AvadhootaDatta Peetham

Discourse on Yoga Vasishtha
December 13 2015

Sri Sadgurubhyo namaha
Om Santissantissantissantihi

Note: Explanation given in Kannada is yet to be added here.

We are discussing now about Jeeva Utpatti.

We ask always how this Creation came into existence. We are not concerned about ourselves. We are more interested in our neighbor’s affairs. If he meets with misfortune, it makes us glad. That is why we only ask about Creation always, perhaps it is in our blood. We do not ask about ourselves, as Sadguru urges us to do, and the Sastras also tell us to do.

So, do not ask about Creation of the world, ask about how you came into existence, or how the individual came into existence. How did I come into being? Not about other people. It is because the Jeevi, the individual exists, the world exists. The world does not exist by itself. The world did not appear first and then the individual entered it, as we falsely think. Because you and I exist, our separate worlds exist as we experience them. The other person has an experience of his own world. How did all these come into existence? Because you and I are perceiving them, they are there. If the viewer is not there, then where is the world? You must think about it. Then you will realize that it is true. It is a great misconception to think that because the world is there, you are viewing it. No. Because you are there to see it, the world exists for you. The Sastra says so.

There are two ways of stating this:
1. Because the visible world is there, the viewer of the world is there.
2. Because the viewer of the world is there, the visible world is there.

We spoke of this earlier. Of these, whichever one you delete, the other also gets deleted. If there is nothing there to see, there will be no one to view it. If there is no one to view it, there will be nothing to view. The two do not physically vanish. They must vanish from our perception, from our intellect.

When they are gone, then what is left? What remains is only Supreme Peace. That is referred to as Maha Yoga. Such bliss does not exist anywhere else. Therefore, what you need to learn about, is how the individual came into existence. It is very important.

How was I born? Why was I born? What is the purpose? It is very important to learn this. That is the real search. That is real knowledge. But, we feel more like learning about this Creation because it appears so much more vast and spreading far and wide, compared to our tiny selves. We have such an experience. Because of our interest that we expressed, first we were told about how this Creation has occurred. But ultimately, where does it lead us? It rests with the individual.

That is why, while describing the individual, a mention was made of the collective individual and the separate individual. What is a collective individual? It is the one grouping of all existing individuals as one entity. It becomes a collective mind where all minds merge into one mind. All devotees have the feeling that what Sadguru says is truth. We must take it as his command. Why? It is because all of our minds are focused on Sadguru’s words and so whatever words he utters, we accept those. We have nothing to say from our side.

Similarly, that one focused point where all individuals merge, is Hiranyagarbha. All Jeevis congregate there as one. He is called Chaturmukha Brahma, or four-faced Brahma. How did we all emerge from him? We emerged the way sparks fly out of a glowing fire. What did the individual sparks do? Each thought of itself as a separate individual, as a separate entity. Each spark created a world for itself and viewed itself as a separate being.

Because we have also done that, we have all become separated and scattered. But where is our original source? It is in Hiranyagarbha. It is in the four-faced Brahma. Why did we get separated from him? The reason cannot be explained. Because of the separateness we feel from him, we have all become individual souls. The link has snapped. That one single thread that bound us all together as one, has been snapped by us. We have distanced ourselves from our origin. Atmabandha/the bond with the Soul, it is called. When the bond with the soul got snapped, the Sareerabandha or the bond with the body became strengthened. When that happened, because the body and its capacity are limited, our perception about ourselves also became limited. We, who were unlimited in our potential, have confined ourselves in this limited perception of ourselves. We were infinite. We have become extremely limited.

What is the reason for this? But we must learn how and why the individual came into being. That is the first point to learn. What is the relationship between us and this Creation? Once we realize the reason why the individual came into existence, then it will become clear to us why the world came into existence. Therefore, what we need to know is about the origin of the individual, and not about the origin of the world.
He is called Aativaahika sareeradhaari, manomaya sareeradhaari, or chitta dehadhaari.

Hiranyagarbha’s body is made up of the mind substance, and not of the gross five elements. This is where we left off, in our last session.

Paramatma Himself is the individual. This statement gives us great bliss and solace. It gives us a strong assurance and confidence. We have an unbroken connection. Although Sastra does not allow it, for now, let us state that Paramatma Himself became the individual.

When He alone exists, how can he become the ignorant individual? But who else is there? When only He exists, the Avidya or ignorance also must be His. But when we refer to Him as He and His, it creates a confusion, because we are using worldly terms (using duality). That is why it is not recommended to describe Him like this.

It is not that He is veiled or pervaded by ignorance. It is not that He has acquired some new limbs or organs and he has become inferior. That Pure Consciousness remains as is, as always.

We have become distanced. That is all. We made this Creation. And we identified ourselves with this Creation. We have descended further and we have eventually descended all the way down to the earth, which is the last and the lowest of the five elements.

Now we have to return to our source. We have to travel back to that from which we have separated ourselves. We have to dispel our ignorance and must retrace our steps back to our home. All religions say the same thing. We have descended from ***. We must get merged in *** again. Some religious theories do not accept the possibility of total identification with ***. They have some objection to that idea. Some Sastras say, go back to Vaikuntha, be near *** and serve Him. But the final destination is oneness with ***. How to achieve that?

Paramatma, Supreme Soul, who assumed the individual mind/body or body made up of mind substance alone, assuming or imagining the existence of a gross body, using his intellect to individually create his own Universe, is perceiving his world. How is he perceiving it? He is viewing it in his own imagination.

Eeekshana is what it is called. It is seeing. *** is seeing. The inspiration or inner stimulus occurred in him causing him to see, to create, and to act. Jnana, Ichchaa, and Kriya Saktis. These three are very important. From the mind stemmed a desire to see. Then the discriminative aspect arose which differentiated between good and bad. Jnana, Ichcha, and Kriya is the sequence. Then the feeling, I want this, became strengthened. Then action took place. Sankhya mentioned this.

It was only a concept at first. As one sees a world in a dream, Paramatma was envisioning this Creation. Man dreams of something and wants to fulfill his dream and so acts upon it. This is something similar to that.

Paramatma as the individual, is said to see the huge expanse of water. He sees the individual inside. He was seeing the cells that have separated from Him, as sparks get separated from Fire. Each individual as per his wish, along with his Karma, gets born in a certain form, in a certain family, and a certain location. It all happens only by the individual’s deliberate intention. Karma determines our future. Therefore, we are exhorted to do only good deeds. Good Karma yields a good body that is conducive to comfort and happiness. Bad deeds yield a body that is conducive to unhappiness and misery. Karma theory makes each individual experience joy and sorrow alternately as per the proportion of good or bad deeds performed by the individual. We are familiar with that.

The Puranas describe to us how in the vast expanse of water, floating on a small banyan leaf was the Lord who gave Upadesa and that is how Creation came into existence. Jalaantargata means, like life inside the ***. The soul imagines it and makes it his real experience.

Another Jeevi or individual sees the Saamraat Svaroopa.

Hiranyagarbha is also a Jeeva. He sees Himself as the Universal Man who expands to cover everything. The entire Universe becomes his form. We are all inside his ***. Hiranyagarbha garbhastham. Since we are all inside his ***, we are like the fetus inside the mother. Can the fetus see his mother? He is surrounded by mother and is mother herself, inside and outside. When the question is raised whether *** exists, is it not foolish for atheists to say there is no ***? It is like the fetus saying there is no mother. The theists say there is ***.

Here, garbha or *** of Hiranyagarbha means, his sankalpa or intention. Sankalpa or conception of an idea is here described as the *** for easy understanding of the idea. Puranas, Sastras, and common conversation, all speak of the same thing, but at different levels of understanding. They all only appear as if they are different.

Hiranyagarbha as the Jeevi, or an individual, perceives himself as the Universal Man. Another Jeevi sees the future and imagines it. He experiences it as the Universe of the Future – Bhaavi Brahmaanda. He imagines the three worlds of the future and that is how they have emerged and were experienced by him. From within his own imagination, the individual created Time, Action, Imagination, and Substances. Time, Space and all other factors emerged only according to the imagination of the Jeeva. What is very strange is that all of us have envisioned or imagined the world to be exactly the same way. We all perceive the world as the same in certain matters, not all, such as the things constituting the five elements. Individual experiences of joys and sorrows are a different matter. They occur as per each one’s Karma. The actual *** of the Jeevi is his own mind. All that occurs is as per each individual’s imagination. Each has his own joys and sorrows. But each sees the five elements and their attributes as the same, e.g. fire burns, water wets, and air gives the sense of touch, and so on. What is the reason that this experience of the five elements is common to all living creatures? What it point to, is that the original concept of this factor must have occurred at the source level, and not at the individual level. Otherwise, not everyone will have the experience of the five elements being the same. The original Jeevi determined to give the same attributes to each of the five elements.

What are all these substances we experience in this world? What constitutes them all?

Sabdam or sound is the substance that is the foundation for all that exists as the world. With some particular Samskara or Smarana, a trait or a recollection, the Jeevi thought about Sound. He thought the word Tree and experienced a tree. He thought of the sound, hill and experienced a hill. With sounds the world came into existence. Creation came after sound. It is wrong to think that it happened the other way around. Name came first.

Then the person, creature, or the thing that is associated with the name, came into existence. Your name existed before you came into existence to take that name. Lalitamma and Subbayya names came first. Then the persons came into existence to take those names. We are under the wrong notion that after we are born, our names are given to us. That is why it is said that names given to us by our elders should not be changed. Sometimes, some people are given strange names. Yet, they retain those names lifelong. Do not misunderstand or get upset if you have that name. For example, a person may be named Pitchayya (mad fellow). The person will not change that name. An Avadhoota by that name Pitchayya gave blessings and a childless couple had a child. So they named the child after him out of devotion and gratitude, because they took a vow that if they should be blessed with a child, they would name the child after the Avadhoota. The Avadhoota appeared to everyone like a mad man. That is why people called him Pitchayya. The boy had high regard for the great man and so he did not change his name. The sound, the name, first got established. Later, the person came. Whether the name is shortened or altered later, is a different matter. This entire world existed in the form of sound, as Veda, well before it was experienced in its gross physical form. Recollecting the Veda means exactly that. How to create the world? The sounds given in the Vedas give the exact clues for each substance and creature. Each sound is heard and the shape at one manifests in the mind to match the sound.

Examples are:

Aja – goat
Aswa – horse
Gajaha – elephant

Strangely, the moment the sound is heard, the shape manifests in the mind’s eye of the Jeevi, who creates the world. Gajaha at once reminds him that it is an animal with four legs, a trunk, tail, large ears, and so on.
This world is a world of sound. The same entity may also have many names. We are all entirely bound by sound. We remember our relatives who are far away, only by the sound of their names. We are tied together by sounds.
Similarly, it is only sound that ties us all together. Bhaavayan Sabda nirmaataa – He constructed this world with sounds. He is bound by the sounds. He creates his own bondage in the ***.

Just as the world that appears in a dream, this whole perceptible world is also a great lie. It is untrue. Except Brahma, all else is untrue.

Think about it. Then, what is this entire world that we are seeing and experiencing? It is only Brahma. Once you realize that all that exists is Brahma, there is no question of untruth. If you can live in that state of realization, how beautiful this world appears! Brahma is everything. Only if you have that feeling and conviction, you can follow the edict, ‘You must love this entire Creation. You must serve the whole world.’

This Sastra is most important to follow in our worldly interaction also.
This world was never born. It never came into existence.

What about all the theory that was explained before, about how the world has emerged? Why was all that information given to us before? Because you have asked for it, it was given to you. But now, it is stated that the world has no existence at all. Is something that is born from the mind true or untrue? You think, analyze, and conclude for yourself.

If there is no mind, there is no world. It is a fact for everyone. If your mind is not in it, then the situation does not exist for you. Your heart is not in it, you say. You do not wish to eat, or go out, or do any particular thing. What does it mean? Those activities do not exist for you. If something is fabricated by the mind, what does it mean? It means that it is only a fabrication. It is only in imagination. It has no real existence. That is why the sequence of Creation was explained, so that you will understand how the mind came into existence. That will be explained later. Some sequence for the creative process had to be spelled out. That is why it was described earlier.

The one who is the foremost one, Himself had no birth. He is Adi Prabhu, Prajapati, Hiranyagarbha, Chaturmukha Brahma. All these are his names. If he himself was never born, then how could we have an existence? If the grandfather was never born, how can you, the grandchild be born? If you were never born, then how can you have any grief? You cannot. That means, you are quite happy. You just have to realize it. You have traveled away from that happiness. Now you have to reclaim it. He was never born. But you may say that this is how he might have been born. Thus the Sastra helps us to acquire this Jnana. That is why it is stated like that. One who has no birth is described as if he were born. Why? It is because you are under the delusion that he exists. Your delusion has to be dispelled. Because you believe that your grandfather was born, and you will not believe if you are told that the grandfather was never born, it was said to you that this is how your grandfather was born. Later, it was explained to you that your grandfather never even existed. Both of these are required. You have the delusion, the misconception that you have been born and you exist. It has to be dispelled.

Adhyaaropamu and Apavaada are the terms used for the technique used in the Sastra to destroy that delusion.
Ninda aaropam – false accusation. False perception. We have imposed this non-existent world upon Brahma, just as the idea of a non-existent snake has been imposed upon a rope. To dispel the fear of the snake that existed during the false perception, this misconception must be explained.

In this delusion that takes the shape of this entire cosmos, Prajapati is the form whose body constitutes of nothing but the mind.

Aativaahikam – is a term frequently mentioned. It means, subtle, one whose body is nothing but the mind.
Who is Prajapati? Who is four-faced Brahma? His form is only Mind.

Gurur Brahmaa. Guru is Brahma. Does that mean that they are two separate entities? When only one exists, whether you call Him Guru or Brahma, it makes no difference. It is Guru who makes us realize about Brahma. Once that realization occurs, we know that Guru is Brahma and Brahma is Guru. Therefore, we prostrate to that one and only Guru. The name does not matter. All that exists is Brahma, is the instruction or Upadesa Vakya that is given to us by Guru. That is the key. Guru gives us that experience. Veda Vakya, the statement given in the Veda as spoken by Guru, gives us that Knowledge. We acknowledge that and offer salutations to that exalted position of Guru.

When Brahma himself, the first individual, never existed and never was born, how can you exist? Did he ever think that he existed? No. It is you, who imagined that he exists. We pay obeisance to the gods because Guru and the gods remain in Atma Bhaavana. They identify themselves with the soul. We do not. Whose fault is it? You have the feeling of separateness. Where does the fault lie? In you or in Him? Guru always identifies with the one Soul.

That is why we prostrate to them, to gods and Guru. If they are all Soul, they cannot be different from Paramatma. If all are Paramatma, and only He exists, then who are we? We are also Paramatma. Everything is thus united and tied together like one big ball. This sequence has to be experienced by us. The realization will occur gradually.
Nothing was born. Nothing is seen. Only the unlimited space is there as our experience. Yet, we see the clouds, and the directions. We place limitation on the directions also and say that a flight cannot approach us from the east or the west. We even place divisions and limits on infinite space. Should we compliment ourselves or feel ashamed at our cleverness or the lack of it?

We divide what is infinite and see the differentiations as Vishnu, Brahma, Siva, and so on. To teach us to see Unity in all, Datta came down to us as the one unified form of the Trinity.

Dattatreya Swami’s message is to see one in all. Brahma’s message is Datta’s message. That is why the three faces represent one. He does not go around sporting three faces.

All three principles are unified in Him. Creation, Sustenance, and Dissolution are all in Him as one.
Just like the scene of an unconstructed city is yet seen in a dream as if it were real, there is no substance to the world which is seen and experienced by us. It is not constructed of any solid materials, although it is lit and visible as if it were real. This is a wonder. The secret behind this wonder will be revealed to us later. Then we will understand the true principle of Brahma. We will discuss it later.

Today, there will be Tulabharam for the devotees to participate in. Witness the Sri Chakra Puja as you chant the Hanuman Chalisa.

We will continue tomorrow.

Jaya Guru Datta

Sri Guru Datta
Om Santissantissantihi