Why do we never question our own situation?
~ Is their something special or abnormal in spiritual places?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So recently Acharyaji, you too visited Varanasi, the birthplace of Kabir Saheb,
00:06and you have mentioned it a lot of times in your videos, the importance of these couplets,
00:14of these dohas. And so me and people who are sitting over here and the ones who are connected
00:23with us through this online medium would really want to know about your visit to the birthplace
00:30of Kabir Saheb. Also there's a seeker, Amarnathji from Hyderabad, he's connecting with us,
00:41he's connected with us right now, and he has put forth this question that what is the real
00:48significance of these places, of such places, for mankind?
01:04One has a body, one has to keep it somewhere, right?
01:14When one visits
01:18a Kashi or a Rishikesh,
01:31then people ask, why did you go to that place?
01:39As if it is possible to keep the body in no place
01:48or to keep the body in no place.
01:56Who are you, asking this question?
02:00You are somebody, some body, you are some body, you are embodied
02:11and a body cannot just hang around or float around randomly
02:28beyond space. Body is space.
02:35A body has to be situated somewhere.
02:37It is obvious, but I must draw your attention to it.
02:49As long as there is the body,
02:54the body would be at a particular time and at a particular place. Body and place go together.
03:01You cannot have a place where there is no body and you cannot have a body that is not in any place.
03:16So, one has to be somewhere. Now, why does one never ask in the same puzzled manner,
03:23Sanjay, why were you found at your office? Anshu, why were you found at your home?
03:40Kamlesh, why are you found in that room?
03:47Now, why are these questions never asked? How is it
03:54just very harmonious and agreeable in the scheme of things
04:03to be at a workplace or at a marketplace or at a residence?
04:11And why is it a special thing to be in Kashi? After all, one has to be somewhere.
04:23So, it's just like asking me, why do you have a beard?
04:31Why should I first not turn around and ask you, why don't you have a beard?
04:39Just as the body and space go together, similarly the body and beard go together.
04:48Even women have facial hair.
04:53Most of them don't like it, but they do have it, right?
05:03If you ask me why do you have a beard, I'll say, you too have
05:09the same stuff that I have in the bodily sense, but you never question your own situation.
05:18I want to ask you, when I was in Kashi for four days, why were you not in Kashi? Answer that.
05:28I made a particular choice because a choice has to be made.
05:31This body bag has to be kept somewhere. I have this cup in my hand.
05:37I have to keep it somewhere. I kept it. There's one particular choice I am making.
05:44Before you question me on my choice, and yes, you are questioning me,
05:50it is not merely curiosity. If you will look deeper into your question,
05:57the question seeks to assert that one's presence at a spiritual center
06:06at a spiritual center
06:11is a special matter and special is abnormal, is it not?
06:18How is it normal
06:21to be present
06:27on a chilly December night
06:33in your home
06:36tucked away
06:43nicely, warmly under your soft quilt?
06:48If that be your situation, are you ever asked why are you here?
06:55It is supposed to be normal. But if I am at Kashi, it is supposed to be abnormal.
07:02You will say, no, sir, we aren't saying it's abnormal. We are just saying it's
07:06brilliantly special. Why should it be special?
07:13It's a choice.
07:21You see,
07:26don't I have the responsibility
07:31of keeping this body at the right place?
07:36And why is that responsibility there?
07:39That responsibility is there
07:43because the mind has something to do with the brain.
07:51The mind has something to do with the brain.
07:55And you say, and everybody equally says,
07:59equally says that the mind is restless.
08:07Restlessness has something to do with the mind and the brain has something to do with the body.
08:13Please understand this. Are we all not restless?
08:18Is that not our central occupation, in fact, to keep restless?
08:24Now, restlessness has something to do with the mind. Do you contest that?
08:32And the brain has something to do with the body. Do you agree?
08:37So, restlessness has something to do with the body. Are you getting it?
08:44This body has to be brought to a place where the mind gains a certain rest.
08:58That alone is the purpose of space. That alone is the purpose of the vast expanse of the universe.
09:08Hundreds of countries, thousands of rivers, hundreds of forests, innumerable locations,
09:24innumerable people, cities, villages, seas, ravines, peaks, valleys.
09:44Where to be? Why is there such a wide spectrum of choices available?
09:56And mind you, one can be just anywhere. One can be just about anywhere.
10:06You could as well say that the number of choices is infinite.
10:11Why have so many choices been given?
10:18In the middle of all these choices, there is something called the right choice.
10:26And the right choice is not ecclesiastical.
10:34It does not belong to no space. It belongs to this universe itself.
10:40At every point in time of your embodied life, there is one right place where you must be.
10:53And that one right place will keep varying with time.
11:00But there are never two right places where you must be. There are never two right decisions.
11:10Your restlessness demands very, very delicate decision-making.
11:19Body is space. And space exists so that you can choose rightly within space.
11:26We will talk of belonging to the dimension of no place.
11:36Wistfully, people long for that dimension, that dimension in which there is no place.
11:47Before you can belong to the dimension of no place,
11:52first of all, learn to choose the right place in the earthly dimension.
11:59Even in the earthly dimension, if you cannot choose the right place to be at,
12:05how do you hope to be admitted to the dimension of no place?
12:11Is that ever going to happen?
12:13Is that ever going to happen?
12:21Even in a basic game like that of soccer, the players must know where to be.
12:30The second test match just concluded at Perth between India and Australia. I'm talking of cricket.
12:38Australia walked away with day one of the match and that set the tempo.
12:50Part of the reason was the fear of losing the match.
12:53Part of the reason was the field placement that was not exact.
12:58The captain did not quite know where to place his men.
13:04If you do not know where to be, you will miss everything.
13:09Catchers will come flying and not find you where you must be.
13:17So, if you're asking me why I was at Kashi, I'll ask you why are you at Hyderabad?
13:30Because being in Kashi, you are in Hyderabad, you are in Hyderabad,
13:36you are in Hyderabad, you are in Hyderabad, you are in Hyderabad, you are in Hyderabad,
13:42you are in Hyderabad, you are in Hyderabad, you are in Kashi.
13:56If I am in Kashi, why are you at Hyderabad? Do you really love the Charminar so much?
14:03Is that the reason?
14:08Are you in love with the Hyderabadi Biryani?
14:11What keeps you there? And this question must be asked. Don't say, but the answer is commonsensical.
14:20Don't say, but the answer is obvious. The answer is not obvious. What keeps you in that city?
14:25If you will realize that a thousand bondages hold you to that city,
14:32then you too will run towards Kashi because Kashi is the city of liberation.
14:35But till the point you do not realize what keeps you in your job, in your house,
14:42in your city, you will keep wondering why does anybody ever go to a Himalayan peak
14:50or to the narrow, dingy, squalid lanes of Varanasi? Why must one ever go there?
15:03Hyderabad is such a smart city and Varanasi is anything but smart.
15:11Why would anybody ever want to go to Varanasi?
15:15You go to Varanasi when you are fed up with your bondages.
15:20Not that Varanasi will give you freedom. I just said that Varanasi is the city of liberation.
15:28It is not. It really is not. No city is the city of liberation. Then why are you in your city?
15:39Varanasi is not the city of liberation. True. Hyderabad too is not the city of liberation.
15:48Why are you in your city? You answer that first. I'll tell you why I keep a beard.
15:54But first of all, you tell me why do you keep shaving every day?
16:02What keeps you beholden to your razor?
16:09You do something. I don't do anything.
16:14I just let the beard flow.
16:31We go to a thousand places, don't we? And it never occurs to us that we must really investigate
16:42what motivates us to move from place to place.
16:54Since ancient times, trading routes have spanned across
17:03cities, countries, even continents. You know of the Silk Route. People were traveling so much.
17:12You know how the East India Company came to India. They came to trade. So people travel.
17:20Sometimes they are found in this city. Sometimes they are found in that city. It is considered normal.
17:28Why don't we figure out why does the mind keep wandering from place to place? Why?
17:39What do you want when you relocate from one city to other?
17:47So a woman might get married and then she often happily relocates to the city of her husband.
18:02It is not a question. It is not a question because she is moving for the sake of the body.
18:09She is moving for the sake of convention.
18:15And then the husband gets a raise in his job and gets transferred to some other place.
18:22And that too is all right. The husband got a raise and got transferred from Gurgaon to
18:29Mumbai or Hyderabad. That is all right. One has moved for the sake of money
18:35from Gurgaon to Mumbai. It is okay.
18:42So behind every movement there is a motive or is there not?
18:48Why did the woman move from Lucknow to Gurgaon?
18:54She got married and the husband's body was there in Gurgaon.
18:57And marriage means that the two bodies must come together and consummate.
19:04So the woman just hopped over to Gurgaon.
19:10And then from Gurgaon the couple flew away to Mumbai and that is all right.
19:17So behind all movements there is something that you want, right?
19:22You wanted the body. Then you wanted the raise and the money.
19:26And then you wanted the worldly success.
19:34There are some places
19:40that are designed to remind you that all that you want
19:50is of no avail and would be of no avail.
19:56So I was with the participants.
19:58And in the night we all took a boat.
20:06And then the boat halted for a sufficiently long time in front of the Manikarnika Ghat.
20:20And you know how many funeral pyres were
20:24lit there parallelly?
20:29Not one, not two, not four, at least a dozen of them.
20:35Eight or ten we could visibly see and there were a few more not directly visible.
20:47And it was quite a spectacle.
20:50It was tourism of the highest order.
20:56So many boats
21:01had assembled there just to look at this marvellous sight of human bodies
21:09turning into ash and vapour.
21:10Would you get to see this in Hyderabad?
21:15You can move to Hyderabad for the sake of body or money
21:19or because you have attachments and relationships and
21:23maybe old habits. You were born and brought up there. So you stay there.
21:29But there is no city
21:31where you can see this in Hyderabad.
21:34Kashi is one such city, you know, no place is special, mind you.
21:42But there is no city that has really turned death into a spectacle.
21:52There is no city one comes to just to die.
21:58Kashi is one such city, you know, no place is special, mind you.
22:04Third time, please mind it, no place is special.
22:07But some places are designed especially. Kashi is designed in that way.
22:16Otherwise, all locations are just sensory. No location is one up or down the other.
22:26Kashi is designed in that way.
22:34If you go to Kashi for business reasons, you must be a very petty businessman.
22:40There is hardly any industry there except for some, you know, handicrafts and such things.
22:48You cannot go to Aranasi
22:53for any genuine reason
22:57other than to be liberated of all places.
23:06So those who are
23:10attached to places must go to this one place
23:19to gain liberation from places.
23:28The funeral pyre is burning
23:32and it's a December night.
23:37Somebody is having a nice sleep next to it.
23:44And then there are a couple of hungry dogs
23:54greedily looking at the next body in queue.
23:57They are waiting for the bone fryer.
24:04They too want to get rid of the cold.
24:10And after they have had the heater, they'll also have the meals, barbecue,
24:21life and mind you organic.
24:27Assuming that the diseased was not a habitual consumer of coke and such things.
24:46There is nothing in that city
24:52prehistoric, old,
24:57narrow lanes blocked by bulls.
25:21If you want to cross that lane,
25:24you must either be a super bull
25:28or you must bribe the bull
25:32or you must ride the bull.
25:37And if you think I'm joking, then you may keep waiting till eternity.
25:43Because bulls
25:48are bulls.
25:49They don't want to give anybody the opportunity to do anything.
25:53The right of way.
25:56What's there in that city?
25:58Even to move two kilometers or four kilometers, you take half an hour or one full hour.
26:16The traffic is sickening.
26:23And people live in their old
26:30fossilized ways.
26:38Many of them will not be able to keep up with the modern world.
26:45Even the Ganga river there is
26:51not pure at all.
26:53Its width used to be around 360 meters just around 20-25 years back
27:05when I was in college.
27:08Now I learned that the width has reduced to 270 meters.
27:18But that place is designed to liberate.
27:23They say it is the oldest city in the world.
27:30And if you die here, then you are liberated.
27:37I do not know whether the ones who die there are liberated.
27:44But what is certain is that the ones who are too enamored with life
27:54must come there and watch the dance of death.
28:02Those who are dying there are doing the living a great service.
28:10The living get a chance to watch
28:19the train of death, the chain of death.
28:23It is one wave of bodies after the other.
28:33And you look at the
28:37religious personnel there, the Pandas.
28:40And with such indifferent non-challenge,
28:46they go on doing their business.
28:54That is how existence looks at human birth and death.
29:03Indifference, non-challenge,
29:08like the face of the Panda.
29:16The man is about to be burnt.
29:21The wife is beating her chest.
29:24The kids are wailing away.
29:28And the Panda is expressionless.
29:29And he is saying, come on, be quick.
29:34There are six more waiting.
29:38Expressionless, emotionless.
29:41Almost like the river over which the body is being lit.
29:46Almost like the tree that is overseeing this drama.
29:50And nobody gives a damn.
29:54That's what Varanasi tells you.
29:58You go to other cities to get a great life.
30:06Now, if you are fed up of all kinds of great lives,
30:12then you can come to Varanasi to get a great death.
30:15But you'll come to Varanasi, as we said in the beginning,
30:18only when you first question
30:21why you are found in any particular city.
30:26You have to ask yourself, why am I found where I am?