• 3 weeks ago
Video Information: Advait Learning Camp, 31.03.2019, Chandigarh, India

Context:

What is consciousness?
What is awareness?
What is difference between consciousness and awareness?
How to live in the present?
How do I get liberated from the past?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
#acharyaprashant #liveinpresent #learnfrompast
Transcript
00:00When the
00:27Lord expands his creation then many types of living beings get created. When
00:34you dissolve everything then all the living beings get absorbed back into you.
00:46Please help me understand what does expansion and dissolution of Lord mean.
00:55The Lord Abhilash is the source of your consciousness. The world is the expanse
01:10of your consciousness. The Lord is the source of your consciousness. The world
01:21is the expanse of your consciousness. What does the creation of the world mean?
01:38The pure source point of awareness has manifested itself into the multiple
01:52colors, multiple levels of consciousness. That is the creation of the world. Now
02:01the world comes into being. The world and consciousness are one. God and the
02:11source of consciousness which is pure awareness two are one. What does it mean
02:23for consciousness to dissolve and go back to God? It means that now your
02:35consciousness is no more affiliated with its contents. What is consciousness?
02:52The contents of consciousness are consciousness itself. Whenever you say
03:02you are conscious you are always conscious of something. So consciousness
03:06always has contents. When you say you are thinking you are always thinking
03:13about something. So consciousness is nothing without its contents. What does
03:24it mean then for the world to be absorbed back into God? It means that now
03:31you have consciousness without content or you have pure awareness. You can
03:41express it either way. You could either say now there is consciousness sans the
03:49contents of consciousness in the sense that now the ego tendency finds no need
03:55to associate itself, identify itself, affiliate itself with any of the
04:02contents of consciousness. Or you could say consciousness itself has receded and
04:09is now finding rest in pure awareness. There is no expanse. There is just a
04:17point and that point am I. Are you getting it? Have you seen how the mind
04:35becomes full of some content when you are excited or angry or worried or
04:45lustful? That is the expanse of consciousness. Now consciousness is very
04:54very strongly associated with some content. You can't stop thinking about it.
05:02You can't help brooding over it. This you could call as the emergence of the world.
05:13Now the world has emerged and become very meaningful for you. And what is
05:20meant by dissolution of the world? Grace shone and the I tendency grew wise and
05:37loosened its grip over the pretty object of association. Now the content has been
05:50dropped. The content is dropped. Consciousness no more because we said
06:01there is no consciousness without content. You could either call it
06:07consciousness no more or you could call it pure consciousness which means
06:11consciousness without content. One is conscious but one is not conscious of
06:16anything in particular. That is called pure consciousness. Normally when you are
06:22conscious there is something in your mind. You are always conscious of
06:27something. I repeat what is pure consciousness or awareness? There is
06:37consciousness but of what? Well nothing in particular. One knows what? Nothing in
06:48particular. When you know but know nothing in particular then you actually
06:52know. When you know only the particulars then what the hell do you know? All that
07:00you know is the particular and the particular is the little. And little
07:05knowledge is no knowledge. Therefore knowing or awareness is when you know
07:15without knowing anything specific. You just know. That is awareness. When you
07:25know something specific then you are. When you just know without knowing
07:33anything specific then only the knowing is you are not. I'll repeat. When you know
07:40something specific then you are. When you just know nothing specific then you are
07:53not. Only knowing is. That you could also call as knowing without the knower and
08:05that is awareness. In consciousness knowledge is always with a knower. So
08:14there is knower and he has knowledge and this is the usual process of
08:17consciousness. In awareness there is only knowing. There is no object of
08:24knowledge and therefore no knower. Therefore you can be conscious but you
08:31can never be aware. In consciousness the I is preserved and strengthened. In
08:38awareness there is no I at all. There is just God. If it's a little too fast for
09:01you, play it again on your device and listen to it. Rather play it on loop. I
09:16have not said even a quarter of what needs to be said on this. But I've
09:34already said much more than what can be said on this. So the rest is upon you.
09:45Listen to this again and again. Abhirash quotes again from the Nithyanam Sahib.
10:05Bhoot bhavik bhavan kahani. Whatever happened in the past is going to happen
10:16in the future and is happening now.
10:27Abhirash says I'm not clear about this statement. How should one look at past
10:32present and future? I've heard people telling me to live in present. What does
10:39this really mean? This statement in Nithyanam seems to indicate that the
10:44future is nothing but a repetition of the past. Is it indicating that for a
10:49person living in time the past present and future are the same and we need to
10:55go towards timelessness? Please help me understand this. Yes, Abhirash. Broadly
11:00yes. You are seeing it rightly. The ego loves time. The ego hopes that time will
11:19provide it redemption. So the ego never likes to opt out of time. It continues to
11:31swim in time and in time there is no newness. There is only a repetition of
11:36the past. Awareness is new. Consciousness is stale. Mark the difference. In
11:47awareness great and fresh things happen. In consciousness petty and stale things
11:56happen. Consciousness is so scared it merely wants to repeat the past. Awareness
12:06is so fearless it abhors repetitions. In awareness there is creativity. In
12:15consciousness there is merely a replication.
12:38Consciousness is second-handed. Never new. What you are conscious of is coming from
12:45somewhere therefore it is not original. In awareness there is authorship. There
13:00is originality and therefore awareness is the only authority.
13:15The Guru is telling us whatever happened in the past is going to happen
13:20in the future and is happening now. That's the cycle of Prakriti. Her design
13:28is trapped in time. Prakriti is movement and movement can happen only in time.
13:44Change necessitates time. In Prakriti there is restlessness so everything is
13:54changing. If you are restless you cannot sit still. Can you? If you are restless
14:01things will keep changing. In Prakriti there is continuous change. In Prakriti
14:10there is time and yet Prakriti never changes fully. It changes in its own
14:16dimension. The dimension of time. Like a flowing river in which there is
14:25continuous change but within the two banks. The limits of the two banks are
14:33never breached. Have you ever seen a river flying? At best it changes its
14:47course a little or floods the neighboring areas a little. That's
14:52cosmetic rebellion. But the river is so severely and so cruelly contained by
15:03its course, its boundaries and yet it is always moving. Movement that is merely
15:15superficial and affords it no real change actually. That's Prakriti. That's
15:30why she has been variously likened to a stream. A stream is always flowing but
15:36within its limits. That's also how we live. Always trying to change this or
15:45that but nothing ever really fundamentally changes. Things change on
15:52the surface and as the poet has said the more the things change the more they
16:00remain the same. You had jealousy in the past, you have jealousy now. You had
16:11insecurity in the past, you have insecurity now. You can go back 4,000
16:16years or 4 million years back. You will find insecurity and irrespective of how
16:29long back you go, you'll always find a three-dimensional world, won't you?
16:32What has changed then? What has changed? The world was always three-dimensional.
16:42Was it not? Why? Because consciousness is three-dimensional. Now within this
16:59unchanging framework of consciousness, there are cosmetic changes in the
17:03objects of consciousness. There is hardly any change and therefore the
17:07fundamental condition of man has remained the same. Man was fearful 5,000
17:14years back. He is fearful even today. People were fighting for property 5,000
17:21years back. They are fighting for property even today. Men were fighting
17:27for women 5,000 years back. Even today it's the same. What has changed? So the
17:34saints are saying whatever happened in the past is going to happen in the
17:37future and is happening even now. Does that mean there is no possibility of
17:42liberation? There is. There were liberated ones in the past and there are liberated
17:46ones today as well. The ones who have to live contained in time continue to live
17:53contained in time and those who love liberation, they flew away then and they
18:01flow away even today. You need to have a love for the sky, you will fly away. The
18:28possibility of liberation is always there. It depends on you whether you
18:31exercise that possibility.

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