Summary:

Lecture 13 analyses relationship between happiness and non-duality (your nature). What is source of happiness? For non-duality vision, are forms obstacles?

Source: Drg Drsya Viveka

FINISHING VERSE 20 FROM PREVIOUS LECTURE:

• WISE VS. UNWISE PERSON:
  • Will the wise person have a mind? Yes. Will that mind have desires? Yes. If can appreciate this, you are a wise person. The unwise person still places their “I” in mind, so when it says “I is free from desire”, they think mind has to be free from desire.
    • For the wise, the mind still gets influenced and distressed. However desiring in the wise person is not coming from sense of lack, because lack is removed by understanding the content of I fills up this universe. This whole thing is like a show, and Atma (another name for drk) is free from the show.
  • Analogy: Actor and Role. What gives you the freedom to play the role? The knowledge that I am not the role. When actor forgets, suffering of role spills into the actor. Actor is independent of the role, and role depends on the actor. Knowing I am not the role, it doesn’t mean I will not play the role seriously. However the freedom to do intelligently comes from knowledge that “I am not this”.
  • Wise person and sadness: While experiencing sadness, you understand “This is my sadness, but sadness is not Me”. If you try to eliminate the experience of sadness at level of mind, then that shows definition of “you” is at the doer/mind.
  • Therefore jnani does enjoy an evolved mind (managing emotions, dharma, deliberate responses), which comes before pursuit of self-knowledge. Result of evolved mind, jnani was able to understand the reality and relationship between Awareness, mind, and world.
• NEXT VERSE: Shows that jagat includes…

VERSE 21: Distinguishing Real From Unreal – 2

ख-वायु-अग्नि-जल-उर्वीषु देव-तिर्यङ्-नर-आदिषु | अभिन्नाः सत्-चिद्-आनन्दाः भिद्यते रूप-नामनि ||
kha-vāyu-agni-jala-urvīṣu deva-tiryaṅ-nara-ādiṣu | abhinnāḥ sat-cid-ānandāḥ bhidyate rūpa-nāmani ||
Existence-Consciousness-Fullness is the same in space, air, fire, water and earth, and in deities, animals, man, and so on. Only their names and forms differ.

[COMMENTARY: The attributes of existence (sat), consciousness (cit) and fullness (ananda) are equally present in all objects – sentient and insentient. They are present in the five elements (space, air, fire, water, earth), gods, animals, humans etc. In insentient objects, only sat is manifest. In sentient beings, sat and chit are manifest due to the mind.]

• From previous verse, first 3 belong to Awareness. Other 2 belong to form. So wherever there is form, there is also asti-bhati-priya. Suppose you ask, “Which form?”…
  • Kha (space): When you see space, there is asti-bhati-priya.
  • Vayu (air), etc: All resolve into concepts. Any concept IS, and is filled with Awareness.
• Not only you see the Reality in 5 elements (as asti-bhati) — but in animals, man, devas (celestials who are also made of 5 elements).
• Abhinnāḥ sat-cit-ānanda bhidiyate rūpa nāmani: The names and forms are different. 5 elements are different to each, as are elementals. But what is abhinna (non-different) is asti-bhati-priya.
• For vision of non-duality, do you need to remove differences in forms? Despite appreciating difference in forms and their characteristics, their content is One.
  • EG: In Bhagavad Gita 2.20, Krishna tells Arjuna: Atma pervades everything. It is never born, it never dies. But you still have to engage in the war (life duties).  Just because all that is here is one, doesn’t mean to go and love everyone. You don’t lose perspective. Rules of the game (dharma) still operate, and need to align to them.
• — THIS VERSE CONTINUES IN NEXT LECTURE —

Keywords:  

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Course was based on [1] Drig Drishya Viveka book by Swami Tejomayananda [2] Book by Swami Nikhilananda [3] Neema Majmudar.

Recorded 19 Jan, 2024