Subodha Vedanta Class Notes – March 17, 2024

We commence all our courses, our workshops with a prarthana in order to realize our potential. Maa Vidhvishavahai – May we understand who we are! By doing so, peace radiates from the inside out – Shanti, Shanti, Shantih!

Back in the day, when one studied in an Ashram, students and teachers shifted from Ashram to Ashram. Now let us try to envision that our courses are like moving from Ashram to Ashram. Our courses are the most intense offering in our community. They are weekly, they are Map-based, the expectations of the students are high in terms of self-development. However, back in the day, as students and teachers went from Ashram to Ashram, in Bharat, there was the monsoon. In the four-month period, when it was too rainy to move, they stayed in the jungle, in an Ashram. This period is called the Chaaturmaasya in Sanskrtam. It is an immersive experience to be more introspective. For us, that is a Retreat, which is a more immersive experience than the weekly classes. 

What we are doing in our courses is Veda-Anta-Advaita. Veda means to know. Know what? Anta, what’s inside of life and me. And those who follow through with their self development to Self Realization, what are they going to find? Advaita. They are going to find Oneness. Whoever they are, wherever they are, everyone will find the same Oneness. Naturally, a course on Vedanta Advaita will trigger, will express as Viraga or detachment. This Retreat is on “Making sense of detachment” and when one makes sense of attachment, one starts to live by detachment – from raaga to viraaga. Through our courses and Retreats, we are studying the documented experiences of those who have felt this Oneness, this detachment. For some, it is Subodha Vedanta, and for others, it is Bhagavad Gita. In Bhagavad Gita proper, we are using from Chapter 2, the Sthitaprajna Lakshanas. Chapter 2 is the syllabus of Bhagavad Gita and in this chapter, there are signs of those who have remembered how to be Happy, how to be Joyous. Here is a review and KMF – Keep moving forward!

Chapter 2, Verse 55:

Prajahaati yada kaamaan sarvaanpartha manogataan

Aatmanyevaatmanaa tushthah sthitaprajnastadochyate

The first and foremost sign of the one who is feeling Oneness and detachment is contentment. If we want to know whether we are evolving or not, the first sign would be cheerfulness, which is the means, but the ends is contentment. Some practical pointers on this verse are – 

• To become content, we must shift our power from context to content. We give less authority to our outer world and more to our inner world. 
• We should be grateful for what we need. Most of us have 99% of our needs met, needs related to space, water, retirement fund and so on. If we are grateful for this, contentment will arise.
• We should guard what we want. And there are lots of things we want, so we should guard ourselves from getting trapped in our wants. If we use parameters for the time we spend on our wants, we will begin to shift from context to content. 

Chapter 2, Verse 56

Dukheshvanudvignamanaah sukheshu vigatasprhah

Veetaraagabhayakrodhah sthitadheermuniruchyate

When I am in a bad space, my mind is balanced. When I am in a good space, my mind is again balanced. So the second quality of someone who is feeling Oneness, who is feeling detached is they are balanced. 

Bad spaces and good spaces come and go. So they are relative. If we think of all the relationships in our life, they have come into our life, which means they are going to go from our life. That which is relative, we can interdepend on, but we should be careful not to depend on. Interdepend means we are functioning together, but depending means when we are expecting from the functional that which is fundamental. That is a dysfunction. So here Shri Krshna is sharing – be balanced with that which comes and goes. We will not hold on to it so tightly then. 

2nd line – veeta – to renounce , raaga – attachment, bhaya – fear, krodha – anger. The 3 As are – we tend to be attached, which causes us to be afraid, which causes us to be angry. How to be without this? – By practicing detachment, we begin to detach from fear. After being attached, we become afraid. So how do we know we are becoming more detached? We are becoming more courageous as we have less fear. Fear manifests as stress, anxiety, worry, nervousness. Pujya Swami Tejomayanandaji shared a leveling thought on this verse- We don’t fear death. We fear detachment. Imagine if we all died together, we would be OK with death. But we are not OK with death because we know we are not going to be together! 

Sthitadheehi – Those whose inner worlds are strong, Uchyate – they are described as Munis, as those we want to be. 

In this verse, four more qualities have been shared – be balanced, to be independent, to be fearless, to be accepting (opposite of anger). 

Three more practical pointers from this verse on practicing detachment, then fear and anger will go away – 

• When it comes to articles, like our clothes, jewelry, phones, we should practice minimalism. The less articles we have, the less there is to hold on to.  
• When it comes to circumstances, a way to develop viraaga is to choose discomfort. The more comfortable a circumstance is, the more we want to be in that circumstance, but if we intentionally choose discomfort, then we do not want to be in that circumstance. 
• When it comes to beings, we should feel we are serving them. Seva is about giving. If we have nothing to gain, then we have nothing to lose. Then we become less afraid, become less angry. 

Can we do this? Will we do this? 

Chapter 2, Verse 57:

Yah sarvatraanabhisnehah tattatprapya shubhashubham

Naabhinandati na dveshti tasya prajna pratishthita

Yah – the one who – the implication being the one who is following through with these different markers, these lakshanas

Sarvatra – everywhere

Anabhisneha – Sneha is another word for attachment, but specifically attachment to the lower (Prema is Love for the Higher)

1st Quarter – the one who in all circumstances is without attachment

2nd Quarter – As they are engaging everywhere

Tattatpraapya – they touch this, they get that, they feel that. 

Shubhashubham – some of it is shubha, some of it is ashubha. Some of it is what they want and they like, and some of it is what they don’t want and what they don’t like. 

Putting the dots together – It doesn’t matter what circumstance one is in, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant, while one is in that circumstance, one is practicing detachment which means we do not escape. When we experience that which is unpleasant, we try to escape. When we experience that which is pleasant, we escape towards it, which means we are escaping from that which is comfortable or normal. 

Some review here before we proceed – Prince Arjuna feels that being happy is impossible. Leave alone happy, he feels not being afraid is impossible. However, in Verse 54, he begins to shed this impossibility, and he asks Bhagavan Krshna – Tell me, how does the Happy person think? How does the Happy person speak? How does the Happy person sit? And how does the Happy person walk? Looking at the genesis of the questions – How does the Happy person be in a super controlled environment, which is their own mind, to a super uncontrolled environment, which is wherever they are walking? And Bhagavan Krshna is sharing that they are the same in the controlled environment and in the uncontrolled environment, which is everywhere. They are the same everywhere. 

How can we bring this line to life? By feeling one noun in every verb. That one noun can be Divinity, Awareness, Presence, Bhagavan. We feel Bhagavan in every verb, in every action that we do. That is how these signs of one who has felt Oneness and detachment will be ours. The complication with us is that we feel different nouns in different verbs. It is overwhelming. Feeling one noun in every verb is also overwhelming, but in an awesome way. Expressing this in the language of Meaningful Mornings – One insight should flow through our sight. We see lots of differences, but the one insight that these differences are only in names, forms and qualities, but the Center, the Locus, the Dhama, is not different from us. Continuing –

Na abhinandati na dveshti – abhinandati – likes, dveshti – dislikes. As they are going about living, they are without likes and dislikes, and that’s why

Tasya prajna – their wisdom, their knowing, pratishthita – it is established

The way we can ensure that our learning from the Retreat doesn’t get loosened, is to tie it more tightly. That which is important to us, we tie it more tightly, and that which isn’t, we tie it loosely. 

Some practical points on how to live Verse 57 –

• Dislikes and likes are indicative that we are not living in God’s world. Who lives in God’s world? God! If we really feel that the Creator has created this world, we would also feel that the Creator is in creation. Can we dislike God? No, we don’t. So since we don’t dislike God, that should also evolve to not liking God, as liking indicates specificity. We liking one God indicates us disliking another God. Children may do that, but not us adults. Beyond likes and dislikes is Prema, Love – to feel that we are living in God’s world
• From bigger picture to smaller picture – We must try and feel that what we are doing is our Dharma or responsibility. If it is our Dharma or responsibility, our emotions towards it are not applicable. With Dharma, likes and dislikes go away. They are not applicable.
• What is the way to start to practice to have less likes and dislikes? With food, to try to treat food like medicine. If we feel food is medicine, we wouldn’t take too much of it, nor too little of it. We would take it at the right time, and we wouldn’t need it to be tasty. This is training for rightness that is Dharma, which is training for This is all Bhagavan. 

The theme of this Retreat is Making sense of detachment. The slogan for this Retreat is Slow down. The mascot or visualization for this Retreat is a Turtle or Tortoise. And now the next verse –

Chapter 2, Verse 58

Yadaa samharate chaayam koormongaaneeva sarvashah

Indryaanindryaarthebhyah tasya prajnaa pratishthitaa

Yadaa means we should automatically go to our checklist. Tadaa is coming.

Samharate – hara means to take, so Hari means the One who takes. When we chant Hari Om, we are asking Bhagavan Hari to take away forgetfulness, and then what will remain is Om. Samharate – the One who is able to take away completely. 

Iva – like, Koorma – a tortoise or a turtle, angaani – the limbs – the way a turtle is able to take back its limbs completely (Are we able to do so? – If one says, stop being distracted. Can we? Give up mustard. Can we?)

Indryaani – our senses, Indryaarthebhyah – the wealth of the senses which means the sense objects – If we are able to take back our senses from the sense objects, like a turtle is able to take back its limbs, that means we have remembered how to be Happy.

Tasya prajna pratishthitaa – Our remembrance or wisdom is strong.

Final reflections or points – 

• Artha means wealth, what we get. The person who feels that sense objects are their wealth or what they can get, that is a sign of how shallow they are, how little they feel they are. Someone who lives for sense objects, only feels they are the body. They don’t even feel they are the mind or the intellect. They feel they are small, so they live in a small way. Vivekji’s thought flow for us – How dare we live like that? For all of us, who have been exposed to the possibility of the Highest, us being the deepest, how dare we live in a sensuous way? That is an insult to our Trust Triangle. 

• Everyone of us does need downtime. As we engage in downtime, whether it is going to a movie, to a restaurant, eating ice cream, while we are doing it, we must treat it like a movie, like a play, like a game. We should have no expectation of it, not be confused in any way that the movie is going to make us Happy. Then it is so easy to give one’s senses and take them back. It’s only a game! We should neither have higher expectations, nor lower expectations. 

• As our sense organs are engaged with sense objects, we should keep a tortoise or a turtle near us. In our culture, we put a turtle or tortoise right outside of our home (or inside the home in colder places), to remind us to let go of the secular and hold on to the sacred, to stop going outside, and start coming inside. In Sandeepany, as soon as we get to the top of the stairs to go to Bhagavan Shiva’s mandir, there is a turtle facing Bhagavan Nandi, who is facing Bhagvan Shiva. The first thing we do is touch that turtle. We are using our sense organ to touch a sense object, but it is a reminder now, for us to pull all of our senses from outside of that mandir to what is going to happen inside that mandir. Then we go and meet Bhagavan Nandi. The culture is that we privately whisper in his ear “Can we meet Bhagavan Shiva?” Generalizing that, Bhagavan Nandi is symbolic of Dharma. If we have followed our Dharma, it will be very natural to us that we are going to whisper to Bhagavan Nandi that we really want to be with Bhagavan Shiva. Next, we are supposed to ride Bhagavan Nandi to Bhagavan Shiva. If we follow our Dharma or our responsibilities, we will reach Bhagavan Shiva or Brahma or Infinity or our Nature. That’s how awesome the traditional design of our mandirs are. 

One more point – Between Bhagavan Nandi and Bhagavan Shiva, we are never allowed to cross that. That’s why in the Sandeepany mandir, there is a pool of water there, not allowing us to cross that. The idea is that we should never cross Dharma, which means no complaining, no blaming, no annotating. In many mandirs, one does not follow this tradition. But now that we know these traditions, we should walk around and be with Bhagavan Shiva or Brahma. So we must keep a turtle near us. 

Making sense of detachment or attachment, both make sense. If we make sense of it, we will follow it. We went through Verses 55-58 of Chapter 2 of the Bhagavad Gita, Verse 58 ending with our Retreat mascot, which is a turtle. This turtle is a reminder to slow down. Slowing down is a reminder to make sense of attachment – it doesn’t make sense. To make sense of detachment – it makes sense! 

Discussion: Why do we forget that which makes sense? We can see the clarity right now, but how come it stops making sense? Next part – How can we keep making sense of this knowledge?

Vivekji shared – If we imagine someone who has to run a lot, they will eventually become out of breath, and when one is out of breath, they can’t keep playing the game. Those who live in a busy way are like those who are out of breath. They just cannot be intentional. They just cannot remember that which is not in front of them. So the whole notion of turtle, slow down, make sense of attachment and detachment. We are busy. 

Vivekji’s thoughts –  In a harsh way, we are shallow or we very much live by preya. Shallow translates into being small hearted in the short term. Satvik Daatavyam – Largehearted in the long term, but we tend to be the opposite. This is what we identify with and that’s why unlearning this is very hard. Vivekji has observed that seekers who are under 40 tend to come to these courses and Retreats to learn, but those who are older come to unlearn which is more challenging than learning.  

RAW from last week – Read Chapter 5 of Subodha Vedanta which is Proof of God. Vivekji feels that when we read it everyday, Proof of God makes sense to us, that God IS. Everything else has come from God IS. 

RAW: Re-establish our turtle. Fix it, clean it, reorient it or set it up if we don’t have one.