Mandukya Karika Lecture 022 on 27 October 2021

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

Om Jananem Sharadam Devem Ramakrishnam Jagadgurum Pada Padme Tayo Sritva Pranamami Mohur Moho Om Bhadram Karne Vishrunayama Devaha Bhadram Pashye Maakshabhirya Jatraha Sthirai Rangai Sushtu Vagam Sastanu Bhi Vyase Madhe Vahitai Njadayu Swasthina Indru Vriddha Shravaha Swasthina Poosha Vishwa Vedaha Swasthina Starksho Arishta Nemi Swasthino Brihaspa Tirtha Dhatu Om Shanti Shanti Shanti Hare Om Om, O Gods, may we hear auspicious words with our ears. May we see auspicious things with our eyes. Worshipping the Gods with steady limbs. May we enjoy a life that is beneficial to all. May Indra of ancient fame bestow auspiciousness on us. May the all-nourishing potion be propitious to us. May Garuda, the destroyer of all evil, be well disposed towards us. May Brihaspati ensure our welfare. Om, Peace, Peace, Peace be unto all. In our last class, we have been discussing that if everything is Brahman, we are also Brahman. And by analyzing that one Brahman as everything, then we analyze everything that we experience or anybody experienced at any given time, within time and space. But this Atman, which is my individual self, is nothing but Brahman. Because if everything is Brahman, I am also Brahman. What we call even the Jada, non-conscious objects are also Brahman. Then they cannot be called Jada. They are also Chaitanya Swaroopa only. So the question of Jivatma. I am a Jivatma. I have a body and mind. My Jivatma is full of consciousness. And this body-mind is not having consciousness. All these divisions must disappear at the same time. So Mantra 3 describes the first quarter. Mantra 4 describes the second quarter. Mantra 5 and 6 describe the third quarter. What is the third quarter? What are we talking about? First quarter is waking state called Jagradha Avastha. Second quarter is what we call Avastha, what we call Swapna Avastha. Third is what we call Sushupti Avastha. All these three are four Padas equated with Akara, Ukara and Makara. So let us keep this in mind. So before studying this second mantra and also third mantra, let us have a bit of introduction. Last class I was giving that introduction. What is it? In this world whatever object we see is an effect, is a product. And every effect must have a cause. And from every Upanishad we come to know from Brahman came Akasha, Vayu, Agni, etc. That means Brahman is the cause of everything. That is the first point. Second point is whatever is the cause, nature of the cause, the effect must have exactly the same nature. A Brahman is pure Chaitanya Swaroopa, Shuddha Chaitanya Swaroopa. Then by proxy everything in this world including my Jivatma, my body, my mind, though mistakenly considered as, divided as, this is with consciousness and this is without consciousness, this is Chaitanya, this is Jada, must be a falsity. It cannot be true because if everything is an effect and the cause is Brahman, and if Brahman is Chaitanyam, everything must be pure Chaitanyam, there cannot be any other nature that can intrude on the way somewhere and attach itself to this effect. So this is the analysis. Every Upanishad does it that this is how we are all Brahman because Brahman is the cause and the world is the effect and we are all part of the world. That is absolutely fine but Mandukya Upanishad takes another tack. That is very very important. What is it? That in this particular Upanishad, the reasoning goes like that. Both Shankaracharya and his grand guru Gaudapadacharya, both of them make it clear that this world is a Mithya because we are experiencing it. What do the other Upanishads say? That even though we do not understand it, cognize it, Jagat is nothing but Brahman. Then what about Shankaracharya's statement, Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya, yes, Brahman alone is truth and real. Everything else is unreal. That is from the Maya point of view, Dvaita point of view, dualistic point of view, ignorant point of view. From the Paramarthika point of view, Brahma Satyam, Jagat Satyam. If Brahma Satyam and Jagat also is Satyam, why do you use two words? It is again used only from the Yavaharika point of view. A person who understands, realizes Brahman. He never uses two words. In fact, he doesn't even use the word Brahman because when a person is merged in Brahman, there is no second and therefore naming it as Brahman doesn't come. Naming, the name, the named, the naming, the knower, the knowing, the known object, everything we must remember according to Gaudapada and also Shankaracharya is only a big magic show that goes on in the dualistic world. When a person has Aparoksha Anubhuti, Sakshatkara, he doesn't even say, he doesn't even know that I am Brahman. As we know, this is a table, but he knows I am Brahman. Again, that is a human expression. We have to keep in mind. So, coming to this Mandukya Upanishad speciality, everything in this world is Mithya. So, what is Mithya? Remember, so much of misunderstanding of this word Mithya. Mithya doesn't mean unreality. One definition I have given is partial understanding of something is called Mithya. So, it is, let us take an example. Here is a, we see a snake and we think it is real. How long? Until light is brought up. When light has come, what happens to this snake or serpent? It disappears. Where did it disappear? And Gaudapada says, that is a misnomer. It doesn't disappear because what is, what appears, that alone can disappear. What never existed cannot disappear. So, when there is no appearance, there cannot be disappearance. When there is no birth, there is no death also. So, then what happens? When light is brought, then we understand there was no snake at all. It was our Brahma, delusion, our imagination and consequent, what we call, the effects of the imagination, fear and heart beat, high blood pressure, etc., etc. All these completely disappear. So, we have to use the word disappear. That means what? We come to know this is a rope when light is brought. And then what happens? We don't think where from the snake has come, at what time it has come, what time it disappeared. All these questions completely disappear. They are irrelevant, meaningless, irrational, etc. That is what is called Mithya. What is Mithya? Pure imagination, but every imagination requires some substratum, Adhishtana. There cannot be snake without the rope. There cannot be water without sand. There cannot be silver without that. Silver looks like a shell. So, any number of examples can be given. So, Mithya means what? Partial understanding that is mistaking something for something else. This is called Adhyasa, superimposition. This is what our Shankaracharya, in his Adhyasa Bhashyam, the Brahma Sutras, gives the essence of all this. There are so many definitions, but the essence of all these superimpositions is mistaking one thing for the other. And this mistaking is called ignorance. And this ignorance produces effect. So, we have to keep these two points in mind. One is not able to understand things rightly. That means having false knowledge, wrong knowledge. That is the mother of all problems that we get. And the subsequent problems that arise, like heart beat upon thinking this is a snake, fear, and sometimes even the heart stops beating, all those things are the secondary results, the phala. So, karana and phala. These are the two points Gaudapada wants to emphasize in the coming few mantras and his explanation in the form of karikas. I am just foretelling what we are going to see. Now, coming back to again, I hope you have not forgotten, in this Mandukya, everything that we experience is false. We experience waking state, that is false. We experience a dream, that is false. We experience deep sleep, dreamless sleep, that is also false. Why is it false? Because we experience. Now, in what way, this particular reasoning is followed? Very beautiful points are here. So, supposing, what is the point? Whatever is experienced is not me. This is a very important, three points are there. The first point is, whatever I experience, and you apply it to you, we, anybody, or in the past, in the present and in the future, whatever I experience is not me. Whatever object I experience, whatever I experience is called object. Whatever object I experience is Mithya. And whatever object I experience, whatever qualities belong to it, they also do not belong to me. What I experience is Mithya, and whatever I experience is called an object, and whatever object that I experience is different from me, and whatever object has certain qualities, those qualities belong to the object, but not to me. So, this is not philosophy, this is a fact. For example, you experience a snake, and you get fear, because what you experienced is an object. What you experienced is not you. A snake, a poisonous snake, is not frightened of poison. So, a table doesn't bump another table. Like that, you can make any number of examples. So, whatever I experience is not me, it is an object, and it is Mithya. Why is it Mithya? Because unless I experience it, it doesn't have even existence. If I don't know something, so far as I am concerned, it doesn't exist for me at all. And these important points, please note down. Whatever qualities belong to any object, they belong to the object, they do not belong to me. So, if a snake has got poison, that poison belongs to the snake, not to me. So, that is what we do, that some snake I see, for example, and then I get frightened. So, I am not this snake, but I get frightened. I get frightened. I am not talking about real snake. Remember, I am talking about mistaken snake. So, a mistaken snake, a deluded, because of my delusion, I see a snake. It doesn't have poison. It doesn't exist. It cannot bite me. It cannot kill me. But sometimes people die. Yes, because of the fright they experience, not understanding that Mithya Sarpa can never do any harm. In fact, it doesn't even have existence until I cognize it. For that, I have got two examples. One example I have already given. What is that first example? If I am in search of a... I am a snake catcher and I want to add to my collection and I know every antidote for any type of snake poison. So, I am absolutely fearless and somehow the snake also understands that it cannot frighten me. This person only wants to catch me. Of course, it will try to run away in his imagination because it doesn't run away because it is a mistaken snake. So, the illustration is for that a mistaken snake doesn't even exist and that which doesn't exist can have no impact upon me either it cannot give me happiness nor can it give me unhappiness. But I go on imagining just as I gave the example a young man in his blindness of love went and embraced a black bear on a dark night and he was experiencing tremendous amount of bliss thinking that I am embracing my beloved and then when the moonlight came and that honeymoon is finished so he immediately woke up. It is a bear. So, I don't know how he bore about it. Probably, the bear also was very surprised to be embraced by such a man for a short time. Anyway, what is the example? That a mithya object totally depends upon me and whatever depends upon something else is called mithya. So, it cannot exist unless there is a knower. This is the reasoning that goes. Here is an object. How do I know it is an object? Because it has been known by me. It must be known by me. Maybe a billion people had seen it. But I have not seen it. I have not heard about it. So far as I am concerned this object is totally non-existent. But the moment I experience it it springs into existence. It is totally dependent. And the moment a second thought comes so how do I experience this thing? In the form of a thought. And our mind is restless. That means it is thinking so many thoughts. The moment, for example, the tree thought. I have seen a tree. Oh, this is a tree. And so long as that thought is there then I have action, reaction. This is a mango tree. This is a sweet mango tree. In this season there are plenty of mangoes. And I can enjoy them. Or there are no... This is not a sweet mango tree. There are no mangoes here. So it doesn't bring too much of reaction. What am I talking about? Unless I experience something is non-existent until I experience until I keep on experiencing it. Suppose suddenly my attention is drawn to a tiger. The tree is completely forgotten. Suppose my attention is drawn to a baby. The tiger is completely forgotten. So this is how the existence of anything comes to us in the form of knowledge, in the form of thought. And the moment one thought is replaced by another thought that object totally disappears. This is called dependence. Total, complete dependence. And whatever is dependent that is called mithya. And whatever is satya it will be there all the time. So if we follow this line of reasoning then the question comes so if everything is mithya because the whole jagat, world is experienced by somebody, by me so if the whole thing is mithya jagat is mithya what is satyam? And the answer to that is that I the experiencer I am the satyam. I am the experiencer, the rik. I am the sakshi. I am the observer. I am the aware. I am the knower. I am the experiencer. So an experiencer can never become an object of experience and an object of experience can never become the knower, the subject. This is what we have to understand. So what does it mean? Knowable is a criteria to prove the existence of anything. And so the existence of any object depends upon being knowable. How long? Until it is known. The moment the thought disappears as I said the existence of that object also is wiped off. I am not talking about any speculative philosophy. I am talking about our day-to-day experience in vyavaharika. For example, in Jagrat and Swapna we experience so many things. But then, however wonderful, however horrible, the moment Sushupti comes everything is completely, totally obliterated in that. That is the most wonderful thought you have to keep. So then anything that becomes knowable until it is knowable it doesn't exist. Only so long as it is known, experienced, its existence persists. The moment the thought changes then something else exists. That previous object is completely dead and gone. It is born when the thought came. It is dead when the thought is dead. Now anything becomes knowable only when there is a knower. There is an insufferable connection between the object and subject. To be known, there must be a person. And that being, by whom something is known, is called the subject, the knower, the experiencer, the sakshi, the drik. It is called seer. So, who is the seer? I, whoever is experiencing. And whoever is experiencing he doesn't say you are experiencing. She is experiencing. He is experiencing. He says I am experiencing. That knower is I. I am the observer. I am the drik. I am the sakshi. I am everything. So Vedanta concludes that the subject, the knower, alone proves the existence of any object. And any object that depends upon me, the knower, that is called mithya. Not only that. So, but contrary to the object, when am I absent? I was there in the waking state. I was there in the dream state. I was there in the sushupti state. Again I came to the waking state. There was not a single millisecond of my absence. All the time I am there. So my existence doesn't depend upon the object. But the existence of an object depends totally upon me. So the whole external world, including internal world, sopna, everything depends upon myself. And then see, even if I close my sense organs, mind, that is to say, when I enter into the sushupti state, am I there or not? I am there. How do I know? Because upon waking up, what do I say? I slept well, and it was a happy state, and I did not know anything. To know something, not to know something. I know this. I do not know this. The I must be present both times witnessing. To know something and to claim that I do not know something, that is also knowledge. I do not know something, that is also knowledge. And upon it depends so much of our fate. Supposing there is a terrorist, and here is a baby. Terrorist is determined, I will wipe out these people. And until he wipes out, sometimes the subject, the victim, does not even know, because he does not suspect, this is a terrorist. So if it is a slow death, of course he understands it. But if he shoots, that is it, one millisecond, this person does not even know that death is coming to him. Death is fearful only because we think about it. Death is fearful, we do not know because when we die, that is a very interesting question. How much time does it take to die? What a stupid question. How much time does it take for any one of us to fall asleep? Some people were asked. Some people said it takes me one hour to fall asleep. Some people said one second. Both of them are completely wrong because you can count a second or an hour only when you are awake, not when you are asleep. Sleep comes instantaneously and you go out of time and when you go out of time, you cannot keep time. So that's why you can't say at this particular second I have gone to bed. You only guess 11.30 I went to bed and few minutes I was thinking and I don't know, that is correct. I don't know what millisecond I fell into that state called Sushupti. Similarly, when I come out, at what time I came out of Sushupti? I do not know anything at all. So, every thought it disappears like that it appears like that and along with the appearance of the thought, time-space causation comes along with the disappearance of thought time-space causation also completely disappears and so, what are we talking here? That when I am in the deep sleep, I am experiencing what am I experiencing? There is no object. I am not experiencing any object. That firm knowledge is a very useful thing in life. That is how, when you meet some stranger, you don't have either negative or positive opinions about that person. But, as we come to know the person and then impressions are created. Until that time, what is called innocence is the best thing that way. That is the state we have to acquire assiduously through spiritual practice. Then, first, wipe out all the impressions, good and bad. First, wipe out bad impressions about the world and everything that is in the world. Then, wipe out all the good impressions because good impressions can come only when there are bad impressions. There is nothing called I don't have bad impressions I only have good impressions. Such a state of mind never exists. So, in order to know that Brahman is everything, then I have to bring that Brahma Atma Aikeya Bodha through Shravana Manana Nididhyasana. That's why it takes such a hell of a long time. So, here is the tag. So, existence of myself is self-proven because I am never absent knowing myself. Here is another deep, beautiful point. There are two types of experiences are there. Unable to understand the difference between these two types, we go on putting wrong questions. Why don't I experience myself as Atman? Well, you don't experience. See, supposing you see a table and you are experiencing it and you tell to others I see a table. I am experiencing a table. I am sitting in front of the table and all the time I am using that table. So, what has happened? Sometime before you were not experiencing the table. Suddenly, your Drishti, your sight has fallen. You went perhaps into the working office room and then you saw the chair and table, sat in the chair, started using the table, computer table or writing table or whatever and then, so when did you start experiencing it? There was a time when you were not experiencing. Then there is a time when you are experiencing. Then there will be a time when you will not be experiencing. So, the table has a birth time and sustaining time and death time. This is one type of experience in the form of thought. Every thought has a birth date, sustaining date and time and also death date and in how many minutes, how many thoughts are coming and going. Only God knows or even He is incapable of finding out. Such is the restlessness of our mind. Now, what am I driving at? This is an ordinary understanding of all of us about experience. But, supposing you are experiencing yourself in the waking dream, dreamless from Anadi Kaala. There is no time factor because time comes only when something is separate, different, an object. But, you are the Satyam. That is why Trikaala Ateetam Satyam and that is why Omkara Trikaala Ateetam Bhoota Bhavishat Vartamana Ateeto Sopi Omkara Evacha. In the very first mantra, we have seen. So, this is the second type of experience. That's why we don't call it experience so that we don't mistake it to the experience of the world. The subject is ever experienced experience. Therefore, we don't take cognition of it. You don't say suddenly, Oh! I forgot myself and then I am experienced. When you forgot yourself, did you die? Were you absent? No. What does it mean? That means, if I forget this thing, I was remembering something else. You see, 24 hours you are experiencing. In this world of Maya, either you are experiencing the waking and it comes to an end. Then you start experiencing dream. Then it will come to an end. Then you start experiencing deep sleep and that will come to an end. These things come and go but 24 hours even we should not use that word 24 hours. That means eternally you are experiencing. So, before birth also was I there? Yes. Because you were born you see. So, before you, before the birth, where were you? Were you there or not? Because nothing can come. Something cannot come out of nothing. So, the second type of experience self experience, subjective experience is not really an experience. It is ever experienced fact. Therefore, we should not even call it an experience but for the sake of understanding this profound teaching, we use this word Sakshatkara, Brahmanubhuti, Aparakshanubhuti, etc. etc. As if that you are away from that. You are not Brahman and one day sometime either by sadhana, by God's grace or by accident by hook or crook you fall into the Brahman. Oh, now I have become one with Brahman. Thank God previously I was without Brahman now I am with Brahman. That is a stupid thought. We have to get rid of it. These are the important points. Then we proceed further. Now this Mandukya Upanishad divides every experience. These two types of experiences, objective experience as well as subjective experience into three, four categories that is called Chatush Pada four quarters. But how? The first Pada is waking state and that is object. I am the experiencer. I am called Vishwa and here also I have got two classes. I as an individual and I also as universal. If I am individual I am, if I am experiencing one object I am individual because an individual can experience only one object at a time. For example I will give you, suppose just imagine there is a stool and it is only what is called 10 inches in circumference and you can put only one object perhaps 10 inch circumscribed circumferential object only one object. If you want to put a second object you have to remove that one. If you understand this analogy what it means is when I am experiencing a table I am not experiencing a chair when I am experiencing a chair I am not experiencing a tree. When I am experiencing a tree I am not experiencing something else. That is how only one at a time when I experience I am called individual I am called Vishwa and when I experience the entire world and who can experience a universal mind alone can experience. I the individual as a individual limited mind but the Virat in universal aspect I am called Virat so Virat experiences can experience the entire universe because it has got universal mind. Virat having universal mind can experience the entire universe in one go that's why he is called Sarvajna and Sarvavit etc. etc. So let us keep this important point at any given time I am both a Vishwa and Virat how? I will come to that soon. Second point is second padha is that when I am experiencing internal state, subtle state called Swapna Prapancha as an individual I am called Taijasa and when I am experiencing it with the universal subtle mind, I am called Hiranyagarbha. Taijasa Hiranyagarbha. Vishwa, Virat or Vaishwana are also Taijasa Hiranyagarbha or Sutratma and when I enter into the deep sleep state that is called Karana Prapancha that is called Bijavastha there I the individual experience when I am asleep, I am asleep maybe you are awake but when the whole through universal causal mind causal universal mind the being who experiences the entire universe as a causal state he is called Ishwara so Vishwa, Virat Taijasa Hiranyagarbha Prajna and Ishwara and at any given second we are comprising of both. How come? That is the point I mentioned just now. See if I am part of Ishwara then my Pragnathwa, I am both a part, I am also universal. My hand is just one part of my body but when the hand identifies itself with the entire body it is called body no longer it is called a hand when it is doing its specific work then it is called a hand. I hope this is a beautiful example. I hope you are able to understand it clearly. So when I am at home, I am identified only with this particular body. When I go into the office, I identify with my entire company but there comes a state when I am an individual I am called a man or a woman when I am identified with human beings I am the entire human being, humanity I acquired the universal aspect and when I become identified with Prana, not only human beings, anything that has life, I am identified with that and when a time will come that there are things which do not have Prana, life but when I am identified with existence then I become anything that exists so take the example of existence when I concentrate upon individuality I am a small bit of that universal existence but when I forget and sometimes I do that, I become identified with the entire universe. For example if I am a patriot I identify with my whole country man, woman child and whether it is Hindu, Muslim or Christian, religion no religion, devotee, no devotee believer, no believer many languages I am an Indian I am not an individual I am a universal man Swami Vivekananda was called universal person, so at any given time, I am both an individual and the individual cannot be cut off separately, it only depends on the type of function I am doing type of mentality I am cherishing so sometimes and most of the time ignorant people identify only with the individuality but at the same time universality is there that slowly merging this separatedness which is called individuality into and merging oneself into universality that is called manifesting potential divinity means what? identifying oneself with pure existence, pure knowledge and pure ananda, if someone else is happy, I am also happy somebody else is unhappy I am also unhappy so this individual or this waking state is one fourth of the pada, this dream world is second part of the pada and the deep sleep is third part of the pada, now let me go back again, which is the waking state or sthola prapancha is the grossest and every time gross is the effect and something subtle is the cause, so the cause of this waking state is dream state means state of the thought, mind so merge it in the mind and then merge the this subtle state is also the effect of causal state, so merge it in the causal state which is called deep sleep state and then again merge this being called prajna into ishwara and that is also done at the waking state level also so these are different strands of thought we have to keep in mind by reading thinking about them again and again, so merge the individual in the waking slowly in the virat merge the individual in the dream with the universal called hiranyagarbha, that is to say universal mind merge the individual mind body in the universal body called virat merge the individual mind in the universal mind called hiranyagarbha merge the individual causal body in the universal causal body that is called ishwara this is how ishwara becomes a srishti karta and laya karta and palana karta srishti, sthiti and laya let us keep this in mind now another point very important we said the Upanishad says chatush path, four parts now the fourth one as I mentioned so many times is not a fourth part, just like I am the waker I am the dreamer I am the sleeper if I divide up all these I am there, just like if there are three rooms upon a plot of land the land is the same land is land but because of the enclosures, one part of the enclosure without that enclosure it is mere land, with the enclosure it divides into three room number one, room number two, room number three remove all these enclosures and you will get pure, what is called land that is an example similarly, I the turiya is the substratum of the waking state, I lend I observe, I experience with the body and mind that is called waking state I experience with the mind that is called the dream state I experience in a causal way and that is called the deep sleep state or sushupti avastha but I am a substratum of these three I am the ground of being ground of all these three but I will never come to know that without these three I can exist, always but these three always depend upon my existence, they borrow a little bit of my existence a little bit of my chitta consciousness and a little bit of my ananda which is called sukha or dukkha both are borrowing only from my ananda state, now I have stated some important points as I said, go back again and again and again until they fix in your mind now let us recollect some things, whatever I experience is not me second, all the qualities of any experienced object belongs to the object, not to me and when I forget that object, all the qualities of that object also completely disappear along with that object, for example the moment I do not cognize a snake, all the poison and pain and thought of death, everything vanishes instantaneously along with the disappearance of that object called snake third, whatever is experienced is mithya because mithya means what? anything that depends for its existence upon something else is called mithya, keep these three points again and again and again, so since I experience the jagrat avastha and this sthula prapancha as well as the swapna avastha swapna prapancha and karana prapancha as prajna, these are all mithya, because remember whatever I experience, that is mithya, because they depend upon me, I alone am satyam, because without me, those three cannot exist, so I am the experiencer is completely independent, exists all the time, but whatever is experienced goes on changing not only that these three states and these are the only three states there are also two more states said in the seventh mantra we will come to that, but these are the three important states, main states these states are also mutually exclusive the jagrat is not swapna or sushupti the swapna is not neither jagrat nor sushupti, the sushupti is neither the jagrat nor the swapna they exclude mutually when one exists, the other becomes completely nullified then these things constantly they are arriving and departing changing one after the other, whereas I never change I never arrive, I never depart, I am the sakshi, witness principle even though I am one, Upanishad wants to clarify this for our understanding so three different names are given to me in relationship to these three states, I already mentioned, an example is suppose there is a person he is a person he is a father he is a son, he is also a grandfather, he is also a grandson if this person without thinking any of those relatives he is a person, x when he thinks that I have a grandfather then the person becomes a grandson and the relationship with that person is my grandfather and I am a son with relation to his father, I am the father with because I have a son, I am a grandfather because I have a grandson so all these relationships depend upon the experience of other objects which I am not, similarly I consider myself as Vishwa Taijasa or Prajna or in their universal aspect as Virat Hiranyagarbha or Ishwara depending upon totally depending upon at any given time what I am, how I am experiencing simple example, I am repeating myself again and again if I am experiencing the Jagradavastha as an individual I am called Vishwa if I identify I disidentify with my individuality and identify myself with the entire universe then I am called Virat, so now you understand the same thing also so very important point let us remember while studying this Mandukya Upanishad what is it that at any given time we are having dual roles as the individual Vesti and also as universal called Samasthi and to what extent I identify or we identify ourselves with the Vesti and how long that depends upon each one of us and but we can also inevitably helplessly identify ourselves at some points with the universal simple example will be parents, they are individuals when they are alone when they are taking bath, when they are eating, when they are sleeping they are individuals but when they are looking after their children then they forget their individuality and identify themselves their children so this is the background I wanted to give and it took the entire class, last class also and this class, just I will touch and then we will talk about it later on, now we are entering into the third mantra this is the third mantra remember first mantra extols the Omkara is everything second mantra extols that everything is Brahman and then through these two mantras the two mantras especially in the second mantra it says that Omkara is everything Brahman is everything Omkara is Brahman Brahman is nothing, the Jagat is nothing but Brahman and I am part of that Jagat so me, the individual is none other than Brahman that is what has been said how to explain it further this what is called Sutra Akara like a small aphorism now we have to have complete faith, the Upanishad is telling the truth so let me understand it, so Shankaracharya Goudapadacharya are there to help us, with this now from the third onwards so this Atma is Chatushpath, it has got four quarters, not like the four legs of a cow but one integrated coin called one rupee coin which has got four annas, which has got eight annas which has got twelve annas but which is also transcends all these values while comprising all these values it transcends beyond those values much bigger than these three values, that is called one rupee coin this is what we have seen in our last class, so now from third mantra gives us about what is called Swapna Avastha, fourth mantra describes the Swapna Avastha mantras five and six describe the what is called Sushupti Avastha, only in the seventh, that fourth Pada it is not fourth Pada it is that which comprises all the other three, Turiya Brahman, that will be described in the seventh first through negation secondly through some positive identifiers we will come to that at that time so very briefly what is the meaning the first quarter is Vaishvanara, whose sphere of activity is the waking state who is conscious of external objects who has seven limbs and nineteen mouths and whose experience consists of gross objects I will stop here if anybody has got any questions let us go slowly try to understand and that is why it is said in the Muktika Upanishad that Ekameva Mandukyam Alam right understanding crystal clear understanding of Mandukya Upanishad is more than sufficient that is the essence of all the Upanishads, though it is praised it doesn't exclude the study of other Upanishads but this is a very elevated thought is comprised in this Mandukya Upanishad though it is the smallest of the Upanishads consisting of only twelve mantras, so this third mantra is beautifully describing the entirety of the waking state both in its individual state as well as universal state, but here the word used is Vaishvanara so this Vaishvanara, through the book Vaishvanara, Pradhamahapadaha that is first quarter which is called waking state Vaishvanara means what? the individual in his universal aspect called Virat or Vaishvanara, why is it called Vaishvanara? that explanation will come I will stop here Om Jananim Sharadam Devim Ramakrishnam Jagadgurum Pandapadmetayoh Suritva Pranamaham May Sai Ramakrishna Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda bless us all with Bhakti. Jai Ramkrishna