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Video Information: 31.08.24, Vedanta: Basics to Classics
Context:
~ How can one come close to the teachings of the Teacher?
~ Why one has to learn to have the highest level at his heart?
~ What determines what one needs to do?
~ Why level of doing has to be left free? Why not to expect much from it?
~ How to know which level of teaching is correct for our selves?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Be a part of the Live Sessions: https://acharyaprashant.org/hi/enquir...
Want to read Acharya Prashant's Books?
Get Free Delivery: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/books?...
Read 3 handpicked wisdom articles, just for you: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articl...
➖➖➖➖➖➖
Video Information: 31.08.24, Vedanta: Basics to Classics
Context:
~ How can one come close to the teachings of the Teacher?
~ Why one has to learn to have the highest level at his heart?
~ What determines what one needs to do?
~ Why level of doing has to be left free? Why not to expect much from it?
~ How to know which level of teaching is correct for our selves?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00So, my question is about the three levels of teaching, and you were talking about it
00:11now more from the teacher's side, and the question is more from the student's side,
00:18because we don't always have Krishna in front of us, so the question is how is one to know
00:26which level of the teaching is correct for oneself at any given moment, because we don't
00:33remain at a certain level of consciousness always, and I have some follow-up questions.
00:41You are trying to ask which level of teaching is correct for the student, right?
00:48So the student is saying, I will assess the level of teaching and then determine which
00:59particular level is good for me, right?
01:03So the student being the student, the student being where he is and who he is, will assess
01:10the teaching.
01:11Will he?
01:12That's why I said, assuming that the teacher is not there.
01:21No, no.
01:22The teacher is always there.
01:24The problem is that the student wants to remain who he is.
01:30The student doesn't have to assess the teaching.
01:32The student first of all has to say, I am not right as I am.
01:40Instead of assessing the teaching, the student has to assess himself and that opens him up,
01:46that cracks him up.
01:50If I want to assess the teaching, how will I assess the teaching?
01:53According to my own standards, right?
01:55And according to my standards, no teaching is good enough because I am already good enough.
02:02All teachings are telling me you are not good enough.
02:07In my field, I am already good enough, therefore all the teachings are just lies.
02:13Why must I accept lies?
02:18Is there anything else that any bit of teaching tells you?
02:21All teachings just come and declare to you, you are stupid, right?
02:30In my own eyes, I am the wisest one on the planet.
02:35The teacher is telling me you are stupid.
02:37I am the wisest one, therefore the teacher is stupid.
02:42Hence there can be no coming together.
02:47One of them has to accept that he is stupid, either the teacher or the student.
02:53Now the teacher sees that the student, being as stupid as he is, will never accept that he is stupid.
03:03Therefore the teacher must now pretend to be stupid and meet the stupid student at his
03:11own place, the student's own place that is.
03:14That's how the game proceeds.
03:19How do I assess the teaching?
03:23How do I even know that there are various levels of teachings?
03:28Who is the assessor?
03:31I am the assessing party.
03:35So what will I assess?
03:36The only thing that I will assess is that except for me, everything is just bullshit.
03:44Or only those parts of teachings are somewhat considerable, that align to my interests,
03:53that do not seem to threaten me.
03:55So only those parts will be somewhat acceptable.
04:03It doesn't happen that way.
04:05There has to be, you see, the seed, the shell has to be prepared to crack open from the inside.
04:21Only then it can receive the sunlight.
04:27That willingness has to come from within the seed.
04:32Obviously the right conditions must be provided, otherwise the seed will never break out.
04:40But like the window panes, like the glass, like the doors, they have to be open to receive
04:49the guest.
04:52And that opening is a sovereign decision of the individual.
04:57There can be no authority there.
05:00There can be no compulsion there.
05:02It's a matter of either realization or love or simply boredom.
05:09It is possible that one gets so frustrated with being himself that he says, I'm going
05:15to throw all the doors open now, because I'm just fed up of being myself.
05:24So something has to give in.
05:28But would you also say that it can be a matter of exposure, because what if the situation
05:42is such that in contact with the teacher, then the contrast kind of reveals that in
05:50that light, the situation, what you're saying, then it makes sense.
05:58But then when the session is over and things return to whatever they are, then that contrast
06:06might not really, you said, realization, love and boredom.
06:15What if none of them are there?
06:19I'm not saying it's like that, I'm merely...
06:22I understand.
06:23You're saying it does not last.
06:26You can say that, take it from there, yes, yes.
06:29But then one has to hang on to whatever works for him, no?
06:39Why must I wish that it lasts for me?
06:47It should be sufficient that I do get to see that there exists some practical interval
07:01in which an effect does take place.
07:08It's too much for me to wish that the effect must last even after the event.
07:20I got to know that the effect does happen in the duration of the event.
07:28So this much is certain that there is an effect under certain given conditions.
07:36Now my demand is, even after those conditions are removed, the effect must persist in some
07:47way, even if in a weakened way, yet the effect must remain.
07:53But isn't that too much to ask?
07:54My question is, I mean, if I were really desperate, I would say, if the effect remains in the
08:05session, why can't I always remain in the session?
08:14Why must I wish that the effect must remain after the session?
08:21If the effect remains in the session, fine.
08:24I love the effect so much, I will remain in the session.
08:30That's it.
08:33But then the entire search will be for ways to perpetually remain in the session.
08:43Right now the search is a bit misdirected.
08:46Right now the search is how to make the effect remain after the session.
08:51That's what the direction of the search is.
08:56So how about searching for ways to perpetually remain in the session?
09:09If the thing is lovely, why must it ever conclude?
09:14Why must it ever get over?
09:20If I am in love with something, why will I allow the thing to ever end?
09:35Don't allow the session to end for you.
09:40I guess what you're saying, it's just that in some sense I could say that, I could ask
09:56myself that what else am I doing, you know, because you mean it in another way.
10:05No, no, no.
10:06The level of doing is the vyavaharik level.
10:11One has to learn to co-exist at two levels.
10:18At the level of doing, there would always be the world.
10:21At the level of doing, you would never find the teacher or the teachings or the session.
10:28One has to learn to have the highest level at his heart and then what is at your heart
10:40would determine what you do.
10:44The level of doing has to be left free.
10:51Don't expect too much from it.
10:55You have to make the session perpetually continue in your heart and then the session will decide
11:05what you do in the world.
11:10Doing is not the plane where change can be initiated.
11:15Doing is the plane where the change is manifested.
11:22Doing is the plane where the change becomes visible.
11:27It is not the plane where the change is initiated.
11:34The change is in the parmarthic plane, the highest plane.
11:39There you have to be in the session all the time.
11:43Carry the session in your heart and then see how doings change and even if the doings do
11:51not change, it doesn't matter because what matters is the session and the session would
11:56always be there.
11:58What else is there to matter?
12:04One has to learn to co-exist in these two planes at the same time.
12:13I operate here but I belong there.
12:18I'm on a mission.
12:21I don't belong here.
12:22I belong there though I operate here.
12:25I have come here but I'm not a native.
12:29My hometown is there, Amarpur.
12:32That's my hometown.
12:33I'm just on a visit.
12:34I'm here to do certain things.
12:37This is not my permanent address.
12:40One has to have two addresses.
12:43The permanent address and a functional address, a temporary address.
12:51So all this is temporary, functional.
12:54One has to remember both his addresses.
13:00The session will be found whenever you will go to your permanent address.
13:09That's the place where the session is always on.
13:19Would you understand, what if it feels like that I am in the session outside the session
13:31but then when I come to the real session, I realize in that contrast that I actually
13:35wasn't in the real session.
13:38I get that.
13:40What if that's the situation?
13:42Then if I were you, I would quit everything.
13:47I'm still young.
13:48I would give one, two, three years of my life to physically being in the session till I
13:56find that the session within has started resonating exactly and authentically with the session
14:05outside.
14:08Otherwise what I'll be carrying within, in the name of the session, will be some kind
14:14of a duplicate session.
14:17Yeah, that's exactly the problem.
14:19It's not about what you're missing but what you're getting or think that you're getting
14:24because if that's good enough, then who needs the real thing?
14:29Like obviously you need the real thing but you must understand.
14:39See, there's nothing much at stake.
14:45What is anybody gaining by being in any particular corner of the world?
14:52You know what space and time and locations and geographies and these things are, right?
14:59You know what these things are.
15:01You also know there is not much to be gained or lost in terms of being here or being there
15:09even in the material sense.
15:13So makes sense to commit oneself to physical presence till the point one starts finding
15:25that the words outside have become the words inside.
15:29Now there is no more a misalignment.
15:33Now the sessions can wonderfully continue or one can take the help of technology.
15:43We are developed people now, technologically at least.
15:54So that would save the attendant risks of travel and this and that and all the disruptions
16:03that travel brings.
16:11Listening in continuity is magical and throughout the centuries across the world, knowers have
16:24emphasized on the importance of continuous listening.
16:34You know in the Jain tradition, they call the student as the listener.
16:42It's so instructive.
16:43They don't even call the student as the student.
16:47They say he is the listener, Shravak.
16:52That is the essential quality of the student, he listens.
16:56So continuous listening is sufficient.
17:02Even in the Guru Granth Sahib, they say that if you can just listen with attention, that
17:13will be enough.
17:16But that listening has to continue over a period of time and that has to be the most
17:26important thing in your life.
17:31So the universe is all around you and the listening is all within you.
17:38That's the place you must give to the listening.
17:40Eating, walking, talking, sleeping, the listening must continue and technology can be a great aid.
17:55Some of these new sessions, I have listened to copious amounts of times, seriously.
18:03Some of them have been like that.
18:09It's not like I haven't immersed myself in them, but it feels like what I can understand
18:17is that somehow the contact and my receptivity is very open and things seem very self-evident.
18:33But then at some point, even if I'm listening very fully, it feels like I start going to
18:39other teachings and I'm not even sure why.
18:43It's like instinctive.
18:44It's like something is not clicking, so I'm going somewhere else only to come back to
18:49this and realizing that I've missed again.
18:53But it's not like I have an active feeling of being against whatever is being said here,
18:59at least consciously.
19:00It might be a subconscious thing, but actively I don't feel like that.
19:05It's just like that sometimes it's self-evident and sometimes I'm not getting it at all and I don't...
19:12So, what is happening is Julius, you're not going to someone else, you are again and again
19:17going back to yourself, see to the ego, the ego itself is the biggest teacher, so any
19:26other teacher is a threat to ego the teacher, so ego the student keeps going back to ego
19:37the teacher.
19:40You're not going to someone else, you're going back to yourself again and again.
19:50It's just that ego would not want to say that I'm going back to myself, so it would give
19:55itself the name of some other teacher.
19:59So instead of AP, now I'm listening to BC.
20:05But that BC is no one else but you, so that's the way the whole thing.
20:13Now what to do?
20:14Then there is the way of Vedanta, the way of Upanishads, dialectical way.
20:22Because listening pre-assumes a student not in dialogue with himself.
20:30Listening pre-assumes a level of immersion in which the student is in contact only with
20:38the teacher.
20:41But that's too much to ask for.
20:46The ego loves itself much more than it loves the teacher, therefore it wants to be in contact
20:56with itself rather than the teacher.
21:00So when we say listening suffices, then there is a big condition there that you are listening
21:06only to the teacher.
21:09But if the listening is divided, you're listening to the teacher and then you're listening to
21:12yourself and then you're listening to the teacher and listening to yourself, then there
21:15is a problem.
21:16The solution to that problem is the method of the Upanishads, which is the method of
21:21dialogue.
21:27And now that's where whatever you have learned from yourself by listening to yourself must
21:35come out to be scrutinized by the teacher and then what is false would probably get
21:43exposed and therefore dissolved.
21:52But even that can happen with the aid of technology.
21:55The dialogue too is possible.
21:57Yeah.
21:58Yeah.
21:59And I mean, it's as I said earlier, it's not that I feel particularly resistant.
22:06It's just like it happens like you just slide away, you know, and then when you remember,
22:12it's not like some kind of a feeling of that repentance of how could I, how am I so far?
22:19And it's just like, oh, I forgot again.
22:21And it doesn't feel like it's not like a punch to the face or anything.
22:26It's just like, right, this is what I was missing.
22:30But yeah, it has been going on pretty long.
22:35Maybe that's kind of the problem.
22:38It's been the problem since the beginning.
22:40So you just probably just need to assure yourself that the thing is within reach.
22:48Yeah, you probably need to assure yourself that the whole thing is not impossibly difficult.
22:59That's the reason why we call that as infinitely distant.
23:08We also call that as intimately close.
23:14Because if you just call it distant, then there is hopelessness.
23:19That's what probably the ego is searching for.
23:24Hopelessness with respect to dissolution or liberation.
23:28Hopeless liberation cannot be achieved.
23:30Let me make peace with my bondages.
23:33Now I have done that very consciously at some point.
23:37So you don't need to be dejected.
23:40You need to probably assure yourself that it's possible.
23:44Let me commit myself to the process.
23:49And maybe a displacement within is possible.
23:52And it's possible in real time.
23:56Not that it should take 40 years.
23:59Maybe it's possible in months.
24:00Maybe it's possible in years.
24:02Maybe it's possible in weeks.
24:03Who knows?
24:04And when that reassurance is there, then there is a certain urgency.
24:16When you see that something is possible, then you want to be more committed to it.
24:22Yes.
24:23I get what you're saying.
24:30Sometimes I even feel just like...
24:33Because the people who have been with you the longest, they obviously have been in very
24:38close contact with you.
24:41And sometimes I've even had the feeling that what if this kind of a thing is not really
24:47meant to happen without that kind of a contact?
24:50What if you need that kind of a very like close kind of connection for the real kind
24:57of thing?
24:58I don't know.
24:59But sometimes I've...
25:00Julius, you could have looked at it both ways.
25:04You could have...
25:06You choose to look at the students around me.
25:12And you say that the students around me do have a teacher to closely connect to.
25:21You look at the students around me, but you don't look at the student that I am.
25:33Who do I have?
25:35Who do I have?
25:37Who did I ever have?
25:41Good point.
25:42Yeah.
25:44For once.
25:45All credit, all credit to you.
25:59You at least have a screen to look into and you find a face there.
26:09You find a face there.
26:11I never even had a face.
26:13All I had were words.
26:16You have my sympathy.
26:21Yeah, I'm reminded by that one quote.
26:30We can't maybe close with it unless you have something more in mind.
26:35But I think it was, you're not missing the secret, you're missing the obvious.
26:44It proves to be very...
26:45We choose to miss, we choose to pick, we choose to miss, it's a choice, otherwise everything
26:53is obvious actually.
26:56It is with purpose that we choose to pick and choose to miss.
27:06Let love overcome all other purposes.
27:16Pick that, why pick this?
27:17What's the point?
27:19There is no point in, there is no fun in playing games beyond a point actually.
27:27No, yeah.
27:31Another thing, self-observation is not about keeping an eye on oneself because keeping
27:42an eye on oneself implies judging oneself through preconceived value standards.
27:56So if you will judge yourself, you'd be disappointed that progress is not happening because the
28:09very definition of progress will come from the ego.
28:14And whatsoever change is happening, if that will not correspond to the definitions of
28:18the ego, the ego will not take that as progress.
28:23You will continue to feel that you're not progressing and that will frustrate you.
28:28Maybe you are actually progressing.
28:30No, that's not true.
28:32I've been, every year has been progressively a lot better and internally the kind of capacity
28:39for internal honesty and the ability to take the kids.
28:43Wonderful, wonderful.
28:45That's sort of like, no question about it, that kid, yeah.
28:49But then if that progress is there, then that should make things easier.
28:53If you can see that things are actually materializing, that should only whet your appetite.
29:00You have personal proof that things can happen, that progress can happen.
29:07You have personal proof, irrefutable proof that change can happen.
29:14So now why are you worried?
29:16Why don't you commit yourself further to the process?
29:21Or are you afraid of the change?
29:30Maybe the proof.
29:31No, no, go ahead, go ahead.
29:35So there is proof that change can happen and that proof itself is kind of scary.
29:43Maybe an ineffective teacher would have suited better.
29:53And this one is problematic because now you have proof that he is effective.
29:58No, you are, you are very problematic.
30:01I cannot show you all that.
30:05Yeah, no, no, I get what you're saying, it's, but it's the same point that I mentioned earlier,
30:24that I don't feel like an active resistance these days.
30:29I don't feel like, I'm not really even sure what, like, obviously the umbrella answer
30:35to what one is protecting is obviously oneself, but it can be very hard for me to see that
30:46unless I actually come to the sessions like this.
30:51But it's easy to not do it just like out of whatever, you can always have some reason
30:58or some, just nothing to ask at some point.
31:02And then you just kind of, yeah, it's all like convenient stories.
31:11See, it's English sessions that you listen to, right?
31:19There is a repository.
31:20So yeah, I follow the India sessions too, whenever I can, I can translate the reflections
31:28so I try to follow those too.
31:31Right.
31:32So, I mean, something that would definitely keep you pinned down to the sessions.
31:43Why don't you pick up the, why don't you go through everything to just point out the exact
31:51parts that speak the loudest to you or that speak in the most intimate way to you and
32:05prepare an album of those parts and that album or those parts will be very useful to the
32:16mission as well.
32:17There are these thousands of videos.
32:19We are also now in the process of publishing the best of the Hindi work in English by dubbing
32:27it.
32:28It's a voiceover thing.
32:32So if you bind yourself to that process, that would make it mandatory for you to pinpoint
32:48this beginning here and till there is something valuable and the other parts can be pruned out.
33:00Why not?
33:09Because the ego is smart.
33:11So one has to sometimes just outsmart the ego.
33:16It's a game of tactics as well.
33:24That's why in the whole field of spirituality, there has been an entire dimension full of
33:32just tactics.
33:37Sometimes people think that those tactics themselves are spirituality.
33:42They are not, but nevertheless, they carry some importance.
33:50I'll give you an example.
33:52I loved the verses, the couplets coming from Saint Kabir and I was a busy person in the
34:06world, a working professional, an entrepreneur actually, in the initial stages of his enterprise.
34:14I was short of time.
34:16What did I do?
34:18I committed myself to creating two activities for my students.
34:22One called Kabir in Campus, other called Kabir in Corporate.
34:27Now these activities necessitated that I go through the entire corpus of Saint Kabir's
34:35sayings and couplets.
34:39I wouldn't have normally or ordinarily done that, but I constructed an activity specifically
34:50with the objective that this activity will make me go through everything that my beloved
34:56teacher has written.
35:00Now how many couplets did I actually place in that activity?
35:04I'm not sure.
35:05Maybe 10, maybe 20.
35:07Both those activities combined, maybe 15, 20, 30 something.
35:12But to choose those 30 couplets, I went through, I don't remember, 500,000 something.
35:22So that's the kind of trick one has to play with himself.
35:37And that was way back in 2008, 16 years back.
35:43No, I'll figure something like this.
35:46I'll take something like this up.
35:48But we're being pushed to close.
35:51But we'll continue.
35:53We'll continue for sure.
35:55Welcome.