1 00:00:04,779 --> 00:01:28,329 Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya, Om Namah Shivaya. 2 00:01:28,367 --> 00:01:32,573 Om Namo Narayanaya, Om Namo Narayanaya. 3 00:01:32,573 --> 00:01:49,350 Om Namo Narayanaya, Om Namo Narayanaya. 4 00:01:50,389 --> 00:02:44,485 Sri Krishnam Vande Jagad Gurum, Sri Krishnam Vande Jagad Gurum. 5 00:02:44,522 --> 00:02:53,910 Sri Krishna Bhagavan ki jai. 6 00:02:53,910 --> 00:03:08,849 Throughout our studies we have been laying special emphasis on the practice of meditation, 7 00:03:08,849 --> 00:03:31,180 but it remains to be noticed with great care that meditation is a series of intense austerities, 8 00:03:31,180 --> 00:03:42,560 several levels of tapas, and not a mere rational thinking process. 9 00:03:42,560 --> 00:03:47,599 Meditation is not thinking. 10 00:03:47,599 --> 00:04:00,689 It is not even merely understanding, in the ordinary sense of the term. 11 00:04:00,689 --> 00:04:12,060 There is a very severe significance behind what true meditation means or connotes. 12 00:04:12,060 --> 00:04:19,229 A disciple approached a Guru. 13 00:04:19,229 --> 00:04:31,470 The disciple's name is Bhrigu, and the Guru is Varuna. 14 00:04:31,470 --> 00:04:47,960 Bhrigu, the disciple, approached Varuna, the master of wisdom, and requested, "Instruct 15 00:04:47,960 --> 00:05:00,550 me in Brahman": "Adhihi bhagavo brahmeti, eva varunam pitaram upasasara." 16 00:05:00,550 --> 00:05:10,949 The Guru was the father of Bhrigu, in this particular instance. 17 00:05:10,949 --> 00:05:18,870 In ancient times, most of the Gurus are the parents only. 18 00:05:18,870 --> 00:05:29,084 The father is the Guru, and he is quite adequate for the purpose of instruction in the higher 19 00:05:29,084 --> 00:05:33,470 realities of life. 20 00:05:33,470 --> 00:05:45,390 What did the Guru say to Bhrigu when he requested him to teach Brahman? 21 00:05:45,390 --> 00:05:52,730 "Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva": "Know Brahman through tapas." 22 00:05:52,730 --> 00:06:05,940 He did not go into descriptions, narrations, or quotations, or citations of scriptures. 23 00:06:05,940 --> 00:06:16,380 Just one sentence of instruction: "Know it by yourself through tapas." 24 00:06:16,380 --> 00:06:29,220 Here is the essence of spirituality for any one of us to appreciate. 25 00:06:29,220 --> 00:06:40,229 Spirituality is a way of living; it is not a knowledge that is to be acquired. 26 00:06:40,229 --> 00:06:55,729 It is accustoming oneself with the characteristic of the Spirit, and to that extent, living 27 00:06:55,729 --> 00:07:05,210 one's life with that particular vision directly in one's experience. 28 00:07:05,210 --> 00:07:23,170 The intense tapas into which Bhrigu entered on the instruction of the Guru ended in a 29 00:07:23,170 --> 00:07:30,960 realisation. 30 00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:36,900 What kind of realisation did he have? 31 00:07:36,900 --> 00:07:54,310 Annam brahmeti vyajanat: He began to feel that all that is materially constituted is 32 00:07:54,310 --> 00:08:09,919 Brahman, including this body, including the entire created universe, physical and perceptible 33 00:08:09,919 --> 00:08:14,289 in nature. 34 00:08:14,289 --> 00:08:27,009 Again, not being satisfied for some reason or other, the disciple approached the Guru 35 00:08:27,009 --> 00:08:34,570 once again with the same request: "Teach me Brahman." 36 00:08:34,570 --> 00:08:46,019 These were wonderful examples of Guru and disciple, indeed, because the disciple approaches 37 00:08:46,019 --> 00:08:58,579 again and again for the same purpose, and expresses himself in the same manner; and 38 00:08:58,579 --> 00:09:07,790 the Guru, in return, mentions the same thing as the instruction, and he had nothing more to say. 39 00:09:07,819 --> 00:09:22,310 Second time when the disciple approached the Guru: "Adhihi bhagavo brahma," the reply of 40 00:09:22,310 --> 00:09:26,709 the Guru was "Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva." 41 00:09:26,709 --> 00:09:33,649 Why go on repeating this again and again? 42 00:09:33,649 --> 00:09:39,110 What does he mean by saying, "Know it by tapas"? 43 00:09:39,110 --> 00:09:50,450 It was already told once; now, a second time he repeats the same instruction, and the good 44 00:09:50,450 --> 00:10:01,710 disciple enters into another type of intense tapasya, as per the instruction of the Guru. 45 00:10:01,710 --> 00:10:09,980 Intense meditation enveloped the consciousness of the disciple. 46 00:10:09,980 --> 00:10:17,440 He realised something quite different from what he experienced earlier. 47 00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:25,296 This time he realised: prano brahmeti vyajanat. 48 00:10:25,296 --> 00:10:36,779 He realised there is a vital principle behind all material structures. 49 00:10:36,779 --> 00:10:45,360 A vital energy is pervading all forms of matter; this is what he realised. 50 00:10:45,360 --> 00:11:03,510 Just as in our modern schools of scientific thought, originally the discovery was that 51 00:11:03,510 --> 00:11:16,100 matter is a hard, tangible substance, but the scientists also did tapasya by means of 52 00:11:16,100 --> 00:11:21,490 intense experiment and observation. 53 00:11:21,490 --> 00:11:34,160 They realised that there is energy content potentially present within all material substances. 54 00:11:34,160 --> 00:11:47,760 If the whole universe is materially constituted, the discovery revealed now that the whole 55 00:11:47,760 --> 00:11:50,381 universe is made up of energy only. 56 00:11:50,381 --> 00:12:02,649 It is a force that we call the universe, rather than a thing or a substance. 57 00:12:02,649 --> 00:12:14,639 With this realisation, again the disciple went to the Guru, "Adhihi bhagavo brahma." 58 00:12:14,639 --> 00:12:18,430 What kind of disciple is this? 59 00:12:18,430 --> 00:12:25,800 He repeats the same question again and again, after having realised something which was 60 00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:31,050 quite good, for all practical purposes. 61 00:12:31,050 --> 00:12:41,949 When once again the disciple approached the Guru, the Guru said, "Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva." 62 00:12:41,949 --> 00:12:48,690 A very good Guru and a very good disciple, indeed! 63 00:12:48,690 --> 00:12:53,430 "You ask me to teach Brahman. 64 00:12:53,430 --> 00:12:55,839 Know it through tapas." 65 00:12:55,839 --> 00:13:03,500 Well, he had already practiced enough tapas, but the obedience to the Guru's instructions 66 00:13:03,500 --> 00:13:13,600 was so important to a disciple, he took it literally and went back for further contemplation 67 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:17,000 in the form of intense tapas. 68 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:20,470 And, he realised something. 69 00:13:20,470 --> 00:13:23,831 What did he realise? "Mano brahmeti vyajanat." 70 00:13:23,831 --> 00:13:33,279 He realised energy is not the ultimate substance of things. 71 00:13:33,279 --> 00:13:40,820 There is mind behind all things. 72 00:13:40,820 --> 00:13:50,649 The operation of the mind can reconstitute the location of matter, transfer material 73 00:13:50,649 --> 00:14:00,750 objects from one place to another place by processes of telecommunication, telepathy, 74 00:14:00,750 --> 00:14:01,750 and the like. 75 00:14:01,750 --> 00:14:10,690 We, in our daily life, notice how powerful the mind is. 76 00:14:10,690 --> 00:14:23,779 Even if the physical world is strongly presented before us as perhaps the only reality available, 77 00:14:23,779 --> 00:14:30,360 the mind has a power over even the physical nature of things. 78 00:14:30,360 --> 00:14:39,540 So he went again to the Guru and said, "Adhihi bhagavo brahma." 79 00:14:39,540 --> 00:14:49,170 The Guru said, "Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva": "Know Brahman through austerity, tapas." 80 00:14:49,170 --> 00:15:00,750 Again he meditated by means of a tremendous austerity of his personality, and realised 81 00:15:00,750 --> 00:15:15,200 that there is something above the thinking process, or pure mentation. 82 00:15:15,200 --> 00:15:19,180 Discriminative understanding is higher than mere mentation. 83 00:15:19,180 --> 00:15:21,350 It is called vijnana. 84 00:15:21,350 --> 00:15:25,351 "Vijnanam brahmeti vyajanat." 85 00:15:25,351 --> 00:15:37,322 Pure understanding, on which most of the philosophers depend for their conclusions, 86 00:15:37,322 --> 00:15:42,140 was realised by this disciple as Brahman. 87 00:15:42,140 --> 00:15:49,134 With this realisation and experience, he went again to the Guru and said, 88 00:15:49,134 --> 00:15:53,170 "Adhihi bhagavo brahma." 89 00:15:53,170 --> 00:16:06,920 There appeared to be some kind of dissatisfaction in the mind of the disciple, in spite of some 90 00:16:06,920 --> 00:16:12,579 apparently satisfying experiences through which he passed. 91 00:16:12,579 --> 00:16:18,560 Otherwise, there would have been no point in his approaching the Guru again and again 92 00:16:18,560 --> 00:16:21,040 with the same question. 93 00:16:21,040 --> 00:16:29,940 However, he went to the Guru once again and said, "Teach me Brahman"; and once again came 94 00:16:29,940 --> 00:16:42,146 the same instruction, "Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva": "Know Brahman through tapas, intense austerity." 95 00:16:42,146 --> 00:16:56,920 The transmutation of all the earlier experiences now takes place. 96 00:16:56,920 --> 00:17:08,870 It is not material substance that constitutes the world of creation; it is also not vital 97 00:17:08,870 --> 00:17:13,579 energy, electric force, and so on. 98 00:17:13,579 --> 00:17:23,089 It does not seem to be also mere thinking, or mental process. 99 00:17:23,089 --> 00:17:36,070 It is also not understanding, because though understanding, intellect, or reason is the 100 00:17:36,070 --> 00:17:45,809 highest faculty available to the human individual, it has its own limitations. 101 00:17:45,809 --> 00:17:55,049 The greatness of intellect is that it has the capacity to know its own limitations. 102 00:17:55,049 --> 00:18:10,870 By knowing its limits, it can infer the presence of something beyond the limits of its own 103 00:18:10,870 --> 00:18:13,750 operations. 104 00:18:13,750 --> 00:18:21,080 Normally, no human being can go beyond this level. 105 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:29,172 The greatest philosophers of the world were intellectual specialists, logicians. 106 00:18:29,172 --> 00:18:39,960 Pure understanding is their ultimate reach, and nothing more can be known. 107 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:55,230 But understanding is a process of analytically knowing something, which is other than the 108 00:18:55,230 --> 00:19:01,100 understanding process itself. 109 00:19:01,100 --> 00:19:05,570 The apparatus of understanding is logic. 110 00:19:05,570 --> 00:19:10,590 What does logic do? 111 00:19:10,590 --> 00:19:21,663 It separates the subjective side and the objective side of anything. 112 00:19:21,663 --> 00:19:30,872 Even in a sentence, a part is the subject, and a part is the predicate. 113 00:19:30,872 --> 00:19:40,600 The predicate may be supposed to be the object of this subject part of the sentence. 114 00:19:40,600 --> 00:19:49,860 Anything that is externally placed and is objective in character has to be somehow or 115 00:19:49,860 --> 00:19:57,510 other dovetailed to the subjective side, in order that a comprehensive understanding of 116 00:19:57,510 --> 00:20:04,320 the situation may be arrived at. 117 00:20:04,320 --> 00:20:13,330 In forming a sentence, we use a link called 'is' or some kind of verb. 118 00:20:13,330 --> 00:20:18,890 Without a verb, there is no sentence. 119 00:20:18,890 --> 00:20:27,510 This peculiar thing called the verb is what gives meaning to a sentence. 120 00:20:27,510 --> 00:20:36,130 If the verb is absent, there is no meaning whatsoever in a sentence. 121 00:20:36,130 --> 00:20:43,039 It connects the subjective side and the predicate side. 122 00:20:43,039 --> 00:20:50,380 Logic has this characteristic of knowing things by connecting two differentiated things. 123 00:20:50,380 --> 00:20:58,720 It assumes at the very outset that things are separated from one another. 124 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:08,780 For instance, the knower is different from the known object. 125 00:21:08,780 --> 00:21:14,929 The known object is itself not the knower; it is something easy to understand. 126 00:21:14,929 --> 00:21:24,250 But some sort of connection has to be established between the known object and the knowing consciousness. 127 00:21:24,250 --> 00:21:36,110 This, the understanding tries to do artificially, by certain processes, which are fundamentally 128 00:21:36,110 --> 00:21:44,409 and basically untenable. 129 00:21:44,409 --> 00:21:52,920 The untenability of logical inferences in the knowledge of anything arises on account 130 00:21:52,920 --> 00:22:05,570 of a dual role that logical inference plays in the bringing together of the subjective 131 00:22:05,570 --> 00:22:09,669 side and the objective side. 132 00:22:09,669 --> 00:22:16,019 The two cannot be brought together, really speaking, because it is already affirmed that 133 00:22:16,019 --> 00:22:20,230 the object is outside the subject. 134 00:22:20,230 --> 00:22:26,200 Having affirmed such a thing as the complete dichotomy of the object from the subject, 135 00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:30,870 the question of the bringing them together does not really arise. 136 00:22:30,870 --> 00:22:40,480 Here is the defect of logical thinking, though it appears to be very perfect on an outer 137 00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:44,049 surface of observation. 138 00:22:44,049 --> 00:22:50,040 The object cannot be connected with the subject because it has been already assumed to be 139 00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,350 outside the subject. 140 00:22:52,350 --> 00:22:56,830 This is one side of the matter. 141 00:22:56,830 --> 00:23:03,041 The other side of the issue is unless somehow or other, in some way, though artificially, 142 00:23:03,041 --> 00:23:12,960 the object is connected, cemented with the subject, knowledge of the object cannot arise. 143 00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:25,000 This cementing is artificial, is something very clear on a clear observation of it because 144 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:30,850 the object that stands outside the perceiving, knowing consciousness can never become part 145 00:23:30,850 --> 00:23:33,740 and parcel of the knowing subject. 146 00:23:33,740 --> 00:23:41,879 But unless it becomes related organically, in a sort of oneness with the knowing subject, 147 00:23:41,879 --> 00:23:45,082 knowledge cannot arise. 148 00:23:45,082 --> 00:23:55,440 This drama of the perceptional process, or the knowledge process arrived at through the 149 00:23:55,440 --> 00:24:06,910 function of the understanding or reason, tells us finally that all our learning is artificial. 150 00:24:06,910 --> 00:24:19,450 Whatever we know is basically a husk; it is a big balloon, within which there is no content. 151 00:24:19,450 --> 00:24:26,970 That is why even the most learned person in the world can also be a very unhappy person. 152 00:24:26,970 --> 00:24:32,580 This knowledge does not bring happiness. 153 00:24:32,580 --> 00:24:38,309 Professors, pandits are not necessarily happy persons. 154 00:24:38,309 --> 00:24:43,250 They have their agonising sorrows. 155 00:24:43,250 --> 00:24:51,508 So, vijnanam brahmeti vyajanat -- not satisfying. 156 00:24:51,508 --> 00:24:59,690 The disciple went again to the Guru: "Adhihi bhagavo brahma." 157 00:24:59,690 --> 00:25:04,480 The reply is: "Tapasa brahma vijijnasasva." 158 00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:09,080 "Do tapas once again, and let us see what comes out." 159 00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:19,300 The obedient disciple plunged inside himself and delved into the roots of his own personality, 160 00:25:19,300 --> 00:25:29,100 deeper than the material body, deeper than the vital pranas, deeper than the thinking 161 00:25:29,100 --> 00:25:35,940 mind, deeper than the understanding, intellect or reason, and found something very mysterious. 162 00:25:35,940 --> 00:25:39,299 What did he realise? 163 00:25:39,299 --> 00:25:41,820 Anando brahmeti vyajanat. 164 00:25:41,820 --> 00:25:48,003 He realised bliss is Brahman. 165 00:25:48,003 --> 00:25:53,380 What is our idea about Brahman? 166 00:25:53,380 --> 00:25:57,250 We are also seated here, many people, thinking Brahman. 167 00:25:57,250 --> 00:26:01,399 What do we actually mean by this word? 168 00:26:01,399 --> 00:26:13,160 Every person will have every kind of fantastic idea about it, but all these ideas are intellectually 169 00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:20,669 construed, with a framework of logic. 170 00:26:20,669 --> 00:26:31,179 As mentioned, as it is not possible to actually know the core of the ultimate Brahman through 171 00:26:31,179 --> 00:26:38,360 even the highest faculty available, namely, reason and understanding, a self-identical 172 00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:47,309 process of appreciation of one's own Self is to be called for. 173 00:26:47,309 --> 00:26:56,150 In meditation, this is the technique that we have to adopt. 174 00:26:56,150 --> 00:27:04,309 Therefore, it follows that meditation is not merely a bodily exercise. 175 00:27:04,309 --> 00:27:11,169 It is not merely a vital exercise, like pranayama, etc. 176 00:27:11,169 --> 00:27:15,630 It is not a psychological analysis through the mind. 177 00:27:15,630 --> 00:27:19,200 It is not a rationalistic understanding, like philosophy. 178 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:25,480 It is another thing altogether that is within us. 179 00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:41,269 Our knowledge of our own self is not observable like a body of physical matter. 180 00:27:41,269 --> 00:27:47,860 It is also not to be identified with vitality or mind or intellect. 181 00:27:47,860 --> 00:27:49,940 It is something else. 182 00:27:49,940 --> 00:27:55,190 We seem to be something quite different from all these vestures. 183 00:27:55,190 --> 00:28:06,669 The probing through these vestures by tapasya is the art of meditation. 184 00:28:06,669 --> 00:28:15,450 We have to penetrate through the physical, vital, mental, intellectual layers, subjectively 185 00:28:15,450 --> 00:28:23,470 within our own selves, and objectively through the creation of the universe itself. 186 00:28:23,470 --> 00:28:32,210 Both through the subjectivity of our person and the objectivity of the created universe, 187 00:28:32,210 --> 00:28:44,440 we have to recognise one and the same Being pulsating at the root of everything. 188 00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:49,221 Happiness is Brahman: anando brahmeti vyajanat. 189 00:28:49,221 --> 00:28:56,170 After that, the disciple did not go back to the Guru. 190 00:28:56,170 --> 00:29:08,480 No disciple will go to the Guru after he is filled with perfect happiness, through any means. 191 00:29:08,490 --> 00:29:14,490 Only when there is a trouble, one goes to the Guru or a physician. 192 00:29:14,490 --> 00:29:21,590 Like a good disciple, therefore, clever in understanding the secret of things, Bhrigu 193 00:29:21,590 --> 00:29:26,679 realised that Brahman is constituted of bliss. 194 00:29:26,679 --> 00:29:31,559 But, here again, a question arises as to what is bliss. 195 00:29:31,559 --> 00:29:43,799 Human nature is so fragile, and so incapable of understanding even the experience of happiness 196 00:29:43,799 --> 00:29:54,870 which one undergoes, that "What is bliss?" is a question which cannot be answered. 197 00:29:54,870 --> 00:29:56,560 Are you happy? 198 00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:00,519 "Yes, I am happy," you may say. 199 00:30:00,519 --> 00:30:06,350 But what do you mean by saying, "I am happy"? 200 00:30:06,350 --> 00:30:07,730 You cannot explain it. 201 00:30:07,730 --> 00:30:14,019 "I can only say I am happy, but I cannot tell you what is the meaning of being happy." 202 00:30:14,019 --> 00:30:23,390 While everything is describable, observable, analysable, but happiness is something which 203 00:30:23,390 --> 00:30:29,840 is inscrutable. Brahman is such. 204 00:30:29,870 --> 00:30:45,015 No one can understand it by any means available to human nature, but it can be directly felt inside. 205 00:30:45,130 --> 00:30:51,919 Feeling melts into experience. 206 00:30:51,919 --> 00:30:59,310 Though we are happy oftentimes, this is not the kind of happiness that is to be equated 207 00:30:59,310 --> 00:31:03,340 with Brahman's bliss. 208 00:31:03,340 --> 00:31:07,330 The bliss of Brahman is perpetual. 209 00:31:07,330 --> 00:31:11,600 Since Brahman is eternal, the bliss of Brahman also is eternal. 210 00:31:11,600 --> 00:31:14,799 It is not contaminated by time process. 211 00:31:14,799 --> 00:31:17,789 Our happiness is fleeting. 212 00:31:17,789 --> 00:31:26,120 Today I may be happy and tomorrow I may not be, for some other reason. 213 00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:32,000 There are hundred things in the world which can extinguish the little flame of joy that 214 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,480 a person experiences in one's life. 215 00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:44,620 The sorrows in the world seem to outweigh oftentimes the joys of human beings. 216 00:31:44,620 --> 00:31:51,570 Whether joy is more in this world, or sorrow is more, is a question that each one has to 217 00:31:51,570 --> 00:31:53,690 answer for one's own self. 218 00:31:53,690 --> 00:32:00,570 Is the world filled with more sorrow than joy, or is it otherwise? 219 00:32:00,570 --> 00:32:04,494 You find it out by your own experience. 220 00:32:04,494 --> 00:32:18,911 However, if Brahman is the Ultimate Being, and its nature is bliss, it should explain 221 00:32:18,911 --> 00:32:30,570 all the questions of life because the sorrows of the world, to which we often make reference, 222 00:32:30,570 --> 00:32:39,350 cannot be connected in any way with the eternity of the bliss of Brahman. 223 00:32:39,350 --> 00:32:51,380 Just as night cannot stand before day, sorrow cannot be visualised or experienced in any 224 00:32:51,380 --> 00:33:01,880 way when Brahman's bliss is experienced directly in one's own self. 225 00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:13,150 Whatever experience Bhrigu, the disciple, had, he had it through tapasya, not through study 226 00:33:13,150 --> 00:33:18,350 of books or listening to lectures. 227 00:33:18,350 --> 00:33:24,350 No other means can bring this blessing. 228 00:33:24,350 --> 00:33:34,539 No katha, no sankirtana, bhajana -- nothing that is outwardly motivated can bring this 229 00:33:34,539 --> 00:33:42,010 bliss of Brahman because we can attend to all these kathas and bhajans, etc. without 230 00:33:42,010 --> 00:33:46,640 the least self-control in us. 231 00:33:46,640 --> 00:33:55,909 Even an unself-controlled person can enjoy bhajan, but he will not derive the benefit 232 00:33:55,909 --> 00:34:11,018 of it because benefit of any kind of spiritual exercise, the benefit of it, can be had only 233 00:34:11,018 --> 00:34:13,329 by self-control. 234 00:34:13,329 --> 00:34:22,369 In different stages of self-control, Bhrigu realised that bliss is the nature of Brahman. 235 00:34:22,369 --> 00:34:28,620 The bodily longings, which are the cravings of sense, have to be subdued first. 236 00:34:28,620 --> 00:34:44,010 As long as these cravings persist physically through the sense organs, through the desires 237 00:34:44,010 --> 00:34:50,897 and passions of any kind, the meditational process cannot go deeper 238 00:34:50,897 --> 00:34:53,399 than the physical level. 239 00:34:53,399 --> 00:35:05,040 That tapasya which was practiced by Bhrigu in the form of utter self-restraint enabled 240 00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:12,740 him to go deeper -- not merely by intellectual analysis, by actual experience of one's 241 00:35:12,740 --> 00:35:17,660 own vital existence, mental existence and intellectual existence. 242 00:35:17,660 --> 00:35:30,770 One has to be, therefore, purely subjective, in one sense, during meditation. 243 00:35:30,770 --> 00:35:33,900 There is no external interference at that time. 244 00:35:33,900 --> 00:35:43,589 When you reach the deepest level of your being, you will also reach the deepest level of the 245 00:35:43,589 --> 00:35:49,050 whole of creation. 246 00:35:49,050 --> 00:35:58,050 This is why it is said, "Thou art That": tat twam asi. 247 00:35:58,050 --> 00:36:06,692 "Thou" here means the deepest essence of spirituality in a person is identical with 248 00:36:06,692 --> 00:36:12,640 the deepest core of the cosmos. 249 00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:20,310 Identity does not mean one merging with the other, as if they are two different things. 250 00:36:20,310 --> 00:36:28,300 It is a coalescing process which is indescribable through our mind. 251 00:36:28,300 --> 00:36:39,119 It is like sinking into deep sleep, where our bodily, vital, mental and intellectual 252 00:36:39,119 --> 00:36:48,373 functions melt down, as it were, in a sea of experience where we remain as we are, 253 00:36:48,373 --> 00:36:59,410 and we do not require to contact anything else to be happy. 254 00:36:59,410 --> 00:37:05,180 How pleasant is sleep, everyone knows. 255 00:37:05,180 --> 00:37:14,250 It is more pleasant, more delighting, than any joy that one can conceive. 256 00:37:14,250 --> 00:37:23,207 Let even the emperor, who has all the world for himself to enjoy, not sleep for fifteen days. 257 00:37:23,207 --> 00:37:31,295 See what happens to the joy of the king. He will say, "Don't talk to me. Let me sleep. 258 00:37:31,319 --> 00:37:35,630 Let the empire go, but I want to take rest and sleep." 259 00:37:35,630 --> 00:37:41,430 He wants to go into himself, and not into the empire. 260 00:37:41,430 --> 00:37:48,520 Though the mind, the sense organs, wrongly suggested that you are in the empire and your 261 00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:55,890 joy is there, outside, but the test is actual experience. 262 00:37:55,890 --> 00:38:04,420 Daily, you are taken to Brahman, says the Upanishad. 263 00:38:04,420 --> 00:38:13,537 Great wonder is this, that every day we are pulled into Brahman when we are in dreamless sleep. 264 00:38:13,537 --> 00:38:27,140 That is why the very presence of that apparent contact we have with the deepest Being in 265 00:38:27,140 --> 00:38:36,160 ourselves tells us that we can sleep more and more, and it is not good to get up: 266 00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,282 "Let me sleep a little more." 267 00:38:39,282 --> 00:38:49,560 Because the honey-like bliss is poured into one's experience in the state of deep sleep. 268 00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:56,010 Upanishad says you are actually in contact with Brahman, but you do not know what is 269 00:38:56,010 --> 00:38:57,660 happening to you. 270 00:38:57,660 --> 00:39:06,589 You come back like a fool, as you went like a fool, into the state of deep sleep. 271 00:39:06,589 --> 00:39:10,530 Why does this happen? 272 00:39:10,530 --> 00:39:22,650 Because the absence of self-control, absence of self-restraint of the different vestures 273 00:39:22,650 --> 00:39:31,160 mentioned -- the body, the pranas, the mind and the intellect. 274 00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:38,500 These vestures, or kosas, as they are called, are agitations of spirit. 275 00:39:38,500 --> 00:39:44,340 It is a disease of the mind, concretised in the form of visible personality. 276 00:39:44,340 --> 00:39:54,650 To melt it down into the substance of which they have arisen, deep contemplation of a 277 00:39:54,650 --> 00:39:59,170 utter subjectivity in nature has to be practiced. 278 00:39:59,170 --> 00:40:06,860 Finally, it would mean that one has to love one's own Self, and one cannot love anything 279 00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:13,410 else, even the least tinge of love for anything other than your own Self. 280 00:40:13,410 --> 00:40:21,780 Looking almost like selfishness, looked at from another angle of vision, is the greatest 281 00:40:21,780 --> 00:40:24,930 altruism one can think of. 282 00:40:24,930 --> 00:40:29,079 Why does it look like selfishness? 283 00:40:29,079 --> 00:40:32,790 Because you conceive of this Self, into which you enter, as a bodily content. 284 00:40:32,790 --> 00:40:40,800 It is as if you are going inside your physical individuality. 285 00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:46,790 That is why you say, wrongly, that it is a selfish going inside. 286 00:40:46,790 --> 00:40:49,850 But, the deepest inside in you is not. 287 00:40:49,850 --> 00:40:55,700 It has become the self of all other drops also. 288 00:40:55,700 --> 00:41:02,250 So, this thing which you are entering into in the state of deep sleep is that into which 289 00:41:02,250 --> 00:41:14,835 everything sinks, and therein is our final solace and blessedness. 290 00:41:14,835 --> 00:41:22,322 But however much we may go to sleep every day, Brahman is not realised because desires 291 00:41:22,322 --> 00:41:28,700 of the mind, the passions of the sense organs, which are potentially present even in the 292 00:41:28,700 --> 00:41:37,300 state of deep sleep, cloud the intelligence, which is flashing forth from the root of Brahman, 293 00:41:37,300 --> 00:41:45,710 which gives pleasure on one side and ignorance on the other side. 294 00:41:45,710 --> 00:41:50,393 We are happy in sleep, but we are also unconscious that we are happy. 295 00:41:50,393 --> 00:41:55,490 So, there is a curse upon this happiness. 296 00:41:55,490 --> 00:42:02,990 That curse, like Dhurvasa's imprecation, is nothing but the desires of the sense organs 297 00:42:02,990 --> 00:42:11,330 unfulfilled, which crave to jump out upon the objects outside at the 298 00:42:11,330 --> 00:42:13,369 least opportunity provided. 299 00:42:13,369 --> 00:42:23,550 Therefore, any amount of sleep will not make you know Brahman, unless the senses are controlled 300 00:42:23,550 --> 00:42:32,910 and consciousness retreats itself from the outer level to the inner level, until it reaches 301 00:42:32,910 --> 00:42:39,460 the deepest level, where consciousness establishes itself on consciousness. 302 00:42:39,460 --> 00:42:46,565 That is the bliss of Brahman, which Bhrigu realised by the blessing of the 303 00:42:46,565 --> 00:42:51,930 great master Varuna, who was his father. Wonderful was the teacher. 304 00:42:51,950 --> 00:42:57,030 He wouldn't utter one word of teaching, really speaking. 305 00:42:57,030 --> 00:43:04,730 "Know it by yourself, go deep into yourself, work for yourself, and toil for yourself; 306 00:43:04,730 --> 00:43:07,380 know it for yourself, that's all." 307 00:43:07,380 --> 00:43:18,020 That is the teaching of the Guru, and so obedient was the disciple, he never questioned this 308 00:43:18,020 --> 00:43:25,069 pithy, so-called meaningless instruction of the Guru, took it seriously and went inside 309 00:43:25,069 --> 00:43:33,550 by self-control, control of the operations of every level of the personality, and reached 310 00:43:33,550 --> 00:43:45,663 that bliss which is the very essence of all existence -- Sat, Pure Existence, 311 00:43:45,663 --> 00:43:48,746 is also Ananda at the same time, 312 00:43:48,746 --> 00:43:52,870 And it is all Consciousness at that time, so we call it Sat-chit-ananda, 313 00:43:52,870 --> 00:44:00,398 Existence-consciousness-bliss, towards which end we have to struggle hard, 314 00:44:00,398 --> 00:44:05,323 as the disciple Bhrigu endeavored. Hari Om Tat Sat.