Swami Sarvapriyananda & Robert Thurman on Consciousness, Vedanta, and Madhyamika

0:10 [SPEAKER_03]: Namaskar everyone. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for giving me the honor and privilege to moderate this discussion. [SPEAKER_03]: In front of you, stall wards and great great people. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a lay person and I just host a fun little channel in which we discuss philosophy, religion and the government traditions.

0:28 [SPEAKER_03]: So thank you for allowing me to come on and speak to to everyone here in. [SPEAKER_03]: engage in this moderation. [SPEAKER_03]: So, I have my own questions, but let's start with the questions from the other scholars in the room. [SPEAKER_03]: So, Greg, good ask the question. [SPEAKER_03]: On the topic of comparative philosophies and liberal approaches, one of the most fascinating aspects is why we discuss this issue.

0:53 [SPEAKER_03]: He would like both of you to share your thoughts on this, like there are [SPEAKER_03]: what is the reason to study this for for let's say a lay person why would you want to study Adriata Adanta or Tibetan Buddhism or Madhyamaka what would what's the impact on your life? [SPEAKER_01]: I mean do you go first?

1:19 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and then yeah. [SPEAKER_07]: All right, yes sir. [SPEAKER_07]: So, yes, what we call the preogena, the need for this, what's the project here? [SPEAKER_07]: The project is overcoming suffering, project is attainment of fulfillment, and was that the question? [SPEAKER_07]: Yes. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it was a question, and I think a little more tangibleness is, you know, much of the traditions we talk about involved some sort of aesthetic practice or, you know, a deeper spiritual commitment.

1:57 [SPEAKER_03]: How do these values in these thoughts you bring to the table were discussing here? [SPEAKER_03]: How does this apply near every day life as a laborer? [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm a lawyer, every day, how does how does it be falling under the way though or following Buddhism in this context [SPEAKER_02]: I live my life, I just wanted to say that my question, that's a good question, it deserves a good discussion.

2:22 [SPEAKER_02]: My question was about the title of this module, which was comparative philosophy, and my question was, why do comparative philosophy? [SPEAKER_07]: I think, yeah, that was my question, I think I think. [SPEAKER_07]: All right, so it's just doing the term of why do competitive philosophy.

2:46 [SPEAKER_07]: You have to do the term, that's not compromised. [SPEAKER_07]: You will have to be a spiritual practitioner. [SPEAKER_07]: So for those who are spiritual practitioners, why do competitive philosophy? [SPEAKER_07]: We have different people who do competitive philosophy. [SPEAKER_07]: Yes.

3:01 [SPEAKER_07]: I am reminded of the Mughal prince Dara Shoko, and he was the one who actually sort of instrumentally why we are here today because he got the Upanishads translated for his own purposes. [SPEAKER_07]: He wanted to read them in Persian, and then those that translation traveled across the oceans and Ketel Duparirang came to Europe and came to Chopinhar, and then I had its impact on [SPEAKER_07]: He's comment that when I read these ancient texts, I find a flood of light, illuminating dark areas in my own faith, and what is dark in this body of work.

3:49 [SPEAKER_07]: I have light in my own faith, which I have something which throws light on that, and thus I am an enriched. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's a great answer. [SPEAKER_01]: So my answer to that, I would give it as something personal. [SPEAKER_01]: And that is that when I was 20 years old, 20 years old, I dropped out of Harvard finally.

4:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I had actually dropped out of high school too, but then I went back. [SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, I dropped out of Harvard. [SPEAKER_01]: and went to India to find a teacher to become a yogi because I was tired of being told that I couldn't understand the world. [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't understand myself.

4:33 [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't understand reality. [SPEAKER_01]: And on the other hand, I was told that I had to be skillful about knowing what is a red light and a green light so it's not to get run over in traffic. [SPEAKER_01]: And we have to know reality to get around and do this and develop skills and write in our whole education.

4:49 [SPEAKER_01]: It's about that. [SPEAKER_01]: But some sort of notion that reality actually as it is is unknowable by our dumb mind. [SPEAKER_01]: And therefore we have to follow this and that religious faith system that tells us, well, it doesn't make sense, but you gotta believe it. [SPEAKER_01]: And even in science, you can analyze this thing, this atom, this other thing, but you'll never know anything, because of course [SPEAKER_01]: think reality is just material in what they think of what we would call an Indian thing at Isushima, Rupa, you know, or extremely, you know, not, not, not, right, not, I'm sorry, not that is, [SPEAKER_01]: not sochema, but of course reality.

5:33 [SPEAKER_01]: And therefore, it's a matter of quantities and obviously if they're infinite universe, you can't count at all. [SPEAKER_01]: So that makes sense. [SPEAKER_01]: But I got tired of that and I felt it should be possible. [SPEAKER_01]: And I got the inkling from reading some Buddhist texts and some Vedanta texts.

5:50 [SPEAKER_01]: And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, it's like that. [SPEAKER_01]: I got to inkling that in India they had some kind of in discipline, engagement like yoga where you could understand your own emotions, your own psychology, your own reality, and even the world's reality by developing your mind as an instrument in a higher way.

6:12 [SPEAKER_01]: And so I left and did that for four or five years until then, I decided to become a professor. [SPEAKER_01]: So I could keep doing it for more years because I realized they would take more time. [SPEAKER_01]: So the point is, why do you want to study these things because these are... [SPEAKER_01]: results of people who discovered the nature of reality and gave methods to how to do that and challenged blind faith things, at least most of them.

6:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Now and then, here in the era, there were people who interpreted it in such a way that you just have to believe something and it became a religious matter, but mostly the greatest discoveries were something called inner science, which I didn't know the expression at the Atma Vidya, which I really liked, and then once I got there, [SPEAKER_01]: To India, I discovered that the grammar of Sanskrit and Tibetan too, that they actually knew that a consonant could make no sound unless it was connected with the vowel.

7:12 [SPEAKER_01]: And I had never heard that from English grammar, Greek grammar, Latin grammar, I went to a British school and I had to learn those classical languages a little bit. [SPEAKER_01]: And nobody ever figured that out. [SPEAKER_01]: The console nan, even it sounds very noisy. [SPEAKER_01]: And I realized that somewhere this culture had a better idea.

7:32 [SPEAKER_01]: But what we're doing when we're slapping our lips as the Zen people who are all talking, [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that you know that GT is dental and tongue and you know, and it's and when there's no vowel, we all you can do is go it. [SPEAKER_01]: You can't make a sound. [SPEAKER_01]: So that meant they were more realistic.

7:53 [SPEAKER_01]: then Western people who were teaching me English grammar. [SPEAKER_01]: So then I met, I was encountering a more sophisticated culture and then I've ever learned something I've been studying now. [SPEAKER_01]: So if you want to know what's real and you want to have a meaning in your life that fits with what is your best idea of reality, these things are core curriculum material, not just some thrill of some curiosity, exotic curiosity at all.

8:19 [SPEAKER_01]: they are part of the nature of reality and in the future quantum physics, Carla Revelli has opening the door. [SPEAKER_01]: People who want to be quantum physics and basically make more bombs and more computers. [SPEAKER_01]: They will try to be yogis. [SPEAKER_01]: They will have to be yogis or yogis or they won't get anywhere.

8:38 [SPEAKER_01]: AI will completely make them unemployable. [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, that's my answer. [SPEAKER_06]: You have a quick comment here and then I'm going to pass it on to [SPEAKER_05]: May I make a comment to Robert and also to Swami Zikui comment is that we did to be okay to view the differences we have noticed between the Mademaka and Audit Vedanta similar to Sintong and Rantong type internal scholastic difference within Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

9:14 [SPEAKER_01]: Well I think they are different within different inner scientists. [SPEAKER_01]: who have different methods of teaching and different methods of exploration and interpret their own experiences in different ways and or fit them with a particular person. [SPEAKER_01]: I think the great teachers, the great good gurus are the people.

9:34 [SPEAKER_01]: you can't be a spiritual good or unless you're empathetic to the degree that you have clairvoyance Abizia, you have to have, you have to know what's wrong with your student and what's blocking their mind about understanding. [SPEAKER_01]: And so you can't just dictate some dogmas to them.

9:51 [SPEAKER_01]: And therefore you will be able to like a socratic way or Buddha's dialogue way or they open a shadow dialogue way. [SPEAKER_01]: You will draw out of them what they do believe. [SPEAKER_01]: show them where they are making a mistake in their reasoning, and then improve their reasoning. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the Indian syllogism with its example, their sentence, you know, as part of the syllogism, is superior to the Greek one.

10:15 [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, most sophisticated, like a material out, my dear friend, the late Vima material, said he proved that very effectively, I think. [SPEAKER_01]: And a few people, some Russian scholars of Nya and Buddhist Pramana studies, they Shabbatski and this kind of people, they realized that they could reason better, and it's good, it's a better for reasoning than English or German or whatever, anyway.

10:44 [SPEAKER_01]: So, I'm sorry, I hope that answered the question. [SPEAKER_01]: I tend to ramble with my age. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, go ahead. [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, thank you for the two wonderful talks, so I'm a Jee and Robert, just to build on what was mentioned earlier by you, so I'm a Jee and others.

11:05 [SPEAKER_04]: I actually think the way that invites us to take views from all places. [SPEAKER_04]: I just wanted to show this work by Mirza Ralim. [SPEAKER_04]: On his way to a tax issue, he spent a month in Banadas, and he wrote this work Jira Redale about his time in Banadas and the spiritual experiences.

11:41 [SPEAKER_04]: One of the verses in Farsi says, [SPEAKER_04]: and I read Vedanta and I read Raleb and it is a point when I can't see one from the other. [SPEAKER_04]: So I think the ability to take different thoughts, I think is helpful. [SPEAKER_04]: When it comes to my discussions with my Buddhist colleagues, Samiji and Robert, we agreed to leave the dialectics at one point.

12:18 [SPEAKER_04]: follow our spiritual practice and we'll meet in the same place in the future in the garden somewhere. [SPEAKER_04]: But for those interested, Sri Sarmiji and his work, Mandukhi, Rasir, with Biti on the Mandukhi, Karikas, has written a wonderful, long introduction, comparing contrast with the name of the author of that.

12:38 [SPEAKER_04]: That's Sri Swamiji, Satjitana and the Indra Sarasmit, also Anjitana. [SPEAKER_06]: We'll get you a book, we'll get you a copy of the book. [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and he has a wonderful introduction where he can tell you more than he does. [SPEAKER_01]: He must thank you with God's apparel then.

12:53 [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, this is, I'll be going about a garden guide. [SPEAKER_04]: This is his, and the manga, you'll finish it. [SPEAKER_04]: It's a Sanskrit word, but he has an 80 page English introduction accessible to all where he compares and contrasts, where is the Anvaya, the common approaches of Vedanta and Buddhism, and where the differences around examination of the three states and other areas.

13:15 [SPEAKER_04]: And I just found it a wonderful way, actually. [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, it looks great. [SPEAKER_04]: It's a beautiful view to detail the study of Buddhism. [SPEAKER_04]: Say, I thought I'd share those. [SPEAKER_06]: I have to have a variety. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we'll get to the bottom of that.

13:26 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Morgan, please go ahead. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: So on this point that's a Bhanu product brought up, how important is it for us? [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we talk a lot about the similarities between traditions. [SPEAKER_03]: But how important is for us to talk about differences?

13:43 [SPEAKER_01]: very important. [SPEAKER_01]: Scientists always argue about the interpretation of experiments and things like that. [SPEAKER_01]: And what we talk about differently is very, very important. [SPEAKER_01]: But to overcome simplistic labeling and categorization like Madva did, where he tried to categorize Shrinyabada as same as Locayata.

14:06 [SPEAKER_01]: For example, which has been the general, even in China, I mean, in fact, you know, Buddhist do get in holistic and they can get in a holistic and modern American Buddhism goes very holistic. [SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people think, sure, no doubt, just means nothingness that all the materialists are happily going to when they grow after blowing up and over warming over heating the planet.

14:28 [SPEAKER_01]: and they're all happily going to be it's all going to be meaningless and nothing that's going to go on and on you know people in psychology departments say do existentialism and they tell the students that they should grow up and happily be meaningless and purposeless and just get away with whatever they can get away with and they think that's graduating somebody to be a responsible human being and I'm against them.

14:50 [SPEAKER_01]: but I had to work there. [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't, you know, you can't, it took me 30 years of arguing with them to ask them the one question that you must always ask every scientific materialist and that is who got a Nobel Prize for discovering the nothing empirically that they think they're going to.

15:06 [SPEAKER_01]: And then they will roll their eyes, I swear, the hardcore, they'll roll their eyes, and they'll say, must have been a mathematician and they'll only give you a Russian name or the [SPEAKER_01]: I said this was nothing, you know? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a chaotic, you know? [SPEAKER_01]: Crazy.

15:26 [SPEAKER_03]: So I'll be so happy on what are your thoughts? [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, how important is it to understand the differences? [SPEAKER_07]: Again, very important. [SPEAKER_07]: I'm reminded of this old English saying, what does he know of England who knows only England? [SPEAKER_07]: So that way, actually, even when I explore Tibetan Buddhism, which I'm very fond of Kashmirishivism, Western philosophy, actually, what I'm doing all the time is Advaita.

15:51 [SPEAKER_07]: I'm expanding the horizons of my Advaita of my understanding and depth of a charity and Advaita Vedanta. [SPEAKER_07]: So if the know the differences is important, I remember my Buddhist teacher, Professor Garfield, Jay Garfield, and as of his in his class, the first thing he told me was Swami keep your Advaita outside the door.

16:12 [SPEAKER_07]: They're going to do Indu Tibetan Madhyama ka here, so you keep your Advaita outside the temple. [SPEAKER_07]: And there was good advice. [SPEAKER_07]: You should know the differences very clearly first before synthesizing. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, thank you for that. [SPEAKER_03]: It's is is delete in in the audience actually, delete.

16:32 [SPEAKER_03]: I know you have like four questions and it is here. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Go ahead. [SPEAKER_03]: Ask one of your questions. [SPEAKER_03]: Delete G. [SPEAKER_00]: First of all, thank you very much for your talk, both Swamiji and Professor Robert. [SPEAKER_00]: The point, I mean, the motivation of my question is exactly to highlight the proximity rather than the differences, but I'm aware of the differences, they should be preserved.

17:01 [SPEAKER_00]: particularly because they belong to different adaptations and different systems which are the peculiarities suited for different circumstances and contexts. [SPEAKER_00]: My question. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, I put four questions. [SPEAKER_00]: I have sent to Mokun. [SPEAKER_00]: But they all turn around a basic point.

17:21 [SPEAKER_00]: I will connect also with the context of our seminar. [SPEAKER_00]: How is the teaching and instruction of the Dharma, which is by nature inexpressible, possible? [SPEAKER_00]: It is true, many answers, eliminative, superimposition, Samaropa, that unexpressible can be taught and instructed.

17:51 [SPEAKER_00]: This conception of Samaropa is developed by Chandarkirti following the teachings of Nagarjuna, [SPEAKER_00]: could be seen as coming closer, that's a question, to Shankaracharya's understanding of the Upanishads as a method of pure elimination of errors in a vertical work, as subsequently emphasized by Swami Sathjidhana and then the Reseraswati.

18:14 [SPEAKER_00]: That is my question. [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think Shankar also shares this discussion of Samadopa, which is put in by Asanda and Vasabandhu, actually prior to time of Shankar. [SPEAKER_01]: They are presented as a pair of errors and the opposite is Apavada. [SPEAKER_01]: Samarabha and Abarada, and they have to do with the project precisely the projecting of one's conceptualization into making it kind of the essence of the objects that you have concepts for.

18:51 [SPEAKER_01]: And so Samarabha is showing that the object itself is transcendent actually to your concept for the object, which just takes a particular aspect of it. [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the old platonic thing about that idea being the incendiated in the of the completely naive Western metaphysics is rejected way back thousands of years ago by the great Indian thinkers either side, [SPEAKER_01]: And so they use that method and he was very strong, actually Chancara's rejection of idealists, Vignana Vada Yoga, a channel type of actually best whole Vignana Vada Chitamatra type of theorist is just very similar to [SPEAKER_01]: Tundra, Kirti's rejection of them in the Madhama-Kavatata and also Shanti-Dhava in his great Bauditarya Vatata, his 9th chapter where he rejects the Vignanabhadans, very, very parallel to Shankara.

19:56 [SPEAKER_01]: So if we see these discussions between them, we try to take it out of the religions sphere and we put it in the sphere of scientists arguing about interpreting experiences in the lab, [SPEAKER_01]: And for those great scientists and India, the lab was your own mind as a yogi, or yogini, and they were discussing different ways in which your ideas about reality get in your way of experiencing reality, and then their interpretations of your experience will bring back your concepts and then you disagree about how you explain it to somebody else.

20:32 [SPEAKER_01]: So they can try to come to an experience. [SPEAKER_01]: So it's very scientific in an inner scientific way dealing with these more subtle levels of reality than the material let's do. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's not like they're non-material, but they do matter, but they're just more subtle.

20:50 [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if that answers your question in detail. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't kind of pity. [SPEAKER_01]: And I would love to know the chapter and the verse, and then we could really have a discussion about it. [SPEAKER_01]: I really would like that. [SPEAKER_01]: But that's my general thing about the idea of Samadopa, which is super imposition.

21:12 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think I called it Reification. [SPEAKER_01]: I used in my translation, I used the term for some out of preification, where you think your concept is there in the table or the chair or the pill or the chemistry or whatever it is, you know, and that is what's happening exactly fits by you capture it with your concepts and that's what it is.

21:36 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you had a lot of came up with this idea of three realities, [SPEAKER_01]: Paritantra and Parinishpana, and then they came up with this idea that when the Paritakao but it's superimposed or projected into or reified as the relative of where the relative is reified as the constructed mentally constructed Paritakao Pita.

21:59 [SPEAKER_01]: then you're in Samsara and when you critique your conceptualization and you realize that it doesn't quite adhere to its objects but it's useful but it only is partially it's it's can't capture the reality of them then you have then then the relative itself becomes the Parli Nishpana. [SPEAKER_01]: withdrawn, they attempt to capture reality with their concept, and project their concept into the reality.

22:38 [SPEAKER_01]: So then they don't do that some out of power anymore. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think tender culture I'm sure was using it in that way, but I can't be sure because I couldn't follow every word that you read. [SPEAKER_01]: But those are the right things to work out work on though. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I love Shankara, you know, in Belanta, I really hope, and I bet Swami does, if you're doing, if you're doing the Mandu Kiyah, rahatsiya virty, then rahatsiya there must be that He's not really put an end about her.

23:10 [SPEAKER_01]: or everybody's up to turn about and all the Buddhists are put down of it, and whatever you want to say, in other words, overcoming some radical simply dismissal of the other. [SPEAKER_01]: That's what they don't scientists don't do. [SPEAKER_01]: you can't dismiss because you know that all concepts in proper modern scientific this dogma of everything is matter is ridiculous especially a hundred years after the Copenhagen Declaration and discovery that the mind is part of what you see.

23:37 [SPEAKER_01]: You know your own mind is creating what parkal creating what you see. [SPEAKER_01]: And that was discovered two thousand five hundred years earlier in India. [SPEAKER_01]: and they've been working on that ever since. [SPEAKER_01]: So we should do that about our disagreements in our interpretation of the marvelous such an unknown the nature of reality.

24:00 [SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely, I mean, yeah, sorry from G if you want us one, I just followed and first of all, like he said I like Bob just said, but I just follow on to with one observation about the verification which he spoke about and this is something Dr. [SPEAKER_07]: So if there this is verification at two levels, one is the due to our primal ignorance, and so we tend to verify the word.

24:35 [SPEAKER_07]: But the other one is the method of Aghyaropapovata, where we deliberately consciously, as a practice, we introduce these concepts [SPEAKER_07]: I think where, generally, it was probably coming from, I mean, deliberate and tell us much better, of course, was that Nagarjuna's in the two truths, the Samriti Satyam and the Paramataka Satyam.

25:01 [SPEAKER_07]: And he says, Samriti Manashriti Paramatam, nothing of me at a, without taking refuge in Samriti, one does not attain to me. [SPEAKER_07]: That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that [SPEAKER_07]: But then the question will arise, how do you go from somebody to the paramarch or to the, how do you attain to the paramarch and there I think comes in the Samaropa and the upper water methodology very similar very parallel to the other upper water.

25:33 [SPEAKER_07]: which is of course stressed by SSS, but also in traditional Adwaita Vedanta. [SPEAKER_07]: I mean the book, the manual which introduces us to Adwaita Vedanta, the Vedanta Sara of Sadhana and the Yogindra, that is organized as a pavada, a pavada, a pavada, a part of the book is a pavada, and the last part of the book is a pavada.

25:52 [SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm. [SPEAKER_01]: Wonderful. [SPEAKER_01]: That's really perfect to approach. [SPEAKER_01]: To have to 24 where he's answering, uh, he's there in our country when it's answering the person who thinks when your time is nothingness, and it will stop all close or functioning. [SPEAKER_01]: And he basically says without your time, or where the causality cannot function.

26:12 [SPEAKER_01]: If there's anything absolute in the cause of process, then it can't relate, and therefore it freezes causation, and therefore for causality, spiritual causality, any kind of probability, that emptiness is the relativity that makes the guarantees the efficacy of causality. [SPEAKER_01]: And he, you know, he teases his opponent by saying, you are someone who's counting the horses in [SPEAKER_01]: And you're in your posse, but failed to count on you're writing on it, so he has a really wonderful wonderful chapter.

26:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much. [SPEAKER_01]: It's so amazing. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if we answered the gentleman's full question. [SPEAKER_01]: He had four questions. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

26:55 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

26:57 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

27:00 [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

27:03 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

27:06 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's a little bit longer than this space we have. [SPEAKER_03]: But one of the questions I think touches upon what the leap I asked, which is, you know, in some sense, [SPEAKER_03]: the Advita tradition speaks positively about Brahman, right, in the nature of Brahman.

27:27 [SPEAKER_03]: Madhyamika system doesn't in the positive sense, but are they speaking about the same thing or are they speaking of different experiences? [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay, I can let me answer everyone. [SPEAKER_01]: That's my favorite, hopefully. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

28:10 [SPEAKER_01]: So, so what I wanted to say, however, there is a Buddhist Buddha in Pali, where it's called Kavada Sutta. [SPEAKER_01]: And Kevada is a great yogi. [SPEAKER_01]: And he develops an akasha deha, a kind of a mystical, you know, a theory body. [SPEAKER_01]: And he goes up the 16 levels, he goes through the six levels of a kamadatu heavens.

28:36 [SPEAKER_01]: And he goes past them up to 16 levels of the Brahma Kaikadeva heavens to the top one, which is called Prabasara, [SPEAKER_01]: And he goes into the Brahma sequence court and and he goes there and he says to Brahma, I'm so happy. [SPEAKER_01]: I came that finally got here. [SPEAKER_01]: I did a lot of yoga and I developed several bodies to travel in these celestial realms.

29:02 [SPEAKER_01]: And here I am and I've been boiling so much to meet you and what I want to know is since here that you created the world, how did you do it, what was there before it happened and how does it work? [SPEAKER_01]: And so Brahma asks him, does what Brahma responds to him because they have a sense of humor of the bodhisattva like they're great, which he's do.

29:21 [SPEAKER_01]: Brahma says, do you have an appointment? [SPEAKER_01]: I'm very busy. [SPEAKER_01]: And he brushes him more, basically. [SPEAKER_01]: And then he's leaving disappointed. [SPEAKER_01]: And throughout whatever going down through the passages of heaven, I mean, who it looks, the geography of it.

29:42 [SPEAKER_01]: And but then suddenly, Burma appears by a mination, you know, right there. [SPEAKER_01]: And then he's scared at first, he says, I'm leaving, don't bother, don't worry. [SPEAKER_01]: And then Burma says, no, no, no. [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to speak to you. [SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't speak to you there in the promise where I haven't.

29:57 [SPEAKER_01]: because here's the truth. [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't create it and I'm not omnipotent. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm the most powerful person in this particular world and the system and I'm really good and I want every good thing to happen. [SPEAKER_01]: So I cannot send away a genuine seeker without responding.

30:18 [SPEAKER_01]: But what happened is when I was the first person there, I was wondering [SPEAKER_01]: When the new cycle started a new calpa, I was wondering, where is everybody? [SPEAKER_01]: What's going on? [SPEAKER_01]: And then those other godlings, they put it at the two solar. [SPEAKER_01]: They showed up.

30:34 [SPEAKER_01]: These are the brim of Kaya Kadeva's. [SPEAKER_01]: And they said, Papa! [SPEAKER_01]: What's happening? [SPEAKER_01]: And I first said to them, I'm not your papa. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just here, you know? [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not sure myself and all this, you know? [SPEAKER_01]: And then they got freaked out.

30:49 [SPEAKER_01]: So after all, I said, okay, okay, okay, okay, but things fine, it's a little troll on papa. [SPEAKER_01]: So if I had told them, if I had told you that I didn't create it, et cetera, and I didn't know exactly what was going on, then [SPEAKER_01]: Although I do my best, they would have all freaked out and I don't have any psychiatrists here in heaven or they're equivalent, this is Sutta, ancient polysutta.

31:14 [SPEAKER_01]: So then he says, you should do, it's go ask Shakyamuni because of course it's about a Sutta, go ask Shakyamuni and he, I don't know what he'll tell you but he'll give you a good answer. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you'll know where to put your inquiry or something like that, you know, I'm not saying he didn't create it either, but I, I know that he didn't create it.

31:33 [SPEAKER_01]: He said so too, but then I want you to ask him to do me a favor. [SPEAKER_01]: and they were okay, what does that and say, well, ask him to do me a favor and that is, ask him to tell people that I'm not omnipotent and I didn't create it. [SPEAKER_01]: I am very powerful and I try to help, much as I can all the time, but then things go wrong, but the point is that I love it when things are really well for them and they say, thank Brahma.

32:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank God. [SPEAKER_01]: But when they have a horrible thing, their children are killed in front of their face, when they're die, when they get epidemic, when they're terrible to flood, fire, you know, earthquake. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't like it when they hate me. [SPEAKER_01]: It's because they think I do mean everything.

32:20 [SPEAKER_01]: And so the thing is we co-created, we all work together to create the universe. [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I want Buddha to tell. [SPEAKER_01]: He won't be popular by saying that. [SPEAKER_01]: I want him to tell people that. [SPEAKER_01]: Now I love that. [SPEAKER_01]: I recite that so to all the time.

32:35 [SPEAKER_01]: So my point is once it's ultimately nirguna. [SPEAKER_01]: Then relatively why aren't there gods? [SPEAKER_01]: Of course there are deities. [SPEAKER_01]: There are demons also. [SPEAKER_01]: There are angels. [SPEAKER_01]: There are goddesses, not only gods and so on. [SPEAKER_01]: And the Buddha, it's never rejected.

32:53 [SPEAKER_01]: They are not atheist. [SPEAKER_01]: That's completely wrong. [SPEAKER_01]: In fact, that's my big argument with Dalalama. [SPEAKER_01]: He goes around. [SPEAKER_01]: He says in India, in India, we say that Hindus are the theists. [SPEAKER_01]: So, and I argue with him, I say, no, you're holding us.

33:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Where did you live before you came up into exile? [SPEAKER_01]: Flasso, he says. [SPEAKER_01]: The word schlach is me, Zdeba, and Tibetan. [SPEAKER_01]: live in the place of the Davis, you know, which doesn't mean him, he wasn't a God king, it meant the end to get to bed and gowns and then also all the end in God, they're into Shiva and Brahman and there's new, they know about it and they're just, they're the children, the disciples of the Great Indian Sages and Rishi's 100% of the bed and so on.

33:47 [SPEAKER_01]: They became [SPEAKER_01]: So the Buddhists are not atheists, and then they said, well, what do you want to say? [SPEAKER_01]: I said, well, you could say, born on monotheist. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: He said something, and then I said, but the best would be if you would really adopt the Indian thing, and you would say you were an infinithiest, and then he didn't like that too many syllables.

34:12 [SPEAKER_01]: I told him when he goes to Muslim countries don't say we're not enthusiastic because then they will subconsciously feel there's something really wrong with you. [SPEAKER_01]: So just say Infinityistic or non-monotheistic was something like that and then they will get away but he didn't agree with me anyway we didn't agree.

34:29 [SPEAKER_01]: We will fellow students together he and I with some of his older teachers so we argue [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. [SPEAKER_03]: So, Swabin's therapy on the, on the same question, do you see the, the, the positive affirmation of Brahman, and it's, and it, and the conversation around in, in Madhiyamaka around Tata, Gada-Gada-Bao, or Shunya, do you think they're speaking about the same thing or different aspects of something else?

34:55 [SPEAKER_07]: Right answer, yes, straight answer, yes, the same thing. [SPEAKER_07]: But I think there is a way of misunderstanding both. [SPEAKER_07]: The way of misunderstanding, a Dwight of Adanta, is to think that Brownman is something. [SPEAKER_07]: And the way to misunderstand Mathematica is to think that Shunyata is nothing.

35:16 [SPEAKER_07]: So, I think the right way of understanding both would be nothing, no hyphen thing. [SPEAKER_07]: And there, I think in different ways, both Mathematica and Mathematica would agree. [SPEAKER_01]: and with compassion and with the life force, the BRHM syllables, like the Jewish Abraham or the same continent.

35:49 [SPEAKER_01]: And in Manta, in Tibetan Mantra, the mantra Brum, the BRHM that Brum is how you build the Mandala, the Mandala, the Brum. [SPEAKER_01]: So it really is kind of creative force energy and even though you say it's ultimately new to go now because in fact everything in the universe even the apple even your own nose is beyond the ability of your concept of nose to fully capture.

36:22 [SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean that because they're good on that, the person wouldn't be bramma in a particular world, meaning bramma, she can't, they call it, she can't means the crown ornament, the crown bramma, you know, the boss problem. [SPEAKER_01]: So the Buddhists really don't just believe in such existence, not only that, but they pray to them, but not for relief, not for Muxia Muxia, they pray to Buddha [SPEAKER_01]: for assistance in life to the gods and Indian gods.

36:52 [SPEAKER_01]: They don't mind that they like it. [SPEAKER_01]: So they are not non-tastic as my point. [SPEAKER_01]: Although they actually, I personally think in Western theology and here, people might be annoyed with me, but this is a recent idea I have. [SPEAKER_01]: And that is Yahweh, Allah, Jehovah, whatever name people have about God, [SPEAKER_01]: Um, they, what the gods tell them in those scriptures, is they have to be ethical.

37:25 [SPEAKER_01]: If they're not ethical, they're in trouble, they could have a very bad consequence in their afterlife. [SPEAKER_01]: Right? [SPEAKER_01]: That's what you tell them. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, he's not doing that. [SPEAKER_01]: Then they get all crazy and they think God is really tough and he's going to throw you in hell if I don't believe in this and that.

37:41 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's ridiculous projection. [SPEAKER_01]: that he's saying if he was omnipotent, why would he bother teaching ethics? [SPEAKER_01]: He just makes people do what he wants him to do. [SPEAKER_01]: but because he's saying by teaching ethics as cardinal in the Jewish tradition, as important in the Jewish tradition, as important in the Muslim tradition, they are saying, we are not omnipotent and you have a hand, you have agency in determining what happens to you.

38:09 [SPEAKER_01]: We do our best, they are saying that. [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that the theologians should cut it out. [SPEAKER_01]: with the projection of absolute authority into these God figures, which is in the phonetics, the demagogues, politicians, and kings in the old days, and now it is dictator, it wouldn't be dictators and politicians.

38:28 [SPEAKER_01]: They use those God things to go and kill people. [SPEAKER_01]: And it's totally wrong. [SPEAKER_01]: And so the theologians in the theistic traditions really have to be careful that they don't get into this projection that you absolutely have to follow this belief and that belief and their greatness of Vedanta keeping Hinduism from [SPEAKER_01]: Shivites, killing five-snabites, killing Brahmaites, although they don't, when they have the Trinity, Brahma is a creator, but they don't call themselves Brahmaites, so it's Vishnu and Shiva have kind of taken over the scene, but, and then there's some goddess people.

39:06 [SPEAKER_01]: But they don't much kill each other over that, and that's very, that's the greatness of India. [SPEAKER_01]: That's the original melting part in these things. [SPEAKER_06]: That's why I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get up at so, I don't get

39:39 [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, the last question. [SPEAKER_06]: I know you want this to be much longer. [SPEAKER_06]: We all want this to be much longer. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, we're good again, but let's do this is the last one. [SPEAKER_06]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so my last question. [SPEAKER_03]: I think is another question of mine is around the idea of, sorry, now it just lost my train of thought in my in my in my position here.

40:02 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, [SPEAKER_03]: the nature of Nidguna and Shunyatha. [SPEAKER_03]: And maybe this is too much of a late question, but I would love your thoughts on this. [SPEAKER_03]: Are we saying here that the Brahman or the oneness is beyond conception or is without conception? [SPEAKER_03]: Cause there are two different things, right?

40:29 [SPEAKER_03]: or beyond qualities or without qualities? [SPEAKER_03]: What are we saying exactly about it? [SPEAKER_03]: Cause I know language can't fully even explain this, but how do we talk about this in this context, no one else? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, the Madhya, I'm gonna just talk about it that the way of affirming the beyond conception is to negational approach, [SPEAKER_01]: Straight negation, negation that doesn't imply anything else, just opens the mind that your mind can't capture the thing with its concept, which doesn't mean you can't experience it.

41:09 [SPEAKER_01]: You have to learn to be able to transcend your own concepts. [SPEAKER_01]: But on the other hand, this is the tricky where tricky mistake is made in the Western appropriations of both Hinduism and Buddhism, where the people in the Dharma centers in the yoga centers, the Auschwanz and Suffolkets in this thing.

41:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that means conception is useless. [SPEAKER_01]: And then after we're enlightened, we can do anything, whatever the hell we want. [SPEAKER_01]: And the Guru can be mean to people and that's good for them, blah, blah, blah, blah. [SPEAKER_01]: They'll go on like that, and the Guru, [SPEAKER_01]: even though when they're related with people, they often, you know, if when they're not, it causes problems.

41:49 [SPEAKER_01]: And so this is a very fabulous thing. [SPEAKER_01]: And then the inner science is that the near-gonna just means in an absolute level of reality. [SPEAKER_01]: By the way, I don't like two truths. [SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, I don't really like two truths, Satya. [SPEAKER_01]: In that context, I prefer two realities.

42:07 [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important because truth can be a propositional on and off versus any can also be reality. [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, sorry, I'm not saying such as we're all in that truth, but I'm saying it's better to call them true reality, it's a relative reality and the absolute reality. [SPEAKER_01]: So, when the absolute reality coincides with the relative reality, [SPEAKER_01]: then it's like a hologram, the absolute is everywhere in the relativity.

42:30 [SPEAKER_01]: And so within that, the reasoning brings you to the transcendence of the concept. [SPEAKER_01]: So the accurately used concept, you know, the responsibly and accurately, philosophically, honestly, not just Kotarkika, just sophistically, just rejecting everything or something like that. [SPEAKER_01]: but really are with standing for your own point of view and so forth.

42:53 [SPEAKER_01]: When you use it well, it will bring you to the limitations of your concept. [SPEAKER_01]: And then then you can experience beyond your concept and you can have a deep transforming experience. [SPEAKER_01]: And then you can interpret that experience honorably and reasonably to make sense to someone else.

43:08 [SPEAKER_01]: So both concept, so it's trans conceptual in an experiential way of see experimental way of going to find to deep, to be empirical, basically, internally empirical. [SPEAKER_01]: And then it is not trans conceptual. [SPEAKER_01]: It is honorably and accurately conceptual within the province of the conceptual.

43:31 [SPEAKER_01]: That's really key to know that it's sophisticated enough is that and not a lot of people can keep those things together. [SPEAKER_01]: You have a blast out experience and then you think, wow, everything goes, you know, yeah, that's right. [SPEAKER_01]: Andrew is a danger but then that creates scandal and harms people and it's not good, you know.

43:50 [SPEAKER_01]: So that's how I would answer that last question. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you. [SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, sorry to interrupt you in there. [SPEAKER_03]: Would you respond? [SPEAKER_07]: I think it's both, in one sense, in the other way around the sense, we'll see that no attribute can be, no no label, no attribute, no quality can be given to the absolute to Nirkunapramman.

44:10 [SPEAKER_07]: So, you deny the, indicate all attributes to reach to the Nirkunapramman. [SPEAKER_07]: On the other hand, also Brahmann is the locus of infinite auspicious attributes. [SPEAKER_07]: If you go to Vishish Tadhuaita Vedanta for example, so you have Brahmann is beyond attributes only in the sense that there is so many Anantakallyaana, Guru Agana, that means endless auspicious attributes are there.

44:35 [SPEAKER_07]: Sri Ramakrishna would say, [SPEAKER_07]: it's like an ant which comes across a mountain of sugar and the ant is delighted and it grabs one little grain of sugar and struggles to drag it away and looks back at the mountain and says I'm going to come back for the whole mountain but of course it won't and it doesn't need to one grain of that sugar is enough for it's little time in this we are just like that.

44:58 [SPEAKER_07]: So we access that reality in whatever way through attributes or by denying attributes and that's enough for us. [SPEAKER_07]: Well, thank you for that. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: It's a great opportunity for you to appreciate that diabetic end. [SPEAKER_03]: We'll take you all for listening and I would recommend if you guys can, please do check out the rest of the panels.

45:24 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry. [SPEAKER_01]: You can say one tiny thing. [SPEAKER_01]: Sure. [SPEAKER_01]: I know it's over time and I've been talking too much. [SPEAKER_01]: But here's the tiny thing that I love nowadays. [SPEAKER_01]: You are a finite person and I'm a finite. [SPEAKER_01]: We have a boundary.

45:36 [SPEAKER_01]: We think so. [SPEAKER_01]: But can any of us think that we can exclude being immersed in infinity? [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think so. [SPEAKER_01]: So actually, both terms which are opposites can both be applied to us. [SPEAKER_01]: And yet, we can still use the meaning, in other ways, but we sort of take them with a grain of salt.

45:55 [SPEAKER_01]: That's the idea. [SPEAKER_01]: That's relativity of them, you know, very simple. [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, thank you for Professor Thurman. [SPEAKER_06]: If you are able to please join us. [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you so much. [SPEAKER_06]: That's a lot. [SPEAKER_06]: Okay. [SPEAKER_06]: If you are able to.

46:12 [SPEAKER_06]: But really, really immensely thankful for you to make time.