Patanjali Yoga Sutras Lecture 010

Full Transcript(Not Corrected)

Oṁ sa nāvavatu, sa ha nāubhūnaktu, sa ha vīryam karavāvaye tejasvi nāvadhītamastu mā vidviṣāvaye Oṁ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ Oṁ yogena cittasya padena vācāṁ malam śarīrasya ca vaidhyakena upākarottam pravaram munīnām patanjaliṁ prāñjali rāna toṣme 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. Aum, peace, peace, peace be unto all. In our last class we discussed yoga is complete control of the mind and mind consists of nothing but thoughts. Control means not absence. They may be there, they may not be there but since a person is a master he knows how to deal with them. Very often our problem is we are all master yogis when there are no thoughts. For example when we are in deep sleep we are the kings, no problems but when we come back to life upon waking then we have lots of problems sometimes good sometimes bad. Life is nothing but formation of character. What is a human being? He is an embodiment of character. What is a character? It is a combination of samskaras or impressions created through past thoughts. Actions create thoughts and a number of thoughts create certain types of impressions which we call samskara. You can say habits and a bundle of these habits is what we call human being including our both right and also wrong knowledge about ourselves. When we are asked who are you? Say I am a human being. From the worldly point of view it's absolutely right but from the spiritual point of view absolutely wrong. From the Vedantic point of view who are you? You are the divine God himself but we are under the impression or under the thumb of our past habits. How did you develop that you are a human being? A normal facile answer is this is an illogical question. I was born like that. Since I am born to a human parents then I am a human being. From the ordinary point of view that's right but what Vedanta tells, what Yoga tells, Yogashastra tells us is even that is also wrong. Now if you are asked most of you who are you? Say I am an Indian. Is there any anywhere written on your forehead that you are an Indian? It is not written. Then why do you think? Because you simply happen to be born in a country called India and how did this country get to have the name India? Okay let me give you a small illustration. You know Pakistan? Pakistan. Was Pakistan existing 100 years back? What was it 100 years back? India. What was it 5 billion years back? What was India? A piece of land. That's all. Now nowhere it is written. Have you ever seen anywhere on any corner of India? I am India. It is you created it. You buy a house. Before you bought it belongs to somebody else. After buying this is my house. Be careful. Do not touch etc etc. Who are you? I am a Hindu. I am a Christian. Was it written when you were born on your forehead that you are either a Christian or a Hindu or somebody else? No. Your parents said we are practicing Hindus so you also took it for granted. See it's so many things we take for granted. Now think of this. I am a human being. I am a male. I am a female. Maybe this is also is the result of long past habit. This is the simple truth. Now let me insert a small beautiful story. Swami Vivekananda was very fond of this story. There was a king and he had a very beautiful as well as wise wife queen called Madalasa. What happened? This young couple started having children. The first child was born. Now this queen Madalasa was a great knower of Brahma or a yogini who had realized God. So she was leading ordinary type of life. She never wanted her children to be bound. So the moment the baby is born she used to put the baby in the cradle and you know swing we go on lullabies we sing. So singing the what the ever pure unborn indivisible Brahman went on brainwashing him. As soon as he grew up then you ask him who are you? I am that unborn indivisible Brahman. I am the divine. First child as soon as he grew up and he went away renounced the world and went away. Second child same thing happened. Third child same thing happened. Fourth child was born. The king got a little bit concerned and said my dear it is it is fine but at least we need one child to continue our lineage. So modify your brainwashing a little. So she brought him up as how to live a dharmic a very good righteous life. He grew up into a very intelligent very energetic and very ambitious but absolutely righteous prince. He became the king of that country. His parents became old and his mother was about to die. Then she gave him something very wrapped in a piece of paper and said my son keep this always with you hanging around your neck whenever you are in the greatest difficulty then you open it. This is my last gift to you and she died and he was being a great king. He was ruling for a long time and a great difficulty came then he was almost on the verge of dying. Then he thought he was just idly doing like this. Suddenly he forgot that there was something. He remembered my mother gave this to me and he opened it. What was written? You are that Nitya Shuddha Buddha Bodhaswaroopaha Brahman none other than Brahman. Because of all this training his mother gave him he remembered yes and all gloom and depression everything disappeared from him and he became a great monk later on. There is a legend in our Puranas like this Swami Vivekananda was very fond of this story that we grew up as according to our past life sanskaras as well as our present circumstances. Swami Vivekananda was very fond of telling this in those days remember not these days when India was enslaved by foreign countries by French people by Dutch people by English people by Muslims all these people and every Indian used to say I am a born slave. It's at that time Swami Vivekananda he roused this country but that story comes later. He went to America as you know to attend the Parliament of Religions and then he was a great student. Student? Who is a student? A student is one who goes on learning. He never stops learning. Ramakrishna was a great student. For how long? He said so long as I live I learn. We have many things to learn in our life. Whole life in fact is a learning process. We are born to learn. What do you mean by what is what is the subject of our learning? Only one thing. What Queen Madalasa was injecting into the brains of her babies. What is that? We are not human beings. We are not these bodies. We are divine. That is the essence of the message of Sri Ramakrishna Swami Vivekananda. Each soul is potentially divine. Manifest your divinity. Whole life is meant only for one purpose. Let us manifest our divinity and once we manifest our divinity hundred percent there is nothing more to learn. We are free. This is the only learning we have to come through the four stages of life. Brahmacharya, Karahasthya, Vanaprastha and Sanyasa. This life are hundreds of lives. This is called evolution. This is how even the smallest creature is evolving and ultimately biologically it ends up in human life and from now onwards horns are not going to grow but wisdom has to grow. So this inner evolution, inner evolution, moral evolution then spiritual evolution. What are we discussing? That all our life we have to learn and this learning takes place through experience. Experience produces knowledge. Knowledge consists of thoughts. These thoughts depending upon what type of experiences we have our character is formed. So as I was mentioning Swami Vivekananda went and studied America, USA. What did he find? He said even the most depressed person let him enter into that land. The moment he lands he says I am fine. I can do everything as anyone can do. I can also do whereas if you come to India I cannot do anything. I am a born slave. Somehow because of the circumstances we became like that. Now it's not like that. Now India has become a place of great opportunity. Practically every country has become. So the point I am trying to drive is that we are all bundles of habits is what we call character. You know we all have estimates of each one of us. When I look at you I have an impression in my mind of your overall personality. What you are, how you are going to think more or less. I may not be 100% right but what I observed that gives me an impression and the same thing you are also doing about me and about everyone else. We are always doing it. These thoughts is nothing but our character. If we can control our these thoughts then we become yogis. That was the definition given. What is yoga? Chitta vritti nirodha. Mastery of thoughts not absence of thoughts. You see when we are in deep sleep, a king, a pauper, a pundit and an illiterate, they are all equal. There is no differentiation at all. Only when we are awake that makes a difference. When we are dreaming also it makes a great difference. A wretched fellow goes on dreaming, wretched dreams. But whereas a great person goes on dreaming great things, great things. What have we been discussing? Our bondage, our liberation consists of purely of our own thinking. Thinking means thoughts. Mind means thoughts. Whatever we do it brings an experience and every experience manifests in the form of thoughts and every thought remains in the mind in the form of memory. We are going to discuss that. All the thoughts that anybody can have can be classified into two categories according to yoga shastra. Klistha and Aklistha. Klistha means non-beneficial. Aklistha means beneficial. Beneficial and non-beneficial. The thoughts may be painful or pleasurable. That's not the criteria. A painful thought, a thought may be painful and yet beneficial or it may be non-beneficial or a thought may be very pleasant, may be very unbeneficial and or beneficial. What is the criteria by which we divide even whether a thought is painful or pleasurable if it leads us to this one learning process? What is that? I am divine. That's a beneficial thought. In the beginning it may be very painful. For example, you know if you are asked to get up early in the morning and then sit for meditation it may be a painful thought but very beneficial thought. But you go and join some dancing, night club, it may be very pleasurable thought but ultimately it ends in harm, spiritual harm. So all the thoughts are to be classified as either painful or pleasurable or beneficial and non-beneficial. Spiritual thoughts are beneficial whether they are painful or pleasurable and the opposite is not so. So all the thoughts that any human being can have in the whole life or lives can be classified into five categories. That is to say we have five types of experiences. How many types? Five types. What are those five types? Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, verbal delusion, sleep and memory. Now in our last class we discussed about two. Right knowledge. Right knowledge is subdivided again into three categories. Right knowledge. What is right knowledge? When we have knowledge corresponding correctly to our experience that is right knowledge. To take an example here is a mic. You look at it and you have a correct knowledge. This is a mic or this is a human being and this is a plant, this is an animal, this is a cow etc. It is a cow and you have seen it as a cow and that's right knowledge. To take the classic example you have seen something lying in semi-darkness and you mistake it as a snake. That's not right knowledge because to perceive that thing as a rope is right knowledge but to perceive it as a snake is wrong type of knowledge. Now right type of knowledge can come through three different types or means of experience. What are they? First Pratyaksha, direct perception. I see you, you see me provided there is enough light and you are in your good senses in both meanings of the word means physically also your sense organs are functioning and mentally also you are not sleepy or drunk or etc. Then what you get is right type of knowledge. This is called Pratyaksha. Pratyaksha means my sense organs directly perceive. It could be through sight, through sound, through smell, through taste, through touch. Pratyaksha, right knowledge and right knowledge can also be obtained in another way and that is called Anumana. When two things are invariably associated together, two things and invariably never they lead to a wrong conclusion. Then when we look only at one but then we infer because two things are always associated together we infer the other one that is also right knowledge. The classic example is we see some smoke but we infer there is fire and there must be fire because no one can see smoke without fire. So this is called inference, inferential knowledge. Provided our knowledge of association is correct our inference would be correct. This also leads to right knowledge. In fact most of the scientific discoveries are inferences only, only inferences. A simple example you know curiosity was sent to Mars. Now no human being has ever gone to Mars but how did they know that this curiosity, this machine is going to land in Mars? It is Anumana, inference. What is inference? Provided all these things work out nicely and the speed and the trajectory etc. it is most likely that this will land there but until it lands we have absolutely no proof of that it is going to land but because of past experiences we infer. Mostly we infer like that. Our whole life is inference. Every day when you start, if you are running, get up, tell me are you getting up with right knowledge or inference? Pratyaksha, direct perception or inference? It's all inference. Do you understand why it is inference? Is there any guarantee that you are going to last whole day? But since yesterday I was all right, I don't have stomach ache or any sets of sickness or anything and everything is fine so I infer it will be all right. One simple example would be tomorrow morning is the sun going to rise or not? Is it direct perception or inference? Purely inference. You know why? Because for millions of years, I would say billions of years the sun has been rising. It never failed but so there is no cause to think that tomorrow it will fail but one day it is going to fail. Absolute, this is scientific truth. Direct perception and inference. We also spoke about a third type of knowledge which is right knowledge but not available to us. What is it? Any knowledge which is beyond our senses and when I say beyond our senses, I do not mean microbes and viruses because they can also be found through direct perception through inference, through instruments. You say I caught hold of a virus, viral fever etc. Have you seen the viral fever? No. How did you infer? Because somebody has seen them through some microscope etc. So this is, we we trust them. I am not talking, the scripture is not talking about this kind of sensory, subtle sensory perceptions. What are we talking? No instrument, no physical instrument can experience certain truths. For example, does God exist? Is there life after death? Now tell me how do you know whether life is there after death? The only way you can find out is you will have to die. But then when you die, are you sure? But there are people who have that knowledge and we trust them. Now most of the time when we say we trust, we have faith we have no proof of what these people say. But we take them, take their words on trust because they have never betrayed our trust. There are people who are so truthful they never betray our trust. Those people say we take it because we trust them whatever they say we also trust and we have no other option. When a Sri Ram Krishna, a Christ or a Buddha talks about life after death or what is our real nature, we have to take it for granted on trust. Now take this simple example. You know we all the moment I start saying each soul is, every one of you queue in, join in potentially divine. Now tell me do you really know you are divine? How did you know? Yet you know because of faith, Shraddha. This is the only way. And how did you get this Shraddha? Because you don't know anything about these statements of this truthful or untruthful but you somehow read the life of great saints like Ram Krishna, Ramana Maharshi etc. and they led such a life that they will never ever say anything that is untruthful. They only want our good. That's why we believe in it. We believe them and through them believe their words. Shastra. This is called Shastra. Shastra means the experiences of great souls. So this is called Shraddha Agama. That is correct knowledge because we can also prove them by practicing or by treading the path as shown by them. If we can also do that we will also prove to ourselves that that is the right knowledge. But to have that right knowledge we must have faith. Many of our so-called intelligent people have this illogical statement. Why should I believe before proof is given? Your whole life you are doing only without proof. After you are born will your parents know whether you are going to live or kick the bucket? They don't know anything about it. We don't know what is going to happen next second but we live on faith. So your parents, our parents they believe yes most likely we are going to survive for some time. We don't know how long. For some time. And early you go to college. Is there any guarantee that you master your subject? You get your degree. You get a job. You get married. Is there any any guarantee that these things would happen? How many people want to get married and they can't get married and how many people want to get unmarried and they also can't get unmarried. What a life is very peculiar situation you know. The people who are outside the room want to enter into the room and the people who are in the room wants to get out of the room. Life is like that. All on faith that maybe we may achieve. It is this faith which goads us to put exertion and to study well and to do our best and usually it is seen if we do our best there is very good likelihood that we get what we want. This is the truth because the result of karma is inevitable. We are going to get sooner or later this life or the next life. So that is how our whole life is going on on faith. A scientist he doesn't know what is the truth and he wants to he guesses. It's called hypothesis. You know hypothesis based on known facts if we can proceed in this way then there is a good chance that I can discover such and such a truth until he discovers that truth he doesn't know whether that is a truth or not but based on rationality, logic, past experience, known knowledge he makes a hypothesis. This is so. Then he goes on doing experiments and most likely sooner or later he will get what he wants to get. Why not apply this to religion also? Believe in Sri Ramakrishna and say we are also one day or the other going to reach the goal. What is that goal? There is only one goal. What is that goal? To know that I am divine. This is ultimately to say I am the divine means I am going to be very happy person and that happiness is never going to break. No limitation of knowledge. No limitation of time or space or causation. All our happiness is limited by this you know that this place I am not happy that place I will be happy. It could be this job that job or I could be happy at that time I was very happy or at that time I'm going to be happy. Why do you want to postpone? This is a fellow he's eager to get to Paris at night. I'll be very happy person when I go to Paris at night. You know why not you be try to be happy right now if you go if you ever reach Paris at night you may be happier but why do you postpone or causation if I get this husband I'll be very happy or if I don't get this husband I'll be happy. If I can get rid of this husband this wife that is this all these wild imaginations go on and on and on it's all based upon our wild hopes that is why faith is necessary faith in dharma faith in truth faith in great souls faith in the scriptures faith in the teachings of the Guru. We start our life ultimately so many people have reached how do we know because so many people said we have followed this path we reached the goal and we know that what the scriptures teach is absolute truth. For each one of us until we reach that state we have to only follow faith there is nothing else you can do it so Pratyaksha, Anumana, Agama direct perception an inferential knowledge and faith based upon the teachings of the scriptures and they are the sources of right knowledge this is only one fifth. What is the second? Viparyaya. What is Viparyaya? Wrong knowledge. This famous example is we see something a rope but it is a rope we come to know it is a rope only later on but at the moment we are under the impression this is a snake and it creates all sorts of fear. Now this wrong knowledge means that in Sanskrit language it is called avidya. Vidya means right knowledge that's why we say Vidya Shala. Vidya means a college or a school. Vidya means that which gives us right knowledge. I'm talking about academic knowledge what is opposite of Vidya? Avidya. Avidya means wrong totally wrong knowledge. According to Yoga Shastra or Vedanta Shastra avidya produces. Avidya directly you can't see what is avidya. You cannot say I see avidya here. No you can never do that. Do you see electricity? Don't see. Do you see gravitational power? But how do you know there is gravitational power? Has anyone ever seen what is called magnetic attraction? Nobody sees but when you bring something near a powerful magnet immediately you see the effect. This wrong knowledge example is that either through circumstances or wrong sensory knowledge or wrong mental makeup. We are all victims of wrong knowledge. We are living in the wrong and what is this wrong knowledge? From the worldly point of view we are human beings, we are men, we are women of such and such an age etc. is absolutely right knowledge. But from the spiritual point of view is absolutely wrong knowledge. Avidya. Avidya. What does avidya? Wrong knowledge. What does wrong knowledge prove? Asmita. You know Asmi? Understand what is Asmi? I am. I am. Who are you? I'm a human being. Is it right knowledge or wrong knowledge? It is the wrong knowledge according to Vedanta. Don't apply this in your office, your CV. Don't go, I am divine. Then they will straight away, they will take you to a right place. In the world you have to use your avidya knowledge. But when you, in your heart of hearts you will know outside I am like this, inside I am really child of God. You say I am child of God. So Asmita. Avidya produces, first thing it produces is I am this. Because whichever knowledge we have, we identify ourselves with it. This is the example. You see a snake. We know later on it is wrong knowledge. But the moment what do you say? I see a snake. The moment you see a snake then you get frightened. If you don't identify yourself with that knowledge you won't get frightened. But the moment you say I see a snake you are frightened. It will bite me. It will kill me. That means you have identified that as right knowledge and you have identified yourself with that so-called right, apparently right knowledge and it timid instantaneously produces effects. So what are the effects of this identity? I am not divine. What is the effect? Raga and Dresha. I like certain things and the moment you say I like certain things you cannot say there is nothing which I don't like. If you say I like something you are automatically saying that I do not like. If you say this is a black thing you are automatically saying there are certain things which are not black. This Avidya produces egotism or identity. Identity produces Raga and Dresha, likes and dislikes and these likes and dislikes they produce a terrible effect. You know what is that effect? Abhinivesha. Abhinivesha, intense clinging to life. Even if I am suffering I don't want to die. Even if I am suffering I want to continue. Somehow this intense clinging that's because I think this is what I am and without this life I am dead. I am nobody. I am non-existent. That is called Asmita. But if you know you are divine then you will know that even if death comes, death comes to what? To this body and mind. So it doesn't matter. In fact the sooner it goes the better for me. Who would like bondage? Who would like so many ropes tying? Do you like? Will you like it? You will not like it. Wrong knowledge produces egotism. Egotism results in likes and dislikes and intense clinging to life. This is the effect of wrong knowledge. Now we have to discuss the other three. Now Vikalpa. The third is Vikalpa. What is Vikalpa? शब्द घ्नानानुपापि वस्तु शुन्यो विकल्पः This is the definition that is given which we will discuss. What is this? Verbal delusion follows from words having no corresponding reality. There is another class of Vrittis. Vritti means every mental modification is called a Vritti. A thought. In simple language every thought. There is a type of thought. It belongs to a particular class called Vikalpa and Vikalpa means what? An imaginary knowledge. What is an imaginary knowledge? It doesn't correspond to any. There is no such object there but you hear a word and you infer something that it is true. The famous classical example is a son of a barren woman. Beautiful words. Son of a barren woman and he had bathed in the cooling waters of a mirage and he dressed himself, adorned himself with beautiful flowers that were grown in the sky and he is going out with a bow made out of the horn of a hare. Words are there and having heard these words you get some kind of imaginary idea and when you get that idea, is that idea real? Is there such a thing called son of a barren woman? Barren woman means she who has no son. Do flowers grow in the sky? Is there any? Does a hare grow any horn? Is there any water at all much less cooling water in a mirage? Where is mirage produced? In UK will there be a mirage? It should be burning hot sand like a Middle East and there will be a delusion of this mirage. So these kind of words are there but there is no corresponding reality. This is one of the most important source of our misery. Let me give you an example. We are all brainwashed. First of all, polling is about to come. Somebody left outside my room. Polling call and what do you say? If you vote for me I will create a virtual heaven and ever since when have you been hearing these words? Ever since your birth in this life, I'm sure according to Hindu past life also you heard the same words. Hoping against hope these fellows will really fulfill their words. But you have to choose some devil, known devil or unknown devil. You have to choose some devil. So you vote. We don't vote. So you say we are all deluded by words. I will make you happy. I love you. What is the most important example? I love you. We all want to hear I love you, I love you, I love you. Now first of all do you love anybody? Whom is it you love most? Who is the most lovable object according to each one of us? Tell me. Our own selves and afterwards everybody who contributes to our happiness we love them. Only on that condition if you contribute to my happiness I love you. Even a mother loves her baby only because why? Because the baby contributes to her happiness in the form of this is my baby. Why can't she love the neighbor's baby? That's not done. You see we are all selfish people including lovers of God. Why do we love God? Only so far as he contributes to our benefit to our happiness we love God. The moment he says bye you can call on me but I am not going to prolong your life, save you in difficulties and grant all your desires. What do we say? If he says bye what do we say? Bye-bye. This is the truth. Who loves? There is a hymn you know. Ahetunano dayase sadoshan svankhe grihetva yadidam vichitram. Holy mothers. What is it? Ahetuna. Mother you have no motive to love us but yet you love us because she doesn't have any selfishness. Why she doesn't have any selfishness? Do you know? Holy mother has nothing to gain because all her desires are totally fulfilled. You have nothing to give. Even God cannot give add anything to her but she is like an infinite ocean. She can give. You see this is another aspect. If you want to love really truly you must become infinite. What does that mean? That means you know even if you give infinite gives infinity. Infinite minus infinite. What is it? Yeah you see the whole ocean says take me but then the difficulty comes you know okay I can take you but where will I put it? So better I put it here itself. Do you see the wisdom of it? Have everything. Simplify this is mine and leave it there but the moment you take it home you have a problem. It becomes mine. You understand? It becomes mine. Mine field. So holy mother is like that. She has nothing to gain from us and yet she is infinite. That's why she can love any number of people 24 hours a day for eternity she can give her love because she has nothing to lose. That is why we are full of defects. What is their greatness in loving somebody who is lovable? Do you understand? Suppose you see a baby who is like hunchback of the Notre Dame. Can you love that person? Can you love a ferocious tigress? Can you love some fellow like Saddam Hussein etc? Can you do that? You cannot do that but if you can love then yours is a true love and suppose just you know I told many times, I repeated many times suppose Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Genghis Khan all these people go to holy mother. What do you think she will do? Will she love them or not? She will love them because her motherly heart embrace there is no one who is not her child. She is the mother of all and which mother can reject any of her own children? Only when we attain to that condition our love becomes really selfless. Until that time some tinge of some motive, some hidden desire, something will be there. We are discussing about the third type cause of thought. What is that called? Vikalpa. What is Vikalpa? We are enslaved by words. We want to hear words even though we know up here that these words are all completely have no meaning and yet we want. Where do we find true love? In fact we can say most of us would find true love to a great degree in this world only from our parents or from spiritual people, our gurus. Our gurus have nothing to with they are not expecting anything from us. True, I'm talking about true gurus. They don't expect anything. True spiritual person doesn't expect anything from anybody. Why? Because he has practiced that wonderful truth which we are going to discuss. We all know. What is it? Yama and Niyama. And one part of the Yama, Aparigraha. Aparigraha means non-receiving, non-acceptance of gifts. You won't accept anything. Even if you give, he won't accept. If he accepts, he will return to you hundred fold in the form of either prayer or loving thought, blessing etc. Not only that, in the Niyama, there is one word. What is that? You know what is that word? Santosha. He had already practiced Santosha. Santosha means absolute contentment. A person who is content, you cannot add to that contentment. Only through that he has become a spiritual person. Now he has become the what is called paragon, perfection of these Vedantic qualities, characteristics. When such a person, when we approach such a person, then he will not, he or she will not accept anything from us. He has no need for that. He is ever content. You have nothing to add to it. And that's why that person alone can truly selflessly love. You know what is selfless love? Selfless love means he loves anything as his own self, as his own self. But before one can do that, one must become truly the Self, capital S. With our small s, we can never love anything else. So we all are trying, hoping against hope. But someday this will, some of our desires will be fulfilled, somehow or other. We are ready to follow whether it is newspaper advertisement. Advertisement is completely one of the examples of a Kalpa. You know why? You go on, you buy this car, you buy, you put on this dress and you put on this perfume. People will be attracted to you. Foolish people do not understand what is called true attraction. We are not looking for attraction. We are looking for love. We are looking for someone who would accept us as we are, not according to their expectations. Do you see? That is true love. And how many people can do it? Parents, naturally they do it to a great extent, even though they are in this world. That's why one can, one has to worship father and mother as equivalent to God. They are Gods really, because somebody to, they accept us. They don't demand anything from us, really speaking. They only want us that you accept us as your parents. That's all they want from us. So this is, we are all, the whole modern world through writings, through TV, through advertisements, they are all brainwashing us. It has also good news. We can only be brainwashed. What does that show? We have brains. That is the good news. So the first thing for a spiritual aspirant is to assert his or her independence and say, I am ready to receive anything, but with caution. I will accept only the truth. I am ready, open to receive, but I will receive with my own filters. That is the first step in spiritual life. With that attitude, if we approach, we won't be disappointed. A simple example would be, someone tells you, I love you, and if we blindly accept the truth, the more blindly we do that, the more will be the hurt. Suppose we say, I know this person is sincere, he wants to or he or she wants to love me, but I know the limitation of this person and so even if this person fails to love me, I am not going to be disappointed. Go with this attitude, nobody can disappoint us. But if you go to unrealistic expectations, you are going to have trouble. It could be anything. It could be a job. It could be a country. It could be a house. It could be neighbors. It could be friends. It could be religion. It could be even God. Do you know who is the person who disappoints most? Come to think of it. Do you know who is the person who disappoints the most? Do you know? God. That is because your expectations of God is limitless, infinite and he disappoints you. Why does he disappoint you? Why does God disappoint us? Tell me. Do you think because he's taking it out, this person has somehow believed in me and this is the best opportunity for me to take out on this fellow. I will play some cruel jokes on this fellow. Is that the reason? You know, whenever whatever God does, it is for our good. A small incident comes to my mind. I read somewhere. I don't remember. It is at Reader's Register somewhere. There was in America, there was this small boy and he went to play with his neighbors and the neighboring boy started beating this fellow. Being a big boy, he beat this child of these parents and the boy started crying. Daddy, mommy, you know that's what we all do. Then this couple were watching from the window and the wife was telling, see that boy is beating our child. Go and rescue him. The father looked at her and said, no. Let him get the beatings. Then later on, this apparently looked like a cruel act, but he was very wise. He said, you know, how many times am I going to rescue somebody? He has to learn how to fend for himself. Yes, he will get a little hurt. He's not going to die. Suppose the other fellow has taken a knife and then going to stab this, he would have definitely rushed and then did something to that. No, they were just, you know, after a few minutes they forget and they go on doing it. Maybe they go on playing again. You know, children are like that. Usually adults, after that these both neighbors, they are not on speaking terms, but the children immediately they go and embrace each other and forget. So what is the point I'm telling? That God let us go through these sufferings. He will definitely come when it is necessary, but he won't come every time you come. Daddy, he's not going to come out. Why? Because he wants us to be immune to these normal day-to-day experiences and really speaking, what is your and our trouble in comparison to what people have gone through, these Nazis, these concentration camps or the tsunamis, the high-t earthquakes. Just imagine, compare your problems with. They are nothing. What is the point we are discussing? This is the most important thing. We want to be hypnotized by words, words without any substance, whether it is friends, whether it is relatives, whether it is politicians, whether it is even religious people. We are hypnotized by these so-called spiritual people. Suppose there are two, just imagine, you know, there are two spiritual people and one so-called spiritual, one genuine spiritual person. Imagine the genuine spiritual person doesn't know how to express himself, doesn't allow anybody to come near. His face is extremely serious. You can see many apply that. This is the other person, as soon as you go, breaks into broad smile, embraces you and talks sweetly, gives you tea and coffee and tells so many nice stories. To whom are you likely to be? Have you observed those people's behavior? Have you seen, tested whether they are genuinely spiritual? Do they practice what they want? In this connection, I remember a beautiful incident that happened in the life of Sri Ramakrishna. You know he had a disciple called Yogen Maharaj, Swami Yogananda. I think at least many of you know this story and Swami Yogananda, he had great respect for Sri Ramakrishna. One night he was sleeping in the room of Sri Ramakrishna and at that time, you know Sri Ramakrishna was a married person, holy mother was living at Nahabath. One midnight suddenly this Yogen at that time, he got up and he saw Sri Ramakrishna was not there. Terrible suspicion seized him. Is Sri Ramakrishna hypocrite? He only talks about renunciation, whether at night he has gone secretly to sleep with his wife. Immediately he rushed to Nahabath. Fortunately, Nahabath, now you understand why Nahabath is only one small room with only one inlet and outlet, one door. Suppose it is a palace with thousand doors, what would this man have done? How many doors he will be keeping guard? Now you see the greatness of the Nahabath. So this man stationed himself outside the door waiting for if Sri Ramakrishna was inside, he has to come out. There is no other way. Suddenly he heard footsteps coming from other corner. Sri Ramakrishna had gone out to answer calls of nature. He was coming from the other side. He became ashamed. Sri Ramakrishna, he was not a fool. He understood. He was not a fool. He was not so innocent that he doesn't know why this person is standing there. He came and he said test a sadhu by day and by night. Only after testing, trust him. Sri Ramakrishna didn't take offense. If it were somebody else, he would have said, oh you are suspecting me. I don't like you. You get out. This would have been the typical unspiritual response. Whereas Sri Ramakrishna said I am so glad because once you test and find me genuine, then your devotion to me will be absolutely genuine and permanent. And that's what happened. He had such devotion. His whole life he felt guilty for suspecting Sri Ramakrishna. But Holy Mother, even Holy Mother was a victim. But he became the greatest devotee of Holy Mother and Sri Ramakrishna. So what I am trying to tell we are people who are likely, why likely? I am only putting it in mild language. All the time we are taken in by empty words. So we should be very careful. So what is the third factor which brings what is called thoughts, which produces thoughts? What is it called? Vikalpa. Vikalpa means verbal delusion. What is verbal delusion? There is no corresponding reality behind the words. They are merely empty words, imaginary words. But yet they can also be helpful to us. Just mind you, even wrong knowledge if believed in could also lead us to God realization. Wrong knowledge if we believe in can also lead us into bondage, can also lead us into liberation. Any thought can be both beneficial or painful. What is the example? The example is that here is God. Somebody in whom you have faith, he takes you to a small temple, says here is a goddess so and so, Chandi is there, she is alive, you worship her. Maybe that fellow wants you to donate some money or to offer some things. He has no idea, no intention of making you spiritual. But you have faith in that person. So you believe in what he says and you go on saying oh God, oh God, oh God and after some time even though that is factually it is a wrong knowledge but because of your sincerity and faith that very thing comes out alive. Now let me conclude this today's talk with an example for what I just stated. Sri Ramakrishna's story. There was a Brahmin, he used to worship Lord Vishnu and every day he used to offer a big plate full of food on above, call it and after worshipping God he will bring out the food and everybody enjoys the what we call prasad. Now one day he had to go out. He had a small son, a child. So that day he can't worship because he's going away. So he said to his son, my son today you have to feed Govinda. You feed Govinda. See that he is fed. He told him. He meant what he meant is offer food. What he meant is offer food. But what did he say? See that God is fed and went away. This boy absolutely sincere to the core like Nachiketa. So when the time came his family prepared the food and they put it in the, he can't even carry such a huge plate and put it there in front and he said he really thought that every day God came down. He was in an image and then he ate the food and then his father brought out the prasadam. But he did not know. His father didn't have that much of so he went on praying, Lord please come down and please eat. But there was no response at all. He started weeping. He said Lord my father told me to feed you and if I don't feed you he will get very angry. He thinks that I have not fed you. He will beat me up. Please come. I am also very hungry. It is already getting. The people outside were anxious. Why are you taking such a long time? So seeing the sincere weeping of the child, God smilingly came out of that image, sat down and ate the whole lot and went back into the image. The boy really thought this is what happens. So he opened the door. All his family members went out. Where is the prasadam? He said God came and ate everything. There is nothing left. So they went and saw inside and they were astonished because even that child he could not have eaten so much of food. This is the story Sri Ramakrishna tells us. Only because of that faith of the boy even though it is a stone from the viewpoint of the father, it is a conventional devotion. Whereas from the viewpoint of the son he really believed. Do you see the point now? Many of us we see in the temples, the temple priest may not believe in the God he is worshipping but the devotees believe in it. Miracles can happen even though verbal delusion could be right. In fact we use that verbal delusion. Every mother uses that verbal delusion. She doesn't want the child to go into a room which is full of say knives or guns or whatever. I tell don't go into that room. Can she explain? There is a dangerous object which may harm you. He can't understand. What does she say? There is a bogeyman inside. The moment you go then he will catch hold of you and the child believes. This is a verbal delusion. But what is the purpose of this verbal delusion? The welfare of the child. We all use it. We use both ways. We also use it to delude others. We also use these things to help us. Now again I recollect this incident you know Swami Vivekananda gave a beautiful talk in America that you are Brahman. Meditate you are Brahman all the time. Think you are Brahman. You are God. And one lady came up and she said Swami are you trying to are you telling me that I have to hypnotize myself into thinking I am divine? Listen carefully. Are you trying are you telling me to hypnotize myself into thinking that I am divine? He smiled proudly and said no madam I am trying to tell you to de-hypnotize yourself. That you have already hypnotized yourself into thinking I am not divine. Now I want you to reverse the process. See that means if I think I am the divine, I am not divine but I am thinking I am going to be divine that is delusion. But I am divine in fact but I have forgotten I am divine and to remember that I am divine that is really the purpose of spiritual practices etc. Remember the story of the tiger, tiger cub which fell among the sheep. Remember that story? Yeah the Guru is the one who says you are not a sheep, you are really a lion. Do you see your face is like that and then after some time it roared and said yes I am the lion. So what these scriptures are trying to tell us is not to think something which is untrue but to really think that that is the real truth that you are a man or a woman. This is the wrong knowledge, avidya. Get out of this avidya. So there are two more we have to discuss. One is called nidra. Nidra means sleep. It also produces a beautiful effect. I'll give you an appetizer. Suppose you didn't sleep well and the next morning you get up I didn't sleep well, I didn't sleep well. Then what do you do? You try to sleep during driving, during listening to my talks and all those things that's what you try to do. Nidra. But suppose you slept well, you feel I am very well, I feel very happy and happily you go about with concentration, with focus to do your things. This is nidra. It is also an experience therefore it produces right or beneficial or non-beneficial thoughts. What is the last one? Smriti. Smriti means memory. It is this smriti which is our real bugbear. It is this smriti which we will discuss in our next class. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti