FIND THE PEACE WHICH IS ALWAYS WITHIN YOU FREE VEDANTA ONLINE COURSE TUESDAYS AT 7 PM A PRODUCTION BY SATSANGA ONLINE COLLABORATE PLACE YOUR BRAND HERE Good evening to all of you. This is the second class of our free online Vedanta course, which aims at introducing Vedanta and cover all of the basic topics that steer the Vedic tradition. It's a common base for all those who study Yoga, asanas, ayurveda, astrology, Vedanta itself, mantras and all such things based on this same foundation, since they come from the Vedas.
So, the subject of today's class are the Vedas. To understand the Vedic tradition, we must know what are the Vedas. It is said that, when we go around in this world, once we're born and start our journey, all the knowledge that we acquire is obtained from our senses.
Think about it. I can, by myself, see, hear, walk, feel, experience, and, out of those five senses, I build ideas and concepts about people, the world and everything else. I see the trees, the birds, the people, I see my family, I witness situations, I see many things happening all at once.
And, as of that, I build my notion of the world. You build yours. So, every human being and animal have the same kind of experience: an experience based in the subject-object relation.
However, when you describe India to me, I go and imagine the Ganges river, the cold water running through my feet, icy cold, really, it's difficult to endure or dive in it, it's really cold. What is taking place in one's mind, then? You're getting information that didn't come through your senses, at least directly: you hear it, yes, but it didn't come from direct sensation, it came from another person.
Through words, another person can convey information to you regarding a subject to which you couldn't have direct access. So, as a human being, there are two ways, now: I have the five senses and my experiences, and what I hear from another human being. Now, the question: what's the source of what I'm being told?
Either they heard it from others, or they saw it! If there were only three people in the world, the first would tell the second, who'd tell the third, and that's it! Since mankind is vast, When we say that something arrived to us, there's a certain mystique surrounding it.
What's the source? It could have come from anywhere. Where did it come from?
Necessarily, all that I know came from my five senses and what has been told me must have come, somehow, from the senses of those who told other people about it. No! From the senses of those who told me.
That's it! What are we actually all doing, then? Exchanging information on the world.
Each one takes pictures and post them on Facebook. Either I see my own pictures or other's pictures. Quite simple.
And, with the same approach, we want to delve into the tradition of the Vedas and Yoga, and we'll ask, then: "When did Yoga first came about? " "Who was the first person to invent the first pose? " This is very interesting, because, contrarily to what is often thought, Yoga and the Vedic tradition have a different source than all other types of knowledge available in the world.
How come they have a different source? The question is not "how come", but "what is taught". Let's see: if you are discussing something such as how to prepare pizza, you may tell me that an angel came and told you to mix flour, water and salt, knead it and there's the pizza, I may even believe it, but I don't have to believe it, and it's quite ridiculous.
Right? Why would I say that? How does this information that it came from beyond adds to anything?
See? It's as if I were contemplating this knowledge of how to make pizza and saying: "Well, this knowledge came from this person's mind", and she replied: "No, it didn't come from my mind, I was told it. Someone who isn't here and who doesn't belong to this world.
It's complicated, right? It doesn't even make sense! Why would one say that an angel taught him to make pizza?
It doesn't click. We even feel bad to hear it. Now, if you say, for example, and let's think about it the other way around: "Drnking milk mixed with mango will cause you to have cancer at the end of your life.
" -"Who told you that? " -"A doctor". Now, we have the opposite.
First, we had a concrete sentence passed on by a special being. Now, we have a special sentence. Why is it special?
Well, how to prove it? You'd have to observe a person drinking mango shakes through life, so that, at the end of her life, you could say that gave her cancer. It's impossible to prove that!
But one may state that the doctor said that drinking milk with cancer results in that. . .
No! Milk with mango results in cancer! Imagine that!
Milk and cancer results in mango! You can't prove that, see? That's not a feasible experience.
So, there are two types of knowledge: one is of the "pizza" type, which you can verify through experimentation, and the other type can't be verified experimentally. "Raising your arms so as to perform surya namaskara activates your muladhara chackra": if we can't verify the chackra itself, what to say of an activation by surya namaskara! Such correlation is not available for confirmation.
Think about it: "if you chant the mantra 'Om namah shivaya', you'll provide your mind with a certain level of peace. " How could you measure it? All you can do is chant it and see if it works for you.
But it's not something you can validate experimentally. It's impossible to experiment on that. So, what are the Vedas?
The Vedas intend to be a source of knowledge for subjects that people cannot verify experimentally. How interesting! So, let's assume, for example, that one wants to have a child.
There is a ritual for that: you must do a couple of things, go around a sacred fig tree twice, ask for a child, tie a string, and this is just an example, for your imagination, and, then, the child is "ordered". It's a ritual for having children. Can you prove that this ritual is the cause of a future child?
No. You can say that a person couldn't get pregnant for years, performed this ritual and then got pregnant. If she'd gotten pregnant without having sex, we could say: "it's the proof, it happened".
But it's not the case. How, then, did this ritual work? How to prove that?
You can't prove that. It's impossible. There are subjects in our human history that we can't touch on experimentally, that science can't prove.
And all such subjects are present in the Vedas. So, all those things we have heard about, such as rituals, mantras, yoga poses, ayurveda medicine! Within our bodies, there is sattva, rajas and tamas: vata, pitta, kapha, as you probably have heard.
"Prove it". You'll never do it. There's no such thermometer.
You can't measure vata, pitta and kapha. They're abstract terms. and the meaning of "vata" is described in the Vedas, as well as the meanings of "pitta" and "kapha".
With that model defined by them, they propose a medicinal system. See how interesting it is: the study of the Vedas, be it Ayurveda, Yoga, Vedanta and all such things, grant people access to subjects they couldn't reach by themselves. When the subject is Ayurveda, for example, even though you can't access it on your own, you may have some experience with it, since you say: "This medicine treats sore throats".
How that cures your throat, no one will be able to prove. For instance, there is a treatment for sore throat: you take this huge leaf, it looks like a. .
. do you know that big leaf with five points? Like a papaya-tree leaf, large and with five points.
Put it under your hat when your voice is gone. It is said your voice will come back. Now, prove it.
Impossible. But, if you're sick and have the leaf, you'll use it! The human being has an internal openness for listening to things which go beyond logical understanding, and that, somehow, are still within reach.
This is found not only in Indian culture, but in all cultures. The Brazilian culture also has many unexplainable practices: people feed saints popcorn by putting it outside the window, candles are lit, before putting a cake inside the oven, people tap the baking tray three times, right? In every culture, there is a set of actions, behaviors and self-understanding traits that lack a fundamental explanation, an explanation based in experimentation.
The Vedas are nothing but a huge repository of information that just can't be proved. And why do people use it if it can't be proved? Because it's always the last resort.
It's not that the person will seek for Vedanta because, through experimentation, she has proof that Vedanta will help one find this simple, happy and peaceful person within. It's not that. It's totally different, actually: "I have tried everything.
I've done everything in life. I've conquered all I ever wished for. " Or not: "Life is going by and I can't find a solution, what society offers doesn't make sense to me, and, now, I hear something coherent.
Why shouldn't I go and listen? " A trust exchange takes place. It's as if you gave a credit in trust in order to listen to something which is beyond your average range of knowledge.
If it continues to make sense, your trust will grow and you'll study more. All subjects within the Vedas work based on this exchange. Why do people study Ayurveda?
They are often doctors or therapists who can't find answers for certain things in their lives, and they'll see there an explanation on the composition of humors within the body that makes great physiological sense. And it works: people recover from conditions that they otherwise didn't. "So, why not study that?
I'll learn it in depth! " "Why should I do Yoga? " How's raising your arm in Yoga different from doing it in the gym?
Arms are raised in both. Looking pragmatically, it's all the same. "It's physical exercise: I raise my arm, stand up, squat, do push-ups, stretch, bend, and I could do all that in a stretching class.
Why should I do that in a Yoga class? " Because, behind the performing of a yoga-based exercise, a belief! A belief, yes, since no one can prove it, a belief that those activities will bring another type of benefit to mind and body resulting in tranquility, balance, and even in things that can be measured, such as the body's hormonal balance: if, right after one attends a good yoga session, one goes to the doctor and have their blood checked, the physical levels will be improved.
Can you prove, though, it was thanks to Yoga? No, you can't. All you can say is: "I've been practicing it, it makes me feel well, my blood levels are improving.
" In "Vedas", "Ved" means "knowledge". The idea is that the Vedas are a knowledge granted to mankind so as to assist it in areas to which we'd have no access on our own. Thus, if it has been granted to mankind, I can't say that any single human being created the Vedas.
This is very interesting. Where do the Vedas come from? Once, someone asked swamiji just that.
He replied: "Where does mankind come from? Who is the first father? Whoever the first father may have been, this person received the Vedas.
" "But how come you are sure that it was so? " I'm not sure he received them. What I'm sure of is that what is stated in the Vedas cannot be discovered by any single person.
Such information is not available for experimentation and testing. And I've learned it from my master, who learnt from his master, who also learnt from his, and, if you consider, in the history of mankind, the oldest texts found so far, such as the Rg Veda and others, are fragments of the Vedas which used to be chanted 4000, 7000 years ago. And, within such texts, no one claims to have created the Vedas and passed them on: it is said: "I've learned it from my master".
So, it is said that, whenever mankind manifests itself, however it may be, the Vedas will be there, too, whatever may be the form they may take up. So, in the same way that the emergence of mankind is a mystery to us, living human beings, the appearance of the Vedas within mankind will follow that, and no one will ever be able to say how the Vedas first appeared. Some masters say that, when this knowledge appears somewhere, a teacher is manifested, too, as if within a meditation to a sage, to a person with a certain level of mental disposition, and the only thing guaranteed is that the Vedas will appear as it appears to you, now.
A teacher will have to appear, be it in one's meditation, one's dream, whatever you prefer to believe, and this teacher will pass on the Vedas as you hear them, now. And so is this knowledge propagated millennium after millennium. So, when we talk about the Vedas, we are making reference to a whole culture with thousands and thousands of branches.
I personally believe that many, of not all, of the religions we nowadays have stem from the Vedas as a foundation. And this due to shared features in their rituals, messages. "Om" and "Amen" aren't that different.
There's a catholic priest, here, father Haroldo, who, in our Yoga Conference, has said that he starts his service by saying "Om", not "Amen". And all the sages, well, not all, but many scholars on religion whom I've met, with solid foundations: not those who suddenly, say, became Buddhists, but who have been living it since their childhood, many of them have told me and others that the Vedas and what they preach is one and the same thing. Once one sees the Vedas from an unreligious perspective, sure, because the Vedas are not a religion.
The Vedas are but a set of information. It's pointless for me to say: "If you pray to Ganesha, you'll have a child, but if you pray to Our Lady, you won't. " This type of dialogue doesn't belong in the Vedas.
They are neither religious, nor stuck in time. If it states that mango shakes are bad for you, mango shakes will be bad for you in all eras of mankind. So, when it introduces a prayer or whatever else, such things do not have a religious character.
They don't mean for you to think of God in any exclusive form. That's why Yoga is not a religion. That's why Vedanta is not a religion.
That's why Ayurveda is not a religion. Quite the contrary: they only intend to help people out with their lives if they happen to be open for it. Once, when I was being interviewed for a Brazilian newscast in India, the director visited an ayurvedic hospital.
I was there, too, assisting with formalities and translation. So, he asked the director of the hospital many interesting questions. The first one was: "I don't see how Ayurveda can help someone differently from western medicine.
What's its differential? " The director, then, said: "Here, in our Vedic perspective, not an Ayurvedic one, even, we treat people with everything we have available for them. We don't stick to substances or diagnoses.
For instance: we receive people with back pains, but what they really have is an emotional issue. When we notice that, we see that this person gets not only physical care, but mental care. When the problem is physical, we usually treat with oils and such.
When the person has a spiritual problem, we'll have to deal with it as well. At this point, the reporter got angry and asked: "Could you provide an example of a spiritual problem? " Interesting, right?
He said: "Sure. This very week we received a boy who was paralyzed from the neck down. He couldn't move since he was five years old.
The family came again for treatment, after four years. We ran all sorts of tests and saw that, physiologically, there was no reason for his paralysis. We then assumed his problem was spiritual, and we treat for that.
So, I called an expert in that, a ritualist", and this could be the equivalent of a cowry-shell caster. So, this expert goes there, respecting a tradition: it's not an "anything-goes", "say-whatever" approach, no! The Vedas state what each thing represents.
So, he casts the shells and sees that, when the boy was exactly four years old, he had a problem with water, and this problem was behind the paralysis he presented. No one accepted this. So, they called another doctor to test him.
The doctor repeated: "He has problems with water. " The mother, then, thought hard and remembered that her son, at the age of four, while strolling, fell in a pool, accidentally. There were no major consequences.
Once she remembered that, she told the doctors about it. The doctors investigated further and saw that, by falling in the pool, a karmic frailty expressed itself, something we can't really understand, and a spirit attached itself to him. See?
Once the spirit's interference was there, as a consequence, the boy became paralyzed, and, once this was known, the doctors referred him to a tantric ritualist, who has nothing to do with the hospital's physical treatments, but belongs to the same tradition. "After this ritual, the boy walked". The reported was baffled!
"What can I say? How to argue that? ", she thought.
Here's the thing: the Vedas do not intend to be a magical solution for anything or ask you to believe in anything, but, if you have a paralyzed child due to a spirit that will be gone with a ritual, will you refrain from doing it? Of course not! The doctor, then, said: "Here, we are committed to discharging healthy patients.
We don't care about their religion, their origin, the ritual, the medicine, whatever. All we care about is their health and well-being. Our ayurvedic approach, thus, is not religious: we don't care if you are a Muslim or what have you.
On the contrary: whatever we can do to help will be done. " This is Ayurveda. A topic within the Vedas.
There's also the Tantra, that I've just mentioned: Tantra means nothing but "tarayati iti tantrah", that which helps you cross, cross over a karmic hurdle that you can't see. That is: all the ritualistic rules about how to perform a ritual are contained in Tantra. In Brazil, this would compare to our "macumbas", "mojos" and such things.
In the Vedic tradition, it's called Tantra. It's one path. And then you have the mantras.
What are mantras? It's useless to know the "mojo" or the problem without knowing how to chant the right mantra. It isn't chanted by the tantric or the ayurvedic doctor.
Say the doctor diagnoses one with excessive vata in the head, and, for that, there is no oil: a mantra must be chanted. What happens, then? This person will have to go after a master who knows this mantra, be granted it and chant it so as to be healed.
The whole tradition operates integratedly. Each one has a function within the whole. If you analyze a wedding, a traditional one, of course, in the light of the Vedic culture, you'll see it all there: the pujari, the one in charge of performing the ritual, the astrologer will pinpoint the date for the ritual, for it is the astrologer who knows the best date for the marriage to work, there may be a tantric priest maybe performing a ritual to unblock all karmic hindrances that the marriage will face, since this happens often.
Two people want to get married, and they go to an astrologer and state their intention, to which he replies: "No, no. Your Mars is here, her Moon is there, if you proceed, they will clash". There is even something called.
. . how is it, again.
. . something like "Mars' defect": if the lady marries the man, he dies.
Imagine that! They can see it on the chart. So, when they see that, karmically, the marriage could kill one of them, the tantric priest comes in and marries them first to a tree!
He'd marry that lady to a tree, finish that marriage, and then marry them: it's fine, it's her second marriage! It's crazy! If you delve into the Vedas, it gets really crazy.
But that's how it is. And people live it. Some believe in it, others don't, and it's fine, no one asks you to believe.
It's not about it. But, once you get to India, like me, knock on a swami's door and the guy tells you all his life, you give him some credit in believing what's in store. The entire Vedas are based in such trust: you hear something that makes sense, you trust it a bit further.
And, so, on you go. Within all the topics contained in the Vedas, there is a rather special one, namely Vedanta. How's Vedanta special?
Because, out of all those subjects, Vedanta is the only one which doesn't depend on beliefs. Why? Because, in this matter, the topic is the subject, and not the objects.
So, saying that mango shakes give you cancer, and I'm not saying they do, it's just an example! Well, fine, you may either believe it or not. Now, if I tell you that the cause of all suffering is your identification with this body is a matter that one has never really thought of.
It's out of most people's ranges of thought: no one will discuss it, since who can talk beyond the realms of body and mind as an existing thing? No one can! People will say: "I'm this body, I'm this mind", and so on, and so we establish our identities.
But what if this isn't true? What if, in this present moment, you were inside your own dream? What if the truth about this body and mind were that they are you, but you are not them?
What, then? If this is true, everything changes. If this is true, there is an opening towards an understanding that affects directly my happiness, well-being, my notion of myself, everything.
It is, thus, a knowledge, that, even if undiscoverable on one's own, is not distant from one's own. It is fully verifiable. I study and, if I feel well, this means the process is bearing fruit, and on I go.
It's different from discussing a far-fetched thing. This subject can be tested on a daily basis. When we tell someone: "If you want other people to understand you, and if you want to feel loved, it's very important that you show what you really are and feel.
This knowledge is very valuable, and, even if no one can escape this trap on one's own, even if we can only succeed with external stimulus, when someone tells us such a thing, it sounds true in our minds. Yes, because the topic is not external: whenever I am the very subject, I become an instrument to determine whether that is true. I'm not capable of fixing things on my own, but I can acknowledge the solution.
So, Vedanta is a subject that, even though I can't myself figure everything out in my mind and see all that the teacher is saying, fix myself, set myself free, since self-knowledge isn't automatic, self-achieved. It's not why it is called "self": no! Self-knowledge is knowledge about my own nature, and everything I know is necessarily different from me.
Everything I must know in the world is different from me, and I want to know who I am, but I lack the means! So, Vedanta intends to be a mean for me to know what I truly am. and, since it speaks about me, I can't be fooled.
If the subject were mango shakes, it'll always be about belief. But when one tells us that you'll feel better if you tell people what you think and feel about something than if you keep it for yourself, this is totally verifiable. I'll instantly say: "This guy is right.
" Right? That's obvious! It's much better to live a life based on internal honesty than to live it through a mask!
Logical and obvious! "But why haven't I figured it out before? " That's the point!
I ask you: "Why haven't you? " "I don't know. " I'll tell you: due to ignorance.
There's this ignorance in our minds, and, for as long as it is there, the mind can't let go of its internal prison. When an outsider comes and points at it, it bursts like a soap bubble. But, while it is in our minds, we can't even explain it.
We just go on living and acting in the ways we wouldn't like to. So, Vedanta is this external agent that enters the mind, and. .
. "pop! ", bursts old concepts.
That's why many people say, when hearing about Vedanta: "Oh, but that I already knew! I've always thought that. It had never been put to me this way, but I knew it".
Because this is our experience! It's not far-fetched, we're talking about something which is very simple and clear. If I am available to listen and place myself before this means of knowledge, it goes and, subject after subject, pops all soap bubbles within my mind.
And I'm the thermometer to say whether it makes sense. It's not a matter of belief, or something unquestionable: on the contrary! We must question until the very end, until our understanding is complete.
In this way, I hope to have given you all an overview on what the Vedas are in terms of tradition and on what Vedanta represents within the Vedas. It's almost a whole separate topic, since Ayurveda is concerned with your health, the astrologer focuses on your natal chart, the tantric is focused on your karma. Each one has its target.
What is Vedanta's target? Vedanta focuses on showing you the happy person you already are. Since this subject isn't available for the mind to solve on its own, this topic is contained within the Vedas, and, thank god, it doesn't involve belief.
Otherwise, it would be yet another subject in which, as when a math teacher tells you that 2 plus 2 equals 4, and the student replies: "Look, teacher, I didn't get it, but I believe you. " No, impossible, this would be bleak. For the knowledge to be vivid, I have to get it all.
And, with self-knowledge, it can't be different: it can't be just a set of techniques and visualizations, and then I come to the conclusion that I am. . .
what? Imagine: I create a philosophy according to which I am an energy that was drifting in another dimension, and, for some unknown reason, I descended to Earth, and my goal is to rise again. No, this isn't Vedanta.
This is a structure of beliefs. No one has ever seen such energy. If it has descended once, why won't it come back down?
We hear: "After death, you will only evolve". Why? "Well, you do good deeds and, consequently, you evolve".
One evolves through good deeds, but "unevolves" through bad ones! Right? Cause and consequence.
If one thing is helpful, its opposite is harmful. So, all such concepts that we hear involving spirituality, they are developed and studied within Vedanta so as to show that what you are isn't associated to any beliefs. It's all about the present, what you are now, when you're listening to this class, when you are studying, living your life at home.
This knowledge will always be a mystery for humanity, and a part of it, having access to Vedanta itself or under different names, since no Hindu names are required, whoever passes on this knowledge will be imparting Vedanta, once part of mankind has access and a prepared mind for it, the Vedas do nothing but pop the soap bubble called ignorance that subsists in our minds. So, this is our first subject. We'll take a short break.
If you have questions, type them in the chat box and you can also talk to us through "hangouts": the link is below the video for those of you online. Others may join, and we'll take turns. Om shantih shantih shantih.
