Patanjali Yoga Sutras Lecture 053

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

OM YOGENA CHITTASYA PADENA VACHAM MALAM SHARIRASYA CHAVAIDYA KENA YOPAKAROTAM PRAVARAM MUNINAM PATANJALIM PRANJALI RANA TOSME I bow to the eminent sage Patanjali, who removed the impurities of the mind through yoga, of speech through grammar and of the body through medicine. In my last class, I have spoken about the attachments, aversions and then most important, egotism. How ignorance manifests in these forms in so many ways and we are not even aware of all these manifestations. Whether we are followers of yoga or Vedanta, we have to be extremely aware of these things. In elaborate discussion, I gave several examples how these passions, attachments as well as our hatreds, our aversions or so many things will be affecting us but at the same time we can have a totally wrong picture that any passion is negative, is something which binds us, any attachment will bind us, any aversion binds us. We have already labeled in our minds, for example, lust, anger, greed, pride, envy, egotism, all these things not necessarily binding factors but they can be immensely helpful. I would like to discuss in brief before we proceed further. Especially Vedanta in the form of mythologies give us several glaring examples how people attain to the highest reality through these very passions. Let us discuss one by one. There is a beautiful scripture called Bhagavatam. In the Bhagavatam, particularly, there are two verses which are so marvelous illustrating the point I am trying to explain to you that these very passions, when they are directed towards God, these very passions help us to go faster towards God. कामात् द्रेशात् भयात् स्नेहात् यथा भक्ताः ईश्वरे मनः आवेश्य तद अघम् हित्वाः भावाः तद गतिम् कताः Many, many persons have attained liberation simply by thinking of the Lord with great attention and giving up their sinful activities. This great concentration may be due to lust, may be inimical feelings, fear, affection or devotional service. The second verse goes like this गोप्याः कामात् भावात् कम्सो द्रेशात्य चैदादयो नृपाः संवंधात् रिष्णयः स्नेहात् योयं भक्त्याः वयं विभोः What it means is my dear King Yudhishtira, the Gopis by their lustful desires, Kamsa by his fear, Shishupala and other kings by envy, the Yadus by their family relationship with Krishna and we the general devotees by our devotional service have obtained the vision of Krishna. Perhaps this is the most marvelous statement with one caveat. Why are we bound in this world? Because of ignorance. What is ignorance? Ahankara, egotism. What is egotism? How do we know that we are egotistic? It expresses in the form of raga, attachment, dresha, intense hatred, aversion etc. and intense clinging to life. This is how the steps go through and as I also mentioned nobody can find out whether we are ignorant excepting through its effects. How do we know there is electricity now? You will know because you are able to hear my words. There is light but can you see electricity? We can never know what is ignorance. No definitions are given and we can never know what is egotism because ignorance results in egotism. Egotism results in three, attachment or aversion or intense clinging to life. If one doesn't have egotism, does that mean that the person is totally egoless? That's why I made a very fine distinction between ego and egotism. Ego is our true nature. If I am, that is ego. But if I think I am somebody else, that is called ism. Ism becomes prison. Kara, ahankara. Ramana Maharshi used to make fun, you know, in Telugu. Kara means chilly. No problem with curry but the moment you put kara, all sorts of problems would come. So this ism is what creates Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity. The moment you label a person, I am a Hindu, so I hate everybody. I am a Muslim, so I hate everybody. But you just simply follow the teachings of the Lord. That's what Swami Vivekananda points out in America. It is this label, Sri Ramakrishna's famous teaching. What divides man and man is this label. I am a Hindu, I am an Indian, follower of so and so, I am a doctor, I am an engineer, I am a married person, I am a monk. You know monks, how much of egotism monks have? Oh my God! Indescribable egotism. How does it manifest? You householders, your creatures, not to be even looked up. That is why this time no monk could open his mouth because the person whom they are worshipping is a married person. We know the famous stories how Saint John of the Cross was imprisoned and beaten black and blue by his own fellow monks. How much trouble Saint Teresa of Avila had to go through? How much trouble Saint Francis of Assisi had to go through? What is their fault? Because they are leading a godly life. Why is it? We also have come here to lead a godly life. Why is it? It is, you know, any person who is leading a godly life would be very gracious to every other godly person provided he doesn't lead more saintly life than himself. Because you see it is a glaring example if there is a light which is giving 100 watt light and then if there is another suddenly a new bulb comes which is a longer lasting, better model, less energy consuming and it gives 500 watt bulb. Immediately this 100 watt bulb started blinking. Consumed with jealousy, envy, this itself is a subject but I will just give you one example. You know there is a Spanish inquisition and Christians first they started persecuting the Jews, so-called hidden Jews who were pretending to be Christians but they were doing their own secret, following their own religion secretly but very soon it turned into all consuming. Whether it is Muslim, whether it is Christian, it doesn't matter. Anybody whom the officers, officers means they were all monks, highly placed monks, they did not like or they desired some beautiful woman to enjoy. First kill their husbands and afterwards enjoy these women and afterwards burn them as witches so that there would be no evidence left and then they were supposed to get all the property of so-called witches and they would not give, they were supposed to hand it over to Pope but they would just give five percent or ten percent, the rest they will pocket. This is the history everywhere. This is glaring example. Anyway what is this example here? How did these people know who was a witch? Because they don't have direct evidence. So the neighbours they used to betray. Yes, yes, today morning at three o'clock I saw this old woman who is suffering from rheumatic pains flying on the back of a broomstick. Simple jealousy. There is jealousy among our devotees. If I talk to one devotee more than the other devotee, yeah there will be this trouble is there. Anyway coming back, unless a person has risen so very high in spiritual life, we are all in danger of it. If you study the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna you get several examples. I am reminding you of two examples. One example is there was one Mano Mohan Mitra. One day Sri Ramakrishna happened to praise another devotee in his hearing and he stopped visiting Sri Ramakrishna for six months until Sri Ramakrishna went and then embraced him. Second example most of you know some of them who came to Sri Ramakrishna was highly jealous of Narendranath, Sri Ramakrishna's love for Narendranath. Why? Sri Ramakrishna he used to love Narendra too much. The moment anybody says Narendra's name his face will light up like a thousand watt, million watt bulb and if Narendra comes he had no eyes to anybody else. This is glaring event was if I was there I would be very jealous because Sri Ramakrishna would not even look at me but we do not understand what is the reason why Sri Ramakrishna was loving so much because we are already devotees of Sri Ramakrishna. Narendranath very hard for him to accept Sri Ramakrishna. It took him a long time to accept Sri Ramakrishna. He tested him, he scrutinized him. After so many years, four and a half years. This is a wonderful information some of you might know might not know. Sri Ramakrishna's love for Narendranath was Sri Ramakrishna's spiritual practice or Narendra attainment of Narendra practice for four and a half years until Narendra had no option but surrendered himself totally and then Sri Ramakrishna said now you are ready I am transferring myself into you and he emptied himself into Narendranath for our sake, for the sake of the whole world and Sri Ramakrishna himself tells Rakhal at the very beginning was very jealous of other people and I prayed to mother, to mother do not harm him because he is a young small child, he will grow up and then he overcame these things. These are only some of the examples we come to know by reading books. How many other things had happened? Oh I just now remembered you know Bhairavi Brahmani, she went to Kamarpakur and then she became jealous of all the persons, holy mother. Lest Sri Ramakrishna should pay more attention to holy mother who was but a child in front. Such a highly devoted lady, she made tremendous progress, she had so many visions of God and of also Sri Ramakrishna. She saw Sri Ramakrishna as Chaitanya Deva not once, twice, so many visions were there. Just to remind you so that this is a meditation, this is not mere class. First, very first day she cooked her food and offered to her chosen deity Raghuvir and you know what happened? Then she had, she closed her eyes thinking that Lord is eating the food. Sri Ramakrishna came and started eating the food and then she opened. What did she find? If I ask you, what did she see? Did she see Sri Ramakrishna? She saw her chosen deity Raghuvir eating in the form of Sri Ramakrishna. Such incidents were there in the life of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu also. The point I'm telling even such a highly advanced spiritual souls can simply fall into this trap of Mahamaya etc. How much more careful we have to be. Now let us proceed. The topic I started with is any passion. Passion, if we do not have passion we will not have this passion. If I don't have wealth I cannot renounce. If I don't have something, a beggar do you think he can become a renunciate? It is impossible. He must have something to give up. So if we do not have passion then we will never have this passion. If we do not have emotion can we have any devotion? Do you know what is the definition of devotion? Emotion directed towards God is devotion. There was a funny incident. In fact two funny incidents. One Sri Ramakrishna asked somebody, do you love anybody? Sri Ramakrishna, that devotee was listening to so many lectures of Sri Ramakrishna day after day that you should not love anybody. You should love only God. So the devotee thought, if I tell that I love somebody what would be the opinion of Sri Ramakrishna about me? He said, sir I don't love anybody. See immediately Sri Ramakrishna involuntarily exclaimed, Jai Salaam. You are a dry fellow. You are not going to go anywhere near God. What is the meaning? The meaning is if a person has no feeling then he will never go to God. But what is the difference then? We all have feelings. Husbands, wives, children, parents, religious people, everybody, all of us are highly charged with emotion. What is wrong with it? Why Patanjali is talking about Raga attachment, Dvesha and Abhinimasha and all those things? It is because they themselves are not bad. But the objective, the ideal to which they are directed, that is what makes us what we are. Simplest example, suppose somebody has tremendous lust, very natural, if this lust is directed towards another body, is it good or bad? But if the same thing is directed towards God, is it good or is it evil? It is the most wonderful thing. In fact, I can tell you without the least hesitation, one who doesn't have lust, absolutely there is no chance of his progressing in life, in towards higher life. I'll give several examples too. And what is the scripture telling us? What it is telling us, this world is a wonderful place where we can develop these things. Start with a small amount of anger, lust, jealousy, etc. Pride, egotism, start with that. But do not stop there. Go on increasing, go on increasing, go on still more increasing. Very soon a time will come, this world becomes totally inadequate to receive our attentions, our passions. Only at that stage our mind searches, I want to love somebody, I want to possess somebody, I want to fight with somebody, I want to be angry with somebody, I want to wrestle with somebody and he doesn't find, he or she doesn't find anybody and everything is what is called an insect. And then it turns, is there nobody in this world where my muscles are itching to just fight? And then the idea comes, there is one fellow who is hiding, who is not coming in front of me. I want to fight with him, I want to desire him. Now let us proceed with some examples before we proceed these things. So I already quoted, many people attain liberation through both positive passions as well as negative passions. And here is the Bhagavatam gives the beautiful example. My dear Yudhishthira, the gopis attained Shri Krishna by their lustful desire. Kamsa attained him through his fear. Shishupala, Dantavakra and other kings by envy. These are the negative examples. The Yadus by their family relationship with Krishna and every other devotee by devotional service. Here is the most beautiful verse which says, every person, are you a loving person? Very good. Are you a lusty person? Very good. Are you an angry person? Excellent. Are you a jealous person? Very well. Are you a greedy person? Most wonderful. Are you a proud person? Most excellent. Nothing is bad but do not direct them towards any unworthy worldly object. Why you know? Because all your energies will be wasted. Why wasted? Suppose you desire somebody and that somebody first of all that person may not like you. Secondly, that person may have become mad, bad, sad, anything or that person might have died or you might have died. What am I talking about? If we direct our passions towards somebody that somebody or some object will be separated. There is no doubt about it. Death can come. Separation can come. These all we are all suffering from it. Separation will come for whatever reason. So if we want to love there is only one object. This is what the great Ramanuja Acharya clearly points out. Nobody can really love any object in this world for the simple reason that the person who wants to love and the person whom the person wants to love both are ephemeral. They are changing all the time. So if I ask some fellow, you know I'm making fun, a little fun. One fellow says, one man says to a woman, I love you so much. 24 hours I am thinking. Now how many hours is he sleeping? Eight hours. That means 16 hours only he has got. So already one third of his life he said 24 hours I love but only 16 hours he could really have opportunity. Out of 16 hours how much time do you think when he is driving he is thinking? When he is eating, drinking, sleeping, working, how much time? If anybody claims I think only one object. 16 hours a day that must be the greatest yogi that we can know and we know what our mind says. We claim that we love God. How much time your mind stays on God? Half an hour? 10 minutes? 10 seconds? It is a definition of dhyana, meditation. 10 seconds if our mind stays on God that is called meditation. 120 seconds if our mind stays on God without moving that is called Samadhi. Come on now. What a wonderful thing it is. Coming back, let us deal with one by one. Egotism. Egotism means what? Egotism means what? To think I am so and so. I am the body, I am the mind. Simplest. Ism means I am the body and I am the mind. Shri Ramakrishna says there need not be only one egotism. There can be two types of egotism. Mature ego and immature ego. What is immature ego? I am a body, I am a man, I am a woman, I am so and so. This is immature ego. But what is his advice? I am a devotee of God, I am a servant of God or I am a Jnani, a man of knowledge like Shankaracharya kept the ego of knowledge. Narada etc. Pralada, they kept the ego of. Hanuman kept the ego of. So I am the servant of God. Somehow, I am a child of God. Make the same egotism completely related to God. Now when we relate our egotism to God, who is prominent in this relationship? You know when we have a relationship, who is superior and who is inferior? Invariably it comes between husband and wife, parents and children, between friends, between swami and what is called monks and householders. This relationship is there but who is superior? A teacher and a student, a scientist and then there is people who are doing research under a professor and other researchers who are doing. This relationship is there. Who is superior? Who is inferior? There will be always this distinction will be there. So if a person says I am a child of God, I am a servant of God, I am a devotee of God, to whom does that egotism belong? To God. Sri Ramakrishna points this out in a beautiful incident referring to Radha. Once Sri Krishna, you know Radha was the highest lover of Sri Krishna. She is supreme and we are all trying to become Radhas, whether we know it or not. That's why we take up some what is called ideals to us. I want to be like Mirabai, I want to be like Handal, I want to be like some great devotee, I would like to be like that. That's why we worship them. Now Radha loved Krishna. So it so happened, you know Vaishnavas literature, there were also other gopis who loved Krishna and Krishna sometimes visits those people or makes his relationship more prominent, maybe sometimes deliberately. So Sri Ramakrishna mentions one such incident. Sri Krishna went to the home of one gopi called Lalita and this news piqued Radha and her friends noticed it and they challenged her, Radha you love Krishna, you want him to be happy, why are you so piqued? Piqued means what? They were misinterpreting her that she was jealous of Lalita because Sri Krishna went there. What was her reply? If you have read Gospel of Sri Ram, Radha says I am not at all piqued because Krishna went to another lady's house. I am piqued because I am only worried about Sri Krishna's happiness and what does Lalita know? How to make Sri Krishna happy? This is one incident. Another incident was there. Radha was very proud. Somebody remarks again in the Gospel. This incident is mentioned. Yes Radha, why are you so egotistic? The most beautiful reply she gives. She says whose ego is that? I am egotistic because the ego that was given to me by Krishna. Do you see the difference? When we say I am egotistic, usually those who are egotistic they don't say that. They want everyone else to think that he is completely egoless person but sufficient indicates he will give lest you may mistake that you know I am not a superior person by his gestures, postures, by his behavior and in case you don't notice, until you notice that he is a most devoted person. All these manifestations if you open your eyes you can see. If you don't open your eyes you will not know what is happening to your own self. Find out. So this ripe ego and unripe ego. Now I also mentioned that what is devotion? If we do not have emotion can we have devotion? If we do not have egotism can we direct our egotism towards God? If I am not wealthy can I renounce my wealth? I must have something to renounce. So I must have tremendous amount of emotions. Is there anything wrong with emotions? No. What is wrong? Where are you directing those emotions? So here is a definition. Swami Vivekananda specially chose from Bhagavatam in one of his talks. I think it is in the third volume of the complete works. There are brief lectures on Bhakti Yoga and there Swami Vivekananda, very beginning he says what is Bhakti? What is devotion? He says, he quotes Prahlad. He says that deathless love which the ignorant have for the fleeting objects of the senses may not that love slip away from my heart as I keep meditating on Thee. What is the speciality of this definition? We all love things. We are all born lovers. What is attachment? We use the word attachment. Don't use the word attachment. We love things. We love our bodies. We love our minds. We love our life. We love our comforts. No one is devoid of love and whatever helps us to keep our beloved objects in comfort, in happiness, those objects we love because without those objects we can never obtain our happiness. Now we all have that in varying degrees, different degrees. There is nothing wrong with that but what is wrong is do not stop there. That is what Prahlad says that deathless love which the ignorant have for the fleeting objects of the senses as I keep meditating on Thee may not that love slip away from the heart. Let me dwell on this for a moment. Now every object in this world, in this definition especially, our experience, every object is fleeting. Something we love. I love my car and after a few days what happens? I change. I have a computer. I love my computer, my laptop. Then what happens? After some time a new model comes. What happens to the old model? It's gone. So I loved my old laptop. Now I am loving my new laptop. What is the derivation? That means I will not love my present laptop after another new model comes. So what is the psychological point here? The object of my love is dying but my love is un-dying. So nobody can stop loving. So long as we are there we have to love something and all loves have only one ultimate object. That is what Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says. No wife loves her husband for the sake of the husband but for the sake of the self. We all want an object which is eternal, which is infinite, which never changes, deathless. We all love to be deathless. This is the most wonderful example. But what is the second point I derive from this is if I am not a worldly person I am never ever going to be a spiritual person. In fact nobody can ever become spiritual. It is all like a steps of a ladder. First you have a little love, go on expanding. Why is samsara created? Why people have to go through householdership? According to Hindu steps of evolution. First you are a student, second you are a householder, third you slowly withdraw, you become a retired person, vanaprasthi and lastly you have to become a monk, sanyasa. This is natural evolution. It has nothing to do with time, time scale. It could be in this life, it could be after a billion lives but one day we are all going to be monks and nuns. What does it mean? A monk means, who is a monk? A monk is one without a key. What is that key? Egotism. We hand over that key to the divine lord and then we become really. The moment we hand over our egotism and transfer it and say Lord, not I and mine but thou and thine. That is the ultimate. Our struggles are to hand over the keys but we are unable to. We want to hand over the key. A man loves his wife. What is he telling? I want to give my key to you but she disappears. Another person comes. Then what is he telling? I want to hand over my key to you. That person also disappears. In course of time we learn our lesson and say we hand over the key to one being who will never disappear from ourselves and that is God. Then he becomes perfect. This is the most beautiful example. Then another I'm going to give you some certain examples, beautiful examples and all real examples. You know there is the word Sanskrit word Anuraga. I want to play with it a little bit. What is the obstruction according to Patanjali? Raga. Raga means attachment. You know Anuraga. You know Anuja. Anuj means what? Anu means that which comes after. There is somebody and he is elder and after some time another child. He is called younger brother. Anuja. So Raga and Anuraga. Anuraga Sri Hare. Anuraga means without Raga there will be no Anuraga. Without attachment there would be no detachment. What is detachment? Again even though you know it and I also had pointed out several times detachment is not indifference. Detachment means attachment to a higher object. It is very natural process. We can never detach ourselves from a lower thing until we catch hold of something higher. The best example that is given is when we are climbing a ladder. So you put your foot on one step. First step. Where is one leg? On the first step of the ladder. Where is the other leg? Firmly fixed on the... Then you lift the second leg and put it on the first step. Both feet are on the first step and then what do we do? We lift one leg and put it on the higher step. Like so it goes on. So progress goes on. So without attachment there will be no higher attachment. Anuraga Sri Hare. Now examples. Why I dwelt upon this? Because the examples I am going to give. First you know Tulasidas. I won't go into detailed description and most of the Indian devotees they know these stories. Tulasidas was the greatest saint of the 15th century and Mirapai was his contemporary. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was almost his contemporary. How did Tulasidas become a perfected person? You know how much he was attached to his wife and then one day he could not stay away from her and then one day she had to go to her father's house and he did not know. When evening came he followed her. He went to her house. That was also horrible night and then she became disgusted with him and said if you had developed one millionth of this love which you have to this ephemeral dirty body you would have been blessed by this time and somehow he became totally transformed. That was like, do you know what it is like? See Ramakrishna's example, one drop of rain falls when the Swati star in ascendancy but you must be an oyster shell not otherwise. Any number of drops falling on a fish or crocodile is not going to help. You must be a gem producing oyster. When one drop falls it is like that. That moment transformation came and then he became the greatest saint. Second example Pelluva Mangala, same story. He also was in love with one public woman and the same happened and her words were exactly the same. I will come to the point. There is an important point here. I am going to come to that point. First let us take these examples. Then he was also transformed overnight. He became one of the greatest saints and in Christianity there was one great saint called Saint Augustine and he was also terribly attached to women and then one night the transformation had come by the grace of God. Now the point, I wanted to put all these examples. Do you know what is the common point? They loved the object uncommonly. What is called Parama Vyakulata. Narada describes in his Narada Bhakti Sutras what is Bhakti? Parama Vyakulata. Intense yearning and even one moment's separation from the thought makes the person intensely restless and these people had developed that. When their so-called worldly attachments have become so strong, so intense, any worldly object cannot hold it any longer. Do you think it was the woman who transformed them? Apparently, yes. Really speaking the divine Lord within through them said, my friend you are my devotee. I have been waiting for you until this moment. No earthly love is ever going to hold your attention any longer. You have tried it and then transformation came and then they became. How do we know transformation became? Because immediately what followed? The renounce of the world. If we are going on claiming that, proclaiming, claiming that we are the greatest lovers and yet we are caught in the net of this Maya, that doesn't show we really love. Our love has matured. It is all to mature our love, to make it most wonderful offering to God. This is the fruit of loving the worldly objects. Nobody offers an unripe fruit to God. Everybody wants to offer when it is at the right, right moment. This is what our attachments, our loves, our passions, they must become ripe. So ripe that no object in this world is worthy. They cannot hold it. They are incapable of holding it and then there is only one way it turns into God passion. Then passion turns into dispassion. Again wrong notion. What is dispassion? Not running away. Passion directed towards God is called dispassion. It is not a negative quality. All these are most positive qualities. Viveka, discrimination. Viragya, dispassion. Shamadhamadishat, Kasampatti. Intense self-control. All these brings about tremendous amount of self-control. Again I want to build up on this point. Imagine that a person tremendously loves and worldly objects. What happens to his body? What happens to his mind? What happens to his self-control? Do you know what happens? He is an absolute self-controlled yogi concerning every object in this world excepting the object he loves. Are you able to follow me? Suppose Elvamangala is thinking of that woman. Where do you think his mind is dwelling 24 hours a day? Conventionally speaking 24 hours a day. Where do you think his mind is dwelling on that lady? Do you think he is dispassionate towards every other object? Does he care for his mother? Does he care for wealth? Does he care for his even life? Does he care for honor? He doesn't care. He is destroyed. He will not even think second time about what the other people are thinking about him. Incidentally, again I am reminded. But wonderful things. There is no need to finish this. What we want is to understand things properly. Shri Ramakrishna mentions about Elvamangala. One day he could not visit her during daytime because some ceremony was going on. His father's death anniversary ceremony and it was late at night and he was cursing all the priests why they are taking so long a time and then at night he bundled the best food that is available and ran across and he cut across a shortcut you know. He was going through a garden and it was pitch dark. It was cold. It was raining. Stormy night and he did not see somebody was sitting there. He stumbled against him and he happened to be a monk sitting in meditation. The monk got very angry. Don't you see where you are going? Then Elvamangala came to know. I am sorry sir. I apologize. I did not see you. Of course being a yogi he can't continue. Inside he may be fuming but outside he cannot express it. You know we are all like that. I will also be angry, fuming against you but you know outside smiling, sweet and all. Conventional you know because the little number of devotees that I have if I express this thing they will also go. Then Billvamangala, Ramakrishna puts it in the mouth of Billvamangala. You know he says sir how is it I am thinking of a public woman I forgot the whole world and you are claiming you are thinking of God. You are intensely aware of who is coming, who is going and all that. What a remarkable statement in the gospel you get. That is why Swami Yatheshwaranandaji, my Gurudev, he used to say scientists are nearer to God than most of our devotees. Why? They have two qualities. One is discipline another is concentration. Why is this concentration and discipline? He explains further. He says because they have an overwhelming passion towards one object. They want to discover something. They want to have better knowledge. From morning till evening they are going on devoting their lives only towards that. It is a scientific object not God but he says their minds are fit instruments. The moment they think about God, turn towards God, already these two qualities are available. They will achieve very quickly. They will go towards God and incidentally again I am reminding you can connect it what I said before. If their concentration and discipline is perfect and if they go on finding, going on probing into this physics very soon, do you know what it turns into? Physics turns into metaphysics. That means what? At a certain point it is all physics, physical. The moment they go beyond and then they have to go beyond to find out what is the cause of this phenomena and they enter into from phenomena they enter into the field of noumena. Noumena means what? That which is invisible, that which is all-pervading and that which is the root cause of all these manifestations we see in this world. Let me now quote another example, Meera Bai. You know she was, this is a wonderful example because she did not run away. She was a devoted loving wife. Every day like but where was her mind? On Krishna. Oh this is the amount but her husband, some say he wanted to kill her, some say later on he understood he became her devotee but because of the family pride and all that he could not show his real love for his own wife. He understood that my wife is a real devotee of God. Gojaraja, he died unfortunately but his brother, it was he who drove away Meera Bai. So there are incidents when Meera Bai was offered poison. A file of poison was sent and there was no bones to hide and the person who brought said the Rana king had sent the poison. She said excellent I will offer it to Krishna and she offered it and then laughing happily because she was not eating poison. What was she eating? Prasada. How did this poison turn into nectar? Because Shri Krishna you know he danced on the head of Kaliya and he drove away. Just imagine the blessedness of that serpent upon whose head Shri Krishna himself had danced. Anyway, philosophical, symbolical discussion. You know what is the symbolism? We are all Kaliyas. We are all having worldliness. What is worldliness? Poison. Why? Worldliness really poisons us. Then we are thinking what is the way? Go to Shri Krishna. Go near, live near Shri Krishna. Poison. Try to spoil his sport and he will come graciously and says my my son wants me. That is why he is shouting. He is crying. He is creating all troubles. So he comes to me. He comes. What does he do? He dances upon my head. The moment his footprints fall upon me, Garuda. Garuda means what? Death. Death cannot come anywhere because she is the footprints of Vishnu upon my head. We are all you know multi-headed hoods. What are these hoods? Multiple personality syndrome. We have got multiple personalities. This is the symbolism. We are all Kaliyas. Where are we? We are poisoning. We are not only poisoning ourselves. We are poisoning the whole atmosphere we are in. That means what? If we talk about worldliness, what are we doing? We are poisoning. If we are thinking worldly thoughts, we are poisoning the atmosphere. How pure we should be like Shri Ram Krishna or Holy Mother who only think about good thoughts etc. These examples are for the what is called examples of intense attachment. Develop your attachment and then you will become great devotees. Raga into Anuraga. Dvesha. Then next example would be, I'll quickly go through. Dvesha means intense hatred. I already quoted the verse. How did Kamsa become, got to be liberated? Through fear. But fear of, we also fear many things. But what was he fearing? He was fearing Shri Krishna. Fearing Shri Krishna will come. Shri Krishna will come. He is not thinking about death. In the beginning he was thinking about death. But what is the cause of death? Krishna. His whole mind day and night, here comes Krishna. A beautiful example, Gita Govinda, Jayadeva gives there. Patati patatre vichalita patre. Pashyati tava panthanam. Radha made an trest with Krishna. He promised he will come at this time and she was waiting for him in a garden and he was delaying. Then what happened you know? Sri Ramakrishna quotes this. He was waiting for Keshav Chandra Sen to come and then he was delaying. Every now and then he was sending somebody. Has Keshav come? Has Keshav come? Then he doesn't come. Then he quotes, Sri Ramakrishna quotes this. Radha was getting startled. Somewhere there is a razzle in the air. Ah! Here comes Krishna. Somewhere a leaf had fallen on it. It made a sound. Ah! Now comes Krishna. Totally transformed into, not only that, he was seeing every person he is coming into Krishna. Even he started suspecting his own friends and everybody and sometimes women also were coming and he says this Krishna wily fellow he can dress like a woman also. Maybe he is coming in this form and what is in his hand? Whatever he sees in the hands of any person who is coming to meet him, that is a big knife trying to cut off his head and through bhayat kamsaha he became liberated. So we also know Ravanasura. Ravanasura, what was he thinking about? Rama. All the time he is thinking about Rama. He brought Sita only because of Rama. This symbolism I already had explained many times. Hiranyakasipu, of whom was he thinking? He intensely hated Vishnu and he was looking for Vishnu. He was thinking about Vishnu. He was waiting for Vishnu and as a result he became Vishnu himself. Nishimha came. God came and then killed. What did he kill? He liberated him from the body idea. If God touches, what does he become? So through enmity, through intense hatred, Shishupala, Dantavakra, they all attained. There are innumerable other examples but these are prominent examples. I would not go into them. So Abhinivesha. What is Abhinivesha? Intense clinging to life. The characteristic of this Abhinivesha is that we don't create it. It automatically comes, flows by its own force. A juice is flowing as it were. We are intensely attached to this body. We don't want this body to die. Even after 100 years, 150 years, we do not wish to die. Why is this so strong in us? Is it because we really love this body? In fact, if I tell you a great secret, we don't love the body, we hate the body. But you will not understand perhaps at this moment what I am trying to say. We all love our bodies. Nobody loves anybody. This we understand. Nobody loves anybody. Don't say else. We also don't love our own body. But we want to obtain something through this body. We have no option. Why did I say that we don't love this body? Because this body is the greatest obstruction. Let me give you some crude examples. Supposing there is a person who is a terrible glutton. He loves to eat tasty food. Let us say tasty food. He loves to eat. And imagine there is a wonderful feast. What is the point? This body you are eating. There is first class food is there. And you love food. What would be your wish? Oh this dish is so wonderful. I would like to eat 10 times, 20 times. But then your stomach is limited. Do you love your body or do you hate your body? You would wish at that time. You'll be meditating upon. Had I been Kumbhakarna, it would have been the most wonderful thing in this world. Because Kumbhakarna can eat 600 people's food. The only thing is we even want to go beyond Kumbhakarna. He used to eat only twice a year. Don't forget it. But we want to eat every single hour possible. We can eat our stomach full to 20 people's food and digest it in one hour so that we can go on eating. Why only one hour? Why not every minute? What is the problem? Problem is our body. This body is a terrible limitation. It ages. It has disease. It becomes old. It becomes wrinkled and then finally it dies. Do you think we really love our bodies? No. Then what does it mean? It means we wish these bodies should be much much more capable. Limitless enjoyment should be able to come to us. That's why we had no choice. That's why we have to use this body. So we take care of them. We think we love this body. I will close this talk with one simple challenge. Supposing God comes to you and gives you a boon. Do you want exactly this particular body or if you wish I can give you the body of some other body through which you can enjoy 100 times more things than the present body. But the choice is if I give you that choice then you will have to give up this body before occupying the other body. How many of you would say no? Instantaneously we'll be waiting. I want to. I want to enter. Oh Lord. But then what problem comes you know? Lord, after some time, first time is wonderful. I can enjoy 100. But you know 100 people's enjoyment through one body after some time again the same problem comes. We will discuss these most marvelous things in our next class which will be on the 15th of June. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti