Day 4: Self-Study

Chapter 1

Meditation

Let us again find our posture and relaxation for meditation and reminding ourselves again that I did not create myself. And therefore this very great mystery, why have these intelligent energies and this vast universe have taken the trouble to create me for a few decades? All the sages in human history have said that this mystery cannot actually be solved by it, but if we are willing to receive subtle vibrations or whispers that our heart can actually be touched by this mystery and sometimes, even though it is not solved but the mystery is dissolved, it does not frighten us or worry us and we can begin to celebrate. So how do I become more and more receptive, not argumentative, not trying to grasp the mystery but allowing it to touch me? And the main obstacle to receiving anything or hearing anything is the wandering mind.

But if I can understand that I don't need to be against this mind, it is its very nature to be anywhere but here. So I repeatedly come back to asking myself what is my energy for, not what I am against. Even the ordinary mind can carry on. If and when I get really bothered by this mind, I take a moment and place my right hand on my heart to remind me, maybe I do that in any case for a moment, to remind me that as long as I am alive, this heart will keep beating. And I can let go of my hand but a reminder that I did not create this heart.

That these energies which have created me can hardly be against me. That I am, it requires a very deep understanding, I am a wanted and a needed child of the universe. Otherwise I am saying that all these energies are stupid and just accidentally somehow I have come alive. That will be contrary to the sayings of all the sages in the history of humanity. These energies are said to be divine, conscious.

If they have created me, they cannot be against me. There is a call to me which I do not know but I wish to know, wish to respond to it. So not to be against even the wandering mind, remaining relaxed, whenever the mind really walks away very far, I can place my hand on the heart just to remind me. And more and more awareness of the breath, of the mind, of the mind, of the mind, of the breath without manipulating the breathing in any way, allowing it naturally to deepen. Amen.

As I begin to take more and more interest without anxiety in this very great mystery then gradually more and more sense of wonder arises. As I begin to take more and more interest without anxiety in this very great mystery then gradually more and more sense of wonder arises. As I begin to take more and more and more sense of wonder arises. And I can also assist to reduce the noisiness of the mind as it were, pay attention to my head, almost as if I was placing my out breath into my head. And acknowledging that by ordinary physiology it does not make much sense but I rely on my own experience, placing my out breath into my head.

And watching whether it creates a sense of space or a sense of light or obscurity, not simply accepting anything but seriously testing, questioning. As I begin to take more and more and more sense of wonder arising from my own experience as I begin to take more and more sense of wonder arising from my own experience. As I begin to take more and more sense of wonder arising from my own experience. As I begin to take more and more sense of wonder arising from my own experience. You need to verify this in your own experience but for me bringing attention to my head as it were placing an out breath there kind of clears any kind of tensions, even any minor headaches or whatever and the mind can become quieter.

And again a reminder with the mind is wondering very far away placing my hand on the heart a reminder again and again that I have been brought here for some purpose, not merely accidental. We will return to this again in a different meditation but now we would just take one breath deeply and we will then stop. Thank you.

Chapter 2

Talk

Let's begin by first of all myself making a general remark that the purpose of any spiritual discipline naturally including yoga is to enhance the quality of our being. I have already said for example there are many levels of reality inside us outside us.

Those levels refer to quality of consciousness or level of consciousness or sometimes level of being, what kind of a person we are and the purpose of the spiritual disciplines is to enhance that quality. And therefore the suggestion that the different levels of reality have different laws. If I am connected with a different level more or less consistently then at least a part of me is subject to different laws. This is important to understand. This is not the general scientific perspective.

Scientific enterprise is not concerned about the quality of being of a scientist. There are some extremely wonderful, compassionate, loving scientists but equally quite terrible scientists who you would not wish to invite home for lunch. It has nothing to do with the quality of being of the person. Naturally it has much to do with their general intelligence etc., that's a different thing. Whereas in the spiritual disciplines the whole intention is to change the quality of the person, being of the person, by which one means something in the direction of level of consciousness which then has two or three associated words.

They are not exactly the same but they are fairly close to each other. Level of their awareness, level of their attention, the quality of their attention, from the point of view of the scientific enterprise, whether the Buddha is looking at something or an ordinary person like me is looking at something, the law has to be the same. Same data has to be gathered. Therefore gradually the person is completely out of the way, the computers can make the observations. In the spiritual disciplines it is very important what is the quality of the person and therefore the suggestion that at higher levels or subtler levels there are different laws.

What to us seems miraculous is simply because somebody like the Christ or the Buddha belong to a different level. For them this is nothing miraculous, this is quite natural what they are doing. In fact there is a very interesting remark of actually Saint Augustine, what we know of nature is not all there is to nature. Let me simply remind you again and again, nowadays whatever we are teaching in physics was unknown 120 years ago. So we need to allow some courtesy to our future scientists that in the next 120 years they would learn something that we don't now know.

If not 120 years, 1200 years they would learn something that we don't. So we should not just fantasize that we know everything about nature and there are different levels of nature is a suggestion repeatedly made in all spiritual teachings. And therefore very much emphasis on three things which are required more and more to connect with higher levels. Let me first of all just mention three of these and then I will take a few moments to speak about each one of them. Attention, intention and sincerity.

This is almost the enterprise of the spiritual disciplines to cultivate deeper and deeper or we might say steadier and steadier attention. And as I just finished saying earlier that attention is very intimately connected with awareness and consciousness. That is the direction of Purusha, there is a language has always a bit of a difficulty people imagine as if Purusha is up here. It's the whole vertical axis of consciousness that is Purusha. So one can be at consciousness one, consciousness two, consciousness three.

Keep reminding yourself nine orders of angels in the Bible. What does that mean? Higher the angel, higher the level of consciousness ultimately coming to God. Now the artists always have a little bit of a difficulty somehow representing these. In the Western world the tendency has been higher the angel, more the wings which is their indication of more freedom.

You're not stuck. But we forget that freedom is essentially an emotional and intellectual freedom that's required otherwise one is stuck somewhere, stuck to an idea, even stuck to a tradition. In India you hardly ever see devas being represented by wings. Their higher the deva more the eyes or more the arms indicating more greater vision or greater power usually in fact anybody less than four arms is not even in the running in the Indian context. I'm sure you've seen many images from India.

So one needs to understand there are cultural naturally, there are cultural tendencies or differences and then of course a culture gets attached to it. Future artists are obliged to follow certain, more or less certain customs. So not therefore to be attached to one thing or the other but to recognize that there are many levels and that levels are indicated by greater vision, greater freedom, greater awareness, greater attention, etcetera, greater power also. And freedom also means this is one of the reasons why in fact there is a very interesting remark of actually Aristotle, great philosopher, when philosophy is unable to express reality one turns to mythology. So mythology is not to be dismissed, it actually happened in the western world first of all that as Christianity became the pervading religion they were very eager to put down Greek mythology and therefore this mythology basically means fiction, what we are talking about is actual historical events.

But therefore in the western world mythology actually acquired a bit of a fictitious kind of attitude to it until the beginning of the 20th century when it was revived by people like many great anthropologists, Campbell is very responsible, Marcia Eliade, several other people who worked on it. But mythology is actually trying to speak about reality which cannot be rationally expressed. So for example an angel can go through a wall, an ordinary human being cannot do so or an archangel can be at two places at once. This is to say they can have different laws of space, time, energy, matter, that is the point I am trying to make, that different levels of reality have different laws therefore what seems miraculous to us is not miraculous for them. And in fact all the sages Patanjali included and Christ actually in fact the only remark of Christ which is very cutting almost, he calls them you a generation of vipers seeking after a sign.

This is a remark of Christ, a generation of vipers he calls them is so critical of people occupied with just miracles etc. Patanjali actually says that nobody ever denies these miracles but they say if you get so fascinated by them then your spiritual journey gets sidetracked. So they don't want to encourage you to get occupied with them but none of them ever deny this. I remember once in a walk with Krishna Murthy, he just stopped and he often referred to himself as the speaker, he said they say the speaker had these powers, he never denied this but he was not going to emphasize this. So it's very important to understand this.

So attention as I said is connected with awareness, with consciousness, steadier and steadier attention and more and more impartial attention is one area. And it very much requires intention and sincerity one would appreciate that that is what arouses conscience if I undertake something and then I am I give up out of laziness, out of fear many things I quoted St. Paul the other day I do what I do not wish to do and I end up doing and I don't do what I wish to do. This is St. Paul, hardly a negligible person. So many things we decide and then if one's conscience doesn't actually trouble one then one more easily gives up but if the conscience actually is actually a particle of divinity let me remind you this again and again. Just as consciousness is actually in some languages for example French, Italian, Spanish there is only one word both for consciousness and conscience.

But so that means they're very intimately related with each other in any case. So these three things are hard of the matter in any practical undertaking cultivating clearer and clearer more impartial and steady attention and intending to pursue something not just accidentally getting stuck with something and then bringing sincerity to it but not to give up. I am always very interested remark of Rumi ours is not a caravan of despair even if you have forgotten your promise a thousand times come, come again, this is Rumi ours is not a caravan of despair. So every spiritual searcher will tell you those who have written anything about it. John of the cross is a very good example.

Mother Teresa in our own days she even was questioning whether God existed. People are surprised by all this but I'm certainly not surprised if you actually practice something you would soon realize things are much more troublesome than you realize. So one begins to question this is true for you not everybody has written clearly and then of course some people or some figures like the Buddha is a good example Christ is a good example they become completely mythologized. We don't really know very much historical about them they become just the representative of the best of the culture and therefore they are not really historical figures anymore. They are there is a lovely remark of a great writer Kumaraswamy they are anthropomorphic but they are not human because they are very much eulogized by the culture they have become idealized but coming a little closer to where we can have some historical evidence we have many people like this Ramakrishna Vivekananda Raman in our own days I have been personally very blessed I have met some very remarkable people great Zen masters Krishna Murthy madam results man who was really in charge of the Gurdjieff work for many many years so I can assure you there is a very difference in the quality of their being quality of their attention so to have any kind of stupid democracy about this is just absurd one needs to understand that there are people at different level and therefore subject to slightly different laws of course they are also subject to some common laws they Buddha also died it is true but there is also something in him that never died so keeping that in mind we come back to three things which are very strongly advised by Patanjali actually they get mentioned twice the very first sutra in the second chapter and then thirty second sutra in the second chapter when he speaks about yama and niyam these three things are let me first of all mention them in Sanskrit tapas swadhya and ishwar pranadhana repeated twice as great emphasis placed on them these are said to be the three if you like activities of yoga kriya yoga then it becomes a whole label attached to it certain kind of yoga gets called kriya yoga now tapas essentially really means effort I should here make one general comment about the Indian tradition there has been a very strong element of the Indian tradition which is which ends up being quite otherworldly and therefore very ascetic even for example I'm slightly jumping ahead the word Abhinavish is translated by some people you probably had the yoga sutra translation by some as a wish to continue living as if this is a terrible thing to do they are very otherworldly tendency so therefore tapas is often translated as austerity you probably have several different translation you can look at it it simply really means effort anything whatever you try is literally actually it means temperature that's the root same root as the word temperature but it's the heat that is required for any activity or any aspiration and so I don't need to really say very much about it except I should just first of all leave Swadhyaya out for a moment and go to Ishwar Pranidhan Ishwar Pranidhan literally means submitting to Ishwar, Ishwar is often translated as God who remarks here first of all particularly the whole emphasis in the Indian tradition that Ishwar is not only outside me it's also inside me this is especially important to emphasize in the Western world because traditionally somehow the attitude has developed as if God is outside me is in heaven this is what higher tends to lead to that tendency not that any of the Christian mystics don't believe this you can read any of the mystics they are really speaking about something very internal but there is a bit of a tendency in the culture generally so it's always good to keep in mind that submitting to a deeper level within myself that is the call of Ishwar Pranidhan first of all acknowledging that there are many levels even within me which is something I have said several times already now there are many levels of reality and that if I can be aware of a deeper level within me and can I submit to it that the Ishwar Pranidhan Tapas and Ishwar Pranidhan are a little bit like effort and grace not to get stuck on the exact parallel here there is a very interesting remark well I find it interesting anyway of a very great sage in India is actually the Upanishad called Shweta Ashwatar Upanishad if you are interested it's named after the sage Shweta Ashwatar this is what he says all human realization is a combination of Tapas Prabhav and Deva Prasad Tapas Prabhav meaning effect of the effort and Deva Prasad means the benediction of the Devas higher level that both are required in fact Krishna even explicitly says this in the Bhagavad Gita that whether an action succeeds or fails depends on many factors including the quality of the action and the quality of the actor but then he adds to it Devam which is to say benediction of the Devas it depends on this so many factors play so Tapas and Ishwar Pranidhan are really very much connected with each other if I am totally bewildered for example maybe I'll have a chance to speak about it maybe tomorrow even Arjuna is bewildered about whether he should fight or not fight that's the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita then for him to turn to Krishna is really like turning to his own deeper self every sage in India has interpreted this battle to be an internal battle that dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna is the dialogue between two levels of myself but it is necessary I have often spoken about this transmission of culture from one generation to the next requires that internal subtle realities are externalized I have a granddaughter who is just short of five years old how can I say to her well this is a dialogue between my deeper self and myself so then one says this is exactly where Krishna stood this is exactly where Arjuna stood and they had a chariot with seven horses etc and more and more elaboration this is how culture is transmitted from one generation to the next and also this is the demand of the artists but you look at any of the actual practitioners who then become great sages or saints it's in the reverse direction proceeding from the outside to the inside I give a very simple example again because of I'm assuming you have generally a Christian background one can keep arguing this is exactly the manger where Christ was born first of all a reminder to you at least a third of the New Testament is written letters of St. Paul who was not shy about traveling or writing he's going everywhere in his letters if you can ever anywhere find I visited the place where the Lord was born or where he was crucified or where he had last supper I will happily give you a ticket to fly to Halifax to see he has no such interest this and his writings are the earliest documents that the academics know in the Christian literature or maybe even slightly more striking Angela Silesias 17th century very highly regarded great Christian mystic in Holland this is what he said Christ may be born a thousand times in Galilee all in vain unless he is born in me what I'm pointing out to you that actual spiritual practice is from the outside inward but transmission of culture requires the reverse and then one gets attached to that this is what we call fundamentalists or literary people taking it literally because they are not practicing anything but that's what the Bible says or that's what the Bible gives us a whatever now one needs to be very careful what is the purpose of these texts I earlier mentioned that this was almost the very first day unless I'm radically transformed I cannot come to the truth or to go you can read any of the text you will find this different words so let me return therefore to not getting so occupied with externalizing God or this exactly the place where Arjuna stood at Krishna stood of course there are lovely scriptures we have even photographs of some of these things so all that is required for the culture then every spiritual teaching very much emphasizes Swadhyaya literally means self study or self observation self knowledge all these are possible translations of this word but every serious teaching very much emphasizes this for the simple reason if transformation has to take place I need to know what the hell needs to be transformed and what is standing in my way in a curious way I am both the instrument of transformation and also the object that needs to be transformed actually there is a lovely remark of Michelangelo maybe I will bring that to you here my son had sent it to me he came across this initially Michelangelo said I saw an angel in the stone and I chiseled and chiseled until I released him that's really the project sometimes we see if you like this is the stone and one can see an angel in it which is a different way of saying different levels within oneself one can see that then requires the chiseling until the angel can be released but the interesting thing is because the language externalizes it or as if these are different creatures I am both the stone as well as the angel as well as the chiseled as well as the chiseled you see the difficulty in a way but we have to acknowledge the language has its difficulties but it's good to occasionally to come across this metaphor Michelangelo by the way people often don't realize he was a great poet also not only a not only a sculptor or a painter but a great poet a great deal of his poetry is actually available now some of these people are absolutely mind-blowing remarkable people in any case let me come back to the issue at home so so let me just use the word self-study is clearly absolutely crucial but as you can see there is always a tendency to move away from the actual practice I was completely surprised and you don't need to take my word for it you can check on Google if you like the look at the concordance of the whole Bible you will see hundreds of entries under faith a few entries under knowledge not a single entry under self-knowledge and in India also the word swadhya is a Sanskrit word it has there is no here if there is nothing hanki-panki about it is simply means self towards self-study swadhya but contemporary Sanskrit English dictionaries first meaning they will give is studying the sacred literature only the third or fourth meaning will be self-study I remember once a conversation with Krishna Murthy he was so he said sir what is the point of studying all this sacred literature if you don't study the book of yourself that's the problem we can always externalize these things and not actually see what is being referred to again and again and again there is nothing and by the way here lest you imagine that this is only the monopoly in India let me quote to you a remark of Christ but of course it becomes non canonical gospel this is in the gospel of Thomas kingdom of God is within you and without you if you would know yourself then you will be known and you will discover that you are the son of the living father if you don't know yourself you are in poverty in fact you are the poverty I don't know a stronger statement than me this is by Christ in the gospel of Thomas so and you can read any of the Christian mystics anybody who actually has practiced anything great deal of emphasis on self because it is obvious I need to know what it is that needs to be transformed and what is standing in the way how do I go about it etc so I mean it seems perfectly obvious but it's constantly removed as it were because the churches are not so interested in you actually becoming in fact this might surprise you you know the classical expression of the Buddha look within you are the Buddha he's not trying to make us Buddhists you wish he has to discover the Buddha and people forget gospel of Philip again another non canonical gospel this is exactly what it says Christ came not to make us Christians but to make us Christ do you think any church will say that one has to be very careful about all this because whatever doesn't suit the organization gets non canonical left out these these gospels were actually buried or burnt etc they were slightly accidentally found only 1949 which is hardly 100 years not even 100 years ago yet 1949 so let but more importantly from our point of view if you look at any of the practitioners in the spiritual teaching anywhere great deal of emphasis on self study as I said there are three or four other words they are related with each other self observation self study self knowledge self inquiry they're all connected and the reason for that is really in a way obvious because the main source of all the difficulties particularly the way it gets expressed in India is a video ignorance and primarily ignorance about myself who am I why am I here and therefore Swadhiya is required in a way it would seem just ordinary logic and nothing very fine logic here so therefore very much emphasis now there are two remarks I should make here and one is the kind of knowledge they are speaking about is not book knowledge I already made this comment when I was speaking about when Patanjali is describing when the mind is quiet the kind of knowledge is not knowledge by inference not knowledge by testimony it's a different kind of knowledge and just a quick reminder there are usually four words well before that I should mention Avidya is translated as ignorance in the Bhagavad Gita the word which is usually used is Agyan which also means ignorance Gyan means knowledge and just as Vidya means knowledge and so Avidya is ignorance Agyan is ignorance but the word knowledge is very tricky because now in our contemporary world almost the paradigm example of knowledge is scientific knowledge that's not the kind of knowledge these people are talking about it's very important to be clear about that there are four words in Sanskrit which almost always get translated often as knowledge sometimes a little differently maybe wisdom so let me just mention those four words one is Vidya which is this the opposite of Avidya but already you can see a little difference in the kind of knowledge it is the two English words video and vision etymologically are both derived from the same root as the word Vidya is derived so you see it's something to do with a direct perception direct vision similarly Gyan which is the opposite of Agyan that I mentioned earlier often gets translated as knowledge but it is the its Greek cognate is gnosis from which we get the Gnostic gospels which are all known canonical again you can see because it is referring to a subtler kind of knowing that's what Gyan is in my trying to translate this in my book on the Bhagavad Gita I end up calling it sacred knowledge just how do you make a distinction because we are all obliged to use English and English is very much conditioned by the whole biblical tradition and that biblical tradition is much more conditioned by the church rather than by actually it's very one has to realize this so one has to use that language and still try to convey something which is not quite the same ordinary meaning so I end up using other words like sacred knowledge or something like that there are two other words Bodhi which has the same root as the word Buddha which again would be something like discernment or even enlightenment or awakening for example the Buddha literally means one who is awake the implication therefore is that most of the time we are asleep otherwise what's the big deal about the Buddha you see literally it means one who is awake so it's a different kind of knowledge it's an awakening which can free one from as Patanjali says from testimony or from inference and from restriction of time another word is Pragya the a classical text of Buddhism is called Pragya Parmita which is often translated as wisdom of the from the other shore or wisdom of of the other shore so sometimes this translated as wisdom sometimes as knowledge Patanjali has a very interesting expression this is if I recall correctly 48th sutra in the first chapter speaking about the clear mind that Pragya Ritambhara then the mind is naturally full of order this is Patanjali's description so Pragya can also refer to the highest part of our brain but can similarly the word buddhi which is related with the word buddha and buddhi can also refer to the higher part I will come to the question of the buddhi maybe tomorrow I'll have a chance to speak about it because Bhagavad Gita the central yoga that Krishna teaches is buddhi yoga yoga of awareness so coming back in any case to the question of Swadhyaya is required in order to be free of ignorance and what is the main description of ignorance again I stay with Patanjali's description a vidya is to take the pleasant the unpleasant for the pleasant the transient for the eternal and non-self for the self this second chapter by the way if you're into I think it's the fifth or sixth sutra second chapter so again and again one keeps coming back to this question what am I and then if I am the body that is clearly transient if I regard that to be eternal if whatever I know about myself if I regard that to be the self if it is not the correct part of it then it will be taking the non-self for the self so that is a vidya so very much strong emphasis again and again one keeps returning to this question of what am I or as I mentioned earlier this is regarded as the bhij prashna the seed question koham who am I or I prefer what am I so great deal of emphasis in every spiritual teaching whenever they wish to be practical on self-study or self-inquiry and in the Bhagavad Gita also and in Patanjali and I have so far been more or less referring to Patanjali's yoga sutras I'm going to shift tomorrow to the Bhagavad Gita and there are some slightly different approaches and then the very strong suggestion that even an occasional awareness of the obvious fact that I will die can be a very great help to wondering why am I alive what is called for me to attend to in fact this is very highly emphasized in fact in if you go to any of the Buddhist monasteries and it used to be so earlier in Christian monasteries as well it has become diluted now one monk will say to the other brother remember death this is always a reminder that one is transiently here in the body to search for something which is more eternal and you know the classical experiences of the Buddha he sees an old man he sees a sick man and a dead man for him this created a whole revolution nobody here I imagine has not seen all of these three sides these are completely banal common ordinary sites but for him this had an existential meaning that I too will die or my son will hear a son that he will die and therefore for him the question was is there anything that does not die with the death of the body so you see that led to a whole renunciation the whole enterprise but this is a very strongly suggested idea that even an occasional awareness of the fact that I will die and everybody I know will die I occasionally end up looking at the university the class which graduated in 1920 or something I mean you look at the whole class absolutely nobody is alive it's quite interesting to watch this and they were great scientists or musicians or philosophers at their time just like us we too will die in fact in India there is a very strong idea called the Yaksh Prashna this is a question of one of the celestial being Yaksh is like the angels if you like what is the greatest mystery in the world I won't go into the whole story now because I see our time is ending but ultimately the answer is that a person knows people all around him dying but does not believe that he too will die this is the greatest mystery in the world so whole emphasis on self study and therefore consequently trying to become aware of something in me that is not subject to death or may not be I don't know that to begin with that gets very much more emphasized if I become aware of the possibility or the fact which is obvious that I will die I think we will stop now thank you very much I actually invite you in your own life you

Chapter 3

Homework

think of three or four if you wish events that you think very deeply influenced your life even you would say changed your life for many people I'm but don't take this this is merely an example this may not be true for you but for many people the person they ended up marrying very much changes their life and their first kid very much changes their life now personally for me the fact that I got long time ago a commonwealth scholarship and came to Canada that very much changed my life but this so think of three or four events in your own life that you would say affected your life very deeply then impartially start one year before that event took place and write down what was your contribution in bringing that event about because we all think and I see this is especially almost a dogma in USA that I am running my life I do what I wish etc etc and if you are not surprised by what you discover I would be completely surprised so take this is your homework take three or four if you like or two it doesn't matter this is not a nothing dogmatic about it but really I'm trying to draw your attention to there are very large forces running our life including the fact that they created me I didn't create myself many many there is a tendency we sometimes oh he was lucky several people we have many examples of this kind in history of science several people have the same data but one person comes up with a theory which is works we say oh he was lucky or sometimes we say whether it was his destiny that simply means we don't know why but I am suggesting to you there are many many very large forces at play we are not exclusively running our life alone but don't buy my don't just simply buy it test it