Discourse on Yoga Vasishtha
Day 154, June 23
Sri Sadgurubhyo namaha
Om Santissantissantihi
Sage Vasishtha is narrating the story of Akasaja; how Death was unable to swallow him, and how Yama Dharmaraja gave his Upadesa to Death. Death departed after receiving his answer.
Sri Rama asked Vasishtha whether His guess was correct that Akasaja is none other than Lord Brahma. Vasishtha agreed.
Vasishtha explained that Brahma is only of the substance of the Mind. He has no contact with the five elements. Since we all have descended from Brahma, we are also Akasajas, born of space or mind stuff. Our physical body, constituted of the five elements, is only an illusion.
How can something non-physical be visible? That was Rama’s question. Vasishtha explains that it is possible.
Chaturmukha Brahma is only Jnana or Chinmatra/Consciousness. He assumes a visible form for you due to your own ignorance.
We are not satisfied with the answer. Do we have the power to give a form to even the Creator of the Universe?
Manolaya is Moksha. Dissolution of Mind is Liberation.
How to eradicate the mind to get liberated?
Only Mind exists. Individual parts of the mind may appear as different entities. The collective Mind of all creatures is Brahma.
Mana eva manushyaanaam kaaranam bandhamokshayoho.
Mind alone is the cause of man’s bondage and liberation.
Brahma is the Creator who has brought this Universe into existence, said Vasishtha to Rama. But this statement is not acceptable to us.
We are not happy about being under someone else’s control, who has created this world and is controlling our lives. This is not freedom. How do we then get liberated?
God has given every one of us, the birthright of freedom to act. Actually we have granted it to ourselves when we took birth. How we act, is in our control. When we are free to act, where is the question of someone else controlling us?
Anarchy and chaos occur if there is no ruler or controller, if there is no regulation. That is why the concept of God was created. But are we following His edict? No. May be only 5-10 per cent we follow.
The Creator is none other than your own intention. You have created the Creator. It then becomes political. God will then grant liberation only to the ones He favors. That is not just. God cannot be like that. Can we tolerate it if God begins to hate us because we have failed to follow His rules? Perhaps we are unable to do everything as per His wish.
Your own mind has transformed itself into the Creator.
You visualized a Creator and He manifested. If God showed favoritism, it would create disturbances. If God loves us we are happy. But can we withstand it, if God should hate us? Even if we do not follow God’s rules, we still cannot accept that we are hated by God. Hate or distaste should not exist in God. Does God have love? Where there is love, hate should also be there. Can only love exist? No. God is free from both love and hate because He is not a human being.
If total hatred should become personified, that is Kamsa, that is Hiranyakasipu. There is no rule that where there is hate, there should also be love. Hatred is an evil quality. It grants no benefit whatsoever. It does not exist in God.
God has no love or hate because he has no form. The two are mutually dependent.
He is just Jnana. He is just Mind. How did He manifest? He did, as a result of your intention.
It may be said that He remembered the past Creation and revealed Himself as He was before. To say that He manifested of His own accord, causes the tricky argument that then He must have done Karma. It attributes karma to Him.
Therefore, He is only the manifestation of your intention caused by your Avidya/ignorance.
That is why one should keep a pure mind. One should entertain only good thoughts. That is the path of devotion. Then God’s grace will be showered upon you.
How can a form become visible when there is no physical substance to it, and when the five elements are absent from it?
Why not? Do you not see forms in your dreams, in your thoughts? In the sky, with or without clouds one is able to visualize forms. On a blank wall, one can visualize several forms. There are many who see the form of Ganapathy or Anjaneya on a blank wall. You mind is focused on such a form and hence, it sees the form it chooses, wherever it chooses to see it.
It is in your control, how vast you can visualize God to be. If you constrict His form, it means that you have not grown spiritually.
To see Him in all forms is the way of a devotee following the path of devotion.
Whether He has a body, or a form, or not, it is you, who sees the form. When you were reborn, the past recollection of the four-faced Brahma remained in your mind and it is reborn in your mind.
Tatagaru asked: Are our experiences also illusions?
Experiences are caused because of past tendencies acquired by listening, reading, pondering, and so on. Tendencies from past lives are carried over with us from lifetime to lifetime.
The tendencies grow into a huge balloon. One day the balloon will burst and you will be left with no Samskara, a blank mind. That is the state of Paramatma. In each Janma, the (good) Samskara has to be increased. Sadguru helps us to build it up.
Experience comes from Samskara. Do not believe just because I say so. Do not believe all that you read in books.
Veda has removed the Karma bhaga when it came to Vedanta. Pray to Sadguru that you should personally experience Truth.
What experience is true?
We experience that ‘I’ am the body. It is not true.
How to analyze and evaluate experiences? Consult your Guru.
Remove the rotten part in an apple and eat the rest. A poor man eats whatever part of the apple is edible. A rich man tosses the whole apple even if only a part of it is rotten.
Your listening, and reading should be analytical. Penance, an intense yearning for Knowledge is required.
Bhrigu asked his father to tell him about Brahma. He was told to do penance. Penance means a deep desire to learn about God. Think deeply about Sadguru or about God. With unending meditation, you get unending results. Those who have a Sadguru, may ask him to clear the doubts.
Sadguru explains to us the way we can understand.
This body is a creation of the mind and constitutes only of the mind substance.
verse
With Brahma, there is no visible world that He sees. He sees nothing. He does not see. He is the absolute Pure Consciousness. He is just Knowledge. He is un-fragmented knowledge. Of Sat Chit Ananda, He is Chit. the middle part. He is Jnana which is itself Ananda, bliss. He has no concerns about eating, digesting, and so on.
He enjoys eternal bliss. He glows as Svayambhu, self-born. He appears so that we recognize Him.
Why does He appear as if He has a form? It is due to your Avidya.
How can Krishna have such a form and lead such a life? Ananda Ramayana and Adhyatma Ramayana explain the real lives of Rama and Sita. In ignorance people question about the difficulties they had to endure during their lives. True scholars do not see that Rama and Sita have suffered any difficulties.
If your perspective changes your creation will change.
Brahma born of Himself glows with a form for you, because of your ignorance.
Death, who had also swallowed Time, received the Upadesha from Yama Dharmaraja. Yama himself will also get dissolved.
At a marriage ceremony, the couple is blessed that their minds must unite. Then even with different bodies, they will act as one, in harmony. When the minds of everyone unite, it becomes the collective Mind, Brahma.
Mind is you. It is an illusion that the mind came after the body. After Prana, the Life Energy came, we think the mind came.
If mind is not there, how can prana come? Mind is movement. Sankalpa must come. It comes from the Mind. Without sankalpa, prana, pancha bhootas (the five elements), intellect, nothing can come into being. Out of so many billions of sperm, only one assumes life. It ran and entered the mother’s womb first. It made the sankalpa first.
No one wins the Olympics without making the sankalpa that he should win.
Mind alone is the cause. If the mind is pure, it dissolves.
This form merges into the Paramatma. It melts into Him. Like water added to milk.
You place a vessel of water with milk on the stove. The water comes out as steam and vapor. You cannot tell the milk and water apart. That merged state is given as an example.
The four-faced Brahma is your Creator.
Punardarsana praaptirastu, it says at many temples. (May you visit again).
Come again. You make the wish that you should go again. Why see again? See Sadguru or God once and you get liberated, the books say. Then, why visit again and again? Until you see the Truth, you have to keep visiting.
You see it as unreal. After you have left the premises only, you see the sign that says: come again. You must ponder: What have I seen there? Have I seen a rock, a human being? No. I should see God. Hence, I must visit again until I see as God, the deity in the temple or Sadguru.
Nothing remains once you experience Truth.
Akhanda Jnana means, you never leave as a separate entity.
He is Svayambhu is your interpretation and your concept.
Brahma has four hands. Datta has six hands with three heads. Brahma has four faces but not eight hands, but only four arms. Why? Think about it and tell me.
verse
Brahma is none other than the four-faced Creator.
Remember this.
Brahmaa in Gurur Brahmaa
Gurussaakshaat param brahma. No long vowel there.
If you mispronounce, the meaning changes. The sound and meaning are most important. Man has the special ability to speak. No other animal can understand and speak the words.
What is the use of having the ability to speak, when one speaks without knowing the meaning?
To practice silence, mastery over language is most important. Language skill is most important to attain knowledge.
One must have a mastery over language. When you listen, unless you know the language, it is useless.
Bhaashaaroopaa is Mother Goddess’s name. Her form is Language.
Brahmaa is four-faced Brahma.
This form – the verse says, not ‘He’.
It is nothing but Mind. Brahma is Mind. It appears as Brahma to your mind.
Only devotees see God in a deity in the temple. An atheist does not see God there. It is based on the mindset.
If your mind is present, you see.
Vishnu Datta had that experience. He saw Datta first as a drunkard, and as a madman. But later he recognized Datta. His mind was determined to see only Datta. That made the difference.
Vedanta does not give such examples. I will be in trouble with Vedantic scholars for giving such easy examples for your benefit, so that you can quickly grasp the concept.
Follow any path, any technique. Be determined to only pursue Truth. Learning how to make a perfect Masala Dosa will not help you in knowing Truth.
The five elements such as the earth, and so on, do not touch Him. His body is not made of those substances. He cannot be cut, or dried, or destroyed.
verse
Is there such a thing as a mental kingdom? Yesterday, we spoke about a man conceptualizing a whole multi-storied building standing at an empty site. An artist has the picture in his mind before he paints it on the canvas.
Many people say: I had nothing in my mind. I begin, and things just take shape. It is not possible. Whatever is expressed, is already stored inside the mind.
Mind can help us immensely. At the same time, mind can totally destroy us and mislead us.
The mind conceals within it, the four-faced Brahma.
Earlier, there were no computers. Out of a mental picture, a sculptor transferred an image into a stone, an artist transferred it to a paper.
chidaakaasa – the vast space called Consciousness is glowing radiantly.
Have you not visualized the entire house that has not even been built? You have already anticipated that a cheap paint will deteriorate soon and decided to use an expensive good quality paint. You have already visualized the paint chipping and falling off exposed to the elements. like wind, rain, and sun.
How to clean the mind up of its billions of ideas and stored thoughts?
Just remove the mind itself. Mind itself is responsible for bondage and liberation.
The power to reflect the pure consciousness exists in the mind.
verse
chidvyoma kevalam. He has no beginning or end. He is eternal. Born of himself. He is none other than the sky-like consciousness.
verse
He appears as if he has a body, a form, a shelter, like a body, and so on. He is not purusha, like in the sense, male.
A killed son no longer has a body.
God has no body. It has been confirmed.
He has no form. Your mind that is contaminated gives shapes and forms.
Do Pranayama. Restrain and control your thoughts. It will cleanse and purify the mind.
Let us continue tomorrow.
Jaya Guru Datta
Sri Guru Datta
Om santissantissantihi