Transcriptions
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
Video Link: YouTube
So, let’s begin.
So, yesterday—this is such an incredible thing for me—we did a video on the different stages of being and how they reflect as consciousness and, of course, the upādhis and all that stuff.
And then Zecho—I think I’m pronouncing it right, let me know if I’m not—Zecho made a comment, which somehow got deleted. I hope he can repost it because it was the most amazing comment I’ve ever gotten on any video in the seven years since doing this channel.
See, basically, underneath all of the stuff that we do, there’s a concept called the Esoteric Teaching. And the Esoteric Teaching is the idea that reality is the way it is; and then there are different ways of describing it or different ways of looking at it from different points of view. And therefore, if anyone penetrates deeply enough into reality, their description is going to be basically similar to the other descriptions of the other teachers.
So you have the Vedas, and you have the Buddhist teaching, you have the Jaina teaching, and you know, many others like Taoists and all kinds of different flavors of those main teachings. And although they superficially seem to disagree, actually, that’s just an artifact of semantics of terminology. And if you really go into them and analyze them ontologically, they all point to the same reality.
The thing that I was pursuing for many years was: what is the system of coordinates that ties this whole thing together, so that we can see the truth through any of the different schools of thought or disciplines?
And we made a great breakthrough, you know, just a year ago or so, when we found out about the four darśanams, * catur-darśanam**, the four views or points of view given by Śaṅkarācārya in his commentary on *Vedānta-sūtra, the Śarīraka-bhaṣya. So that’s what we were talking about in many of the previous series.
But in this recent series, we’re trying to give the most high-level view that covers the most ground and gives you the kind of background, the kind of ontology with which you can decode and understand any of these teachings and get the benefits: meaning do the practice.
So last time, we talked about four levels of being: Brahman, Īśvara, Kuṭāstha or Paramātmā, and jīvātmā.
And then we talked about the upādhis, or superimposition, or limiting adjunct, and the viśeṣaṇa or the particularization or individuation of the different entities from Brahman, or within Brahman, or appearance of such within Brahman.
And then Zecho wrote a wonderful comment—I hope he can repost it because it was brilliant—where he extended that further into the Buddha’s teaching. And he brought in Jaina logic, Jaina seven-valued logic into it, which is wonderful because I don’t know any of the other viewers who have understood that. We only did a couple of videos on it.
But I’ve been using it, and it was very helpful for me to understand this view of the Esoteric Teaching. So let’s go over these four views, the catur-darśanam again, and try to understand how that meshes or merges or connects with these four states of being that we talked about.
So let’s take a look at the ontology of the Esoteric Teaching.
And we’re going to look at the darśanam, the view; the yoga, or the method of sādhana connected with that view; the level of being similar to the topics of the previous video, that you realize when you do these yogas. And then we’re going to extend it to the corresponding Noble Truth of the Buddha’s teaching.
So of course, the highest view is ajata-vāda; ajata means unborn. So the truth, or the point of view that everything that exists is actually unborn. This is the view of jñāna-yoga, and jñāna, of course, lets us access Brahman, which is pure awareness. And the Noble Truth connected with that is the end of suffering, actually the third Noble Truth in most presentations.
Then there’s the vivartha-vāda. Now vivartha-vāda is the preferred platform of teaching for Advaita. So Rāmaṇa Mahārṣi, Śrīpad Śaṅkarācārya, they’re all teaching on the vivartha-vāda. And the vivartha-vāda, the yoga is rāja-yoga or meditation. Meditation, not in the sense of concentrating on a specific object, but in the sense of realizing a certain level of being, and what is that being? It’s the level of Īśvara, the creator, Śiva.
So when you realize Śivo’ham—Śiva, aham—”I am Śiva”, it doesn’t mean that you are the creator. It means that your consciousness is on the same level. You’re looking at things from the same point of view. Therefore you have an affinity or an identification with the creator.
And what is that? That is the path to the end of suffering, the sādhana that brings one to realization of Brahman, which in Buddha’s teaching is called nibbāna or nirvāṇa.
And then we have the viśiṣṭādvaita-vāda. Viśiṣṭādvaita means conditional non-duality. viśiṣṭa-advaita. And vāda, of course, means a system of belief, a philosophical view, or a point of view. Viśiṣṭādvaita-vāda is the natural platform for bhakti. Bhakti means development of love for a transcendental object. Transcendental means nondual.
So in this level of realization, we come to realize the Kuṭāstha, the Supersoul. The Supersoul or Kuṭāstha, Karaṇadakaśai-Viṣṇu, means the repository or the amalgamation of all the jīva souls, all the individual living beings.
And this is still transcendental, okay? Viṣṇu is fully Brahman-realized. He knows that He is nothing but Brahman, and that his apparent individuality is only a superimposition.
In that way, he is similar to Śiva. But he also has the ignorance of identifying Himself with the universe, with the creation and the living beings. And so his job is to maintain the universe. That’s Vishnu’s role in the creation.
However, the Noble Truth that’s connected with that stage is the cause of suffering. This identification, this ignorance is the cause of suffering.
And although for Viṣṇu, it’s only an upādhi, which means that He can transcend it, still it causes Him a lot of trouble. He has to incarnate in all these different species of life. He has to fight all these demons. He has to create so many religions and scriptures and stuff like that to keep us from going completely crazy.
It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it, right? So He’s the great hero. He is the template, or the example of the greatest hero in the universe. And that’s why He says, “Everyone follows my path in all respects,” in Bhagavad-gītā.
So anyway, then we have the dvaita-vāda. Dvaita means duality: two, twoness or duality, I and thou, subject and object, the seer and the seen. And this is the state that most of us find ourselves in most of the time.
And so the appropriate sādhana for this state is karma-yoga, because karma-yoga means actions with the body. And that’s why we’re called jīva, because jīva means that which is born. So what is born? the body. Certainly Brahman is not born, or Viṣṇu or Śiva. But the jīva thinks “I am born,” and therefore he has to die.
So karma-yoga is the action with the body that’s designed to cleanse the karma to make us able to see these things, and to take actions that will lead to good fortune in the future. And of course, the Noble Truth connected with this is the Noble Truth of suffering. Because to be in duality is to suffer, to think that one is the body is to suffer. To be born and have to work to maintain yourself, and then die and be reborn again, that’s suffering.
Okay, so all these things, the all these qualities of the state of being of the jīva, jīvātmā, they’re suffering. But we’re jīva, but we’re also ātmā, you see, ātmā ultimately means Brahman. So here is the state of being of the human condition, which even great sages have difficulty to understand.
What is that? It’s that within this body, there is Brahman. We are sentient beings, that means we’re conscious, and behind consciousness is awareness. And awareness is what is Brahman.
So Brahman is there, but then Brahman gets covered over by all these upādhis, you see. And in the sense of the jīvas, it’s even worse, because the ignorance becomes the avidyā that makes us think that we are the body, is a viṣeśaṇa. It’s actually part and parcel of our state of being, of our nature.
So in the jīvātmā stage, even though we identify with the body, we can perform activities that lead toward liberation. How is that? It’s activities that are in relation with a transcendental object, service to God, following the principles of the scriptures, performing sacrifice.
And sacrifice can be anything from going to the temple and offering a leaf, a fruit, a flower, or some milk, or even just some water, all the way up to offering the consciousness into the fire of the controlled mind.
That’s my favorite.
So sacrifice is necessary, otherwise we become even more covered over and we find ourselves in the animal species, which is hellish. At least in the human species we have enough intelligence that we know, or we can know, if we wish to, that there are higher states and we can aspire to those states and we can work toward them.
That’s the process of yoga. Yoga means linking, linking the jīvātmā with the paramātmā in the beginning.
And finally, realization of Brahman: that when the life energy comes to the sahasrāra, you know, Āmmā, Lalithā Mā, She’s always guiding from within.
If we simply listen—you know, all this, you think, you think that I sit down and memorize all this stuff: no, no. All this is directly perceived when you are in a state of enlightenment or meditation, yoga.
See, when you’re really merged with God, when you’re so close… you know, the karma-yoga is done at a distance from God, there’s a distinction, there’s a difference, there’s a space or a distance between you and God.
Bhakti comes a little closer because bhakti is about love of God, you know.
Only in jñāna-yoga do we actually identify with God, aham brahmasmī; and this is a very interesting sūtra. Sūtra means a highly abbreviated statement of transcendental truth.
Aham means I am, brahma of course means Brahman, and asmī also means I am.
So is it redundant? Not really. Because we are meant to interpret this by adding the requisite thought to connect aham with brahma-asmī, okay.
So here’s how it should go: aham, I am. Because I am, that means I’m conscious of my existence, and ultimately I’m conscious of my consciousness. So being aware of awareness or conscious of consciousness is a quality of the nature of Brahman, okay.
So I am aware of my awareness, therefore, brahmasmī, you see? I am, because I’m aware of my awareness and my beingness, I am Brahman.
It’s a syllogism. It’s a logical statement. But you have to supply the missing context, because it’s a sūtra.
You see, Vedas, Vedas are not meant to be read like ordinary books. You have to supply the missing ingredient, which is your own realization, your own view that you gain, not from logic—although the Jaina logic is very interesting, so interesting I think I’m going to do another video on it—but from one’s practice, from one’s experience.
And this realization will actually give us all the guidance we need. The guru is within, because aham brahmasmī. Brahman is there within us. We can contact that level of beingness. And from that point of view, everything is obvious.
All we need is the openness and the ability to go deep enough into the silence to hear that still, small voice.
Āūṁ Tat Sat. Āūṁ Śakti Āūṁ.