Mandukya Karika Lecture 082 on 21 December 2022

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OM JANANIM SHARADAM DEVIM RAMAKRISHNAM JAGAD GURUM PADAPADMETAYO SRIDHVA PRANAM AMI MUHUR MUHUR OM BHADRAM KANNE VISHRUNAYAM DEVAH BHADRAM PASHYE MAKSHABHIRYA JATRAH STIRAI RANGAI STUSHTU VAGUM SASTANUBHI YASHEMA DEVAHI TANYADAYO SWASTHINA INDRU VRIDDHA SHRAVA SWASTHINA POSHA VISHWA VEDAH SWASTHINA STHARKSHYO ARISTA NIMI SWASTHINO BRIHA SPATIR DADHATO OM SHANTE SHANTE SHANTE HARE OM OM O Gods, may we always hear with our ears what is auspicious. O worshipful ones, may we with our eyes always see what is auspicious. May we live our allotted life hale and hearty, offering our praises unto Thee. May Indra of ancient fame bestow auspiciousness on all of us. May the all-nourishing potion be propitious to all of us. May Garuda, the destroyer of all evil, be well disposed towards all of us. May Brihaspati ensure all our welfare. OM PEACE PEACE Peace be unto all of us. We are in the second chapter of the Mandukya Upanishad, especially Mandukya Karika called Vaithatya Prakarana, the chapter dealing with the falsity of all our experiences. Anything that is experienced is false. The experiencer alone is real. This Prakarana has 38 Karikas. Just to briefly recollect what we had discussed earlier, Gaudapada wants to establish first of all certain truths. The truth is this entire world that we experience in the waking state is absolutely Mithya. And for that he takes the example of dream. Each one of us, when we come out of the dream, we know whatever we experience in the dream state is absolutely my own imagination. But even for a second we do not imagine that what we experience in the waking state is unreal. In fact, there is absolutely no difference. So through Yukti or Tarka or Reason, Gaudapada wants to establish that just as Swapna, which is completely considered as unreal, here unreal means Mithya, not non-existence, but Mithya. What is Mithya? That which is only temporarily experienced is called Mithya. So the waking state is absolutely no different at all from the dream point of view. Dream state. Dream and waking are completely unreal. For that, in this fifth Karika he is telling, The thoughtful persons speak of the exactness, sameness of both the waking and dream states on account of the similarity of the diverse objects perceived or experienced in both these two states, waking as well as the dream, and on the well-known grounds already described. So what we experience in the waking and what we experience in dream, in reality they are not two different things at all. This is what he inserts at the end of this particular fifth Karika. On the strength of the familiar ground of inference, what is it that things in dream and waking state are equally related as the perceiver and the perceived. So what is the reason? Whatever I experience is unreal. I the experiencer continue whatever I experience. Even if I see a billion things, I do not change. I am the one experiencer. Whatever is experienced is continuously changing from one object to the other object. So this experienceability or objectivity, this is the reason why there is absolutely no difference between the states of both the dream and the waking. The wise people call them exactly of the same value. What is the value? They are not real and it is absolutely wrong to assume dream state is wrong, false, while waking state is okay. The difference is that way. What is the difference? I am the perceiver and everything else is perceived. This is the well-known reason. So what is the first reason? Both waking and the dream worlds are Mithya because both of them are objects of experience. Earlier I have given you in probably second or third of the past classes that whatever I experience, it is all Mithya because it depends upon me. It is changing continuously. It is coming and going and it doesn't exist in the past, doesn't exist in the present, only at the time of experience. So many reasons I have given you, the fundamental principles of Vedanta, you should take note of them. Now what is the another reason given? Whatever is objectified is Mithya and the subject who experiences alone is Satyam. This ability to objectify and experience is the criteria for Mithyatma. And when we see, there is absolutely no difference between the experienceability and objectifiability of both the waking and dream are exactly the same. So there are also some other objections will come. Oh, you are talking nonsense, that there will be always objectors. The objectors are of two types. One is others whose thinking is of a different nature. Another is the doubts may come into our own minds. More importantly, Shankaracharya is not concerned about refuting the opponents. I don't care. He is a person who wants to show that every Upanishad wants us to liberate. It is personal liberation. My liberation. There is no what is called mass liberation. Everybody is going to be liberated. Each one of us live in our own world and we continue in our world and we die according to our world and before that we create our own new world. Every living creature is living in its own world. So how many worlds? As many pranis, jivas, jivatmas. So many worlds. They are countless. That is what is called Ananta Koti Brahmanda. So the objectors, we don't care about what other people tell. This is mainly my own mind can create doubts. You are talking nonsense. How can I accept it? Now why should we accept it? Because unless we accept something wholeheartedly, we will not feel the desire to achieve something. If you doubt somebody's love, some possibility, then your mind will become split. Should I go for it or should I not? So this is for our own sake. This is the purpose of the Manana. Shravana. Listen with complete faith in the Guru, in the scriptures and this is called Shraddha. Second, do not become a dumb person. Just taking it in without thinking. Ramakrishna's life, we get an example. Once Ramakrishna held a Upadesha session at Panchavati and everybody was very happy. They all came back and then Ramakrishna suddenly said that an umbrella is left out there. Please go and get it. And then on another occasion, he said that somebody has left the umbrella. I know who has left it. He is a fellow who has no thinking capacity. He forgets everything. This ability to listen with faith for a long time and to completely believe it, but even upon believing it, it contradicts my present understanding. So to get rid of my present understanding or to update my present understanding so that I will have no doubts at all, Shankaracharya out of his infinite compassion brings out all these objections which we ourselves should get in course of our time. Here also, if some objector has some objection, that doesn't help me. That objection must be removed from my own mind. Otherwise, what happens? If I am a thoughtless person, the doubts will never come. But if I am a thoughtful person, sooner or later, now or after a long time, doubts are bound to come. Why not bring all of those doubts out and deal with them at the same time with one stroke? That is the compassion of the teacher. Here are some objectors called purvapaksha or purvapakshi. Purvapaksha means opponent's view. Purvapakshi means opponent. It has nothing to do with any bird. It is only opposing opponent. There are four important objections about which I have dealt in my last class thoroughly. But just to remind us, first is utility. What is it? Don't compare dream and aching state. In dream state, when I get hungry, I eat and my stomach is satisfied. I drink and then my thirst is gone. I sleep, my rest is obtained, etc. But I have dreams. When I am physically hungry and I can dream that I am eating food, as soon as I wake up from the dream, then my stomach will remain the same hungry creature. This is unthinking, thoughtless, unwise or otherwise people talking about. And then Shankaracharya himself gives. No. In dream state, if you are hungry, dream hunger is satisfied with dream food. Dream thirst is satisfied with dream drink. You should not bring it into the waking state. Even after eating in the waking state to the stomach full, you can still dream that I am very hungry. Anything is possible. So the waking state utility is not the same as the dream state utility. The utility must be judged from the standpoint of either dream or waking. Don't mix up the usability, utility of one state with the other state. This is the repetition because as Ramana Maharshi quoted, he says, dream hunger is definitely satisfied by dream food. A dreamer or we as dreamers, when we get hungry, we eat food. We have no doubt that our hunger is removed. Same thing happens in the waking state. But don't interpose, exchange dream hunger and waking food, waking hunger and dream food. That is what is called stupidity personified. Second objection, continuity. Remember, these are all our normal day-to-day experience. That's why as soon as you dream, you have eaten a great amount of likeable food in dream, but you wake up ravenously hungry. There is no doubt about it. Second objection is continuity. See, when we wake up from a dream state, every day we have several dreams. Even if somebody says, I do not dream, they do not remember, but dream is a very common state. So every day as soon as we wake up, we seem to wake up into the same house, same body, same personality, same parents, same family, same society, same job, same house, same everything. And even when I am going to sleep, I am 100% convinced that this waking world will continue to exist exactly as it is. Even when I am sleeping, in deep sleep, when I am dreaming, it doesn't change. Of course, nothing can be further from truth because every second dreamer waking, everything is changing. I am also changing. The dreamer yesterday is one day old. The dreamer tomorrow will be two days old. The table a dreamer has experienced in the dream is one day old. And if he sees the same table, he says, oh, day before yesterday I purchased this table. Yesterday I dreamt, yesterday I purchased. So dream also, things are changing all the time. So this is called continuity. So even in the waking state, whatever job I do, I feel it is the same world. It is only after several years we change the notice and then time has passed by and then we regret, oh, I should have done that. Why did I not do such things? Why did I do these things? This regret will haunt people as the Isavasya Upanishad clearly mentions. So what is the second objection? Continuity. Waking state is continuing and dream state is always changing because we never feel it is the same house we wake up in the dream state. But this is also a stupid man's thinking, foolish thinking, otherwise thinking. Why? When you are having a dream, do you have the feeling that the house you find yourself in, oh, this is not yesterday's house, this is a new house. If you have to do that, you have to remember that past dream. You don't even remember most of the dreams even in the waking state. Not to speak of remembering dreams in the dream state. You feel it is the most natural thing and there is a continuity of existence. These are my friends, this is my country, this is my job. The same thing, exactly the same thing that we see in the waking state, we see also in the dream state. The question comes that dream state is discontinuous, comes only in the waking state, but we can tell the same thing about the waking state in the dream state. I find myself here, why was I thinking, remembering that I was in Bangalore or Varanasi? So the same thought process goes on, whichever state we are in, it is the most natural state, it is a continuing state, that is why we call it real. Real means natural, continuing, there is no doubt about it, that is what is called reality. So this argument, opponent's objection that waking is continuous and dream state is discontinuous, this is a view from the waking point and it is equally false. Both should be studied from their own points of view, from their own experience. Dream world should be judged from the dream point of view, waking world should be judged from the waking point of view. This is the second objection. Third objection, sometimes in dreams some people find they have gone to Varanasi even though they are somewhere else or they have gone to America or they have gone to Svargaloka etc. And the opponent says this person must have experienced these things in the past, may not be in this life, sometimes in this life also in earlier days, we might have had that kind of experience because dream is created out of the vasanas and vasanas cannot come unless there is a definite experience. So, these unique experiences are real and many schools of philosophy make it their main point of strength that dreams are also real like a waking state. For example, this is the story. Anyway, the point I wanted to make clear is this uniqueness is no objection at all. How does Gaudapada, how does he counter this objection? He says, supposing in this waking state you go to Kashmir and it is called Bhuloka Svarga, it is heaven on earth, so beautiful and that is what many people are apt to think so you have created it. Later on, when you are suffering very much in a very dirty place, in an unclean place, you may be dreaming I have gone to Kashmir. So, is this based upon real experience? No, not really. But you say, I experienced it, I went to Kashmir, I saw the Kashmir's people, beautiful lakes, beautiful flowers, beautiful so many things. What is the Gaudapada's counter? He says, that you have experienced them. Remember earlier, whatever we experience, not only that, this is the first objection, whatever is experienced is Mithya and whatever is the experiencer, whoever, he alone is reality. But that is not the only thing. Suppose, five people go to Kashmir, do you think that all of them uniformly experience Kashmir exactly hundred percent the same way? Suppose somebody is worried that his job is about to be removed, he may be removed from his job and thought is going on. Another fellow, his wife is suffering from fourth stage of cancer, it could be husband also, anybody, then he is worried. Through those states of mind, when the person is experiencing the same place called Kashmir, are their experiences uniform? Not at all. So therefore, what is Gaudapada trying to tell? That your mind is creating, this is nice, this is not nice, this is good, this is bad, this is desirable, this is undesirable. Everything, whatever we see in dreams, whatever we experience in the waking state, all of them are what Gaudapada calls, what is called, through a colored glass. If you put on green glass, everything appears to be green. If you put blue glass, everything is blue. If you put on black glass, everything is black. So the mind is like that colored glass. In fact it is. That is why I mentioned earlier, each one of us are living in our own unique world. No two people experience exactly the same world. Even when I see the same tree, two people see and two people have two different opinions because they live and they view from two different angles. So this unique experience, it is an experience and an experience can be experienced only by the experiencer, a conscious being and how a person experiences, whether it is unique or not. Every experience is a unique experience created by the mind. Whatever is created by the mind is Kalpana, imagination. Therefore, just as nobody says imagination is real, so also no experiences can be admitted as real and unique. This is how he does it and it is absolutely true. Remember, it is all related to our day-to-day life. You say, this food is excellent. My mother prepares beautifully. You give the same food to another fellow coming from another region, accustomed to another way of cooking. He will say, probably your mother is the worst cook in the whole world. Anyway, these points of view, we do not take it. Then the fourth objection, which I have already explained, just I am recollecting it because there is no use of studying these things unless we firmly understand certain factors and through the lens of those factors alone, we should understand this unique explanation of Gaudapada or this Mandukya Upanishad. In fact, I will say every Upanishad. What is the fourth objection? He says, I will give you an example in case you have forgotten. I am in the waking state. Then I open my eyes. I see a house. I see a person. I see a tree. And this is concrete. This is real. But suppose I close my eyes and I imagine the same thing in my mind. I know that I am imagining. That is why I use the word imagination. My imaginary thoughts and then we also create emotion. You know how? Just like when you are watching a cinema, if your favorite actor or actress is acting, whatever way they act, you are likely to judge them as marvelous. But if somebody is not a fan of your particular favorite actor or actress, that person's opinion will be completely different. So what he is telling, whatever we experience outside, the world is outside. We are experiencing that. The external world is real. But our thoughts, our imagination, these are all unreal. That is what we say. But then this person is thinking, supposing I am dreaming. In dream also, everything is real. Whatever is experience, dream also, you are walking and then at the time you are dreaming, you see a tree outside. You never say to yourself or to anybody that tree is imaginary, but what I am thinking about that tree is unreal. Similarly, you might have had in dream, a second dream, when you are dreaming, in the dream that you had another dream, and you wake up from the dream to your waking state, which later on we call dream state. In comparison with your so-called waking state, that second dream is considered mere play of your imagination. There also, you say what I see externally is real and what I see internally is unreal. Now, what is the point? The point is, when we wake up, we say what the person experiences both inside his mind, in the dream state of course, inside his mind and outside his mind, what he calls external and internal, we know that both of them are unreal. Apply this same rule to the waking state. What we call the external world and what we call the internal world is exactly same. Same means what? Both of them are playthings of our mind. There is no reality to it at all. And Swami Vivekananda is trying to explain this. These are very fine points which require a little deep thinking. Otherwise, we may be carried away. Now, what was Swamiji telling? Telling that everything in this world is unreal only. It is a play of your mind only. The whole world is unreal. Then naturally some question comes. Is there no reality to the external world? Swamiji says, if there is no reality, nobody can even experience the external world or the internal world. Now, when you say this is a dream, that is false. But when you say this is Brahman, that is real. Because there must be a substratum even to experience something. This is a marvelous point I raised many times. If there were to be no dry sand, there is no experience of mirage. If there is no rope, there cannot be any experience of a snake. If there was no real, what is called an object, silver shell, real silver, the experience of silver shell is impossible. So there must be something because experience needs something to be there. But it may not be what we think we are experiencing. That is the point. Swami Vivekananda makes it very clear. Our world is what we construct through our own experiences. But it is a construction of our mind. That is what in Vedanta it is called. The whole world is an idea in our mind. World as an idea in our mind. But there are idealists. And what are these idealists? There are four types of people viewing this universe. And all those four viewers or four different views, the philosophers classify it. The first one, he says there is an external world that is also real. And what we think about that external world is also real. This is called realist. Then there is an idealist. There is no external world. What our mind creates is the only reality. What we create in our mind is real. External world is unreal. What is the first one? Both external world and our thought about it both are real. What is the third one? The third one says just both the external world and internal world both are completely unreal. And there is a fourth variety who says this one everything is nothing but an imagination. So these are called subjective idealists. Subjective idealists also called realists. So four different types of thinking are there. External and internal is real. External alone is real. Internal is unreal. Internal alone is real. External is unreal. Both external and internal both are unreal. I hope you got the four classifications. But Swami Vivekananda makes it clear that all these are again our imaginations of our mind. That is not correct. What is the correct thinking? All these views are completely wrong. Then what is the reality? Whatever exists outside is Brahman. Whatever exists inside is Brahman. There is nothing but Brahman inside and outside. The mind stands between the experiencer called Jeevatma and the experiencer called Brahma and it creates havoc. Now the purpose of the Upanishad is to make us see the same Brahman inside as well as outside. It is not to just argue and then throw away. The dream state is unreal. Waking state is unreal. The deep sleep is also unreal. Then what is the reality? The reality is you who is perceiving it. What does it mean? It means you alone are perceiving yourself as the waking state. You alone. You means the Atma. You means Brahman. So you the Brahman, you are using an instrument called mind through which you are looking. One way of looking is the waking world. Another way of looking is the dream world. Another way of looking is the deep sleep. What you are looking among all the states are completely unreal. Mithya. Because they are changing. They are experienced. They are objectified. They come and go. They are temporary. They cannot be relied upon. There is no permanency. But then what is the permanent thing? Real thing? Trikala, Abadhitam, Satyam. You are seeing a tree. The tree is existence. The tree as Chit. The tree as Ananda. I am just, every time I want to illustrate to make this point clear. You are seeing a mango tree. Then you are very seeing the mango tree is Sat. Experiencing a Brahman in the form of Sat. You are experiencing the mango tree. This is a mango tree. It yields beautiful fruits. I see all the fruits hanging. Now the season is going to come in another 2-3 months. I like this particular mango. It gives me tremendous joy. You are perceiving Sat. You are perceiving Chit. You are perceiving Ananda. What is the problem? The problem is you are differentiating. This mango tree is good. That mango tree is not so good. If you are a wise person, that mango tree also is representing Brahman as Sat, Chit, Ananda. Every object we experience is nothing but Brahman in the form of either Sat or Chit or Ananda. Whether it is outside or inside. This is also a trick of the mind. What is outside? Brahman. What is inside? Brahman. And who is experiencing? Brahman. What is experienced? Brahman. I hope you recollect. Every day the devotees of Sri Ramakrishna do it thoughtlessly, unconsciously. What is that just before eating? Brahmarpanam. That means whatever is offered is Brahman. Brahmavihi. What is offered is also Brahman. Brahmagnav. It is offered into the Brahman in the form of fire. Who is the offerer? Brahmanahutam. It is Brahman alone who appears. Now recollect it. Meditate upon it. What is it? Brahman is perceiving Brahman as the waking, as the dream, as the deep sleep and as well as beyond these three as Uttariyam. If you get that point, then external is real, internal is unreal. So both of them are from one viewpoint. Both of them are unreal. Dream as well as the waking state, they are absolutely one. Now we move on to the sixth one which also is telling the same thing. That which has no existence at the beginning and doesn't have any existence after its end or after its death or destruction but only in the middle appears to be existing. That is all. It doesn't exist at all. In the middle also what you see is only Brahman. Though they are on the same footing with the unreal yet they are seen as though real. So you see a baby when after the baby is conceived and born. You don't see the baby when after his death. In between the baby is seen. In between also do you see continuously? Yes. It is exactly the same. One day old baby is only one day old baby for 70 years. Now you see every millisecond the baby is changing in body, in mind, in reaction, in behavior. Everything is changing. When you see, think about change and this is the verse about change. Now this change that we see now which seems to be real. Previously it was not that. So there was no non-existence of this particular change before. And when it changes into something this particular present change has been destroyed totally. Whatever is in the beginning, whatever is not at the beginning, whatever will not be at the end, middle it seems to be permanent. It seems to be existing. In fact it doesn't even exist at all. It doesn't mean we are talking about non-existence. We are talking about we do not see the reality. For that Shankaracharya gives a beautiful example. The classic example a rope is lying down. Do you see the snake? No. In the day time you see the rope. Night time when there is semi-light you see the snake. Did you see snake in the day time? No. Do you see the snake after light is brought up? No. Then in between is the snake existing? Yes. It is born at that time. Then it is dead. No. There is no snake at all. Whatever existed was, is and will be is only that rope. I hope this clears the point. In the beginning at the end that which doesn't even exist. When we are experiencing it after its birth or after its manifestation that also is non-existing only. Everything that we see means false. But because of Maya as if it is real that is the understanding. Then we brought up this object utility to count that one in the 7th Karika Odapada is taking. Their utility is contradicted in dream. Therefore from the fact of their having a beginning and an end they rightly held to be unreal. This is contradicting, countering the opponent's view that there is no utility in the dream state. He says that is whatever is useful in the waking state. The utility of things in the waking state. When a person goes to dream state they are completely contradicted. For example, many examples are given by Shankaracharya. You have eaten to the stomach full and you go into the dream state and then you say I am ravenously hungry. This is how in the dream state the experience of the waking state utility here. You are hungry in the waking state. You have eaten food in the waking state. Your hunger is completely removed in the waking state. You are completely satisfied. This is completely contradicted. I am ravenously hungry. I am very unhappy. I want to get some food etc. But I already gave the Gaudapada's view. It is exactly the same. You have eaten to your stomach full in your dream state and then you wake up ravenously hungry. So what happened to the dream food that you have eaten? So that is contradicted in the waking. So what happens in the waking is contradicted in the dream state. Whatever happens in the dream state is contradicted in the waking state. Both contradict each other. So therefore Mithyaiva Kalu Te Smruta Therefore Aadhyan Tappu Vena Mithyaiva Kalu Te Smruta Because Adi the dream has a beginning and the dream has an end. Similarly waking state also everything has a beginning everything has an end. This is the point Sri Ramakrishna says that continuously discriminate between the real and the unreal. And then he explains this comes what I made out. The five commandments of Sri Ramakrishna this is the third commandment or fourth commandment according to your calculation continuously discriminate. What is it? That everything is temporary. Sri Ramakrishna says everything is temporary. That means everything is unreal. Everything is temporary. So this if somebody says everything is unreal then doubts will come. But if somebody says everything is temporary. It is our experience. Temporarily I was a baby. Temporarily I was a adolescent. Temporarily I may be a youth. Temporarily I was a middle aged person. Temporarily I am an old person and temporarily what? Continue I am dead. Temporarily dead and temporarily again being born. But of course we do not know about that. Until death everything is temporary. Whatever is temporary is unreal. That is what Sri Ramakrishna says. Exactly the same thing that Godfather is telling. What did he say? That whatever you experience is unreal because one experience what is called destroys the other experience. The present experience destroys the past experience and the future experience destroys the present experience that is called temporariness and when everything is temporary then who is real? The doubt will come. That doubt is going to come very soon and for that the answer is that subject, that witness that experiencer the Jeevatma in the form of the experiencer. He is not changing. You had past thought he experienced it. You have a present thought, you experience it. You have a next thought, you experience it. You are not changing but the thoughts are changing. So that is what we had to understand. Then the third objection which I have summarized earlier that in dreams sometimes we feel that we went to heaven and we saw some people. Is it not a unique experience and then is it not an experience really that had happened otherwise how could you even imagine in your dream? For that I already gave the answer. Everything is the written by the author called mind. Every unique who is telling it is unique? If an Asura goes to a Naraka Loka it is the most natural thing for him. But if a Deva goes to a hell it is most unnatural thing and the vice versa is also really true. When you say uniqueness, is everybody saying it is unique? Everybody says about every object this is unique, this is most beautiful, this is most enjoyable, this is most marvelous. Does everybody say that? Same object is not cared by many and considered as even worse than anything else but only a few people consider it as something very valuable, very unique etc. You give a valuable diamond to a child you show a valuable piece of diamond and a chocolate and then what do you think he will choose? He will choose invariably the chocolate or biscuit. Why? Because that is the only real thing, that is the only thing that counts. Everything else is completely unreal. That is where utilitarianism comes. We judge everything by the result. If something is giving us happiness that is real. Something is not giving happiness that is not real or we don't want it. That is it. So in the Vedanta Karika So somebody was there, he is dreaming he has gone to heaven and he has experienced the heaven there like other people there. Then he comes back, he says this is a unique experience, unique because he only experiences it only a few times perhaps in his whole life or in many lives. So he says it is a unique experience for them. As he says that supposing there is what is called a well learned person especially a connoisseur of art goes to an art museum and an uneducated untrained person also goes to the same museum. Do you think both of them experience them as unique? Yes, I say both of them experience it as unique but what they mean by unique is completely different. When this well trained learned man goes and sees a 5000 year old vase broken in many places he says oh my god what a marvellous piece. When the same thing is perceived by this untrained and uneducated person he says this is called I paid so much of money to see a broken piece of pot my god we are the cheating people like me and this is his unique experience. Every experience is unique but we judge it either it is a happy, desirable experience unhappy, undesirable experience. So that is created by whom? By the mind. How does it create? Because of the most marvellous habits that we develop from our childhood. So, the food I was accustomed from childhood is a unique food for me. The food you experience is a unique food for you. Everything that we experience is unique only depending upon my habit, my training my purva janma samskara. Therefore, uniqueness is completely countered it is not real. What is real? The perceiver alone is real. Everything that is perceived as either unique or non-unique is all, everything is mithya. This is what Gaudapada wants to tell. Then we move on to verses 9 and 10. What is this? This is the removal of the objection by Gaudapada to that particular objection of the opponent when he says, whatever we experience externally to our body and mind is real. Whatever we are experiencing or thinking or imagining in the mind is unreal. So the external is real, the internal is unreal. And then for that, this is the unique answer. As I said, one requires a very sharp intellect to understand the inner meaning of this. Even in the dream state itself, anything imagined by the inner consciousness is unreal, while anything experienced by the outer consciousness is real. Exactly, waking state. I gave you the experience. Suppose, you are now sitting there in your room and you are seeing your mobile phone, that seeing the mobile phone in the external world by you the sitter is real. Whereas your thoughts about that mobile phone are your thoughts, your imaginations. Every thought is an imagination. This is the understanding we have. So, how if somebody, you are imagining, somebody is donating me a most marvelous mobile phone. And you will not be excited. It is a happy, pleasant thought, but you know it is not real. But if somebody gives you a third class mobile phone, your blood pleasure will go up. So, this is what he is telling. But in the dream state, judged from the waking state, the internal and external, everything that is experienced in the dream state is unreal. Why? It is created by our mind. Upon waking up, we know the dream, entire dream, myself in the dream, myself seeing the external world in the dream, myself thinking about the external world in the dream. They are all imaginations of my mind. That is what I think upon waking up. But whatever I see in the waking state outside, So, anything experienced as the outside object by our consciousness alone is real. And this state of experience outside is real, inside is unreal, is common to both the dream state and then waking. This is the essence of the ninth and tenth mantras, even in the dream itself. Anything imagined by the inner consciousness, that is a dreamer thinking that what I am thinking is unreal. While anything experienced by my dream body outside in the dream world is real. And this is what is in the state of waking also. Whatever I am imagining in my mind that is unreal, not real. Then what is real? Whatever I am experiencing outside, everything that I experience outside is Sat. But this is what we are telling there is no difference inside the dream state also. We have the same experience of outside and inside. Outside is real, inside is unreal. Waking state also, outside is real, inside is unreal. There is absolutely Just as you think upon waking up, whatever I experienced in my dream, both inside my mind and outside my body, they are unreal. Exactly it is the same thing in the waking state also. There is no difference at all. That is how Gaudapada counters in this. Then the objector comes, suppose I accept all these things but who is this person who experiences all this, who imagines all this, whether it is real or unreal that is going to come in the eleventh karika which we will talk about in our next class. May Sri Ramakrishna, Holy Mother and Swami Vivekananda bless us all with bhakti. Ramakrishna.