Video Information: Shabdyog Session, 14.02.2018, Advait BodhSthal, Noida, India
Context:
How can a thinking mind know about Shiva?
How will the mind become still?
Can we still the mind? Who has to be still, we or the mind and how?
What is the screen, Sat-Chit-Ananda-Self Siva?
How to abide in the Shiva Truth?
Is the absolute a state?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Context:
How can a thinking mind know about Shiva?
How will the mind become still?
Can we still the mind? Who has to be still, we or the mind and how?
What is the screen, Sat-Chit-Ananda-Self Siva?
How to abide in the Shiva Truth?
Is the absolute a state?
Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~~~~~~~~ .
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Namaste Acharyaji, what is the screen, Satchitanand, Shiva Self, is the absolute a state?
00:13How can a thinking mind know about Shiva?
00:20How will the mind become still in order for the Shiva state to appear spontaneously?
00:29Can we still the mind?
00:33Who has to be still, we or the mind?
00:37And how?
00:40Satchitanand, truth, illumination or awareness and joy, this is not the absolute.
00:58Satchitanand is not a characteristic of the truth itself, though it is variously referred
01:13to as verily nothing else but the truth.
01:22Satchitanand is the relaxation of the mind into the truth.
01:33Satchitanand, yes you could say, is the final state of the mind.
01:43Whether you want to call it a state depends on you.
01:52If you are speaking from a dissolved point, then you need not call Satchitanand a state.
02:04But if you are speaking as a seeker, then you can call Satchitanand a state because
02:12you are yourself still in a state.
02:16Satchitanand is the final state.
02:19What is meant by the final state?
02:21After this there are no states.
02:28It is existence merging into non-existence.
02:38It is like water merging into water, mixing with water.
02:48It will be very difficult for you to tell apart the waters.
02:59How do you judge a person's health?
03:12One of the first things that you do is you measure the blood pressure.
03:22You measure the temperature.
03:28If you want advanced tests, then you take blood sample or urine sample and get it tested in a pathology lab.
03:41Right?
03:48Tell me when are you testing health?
03:52You are just testing temperature, blood pressure, sugar, blood.
04:01When are you testing health?
04:05Go into this.
04:09Health is that which keeps the body regularly functional.
04:18Health cannot be tested. Only the body can be tested.
04:25Similarly, the truth cannot be known.
04:30But whether or not you abide in the truth can be known by looking at the condition of your mind.
04:48Health cannot be known.
04:52But whether the body is abiding in health can be known by testing the body.
05:01Right?
05:03Similarly, truth cannot be known.
05:08But whether the person, the ego, the little self is abiding in the truth can be known by looking at the characteristics of the person, the mind.
05:27Satchitanand is a sure shot characteristic that the mind is abiding in the truth.
05:39And equally there are very certain signs that the mind is not abiding in the truth.
05:50If you remain infected with fear and jealousy and comparison.
05:59If you keep feeling small or big.
06:04If you keep feeling the need to defend.
06:10If you keep feeling lonely.
06:13If you feel insecure in front of a new concept.
06:21Then it is a sure shot sign that the mind is not abiding in the truth.
06:34If the waves of happiness and sadness just carry you away.
06:47And you start talking of yourself as nothing but the experiencer of pleasure and pain.
06:57Then it is a sure shot sign that the body is not abiding in health.
07:11You could even say it is a sure shot sign that the Deh is not honestly abiding in the Prana.
07:22Have you ever seen Prana?
07:28It is not to be seen.
07:31And I am not talking of Prana in the classical sense.
07:35I am not talking of the various kind of vayus.
07:41I am talking of the spirit, the life force.
07:47Have you ever seen something escaping a dead human body?
08:01But for sure the Prana and the body are no more united.
08:10Some link has broken.
08:14And that is what you call as physical death, don't you?
08:18And it is very obvious that the link has broken.
08:21It is so obvious that you cannot confuse a dead man with a living man.
08:28You commonly use the expression that the Prana has gone out of the body.
08:32I don't want to use that expression.
08:34But I will still say that the link between Prana and the body has been severed.
08:43And it is obvious then that the link has been broken.
08:46Similarly, when you look at a mind that is dissociated from its origin, from the truth,
08:54then it is very easy to tell.
08:58Not as easy as telling a dead body apart from a living one.
09:07But still not very difficult.
09:12Even the grossest fool will say this man is dead and he will be right.
09:20But it requires some wisdom to point out that this person's mind is dissociated from the truth or distanced from the truth.
09:39It can be however told. It is not beyond recognition.
09:45Absolute is not a state.
09:50But all your states keep crying aloud for the absolute.
09:58All the states want to turn into the absolute state.
10:02Which means that as long as you belong to a particular state,
10:07you will look at the absolute as a state and that is alright.
10:11No problem.
10:14Call the absolute whatever you may.
10:17But move towards it.
10:19Let it be your sharp and powerful inspiration.
10:29You can even call the absolute as the best state if you want to.
10:35And if that is useful, please do that.
10:39But irrespective of what name you give it, move towards it.
10:46Make it your only goal.
10:48I am weighing my words. I know what I am talking of.
10:52I am saying make the absolute your only goal.
10:57Why am I saying that?
10:58Because you will not be able to live without goals.
11:02Even if you agree at this moment that the absolute cannot be a goal,
11:09you will find that you are helpless due to your own constitution.
11:17You need goals.
11:18Make the absolute your goal.
11:24You have no option.
11:32How can a thinking mind know about Shiva?
11:37A thinking mind can know and that knowing is called Shiva.
11:44You cannot know about Shiva, but you can know, right?
11:49And whatever you know is due to the blessings of Shiva.
11:56The knowing itself is Shiva.
11:58Shiva is anyway not a person, not a deity, not a figure, not an object.
12:12There is only Shivatva, Shiva-ness.
12:17And that Shiva-ness expresses itself in your knowing.
12:23So know, don't try to know about Shiva.
12:26Shiva is not furniture, Shiva is not a tree, Shiva is not a cloud, not even the sky.
12:34How will you know Shiva?
12:36Do you know of anything that has no shape, no form and is eternal?
12:41How will you know Shiva?
12:42But know, do know, what can you know, this world and yourself?
12:46Know that, that knowing is Shiva-ness, Shivatva.
12:56How will the mind become still in order for the Shiva state to appear spontaneously?
13:02The mind becomes still when it sees that movement is foolish.
13:09There is no other reason for mind to become still and the mind is captive of reasons.
13:19You will have to give the mind a strong reason to not to run.
13:28The mind will never agree to be still.
13:31It can only agree to not to run and this is not merely wordplay.
13:36There is a great difference between being still and not running.
13:39You can never take the consent of the mind for stillness.
13:44It's like a traveller who is intent on moving and he is standing at crossroads.
13:53He is a traveller, that's his definition, that's his self-identification.
14:00You cannot tell him to not to travel, that would be stupid.
14:06Then how do you tackle this situation?
14:10He is standing at the crossroads, he wants to move north.
14:14You tell him, no, no, north is not the way, so he can't move.
14:17Immediately he wants to move east.
14:20You tell him, no, no, east is not the way.
14:23Then he wants to move south.
14:26You tell him, no, no, south is not the way.
14:28He wants to move west.
14:29You tell him, no, no, west is not the way.
14:31He is still constantly trying to move.
14:34But you are constantly able to show him that all his movements are wrong, stupid.
14:41They will not take him to the destination.
14:44And that is the only way he can be still.
14:47The mind has to know moment after moment what is stupid for it.
14:55And if you can constantly keep the mind in this realization, only then it will be still.
15:01The stillness of this man, this traveler, is not the stillness of the monk who is standing just at a little distance,
15:12intent on going nowhere, and is just standing.
15:16If you look from afar, then you will say that these two are just the same in the sense that both are just standing.
15:24But there is a great difference.
15:27The monk intends to stand.
15:31The mind intends to travel.
15:37Your saving grace is that the mind intends to travel rightly.
15:43The mind doesn't intend to just travel.
15:45It wants to travel with a purpose.
15:47It wants to travel to reach somewhere.
15:49Use the intent of the mind to stall its travel.
15:56Tell the mind, North is not right.
15:59See, you just don't want to travel.
16:01You want to travel rightly.
16:03And North is not right.
16:06So, fine, can't go wrong.
16:08Okay, you want to travel East or West?
16:13See, you just don't want to travel blindly.
16:15You want to travel rightly.
16:17And West is not right.
16:21So the mind is still trying to move but can't move.
16:24That is the only kind of stillness that will come to you.
16:27Not the monk's stillness.
16:31It will take long for you to come to a point where even the tendency to travel disappears or gets burnt out.
16:45Till the time that tendency remains, only discretion can help.
16:50Apply discretion.
16:55Hmm?
16:58Tell yourself, yes, of course, I'm going to smoke.
17:01But I'll smoke only a cigarette that doesn't harm.
17:06Of course, I'm free to smoke. And then smoke.
17:11If you can find a cigarette that doesn't harm, do smoke.
17:15That is the only way you can come to terms with the traveling mind, with the desirous mind.
17:21Give it what it wants, but also tell it that you don't merely want.
17:27You want rightly, don't you?
17:30And that's something that the mind will have to, you know, unwillingly agree to.
17:46Then you have asked, can we still the mind? I have taken this up.
17:49Who has to be still? We or the mind?
17:51Who has to be still? The one who is moving.
17:53If you are moving, you be still. If the mind is moving, the mind will be still.
17:56Why do you want to get into such verbiage?
17:58We, the mind. Are you any different from your mind?
18:03If you are different from the mind, if you are a witness of the mind,
18:08then all these questions will be absorbed in the witness.
18:13You and the mind are one, totally one.
18:16You are so completely identified with the mind that there is just no differentiation possible right now.
18:28You asked who moves? Or rather who has to be still?
18:34You said who has to be still? I said the one who moves.
18:38If you want to say that the mind moves, then the mind has to be still.
18:41If you want to say that you move, then you have to be still.
18:44It's merely wordplay. Doesn't matter.
18:49And then you say, how will the stillness come? I have answered it.
18:53Stillness won't come. Only foolishness will have to be seen.
18:58If you move, you get hurt. So better don't move.
19:02And there would be times when you would not know that movement can be dangerous or harmful.
19:11Then in those occasions you will move and get hurt and that is alright.
19:18Such experiences are good.
19:21But don't repeat those experiences.
19:24Getting hurt one time is acceptable, probably even good.
19:29But don't get unnecessarily hurt the second time for the same reason, in the same way.
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