Hello, everybody, Andrew Holecek here and I am especially delighted to introduce to you and spend some time with a remarkable individual that I had the opportunity to get to know a little bit this summer. During an event we did together. Swami Sarvapriyananda. It's been a real honor. I've been looking forward to this for months but I will read a very short bio about this amazing individual and we're just gonna jump right in. There's so many things that I want to discuss with him. So Swami Sarvapriyananda is a Hindu monk belonging to the Rama Krishna order. He is the current Swami and head of the Vedanta Society of New York position he's held there since 2017. From childhood childhood onwards, he has inclined towards spirituality was inspired by the lives of Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. His family is also devoutly religious his parents and grandparents were initiated devotees on the Rama Krishna order. And I love this about you. Swami Ji said he has stated that his first goal in life was to become a pilot. And the second was to find God and I think in a certain way you can become a pilot to fly towards God right? He becomes your co pilot. So, my dear friend, it's so great to have you. Oh, one thing I also wanted to say to my community. One of the reasons I'm particularly thrilled to have Swamiji with us, is because he has taken it upon himself to really soak in Western philosophy, scientific doctrines and also Buddhism last year you studied extensively with God, Professor Garfield, I believe, studying by Jamocha and the teachings in the garden and emptiness and so I'm continually impressed with your willingness and ability to spread out across all these various disciplines to augment your own understanding and basically to develop your skill set to communicate with, especially Westerners. So I'm extraordinarily honored and thrilled that you've taken the time to spend to talk to us this morning. Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me, Andrew. It's the pleasure and the privilege to be on this forum with you
thank you, thank you, but my community Swami-ji is is largely predisposed towards Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhist world. And so maybe we could start if you don't mind just a little bit talking about the relationship between Vedanta proper and then Advaita Vedanta what what are the similarities and differences? And what can we glean from both as students of Buddhism for instance, why would it behoove us to explore something like Advaita Vedanta what what can Buddhists learn from this noble tradition? So a couple of questions in there?
Well, yes, Vedanta literally means the end of the Vedas. The Vedas, as we know are the primary and most ancient scriptures of the Hindu tradition. End of the Vedas does not literally mean physically the end of the texts, which we now call the Vedas, but the final or the highest philosophical spiritual teachings of the Vedas, and they are found in texts called Open nations, which form part of the Vedic corpus. So one way we can define Vedanta is the spiritual knowledge that we get from the Upanishads. The term the Sanskrit definition, which we memorized as novices was Vedanta nama opuntia pramana. The source of spiritual knowledge called Open nations is Vedanta. Now, multiple commentators who explained the Upanishads in different ways, gave rise to the various schools of Vedanta. So just for example, there is Advaita Vedanta non dual Vedanta, there is Vishesh de Advaita Vedanta qualified monistic Vedanta, there is Advaita Vedanta. dualistic Vedanta, and here non dual dualistic these all referred to ontological categories. How many realities are there in this universe? If it is one without a second, then you have Advaita? Well, it literally means non dual, not two. But if it's organic, whole that everything is included within one reality, you have wished. Advaita Vedanta, if they're actual pluralities, there is a God of the universe. There is a universe there are individual separate sentient and insentient beings. Then you have dualistic which basically means pluralistic Vedanta. So you have these vast differences within the vedantic tradition itself. I personally belong to what you might call a reform movement within Hinduism, originating in the late 19th century, but which is rooted in Advaita Vedanta, but in a more general more liberal way, which tends to incorporate various parts of the entire spiritual tradition of Hinduism. Now, if I move on to the second part of the question, why should we be interested? Why should for example, a person who's studying Tibetan Buddhism, be interested in Advaita Vedanta for that we have to go back 2000 years or more, within a few centuries of the Buddha, they were already proliferating a lot of philosophical discussion between the different schools prevalent at that time, some of which belong to what we call Hinduism today, some of which belong to Buddhism, and there was intense debate between them. So this actually led to the flowering of Indian philosophy. This nearly 1000 years of debate between Buddhist and Hindu schools between within the Hindu schools within the Buddhist schools and between Hinduism and Buddhism, the philosophical schools, it was really beneficial for Indian philosophy it led to the development of, of logic of epistemology, metaphysics also and discussions on on ethics and ultimately the nature of spiritual enlightenment, freedom and so on. So it's good to know the traditions against which for example, your native tradition has been debating, and then you begin to see why you are saying or we are seeing the things that we are seeing are trying to prove what are we arguing against what are we trying to prove? These are very ancient systems of thought. So that is one reason. More so we find strange, I would say synchronicity is a mirror image like thinking which developed within these traditions. So if you look at just the language of Mark Dhammika, and the language of Advaita Vedanta, what they're trying to say, I think it's so extraordinarily, almost eerily like echoing each other. They're not saying they're not they don't and they're not exactly the same. We're more like mirror images of of each other. But sometimes they use exactly the same language. Nagarjuna uses language which is often Upanishadic. So one way of understanding one's own tradition, is to not only look at the traditions which are different from it, and has been engaged in debate and helped in the formation of your tradition, but which are also which at least seem to be very similar to your tradition and yet just that maddeningly bit little bit different, which actually throws a lot of light on on our own understanding for our tradition.
Let me give one example. Code. Yes. Yes, please go ahead. Just one example. I'll wrap this up. It's so how do I see for example, the Tibetan Buddhist synthesis basically a multiple schools which have gone into what is Tibetan Buddhism today, primarily, the emptiness school and the mind only school the mag Hammacher school and the began Avada school. Chapter Matrice. Good. That synthesis and Advaita Vedanta so how do I see them together? The way I see it is this, one misunderstanding of the MME aka mind only synthesis, let's just call it the multimodal school. Consistently the way the Hindu schools have attacked the MME aka school has been as portraying it as nihilism, as they're saying that ultimately there is nothing which is on the surface patently unfair because again and again, Nagarjuna and Chandra ki t and others have repeatedly said that's not what we are trying to say, we are not trying to talk about, you know, asset dwad and the non existence of anything at all, then nihilism. No. So, one way of misunderstanding a common way of instantly standing Mudjimba is to say that they say nothing exists. Then, the common wav Advaita has been characterized when it's being attacked, much, much less so in the in the Metallica tradition, but when they have actually criticized Advaita targeted onto it, it has been as eternalism there is something that you're talking about, Brian, it's a thing you're talking about. Now, the way I put these two together is that if you correct these errors, then you begin to see both of them are talking about no thing. Yes, it's not nothing. It's not a thing. But it is nothing. And that's not an abstract. That's the category that's not something very conceptual, that is actually the heart of reality itself. Compared to that. Nothing and something are abstractions basically. Yes. Okay. So that's something that I take away from my study of both traditions.
That's fantastic. And I think it's also since we're getting into some granularities here Swamiji to throw into the mix. Also the difference between the classic Rong Tong or consequentialist majolica schools, which is you know, really didn't posit anything right whenever it was brought to a consequentialist. It was not an affirming negation. They simply shredded what was ever presented, assert anything and that of course, is where they're nihilistic accusations were level. But then and this isn't perhaps as commonly known. I'm not I'm not sure if even Professor Garfield talked about this. But then there's what is called the shentong majolica school the empty of other schools, which is where Okay, after you've cut, cut, cut, removed, remove the of that apathetic way the via negativa there is some thing left but of course, it's not a thing. And then so what that is then becomes the charter of the shentong School to assert what that is the Buddha Nature teachings, the quality of reality as being made of the nature of life, for example. And so I find it it since we're already on this track, in addition to what you just said, Swamiji What else have you learned from, in particular the Tibetan Buddhist schools, when you go into that arena and you study, what is it that you have learned that you've been able to augment your own understanding of your tradition with?
Right? Let me start a little anecdote about my experience studying Tibetan Buddhism academically at at Harvard. So the first time I entered Professor Garfield's class on Metallica, and he is a great enthusiast about Metallica. You know, he would start his class by saying, if you can do Madhyamaka Why do anything else? All the other stuff that you're doing at the Harvard Divinity School philosophy department none of that, you know, this comes even close to the joy of doing mathematics. So, when you enter the class, he knew he knows our tradition. When he goes to Calcutta, for example, he's pretty close to our main monastery and he stays at our guesthouse. So he had stayed there. So the moment I entered the class, he said to me, Swami, keep your advice outside the door. Which is actually good advice. Because especially if there are two traditions, which are in some ways similar at least, then it is good to bracket it off, you know, sort of husserlian sense to bracket off the other traditions. So that you can immerse yourself in this tradition and learn it properly. So but that's one side of it. Just outside the class outside Harvard Yard. I was walking down to the university one day, and I met this Tibetan monk on the street, and he grinned at me and said, What are you doing here? And I said, What are you doing here? So I told him that I'm studying actually studying your tradition with Professor Garfield at the university. And he said he was the Tibetan Buddhist chaplain for Harvard University, Lama MC MC bar. And then he said to me, you are in a Drayton, right? Eridan Advaita Vedanta? I said, Yes. And then with a broad smile, he said, all it is the same thing. So you just put these two together, you know that they are different, keep them apart. Good. That's one way but they are ultimately the same thing. Okay. So yeah, it makes good academic sense to keep them apart when you're trying to learn and it makes ultimate sense to see that both are pointing towards their different pointers, but they are pointing towards the same thing. Now. multiple things which really helped me in my own understanding of Advaita Vedanta and understanding of, of, you know, the mind on the school and the emptiness school. The feeling I got while studying the development of the emptiness school, from Nagarjuna to Chandra ki t and Baba Viveka. And, and then further down to the Nalanda tradition, then the further development in Tibet, so that we are talking about about nearly 2000 years, more or less 2000 years of development, and as you say, written in Sanskrit by Nagarjuna, and Chandra ki t, and then come into these in Tibetan old Tibetan, written nearly 1000 years ago by you know, mob Jr, Tsongkhapa and others and then translated into almost incomprehensible English and we are really studying that stuff. At Harvard now. I got the feeling of, you know, the beautiful structures that we see today, in Advaita, Vedanta, or in Tibetan Buddhism, for example, the MME aka that is taught the fully developed form that is taught now, but while studying that, you feel that you have gone back to the construction site, where the buildings have not yet come up, the materials are arriving and the concrete mixtures are churning away. You know, the workers are working at it and things are coming up and coming down again, a it's, it seems messy, but you recognize the contours of what is going to come. So this huge debate for nearly more than 1000 years, I would say, which form the center of our study at Harvard was the debate between the prasangika school and South Africa school and what all that came out of it, whether metaphysically or epistemologically logically, and in terms of spirituality, practice. Yeah. So but that's those are the areas in which I gained I gained better understanding
what was beautiful and I couldn't agree more with you and I think it should be more widely proclaimed Swamiji that, that the Buddhist notion of anathema no self is phenomenologically equivalent to the big S self of the Vedanta tradition. I mean, it's different words pointing to the same reality would you say?
Yeah, that's the million dollar a billion dollar question. Are they different words pointing to same reality? Before going into that course at Harvard? I would have said yes, that was my field. I would still say yes, at this point. Only that I have begun to appreciate that, you know, the uniquenesses of both approaches. The Hindu mind has a peculiarly synthetic ability of, you know, going in everywhere and saying, oh, it's all the same. Yes, it but only in an ultimate sense. And if you see the differences, you actually appreciate each system for its uniqueness and it helps you in your spiritual growth. So yes, they ultimately point to the same thing. Let me give you for example, somebody who doesn't agree with this. I agree with what you said. We are in agreement there ultimately, in terms of Parramatta that is the absolute truth. They are pointing to, I think virtually the same thing. But here's somebody who doesn't agree, or at least apparently doesn't agree. And that's Professor Garfield what is his take on Metallica? One place he says that if studying Medina Makkah you get the feeling of falling into our into never ending Well, you know, like dropping in there without any CS bottomless drop then you have got Magda Maka, which if I'm asked to take a take a call on it, that is only partially true. Exactly, exactly. As far as conceptual formulations of the truth are concerned, it's good to keep on doing the mug Dhammika analysis the Giotto spot the trilemma. You keep on applying it and dissolving it. So that each time it points back to something that you intuitively or self luminously know to be the truth which is already there. It's it's not you're not dropping into a void of meaninglessness and pointlessness not like that. Yeah, I don't think he meant it that way. But he expressed it that way.
Yes, I think that's really true. Swamiji because the Vortex the the sense of, in fact, Trooper Chase said it beautifully when he said, The bad news is you're falling through space without a parachute. The good news is there is no grout and so on one level what he's talking about is the the the vortex and I would even say that chipper you know those roadside chippers that chew up the wood? Yeah, falling through a chipper and your your effective response to that is in fact one of annihilation or falling and descent. But that's only the annihilation of like you said, returning to the construction site, it's the deconstruction of the concepts, the adventitious defilements and that, from a true perspective, it's actually it's not a vertigo. It's a sense of complete freedom and relief because if you relate to it as it is without reference to the self, it isn't this cataclysmic event that that only comes about like a thunderclap immediately after the strike of inset insight comes the thunderclap of concept and that's where the some of the disquieting notions I think come into play, wouldn't you say?
I agree entirely that there is a beautifully put that is the deconstruction of the conceptual formulations which we set up. And the problem with the conceptual formulations is they are at least one step away from the truth. That truth itself is not amenable to being squeezed within any conceptual framework. And I think that's basically what Nagarjuna was trying to point out when he says shunyata server Drishti. Now, the emptiness of all philosophies. The emptiness of all philosophies is the emptiness of all philosophical formulations of the truth. Now, the danger in Advaita Vedanta, for example, is what the emptiness school would call the substantial danger that when you try to positively state the truth, you end up almost like implying there is an eternal non changing thing, which is the ground of the universe to see the thing ground eternal, non changing, they all sound pretty substantial. Yeah. And though that's not exactly what is meant, but we the mind takes it that way. We are predisposed to thinking that that way. And therefore the emptiness dialectic is very useful to you get a grasp on it, then quickly deconstructed, and you're left with freedom with the infinite
couldn't agree more Swamiji but let me ask you this is where I love the depth that we're reaching right away. It's not so much in fashion as it once was, but the whole postmodernist radical relativist approach. Do you in fact, from your understanding of both Buddhism and Hinduism, does reality in fact bottom out is it an infinitely sliding scale? Or does reality fundamentally bottom out into whatever no thing there's light or or some matrix of reality which I believe in your tradition you refer to as pure consciousness or pristine consciousness. So is Is there some kind of end to the to the descent into reality? I mean, is there is there a point where we can say truly Absolute Truth is in fact the nature of things?
Let me give a simple answer first and then complicated. Again to answer. The simple answer is yes. If you ask me to be straight and put it out there straight Yes. And I think both the emptiness school and Advaita Vedanta are also very simple. They give that simple, direct answer. There is an absolute truth. That is, I'm literally quoting Nagarjuna here, when he says Buddha taught two truths. One absolute wonder relative Bara Martic and somebody said Tim, and the relative truth is relative only to the absolute it is helpful. It is practical, it is helpful. It helps us to live our day to day lives, and most importantly, it helps us to access the Absolute Truth Nagarjuna says some pretty Manasa Thea Parramatta come now the actually it means this is from the Madame Akaka. Rika. Yeah, without the support of the relative truth, the transactional truth, nobody ever comes to the absolute truth. And that's the importance of the transactional truth ultimately, and Advaita Vedanta would agree totally there. Now complicating that is, let me give an example which I'm fond of, is that of gold and ornaments. Do ornaments bottom out, ultimately, ornaments are not the ultimate reality they're made of gold. So if you just take the ornament side of it, do ornaments ultimately end up in an absolute ornament. Do they end up in a fundamental ornament? No, they don't. If you are going to stick to ornaments, you know jewelry or not? You're going to go down a slippery sliding slope to endless you know going from one thing to another, none of them are fundamental, none of them are ultimate, there is no ultimate necklace or tiara or you know ring. They are all grounded in something which is not an ornament if one grasps that there is an entirely different category of reality, which is called Gold, then you have found the ground. Now, this might be pretty simple when you're talking about clay and pots, which is something that you find a lot in ancient debates in India, I guess there are lots of parts lying around. So clay in part one understands golden ornament one understands. But what does that mean in terms of our experience reality? Dead that's where it becomes scary, thrilling. Everything that we can think about speak about experience is equivalent to an argument in what is what chorus corresponds to gold. Is there something that corresponds to gold? Yes, there is. That's the claim in both Magda Maka and Advaita Vedanta Advaita Vedanta just states it positively. And Madame OCHA, I think with greater logic, refuses to state it positively. It's entirely aware of the dangers of sounding like another ornament and gold is another special kind of ornament. No, it isn't. It is entirely unlike anything that we have experienced can experience that we can speak about even think about. Why is it very different? Advaita Vedanta gives us an insight here. This is the ultimate reality is not an object. So yes, it's a subject but no, even the subject that we think about is a pretty objective subject. It's the body mind a thought these according to Advaita, Vedanta all of these are objects and what are they an object to? That is you will have to drag it down quite a bit in order to express it in language because language was not meant to do that language was meant to be used in our world. So that reality which is a non objective reality, and all this language makes it a little dicey because our to our modern way of thinking non objective means subjective not so real. Something to do with maybe the humanities have something to do with individual fantasies, not at all. From an athletic perspective, that is the reality. Objects are like dreams compared to the pure subject of pure consciousness. One, one philosopher Professor Arindam Chakravarthi, whom I consider to be maybe the most brilliant living Indian philosopher. He teaches at the University of Hawaii. Maybe you should have him on the show sometime. Yes. He says he defines object as that which objects to conscious
Oh, beautiful, beautiful input. Yes. Yeah. It's okay. So with your understanding of the Java and also obviously, pure consciousness and let me let me make sure I understand that if you were to put into words the ineffability of course of that, which cannot be named the foundational absolute truth, it seems to me in your languaging it would be something akin to pristine consciousness or pure consciousness and your understanding so many do you would you would you therefore say that that is equivalent to emptiness? Is that your understanding?
Yes, I you can you can call it pure consciousness. You can call it pure Being pristine consciousness a pristine being. It is only in that as an appearance in that that things are revealed things have been I mean, we considered everything in this universe, whatever we experience, it's possible to experience because of that pure consciousness. Everything seems to have an existence because of that pure consciousness. But that in itself is not a thing or not an entity which has some existence, pure being pure consciousness. These are terms one could use that is equivalent to emptiness. Again, I am making a stretch and I'm not alone in this there are a number of thinkers, specially modern thinkers who have a more balanced view of multimodal I'm think talking about you know, Indian philosophy thinkers who have a more balanced view of mantenga not as nihilism but as exactly as what Nagarjuna Chandra intended it to be. Who would say that the emptiness there, the pure consciousness a pristine consciousness is empty of the universe. Yeah. And the universe as such is empty of the pure consciousness but we want us to be very careful here. When when Vaughn says it's like the necklace or the ring, when I say it is empty of gold what I what I mean is not that I'm denying that the gold alone is appearing as the necklace but the name and form of the necklace is not substantial in itself. There is no reality there so it's empty.
Yes. And so this is where it comes back to the shentong empty of other yeah empty of adventitious defilements empty of that, which is not. So I think that's the wonderful nuance that that tradition brings down
the chin tongue. Exactly. I've read a little bit about it. And there was another minor school which sort of got squeezed out over the centuries. The gelang school
love journaling is almost synonymous with Szentendre. Yes, tradition and the Shen conference are virtually the same. So they get you know, interesting Lee Swamiji. They got they got squeezed out my understanding, because I'm the gloop has had a hard time relating to their assertions that they were proclaiming that there is some thing you can assert. They refer to it as Buddha nature, luminosity and the shantung or the lupus got very upset. Well, here they are, they're coming back in reasserting bringing some some sense of soul back into the picture. And so they actually went in and deliberately Miss translated texts and actually changed the, the trajectory of that school to disrepute because it was going against the prevailing doctrine over time. But right, I think what I wanted to say one thing here that I think is very important, I've heard you mentioned this earlier is both an index and a Buddhist pedagogical approach. It is critical here because we're still talking and you're intimating the notion of going beyond concept, but in Buddhism, it's called the three pioneers the three the three wisdom tools, hearing, contemplating meditating is only within the filtration sometimes I talk about a Swami Ji is this filtration and purification system that takes place when you wake down when you drop below that conceptual proliferation into more contemplative embodied understanding and an experience and then finally, completely non conceptual knowing true Gnosis at the level of meditation. And so really, it's not a sophists proclamation to say, Oh, if you can't put it into words, it doesn't exist. No words cannot express this and so the only way to really know this in a Gnostic sense is actually through deep meditation.
Yes, I was delighted to see this the three wisdom tools that correspond exactly to the three components of ganja yoga, the path of knowledge in Advaita Vedanta Sravana manana needed the asana. shravana means literally hearing manana means reflection or reasoning and needed Yasin means this special technique of meditation and what are the purposes of these three steps? The first step shravana you can summarize it is what did the teacher say? Or what did the text say? If I can answer that question? I've completed the first step. I have the the teaching, so to get the teaching, and this is so important because you cannot proceed without the teaching. What often happens is I get a little bit of teaching and a little bit of my own imagination, some preconceptions that won't do, I must download the information as it is. So that is the first step of of hearing shravana and here I when I when I teach these days, I often use the Tibetan Buddhist instruction it seems I was reading somewhere the novice master comes into the into the class and before the beginning of the entire teaching, he says how not to listen. Don't listen like an upside down pot. Pots again, don't listen to like an upside down pot. Don't listen like a like a leaky pot. Don't listen. Like a dirty pot, and upside down pot doesn't collect any water or whatever you pour, it flows away so don't listen like that but nothing goes in. Don't listen like a leaky pot. You listen but then it's all after sometime it's all gone. Again, you must retain what has been taught. And the third is dirty pot. I already have misconceptions or am entirely skeptical. I've made up my mind about everything. Then when I listen I filter it through those preconceptions or my own fanaticism and, and so I come to pre established conclusions about everything. That's the dirty part. So she says don't listen. To like an upside down thought. Don't listen to like, Don't leaky pot. Don't listen to like a dirty pot. And I think I think that's good pedagogy anywhere anyway. Now, once we have listened, what's the problem now? I've heard what I have many questions. I don't get it. I can tell you what you said. But I don't get it. So when you set up all those questions, and the answers, often the texts have these answers. Often you can engage with your teacher you can engage with other students, but most most of all you you try to think it through yourself. And here it's entirely reasoning here is entirely philosophical reasoning, thinking it through for yourself. I remember I asked one of my teachers, Advaita Vedanta teachers, a senior monk, when I was a novice, hesitantly that I had some doubts about what was said in today's class. I still remember his answer is 10. Standing in front of the gates. of our main monastery on the bank of the Ganga. He says, Ask a young monk. Better brains than yours have pondered over these questions for for the better part of 2 million or 3 million year. And so you needn't be afraid that if you ask a few questions, then the entire edifice of Advaita is going to crumble. So ask away young monk asked whatever you like and you must ask. So this is the path of knowledge where you should not take it on faith. You should not take it on me out of respect, you must understand. It's no use saying that. Yes, is equal temporary scales. MC square is perfectly alright with me because you are great, sir. My professor is great, and therefore I believe it won't work. Then, the end of that state of Montana is reached when you say I not only know the teaching, but now I get it. I'm convinced I'm sold. I've got complete clarity. Now that complete clarity then what remains? It still remains that someone might say that I get it, but it's not a living reality to me. You know, I get it that I'm sort of a piano but more than getting it that I'm sort of a piano server piano and is living reality to me right now. It's a fact. It's not a theoretical, it's not an understanding. It's more than that. So the or the I am pure consciousness. That I get it now, but I understand all the arguments, but it's not a living reality for me now. And to convert that into a living reality, you stay with what you have studied and what you've got clarity with. And there are many, many methods of staying with it. They're all they're all basically very subtle pointers. They use the facts of our daily experience to direct you back towards that radiance, which is within which is our real nature. You stay with that until it's effortless clarity, which is which is always there always available to you.
Technically and make two points here. There is a school in Advaita Vedanta, which says, knowledge comes from the first stage listening. The text gives you the knowledge, the teachings gives you the knowledge. The other two, reasoning and meditation are for removing obstacles to that knowledge. So reasoning removes the kind of obstacle which is called the impossibility obstacle. I am pure consciousness I'm not body mind impossible. Well, why impossible young monk, tell me what are your objections when you clarify, remove those objections? That's the second stage being possibility problem is solved. The third, the third stage of meditation is for solving another kind of problem, which is called the contrary tendencies problem. I get it, but you're saying I'm convinced, but I still go on behaving living the the old person is still there, the unregenerate person still there. How do I transform that into an enlightened being? That's the the work of meditation. So wisdom tools perfectly all right. And that's that's wonderful. That's exactly what is done in Advaita Vedanta
Yeah, and I think the the other thing is, I think is important your should be known is that for some people who may challenge the first step like the the extremists who are more interested in pure so called spiritual meditative work? Well, I think it's incredibly important to retro fit in a certain way. One's understanding because this happened to me personally. You can absolutely positively have spiritual experiences without the proper understanding. And then things can really become unhinged. It's like Artie Lange famously said, you know, the mystic swims in the same ocean where the psychotic drowns because sometimes if you don't have the infrastructure to help you understand what you've actually experienced, that opportunity can actually flip into an obstacle. So that's the other reason to understand work with this pedagogical approach.
I think that's beautifully stated. What you said first, that, that you can have spiritual experiences and without the proper framework, for the, for the intellect, yes, the intellect may be lower thing, but it's still it's still there. As long as you are an individual person, you have an intellect, you have a body a mind. So all of these have to function with the new dawn of this understanding. This new realization, and for that, you need the framework, which tells you what you have got, which which helps you to appreciate what in any case, if this pure Light of Consciousness, pristine consciousness, atman Brahman, whatever you call it, in any case, it's always there. So what's really important is to point it out and then appreciate it for what it's it's what it really is. Three Rama Krishna has to talk about the washer man, you have to imagine an Indian washer man who collects our dirty laundry and takes it to the bank of a river and then scrub, washes it and scrubs it and uses a rock. So this washer man, he found a rather unique rock, which was actually a big diamond. He didn't know what it was. And he used it for scrubbing dirty clothes. Until this long story he goes to different people and they offer in different amounts of money for it and until he gets goes to a diamond merchant who says my man you've got the most magnificent diamond in the world. I'll give you millions of rupees for it. And so all the wants of the washer man were removed forever. Now we already have that diamond and we are like that washer man using it to scrub dirty laundry you know we're using it to see hear smell, taste, touch, to love hate to fight wars to be unhappy to do samsara with it. But to appreciate it one needs that teaching. Not one doesn't need more and more spiritual experiences. One needs to teach and from the other end, the problem is one can a tradition like mud hammock or Advaita Vedanta is also highly intellectual. So the opposite connection is also necessary. And this also again from the Tibetan tradition, I was reading somewhere the Tibetan Master says to the advanced practitioner. Yes, you and your guru are the same reality which you have realized, and yet never cease to have respect for your guru. Yes. It is the same reality in samsara and out of it, but never give up the opportunity for a retreat when you get it. So like this multiple warnings were the sanctity of spiritual life and practice is preserved even after enlightenment.
Beautiful, beautiful. I want to make a transition. Now to talking a little bit about dreams Swamiji because one of the things I so appreciate about your talks, I've listened to a number of them on YouTube what would you talk, the conversation we had with Kahn's, then your your conversation with Rupert Spira, the role of dreams and Advaita Vedanta is extraordinarily impressive and, and then after your reference site I read and study them on Dooku Parishad. Now realize the centrality of dreams in that arena and obviously is of such importance in a Buddhist tradition. For goodness sake. The Buddha is the Awakened One. It's it's absolutely integral and so my my extraordinary passion for several decades and as part of the community that we're speaking to right now, is using what the Tibetans refer to as the double delusion or the example dream. That's our nighttime dream, as a way to extrapolate insights into the primary dream. And so talk to us a little bit about it. I have some some more specific questions here, but is it it's kind of a general overlay? Talk to us about the importance of the centrality of the dream. The dream analogy in Advaita Vedanta and why you often takes us it is one of your principal heuristics, one of your principal teaching tools
right? With your permission before I jump into that, a couple of points I'd like to make about what I what I got from it as it's related to the dream example actually, that's what brought it up in my mind, which I got from Professor Garfield. Otherwise I'll forget. Okay. One thing which came out of that entire course was it's basically to the contributions of Tsongkhapa. Yeah. This continuous stress upon the emptiness of all things and there is this corresponding thing in Advaita Vedanta very talk about the falsity of the world appearance, and the very word thing about appearance. The word use there is mithya to or falsity and, in emptiness, school it is shunyata or emptiness. Now, we can go off on two different directions which both are problematic one is the, the direction of over emphasizing the emptiness part of things that it's all empty. The, for example, the Karmapa. And some other traditions we read, which are I think they're a particular branch of the Kagyu which was intensely dismissive of anything and everything, they are pointing to that ultimate reality but their language is extremely, I would say radical emptiness. As against this, there are those who stressed the importance of the the relative truth the summary the septum, because without that, no life is possible. No teaching is possible. Now when you overemphasize the relative truth and then say that the Absolute Truth is something different, emptiness is something different, and relatively the world is here. It's solid, it's real, then you tend to lose the importance of the Absolute Truth. Or emptiness, the emptiness is meant to be applied to this life itself. And yet not to dismiss everything. Anyway, to cut a long story short, what came out of the whole discussion was Tsongkhapa has a delicate balancing act, where he pointed out if you overemphasize emptiness, it leads to a metaphysical nihilism that nothing exists. It leads to an epistemological skepticism that there is no possibility of any kind of true knowledge including even the Buddha's enlightenment that skepticism and it leads to all sorts of great concern for some copper monastic laxity. Anything goes an ethical relativism, so to prevent ethical relativism, epistemological skepticism, and metaphysical nihilism that balance between that how do you apply emptiness if applied carefully, and Nagarjuna saw this more than 2000 years ago, he said, It's like catching a snake at the wrong end. You you are in serious danger. If you misunderstand emptiness. It's same thing any non dualist would recognize has plagued non dual Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta, and which had great ramifications for Indian thought and philosophy in the last 800 900 years, so I'll just leave it there the contribution of Tsongkhapa second thing the dream analogy there's this question of what does the Buddha know? So on one hand, yes. So in Professor Garfield's class, they were there was a whole discussion intense discussion on does the Buddha know everything or nothing? Why everything because it's again and again said the Buddha is omniscient. After becoming enlightened you would be omniscient, so you obviously know everything. On the other hand, the teaching of emptiness, the dreamlike nature of realities, suggests that whatever we know is like a dream, and hence it's false. It's not worth knowing. So the Buddha will not know all this. After all, why should the Buddha have encyclopedias? of false knowledge? Exactly. So Garfield presa Garfield, he joked, he said, he I call this the brainstem Buddha. What it what it points to is that after enlightenment, you don't know anything you're really reduced to the brainstem existence which is a very unpleasant thing to think about. Is that enlightenment, no, you just have to look at the lives of people you would consider enlightened. They are, they are high functioning individuals, probably better than most of us. Yeah, they are full of joy full of life. So it's not a brainstem. Buddha, the enlightened one knows all that we know and knows much, much more deeply and much more truly. Yeah. But now, that brings us to the dream exam. Dream example. How is the dream example used in Advaita Vedanta?
The most powerful example of the Manduka canica. The Manduka opuntia is one of the major Upanishads on which Vedanta is based. And it is the shortest of all the Upanishads with only 12 mantras and it is taken to be the most powerful of the Upanishads There is a saying which says, If you want enlightenment and freedom Moksha go to the Manduka. If that doesn't work, here are 12 Upanishads and 24 Upanishads. And finally, a list of 108 to finish up so you better get enlightenment through the little Shankara as teachers teacher, gota pada Gowda Acharya, he commented on the Manduka position, in fact, he embedded the Maluku Punisher in his come into the call the Manduka Kalika, which is commentary in four chapters. The second chapter of this commentary on demand due to Punisher the second chapter is based entirely on the dream example. So, there go to power the leverages the dream example, to point to the Appearance nature of this universe. What is so he uses the dream example to point to the falsity of the universe because according to Advaita, Vedanta Brahman alone is real. No universe is an appearance, it's false. And you are none other than that absolute Brahman, that you are that absolute reality. So brahma satyam Brahman alone is real Jagat Nithya the universe is an appearance and Jeeva Bremerhaven, opera, you the sentient being or none other than the absolute reality. The world is an appearance. What is the purpose of this teaching and that's the purpose of the dream example also. There is a preliminary purpose there is a deeper purpose. The preliminary purpose is to help you to turn your attention away from this. This bewildering bewitching world appearance which absorbs all of us, you need to step back. Enlightenment requires you to step back to cut off at least temporarily, it requires you to go away temporarily, we'll come back later, but also that going away that stepping back, that looking away from it, that requires you to believe or to see this world as an appearance to understand the appearance nature of this world. If you see it as a movie, you won't take it all that terribly seriously. So that's the preliminary point. To help you that term used is Viraja Dispassion for this world as kind of serenity about whatever happens in this world. And that itself is a very valuable thing. That's but that's just preliminary. This the main purpose, the deeper purpose of the dream example, the teaching about the falsity of the world is is a pointer to reality. So when I say and then a classic example of the snake and the rope and you know, at dusk, you somebody sees that there is a snake there. It isn't a snake, it's actually a rope. It looks like a snake and this person thinks it's a snake and gets scared. So that's the classic example. It's not a snake. It's a rope. It's not a universe, it is Brahman, absolute reality. This right here is the absolute reality. Now the question would be, where is the rope? It's what you are seeing is the snake. So the teaching that the snake is false is a pointer to the reality of the rope. That which you experience as the snake is false. It's not a snake, but that very thing is the reality called the rope. Similarly, that which you are experiencing as samsara is actually an appearance. It's not an absolute reality. What is reality lies right there. So it's not a separate reality. It's something else called Brahman. atman a thing a God. It is this very thing itself. The moment we separate it, we get, you know, very dualistic religions, beautiful traditions, the theistic religions are God of the universe, separate from the universe, but then that leads to endless problems, then you're caught in the cycle of trying to prove such a God. Alan Watts. He, he calls it, you know, you say that, here's a pot, but there is an absolute there's a greater reality of this pot. It's called clay. And usually the clay is different than the pot is different. He calls it the crackpot theory.
You're caught in the endless cycle of trying to prove a separate reality called clay. No, it's that very reality which you are holding. It is the clay itself. We have to see through the the part appearance to appreciate the clean nature. Yeah. Similarly, the teaching about the dream nature of the world is is to enable us to see through the name and form and the transactions of this world of samsara. And to appreciate its absolute nature as Brahman. Beautiful. Yeah. So that's the purpose of the dream example.
So I just said one comment on what you said earlier than I want to follow this a little bit deeper, even on one level, grabbing the snake by the wrong end. One though on one end, is basically the tendency to reify even emptiness and so therefore, the emptiness of emptiness is also critical that the emptiness itself is also empty. You can't even hang your hat on that is essential to this because otherwise we have this tendency to put our legions into that. And that becomes an even more subtle, I mean, what it was, I'm not sure if it was the gardener. You know, if you believe in, in emptiness, you're incurable. Yes, you know, you have to even transcend that. But at the end, I want to go even deeper with it with a dream example because for me, I agree wholeheartedly with everything you say. And in fact, what on one level I relate to what you were asserting to. With this notion of my languaging of the Buddha's the awakened one I really tried to look at what did he wake up from and what did he wake up to? When he woke up from the nightmare of reification and he woke up to the illusory, empty dreamlike nature of reality. And I think I think that to me is an important way to look at the kind of the Buddha trajectory all together. And to me this lens even an even deeper inquiry, that I use as a type of investigation, and I want to see how this lands with you because to me, this is the one of the deeper gifts of of the dream yoga tradition, is how that let's say, when we're lost in a nighttime dream again, this is the notion of using the double delusion as a way to gain insights into the primary delusion. For me Swamiji it's, it's when I'm lost in a non lucid dream, because I bring my samskaras my habitual patterns with me. I just naturally reify a dream object and then in an unexamined way, by immediate implication, I reify a dreamer. And then of course, there has to be some kind of connectivity between the two ie consciousness. And so Buddhism refers to this as a kind of threefold impurity, subject, object and consciousness connecting. Well, my proclamation is consciousness in Buddhist languaging and this is where it's a little bit different from your languaging consciousness doesn't connect consciousness actually separates. And so from a from a waking perspective, when I've lost on that non lucid dream, that's samsara and that's why the dream can be a nightmare and I can be scared out of my wits and in some cases even die out of fear. But if I wake up if I have a more true stance, from the waking stance, I can look back upon the dream arena. And now I can start to ask some very interesting questions. Yes, there is a dream object of dream appearance. I cannot deny that. But from this perspective, I look back on the nighttime dream and I start to ask where's the dreamer? And if I do this with real integrity, this leads me to emptiness. There is no dreamer. That's an experience of emptiness. Yeah, there is something that's disappearing. I can't deny that in Buddhist languaging. This is the incredibly important notion. We haven't talked about this yet. But this is where I want to go. The notion of luminosity ersel There is a self reflexive awareness taking place as the seeming dream object. And so therefore, this you don't even have to do nocturnal Dream Yoga. To do this. You just have to do an insightful bit of analysis from the waking state. You can say oh, my goodness, there really is no dreamer in there, but yet there is a dream object. What what is taking place who is knowing what, and to me? This leads immediately and irrevocably if it's stabilized, to the shattering conclusion of what the Tibetans refer to as run that ad, ha, good all appearances are reflectively aware. In other words, the dream knows itself. And in that sense to me Swamiji This is the great contribution of the dream analogy. And I think by extrapolation, then and I'll pause to get your comments on this. The only reason we haven't come to the same insights in this primary dream is that we have not yet found a stance to absolute reality upon which we can look back and make those same type of insights. In other words, we haven't retreated yet, to a truer, more authentic reality upon which we can look back upon this and say, with as much conviction as we said, about the nighttime dream, oh, my goodness, this is a dream in that same kind of epistemological way. So I know I threw a lot of noodles on the wall here, but I want I really would love to get your thoughts and opinions on that because I think to me, this is the central gift of the dream analogy and the Buddhist tradition.
I think angio you've hit the nail on the probability law and the head. It is I would sign up entirely any classical non dualist Advaita and would sign up entirely on the entire range of what you have said. But before I jump into that, one thing, which you said at the very beginning, the emptiness of emptiness, you know, how delightful that is to dry things here, because one of the topics which not wait in comes to after intensively discussing the falsity of the world appearance called mithya. To a falsity is the falsity of falsity. You see the curious? I'm not even trying to conflate the two. Let's keep an emptiness of emptiness. And let's keep falsity of falsity. But one cannot mistake the the curious eco nature of these concepts the language does seem to be saying exactly the same thing. The development of salt seems to be exactly the same direction and they seem to be pointing exactly in the same direction. So falsity of falsity, emptiness of emptiness, and yes, you're also right when you said Nagarjuna in the medina Macaca Rekha, he says that it is incurable thing, if you take emptiness itself to be another kind of reality. Emptiness is being used to point out something. Similarly, falsity of the universe is being used to point out something. Alright, now the dream the use of the dream example, correct. You I know in Tibetan Buddhism, there is pretty sophisticated development of using lucid dreaming to do Dream Yoga. I don't think there is much of that in Advaita Vedanta, but in Advaita Vedanta what they do is what you pointed out all it requires is in the waking state, to sit back and calmly reflect upon what happened in the dream state and to make a breakthrough there. So, briefly, what Coda does in the second chapter of Manduca Kalika is, first of all, he makes sure in a couple of verses that we are all on the same page that dreams are not real dreams are dreams. We say we all we agree to that. We say you do, but I don't want to leave any door open for some. Some guy will come in later and say But dreams are real to not that. And then once having made sure that we all agree that dreams are dreams, dreams are false. Then he proceeds to erase the difference between our sort of common sense difference between the waking and the dream. What God wants to do is what dreams are to you from the waking perspective, that the waking is to that luminosity, that pure consciousness. I'll repeat that again. What was the dream to the waking perspective? That common example which we are common understanding which we all have, without any philosophy without any Buddhism or data, we all say that, Oh, that was just a dream. Thank God that was a dream if it was a nightmare. If it was a dream in which I got a million dollars in a lottery, I would say, oh, no, that was a dream. But in both cases, good or bad. I'm sure that the dream is something that is less real than my present. Breaking. exactly in the same way. This waking universe is an appearance compared to that pure consciousness, that luminosity that radiance. That's exactly what a godfather wants to show for. But his approach is to sit in the waking and look back upon the dream, and then begin to see that this waking is not all that different from the dream itself. And it takes up objections. Tell me why you think the waking is special, unique, real, and the dream is not real. So somebody says well for example, things work here. If I drink water here, it will quench my thirst but the water in the dream won't quench my thirst and sees you making a category mistake. The Dream water quenches thirst in the dream. You're making water quench your thirst here. That's one objection utility. Doesn't work. And that's very important because a traditional Buddhist objection,
a criterion of reality. In traditional Buddhist philosophy in the Nalanda tradition was practical efficacy. If it works, it's really so similar to American pragmatism. For example, you know, Dewey and William James, and if it works, it's real. But that waiting replies and I think the emptiness school would agree. And my minority school also would agree, it thinks work in dreams. And you still you say the entry of the second thing would be public experience, when the dreams are in your mind, but this world is as common shared public experience. We all share this reality. So this is real. And what you dreamt about is false because it was only in your head and this we don't see it. But again, that's not true. In the dreams also, we had a common shared reality. I mean, when you are in you're in the dream, you saw other people, maybe you're sitting around having coffee on a cup of coffee, and in a on a table and chair, and all of those people in the dream. They saw the coffee and tasted the coffee and saw the chairs and table. There was no dissonance there. Nobody in the dream said, hey, it's all in your head. I don't see anything here. So it was a shared reality there too. It's only after waking up we say Oh, I see there was a dream. So in dreams, and we understand that now with virtual reality. We can all enter into a common shared reality which doesn't exist in this waking world. And computers can generate it for us like a Matrix movie and things like that. So common public experience that also is not a criterion where you can distinguish waking and dream. Similarly, the idea of inside and outside dreams are your imaginations, they are entirely in your head, but people are there outside things that they're outside. That's waking. But that's not true. In dreams. Also, we have the distinction between outside and inside. And in dreams also we walk around thinking things and actually meeting people and having interactions with people and things on the outs so called outside, all of which turns out to be out to be dreamt in my mind when I wake up. So like this, he goes on multiple objections, whatever you can use to distinguish dream and waking. He cuts them down showing he makes the boundaries so fuzzy, some I think 10 objections are taken up and then erased, till you begin to get this creepy, eerie sensation that am I awake, or am I dreaming, but that's not his purpose. His purpose is now sit back and notice that the dreams are an appearance in consciousness. So is this waking and appearance in consciousness, this appearance and that appearance are not fundamentally different, different from the perspective of consciousness itself. Now, just as a side note, what leads to confusion for example, is consciousness is a translation of in Buddhism began as can the one of the five pillars or aggregates of personality. Here in Advaita Vedanta make a difference between pure consciousness or which is called is unlimited luminosity, and the empirical consciousness, empirical consciousness comes and goes it is momentary, it rises and falls, and it is not ultimately real, it completely the Advaita agrees with the Buddhist analysis of the began has come to the consciousness aggregate. So, finally, what you said very, very important, if you say there are just two pillars of the philosophy of not to non duality has two pillars. One would be the appearance nature of everything falsity. The other would be self luminosity. Yes, exactly. Yes. Everything then ultimately is the self luminous display of this pure consciousness, or the Buddha nature of all things. Vedanta would be Adwaita would sign up on that without any hesitation. In fact, there's a great deal of discussion of what is self luminosity, you use self reflexivity. There I have to be careful. I will it was hammered into me by the at least two professors at Harvard golf Professor Garfield and Professor Patil who teaches Indian philosophy they are at Harvard. It is a bugbear for all philosophers, they will not admit self reflexivity as a knife cutting itself you are standing on your own head impossible. Just such things don't exist. So that's why in I think mind only school and in Advaita Vedanta, but technically correct translation would be self luminosity.
It is not that consciousness knowing itself, the way I know this pen, not like that. Exactly. It is a self revelation, a self shining foot. Who Phoenicia the language is very poetic. It says that shining everything else shines by its light. All is lit up, gives you that luminosity shining, then the mind shines after that and the sense organs are lit up. And the mind and the sense organs reveal a so called external world. Exactly again like the dream. You are there in your dream you have a body and you have a mind and you have sense organs and you see things hear things smell, taste, touch things. And yet when you wake up the whole thing, the objects that you saw in the dream, the body that you had in the dream and the mind and the sense organs and the experiences you have in the dream were all appearances in the dreamers mind. Yeah, yes. Well, this
is I had to just keep biting my lip. I had so many excited comments and statements on what you're saying here. This is beautiful. I mean, on one level Swamiji as it says, if, when we're when we're talking about emptiness in the Buddhist tradition, emptiness is never devoid. So we were talking earlier about what is left, when we cut, negate, negate, negate back to Bill thingness. To emptiness. Well, that emptiness is not nothingness. It's actually emptiness is fullness. Empty of self means full of other on that level. But emptiness also really means is always inseparable from luminosity. They're not they're not two different things. They're the same right? So that's what that's what they're for the Shanghai Composite the John's and assert that luminosity what actually is that light? And so here this is when I were really getting to it because I want to really explore this with you with Swamiji. Because to me, now we're getting down to real duality. And I want to start with, with a little refinement in what you said. And this This to me, these refinements are so subtle, but they're also cataclysmic, they're monumental, and they're subtlety and their implications. And that is that you talk about appearance arising in consciousness. I'm wondering, is it not more accurate to say appearance arising as consciousness? Because otherwise, there's a subtle cosmological dualism going on? It says if you somehow still have to return to some matrix, and so another way to say this, I'm throwing a lot of noodles against the wall here. On one level, is in fact, consciousness, the essence or the source, because if it is the source, there's a subtle dualism involved there and when you use the languaging appearing appearance arising in consciousness, to me, that denotes this cosmological dualism, if consciousness is the essence, now we're talking about non duality. So I'm wondering how that lands with you because this is This to me is very subtle. I see this one I read both in nonlocal, shaido, tantra and Advaita Vedanta, the subtle languaging issue. That to me is really actually very important that the things don't arise in Buddha's languaging awareness. Would you like to talk about is consciousness pure consciousness? The Buddhists will probably language it as rigpa or awareness. And so things don't arise in awareness. things arise as awareness, and therefore I'll pause there because this has really big time. implications. I
think, yes, we'll take it step by step here. Because as you said, the many things to be said about each point, they're all exciting. I was reading Lamotte Tulku Ergon. Oh, he's amazing. So just amazing. Yes, a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner recommended that you you should read that. And I'm always struck by almost exactly it's not the same as the Vedanta tradition, at least a mirror image of that. But Professor Garfield and other academicians, they point they taught me to look for those little differences and concentrate on that. Those are always useful. They may be irritating, but don't paper over them. They useful
because that's where the rub is. Yes, yeah.
Yes. And you're right. One thing I've noticed about the Tibetan Buddhist approach is their extreme carefulness in regard to concepts and language. And and that's, I think, very helpful. It's not a matter of nitpicking, or, you know, being unnecessarily you know particular about it, but it's spiritually helpful actually. So, consciousness and appearance in Vedanta, we say, appearing to consciousness, one puts the appearance outside consciousness as it were, go deeper appearing in consciousness to and appearing as consciousness beautiful. up and applaud Yes, and you can see, there are huge ancient philosophies at each stage. Appearing to consciousness, you have the ancient Sankhya dualism, a very ancient system of Indian philosophy, which was already old by the time but the Buddha came, the Buddha himself learned what might be called a proto Sangha and a proto yoga philosophy from his teachers. So there it's a dualistic philosophy, there is an actual real universe out there. Something that a modern materialist reductionist scientist would be happy with. material universe, everything is out there. And consciousness is a fundamental reality. And there are these two realities which somehow interact. So universe appears to consciousness and Sanchis tops, their consciousness just needs to disentangle itself from its material entanglements and then it's free. But these are two realities and they're separate. Then you have something like subjective idealism, where somehow the universe arises in consciousness. And there still, as you said, there is always the seed of duality, you still have to explain, why is it that there is an appearance or there are the cycles of appearance and disappearance? Consciousness itself seems to be uniform and without any differentiation there? Why would these different things arise in consciousness? You go deeper into non dual Vedanta, which says, consciousness itself is but language differences interesting. You say the appearance as consciousness and Advaita Vedanta would say consciousness as appearance. Oh, that's interesting. Consciousness appearing to itself. Yeah. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. Let's investigate it more
in what this leads to. And again, I think it's so central Swamiji because when we're really talking about non duality, this is such common spiritual parlance these days. But once again in the in the lens, and I totally agree with you about the elegance of the Buddhist approach. I mean, this is especially the gloop as the Sakya is extraordinary emphasis on debate and precision and articulation. It's it's not philosophical arm cheering it's very rigorous way to take my judiciaries blade to really sharpen the mind to take it into these very particular insights into the nature of reality. And so for me here, this starts to get into the real crux. Of the matter of what is non duality. It's first of all, it's a non affirming negation. You're not proclaiming anything. That in itself is very important. That's very much in line with a person or approach, but to me, Swamiji and maybe we can talk about this, what it fundamentally challenges altogether, is the notion of ontology that there is no ontology, there's fundamentally only epistemology. That's all there is. And so when we when we when we look at the the notion of ontology, and I want to come back to this a little bit, to me, this has a very deep connection to a topic that I'll say table so we can talk about in a few minutes, the notion of contraction. What is the role of contraction in the generation of a reified reality, but before we get to that, I want to throw that up before I forgot. What do you say about this notion that there fundamentally is no one policy there is only knowing pristine consciousness epistemology, because if you asserted ontology at any level, to me that that immediately implies some level of duality. So you go back again to the dream example, right? There's no ontology of the dream. It really is. Just mind. So
yes, Advaita Vedanta, the nature of ultimate reality is being consciousness is isness awareness. Now what Advaita Vedanta would say respond to that would be all of ontology. You can discuss ontology you can even discuss science, but only at the level of relative truth at the level of the what Advaita Vedanta calls via Maharlika the transactional truth or the relative truth? From the perspective of Brahman, or the Absolute Truth is there an ontology is there a hierarchy of beings and the things which exist? No. Because that absolute reality if you call that absolute reality and ontology, fine, but otherwise no. So all ontology would be at the level of appearance, but then, even epistemology that would the same thing would hold true of epistemology also, because what is knowledge from an athletic perspective? It is that luminosity, which now appears as mind and senses and a variety of modes of appearance. And then we think, talk about seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, inferring, about scriptural knowledge, all of that now appears at the relative level of, of reality. So from an athletic perspective, there is this little shift, little difference from the MME aka perspective, marimekko perspective can be seen as an entirely epistemological exercise in leading pointing to the reality beyond epistemology, whereas Advaita would take both epistemology and ontology and show that ultimately, there is no epistemology or ontology it is that one unlimited being awareness, interest rate. The definition of prominent for example, in the open issue is unlimited reality awareness, some Gam Gam anon Tom Brahma, what is Brahman defined Brahman for me? It is unlimited. Unlimited. What? Unlimited being, unlimited awareness? Are the two different things No, it is being awareness and unlimited. What do you mean by unlimited? It's not limited by space, not limited by time and not limited by object there are no entities there also. So, yeah, like in Arindam Jackrabbit is phrase objects that which objects to the radiants So, there is the those things are not real. They are appearances of that radiance itself.
And so, so sorry, Jimmy, what is the role this is a languaging I have not come across in Advaita Vedanta, I have come across it in non dual Shiva Tantra. I'm deeply fascinated on this right now, the role of contraction in the generation of ontology of the generation of samsara. Almost like an original sin. And I'm very interested in Advaita, Vedanta, languaging or even your understanding of the Upanishads in that lens, what what is the role of contraction in the generation of samsara,
right. This is a crucial point in which Advaita would be critical of, say, Kashmir Shaivism, or another Vedantic system called Vishesh, Advaita, and qualified monism. One way of looking at it is that there's this infinite reality, which contracts itself limits itself into a material universe, which reduces itself into a material universe, but somehow retaining its infinite free nature. That would be the Kashmiri shaver, understanding, if you say what is the fundamental difference between non dual Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism. It's a fascinating study actually. Kashmir Shaivism, which by the way is a sort of umbrella term for a variety of thought systems,
spiritual systems. We developed at least five schools right
multiple schools with developed in Kashmir over a period of seven 800 years at least. And there were heavy Buddhist influences there. If you read the commentaries of abhinav Gupta and others Pella Deva you can clearly see they are in debate with Buddhist interlocutors. Alright, so here are the big differences. In Kashmir Shaivism. The world is real. The absolute reality is Shiva. It's real, and the universe which is none other than Shiva. itself, vibration, it's an it's a contraction of the infinite nature of Shiva. It's real to which makes a huge difference with systems like Medina, mccrane Adwaita, Vedanta Advaita Vedanta so that for example, Kashmir Shaivism would not give any importance to the two levels of truth. There is only one level of truth there is this universe, which is a spiritual reality, which is a vibrating spiritual reality given to expansion and contraction, expansion into its freedom and contraction into this world. They will not say world appearance, this word, this universe so she was real, and the world Israel, how do you how do you match the changeless and the ever changing? And they say that Shiva is a vibrating reality. The consciousness has vibrations they call it spun that the doctrine of darkness Yes, exactly, yes. And so it's so Advaita Vedanta would have a little bit a whole range of red flags, which should come up from for the way they don't when they hear all this from an athletic perspective. If you have to critique this, then it would be that you are inputting the lower truth into the higher truth. You are importing the world appearance into the absolute in the sense of giving the world it is the absolute is the world appearance. That's your world appearance is nothing other than the absolute that is true, but it's almost like you're giving the world appearance or reality and the absolute reality, then you're putting the world appearance in the absolute in some sense. You're putting them at the same level that you're putting them in a in a continuum instead of a sharp break. In Advaita Vedanta are in Medina Makkah there is a sharp epistemological break, jump between relative truth and the absolute. But if you want to make it a continuous reality, then it tends to I would say pantheism, the Kashmir Shaivism. Shiva is this universe. So what's wrong with that? Well, logically There are any number of it would send all the monks robes into a flap if you tell them these things. I mean, I can imagine the Gallup yellow hats, throwing in like the hats in despair probably at this kind of terrible inconsistencies. But the Kashmiri shapers are pretty blind about these things. They may have a point their point maybe again this is my understanding is that you have argued too much you non dualistic mathema cuz you have taken reason beyond reality. You have followed reason through you know, they can be I think as so much as too much. Cutting it too fine. You cut it to find you miss reality. Your reasoning is too crude. You don't grasp reality. Exactly. It might be who knows. But the thing is, if you're going to follow reason, you have to be at one point, if you jump into magical thinking, then why do this exercise at all? So, is does consciousness vibrate? I mean, let me give a simple dialectic, which a non dualist and underweighting would deploy against this kind of thing. The vibration of consciousness, is this vibration of consciousness does it appear to consciousness or not? If it appears to consciousness, but yes, it is an experience of the vibration of consciousness, then this vibration is an appearance to consciousness. It cannot be a vibration of consciousness. It is it that vibration does not exist without consciousness. That's true. It's an entirely dependent reality on consciousness. But then in that case, it's not the essential nature of consciousness. It is not consciousness itself which is actually vibrating in then you're saying the consciousness is subject to change. So it becomes an object. It's like, excuse me, the shaver. See the essence if you ask the Kashmiri shavers, what is the nature of that ultimate reality? How would you define it? Would you define it as pure consciousness? They say no, that's what the Advaita Institute, but we define it as the technical terms or Prakash, we must show yeah, consciousness, which is also aware of itself. So in some of the deities, you have this beautiful image of Shiva looking into a mirror. And the whole thing is the absolute reality. Shiva is aware of himself as this so that's a beautiful thing. What's wrong with that? What is wrong with that is,
according from an athletic perspective, you're importing an activity of the mind into the absolute nature of that radiance. It's that radiance being aware of itself. Not in that sense, not in the way you are thinking about it. Yeah, yeah.
It's so nuanced. It's so elegant. It's so subtle. What when you study another group or thema Raja, what do you learn from that shadow Tantra? I mean, because I know you're I know you're a fan. I know you. You study it in great depth, you speak with such elegance about it, but it I can't do like what you have learned from Jamocha. What do you glean from the Kashmiri schools that you find Oh, wow, this is great. We don't have this. They're saying this. Fantastic.
There's an enormous amount to be learned from Kashmir Shaivism what I might call simply, practical spirituality. You see, all my objections if I if I pressed to object against Kashmir Shaivism all the objections would be logical would be philosophy. But not practical. One thing you run up against in Advaita Vedanta, for example, is I mean, you're teaching it and that's the purpose of it. We're teaching it as a path to freedom. Often the reaction would be okay, what do we do now? Yeah, exactly, exactly. And Advaita Vedanta, which, which sigh and roll his eyes and metaphorically and say that he listened again, you die, you haven't got it? If you've got it, you won't even be asking that question. What do I do? Listen to me all over all over again. I repeat that whereas Kashmiri Shiva says, Come to me, we have endless things. For you to do. And there's a beautiful verse that endless things I'm there multiple levels of spiritual practice. But before going into that, there's a beautiful verse by Amina Gupta, I think, yes, which says, if in one flash of self intuitive understanding, you can realize that you are Shiva. Then none of these techniques are necessary for you. That's what Adwaita Vedanta would say. That's what we're talking about. But if it doesn't, doesn't work, we have enormous technologies of spiritual enlightenment. I mean, there's it just doesn't end Advaita Vedanta doesn't seem to have anything for you to do, or practice and Kashmir. Shaivism has no end of things for you to practice. So they talk about four layers, four levels of spiritual paths, four paths to enlightenment, the highest is the no path path, it is unbiased, there is no path and spiritual realization is by the Grace of the Guru or just spontaneous. And there have been examples of people spontaneously awakening whether it's Ramana Maharshi, or even in modern times, you will look at the the narratives of Eckhart Tolle and some others. It's a few people seem to spontaneously awaken. It's possible it's not an impossible thing. Of course, you can't sit around Wait, wait for it to happen. So the next level of techniques is called the Shambo buyer, which uses Shiva as a support for spiritual practice. And if you see what is taught there, that's very similar to Advaita Vedanta you listen to these teachings, you? You see it's a kind of approach which is trying to get you to see something that's the papaya based on Shiva. That's my take of it. By the way, the Kashmir Shaivism would if you ask Kashmiri Shiva experts they would put classified advice one step below that they would say Advaita is actually the third approach which is shocked OPI which takes the Divine Mother of Shakti as the support for spiritual practice. That's where you have analytical reasoning you have meditation, you have an entire technology of mantras, which you don't have enough data without having sort of skips over the whole thing. There's some analysis of own but that's still a very philosophical metaphysical analysis, but the whole mystical tradition of mantras and there they talk about how language is that which traps us in samsara, and language properly understood, can free us from samsara. That liberating language is the language of mantras. So it's very fascinating actually. And it's all very elaborate. As you go from the no path path to the path of Shiva to the path of the Divine Mother or Shakti. It becomes more complicated, more sophisticated, more elaborate, and final, you come to the path of the sentient being the envoy via the the the the word used in Kashmir Shaivism is the atomic being which is us basically our our present condition. There the it's endless elaboration, you have ritualistic worship, you have Madras and so many things out there, I don't know given the fraction of all of that probably, you can pack all of Hinduism into into that stage. So, you have this whole range, no path path, the path of Shiva the path of the Divine Mother, the path of Jeeva the sentient being on the in cash Patricia shaver terminology. And it's compared to the pristine simplicity of Advaita Vedanta, for example. This is endlessly elaborate. It's the difference between I would say a Zen meditation hall and a Hindu temple. A friend of mine, Swami maidin, under this very scholarly monk, he called Kashmir Shaivism, a Baroque philosophy. Beautiful. Yeah, Rococo, Baroque, Rococo. Exactly, yeah,
that's fantastic. You know, there's so much here that's completely resonant with my understanding of the Buddha's approach Swamiji, where it's very interesting that the highest levels, the more advanced practices, the simpler the get, the less there is to say, and the more you descend based on this schema that you just presented the 84,000 dharmas in the Buddhist languaging are basically there as was your highest skillful means to meet the complexities of the modern mind. So it's a way in a certain way, then this becomes particularly interesting for me, in terms of what you would see as a reflective criticism of Advaita Vedanta because you seem to be intimating Yep, at one level, there is this this almost Dare I say absolute touristic. There is there's a possibility of absolutism with Advaita Vedanta where just do nothing whereas I say do nothing but do it well. The kind of Nike approach, just do it. Well, I think, so to speak, theoretically, that is utterly completely viable that if if the nature of reality already is awake, it's divine, it's Shiva or whatever you want to call it. Yes. Then the only real issue is recognition as actually in fact, in the recognition sutras, I mean, that's it, that's all you have to do. But to me, Swamiji it seems like a somewhat reasonable critique of that is the absolute artistic approach. And how it doesn't it here it doesn't honor the complexities of karma and momentum that habit patterns that are sure it's great. I can have a Shakti pot, I can have a pointing out transmission, I can have an empowerment. I see the blazing splendor of kala chakra or whatever. But then again, like that thunderclap, then the thunder, my habitual patterns comes back in. What do I do with that? Well, you can say well then go back listen to the teachings go back. Listen, well, we're human doers more than we're human beings. Right? And so would that be a viable criticism or critique from your own perspective of Advaita Vedanta that it can lean towards an absolutist ik approach?
And do indeed you're absolutely right. In fact, if the critique can be couched in these terms from a Kashmiri shaver perspective, one can ask Advaita Vedanta, what is the purpose of Advaita Vedanta? And admittance will have to say that you are the absolute but there is this adventitious ignorance and that has to be removed. So the Kashmiri shaver would say, then say that then, the purpose of Advaita Vedanta and indeed all spiritual practice is to remove the obstacles to the already shining for perfect nature of reality. Yes, that's true. In that case, the removal of the obstacles would have to be tailored to the obstacles, I guess. If the obstacles are endlessly complex, which we pour humanity in our own way we have set up forces we have set into force motion forces over many lifetimes, which are endlessly complex, nasty low, far below the pristine magnificence of Advaita Vedanta. These would have to be untangled at our level. And so all these technologies are spiritual practices. These are means of untangling the traps we have set for ourselves. Yes, because these traps are endlessly varied and complex. The techniques also might be of various kinds, and the proof of the pudding is in the eating that's the phrase. So when we practice that, we find immediate if even if limited efficacy, but still immediate efficacy. It works. It solves this problem, this problem of distraction, this problem, envy, this problem of lust, it solved it for me. Whereas your magnificent teaching of unlimited existence consciousness bliss is great, but it was not working at my poor little human level. Yeah, so would you admit the efficacy of these spiritual practices and Advaita would have to agree yes, but they're emphasizing something. I'm talking about the top of the Everest where we are wending our way up the valley to Windows like we are several 1000 feet below that might be one way of putting it. I mean, if you look at it all the critique of Kashmir Shaivism from an athletic perspective would be a very philosophical critique would be whereas the Kashmiri shaver critique of Advaita Vedanta would be both philosophy and practical, the philosophical side of it wants probably stand but the practical side of it does Tam, I spoke with Professor Kimmel center. Yes, in San Diego, right. In San Diego. He he's both a teacher and an avid practitioner of Kashmir. Shaivism. And I said, would you agree if I characterized Kashmir Shaivism the whole system as a philosophy based on the phenomenology of spiritual life, and he said, That's great. That's exactly what it is. If in spiritual life, if you look at the shared spiritual heritage of humanity, all across the world religions, you know, the things that we have done and experiences which mystics have had over millennia, if you were to include all of that and not exclude them, if you were to include all of that, and at every stage, in every experience, you give some validity to it some part in your whole system, then you get this Baroque system of Kashmir Shaivism. If you dismiss all of that and say it is all an appearance in an off that limitless radiance. Well that's fine. That's the truth. But then you have you have jumped over the entire journey, basically.
Yeah, yeah. This this is so unbelievably rich, and it's one reason I'm such a fan of yours Swamiji because you're not sure you are aware of his languaging but there's a quite a popular movement these days of integral studies. In the integral movement and you are so much an integral Explorer, you have the heart and the capacity to honor and incorporate so many bandwidths of truth from so many different traditions that I find really inspiring. It's humbling. It's it's mind opening. And to me, it's like, I think the Buddha himself allegedly once said, Wherever you find the truth, you will find my dharma. And just because the truth comes in the Jama point of view and Advaita Vedanta that point of view or Kashmiri point of view, or the topic I now want to transition into briefly a scientific point of view. I think it's this incredibly open quality of your being that is just so inspiring to me.
But thank you, but I think in this day and age to some extent, we are all integral seekers. We are going to be genuine seeker this in this day and age. I think we are almost naturally open to various streams of thought and teaching and practice.
We'll see it seems I hope it continues to grow that way, but along those lines Swamiji then you have a relatively facile or deeper understanding, I should say of science, and its contributions and promise and peril. So talk to us a little bit about what you see as the promise and peril of especially neuroscience, there's a dear friend with Richie Davidson, and all these wonderful, amazing thinkers, senator from the investigation of healthy minds, and you know, the Dalai Lama's 30 year mission to bring east and west together on this level. What is what is your understanding? And just engagement with the role of Western science and in particular neuroscience to these wisdom traditions, I have some more specific questions after that, but it just as a general umbrella topic, what do you how do you see what are the what is the promise and peril of science in the role of ancient wisdom?
I think we have to recognize and honor the fact that we live in an age of science what we call modern science today. It will not do to, you know, be dogmatically fixed in a philosophy which was talked about 1000 years ago or 2000 years ago, and we must recognize people like Nagarjuna or Chandra ki t or Tsongkhapa. They were such deep thinkers and so alive, that's why they were able to comment on what was going on in their time and rethink everything. So they would have been very open to the insights of science to the I mean, look at their representative, the Dalai Lama himself. So how amazingly open he is to insights from neuroscience, Swami Vivekananda very categorically he stated that I'm firmly convinced that the claims of religion have to be put to the same rigorous tests of science as to any other claims in the world. And if some of them do not measure up to those rigorous standards, we must let go of them no matter how soothing or comforting those beliefs are. And then he says, this is a fear is in the world of religion, that probably we will not be able to measure up those to those rigorous standards. And maybe we just attacked those standards themselves. But Vivekananda said, I'm firmly convinced that the code truths of spirituality will survive this test. For he says because they have an internal mandate. I don't know what he meant by that. He just leaves it there. I feel that he means the self luminosity, which is the self shining nature of consciousness, which is the internal mandate, which cannot be disproved ever. So yes, for just the first point that we live in an age of science, and we must honor science. It's a new way of looking at it. I mean, looking at spirituality and in these ancient philosophies. This is also inescapable. This is the way we have been trained all of us. We have been trained to think in that way. So it's very good to engage with science and necessary to engage with science. The Dalai Lama did it 100 years before that Swami Vivekananda. He associated closely with William James Tesla, for example, there was he set up a whole conversation with Tesla, the scientists not the car. Yes, so we must do that. We must be open to it. Do these systems McGavock or Advaita Vedanta do they need science in one sense? No. Because they can serve the purpose that is of enlightenment spiritual freedom by themselves as they have been for centuries or millennia now on the other hand, we can gain both ways science can gain with an engagement with these systems, and these systems can gain it can they can become new and enriched and reinvigorated with scientific insights, you know, yes, this this cross pollination of ideas it can happen, I'm sure it is going to happen more and more. What is the danger? Let me put it this way. The danger is the current paradigm of science. The paradigm of science for very good reasons is an objective paradigm. Materialistic materialist. So everything must be an object and objective study the very nature of the term objective is a term of praise. Subjective is somehow derogatory, pejorative, so this, this is a problem. When it is we're talking about an object some force out there some material out there or rock out there a planet out there, this is fine. This paradigm works and that's why this paradigm is there. But when you were talking about the subject itself, I mean, forget pure consciousness, the radiance. Forget that for just take up mind perception, when the objective studies the subject itself, then it will not do to wish away the subject or try to reduce the subject to let me give an example. Daniel Dennett and others who are deeply reductionistic. They would nothing would make them happier than for consciousness. to disappear.
Oh, well, he said, What he said was, he posited, you know, a challenging the status of consciousness, which is the most absurd thing is the only thing we actually ever have. And he's trying to attempt to dismiss it right. Incredible.
You see, why do they do that? I asked David Chalmers. Once that those who, you know, criticize this, you're the what you're talking about the hard problem of consciousness to the seat, that what you just said, consciousness is the first and the most obvious thing that we always ever have had. And it has to be necessarily that it's only to consciousness that everything else is revealed. And he just gave sort of uncertain replaces is not that they don't see it. They don't see the absurdity of this but the thing is, they are led to plan I am reading my thing into David Chalmers reply. It is the paradigm which is forcing them into that particularly unsavory corner. Yeah, everything must be a thing. Yeah. And therefore consciousness. If it does exist, and I am forced to admit something like consciousness does exist, it must be a thing. Now, it's not obviously a tangible thing. So it must be a byproduct or an epiphenomenon of something tangible, like the little electrical activities in the brain. It doesn't work. This approach doesn't work. Ed Witten, who chaired the physicist from pursued assist, somebody wrote about him is the closest thing to Einstein that we have got if you quote him a neuroscientist will say well, it neuroscience is not a subject conscious mysteries is not a subject but still I mean you give credit to an enormous intelligence when you come across it. So he says it's interesting that there's this little clip you can find it on YouTube. If you look search for Ed Witten on consciousness. Oh, okay. Yep, some interviewer in some journalist in some science interview. He suddenly popped this question I'm sure the whole interview was about physics but this question he popped up a pop this question to Ed Witten. What about consciousness the problem of consciousness and Ed Witten says, I think as the years go by, we will learn more and more about the brain we learn a lot about the brain, but consciousness will still remain a mystery.
That's fantastic. Good for him. Yes, I mean good for him.
And if you exactly my my sentiments exactly, but if you see that the journalist misunderstood him completely. The next question was, are you want consciousness to remain a mystery? And Witten just shakes his head and smiles a little bit? Not that's not what I meant. You can't reduce it. Your paradigm is forcing you to reduce everything to matter and processes of matter. Doesn't work. I mean, I can share with you two years back at Harvard, one of the courses which I took was the philosophy of mind. So like any, it gave, it gives you a nice survey of all the filter papers in this field. Till read most recent papers, it starts with Decart 300 years back, and then it works its way to whatever was done in the 20th century, more or less. I felt after reading those things. I felt the last person who said anything interesting was Descartes 300 years back, who ended up with his you know, he started his project of complete doubt in his search for the certain basis of knowledge, and he ended up with the might famous Mind Body dualism, and that's where the modern philosophy of mind has been stuck for 300 years. If you look at all the papers, which were part of our syllabus, half of the papers are trying to reduce consciousness and mind to matter. To the brain, to the neurology or to behavior or to language. There was a time in the Oxford common like common language philosophers who tried to say everything was a delusions created by our misuse of language. So whatever, one whole set of papers like that, and the other half of the syllabus is papers, by people who point out guys sorry, this is not working. You cannot reduce mind or consciousness to language, you know, multiple philosophers giving thought experiments to show that there is something beyond just, for example, information in consciousness. Yeah, I mean, right there in MIT, they are designing robots powered by AI to do everything that we can do. Those robots can take decisions they can they obviously can, they can see and hear they have sensory sensory systems. They are powered by sophisticated AI programs. They can drive cars for example, so many things, everything that a mind can do. A robot can also do powered by AI, but they don't see the amazing thing about it. That robot which can do which can drive a car just like you recognize it can see it can hear it can take decisions, yet there is no internal feel there is no first person experience there. Somebody might ask, How do you know? Well ask those engineers in MIT in Google and have you programmed it for self consciousness? We'll see. Obviously not there's nothing like that there. It's a machine, which means consciousness is very distinct from all the other processes which be clubbed together with consciousness. Yes. That distinction is still lost upon them. I mean, you will surprise when we talked about consciousness in that class at at Harvard University, very smart, young people. One young man looking a little puzzled, as said to me, I'm not sure what you mean by consciousness. Probably it is not a scientific entity. It's something you do in the humanities. So he thinks that consciousness is something poetic, some kind of fantasy or Yeah, social consciousness, something like that. Something that is most vivid and, and the first thing that we have, but luckily, some philosophers and some scientists are beginning to see the most this most obvious thing very clearly and beginning to recognize that you cannot reduce consciousness to just little activity activities in the brain and neurons.
So this is so exciting to me. I mean, first of all, a couple of comments. Really Swamiji we still live in Aristotle's world, don't we? I mean, we really do his lot His laws of thought. The Boolean approach black, white, binary. Thinking, we still live in the Greek real world in my opinion, and it to me it's a little bit like what did I hear a scientist, one scientist say? I wouldn't believe it even if it was true. That you know, there there there's there's so ensconced in this reductionist, the world that my friend Ken Wilber talks about. Everything is fundamentally reducible to frisky dirt, which is a wonderful way of looking at it. I mean, so to me, the really great and this is this is a radical shift. The great gift of these non dualism traditions is this amazing swing from reductionism to this is my languaging to a type of elevation. So instead of shrink, wrapping and reducing everything to matter, this week, this elevates everything to to awareness, consciousness mind, and therefore the byproduct of that is in fact a sacred world, a world that is much more in resonance with the way reality actually is, unless people can test the validity of that approach. While look at the consequences of the previous worldview, look at the consequences of materialism. And reductionism is absolutely destroying this planet, because of a complete fundamental disconnect to the nature of reality. And so I want to start to close with these incredibly practical hits on this is that we may be sitting here talking about this most elevated spirituality these incredibly sophisticated doctrines, but in my estimation, the cash value here I think, William James's term the cash value is if you really take this to heart and you live from this place, this is a radical game changer. Because first of all, you realize you're inextricably connected not only to every other person on this planet, every other sentient beings but to the planet itself. And so this type of view, far from being ineffectual, has tremendous efficacy in terms of propelling us towards a sacred relationship to our environment and to each other. And so lest we think all this is just pejorative, full up, philosophical, spiritual rhetoric, oh my goodness, far from it. I mean, isn't it true that when we take this to heart and mind, This Changes Everything, it changes the way you relate to the entire planet? So yeah, I wonder throw that out. And before I forget, in addition to the role of science Swamiji I also wanted to ask you, as we start to close up, the place of psychology, so in my view of the nature of exploration of mind, and reality, I see it as a psycho spiritual spectrum of development that we shouldn't really be dismissive of even some Freudian tenets about working with mine. So I'm curious, from your perspective, what, what is the role or the place of psychology and invited in onto your understanding of it in just contemporary applications of this ancient wisdom?
Right. I think one of the greatest benefits that this kind of approach from the Tibetan monk Dhamaka, or the Advaita Vedanta philosophy can give us is that it gives us all the benefits of traditional religion, without contradicting science without contradicting reason. It's something that in today's world, it's impossible to accept a dualistic theistic, kind of religion, how no matter how soothing and comforting that it might be still difficult to accept it because we live in a predominantly scientific world. I mean, the moment you talk, start talking about God and heaven and all of that. Then you run up against Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, whereas the those critiques of traditional religions fall flat against, say, Metallica or Advaita Vedanta, which is why I think someone like Sam Harris, for example, he has said that, while remaining completely against all kinds of religion, he says, We must admit the traditions like he mentioned, these two Advaita and MCDM, aka Tibetan monk Dhammika have an irreducible core of truth to them, and this core of truth is of enormous importance and significance for humanity. It gives meaning back to life. It gives us a meaningful life. It gives us a high view, a nodal view of life, the purpose of life and the possibility of a noble and high an enriching life, with cascading effects, positive effects on society, on the environment on the planet. All of that becomes possible with this kind of philosophy in the background of our lives. It does not contradict science, it does not contradict other religions. So there's no possibility of religious when you're talking about your what you're talking about is the spiritual realization. of life. You're not talking about a theology, like a Theological Society. No, it's not that one religion is dominates and you have to follow that religion or else, nothing like that at all. It's such a broad spirituality that you can accommodate everybody from the believer to the atheist in this spectrum. Psychology from an athletic perspective. Psychology is more in the realm of yoga philosophy, and tantra I would say. Advaita sort of jumps over the mind to go to the sort of the light which radiates through the mind and the underlying consciousness itself. But psychology is very important because it mediates between the world of science and the world of spirituality. It mediates between our material everyday existence, and our ultimate goals of spiritual enlightenment. The whole problem, and the whole solution lies in the domain of the mind in the domain of psychology. And that's a whole different issue altogether.
Yeah, well Swamiji I am going to finish with one kind of prepared question I asked this because I find that the answers I received from the individuals I do posit this question, I always remember them and they seem to go right to the Nin tech to the heart essence and that is that we have covered such an amazing amount of material over these last almost two hours. You are such a wealth of resource, but I want to present to you a thought experiment that if you realized on the spot right now you only had a minute left to live. What would be the irreducible instruction what would be your irreducible teaching?
The core Draytek teaching you are that so? You know, I often feel that the most mature way of living, even if it's the last minute of your life, is what's the best time of our lives. It's here right now. Where we are. Where is the best place you've ever lived here. And the people you hang around with, in the circumstances, this circumstance, this set of people, it's because not because of anything else, except that the Divine is always present here and now shining forth ever perfect. That's a sign of maturity of spiritual maturity. Well, and
with that, I can only say that you exemplify that the radiance of your your countenance, your being your joy. Your childlike wonder is so contagious and it's so lovable and so deep, deep our gratitude with behalf thank you so much. This has been so rich and so wonderful. I'm so grateful. You're very busy individual. And I've been looking forward to this for months and I have not been disappointed. It's been marvelously rich. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Andrew. Take care. Stay safe.
So wonderful. So fantastic. I am deeply touched. I mean, just amazing, amazing Congress, I think