Vedanta Sutra 04.04.23 – The liberation of the soul (anavrttih) happens through the uncovering (anavrttih) of its consciousness

Transcript

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Thank you Anavrutti Shabdad this is the concluding aphorism of the Vedanta Sutra in the context of the Vedanta Sutra this refers to Avrutti means to come back Anavrutti means to never come back Punaravrutti no Arjuna Krishna in Bhagavad Gita 8.16 when he is talking about how even by going to heaven one comes back on the other hand if one attains Krishna the road one doesn’t come back to this world so Anavrutti Shabdad means that Anavrutti this is the last section of the Vedanta Sutra talks about Sadhana or rather the fruit of Sadhana that is the attainment of affection the attainment of the transcendental destination and what is being said is once having attained that one doesn’t come back Anavrutti and Shabdad Shabdad here refers to the Vedic scriptures that Vedanta Sutra is an analytical investigation of the Upanishads to arrive at their conclusive message so here it’s being said Shabdad so those Shudhis the Upanishads they say that Anavrutti, when one attains the eternal abode one will not come back to this world this is assurance that the attainment of the supreme spiritual perfection is an inalienable attainment it is not like any worldly attainment wherein after we get it even if a person becomes a billionaire, trillionaire, zillionaire, whatever all those accomplishments are taken away but this accomplishment will never be taken away. Once we attain the transcendental destination we don’t come back here. Now Shri Prabhupada also gave a another explanation of this word the word Shabda doesn’t necessarily have to mean only Vedic scriptures Shabda can mean sound and Prabhupada would use this to say that Shabda can refer to the holy name because the holy name does Anavrutti so Avrutti can mean to come back or Avrutti can be connected to the word Aavaran, covering so Anavrutti means uncovering so sound leads to the uncovering uncovering is what? uncovering of our consciousness as Krishna says that lust so in 3.39 he states that lust has covered our intelligence so here Anavrutti that covering will be removed by sound so the power of the holy name is to channelize for ripping off, stripping away removing the covering on our consciousness and actually the removal of that consciousness that covering on our consciousness itself is liberation so bondage spiritual bondage is not just or rather bondage of the soul is not in terms of merely restriction to a particular location it is restriction to a particular conception conception is that we are material creatures and that material things can fulfill our craving for happiness as long as we have this conception we are bound in material existence and once this conception is removed then we revive of our natural consciousness of souls as parts of Krishna and we revive our eternal love for Krishna and there in we relish existence of supreme happiness so the first Anavrutti leads to second Anavrutti that is uncovering of consciousness leads to the elevation of the soul to that eternal destination from where there is no coming back so by chanting what are we doing sometimes when we are not conscious or we don’t strive to be conscious then often we don’t realize what is the glory of the holy name, what is the glory of the divine sound that it is uncovering our consciousness and by that it is elevating us to the supreme liberation so by being aware by reminding ourselves by intellectually and prayerfully hammering into our consciousness the glory of the holy name and the and the speciality of the opportunity to associate with the holy name the potency of the holy name by remembering all this we can inspire ourselves to take shelter of the holy name to absorb ourselves in chanting and thereby we will experience the result the dual result of the sound uncovering our consciousness and we will realize the truth of the scriptural declaration that there is indeed an abode having attained which one doesn’t have to come back to this world