Consciousness and Self in Vedanta | Swami Sarvapriyananda _ University of Michigan
Consciousness and Self in Vedanta | Swami Sarvapriyananda _ University of Michigan (part_3)
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Sri
Ramakrishna
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the
ultimate it was said to be parama purushartha the highest goal of
human life so it was always recognized not just for a
few mystics not
just for a few philosophers but for everybody in life the gentleman
there yes you yes please tell us your name thank you for your
comments really wonderful rate and there's
so much material there we
could have another talk but I'm not threatening you don't make a run
for
the doors let me start with what you ended with
the Buddhist
world view correct do you recall what ice men shinned about sam
harris the interesting intuition he came to that Advaita Vedanta ends
option Buddhism both of them have a core of truth and he says it's
the same truth here is an atheist a fierce critic a relentless critic
of religion
who
says we must admit that there is some truth to this now it's a very
interesting subject Buddhism and Hinduism the Hindu schools of
philosophy and Buddhist schools of philosophy had been at loggerheads
for more than a thousand years of debate scholarly debate and there
are records of this but mostly you will see it was a debate between
some of the Theravada schools of Buddhism and
the dualistic Hindu
schools like the knee eye of a sheik Assange here Mimamsa schools
until Buddhism sort of faded out from India now the Advaita School
has a very interesting relationship with Buddhism if you look at
the
text when they refute other schools of philosophy they also refute
Buddhism Shankara in the Brahma sutra vishakha mentioned the Brahma
sutra boshy in one place it takes page after page to refute began
about Buddhism the Buddhism which is very close to subjective
idealism there's a school of Buddhism which is very close to
the
Berkeley and kind of subjective idealism to perceive is to exist like
that Shankara takes page after page to refute that it cuts it down
when it comes to Sunni Avada philosophy of Shunyata my dear maka
Buddhism of Nagarjuna Shankara sort of strangely sidesteps
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Sri
Ramakrishna
the issue
you know he just says in Sanskrit now I am nirahara Brahma Ganga core
Maha we do not accept error without any reality without a ground of
error it's like saying there's a snake which is false you know
the
classic Vedanta example is a rope which is mistaken for a snake
similarly,
Brahman is mistaken for this world that's what they
wanted to say now if you say that we are mistaking it as a snake but
there's no hope there's nothing
there but you are
mistaking
it as a snake that we cannot accept Vedanta Shankara says that there
is a reality which is being misperceived and he lets it go at that
but if you actually go to the Buddhist texts the original texts the
texts of Nagarjuna Mula Magda macaque Erica which is the source for
the entire to Nevada movement in Buddhism which is about 1800 1900
years old
there he clearly says I'm not talking about the non-existence
when I say Suniya shoonya means the void why does mean nothing
what does it mean he says four possibilities are there this is
Nagarjuna and I'm actually supporting him four possibilities are
there one is illogical possibilities one is it exists that
so there's
some ultimate reality it exists another one is it does not exist the
other one is it both exists and does not exist and
the fourth one is
it neither exists nor does not exist the four possible alternatives
he calls it to chapter Scotty and what is right what is shoonya none of
these four is it something that exists no is it something that does
not exist no is it something that both exists and does not exist no
is it something that neither exists nor does exist no chatter
Scotty linear Muktuk to ammonium
so what in
the monocoque Arica a the classic text of Advaita Vedanta Shankara's teacher's teacher Gowda
pada uses almost mirror language same kind of language to describe
brahman the infinite almost the same language Nagarjuna the great
teacher of not are they boys school of the void he uses almost Nandu
Advaitic language in his beginning you know
he uses proppant Yokohama
shantung Shivam do I am what is Union the cessation of the universe
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Sri
Ramakrishna
the silence of the universe dropping super shallow Shanta peace itself
at doing I am non-dual Shivam uses the word Shiva a dual Buddhist he
means it as auspicious and in the Mundaka Upanishad in the seventh
mantra be the highest reality is described what are the words drop
enjoy Pasha mom's anthem Shiva Madhu item cessation of the universe the piece itself auspiciousness itself non-duality exactly the same terms
used to describe brahman and shoonya
the pure you know the way to
understand this is the pure subject itself there is no object there
it can be called the infinite it can be called the void it makes
sense both ways I put it this way when you listen to way down
the
Advaita Vedanta it seems to be describing a positive thing it's a
mistake it's not describing a positive thing something called an
ultimate reality something called a witness is not a thing it
is the witness of all things but it's not a thing in itself and when
you listen to Narayana the Buddhist the school of the void mistake is
it seems
they're talking about nothing they are not talking about
nothing Vedanta is not talking about a thing both of
they are talking
about nothing the best way you can indicate
that is nothing swami Sahaj Ananda--
who wrote the authoritative
biography of Sri Ramakrishna
he writes a very interesting line he
says what the Buddhists call the void Union we call the poornam
the
for the infinite the whole of the infant now this is one point of
view dr. Radhakrishnan was also to some extent of this point of view
server poly Radhakrishna some modern philosophers TRB muthi and
others they agree but also to be fair classical nondualist sand
classical Buddhist philosophers still at it I remember I was in a
conference with a llama in Delhi he was a Buddhist teacher Tibetan
lama and I give a talk on consciousness in Advaita Vedanta he gave a
talk in consciousness in Tibetan Buddhism and after that,
a lady stood
up and asked it seems
he asked she asked a llama it seems sir
what
the swami talked about and what you talked about this seems to
be the same and he said no no they are not the same there actually
there are differences and I said yes there are differences there
actually
the approach is different you know being a Hindu we always
tend to synthesize they all lead to
the same goal they're all true
and if
so I said there are different approaches but they lead to the same goal he was having none of that is,
of course,
well it's very very a sweet and gentleman
so I said they all lead to the same goal
immediately
he said yes yes the same goal but afterward again different
one just a little comment on but I agree entirely with what you said
first one little comment on what you said to exist is to exist as an
object Vedanta would reverse that
the only thing that really exists
as such is Brahman which is not an object it lends existence to every
object a cart would call it the ground of being yes yes I love that the story I told it
so many times Allen Watts was in the Bay Area in
San Francisco in the 60s nobody reads much of up in
these days but
his books are a treasure really he's very humorous mischievous a
little
sometimes I mean he taught with Antan Buddhism in popularized it in San Francisco in
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Sri
Ramakrishna
the Bay Area in the 60s I think
sixties young sixties seventies also so
he says there that oh if
religion is the opium of the masses then I must say that the Hindus
at
the inside dope but the story he tells is very interesting it sort
of explains all of this very nicely and it's a child in child story
he is made it of him he says what is all this what's going on and he
says it's like this God alone existed from all time to it from
eternity to eternity but being alone from eternity to eternity got a
little bored
so he wanted to play now who will he play with because
only God exists there nothing else who will you play with so he
thought about it and because
he was God is very eyeing awfully clever
so he hit upon a solution God pretended to be not God now God has somebody to play with who God playing with
God pretending to be not God now the problem arose was because he is
God is awfully good at what he does
so when he pretended to be not
God,
he totally forgot that he was God and that is the universe it is
God searching for God that's what's going on from eternity to
eternity but it says a little faired like a fairy tale like a little
fable but it's really deep I mean Advaita would agree with that
entirely I think we have almost run out of time let's have one is
your there yes the gentleman there you're asking what happened to
consciousness
what we data would say
there is because of the
tremendous sharped there at that moment your sensory system and mind
maybe did get a shock and it did not register right
so it was
filtered out by the same a lot of data which is coming into
the senses are filtered out at some level before it comes to our
conscious experience
so it did not come to conscious expense what
happens often is
when we are knocked out by anesthesia or by a
blow to the head it's the mind which goes to sleep and hence
we don't
register anything in the world but the consciousness which
registers
the mind getting information from the senses in the world
you know sidewalk car coming and all of that when the mind shuts down
just like deep sleep the consciousness experiences no information
coming in the blank and then again reminder X
so this difference is
just like waking dreaming deep sleep coma Anastasiya all of these
effects are on the body and the mind and the consciousness just keeps
revealing what has happened I'll write that out, at last,
their
gentlemen yes tell us your name and ask the question okay
the second
question is actually a very profound question the first one is what
is mine how does function it's a general question every philosophy
including modern positive psychology has its own answers and when and
as I said precisely defines everything mind is a broad term Vedanta
is very precise words for them for this thing well anticipate the subtle body and in Vedanta,
the subtle body has actually three
components
the pranamaya kosha which you might consider to be like
the battery of your mobile phone the source of energy and power
literally life forces second is the manova Akasha which includes what we call
the mind again their precise definitions memory ego
and sense organs the sensory inputs and there is something called
David Jeremiah caution which is
the intellect itself and the sense of the character that a doer ship
so those things are there each of them has
precise definitions and functions that's one way of mapping what we
call
the mind there are other ways also second your question single
witness or many witnesses that's really a good question if you follow
what we did I am different from the world I am different from the body I am different from the mind
I am the witness of mind-body and the world immediately you get the sensation that you get
the intuition
that in everybody there is a different witness but you would be
wrong according to Vedanta it is one consciousness shining through
different bodies and minds your question is you know in fact in
the
Bhagavad-gita this thing starts in this topic is
there a thirteen chapters where Krishna speaks about the field and knower of the field the body is the field Chaitra and the witness within
the field is the
knower of the field the witness consciousness within how many of
this witness consciousness is billions of bodies or billions of
witness consciousness all is it one and Krishna in the 13 chapters
in a very startling half of verse
he makes a tremendous declaration
Chaitra ganja imam with deserving Akshay Trisha Bharata or Juna no me
alone to be the one consciousness in all these fields so in one the sentence he answers both your question and also gives the definition
of God,
in Vedanta,
there is only one consciousness in all bodies and
minds and that one consciousness in all bodies and minds is God all
are saguna brahman in Vedanta now your question actually was how
do you make that jump okay let me leave you with this thought why are
there not different witnesses witness consciousness clearly bodies
are different
you
can see you can count clearly minds are different what you know
I do
not know what he has experienced she has not experienced Oh minds are
different personalities are different physical bodies different subtle
bodies different but witnesses consciousness is it different or not
Samkhya philosophy would say yes Yoga philosophy would say yes
Advaita would say no it is one common witness consciousness you know
if you ask then prove it Advaita will say prove that they are
different why do you say bodies are different because you can clearly
prove it that bodies are different you can see the different
differences in the bodies how do you say a mind start different you
can show
the differences in the mind show the difference in the consciousness you cannot why would you say consciousnesses are
different because there are different experiences well different
experiences are because of different bodies
the Samkhya philosophy
this long debate about this Samkhya philosophy says each person is a
different pure consciousness and they defend it with arguments
basically fundamentally five arguments none of them work you can
knock them out right now if it is one consciousness then
when one
person falls asleep everybody were to fall asleep is that true what
would be
the answer you tell me body falls asleep mine falls asleep I
but another body or mind falls asleep in this body and mind falls
asleep consciousness might be
the one illumining the sleeping body
and mind here illumining the active body and mind this next argument
the death of one would be the death of everybody no deck top one is
the death of one body why would it be that of anybody else next
argument little more subtle the liberation of one enlightenment of
one would be
the enlightenment of everybody no enlightenment and
ignorance and enlightenment are in the mind they are not in pure
consciousness mind is ignorant mind is enlightened consciousness
itself in humans
the enlightened mind and enlightenment mind just
really realizes my real nature is consciousness it's not body-mind
that's it
so all of the arguments actually fail Samkhya gives those
arguments because of some metaphysical constraint Samkhya has to give
those arguments but really none of them stand that's a good point to
end
the oneness of all existence we are all one existence interesting
Vivekananda said he has taught only two things that the divinity
within each of us which is
the pure consciousness we talked about and
the oneness of all existence that it is one consciousness in all
beings,
in fact,
one existence which is appearing as many it's
wonderful to end on this note and you have been a wonderful and
patient audience thank you very much thank you for having me thank
you
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