From individualism to individuality – Are people innately good or innately bad?
So, thank all of you for coming today, am I audible to you behind? So, I will talk about the topic of individualism and individuality. Basically, the question which we will discussing underlying it is, are people innately good or innately bad? And this question has been a search for me in my own life also. At one level, most of us would like to believe that everybody at their core is good.
May situations make them bad and that was my belief also. And since my childhood, I had a lot of faith in the power of education. People can become transformed if they are just educated enough.
If they are provided the knowledge and resources to create a better life, then they can do that. So, I am, some of you may infer, I am from India. So, I studied in one of the premier engineering colleges in India.
And while I was studying, I also had a desire, a zeal to give it back to society. So, I enroled in a social welfare organisation. And I started conducting, on behalf of that organisation, free tuition classes for children living in the nearby poverty stricken areas, in the slums over there.
And as I was teaching English, Maths, History, I became friends with those kids and I found many of them were good people. Almost all of them were good people, several of them had potential. But then, as we started talking, I found that almost all of them came from dysfunctional homes.
And one of the main causes of dysfunctionality was that the fathers in the homes were alcoholics. And there was domestic violence under the influence of alcohol. And then, after talking with the leaders of their organisation, we decided to diversify into helping people become free from alcohol.
So, I used to go to those slums and one of my friends used to go to a nearby village, a small village, and then we ourselves gave some talks about the dangers of alcohol, how to give alcohol, we called some other specialists. And after some time of effort, that small village became free from alcoholism. And that was a big success for us.
However, I used to primarily concentrate on the nearby slum and my friend would go to that village. So, one day, one night, he came back from the village and he looked shattered. I asked him, what happened? And he said that in that village, they had the local elections at a village level.
And one of the political candidates, in order to garner votes, had brought two truckloads of free alcohol for everyone. And not only the fathers, but even their children had drunk. It is a bitter disappointment, months and months of effort that we had put in.
So, that was the time I started thinking deeply that I was trying to provide some education to help others become transformed. And I felt that most of the times we feel people are unhappy or people are deprived because they don't have the resources for a good life. Education is one of the resources.
But I sense that there is something inside us which works against us, which sabotages us. And it is not just in those people. Those people I could see that it was expressed in a quite an explicit way.
But I could see it even in the promising students around me. I could see it in myself also to some extent. In those days I was infamous for being a short-tempered person.
And I used to ruin my relationships because of my anger. I would resolve, I will not become angry. And yet, something would just sabotage me.
So, at that time, my reading started becoming a little more spiritual to try to understand myself better. And that was the time I stumbled upon an ancient yoga text which I had some nominal familiarity with from my childhood. But now I read it seriously.
That was the Bhagavad Gita. And the Bhagavad Gita offered a very interesting model of the self. And that model helped me to understand myself better as well as understand other people better.
So, that I have depicted over here. Can you see from here? So, basically what this model says is our existence is three-level. There is the body, the mind and consciousness.
And this three-level reality comprises our complete being. So, the body is the physical reality that we see around us. The mind is, if we use a computer metaphor, the body is like the hardware, the mind is like the software.
And the consciousness is the user. So, with this three-level reality, if we perceive things, what happens is that lot of human behaviour starts making sense. So, the mind, if you see, it is like a software which is programmed.
Suppose, on your phone browser, you have visited a particular website repeatedly. Say, you have visited sports.com many times. And then you come for a spiritual talk like this.
And you decide, spiritual stuff seems interesting. So, let me find out more about it. And then you type on your browser, spirituality.
So, you start typing SP. And what happens? Sports.com comes up, isn't it? Now, you didn't want to go to sports.com, but that came up as autocomplete, based on your previous choices. So, similarly, our mind offers us autocomplete options, based on the kind of actions that we have done in the past.
And these shape our choices even without our conscious contemplation. So, going back to the starting question, are people innately good or innately bad? What do you think? Of course, most of us say, I am innately good. I don't know about others.
But most of us, we do experience some time or the other, malevolence. Malevolence means, somebody is just out to get us. And we may have done very little wrong or we may have done nothing wrong.
And still that person is just out to destroy us. And such experience of malevolence can shake, can traumatise. I was in America just a month ago.
And I was at a conference on spirituality and mental health. So, there, there was a specialist in PTSD, who was also speaking on the importance of spirituality. So, he said, very interestingly, that people have been fighting wars for millennia.
But we don't have much historical record of people in the past suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders. Now, one reason could be that mental health was not so much considered important and that's why it was not diagnosed. But the sheer magnitude is quite unprecedented.
Now, brutality has always been a part of, a horrible part of human existence. But not everybody who experiences brutality goes through this kind of traumatic disorder. So, what exactly happens? See, basically, we all operate with certain conceptions of life.
Now, New Zealand is earthquake prone country. Now, suppose a quake occurs in Christchurch. Now, if you have some friends or loved ones there, you'll be concerned.
But if a quake occurs here, right now, under the ground where we are, that will disturb us much more. So, similarly for us, now the ground below us, we hardly ever notice it. But when it starts shaking, we can't notice anything except the ground.
Oh, what's going to happen now? So, similarly for us, we all have a certain conception of life, a certain conception of ourselves, a certain conception of people around us. And if something happens that shakes that conception, that challenges or devastates that conception, then it's like a quake occurring right under us. Now, all of us know that people can do terrible things.
Just less than a month ago, I think, this horrible shooting happened in Christchurch. I come from India where terrorist attacks are not uncommon. Temples have been devastated several times by violent extremists.
But when we hear about terrible things happening, it shakes us. But the closer it happens to us, the more it shakes us. It's like a quake happening under us.
So, when somebody in our vicinity does something terrible, to us or around us, it just becomes very difficult to process. How can people do like that? Or sometimes, under provocation, we do something terrible. How could I do that? How could I do that? It becomes very difficult to figure that out.
I remember once when I was doing an experiment in my engineering studies. So, a friend was with me and he said, Hey, you got a wildlife on your body. I looked around and there was a small insect on my arm.
And he was about to smack it. Hey, don't touch it, I said. And I gently put my finger over there and laid it on the ground.
And a day later, I was with the same friend and he did something which made me very angry. I got so wild with him and I charged towards him with my fist raised. I said, I'll kill you.
Obviously, I didn't mean that. But, as I was charging towards him and I was looking at his face, he was amazed, he was shocked at such anger coming from me. And I remembered his previous day's face, he was bemused.
I had taken that insect and gently put it on the ground. And the contrast just struck me. What is this? Yesterday I didn't want to hurt even an ant and today I'm threatening as if I'll destroy someone.
So, it's like as if I look at myself from above. Who is this person? What is going on? We all have times when we surprise ourselves by doing some good things. And we have times when we shock ourselves by doing some terrible things.
So, broadly speaking, what I'm going through these examples is the same question. Are we innately good or are we innately bad? So, all of us would like to believe, generally speaking, that we are basically good and people are also basically good. But, sometimes people do such terrible things and we may say, oh, we can push this because of the circumstances.
They were poor or they were treated unfairly. They were discriminated against. But then we see that not everybody who goes through poverty or discrimination, they all become bad.
Through that also some people become good. So, basically, in today's world there is a lot of emphasis on social justice and a lot of faith in social engineering. Social engineering holds that if we just change the circumstances around people, provide them better educational, financial and other facilities, their goodness will manifest and they will basically become good people.
Just as there was this explosion, this brutal occurrence in Christchurch, much closer to India and Sri Lanka, something similar happened. And, what was disturbing was, for many people in Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka has experienced a lot of violence and separatist aggression. But in this case, almost all the top perpetrators were very well educated.
Some of them had degrees from Europe and America and many of them were from extremely wealthy families. So, is it that situations make people bad? Or is it that people are intrinsically bad? Now, the idea that people are intrinsically bad is very difficult to digest because we do see goodness in people also. So, for example, social engineering holds that people are intrinsically good.
Just change the social situations and they will become good. But the evidence doesn't always support that. This is not to discount the importance of social justice measures.
But to consider that everybody is intrinsically good, that doesn't stand the test of evidence. Now, there is another school of thought which says that people are basically innately bad. Now, what does this mean? That, say, we all have committed an original sin and because of that we have all become contaminated by sin.
So, sin has passed down like a genetic defect across generations and we are all innately corrupt. Unless there is some act of divine intervention and saviorship, we can't be redeemed. So, these are two broad ideas that people are innately good and people are innately bad.
Now, of course, innately bad also doesn't necessarily mean that also is not again supported by evidence that we see people are good and even people who are not spiritual, even people who are atheistic they may also be good people. So, what is going on over here? Now, how do we understand ourselves? So, I started with this model and what the yoga texts tell us is that innateness has two levels. When we talk about innateness, there is innateness at the level of the mind and there is innateness at the level of consciousness.
So, at the level of consciousness, each one of us is a part of a whole bigger than ourselves. Each one of us is a part of divinity and in that sense, consciousness has a potential for virtue. So, our feeling that everybody is innately good, that is true at the level of consciousness that there is innate goodness at the core of everyone.
But there is another level of innateness and that is at the level of the mind. And the mind has impressions within it. And depending on how people have acted in the past, the mind often has a propensity for vice.
So, propensity for vice means that given an opportunity to do something wrong and get away with that. Many people may succumb to that temptation. Now, quite often morality is just lack of opportunity.
Once there was a person who was speeding and he is driving very fast above the speed limit. Another cop pulled him over. He says, didn't you see the speed limit? He says, I saw the speed limit.
I just didn't see you. I just didn't see you. So, there is this operational idea that wrong is not wrong if you can get away with it.
So, quite often many people may end up choosing shortcuts, ethical shortcuts, if they think they can get away with it. So, within the mind, there is a propensity for vice. And the potential for virtue won't automatically manifest.
Now, going back to the example I said in social engineering, sometimes when people are provided facilities, somebody is from a poor, uneducated background and you provide them facilities for education and they build a good life for themselves. But sometimes you provide people facilities and instead of using those facilities, constructively, these people just exploit and abuse those facilities. In America, there is a word, they call it welfare queens.
You heard this word? Welfare queens are, it's a derogatory term used to refer to people who subsist only on welfare. They don't do any work and they depend on the state and they live comfortably. So, that's why they derogatory call us welfare queens.
So, there are some people who just manipulate the system. So, the innate goodness that is there within people, if the mind is above that and the mind has a propensity for vice. So, if that propensity is not very strong, then social engineering will work and give people good facilities and they will become good.
But within the mind, because there is a propensity for vice, so, many people, if there are just external social change, will not be enough. Even if better situations are provided, they will use those situations to give in to their lower side, to indulge and make things worse. So, regarding alcoholism, so, we tried to do at some small level social engineering and we provided people to live a better life, facilities to live a better life and give up alcoholism.
And they gave it up, but the propensity for vice was still there within. That had not been removed. And when an opportunity came itself in such an easy and abundant way, they just benched and they relapsed and those people went back into alcoholism.
So, basically, we need individualism and individuality, understanding ourselves. Individualism is obsession with the self. I, my needs, my desires.
So, people who are into individualism, they are I-specialists. Not I-specialists, but I-specialists. You know, completely self-centred.
And just don't care for anything else. Now, if this level of I-ness, I want to eat this, I want to watch this, I want to do this, and at this level of self-centredness, the conception of the self is primarily the body and the mind. There is physical pleasures and mental pleasures.
Mental pleasures in terms of this desire comes up, that craving comes up, that's what I want to do. And this level, individualism often degenerates into narcissism, it degenerates into self-destruction. And it can degenerate into malevolence and destruction of others also.
So, when individualism is there, the consequence of that is people become so, they just don't care for anyone or anything else. And when that happens, then the innate goodness doesn't always manifest. In fact, most of the time, what manifests is the propensity for vice.
Now, individualism is different from individuality. Individuality is our uniqueness, is our distinctive identity and our capacity for making a difference, for making a contribution. Each one of us is unique.
Now, you may say, if everyone is unique, then what is the uniqueness? No, the uniqueness is that everyone of us can contribute to the fabric of reality in our own way. And this individuality encompasses and is founded in the consciousness, in our spirituality. Consciousness is essentially spiritual.
So, to bring out our individuality means that the potential for virtue has to struggle against the propensity for vice. And when that potential for virtue manifests, that is when our true individuality emerges. Now, I have written several books and I'll talk about them at the end.
So, writing is one of my major contributions. So now, in writing, as in any artistic field, creative expression is essential. But, creative expression to be constructive cannot be just spontaneous.
So, if whatever thoughts come in my mind, I just write them down. It's good, I might be expressing myself, but after that, I have to edit myself. It's only when I edit, that whatever I have expressed will become a coherent unit of thought.
Similarly, with respect to music, if somebody wants to play a violin or any other instrument, a piano or whatever, then they cannot just go and just touch some strings or bang something, keys. They have to practise. Now, practise means what? Even if the people who can express themselves through music, before that, they have to discipline themselves.
If one has not practised music, then music won't be self-expression. If without any practise, if somebody just plays something, it won't be self-expression, it will just be noise. Or you could say, it may be expressing us, but it is not expressing the best us.
It may end up expressing the worst part of us, the disorganised part of us. So, for each one of us to blossom into the individuals that we can be, to make the contribution that we can make, what is required is the potential for virtue has to fight against the propensity for vice and then manifest upwards. And that is where spiritual practises provide us a very powerful support system.
Spiritual practises such as yoga, meditation, mantra chanting, what all these do is, they cleanse the propensity for vice. They act like an antivirus software. The contamination that is there at the level of software that becomes cleansed.
And as it becomes cleansed, then the innate goodness within us starts manifesting. And that innate goodness can be enormously powerful. Every one of us, we ourselves may not know how much good we can do.
This we are not talking in an egoistic sense. Some people say that I have many hidden talents. The problem is, they are hidden even from me.
Everybody has that feeling that in the future, I'll be able to do something worthwhile. I'll be able to manifest something special. I'll be able to do something worthwhile, if not wonderful.
And that desire to make a mark, to make a contribution that is innate to us because each of us is an individual. But when we go to the core of our being and draw out our spiritual potential, then whatever resources we have, whatever abilities we have, whatever talents we have, we can use them most effectively. I'll conclude with one last point and then I'll open the floor for discussion and question answers.
Have you seen, sometimes if you use a phone, that you have the phone fully charged, but maybe after a few hours of use, it's only 10% or 15% charge. You look at it, I didn't use this phone. So we didn't use it, but some apps are running in the background and they are using, they are using all the energy, all the power, all the charge.
So similarly for us, we may have many dreams, many aspirations, we may even have many talents, but our mind is filled with unwanted cravings, unwanted impressions. They are like apps which are on and they are sucking our energy from the background. And that's why sometimes we may wake up in the morning and if something has gone wrong, we are resentful or we are worried or we are irritated, then maybe after a few hours of doing something, not very energetic also, not very exhausting, but still we feel exhausted.
We have not done any physical activity, anything really exhausting, but we feel exhausted because our mind is exhausting us. Continuing that example of software, imagine the mind is like sometimes in a browser, some people have like 35 tabs open and in 35 tabs open, there are 7 which are hung and from one, a loud noise is coming, but you don't know which one it is and how to close it. So like that, our mind has many impressions and they can distract and dissipate our energy.
And to the extent we can cleanse the mind, we can remove the unwanted impressions, then our spirituality manifests and then our spirituality increases our ability to tap our ability. Our spirituality increases our ability to tap our ability. All of us have certain abilities, but if you are distracted, if you are resentful, even if we have abilities, we cannot use them because our energy gets dissipated elsewhere.
But when we give due time for our spiritual growth, then all those distractions, all those unwanted apps, all those viruses from the software get cleansed and then we can surprise ourselves of how much good we can do. It is not necessary that each one of us can, each one of us may not become famous or celebrities, but each one of us can lead a meaningful and fulfilling life where we bring forth the best within us and make a valuable contribution, make a difference, make a difference at least in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. Our spirituality can light our inner world and when that world is lit, then that light can permeate through us, emanate through us and light the world around us.
So all of us can bring out our goodness, core goodness and become agents of change. Now we all have some potential for vice. We all have certain things, certain desires, certain cravings, certain habits, certain things, which if we give in to them, we can make a mess of our lives, we can ruin our lives.
But still there is something within us which also longs to be good, to be better than what we are. So sometimes we may feel that I am hemmed in, I can't change myself, this is the way I am. But actually whatever situation we are in, even if we feel I am trapped, but we can always, whatever situation we are in, we can make it worse.
You can yourself, in 5 minutes you can think of 10 things which you can do, by which you can make things worse in your life. No matter how bad things are, we always have the power to make them worse. We might meet with an accident and we might be fractured in one foot and we might be bedridden.
I am powerless, I can't do anything, I am stuck on this stupid bed for the next 6 weeks. We may feel we are powerless, but while we are on that bed, with one foot fractured, we can take a hammer and fracture the other foot also. So the point I am making is that no matter how bad things are, we have the power to make them worse.
We will say whoever wants to make them worse, that's stupid, nobody wants to make them worse, but by this counterintuitive thought exercise, we can understand that we are never as powerless as we think. If we can make things worse, then we can make them better also. Maybe in a small way, in a small way I can make them better, but once we start, small, small, small steps, those can grow.
So whenever we have to change ourselves, if we start thinking, I am going to become a new person from tomorrow, it's good to desire like that, but let's start small steps. What happens? When we start with small steps, small simple steps, then we get some confidence, I can change, I can do something. So you could decide something as simple as, for the next 1 hour, let me be the best that I can be.
For the next 1 day, let me not do anything stupid that makes things worse. If I have something specific I want to improve in, let me take a small step in that direction. And these small steps, they are evolutionary.
I have written about 25 books, but last 3-4 years, I have been travelling extensively, I get almost 300 talks across 100 cities and 4 continents. So last few years, my writing time has gone down substantially. And I used to think that in future, I will take off some time from my travelling and I will write.
But somehow that time never came. So once about 5-6 months ago, I decided that every day, I will just write for 6 minutes. Now why 6 minutes? The idea came in my mind, 6 minutes is, it is not so big, that I will have to think what to write.
I can just write something for 6 minutes. And it's not so small, that I can't write anything in 6 minutes. So on average, I can write between 50-300 words in 6 minutes, depending on how well the thoughts are flowing.
But since I started doing that, what happened is, I start writing for a few minutes, and the thoughts flow, let me write more. And then some days I might be able to write 1000 words, some days I might be able to write several 1000 words. And I found that, although my writing is not going as fast as it would be, if I was writing exclusively, but just that small step of writing, a little bit every day, it started off.
And in the last 6 months, I have written thousands and thousands of words. One of my new books is almost ready. Just although I was travelling.
So basically, if we just start small, small steps, that sometimes the mind with its impression, this is just not possible. Okay, but what is possible? Let's start with that. The process of change is evolutionary.
But the product of change is revolutionary. The process of change is evolutionary. Small incremental changes, we feel it makes no difference.
If we keep doing them regularly, the product will be revolutionary. We can fulfil our potential and we can fulfil our destiny by just taking these small, small steps to manifest our individuality. So I'll summarise what I spoke.
I spoke on this topic of from individualism to individuality. And the basic question we were discussing is are people innately good or innately bad? So I started with my experience of being an anti-alcohol campaigner, anti-alcoholism campaigner in India. And how people had this disastrous relapse, which made me think that is there something within people which makes them bad? We would like to believe that people are innately good, the situations make them bad.
But sometimes even if you make the situations good, still they relapse towards the bad. So we discussed broadly and it is not just people, I saw this in myself also. So some days we surprise ourselves by how good we are and some days we shock ourselves by how bad we are.
So I talked about basically two theories of human nature. One theory holds that basically that the social engineering theory, that social determinism, that we are basically if social engineering is done and social situations are made better, our goodness will manifest. The other theory is that we are all innately contaminated by sin, like it is, as if it is a genetic defect in us and without a divine intervention, we can't manifest our goodness.
Now evidence supports and contradicts both theories. Changing the situation helps some people, but it doesn't help many people. And yes, many people do terribly wrong things, but many people even without necessarily having any divine intervention in their lives, are good people also.
So are we innately good or innately bad? I found the Bhagavad Gita's model reconciles the observation with the intuition. The intuition that we are innately good, the observation that people seem to be bad also. That innateness has two levels, the body, mind and consciousness.
Like the hardware, software and user. So at the level of consciousness, we are all parts of the infinite divine consciousness and thus we have a potential for virtue. But the level of mind, which is like a software programme with its own default settings, its own programming, there is often a strong propensity for vice.
And that's why morality is often a lack of opportunity. So if the propensity for vice is not very strong, change social situations and people's goodness will manifest. But in many cases, if the propensity for vice is strong, then by default people may not gravitate towards good.
So, spiritual growth through practises like meditation, yoga, mantra chanting, they are like the antivirus programme which cleanse the software of the mind and purge the propensity for vice and then the potential for virtue can manifest through. So, we all have certain abilities, but our ability to tap our ability can be increased by our spirituality. I talked about how because of the mind, distractions, we get dissipated.
Our energy, our time, our emotions, they get dissipated. But if we cleanse ourselves, we can bring out the good within us. And all of us, if we don't guard ourselves, the propensity for vice will manifest and no matter how bad our situation is, we can make it worse.
But if we commit ourselves to small, simple steps, then the potential for virtue can manifest and we can light our inner world and we can light the world around us. Thank you very much. So, any questions or comments? Okay, it's a good question.
So, can we use the time of sleep to refresh ourselves? Yes. So, basically, I had another diagram, but I'll explain it. The yoga texts tell that our consciousness can operate at multiple levels.
So, the current state that we are in is called wakefulness. Wakefulness is the state where consciousness comes from the mind to the body to the physical world. Now, apart from the wakeful state, is the sleep or the dream state.
That is the time when the consciousness comes to the mind, but it doesn't come to the body. That's the dream state. Now, in Sanskrit, it's called Swapna.
Beyond that, there is another state which is called deep dream or the dreamless state. That is where the consciousness is basically drawn within itself. It doesn't manifest at all, even at the level of the mind.
And beyond that, there is a state of spiritual awareness where the consciousness turns towards itself and towards spiritual reality. So, in a sense, if we consider the consciousness is here. So, by consciousness, what do we mean? Consciousness has two meanings.
One is the seer as well as the capacity for seeing. It's like if you have a light source, the light source is here. But from that light source, light is radiating outwards.
So, like that, you are looking at me and I am looking at you. So, I am a centre of awareness somewhere inside. And from that centre of awareness, my consciousness as an energy is manifesting outward.
It's coming towards you. And then, as I observe, it's coming back and I am observing and processing. So, basically, consciousness refers to the seer as well as the capacity of seeing.
Now, in our day-to-day activities, our consciousness is largely caught in the external world. And thus, it is quite alienated, quite distanced from our spiritual core, from its spiritual foundation, from the source where it is coming from. Now, comparatively speaking, in the sleep state, the consciousness is not that far away from its source.
The mind is closer to the seat of consciousness than is the body. So, in that sense, potentially, in the sleeping state, the consciousness has not gone as far away from its source as it is at the level of the body. However, the mind is very fickle.
It is very fast and flickering. And that's why, whether in the wakeful state, sometimes we get absent-minded. We are physically at one place, but say we are talking with someone and then we see their eyes glazing and we say, earth to you, earth to you.
Which planet have you gone to now? So, the mind can wander off like that. Absent-mindedness means what? Somebody gets on a horse and searches all over the town for the horse on which they are riding. So, like that, the mind itself can take us on a ride.
So, similarly, in our sleeping state, although the consciousness is much closer to the source, which can be called as the soul or the spirit, the seat of consciousness, but the mind can make it wander quite a bit. So, when the mind makes it wander, we can have all kinds of dreams and most of those dreams may not have any correlation with any higher reality. But still the potential is there that if the mind is not that restless and if our consciousness is relatively stabler, then sleep can also enhance our spirituality.
So, generally, what happens in the sleeping state is not in our control. Sometimes people say that things went superbly like a dream. We say that.
However, even in our dreams, we are not the supreme controllers. Isn't it? If you remember any of your dreams, in some of the dreams, we are just observers and we see things happening. In some of our dreams, we are participators.
But even in our dreams, it's not that everything happens according to our will itself. So, basically, largely speaking, what happens in our dreams is not in our control. But what is in our control is what we do in the wakeful stage.
So, the more we strive to spiritualise our consciousness and direct our consciousness in healthy directions in the wakeful stage, that habit carries over to the sleep state also. And therefore, even in the sleeping state, the spiritualization of consciousness can continue. Sometimes having some spiritual music near us when we are about to fall asleep or having it in the background going on, having some spiritual images around us when we are sleeping, that can also help us to spiritualise our sleep.
But because sleep is directly not in our control, we need to concentrate our energies more on what we do in the wakeful stage than what happens to us in the sleep stage. Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, please.
We liked the six minutes writing a day principle. I agree. How that probably has physical effects in the brain as well.
Yeah. Just think about consciousness. I'd like to tell you about consciousness in two parts.
Being able to actually interface and then to see to it. Yeah. The source which gives that capability.
Okay. What does it take to be able to actually… Because when I introspect into consciousness, I see it neither virtuous nor malicious or what you said as the raw sensation of experience. And it's observed.
So now I'm thinking, perhaps with your explanation, that the seat of consciousness, because there's two aspects, the seat of consciousness has a potential for virtue. Because the actual act of observation, that's like, I was thinking analogy, about a light. The light is warm because of the source of the heat.
Yeah. The light is virtuous not because the seat of consciousness. Yes.
But how does one see the seat of consciousness? Because from my experience, when I introspect, I cannot see the actual seat of consciousness. That's a good question. Very thoughtful question.
So how do we see the seat of consciousness? Because when we try to see inward, we just are aware of the raw sensation of our experiences, not the seat of consciousness. Yeah. I'll extend that metaphor of a light source.
So if say we had a white bulb, but it has a red glass around it, then although the light coming from the bulb is white, because of the glass being red, the light coming out will be red. So similarly, we could say consciousness coming from its seat is virtuous. But each of us has covering around it.
And this covering is also constantly being reformed by our actions. Not reformed in the sense of being changed for the positive. Re- and formed.
It is constantly being modified. Modified for the good or modified for the bad. Whatever.
Based on how we are acting. So what we can perceive is consciousness as it is manifest through the mind and through the body. So consciousness as it is perceived in an outer medium is what we can see.
But consciousness itself or the seat of consciousness as we said, that is not possible for us to see because what we are looking for is what we are looking with. What we are looking for is what we are looking with. And that's why the seer can't see oneself.
But that doesn't have to be always the case. Yeah, I'll explain that. Yeah, exactly.
I was going to come to the same point. Very good. So it is said self-realisation is the journey of consciousness through consciousness to consciousness.
What does that mean? It's a journey of consciousness. Say like right now we are discussing the subject. So our consciousness is going in various directions.
Maybe for some of you it's thinking when is the food going to come. I am hungry now. The consciousness is going towards food.
Some of you will be thinking this is all becoming very abstract. I am just going to tune off now. Or some of you may be very interested.
Basically our consciousness is always on a journey. So maybe I could please bring this a little, push this a little closer. Do we have something to wipe this? Thank you.
Everybody can see it from there? Yeah, sure. Just keep everything as it is. Just the individualism, individuality can drive it off.
So when I said this is moving outward, so this is also consciousness. So normally our consciousness moves in various directions. So the consciousness is always on a journey.
Now this is also consciousness. Because this is the seat of consciousness. And consciousness is the journey of consciousness through consciousness to consciousness.
What does it mean? This consciousness is going outward. It comes back inward like this. Now how does that happen? That happens when, as you said, the mind itself becomes like a mirror.
So when the mind becomes like a mirror, the consciousness moves outwards. And then from here it moves inwards. And that is when we can perceive ourselves.
So that is called self-realisation. And that requires the complete cleansing of the mind. Now the mind at that time doesn't function only as a mirror.
If you see in this picture, the mind is meant to function also as a window. That we can see the outer world. But presently the mind functions as a window or sometimes it also functions like a TV screen.
That is when we become absent-minded. We see everything except what is in front of us. But right now very little of the mind functions as a mirror.
But as it becomes cleansed of contaminations, then we can perceive ourselves better. So we can't buy this mirror. We have to purify ourselves.
And self-understanding increases as we progress towards self-realisation. So it's an incremental journey. Just like a small newborn baby, it's not aware of anything except maybe food.
Newborn babies experience the world as potential food. Whatever they get, they put it in their mouth and that's how they primarily experience things. But gradually they start having a sense of differentiated reality.
Oh, this person who holds me so gently, who offers me, this is my mother. And then gradually they start getting a sense of selfhood. Okay, if I hit this, oh I felt hurt, what happened? Oh my hand went over the interval.
So their consciousness starts demarcating their own body. So that is at a physical level. But at a mental level also, we can start understanding ourselves better.
When we go through different situations in life. You know this, this I can do very well. Now this skill, I saw the other people, they collapse under this situation.
They can't take the stress. But I can. Maybe I am good at this.
But then some other things, we start doing it and everybody seems to be enjoying. And we feel, when will this end? Now say, suppose we are introverts. And then we are with a group of extroverts and everybody is talking loudly and enjoying.
Say if you go to a party, for an extrovert, they come with a smile. And the more people they meet, their smile becomes bigger and bigger and bigger. But for an introvert, they come with a smile and the more people they meet, their smile starts becoming smaller and smaller and smaller.
Till it becomes a frown and they are screaming for oxygen, I have to leave now. So just by going through various experiences, we learn about ourselves more. So that is, we can learn about ourselves at the level of the mind.
But to learn about ourselves at the level of the soul, we need to consciously expose ourselves to spiritual experiences. So mantra chanting is one way in which we guide our consciousness to go to the spiritual level. So the sound of the mantras are spiritual sounds.
And as we let our consciousness flow along those sounds, what happens is, our consciousness becomes increasingly spiritualised. That is the time when we become completely spiritualised, that is when we will be able to perceive ourselves. Did I answer your question? Why can't consciousness perceive itself? Yeah, it can, but as long as we are in an embodied state.
We are right now, the consciousness and the body are different. But we are connected together. So to give another example, suppose somebody is watching a movie.
And they are in a theatre. And normally in a movie, two things happen. When you enter into the theatre, the lights go off and the lights go on.
The lights go off so that we are no longer so much distracted by things around us. The people around us, the happenings around us. The lights go on so that our consciousness gets fixated, we could say, on the screen and what is happening on the screen.
Now similarly, you take this to a further degree, when the soul, when the soul is the seat of consciousness, when the soul comes in contact with the body, basically the lights go off. That means the soul can't perceive itself. The consciousness gets fixated on the mind and the body.
So as long as we are fixated on the screen, it's only when the screen becomes a mirror, we will see ourselves. Of course, once the fixation with the movie screen goes off, then we can turn around and see ourselves. It's possible.
But generally, as long as the soul is in embodied state, it stays fixated with the body and the mind. And that's why we need the mind to perceive the self. Okay, I'll explain.
It's a good question. Okay, so when we say I am conscious of you, you are conscious of me. So then what is divine consciousness and is the mind separate from consciousness? How are they related? So basically you could say that consciousness, you could call this as the soul, the seat of consciousness.
And this is the root of consciousness. And this is the route of consciousness. So the root is from where it originates.
The route is along which it travels. So because of attachment or fixation, the consciousness currently travels along the route of the mind only. So in that sense, we can't just innately understand the difference between the mind and consciousness.
Because we might think there is only one thing inside us in reality. But the two are different. Now we could do a simple thought exercise.
Actually I was planning to do this exercise on the Sunday class. But maybe we can do it briefly right now. So wherever you are seated, you can just close your eyes.
And after closing your eyes, you can take three deep breaths. Now as you feel yourself being relaxed by the deep breathing, with your eyes closed, look ahead in front of you. Because your eyes are closed, you can't see whatever is physically in front of you.
But still there is some kind of screen inside you on which you might see this room, you might see your car, you might see your phone, you might see a loud one. Or you might see a series of things coming and going. Or you might see just a dull haze of colours.
Whatever it is that you see, you see that on a screen inside you. Now while you are observing that inner screen, try to take a step back and catch sight of who is it that is observing that screen. I repeat that while looking at the inner screen, try to look at the inner seer.
Now if you step back, what you will notice is that the seer steps back with you. So you, the seer, are the soul. And the screen on which you see various things is the mind.
You can take one deep breath and you can open your eyes. So basically, thank you. So there is the outer scene which you are seeing right now.
There is the inner screen which is the mind and there is the inner seer. So for us, most of the times, the inner screen and the inner seer gets conflated. And that's how we get carried away by our emotions.
Some thoughts pop up inside us and we get carried away by them. But by self-observation, by meditation, by introspection, we can understand that there is the screen and something is popping up on it. And I have a choice whether to focus on it or not.
In fact, we have this understanding even in our common parlance. We consider, say, the word thought. We use it in two distinct senses.
One is, I just got a thought. And the second is, I have given this a lot of thought. I say, I just got a thought, that means, you could say, on the inner screen, something has popped up.
It's like, say, if you are working on a computer and some notification pops up. And I have given this a lot of thought. That means, I have systematically contemplated it, analysed it.
I have paid focused quality attention to this. So, in these two senses of the word thought, what we are doing is, we are recognising thought as an event and thought as an action. So, where does this indicate the two levels? The inner screen and the inner seer.
It points to that. So, now when you talk about divine consciousness, what it means is that, it can mean two things. First is that, because the soul is a part of the divine.
So, in that sense, consciousness in its subject, in its source, in its seat is divine. But, in its object, in what we are focussing on, consciousness may not be divine. We might be focussing on sensual things, on unethical things, on selfish things.
So, and when the consciousness becomes divine, that means that the default disposition of our consciousness becomes towards divinity, towards ennobling things, towards uplifting things. Now, currently, what is the default disposition of our consciousness? One way to find that out is to think, what do we think of when we have nothing to do? Where does our consciousness gravitate towards? For some of us, it might gravitate towards money, some of us it might gravitate towards sensuality, sports, power, position, whatever it is. So, right now the object of our consciousness may not be divine, but by spiritual purification, the consciousness will gravitate towards the divine object.
And that's why we can say the consciousness at that time has become divine. You had a question? Yes, yes, please. Am I right in saying, I suspect, if I am wrong, that you would be an advocate of Vipassana meditation incorporated, to incorporate Vipassana meditation with Japa? So, can Vipassana meditation be incorporated with Japa? Let's try to understand these two in terms of this model.
Basically, Vipassana is also a big tradition, but to keep broad outlines, in Vipassana and meditation like that, we basically try to understand that we are different from our mind. We become an observer of our thoughts, of our emotions, of our desires. And that itself can give us a certain amount of power, because otherwise those thoughts and desires sweep across us, and they make us irritated, anxious, so many things.
So, that's Vipassana. Now, to perceive ourselves as consciousness different from the mind and the body, that is certainly a very significant step on the spiritual journey. Simultaneously, the consciousness needs a positive object for focussing on.
Just being an observer of things, that's good, but we can't, there is a part of us which is observer, but there is also a part of us which is the initiator, the actor, the doer. And we can't detach ourselves entirely from that or separate ourselves from that. So, what Bhakti Yoga does is that, it gives us a positive object for observation and a positive purpose for action.
Bhakti Yoga tells us that, Bhakti wisdom tells us that we are parts of the divine. And we can live the most fulfilling life if we live in harmony with the divine. So, mantra chanting is one way of linking our consciousness with the divine.
So, we could say it's a two-part process. So, suppose if this were like a pointed sharp knife to which my hand is bound by ropes, then I am holding it, but my very holding it is causing me pain. That's how some addictive habits are for us.
Addictive habits are basically, we hold on to the things that hurt us. But, now if you could just let go of this, you get a lot of relief from the pain. Now, it's one thing to let go of it.
Now, suppose, say there is, is there some other pen over here? So, it's a one-step process would be I focus on letting go of it. Now, after letting go of it, what do I do after that? I need to hold on to something else. It's like, give another example is, say if somebody is sick and is in pain, maybe they have got arthritis or whatever, and any motion of the body causes them pain.
Any motion, at that time they will desire, I just want to stop moving. If I can just stop moving, I will get relief. Now, it's true that if they can stop moving, they will get relief from pain.
But, after they get relief from pain, what next? When pain is there, we immediately want relief from it, but after that we want to do something. So, what is happening is, they are misdiagnosing the cause of their pain. The cause of the pain is not movement.
The cause of pain is the ailment. The disease that is there in the body that is causing pain. So, in Vipassana and forms of meditation like that, what we think is that the consciousness, because it is directed towards the world and the emotions that are induced by the world, because of that the consciousness is agitated.
And it's true. Most of us can think of so many things in our life, just think about them and we get agitated. About our job, about our talents, about our relationships, about our own health, our looks.
So many things can agitate us. It's very rare for people to have an object of consciousness that is satisfying. I think about this and I feel peaceful, I feel joyful.
We don't have any objects like that. So, the idea is, we just want to detach ourselves from all these objects. Hold on, this causes me pain.
But we also need a positive object of consciousness. So, Bhakti Yoga provides us that. Now, during the specific activity of mantra chanting, it may be helpful when the mind wanders too much.
If we try to focus the mind on the mantra, sometimes because the inner screen is just flickering so much, and we are trying to bring the mantra on that inner screen, but it may not immediately work. So, what we could do is, this is the screen, I am different from this screen. And just take some deep breaths, calm yourself down, understand the difference.
And then, all the flickering that is there on the screen, as it decreases, then get the mantra over there. So, in that sense, if it's seen as an aid, it can help. But it's not that it's necessary.
The primary focus is that we need a positive, fulfilling object of consciousness. Not just detaching consciousness from all objects. Thank you.
Any one last question? Yes, please. How would suffering and sports lead to that? Can you explain what you mean? Okay, good. Yeah, good question.
Is it say extreme sports or severe abstinence, can it lead to some kind of spiritual awakening? Yes and no. What I mean by that is, that the body imposes certain limitations on us. And pushing against those limitations can help us to get a sense, you know, I want to push against this, but I can't.
So, there are two things, there is the body and there is me. So, in extreme sports, say for example, somebody jumps from a helicopter, that's for the body, it's devastatingly threatening. If it's falling, crashing towards the earth, the body will be destroyed.
But as we go through it, we may feel thrilled by it. That thrill is not just ignorance. It's the experience of a state which is free from the limitations of the body.
That can be an exhilarating experience. But it's artificial, unless we have a parachute which opens up. That exhilarating experience can be our last experience.
Same way, with respect to pushing to the extremes of the body through abstinence. Now, if it is done in a regulated way, for example, sometimes fasting. The craving for food comes again and again and again, and we fast, I'm going to fast, I'm going to fast.
Then gradually, either that craving will overwhelm us and we will give in or we will recognise. You know that after sometime the craving goes away. Normally when I don't take food, I starve, but now I'm not taking food, but I'm still feeling energetic.
What is happening? Is there something beyond the body? So, we could get some pointers towards our spiritual awareness like that. But that is not sustainable. That can be, see, distress, whether voluntarily chosen or forcibly imposed, can become a stimulator of spiritual enquiry.
But it's not a sustainer. Going back to the earlier metaphor of, say, we are fixated on a theatre screen. Now, if some comedy or some romantic movie, some entertaining stuff is going on over there, we might get engrossed in it.
But if suddenly some unbearably horrifying scene starts unfolding on the screen, I don't want to look at this. Is there something else I can look at? I want to look somewhere else. So, that can stimulate.
Let me look somewhere else. Maybe is there something else? But unless we have a process by which we can see something else, what will happen? Maybe there is something else, but when that horror screen changes, horrible screen changes to something else, we again get fixated on it. In the Indian tradition, there is something called as renunciation in the crematorium.
That means you see somebody dying. Life is temporary. I should seek something spiritual.
You think like that, but that renunciation lasts as long as you are in the crematorium. Once you come out of there, life is wonderful. So, distress can be a stimulator.
But we need a sustainable process. And that's why there are time-honoured spiritual practises like meditation, like prayer, like mantra chanting. These systematically direct our consciousness.
So, the start can definitely happen because of some extreme experience. But there has to be something to sustain it. And that's regular spiritual practise.