Samsara and Moksha | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Om asatuma sathgamaya, dhammasuma jyotirgamaya, murid yurma amritamgamaya, om shante shante om leaders from the unreal to the real, leaders from darkness unto light, leaders from death to immortality, om peace, peace, peace, peace. Good morning to the brave few who brave the sleet and the cold and the rain and came for the Vedanta class. Today the subject before us this morning is samsara and moksha, life and liberation. You see Vedanta holds and we have heard this again and again that Brahman, the ultimate reality is omnipresent, it is there everywhere and is eternal, it is there all the time in the past, in the present and the future and it is non-dual, there is nothing in the universe separate from Brahman. We have heard this and we have read about it but the fact remains when we look at the experience of our lives that far from being everywhere, we do not find Brahman anywhere, we do not find God at the ultimate reality, we do not find it anywhere. Far from being eternal and all the time we do not find it anytime, we haven't found it in the past, we don't find it now, we don't know when we will find Brahman, God or the ultimate reality. Let alone all beings being Brahman, we do not find Brahman in any being either outsiders or insiders. So what happened, what went wrong? Where is this precious Brahman of Vedanta, where is this precious God of religion? Brahman is supposed to be existence, consciousness bliss, infinite existence, infinite consciousness, infinite bliss, sounds nice and we are supposed to be Brahman. Tathvamasi, that dhavat, aham Brahmahasmi, I am Brahman. But when we look at ourselves, we certainly do not see ourselves as existing infinitely. We know that we were born and we know that one day we shall die. That seems to be the one truth, infinite consciousness. We find our knowledge is very limited. And our attention soon flags, you know without a cup of coffee our consciousness seems to diminish and we are withered and every day we go to sleep, we seem to lose consciousness. And infinite bliss, the less said the better. Most of us, we are chasing happiness and we find very little of happiness, our kota of happiness seems to be very little indeed in this life. We find this little bits of happiness and a lot of suffering, a lot of misery in life. So where is this infinite existence, consciousness bliss, which is supposed to be there all the time, everywhere and which we ourselves are supposed to be. Where is it? What happened? According to Vedanta, the problem is ignorance. This essence of the spiritual problem is not that there is a problem with the spirit. There is no problem with God, with Brahman, with our essential self. The problem is at our level, at this level of samsara and level of embodiment, we are in a state of ignorance. Ignorance of what? This Brahman, this ultimate reality which Vedanta speaks about, we do not know it. That is the essence of the problem. The problem is ignorance. This ignorance has two aspects. One aspect in Vedanta is called Avarana, Vaili. It veils the truth from us. It is very simple. Sri Ramakrishna, in Daksinish, where in the temple garden of Daksinish, where he would sit on the little little bedstead and he would show his disciples, this Indian towel, a ganchha. He would take that up and hold it in front of his face and say, "Look, you can't see me now." And then he would remove it and say, "Look, you can see me now." And exactly in the same way, ignorance, the power of Maya, veils our inner reality. Veils Brahman veils the divinity within us. Another example he would give is from the Ramayana. When Rama and Sita and Lakshmana are going to the forest, Rama walks in front, Sita is in between and Lakshmana moving behind. Lakshmana is representative of us, the Jeeva, the individual being. Rama represents God. Sita represents the power of God. As long as she is between Lakshmana and Rama, Lakshmana cannot see Rama. The individual being cannot see God. We as human beings do not see our divine nature. Out of our own grace, if she steps aside and then she lets the individual the Jeeva, see Brahman. Realize itself as Brahman. So that's the veiling nature. Because of that nature, we are unable to see Brahman. But that's not the end of it. The real problem starts after this. Maya, this cosmic ignorance, has another power. A part, quite apart from the veiling power which veils the reality. It is another power. With the power is called Aurana Shakti, Vikshe Pashakti, the power of projection. Not only does it veil the reality, it projects the reality as quite something else. That reality which is infinite existence consciousness bliss is projected as this, the world, as this, the body and mind. You see, it's like the classic example of the snake and the rope, where there is a rope in semi-darkness and we do not know that it is a rope. And not knowing is, that is the ignorance and follow this carefully. Not knowing the rope does two things. First of all, it, as if it covers the rope. It does not allow us to see the rope as a rope. One. Second, it presents the rope as a snake. Because we do not know the rope, our fears, our anxieties or whatever, and now projected upon it as a snake. It seems to be a snake. So instead of a rope, we see a snake and be a terrified. In the same way, Maya has two powers. One is, it covers our inner reality, the reality of this universe which is Brahman. It does not allow us to see it. That's called Aurana veiling. And the other thing is, it projects this universe. It projects this body mind, which is called a subtle body. Mind and intellect, the life forces, memory, the ego sense, all of that is projected by Maya. And also, the physical body, the gross body which we have got here, and the physical universe before us. Now begins the game of life. You see, there is this old story. Brahma is supposed to be the creator, not Brahman, Brahma, the Indian God of creation. So it is said that when Brahma first created the universe. And what do you mean by first creating the universe? We know that the Hindus have this idea of cyclical, cyclical creation, creation, existence, destruction, and again creation, existence, and destruction. But you find in nature, from a seed comes a sapling which grows into a tree and then gets fruits and further seeds. And the tree dies, but the seeds again give rise to more trees and so on. So in this cycle. Now Brahma has a funny story. It goes like this. When he first created, he thought he should do a good job. After all, he's been given the job of creating the universe. Let's do a good job. Let's make a perfect universe and let's make all perfect beings. So he created the first set of perfect beings. And these beings were sages. The moment they came into existence and they saw this universe and they were embodied in a body and they had a mind. And they thought we are Brahman. Infinite existence, consciousness, consciousness, bliss. Why should we be in a little body and a little mind? Let's meditate and realize Brahman and be free. And that's what they did. And they were free and that was the end of the game of life. So Brahma thought it didn't work. So what he did was, next time when he created, he created it with lots of Rajasthanthamas, desire and passion and activity and laziness and indulgence and inertia. And then he created all these beings. And from that time onwards, scaring on beautifully. From our point of view, it's not so beautiful, but from Brahma's point of view, the game of life itself perpetuating. It's going on nicely. That's a story. But really, what happens to us? Viranta says that Brahman itself, pure consciousness, existence, bliss, shining through the veil of Maya because of it, because it's a veil, it's as if it has forgotten itself. And through the projection of Maya, what does it experience? It experiences first a mind, thoughts, memories, ideas. A body, here is a body, a changing body which requires food and drink and protection and so on and so forth. And a world in front, other people, other limited beings, things too, which are nice, desirable, things which are scary, you know, disease and death and dishonor and frustration. So there are things which you can, which are nice, which you can look forward to, there are things which seem to be scary, all from the point of view of the body and mind. And thus embodied in this body and mind begins the game of life, samsara. Whatever seems to be favourable to the body and mind, this very Brahman embodied, forgotten itself says, I want that, I want that. Whatever seems to be unfavorable to the body and mind. We see, I'm afraid of that. I don't want that. I want to avoid that. And so, desiring something and being a verse to other things in Sanskrit, raga, duesha, desiring something and being a verse to other things. This embodied being Brahman in this little limited, in this little body and mind engages in action, starts doing things. Action, what kind of action? Trying to get something, trying to avoid something in life. And as it engages itself in action, it sets into motion what is called the law of karma. The law of karma is something profound that we should understand. It's very interesting that all the diverse schools of Hinduism, whether they are dualists, whether they are qualified monists, whether they are non-dualists, they are all accept the law of karma. Some say you are one with God, some say you are different from God, some say the path to liberation is through knowledge, some say it is through meditation, some say it is through devotion to God and surrender to God. But they all, without any deviation, accept the law of karma, that actions have consequences. That's the law of karma. Not only all Hindu schools, whether they are Shaktas or Vaishnavas or Shaiva, whatever, whatever sect they belong to, all of them accept the law of karma. Not only the Hindu schools, all the Buddhist schools. In fact, all the schools of Indian philosophy accept perhaps the materialist, Jarwaka, all of them accept the law of karma. In spite of other enormous differences, philosophical differences among themselves. The Buddhist does not speak about a separate atman and an eternal self separate from the body and mind the Buddhist, it is no such thing. And the Hindu dualist says that there is a separate eternal self, self theory and no self theory and it seems to be diametrically opposite and yet these schools they all believe in the same law of karma. So that's why I'm saying the law of karma is something not to be dismissed lightly. It's a very profound thing. At its core it just says actions have consequences. If you do something, there will be results. That seems reasonable. The law of causation is something that is accepted by everybody. It's common sense, cause and effect. In fact, the whole of science, all of our common sense, everything is based on cause and effect. And the law of karma is just a derivation and as extension of the law of causation. So cause and effect. How does it work? If you do good things dharma, what your conscience tells you is right. What morals tell you, what civilization tells you, what law tells you is right. You do that. That is called dharma. The result is something called punya merit. It's just the opposite of sin. So punya merit. So you have some some credit in your bank balance. Cosmic bank balance. And that punya gives rise to sukha which is happiness. So the equation is this dharma punya sukha. Do good things. Then it generates some merit. You've got some plus points. What do they call it? Brownie points or something. And then that produces happiness in life. This life of the next. And if one is naughty, adharma. The result is what is called paapa, demerit or sin. And the result of that sin or demerit is dukha, suffering. Yes. So the equation, the law of karma works this way. Dharma punya sukha. Adharma, paapa, dukha. And once this embodied being, Brahman embodied in body and mind, thinking of itself as an individual, the Sanskrit word is jiva, individual, individual sentient being. It engages in action. It is caught in this machine of the law of karma. Its own actions generate experiences, further experiences, pleasant experiences, unpleasant experiences, sukha and dukha. And it does not come to an end with one life. We often see a person has done so much evil and the person dies. We said he didn't suffer. That person, Hitler or somebody didn't suffer for what the terrible things they did. Well the law of karma says, wait. You don't know it. But that being is not gone. It will go into further embodiments. And the accumulated paapa, the demerits will give rise to unhappiness in future lives. And in the same way, good persons, every time you say that you will get the result of this in future. So the law of karma says that is true. Good actions will give rise to good results. Vivekananda puts it so powerfully. Good, good, bad, bad and none escaped the law. But whosoever wears a form, form his body and mind must wear the chain too. In fact, the law of karma says, we have these particular bodies and minds right now, this particular body. It's produced by our past karma. And the experiences which we are getting in this life are also the product of our past karma. We get a lot of pleasant experiences, unpleasant experiences. Often, you know, we plan so much for our life. But when you look back upon life, you see a lot has happened without your planning. Everybody, I can see a lot of people nodding, it's true. The older you get, the more you look back upon your life, how much of what happened in your life was your own planning, your own vision, and how much of it you didn't know, it just happened. So this life, what we are getting in this life is a result of our past lives. What we have done in past lives, it's giving results in this life. So our present life, this particular body and the experience we have in this life is a result of past karma. And so also our future lives. You see from this law of karma, how the idea of rebirth, birth and rebirth, because we have past karma, we have to be born to get the result of that. Because we generate new karma in this life, it will lead to future lives. Because we see that we have so much diverse experiences in this life and we cannot explain it in this life, we must accept that they were past existence. I existed earlier and I shall continue to exist in future. So the series of lives, birth and death and rebirth and so on is, is in fact a corollary, a derivation from the law of karma. So law of karma and rebirths many lives, they go together. And this is in fact accepted by all the schools of Indian philosophy, except again I mentioned the materialists. But the Buddhists, the Jains and all the Hindu schools, they accept that we have many lives. Now in this life, what is it that we are looking for? We are looking for happiness. We are trying to get suka happiness and avoid misery, suffering. That's in the essence that's what we are looking for. And how do we do it? How do we do it? Let's take a look at our lives as we live it. Quite apart from Vedanta, setting Vedanta aside for the time being. One of the first things that we do when we want happiness, we look for happiness in pleasure. Good food, pleasurable, good company, movies, kids want to play games and grown-ups too, wants to want to play game games. And so pleasurable activities, that gives happiness. But pleasure, you see, there's a professor of positive psychology, professor Seligman, Martin Seligman. He has studied this whole search for happiness and his very very interesting book, Authentic Happiness. How do we look for happiness and what's the wise way of looking for happiness? And I'll relate it to Vedanta a little while later. So he says the first thing that we do is look for pleasure. So happiness, the first place where we look for happiness is in pleasure, in partying, in music, you know, all of this. And he says this, if you look at all these attempts to get happiness from pleasure, it's strictly limited. It's limited why? You eat something nice and it feels pleasurable. But it feels pleasurable at that moment. After 10 seconds it's gone. It's gone. Somebody said, why am I dieting? Why don't I eat the things which I want to eat? He said, because some phrase he used, it's two seconds on the lips and 20 years on the hips. Because two seconds you will get the pleasure. After that you become fat and that you have to fight against that and go through diets and so on. So pleasure is very momentary. It comes and goes. Not only that, it's habit farming. Habit farming means you get used to it. You get pleasure from having, eating one brownie maybe. When the second brownie comes, yes, that's also pleasurable. Third brownie not so much. Fourth brownie, rather not have it. And if someone forces you to take a fifth one, you might even want to throw up. So you see, the first one gave a lot of pleasure. The second one gives less. The third one gives even less. And those of us who have studied economics, we know the first lesson we learned in economics class, the law of diminishing marginal utility. So each unit of consumption gives less and less utility. That's another thing he points out. Pleasure is habit farming. Once something gives you a lot of pleasure but after sometime that does not give you the same pleasure. You may want more of that or something different, some variation. Otherwise you don't get that pleasure again. So it's habit farming. And there are many other problems associated with it. One we get addicted. That's how people become alcoholics or drug addicts. They go in for pleasure or relaxation or something but then they get caught by it. Ramakrishna, he gives this example of a man standing by the river side in flood and things are being swept along in the flood waters. And he sees a big rug looking expensive, being swept along. And he thought why should it be wasted? Let me catch it. And he jumps into the flowing, fast flowing river and he swims out to it and tries to grab it. And then he finds when he comes close to it, it's not a rug. It's a bear which had been swept along in the water and the bear grabs him. And people standing on the shore of the river, they just see this person struggling with what seems to be a rug and being swept along and they shout, "Let go of that rug, you'll be drowned, you'll be swept away, let go of that rug." And that man shouts back, "I let go of it, it doesn't let go of me." And that's the story of addiction. For pleasure, for relaxation, people take hold of the substances and then substance abuse and then it leads to, the person is trapped, has actually trapped. A hunger develops in this body, mind system for that substance and then the person can't get out of it. So there are problems with pleasure. What gives pleasure to one person may not give pleasure to other person. What gives pleasure to you when you were six years old does not give pleasure to you now. What gives pleasure to you now, would not have given pleasure to you at six years old. You'd like classical music now and as a teenager, you might have liked rock music. So that rock music might be torture for you now and the classical music might have been torture for the teenagers. So what gives you pleasure now? It might not give pleasure at other times or to other people. The professor, Seligman says, "There is a higher form of happiness than pleasure. What is that? He calls it engagement." And here's this equation, happiness H is equal to small P pleasure plus E engagement. If you are one of those few people who are lucky enough to find joy in your work, if you are one of those few people who is lucky enough to get paid for doing what you anyway enjoy doing. A pilot in an interview, he said, "And the luckiest person in the world, they pay me for doing what I would gladly do for free." They're for flying a plane. So the people who enjoy what they do, they get engagement in their work. So their minds and their skills are absorbed and challenged and they kind of get engagement. There's a whole psychology behind this, the psychology of flow, where you're fully engaged in your activity. It might not be a profession. Sometimes people are not interested in the profession. They're just doing it to earn money, but then they have a hobby. Then they have a pastime. Maybe somebody plays something, maybe somebody is a musician or an artist as a part time thing. And they get joy there, engagement there. Now the point is, the happiness that you get from engagement is of a different kind and the happiness you get from pleasure. And it's a greater kind of happiness. Engagement need not be pleasurable. When you're working hard at something or you're maybe you're a musician, you're practicing hard, that may not be pleasurable. It's hard work. It's often it's not pleasurable, but it's deeply satisfying. You see, it's the difference between learning to play a musical instrument yourself and sitting back on the couch and watching a musician play an instrument. Learning to play a game yourself and going out there and playing or sitting back and watching a game on TV. The game on TV might be a better game than you play. But the happiness there is pleasure. It's passive. One sign of pleasure is it's passive. You observe it. Whereas if you go out there and play, your skills, your energy, your attention is engaged there. That's engagement. That's not passive pleasure. So that gives you actually greater happiness. Engagement. Some work, you see, it's one of the great illusions. We think that work is distracting. Work is unpleasant. It's something that you have to get over and then go back and the real happiness will be when you go back and relax on your couch and watch TV. They call it couch potato. So that will be happy. But actually, Seligman shows that surveys have been taken. When you actually ask a person in the middle of work, rate your happiness right now. And they consistently rate themselves at giving themselves high levels of happiness when they're actually doing something. Later on, when they're not doing something, when they're asked to think about work, how happy are you at work? They rate themselves very low. They think, no, I'll be unhappy at work. Actually, when a person is working, if you ask, are you feeling good? Are you engaged? Are you feeling alive? Yes, I am. So there's an illusion. We seem to think that work is unpleasant and so we should not be happy in work. But we are actually happier in work in engagement than in pleasure. And then Seligman goes on to say, there is a higher level of happiness than that. There's actually a higher level of happiness than engagement. And that he calls meaning, M. So, H happiness is equal to P pleasure plus engagement E plus M meaning. If you are one of those rare few people who find the purpose, a higher purpose, a deeper meaning in life, that meaning gives much higher happiness. See, for example, I have seen people who are well engaged in their careers. I've seen people in India who were dot com millionaires in Silicon Valley in California. And they gave up their job. They're fully engaged. They're running a lot of money and they're enjoying what they were doing. But they gave up their job to go back to India to some rural place, several kilometers outside Bangalore where there is electricity is uncertain, roads are bad and lots of illiterate people. And they established school for kids. I'm talking about an actual example. And there's not just one. Just a few days ago, this young man came, a multi-millionaire has been working for one of the top companies of the world. He literally travels across the world every week. He came and stayed with us for a few days and he says, I have done this. I am successful. I've got everything. But I need to move on in my life now. I need to do something that is deeper and more profound and just earning money. So look, he is moving from engagement to meaning. He's seeking meaning. Maybe he has not found it yet, but he's seeking meaning. Usually, not always, but meaning is usually associated with something larger than the self. Often meaningful activities are there where you do something for others. Those activities one finds meaningful. That's why Seligman points out that mothers have a natural advantage because they automatically care for others and their meaning in life is for a long time, at least, until the children grow up. The children are their meaning in life. So automatically, they have some meaning in life. The rest of us may have to seek for meaning in life and mothers too have to expand the meaning in life beyond their own children. So meaning in life actually gives more happiness than, say, a very successful career or just sitting down and watching TV or playing a video game. And Seligman says, our total happiness is a summation of pleasure and engagement and meaning. And he says, it's not equal. Pleasure gives a little bit of happiness. Engagement gives much more. And if you have meaning in life, purpose in life, much, much more. Victor Frankl, man's search for meaning, local therapy, he writes about his experiences in the concentration camps in Auschwitz and Dachau and Buchenwald in Germany in the second world war. He noticed that the person, it is terrible suffering, starvation, suffering, torture and continuous mass executions and so on. But he said, those amongst us who survived, many people who were healthier perished first because they gave into despair. They saw no meaning anywhere. And those who found some meaning, they survived. It could be different, you know, some people found meaning in religion, some people found meaning in the community, some people found meaning. Like Victor Frankl himself, he said, I had this book to write this idea to give and I wanted to do it. And that is one of the things which sustained him through the terrible hardship. So, meaning in life gives more happiness than engagement or pleasure. Now, when I was reading this, I looked back upon Vedanta's thought and what did I find? There, if you ask Vedanta, how do human beings search for happiness in life? They'll talk about four things. First, karma, pleasure. You see, pleasure. Then Artha, success, engagement in life, doing something, being succeeding, getting something in life, making a name for yourself, a position for yourself. You can see engagement, Artha and engagement, directly you can map it. And then they say that Dharmah. Dharmah is a wider term. It means religion also, it means morality also. It means doing something for others, expanding beyond the self. And again you can map it. Dharmah and meaning. Do you see how beautifully it maps? Pleasure, karma, engagement, Artha. And meaning in life, Dharma. Dharmah is a bit of a stretch if you want to map it to meaning in life. But the three, the structure which Seligman is now talking about was well understood, was well understood thousands of years ago. This is how we seek happiness in life. The Jeeva, the embodied being seeks happiness in these ways. By the search for pleasure, karma, by the search for success and power and status in society, Artha and to expand beyond the self to find meaning, to do something for others, unselfishly Dharmah. That's one meaning of Dharmah. Maturity. You move from pleasure to engagement to meaning of Dharmah. You see, this is well understood earlier. Nowadays, you know, if you look at society and you say, look at the world around, I want to be happy. And what does the world tell you? By this gadget, you'll be happy. How do you know? Because in the advertisement, everybody is what the gadget is smiling. By this soda, you'll be happy. By this car, you'll be happy. Consume pleasure and engagement happiness. Happiness means you consume these kinds of gadgets and these kinds of foods and these experiences, vacation, so forth. Plus, you make a million bucks on Wall Street or in Silicon value or something. That's the definition of success. If you are not happy that way, then what is the solution? If you want more than this, our world, modern world seems to have no further answer than this. You're not happy with your iPhone 6. Well, iPhone 7 will make you happy. More of more of consumption, more of pleasure, more of engagement, that makes you happy. This job does not make you happy here. On the subway, I saw, this is a sign there. Are you going to a job you hate? Contact us. They call this number. Which means I will give you another job. Replace one engagement with another engagement. We seem to have no other answer. You got the latest car. Now you aim for your private jet or something. That again, a variation of the same thing. Pleasure and engagement. What other answer is there? I have seen people, friends of mine who were, I met them 20 years ago, who were gunning for success. And they got it all. A family in success and everything. Some people come and they say that we know this is what our life is going to be like. We know. We have children now. We have a job and it's good. But at the same time, we also feel a little trapped. Is this all that it is going to be? I will get old and die. That's it. If things go well. The old idea of Dharma, Arthakama, and what Seligman is now saying, pleasure, engagement and meaning gives you a clue. There must be a time when you must move from engagement and pleasure to meaning in life. From Arthak and Karma to Dharma, to expanding beyond the Self. One powerful way of getting happiness straight away in life is expanding beyond the Self. It seems counterintuitive. I want happiness for myself. And yet, the answer seems to be instead of trying to make yourself happy, try to make others happy. You will become happy. Vivekananda said, "Unselfishness is more paying, paying for whom for you, but it takes maturity to understand this," he said. That's why the Indians will know this. We never say, "Kama Arthadharma." What do we say? Dharma Arthakama. So the basis is always Dharma. The basis is always morality. The basis is always unselfishness. You seek your pleasure. You seek your success in life, but the basis and the limits must always be Dharma. Don't transgress that. So when people come to me, saying that we have got it all, but we are unhappy, what do I do now? I don't tell them that you are now you have to meditate and realize that you are Brahman. No, that's skipping a step. I say one way of becoming happy straight away. Right now, if you want to become happy, look for a charity. Look for a place where you can give your skills. If you do not have time, at least give money. There are people who are suffering. Can you give something to them? Can you, if you have no money to give, give a smile. Be helpful. Let others have their way. You know, make, make an effort to make others happy. In that effort, you will make yourself happy and bring a lot of blessings upon yourself. Here is another point. The law of karma says, the more you do for others, Dharma, the more puny you get, and the result of punyam, if you look back. So come, yes. Look at the equation, Dharma, punyam, so come. The more you do for others, the multiplier effect on your punyam, on your credit in the cosmic bank, and the result is happiness for you. There is no doubt it leads to happiness for you. The intellect equation says that if you want to be happy, don't look for it in karma and or not, don't look for it in pleasure and engagement. Look for it in unselfishness, in meaningful, purposeful activity, in a higher purpose in life. You will get happiness straight away, guaranteed. I was once at a conference in which there were these very interesting young people, each of them tremendously successful in their lives, but they were doing something for society, beyond their own success in life. One was the management graduate from the top management school in India, and he happened to see in Chennai one day, he told us, and there was a group of young people. The whole conference was meant to inspire young people to do something for others. So, they had these examples of very successful young people, whom they would ideal idolize, and yet these people were actually doing things for society at large. So, that was the point. Now, this young man, he was the top graduate of the top management school of India, I am Ahmedabad, if you know. And one day in Chennai, he saw this poor man on the homeless person, on the pavement, eating dirt, because he had no food. Maybe he was mentally ill also, eating dirt. And it shocked him so much that he decided to do something about it. And look how he did it intelligently. He started a restaurant chain, which is a pretty successful chain in Chennai now. And what that restaurant does is, apart from very good food, is that they collect all leftovers. And then there are vehicles which go and distribute these at different points. And he himself makes it a point to physically go and feed people every day. That was the main purpose behind it. And this is rich and successful also. So, meaning in life, but the purpose is that. And there's another person I told you who came was a dot com millionaire who came to in Karnataka and started a chain of schools, elementary schools. There's this another person, Anand, his name was. He is very, very famous in India. Because in India, everybody wants to get into these elite engineering institutes called IITs. And they pay a lot of money for coaching institutes, which make a lot of money by coaching young boys and girls to get into these IITs. And this young man, who was a brilliant mathematician, and he had got an invitation to Cambridge and he could never go because of the poverty of his parents and he had no money to go. And he vowed that he would help poor children so that the poverty would not come in the way of their education. And he started this school for the poorest, only criterion is that you have to come from an economically disadvantaged group. And he would take these boys and girls without charging them any money at all. He would pay for their board and food and everything. And he would train them up and every year, all of his students get into these IITs. So it's called the super thirties in Patna. It's a phenomenon in India. Of course, the coaching industry hates him. They don't know how he does it, but so he was there. Now these young people who were there in that audience, they asked all of these people on the stage. What great sacrifice when something came to my mind. I was conducting the program. So I asked each of them in term. Do you think you have sacrificed your happiness for the welfare of others? And each of them said, no, I am much happier than I always was. I don't think I'm sacrificing anything. If you would offer me the power and wealth and success which I had earlier, I wouldn't want it now. I'm much happier now. You see, Dharma, meaning in life, in Seligman's equation, the M, in Kama, Dharma. If you do that, you're actually much happier. Seligman himself conducted a nice experiment in his class one day to show how doing things for others makes you happy. He, one day in class, he said, today there's no class. We'll go to a movie. Movie, pleasure. So we'll go to a movie. And I'm sure the kids were very happy to college kids. Okay, let's go to a movie. After they came back from the movie, being a psychology professor, he handed out a questionnaire. He said, rate your happiness from the movie. One, two, five. One, not happy at all. Five, very happy. Three or four in between. And they all gave some rating. Three or four or something. And the week after that, he said, today again, no class. I can imagine the students going, movie again, sir. No. Today we are going to this end of the town where we have got the kids from poor families together. And we're going to spend the afternoon with them. We have collected clothes and toys and all. We'll give them gifts. And we'll make friends with them. And so they all went. These elite college kids and made friends with these other kids. And they spent the afternoon with them. Came back questionnaire, rate your happiness. They gave some rating. Four or five something. Now the real thing came six months later. Suddenly in the middle of the class, he came with questionnaires and he distributed it. Look back. Recall that afternoon when we went to a movie. Think about it now. How much happiness does that movie give you now? One to five. And many of them said, we all remember that we went to the movie. I don't even remember the name of the movie. And happiness, yeah, something. I don't really don't feel anything at all. I hardly remember the movie itself. Let alone the happiness from the movie. So one or two or something. And you remember we went the next week to the kids? Yes, yes. We remember that. When you think back that you did that one afternoon, you spent with the kids. How much happiness does it give you now six months later? And they all gave consistently high scores four or five or something. Whatever happiness it gave on that day, six months later, it gives the happiness on that day. And I can predict six years later and 20 years later, it will still give the same happiness. You never ever have regretted doing anything for others. When you do something for others without any expectation of gain throughout your life, whatever may happen, you will not regret that having done that. That's very interesting. So dharma, meaning in life, gives more happiness. But is this all? Is this all in life? Houston Smith, he writes in his introduction to Hinduism and his religions of the world. After all the pleasures, enjoying the pleasures of life, enjoying success in life, enjoying high culture. After all of that, one is still asks, one asks. He in fact says after back, one can still ask, is this all? It seems ungrateful to ask that, but you can still ask that, is this all? Isn't there anything more? Very soon I'll die and will be gone. What was the meaning of this life? What is the purpose of this? Do I exist after death? Is there anything beyond all this, this game that I played for a few years, short years on this planet? So that question, that the good Professor Seligman has not talked about, he stops there at meaning in life. But Vedanta says, yes, now you're asking the real question. What is the point of this game of life where we are, which we are playing, we're seeking happiness here? Is there something beyond this life, beyond death? Is there something beyond, before our birth? What is the purpose of this ultimately? Is it simply to do good to a few poor people and that's it? Is that all of life? That's good, but it cannot be all of life. If you have this question and I'm sure you have it, that's why you've come to the Vedanta society. Then Vedanta says, at last you are asking the real question. Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Does God exist? Is there anything after death? These are the profound questions. These are the deepest questions of life and yes, there is an answer to that, that's called Moksha. Moksha literally means freedom. Freedom from what? Are we trapped? It doesn't seem so, but yes, according to Vedanta, the law of karma has it has us in its clutches. We are bound by cause and effect. We go from life to life. We seem to be trapped in a narrow track and there seems to be no getting out of it. So this can be expand beyond this. Is there something beyond this? Death seems to be an end. Whether it's pleasure, whether it's engagement, whether one is a drug addict or one is a successful millionaire or one is the greatest social worker the world has ever seen. Whatever it is, death, great equalizer. Finished at that point. Anything beyond that and Vedanta says, there is something, there is something really, really great. If you investigate, if you care to investigate and Swami Vivekananda would put it this way. We would go from the Upanishads. There's one mantra, one verse, ancient, which seems to encapsulate the promise of religion and spirituality. All religion, spirituality. You put it in this one verse and he would, he was fond of chanting it. When in the United States, in New York, he would chant this. Sonora Sanskrit and then he would translate. What does Vedanta say to this final question, the greatest of questions? He says, "Shrinvantu Vishwai Amrita Tamasa Parastat Tamiyiva Veditwa Atim Rityumati Naanyav Pantha Vidyati Ayanaaya." What does it mean? Beautiful, very poetic. In ancient times, some Rishi, some great sage, we don't know who stood up and said, "Listen ye children of immortal bliss, Amritasya Putra, addressing all of us as children of immortal bliss." Now look, the one truth that we know of our lives is that we are mortal. We are born and we shall die. And the sage calls us children of immortal bliss. If there are gods in higher heavens, you also listen to me. What I'm going to say, you do not know also, this great secret. All are diluted by the veiling power of Maya, the Avarana Shakti. Now we are going to pierce that primeval veil, which is at the root of our list, life of ours, of Samsara. What does he say? Vedaham Parusham Mahantam. I have known that infinite being. There is an infinite being which I have known. All right, supposing such a thing is there. What's it like? Aditya Varnam, blazing forth with the light like the sun, not a material light of the sun, with the light of infinite consciousness and awareness. Aditya Varnam literally means golden hue like the sun. Thomas of Parastat, forever beyond darkness. That existence is forever beyond darkness. Beyond darkness means beyond the darkness of death, beyond the darkness of limitation and sorrow and misery, this constant seeking and striving, it's beyond that. Thomas of Parastat, Tamaeva Vedittwa, what good is it to know that knowing that alone, Tamaeva Vedittwa, Atimritumati, one goes beyond death. You see, this fundamental condition of human life, everything comes to an end with death. Vivekanthi said, saints die and sinners die, empires die and poppers die. The most learned of persons dies and the most ignorant of persons dies. Death is the common truth that we have, whether you're religious or not religious, whatever you are. And here it says, there is a way to go beyond that. Immortality is there, such a thing exists, and that is the promise of every religion, different language, different mythology, different philosophy and theology, but basically there is something transcendent beyond this world of appearances. And he says, Tamaeva Vedittwa, Atimritumati, knowing that alone one goes beyond death, Nanyav Panthab, Idiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiyadiya. There is no path other than this. Aren't there any other paths to happiness? You just said pleasure and engagement and meaning, I can do so many things in life. Can't I be happy with those? No. None of them promise permanent happiness. None of them promise deep and profound and lasting happiness. None. Not even the greatest of doing good to others. That's what matters to the veil of Maya because of which we see this game of life and see what lies beyond the veil of Maya. Beyond the veil of Maya is the face of God. You have to see that. And Vedanta goes one step further, Advaita Vedanta, non-dual Vedanta goes further and says, "This infinite being is you yourself. If you only would know yourself as you truly are, you would find this being. This infinite being is Brahman, existence, consciousness, place within ourselves. We do not know it. The problem is one of ignorance. We are back full circle. Vedanta teaches us as we do not know it and we have to know it. And Vedanta takes us through a process. Through a process, a process is called Vichara, and in a philosophical, spiritual, philosophical reasoning to point out the truth to us. It shows us, look at this body and mind. When you go into dream, dreams are in your mind, definitely. And the physical body lies unrecognized on the bed. It's sleeping. That means you can continue to have a conscious experience without the experience of the body. I'll repeat that. You can continue to have a conscious experience without experience of the body. So you are not this body. It's quite possible that you can remain conscious and have experiences and this body is not there. In a dream, from your point of view, from the dreamer's point of view, you're not aware of the body on the bed and sleeping and dreaming. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to dream. If you think that I am here on the bed and sleeping, now I'm dreaming. You can't dream. In the same way, in deep sleep, when the mind shuts down, absolute blankness of deep sleep, awakening from which we say, "I slept happily like a log. I did not know anything." That was an experience. That means there is consciousness there too, which experiences the absence of the mind, the absence of waking, the absence of dream. This is one of the methods in which Vedanta teaches us. It's called the method of the three states of the mind, waking, dreaming and deep sleep. By watching these three steps, we find there is one unchanging consciousness shining upon these three states, beyond mind and beyond body. In fact, mind appears in this consciousness, like a wave in the ocean. In this consciousness, appears the body, birth of the body, growth of the body, middle age, old age, deterioration of the body. Do you not know the deterioration of the body in old age? I'm old and sick. Do you know it or not? Yes, of course, I know it. That's why I'm complaining. If you know it, then it's an object in your consciousness, exactly as the healthy young body was an object in your consciousness. You are not that body. You are something apart from that body. In fact, the entire universe appears in your consciousness. Sobhavata and Nastavakrati said, "I am an infinite ocean of consciousness in which the universe arises like a wave. I am the ocean of which the universe is a wave. Uday tu vastamaya tu namae brithi nava akshati. Let it rise, let it settle back into itself. I neither gain nor do I lose anything. The ocean is not increased if there is a wave. The ocean is not decreased if the wave subsides. It's the same water. From the ocean, it's absolutely nothing. Let birth come. I do not gain anything thereby. It's the birth of the body. Let old age come. Let death come. I do not lose anything by that. It's the death of the body. The body, old age and death of the body are again arising in consciousness in the ocean of consciousness which I am. You may say that's all very well. We have read all this in the books, but it doesn't seem to do us any good. It doesn't seem to do us any good because we have to do the preliminary practices and Vedanta teaches us there are certain preparations necessary. Morality, first of all, a moral life is absolutely necessary basis for spiritual life. One may be moral without being spiritual, but one cannot be spiritual without being moral. So morality is first and then unselfishness. From selfish action to unselfish action, we already saw that is a good way of happiness, but that's also essential for spiritual life. Beyond that devotion, prayer, meditation, all of these practices, there are entire technologies of these entire so much literature is there so many techniques are there. Those are given and supporting practices. With those practices, the Vichara, the philosophical spiritual inquiry of Vedanta will give rise to that intuition called Brahmagyana, that flash of awareness which removes the Avarana Shakti of Maya, the veil of Maya. It actually works like that. I've heard it from people who have experienced it. It was like a veil lifting. Brahmana is right here. God is right here. You are none other than God. The thinnest of veil separates you from that right now. For an enlightened person, they look upon us with amusement and pity and sadness. Why is it that they suffer? The infinite is there. There was a song, I think of the poet Rajani Kanto, that sitting by the river of immortality, of nectar, they die of thirst, not once do they turn around and see that rushing river of immortal bliss. The die of thirst, they are digging in the sand for one drop of that water, which is right there. By their birth right, it's theirs. They never care to turn around once. Turn around once means to look inside. They're always looking out there. In fact, Vedanta says, the whole problem, why we are unable to overcome that primordial ignorance is we are distracted. We are distracted by the world, by people, by relationships, by suffering, by enjoyment. We are distracted by the body and most of all, we are distracted by our own minds. The first trick that the mind plays is, I am the mind. I am the mind. Happiness of the mind. I am happy. Desire of the mind. I want misery in the mind. I am unhappy. Anger in the mind. I am angry. This is a trick. You are not the mind at all. It's not very difficult to see that at all. So, we are distracted. Now if you look at the yogas, karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and yana yoga, all of them, they take your attention away from the world to God or to Brahman. Think about it. Karma yoga. All the work which was doing for this body and mind are those who were related to this body and mind, family and colleagues and all. Now I do all that work for the sake of Brahman. I conceive of Brahman as God and doing work for God, not for the world. You see how attention is taken away. All my activities now flow towards God. The same activity I am doing. You may be taking care of your family. You may be taking care of your company, but that is now internally the attitude is I am doing it for God. Look at bhakti yoga. What does bhakti yoga do? Very simple. The nature of desire is I want the world. The nature of bhakti is the same I want. The same I want. Remove the world, put God there. I want God. So all our love, our desire, our passion, our, even our anger, it all flows towards God. Once Swami Vivekananda was joking about Sri Ramakrishna and somebody was a little scandalized and he said, "Are you joking about Ramakrishna?" And Swami said, "Why should I joke about you?" Meaning thereby when I talk about anything, even when I joke, it will be about the highest. I will not come down. I will not stoop down to that level of the worldliness. Look at Rajya Yoga, the path of meditation. Our thoughts are continuously going outwards. It's about things and people and happenings in the world. I collect it all and focus it inwards. Think about the higher self, about Brahman. See attention. Every place, the attention is being collected from the world outside and taken in. You don't have, you are not going to become God. You are that. You have to pay attention to that fact. All the yogas do only that. They take the attention scattered in the world, collect it, bring it back. They take our actions scattered in the world, collect it, bring it to God. Our affections of desires scattered in the world, collect it, bring it to God. Our thoughts scattered in the world, collect it, bring it to God. That is karma yoga, that is bhakti yoga, that is rajya yoga. And yana yoga gives you the truth. That this world is an appearance, it's the snake. Like the rope, which appears as the snake, it is Brahman, it is you who are appearing as this world. And yana yoga actually logically, with reason, it points it out to you. So one day, then we following this path, when we want moksha, this is more to be said, but I'll stop here and then we'll go for question answers. I can, we can talk more about it. When we follow this path of moksha, liberation, God realization, Nirvana, salvation, whatever you call it, this highest goal that is open to us. When we follow this path, maybe in this life, if you are sincere enough or maybe in life to come, it's a path which gives results without fail. Krishna says in the Gita, definitely you will get the result, either in this life or in at the worst in some time to come. And you will get liberation. That intuition will come when the veil of Maya, the hour and a shakti will fall away. What about the projection? This world, the projection will continue. That projection, which was a source of temptation and terror for us, of misery and fear for us, that projection will become a playground. It's your projection, you will see you are the world. Or if you are devotional inclined, you will see my beloved Krishna or Christ or that is the appearing as this entire world. Dasrat ka beita, Ghadgat me le ta in Hindi, they say, the son of Dasrat King Dasrat Rama, I see that the same Rama is in all beings in everywhere. That will become the experience. When the samsara itself will become motion. There is no difference. There is the hair spread difference between samsara and mocha. The only difference is ignorance. There is no difference in place. Mocha is not another place. samsara is not another place. It's right here. There is no difference in time. It's not that it's samsara now, and one day it will become motion. Oh no, the difference is in ignorance and knowledge. The moment you get that intuition, the moment we realize that it flashes and dawns upon us. We will see not only, you might say that, why do you say there is no difference in time? Right now we are unenlightened, and they will come a time when we will be enlightened. So there's a difference in time. The difference in time is from ignorance to knowledge. Not that mocha was produced afterwards. Not that mocha will come at that time. When you become enlightened, it's the experience of all enlightened person. It was there all along. I never saw it. The divine mother was right there behind me all along in all my life. I never saw it. Now I see it. That's the difference. I pray to the Lord that the blessed day may come soon in our lives with that prayer. I end now. Satshrira Mahakrishna Japa Namastu.