Gita key verse course 20 What is meditation – What are spiritual experiences – Are they just hallucinations – Gita 06.22

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors. Are there any questions? So when one attains the stage of spiritual absorption, that stage, one feels there is nothing more to be gained. Yes, means having been situated thus. Even the greatest of distress will not disturb one. In one sense, if we look at our life, this is what we all long for, isn’t it? We long for some achievement by which that will bring contentment that can free us from the craving for more and more and more. And we also seek to either get rid of misery or at least transcend misery by which we say, for example, we buy insurance by which if distress comes, then at least I won’t be that disturbed by it because I have some financial security. So ultimately, these two things, freedom from craving and freedom from distress. This is what we all long for. And this ultimate achievement of life, Krishna says, is not a state of relationships externally, not a state of economic development, not a state of any external transformation. It is a state of consciousness. The ultimate achievement is a state of spiritual absorption that frees us from craving and lamenting or fear, fear of distress. So now, how does one get there? That’s what we’ll be discussing in today’s session. Yeah. Next slide, please. So these are three parts I’ll discuss. What is let’s begin with the first part. What is meditation? So meditation, essentially, now some of this will be a quick recap of what I have discussed earlier. Next slide, please. Meditation essentially means to focus our mind on the unchanging instead of the changing. We understand that there are the matter and material things externally are changing. The unchanging, ultimately, the spiritual. But in this process of meditation, we may start initially with objects of meditation that can be external and tangible. Next slide. Because it is difficult for us to focus on immediately on some sublime, spiritual, non-tangible objects. So the Gita gives us certain objects, NASA, NASA, the tip of the nose or the space between the eyebrows. Now, other others in other traditions may use some other objects, a flame of a candle. They may use just a spot on the wall and focus on it. They might use some image, a natural image or some divine image to focus. So the idea over here is not so much what we are focussing on, but on the fact that we are focussing. Meditation has two of two aspects to it. It is the object of meditation and it is the object of meditation, object of contemplate of thought and the mode of thinking. So initially focus on the mode of thinking and just try to concentrate the mind and then eventually go ahead. The objects start becoming internal. We start turning inward and slowly start focussing on inner reality and eventually this culminates in the ultimate spiritual reality. So at this stage in the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna is talking in 620 to 23, he doesn’t talk about Krishna. We are, we are speaking about the Bhagavad Gita both sequentially and holistically. So sequentially Krishna is talking about the yogis who seek inward. They initially start perceiving some spiritual reality within themselves, something indestructible, something sacred, something divine. And in 647 toward the end of this section, Krishna will talk about how he is the culmination of yogic practise. He’s the object of meditation, the topmost yogis. So this is the progression in meditation from outward objects to inner objects and ultimately to the innermost highest reality in Krishna. Yes, next slide. So now to understand a little bit about the mechanics of meditation, that means how does meditation work? Many of you may remember we discussed this theme of how the mind is in the software, the soul is like the user and the body is the hardware. Now another similar image we had discussed when we talk about the mind is that the, the mind is like the inner screen. The soul is the outer scene and we are the inner seals and the inner screen. The mind can, if it is to function properly, it is meant to be a window to the outer world, but sometimes it can become a movie screen and start showing us things which distract and divert us. So now in the process of meditation, the mind starts playing a third role, not in the process, but more in the perfection of meditation. As you start evolving spiritually, then the same inner screen, which is the mind inside us, can we go ahead? What happens to this inner screen? So when the meditation culminates, that is the state of what is called a Samadhi. So at this stage, the inner, the mind changes from a screen, from a window to a mirror. Mirror means it starts showing us our inner reality. At this stage, we start perceiving ourselves inside ourselves. That’s how each of us moves forward in our spiritual journey. So what is described over here is that there are various stages in the process of Samadhi, the process of attaining Samadhi. And this is again a very technical subject, which I won’t go into much detail. But the stages, the Yoga Sutras describe, and the Bhagavad Gita indirectly mentions it, is Mudha. Mudha is when the mind is deluded, it’s completely out of control. Going back to the inner screen metaphor, what is going on, it is just we’re passively watching, we’re not even aware of what is going on where on the inner screen. That is the Mudha stage. From that, Mudha means deluded. Kshita means agitated. So now the difference is in the deluded state, one is not agitated because one is not even aware that there is a problem. One is just the mind is wandering here, there, everywhere, and one is going along with it. With Kshita, the mind is going here, what about this, what about that, what about that, what about that. The agitated state. With Kshita is the distracted state. That means we are trying to concentrate, but the mind is going here and there, that’s with Kshita. And then there’s Ekagrata, Ekagrata means concentrated. So that is the stage where a student who wants to study in a noisy place will be with Kshita, but a student who knows my exam is just three hours away will be Ekagrata, concentrated. And then Nirodha. Nirodha is where the mind is silenced. So this series of verses 620 to 623, which we are discussing right now, they begin with yatra uparamate chittam niruddham yoga sevaya. So niruddham, the same word Nirodha comes over there in the Bhagavad Gita 620. Yoga sevaya, by the steady practise of yoga, one comes to the state of Nirodha. So now imagine if it is like a TV screen. Now on that TV screen, on that monitor, either if we talked earlier about how the mind is like a monitor, which brings in inputs from the various senses and presents them. So, and sometimes it becomes like a movie screen. Now imagine that that monitor just goes off. The monitor is turned off. That means there is nothing being displayed on that. But now, depending on the kind of glass that the monitor is made of, the monitor itself can be used as a mirror. If you don’t have a mirror around, you might use our phone, turn off the phone or turn off the screen of our laptop and look at it as a mirror. So yatra uparamate chittam, when the mind becomes silenced, niruddham yoga sevaya, then yatra chaiva aatmana aatmanam, aatmana aatmanam. The one aatma refers to the mind, the other aatma refers to the soul. So with the mind, the soul is seen. And at that time, when we perceive ourselves, I am spiritual, I am indestructible, it becomes joyful. So this is what spiritual experiences come to us when we start, when we practise yoga and move toward perfection. So it is self perception. The mind turns as a mirror and shows us who we are. If you remember in a exercise we did in the mindfulness session, we discussed about how we close our eyes and look at the inner screen and then try to catch sight of the inner seal. But it’s very difficult to catch sight of the inner seal. However, when the mind turns into a mirror, then that inner seal comes in full view, clear view. Next slide, please. So now, so this is, this is the stage of perfection of meditation. And this is the stage where authentic spiritual experiences start coming. Let’s try to understand what spiritual experiences are. Go ahead. Go ahead. This is what I explained already. Yeah. So the inner screen becomes a mirror. This is next 20. Go ahead. So now the ultimate spiritual experience is not just the experience of ourselves, but in the experience of Krishna as a nation. Why is that? Because inside us, when the mind becomes like a mirror, it shows us not just the soul, it also shows the whole of whom the soul is a part. That whole is Krishna. And as spiritual experiences culminate in the experience of Krishna and the perception of Krishna in not just perception of Krishna, but in complete captivation with Krishna, complete absorption in Krishna. Yes, go ahead. Now, apart from the experience of Krishna, there can be other spiritual experiences also. Sometimes in the state of spiritual experience, one experiences peace, serenity, security, as if everything is, I am following. How does one experience? So different people across different traditions have different spiritual experiences. And there are some specifics which may vary, but there are some fundamentals which are similar. And one fundamental that is similar is this, that one senses oneself to be an observer, different from the body and understand that, okay, this body, this world, it’s all destructible. I am separate from it. So a sublime sense of serenity comes into that person. That’s, that’s one kind of spiritual experience. Another kind of spiritual experience people have is when they experience oneness, a sense of cosmic oneness, understand that the spiritual substrate that makes me that, that actually makes all of existence. And as I am in one sense, one with everything, this sense of oneness, we will explore in detail in a future session, but at this stage, we just understand that the sense of oneness is also a spiritual experience. So based on the focus of that inner perception, either we see ourselves, I am seeing, or we see ourselves, we look around and we perceive that actually we all, everything is in one sense one. And then of course, there is the experience of Krishna. So now all these are spiritual experiences and they can be powerful and transformative because we normally have sensory experiences that we watch something, we eat something, we touch something and sensory experiences, consumer consciousness. Now, of course, sometimes when we sleep in our dreams, we have certain experiences. Those are more mental, but spiritual experiences are so rare and they can give us a great conviction that even when we hear someone has a spiritual experiences, they can give us conviction that there is a reality beyond, beyond our sensory reality that normally consumes our consciousness. And when we are, since we have such spiritual experiences, they can be profoundly transformative. So this is, if we consider there is material level of consciousness, if you consider two level building is a ground level or a level one and level two. So our consciousness rises from level one to level two gradually. And as it rises upward, then we start experiencing these higher realities. So as we rise upward, the experiences become more and more. If somebody gets a spiritual experience, is there something more? I’ve attained perfection. No, actually more important than occasional spiritual experiences is lasting spiritual consciousness. It’s sometimes you might just experience something and it’s wonderful to experience it, but we need to rise to the higher level of consciousness. Go another metaphor, which we have used for the spiritual journey is mountain climbing. We discussed this in, especially in four 11, how there are different parts to climb up the mountain. So now when we are climbing up a particular part, if the greenery cover is not too much, if the rocks are not coming in the way, you might get a beautiful glimpse of the peak, or you might get a beautiful glimpse of the territory around us. And then this is so beautiful. So that glimpse of the, of the summit of the ultimate reality, that can be a spiritual experience. However, that is not enough. Yes, we have not still reached the top of the mountain. So we need to keep going. So lasting spiritual consciousness comes when we reach the top of the mountain and various practises, various practises of the process of yoga, they are all pathways to go up to the top of the mountain. So when we ascend to the top, that is when actually the, we have not just the spiritual experience, but we have a spiritual state of consciousness, a spiritual experience may come and go, but once a spiritual state of consciousness attained, that is steady. And that is what we need to progress towards. Next slide. So now we understood spiritual experiences. Now, lots of people have lots of experiences, which they feel are spiritual, and some people are completely dismissive about this. Oh, they’re just hallucinations. So our spiritual experiences, hallucinations, or can some spiritual experiences be hallucinations? When we, if we experienced something, how do we know whether it is a hallucination or it’s a spiritual experience? Let’s look at all these questions. Go ahead. So now let’s first begin with the difference, but understanding the difference between illusion and hallucination. So illusion is basically a mistaken perception. Suppose we are walking through a somewhat dark path, forest path, and suddenly we see something long and twisted. And is that a snake is going to bite me? It might just be a rope lying over there. So when we mistake one thing to be another thing, that is illusion. That is hallucination is when there is nothing. And we perceive something over there. So it’s not just a mistaken, it’s a false perception, perceiving something which is not there at all. So if we are going along the road and suddenly feel there’s a snake, but actually there’s nothing over there, neither a rope nor a snake. So those who claim that spiritual experiences are hallucinations, what they often hold that there is no such thing as a spiritual reality. There is consciousness simply produced by the brain. And when the body is destroyed, the brain is destroyed, consciousness ends with it. And if something is imagined, if somebody explains something, that’s just a hallucination. So it’s not just a mistaken perception. It is completely a false perception. So this is one conception. Now, not everything that everyone experiences is a spiritual experience, even when it’s a non-sensory experience, not a nonsense, nonsense, but non-sensory. So now, so let’s look at this further. Go ahead. Next slide. So spiritual experiences are different from mental experiences. Now, we discussed about how there are three levels of reality, body, mind, and soul. And most of the times we are caught up in sensory experiences. And even when we dream, we usually have some projections or some, some transformation of sensory experiences. So we might see a beautiful, somebody beautiful in our real life, and then we may dream about them in our dreams. So that’s a sensory experience at the level of the mind, in the mind we experienced. But there are certain other experiences you might have at the level. So these are mental experiences means they are not physical. And because they’re not physical, and quite often people think that anything which is non-physical is spiritual, but this is a significant difference in the understanding of the nature of reality and beyond the physical, whatever is existing is not spiritual. There is a mental level of reality and beyond that is a spiritual level. So at the level of the mind, it is separate from the body, but it is not at the level of the spirit. Now, what experiences would be categorised as mental experiences? Please go ahead. So in the yoga tradition, there are certain siddhis, they’re called as yogic siddhis. So anima, laghima, prapti, these are siddhis. So for example, prapti means, so some people, they can just reach out to distant objects and get those objects. So there is somebody might be sitting in India and they might get a date from Afghanistan. Now, this is ridiculous. How is it possible? Well, the mind exists at another level of reality, different from the body. And at that level of reality, things can be accessed faster. So there are higher dimensions to reality. Just like if you consider an ordinary building, if you want to go from, say, one end of the ceiling to the opposite side, bottom of the ceiling. Now, if it’s an insect that is moving, the insect will have to move across the ceiling, then move across the wall and then come down. Sorry, if it’s an ant or something like that, then it will have to move like that. But if it’s an insect that can fly, an insect can just fly along the diagonal from, say, from the top of one end of the building to the top of one end of the room to the bottom of the other end of the room. So when it goes diagonally, it is accessing an additional dimension. It can go much faster. But if some creature has to go along the wall, it goes lower. So when higher dimensions are accessed, certain things don’t seem to be possible. At lower dimensions, they become possible. But these higher dimensions are not spiritual. They are mental. And in fact, in the Yoga Sutra, it is said that these Siddhis, these mystic powers are temptations and distractions. There are physical temptations, sensual temptations, where we are attracted by worldly objects. But beyond that, there are subtler temptations, the capacity to do something which nobody else can do that can make us feel special. And then we end up getting caught and don’t go to the spiritual level of reality. Go ahead. Now, modern science calls these or something like this as paranormal phenomena. And there has been some research for this. It’s called clairvoyance, psychokinesis. So clairvoyance is where somebody can read, say, what is there in a book without opening the book or you give them an envelope and they know what is written in the envelope without opening it. What is written in the letter inside the envelope without opening it. Now, we may say this is hocus pocus. And yes, most of it is simply some kind of trickery. There are magicians who do magic shows in which they claim to show certain things. And most of it is just simply some sleight of hand. And it requires certain expertise by which to do that. And they do it. However, there are many experiences, many well documented things which define normal experience. So psychokinesis means basically psycho is mind, kinesis is kinetic is moment. So psychokinesis means to get things to move based on just the power of the mind. There is levitation that somebody starts, somebody goes into yoga trance and they start rising above. They seem to temporarily defy the laws of gravity. Now, there is telepathy among the various paranormal phenomena. There is a significant amount of evidence for a few of them. And probably the most broad evidence is for telepathy. Telepathy means what? That say one person is a person sitting at one place, another person sitting in another place. And this person in the mind thinks that I’m going to tell something to that person. And somehow the other person knows it. How do they know it? It’s a mystery. And there are some researchers thought that maybe there are some subtle ways that go through this. Now, Ryan was a promising scientist who did some research. So they put the person who was the recipient of the message of telepathy in maybe in thick metallic chambers through which no known waves would pass. And still the person was able to know. So how does this exactly happen? It’s something which quite often eludes our normal understanding. So the way to understand this is now, again, I’m not saying that anybody who claims that they can do it is doing it. Most of this is some kind of sleet of hands, some kind of trickery, some kind of deception, but some of it, but not all of it. There are, there are cases where people seem to know things, which they normally, uh, there’s no normal way to know that. So how is this known? This is at the level of the mind. The mind is subtle. So the mind does not have to follow the laws of physics that apply to physical objects. The mind can extend across space and time without needing to follow the laws required for physical matter. Go ahead. So now such paranormal phenomena aren’t necessarily aren’t spiritual. So what I said, so mind can exert powers on matter. Now there is some, now when normally in telepathy, what was done was more of cognitive messages. Cognitive messages means some information. Okay. What number am I thinking of? What, what if I’m thinking of a playing card, what card am I thinking of? What? Something like that. Now there was also something else done that is emotional messages in the, in the study of medicine. There’s a prominent, um, the one well-known study, which is called provocatively titled as where science and spirituality kiss each other. So what was the idea of kiss each other? They had say, they had a certain number of patients who were sick, um, maybe with a stroke or a heart attack or something like that. And they had a control group with similar patients and say one of them, those who are not in the control room, those are the main subjects. So they, they had some loud ones who would sit nearby and constantly offer prayers and messages of love and messages of affirmation and healing. And they found that just by sending messages like this, there was a significant statistical difference in the, in how quickly and how much the, the target of those messages of love and many of those people who are offering the messages, they’re not necessarily offering prayers. It was just message of affection and love. So there was no, nothing prayers would make it connecting to God, but they were simply offering their love to the other person. Now, of course, now again, it is not that love can cure anything and everything. And there were normal medical procedures for him followed, but it was the rate of cure that happened fast. So the point is not, it was not just a cognitive information, but it also emotional affection that was conveyed. And even so even more than this, but here we’re talking about messages, a connection that is happening, mental experience where one mind is affecting another mind, communicating with another mind. But what about mind affecting matter directly? This is quite well documented in Princeton. There was a study done on random number generations, generators. So what if somebody, now, if you have a, say zero to nine, you had to generate a random number and the, which number it is spout out in the probability is one, one 10th. So now if there’s a person who sits in front of the random number generator and he says, I want number six to come, six to come, six to come. And there are these experiments repeated. Now the numbers are generated very fast. If they are spread out over thousands and thousands of numbers, millions of numbers, they found that the person who desired something consciously, the number, the proportion of that number getting generated was significantly higher. And amazingly enough, this happened even if the person was not right next to the machine, even if the person was in another room. In fact, they tried this experiment with many more variations. The person could be in London and the device could be in New York and still there was variations. Again, now the point here is not to try to establish that these experiences happened. The point when the, our point is that, that there are many experiences beyond the physical or sensory experiences, and all of these are not spiritual. So these are all fascinating. And these can be helpful if they help, if they help one to develop some faith that there is something beyond gross matter. There is something beyond physical reality. Now, some of these experiments might be disproven tomorrow or some other explanation might be come up for them. So we are not here trying to say that these, that any particular experience is an authentic experience. The point is that there is, that there is a significant amount of evidence to indicate that there are experiences beyond the physical that exist. And our point is that everything that is beyond the physical is not necessarily spiritual, is it? So if somebody by the power of their intention and concentration is able to change the number pattern in a random number generator, that is not spiritual. That is a mental experience. That is a power of the mind. That is not the power of the soul. And that is not an experience of the soul. Next slide. So now, now what would be a spiritual experience? We talked earlier about the ultimate spiritual experience of the experience of Krishna. Now, what if somebody dreams about Krishna? Is that a spiritual experience? Can Krishna come in our dreams? Can we have dreams about the ultimate spiritual reality? Yes, we can. So if you consider that Krishna as God is omnipotent, we have no power to stop him from coming in someone’s dreams. If he decides to come. However, it’s important that when Krishna comes in the dream, that alone is not going to dramatically transform our spiritual life. More important than whether Krishna comes in our dream is whether we serve him after we wake up. Our eternal relationship with him is a relationship of service, of contribution, of offering ourselves to him. So it is only when we offer ourselves to him that we move forward. We grow spiritually. So spiritual growth is not so much a result of involuntary experiences as of voluntary choices. I repeat this spiritual growth is not a result so much of involuntary experiences. Oh, I suddenly saw something. I felt something. I experienced something. That’s good. But spiritual growth is more a result of voluntary choices. We need to choose to turn from matter towards spirit. We need to consciously choose to go up the mountain till we reach the peak. So involuntary spiritual experiences are if we get them, then how should we see them? Go to the next slide. So if you get those experiences, now there are many devotional experiences. Also there are ashtasattvika vikaras as they are called. Can you please mute everyone? So there are ashtasattvika vikaras where great devotee, ashtasattvika means eight vikaras transformation. Sattvika is of the existence. In the spiritual existence and spiritual experience, there are multiple transformations. Some of them are, devotees may just break down into tears. There might be standing of hair on the body. There might be trembling of the limbs. Lord Chaitanya exhibited many such extraordinary transformations. So now these, these kinds of physical transformations that are there, they result from spiritual experiences. And now here we are going further, not the spiritual, but devotional experiences. So spiritual can be referred to generic spiritual reality. It can be referred to the sense of oneness, the sense of serenity because of realising us indestructibility as I mentioned earlier. But devotional means experience of Krishna. So when somebody experiences Krishna, it can lead to tangible transformations in their body also. These are, these are exalted spiritual experiences that great saints have experienced. Go ahead. Now, now, unfortunately there have been other people who pretend to have these experiences, but how do we know if somebody is having tears or trembling? Is it, are they actually experiencing the spiritual ecstasy or are they just pretending? So there are non-imitable spiritual devotional symptoms also. Uh, so there are, there is a book called Nectar of Devotion, the Bhaktira Samrut Sindhu, where the characteristics of bhakti yoga in its perfection are described. So there are characteristics like the physical transformation of the body, which might be imitable, but there are other characteristics that are not so easily imitable. That is avyartha karlatham, that one who is a very advanced spiritualist, they never waste any time on mundane or sensual things. They’re so eager for Krishna that they can’t live without Krishna. They want to constantly connect with him at every moment. And the same avyartha karlatham, that’s one aspect of it. Another is samut kanta. Samut kanta is eagerness to hear about Krishna, to speak about Krishna. Nama ghani sadaruchi, they want to chant about Krishna’s glories. Then there is virakti, they’re detached from worldly things. These symptoms are not very easily imitable. And that’s why these symptoms are more indicative of authentic spiritual advancement than occasional intense spiritual experiences or spiritual symptoms or devotional symptoms that were mentioned in the previous books. Can you go ahead? So at the stage of when we start practising spirituality and moving forward on our spiritual journey, can we have spiritual experiences? Yes, we certainly can have. And if we have them, we can be grateful for having had them. So we should see them as indications that we’re getting a glimpse of something ahead of us, something that we missed out on, that we have not yet reached. We are seeing that in the peak ahead, we’re getting a glimpse of the beauty of that peak. Now, those who imitate and pretend to have got the spiritual experiences, they are mistaken. Why are they mistaken? Because they have actually, they’re pretending. So the example that is given in the bhakti tradition is that of when a woman is pregnant and she has labour pains, she cries out. But through that crying, a new life is coming out. She’s going to have a child. But suppose some other woman who is not pregnant, she cries. That cry is simply crying. No child is going to come out. So the physical changes, the physical transformations are not as important as what is internal. So the internal spiritual substance has to be there. Just the externals are not as important. So if we get a dream about Krishna, we can be grateful we had a dream about Krishna. But we don’t have to publicise to everyone. Say, I got Krishna in my dream. That’s a great devotee I am. Well, our devotion is seen not so much by what happens to us when we are asleep, but what we do when we are awake. Go ahead, please. So at our stage in spiritual life, we need to have humility when we practise our spirituality. So humility means we desire, but we don’t demand. We all long for spiritual experiences. If we behold a beautiful image of Krishna in the deity of Krishna in the temple, then we would love to feel completely captivated to be transported, be lost in beholding that beauty. We would love to when Kirtan is going on to get transported, we would like to have spiritual experience naturally. So that having that desire indicates that we long for Krishna. We want to be with him. We want to love him. Desire indicates devotion. But we desire, but we don’t demand. Why not demand? Because demanding is not the mode of service. Non-demanding is the mode of service. Later on, Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita will be petitioned by Arjuna. And Arjuna wants to see the universal form of Krishna. That is another extraordinary experience. It’s called technically a Theophany. You will get that. We’ll talk about it when we come to the 11th chapter. Theophany is a manifestation of God within nature. So when Arjuna seeks to see the universal form, he says, he requests with humility. My dear Lord, if you think, if it is possible for you, if it is possible for me to see rather, If it is possible for your Lord, please show me your form. And a Lord, he does show his form. So a devotee desires, but does not demand. So we seek not. Then what should we seek when we are trying to practise spiritual life? That’s the last line. Can you go ahead? So we focus not on the experiences, but on the express way. The Bhagavad Gita gives us an express way to rise to spiritual consciousness. And we focus on moving forward on that express way. If we focus on that, we will gradually rise to a higher level of reality. We will come to the peak of the mountain. And once we come to the peak of the mountain, we will experience. We will have spiritual experiences. The focus is on staying on the express way and moving forward on the express way, not on just on seeking experiences. So I’ll summarise what I post for today. If we started, I started by talking about three topics. What is meditation? I’m sorry, started by talking about what is meditation? What are spiritual experiences and are they hallucinations? So meditation begins by shifting our focus from the unchanging to the changing, changing to the unchanging. We may have external object of meditation initially, but eventually we move towards the inward object of meditation. And then as we move inward, we start experiencing higher realities. And to understand, I talked about how we have inner strange in the mind. At the stage of Nirodha, the mind stopped showing any images, either as a window outside or as a TV screen, showing something else, but it becomes a computer. And we start seeing ourselves internally. And then we talked about what are spiritual experiences, their experiences of higher level of reality. And we differentiated between hallucination and illusions. So spiritual experiences, some people dismiss them as hallucinations, but they can, if somebody is on the spiritual path and they have some experiences, their experience is not so much hallucinations as illusions. What does it mean illusion? That we may be mistaking mental experiences to be spiritual experiences. Hallucination is a false perception. There is neither a snake nor a rope, but we see something. On the other hand, illusion means there is a rope we mistake it to be a snake. So those who are materialists, they consider all such experiences to be hallucinations. But on the Gita’s spiritual path, we understand that some of these could be hallucinations. Some of these could be tricks of sleet of hand or tricks, but many of them may be illusions. Illusions means we mistake a mental experience to be a spiritual experience. And mental experiences, I talked about multiple things. What the Yoga Shastras talk about is the mystic siddhis like anima, mahima. And I talked about how that is possible through accessing the higher dimension. And then we talked about what something which has been more in contemporary parlance and something science has investigated. The jury is out as far as the evidence is conclusive or not. But there is, there is significant findings of this for telepathy. Cognitive messaging is done between minds or between the healing potency of loving messages or being given between two people. And of course, the effect of mind on random number generations. And then I talked about spiritual experiences means experiences. It can be of a sense of cosmic oneness, a sense of indestructibility, a perception of the all attractive divine Krishna. There can be various spiritual experiences. And on the spiritual path right now, can we have spiritual experiences? Yes, we can. And if we have them, we can be grateful, but we shouldn’t take them as themselves signs of spiritual advancement. Because our spiritual growth depends not so much on what happens to us on the involuntary experiences we have, but as much as it depends on the voluntary choices that we make. So we focus not on the spiritual experiences that we are getting, but on the, whether we are moving forward on the spiritual express. And if we keep moving from the bottom of the mountain to the top steadily by the practise of yoga, we will attain spiritual experiences and not just spiritual experiences. We retain a spiritual state of consciousness that such experiences will become enduring. Thank you very much. So we look at some questions here. Okay. What does the inner seer look like? How to know if you’re able to see the inner seer? And the inner seer is, of course, we are says the Atma. So the soul is presently in a seed form BJ Rupa. BJ Rupa means it’s a spark of consciousness. So now what exactly will be perceived by a person on the spiritual path that can vary because the soul’s consciousness develop, the soul evolves, the perceptions can be different, but essentially one starts perceiving one’s own indestructibility. One starts understanding that I am different from my body. I’m different from my mind. I’m different from my situations. I’m different from my emotions. That’s, that’s what people say as perception of the inner seer. Now in, on the path of bhakti, the external objects of perception are sadhana and sadhya also. Well, yes and no. Yes. In the sense that when we look at the deity of, we hold the deity of Krishna, we ultimately want to see Krishna and the deity of Krishna are non-different. Yes, they are non-different. At the same time, there is a direct experience of Krishna. In the, for example, in the Damodara Ashtakam, it is said that the first, in the fourth text, the fourth and fifth texts, Satyagmuni is longing to remember the Lord in the heart. And then he says, my dear Lord, I also want to behold you with my senses, with my eyes. So there is a, although it’s the same, it’s also not the same. There are different degrees of experiences. So when we behold the deities right now, and when we are purified and we behold the deities, that’s different. Why? Because we will be more purified, we will be more realised. And when we behold Krishna, that will also be different. Why will it be different? Because Krishna is beyond any material description or depiction. So in the, in Lalita Madhava, which is the book written by Rupa Goswami, he says that actually when we, when a poet or artist writes about Krishna, he depicts Krishna, that is a way in which we get a sense of who Krishna is. But then this poet says that, my dear Lord, I thought I glorified you with very beautiful choice poetry. But now when I’m seeing you, this experience is so different that I feel that my glorification was actually a minimisation of me. I, whereas you are the emperor of the world, I glorified you to be the landlord of the village. So our words, our art, none of this can fully ever describe Krishna. So sadhana and sadhya are same in the sense that Krishna can choose to manifest as the deity. However, what we perceive right now is not Krishna directly. We are perceiving the deity. In this, we are perceiving the, we may perceive the deity to be made of marble, or we may perceive the deity to be made of wood or clay or whatever. So there is, Bhaktivinoda Thakura talks about multiple levels of perception of the deity. So yes, the object ultimately is the same that when we are experiencing Krishna right now, and we are experiencing Krishna, it’s the same Krishna. But our experience of that object will be different. So in that sense, it’s achintya vahidave. There’s oneness also, and there is difference also. And when we chant, is it good to just focus on the holy name simply by hearing and prevent the mind from hallucinating anywhere else? Anything else? Yes. You have to see what works. The point is to connect with Krishna. Sometimes focussing on the sound helps. Sometimes thinking of something connected with Krishna also helps. I wouldn’t call that as hallucination. If we remember a verse, if we remember, if we have a picture of Krishna in front of us and we look at it, or if you remember a beautiful darshan of Krishna, which we had, if that helps us to focus on the holy name, that’s good. The point is, we have to remember Krishna. And I told you, what is the difference between, say, dream, hallucination, and illusion? Dreams are complicated. Dreams can be various things. When we dream, it is usually a combination of something, of two real things which we have perceived. They are combined in an illusory way. Say, for example, you might have seen a gold, and you might have seen a mountain, and in a dream, you might see a golden mountain. Now, sometimes in dreams, we experience something so vividly that there are physical transformations. If we feel that we are being chased by a tiger in a dream, we might wake up and we might see ourselves panting and sweating because of that. That’s because it’s a very intense experience at the level of the mind. It has had an effect on the body. So, we don’t call it illusions. It’s a mistaken perception. Hallucination, it’s a false perception. Dreams can be both, and dreams can be something else also. Dreams can be a concatenation of different images that we have brought together. Dreams can be also a result of one’s past karma. Baldevidya Bhushan, in his Vedanta Sutra commentary, states that some people may always have bad dreams. Now, why do they have those bad dreams? At one level, if we have done some bad karma in the past, we might constantly have bad things happening to us. At one level, bad things happen to everyone. But for some people, life is much, much tougher than others. So, we understand that that is a result of bad karma. Some people have constant bad dreams. We all may have bad dreams sometimes. So, he explains Baldevidya Bhushan that we get the results of our subtle, of minor karma in our dreams. The gross karma, the serious karma that we have done, we will get the results of those at the physical level. The results of minor karma, we get at the mental level. So, dreams can be multifaceted. We have to check based on what is the context, the content, and then understand. Usually, there’s no need to become too obsessed with dreams because our spiritual growth depends on what we do with our conscious free will. And the possibility to exercise our conscious free will is mostly there in our waking state. In the dream state, things just happen and we just act accordingly. We’re not really consciously choosing to do things. And last question. How can we know if we have the right spiritual experiences? And what is the change that we feel when we have this? Basically, we can’t know in and of itself whether an experience is spiritual or not. We should look at the consequence. If that increases our material attachment, it increases our spiritual attachment, if it increases our spiritual commitment, so that we can develop greater mental attachment and greater spiritual attachment, then we can say that spiritual experience is spiritual.