0:04 We're going to have a deep dive into the
0:07 philosophy of enlightenment in Adita
0:11 Vanta with the help of the eclipse.
0:13 So it goes like this. So now I'm drawing
0:16 from a manual of Adita Vanta called
0:19 Vanta Sara the essence of Vanta. There
0:22 the question is taking from the upanishads
0:24 upanishads
0:27 can you know consciousness atman or
0:29 brahman with the mind or can you not
0:32 know can the mind not reveal it what's
0:36 the role of the mind if you say it it's
0:38 not an object not something that the
0:40 mind can think about then there's no
0:43 other way of knowing it
0:45 if you think it's the mind can know it
0:48 then it's an object of the mind
0:50 And the opanisha seemed to say both
0:53 things here just now we read we we
0:56 heardisha the teacher is saying no mana
0:59 the mind cannot reveal consciousness.
1:03 We again read again and again
1:06 not accessed by speech or by the mind
1:09 but the also says there are opishas
1:11 which say
1:16 only by the mind it can be realized.
1:18 So the question now remains can it be
1:20 known by the mind or can it not be known
1:22 by the mind or you can define it further
1:23 what's the role of the mind in
1:25 enlightenment in fact what is enlightenment
1:27 enlightenment
1:30 deep dive
1:32 we have defined enlightenment as knowing
1:34 what is consciousness as knowing what I
1:37 am self-nowledge
1:40 now in the vanta sara it says first we
1:42 must understand in vanta what is meant
1:44 by knowledge what do you mean by knowing
1:46 something what happens when to know
1:48 something then we will know what is
1:50 meant by self-nowledge knowing ourselves
1:52 how is it different from ordinary
1:54 knowledge what is ordinary knowledge
1:56 we're sticking very close to the teach
1:59 students original question how do I see
2:01 hear smell taste touch same question is
2:04 going on what is ordinary knowledge and
2:07 what is enlightenment special knowledge
2:10 knowledge of ourselves
2:19 Not entirely essential but it's very uh
2:21 fascinating though exactly what happens
2:24 when we experience life and then how can
2:26 we relate that to enlightenment self-realization
2:28 self-realization
2:30 what happens when we become enlightened
2:33 it goes like this according to Vanta
2:35 there is pure consciousness existence
2:38 consciousness bliss sat anund or pure
2:41 consciousness just awareness bare awareness
2:43 awareness
2:45 Not an awareness produced by the brain,
2:46 not an awareness in the mind, but
2:48 awareness just consciousness itself
2:51 which is not an object but which
2:54 illumines all objects. So that's there.
2:58 How does it do that? The
3:01 answer in vanta is that pure
3:04 consciousness which is everywhere
3:08 is reflected, channeled or limited.
3:11 There are three schools of vanta which
3:13 have these three models reflected,
3:17 channeled or limited. Um those who study
3:18 vdanta you would have heard of
3:22 pratibimada abhasawada nachada
3:28 and remember none of this is speculation
3:30 sounds very abstract no it's all within
3:33 our experience if I ask you do you feel
3:35 aware do you feel conscious yeah where
3:38 do you feel conscious here in the body
3:40 make it more precise well more subtle in
3:43 the mind what feels conscious most
3:45 conscious to us is our own thoughts
3:47 feeling feelings, emotions, our inner
3:49 life feels most. That's where we find
3:52 most consciousness, most of awareness.
3:55 That's where we find the first blooming
3:56 of awareness. When we wake up from a
3:58 dream, for example, when we wake up from
4:00 sleep, in our waking moments, that's the
4:05 first clear feeling of I'm aware.
4:07 So awareness is first manifested in the
4:11 mind. It is in vantic terms, it's the
4:14 mind which holds the reflection of pure
4:16 consciousness. or limits pure
4:18 consciousness and then uses it. It
4:21 channels it to the body and the senses
4:24 and then it's channeled into seeing,
4:27 hearing, smelling, tasting, touching. In
4:29 the mind, it illumines thinking,
4:32 remembering, desiring, ego, intellect,
4:35 all of that. All our conscious experiences,
4:36 experiences,
4:39 it starts with conscious consciousness
4:41 being reflected in the mind. This
4:44 reflected consciousness in the mind.
4:46 which we are all experiencing right now.
4:53 Shadow of consciousness or reflection of
4:56 consciousness. Think of it like this. My
4:58 face if I bring a mirror in front of me,
4:59 my face will be reflected in the mirror
5:01 and it'll look pretty much like my face
5:05 depending on the mirror. So yeah, convex
5:06 mirror, concave mirror will give you
5:09 different reflections. So the mind actually
5:10 actually
5:12 this is the theory that it reflects sort
5:16 of quote unquote reflects consciousness.
5:18 You have a pretty good working faximile
5:22 of consciousness in the mind right now.
5:23 Vanta says that's not real consciousness.
5:25 consciousness.
5:27 You are the real consciousness. What you
5:29 are seeing what we feel in the mind as
5:31 consciousness is like seeing your face
5:33 in the mirror.
5:36 And then the pathway to enlightenment is
5:38 right there. How would you become
5:39 enlightened? How do you know yourself as
5:41 pure consciousness? How would you go
5:42 from the reflection of your face in the
5:45 mirror to the real face? How would you
5:47 do that? There's no way of teaching you
5:50 that inward turn is what is necessary.
5:52 That you have to do yourself. The last
5:54 thing that Vanta can show you is the
5:56 appearance of consciousness in the mind
5:59 and then tell you you are shining on the
6:01 mind as pure consciousness. Go from that
6:03 consciousness in the mind back to
6:05 yourself. Anyway, but that's not our
6:07 journey. Our journey is outward now. How
6:10 do we know stuff in the world? We're
6:12 trying to explain how that equation
6:14 works. Consciousness plus object is
6:16 equal to experience. Still trying to
6:17 answer the original question of the
6:21 student. So reflected consciousness in
6:24 the mind illumines the movements. Now
6:27 bantic epistemology movements in the
6:29 mind are illumined by the reflected
6:32 consciousness. You have a thought 1 + 1
6:34 is two. That's a thought. That's a
6:36 movement in the mind. In Sanskrit this
6:38 is called chitti
6:41 a mental modification. And in that
6:43 mental modification consciousness is
6:45 reflected like a face in the mirror.
6:47 That reflected consciousness in that
6:49 mental modification gives you the
6:53 experience 1 + 1 is equal to two. When
6:56 you when you just think 1 + 1 is equal
6:58 to 2. There are two parts to it. There
7:00 is a mental modification and there is a
7:03 conscious experience. The conscious
7:05 experience is because of the reflection
7:07 of consciousness in that mental
7:10 modification and the particular form of
7:11 that experience. What is that particular
7:15 form? It's a thought 1 + 1 is two that
7:17 was provided by the mental modification.
7:19 So in every now this is the sum summary
7:21 of what I'm talking about all this
7:25 gibberish jibber jabber is every
7:27 conscious experience has two parts.
7:28 There's a mental modification and
7:31 there's a reflected consciousness.
7:33 a mental modification and a reflected
7:35 consciousness. Mental modification
7:37 illumined by that reflected
7:38 consciousness. In that mental
7:40 modification, it's like the face in the mirror.
7:43 mirror.
7:44 Every experience is a mental
7:46 modification. I look at the beautiful
7:50 flowers there. What happens? The light
7:52 from those flowers comes into the eyes
7:55 and then it sets up electrical impulses
7:57 racing along the optic nerves to the
8:01 brain. And from there nobody knows how.
8:03 Nobody knows how. From the optic nerves
8:06 in the brain it is presented to the mind
8:08 is a mental modification. In the mind
8:11 there's a mental modification chitti
8:14 about what? About oh what pretty
8:17 flowers. That is the mental modification
8:19 and the consciousness reflected in that
8:21 mental modification. Oh what pretty
8:24 flowers that illumines it. And then I
8:27 get the experience ah pretty flowers.
8:30 And this is true of all our experience.
8:31 If you're reading something, you are
8:34 working, you are thinking, imagining,
8:37 suffering, remembering,
8:39 all of it. What do you call life? All of
8:42 this is mental modification illumined by
8:45 reflected consciousness. And to
8:47 understand this, that is no speculation.
8:50 Just check in your experience. You will
8:52 find something happening in the mind. Of
8:53 course, something happening in the world
8:55 and the body and the senses and but
8:56 finally something must happen in the
8:59 mind. That's the mental experience,
9:01 mental modification. And it feels like
9:04 something it shines. It's revealed.
9:06 That's the reflected consciousness.
9:09 Neither of it is you.
9:11 But this is how knowledge takes place
9:14 according to Vedanta. This mental
9:15 modification for those who are
9:19 interested the Sanskrit word is vitapi.
9:20 The reflected consciousness in that
9:25 mental modification in Sanskrit word is
9:27 if you translate
9:30 becomes unintelligible gibberish.
9:32 Pervasion by mental modification,
9:35 pervasion by reflected consciousness.
9:37 Put them together, you have knowledge,
9:41 you have experience, you have knowledge. Now
9:42 Now
9:45 also explains ignorance. There's
9:47 consciousness all around. What's behind
9:49 me? I don't know. Why don't I know this?
9:51 I don't have any mental modification
9:53 about it. The moment I look around, ah
9:57 there's viveand behind me. Now I have a
9:59 mental modification. It was immediately
10:01 illumined by uh reflected consciousness.
10:05 In Sanskrit there was vitapi
10:07 pervasion by the mental modification.
10:10 And there was falabi pervasion by the
10:12 reflected consciousness. And I had the
10:16 experience ah here is varandanda.
10:19 This is ordinary knowledge. All our
10:21 knowledge, whatever we do in life, all
10:23 of it works like this. This is the
10:25 claim. This is the vantic epistemology
10:26 of knowledge. Now, what about enlightenment?
10:29 enlightenment?
10:32 Remember here a table or those flowers
10:34 are the object and I can use the
10:36 instrument, the eyes and the mind and
10:38 then reflect consciousness on it and
10:40 then say I I'm seeing the flowers. But
10:42 now what is the object? The
10:44 consciousness itself,
10:47 not the flower, not the m eyes, not the
10:50 mind, not even the mental modification,
10:51 not even the reflected consciousness.
10:53 The original consciousness is now the
10:56 object of my study when I want self-realization.
10:57 self-realization.
11:03 How do you do that? How do you do that?
11:06 How can I have
11:10 realization of my original consciousness?
11:11 consciousness?
11:13 Here is where the eclipse becomes
11:17 useful. This I heard from a Swami in uh
11:20 Kankal in Harido.
11:29 He said I I had asked him a question
11:31 about this enlightenment something
11:43 I didn't understand what did he what did
11:44 he mean and I asked one of the disciples
11:47 to explain it to me it is a well-known
11:58 at night the moon illumines the Earth
12:01 imagine the earth is this world and the
12:04 moon is uh illumining the world with
12:06 moonlight but you know it is sunlight
12:08 actually it's a sun's light falling on
12:10 the moon which illuminates at night you
12:13 don't see the sun though
12:16 now the sunlight is illumining the world
12:20 in darkness okay now how do you how do
12:22 you know the world you use the moon to
12:24 reflect the sunlight and then illumin
12:27 the world similar ly how do we know the
12:30 world the world in vanta in in our
12:32 day-to-day life you use pure
12:34 consciousness reflected from the moon of
12:38 the mind focused on this world this is
12:40 how we know the world how do you know it
12:43 the technical details plus
12:44 plus
12:47 pervasion by mental modification plus
12:50 pvasion by reflected consciousness
12:52 notice what is the pervasion by mental
12:54 modification here it's the moon focused
12:56 on the Earth
12:58 and the moon changes its phases. That's
13:00 why you get different kinds of
13:01 illumination throughout the phases of
13:03 the moon. So the focusing of the moon on
13:05 the earth is important. That's pervasion
13:08 by the mind. And the reflected
13:10 consciousness, the the sunlight
13:12 reflected from the moon as moonlight. It
13:14 illumines whatever the moon is pointing
13:16 towards. It's like taking a flashlight
13:18 into a dark room. What do you do when
13:20 you want to see something in a dark room
13:22 with a flashlight? If I switch it on and
13:24 then you point it towards what you want
13:27 to see, there is light. It will reveal
13:29 but it won't reveal the whole room. It
13:32 has a narrow beam. So you pointing the
13:34 flashlight is important. That is called
13:37 pervasion by the mind. And then the
13:41 light from the flashlight will illuminas
13:43 by reflected consciousness. So two
13:46 things are necessary. The mind must
13:49 orient itself to what you want to know.
13:50 And then the reflected consciousness
13:52 will reveal what you the mind has
13:54 oriented itself to. It's as it sounds
13:56 very fancy. It's as simple as I want to
13:58 know what's in this book. What must you
14:01 do? Well, you must open the book. You
14:04 must look at it. You must read it. All
14:07 of that in the service of pervasion by
14:09 the mind. And the reflected
14:11 consciousness in the mind will reveal
14:13 whatever you put into the mind. That's all.
14:15 all.
14:17 Moonlight reveals what's there in the
14:19 earth. But the moonlight is coming from
14:21 the sun. Now what's our project? I want
14:24 to know the sun.
14:26 How can the moon help me to know the
14:30 sun? And then the teacher says solar
14:33 eclipse. What happens in solar eclipse?
14:35 Well, the moon comes between the earth
14:37 and the sun,
14:40 right? And the dis of the sun is
14:42 obscured for a while. Two things will
14:45 happen. One, the earth will pass into
14:48 darkness for a while.
14:50 Notice why we are required to turn away
14:54 from worldly life in spiritual pursuits,
14:57 not just monastic life, in meditation,
15:00 in self inquiry. Everywhere the mind is
15:04 turned around into itself.
15:06 It's like the solar eclipse. In the
15:08 solar eclipse, the light is no longer
15:10 being reflected from the moon to the
15:12 earth at night. What's happening? The
15:14 moon has come between the sun and the
15:17 earth. Now what is happening is quite
15:19 remarkable. The light coming from the
15:22 sun is now reflected back towards the
15:25 sun. Right? The moon has come between
15:27 the sun and the earth. The light coming
15:29 from the sun no longer comes to the moon
15:31 and goes to the earth. Rather it comes
15:33 to the moon. It's reflected back towards
15:36 the sun. Now let me ask you a question.
15:38 Is the sun illumined by reflected moonlight?
15:41 moonlight?
15:44 No. That's a ridiculous question. What
15:46 do you illumin that which is in
15:50 darkness? Was the sun ever in darkness?
15:53 Does the sun require illumination? No.
15:56 It doesn't require the measly moonlight
15:58 for its own illumination. One, because
16:00 it's self-elillumined with a thousand
16:02 times more light than the moonlight. And
16:04 not only that, the moonlight is also sunlight.
16:06 sunlight.
16:08 Even if the moon faithfully reflects the
16:10 light back to the sun, it's not
16:13 necessary. But what is necessary? The
16:15 moon must come between the earth and the sun.
16:17 sun.
16:20 So this is a good example for
16:22 illumination. What happens in
16:24 illumination for enlightenment is
16:27 self-realization or this enlightenment
16:30 is the mind to put all this simply the
16:33 mind must be thoroughly oriented towards
16:36 atman brahman god whatever you call it
16:38 must be immersed in will it know thereby
16:39 will the mind be able to illumin atman
16:42 brahman god? Not at all. The moon cannot
16:44 illumin the sun. Need not illumin the
16:47 sun. What will happen is the moon will
16:50 be flooded by the already existing
16:54 sunlight. Similarly, atman, Brahman, our
16:56 real nature, pure consciousness is
16:58 already continuously shining and
17:00 revealing itself.
17:02 It's just when the mind is properly
17:05 oriented towards it,
17:07 then something remarkable occurs. You
17:09 realize the light is realized by itself.
17:12 The sun realizes itself as light.
17:14 There's no other way of putting it. Sri
17:16 Ramach Krishna says bodhara
17:18 consciousness realizing itself as consciousness.
17:19 consciousness.
17:21 Pure consciousness realizing itself as
17:23 consciousness. Did the mind play a role
17:25 or not? Did the moon play a role or not?
17:27 Yes and no.
17:29 What was done? What what role does the
17:31 mind play? The precise answer, the
17:34 mental modification of the mind is
17:37 necessary. What is not necessary? The
17:40 reflected consciousness is not necessary
17:43 or in our technical language
17:46 is necessary. Palabi is not necessary.
17:48 Pervasion by mental modification is
17:50 necessary. Pervasion by reflected
17:52 consciousness is not necessary for
17:53 self-realization because you are
17:55 unlimited consciousness yourself. You
17:57 don't need to reflect consciousness back
17:59 from the moon towards yourself to
18:03 realize oh I am consciousness. No.
18:05 How do you orient the mind towards
18:09 yourself? Vantaishads,
18:12 Gita, the disha va the method of the
18:15 seer in the scene. The punch va the
18:17 method of the five layers of the of the
18:21 human personality. The austra the three
18:23 states of waking, dreaming and sleeping,
18:26 the analysis. These are all ways of vitap
18:28 vitap
18:31 of pervading the mind focusing the mind
18:35 on Brahman through this analysis
18:38 and this analysis will not reveal atman
18:39 or Brahman that is already self-revealed.
18:41 self-revealed.
18:44 So when the illumination comes pervasion
18:47 by the mind is necessary pervasion by
18:50 reflected consciousness not necessary.
18:53 This is the vantic epistemology of enlightenment.
18:59 This also explains the two upanishadic
19:02 statements. By the mind it cannot be
19:04 known. By the mind it can be known. By
19:06 the mind alone it can be known. It
19:07 cannot be known because the reflected
19:09 consciousness in the mind is not necessary.
19:11 necessary.
19:13 Is meaningless
19:15 for self-realization. It can be known
19:17 because mental modification is
19:20 necessary. The mind must be focused on
19:22 God on atma, Brahman, whatever you call
19:25 it. Mind is ne that's why complete
19:27 dedication of the mind in spiritual life
19:29 is absolutely necessary. The complete
19:32 inward turning away the solar eclipse of
19:35 let the world pass into darkness for a
19:38 short while. Then you will the sun will
19:49 This is called in vanta brahakari.
19:52 This is a technical term
19:54 that flower when I know the flower this
19:57 is called flower flower
19:59 mental modification with the content of
20:02 the flower. Brahma mental modification
20:04 with the content focused on Brahman. How
20:07 do you get it through vanta
20:10 supported by meditation by devotion by
20:12 all sorts of spiritual practices that's
20:13 all that we're trying to generate in the
20:16 mind. So the mind can know Brahman and
20:18 cannot know Brahman in these two very
20:21 precise senses. It's not being my
20:25 mysterious or vague a very clear
20:28 philosophical sense in which the mind
20:30 can know Brahma. I I have not come
20:32 across any anywhere that enlightenment
20:35 is so precisely analyzed as in Vanta.
20:37 This is extraordinary how close they
20:40 get. You can't say anymore. This is the
20:46 The whole thing can be deceptive. [Music]
