Avadhūta Gītā Retreat | Session 6 | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Let's start once again with the first verse. Through the grace of God alone, the desire for non-duality arises in the wise to save them from great fear. Now we will go to verse number 8. Please repeat after me. I have no mental activity, good or bad. I have no bodily function, good or bad. I have no verbal action, good or bad. I am the nectar of knowledge beyond the senses pure. So we start here with Gyanam Ritam and the immortal consciousness. Shuddham atiṁ riyam pure beyond all the senses. Not something that is seen or heard or smelt or tasted. Not even something that is sensed or felt internally through the mind. So I am not something physical, I am not something mental. I am consciousness itself. And therefore, there is no activity which is mine. The mind, the things, the thoughts of the mind are not mine. Their activities, they are in the mind and the activities belong to the mind. Na kāri kam karma shubhāshu vam me. The activities of the body reside in the body. They are not mine. I don't own them. I don't claim them. Na mākhi kam karma shubhāshu vam me. What is said verbally, the verbal action, chanting, speaking, singing, those are good or bad, whatever it is happening at the level of speech is not mine. What does it mean here? Straightforward meaning is consciousness. That pure light which is the light of all, by which all these activities happen. That is consciousness itself, by itself. Nirvikāra, nirantara, asanga, avishaya, samaha, ajaya, soprakāśa, parokṣa, ekadvitiya, brahma. That's what we are talking about. You can add one more here. Akriya. It does not do it. It's the laziest of all things. And yet all action, the whole universe spins on its axis because of its presence. All the tremendous activities in the dream which is going on, whatever is going on in the dream, good, bad, ugly, whatever is going on in the dream, is happening because of the dreamer. The dreamer isn't doing anything. The dreamer is sleeping. Soundless sleep. Anybody else in the room will feel the sound. This is snoring. So the dreamer is not doing anything. But all the activity in the dream happens because of the presence of the dreamer. Dreamer alone becomes the dream world. Similarly, consciousness by itself does nāsikṣi, neither physical, non-mental, nor-verbal. What does this mean? It has profound implications. One common exeobatic feature of all Indian sound. All schools of Vedānta, Advaita, Vaisistha, Advaita, Dvaita, Dvaita, Dvaita, Dvaita, Shraddhādvaita, Sintya, Veda, Veda. Now we have Swaminarayan Vedānta also. It's a new school. So like this so many, every school of Vedānta, they all axiomatically accept law of karma. Gnyāya, Vaśeśa, Sāṅkhya, Yoga, Purva, Mīmāṅsa, Purva, Mīmāṅsa, especially. And all they accept axiomatically law of karma. All Buddhists, all Jains, all Sikhs, in fact, every school of thought in India, every philosophy, every darshanā, every system of spirituality, and it's zoolomatically. It means without any further examination they accept the law of karma. The only exceptions in ancient India are the materialists, the Charmākhās, but every other school. So this is something that should be taken seriously, the law of karma. That is what fills our present existence. Whether we are Atman, Brahman, whether we are Pyava, Vanshi, Sni, God exists or not, we go to Vaikuntha or Shevalok after death or whatever, whatever we have. There are many, many views on this. But one place they have no disagreement is that there is a law of karma. What is this law of karma? It is nothing but causality, cause and effect. Every action has a consequence. Cause gives rise to effect. So, we might say, so what? Then this works not only in the physical world, it works in our moral world also. That's where it becomes the karma vāda. Deliberately done good action produces what is called merit, pūnyā. And that merit gives rise to pleasant consequences, actuals are consequences. So deliberately done good action, which is called dharma, gives rise to merit which is called pūnyā. And that results in our experience. Things go well for us. Things go well for us. More the amount of merit accumulated, the more tremendous will be our success in this world. Material success. Whether it is in wealth or scholarship or power or politics or all kinds of achievement. Or you may be born to tremendous wealth and privilege of power. It's all a result of a lot of good karma. This is what I'm just telling you what they believe in. This is what they believe in. In this, two parts are observable. The beginning and the end. The actual physical actions which we do, good action. That is observable. Others can see it, you can also see it. What you are doing. And the end of it, that when the results come, good results, present results come. That also we experience and others can also see it. But in between is that element of faith, the pūnyā, the merit, so called merit. That we don't see. It's not visible to us. That the correcting lead. That's why it's a part of religion. You can't call it a scientific causality. It's not... in scientific causality the whole thing has to be observed. The chain of cause and effect has to be observed. In between that pūnyā and power, dharma that deliberately does mischievous action. Immoral action deliberately turns, gives rise to what is called pāpa, the merit. And that pāpa gives rise to dukkha, suffering, poverty, sickness, tragedy, failure, all these things they come. And our life is a mixture of these. Some kind of past good and bad karma produces dislike. Now this karma is accumulated. So karma means multiple things. Karma means the action which we do. That is karma. It means the merit and demerit which is accumulated. It means the result of karma, karma, allowances. When we say this is my karma, what can I do? So karma, the whole chain is called karma. The action, the accumulated merit and demerit and the effects they produce in our lives. So whatever we are seeing, the broad outlines of our lives. People take it very far. You did that because of that, that extra you did, that's the result by now. You can't draw one-to-one correspondence like that, broadly speaking. Who knows what we did in past life. So broadly speaking, what was I like in my past life? Let me look at this present life. I'll get a generally good idea of what I was in my past life. Karma has these three effects, action has these three effects. One is the immediate physical effect of the karma. You feed a hungry person, you feed the homeless a hungry person, the immediate effect is what? The hunger of that person is as we age. That person is filled, is helped, you help somebody. Anyone that you do, you can see the effect. That's the physical effect. That's one. There is second. Second effect is psychological effect. Keep doing something good or bad, slowly our psychology changes. It is character forming. Action is character forming. Repeated action is character forming. So repeated action leads to habit. The old saying is there, repeated actions leads to habit. Habit leads to character. So character is formed by repeated actions. That is the psychological effect of karma. In fact, number two. These two we can observe. We can observe this in our own lives, lives of others. How our lives are made better or worse by the kinds of actions we do repeatedly. Remember action here means, what we do physically, what we say verbally and what we think internally. Where is your mind at? Where is our attention at? That's also karma. The ability done by us. Now good actions, Dharma results in Sukha, happiness, Adharma results in wisdom. This is the general outline of the law of karma. And our present lives are produced by part of the accumulated karma. We don't know what is in our storehouse. We don't know what sort of junk we are accumulated. But part of this bought out, trotted out every lifetime and that produces this particular life. A part of my accumulated karma will be actualized, will give results, a mixture of success and failure, good and bad happiness and misery in this life. That part is called Praranta Karma, actualized, effectualized karma. But there is still a huge storehouse waiting. So what's the problem? As long as that storehouse is waiting for us, it will produce life after life after life. And we will go on from this one to another. This is good news, not necessarily a good will of it is suffering and struggle, good deal of it. And after some time we will ask to what point? Why do I have to undergo this repeated births? None of it is very pleasant. Some parts of our life they will present if you have lots of good karma. But in general, a lot of unpleasantness is involved. And we ask what am I exactly? The one who is going through all of this. And what is this karma? What is this universe? What's the game here? Then in our quest for liberation starts. But basically all of life is explained by these ancient Indian philosophers as law of karma. So all the river-kana puts it this way. Good, good, bad, bad and none is seen the law. Whosoever wears a form wears the chain to form body. Where's a form means? If you have a body, but more precisely if you are identified with that body, you think I am this body. This body has chains attached to it. What is the chain? Cause and effect. Past karma. Karma is upon this body. And it will keep producing results. When you write this body, you will write through a series of experiences in life, present and unpleasant. They will all produce by your ancient karma. You have made this life. You don't have memories of it. Thank God. But it's been generated in Bakken by our past karma, by a mixture of good and bad. None escaped. Good, good, bad, bad. It's causality. This is called causality. But what is well-empted? What can well-empted be? Good karma is there. I'll be happy for a while. I also don't think about karma. It's all limited. Any karma, no matter how good it is, it cannot lead to unending happiness. Any karma, no matter how bad it is, it can never lead to unending misery. That's why Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, we have no conception of eternal heaven or hell. Eternal moksha is there, freedom. I will qualify that. The devotional sects in Hinduism, Vaishnava, they have a conception of eternal heaven, much like Christians, Muslims and Jews. So there is a conception of heaven which is eternal, which is in Vedanta we call it Brahma Loka. But even that is not final. The final is moksha, liberation. But all other heavens, and Hindus and Buddhists especially, Jains also, have multiple heavens, layer after layer of heavens. Also hell is achieved that way. And depending on our grade of karma, our pay grade. We get access. I saw in some corporate headquarters in San Francisco, I'm not allowed to say what I saw because there are non-disclosure in India. But what I saw was you cannot access every floor. Your card gives you access to some floors. And then somebody comes down from the higher floors and takes you there. Exactly like in the Vedas it is said, a Purusha, a being will come down from the dead ends. And we say, A in D, A in D, in Sanskrit, come, come. Here is your Sukritah, your good karma has earned you this floor, corner office. But only temporary. Underflow in Santhas you get a view of the bay. But only temporary. Free cafeteria. All nice things. I saw some Michelin chef there and free if you order anything all day long as much as you want. All those things it's like heaven. And it's on my 100th dose like that. Look one particular type of heaven. But limited. Moment your credit is over, your karma is exhausted. What happened? Lay off. Again, a shining being will come. Come done. Down in the elevator, out on the street. Go back to the world. Go ahead. What will I do now? Earn more karma? Or karma credit, you can come back again. So this is the cycle of heaven, earth, hell. Keep going through these multiple worlds as we evolve spiritually and we get free. So this is the whole idea. Vedanta says, Vivekananda puts it this way, but far beyond name and form is Atman ever free. No, that's an yasi board. Say Om tatsat Om. Vedanta says this. This is what tattras tell you. How do you attain that freedom? Far beyond name and form. Far beyond karma. Free from karma. Namara samkarma shubhna asho amme. I the limitless light. What karma do I have? That mind is performing so many thoughts, thinking thoughts. That's not me. I am pure consciousness. I am not the mind. The mind is also not mind. The body, you're doing so much activity with the body. I am not the body. The body is not mind. Speech. I am not the speech. The speech is not mind. So all the activities performed by body, mind and speech are not mind. Remember, they depend on me. Without me, the Atman of pure consciousness, nothing can happen. But I am completely unattached to that. Whatever the actions of the hero or the villain on the screen, the screen is not affected. The screen does not get the bull karma of the hero. Screen does not get the bad karma of the villain. Remember, Vivekananda says, chains, though of gold, are not less strong to bind. He's talking about good karma. In Vedanta, good karma and bad karma are equally bad. Not equally bad, they're both bad. Bad karma traps us in samsara, drags us down to hell. Good karma traps us in samsara and drags us to hell or kicks us upstairs. But it keeps us in samsara. Only thing is, good karma also opens the door to self-realization. God-realization, spirituality, that's one effect, one outcome of good karma. That's why even who are interested in spirituality in Vedanta, they are called punyatva. You are all of us gathered here, we are punyatva. We have certain amount of very good karma because of which the interest has come. See, ashtar is avadattra also says, ishvar anugraha deva, the grace of God is upon you, rejoices. That's why the taste has been created. The opportunity has arisen. The texts are made available. And you have the good fortune and the good intention of taking advantage of this opportunity. So it is all good karma, anugraha, grace of God. Grace of God also comes from good karma. Do I have time for the story? I told this story earlier, but I heard it in the longgutri. Let me tell you the story, very touching story. I've not heard it, I've not read it any time. Just from monks, I've heard it, oral tradition. So in the longgutri, this happened about 20 years ago. There was this monk, I used to walk in the forest with after the evening meal. The evening meal there was at 4 or 4 pm because it gets very dark. In those days, there was no electricity in the place where we used to live. So the mountain, you know, it's a valley. So when the sun sets, the sun goes behind the mountain, it gets dark in the valley. He used to walk in the forest above the gutri. And he would tell me stories. Some of the stories have become very famous now. Yes, such, yes, such. Is this true or is that, that I heard there for the first time. And that's a well-known story actually, but I heard it for the first time from that monk walking in the mountain. A very interesting monk. His name was Narayananandagiri. I heard it and he said he has passed away. Extreme non-dolist people. He would say, I am half and eight years old. There was a big wild dog. I thought it was a wolf. It's like a jungle dog. We were uneasy about it. It was huge and fierce, but he would pet it and it would be very friendly with him. And another Salu, I still remember, was humorous. One monk, Punjabi monk was sitting next in the cottage. And then this Swami was petting that big dog, which used to live in the forests in the mountains. So I said, You have become a monk. You made your mother cry when you became a monk. Now you are falling in love with the dog. You have made a fake of this dog. Anyway, like this. So this monk, he told me these stories. One of the stories told me the power of karma, good karma. So one day, Janaka, Emperor Janaka, who is usually a hero in these stories, the story goes like this. Emperor Janaka was asked a question, Oh Janaka, how is it that one man can be so fortunate? You are an emperor. That's the top of the food chain, tree and his, face, I believe. In those days, emperor. You are an emperor. We have put everything in the world. Now, you are also a Brahma Gyani, you are enlightened person. You realize God. You are enlightened, free, given Mokta. Not only that, grace of God is so much upon you. Divine Mother herself has come to your household as your daughter Sita. How can one man be so fortunate? You are the top of the world. You are a Brahma Gyani and Mother of the Universe is so gracious upon you. She is born as your daughter. Why you Janaka? Why you? Janaka also thought, why me? That's true. How is it that I have got all these things? I never thought about it. Long story, but I will quickly go through it. He had a dream. Oh Janaka, if you want to know the answer to this question, tomorrow in the morning, before anybody awakes, before sunrise, you start walking towards the east, where the sun is rising. And you walk and walk and walk and you will come to a place by the time the sun sets, you will come to a place where you will find under a tree, there is a yogi sitting and he is eating dry leaves. You ask him, he knows the answer to your question. You ask him, he will tell you. So Janaka left early in the morning and he walked and walked and walked. And lo and behold, when the sun was setting on the western horizon, he saw in the gathering gloom a huge tree under which, near a pile of dead leaves, a yogi was sitting and stuffing his mouth with dead leaves. So he goes to the yogi and before you can say anything, the yogi says, oh Janaka, I know the question in your mind and I know the answer, but I will not tell you. So Janaka rests a while tonight, tomorrow early in the morning before the sun rises, walk towards the east, more and more you walk and when the sun begins to set, you will see a yogi near a earth where the fire has gone out and he is eating ashes. And though that yogi you asked, he will tell you the answer. And so Janaka said, the thing is this story, I had a suspicion, his story is lasted as long as the sun did not set. Curiously, by the time it got dark, the story would come to an conclusion. So I felt it's like a master's story telling, it would spin out the story. So anyway, so he went, second time also that same thing happened, second day he found a yogi in a place eating ashes from a earth where the fire had been blown out. And the same yogi said, I know the answer to your question, but I will not tell you. Tomorrow in the morning you start walking and you will reach a village. In the village, the village headman's house you go there, a son will have been born to him. And you ask the new born baby, he knows the answer to your question. So he walks and walks and walks, finally goes to such a remote village and the village headman was astonished. Emperor, your highness, you have come here, what a great honour. The emperor says, is it true that a baby has been born to you? Yes, they're most fortunate. The baby who was to come and bless the baby, come to the house, the emperor goes and then he tells everybody, can you lead the room a little bit, I want to speak with the baby. Of course the baby can speak. And so he, before he can say anything, the baby says, I know why you have come emperor and I know your answer to your question and I will tell you. And so thank God. And the baby said, in this place, long ago, in days of yoga, lived a poor widow and she had three little children, four little children to feed and no food. She would beg for food and feed them. So one day she got these chafatis, dried bread, and she, not enough for herself, but whatever she had, she distributed among the little children. When they were about to eat, a guest comes to the door, usually God testing them. So the guest comes to the