Transcriptions
Dev Priyānanda Svāmī Bhagavān
Video Link: YouTube
Namaste. Welcome again to the Esoteric Teaching.
So, we’ve been going over some questions. I have to tell you, sometimes it’s really hard to, like, come up with enough mind and personality and all that stuff to do these videos. Really, I just want to, you know, sit on my meditation seat over here and bliss out.
And that’s how I start my day. I get my fix. And then I try to do something to help others. Because whatever the value of self-realization might be, for me, it increases again and again. It multiplies the more that we share with others.
So, if you know something, if you experience something, if you have an insight, a cognition, share it. Get it out there. Put it out there, you know, anyplace—on YouTube, on Reddit, on any forum that you’re on. And never mind whether it’s low level or high level or in between or whatever. It will find the people that it needs, that need it. It will find the people that want that particular bit of information.
Now, some people have written me and said,
“Well, why do you say on your profile that you’re not a guru, not a teacher? Because you act like a guru and you speak like a teacher.”
Well, that would be true if I wanted followers or disciples, and if I had some informational teaching to give, to transfer knowledge and information from me to others.
But I don’t. All I have to share is my point of view. And what is a point of view? Is it information? Not really. It’s just a standpoint from which we look at things. And then everything else becomes clear automatically. There’s no need for transfer of information.
Now, where there has been some information is in Bhagavān’s books, like Ulladu Narpadu and Upadeṣa Undiyār, which are very important books. And I recommend highly that you read them—not just read them: study them, practice them, make them an integral part of your life, because these books will save you.
I’m not joking here.
So if there’s any information at all, it is that Rāmaṇa is the Mahā Ādi-Guru, the Self. He is directly the Self. He’s directly Aruṇācala, Śiva. So you please take shelter of him. Don’t mess with low level people like me. I’m just here to hold up a sign that says “Rāmaṇa is IT.” Ramana is the guru.
OK, so, you know, these days I just feel like floating. I’m not attached. I don’t want anything. I don’t need anything. Just to be is enough.
But part of my being from the very beginning of this quest has been about sharing it with others. I always wanted to help people because when I see how sunk people are in materialism and ignorance, I want to do something to help.
So unfortunately, most people have no desire for spiritual life, no knowledge of it either. So this is directed at those who do. And that’s why I’m speaking a little bit technically.
So that brings us to the question for today from Nathaniel:
I love how open you are and share your knowledge and experiences. If you were so inclined, I’d be curious to find out how much the Vedic path and Theravāda Buddhism match and where they diverge.
Let’s let’s stop right there for a second. I am so inclined because I devoted a large part of my life to study of the Vedic path and I found that there were certain things missing from the Vedic path. And I found them in the Buddha’s teaching, not ‘buddhism’.
And similarly, when I say the Vedic path, I mean the four Vedas, the Upaniṣads, the Purāṇas secondarily, and some of the Agamas like the Yoga-sūtras and Śaṅkarācārya’s work.
Not ‘hinduism’.
‘Hinduism’ and ‘buddhism’ are both just popularized, churchy, very low-level kind of views, basically made to control the society through morality and to make money for the monks and Brahmins. I’m sorry, but that’s really the way it is.
So, I mean, this is pretty much proven by the fact that now, when the attendance and participation at the temples is decreasing, more and more the temples, both Buddhist and Hindu temples, are turning to illegal means to raise money.
And you know who you are and you know what you’re up to.
So, I’m not going to go into it in detail, but why don’t these temples publish their financials? None of them do.
When I had a temple, when I had disciples, I used to publish a quarterly financial statement down to the penny. How much came in, where it goes, and what for. So, I found a way of supporting my disciples by investment, not by black money.
So, if these people were intelligent, they would also find ways to keep their temples going without resorting to illegal means. And enough said about that.
But to my mind, from my view, there is no separation, there is no divergence between the Vedas and the Buddha. None whatsoever. They’re both about the same thing: Self-realization.
If there’s any difference, really, at all, it’s that the Vedic tradition, the Vedic teaching, is very broad and all-inclusive. And the Buddha’s teaching is much narrower and specialized to the path of Rāja-yoga, meditation.
So, we’ve pointed this out before, or actually Bhagavān pointed this out in Upadeṣa Undiyār, that the natural sequence of yogas is karma-yoga, bhakti-yoga, rāja-yoga, and then jñāna-yoga. So, the Buddha was trying to qualify people who had already gone through karma-yoga and bhakti-yoga, and were ready for the next step.
What is the next step?
Once the mind and body have been purified by bhakti and karmas, respectively, then one is ready for the next step, which is to dissolve the mind. And that’s the purpose of rāja-yoga.
When you reach the Third Path in Buddha’s teaching, you see that the ego, the idea of an individual identity, is not. It’s not real. It doesn’t exist. And not only that, it never did exist, even when we thought it did.
And when you reach Fourth Path, Fourth-Path realization destroys the basis of the mind itself. What is that? The threefold: lust, ignorance, and delusion. So, when that goes, there’s no more basis for the mind. The whole mind collapses.
This is very interesting. When it happened to me, I was in shock for months afterwards. I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to see anybody, because I didn’t want to have to form a mind and a personality. It was painful.
And it still is painful. That’s why I spend most of my time in seclusion. I only go out when it’s necessary, and I only see people who know me well and are directly involved in my work.
Why? Because I don’t want to have to put together a mind and a personality to deal with a lot of ignorant people. Of course, if I wanted to, I could create another organization and act as guru and all of that, but I don’t want to.
I’m not going to do it. It would disturb my peace of mind or my lack of mind, which amount to the same thing. So, from my point of view, the Buddha appeared in Vedic society at or around its peak. So, he is a product of Vedic society.
Like Jesus said, “I come not to destroy but to fulfill the words of the prophets”—in other words, the basis of the Jewish religion. The same with Buddha. He came not to destroy the Vedic tradition, but to fulfill it and to trim off the unnecessary cruft that had accumulated around the teaching.
Now the same thing needs to be done with the Buddha’s teaching. So, one of the greatest tragedies, I think, of all history was the separation of Buddhism and the Vedic tradition. They both lost a great deal in that divorce, and the Brahmins have a lot to blame and a lot to be sorry for.
They are basically at the cause of the destruction of the root of Indian civilization. When they kicked Buddha’s teaching out of India, they also destroyed their own, and they truncated it so that people cannot ever get beyond bhakti.
That’s why these dualistic forms of bhakti, although they are necessary as a stage on the path, if they are presented in a sectarian way, actually block the further advancement of the devotees.
So the devotees have to go outside. They have to go to Buddha’s teaching, or they have to go to advaita.
So anyway, the next part of the question is,
you are only the second teacher I’ve run across that has talked about going beyond arhantship, the other being Chuladasa Akhat John Yates. Keep up the great work. Thank you.
Well, I’m not doing anything great. I’m just talking about the reality the way I see it. Beyond arhantship, well, there are a whole raft of issues that are beyond enlightenment or beyond arhantship.
They are confidential in the Buddha’s teaching, but Osho Rajneesh discusses them, especially in the talks he gave just upon returning to India after being in America for a few years. He was concerned that he was going to be killed or that some other disaster might befall his commune, another disaster. So he gave in those few talks, I should say he exposed a bunch of issues about what happens beyond enlightenment. And of course, you have to be enlightened to recognize that’s what it is.
I’m not going to talk much about Rajneesh or Osho’s teaching, because as far as I’m concerned, there were some tremendous deceptions involved with his work, both on his part and on the part of his disciples.
So rather, I’m going to refer to Rāmaṇa’s teaching, which is completely open and without trickery or deception. He was a very unsophisticated man, but he was the most enlightened. And so he gave the whole truth.
Like I meet people here all the time who say, “Well, I go to these other teachers,” and you know who they are, the ones that get all the headlines, “because Rāmaṇa’s teaching is too hard. Rāmaṇa is giving the direct teaching, and it demands complete surrender, and complete control and discipline of the mind. And I can’t do that.”
“Okay,” I tell them, “but that’s a lie. You can do that. A lot of people did do that. Even the women who worked in the kitchen attained enlightenment, because Rāmaṇa gave the direct path. Not to even depend on him, but that everything you need is already there within you. But you have to have the discipline to search it out. And that discipline is what demands the surrender.”
So I did look up Chuladasa. And I found that, yeah, he’s talking about some of the issues going beyond arhantship.
Let’s see, the ‘buddhists’ have made arhantship the goal, as if that’s it. And once you get there, everything is solved. Everything is beautiful. Everything is done.
No. It never ends. The path is infinite. If it wasn’t infinite, it wouldn’t be the real path. So any path that has an end is not the real path.
That’s why it’s a circle. You go round and round, and come back around and deal with the same issues again and again on higher and higher levels.
That’s all. And there is no end. And if there was an end, then we would have to make it longer. We’d have to invent something to extend it, because there is no end to real self-realization. It’s unlimited.
ĀŪṀ Tat Sat. ĀŪṀ Hariḥ ĀŪṀ.