• 2 days ago
Video Information: Shastra Kaumudi Live, 10.05.2020, Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India

Context:
~ What is consciousness?
~ Is consciousness physical or nonphysical?
~ How does science define consciousness?
~ What does it mean to go beyond ordinary consciousness?
~ Can any chemical drug free us from suffering?


Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#acharyaprashant #consciousness #suffering
Transcript
00:00Acharya ji, whenever you have been asked what is consciousness, you have simply said that
00:13all that is mind, mind stuff is consciousness.
00:17A question that's not relevant personally to me but still I thought like material stuff
00:24is visible, it can be touched, so that is one thing.
00:28The other thing is the Atman which is beyond knowledge and all.
00:32This consciousness thing is somewhere in between.
00:36So I mean many people have asked this foolish question, where does consciousness reside
00:42and everything.
00:43I am not trying to ask that but still like what is it, what constitutes it, how does
00:48it work?
00:52How does this material body come to be conscious is a great mystery.
01:01There is no answer to that.
01:06You cannot similarly answer the question, how does this material body come to become
01:15unconscious or how does prana leave the body?
01:21Ramana Maharshi used to explain this by saying that there is a Jal Chetan Granthi somewhere
01:29in the body where the Jalta which is the material body meets consciousness, pure consciousness
01:40and he used to say that that Granthi, that knot is the cause of all human suffering.
01:48So you have to sever this knot, you have to cut that knot somewhere.
01:52But that was one symbolic way of just pointing towards something about which nothing concrete
02:00can be said and that is not a great disadvantage because nothing concrete need be said.
02:09We do not really need to know how we came to be conscious or how does this material
02:17body start showing conscious characteristics.
02:23That is not very topical.
02:25What we need to know is how does this consciousness acquire suffering and how can it be liberated
02:36from suffering?
02:37That is the moot question.
02:44Similarly consciousness does have a material component to it.
02:54You could say that the material component of consciousness resides in the brain or you
03:00could say somewhere else in the body.
03:03Science would say brain.
03:10If something happens to your brain that affects your consciousness, that is obvious.
03:15So at one end consciousness is material or at least has a material base or at least has
03:23a material pole.
03:26On the other hand, consciousness shows characteristics that are not at all material.
03:33In fact consciousness seems to be suffering from material contact.
03:40So that mystery is what is consciousness, that mystery is what is man, a kind of sandwich
03:47between freedom and material.
03:51Our consciousness is part transcendental and part physical.
04:02It suffers from this in-betweenness.
04:05It is neither fully transcendental nor fully and that's suffering.
04:13Now the suffering can be overcome in two ways.
04:16One die, which means become fully material or drink.
04:24When you drink again, consciousness loses its transcendental heights and sinks down
04:31almost into something very chemical, very material.
04:39Drug yourself down.
04:40That is another way to alleviate suffering.
04:44You getting it?
04:47And somehow, unfortunately, these have been taken as the easy ways.
04:56There are chemical drugs and there are mental drugs.
05:00There are all kinds of intoxicants around.
05:05You can take them in, get high, get inebriated and allow yourself at least a momentary freedom
05:13from the experience of suffering.
05:18The other way to get rid of suffering is to leave material very far behind.
05:27In-betweenness is the problem.
05:28You have to either go that side or go this side.
05:33You have to either move fully towards the sky or you must accept sinking down into the
05:41earth.
05:46Spirituality is about taking the former route, former option.
05:55Rise up.
05:56Leave the material behind.
05:57It is possible.
06:00That is the spiritual approach.

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