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LearningTranscript
00:00As the various particular kinds of notes of a drum, when it is beaten, cannot be grasped
00:13by themselves, but are grasped only when the general note of the drum or the general sound
00:19produced by different kinds of strokes is grasped, and as the various particular notes
00:24of a conch, when it is blown, cannot be grasped by themselves, but are grasped only when the
00:29general note of the conch or the general sound produced by different kinds of blowing is
00:34grasped, and as the various particular notes of a veena, when it is played, cannot be grasped
00:40by themselves, but are grasped only when the general note of the veena or the general sound
00:45produced by the different kinds of playing is grasped.
00:54We never know the total.
00:58These senses are limited, the mind is limited, the grasping power is limited, we look at
01:09only the partial and we are not humble enough to admit that we are men of parts.
01:18What do we do?
01:19We term the part as the total.
01:23As persons, obviously the total is beyond our reach, but if the total is beyond reach,
01:33one still has an opportunity and that opportunity is to be totally humble, that opportunity
01:40is to humbly admit that all that this mind can know is little and partial, but you know
01:49the partial and you think of yourself as very clever.
01:53You start concluding, you start acting, you start deciding and doing, and that is hell,
02:00that is foolishness, and then you wonder why you stumble upon every step, then you wonder
02:07why life has been so harsh upon you.
02:16That cliched metaphor of the blind man feeling the elephant is age old and still so relevant
02:31and the totality, the reality is much bigger than the elephant, just as we are much much
02:44more blind than the blind man.
02:49It is quite possible that one day the blind man will be able to feel, touch and know the
02:59entirety of the elephant, but it is not at all possible that even if unlimited time is
03:06given to us, we will be able to one day know the truth using the intellect and the senses
03:13and the mind.
03:16The truth is not a function of time, the truth is not a function of experience, you can have
03:20all the experience of the world and still you would be as distant from the truth as
03:26anybody else, if you do not have the humility to admit that you are just a part, a figment,
03:36a fraction, a negligible grain of sand in an endless desert.
03:51Are you getting it?
03:55What Yagevalk is saying is not an invitation to know the total, that is the way of science.
04:05He says, I will know everything that constitutes the universe, that can never be known, because
04:10if you want to know all that which is apparent, then you will also have to know the one who
04:21is looking at the appearance, you will have to turn inside and turning inside is not the
04:29province of science.
04:31So the way of science is bound to fail.
04:38Using the mind, using the sense, using this dualistic apparatus, you can never know the
04:43total because the total is not only that which is there, but also that which is here.
04:52In fact, the more you look for that which is outside, the more you will be pointed towards
05:04something which is inside.
05:09Those who want to know the reality of the world have to turn inside to look into the
05:16reality of consciousness and those who want to know consciousness must fall very very
05:23silent so that they can watch the entire movement of consciousness.
05:28Movement can be watched only in stillness and silence.
05:33So to know the world, you will have to come to consciousness and to know consciousness,
05:37you will have to come to stillness and silence.
05:43Why not be directly still?
05:45Why not be just silent?
05:47Why not just bow down and surrender?
05:50Are you kidding?
05:55The total is available in silence, in noise, in movement, in appearance, in grasping, in
06:03holding, in intellect.
06:06Only the little will be available to you, which is alright for day-to-day living.
06:14After all, when you are thirsty, you do not drink the entire ocean for practical purposes.
06:20A tumbler of water is enough.
06:22But you must know that that which you are holding in your little hand is just a little
06:27bit of water.
06:29The oceans are incomparable to that which you are holding in your hand.
06:52Are you getting it?
06:54Then that which is to be known is known just by itself, without reason, without cause,
07:06without preparation, without desire.
07:14In your silence, all the mysteries are solved.
07:21You just know and you do not even want to know how you have come to know.
07:28In fact, the question looks quite stupid.
07:33You do not feel like asking what is the source of this knowledge.
07:46Having really been determined to know, you go past little curiosities.
07:57Most of us are only mildly curious in the name of knowing.
08:02So what do we want to know then?
08:03We want to know just a few rungs of the infinite chain of cause and effect and that satisfies
08:13us.
08:14Now we know.
08:19You want to ask why that wall has blisters over there?
08:26Why is the paint coming off?
08:31And some knowledgeable soul comes and says that is because maybe there is some seepage
08:36of water and you say, ah, now I know.
08:39Two rungs of the chain of cause and effect and your curiosity is satisfied.
08:48We are only very feebly curious.
08:53Ours is the curiosity of the mediocre mind.
08:55We do not really want to know.
08:57We just want some possible explanations.
09:03You do not ask why is the water seeping?
09:06And if you ask why is the water seeping, you will have to ask why is that cause there
09:10and then you will have to go one step backwards and again ask and again ask and again ask
09:14and again ask.
09:17That is an infinite chain.
09:22The really intelligent man gives up the path of curiosity.
09:26He understands that there are really things without a cause.
09:37Then he starts living in the present.
09:40To live in the present means to not to bother about the cause because the past appears as
09:48the cause of the present.
09:50That is how it appears.
09:52Whatever is happening now is happening because of something in the past.
09:56If you are wedded to curiosity, then you are wedded to memories because all curiosities
10:02will only take you back to the past and memories.
10:07The really intelligent man does not bother for the cause.
10:10He will not ask why are people fighting?
10:12He will just see them fighting and say, ah, now that is something that I do not like.
10:17Asking for reasons of the conflict will only take you backwards and backwards and backwards
10:22and backwards and ultimately you will reach the age of dinosaurs and still you would not
10:27know the complete reason.
10:29You would still be as far away from the source reason as you were in the beginning.
10:34So he will not ask why are people fighting, he will just say, ah, now come on, that does
10:38not look good.
10:39Finished.
10:40Why does it not look good?
10:41I do not know.
10:42It does not look good.
10:43So stop.
10:45But the man of intellect looks for reasons.
10:48He thinks that solutions can be obtained by going into reasons and his little intellect
10:55does not let him know that reasons never come to a finality.
11:01There are reasons after reasons after reasons after reasons after reasons.
11:07The total is available to you but not through the route of intellectualization, not through
11:14the route of causation.
11:15The total is available to you right now.
11:18If people are fighting, that is the total that begs no reason or cause.
11:26It is the only thing that is real, yes, people are fighting and that is it.
11:33Now do not look for reasons.
11:34Reasons will become justifications.
11:35Are you getting it?
11:40If you are tense and sad and disappointed and anxious and ambitious, do not look for
11:46reasons and if you want to get rid of your anxiety and ambition and disappointment, again
11:53do not look for a method.
11:56Methods are reasons.
11:59If you are looking for reasons in the past, you will also look for methods in the future
12:06and past and future will remain.
12:08What you will lose out on is life, which is here.
12:17If you are looking for reasons of everything and you cannot be contended with things without
12:23reason, you can never have God in your life because God is the ultimate reasonless being.
12:32God does not have a father.
12:33God has no reason or cause behind him and you look for reasons for everything.
12:38If you want everything for a reason, then you can never have God.
12:42God has no reason.
12:43God was never born.
12:46God does not come from anywhere.
12:47No reason, no cause, no effect.
12:53Only that, only this.
12:57The total is available in silence.
12:59The total is available when your mind is not wandering here and there, not in past,
13:04not in future, not in causes, not in future effects.
13:10You see this and you know, just like this.
13:15That is the total.
13:16Are you getting?
13:18It is counter to common sense.
13:25If you will start applying intellect, you will only get contrary arguments.
13:35The mind will say when you want the total, obviously you look for this and that, you
13:40look far and wide.
13:43The way of spirituality is different, the reality is very different.
13:45When you want the total, you have to stop looking here and there.
13:49The total is available here, here, here, not there, not there.
13:59When you stop looking, the total comes upon you.
14:07Let me be a little more exact.
14:09When you stop looking for the total, looking for, when you stop looking for the total comes
14:16upon you.
14:18The total will not be available as a sum of fragments, never.
14:31Are you getting it?
14:38Well, Maitreya got it quite quickly and that proves that she already had it.
14:46Yajnavalkya didn't even have to speak this much.
14:49He just pointed and even as he was pointing, Maitreya was smiling faintly.
14:56Husband and wife both knew that both know.
15:03It's fun teaching the other when one does not need to teach and it's great fun learning
15:09when everything has already been learned.
15:17That's the game being played between the husband and wife here.
15:21He has already taught everything, she has already learnt everything and now it's such
15:26fun like fighting after you have won the war.
15:35Just for fun.
15:38Everything is to be gained.
15:41No fear, no accomplishment.
16:09As the ocean is the one goal of all waters, so the skin is the one goal of all kinds of
16:15touch.
16:16The nostrils are the one goal of all smells, the tongue is the one goal of all savours,
16:20the ear is the one goal of all sounds, the mind is the one goal of all deliberations,
16:24the intellect is the one goal of all forms of knowledge, the hands are the one goal of
16:28all actions, the organ of generation is the one goal of all kinds of enjoyment, the excretory
16:33organ is the one goal of all excretions, the feet are the one goal of all kinds of
16:38walking, the organ of speech is the one goal of all the Vedas.
16:46You will have many and unless you can directly look at the one in the middle of the many,
16:56you are not seeing anything, you are not seeing anything.
17:08You see so much, but have you ever seen that behind all the things that you see there is
17:21just the one who, who sees.
17:28You get lost in all the diverse things that you, and you never are able to be one with
17:36the one who, that's what Yagyal is pointing at.
17:45You taste so many different things, but do you know the one who is behind all tastes
17:52and that one if he is not there, then no taste is any taste to you.
17:59Does a dead man not have tongue?
18:03Does a dead man not have eyes?
18:05Alright, forget the dead man.
18:09When you are asleep, do your eyes pop out?
18:16You keep your eyes somewhere else safe when you retire to sleep, the eyes are still there,
18:23but you cannot see.
18:25Do the eyes see then?
18:30Is it the eyes that see?
18:36Had the eyes been the ones that see, then eyes are there even with the dead man and
18:44the sleeping man, why don't they see?
18:48Why don't they see?
18:51But as long as these eyes look only outwards, you will live in the illusion that it is the
18:57eyes that see.
19:01Alright, forget even the dead man and the sleeping man.
19:09When the mind is lost in thoughts, are the eyes seeing?
19:19You are sitting over here looking right in front and the mind is elsewhere.
19:25Now are the eyes seeing?
19:28So is it the eyes that see?
19:31Is it the eyes that see?
19:36Spirituality is just this one question, who sees?
19:41Who is the watcher?
19:44And asking this one question, one returns to himself, I am the seer, I am the watcher,
19:51the watcher am I?
19:55When I am gone, then these eyes do not see, when these eyes lose touch with me, then these
20:02eyes do not see, when the mind loses touch with the reality and is lost in imaginations,
20:08do the eyes see anymore?
20:11I am the one to whom the eyes must be devoted if the eyes are to see, I am the one to whom
20:18the mind must be devoted if the mind is to see.
20:28We see a thousand things, but do you know why those thousand things are there?
20:33They are there so that you may accidentally or by sheer grace one day start seeing yourself.
20:48Every single object in the universe is a messenger, is a pointer, it is telling you, do you look
20:55at me?
20:56Do you look only at me?
21:01Now come on, you cannot be so stupid.
21:05Do you look at me?
21:06You say yes, then it asks, do you look only at me, am I only that much?
21:17Am I just what I appear to be?
21:21But we fail to go beyond appearances, we fail to go beyond duality, we fail to go beyond
21:28this unidirectional approach.
21:36The looking fails to turn into itself.
21:40That doesn't happen.
21:53These diversities exist so that you come upon the one, otherwise they have no role.
22:02And that is why the universe has a great purpose, the purpose of the universe is to show that
22:07it exists only as a proxy, as a reminder, as a pointer, as a shadow.
22:16And that is also the purpose of being born in this universe.
22:20You are born in this universe so that you may know the reality of the universe and hence
22:24transcend it.
22:31Everything here is singing a song that must act like a reminder.
22:40These walls, this air, these sounds, these people, these animals, the civilization, the
22:48cities, the rivers, the mountains, the greenery, all of these are telling us stories in their
22:54own way.
22:56If only we could listen to those stories, if only we could go to the crux of the song.
23:06Everything is telling us, yes, yes, yes, yes, come on, come on, read me, read me, listen
23:10to me, I am telling you of that, of that, of that.
23:15I might be partial, but I come from the total, please see the total in me.
23:22But we look at the partial and give it the status of the total by making it an object
23:28of thought and desire.
23:30That is the blunder that we commit.
23:35It's like hugging the messenger when the messenger is bringing you news of the beloved.
23:41Now the beloved is gone and the messenger is suffocated in your embrace.
23:48And that is why we are suffocating the earth.
23:51We are suffocating everybody who comes in contact with us.
23:54We are so desperate for the beloved that we just pounce upon the messenger and the messenger
24:01wants to run away.
24:02He is saying, please, I am a little one, I cannot fulfill your desires.
24:09I have come to just deliver a message.
24:12Why are you taking me as the ultimate one?
24:17But we are so desperate, we can't wait.
24:21That is why there is a certain cuteness even in our foolishness.
24:27And that is why we are forgiven again and again.
24:30Because in whatever we want, of course, it is God that we want and God knows that.
24:38So he forgives us for our mistakes and miscalculations.
24:43He knows that, I know, I know, I know you are chasing that man or a woman, but I know
24:47you are chasing me.
24:51So it's okay, fine.
24:54You can go about your business for as long as you want.
25:00You are not committing any sin.
25:02You are just mistaken.
25:03You are not evil.
25:10Are you getting it?