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[Music]

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Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump.

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My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually awakening people.

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We've done nearly 700 of them now. If this is new to you and you'd like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com, B-A-T-G-A-P, and look under the past interviews menu, where you'll see all the previous ones arranged in several different ways.

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ways. You'll also see a menu about the BatGap bot or chat bot. We have an AI chat bot now

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and its knowledge base has tens of thousands of documents related to interviews that I've

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done and you can ask it all kinds of questions and you'll get all kinds of interesting responses

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so try that out. Also, if anyone would like to help in various ways, we are still in the

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process of proofreading the transcripts of all the BatGap interviews so we can always

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use help with that, and there are some other things that you could help with. And also,

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finally, this program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers,

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so if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there are PayPal buttons on

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the website and there's a page which explains alternatives to PayPal.

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My guest today is Swami Mettananda. I'm going to read his official bio here because it packs

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in a lot of details of what he has accomplished so far in his young life. He seemed pretty

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Swami Mettananda is a monk of the Ramakrishna order and an academic philosopher, currently

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serving as Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Vedanta Society of Southern California

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in Hollywood.

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He is also the Hindu Chaplain at both UCLA and the University of Southern California.

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He is Section Editor for the International Journal of Hindu Studies, overseeing submissions

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in Hindu and cross-cultural philosophy of religion.

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From 2010 to 2021, he was Associate Professor and Head of the Program in Philosophy at the

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Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Educational and Research Institute in Belarmat, West Bengal.

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He received his PhD in 2009 from the University of California at Berkeley, where he specialized

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in German aesthetics.

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He was also a Fulbright Scholar at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and a visiting student

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at Oxford University.

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His current research focuses on global philosophy of religion, the epistemology of mystical

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experience, cosmos psychism, Indian scriptural hermeneutics, and Vedantic philosophical traditions,

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especially the philosophies of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, and Sri Aurobindo.

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He's the author of three books, Swami Vivekananda's Vedantic Cosmopolitanism, Infinite Paths to

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Infinite Reality, Sri Ramakrishna and the Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion, and

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third, The Dialectics of Aesthetic Agency, Re-evaluating German Aesthetics from Kant

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to Art Adorno. He is the editor of the Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedanta and co-editor

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of Panentheism in Indian and Western Thought, Cosmopolitan Interventions. He is also the

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editor of two special issues of the International Journal of Hindu Studies, one on Swami Vivekananda

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as a cosmopolitan thinker and one on Vedantic theodicy.

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How do you pronounce it?

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- Theodicy.

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- Theodicy, okay.

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He has published over 30 articles in leading academic journals.

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He's currently working on two book projects, Karma and Rebirth in Hinduism, and An All-Embracing

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Oneness, Sri Aurobindo's Integral Advaita and the Legacy of Sri Ramakrishna.

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And I would like to try to cover all that stuff with him.

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We'll see how we do because it all fascinates me.

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I've listened to quite a few hours of his talks, mostly while shoveling snow or skiing in it

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for the last couple of weeks, and I felt like I've learned a lot, actually.

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Listening to his talks has really broadened my perspective on certain things, which we'll

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be discussing, and I hope to find the time to read three of his books, which he sent

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me, which I've already named the titles of, in the coming year when I'm not busy preparing

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for other interviews, because I feel like I'll learn a lot more if I read them.

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Okay, that's your formal stuff. Now, one thing that puzzled me when I first started listening

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to your talks was why you didn't seem to have any kind of an Indian accent, and then I discovered

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you were born in Boston, and you know, you don't even have a Boston accent.

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Maybe you've been around too much, and that's worn off. But in any case, let's get into just

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a little personal bio for a few minutes, as contrasted with the academic bio that I just read.

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So, born in Boston, how old are you now?

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I am 43.

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43. I remember a story you said your parents used to drag you to the temple on

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worship days or something. You'd be out in the yard playing football with your friends

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and you were an agnostic. How did you go from that to the life of a swami that you now live?

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That's a great question. Born and raised in Boston as a Bengali American. So I spoke Bengali at home

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and my parents would take me to Bengali school on Sundays. So I learned how to read and write

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Bengali from age 6 to about 12, which I'm very grateful for now. At the time I found it boring

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because a lot of the texts in our spiritual tradition are in Bengali, actually, in the

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original. And I was agnostic for much of my early adult life. Part of the reason was because I was

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raised Hindu in this generically Hindu sense, or you might call it culturally Hindu sense,

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which meant a couple times a year going to pujas, big grand kind of worships of different

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forms of God. So there's a Durga Puja, that's a form of Divine Mother, Saraswati Puja, and others.

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And nobody explained to me what the deeper spiritual significance of what these festivals

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were about. What does it mean when I'm bound down to an idol? How is that related to the

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one infinite God? How do these different deities relate to each other? Is Hinduism polytheistic?

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Is it monotheistic? Is it monistic? Is it some combination? Nobody was there to answer these

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questions. I wasn't equipped to answer these questions for myself. So I found it all very

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uninspiring to be honest. And as a result, yeah, I would play football outside with my friends and

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just go in for the kichuri. Kichuri is a famous food made on, I'm sure you know, it's good.

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Rice and dal.

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Yeah, yeah, it's great. So I'd go in for that and then come back out and just talk to friends. So

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yeah, that was my childhood. And then in college, I studied philosophy pretty deeply, Western

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philosophy. And at the same time, I had a deep interest in religion. And so I was having lots

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of debates with friends who are all along the spectrum. I mean, some are religious, some are

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agnostic, some are atheists about religion. And I just felt like if religion is true, then it's

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got to be extremely important. But then there's this question of which religion is true. So I

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started reading around in the world's religious scriptures. This is in my first and second year

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undergraduate. And third year, I was at Oxford. And I went even more deeply into these kinds of

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Studies and thinking on my own really it was kind of extracurricular

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And so I was reading buddhist scriptures the bible the gita bhagavad gita was the first hindu scripture

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I read that really inspired me and even as an agnostic it really resonated with me

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I just kind of ignored the bhakti side of the gita, which is very prominent now

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I see i'm teaching the gita now and I see that that's kind of the keynote but at the time I just kind of ignored

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devotion

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God, but what I loved is the idea of

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Attaining a kind of transcendental peace

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Shanti, through renunciation of worldly attachments and worldly pleasures.

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This Vedantic idea that we are eternal souls, an eternal spiritual self separate from the

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body-mind complex, and that all suffering stems from this misidentification with the

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body-mind complex. So those ideas resonated with me even as an agnostic, and that was my

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kind of entry point into spirituality, we can say. And it was only later when I joined the PhD

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program at Berkeley that I started studying the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami

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Vivekananda. And when I did, my ideas about spiritual life became a lot clearer. But I have to say that

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even before I knew anything about either of those spiritual personages, I had already decided I'm

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going to finish my PhD, move to India and be a sannyasi. Which is interesting. I mean, it had to

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come from previous life samskaras or something, you know, because I don't know where it would come

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from. There were no spiritual gurus to guide me or any, I never met really any monks in my life.

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but I just knew that I had to be a monk in India specifically. And toward the end of my PhD,

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I was getting so restless about leaving the country. I was itching to get rid of my western

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clothes and just give them to Goodwill and get the heck out of here. And ironically, by divine

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dispensation, I'm back here where I grew up, but with a different attitude, I'd say. So, yeah,

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hopefully more mature. Yeah. Okay. I've been having conversations with an old dear friend

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named Curtis. And he's an atheist, although he has years of meditation under his belt,

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and used to be a gung-ho believer, but, you know, various things caused him to shift to

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his current perspective. And I just love our conversations, and he does too, because we

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love and respect each other, have completely opposite points of view, and we go at it trying

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to find common ground. And Curtis and I have worked out a question, which I'm going to

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start with here. This is Curtis speaking.

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It seems improbable to me that anyone could achieve a state of mind that reveals the fundamental

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nature of reality.

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How can people making this claim demonstrate to others that their personal insight is more

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than just that, a personal insight?

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It may be unreasonable to demand scientific proof, but it is entirely reasonable to expect

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some evidence that this internal state aligns with ontological truth more credibly than

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the claims of people who feel that their personal beliefs do so. What do you say to that?

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David No, that's a great question. I mean, this is a huge question in epistemology,

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in philosophy of religion. And it's a question of do putatively mystical experiences have epistemic

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value? That's the technical question. I mean, exactly what he's saying, except put in technical

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terms. The idea is a mystic, an alleged mystic claims to have an experience of ultimate reality,

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call it the self, call it nirvana, call it god. And the question is, well, why should we even accept

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that? It could just be a kind of subjective experience, it could be a hallucination.

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I want proof. So I've done a lot of work on this. I'll just mention a couple of the references,

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but chapters five and six of my latest book, Swami Viknanda's Vedanta Cosmopolitanism,

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is about this very issue and about how Swami Vikranda answers this question. And chapter

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six of my book on Ramakrishna, Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality, is about the same issue.

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So I'll just talk about a couple things that I discussed there in much more detail and rigor

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in those books. So, the first issue is, let me turn the tables on Curtis. Let me turn the tables on

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Curtis for a second here. Prove to me that your experience of the laptop or the iPad or the phone

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on which you're watching this podcast is not just your own personal experience. Prove to me that it

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makes some connection with an ontological reality. Okay, I'll be Curtis for a second. The fact is that

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10 people could be in my room here and they could all see my laptop if I had one or my phone or my

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clock or something. So there's some kind of subjective agreement among the people. We all

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see the moon. The problem with that is all those people occur in your perceptual field.

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So that's also part of the subjective perception. Imagine you're in a dream. And I'm wondering

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whether this tree I'm seeing is a real tree or a tree in a dream. And then I asked these

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eight dream figures around me, am I dreaming? Or is this really a tree in front of me? They go,

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yeah, it's a tree. It's a real tree. And then lo and behold, five hours later, I wake up and

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and I realized all those people who are cross-checking my experience of the tree were part of the dream.

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Okay. Do you think that argument really applies?

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Because dreams are so subjective and hallucinatory and everybody dreams differently.

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The moral of the story is not that. It's not that everything is a dream.

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The moral of the story is that Curtis, you, and almost everybody else in the world who's sane,

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accepts that when we perceive something, like a laptop in front of me, or a microphone, or a tree,

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that that thing actually exists and that I'm actually making contact with an objective reality, right?

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David Right.

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David Even though we can't prove it to anybody,

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there's no non-circular way of proving that. So, it makes no sense to hold mystics to a higher

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standard than we hold ourselves with respect to sense perceptions. That's the lesson.

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David One way I think of it is that if everybody

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experienced what mystics experience, then we would take for granted those realities,

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just as we now take for granted the realities of cars and trees. But the fact is that those

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experiences are so comparatively rare that it's not part of the popular understanding.

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And so it's easier to dismiss them as aberrations or as lunatics or as hallucinators or whatever.

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But what I would say sometimes to people, and see if you agree with this argument, let's

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say do the experiment. You don't believe that, you know, God exists? Okay, do X, Y, and Z

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for 15, 20 years or whatever, and you may arrive at that experience. So that there's something

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scientific about that. And you might compare it to like the Higgs boson. They say they've

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discovered the Higgs boson. I kind of believe them because they seem like they know what

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they're talking about, but I couldn't confirm that for myself unless I went through decades

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of study and special expertise and had particular intellectual abilities to confirm it for myself.

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But you know, that's the way science works. There is a kind of a collective agreement based upon

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what the experts say, and it's always open to challenge.

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Absolutely, and I think that's another part of the answer, which is what you just said,

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which is that go ahead and follow these methods, which are pretty tough.

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It's not as easy as mixing this chemical with this chemical, but if you do it, if you put

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in the time and the effort to establish the ethical and spiritual kind of prerequisites

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needed for that spiritual experience, then you should have the same experience that I'm

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having.

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So that is a kind of cross check, but it's more complicated and elaborate, maybe more

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challenging than like typical cross checks.

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Another factor is, observe the life of the person who claims to have undergone that spiritual

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experience or that alleged spiritual experience.

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Does that experience seem to have transformed him or her?

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I think that's a very important criterion.

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As Swami Vivekananda used to say, a person going into a very high state of samadhi, spiritual

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experience, will come back a saint, even if he goes into it as an ordinary person.

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So that's another criterion.

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You can just look and see whether that person is really saintly.

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If he or she is not, then you have some reason to believe that maybe it was not a genuine

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But again, that's not hard and fast because some saints actually hide themselves and behave

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like ordinary people so as not to attract attention.

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There's also that factor.

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David: That's an interesting point because these days there have been so many examples

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of famous gurus and other spiritual teachers behaving reprehensibly, usually secretly so

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until eventually it's discovered.

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There's one guy, Chogom Chomper Rinpoche, who died of alcoholism in his 40s and others

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have been womanizers and this and that. And I've actually had arguments with people, they keep

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coming up, where they say, "That has nothing to do with awakening. You can be an awakened drunkard

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or an awakened womanizer or whatever." And to me, when somebody says, "I had an awakening,"

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or "I'm awakened," or something, I think, "What actually are you talking about?" You know,

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we really need to define that term. David Absolutely. I can say a couple

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things. I mean, I'm going to give a lecture on Sunday called "Self-Deception in Spiritual Life,"

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And this is a cardinal example. I hope you put it online. I'd like to listen to it. Yeah, it'll go on youtube

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Yeah, yes and stay tuned for that, but i'll give you an incident from the life of shram krishna

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Shram krishna was an indian mystic in the 19th century

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And a monk a sadhu from a different state of india came to that area and shram krishna heard about him

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But he also heard that this monk had fallen and that he is actually having an illicit

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Relationship with a woman even though he's supposed to have taken a vow of celibacy

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So he approaches that monk and he says, "Hey, what's this I hear about what's going on?"

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And he says, "Oh yes, yes, let me explain." He was a follower of Shankara. Okay, so he says,

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"You see, everything is maya. So how can just my affair with that woman alone be real? That's also

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part of maya." And then Sri Ramakrishna in response said something in very strong language which has

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been kind of like watered down in translations, but the original Bengali really meant, "I piss on

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on your Vedanta. So I think that's the perspective that I think you and I share, which is that,

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you know, what's the good of a so-called awakening if you're leading a worse life than ordinary

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people? What does awakening mean? I think that's part of the question. What does it mean? In

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Vedanta, it means awakening your true nature, which is completely free from any selfish

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qualities and egoistic qualities. So if you're still indulging in those things, then it means

00:16:45.220 --> 00:16:46.980
that you haven't really had the awakening.

00:16:46.980 --> 00:16:49.620
I'm glad you brought that story up. I actually have it in my notes. I was going to bring

00:16:49.620 --> 00:16:55.500
it up. I heard you tell it a couple of times because I've actually had people argue that

00:16:55.500 --> 00:16:59.780
very thing with me. "Oh, I'm not doing it, God is doing it. God is sleeping with all these

00:16:59.780 --> 00:17:05.140
women in my sangha," or "It's just bodies having physical sensations. I am not the doer,

00:17:05.140 --> 00:17:11.000
yada yada." It kind of gets my goat because I do feel that spirituality is so precious

00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:16.540
and so important for individuals and the world, and this kind of stuff disillusions people

00:17:16.540 --> 00:17:18.540
and it gives the whole thing a bad name.

00:17:18.540 --> 00:17:21.860
These are just bullshit alibis.

00:17:21.860 --> 00:17:24.220
If that's enlightenment, you can have it.

00:17:24.220 --> 00:17:25.020
I don't want it.

00:17:25.020 --> 00:17:28.100
Let me open this very big can of worms because I think it's

00:17:28.100 --> 00:17:29.780
important. I don't think it's discussed enough.

00:17:29.780 --> 00:17:32.780
This is a big issue in what's called Neo Advaita.

00:17:32.780 --> 00:17:34.260
Okay, here's the issue.

00:17:34.260 --> 00:17:35.700
Let's go back to Shankara.

00:17:35.700 --> 00:17:36.980
Shankaracharya.

00:17:36.980 --> 00:17:40.300
He is one of the great, he's not the founding father of classical

00:17:40.300 --> 00:17:42.300
Advaita Vedanta, but he's one of the earliest figures.

00:17:42.300 --> 00:17:44.580
I mean, before him was Gaudapada, there were probably others.

00:17:44.940 --> 00:17:50.140
But in any case, we have his commentaries on the scriptures, the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutra.

00:17:50.140 --> 00:17:57.140
In his commentary on the very first sutra of the Brahma Sutra, 1.1.1 Athato Brahma Jijnasa,

00:17:57.140 --> 00:18:00.940
and now we begin our inquiry into Brahma.

00:18:00.940 --> 00:18:06.940
He has a long commentary saying, "Who is eligible to study Advaita Vedanta?"

00:18:06.940 --> 00:18:08.440
Very important question.

00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:15.440
And his answer is, only those who are perfectly equipped with the sadhana chatushtaya, the fourfold sadhana.

00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:22.440
Viveka, perfect discrimination between what's real and what's unreal, what's self and what's not self.

00:18:22.440 --> 00:18:28.440
Vairagya, intense dispassion, intense detachment toward everything in this world, all worldly attachments and pleasures.

00:18:28.440 --> 00:18:36.440
Third, Shat Sampad, the six treasures in spiritual life. Perfect self-control, perfect sense control, perfect control over the mind, so on and so on.

00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:41.240
there are many other qualities and then finally intense mumukshutva which means an intense longing

00:18:41.240 --> 00:18:46.920
for liberation. He says so long as you have not attained perfection in this fourfold sadhana,

00:18:46.920 --> 00:18:52.440
this fourfold spiritual practice, you are not eligible to practice advaita vedanta, you are not

00:18:52.440 --> 00:18:58.200
qualified to practice it and what's happened is that more recently Vivekananda and others have

00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:02.840
kind of opened the floodgates to many people. I mean Vivekananda for instance taught advaita to

00:19:02.840 --> 00:19:06.280
everybody. But there's an open question about exactly what's the nature of his

00:19:06.280 --> 00:19:09.920
Advaita philosophy. And that's complicated and so I wrote an entire

00:19:09.920 --> 00:19:13.520
book kind of trying to understand what exactly Vivekananda's Advaita philosophy

00:19:13.520 --> 00:19:18.640
was. But Neo-Advaita is even more recent than that. They take their inspiration

00:19:18.640 --> 00:19:22.520
from certain great Advaitic saints like Ramana Maharshi. I'm not saying anything

00:19:22.520 --> 00:19:25.800
about Ramana Maharshi himself. He was a great saint, there's no doubt. The danger

00:19:25.800 --> 00:19:32.400
is when people who don't have his level of ethical and spiritual fitness try to

00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:35.400
do what he did and then they end up falling flat on their face or deceiving

00:19:35.400 --> 00:19:38.920
themselves and others. That's the danger. So I'll give you another anecdote here

00:19:38.920 --> 00:19:44.400
from my own life. 2010, just months before I joined the Ramakrishna order in India, I

00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:48.900
was doing a six-month pilgrimage and during that pilgrimage I visited a hill

00:19:48.900 --> 00:19:52.800
station in South India in Tamil Nadu called Kodaikanal and I walked into a

00:19:52.800 --> 00:19:56.640
bakery and I was wearing white clothes signifying that I'm a Brahmachari which

00:19:56.640 --> 00:20:01.000
means I'm kind of on the way to becoming a monk and a lady working there who

00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:04.120
might have been the owner. She looked at me and she said, "Oh, you know, what do you

00:20:04.120 --> 00:20:07.600
plan to do?" I said, "Well, I'm planning to join the Ramakrishna Order and I'm

00:20:07.600 --> 00:20:11.320
planning to be a sanyasi, this and that." And she was very interested and then she

00:20:11.320 --> 00:20:15.960
said, "Oh, why go to all that trouble?" She says, "I'm a follower of Ramana Maharshi and

00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:19.320
he taught that we should just dive into the Atman. So why don't you just dive

00:20:19.320 --> 00:20:24.640
into the Atman?" And I said, "I wish it was that easy, but it's not." I think this is important

00:20:24.640 --> 00:20:28.880
because there's a big question of who is eligible to practice Advaita Vedanta and

00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:32.520
And if you're not, Shri Ram Krishna used to say that those who are not eligible to practice

00:20:32.520 --> 00:20:37.100
Advaita Vedanta and who nonetheless try to, end up deceiving themselves and deceiving

00:20:37.100 --> 00:20:38.100
others.

00:20:38.100 --> 00:20:42.160
And Nirodvaita lifts the eligibility requirements, as far as I can tell.

00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:46.760
They say that eligibility requirements is also part of Maya, so forget about it.

00:20:46.760 --> 00:20:47.760
I mean, there's no need.

00:20:47.760 --> 00:20:49.720
I think that's where the problem is.

00:20:49.720 --> 00:20:55.440
If you downplay, if you under-emphasize the eligibility requirements for practicing these

00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:58.400
high-level spiritual disciplines, you end up with self-deception and hypocrisy.

00:20:58.400 --> 00:21:04.040
Yeah, O'Neill, I'd like to people tend to say things like, "There is no personal self,

00:21:04.040 --> 00:21:09.160
and spiritual practices are unnecessary, and practicing them will only reinforce the notion

00:21:09.160 --> 00:21:11.820
of a personal self, because there's a practicer."

00:21:11.820 --> 00:21:15.800
And then they draw other conclusions such as, "Well, since there's no personal self,

00:21:15.800 --> 00:21:20.000
there couldn't be any reincarnation, because there isn't anything to reincarnate, and,

00:21:20.000 --> 00:21:23.800
you know, all you have to do is get it, realize that you are that, and you're done," and

00:21:23.800 --> 00:21:24.800
so on and so forth.

00:21:24.800 --> 00:21:26.800
and we can take issue with all those points.

00:21:26.800 --> 00:21:29.520
But another thing though is that like you,

00:21:29.520 --> 00:21:31.520
you know, you give talks in Hollywood

00:21:31.520 --> 00:21:32.960
and a lot of people come to your talks

00:21:32.960 --> 00:21:35.600
and then they go online and thousands of people watch them

00:21:35.600 --> 00:21:37.840
and the same is true of Swami Sarvabhihananda

00:21:37.840 --> 00:21:40.320
and other legitimate teachers

00:21:40.320 --> 00:21:45.120
and probably only 1% of the people who are watching these talks

00:21:45.120 --> 00:21:48.080
meet Shankara's qualifications that you just outlined.

00:21:48.080 --> 00:21:49.920
So how do you deal with that?

00:21:49.920 --> 00:21:51.840
I don't teach Shankara's Advaita Vedanta.

00:21:51.840 --> 00:21:52.880
That's how I deal with it.

00:21:52.880 --> 00:21:56.080
So that's the key difference, arguably, between Sabarpayanji's approach and mine.

00:21:56.080 --> 00:21:59.280
It depends on... I mean, you can ask him about how he teaches it, but I don't.

00:21:59.280 --> 00:22:03.920
That's why I don't. I teach Shri Ramakrishna's philosophy, which I take to be Vijnana Vedanta.

00:22:03.920 --> 00:22:07.280
And I see that as much broader than Shankara's philosophy.

00:22:07.280 --> 00:22:12.640
It doesn't say that Jnana Yoga is a higher practice than Bhakti Yoga or Karma Yoga.

00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:16.720
Here are the main tenets of what I take to be Shri Ramakrishna's philosophy.

00:22:16.720 --> 00:22:19.280
Number one, what's the nature of ultimate reality?

00:22:19.280 --> 00:22:21.520
Brahman and Shakti are inseparable.

00:22:21.520 --> 00:22:24.560
Brahman is the nirguna brahman of Shankara's school.

00:22:24.560 --> 00:22:26.160
Nirguna meaning without qualities?

00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:30.800
Impersonal, non-dual, pure consciousness, which is our true nature.

00:22:30.800 --> 00:22:32.800
Vijnanavidanta fully accepts it.

00:22:32.800 --> 00:22:37.840
But this is the key sticking point with respect to classical Advaitins versus our tradition,

00:22:37.840 --> 00:22:38.880
Brahma Krishna.

00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:46.080
He says that that nirguna brahman is just the static aspect of this infinite divine reality,

00:22:46.080 --> 00:22:48.560
which is Shakti in its dynamic aspect.

00:22:48.560 --> 00:22:54.320
and define Shakti? The personal God. Like Saguna Brahman? Saguna Brahman. So Sri Ramakrishna used to say

00:22:54.320 --> 00:23:01.040
when I think of God as inactive, nishkriya, then I call it Brahman. When I think of that same reality

00:23:01.040 --> 00:23:06.560
as creating, preserving, and destroying this universe, then I call it Shakti or Kali. So that's the first

00:23:06.560 --> 00:23:11.600
fundamental ontological or metaphysical tenet of Vijnana Vedanta and that already differs from

00:23:11.600 --> 00:23:16.560
Shankara's, I think, narrower philosophy because he only accepts the ultimate reality of Nidguna Brahman

00:23:16.560 --> 00:23:18.160
and not the ultimate reality of Shakti.

00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:19.600
So that's a crucial difference.

00:23:19.600 --> 00:23:22.640
And then, second, what's the status of this world?

00:23:22.640 --> 00:23:23.920
On Shankara's understanding,

00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:25.680
"Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya"

00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:27.440
this world is an illusory appearance.

00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:29.360
And he uses the example of rope and snake.

00:23:29.360 --> 00:23:30.400
There's a rope.

00:23:30.400 --> 00:23:31.840
I see it as a snake.

00:23:31.840 --> 00:23:33.600
When I realized that that was actually a rope,

00:23:33.600 --> 00:23:34.880
I realized it was a rope all along.

00:23:34.880 --> 00:23:36.640
It wasn't that it transformed into a snake

00:23:36.640 --> 00:23:38.000
for a certain amount of time.

00:23:38.000 --> 00:23:39.600
No, it was a rope all along.

00:23:39.600 --> 00:23:40.880
It was a mistaken perception.

00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:41.840
Exactly like that.

00:23:41.840 --> 00:23:43.600
We are misperceiving Brahman

00:23:43.600 --> 00:23:45.280
as this world of names and forms.

00:23:45.280 --> 00:23:49.920
but in fact none of these names and forms exist by themselves. Okay, whereas by contrast,

00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:55.520
Sri Ramakrishna's position is that Brahman actually manifests as everything in this world.

00:23:55.520 --> 00:24:01.040
Every name and form in this world is a real manifestation of Shakti. And then third,

00:24:01.040 --> 00:24:05.360
what are the implications for spiritual practice? Shankara, not surprisingly, and I think very

00:24:05.360 --> 00:24:11.040
logically, because of his metaphysical assumptions, privileges one spiritual practice over all the

00:24:11.040 --> 00:24:15.120
others. He privileges jnana yoga, the path of knowledge, which is meditation on your true

00:24:15.120 --> 00:24:19.840
nature as non-dual pure consciousness. Every other practice he relegates to a lower level.

00:24:19.840 --> 00:24:25.360
Karma yoga is good. That's the path of selfless works. It's good so long as you have an impure

00:24:25.360 --> 00:24:30.640
mind and the goal of karma yoga is not liberation because it can never give you liberation. It's

00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:37.200
purification of mind. It makes you eligible to practice jnana yoga. Likewise for bhakti yoga,

00:24:37.200 --> 00:24:41.680
the path of devotion. It's a lower practice for inferior spiritual aspirants who have not attained

00:24:41.680 --> 00:24:47.520
sufficient purity of mind. Once you attain sufficient purity of mind, you stop those practices,

00:24:47.520 --> 00:24:53.120
karma yoga and bhakti yoga, and then you practice jnana yoga alone, and then you can attain liberation

00:24:53.120 --> 00:24:58.560
because the only direct path to liberation is jnana yoga. By contrast, because Sri Ramakrishna

00:24:58.560 --> 00:25:03.680
accepts the ultimate reality not only of non-dual pure consciousness, Brahman, but also Shakti, the

00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:08.800
personal God. He can place all the four yogas on an equal footing. So bhakti yoga, the path of

00:25:08.800 --> 00:25:14.160
devotion, karma yoga, the path of selfless action, they're not on a lower footing than jnana yoga.

00:25:14.160 --> 00:25:19.200
And the beauty of it is spiritual life becomes that much richer because then you can practice

00:25:19.200 --> 00:25:22.880
any one of the four yogas to your heart's content. You can even combine them. Whereas

00:25:22.880 --> 00:25:27.200
Shankara is against this idea of what he calls jnana karma samutra. He says this is a no-no.

00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:32.080
You cannot combine jnana yoga with karma yoga because it presupposes different fundamental

00:25:32.080 --> 00:25:37.600
assumptions. Karma Yoga presupposes doership. Jnana Yoga says I'm the self which is the non-doer,

00:25:37.600 --> 00:25:43.040
you know. So, he says they're meant for different aspirants, but no. Vijnana Vedanta says that

00:25:43.040 --> 00:25:47.520
you can practice all these at the same time and make maximal spiritual progress in a given day.

00:25:47.520 --> 00:25:51.280
You might feel like let me practice Bhakti Yoga in the morning, Jnana Yoga in the evening,

00:25:51.280 --> 00:25:55.200
you can do that too. And so, I think it's much richer and more flexible. So, that's a short

00:25:55.200 --> 00:25:59.840
answer to your question. Good. I have two or three questions that spring from all that.

00:26:01.200 --> 00:26:05.360
One is I thought of an analogy or metaphor for what you just said.

00:26:05.360 --> 00:26:10.160
Let's say I want to fly to India. I have to take a jumbo jet, but I can't take a jumbo jet from

00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:14.880
Fairfield, Iowa. I first have to drive to the airport, and then I have to take a small jet

00:26:14.880 --> 00:26:20.800
to Chicago, and then I can take a jumbo jet to India. Now, none of those means of conveyance

00:26:20.800 --> 00:26:26.480
is inferior, really. You have to use all three. Getting to the airport in Iowa is just as

00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:31.640
important as flying from Chicago to New Delhi. Now obviously driving in my car

00:26:31.640 --> 00:26:35.340
isn't gonna get me to New Delhi. I'm gonna have to get on a jumbo jet and so that

00:26:35.340 --> 00:26:39.080
might be kind of the Shankarite argument that Karma Yoga is not gonna get you

00:26:39.080 --> 00:26:43.840
to liberation but it'll get you to a faster conveyance. Does that hold up or

00:26:43.840 --> 00:26:48.440
am I just supporting Shankara's view? Even that metaphor still shows that on

00:26:48.440 --> 00:26:52.440
Shankara's view, Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga are only indirect paths to liberation.

00:26:52.440 --> 00:26:55.640
They can't take you directly to liberation. That's the key difference

00:26:55.640 --> 00:27:00.680
So it's Ramakrishna's philosophy because each of the four yogas is a direct and independent path to liberation

00:27:00.680 --> 00:27:05.620
Exclusively you could do just karma yoga and you'll get liberation. Absolutely

00:27:05.620 --> 00:27:11.900
Is that a matter of one's proclivities or one's nature and some people are wired to be a karma yogi, etc

00:27:11.900 --> 00:27:13.240
Sure, absolutely

00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:19.500
I think and are there better honors human nature and the diversity of human beings and temperaments and is there proof for this are there?

00:27:19.500 --> 00:27:21.080
examples

00:27:21.080 --> 00:27:27.820
The thing is he practiced these different paths and realized that and realized the divine in different forms and aspects through all these different paths

00:27:27.820 --> 00:27:31.780
But he was already realized when he started to practice Christianity for instance

00:27:31.780 --> 00:27:37.420
He didn't go from a to Z. He was already at Z and giving Christianity a try. Let's take a broader view

00:27:37.420 --> 00:27:43.060
I think if you're a serious committed follower of Shankara school, you have to say that these great Christian mystics

00:27:43.060 --> 00:27:48.020
There are one or two possibilities who claim to have realized God right like Meister Eckhart and you know, st

00:27:48.020 --> 00:27:53.700
Francis and other, Saint Augustine. Either the experiences they claim to have had are not the

00:27:53.700 --> 00:27:58.340
ultimate kind of experience, they've stopped short of realizing the highest truth which is

00:27:58.340 --> 00:28:02.580
impersonal Nirvana Brahman, or they have to say that Meister Eckhart was a closet

00:28:02.580 --> 00:28:07.060
Advaitin and that his realization was not Christian actually but actually non-dual.

00:28:07.060 --> 00:28:10.820
And I think in either case you're really doing violence to the self-understanding of mystics

00:28:10.820 --> 00:28:17.060
and all these great traditions. There are countless saints who claim to have experienced God,

00:28:17.060 --> 00:28:20.420
the personal God, some form of the personal God, or even the formless personal God,

00:28:20.420 --> 00:28:24.740
through the path of devotion. Do we want to grant them that it's possible that they actually had

00:28:24.740 --> 00:28:28.020
this experience? Or do you want to say that they're on a lower footing, that they're still

00:28:28.020 --> 00:28:32.100
on the way, but they haven't quite gotten there? Do you see what I mean? So if you just look at

00:28:32.100 --> 00:28:37.220
all the mystics across the world, and then we get this very broader swath of people to deal with,

00:28:37.220 --> 00:28:40.820
like empirical samples, data to deal with, and then to account for it.

00:28:40.820 --> 00:28:45.380
- And actually, as I understand it, one of Shankara's four primary disciples,

00:28:45.380 --> 00:28:50.340
Trotikacharya. He was down at the river washing laundry when he got awakened. He wasn't intellectual

00:28:50.340 --> 00:28:55.380
like the other three. He was just doing his seva and feeling his devotion and boom he woke up.

00:28:55.380 --> 00:29:01.300
I'm always wary of stories because India is notoriously bad on history and you have no

00:29:01.300 --> 00:29:05.780
idea whether anything that's in these books are true. I know that Shankara wrote these commentaries

00:29:05.780 --> 00:29:09.940
on the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, and Rama Sutras, so that has authenticity to me. So I place my

00:29:09.940 --> 00:29:14.580
evidence on what he actually said rather than on pseudo-legendary stories about what his disciples

00:29:14.580 --> 00:29:18.340
did or what he did. I mean, there are weird stories about how he entered a king's body and did all...

00:29:18.340 --> 00:29:19.300
I heard that one, yeah.

00:29:19.300 --> 00:29:22.900
Yeah, so I don't know whether it's true or not, but I wouldn't put much weight on those

00:29:22.900 --> 00:29:25.860
kinds of stories, to be honest. Yeah, there's a story that Hanuman

00:29:25.860 --> 00:29:28.820
picked up a mountain and flew it to Sri Lanka with it, you know that?

00:29:28.820 --> 00:29:32.180
Yeah, agnostic. I'm not atheist, but I'm agnostic about all that stuff.

00:29:32.180 --> 00:29:36.820
That's a good attitude, I think. I mean, I kind of treat everything as a hypothesis,

00:29:36.820 --> 00:29:40.420
which means I don't totally believe in it or totally rule it out, but it's like, all right,

00:29:40.420 --> 00:29:44.180
How much credibility does this have? How much evidence can we find for that?

00:29:44.180 --> 00:29:49.140
I think, I mean, the reason why I say this is because when I present my case for how

00:29:49.140 --> 00:29:54.820
Sri Ramakrishna's Vidyana Vedanta is broader than, notice I say broader than, Shankara's philosophy,

00:29:54.820 --> 00:29:58.900
there are a lot of people who are up in arms who are followers of Shankara, who object,

00:29:58.900 --> 00:30:02.420
and the first thing they say is, "Well, Shankara was a great devotee, because he wrote these great

00:30:02.420 --> 00:30:06.900
devotional hymns, Bhaja Govindam, and this and that." And my response is, "We don't know whether

00:30:06.900 --> 00:30:09.100
whether you compose those devotional hymns, that's number one.

00:30:09.100 --> 00:30:10.900
Okay, we really don't know.

00:30:10.900 --> 00:30:12.900
This is a very common practice in India.

00:30:12.900 --> 00:30:15.500
Once somebody becomes extremely famous and prestigious,

00:30:15.500 --> 00:30:17.100
everybody wants a piece of him.

00:30:17.100 --> 00:30:20.100
And so if an author has just composed a beautiful hymn,

00:30:20.100 --> 00:30:22.900
the easiest way to get popularity is to ascribe it to Shankara

00:30:22.900 --> 00:30:24.500
or ascribe it to Pandali.

00:30:24.500 --> 00:30:26.500
So Pandali or Vyasa and so on.

00:30:26.500 --> 00:30:27.300
I don't trust this.

00:30:27.300 --> 00:30:28.900
Okay, even if you wrote it,

00:30:28.900 --> 00:30:30.100
then there's another problem.

00:30:30.100 --> 00:30:33.500
Try to reconcile the devotional sentiment in Bhaja Govindam,

00:30:33.500 --> 00:30:34.900
for instance, this devotional hymn,

00:30:34.900 --> 00:30:40.260
with his uncontroversial statements about bhakti in his commentaries, which are known to be his.

00:30:40.260 --> 00:30:44.260
And then you end up with prima facie contradictions. And then you have to somehow try to reconcile what

00:30:44.260 --> 00:30:48.020
he says about devotion and bhakti yoga in his commentaries and the Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita,

00:30:48.020 --> 00:30:51.620
Brahma Sutra, what he's saying in these devotional hymns. So even then you're not out of the woods,

00:30:51.620 --> 00:30:55.460
even if you accept it as his, it's still problematic. Or finally, there's a third

00:30:55.460 --> 00:30:58.900
possibility, which is that he composed these devotional hymns for inferior spiritual aspirants

00:30:58.900 --> 00:31:03.860
who are not ready for the heights of Advaitic practice. Okay, one thing I like about your

00:31:03.860 --> 00:31:09.780
attitude is that it's kind of scientific in a way because you're not adamant about something

00:31:09.780 --> 00:31:14.940
being true just because you happen to believe it, but you're kind of open to all possibilities.

00:31:14.940 --> 00:31:19.500
I like that. But then, you know, you obviously do have beliefs. You believe that Sri Ramakrishna

00:31:19.500 --> 00:31:24.260
was an avatar, and many people are going to think, "Well, who knows? Maybe. I don't know."

00:31:24.260 --> 00:31:28.260
A lot of people say they're avatars these days. Would you stake your life on something

00:31:28.260 --> 00:31:31.820
like that, or do you feel like it just makes sense to you based on everything you've learned

00:31:31.820 --> 00:31:35.180
so far that he seems to have had that status?

00:31:35.180 --> 00:31:37.580
My principle is follow the evidence.

00:31:37.580 --> 00:31:42.700
And I'm skeptical by nature, I'm a philosopher, and I try to follow the evidence to the best

00:31:42.700 --> 00:31:43.700
of my ability.

00:31:43.700 --> 00:31:46.060
That's why for people who disagree with my views, I just ask them for evidence for their

00:31:46.060 --> 00:31:47.060
view.

00:31:47.060 --> 00:31:50.620
And usually it's not forthcoming, or the evidence is really bad evidence.

00:31:50.620 --> 00:31:53.460
But in my case, yes, I mean, that's not, you know, I'm not going to try to persuade anybody

00:31:53.460 --> 00:31:55.180
that Ramakrishna is a Navatana.

00:31:55.180 --> 00:31:59.920
That's my assessment of the evidence that has been made available to me, that I've accessed.

00:31:59.920 --> 00:32:04.880
He said it himself, his character matches the statements other people have attested to his

00:32:04.880 --> 00:32:05.880
divinity, those kinds of things.

00:32:05.880 --> 00:32:09.880
I mean, that's all kind of part of this cumulative case from Krishna as an incarnation.

00:32:09.880 --> 00:32:10.880
Yeah.

00:32:10.880 --> 00:32:11.880
Yeah.

00:32:11.880 --> 00:32:16.280
Another thing I found interesting in listening to your videos was all the different flavors

00:32:16.280 --> 00:32:21.600
of Vedanta because I had pretty much just always heard about Advaita Vedanta and Shankara's

00:32:21.600 --> 00:32:25.080
view and I had kind of imbibed that to a great extent.

00:32:25.080 --> 00:32:29.140
But then, you know, you're talking about all these other different aspects which are somewhat

00:32:29.140 --> 00:32:34.980
different or even completely contradictory to one another. Vedanta means the end of the Veda,

00:32:34.980 --> 00:32:39.460
supposedly, well, it means the Upanishads, right? But it also means, I guess, the highest

00:32:39.460 --> 00:32:44.980
pinnacle of knowledge because it's the end of this whole huge means of gaining knowledge, the Veda.

00:32:44.980 --> 00:32:51.700
And yet, have all these different founders of these schools of Vedanta ended up on different

00:32:51.700 --> 00:32:56.420
mountain peaks which are of equal height? Most of them would argue that their view is correct

00:32:56.420 --> 00:33:01.940
and the other ones are lacking in some way. You can talk about Vijnana Vedanta and I understand

00:33:01.940 --> 00:33:07.460
Ramakrishna tried to reconcile and harmonize all this into a larger basket using the blind man and

00:33:07.460 --> 00:33:10.500
the elephant metaphor. So, why don't you go and explain that a little bit.

00:33:10.500 --> 00:33:12.500
David There are two metaphors. The blind man and

00:33:12.500 --> 00:33:16.740
the elephant is more well known and it's not original to him. And there's a chameleon parable,

00:33:16.740 --> 00:33:20.660
which may very well be original to him, but I don't know exactly whether there's a precedent

00:33:20.660 --> 00:33:25.300
for that. But let me start with the blind man and the elephant. Yeah, there are five blind men

00:33:25.300 --> 00:33:29.460
touching different parts of the same elephant and they're all bickering among themselves about what

00:33:29.460 --> 00:33:33.860
is the true nature of this elephant and then one person who can see the whole elephant adjudicates

00:33:33.860 --> 00:33:37.060
and says well wait a minute you're all right you're all wrong you're all right because you're

00:33:37.060 --> 00:33:40.500
touching different parts of the elephant but you're wrong because you're all touching different

00:33:40.500 --> 00:33:45.220
parts of the same elephant the elephant is all those things at once and the question is who is

00:33:45.220 --> 00:33:50.900
the person with vision in the story the vignani the person who has had a more expansive realization

00:33:50.900 --> 00:33:54.980
of ultimate reality not only in one form or aspect but in multiple forms or aspects.

00:33:54.980 --> 00:34:00.500
Chameleon parable that he also is fond of reciting. He says there's a chameleon on a tree and one

00:34:00.500 --> 00:34:05.460
person goes up to the tree sees a chameleon sees it as blue comes back to his friends and says hey

00:34:05.460 --> 00:34:10.420
i saw this beautiful blue chameleon go check it out. Second friend goes sees it as yellow says why

00:34:10.420 --> 00:34:14.740
is my friend lying to me what is he pulling my leg goes back says give me a break it's blue it's

00:34:14.740 --> 00:34:19.140
yellow. Third friend goes to confirm and it's turned out to be colorless. They start fighting

00:34:19.140 --> 00:34:23.940
with each other under the tree. There's a guy living under the tree who says, "Hey, hey, calm down.

00:34:23.940 --> 00:34:27.700
This thing is a chameleon. It doesn't have one color. It changes colors throughout the day.

00:34:27.700 --> 00:34:31.220
Sometimes it's colorless." So there are a couple lessons here. Number one, again, who's the person

00:34:31.220 --> 00:34:35.300
sitting under the tree? It's the big guy, the person who's had a more expansive realization

00:34:35.300 --> 00:34:41.540
of ultimate reality in multiple forms and aspects. But secondly, the colorless chameleon is no more

00:34:41.540 --> 00:34:46.100
real or somehow truer than the yellow chameleon or the blue chameleon or the green chameleon,

00:34:46.100 --> 00:34:50.100
which means that "antvayate vidhanta," that realization of nirguna brahman, is not put on

00:34:50.100 --> 00:34:54.820
a higher footing than theistic realization of a personal god. So you're saying in a sense that a

00:34:54.820 --> 00:35:01.860
vigyani, the guy sitting under the tree, is more mature in his understanding or experience than

00:35:01.860 --> 00:35:06.820
those who, you know, are locked into the chameleon being one particular color or the elephant being

00:35:06.820 --> 00:35:11.700
one particular thing, like a snake or whatever. I don't know if the word "mature" is the best word,

00:35:11.700 --> 00:35:16.260
to be honest, I like the word expansive. He just has a broader... I've been to several continents,

00:35:16.260 --> 00:35:19.860
whereas other people might have only visited one continent. It's like that.

00:35:19.860 --> 00:35:24.980
Right. But if Vedanta is supposed to be the highest realization or the pinnacle of Indian

00:35:24.980 --> 00:35:31.220
spiritual thought, then it would seem that it would be the Vijnanis' perspective. It would be

00:35:31.220 --> 00:35:35.380
all-encompassing. And these guys who were just locked into a particular flavor of it

00:35:35.380 --> 00:35:37.540
are not grasping the whole truth.

00:35:37.540 --> 00:35:41.460
Yeah, but they don't need it. That's the key. There's a key difference. I make this distinction

00:35:41.460 --> 00:35:46.420
very sharply in my work, my academic work. There's a difference between a particular spiritual pad's

00:35:46.420 --> 00:35:52.100
salvific efficacy, its ability to afford the highest kind of state of salvation. Salvation

00:35:52.100 --> 00:35:57.460
is very Christian, call it liberation if you want, in an Indian. And doctrinal truth, whether it's

00:35:57.460 --> 00:36:01.460
only a partial vision of truth or whether there's a philosophy that has a fuller vision of truth.

00:36:01.460 --> 00:36:08.340
So we need to keep these two things separate. The Vijnani has a broader, more expansive

00:36:08.340 --> 00:36:14.900
conception of ultimate reality. But the Christian realizing God as Christ or the Sufi mystic

00:36:14.900 --> 00:36:20.900
realizing God as Allah or the Vaishnava realizing God as Krishna or the Advaitin realizing Brahman

00:36:20.900 --> 00:36:25.700
as non-dual pure consciousness, they're all realizing that's the ultimate goal for them.

00:36:25.700 --> 00:36:30.660
There isn't anything higher than that for them. It's not mandatory for them to then go on to

00:36:30.660 --> 00:36:36.340
realize. Sri Ramakrishnan never says the Advaitin has to then finally accept the reality of Shakti.

00:36:36.340 --> 00:36:39.460
That's silly. He doesn't need to. In fact, what he says instead is,

00:36:39.460 --> 00:36:43.700
there are two fundamentally different paradigms of the ultimate state of liberation.

00:36:43.700 --> 00:36:46.420
One is eating sugar and the other is becoming sugar.

00:36:46.420 --> 00:36:49.620
And he says, Advaita Vedantins are people who want to become sugar.

00:36:49.620 --> 00:36:53.060
Let them become sugar. They want to be Brahman, let them be Brahman.

00:36:53.060 --> 00:36:56.020
Bhaktas don't want to become sugar. They want to eat sugar.

00:36:56.020 --> 00:37:00.340
And eating sugar for them is sufficient. And there's no need for them to become sugar.

00:37:00.340 --> 00:37:05.540
The Vijnani has both become sugar and afterwards also enjoys eating sugar.

00:37:05.540 --> 00:37:11.220
That's a very unique thing and it's that's just a kind of a very rare soul who can do that and who

00:37:11.220 --> 00:37:16.740
wants to do that. But most people neither want it nor do they need it. So you're saying that liberation

00:37:16.740 --> 00:37:24.100
doesn't necessarily conform to a clear comprehensive understanding of the mechanics of creation.

00:37:24.100 --> 00:37:28.980
Let me read something I wrote down. I said the fact that many different schools of Vedanta

00:37:28.980 --> 00:37:33.540
offer perspectives that differ from and even contradict one another leads one to believe

00:37:33.540 --> 00:37:39.940
that they are all propounding beliefs or at best hypotheses which might conform with their

00:37:39.940 --> 00:37:45.380
subjective experience but which don't represent a fundamental universal reality. One school of

00:37:45.380 --> 00:37:51.060
Vedanta might say Krishna or Vishnu is the ultimate reality and the impersonal is just like his big

00:37:51.060 --> 00:37:56.580
toe or something and the others are saying it's all impersonal reality and God is just a result of

00:37:56.580 --> 00:38:01.780
Maya which is an intrinsic property of Brahman and so on. You're just kind of implying that both of

00:38:01.780 --> 00:38:07.380
these proponents could be defined as liberated, having achieved liberation, but they have very

00:38:07.380 --> 00:38:12.420
different concepts of what even ultimate reality is, what to say of relative reality.

00:38:12.420 --> 00:38:14.340
David I think that's true. And I think, you know,

00:38:14.340 --> 00:38:18.100
the way I like to think about it is, I think Sharon Christian conceives the ultimate state

00:38:18.100 --> 00:38:19.940
of liberation as a many-roomed mansion.

00:38:19.940 --> 00:38:23.140
Pete Jesus said that too. He said, "In my father's house, there are many mansions."

00:38:23.140 --> 00:38:26.740
David Many mansions. There are different ways of interpreting that. So, my Vedantic way would be to

00:38:26.740 --> 00:38:31.860
say the liberated Christian will dwell in the Christian room of that many-room mansion.

00:38:31.860 --> 00:38:37.300
The liberated Muslim will dwell in the Muslim room, the Jannah, they call that heaven Jannah.

00:38:37.300 --> 00:38:41.460
The Advaita Vedanta, they will object to the language of rooms and they'll say that's dual,

00:38:41.460 --> 00:38:45.860
not, you know, dualistic or whatever. But in any case, they get their Advaita Vedanta and they can

00:38:45.860 --> 00:38:50.900
live happily together except they're not all inhabiting the same literal space because they

00:38:50.900 --> 00:38:55.140
don't want to be inhabiting the same space. The Advaitins don't want to dwell with Christ in heaven.

00:38:55.140 --> 00:39:01.860
Are you talking about post-mortem outcomes? Okay. Yeah. So, even there, I mean, who knows?

00:39:01.860 --> 00:39:07.140
These are all just like, maybe Christians go and end up seeing Jesus, or maybe they get a

00:39:07.140 --> 00:39:11.460
rude surprise and it's Christians standing there. All this is speculative to me. I mean,

00:39:11.460 --> 00:39:16.660
I do believe something happens after you die and all these ideas of different lokas and all

00:39:16.660 --> 00:39:23.620
resonate with my intuitive feeling, but who knows? Yeah, again, I would say it's not quite that

00:39:23.620 --> 00:39:28.580
bleak, I think, in terms of like a total lack of evidence. I think that near-death experiences are

00:39:28.580 --> 00:39:34.020
a very important source of evidence these days of people of varying beliefs, whether Christian or

00:39:34.020 --> 00:39:38.740
agnostic or atheist, who sometimes they're atheists who are converted on the spot after a near-death

00:39:38.740 --> 00:39:43.380
experience to believe in a higher power, and I think that we should take that evidence seriously.

00:39:43.380 --> 00:39:49.300
There are mystics who claim to be able to just inhabit these post-mortem realms while still in

00:39:49.300 --> 00:39:55.140
the body, but in a mystical state of consciousness. And they come back and say, "Hey, I saw these

00:39:55.140 --> 00:39:59.820
divine beings dwelling in these higher realms." And you might be like your friend Curtis and

00:39:59.820 --> 00:40:03.700
be skeptical of that, but again, as I said, then you should be skeptical of this external

00:40:03.700 --> 00:40:07.660
world because how do I know that my perception of this microphone and this laptop is not

00:40:07.660 --> 00:40:10.860
a subjective hallucination? You know, you can't prove it. Descartes proved that a long time

00:40:10.860 --> 00:40:11.860
ago.

00:40:11.860 --> 00:40:17.100
Yeah, I hear you. It's just that some things are more readily provable than others, I suppose.

00:40:17.100 --> 00:40:20.740
more universally verifiable. Anybody can come and see your microphone.

00:40:20.740 --> 00:40:23.460
Oh, there's you have to remember, remember what I said about that.

00:40:23.460 --> 00:40:26.620
It's exactly what Descartes said to any of the crosscheckers,

00:40:26.620 --> 00:40:29.820
anybody else confirming it could be part of the dream and you can never rule it

00:40:29.820 --> 00:40:33.260
out. That's part of the problem. There's no independent crosscheck.

00:40:33.260 --> 00:40:36.580
There's nobody who can come from outside your dream to verify that it's not a

00:40:36.580 --> 00:40:39.060
dream. Yeah. Okay. No problem. I mean,

00:40:39.060 --> 00:40:43.820
so you end up with epistemic circularity. Okay. Let's see here.

00:40:44.580 --> 00:40:51.580
Here's a question that I wrote down. Well, this is kind of rehashing the same topic, but let's see if it brings out anything more.

00:40:51.580 --> 00:40:56.580
So Vedanta's been around a lot longer than science, of course. So reportedly many have realized what it promises.

00:40:56.580 --> 00:41:03.580
But it's an individual subjective exploration, so one person realizing Brahman doesn't do much for everyone else trying to realize it,

00:41:03.580 --> 00:41:10.580
unless doing so enlivens Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic field and helps all the other aspirants, which I think it may.

00:41:10.580 --> 00:41:15.220
Science, on the other hand, is a shared objective like exploration, so everyone benefits from

00:41:15.220 --> 00:41:20.820
anyone's discoveries, although that might not yield the kind of experiential fulfillment

00:41:20.820 --> 00:41:21.820
that Vedanta promises.

00:41:21.820 --> 00:41:27.820
You know, one thing I'd say to that is, I'm not a scientist, and I often do accept what

00:41:27.820 --> 00:41:32.820
scientific studies conclude, but not on the basis of my own verification of what they're

00:41:32.820 --> 00:41:33.820
saying.

00:41:33.820 --> 00:41:36.900
I'm not equipped, I don't have the qualifications, I'm not going to go to a lab and verify whether

00:41:36.900 --> 00:41:40.300
How many of us actually verify the results of scientific studies?

00:41:40.300 --> 00:41:41.100
Almost none of us.

00:41:41.100 --> 00:41:44.500
But we actually benefit from the outcome of those studies very often.

00:41:44.500 --> 00:41:45.200
Our cell phone...

00:41:45.200 --> 00:41:48.200
If you accept it, why should we accept scientific testimony?

00:41:48.200 --> 00:41:48.800
Why?

00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:51.300
You know what's called the replication crisis, right?

00:41:51.300 --> 00:41:52.900
It's a massive problem.

00:41:52.900 --> 00:41:53.900
People are making up data.

00:41:53.900 --> 00:41:54.500
Scientists.

00:41:54.500 --> 00:41:57.900
Scientism is this huge thing now.

00:41:57.900 --> 00:42:01.700
What's happening is that science has gained so much prestige now

00:42:01.700 --> 00:42:04.500
that if a scientist says it, it must be true.

00:42:04.500 --> 00:42:06.700
If a mystic says it, "Ah, bogus."

00:42:06.700 --> 00:42:08.140
It's just subjective.

00:42:08.140 --> 00:42:09.940
And so, Vivekananda in the late 19th century,

00:42:09.940 --> 00:42:12.860
he said that these scientists, they become like popes.

00:42:12.860 --> 00:42:14.540
He says these popes of modern science

00:42:14.540 --> 00:42:16.300
say the most outrageous and wonderful things,

00:42:16.300 --> 00:42:19.060
but people will swallow it without any questioning.

00:42:19.060 --> 00:42:20.220
I think that's part of the problem,

00:42:20.220 --> 00:42:22.400
is that we don't verify these scientific claims

00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:23.340
on it for ourselves,

00:42:23.340 --> 00:42:25.620
but we still accept it because it's scientific.

00:42:25.620 --> 00:42:27.380
Vivekananda says,

00:42:27.380 --> 00:42:29.980
religion is equally scientific in this way.

00:42:29.980 --> 00:42:32.120
And if we accept the claims of natural science,

00:42:32.120 --> 00:42:33.180
why is it that we're so hesitant

00:42:33.180 --> 00:42:35.700
to accept the claims of spiritual science?

00:42:35.700 --> 00:42:39.380
because it's equally based on verification and it's inviting you to verify.

00:42:39.380 --> 00:42:43.420
Most of us don't take the trouble or the effort to actually do the verificatory process,

00:42:43.420 --> 00:42:46.220
but that doesn't make it any less of a science. That's what we've come to understand.

00:42:46.220 --> 00:42:52.980
Yeah, I agree. And I have this hope and thought that science and spirituality can,

00:42:52.980 --> 00:42:58.060
and may eventually will, merge into a kind of a collective enterprise,

00:42:58.060 --> 00:43:02.980
and that each of them as they now exist has something really valuable to offer the other.

00:43:02.980 --> 00:43:10.020
science can perhaps save spirituality from being too imaginary and fanciful and by encouraging

00:43:10.020 --> 00:43:16.020
people to use an empirical attitude in their spiritual path. And spirituality, on the other

00:43:16.020 --> 00:43:21.060
hand, can probe all kinds of realities that science either denies exists or doesn't even

00:43:21.060 --> 00:43:25.540
dream exists. I think that's a great way of putting it. I think that the way that spirituality can

00:43:25.540 --> 00:43:30.260
help science and kind of push back on science is to prevent science from collapsing into

00:43:30.260 --> 00:43:34.700
a scientism in a dogmatic way. And that's just another way of saying what you just said.

00:43:34.700 --> 00:43:41.060
Yeah. Here's a question from my friend Kanta Dadlani in Mumbai. All the monks from the Ramakrishna

00:43:41.060 --> 00:43:46.180
mission infuse their teachings with flavors of Christianity, while the source of all religions

00:43:46.180 --> 00:43:51.740
is one. Many, whom I know, have observed this. Is it to make their Western audiences embrace

00:43:51.740 --> 00:43:57.860
the teachings more comfortably? I should add, Yogananda did this too. If yes, why? After

00:43:57.860 --> 00:44:01.140
if the message is clear, people will be drawn to the teachings without any doubts.

00:44:01.140 --> 00:44:06.020
Yeah, I'd be cautious about any kind of sweeping generalization about all Ramakrishna mission

00:44:06.020 --> 00:44:11.300
monks say this or that. It's just not true. I like to bring in Christian teachings, and the reason is

00:44:11.300 --> 00:44:16.100
because our founder, Sri Ramakrishna, taught the harmony of religions. Isn't Christianity one of

00:44:16.100 --> 00:44:19.780
the great world religions? And so doesn't it make sense to bring in Christianity as much as it does

00:44:19.780 --> 00:44:24.340
to bring in Sufi mysticism and Buddhism? I talk about Buddhism, I give lectures on mindfulness.

00:44:24.980 --> 00:44:29.780
I worry that that kind of question is coming from a place of possibly right-wing hindutva kind of stuff

00:44:29.780 --> 00:44:33.700
Trump just didn't really include christianity in the harmony of religions, right?

00:44:33.700 --> 00:44:36.100
You know that kind of a thing but no yes

00:44:36.100 --> 00:44:39.620
You can be a christian and you can realize the highest goal to the path of christianity

00:44:39.620 --> 00:44:46.420
And so why be embarrassed to bring in religions like christianity, especially when you when we're preaching without in the west

00:44:46.420 --> 00:44:51.780
Where people are familiar with christianity many people are practicing christians. It seems like a no-brainer to me

00:44:52.020 --> 00:44:56.980
Yeah, and I would say the reason that many Eastern spiritual teachers have done this is

00:44:56.980 --> 00:45:01.940
not just as a kind of a marketing technique to a Christian audience, but because it

00:45:01.940 --> 00:45:06.900
helps people find the deeper values of their own tradition without conflicting with it.

00:45:06.900 --> 00:45:10.980
Absolutely. And then, you know, I gave a lecture near Christmas called "Did

00:45:10.980 --> 00:45:12.900
Shri Ramakrishna Really Practice Christianity?"

00:45:12.900 --> 00:45:14.020
I've listened to that one.

00:45:14.020 --> 00:45:18.500
Yeah, and I said, I consider myself Christian as much as I'm Hindu.

00:45:18.500 --> 00:45:24.820
My fundamental orientation is Hindu, Vedantic, but as a Vedantic, I can fully embrace Christ as an

00:45:24.820 --> 00:45:29.460
incarnation of God. A large part of my spiritual practice is listening to Christian spiritual music

00:45:29.460 --> 00:45:35.060
of the great classical composers like Bach and Buczka Guta and Mozart and others, who put these

00:45:35.060 --> 00:45:39.540
wonderful psalms and other Christian themes to music. I just don't see any problem. It's hard

00:45:39.540 --> 00:45:42.980
for me to understand or be sympathetic to the standpoint from which that person is posing the

00:45:42.980 --> 00:45:46.900
question, I guess. I have to know more about the person and why he sees it as a problem.

00:45:46.900 --> 00:45:47.940
It's a she, Kanta.

00:45:47.940 --> 00:45:51.380
Yeah, so why does she even see it as a problem? That's what I don't know.

00:45:51.380 --> 00:45:54.740
Maybe she'll ask a follow-up question, but here's another question from her. She said,

00:45:54.740 --> 00:45:59.140
"In a recent discussion between Bernardo Kastrup and Michael James," Michael is a

00:45:59.140 --> 00:46:04.980
devotee of Ramana Maharshi, "Michael reiterated the fact that we see and believe events because

00:46:04.980 --> 00:46:09.940
we identify with them. Bernardo refused this on the premise that the recent massacre of

00:46:09.940 --> 00:46:13.620
innocent Jews was real and did not agree with Michael. Your thoughts?"

00:46:14.260 --> 00:46:17.620
Yeah, I mean, again, I'm not a follower of Ramana Maharshi. I accept him as a great saint,

00:46:17.620 --> 00:46:23.620
but I'm a follower of Sri Ramakrishna. And so, on my understanding of Ramakrishna's philosophy,

00:46:23.620 --> 00:46:28.180
we don't think that this world is a dream. We say that everything is God. So, these poor

00:46:28.180 --> 00:46:34.100
Holocaust victims were all manifestations of God who were actually suffering in the concentration

00:46:34.100 --> 00:46:40.740
camps. Yeah, and that's also the Ashinki referring to October 7th, the Hamas attack on Israel.

00:46:40.740 --> 00:46:46.100
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the whole idea that the world is an illusion is kind of problematic. If you're

00:46:46.100 --> 00:46:51.540
about to get hit by a bus, you better take it seriously. I mean, this whole the Albuquerque

00:46:51.540 --> 00:46:56.500
idea, right? Yeah. Transactional reality. But a lot of confusion comes from mixing the two

00:46:56.500 --> 00:47:00.900
standpoints, the ultimate and the empirical standpoints. Yeah, I think that mixing comes

00:47:00.900 --> 00:47:05.860
more frequently when people lift the eligibility requirements and think they're already eligible.

00:47:05.860 --> 00:47:11.380
I'm already Ramana Maharshi and you know that's where the problem is. They're fully embedded in

00:47:11.380 --> 00:47:16.020
empirical reality and yet they're kind of talking big about being the Atman and that's where the

00:47:16.020 --> 00:47:20.900
problem started. Yeah, there's an old Tibetan saying that don't mistake understanding for

00:47:20.900 --> 00:47:26.580
realization. That's a huge problem in Neo-Advaita in my opinion. Yeah, mine too, having interviewed

00:47:26.580 --> 00:47:31.860
a bunch of them. Well, here's the line of thought. Shankara says the world is an illusion.

00:47:31.860 --> 00:47:38.420
Sri Ramakrishna says the world is a manifestation of God and is real, as a divine manifestation.

00:47:38.420 --> 00:47:45.300
The Gita says the unreal has no being, the real never ceases to be. I think maybe Shankarites

00:47:45.300 --> 00:47:52.100
would argue that the unmanifest can't manifest because manifestation implies change and the

00:47:52.100 --> 00:47:59.060
impersonal non-dual can't change. It can't convert itself into something else. And if it has done so,

00:47:59.060 --> 00:48:02.740
So what is that something else actually made of, if we look closely enough?

00:48:02.740 --> 00:48:03.900
Aditya: Absolutely.

00:48:03.900 --> 00:48:08.540
And that's why the key sticking point between classical Advaita Vedanta and Ramakrishna's

00:48:08.540 --> 00:48:12.460
Advaita is the nature of ultimate reality.

00:48:12.460 --> 00:48:17.140
It's because the Advaitins accept only Nirvana and Brahman, non-dual pure, impersonal, non-dual

00:48:17.140 --> 00:48:20.620
pure conscious as the ultimate reality, that they end up with that logic, and that the

00:48:20.620 --> 00:48:22.340
world therefore has to be unreal.

00:48:22.340 --> 00:48:25.860
Because Sri Ramakrishna starts with a different metaphysical premise, which is that Brahman

00:48:25.860 --> 00:48:30.020
and Shakti are inseparable, a person can conceive to the classical advice and say, "Yeah,

00:48:30.020 --> 00:48:31.020
you're right.

00:48:31.020 --> 00:48:33.540
Non-dual Brahman can never actually transform into anything."

00:48:33.540 --> 00:48:38.660
And yet, Shakti does, because Shakti is the dynamic aspect of one and the same infinite

00:48:38.660 --> 00:48:39.660
divine reality.

00:48:39.660 --> 00:48:41.900
And it's Shakti that manifests as everything else.

00:48:41.900 --> 00:48:43.260
It's not non-dual Brahman.

00:48:43.260 --> 00:48:45.100
Brahman is completely transcendent.

00:48:45.100 --> 00:48:47.780
So the ultimate reality, therefore, has components.

00:48:47.780 --> 00:48:48.780
Components, aspects?

00:48:48.780 --> 00:48:49.780
I don't like components.

00:48:49.780 --> 00:48:50.780
Aspects.

00:48:50.780 --> 00:48:51.780
Yeah, aspects, absolutely.

00:48:51.780 --> 00:48:57.300
There's this tendency to want to boil it all down to one unified field or one essential

00:48:57.300 --> 00:49:01.580
ultimate constituent of everything, you know, and not to find multiple constituents.

00:49:01.580 --> 00:49:07.020
Yeah, and it is. I mean, that one fundamental is the divine, the infinite divine reality,

00:49:07.020 --> 00:49:08.660
which has the capacity to manifest.

00:49:08.660 --> 00:49:14.820
Okay, let's take water, for example. So, water is a manifest thing, and we can drink

00:49:14.820 --> 00:49:19.660
it, we can drown in it. And if we look at it closely, we see, well, actually, I mean,

00:49:19.660 --> 00:49:24.900
if we let's say had Superman's microscopic vision, we'd say, "Oh, actually there is no water

00:49:24.900 --> 00:49:28.780
per se, it's just hydrogen and oxygen." And then if we look at those more closely, we'd

00:49:28.780 --> 00:49:33.540
say, "Well, there's actually no hydrogen and oxygen, it's just quarks and electrons or something."

00:49:33.540 --> 00:49:37.940
And then even more fundamentally, "It's just super strings." So, it's almost like we take

00:49:37.940 --> 00:49:43.900
the manifestation of the world as real in a way because we don't have the kind of microscopic

00:49:43.900 --> 00:49:50.380
perception that we theoretically could have, and if we had it, we would see that the world isn't,

00:49:50.380 --> 00:49:54.940
in fact, what it appears to be. It's just all this primordial soup of possibilities.

00:49:54.940 --> 00:49:58.380
>>Burak: Yeah, like some physicists call it strings, right? They call it different things,

00:49:58.380 --> 00:50:02.780
like what that ultimate bedrock kind of reality is. Nonetheless, that still differs from classical

00:50:02.780 --> 00:50:07.100
advaita, right? Because they don't say that those strings are unreal. Physicists, I'm saying. We're

00:50:07.100 --> 00:50:10.540
still far away from the classical advaitic view that everything is an illusion. I mean, if that's

00:50:10.540 --> 00:50:14.040
I don't know what exactly where you want to move in this argument.

00:50:14.040 --> 00:50:16.040
I'm not sure where I want to move either.

00:50:16.040 --> 00:50:17.040
I'm just pondering it.

00:50:17.040 --> 00:50:21.040
Maybe one way of treating the word illusion is that things are real,

00:50:21.040 --> 00:50:22.540
but they are not what they appear to be.

00:50:22.540 --> 00:50:23.540
Sure.

00:50:23.540 --> 00:50:27.040
Yeah, and I think classical advice and say that they say that this thing

00:50:27.040 --> 00:50:29.040
looks like a snake, but it's not a snake.

00:50:29.040 --> 00:50:30.040
It's a rope, right?

00:50:30.040 --> 00:50:33.040
I mean, you're misperceiving the rope as a snake, right?

00:50:33.040 --> 00:50:34.040
Exactly like that.

00:50:34.040 --> 00:50:35.540
I'm misperceiving this laptop.

00:50:35.540 --> 00:50:38.040
I'm misperceiving Brahman as this laptop.

00:50:38.040 --> 00:50:41.040
I'm misperceiving Brahman as this microphone, right?

00:50:41.040 --> 00:50:43.040
Ramakrishna will say it's not a misperception.

00:50:43.040 --> 00:50:47.040
Brahman as Shakti lovingly manifest to us in these different forms.

00:50:47.040 --> 00:50:50.040
So every mystic is right, right?

00:50:50.040 --> 00:50:54.040
The Christian mystic, God will lovingly manifest to the Christian mystic as Christ or as Mary.

00:50:54.040 --> 00:50:58.040
God will lovingly manifest to Muslim mystics as Allah.

00:50:58.040 --> 00:51:01.040
God will lovingly manifest to Vaishnavas as Krishna.

00:51:01.040 --> 00:51:02.040
And they can all be true.

00:51:02.040 --> 00:51:04.040
But you see, so that's not subjective.

00:51:04.040 --> 00:51:06.040
You're explaining it from the side of God.

00:51:06.040 --> 00:51:09.160
used to use the term in Bengali, "Bhokto Bhocho", God is "Bhokto Bhocho",

00:51:09.160 --> 00:51:13.160
meaning He's a lover of His devotees. So He'll lovingly manifest to different devotees,

00:51:13.160 --> 00:51:16.920
different spiritual aspirants, in the form that they love, that they cherish. That's the idea.

00:51:16.920 --> 00:51:20.840
You know, I'm just playing devil's advocate with you a little bit just to kind of

00:51:20.840 --> 00:51:25.160
get this stuff out of you. But I resonate with what you're saying.

00:51:25.160 --> 00:51:30.280
You might say one more thing, which is, I mean, it's useful in the context of Vedanta to go back

00:51:30.280 --> 00:51:35.880
to the original scriptures. And in our case, the Upanishads are authority, or the authoritative

00:51:35.880 --> 00:51:41.880
scriptures and so Chandogya Upanishad does it talk about ropes and snakes? No. What does it talk

00:51:41.880 --> 00:51:46.360
about? What kind of metaphors does Chandogya Upanishad use to explain the relationship between

00:51:46.360 --> 00:51:51.560
the ultimate reality Brahman and this world of names and forms? I want to highlight two. Clay

00:51:51.560 --> 00:51:56.840
and pots, gold and ornaments. I can give you the passages later if you're interested. But that's

00:51:56.840 --> 00:52:02.360
what it is. How does Brahman manifest in this world? The Upanishad answers just as a potter

00:52:02.360 --> 00:52:08.600
will shape this formless clay into differently sized and shaped pots. How does Brahman manifest in this

00:52:08.600 --> 00:52:14.760
world of names and forms? Just as a goldsmith will take molten gold and shape various golden ornaments

00:52:14.760 --> 00:52:19.320
out of it, whether they're bracelets or earrings or necklaces. Now tell me, how in the world are

00:52:19.320 --> 00:52:23.400
you going to get the world as an illusion from this, from these metaphors? It's far more plausible

00:52:23.400 --> 00:52:27.880
to see this world, to take the Upanishad and be saying that this world is a real manifestation of

00:52:27.880 --> 00:52:28.880
of the divine.

00:52:28.880 --> 00:52:31.360
David: And it would be true to say two things.

00:52:31.360 --> 00:52:34.840
You could say, "There's only clay in this room," and you could also say, "There are

00:52:34.840 --> 00:52:37.200
pots in this room," and both things would be right.

00:52:37.200 --> 00:52:38.200
David: Exactly.

00:52:38.200 --> 00:52:41.280
Without the either/or kind of thinking that Advaita's, I think, fall prey to, which is

00:52:41.280 --> 00:52:45.040
that because it's nothing but clay, therefore, the pots never existed.

00:52:45.040 --> 00:52:46.040
That's absurd.

00:52:46.040 --> 00:52:47.040
It's absurd.

00:52:47.040 --> 00:52:51.040
It's absurd to say that an ocean, when it forms into a wave, and then when the wave subsides

00:52:51.040 --> 00:52:53.400
after a few seconds, that the wave never existed.

00:52:53.400 --> 00:52:56.120
Of course the wave existed, but it's temporary.

00:52:56.120 --> 00:53:01.400
exactly what this world is. One thing I always find fascinating, and I often ponder it even

00:53:01.400 --> 00:53:07.640
as I walk the dogs down the street, is to consider the miracle of what you're actually looking at.

00:53:07.640 --> 00:53:11.720
Every blade of grass, a single cell if you could actually see what was going on in it,

00:53:11.720 --> 00:53:18.440
how much intelligence is lively in every particle of creation. Even if you go way out in intergalactic

00:53:18.440 --> 00:53:24.360
space somewhere and look at a cubic centimeter of it, there are all these waves passing through and

00:53:24.360 --> 00:53:29.640
various laws of nature on display. So, it's like the whole universe is just this ocean of

00:53:29.640 --> 00:53:35.800
intelligence, and we take that for granted. That to me evokes a kind of a religious sentiment when

00:53:35.800 --> 00:53:39.800
I contemplate that. I think that lends itself better to the Vijnana-Vidhanta paradigm than

00:53:39.800 --> 00:53:45.080
to classical philosophy, to be honest. I do too. Just the sheer wonder of this world, yeah. Yeah,

00:53:45.080 --> 00:53:50.600
I mean, it almost seems kind of crude to just dismiss it all as mere illusion when you ponder

00:53:50.600 --> 00:53:56.440
the magnitude or the beauty or the majesty, the mystery of this so-called illusion.

00:53:56.440 --> 00:54:01.080
>> Absolutely, absolutely. >> Okie dokie, here's another question.

00:54:01.080 --> 00:54:06.840
This might be from Curtis. For some reason, the name says "Curtis Not." What he means by that?

00:54:06.840 --> 00:54:12.360
He says, "I am not claiming to reveal absolute reality in my perception of the world. I am

00:54:12.360 --> 00:54:17.800
wrong all the time." Yeah, this is Curtis. "I would never claim to have that kind of epistemological

00:54:17.800 --> 00:54:23.560
solidity from my perceptions. Statistics may reveal things we are confused about. We use

00:54:23.560 --> 00:54:29.160
tools. What are the tools in Vedanta that support such a grand claim of the absolute

00:54:29.160 --> 00:54:30.160
reality?

00:54:30.160 --> 00:54:34.760
I want to push back a little on the very first part. Look, you use example of if a truck

00:54:34.760 --> 00:54:39.440
is coming towards you, what do you do in that context? If you perceive a truck coming toward

00:54:39.440 --> 00:54:42.840
you and you're in the middle of a street, are you really going to start, Curtis, saying

00:54:42.840 --> 00:54:45.360
like, "I don't really know whether there's a truck coming toward me." Of course you

00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:47.600
know there's a truck coming through, that's why you get the heck out of the way.

00:54:47.600 --> 00:54:50.120
Did you ever hear that story of Shankara and the elephant?

00:54:50.120 --> 00:54:51.120
No, go ahead.

00:54:51.120 --> 00:54:53.000
Quick story and then resume what you're saying.

00:54:53.000 --> 00:54:56.680
So according to the story, Shankara went to visit some king or something and the king

00:54:56.680 --> 00:54:59.360
decided to test him by letting loose a wild elephant.

00:54:59.360 --> 00:55:03.880
So the elephant's running along, Shankara climbs up a tree and then the king says, "Hey,

00:55:03.880 --> 00:55:06.320
if the world is an illusion, why'd you bother climbing the tree?"

00:55:06.320 --> 00:55:11.040
And Shankara said, "Well, the illusory elephant chased the illusory me up the illusory tree."

00:55:11.040 --> 00:55:12.040
Right, I see.

00:55:12.040 --> 00:55:13.040
Yeah, that's helpful.

00:55:13.040 --> 00:55:17.040
that's helpful. So the point is, I mean, this is in the context of why should we take mystical

00:55:17.040 --> 00:55:22.880
testimony as genuine or legitimate? Why not just see it as subjective? But in my pushback on that

00:55:22.880 --> 00:55:27.120
was, why should I take your perception of this laptop or you're listening, you're on, you know,

00:55:27.120 --> 00:55:33.760
audio listening to the podcast, or visual one as valid, they're all on an equal par. And what he's

00:55:33.760 --> 00:55:38.080
saying is, well, no, but I'm not 100% sure that this is real. And that's fine. And I think many

00:55:38.080 --> 00:55:42.480
mystics don't claim 100% certainty either for their spiritual experiences. I distinguish in my work

00:55:42.480 --> 00:55:46.960
between what philosophers call self-authenticating mystical experiences from mystical experiences

00:55:46.960 --> 00:55:51.200
that are not self-authenticating. And the difference is a self-authenticating mystical

00:55:51.200 --> 00:55:57.120
experience is one which by the very having of which you can't doubt its genuineness.

00:55:57.120 --> 00:56:01.760
And the interesting thing is that mystics like Saint Teresa of Avila, the great Catholic mystic,

00:56:01.760 --> 00:56:06.480
Shri Ramakrishna, they themselves will classify their different spiritual experiences within

00:56:06.480 --> 00:56:09.680
these two categories. Some of them are self-authenticating, some of them are not.

00:56:10.240 --> 00:56:14.400
I don't want to speak for most mystics. I want to say that there are many mystics who don't claim

00:56:14.400 --> 00:56:17.840
that all of their spiritual experiences are self-authenticating, so that it would be inaccurate

00:56:17.840 --> 00:56:23.680
to say that. Some of them will say, "It certainly feels as real, if not more real to me than my

00:56:23.680 --> 00:56:27.760
perception of this external world, but I can't be 100% sure." And then there are these very,

00:56:27.760 --> 00:56:32.240
very lofty, what these mystics consider to be the absolutely ultimate apex of spiritual experience,

00:56:32.240 --> 00:56:35.680
which they say, which they tend to say are self-authenticating. You can't doubt them,

00:56:35.680 --> 00:56:40.880
logically. At least the person experiencing them can't doubt them. Others can doubt all they like.

00:56:40.880 --> 00:56:44.400
Yeah, of course. And of course, you know, you could have fundamentalist Christians who said,

00:56:44.400 --> 00:56:50.000
"Well, Jesus saved me and it was a huge experience for me and I absolutely believe it and it's true

00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:54.080
and I'm going to heaven and all that stuff." That's wonderful. They have that, that's wonderful,

00:56:54.080 --> 00:56:59.600
yeah. More power to them. Yeah, whether or not that actually happened or it was just a big mood.

00:56:59.600 --> 00:57:04.640
God knows, is what I say. God knows. Right. Okay, okay, here's another question. This is

00:57:04.640 --> 00:57:10.320
is from Prachi Dixit in Torrance, California. Do you agree that God or even spirituality

00:57:10.320 --> 00:57:15.440
is a very personal experience and that no matter what path we take, it is all going

00:57:15.440 --> 00:57:17.540
to one ultimate truth?

00:57:17.540 --> 00:57:22.000
>>Kaustubh: Yeah, I think so. It just depends on what you mean by personal experience. I

00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:26.800
mean, is that deflationary or is that... It's an intimate encounter with the ultimate. And

00:57:26.800 --> 00:57:31.940
yeah, our tradition is all about how different people, different spiritual aspirants meditating

00:57:31.940 --> 00:57:36.500
on the divine reality in different forms and aspects, all ultimately reach the same goal

00:57:36.500 --> 00:57:42.600
of spiritual realization of the divine in some form or aspect. And because we haven't really

00:57:42.600 --> 00:57:46.200
brought into play doctrines like karma and rebirth and universal liberation, but that's

00:57:46.200 --> 00:57:48.300
also an important part of the overall package.

00:57:48.300 --> 00:57:51.840
David: Yeah, let's get into that a little bit in a minute. All right, so Curtis just

00:57:51.840 --> 00:57:56.640
sent me, this is the Curtis interview, Curtis sent a follow-up question just in my personal

00:57:56.640 --> 00:58:00.700
email. He says, "Thanks for getting our question in. Well done. I think you also had excellent

00:58:00.700 --> 00:58:04.140
follow-up perspective and this is a little confrontational but you can take

00:58:04.140 --> 00:58:08.420
it. What he tried was to shift the burden of proof. It was a tactic not a

00:58:08.420 --> 00:58:13.980
philosophical response. The fact is that science and my own claims are not that

00:58:13.980 --> 00:58:18.540
we know the ultimate reality of life. That is the claim that requires support. If I

00:58:18.540 --> 00:58:22.180
am challenged on being wrong about anything I am never surprised. He is

00:58:22.180 --> 00:58:26.260
saying that since we can't be sure about our perceptions we have no right to ask

00:58:26.260 --> 00:58:32.340
for proof of a claim to ultimate reality, false equivalence. He is representing a tradition that

00:58:32.340 --> 00:58:38.580
makes a very exciting claim, the ultimate reality of life. The answer to "where's the beef?" cannot

00:58:38.580 --> 00:58:43.700
be "I know you are, but what am I?" I get the drift away saying, yeah, it's because I haven't

00:58:43.700 --> 00:58:47.300
introduced. There are some key principles that I talk about in detail in my scholarly work.

00:58:47.300 --> 00:58:51.300
So I'll just, I'll introduce them now. Richard Swinburne, this very prominent philosopher of

00:58:51.300 --> 00:58:54.020
religion, he's still living, but he's very old at this point. I think he's in the mid 80s or

00:58:54.020 --> 00:58:59.620
or something at Oxford. He presented what he considers to be bedrock epistemic principles.

00:58:59.620 --> 00:59:03.540
One of them he calls the principle of credulity. That may not be the best language to use.

00:59:03.540 --> 00:59:07.220
Other people like John Hick calls it the principle of critical trust. But in any case, what is

00:59:07.220 --> 00:59:11.460
the principle? The fundamental principle is this. It is reasonable for me to take what

00:59:11.460 --> 00:59:16.940
I perceive to actually exist. You might think, well, duh. Well, yeah, it should be duh, right?

00:59:16.940 --> 00:59:21.980
But now, interesting implications follow if we accept this epistemic principle of credulity.

00:59:21.980 --> 00:59:27.900
follows. Any perception I have is by itself in the absence of reasons for doubting that

00:59:27.900 --> 00:59:32.540
perception. If I'm on drugs, I have a good reason to doubt that that's a veridical experience.

00:59:32.540 --> 00:59:37.300
But if I can rule out any reason for thinking that this perception might be bogus, it's

00:59:37.300 --> 00:59:40.540
reasonable for me to take it at face value and to think that what I'm perceiving actually

00:59:40.540 --> 00:59:45.980
exists. If we accept that principle, it applies equally to all perceptions across the board,

00:59:45.980 --> 00:59:49.500
whether sensuous or super sensuous. This is the key principle that needs to be introduced

00:59:49.500 --> 00:59:51.140
to kind of complete the picture that I'm...

00:59:51.140 --> 00:59:52.980
'Cause what he's saying about the tactic, it's true.

00:59:52.980 --> 00:59:54.400
That's just, it's just a response,

00:59:54.400 --> 00:59:56.280
but that's the kind of prelude to bringing in

00:59:56.280 --> 00:59:57.980
the positive epistemic principles.

00:59:57.980 --> 00:59:59.780
So this is the first principle.

00:59:59.780 --> 01:00:02.940
Second principle, the principle of perceptual testimony.

01:00:02.940 --> 01:00:05.400
It's reasonable for us to accept

01:00:05.400 --> 01:00:08.700
the perceptual testimony of others in the absence of doubt.

01:00:08.700 --> 01:00:10.700
We accept both of these principles

01:00:10.700 --> 01:00:12.980
all the time in our daily life.

01:00:12.980 --> 01:00:16.100
Newspapers, history books, science textbooks.

01:00:16.100 --> 01:00:17.840
When my father says, "Hey, take an umbrella,

01:00:17.840 --> 01:00:21.440
raining outside, it's raining outside today for instance in LA, it's a rare occurrence.

01:00:21.440 --> 01:00:26.160
If I know it's April Fool's Day and my dad has a tendency to kind of pull my leg on April Fool's

01:00:26.160 --> 01:00:30.800
Day, then I'm not going to accept that principle on this occasion. Otherwise, you're going to accept

01:00:30.800 --> 01:00:34.800
it. Now, if we accept those two epistemic principles, the principle of credulity and

01:00:34.800 --> 01:00:38.800
the principle of perceptual testimony, and which we do, and I don't think Curtis is going to argue

01:00:38.800 --> 01:00:42.320
against these principles because that would be crazy and you'd lose any sense of rationality if

01:00:42.320 --> 01:00:46.880
you did. If you accept those principles, those principles equally apply to super centrist

01:00:46.880 --> 01:00:50.800
perceptions and essentialist perception. The perception of this mic, of this microphone and

01:00:50.800 --> 01:00:58.000
laptop, just as much as a mystic's punitive perception of God or the Atman or Nirvana.

01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:04.160
That's good. I wish I could talk like that. Yeah, it's funny, actually. There's been such a spate

01:01:04.160 --> 01:01:09.760
of conspiracy theories going around, especially the last few years, it seems like. And I've

01:01:09.760 --> 01:01:15.200
actually tangled with people who believe the earth is flat and that everybody's lying to you. And of

01:01:15.200 --> 01:01:20.740
And of course, people who try to debunk conspiracy theories say that the larger the conspiracy,

01:01:20.740 --> 01:01:26.800
the more improbable it is that it's a valid theory. So, the fact that the Earth is flat,

01:01:26.800 --> 01:01:31.920
there'd have to be millions of people in cahoots hiding something from us, or that the moon

01:01:31.920 --> 01:01:36.920
landings were faked, and so on and so forth. And actually, this leads to a good question,

01:01:36.920 --> 01:01:41.520
which I've come more and more to appreciate the importance of developing critical thinking

01:01:41.520 --> 01:01:47.280
skills on the spiritual path because I've seen so many examples of people who have been on

01:01:47.280 --> 01:01:53.760
spiritual paths for decades even who are kind of off in la-la land in terms of the clarity

01:01:53.760 --> 01:01:59.440
and rigor of their thinking and are susceptible to brainwashing and all kinds of magical thinking.

01:01:59.440 --> 01:02:03.920
Absolutely, I think that critical thinking is essential for all spiritual aspirants. I gave a

01:02:03.920 --> 01:02:07.680
lecture a few months ago, you can look it on YouTube, it's called "We Are All Philosophers"

01:02:07.680 --> 01:02:11.920
And I think that there's a common mistake made by a lot of spiritual aspirants, which is that like

01:02:11.920 --> 01:02:16.480
there's like a small minority of super smart and intellectual spiritual aspirants who are into

01:02:16.480 --> 01:02:21.440
philosophy, who are kind of nerds about philosophy. And so philosophy is for them, but not for us. We

01:02:21.440 --> 01:02:26.400
don't need it. And I push back on that and I think that that's a mistake. First of all, I think it's

01:02:26.400 --> 01:02:30.560
important to recognize that the Buddhist, the fundamental Buddhist spiritual practice is the

01:02:30.560 --> 01:02:36.160
noble eightfold path. And the first factor in that eightfold path is samyagdhrishti. It's the right

01:02:36.160 --> 01:02:40.800
view, right understanding. It's the foundation for all of the subsequent spiritual practices,

01:02:40.800 --> 01:02:44.360
for everything else. Because without a right understanding of this world, no matter what

01:02:44.360 --> 01:02:48.820
you do, it's like rowing a boat in a completely directionless way. You need to know where

01:02:48.820 --> 01:02:54.520
you are now, where you want to go, and how to get from point A to point B. All of that,

01:02:54.520 --> 01:02:58.560
you can only arrive at that through critical thinking and through some philosophical inquiry,

01:02:58.560 --> 01:03:02.360
however rudimentary. And every tradition gives you a different philosophical roadmap, so

01:03:02.360 --> 01:03:05.800
So you have to have some understanding, even if you just take the name of God, which is

01:03:05.800 --> 01:03:07.600
a standard devotional practice.

01:03:07.600 --> 01:03:08.600
Who is God?

01:03:08.600 --> 01:03:12.720
You don't need to be Aquinas and go into the theological subtleties, but have some basic

01:03:12.720 --> 01:03:13.720
understanding.

01:03:13.720 --> 01:03:18.200
Is God a supreme person who loves me and who responds to my prayers?

01:03:18.200 --> 01:03:20.760
Or is God non-dual pure consciousness?

01:03:20.760 --> 01:03:22.920
Doesn't that matter to your spiritual practice?

01:03:22.920 --> 01:03:23.920
Shouldn't it matter?

01:03:23.920 --> 01:03:25.200
I mean, surely it does.

01:03:25.200 --> 01:03:27.800
But these are philosophical questions and they're things that you arrive at through critical

01:03:27.800 --> 01:03:28.880
thinking.

01:03:28.880 --> 01:03:30.860
Critical thinking takes many different forms.

01:03:30.860 --> 01:03:34.420
So I just mentioned one form which is philosophizing, but there are many other forms.

01:03:34.420 --> 01:03:38.460
For instance, viveka, the Sanskrit term viveka, often is translated as discrimination.

01:03:38.460 --> 01:03:41.440
These days discrimination has a bad connotation, so people say discernment.

01:03:41.440 --> 01:03:44.020
But in any case, that itself is a form of critical thinking.

01:03:44.020 --> 01:03:45.620
That's also important to keep in mind.

01:03:45.620 --> 01:03:49.060
And that's fundamental in every path, apart from the path of knowledge.

01:03:49.060 --> 01:03:53.380
But viveka, this idea that you have to discriminate between what is real, what's unreal, what's

01:03:53.380 --> 01:03:56.380
permanent, what's impermanent, what's eternal, what's non-eternal.

01:03:56.380 --> 01:04:01.820
non-eternal. It kind of reminds me of the whole Shravanamana and Nididhasana thing where you

01:04:01.820 --> 01:04:07.340
hear it, you really think about it deeply, you do something to confirm it experientially

01:04:07.340 --> 01:04:13.020
or explore it experientially. And I think sometimes there's an imbalance in people's

01:04:13.020 --> 01:04:16.900
spiritual development where they favor one of these things more than the other and it

01:04:16.900 --> 01:04:22.380
doesn't have a good outcome. Along similar lines, Swami Sarvarma Prananda, with some

01:04:22.380 --> 01:04:27.500
friends I started this organization a few years ago called the Association for Spiritual Integrity

01:04:27.500 --> 01:04:35.260
to try to popularize the importance of ethical behavior on the spiritual path, which is often

01:04:35.260 --> 01:04:40.380
lacking in contemporary circles. And Swami Sarvarpriyananda addressed our group one time

01:04:40.380 --> 01:04:45.260
for a webinar, but I appreciate hearing your thoughts on that because as I mentioned it's

01:04:45.260 --> 01:04:51.860
very often left out in modern spiritual teachings and yet it's very much a pillar of the more

01:04:51.860 --> 01:04:56.660
traditional teachings. Absolutely and I 100% agree and I think part of the problem with

01:04:56.660 --> 01:05:01.460
so-called neo-advaitins is that they don't read their source texts. They don't read Shankara's

01:05:01.460 --> 01:05:04.820
commentaries in general. They're only reading Ramana Maharshi. Even Ramana Maharshi will

01:05:04.820 --> 01:05:08.740
sometimes emphasize eligibility requirements and if you look at his life of course you saw that he

01:05:08.740 --> 01:05:14.500
was just obviously an extraordinary soul, right? And at the age of 16 his uncle died I think and

01:05:14.500 --> 01:05:18.660
then he just lay flat on the floor and then he just had the enlightenment experience. But that's

01:05:18.660 --> 01:05:23.060
because he had already attained perfection in previous births, right? That would be the Vedantic

01:05:23.060 --> 01:05:27.300
understanding. So I think it's absolutely essential. I personally think that it's dangerous to teach

01:05:27.300 --> 01:05:31.780
classical Advaita Vedanta to the masses precisely because of this problem. You can teach Advaita

01:05:31.780 --> 01:05:35.700
Vedanta in a different form. That is, in my understanding, Vijnana Vedanta because it's

01:05:35.700 --> 01:05:40.900
still Advaita. There's only one reality. But this is not an Advaita that says this world is an

01:05:40.900 --> 01:05:45.060
illusion. It doesn't say that the path of knowledge is the only direct path to liberation. Those are

01:05:45.060 --> 01:05:49.300
are the things that are I think more problematic in this context. I interviewed a woman about a

01:05:49.300 --> 01:05:54.900
year ago named Jessica Nathanson or Jessica Eve, she sometimes calls herself, who has been on a

01:05:54.900 --> 01:06:01.540
campaign to help people who've actually been damaged by neo-invite. People who are householders

01:06:01.540 --> 01:06:07.140
by nature, they have families, jobs, etc., are becoming cynical, unmotivated, their family is

01:06:07.140 --> 01:06:13.060
an illusion, they may even become suicidal and so on, and she's become like a clearinghouse for

01:06:13.060 --> 01:06:18.260
these horror stories. Wow, that's interesting. I didn't know that it went that far, but I think

01:06:18.260 --> 01:06:22.180
that the key term here is spiritual bypassing. I think that's what's happening in a lot of these

01:06:22.180 --> 01:06:27.780
cases. It's people who are frustrated in their home life or their whatever work life and they

01:06:27.780 --> 01:06:33.940
take to Advaita Vedanta as this spiritual quick fix to avoid thinking about their psychological

01:06:33.940 --> 01:06:39.460
and daily mundane issues. I think that's a huge problem. All right, playing off of this,

01:06:40.100 --> 01:06:46.260
you just said that it's not good to teach Vedanta to the masses, but that maybe Vijnana Vedanta

01:06:46.260 --> 01:06:53.860
would be okay. So, reiterate, if you've already said some of it, in what form do you think Vedanta

01:06:53.860 --> 01:07:00.900
should be presented to a larger audience? And part of the question is, what are the actual mechanics

01:07:00.900 --> 01:07:06.420
through which studying Vedanta in the way you're going to describe brings about realization?

01:07:06.420 --> 01:07:10.340
So the first part I actually kind of answered, but I'll just remind you of the three main

01:07:10.340 --> 01:07:11.820
tenets of Vijnana Vedanta.

01:07:11.820 --> 01:07:12.820
Right.

01:07:12.820 --> 01:07:14.240
Number one, ultimate reality.

01:07:14.240 --> 01:07:17.220
It's not only personal and it's not only impersonal.

01:07:17.220 --> 01:07:21.220
So it's already differing from the traditional schools of Vedanta in that way.

01:07:21.220 --> 01:07:24.840
Because all the bhakti schools of Vedanta are saying that God is only Vishnu, God is

01:07:24.840 --> 01:07:28.580
only Krishna, or that other forms of God are lower than Krishna and all this stuff.

01:07:28.580 --> 01:07:32.940
Advaita Vedanta is saying ultimately ultimate reality is only Brahman and the other things

01:07:32.940 --> 01:07:34.700
are just lower forms of reality.

01:07:34.700 --> 01:07:39.700
Shrampus's philosophy says, Vighenamadhyatha says, that ultimate reality is equally Brahman and Shakti.

01:07:39.700 --> 01:07:41.700
Equally impersonal and personal.

01:07:41.700 --> 01:07:43.700
Equally with and without form.

01:07:43.700 --> 01:07:50.700
That one infinite divine reality manifests in different forms and aspirants to different mystics and spiritual aspirants.

01:07:50.700 --> 01:07:56.700
So if a householder hears that, for instance, he's not going to be inclined to give up his family and lose interest in the world.

01:07:56.700 --> 01:07:57.700
Exactly. Exactly.

01:07:57.700 --> 01:07:59.700
Whereas he might with a more Shankarite emphasis.

01:07:59.700 --> 01:08:02.100
Absolutely. And number two, number two tenet.

01:08:02.100 --> 01:08:04.600
What is this world and how does it relate to ultimate reality?

01:08:04.600 --> 01:08:11.500
Shri Ramakrishna says this world is a real manifestation of the divine, of Shakti.

01:08:11.500 --> 01:08:15.200
Another reason for not abandoning your family is that you can't abandon God.

01:08:15.200 --> 01:08:17.400
Where are you going to go? You're going to leave God for God.

01:08:17.400 --> 01:08:22.900
So stay where you are and do your duties and do it as a loving worship of God by

01:08:22.900 --> 01:08:27.100
serving your wife, serving your children and going to work, doing your Karma Yoga

01:08:27.200 --> 01:08:31.500
And whatever you do, your 9-5 job or whatever it is, do it as an offering to the Divine,

01:08:31.500 --> 01:08:34.200
who is omnipresent and both transcendent and immanent.

01:08:34.200 --> 01:08:38.220
You know, I edited a volume on panentheism, so it's the panentheistic view that God is

01:08:38.220 --> 01:08:42.040
both immanent in the world and transcendent, also beyond it.

01:08:42.040 --> 01:08:44.680
And third, how does that affect our understanding of spiritual practice?

01:08:44.680 --> 01:08:46.780
Well, I think it affects it radically.

01:08:46.780 --> 01:08:50.440
Because instead of privileging one path like Jnana Yoga, which is again part of the problem

01:08:50.440 --> 01:08:55.200
for neo-Advaitins, because a lot of them look down on people who follow bhakti, you know,

01:08:55.200 --> 01:08:58.120
devotional traditions and they say that's based on blind faith.

01:08:58.120 --> 01:09:02.440
Our path is the only rational one and we have greater lucidity than you do and they can

01:09:02.440 --> 01:09:04.360
be very patronizing and condescending.

01:09:04.360 --> 01:09:08.120
I've seen that from my own experience from encountering different, even some monks and

01:09:08.120 --> 01:09:09.440
but also many devotees.

01:09:09.440 --> 01:09:11.760
Vijnanamadhyatmas don't do that.

01:09:11.760 --> 01:09:12.760
Why?

01:09:12.760 --> 01:09:16.520
Because they put all of the different yogas on an equal footing and they say that it's

01:09:16.520 --> 01:09:17.960
a matter of temperament.

01:09:17.960 --> 01:09:21.840
Which yoga you take to the most and you can even combine them to your heart's content

01:09:21.840 --> 01:09:22.840
if you want.

01:09:22.840 --> 01:09:27.800
it fosters a much richer and more expansive spiritual life where you don't have to feel

01:09:27.800 --> 01:09:33.240
first of all the danger of the spiritual superiority complex like i'm on the fast path the

01:09:33.240 --> 01:09:37.400
the fast track to liberation whereas these other fools are kind of it might take them a thousand

01:09:37.400 --> 01:09:42.200
more lives to come to where i am and you you don't have that condescending attitude and secondly

01:09:42.200 --> 01:09:45.560
you don't have to just practice one yoga at the expense of the others you can actually combine

01:09:45.560 --> 01:09:50.280
them in creative ways and there isn't any one way to do it there are many ways make your spiritual

01:09:50.280 --> 01:09:56.360
path your own. Vivekananda used to say, "No person is born into a religion. Each person has a religion,

01:09:56.360 --> 01:10:01.640
a kind of custom-made, individualized religion, in the depths of his or her soul." And the first

01:10:01.640 --> 01:10:06.120
step in spiritual life is discovering what that custom-made, individualized religion is. You can

01:10:06.120 --> 01:10:10.760
make it for yourself, and Vignanadana gives you the tools to do that. That's good. Actually, you know,

01:10:10.760 --> 01:10:18.520
Ramana Maharshi, as I understand him, and Papaji, you know, H.W.L. Punja, who was one of his disciples,

01:10:18.520 --> 01:10:25.320
and from whom many of these Neo-Advaita people sprang, were quite devotional. So was Nisargadatta.

01:10:25.320 --> 01:10:31.480
I mean, they would get out the puja kit, the symbols. So a lot of times that aspect isn't

01:10:31.480 --> 01:10:36.040
brought forth very much. I think that's true, but I think it's also not obvious how to understand

01:10:36.040 --> 01:10:41.320
that. I mean, to be honest, you know, I've read many of Ramana Maharshi's teachings. I've read

01:10:41.320 --> 01:10:48.840
Nisargadatta's "I Am That" and other texts. And they do seem to say, sometimes at least,

01:10:48.840 --> 01:10:53.800
that the personal god is not the ultimate reality. And if so, then there's this question,

01:10:53.800 --> 01:10:57.640
okay, yeah, they might be engaging in devotional practice, but one explanation would be they're

01:10:57.640 --> 01:11:01.800
doing it to cater to the masses who are not ready for the highest teachings. Another is,

01:11:01.800 --> 01:11:05.240
they have to spend their time in some way while they're still in the body, which is itself an

01:11:05.240 --> 01:11:10.840
illusion. So they may as well worship an illusory god within the dream. Do a dream puja of a dream

01:11:10.840 --> 01:11:15.960
personal god in this dream because there's no loss in doing that. It's better than smoking

01:11:15.960 --> 01:11:22.520
tobacco. Or "Nisagadatta Amara" is both smoke tobacco and devotional practices. So just by noting that they're devotional,

01:11:22.520 --> 01:11:26.120
that they were also devotional, that doesn't mean that they subscribe to "Vijnana Vedanta".

01:11:26.120 --> 01:11:29.720
You see what I mean? That would be what I call lazy harmonizing. I think that's a really, really

01:11:29.720 --> 01:11:35.240
great danger in traditions, especially that try to be ecumenical and syncretic. The danger is

01:11:35.240 --> 01:11:38.840
they leap too quickly to the assumption that all paths just lead to the same goal

01:11:38.840 --> 01:11:41.960
without being rigorous about the mechanics of it, which is the second part of your question.

01:11:41.960 --> 01:11:46.760
Yes, we haven't gotten to that yet. We want to talk more about mechanics. I can understand how

01:11:46.760 --> 01:11:52.440
something like meditation, which I've been doing for like 55 years, has neurophysiological effects

01:11:52.440 --> 01:11:58.680
and so on and can restructure your whole makeup, gross and subtle, and things like yoga and so on.

01:11:58.680 --> 01:12:05.240
But how about the dhanta itself? Maybe there's the analogy that you pull one leg of the table

01:12:05.240 --> 01:12:12.120
and the whole table comes along. So, what is the table leg of studying Vedanta? How does it

01:12:12.120 --> 01:12:18.440
drag along the rest of one's makeup and actually transform? It would even have to be neuro

01:12:18.440 --> 01:12:24.360
physiological, transform one so that realization can become an abiding living reality.

01:12:24.360 --> 01:12:27.720
>> We have to be careful about the term Vedanta. This is another thing I kind of

01:12:27.720 --> 01:12:29.240
>> Oh yes, it's a multi-

01:12:29.240 --> 01:12:33.160
>> My work, my lectures, and because Vedanta is too broad and it encompasses many different

01:12:33.160 --> 01:12:33.640
traditions.

01:12:33.640 --> 01:12:36.640
Let's say Vijnana Vedanta, we'll keep it at that.

01:12:36.640 --> 01:12:39.640
So, with Vijnana Vedanta, here's the key premise.

01:12:39.640 --> 01:12:42.640
We are already God. We are already God.

01:12:42.640 --> 01:12:44.640
And we are already children of God.

01:12:44.640 --> 01:12:48.640
And the problem is, the layers of impurity from many past lives

01:12:48.640 --> 01:12:51.640
that are covering over that innate knowledge that we are divine.

01:12:51.640 --> 01:12:54.640
So, the way that Swami Vivekananda puts it is,

01:12:54.640 --> 01:12:57.640
yes, every yoga is a direct path to liberation.

01:12:57.640 --> 01:12:59.640
And there are people who push back and question him.

01:12:59.640 --> 01:13:02.640
For instance, Anantarand Rambachan. I don't know if you've had him on your podcast.

01:13:02.640 --> 01:13:07.440
He's an interesting scholar, he's a Hindu scholar, who wrote a book criticizing Vivekananda's ideas.

01:13:07.440 --> 01:13:12.440
And he has a whole chapter devoted to a kind of critical demolition of Swami Vivekananda's view,

01:13:12.440 --> 01:13:17.240
the Vijnanavidhanta view, which is that all four yogas are direct paths to the same goal of moksha, liberation.

01:13:17.240 --> 01:13:20.640
And he's criticizing Vivekananda from the standpoint of Shankara, interestingly.

01:13:20.640 --> 01:13:21.840
He's a follower of Shankara.

01:13:21.840 --> 01:13:27.340
And he says that Shankara gives a really logical, airtight argument for why the path of knowledge,

01:13:27.340 --> 01:13:30.740
the mechanics of how the path of knowledge can afford liberation.

01:13:30.740 --> 01:13:35.380
Vivekananda doesn't give an explanation of the precise mechanics by which Bhakti Yoga,

01:13:35.380 --> 01:13:40.660
Raja Yoga, Karma Yoga can equally lead to liberation. That's the criticism. And in my book on Vivekananda,

01:13:40.660 --> 01:13:45.060
Swami Vivekananda's Vedanta-Cause of Balkanism, in chapter 2 of the book, I respond to Rambachan's

01:13:45.060 --> 01:13:50.740
criticisms and this is the way I do it. The key premise is we are already knowers of Brahman.

01:13:50.740 --> 01:13:54.260
We are already knowers of Brahman. That knowledge of Brahman is already innate in us.

01:13:54.260 --> 01:13:58.740
But we're not aware that we have that knowledge because of these layers of impurity covering over

01:13:58.740 --> 01:14:05.700
that knowledge. Now, every single yoga, the aim of every yoga, whether it's jnana yoga or bhakti

01:14:05.700 --> 01:14:11.540
yoga or jnana yoga or raja yoga, is to purify our hearts and minds. That's it. That's it. So that

01:14:11.540 --> 01:14:15.940
through the successful practice of any of these yogas, what's the result? You've purified your

01:14:15.940 --> 01:14:21.300
heart and mind and that innate knowledge of divinity, of your own divinity, shines forth,

01:14:21.300 --> 01:14:26.100
manifests. That's the mechanics of it. You're just removing those layers of impurity covering over

01:14:26.100 --> 01:14:29.860
that innate knowledge of Brahman. And if you want a scriptural precedent, actually the Bhagavad Gita

01:14:29.860 --> 01:14:34.500
says exactly that. It says that we are already, we already have jnana, but that jnana is covered

01:14:34.500 --> 01:14:38.260
over by worldly desires and attachments, that kind of impurity. Yeah, I think doesn't it mean

01:14:38.260 --> 01:14:42.260
to say knowledge is the greatest purifier? And that knowledge, something like that?

01:14:42.260 --> 01:14:45.940
Absolutely. But in this case, I'm saying something different. I'm saying that that

01:14:45.940 --> 01:14:50.260
knowledge is already within us. And through any spiritual practice, whether it's a path of

01:14:50.260 --> 01:14:55.220
knowledge or devotion or whatever, you remove those layers of impurity covering that innate knowledge,

01:14:55.220 --> 01:14:58.180
Preventing from realizing that you're already an old man in that sense.

01:14:58.180 --> 01:15:00.500
That you already have the skill and knowledge.

01:15:00.500 --> 01:15:23.460
Yeah, study is, I think that's part of the danger of Neo-Advaita because it's...

01:15:23.460 --> 01:15:26.820
I don't mean just a superficial, you know, dabbling. I mean, yeah.

01:15:26.820 --> 01:15:31.460
...teachings of Ramana Maharishi is enough for liberation. Yeah, but a deep study. Absolutely,

01:15:31.460 --> 01:15:32.580
absolutely. That by itself...

01:15:32.580 --> 01:15:36.100
I guess the whole question of which is fastest and which is best, you know,

01:15:36.100 --> 01:15:39.140
comes back to like who you are and what your makeup is.

01:15:39.140 --> 01:15:45.940
Exactly. That's absolutely right. You can't say that for everybody, there's one path that's

01:15:45.940 --> 01:15:48.900
objectively better than the others. And Sri Ramakrishna would use the example of a mother

01:15:48.900 --> 01:15:53.140
cooking different fish preparations for different children. And I think it's a very intuitive

01:15:53.140 --> 01:15:56.660
example because it makes no sense to say that pasta is objectively better than...

01:15:56.660 --> 01:15:58.420
Different strokes for different folks.

01:15:58.420 --> 01:15:59.860
It's a matter of taste.

01:15:59.860 --> 01:16:02.420
Okie dokie. Here's another question that came in.

01:16:02.420 --> 01:16:10.020
Mrinalini Singh in New Delhi, "Could you please speak more about Kalima and why she is always

01:16:10.020 --> 01:16:15.860
shown as so fierce and deadly? Thakurji, in other words Sri Ramakrishna, in Dakshinwar

01:16:15.860 --> 01:16:20.420
spoke so lovingly of her and described her as Shakti, which was omnipotent."

01:16:20.420 --> 01:16:24.420
Yeah, thanks. It's a great question. I'm teaching Bhagavad Gita in the Light of Shri Ram Krishna.

01:16:24.420 --> 01:16:27.460
That's a class, an ongoing class that I'm teaching and we're using Sri Aurobindo's

01:16:27.460 --> 01:16:31.300
essays in the Gita as our main text. And we just discussed a chapter where he says

01:16:31.300 --> 01:16:35.860
really beautifully, he says, "Hinduism is one of the few religions in the world that accepts

01:16:35.860 --> 01:16:40.020
unflinchingly that God is not only the creator but God is also the destroyer.

01:16:40.020 --> 01:16:45.460
God doesn't just manifest as a good but also manifests as evil." And we don't have to posit

01:16:45.460 --> 01:16:50.580
some other entity like satan or ariman in the in the context of zoroastrianism as this kind of

01:16:50.580 --> 01:16:54.740
counterpoint to god to explain everything that's bad or dark in the world no god is equally both

01:16:54.740 --> 01:16:59.620
and you have to accept god in the forms of both good and evil. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that

01:16:59.620 --> 01:17:06.500
Kalima has manifested as both avidya maya and vidya maya. avidya maya is the maya of ignorance

01:17:06.500 --> 01:17:12.100
which includes all selfish qualities egoism lust and greed and all that stuff and vidya maya all

01:17:12.100 --> 01:17:17.140
of the spiritual qualities, like devotion, like knowledge, like discrimination, like detachment,

01:17:17.140 --> 01:17:21.220
which bring us to the highest knowledge of ultimate reality. And she's equally both.

01:17:21.220 --> 01:17:26.660
She's equally both. And so, I think that it's just a very sobering and also realistic and

01:17:26.660 --> 01:17:31.060
expansive understanding of God. - And about a month ago, I was

01:17:31.060 --> 01:17:37.540
corresponding with a friend and I used Bing chat or something like that to bring up a list of

01:17:37.540 --> 01:17:42.740
the various points in the Bible that discuss the omnipresence of God. And there are a number of

01:17:42.740 --> 01:17:49.220
them that are very plain. God is omnipresent. So, if God is omnipresent, then God equally pervades

01:17:49.220 --> 01:17:56.500
everything by definition, including Auschwitz and whatnot. And if God is missing from some of those

01:17:56.500 --> 01:18:01.620
places, then there are holes in God and God is not omnipresent. But people bring that up as an

01:18:01.620 --> 01:18:06.580
obvious example of how could there be a God which would allow something like that? If that's the way

01:18:06.580 --> 01:18:09.300
God can behave, I'm not interested in the guy.

01:18:09.300 --> 01:18:13.780
Absolutely. So this is exactly the question that came up in the Gospel of Shri Ramakrishna.

01:18:13.780 --> 01:18:18.900
There's an incident when the author of the Gospel, M, he mentions to Shri Ramakrishna,

01:18:18.900 --> 01:18:22.740
there's this great pandit at the time named Vidyasagar. Vidyasagar says, and he told this

01:18:22.740 --> 01:18:27.460
to M, and M conveyed it to Shri Ramakrishna. Vidyasagar said, Genghis Khan was faced with

01:18:27.460 --> 01:18:32.820
a difficult situation. He had about 100,000 prisoners. And to maintain those prisoners,

01:18:32.820 --> 01:18:36.460
you have to feed them, doesn't have the resources. So somebody asked him, what do we do with

01:18:36.460 --> 01:18:41.020
these prisoners. He said, "Oh, just kill them." Vidya Sagar says, "Didn't God see that? If

01:18:41.020 --> 01:18:45.780
God is omnipotent, wouldn't he have prevented that? If God is perfectly loving, shouldn't

01:18:45.780 --> 01:18:50.780
he have prevented that?" So if we accept the theistic God, the traditional God of theism,

01:18:50.780 --> 01:18:56.100
which is that God is perfectly loving and omnipotent, then you have no way of explaining

01:18:56.100 --> 01:18:59.340
the presence of this tremendous suffering and evil in the world. That's the problem

01:18:59.340 --> 01:19:02.380
of evil in philosophy and philosophy, religion and theology.

01:19:02.380 --> 01:19:03.380
Yes, I do.

01:19:03.380 --> 01:19:04.180
I do. Yeah.

01:19:04.180 --> 01:19:07.700
...work to kind of discussing our tradition's response to the problem of evil.

01:19:07.700 --> 01:19:11.140
I'm now basing what I'm going to say on chapter seven and eight of my book on

01:19:11.140 --> 01:19:16.260
Shuram Krishna called "Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality." So I would say that it's a three-part

01:19:16.260 --> 01:19:20.340
theodicy. Remember the word that you had trouble pronouncing, theodicy. What does theodicy mean?

01:19:20.340 --> 01:19:26.900
Theodicy was a term coined by Leibniz, and it means justifying God's ways to human beings,

01:19:26.900 --> 01:19:30.180
explaining why God permits all this evil and suffering that we see around us.

01:19:30.180 --> 01:19:34.980
Now, how does Shuram Gosha do it? I think it's a three-part response and they're all kind of

01:19:34.980 --> 01:19:40.340
interrelated in interesting ways. First line response is what philosophers called skeptical

01:19:40.340 --> 01:19:46.500
theism and that's his first line response to Vidya Sagar actually. He says, "How can we ever know why

01:19:46.500 --> 01:19:51.780
God does the things she does? God creates, preserves, and destroys. How can we ever know

01:19:51.780 --> 01:19:56.180
why and when she destroys?" This is what's called skeptical theism in technical language. What it

01:19:56.180 --> 01:20:03.140
it means is, why in the world should we think that we are in any position to know why God

01:20:03.140 --> 01:20:05.700
would do the things that he does or she does?

01:20:05.700 --> 01:20:10.420
And an example that William Alston uses, which I like, is he uses the example of chess.

01:20:10.420 --> 01:20:11.760
Imagine a chess grandmaster.

01:20:11.760 --> 01:20:15.300
We can think of Magnus Carlsen, for instance, the greatest chess player in the world, playing

01:20:15.300 --> 01:20:17.900
against another very high level player.

01:20:17.900 --> 01:20:19.100
I'm watching in the audience.

01:20:19.100 --> 01:20:20.260
I'm just an amateur chess player.

01:20:20.260 --> 01:20:23.340
I know the rules, but I'm terrible at chess, which is true about me.

01:20:23.340 --> 01:20:25.340
Okay, I'm watching Magnus make this move,

01:20:25.340 --> 01:20:26.900
which seems like way out there.

01:20:26.900 --> 01:20:28.500
Like it's a move I would never make.

01:20:28.500 --> 01:20:30.120
Would I jump to the conclusion

01:20:30.120 --> 01:20:32.300
that Magnus is making a huge mistake?

01:20:32.300 --> 01:20:33.940
I don't think I have good evidence for that

01:20:33.940 --> 01:20:35.280
because I'm just an amateur, right?

01:20:35.280 --> 01:20:37.100
I mean, I don't have the mind that Magnus does.

01:20:37.100 --> 01:20:38.780
He's thinking a hundred moves in advance,

01:20:38.780 --> 01:20:40.980
whereas I can't even think two moves in advance.

01:20:40.980 --> 01:20:42.620
If that's true of Magnus Carlsen,

01:20:42.620 --> 01:20:44.260
who's still a finite human being,

01:20:44.260 --> 01:20:46.220
how much more true would it be of God,

01:20:46.220 --> 01:20:48.940
who's infinite, who is omniscient and omnipotent?

01:20:48.940 --> 01:20:49.900
That's skeptical theism.

01:20:49.900 --> 01:20:51.500
That's true Ramakrishna's first line response

01:20:51.500 --> 01:20:52.340
to the problem of evil.

01:20:52.340 --> 01:20:57.220
because we don't understand why God permitted Genghis Khan to slaughter all those people

01:20:57.220 --> 01:21:02.100
or Hitler to allow for all those Jews or order all those Jews to be killed in the concentration

01:21:02.100 --> 01:21:06.020
camp. It doesn't mean that God didn't have a good first line response, but that's not all.

01:21:06.020 --> 01:21:10.900
There are two other dimensions which I want to elaborate. Second, the second dimension of

01:21:10.900 --> 01:21:18.420
Shri Ramakrishna's theodicy is what I call his saint-making theodicy. Okay, saint-making theodicy,

01:21:18.420 --> 01:21:20.220
and it has three main doctrines.

01:21:20.220 --> 01:21:21.920
In the Gospel of Shri Ram Krishna,

01:21:21.920 --> 01:21:23.820
Shri Ram Krishna raises the problem of evil himself,

01:21:23.820 --> 01:21:24.720
and he asks,

01:21:24.720 --> 01:21:28.420
"Why has God created all these evil worldly tendencies in us?"

01:21:28.420 --> 01:21:31.120
All this selfishness, lust, and greed, and anger

01:21:31.120 --> 01:21:33.220
that leads to so much suffering for so many people.

01:21:33.220 --> 01:21:34.420
Untold suffering.

01:21:34.420 --> 01:21:36.120
He gives a very succinct answer,

01:21:36.120 --> 01:21:38.020
and you can write whole books on it,

01:21:38.020 --> 01:21:39.620
as I tried to myself.

01:21:39.620 --> 01:21:42.320
His answer is, "In order to create saints."

01:21:42.320 --> 01:21:43.820
It's a very interesting answer.

01:21:43.820 --> 01:21:47.020
And then he says,

01:21:47.020 --> 01:21:52.220
You learn how to control the senses and how to overcome ego and how to overcome your selfish

01:21:52.220 --> 01:21:57.900
qualities and egoistic tendencies through the encounter with evil and suffering both in yourself

01:21:57.900 --> 01:22:02.700
and in this world and in other people. You learn from other people's mistakes for instance but you

01:22:02.700 --> 01:22:06.060
also learn from your own mistakes from both good and bad and all the things that you do in the

01:22:06.060 --> 01:22:10.780
course of your life. And it's through that that we grow morally and spiritually. If we weren't

01:22:10.780 --> 01:22:16.140
tested, if we weren't challenged, if this world were just a kind of a kind of utopia or a heaven,

01:22:16.140 --> 01:22:19.900
we wouldn't make ethical progress. That's why this world is so unique. That's why this world is what's

01:22:19.900 --> 01:22:24.460
called the karma bhumi. That's why even more than any of these temporary heavens that people go to

01:22:24.460 --> 01:22:29.820
because of their good karma, this world alone is the karma bhumi in the sense that in this world

01:22:29.820 --> 01:22:33.740
alone can we work out our karma and actually make ethical and spiritual progress precisely because

01:22:33.740 --> 01:22:38.860
it's not a perfect world and it's not all peaches and roses. In those higher realms where it's all

01:22:38.860 --> 01:22:43.260
good, you're not going to grow because everything is great. It's a kind of hedonistic paradise.

01:22:43.260 --> 01:22:48.760
Okay, now what are the three key doctrines here that help to kind of fill out the specifics of this picture?

01:22:48.760 --> 01:22:51.760
Karma, rebirth, and universal liberation.

01:22:51.760 --> 01:22:55.760
The doctrine of karma. This is one of the fundamental tenets of Hinduism.

01:22:55.760 --> 01:22:58.760
We believe that there is this law of karma.

01:22:58.760 --> 01:23:02.260
Every single one of our acts has a certain ethical quality.

01:23:02.260 --> 01:23:07.260
It could be wholesome or good. It could be unwholesome or bad, unethical.

01:23:07.260 --> 01:23:08.660
or it could be neutral.

01:23:08.660 --> 01:23:11.360
And the ethical quality of our actions

01:23:11.360 --> 01:23:13.460
has consequences for us.

01:23:13.460 --> 01:23:15.260
Either later in this life

01:23:15.260 --> 01:23:16.360
or in a subsequent life.

01:23:16.360 --> 01:23:17.860
And so, Karma is linked

01:23:17.860 --> 01:23:19.060
to the doctrine of rebirth,

01:23:19.060 --> 01:23:21.060
which is that this is not our only embodiment.

01:23:21.060 --> 01:23:23.360
We have had past embodiments

01:23:23.360 --> 01:23:24.760
in other human beings,

01:23:24.760 --> 01:23:26.560
but also possibly lower creatures,

01:23:26.560 --> 01:23:27.660
even plants.

01:23:27.660 --> 01:23:29.560
And until we attain liberation,

01:23:29.560 --> 01:23:31.360
we'll have to come back again in another body

01:23:31.360 --> 01:23:32.860
and assume human form again,

01:23:32.860 --> 01:23:34.460
ultimately to get liberation.

01:23:34.460 --> 01:23:36.060
Now, there's a big question about

01:23:36.060 --> 01:23:41.500
how to interpret this law of karma. One traditional way that the Hindu doctrine of karma has been

01:23:41.500 --> 01:23:45.180
understood, not just Hindu, I think many Buddhists understand it this way, is what's called the

01:23:45.180 --> 01:23:49.980
retributive doctrine of karma. Karma is retribution. It's a kind of punishment.

01:23:49.980 --> 01:23:54.540
You get what you deserve and so if you do something bad, you're punished for it. You're

01:23:54.540 --> 01:23:58.540
going to be born as a, I don't know, as a whatever something really bad would be, like in really

01:23:58.540 --> 01:24:03.180
unfortunate circumstances, or you're born as a cow who's ultimately going to be slaughtered and

01:24:03.740 --> 01:24:08.300
served as grade A beef in some restaurant, whatever it is. And if you do something good, you're given

01:24:08.300 --> 01:24:13.820
a lollipop and good for you and you're going to be born into a nice family and have a lot of wealth

01:24:13.820 --> 01:24:19.100
and be happy in your life. Okay, that's one view. Now, there's another way of understanding the

01:24:19.100 --> 01:24:23.100
doctrine of karma, which is I think Sriram Krishna's way, which doesn't deny the fundamental

01:24:23.100 --> 01:24:27.420
principle of law of karma, which is we reap what we sow, but takes the sting out of the

01:24:27.420 --> 01:24:32.540
retributive dimension of it. He says the primary aim of the law of karma is not retribution. It's

01:24:32.540 --> 01:24:37.340
not reward and punishment. It's our spiritual growth. It's our ethical and spiritual growth,

01:24:37.340 --> 01:24:42.700
our spiritual and moral evolution. And so by contrast with the retributive doctrine of karma,

01:24:42.700 --> 01:24:47.660
I think Shri Ramakrishna, our tradition upholds an evolutionary doctrine of karma.

01:24:47.660 --> 01:24:51.500
And which ties in with the previous point, which is the difficulties of life or learning

01:24:51.500 --> 01:24:57.900
experiences. Absolutely, exactly. And I think this gives us a much richer, much saner,

01:24:57.900 --> 01:25:01.980
much more humane way of thinking about the law of karma. It gives us a more humane way of thinking

01:25:01.980 --> 01:25:06.780
about when other people are suffering. We don't say that person's getting what's coming to him. No,

01:25:06.780 --> 01:25:11.740
we try to help that person because we know that we're also going to evolve spiritually and morally.

01:25:11.740 --> 01:25:16.140
This is an opportunity for us to serve by helping others by trying to alleviate their suffering.

01:25:16.140 --> 01:25:19.580
Now, the third doctrine, because we're not done yet with the saint making theodicy,

01:25:19.580 --> 01:25:23.740
the third doctrine which is crucial is the doctrine of universal liberation. Shrampush

01:25:23.740 --> 01:25:28.540
just says, he uses a metaphor, he says some people will be fed at six in the morning,

01:25:28.540 --> 01:25:32.220
other people at 12 noon, other people at 6 pm, other people at midnight.

01:25:32.220 --> 01:25:35.420
But everybody will be fed without exception. He says likewise,

01:25:35.420 --> 01:25:38.780
everybody will eventually attain liberation, if not in this life, then in

01:25:38.780 --> 01:25:41.980
the future. Now, why is that relevant to the problem

01:25:41.980 --> 01:25:46.780
of evil? Because a massive problem in theological

01:25:46.780 --> 01:25:50.380
discussions of the problem of evil in the context of Abrahamic religions

01:25:50.380 --> 01:25:53.740
is the doctrine of an eternal hell. This is a huge problem.

01:25:53.740 --> 01:25:56.380
Christian theologians themselves are starting to acknowledge the problem, like

01:25:56.380 --> 01:26:00.220
John Hick for instance points out in a book, a beautiful book he wrote called "Evil and the God

01:26:00.220 --> 01:26:05.820
of Love" he says, "Look, traditional Christians believe in an eternal hell for some souls. If God

01:26:05.820 --> 01:26:11.260
were perfectly loving, he would not want a single soul to be condemned to eternal damnation."

01:26:11.260 --> 01:26:16.540
Why? Well, because at worst, whatever evil that person has committed, it's a finite sin.

01:26:16.540 --> 01:26:22.780
Why punish somebody for a finite sin with an eternal punishment? So that's the first part of

01:26:22.780 --> 01:26:29.260
it. Secondly, God is also omnipotent, John Hick points out. If God is omnipotent, God is perfectly

01:26:29.260 --> 01:26:33.820
powerful, which means that God is in a position to prevent any soul from being condemned to an

01:26:33.820 --> 01:26:38.380
eternal hell. So if both these things are true, we have to jettison one of these two theistic

01:26:38.380 --> 01:26:42.380
attributes. Either God is perfectly loving but not omnipotent, or God is omnipotent but not

01:26:42.380 --> 01:26:47.020
perfectly loving. But it can't be both at the same time. So that's a challenge, right? Even within

01:26:47.020 --> 01:26:51.900
Abrahamic religions, some liberal Christian thinkers, as a result, have

01:26:51.900 --> 01:26:55.660
actually abandoned the doctrine of eternal health. So I think the drift, even

01:26:55.660 --> 01:27:00.180
in some traditional theologies, is toward universal liberation. I have a friend at

01:27:00.180 --> 01:27:03.500
University of Michigan-Dearborn named Imran Aijaz, who's working on... we're thinking

01:27:03.500 --> 01:27:06.020
of editing a volume together on universal... it's called universalism,

01:27:06.020 --> 01:27:09.900
that's the term, which means universal liberation, universal salvation, in Islam,

01:27:09.900 --> 01:27:14.540
because he's an expert in Islam. And he's fascinated by these Islamic theologians

01:27:14.540 --> 01:27:18.580
who actually believed in universal liberation. You might not even know that some Muslims

01:27:18.580 --> 01:27:23.520
believed in that, but that is an unorthodox view within Islam as well. And so our tradition

01:27:23.520 --> 01:27:28.480
fully accepts that every single soul without exception will eventually attain liberation,

01:27:28.480 --> 01:27:31.940
and therefore God can be perfectly loving and perfectly omnipotent. He's not condemning

01:27:31.940 --> 01:27:37.460
anybody to an eternal punishment. So the third dimension, after all this, you might say,

01:27:37.460 --> 01:27:43.020
well, okay, I get it. I get karma, rebirth, universal liberation, but boy, God is putting

01:27:43.020 --> 01:27:47.980
us through all sorts of ordeals and challenges just what for his own amusement? Why couldn't he have

01:27:47.980 --> 01:27:51.820
just made us saints in the first place? Why put us through all this trouble? Why have to go through

01:27:51.820 --> 01:27:56.380
millions of lives before we attain the goal? It's a legitimate question. Isn't that kind of cruel on

01:27:56.380 --> 01:28:01.180
God's part to make us jump these hoops? That's a question. That's why there's a third crucial

01:28:01.180 --> 01:28:06.140
dimension and it's a kind of mystical/spiritual dimension of his theodicy. Vigyana. I've been

01:28:06.140 --> 01:28:10.220
talking about vigyana a lot. Actually we never even talked about what vigyana is in the context

01:28:10.220 --> 01:28:14.140
is Ramakrishna. So let me just mention that first because I was talking about Vijnana Vedanta but

01:28:14.140 --> 01:28:18.780
people might want to know what the heck Vijnana is. Okay, Ramakrishna often distinguishes Jnana

01:28:18.780 --> 01:28:23.980
from Vijnana and he says it's like this, you want to climb to the roof of a house, you want to get

01:28:23.980 --> 01:28:28.700
to the roof. How do you do it? By climbing a staircase. Climbing the staircase is like the

01:28:28.700 --> 01:28:33.660
process of neti neti reasoning. Not this, not this. Brahman is not this world. Brahman is not this soul.

01:28:33.660 --> 01:28:37.340
Brahman is not this, not that. The traditional path of Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge until

01:28:37.340 --> 01:28:41.420
you reach the roof which signifies what? Knowledge of your true nature is non-dual pure consciousness.

01:28:41.420 --> 01:28:45.100
This is the ultimate goal for classical Advaita Vedantins like Ramana Maharshi, Shankara and all

01:28:45.100 --> 01:28:48.780
the others. That's reaching the roof. Trangu Risha then said something really interesting. So that's

01:28:48.780 --> 01:28:54.220
jnana for him. Jnana means just knowledge of non-dual Brahman. He says there are some people

01:28:54.220 --> 01:28:58.780
who after reaching the roof will look back on the staircase and say wait a minute the staircase is

01:28:58.780 --> 01:29:04.620
made of the same materials as the roof. Bricks, lime and brick dust. That's the bhikyani who after

01:29:04.620 --> 01:29:09.740
realizing non-dual Brahman in the state of nivikapa samadhi can come back to this world

01:29:09.740 --> 01:29:14.580
and realize that that Brahman as Shakti has become everything in this world and realizes

01:29:14.580 --> 01:29:16.860
that Brahman and Shakti are inseparable.

01:29:16.860 --> 01:29:18.820
Now coming back to the problem of evil.

01:29:18.820 --> 01:29:22.180
There's an incident in Shram Krishna's life during his period of spiritual practice when

01:29:22.180 --> 01:29:26.980
he sees a wounded butterfly and this poor butterfly has a splinter in one of its wings

01:29:26.980 --> 01:29:29.540
and it can barely fly and it's probably going to die soon.

01:29:29.540 --> 01:29:35.860
Ramakrishna feels tremendous anguish for this butterfly and he thinks what cruel boy must

01:29:35.860 --> 01:29:40.280
have inflicted this pain on this butterfly just out of a sheer kind of sadism that some

01:29:40.280 --> 01:29:41.280
children have.

01:29:41.280 --> 01:29:45.380
And in the next moment he flies into the state of spiritual ecstasy and he starts laughing

01:29:45.380 --> 01:29:51.360
uncontrollably and then he says, "I realize at that moment the butterfly is divine mother,

01:29:51.360 --> 01:29:56.220
the splinter that the boy has put into the butterfly's wing is equally divine mother,

01:29:56.220 --> 01:30:00.060
The cruel boy inflicting suffering on the butterfly, equally divine mother.

01:30:00.060 --> 01:30:01.500
I am divine mother.

01:30:01.500 --> 01:30:02.940
So who's to praise and who's to blame?

01:30:02.940 --> 01:30:04.440
There's only divine mother.

01:30:04.440 --> 01:30:08.700
This is the ultimate response to the problem of evil because I see this final level of

01:30:08.700 --> 01:30:13.060
response as not solving the problem of evil, but as dissolving the problem of evil.

01:30:13.060 --> 01:30:14.060
That's the way I put it.

01:30:14.060 --> 01:30:15.060
In what sense?

01:30:15.060 --> 01:30:18.420
Well, the problem of evil is grounded in a fundamental presupposition.

01:30:18.420 --> 01:30:23.300
That presupposition is that God is there out there and we, his poor suffering creatures,

01:30:23.300 --> 01:30:24.820
are on this side.

01:30:24.820 --> 01:30:29.700
a duality presupposed between God on the one hand inflicting suffering on poor us, human

01:30:29.700 --> 01:30:32.020
beings and other animals, right?

01:30:32.020 --> 01:30:36.780
Vijnana denies that very presupposition at the root of the question, at the root of the

01:30:36.780 --> 01:30:37.780
problem of evil.

01:30:37.780 --> 01:30:41.400
Therefore, I call it dissolving the problem of evil because it just says you're not different

01:30:41.400 --> 01:30:42.400
from God.

01:30:42.400 --> 01:30:47.140
There's a very poignant moment in the gospel of Sri Ramakrishna when the future Swami Turiyananda,

01:30:47.140 --> 01:30:51.100
okay, his name was Hari, he's hearing Sri Ramakrishna explain this whole saint making

01:30:51.100 --> 01:30:54.460
Theodicy, Karma, Rebirth, it's all Mother's will.

01:30:54.460 --> 01:30:55.980
And Thurinandji says something very poignant.

01:30:55.980 --> 01:30:59.820
He says, "But Mother's play, Mother's Leela, is our death."

01:30:59.820 --> 01:31:00.820
That's the statement.

01:31:00.820 --> 01:31:03.140
And Sri Ramakrishna immediately responds,

01:31:03.140 --> 01:31:04.220
"But who are you?

01:31:04.220 --> 01:31:07.780
Divine Mother has become the 24 cosmic principles.

01:31:07.780 --> 01:31:09.100
You are not different from God.

01:31:09.100 --> 01:31:11.300
And when you realize that, the problem of evil,

01:31:11.300 --> 01:31:14.540
it won't just be solved, it will dissolve away.

01:31:14.540 --> 01:31:15.500
It won't be a problem."

01:31:15.500 --> 01:31:18.060
Ludwig Wittgenstein, the great Austrian philosopher,

01:31:18.060 --> 01:31:19.420
toward the end of the Tractatus, he said,

01:31:19.420 --> 01:31:24.620
the solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. That's what he does.

01:31:24.620 --> 01:31:28.620
Pete: That's good. I like all those points and I look forward to reading the books in which you,

01:31:28.620 --> 01:31:33.820
you know, describe them in much greater detail. I have another thought, what did Einstein used to

01:31:33.820 --> 01:31:38.140
call them? Thought exercises or something? Another way that I look at it, I don't know

01:31:38.140 --> 01:31:43.820
if this fits into any of the three, but I try to take a God's eye view of it. Firstly, the time

01:31:43.820 --> 01:31:51.500
span of God's subjective experience, if you will, is eternal, if not at least 13.7 billion

01:31:51.500 --> 01:31:53.460
years, but eternal really.

01:31:53.460 --> 01:31:58.680
And so, we with our little time spans don't have that perspective and things might seem

01:31:58.680 --> 01:32:01.540
very unfair from our myopic little vision.

01:32:01.540 --> 01:32:08.180
Secondly, if there's going to be a creation, it seems to me by definition it has to be structured

01:32:08.180 --> 01:32:11.640
in polarities and opposites and different qualities.

01:32:11.640 --> 01:32:16.000
If there's going to be hot, there's got to be cold, fast, slow, good, bad, all the different

01:32:16.000 --> 01:32:17.520
relative polarities.

01:32:17.520 --> 01:32:22.760
You couldn't have it be all, like you said, peaches and roses or something, without their

01:32:22.760 --> 01:32:23.760
counterparts.

01:32:23.760 --> 01:32:26.240
I don't think such a creation could function.

01:32:26.240 --> 01:32:33.000
And thirdly, you know, what might seem to be cruel and difficult is actually from the

01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:37.360
big picture, if we could really zoom out, in service of our evolution.

01:32:37.360 --> 01:32:43.980
So, our bodies, your body and mine, are made up of the remnants of stars which died and

01:32:43.980 --> 01:32:50.360
exploded and dispersed their contents throughout the galaxy, and if there were inhabited planets

01:32:50.360 --> 01:32:54.680
orbiting those stars, that wasn't a pretty experience for the people who lived on those

01:32:54.680 --> 01:32:56.120
planets.

01:32:56.120 --> 01:32:59.780
We might have been one of them, but now here we are with a body made of the heavier elements

01:32:59.780 --> 01:33:03.520
that were forged in the death of those stars.

01:33:03.520 --> 01:33:05.600
Could God have done it differently?

01:33:05.600 --> 01:33:06.600
I don't know.

01:33:06.600 --> 01:33:15.600
Perhaps there are certain laws of nature, as science understands them, that just have to be the way they are in order for the universe to function.

01:33:15.600 --> 01:33:28.600
Yeah, I would add one more example, because we brought up Auschwitz or Holocaust a number of times in this interview, but Viktor Frankl, Frankl I think would be the German pronunciation, he wrote a whole book about how he grew morally and spiritually from his experience in concentration camp.

01:33:28.600 --> 01:33:33.280
concentration camp. As did others. Elie Wiesel, there was a woman who actually, I forget her

01:33:33.280 --> 01:33:37.880
name now, but she was having these beautiful celestial experiences in the concentration

01:33:37.880 --> 01:33:43.360
camp, having these spiritual experiences. Okay, let's give our brains a rest for a second

01:33:43.360 --> 01:33:51.400
and come up with another question here. This is from Patrick Brockman in Nirguna, Vancouver.

01:33:51.400 --> 01:33:57.200
I didn't know there was a place in Vancouver named after Nirguna. Your contempt for Shankara

01:33:57.200 --> 01:34:03.440
has always amused. Could you share your realizations about Gaudapada's doctrine of Ajatavada

01:34:03.440 --> 01:34:08.920
and would your insight into Vijnana change if you regarded 'sat' as an appearance rather

01:34:08.920 --> 01:34:09.920
than a manifestation?

01:34:09.920 --> 01:34:12.920
I never gathered that you did. I've listened to you talk about Shankara a lot.

01:34:12.920 --> 01:34:17.840
That's a strange word you use. I have absolutely no contempt for anybody. Yeah, it's an unspiritual

01:34:17.840 --> 01:34:21.960
quality. I think it's people on the Shankara side who kind of call me names. But anyway,

01:34:21.960 --> 01:34:24.200
so that I'm disavowing because I don't think that's fair.

01:34:24.200 --> 01:34:26.200
Right, Mandukya Upanishad and all that.

01:34:26.200 --> 01:34:28.200
What about Gaudapada?

01:34:28.200 --> 01:34:30.200
Didn't he do a commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad?

01:34:30.200 --> 01:34:32.200
Absolutely, the Mandukya Karika.

01:34:32.200 --> 01:34:34.200
Exactly, yeah.

01:34:34.200 --> 01:34:36.200
One of his famous karikas there is

01:34:36.200 --> 01:34:40.200
[Sanskrit]

01:34:40.200 --> 01:34:42.200
It's Ajatavada, which means that

01:34:42.200 --> 01:34:44.200
there is no spiritual aspirant,

01:34:44.200 --> 01:34:46.200
there is no liberation, there is no bondage, there is no universe.

01:34:46.200 --> 01:34:48.200
Yeah, nothing ever happens, it's just non-dual pure consciousness.

01:34:48.200 --> 01:34:50.200
I'm not entirely sure what the question is,

01:34:50.200 --> 01:34:52.200
actually, because, yes, and I think Shankara

01:34:52.200 --> 01:34:54.200
actually accepted Ajatavada fully.

01:34:54.200 --> 01:34:58.360
it's not actually that Shankara differs from Gaudapada. You'll find if you study the Mandukakarika

01:34:58.360 --> 01:35:03.560
carefully is that he's kind of almost equating the waking state with the dream state. He's putting

01:35:03.560 --> 01:35:07.240
them on an equal ontological footing. He's saying the waking state is no more real than the dream

01:35:07.240 --> 01:35:11.160
state and Shankara doesn't say that. If you look at his commentary on the Brahma Sutra,

01:35:11.160 --> 01:35:16.040
he's pushing back against, he's criticizing Yogacara Buddhists who hold that view and it's

01:35:16.040 --> 01:35:20.120
not a coincidence that Gaudapada himself was strongly influenced by Buddhist traditions like

01:35:20.120 --> 01:35:22.120
like Yogachara Buddhism and Nagarjuna.

01:35:22.120 --> 01:35:24.000
That's why some opponents of Shankara,

01:35:24.000 --> 01:35:25.800
like the Bhakti schools of Vedanta,

01:35:25.800 --> 01:35:27.240
call followers of Shankara,

01:35:27.240 --> 01:35:29.160
Crypto Buddhists, Ratchanda Buddhists.

01:35:29.160 --> 01:35:30.640
And I think there's some truths to that.

01:35:30.640 --> 01:35:31.680
So in any case,

01:35:31.680 --> 01:35:34.120
Shankara does not put the waking state

01:35:34.120 --> 01:35:35.440
and the dream state on equal footing.

01:35:35.440 --> 01:35:38.880
He says that the waking state is for certain reasons,

01:35:38.880 --> 01:35:41.040
more real than the dream state.

01:35:41.040 --> 01:35:42.080
And he gives a bunch of reasons.

01:35:42.080 --> 01:35:44.660
One reason is that we wake up from dreaming

01:35:44.660 --> 01:35:45.500
every single night

01:35:45.500 --> 01:35:48.360
and that dream experience is sublated on a daily basis.

01:35:48.360 --> 01:35:53.520
Whereas our waking experience is not sublated until we attain knowledge of Brahman.

01:35:53.520 --> 01:35:58.600
But at the same time, the caveat is, when we attain knowledge of Brahman, we realize that

01:35:58.600 --> 01:36:00.360
nothing in this world ever was.

01:36:00.360 --> 01:36:02.240
We never even pass through a dream.

01:36:02.240 --> 01:36:03.240
It's that radical.

01:36:03.240 --> 01:36:09.000
So I think he's as radical in Ajatavadhan as Gaudapada, but that he placed greater emphasis

01:36:09.000 --> 01:36:13.900
on honoring this empirical reality, this waking state, than did Gaudapada.

01:36:13.900 --> 01:36:14.900
That's the difference.

01:36:14.900 --> 01:36:17.960
And it's a kind of subtle difference, and it's not actually a fundamental metaphysical

01:36:17.960 --> 01:36:19.920
They were both equally a jata bodhins

01:36:19.920 --> 01:36:21.880
and then I think another part of the question was I

01:36:21.880 --> 01:36:25.980
Think it's a confused question to be honest because he's asking whether if he takes up to be

01:36:25.980 --> 01:36:28.920
Manifestation rather than appearance does that solve the problem?

01:36:28.920 --> 01:36:32.720
Can you repeat that if you regarded sat as an appearance rather than a manifestation?

01:36:32.720 --> 01:36:37.640
I guess he's saying that something's what the reality truth the reality

01:36:37.640 --> 01:36:43.980
so I guess he's saying that if you regarded the reality of the creation as an appearance rather than

01:36:44.200 --> 01:36:47.340
Having more substance to it as a manifestation of the divine

01:36:47.340 --> 01:36:52.180
Question exactly like is that okay? Does he want me to believe that or what does he want me to do?

01:36:52.180 --> 01:37:00.160
Would your insight change if you regarded the creation as a mere appearance as I suppose Goda Pada did

01:37:00.160 --> 01:37:03.560
Of course it would rather than a substantial manifestation

01:37:03.560 --> 01:37:08.400
Of course it would of course it would and that's exactly the difference between what's wrong Christian calls a Ghanian a big gun

01:37:08.560 --> 01:37:13.640
The Jnani, he says, looks upon this world as a framework of illusion, as an illusory appearance,

01:37:13.640 --> 01:37:16.080
as an illusory snake superimposed on the real rope.

01:37:16.080 --> 01:37:19.640
And the Vigyani, by contrast, sees this world as a mart of joy.

01:37:19.640 --> 01:37:20.640
Everything is divine bliss.

01:37:20.640 --> 01:37:23.280
Of course, that's a fundamental difference in phenomenology.

01:37:23.280 --> 01:37:25.120
Of course, it's a completely different outlook on the world.

01:37:25.120 --> 01:37:26.120
Of course.

01:37:26.120 --> 01:37:29.280
And that's why Vigyana Vedanta is so different in its outlook on the world than classical

01:37:29.280 --> 01:37:30.280
Advaita is.

01:37:30.280 --> 01:37:32.580
You know what I find interesting?

01:37:32.580 --> 01:37:37.800
How influential one's philosophical understanding can be on one's life.

01:37:37.800 --> 01:37:45.800
I mean it has ramifications in terms of the way it influences your behavior and your relationships and your motivations and everything else.

01:37:45.800 --> 01:37:49.800
It makes a huge difference what you understand or believe philosophically.

01:37:49.800 --> 01:37:56.800
Absolutely. That's why in the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path, the first step is, the first factor, is right view.

01:37:56.800 --> 01:37:58.800
Because depending on the view, your practice will follow.

01:37:58.800 --> 01:38:03.800
Even if it's not explicitly articulated, right, even if it's just unconscious or implicit, it's still there.

01:38:03.800 --> 01:38:04.800
Right. Yeah.

01:38:04.800 --> 01:38:11.800
And it's going to take some undigging to make what's implicit explicit, but everybody's a philosopher, either an unconscious philosopher or a conscious philosopher. That's the way I put it.

01:38:11.800 --> 01:38:22.800
Yeah, think of the people who just regard life as meaningless and everything is accidental and might as well take heroin or fentanyl or something because life sucks and then you die.

01:38:22.800 --> 01:38:27.620
That's a controversial philosophical position among others and people differ to the degree

01:38:27.620 --> 01:38:32.040
that they're able to articulate the underlying philosophical tenets that they subscribe to

01:38:32.040 --> 01:38:35.440
and to what extent they're able to defend them, you know, in a coherent way, but in

01:38:35.440 --> 01:38:36.440
a compelling way.

01:38:36.440 --> 01:38:40.680
But yeah, but I think everybody is a philosopher and they have their own, however rudimentary

01:38:40.680 --> 01:38:42.920
kind of worldview of how things are.

01:38:42.920 --> 01:38:43.920
Yeah.

01:38:43.920 --> 01:38:45.440
Here's another question.

01:38:45.440 --> 01:38:48.320
This is from Nicholas in New Zealand.

01:38:48.320 --> 01:38:53.480
Many spiritual teachers today are claiming that there is no more "I" to refer to anymore,

01:38:53.480 --> 01:38:54.480
referring to themselves.

01:38:54.480 --> 01:38:58.160
I've interviewed people who have argued that they've lost all sense of a personal self

01:38:58.160 --> 01:39:00.560
and that there never was a personal self and so on.

01:39:00.560 --> 01:39:05.520
Sri Ramakrishna said that even great saints such as Shankara came back from Nirvikalpa

01:39:05.520 --> 01:39:08.040
Samadhi and still retain the ego of knowledge.

01:39:08.040 --> 01:39:12.760
I've heard it said that since Sri Ramakrishna came to earth, it made it easier for regular

01:39:12.760 --> 01:39:16.600
spiritual aspirants to reach the claim "I am He."

01:39:16.600 --> 01:39:17.600
What do you think about that?

01:39:17.600 --> 01:39:19.320
There are a few things.

01:39:19.320 --> 01:39:24.960
Sri Ramakrishna used to say that "Vigyanis" - this is a small category of people who, after

01:39:24.960 --> 01:39:29.640
attaining knowledge of non-dual Brahman in the state of nivakapu samadhi, can come back

01:39:29.640 --> 01:39:35.520
to this world either holding onto the "I" of a devotee or holding onto the "I" of a

01:39:35.520 --> 01:39:37.520
jnani - of a knower of Brahman.

01:39:37.520 --> 01:39:38.520
One or the other.

01:39:38.520 --> 01:39:41.400
He used to say that Shankara retained the "I" of knowledge.

01:39:41.400 --> 01:39:42.400
Not ego.

01:39:42.400 --> 01:39:43.400
Ego is not really the right word.

01:39:43.400 --> 01:39:45.280
"Ami" in Bengali just means "I".

01:39:45.280 --> 01:39:46.280
Identity as what?

01:39:46.280 --> 01:39:47.280
As a knower.

01:39:47.280 --> 01:39:52.560
He said that the Vijnani can take two forms, the kind of Jnani oriented Vijnani and the

01:39:52.560 --> 01:39:54.200
Bhakti oriented Vijnani.

01:39:54.200 --> 01:39:58.200
Vijnana according to Sri Ramakrishna takes one of two forms.

01:39:58.200 --> 01:40:03.380
You can either retain the eye of knowledge and come back and serve people and teach people

01:40:03.380 --> 01:40:09.000
the path of knowledge like Shankara did or a Vijnani can come back retaining the eye

01:40:09.000 --> 01:40:13.700
of the Bhakta, of a devotee of the personal God and then see this whole world as a manifestation

01:40:13.700 --> 01:40:16.820
of God and serve others in the spirit of worship.

01:40:16.820 --> 01:40:19.620
Sri Ramakrishna used to say, "Shiva jnana jeeva seva."

01:40:19.620 --> 01:40:22.780
Serve others in the spirit of worship by trying to see God in everyone.

01:40:22.780 --> 01:40:26.160
That would be the Bhaktavidyani's attitude toward the world.

01:40:26.160 --> 01:40:30.940
After Sri Ramakrishna came, it seems like he made available the state of "I am Brahman"

01:40:30.940 --> 01:40:31.940
to many more people.

01:40:31.940 --> 01:40:32.940
That's the idea.

01:40:32.940 --> 01:40:36.020
Here I think there's a bit of a confusion because if you go back to the teachings, he

01:40:36.020 --> 01:40:39.060
warned against saying to yourself, "I am Brahman, I am Brahman."

01:40:39.060 --> 01:40:44.300
He said that only very, very few highly evolved spiritual aspirants are eligible to practice

01:40:44.300 --> 01:40:45.300
that.

01:40:45.300 --> 01:40:48.900
He said that bhakti is actually a far safer and better path for the vast majority of human

01:40:48.900 --> 01:40:50.140
beings on this earth.

01:40:50.140 --> 01:40:53.260
But did he make the state of Vijnana available to a greater number of people?

01:40:53.260 --> 01:40:54.540
I think yes is the answer.

01:40:54.540 --> 01:40:59.780
And that even though in the past Vijnana was a very, very rarefied spiritual state available

01:40:59.780 --> 01:41:05.380
only to a very small minority of souls, I think he has broadened the accessibility of

01:41:05.380 --> 01:41:09.620
state of Vijnana to a broader number of people. That doesn't mean everybody has to be a Vijnana.

01:41:09.620 --> 01:41:13.300
He doesn't say that that's mandatory at all. He gives a very simple example. He says,

01:41:13.300 --> 01:41:16.980
there's this beautiful river, the Ganga, the holy river Ganga in India, running throughout India,

01:41:16.980 --> 01:41:20.900
right? Or most of India. He says, in order to touch the Ganga, do you have to run your figure

01:41:20.900 --> 01:41:25.700
from the source of the Ganga and then run it all the way down to South India where it flows into

01:41:25.700 --> 01:41:31.140
the Indian Ocean? No. If you touch the Ganga in one place, you can say, I've touched the Ganga.

01:41:31.140 --> 01:41:35.780
exactly like that, people don't have to realize God as Krishna and Allah and as Christ and as

01:41:35.780 --> 01:41:39.220
non-dual Brahman. No! You realize in whatever form you like and that's realization for you.

01:41:39.220 --> 01:41:44.740
So, Vijnana is not mandatory, but I think he did make Vijnana, the state of Vijnana,

01:41:44.740 --> 01:41:48.180
accessible to more people through his advent and his teachings in his life.

01:41:48.180 --> 01:41:50.340
Pete So, we were talking about Neo-Advaita earlier,

01:41:50.340 --> 01:41:56.500
and one of the points that they hammer away at is that there is no self, there is no personal self,

01:41:56.500 --> 01:42:01.620
And some of them argue that they themselves live that way without any sense of personal self.

01:42:01.620 --> 01:42:05.780
And I say, "Okay, can I whack your thumb with a hammer and see if you feel that it's happening

01:42:05.780 --> 01:42:10.340
to somebody and not just happening to a rock over there?" Maybe some of them are experiencing

01:42:10.340 --> 01:42:14.180
something that I haven't and just don't understand, but I've never been able to wrap my head around

01:42:14.180 --> 01:42:19.780
the notion of being able to function as a human being without any sense of personal identity or

01:42:19.780 --> 01:42:24.260
existence. Absolutely, I think that's great pushback. The funny thing is, Sriram Bhaja says

01:42:24.260 --> 01:42:29.540
exactly that. Using just a slightly different analogy, he says, "Those people who say,

01:42:29.540 --> 01:42:33.780
'I am Brahman, I am Brahman, I am not this body,' the real test, the ultimate test is,

01:42:33.780 --> 01:42:38.260
stab them. And then they'll be bleeding profusely. Can they say in that moment,

01:42:38.260 --> 01:42:42.660
'I'm not feeling pain?'" And there are some who can actually say that, because it completely lifted

01:42:42.660 --> 01:42:46.740
their mind from body consciousness. And he says, "Only those people alone are eligible to practice

01:42:46.740 --> 01:42:51.700
Advaita Vedanta." You can argue with and say that that's too restrictive, that's too extreme.

01:42:51.700 --> 01:42:54.900
You can even argue in Shankara, even if you're a follower of Shankara in other ways, you can say,

01:42:54.900 --> 01:42:59.780
"Wow, look, that fourfold qualification, that's way too high level stuff for ordinary people. I want

01:42:59.780 --> 01:43:03.780
to study Advaita Vedanta, even though I don't have those fourfold qualifications. Why is that a

01:43:03.780 --> 01:43:09.060
problem?" I'm on the side of Shankara and Shram Krishna on this point. I think that in order to

01:43:09.060 --> 01:43:13.860
be eligible to practice Advaita Vedanta, you better be able to lift your mind completely away from the

01:43:13.860 --> 01:43:18.260
body and literally say, "I'm not the body." So that if your body is in tremendous agony, you can still

01:43:18.260 --> 01:43:41.080
So

01:43:41.080 --> 01:43:45.960
opinion or even experience to some extent is a dimensional thing, a multi-dimensional thing,

01:43:45.960 --> 01:43:51.800
where, you know, on the one hand you might be in physical pain, on the other hand there's a level

01:43:51.800 --> 01:43:55.880
or dimension of your experience which is beyond that. And it's not that you don't feel the pain,

01:43:55.880 --> 01:44:00.760
but there's also a dimension in which the pain doesn't reach. It's about where your consciousness

01:44:00.760 --> 01:44:04.120
resides, that's the way I put it, and there are different states of consciousness. So, for instance,

01:44:04.120 --> 01:44:07.560
with respect to Sri Ramakrishna and that earlier question about whether you retain some sense of

01:44:07.560 --> 01:44:08.560
I or not.

01:44:08.560 --> 01:44:12.960
He would not say I, he would refer to this place.

01:44:12.960 --> 01:44:14.800
The teachings of this place.

01:44:14.800 --> 01:44:18.400
That's when he's at a certain level of conscious when he's completely lost eye consciousness.

01:44:18.400 --> 01:44:20.240
But there are many places where he says I.

01:44:20.240 --> 01:44:21.240
He even says I'm in pain.

01:44:21.240 --> 01:44:22.240
He broke his arm.

01:44:22.240 --> 01:44:23.240
I'm in pain.

01:44:23.240 --> 01:44:24.240
What does that mean?

01:44:24.240 --> 01:44:25.240
How can both these things be true?

01:44:25.240 --> 01:44:26.640
They're true at different levels of consciousness.

01:44:26.640 --> 01:44:28.160
I think that's the key.

01:44:28.160 --> 01:44:31.600
One of the nice things about the beginning of the paradigm, he uses beautiful example

01:44:31.600 --> 01:44:33.560
of a flute and he says, I'm a flutist.

01:44:33.560 --> 01:44:34.560
I can do one of two things.

01:44:34.560 --> 01:44:37.100
I can play one note on the flute the whole time.

01:44:37.100 --> 01:44:38.480
Boom.

01:44:38.480 --> 01:44:40.400
And say, I am Brahman, I am Brahman.

01:44:40.400 --> 01:44:41.720
And he says, but that's boring.

01:44:41.720 --> 01:44:42.560
I'm a Vignani.

01:44:42.560 --> 01:44:45.240
I want to play ragas and raginis on this flute.

01:44:45.240 --> 01:44:46.340
Those are Indian classical terms,

01:44:46.340 --> 01:44:49.280
but it means beautiful, melodious,

01:44:49.280 --> 01:44:51.720
complex harmonies and songs.

01:44:51.720 --> 01:44:54.560
I want to revel with God and relate to God

01:44:54.560 --> 01:44:55.760
in many different ways.

01:44:55.760 --> 01:44:58.560
As a servant, as his child, as his parents,

01:44:58.560 --> 01:44:59.920
sometimes as his lover.

01:44:59.920 --> 01:45:01.560
Sometimes I want to say I am he.

01:45:01.560 --> 01:45:03.360
And he even says in one place in the gospel,

01:45:03.360 --> 01:45:04.720
That is my final view.

01:45:04.720 --> 01:45:07.000
Sometimes I think of myself as a servant of God.

01:45:07.000 --> 01:45:08.800
Sometimes I think of myself as an amsha,

01:45:08.800 --> 01:45:10.080
as a portion of God.

01:45:10.080 --> 01:45:11.760
And at sometimes, I like to think of myself

01:45:11.760 --> 01:45:12.860
as identical with God.

01:45:12.860 --> 01:45:14.960
But there's no hierarchy there in the way that there is

01:45:14.960 --> 01:45:16.840
in the traditional schools of Vedanta.

01:45:16.840 --> 01:45:17.880
- Good.

01:45:17.880 --> 01:45:19.560
All right, well, we've done just about two hours

01:45:19.560 --> 01:45:22.480
and we could easily go another two or four or six.

01:45:22.480 --> 01:45:24.700
But is there anything that after we hang up,

01:45:24.700 --> 01:45:25.540
you're gonna feel like,

01:45:25.540 --> 01:45:26.760
"Darn, I wish we'd talked about that."

01:45:26.760 --> 01:45:28.160
Is there any other key thing,

01:45:28.160 --> 01:45:30.840
like what you're working on now?

01:45:30.840 --> 01:45:33.520
I'm writing a book now on karma and rebirth and Hinduism.

01:45:33.520 --> 01:45:35.640
It'll be published by Cambridge University Press

01:45:35.640 --> 01:45:38.600
sometime in 2025, I believe.

01:45:38.600 --> 01:45:39.560
It'll be a small little book,

01:45:39.560 --> 01:45:42.940
but I think it'll be good for people across the spectrum.

01:45:42.940 --> 01:45:44.860
I mean, Hindus who have faith in these doctrines,

01:45:44.860 --> 01:45:46.560
but who maybe aren't as confident

01:45:46.560 --> 01:45:47.560
about defending those views

01:45:47.560 --> 01:45:48.880
or articulating those views to themselves,

01:45:48.880 --> 01:45:49.880
I think that'll be helpful.

01:45:49.880 --> 01:45:52.040
And also for skeptics and agnostics

01:45:52.040 --> 01:45:53.960
and people who are very, very critical

01:45:53.960 --> 01:45:55.600
of the doctrines of karma and rebirth.

01:45:55.600 --> 01:45:57.480
I'm gonna be writing several chapters on arguments

01:45:57.480 --> 01:45:59.080
for and against karma and rebirth.

01:45:59.080 --> 01:46:00.680
And so just to kind of encourage people

01:46:00.680 --> 01:46:03.720
think for themselves. We're talking about critical thinking, but I think that's important.

01:46:03.720 --> 01:46:07.600
And secondly, a book that's in the pipeline that'll be coming out with Oxford University

01:46:07.600 --> 01:46:11.440
Press, it'll be the third installment in what I call my Integral Advaita Trilogy of

01:46:11.440 --> 01:46:16.280
Books. The first book in that Integral Advaita Trilogy is Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality.

01:46:16.280 --> 01:46:20.120
It's a philosophical study of Sri Ramakrishna, published in 2018. The second one was published

01:46:20.120 --> 01:46:25.040
last year or two years ago, Swami Vivekananda's Vedanta Cosmopolitanism. And the third is

01:46:25.040 --> 01:46:28.440
going to be on Sri Aurobindo. You had mentioned it in the beginning, an all-embracing oneness,

01:46:28.440 --> 01:46:31.320
Sri Aurobindo's integral Advaita and the legacy of Sri Ramakrishna.

01:46:31.320 --> 01:46:35.560
So what I'm claiming is, it's a very bold claim, I'm claiming that these three figures,

01:46:35.560 --> 01:46:40.800
Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo have developed a new school of integral

01:46:40.800 --> 01:46:44.160
Advaita within Vedantic thought.

01:46:44.160 --> 01:46:49.120
And it's new in the sense that it's non-sectarian and extremely expansive, and that it gives

01:46:49.120 --> 01:46:52.340
us a way of harmonizing the traditional schools of Vedanta.

01:46:52.340 --> 01:46:55.840
It's still Advaita, it's non-dual, but it's an integral Advaita in the sense that it's

01:46:55.840 --> 01:46:57.080
all-encompassing.

01:46:57.080 --> 01:46:59.440
It doesn't exclude anything or dismiss anything as unreal.

01:46:59.440 --> 01:47:03.920
It says that everything is that same divine reality in different manifestations or forms.

01:47:03.920 --> 01:47:04.920
So, stay tuned.

01:47:04.920 --> 01:47:05.920
Dave Wonderful.

01:47:05.920 --> 01:47:06.920
Oh, I will.

01:47:06.920 --> 01:47:08.920
Like I said in the beginning, I really want to read all your books.

01:47:08.920 --> 01:47:12.440
I convert them to audio and listen to them while I walk in the woods or ski in the woods

01:47:12.440 --> 01:47:13.800
or whatever.

01:47:13.800 --> 01:47:17.540
But I've learned a lot from you in the last couple of weeks and I feel like I really want

01:47:17.540 --> 01:47:21.000
to stay focused on what you're doing and I'll learn a lot more.

01:47:21.000 --> 01:47:22.000
I'll be in touch.

01:47:22.000 --> 01:47:25.000
I'll probably be sending you emails, "What about this?"

01:47:25.000 --> 01:47:29.500
Thank you so much for the thoughtful questions and conversation. It was a pleasure.

01:47:29.500 --> 01:47:33.360
Thank you. And thanks to those who've been listening or watching. The next interview

01:47:33.360 --> 01:47:37.800
after this one, I think will be number 700 or close to it. Maybe that's the one after

01:47:37.800 --> 01:47:43.480
that. But it will be with Anna Breitenbach, whom I interviewed quite a few years ago,

01:47:43.480 --> 01:47:49.460
who is an animal communicator, and Brad Laughlin, whose wife, Leslie Temple Thurston, I interviewed

01:47:49.460 --> 01:47:55.380
about 12 years ago, and they're going to be offering a course called For the Love of Animals,

01:47:55.380 --> 01:47:59.340
but it won't just be about animals, there's a whole spiritual dimension to it, and we'll

01:47:59.340 --> 01:48:01.100
be talking about a number of things.

01:48:01.100 --> 01:48:06.060
Leslie's interview was, I think, my fourth most popular of all, so she'll be coming back

01:48:06.060 --> 01:48:07.860
for a recap.

01:48:07.860 --> 01:48:12.700
There's an upcoming interviews page on badgap.com where you can see what we've got scheduled,

01:48:12.700 --> 01:48:17.340
and if you go there, explore the menus, you'll find some interesting things.

01:48:17.340 --> 01:48:19.420
And that's it for now.

01:48:19.420 --> 01:48:20.420
So thank you Swamiji.

01:48:20.420 --> 01:48:21.420
Thank you so much Rick.

01:48:21.420 --> 01:48:22.420
It was a pleasure.

01:48:22.420 --> 01:48:24.420
I hope to meet you in person someday.

01:48:24.420 --> 01:48:25.420
Likewise, yeah.

01:48:25.420 --> 01:48:27.820
And thanks for all the insightful questions from the online audience.

01:48:27.820 --> 01:48:28.820
Okay, thanks.

01:48:28.820 --> 01:48:29.820
Bye.

01:48:29.820 --> 01:48:29.820
Bye.

01:48:29.820 --> 01:48:31.820
Bye.

01:48:31.820 --> 01:48:55.320
[Music]