«VEDIC CULTURE LESSON»
«VEDIC CULTURE LESSON» | Class of Bhakti Chaytanya Bharati Maharaj & Bhakti Vigraha Nyasi Maharaj, August 8, 2015, Mockmuhl, Germany
- The Vedic conception of happiness (00:00)
- Happiness in the ugly world (09:40)
- The soul is sat-chit-ananda (14:50)
- The world of justice (20:50)
- How to help others (24:32)
- The real world vs. illusion (28:45)
- Mass suffering (36:23)
- Christian Satan is maya (38:38)
- Science and the truth (46:30)
+ русские субтитры на видео
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB4Fhi2ABsU
VEDIC CULTURE LESSON
Class of Bhakti Chaytanya Bharati Maharaj and Bhakti Vigraha Nyasi Maharaj
August 8, 2015, Mukmuhl, Germany
BHARATI MAHARAJ: Our topic today is The Conception of Happiness and I forgot what I was going to say so there might be questions you can ask. I know that everyone is looking for happiness and does it on his/her own.
LISTENER: Maharaj, may I ask you: What does happiness mean for you?
BHARATI MAHARAJ: If we take the Vedic conception, happiness is harmony. Harmony is a word of the world of music; it is when different musical instruments or sounds flow in such a way that they fit each other perfectly. Under the Vedic conception, the existence (the whole being) has one source which produces some waves, and each of us is a small particle of a wave. We know that the material nature/world is just a bulk of energy and the smallest particle of this energy is called, let’s say, an electron, and an electron is the smallest wave, not an object. Similarly, with us – there is an unlimited existence with one source and the smallest particle of it is me/myself. My happiness is when I find me existing in harmony with the original source of existence. Say, a big orchestra is playing and one instrument starts playing a different tune and creates disharmony; the whole orchestra is playing one tune and someone in the corner is playing another one. So, according to the Vedic philosophy, happiness is when I’m playing in tune with the whole lot. I mentioned the source, so the source of all waves is called God. The God has many qualities. We can call Him the Creator, the Almighty, the Judge of Justice, and by many other names, but His main quality is attractiveness which means that I am fully engaged (attached) into what He is doing. Imagine that someone young and beautiful enters this room then all attention from you will be drawn to that one, everyone will look at him. This is the main quality of the God – to attract everyone’s attention and He wants us to be attentive to Him, to look at Him, to hear Him, touch Him. He wants to be the centre of our existence so that all attention goes to Him, and He produces such waves: Please, pay attention to Me; Please, be my devotees; Please, look at Me; I am the Centre. If we follow His call then we join this wave of attraction to His beauty – and this is called happiness. That’s how we take our natural position: we listen to Him, we pay attention to Him, and we become the part of the unlimited existence that directs all attention to Him. This means existing in unity with the Lord which is called yoga, in Sanskrit. Any objections?
LISTENER: Yes. You said the God wants our attention to Him but this is a very ugly world, with many bad things happenings here, many people suffering, and it’s very difficult to concentrate on the Beauty. How to find the way? How not to get furious seeing all what’s happening in this world? How can we live in harmony and be happy?
NYASI MAHARAJ: Let me try to answer. The Vedic literature describes that within each of us there’s an atma, that means the soul, and the atma is described as sleeping, put in a trance by the ego, or selfishly motivated self. The Bhagavad Gita, the ancient scripture written about five thousand years ago, describes that the world which we live in is not the world of the soul but rather the world of multiple egos clashing in conflict with each other in multiple ways. So, not being in the world of oneness these egos run into collision with others causing so many different problems. The Vedic scriptures say that it’s like being in a dream and the solution is not to change this dream into a good one but the solution is to wake up. [LOL] So, it’s the question of prospective, of beginning to develop the vision that the people that I see around are not only the physical form but rather they are coverings of the soul. The beauty I can perceive in a person, the feelings of love and many things that are attached to our relations with people – all these things are coming from the soul. Naturally we have sympathy to people suffering all over the world. The real question is how could you bring out the solution that could give them some kind of permanent relief. How to do that? So, the idea of the Vedic culture is to go deep to the level of the soul and begin living within this conception despite who you are, German persons, English persons, Russians or whatever. We have to do something to survive in this world but in the midst of that work we cannot neglect the important aspect of our life which is the atma, or the soul.
Like Maharaj said, the natural position of the soul is the small sparkle within us to connect with the main source of existence. As a particle of everything we should function as a natural position of service to the Source of All. This is called bhakti yoga; yoga means ‘re-connect’ and bhakti means ‘devotional’. Bhakti yoga means coming in harmony with the source of our existence. It is said that the soul, in Sanskrit, is sat-chit-ananda: sat means ‘eternal’, the soul doesn’t die when the body dies, by nature the soul is young, fresh, dynamic, and alive; chit means ‘in full perception with the nature of our existence’, i.e. who we are, what is the purpose of our life, what we should do in our day-to-day life to be in proper connection with the source of our existence; ananda is the most important and literally means ‘happiness’, just as gluck in German, and it is the highest experience of happiness.
BHARATI MAHARAJ: Can we put the question in other words: How can we speak of God in this world of injustice? How can we speak of God if people suffer? I’m trying to better understand your question.
LISTENER: I can understand that people suffer because they are guilty. My question is: How can I live in harmony when I see that somebody does something bad? How can I give love to a murderer? How can I see him as a part of the whole?
BHARATI MAHARAJ: Let’s take the following example: you see a person sentenced to death penalty who is being led to the electric chair by two guards and, naturally, you think how much injustice there is in this world because you see that two people are going to kill this one. But if you expand the borders of your perception into the past you can see that the person killed two children and immediately you will stop blaming those two guards leading him to die. Just a second ago that person seemed a victim to you and now he is a murderer and deserves punishment. Then you think those two children killed by him suffered in vain, they were innocent, and again if you have a deeper knowledge you can understand that in their past lives they might have killed their present murderer. So, when we expand the borders of our perception in time we can understand that no one suffers in vain, everyone suffers for something they did in the past. Karma, this is what we call the world of justice. Everyone has a certain amount of suffering and enjoyment in their life. The fact that everyone suffers or enjoys and does bad or good things doesn’t rectify our search for happiness. When I see someone suffering that doesn’t stop my search for happiness. This is the first thing.
The second thing is when I come in position of harmony with the Lord then I gain the wisdom to help others. Let’s say, I’m a student of a medical college, I know little, and people suffering from a disease come to ask me for help, I can help them but only at a certain extend. When I become a full-pledged doctor, a practitioner, then I can help them much more. So, when we find harmony within ourselves then we can help others much more. Sometimes people ask: how can you speak of God and the Universe while so many people are suffering? you’d better stop talking and go to help others. This is not correct. It’s like when you go to the conservatory where they play music, the orchestra is ready to play to please your soul, and you tell them to stop playing because there’re so many people in need, so you’d better put out your instruments, take some bread and go to feed the hungry. In our society, we have various kinds of helpers: some help us mentally, like psychiatrists, and there’re different kinds of doctors. Suppose you come to a mental doctor and tell him to stop doing his job and help those who cut their legs. So, let me say it again: when we become spiritually profound, spiritually developed then we can help others better.
LISTENER: Maharadj, may I ask you what do you think of the Auschwitz? What happened there? That’s important for me personally.
BHARATI MAHARAJ: I’m not the right person to answer this question because I have sort of different opinion on what happened which doesn’t coincide with the general opinion, so we can talk in person if you will.
NYASI MAHARAJ: Can I say something? It’s very difficult to adjust in this way but the more we awaken the soul, the more we see that the occurrences in this world are even horrible, and they refer to the world of illusion, not the world of reality. It really is, like a very bad dream. The occurrences of this temporary world and the temporary arrangements around us – is that the final reality? Or there is some reality beyond all this that has to do with our natural position as a soul, living in harmony with the source of our existence? It’s the matter of perception. In bhakti, the idea is to begin to be engaged in activities that start awaking the soul, change our perception, and bring us more and more in harmony with God, the source of our existence. In the final sense, it is the solution to all the complication of problems that are going on. For some time, I was a student interested in history, and if you read history, you know there has been one catastrophe after another, from the beginning of time. So, the idea is do you adjust things within the context of that history or you try to adjust consciousness, the way how people see things, as opposed to the political or economic structure.
The Vedas tell us, we are in the midst of a bad dream. Wake up! Now is the time to understand the spirit, the soul. Now, in human life we have higher consciousness. Every living being has a conscious soul, a cow, a bear, etc., but in the higher human life we have higher perception, the ability to perceive spirit. The Vedas advise, if you have sense and you can understand the possibility, the presence in yourself of the soul, why not engage in activities that will bring you to awakening of that soul, your spiritual self. Because there’s a harmonious connection with the source of our existence it is possible, through the descendant knowledge of the Vedas, to experience our perception about what is real and what is not real, and change. The Bhagavad Gita gives the comparison: this world is like a tree reflected in a pond. The reflection indicates the presence of a real tree somewhere. If you look at the reflection it looks like a real thing but if we try to take fruit from it or smell flowers there’s no lasting substance in that reflection – so, we are living in a reflection.
Everyone has the real nature, sat-chit-ananda, and everyone seeks after that. We would like to find that position where we feel and know that we’re eternal, and this body covering is no more than a piece of cloth. We all seek realization that I am an atma, the soul within. The Gita says, like you dispose the old worn-out cloth so the living being changes bodies, one body to the next. To begin to realize that we’re that soul transformed from one body to another enables us to awaken that inner happiness and harmony, and it is the natural aspect of our being.
BHARATI MAHARAJ: When you mentioned the Auschwitz did you mean that very event or mass suffering?
LISTENER: The mass suffering.
BHARATI MAHARAJ: That is the result of our deeds in the past. During the life we cause so much suffering to other creatures, we kill living beings not counting them. When the boomerang comes back to us we say: Oh, why, that’s unfair!
LISTENER: May I ask a question? In this life, when I realized I did something terrible when I was young and I’m sorry for that is there anything I can do? You know, because I cannot go back and change it.
BHARATI MAHARAJ: You have to tolerate that. Before you go to sleep take your pillow and cry because you cannot change it.
LISTENER: In the Christian culture there’s Satan. What about the Vedic culture? Is it a personal being or impersonal?
BHARATI MAHARAJ: If we talk in terms of God and Satan then God is the truth and Satan is a lie, deception. In Sanskrit, it is satya – the truth and maya – a changed truth, or lie. Satan is something or someone that hides the truth from us.
Satan/deception can take any shape. Anything that takes us away from the truth may be called Satan. It can even take the form of the Fatherland — for instance, when they say ‘Worship your own country’. Satan can also take the form of your wife or husband. Maya, which in Sanskrit has the feminine gender, is so flexible that she can take any form. Metaphysically, in the Vedic culture, the Truth is Him, and maya is her. Anything or anyone that tells you (and at present almost everyone will tell you that): don’t focus on your soul, don’t think of eternal life, stand firm, take position in this world, get established here – is Satan. That might be whoever, your husband or wife, politicians, rock stars, philosophers… You know, in the north, in winter the sea can freeze and someone can tell you: come here and build a house. When it’s cold you can have a nice house, decorate it, and live there. Then the spring comes, the sun is lighter and warmer, and the piece of ice your house stands on cracks and drifts away into the sea. If you continue decorating such house you’re in illusion, you will kill yourself. So, anyone who tells you to enroot in the piece of ice is Satan. Anyone who tells you there is a land of God who loves you and there you can find your eternal life full of harmony represents God, is the ambassador of God. Satan can take any form, it’s not a horned beasty creature with a tail and a trident; this image is only for children.
LISTENER: What about science?
BHARATI MAHARAJ: Scientists are the most dangerous ambassadors of Satan. [LOL] The exception is Max Plank because he said that if you go deeper into researching the material world you will finally find yourself, the observer. What do the scientists do? They observe and try to understand the world but forget about themselves, those who observe. They try to find out about the objects of observation but they forget the observer. So, the German physic Max Plank said: finally, you will understand that you, the observer, are the most important among all the observed, that the observer is the only truth. Everything observed may change because such is the nature of the material world, everything is temporary, but the one who observes never changes which means that he is the truth. Plank also said: why we explore things that cease to exist instead of exploring things that never change. And after that he stopped doing any physics. At least, nothing is known about his activity after that.
NYASI MAHARAJ: I have only one thing to add. In our theology, in the way we understand about God, the most worshiped position in the land of God is in the form of a female. While the form of illusion is female the highest aspect of devotion or dedication, the harmony of that world is also in the form of a female. We worship both, the male Krishna and the female Radha, in our theology. This is just to avoid some bad understanding. We have books in German that summarize the Vedic understanding of how to go practicing bhakti yoga, realizing the soul and bringing it closer in harmony with God: Search of Sri Krishna, Sriguru and His Grace, and Subjective Evolution. I recommend that to you, you can take them here.
Transcript by Elizabeth D.
