​What is the bigger reality that spiritualists talk about?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
understanding so when we talk about Krishna or when you read spiritual books they often talk about a bigger reality so what is this bigger reality yeah the bhagavad-gita explains that reality exists at three levels there is the physical reality there is a mental reality and there is a spiritual reality so physical reality is largely what we can touch with our senses see with our eyes touch with our hands like that and most of modern science studies physical reality but even the study of physical reality reveals that there is more to reality for example now scientists when they studied the universe they have found that for the universe to be expanding at the pace at which it is expanding for the universe to exist as it exists there has to be far more matter than what is present present what is presently visible in the universe and that’s why they say that something between 95 to 98 percent of the universe is made of dark matter so that means by looking at the invisible world scientists have postulated that there is something which is invisible which exists so just the study of visible physical reality can point us to some reality beyond physical reality now what that reality is to know that we need an appropriate means the science basically looks for material explanations for material phenomena science basically looks for look observes material phenomena and then tries to find material explanations for those phenomena it does not look for anything non-material it’s like if i have a fishing net and if the fishing net if i go for fishing but the fishing net has a hole of say one inch by one inch then i may fish for a one full year but i will never catch a fish whose size is smaller than one inch it will slip out of that net so like that our senses and science which is based largely on sensory perception that casts a net at the world around us to catch knowledge about that world but the net itself is made of matter it’s material and that’s why non-material reality slips out of the net of science so the point i’m making here is two things that the study of physical reality through science itself points to some invisible reality also and second is when we study science we will be able to find only material things to it because the methodology is such that i cannot see non-material things with it the method itself is like that just like if i if i have a black and white camera no matter how high the resolution of the camera i cannot see color image with it so like that science looks for material things that’s why it can’t find spiritual so there is another method there is the method of spirituality centered on yoga which can make us aware of spiritual reality so the bhaktivedanta 9.2 says that we can practically experience it by the practice of the process of bhakti yoga bhakti is the process para ishya anubhav, anubhav is experience, para is transcendental that is beyond matter non-material, ishya is the controller god so bhakti is the process that gives us para ishya anubhav, bhakti is the process that gives us experience of the transcendental lord transcendental control so this is the method so when we when we chant the holy names of Krishna when we practice the process of bhakti yoga we may do it as just cultural practices and that is fine we’ll get some purification we’ll get some punya by that some piety by that but if we do it as a process for accessing higher reality then higher levels of our consciousness will rise to higher levels and things which were not perceivable earlier they will become intelligible and gradually so it’s largely a matter of knowledge also it’s like you know if somebody’s a stock broker and they see on a computer screen a line going down and say they have got a that person has got a employee who is illiterate and they don’t know anything and this boss he sees the line goes down line going down suddenly and he gets a heart attack and the assistant says what happened he just line went down in the computer screen why are you getting a heart attack why because it is it is actually our knowledge that transforms perception into comprehension the perception is a line going down but what does the line going down it means the stock market is crashed and oh stock market is crashed means i lost my money and that gives a heart attack so for one who doesn’t understand about what the graph means there’s no understanding there is no no effect of that so like that as we get spiritual knowledge more and more then even from the material reality we start understanding higher reality and as we become purified then the higher spiritual reality becomes becomes evident to us this higher spiritual reality has three aspects to it there is sat, chit and ananda it’s eternal it’s conscious and it is joyful just like say if there is a after today’s program say there is a gulab jamun there’s among in the feast there’s a gulab jamun so while we are sitting here first the fragrance of the gulab jamun comes here oh this is nice then we go in the kitchen and we see oh there’s nice round shaped that’s good good looking balls are there over there spherical objects and then go and eat it ah this is samadhi so what has happened is it is same gulab jamun but first we perceive the smell then we perceive the taste perceive the sight and then we perceive the taste it’s like closer and closer experience of that object so like that when we talk about the higher reality the first thing we perceive is sat there is some eternal existence beyond the temporary existence of this world things are constantly changing but underlying this changing there has to be something which is unchanging there has to be some unchanging reality at the foundation of the changing reality like i was skyscraper building from if i’m at the top i can look down look down look down it’s we seem to go down and infinitely but there has to be a ground somewhere otherwise the skyscraper would not exist so like that everything we see is temporary so if we just go back temporary temporary temporary temporary temporary we we cannot have an infinite chain of temporary things there has to be something eternal from which the temporary has come it’s like a building has to have ground on its foundation so like that by inference we can understand there is something eternal and then we see that there is consciousness you are conscious i am conscious so consciousness is also a reality so that eternal reality that is not just existence but it is also conscious this is so so first we understand that there’s something eternal beyond this world then we understand that eternal reality is conscious then that that means it’s conscious is that that there is observing us we are accountable to that reality that is the conception of god as a judge to whom i am accountable but beyond that we also understand that you know if if a person has to do nothing except be a judge for all of life that doesn’t get bored you know that a judge also has their personal life they have their family members and that’s where they enjoy loving relationships so like that we understand this absolute truth also has ananda is also it reciprocates love and gets happiness in that and that satchitananda absolute truth that is revealed in the yoga texts in the bhagavad-gita and other yoga texts to be krishna so if i think of krishna simply as some image that i see in a temple i may think how can what is this but if you go through a chain of philosophical inference then we understand that absolute truth beyond the bigger reality beyond this visible reality and in that bigger reality there is a manifestation of god as a living loving person does that answer your question