Video Information:
Context:
~ What is the teachings of Upanishads?
~ How Upanishad can reduce our daily suffering?
~ What is couse of our suffering?
~ Why should we read vedanta?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Context:
~ What is the teachings of Upanishads?
~ How Upanishad can reduce our daily suffering?
~ What is couse of our suffering?
~ Why should we read vedanta?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00 So, we have Chandogya Upanishad. We are starting from 5.3.1 and we will take a few verses thereafter.
00:26 So, "Once Shwetaketu, the grandson of Arun, came to the assembly of the Panchals.
00:41 Pravahana, the son of Jaibal, inquired of him, "My boy, has your father instructed
00:58 you?" He said, "He has indeed, sir." So, now these princes ask him a few questions.
01:18 He has come to the royal assembly of the Panchals and now they are testing him with a few questions.
01:28 "Do you know where the created beings go above from here?" "No, revered sir."
01:36 "Do you know the place of parting of the two paths, the path of the gods and the path
01:42 of the fathers?" "No, revered sir."
01:46 "Do you know why the other world is not filled up?" "No, revered sir."
01:53 "Do you know how at the fifth oblation, the liquid oblations or the unseen results
02:01 of action come to be designated as man?" "No, indeed, revered sir."
02:07 "Then why did you say, 'I have been instructed'?" "Because how can he who does not know these
02:15 things say, 'I have been instructed'?" So, Shwetaketu was distressed and he came
02:22 to his father's place and said to him, "Revered sir, without having instructed me properly,
02:29 you said, 'I have instructed you.' That nominal Kshatriya asked me five questions
02:39 and I was unable to answer even one of them." The father said, "Even as you have spoken
02:46 to me about them, so I do not know even one of them. Had I known them, why should I have
02:54 not told you?" So then the father, Gautam, went to the king's
03:01 place. When he arrived, the king made reverential offerings to him. In the morning, he presented
03:09 himself to the king when he was in the assembly. The king said to him, "O revered Gautam,
03:15 please ask for a boon of human wealth." He replied, "O king, let the human wealth remain
03:22 with you. Tell me those words which you spoke to my boy." The king was perturbed.
03:33 The king commanded him, "Stay here for a long time." At the end of the period, he said to
03:37 him, "Even as you told me, O Gautam, prior to you, this knowledge never went to the Brahmins."
03:44 This is why the expounding of this knowledge belonged to the Kshatriyas in earlier times
03:49 in all the worlds and then he instructed him. See what is happening. Let's try to understand.
04:07 In the spiritual domain, in the spiritual literature, you will come across two types.
04:22 One is that which contains knowledge of the type that gets old, knowledge that gets old
04:35 and outdated. So that consists of ideas, principles, concepts, speculations, imaginations. These
04:50 are things that are limited by the human condition at a particular place, at a particular time.
04:59 You know only so much and what you know is determined by where you are, who you are,
05:04 how old you are, who surround you, how you have been educated, what is the level of accumulated
05:10 knowledge in your society, those things. And as time marches on, you find that in general
05:19 you are accumulating more knowledge, better knowledge, more refined knowledge and the
05:24 stuff that you had in earlier times is no longer relevant. And knowledge of this kind
05:32 abounds the spiritual books. That part has to be put in its place, that part has to be
05:44 seen as time bound, not timeless, not something that will bring you to liberation but still
05:58 of interest because it gives you a peek into the mind of the enquirer and the conditions
06:14 of the times when the scripture was composed. This differentiation is very important. If
06:26 this differentiation is not made, if literatures of these two kinds are not seen as different,
06:36 fundamentally different from each other, then there is a lot of problem. Stuff that is of
06:48 time bound nature must be of interest to us only to the extent it helps us know the prevailing
07:00 conditions of those times. So there is a historical importance. You come to know what those people
07:08 used to believe in, what their concepts were, how they were limited, how the society was
07:16 organized and many other interesting things. Like you study in history or archaeology,
07:26 museums are important, are they not? And there is a beauty that you perceive when you visit
07:34 a museum. So the time bound parts of scriptures indeed do have beauty but that beauty has
07:45 only a historical or you could say archaeological significance. When I am talking of archaeology,
07:57 I am talking of it in the subtle sense. You could say in the psychological sense.
08:04 Now there are these questions that Shwetakirtu is asked. So what are those questions? Do
08:12 you know the place of the parting of the two paths, the paths of the gods and the paths
08:16 of the fathers? The fact is that absolutely, truly there are no such two paths. That these
08:24 paths exist is the belief of those times. So importance does not lie at the level of
08:38 knowledge. These princes that Shwetakirtu has gone to, they are testing him in knowledge.
08:47 Have you been told of the path of gods, of the path of the fathers? Shwetakirtu says
08:52 no, I do not know. Similarly, they are asking him, do you know why the other world is not
08:58 filled up? Now it would be a great mistake if you start thinking that Chandogya Upanishad
09:06 is about some other world and it's filling up. No. This story is not there to instruct
09:14 you about the other world or the path of gods or the path of fathers. These are mere beliefs
09:18 of those times. And these beliefs are not at all central to the Upanishads. Here it
09:24 has been mentioned in the passing. The emphasis of Upanishads is on understanding reality
09:34 as it is and being liberated from it. Upanishads do not stand for cultivating beliefs about
09:42 this world or the other world. Similarly, the question, do you know how at the fifth
09:48 oblation, the liquid oblations come to be designated as man? Fourth oblation, fifth
09:55 oblation, seventh oblation, they carry no spiritual significance at all. Similarly,
10:02 the liquid oblations do not come to be designated as man. Even that is either a euphemism, a
10:09 metaphor of some kind or a mere belief that has been outdated beyond any kind of acceptability
10:22 today. So these questions are asked to him and in some sense, his current knowledge,
10:31 his general knowledge is being checked and Shwetaketu honestly says, you know, I do not
10:37 know any of these things. So they say, if you do not know these things, then how come
10:40 you say that you have been instructed? So he goes back and he says, father, you have
10:45 instructed me, I do not know these things. I went there and I had to face this humiliation.
10:50 They asked me these questions. I had no answers and they said, you claim you are instructed,
10:56 you do not know anything. The father says, son, had I known of these things, I would
11:01 have instructed you and I do not know of these things. So then the father goes to the king
11:06 and says, king, tell me about the stuff that you spoke to my son. The king says, well,
11:15 you can take a lot of wealth. He says, I do not need your wealth. You tell me of the stuff
11:19 that you spoke to my son. Now, this is what is timeless. This is what is important. And
11:29 you must gather the distinction. See, today it is of no significance. All this talk about
11:36 the path of God, path of father, fifth oblation, liquid oblation, this, that, no significance.
11:42 All that has gone. All that has changed. Nobody has those questions today. But what is it
11:49 that has remained unchanged since the Chandogya Upanishad till today? What is it that has
11:58 not changed? Human relationships. People will have sons and people must know how to raise
12:09 sons and people will have ignorance. They must know how to deal with their ignorance
12:15 and people will look at the world and the world is full of stuff and people must know
12:20 how to deal with that stuff. So what has not changed is that the human being is always
12:26 in relationship. The human being is always related. The given excerpt here allows us
12:33 rich insights into at least three kinds of relationships. The first relationship is between
12:39 the boy and his father. The second relationship is between a person and his ignorance. The
12:48 third relationship is between a person and worldly wealth. That is what is to be learned
12:55 from this. Those relationships existed then and exist even today. So that part of the
13:01 Upanishad is relevant to us. The other part is outdated and we are not interested. We
13:07 do not want to know about the oblations and this and that. We know where man comes from
13:13 in the material sense. Today we know much more about the birth of man, about material
13:20 processes, about human anatomy, about the fetus, about the embryo. We know a lot more
13:27 than was known in the Vedic times. So when it comes to worldly knowledge, it is not the
13:33 Vedas we have to look to. They will not be able to offer much to us. However, they offer
13:41 us tremendously rich stuff when it comes to the internal world. Are you getting it? Because
13:48 the internal world has not changed. It cannot change. Every child even today is born at
13:55 the same place, in the same psychological place. It was born 3000 years ago. It is not
14:04 born in the same worldly place. When the child is born, it is born in two worlds. One, the
14:11 internal world, second, the external world. The external world has changed beyond recognition.
14:16 3000 years ago, the child was born and all he sensed around himself was a lot of ignorance,
14:22 poverty, this and that. The economic conditions were different, the social conditions were
14:26 different. Those things were there. Today when the child is born, externally he perceives
14:32 very very different conditions. But internally, that child 3000 years back and today are born
14:37 in the same place, exactly the same place. So it's the internal station that is more
14:44 important and it is the internal station that the Upanishads address. Internal station consists
14:50 of relationships as well. That's what is being addressed here. So what is it that I find
14:55 interesting in the excerpt taken today? First, the fact that the father is also the teacher.
15:08 And the father is made responsible to educate the kid in stuff that is really important.
15:22 So when he is asked, "Shwet Ketu, have you been instructed?" He says, "Yes, by whom?
15:26 By a father." It's the father who knows that merely giving physical birth to the child
15:32 is not enough. I have to act as someone who educates him well, deeply. Otherwise, I would
15:44 have done great injustice. To give body to the kid and not relieve the kid of bodily
15:56 identification is kind of cruelty, is it not? What have you given the kid? Bodily identification,
16:09 lot of hardships, that's what you have given to the kid by giving birth to him. Now since
16:16 you have done this, now you are indebted. You owe to provide liberation to your child.
16:30 That's something you owe the child. Else you have harmed him. Really to just give birth
16:45 is to just give harm. So if you are giving the body to the child, it is extremely important
16:54 that you do not fail in your role to give freedom from bodily identification to the
17:03 child. And that's the role Shwet Ketu's father has taken upon himself.
17:11 Then this passage offers valuable insight into the kind of society that is there. He
17:19 goes to some place. They are not really assessing him on his wealth or pedigree or other things.
17:31 And he is going to Kshatriya assembly. Kshatriyas are not really supposed to be very serious
17:37 about knowledge. They are supposed to be serious about worldly acquisitions, victories, wealth,
17:43 power, these things. But such was the society that even the royals were more interested
17:53 in knowledge. So much so that at one point the king says there was special knowledge.
18:01 It was the privilege of Kshatriyas and never known to Brahmins but now that you have come
18:05 to request, I'll share it with you. So even the kings were very interested in knowledge.
18:17 And that's the lesson that you learn from this passage. Irrespective of what you do
18:22 in life, your primary interest, your central love has to be knowledge. So he goes there
18:31 and the sons of the king, they are asking him about, you know, what do you know? Where
18:38 do you come from? They are not inviting him for some fun, frolic, entertainment. Come,
18:46 let's go hunt something or let's talk about riches. You know, now that you have come to
18:51 us, we'll show you our beautiful gardens, our magnificent palaces, none of that. And
19:02 these are mere boys and the boys are discussing, talk kind of scriptural stuff. And then they
19:18 ask him, do you know this? Do you know that? And what do we see Shwet Ketu responding as?
19:26 He does not know, he candidly admits, no, I do not know. No beating about the bush,
19:32 direct answers, no, I do not know. And when he does not know, they say, if you have not
19:40 known, then you must not call yourself instructed. You need to do better. You need to know more.
19:47 The fellow comes back and asks the father, he said, well, you said that you have taught
19:52 me, but if you have taught me, why have you not taught me these things? Father does not
19:55 say, well, these things still remain. And when you will be eligible, I'll teach them
20:00 to you. Look at the commitment to truth in this relationship. The father says, I have
20:06 not taught these things to you because I do not know these things. Had I known, I would
20:11 have taught them. The father is so honest in admitting. And then what does the father
20:17 do? Now that the son has raised this question, the father cannot let it go lightly. The father
20:27 takes it upon himself to learn and the father goes to the king. What does the king do? The
20:33 king says, alright, revered Brahmin, you have come to me, tell me, what in the world do
20:40 you need? Ask me for wealth. Says, you keep the wealth to yourself. You tell me of the
20:46 stuff that you spoke to my boy. Again, deep insight into the mind that leads to the Upanishads.
20:59 When you have a mind like this, when you have social conditions like these, that's when
21:05 the Upanishads result. The king is offering money. The father is saying, I don't need
21:12 money, I need knowledge. I'm accountable to my child. I'm accountable to myself as well
21:17 because I told my child, when I will know, I will teach you. Had I known, I would have
21:22 taught you. So I am, my prime responsibility is to know, not to accumulate or gather. I'm
21:34 obliged not so much to be rich, but to be knowledgeable. So this is the process of Vedanta
21:53 and it is the process that is important. The process that is important. If you can have
22:00 that process, then Vedanta is an unending stream. You will have Upanishads today as
22:07 well. And that process must continue even today because the things that you are seeing
22:15 in this excerpt fundamentally, internally continue even today. Don't people have boys
22:22 today? If people have boys today, by boys I mean kids, boys and girls both. If people
22:28 have kids today, then they are responsible to educate them in the inner sense. Not just
22:41 the education the kids get in schools, but real inner life education. And when you are
22:52 teaching that stuff to your kids, then you must tell the kids that it is not the knowledge
23:00 that I'm giving you is important, but your honesty towards knowledge. It is a good thing
23:10 to know, but it is a higher thing to admit when you do not know. If you know, but you
23:21 do not know to confess your ignorance when you face it, then all your knowledge is worthless.
23:31 So even if Shwetaketu couldn't answer the questions of the royals, he still didn't miserably
23:39 fail. He passed the test of honesty. Alright, I do not know at the level of knowledge what
23:49 you're asking me. But one thing I know for sure, when I do not know, I must admit. I
23:57 will admit I do not know and I'll go back to father and ask him, why didn't you teach
24:00 me this stuff? And father says, alright, I couldn't teach you this stuff. But let me
24:06 at least not fail in teaching you honesty. Being the son, if you could admit to the princess
24:15 that you do not know, being the father, how can I fail in admitting to you that I do not
24:21 know? If Shwetaketu does well, the father does better. Because it is easier sometimes
24:31 to acknowledge your ignorance in front of outsiders, but very difficult to acknowledge
24:40 your ignorance in front of your own family members, especially your sons and daughters.
24:50 The father does that and the father does not stop there. The father then wants to redress
24:55 his ignorance. So he goes to the king and the king is saying, you're a top scholar,
25:07 you have come to me, tell me how do I serve you? What goods do you need? He says, no goods
25:12 needed, something far more important. Tell me of the stuff you were speaking to my boy.
25:21 And the king says, not that you have asked for it, I'll share it with you. I'll educate
25:27 you in that. Now what the king tells the Brahmin, I repeat is not of much practical utility
25:34 today. But these attitudes are very important. The process that leads to the generation of
25:43 true knowledge, that is very important. And that process cannot change, that process is
25:48 timeless. The output of that process might be time dependent, but the process has to
25:53 be timeless. Inquiry is not something that can belong to one particular age and gets
25:58 irrelevant in another age. People had to be inquisitive then, people have to be inquisitive
26:07 today. And if you're not inquisitive towards your inner condition, you may never come to
26:12 know how bad the inner condition really is. And that is where we are actually doing far
26:22 worse than the ancients. The ancients, to be truthful, did not really have great outer
26:29 and material conditions. There is no need to glamorize the worldly tangible conditions
26:37 of those times. And they cannot be faulted for that. Because knowledge is an accumulative
26:43 process. One generation builds upon the knowledge of the other generation. Today, if you have
26:48 so much science and technology, that does not prove that this generation is especially
26:55 brilliant or outstanding. It merely means that this generation stands at the receiving
27:01 end of hundreds of previous generations. You have received all their accumulated knowledge
27:07 and you are enjoying that. They were the ones who were not at the receiving end of knowledge.
27:18 Knowledge generated by several previous generations. Man's consciousness was just opening up. Knowledge
27:27 was just beginning to be generated, unlike today. Unlike today, when we are luckily the
27:37 inheritors of so much that our predecessors have already done, known and struggled for.
27:48 So they did not really have great material conditions. But they had great internal conditions.
28:04 And that great internal condition is what we need to learn from them. Today, because
28:08 we have great, in terms of material wealth and prosperity and all, great external conditions,
28:20 but pathetic internal condition. Now let us not make the blunder of learning external
28:27 things from them. There they really do not have much to teach. It is a double whammy.
28:34 Where they really have much to teach, there we do not want to learn from them. The internal
28:39 stuff we do not want to learn from them. Externally, where they really never had much, there we
28:47 want to glamorize what they had. Needlessly, artificially, falsely make things up. And
29:06 we want to claim that the new nuclear energy, that they had all kinds of science and technology.
29:14 They had none of that. If you want to learn science and technology from them, you will
29:21 fail because they never had much science and technology to offer. I am sure that this would
29:28 hurt a lot of people who want to entertain them with the belief that all the knowledge
29:37 was already there with the ancients. No, it was not. But they had something, I am saying
29:45 far far more important than material knowledge and that is what you need to learn from them.
29:51 Are we getting it? Learn the right thing from the right person. You cannot go to the Vedas
30:00 and try to learn science and technology. They were not written to teach you science. But
30:06 followers of religious sects take great pride in declaring that all the scientific knowledge
30:13 is already contained in our holy book, which is a lot of nonsense. This claim holds no
30:18 ground. But the right scripture has something else and that something else will never become
30:28 outdated, that something else is the juice of life, that something else will always remain
30:38 supremely important and that is understanding of the mind, the purpose of life, the right
30:54 view towards life. And that is why I find this particular excerpt from Chandogya very
31:05 meaningful. If you start getting into the content of the knowledge that the royals had
31:14 and grilled Shwetaketu on, you will not find much there. Maybe some symbolic meaning can
31:22 be there, but even the symbolism you will find too far-fetched. But the other thing
31:33 is very important. Look at the relationship between the father and the son, between the
31:36 father and the king, between the individual and knowledge, between the individual and
31:42 ignorance. That is what you need to learn from here. Learn the right things from the
31:48 Upanishads. Know what to take from where. History is to be learned from history books.
32:00 If you go to the Upanishads and start looking for history, you will come up with all kinds
32:06 of distorted conclusions. Medicine is not something you can learn, for example, from
32:17 a history book. A spiritual text is that which concerns itself with self-knowledge. That
32:34 is defining characteristic, not all the other things. The other things can be kept aside.
32:42 They may have some relevance, but no spiritual dimension whatsoever. Yes, questions.
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