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Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.
Any human being acquires his knowledge and experience, always guided and led by others. We have derived our body from our parents. Our body was shaped in the womb of the mother. We have not derived our birth all by ourselves. After the birth also, at every stage, in every field, I think we have been led and guided either by the mother or by the father or by both or by the others. Why am I saying this? Only to let you know very clearly so that you will be confirmed in the fact, in the truth that association with the others and guidance from the others are inevitable and important in the life and growth of any human individual.
We learnt walking from our father and mother, we learnt speaking, we learnt the alphabet, we started writing, we were taught to eat, we were taught to answer the calls of nature, everywhere we have been guided. We don’t know of a child who was born all alone from somewhere and who grew up all alone. If this is the truth about our normal object based life, what should be the truth about the subject based life, namely, spirituality, religiosity and yoga? There also, guidance and association are very important, nay, inevitable. That is why we always say
guru mukhādeva avagantavyam - The Supreme Truth has to be known from the mouth, from the tongue of the Guru. Generally this is covered by the term satsang, association with the satpurushas, mahatmas - magnificent, wise souls.
Srimad Bhagavata gives a lot of importance for satsang and the entire spirituality is an outcome of the Guru-shishya relationship. Why did I say this? I said this because the sastras give us the benefit of satsang. All the scriptures and scriptural compositions are the products and the outcome of the enlightened people. The process of enlightenment did not start yesterday or day before. Right from the prehistoric, anādi Vedas, we have got the treasure called scriptures. And the scriptures are an account of the enlightened people. Whatever they did in the form of search and research and whatever they found as a result, all are recorded there.
Because the scriptures have undergone an indeterminable length of time, it is natural that only what is true, best experimented over and over again, found to be true, has found a place in it. You may not always be able to get to a mahapurusha or a sajjana in the beginning of life. But you can always have access to the scriptures and the scriptural compositions. The main scriptures are the Vedas, the Upanishads. Then there are the subsidiary ones. Bhagavadgeeta is there. Brahma Sutras are there. Then we have the Ramayana and Mahabharatam, the two epics, then Srimad Bhagavata, a pāramahaṁsya saṁhitā. And 18 puranas and 18 upa puranas are there. So there is no dearth of literature. It is necessary to get exposed to them. In the absence of a teacher or a Sadpurusha, scriptures take their stand and they will act as your friend, benefactor, guide, and leader. I would like you to understand this.
Our scriptures are very profound. You cannot imagine how profound they are. Unfortunately people don’t read the scriptures. In the scriptures there are so many statements made. They are lying, in a way, scattered. It is for each discerning seeker to find, where is what, and link up whatever he wants for himself. Why I said all this – only by way of introduction to make a statement now.
Srimad Bhagavatam is a compendium consisting of 18000 Sanskrit verses, divided over 12 skandhas and 335 Chapters. If you want to read it rather in a fast manner, it will take about 40 hours. During the saptāham, they have to recite the moola grantha at least once. So in 7 days, if they have to cover all the 18000 verses, that itself will take about 6 hours a day of reading, reciting. So they will get only a very short time, now and then, to speak something about the story or other things. So the saptāhams can never be a proper elucidation of the Srimad Bhagavata message.
If you read Srimad Bhagavatam, you will find in many places the Supreme Truth and what should be done to realize it, are clearly mentioned. The conversation begins in this manner. It is a dialogue. Initially it is a dialogue between Sukamuni and Parikshit. Parikshit was about to die on the 7th day. He had only 7 days. After having committed the crime of putting a dead cobra on the neck of sage Shameeka, he felt very repentant. Meanwhile the son of Shameeka Maharshi cursed him. When he knew about the curse, even before that, he had become extremely repentant. So he said, “Ok, I am not going to eat and drink, even water I may not take. In anyway, I am going to die on the seventh day. So I am not going to eat.” When he took this prāyopaveṣa, fast unto death without taking food or drink of any kind – you know it is something heard, but never seen – all the people who came to know of it particularly, the scholars, wise people, ascetics, brahmanas, and the others, they rushed to the spot to greet him. All of them came and greeted him. The sin he did was totally wiped off and the vow he took started shining with lustre. This is how any sin has got a recompense. Understand it very well. Whatever may be the magnitude of the sin, there is a recompense for it, a relief.
When all of them complimented and greeted him, Parikshit said, “Ok, I am happy that you have complimented me. But your compliments will have no meaning and relevance if you are not able to feast my ears with an exposition on the Supreme Truths and also an exposition of the divine excellences and exploits”. Then they started speaking to him. At that time the young ascetic, namely Sukamuni, 16 years old, absolutely nude, surrounded by a few women and children, they happened to come there. The moment Parikshit and the others spotted young Sukamuni, they understood how glorious he was. So Parikshit did a danda namaskaara before him. Then the women and the children knew, “O, here is a great man”, and they left the place. The children must have taken to him with curiosity and women would have recognized in him an unusual splendor and they were appreciative of it.
When Sukamuni sat there, the entire exponent’s role was given to him. This is the original conversation. The dialogue that appears before us in Srimad Bhagavatam is a dialogue between Sūta, the narrator and a set of listeners. So the listeners asked him, “My dear Sūta, respected Sir, you have read quite a number of scriptures, all the Vedas, Ithihasas, Puranas, and the rest. We would like you to tell us, what is the real supreme essence of all these scriptures?” Mark my expression. “You have read all the scriptures and allied texts. Ithihasas means epics; puranas means mythological compositions, sutras and other things. What is the supreme essence, if you are going to speak something like that?” You know, Sūta had no doubt at all. I would like you to borrow ears to understand this message. He said, here it is, he has used only 32 letters to answer their question, simple 32 letters; a four- line anushtup poem.
Finished! He says, “The knowers of truth say vadanti tat tattvavidaḥ.”
tattvavidaḥ means the knowers of truth, those people who are able to enquire into and ratiocinate over what is the truth, the Supreme Truth, they have said, vadanti, they continue to say, even now they say,
vadanti tattattvavidaḥ tattvaṁ yajjñānamadvayam
tattvam - it is actually a principle. The word tattva cannot be translated in English. It is not a particle. It is not a wave. It is not an existence. It is not matter. It is not energy. Are you following me? It is not matter. It is not energy. It is not any other conceivable or perceptible form of any expression. It is, on the other hand, a principle which the mind and the intelligence can clearly access, probe into, understand, and realize. Say, thought, is it a substance? No. Idea, is it a substance? No. Infinity, can you show it anywhere? Absolute zero, can you show me? So it is something like that. It is a concept. It is something that the mind can conceive and the intelligence can probe into and finally come out with, as an experience. So it is a truth, it is a principle. tattvam, tattvam, what is that tattvam?
yat jñānamadvayam - it is actually knowledge. What kind of a knowledge? A knowledge that gives no room for any division. It is not that divisional knowledge or perception. It is on the other hand the indivisible and non-divisional knowledge.
Now, you can spend years on this proposition. See, the entire knowledge process in us rests upon comparison and contrast. When you compare and contrast, that means there are many things there. We say a man and a woman, so there are two and the two can be compared and contrasted. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 100, 200, how many are there. Now all our knowledge process, whatever we have, it is on the basis of plurality, many, comparison and contrast, and inference. That is how we develop our knowledge. Parallel lines do not meet, we say. Have you extended the parallel lines up to infinity and then you can say that they will not meet. So you assume, suppose they were to meet, there would be a triangle if you draw a line transverse to it. Induction and deduction, these are the processes.
Now he says, “When the knowledge you are able to strike, when no divisional note is ever possible, that is the supreme essence.” How do you understand it? I would like to tell if you can follow me and come along with me. Why I say this, not that you cannot, but I would like you to come. What is that?
All experience is internal. All knowledge is internal. We don’t see anything in the eyes, we don’t hear anything in the ear drum. Everything is inside the body in the sphere of consciousness, bodha. So when I see an elephant, where is that elephant? I say, there stands an elephant. I say, there stands an elephant, remaining where I am. I am seeing a mountain. I say, there is a mountain. Where? There. Have you gone there? No. Then how do you say? I am experiencing the mountain with a distance factor. If a man were to approach the mountain, I can see him from a distance and when he touches the mountain while walking, I can say, “Oh! He has now started climbing the mountain.” From here I say. So my experience is here and within me. So, where is the mountain? The mountain is an experience in me, within my body. Can the mountain physically enter into my body? No, then my body would break, I won’t be alive. But, nothing happens to me. I perceive the mountain. I am able to recognize and cognize the height of the mountain, the length of the mountain, the gigantic nature of the mountain, all remaining here. So the whole experience or knowledge is very personal and inside. After seeing the mountain, I am looking at a mustard. The mustard also is equally seen and felt by me. Then I see a donkey, thereafter a squirrel, thereafter a parrot. All these things are equally experienced by me. Where? In your mind. Does it not mean that your mind becomes the mountain, becomes the mustard, becomes the donkey, becomes the squirrel? All these are personal experiences; you are very clear about it. And when you say, here is the squirrel, that ‘here’ is also a reference to what you are feeling.
Now you tell me, in the elephant perception or experience, in the squirrel perception or experience, is there anything like many, so far as your mind and experience are concerned? It is something like drawing with water a horse, an elephant, a squirrel, a mustard, and a mountain. Everything is of water. But when you are able to draw it with water on the floor, at least the floor is there, and water is a separate product. So far as your inner perceptions and experiences are concerned, there is only one factor there - consciousness. It does not swell to become the mountain. It does not shape itself to become the mustard or the squirrel. Everything is one consciousness. By virtue of its own inscrutable power, it gives you the notion of the things. Mark my expression, it gives you the notion. So, only notionally and ideationally, these are there. In reality, they are not there.
When thus you are able to understand, that in all my object interactions with the world, I never become the object. All the objects are perceived in me, the subject, and the subject – one alone is there. And the one subject is becoming as it were all the objects of my perception and experience. When you are able to understand in this manner, that becomes non-dual knowledge. And this non-dual knowledge is a tattva, that itself is called brahmeti paramātmeti bhagavāniti śabdyate - It is this non-dual knowledge that is called Brahman, the Supreme Reality, ultimate reality of all substances.
paramātmeti - that is what is denoted by the term paramātmā - That which you denote by ‘I’.
bhagavāniti - God.
So, what is called God, paramātmā and parabrahma, are nothing but references to the non-dual knowledge, which is a matter of experience and realization for you always. There is no other second factor, no second factor at all. It is this non-dual knowledge that constitutes what God, parabrahma, and paramātmā. Why I said this? It is our scriptures that have said it. What do you understand from this? That discovery, you know where the ultimate reality is not a substance, it is not an existence, it is not an object, it is not a particle, it is not a wave, it is not anything at all. It is on the other hand a knowledge which can be felt only by the knower and the knowing consciousness. This is the Supreme Truth.
Now this is what Srimad Bhagavata, right in the initial stage, says. And the whole Bhagavata is an elucidation and a development of this fundamental basic statement and revelation. So when you keep company with the scriptures, and you are guided by them, just imagine how much of knowledge, how much of guidance you can get. So I would like you to understand, our scriptures are very, very precious, they are a great inestimable treasure, and they can elevate a human soul or a human mind to any level that is desired.
Harih Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru.