Natural Consciousness
Bhakti Vijnana Goswami · 2022
Chapters
Invocation and initial mantras
Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya, Om namo bhagavate vāsudevāya bhāgavatam bhāgavata-dharmaṁ vīṣṇu-pādāya kṛṣṇa-preṣṭhāya bhū-tale, śrīmate bhaktivedānta-svāmin iti nāmine
namaste sarasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe, nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi- pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe, śrī-kṛṣṇa-caitanya prabhu-nityānanda śrī-advaita gadādhara śrīvāsādi-gaura-bhakta-vṛnda, Hare Krishna, Hare
Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Rama Hare Hare, and... sandji waya, takilla shakti, darah, s vadaman, ja mst, ha starna shramat, So I'm very happy to be with all of you.
I will try to speak a few words about our philosophy and practice, what we are doing here, and why we're always chanting the same thing as if there is no other songs.
So I will start my talk from this topic of mantra meditation and how it works. The very word mantra, and we are sitting here in mantra room, so it's probably a good idea to know what is mantra?
The very word mantra consists of two roots. One is man, and man means manas, mind. The English word man is coming from the same root. Basically, this root, verbal root, means thinking. And tri means to protect.
So the word mantra by its derivation from these two roots basically means to protect us from thinking too much.
This is the tendency which unfortunately, especially nowadays, every one of us has, because we always worried about so many things we are concerned with so many different topics and we can always hear this voice of our thoughts within our mind.
And we may not understand it, but this is a greatest source of the wastage of our living energy. We dissipating very valuable human energy, energy of our life, in this process of thinking,
all the time, worrying all the time, and sometimes we can even feel the heat which is coming out from our head.
Because this process is always working, it's always constantly, practically 24 hours a day, the there is something which is going on within our head. Our head is a very peculiar phenomenon.
Our brain hardly takes five percent of our body weight. You know, and it depends on your body weight, sometimes it's even much less, you know, if you have a huge body weight.
But it's a relatively small organ, but it takes approximately 20-25% of all the energy which is used by our body. In this very process, in the process of thinking all the time and worrying about so many different things.
If we notice, if we start doing this journaling or try to understand what is going on within our head, within our brain, we will be surprised how many different topics are being processed simultaneously in this little space between two ears.
So when the ancient fathers of Vedic culture coined this word mantra. They were concerned exactly with this.
Three states of consciousness and gunas
They were concerned about how we waste our energy in this process of hazardous or chaotic thinking about so many things are sometimes unnecessary.
Another very peculiar phenomenon which is described in Vedic literature, in particular in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, is different states of our consciousness. And in particular we have three major states of our consciousness,
wakeful state of our consciousness, dreaming state of the consciousness, and sleeping state when we are in deep sleep, when we practically don't understand anything about the reality around us.
And again, according to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, these three states of consciousness they correspond to the influence of three modes of nature, three guṇas.
Sattvaguṇa, perhaps you know this, sattva guṇa, the mode of goodness, is in charge of our wakeful state.
So, in our wakeful state, when we are conscious of our surroundings and of ourselves, we are supposed to be in this state of sattva, and sattva is characterized by tranquility, by peacefulness, by very light sort of consciousness.
And then again the dreaming state when we asleep and see different dreams, it's the influence of rajoguṇa or the mode of passion. This passionate uh mode of nature which is uh always dynamic.
And we know when we see all the dreams, you know it's uh it's a very c sometimes chaotic thing, and it's just you know, something is going on and tamoguṇa, the mode of ignorance, is in charge of deep sleep.
So what is interesting, what I want to bring here is that even though when we say that rajoguṇa is in charge of our dreaming state when we're sleeping, actually when we are in wakeful state and when this mode of passion, Rajas, overcomes us, we are ultimately seeing dreams while we are awake.
We think that we are awake, but in reality we are not really conscious of what is going on around us. We're always dreaming about something in the future. It's very rare when we are present at present.
Usually our mind is dreaming about some future how I will be enjoying, you know, Christmas is coming so it will be a nice time and then you know I will go somewhere for vacation or next year something nice happens or something else.
Whatever. We always have some dream to dream about even when we are awake. So we're wasting our energy in this dreaming condition. Even while we are awake, very rarely we are present at the present moment.
And this condition of being present, really present, to be in present it's actually very pleasant condition because the mode of goodness, sattva, brings this lightness and this very tranquil and nice state of consciousness.
But usually, even when we are awake, we are in some sort of dreaming state. And that's another problem of the consciousness. That's another problem which we have to deal with.
And we all know we all know this famous slogan be here and now. But we all know how difficult it is to be here and now. It's much easier to be somewhere else and in some other time.
The most difficult thing is to bring us at the present moment whereas the only important thing which is going on is going on at present. Something which is which will be there in the future, it's uh it's illusion.
It's not really there. So these are all the problems of our conditioned consciousness, which is bombarded by this external energy, by this modes of passion, modes of ignorance.
Importance of preserving human consciousness
And because we are dissipating so much energy during our wakeful state, then we have to sleep, and even the sleep is not really peaceful, and we have to waste so much time in this deep, completely unconscious state during the night.
So, therefore, in all ancient cultures where the hygiene of the mind was very prominent, when people were concerned with the healthy state of our mental condition.
There were some processes of meditation which would bring us at the present moment and which would reduce this wasteful thinking process which is going on in the mind.
We have to do it because it's healthy for our mind, it's very helpful for our mind, it's very helpful for our well-being.
Because when we waste so much mental energy in our young years, there is very huge likelihood that our brain will be damaged during our old age.
And we know how much you know this degenerating diseases are proliferating nowadays. So much Alzheimer's, and all this kind of you know problematic conditions at the old age. Why? Because the brain is not healthy.
Why the brain is not healthy? Because we are misusing this amazing mechanism, amazing machine which is given to us by God and given for a specific purpose.
The purpose for which this amazing machine is given to us is to facilitate development of our consciousness. The mission of human life is to evolve, not to degrade.
You know, we all know that when people are misusing these opportunities which we have.
In human life we have a lot of freedom, so-called freedom. And when we're misusing this freedom, we're ultimately bringing about ruination of our life. We are degrading ourselves, degrading our consciousness.
Our consciousness instead of evolving, instead of being broader and broader and broader and bringing us closer to superconsciousness, to consciousness of God, is becoming more and more contracted by misusing all these stimulants which are there, which are available, easily available, especially in the modern culture, in form of drugs and so many other things.
And by, again, misusing the consciousness and machine for consciousness, brain, we are contracting our consciousness instead of broadening it. And as a result of this attitude towards God-given consciousness,
At the old age we are ripening the fruits of this behavior. The mind becomes degraded and all kinds of degeneration processes are taking place in the brain and people become senile and ultimately losing consciousness. Why?
Because they're not valuing the consciousness in the first place. In the first place we really have to value this gift of developed consciousness which only human beings have. And therefore, as I said, in all the cultures of the world there were some processes which would help to protect our consciousness and ultimately purify our consciousness and uh facilitate evolvement, evolution of our consciousness. That's the point.
And uh as human beings, if we are uh if we're really concerned with uh fulfilling the mission of our human life, we really have to be concerned with this process.
How to evolve my consciousness, how to evolve my mind, not to degrade my mind, what kind of lifestyle I should take, what kind of precautions I should take, and what kind of practices I should take to facilitate this evolvement of the mind.
Mantra meditation versus objectless meditation
So, this repetition of mantra is a sort of meditation, and meditation, whatever form of meditation you can take, is exactly this preventive measure from this degeneration of the mind and the means to evolve the mind.
Because when we concentrate inside, you know, we living in this world, we definitely have to interact with the material energy around us, with so many people, so many tasks in front of us.
But if we don't dedicate some time which is not really dedicated or whatever if we don't put aside some time which is not for the interaction with the external world but which is exactly for the opposite uh has the opposite direction when we're concentrated within. If we don't do this, then inevitably, this devolution of the mind will take place because of too much interaction with the material world which will bombard us.
So when we speak about meditation, meditation means the conscious or voluntarily limiting, when we're limiting the activities of our mind.
And that's exactly the idea which is there in this world of mantra to protect us from too much thinking, to protect us from too much worrying, to protect us from this wasting our mental energy into useless thought processes.
So usually when we speak about meditation, when people nowadays talk about meditation, they uh they have in mind the Buddhist style of meditation, which is you know which is kind of boring thing, you know, if you ask my opinion.
I I am not passing a judgment, I'm just expressing my impression about this process. When you try to concentrate your mind within without having any object for your meditation.
It's objectless meditation when you meditate on some, you know, void. Or whatever, when you just sit and you breathe. And you know, people pay a lot of money to just sit and do nothing. You know, it's called vipassana.
You pay ten thousand dollars or whatever for the opportunity to sit and uh uh do nothing and just you know sit. And because everyone is sitting and you also sitting and you're thinking, you know, what am I doing here?
What's going on? But it it's a valuable process. I'm not joking about it. It's a difficult process because it's the most difficult thing not to do anything.
When we're awake and we're suggested just to sit and not do anything and just you know watch our breath. In out, in out, in out for how long you can do it.
During vipassana process you are supposed to do it for one week, many hours a day, eight hours, or I don't know. I never took this process. But those people who took this process, they tell very interesting things.
What is happening? So many things are coming during this process of complete silence when you are artificially limiting your interaction with the external world when your brain is not bombarded by all the stimulus
of the senses, and you are kind of limiting yourself in this controlled environment, then very interesting processes start taking place in your subconsciousness.
All your memories which seem to be already forgotten or erased from consciousness are coming up on the surface.
And people say that actually a lot of karma is being uh kind of uh eliminated or uh given up during this process because uh some negative emotions are surfacing, and you all of a sudden you start crying because of these negative emotions.
All these things are buried in your consciousness or in your subconsciousness. And you don't even know about the existence of this, but all these things nevertheless influence your conscious condition and influence it in a negative way.
So if you go through this process of meditation, all these negative things which are accumulated in your consciousness, they are more or less coming out, and you can give up a portion of it, a small portion of it.
Because actually it's like an iceberg. You know, the conscious might maybe hardly six, five percent of our consciousness.
The rest of it is stored in our subconsciousness, and in this subconsciousness, so much garbage is there.
And this subconscious storage of all the garbage, of all the memories, of all the negative emotions, of all the resentment which we have, of all the traumas which we underwent, it influences imperceptibly or sometimes very perceptibly and very tangibly our conscious mind.
So the process of meditation is to purify this consciousness and more than consciousness to purify subconsciousness.
The most important and most difficult job which meditation does is to purify subconsciousness from all this accumulated dirt which is there.
All these conceptions, all the misconceptions, all the guilt which is there, you know, I did this wrong and I did that wrong and I inflicted some pain to other people. It's all there. It's all within our subconsciousness.
And people pay a lot of money to go to uh psychologist or psychotherapist, and you know, but they can only free tiny little portion of all this dirt from your consciousness.
There are much more powerful processes, much more powerful methods which help us to alleviate this problem which is there in everyone's mind.
And as I said, this process is called meditation, but objectless meditation in Buddhist style is difficult.
First of all, it's difficult, second of all, it's not even that powerful because it's it's a powerful process, no doubt about it. But there are more powerful processes which are more natural.
It's unnatural to be concentrated on something which is which is which is nothing. To try to concentrate your consciousness upon void or emptiness or not to have any object of your meditation is artificial. It's not really natural for the mind.
Expansion of consciousness and happiness
For the mind, it's very natural to have a particular clear object of meditation, and this clear object of meditation, if we manage to concentrate our mind on this particular object, it will actually bring us a lot of happiness.
What will happen if the meditation takes place, real meditation, and real meditation taking place means that we are concentrated on the subject of meditation.
Then when the other worries and thoughts which are there in the mind, when we manage in this process to silence the mind. And when the mind is focused on one thing, then we feel a lot of relief in the process of it.
Of course, when we see it and everyone is chanting and we're still singing our good old song, which is there all the time, then it doesn't really work.
But when we manage through this process, through music, through this beautiful sound, the sound of Krishna's name, which is non-different from God Himself according to Vedic literature.
When we manage to do it and all other thoughts become silent, we immediately feel elation inside, we feel joyful just because of this meditation that it really is successful.
What I mean to say is that according to yoga scriptures, when we meditate on something, our consciousness expands.
Whereas when our consciousness is jumping from one object to another, when our consciousness is fragmented through this process of chaotic interaction with the material world and all kinds of worries, this worry and that worry, then our consciousness contracts.
And again, according to the yoga philosophy, the feeling of happiness, when we experience what we call happiness, it's a very difficult thing, you know. How do you define happiness?
You know, it's uh uh from one point of view, it's the most obvious thing. You know, why do you have to define happiness? I just feel happy. Why should you define it? It's so obvious and so clear.
But at the same time, if you try to define it, it's very difficult to define what you call happiness. What is this experience which is called happiness?
So yogis they say this experience which you call happiness is nothing but the expansion of your consciousness. The consciousness has this ability to expand and to contract.
And subjectively, when consciousness contracts, when it becomes very narrow, you feel very uncomfortable. You feel completely stressed out and worried. And that's exactly what's happening in normal life.
You know when we have so much so much worries and our consciousness fragmented when it's dissipated, then our heart and heart is the name for consciousness.
Our heart and yogis they say that the heart is like lotus flower.
And this lotus flower, as you know, there are these big lotuses, Indian lotuses, you know, sometimes they are, you know, they uh m they contract and sometimes they expand.
So when the consciousness expands, this is what we subjectively call uh happiness.
It's very interesting because Sanskrit and Hindi word for happiness is sukha and literally the word sukkha su means sundara sundaram means beautiful and ka means ether, space.
So the idea behind this word and behind this definition, yogic definition of happiness, is that when our heart expands and there is a lot of space within our heart, then we feel happiness, we feel this elation, we feel joy.
And the contrary process, when the contrary process, opposite process takes place within our heart, when the heart becomes more narrow and contracted, then it's called dukkha. The space within the heart.
And actually, again in Upanishads and in yoga, it is said that within our heart, there is a chidakash, there is a space which is spiritual by nature.
It is said in all the scriptures of the world, in many scriptures of the world, that God is within us and God's kingdom is within us. What it is said in the Bible.
So the same thing is said in Upanishads, where it is said that Chidakash, the little spiritual space is there within our heart. So when we talk about expansion of consciousness, we actually mean this.
Because consciousness is spiritual by nature. At that moment, this spiritual space which is there within the heart becomes broadened or expanded.
And this is what we like, and yogis say the condition for the easiest way to do it and the most practical way to do it, the most how to say this, the most natural way to do it is through meditation.
Sometimes people thirsty for this experience of happiness, they try to expand this space within the heart to experience happiness by artificial means. You know, some drugs may give you temporary experience of this.
But the result of this artificial experiment with our heart or with our consciousness. Like you know, some years back you know people, hippies were experimenting with LSD.
And they were always saying that LSD is expanding your consciousness. But the problem with this chemical ways of expanding consciousness is that it expands and then it contracts even more.
And you need new portion of it to expand it even a little bit and it contracts even more. Because it's artificial. It's not natural. It's something against the nature. It's nothing which can give you lasting result.
The only natural method of expanding your consciousness is through meditation. And this mantra meditation which we were doing in the beginning of our program is exactly about this.
And again, if we understand the mechanism and what we're trying to achieve, if we really concentrate our consciousness on this sound and understand that this sound, this beautiful sound of pure words of which indicate God, if this is the best object of meditation.
Because by meditating on this sound, we are coming in a natural way, coming closer to God, who is the source of all consciousness, who is the most expanded consciousness ever.
So by chanting his names, we are connecting with his consciousness. Our little tiny micro-consciousness,
individual consciousness, which is there, by the means of connecting with this superconsciousness will become expanded in a very natural way.
The process itself of concentration of meditation helps to expand, but the object of meditation, which is God, makes it even more powerful. So that's the mechanism behind this whole thing, and this is the secret.
And ultimately, this is the secret of how to become happy and how to free our consciousness again from all these unwanted thoughts and unwanted unwanted worries and so on and so forth.
Therefore, the definition, the Sanskrit definition of mantra is mananaḥ trāyate iti mantraḥ. What is mantra?
Mantra is something which again helps to protect you from too much thinking, from too much worry, from this useless things and brings you ultimately closer to God.
Vedas as the science of consciousness
So that's that's a few things about this. And in general, since unknown to me the topic of today's talk should be about the VEDAS.
And uh you know out of respect to the organizers of this program I should probably say something about this as well. So in general, if you are talking about Vedas, the word Veda means knowledge. And what is knowledge?
You know, definitely there are so many kinds of knowledge, especially in now in today's world, in the modern world, there's no you know, there are so many different kinds of knowledge, so many departments of knowledge.
But the knowledge which is meant by Vedas is a very special kind of knowledge. It's a knowledge, of course, it's a deeper knowledge, it's experiential
knowledge, of course, it's a deeper knowledge, it's experiential knowledge, and it's a knowledge about your, about your consciousness.
People nowadays, despite so much advancement in all kinds of technological fields, including the computers and so on and so forth, they still know very little about the nature of consciousness.
And usually they confound, they mistake consciousness with the mind, which is not the same.
Mind according to the Vedas is a material element, and they mistake again, they think that consciousness is epiphenomenon of matter.
That matter was evolving, evolving, evolving, and ultimately it somehow or other created consciousness.
But it's a very strange idea, and even many scientists don't really believe and they understand that it's it's not about this. People think that when we do computers and we'll you know the computer will evolve, evolve, evolve, and ultimately we will make some supercomputer and this supercomputer all of a sudden will become conscious.
No, computer will never become conscious. Because the nature of consciousness, again, according to the Vedas, is this ability to be a witness.
There is a mechanical process which is taking place in the brain of some sort of information.
You know, all this are there in the computer when uh there is uh the flow of information and different you know manipulations with the information. But that's not not consciousness itself.
Consciousness means I am who is the witness of all these processes. I am who is operating this computer. I am who is doing something with this mechanism.
You know, computer is a mechanism, brain is a mechanism, our body is the mechanism. I, the consciousness, is something completely different. I'm the witness. Sakshitva in Sanskrit is the characteristic of ātmā.
Ātmā or soul has this ability to witness or to see what is going on in the brain, to estimate what is going to the brain and to say I like it or I don't like it. Sakṣit is the experiencer.
You know, all these processes are there, but there should be somebody who is experiencing all these processes. And the Vedas, when we talk about Vedas, what is Vedas? It's the knowledge about consciousness.
It's the most ancient science of consciousness. How the consciousness works and how we should actually live in this material world so that our consciousness would be gradually, gradually evolving.
I started this from the very beginning. So, Vedas is the science of evolution of consciousness. How what should we do?
What kind of life we should live, what kind of interactions should be between us, and so many other different subtle things which are there in the Vedas, but ultimately for what? What is the reason?
What is the ultimate goal of all these pursuits, of all these endeavors? The ultimate goal is the evolution of our consciousness, the expansion of our consciousness.
And we see unfortunately that in the modern world, despite despite so much so-called progress, we see so much degradation of consciousness.
We can see clearly, you know, I a few days back I was in New York, you know, and I was in Brooklyn. And you know, you just walk on the street of New York and you see what kind of people are there, you know.
And just today I was walking in the park, and there was one person with his little you know, uh cart full with all kinds of things. And he was, you know, he was crazy.
He was yelling something and doing all kinds of things. You you can see people are not happy.
There is this very cruel process of degrading the consciousness, deranging the consciousness which is taking place due to abnormal situation in the modern world, which we have to deal with unfortunately on a daily basis.
So, the whole Vedic process: what are the Vedas? Vedas are the science of protecting our consciousness and how to how to really feel that we are evolving, not degrading ourselves.
Bhagavad-gita as essence of Vedic wisdom
You know that's the glorious sign. And you know, perhaps the most amazing book of all Vedic literature is Bhagavad-gītā. Why it is so amazing? Because it's so small.
But in this small book, a really small and short book, So much is there. You don't really need to read so many volumes of all this Vedic
literature because you will be easily bewildered by all these details. And you will be lost in the details. There are so many details and subtleties of how to do this.
But before understanding this and you know, diving into this ocean of knowledge which is there in the Vedas. And Vedas are the by far the most elaborate and voluminous scriptures in the world.
because everything is there in Bhagavad-gītā, because everything is there in Bhagavad-gītā in the seed form. And these seeds are enough. You can grow these seeds within your heart and everything is there.
Krishna is speaking about this. Whatever subject you can take is there in these 700 verses of Bhagavad-gītā. Tomorrow is Gita Jayanti, tomorrow is the glorious day when Gita appeared in this world.
So it's proper to glorify this amazing, the most amazing book of knowledge, which gives you knowledge about this world, how to function in this world, how to live a productive and harmonious life in this world.
But at the same time, how not to you know how to safeguard your consciousness from degradation, and how ultimately to develop much higher form of knowing, whole thing about of Krishna in this little book.
So you know, if we are talking again about the Vedas and about the importance of the Vedas in our life, again, this is the unique science which is not covered by the modern science. The science which is the most valuable for us.
And the science upon which every other science should be based. Because when we try to base our science and our scientific understandings on a different foundation.
When we try to develop it from the different point of view, the result of science will be destructive. We can see, and actually, this is the prediction of Bhagavad Gita.
In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that people who say that there is no foundation of this world, there is no God, these people ultimately will create means to destroy the world. And that's exactly what is taking place now.
People, because of this misconception, based on the materialistic premises, completely unfounded, completely unreasonable materialistic premises, they bring about ruination of the world. That's a logical result.
It's a very you know very understandable result if you don't accept spiritual premises.
If you don't really understand that I'm spiritual being, yes, I do have my body, I do need to take care of my body and of my mind, but ultimately I'm spiritual being and I have to really take care of my spiritual well being.
Not only always worried about my material well being or even emotional well-being or social well-being. The spiritual well-being is the most important factor of our life.
We have to really understand I'm the spirit soul ultimately. And I'm not dying. We all know that you know we will not die. How is it that I'll die?
Yes, yes, everyone says that I'll die, but you know perhaps I'm an exception because it cannot happen to me. It's not it's not feasible. I do exist. I am. I uh you know ah Ahamas, me, I am here.
So and Krishna says, yes, you're the soul, you know, you're not changing. Your body is changing, your mind is changing. Your body looks old, but the soul never gets old. We all know this.
We may live for a long time, but the soul is the same. Our consciousness is the same. Our consciousness is eternal and the science of consciousness is there in the Vedas. This is what Vedas means.
Vedas means the most profound knowledge of science of consciousness and how to evolve, how to develop our consciousness in a proper way. And the progressive life is the life of evolvement of consciousness.
And the life which actually leads nowhere, which leads to the lower states of existence is the life of degradation of consciousness. So that's little introduction about this whole thing.
Sensory pleasure and focused awareness
I guess it's enough to ask for questions. So you were saying about the uh happiness uh about the waters when it's uh about expands and uh like external um L S D of something.
But then what about like people feeling happiness uh from not drugs but um from s uh senses like um I don't know. See each other. Yeah, yeah.
Let's say you're very concerned, you're very worried, you are uh you know, your consciousness is somewhere else, and you're eating. You may be eating the most delicious food. Will you feel any happiness from this?
No, you will not feel. The reason why you're feeling happiness from the food is that you know yes, it tastes nice, but uh it also requires you to concentrate on this experience.
If you concentrate on this experience, then your consciousness will expand and you will feel happiness.
But if you eat and uh you watch on the computer, you know, some YouTube is going on and something else is going on. The experience which you get from eating the same tasty food will be much less.
Therefore, the Vedas they actually recommend to do any of our activities uh as a meditation. Eating as a meditation. Eating should be in a proper the the atmosphere should be proper.
It's not, you know, you go to McDonald's and you eat something, you know, by standing. No, uh it's a science. And basically it's the science to bring our consciousness or our mind here and now.
You know, because when again you are somewhere else and in some other space and in some other you know time while mechanically doing something, it will not bring you any consciousness.
So in any case, whatever you know, whatever pleasurable and sex is another thing.
You know, why sex is so engaging and so uh pleasurable? Because it's it's a very uh how to say this, i it's an act which a actually you know forces you to concentrate at the present moment due to the mechanics of this process.
But and you're more or less kind of you know I will not call it meditation but it's definitely something which is focusing you. So this law is is there.
Purification of mind, intelligence, and false ego
We can only feel happiness when we are when our consciousness is focused. When our consciousness is dissipated, we will not feel happiness. We will not really experience happiness. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna Maharaj.
My question is about the beautification that happens in the subconscious mind when we chant the mantra.
What happens to those that impressions that are stored in the subconscious? Are they going to decide and uh other healthy happens, or how is that? It's um, thank you for this question. Uh the
answer to this question uh should be long, but I'll try to make it a little short. First of all, we really have to understand what is the dirt on the surface of our consciousness.
The dirt on the surface of our consciousness is the impressions, subliminal impressions, or saṁskāras, the memory of all kinds of experience which we have.
And this dirt deprives our consciousness of its reflective ability. In a pure state, our consciousness reflects the reality very properly and adequately.
But in our present condition, when we have too many impressions stored within the mind, we get the distorted understanding of reality because it filters through all these impressions, all these experiences which we had.
Like, you know, it's a very common thing. You know, people may have some childhood trauma. And there's people with childhood trauma, or due to some other reason, maybe you know they were not taken care of properly.
Because of this, they become very sensitive. You don't mean something bad, you know, but they are easily offended,
they're easily hurt by something which is you know some trivial things, something which is really not important. But you can easily hurt them with this. Why?
Because they're not really properly reflecting what is going on, what is coming to them from the external world. Due to this accumulation of all these negative emotions, all this negativity which is there, stored.
Not necessarily negative emotions, but all this kind of stuff. So according to Sāṅkhya philosophy: Our mind or internal organ of the senses, antaḥkaraṇa, has four main functions.
And the most important one is citta or heart, this consciousness proper. It's sättvik by nature, it's the most subtle covering of the soul.
The consciousness is coming from the soul itself, but this material covering of citta is reflecting the light of consciousness coming
from the soul as much as when we see the moon and there is this little cloud over the moon. When the cloud is very thin, then we feel that the cloud itself is illuminating, is emanating light.
Actually, cloud doesn't have any mind, uh any light.
The light is coming from the moon, but because the cloud is next to the moon or close to the moon, not really close to the moon, but seems to be close to the moon, it seems to us that the light is coming from the cloud itself.
So in the same way, this material covering of citta is the first layer of consciousness over ātmā, the soul from which the consciousness emanates.
And on this sättvik covering, there is tāmasik covering of false ego, and false ego actually is sum total of all our impressions, of all the saṁskāras. I am this, I am that.
You know, and people are so much convinced that you know this false identity which we have, the sense of identity. I am separate from the rest of the world.
My own interest is the most important thing, you know, and so on and so forth. This is all a tāmasik element which is the result of many lifetimes spent in this material world.
And in this ahaṅkāra, the most basic instincts of survival are stored. I'm this, I have to protect myself. Ahaṅkāra is a very uh the false ego is a very aggressive part of our consciousness.
You know when when we have very strong and not very healthy ahaṅkāra. People with this kind of false ego they're very aggressive, you know.
They they think that the best way to defend themselves is to offend somebody and they're doing this. So this is the first dirt. The cheetah is the consciousness which we have to purify.
The dirt on this consciousness is this false identity. I am this, I am that. All kinds of conception which we have about ourselves, about our needs, about the you know, all kinds of stuff stored in this thing.
And the particular form of our false ego is actually the result of you know previous karma. In our previous karma we cultivated certain certain things you know we wanted to play in our previous life.
And then on the top of it there is mind, manas, which is an emotional mind, manas the main function of manas is to say, I like this, I don't like that.
And there is Buddhi, conscious intelligence, which recognizes things and which helps us to live in this material world. So the purification which takes place within our consciousness actually starts with the mind.
Mind intelligence Buddhi manas mind intelligence buddhi and false ego ahaṅkāra are these three things which actually this is the dirt in our consciousness.
But the first purification takes place with the mind when we start meditating, then the changes take place in the mind, the mind the liking and disliking of the minds become more in accordance to the reality.
Now our liking and disliking our raga and ves attachment and dislikes which we have, hatred which we have may not be natural. We may have artificial liking. We may like something which is actually harmful for us.
And that's very common thing. People are attached to something which is actually not good, not beneficial for them. And on the contrary, they may dislike something which is beneficial to them.
Like people may be attached to meat eating.
Meat eating is not a very healthy thing, but they they have the whole theory, you know, not just meat, the red meat, the meat with blood, you know. But the purification, when the purification takes place then the liking and
disliking of the minds become more harmonious with the reality something which is beneficial to you you start liking, even though before you might not have liked it, but your taste preferences changes due to this purification process.
And on the contrary, you start disliking something which is harmful to you. You know, naturally. This is what purification means.
When the mind is functioning not properly, then your uh you know the system which is there is is not working properly. It's it's it's really harmful to you.
And then your buddhi your intelligence will become more pure when the purification takes place of this subtle things. It basically means that your thinking process becomes more pure.
Now oftentimes you know we're cheating ourselves. There are self uh how you say this, self um self-deception. Yeah, self-deception mechanisms, all kinds of self-deceptions.
We are uh and uh that's a result of malfunctioning buddhi which is not functioning properly. So the purification of it it's basically what will happen.
And buddhi is a very important mechanism. Because by buddhi, by your intelligence, you understand the chain and effect relationship.
And usually when when we have improperly functioning Buddhi, our understanding of cause and effect is very narrow.
You know, we can see it all the time, you know, people with this narrow understanding of cause and effect, they try to you know to solve the problem with some effect by eliminating the immediate cause without understanding the deeper cause.
So when your buddhi becomes purified, then you see the broader picture. You really understand the cause and effect relationship and you understand that God is behind this.
There is nobody to be blamed with all the sufferings which you undergo. The only problem is you, because it's the result of your karma. So that's how the purification of buddhi, of intelligence takes place.
You see the broader picture. You see God behind everything. You see that it's not just coincidence, it's not something you know, some some bad intention of somebody, but there is a deeper cause. You you you can see this.
And then when your ahaṅkāra ultimately, when your false ego becomes purified, you become less possessive because ahaṅkāra false ego means me and mine.
You know, and uh you try to amplify your material possessions and everything. But you understand that nothing belongs to me really. You're not too proud of all your achievements.
You understand that it's all results of somebody else's involvement and this thing, and you become really humble. That's the sign of purification of your ahaṅkāra.
And when all this takes place, you become more humble, more tolerant, you become a nicer human being, really, because when people have, you know, too big ego, it's not nice, you know, it's not good.
So and then by this process your consciousness becomes more peaceful. You become much more you know understanding others more empathy you can manifest and uh
you, you become much more, uh, much more, uh, pure in in your consciousness.
So that's, that's how it takes place, but, um, just a follow-up, Mahārāja. Uh, on the citta, you know, in your previous lectures you talked about it being unconscious. Uh, so when you look, when you say citta, it is the database, the repository of information as you mentioned, which is too, and which is why you identify what, what is that and things of that nature.
So I wasn't sure what that term unconscious meant. And with regards to manas, saṅkalpa and vikalpa are also functions of manas, isn't it? Yeah. Okay, apart from the manas being the storehouse of emotions.
Yeah, but saṅkalpa and vikalpa is actually the, uh, this is two uh extremes of our emotions. Something I like, something I hate. You know, all the other emotions, they are in between these two poles. So.
Love and hatred is, is the most intense emotions. Everything else is between this. So that there is no contradiction in this.
Consciousness during deep sleep
So, yeah, so what citta, citta, vitta. Yeah, uh unconsciousness, uh you can never become unconscious because consciousness is the attribute of the soul. You know, you're always conscious.
You know, when what we call, uh, you know, loss of consciousness and we experience it every night during the deep sleep when we are not really conscious.
The consciousness is there, but it's disconnected from this body and from the senses and from the mind. When we are in the dreaming state, then we're disconnected
with the body and the senses, but we're still connected, our consciousness, sattva, is connected with the mind. And witnessing what is going on in the mind.
But during this deep sleep, this connection is lost, is blocked between the soul and citta and the mind. And that's what we call unconsciousness, but we're still conscious.
And the proof of it, according to Upaniṣads, after deep sleep, you wake up when sattva-guṇa becomes predominant in your consciousness, you wake up and you say, Oh, I slept so nicely. Who is this you who slept so nicely?
You still experience something. It means that you were still there. It's just and you were still witnessing this complete, you know, stillness of your consciousness, complete rest in which your mind is.
So you're still there, you're still conscious, but because we are used to you know to express our consciousness through the means or media of our body and mind when we are deprived of this facility to express our consciousness through this, we call it unconsciousness or loss of consciousness.
But ultimately we are conscious and there is realms of existence which are not dependent on these mechanisms of body and the mind.
Maharaj, uh, I am always confused between manas and buddhi, the the duties of those like saṅkalpa and vikalpa, is it manas or is it buddhi? No, saṅkalpa-vikalpa, this is manas. This is manas.
In Prabhupada's books somewhere it is referred as uh thinking, feeling, and willing. Uh what what whose responsibility is there? Uh it's also mind. It's also mind.
Oh you thinking, feeling, and willing is the uh to classify all these psychological categories is very difficult because you don't really see them.
You know when we're classifying some you know flowers or plants or whatever, we can see them, it's it's easy.
We cannot really absorb, we can only uh you know classify it according to the manifestation of this, according to the expression of this.
Therefore it's sometimes a little confusing because uh you know mm different classifications may be there. But the normal function of the mind is sankkalpa and vikalpa. Accepting and rejecting, or raga and Vesa, as Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita, it's basically the same thing. Something I like, something I don't like. I hate this. So mind is working.
But there is another function of the mind, which is kama. This is the third function of the mind, the desires which are there.
Where the function of the buddhi is that it's connected with the memory, with subconsciousness, and the buddhi is the function which recognizes things in the material world.
When Kapiladeva explains the functions of the buddhi and evolution of buddhi in different species of life, he explains that this buddhi is evolving gradually;
some lower beings only have ears or can hear, they don't have anything else, others can only taste. So basically, buddhi means recognition of the thing in this world. And therefore, there are different kinds of buddhi.
For example, musicians, you know, we are amazed at their ability to distinguish subtle sounds. It's the development of buddhi, development of this ability of distinguishing something.
So the main function of buddhi is this viveka-shakti. Memory, smriti-shakti, and viveka-shakti. Viveka-shakti means recognition.
This is this is good, this is bad, this is spiritual, this is matter, this is harmonium, this is something else. That's the function of buddhi.
And when we speak about thinking, feeling, and willing, it's the function of our conditioned consciousness altogether. When we're speaking about specific functions of this conditioned consciousness,
then we mentioned about manas as being emotional mind, the mind which is emotionally choosing something, something good which he likes and rejecting something which he doesn't like,
and buddhi, which is basically operating with this material world. And also like the consciousness, when we say consciousness, it ideally
is a spiritual consciousness, right? But that is contaminated, uh, yeah it depends in which context for example the same example with food or any sense gratification or sense enjoyment.
So there is a difference between food and prasāda. So food is like I eat and the other is I honor. So it's like if I eat then there is a start time and an end time, right? Like the enjoyment is fixed.
But is it like the spiritual consciousness is like eternal?
Yeah, consciousness by nature is spiritual, but when we identify through the means of false ego with matter, the the consciousness becomes polluted and it becomes connected with the matter.
And this polluted consciousness is conditioned consciousness. But ultimately, consciousness is consciousness.
It's actually never polluted, it's—it's—it's not even in contact with with the matter, uh, but due to this, uh, very mysterious note of false ego, uh, we—we start projecting our consciousness into the matter.
So consciousness is always spiritual, but when we project our consciousness upon the matter and, uh, start identifying with the matter then it's called conditioned consciousness or polluted consciousness.
I leave this body and I have some Krishna consciousness developed, and I get another body, perhaps a human body. So in that case, how do I remember back the consciousness? Is it like it carries forward, right?
Like Yeah, everything is stored. You can remember all your lives. It is said in Yoga Sutra of Patanjali Muni that if
you perfect just one niyama, which is there, aparigraha. Aparigraha means you're not encroaching on other property. You are not really—aparigraha means you are not stealing anything, and it's a very strict kind of thing.
You are not even thinking about stealing anything. You're not even on a mental plane trying to encroach on other properties. So Patañjali Muni says when you perfect this one rule, aparigraha, then you can remember hundreds of your previous lives.
This—it's one of the mystic powers which are developed during strict following of yoga, remembrance of the previous lives.
This memory is there, but because we are too much engaged with this material body given to us for particular mission or particular purpose, we don't really remember the previous body.
And it's good, because otherwise we would be very confused, because, you know, you have a lot of problems with this identity, you know.
And if you at the same time remember, you know, all the things which y— you were before, you know, it would be very difficult to function in this world. So
Mechanism of expanding and contracting consciousness
when you said, uh, the heart expands, uh, when the consciousness is, uh, uh, good, uh, so what—what—what do you fill that heart with? Is it full of bliss then? I mean the expanded consciousness is it full of bliss?
Is is that why it's pleasant? And when it contracts, what does it have in that I mean how to how to understand it? How to understand this? See? Let's say we take some water and we put this water in a glass.
And we try to disturb this water. It's very easily being disturbed because it's such a small you know body of water.
If we take bigger body of water, then uh you know we try to disturb and the waves, uh the density of the waves within this small glass will be a lot because it's so small and it goes back and forth, back and forth, you know, the wave reaches the end and comes back and it becomes really chaotic.
So now if you take the same water but the body of water is wider and you try to disturb it, then the waves on the surface of this wider body of water are much more calm and harmonious.
So, in the same way, when your consciousness is contracted, any little thing can disturb it and you become agitated due to this because it's contracted.
When it's expanded, then you know the same thing happened to you, but you kind of, you know, you don't care so much. You're not so disturbed by this. Just because it's more expanded, the form of it is more expanded.
So this is another proof of this processes of expansion and contraction.
And when people are becoming depressed, when they are really depressed, one of the symptoms of this depression is that they can only think about themselves.
About this, you know, and this is a very miserable condition of our mind when uh it's totally uh you know kind of concentrated upon ourselves and uh cannot really uh get out uh of this confinement of this very narrow condition which is in.
Whereas when we are in much more resourceful condition, we think about others, we manifest empathy, we help other people, and we feel very good. Anytime we help somebody else, we feel we feel blissful. Why?
Because again, our consciousness is expanding in this process. So any religion, when the religion, you know, and in any religion there are some rules, some do's and don'ts.
Ultimately these rules which are there in any religion is rules which help you know what you should do to expand your consciousness and what you should not do to make your consciousness more contracted. That's the science behind all these rules behind all these commandments which are there.
You kill somebody, or you create harm on you, or you seduce somebody, immediately your consciousness contracts, and you feel very unhappy and very, you know, agitated and disturbed.
Connection between emotions, ego, and reason
You know, but you do something good, immediately your consciousness expands, and you feel good about it. Yes. Um, what's the purpose of emotions and how are they tied to our thoughts and what comes first.
Is it the emotion and then the thought is like rationalizing or
making sense of the emotion, or is it the thought first and then the E motion? The word emotion is coming from Latin word emoveri, which means emotion is a certain powerful energy which moves us.
So emotions is the energy which actually pushes us in a certain direction and defines the course of our life. We are basically emotional beings.
We are proud, sometimes human beings are proud, that they're rational, but actually they're not rational. They are not Homo sapiens, they are Homo emoticus in reality; we are driven by emotions primarily, and you know, you are very aptly asking these questions: what comes first.
We think that first comes rational understanding, but actually first come emotions, and then we rationalize our emotion and we justify our emotions, and we explain that our emotions are right and everyone else is wrong. So this is how it works.
We feel certain emotions, and then we turn on our rational capacity, and the only purpose of rational capacity is actually to justify our emotions.
So how it works, as I said, according to philosophy of Sāmkhya, Sāmkhya psychology, psychology of the Vedas, let's put it in a more general way.
There is this consciousness which is peaceful by nature, citta, and then this ego is there. And ego is directly connected with this emotional mind. And ego is a very sensitive thing.
Ultimately, it's ego which defines what is good, what is bad for me, but then turns the mind, the emotional mind, and turns the emotion of the mind into action. You know, if we feel that I'm safe and the condition is good for me, it's somehow rather beneficial for me, Then the ego is peaceful.
But when the ego feels that there is some danger, then it really turns on these emotions, very powerful energy.
And it turns on this fight or flight response, which is the, you know, you either run away or you are starting fighting. So that's what emotions are. Ultimately, it's all coming from my identity, sense of identity.
And whatever I consider beneficial for me with this particular identity. And ego is very sensitive. It's the most sensitive part of our consciousness, I am.
And if we feel that somebody is attacking us, our identity by different means, then the energy of emotions is being turned on, and we use this energy of emotions to protect ourselves.
Or to protect ourselves by running away or by fighting with this or this kind of thing. So answering your questions, what for are emotions? Emotions are the protective mechanisms of our ego.
This is how our ego or identity, material identity, is protecting itself from the external world through these emotions.
Finding inner freedom amidst external control
Yes. I was wondering if you can uh provide guidance for interpretation of the current times that we're living in.
As you said, um a lot has changed over the last few years and well depending on what news you listen to and other things, we're slowly losing our freedoms, the world is already lost by corporations, so what should we do?
See ultimately uh other people can uh deprive us of our God-given freedom only when we agree to this in a sense that well you know what what is going on in the world is that yes, people are becoming more manipulated and more controlled by different means but ultimately we do have we do have means to protect ourselves.
It's just we have to really understand who I am and how I should live and how I should live so that my God-given freedom is not being taken away from me.
So if we want to protect ourselves, of course there are some drastic means, but usually drastic means don't work in these things.
We you know people can be free even in the most difficult situation when they really felt this source of freedom which is our consciousness of the soul.
There was this famous Austrian psychologist, Viktor Frankl, who was in Nazi's labor camp, in Nazi camp.
And he said that I found this ultimate freedom in myself, within myself, by sitting completely naked in a prison cell. When the danger of imminent death would be coming to him.
And he ultimately, in this horrible condition, he all of a sudden he had this enlightenment and he felt that I still can be happy even in this condition.
I, the soul, consciousness, still don't have to depend on this on this situation and be humiliated by this situation. And that's how he survived because he found that I am free.
So if we want to find a remedy against this condition, the most proper remedy is to you know understand who we are really in a real sense and you know to choose to choose to be a free really free living entity.
Where we are conditioned by all this, when we are dependent on all this external environment and everything else, then there is no there is no chance of freedom, you know, in any case. We are controlled.
We are controlled by all this consumer consumerism, by all this you know, advertisement and everything else. They are manipulating our consciousness.
And we easily being manipulated because we actually lost the most precious thing, who I am, this dignity of being the soul which is part of God and not part of this horrible world.
Yes, uh I mean I I can I can say more about this but I don't think there's a need. Actually I have to I have to finish uh now because I I really have to s something else starts in my life. So thank you.