Sri Aurobindo Upanishad Part - 10 by Sraddhalu

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:11]We are studying the text titled Shriorindu Upanishad and we have crossed the halfway point.

[00:00:24]In the first half, Shriurbindo gives us a comprehensive vision of the cosmos and helps us to recognize the many faceted oneness and the reality of the all.

[00:00:48]Even the most material, most superficial phenomenal appearance is still real.

[00:01:01]The whole cosmos is described as world Brahman.

[00:01:08]The Brahman himself as the entire world.

[00:01:12]And this world Brahman is the true light of the divine.

[00:01:20]Not a dream nor illusory nor a false shining.

[00:01:26]It is the real light of the reality.

[00:01:32]Not the divine in himself but he himself only.

[00:01:40]We have seen also in the description so far that all the forms that are thus glowed out in that light of the divine are himself.

[00:01:56]There are only names, aspects shining out in the world whose self is pure consciousness and whose form also is consciousness alone.

[00:02:14]The world constituted of consciousness shines in the spirit which is consciousness.

[00:02:22]It is the real light of the real divine.

[00:02:27]Throughout in this first half all references to the divine we have seen where bhagavan and the deeper sense of the word bhagavan we saw was the one who enjoys who enjoys in his bliss.

[00:02:48]And the word enjoyment in English is still a limiting word. In Sanskrit, the same word has the sense of nourishment, of taking in food, of being nourished by the enjoyment.

[00:03:06]And it is this now which is brought forward in the second half of the opanishad.

[00:03:13]And the midpoint was verse 10. Whatever thus manifests is the world bliss only.

[00:03:29]What so far was described as world Brahman is now described as world bliss because now the whole focus is on Brahman as bliss.

[00:03:42]Verse 11, recapturing the grand vision of the all with three words simply om sat Om we saw captures the four-fold Brahman and the transcendence in silence and yet this transcendence unknowable knows itself as sheer existence.

[00:04:14]as an absolute and therefore tut sat that the absolute truth sheer existence.

[00:04:23]So om tats captures this grand vision of the cosmos of Brahman in his totality and then the elaboration and the focus on the bliss and that which is existence the s that which is existence the same is consciousness and that which is consciousness the same is bliss.

[00:04:52]Sat Chit and Anunda are himself.

[00:04:57]In the way we are used to thinking of them, we look upon Sat, Chit and Anunda as separate attributes of the Brahman. But the reality is Brahman is that Sat. There is nothing other.

[00:05:17]Sat is his sheer existence in its totality.

[00:05:21]It is not somewhere there. It is everywhere in the cosmos.

[00:05:26]All exists because it is sat. It is sheer existence.

[00:05:33]And that existence is made of himself in his sheer awareness.

[00:05:40]And therefore all exists because it is his awareness.

[00:05:45]Because he is aware of himself as this.

[00:05:49]Therefore, this exists.

[00:05:52]Therefore, this is manifest.

[00:05:56]And all is consciousness. Not merely the highest domains. Everything down to the most material is his s and his chit. His existence and his consciousness.

[00:06:10]The difference though is that the consciousness can choose to veil itself, limit itself as if projecting a front of narrowness of limitation, withholding its power, withholding its knowledge, withholding its bliss as it projects as if a limited front. And therefore we have the gradations of consciousness which we see as degrees of involution ending in the most material in conscience.

[00:06:44]But this two is consciousness. This too is sheer existence of Brahman.

[00:06:52]But the consciousness is also bliss.

[00:06:56]Brahman himself is the bliss, the anunda of the totality.

[00:07:03]And just as sat and chit are everywhere, the anunda also is everywhere equally.

[00:07:11]The difference again is that it may veil itself. And the next verse which we saw discusses and describes that veiling.

[00:07:23]But we must in our conception recognize all three sat, chit and ananda as simultaneous realities that are Brahman himself not merely attributes and that are existing everywhere in all plains in the totality of the cosmos.

[00:07:46]Nothing could be if it was not the s of Brahman himself. If it was not the chit of Brahman himself, if it was not the Ananda of Brahman and therefore even in the most dense stone and even in the complete awak chit and Ananda of Brahman as Brahman.

[00:08:23]So omat and that which is existence the same is consciousness and that which is consciousness the same is bliss.

[00:08:38]As for that which appears as devoid of bliss, as suffering and weakness and ignorance, it is the deformationation of that bliss, the play of bliss. So he uses two words to describe this apparent lack of bliss or appearance of suffering, weakness and ignorance. He uses two words Vikar translated as deformationation and the other word is creda play. So there is a deformationation of bliss and there is a play of bliss. And these are two different ways of looking at the same thing. In a sense when we speak of deformationation the deformationation is always in relation to something that we would call formation or right formation.

[00:09:45]Whenever you look at something and say this is deformed in your consciousness automatically there is a reference of something which is right form.

[00:09:57]So the deformationation cannot exist without a right form already existent.

[00:10:04]And the deformationation is nothing but the right form as if modified, as if twisted, in relation to what?

[00:10:15]And this distortion can exist only in relation to things around.

[00:10:22]If you take something in isolation as a true form, whether you twist it or not, you would not know unless you had something against which you see a twist, a deformation.

[00:10:35]What is that other thing against which you see the deformation? That is also something that is also Brahman. So when Brahman places himself in relation to Brahman and appears to change himself in relation to himself, is they really a deformation or is it merely a play a play of perception or a play of appearances?

[00:10:59]So throughout there is this double idea of play of bliss as well as deformationation of bliss. But the deformationation exists only in a limited consciousness. When we see the totality, we see only play.

[00:11:20]So Sharbindu uses both terms anandara that is the distortion of anund anand play of ananda. At the same time, vikara also in the root sounds that is that are used in Sanskrit. Aara is the form. Vara is displaced, distorted form, but still form.

[00:11:53]So that which appears as devoid of bliss, as suffering and weakness and ignorance, it is the deformationation of that bliss, the play of bliss.

[00:12:04]The next verse which also we have read last time that indeed which is ja individual soul is the all blissful divine in disguise descended to enjoy the self luminous world Brahman that which is the experience of suffering is an experience made of bliss.

[00:12:37]The all blissful enjoys its bliss only in the Sanskrit.

[00:12:58]So every ja that is individualized soul s anand maya prachano bhagavan he is ananda maya that is of the nature of bliss prchano disguised bhagavan the divine enjoyer and again we remind ourselves bhagavan has that sense of enjoyer but also who is nourishing himself in his enjoyment.

[00:13:29]So he is the blissful and yet disguised divine enjoyer entering what descended the word used.

[00:13:47]So in the Sanskrit The world Brahman which is made of his own light in order to enjoy that and nourish himself by that he has descended. Avata is the same word as what we use in avatar.

[00:14:17]Avatar and Avatar is the one who has descended as Avatar and literally in that sense the avatar when we use that term is a conscious divine manifestation in his fullness.

[00:14:30]But what is the soul individual ja? He also is the divine consciously choosing to enter descend. Literally the word avatar is descending down to the earth.

[00:14:46]And why has he descended?

[00:14:48]To enjoy and nourish himself in the world Brahman which is made of his own illumination.

[00:14:58]So there is a double idea that first the whole world Brahman is himself molded out of his own consciousness and light.

[00:15:09]But to enjoy it fully, it is not enough that he remains its lord and holds the whole cosmos in his embracement.

[00:15:19]It is not enough that he experiences the universe, the world as his own body.

[00:15:25]The full enjoyment is possible when he can experience his own body, his own universe, his own world from each point, from each perspective, from each shade, from within each wave, from within the foam and crest and bubble of each wave.

[00:15:46]And therefore, the full enjoyment is not a generalized summary of it all.

[00:15:54]But at the same time involves an individuation and a specialized focus where everywhere in the totality.

[00:16:05]If we use an analogy which we can often use in such context and we view our own human experience and identity. We may look upon our own body as ourselves and say I am my body and I'm enjoying the inhabitation of my body.

[00:16:27]But the enjoyment can be a general enjoyment. Yes, I am the person in the body or it can focus. It can narrow down. I enjoy my sight. I see a beautiful form.

[00:16:40]I enjoy my hearing. I enjoy the touch of the breeze on my skin.

[00:16:46]I enjoy the taste and it can get more narrow. It can enjoy the sweetness. It can enjoy the sourness. It can enjoy the color. It can enjoy the form.

[00:16:59]It can enjoy the intensity. It can enjoy the limitation. And you can go down into narrower and narrower focus of the enjoyment.

[00:17:10]And ultimately the whole is not fully enjoyed unless you have entered into each part into each cell and from within each experienced all possibilities of all variations of the all including all possible relations with the all and all the variations within those relations.

[00:17:34]And so what happens in the next two three verses there is this development of the idea that for the purpose of the complete enjoyment this concealment is necessary and we will see that subsequently in the 14th verse it is stated most clearly.

[00:17:54]So for the purpose of the enjoyment of his world Brahman which is made of his own consciousness and light.

[00:18:09]He has descended for that. And the second idea is also here that as he descends there may be as if a narrowing of the focus of his enjoyment but at the same time it is a growth a nourishment that he experiences.

[00:18:28]Each of the points that he puts out as himself as the ja the innumerable individual souls infinite in the infinite universe for each point is a point of his nourishment.

[00:18:45]To put it in a very crude form in the human analogy, sometimes people who are great enjoyers of food, they say, "I wish I had another mouth. I wish I had another stomach so I could enjoy myself twice as much."

[00:19:04]But the divine himself as if multiplies infinitely and enjoys himself infinitely through all of these jas. What? Himself in his totality while at the same time preciding over the overall experience and enjoyment of the cosmos.

[00:19:26]So for this purpose he has descended.

[00:19:31]And who has descended? It is himself.

[00:19:41]The blissful Brahman himself has descended in disguise.

[00:19:48]And the rest of the verse that which is the experience of suffering is an experience made of bliss.

[00:19:56]As we have seen already, everything is sat. Everything is jit in essence not necessarily in phenomenon and so it is with the bliss. All is in essence bliss. Not blissful. It is bliss.

[00:20:16]But in the phenomenon there may be the appearance appearance of the non- bliss, lack of bliss or even the appearance of suffering and pleasure and pain and other variations.

[00:20:31]But what are they made of? Even the phenomenon is made up of the underlying reality which is bliss.

[00:20:39]So even the experience of suffering is an experience made of bliss. And how will be obvious as we go along in the next verse.

[00:20:51]But the foundation of this idea is the all blissful enjoys its bliss only.

[00:21:00]In Sanskrit it is uh stated in a way that it it suggests the all blissful can only enjoy his bliss because there is nothing else other than his bliss.

[00:21:18]So how does this happen that that which is bliss can appear as suffering? And we come to the verse 13 which we had read first in a first exploration last time and now we go deeper.

[00:21:37]Who indeed could dare enjoy that which is devoid of bliss?

[00:21:44]He only could dare it who is all blissful.

[00:21:49]As for him who is devoid of bliss, he while enjoying the blissless would still not enjoy it would rather perish without bliss.

[00:22:01]And the deep idea here is if someone did not have bliss, how could he ever enjoy bliss?

[00:22:13]We look at the psychology of any experience.

[00:22:20]When you have an experience, let us say at a very superficial level, the experience of contact with an object, you touch, you hold a flower, you smell the perfume of the flower.

[00:22:36]If there were not already something within you that is the sweetness of the perfume, you would not be able to smell the perfume.

[00:22:50]In material terms, we would say we have receptors in the nose which recognize that perfume or we have cells in the brain which recognize that perfume.

[00:23:03]If you remove those cells or those receptors or remove their sensitivity, the perfume may exist but you will not be able to register it. The very act of registering an experience implies something within you already has it and the contact only draws out what was already there.

[00:23:27]Even more on the first level of contact when you first touch.

[00:23:32]If there was not within you the awareness of the other, there would be no experience of contact.

[00:23:41]It's a common experience when you place your legs cross-legged for a very long time or even when you're sitting in a tight space pushing against each other.

[00:23:53]After a while, you lose the sense of border.

[00:23:56]You cannot make out where the substance of this leg ends and the substance of the other leg begins.

[00:24:05]And there is as if loss of sensitivity of separateness.

[00:24:11]So unless there is something within your consciousness that knows the other as other, it will not be able to register the contact itself.

[00:24:20]It would simply feel itself not separate and there therefore no contact was ever made. So something within must know the other and the existence of the other and the contact is only a point of trigger which draws out that awareness of the other as an experience.

[00:24:40]Shribuindo describes all sense experience as being essentially a contact of consciousness with consciousness.

[00:24:51]If there was not the awareness within us, we would not be able to register any sensation. But what is it that we register at the point of contact of the sensation in our awareness? We awaken the knowledge of the other which is nothing but itself. The oneself meeting the self in form of other. If our self did not contain the other self, it would not be able to have that contact. This is the underlying truth.

[00:25:24]And so it is with the experience of bliss.

[00:25:30]One who is devoid of bliss, he would not be able to enjoy the bliss even if he tries to enjoy because he does not have it within himself.

[00:25:42]It would rather perish without bliss.

[00:25:46]The reality Shirbinda says elsewhere is that the entire world is sustained by the bliss of Brahman.

[00:25:56]If not for that underlying bliss supporting us, nothing could survive.

[00:26:03]And he points out that even when we suffer, we do not want to give up our life because something deep within enjoys that experience and the variety of experience of life.

[00:26:19]And it is that deep profound enjoyment unknown to us consciously which sustains our life which sustains our enthusiasm which gives us constantly the strength and the energy to persist and to overcome in spite of the most impossible conditions.

[00:26:41]So without the support of that bliss it would indeed perish.

[00:26:47]So one who is devoid of bliss cannot be enjoying bliss. And therefore the question is who indeed could dare enjoy that which is devoid of bliss.

[00:26:58]He only could dare it who is all blissful. And because he is all blissful even if he meets something which appears to be devoid of bliss. What does he register? He registers that which is himself, his own bliss, but in a different color as if within a limitation, behind a mask, behind a different appearance.

[00:27:25]And the same logic is developed in the next two questions.

[00:27:32]Who can become weak?

[00:27:35]He only can who is all powerful.

[00:27:40]The weak one indeed invaded by weakness would not endure but would perish without force.

[00:27:48]If one is already weak and chooses to become weaker, then he enters a condition which is irretrievable and sinks into that weakness and is lost.

[00:28:03]Only one who is all powerful can enter into weakness without losing himself.

[00:28:10]Because behind that apparent weakness is his all power which can at any point withhold from being lost in the weakness.

[00:28:23]And the third question, who could enter ignorance?

[00:28:28]Only he who is omnisient could enter it.

[00:28:33]As for the ignorant, he could not endure in that darkness.

[00:28:39]Non-being would remain non-being only.

[00:28:44]It would perish without knowledge.

[00:28:50]So because he is omnisient, he can enter into the play of ignorance without losing himself.

[00:28:59]In many of the old traditions, there are symbolic stories of entry into darkness, entry into hell, entry into a maze to overcome some demon or some opponent of the divine to retrieve some truth to recover the soul.

[00:29:23]Various variations of these and you will find there is always in the person who enters some special gift, some saving light, some link to return.

[00:29:42]In the most superficial form of the symbol, the journey into the maze carries a thread. The person who has entered into the maze is unrolling a thread as he goes along and later when he has to return rather than being lost in the ignorance and false appearances he follows the thread. He does not look at the maze. He is not deceived by the appearance. He keeps only the link that he has back to the light.

[00:30:18]When we enter into the domain of ignorance, there is always this thread which connects us back to our source.

[00:30:25]And because that source is free, omniscient in the full knowledge, it is able to draw us back and we are able to return instead of being lost.

[00:30:41]Ignorance is the play of knowledge concealing itself in itself.

[00:30:49]We use the analogy here of the mirror or the reflections in the disturbed waters of the light which is from verse 8.

[00:31:03]And in all those flickering images, reflections of the one sun, we see the sun and yet we do not see it. We see a glimpse of a part and by the time our attention settles on the glimpse, it is gone. And another light glints, draws our attention on a part which is a reflection. And by the time we turn to it again, it is lost. And if you watch this shimmering surface of the waters, your attention is wandering and wandering and wandering and lost. In what? In pieces, in fragments, ephemeral.

[00:31:47]Nowhere do you find anything substantial or permanent.

[00:31:53]And yet it is the sun.

[00:31:56]The ignorance is similar. It is nothing but the light of the sun. And yet it is so arranged or rearranged or deformed in the play that it is concealed. The sun is no more seen only this flickering surface of shimmering dots. So ignorance is the play of knowledge. Remember play is also to us deformationation but to the totality it is a play a play of bliss.

[00:32:28]So ignorance is the play of knowledge concealing itself in itself.

[00:32:34]And where has the sun gone? Behind that flickering surface.

[00:32:40]It is still there. We see only its reflected sparkles. But the sun itself is behind each sparkle now concealed.

[00:32:50]And the same for the other two questions. Weakness is the play of power.

[00:32:57]Blissfulness the play of blisslessness.

[00:33:01]The play of bliss.

[00:33:03]The concealment of itself in itself.

[00:33:09]When power similarly plays, fragmenting itself, putting forward appearances, contradicting itself, it appears as weakness.

[00:33:22]If you had to create in an intense ocean of power, of pressure, the appearance of something which is not under pressure, how would you do it?

[00:33:41]If you had to create a space, carve out a space in a massive ocean which is under a tremendous pressure, how would you do it? Simply you would put the pressure on one side and balance it out by the pressure on the other side. The same pressure taking opposing poises, the result will be in the middle as if no pressure.

[00:34:08]This is in fact the reality of our human experience on earth.

[00:34:14]Right now on every square cm of our skin there is the pressure of the atmosphere going up 70 or 80 km all that air piles up pressing with a pressure of 1 kilogram on each square cm.

[00:34:35]And if the palm of our hand is about 100 square cm, you have 100 kilos pressing on your palm right now. And how are you able to hold up your palm? Because equally on the on the other side is an equal pressure pressing the other way.

[00:34:52]And 100 kilos here, 100 kilos there. The result is as if no pressure.

[00:34:58]But the reality is behind the phenomenon. The reality is this enormous pressure. And so it is with the play of power in the world where you see powerlessness. It is simply because the one which is all powerful has rearranged himself in the play in an apparent deformation of his true form to create the appearance of opposing powers or a multiplicity of fragmented and opposing powers. And suddenly we see only a pattern of weaknesses, some more, some less.

[00:35:40]But the reality behind all is the one all powerful.

[00:35:47]And so it is with blisslessness which is nothing but the play of bliss.

[00:35:54]When bliss presents itself to itself in a variation of relativities, the underlying bliss is forgotten and the relation the relativity is all that we register.

[00:36:10]And in relation to these two the small variation between them is all that we are experiencing. Variation of what? The all blissful that is forgotten.

[00:36:23]How does this concealment of itself in itself take place and why?

[00:36:32]The next verse reveals blissfully laughs the ja blissfully cries, sheds tears, blissfully throbs as if shining in dark anunda.

[00:36:57]The word used in Sanskrit is tamas darkness or inert inertia maya of the nature of tamas of the nature of darkness.

[00:37:18]But as if this is very important. Eva bham eva as if as if shining in dhar anandanda agitated by tortures still it is blissful blissfully throbs agitated by violent pleasures. So in the perspective of the anunda the suffering of torture and the pleasure are equivalent limitations.

[00:37:51]Neither is anunda. Ananda transcends both. They are both distortions, deformationations or limitations of the anunda.

[00:38:03]And why why at all this choice to enter in this play of deformation and limitation?

[00:38:11]And it's not enough to say simply because he can.

[00:38:16]That though that can also be an answer in itself. There is a still deeper truth.

[00:38:22]In the translation he puts it like this.

[00:38:25]for the full enjoyment of the dark ignorant portion of that anunda. He the ja conceals it becoming obscure and ignorant.

[00:38:40]This goes back to what we were earlier discussing for the fullness of the enjoyment. So in the Sanskrit which is more clear he says For the purpose of complete bohoga as we have seen enjoyment or nourishment for the complete enjoyment for the complete nourishment and pa being complete is also whole. All For the complete enjoyment of that bliss in the complete enjoyment there is also the enjoyment of the dark side of ananda. A that is the limitation and concealment of anunda is also a facet an aspect of the total ananda and for that portion and for the completeness that portion must be enjoyed also for that purpose to enjoy the dark side of the anunda the soul must itself enter as if that darkness and become a part of that darkness. us and so it must conceal the anunda to enjoy the dark side of ananda. So to put it in more uh accessible terms we may say a facet of the play of ananda is the concealment of ananda. To be able to experience or enjoy its lack is also an ananda or a facet of the anunda. To be able to experience the limitation, narrowing or even contradiction of the anunda is also a part of the play of ananda. And for that purpose to enjoy that the soul itself must enter that play of concealment and limitation and so must become itself concealed and limited and in the process it veils the anunda to enjoy this multiplicity of limitation.

[00:41:22]And this is the verse 14 which brings us to the crux of it. You will recall in savvitri that line which I have mentioned earlier where the soul leans down from its two safe eternity and wants to enjoy that adventure and danger.

[00:41:43]There are two a forism the there are two sets of shriindindo which capture something of this and I thought it worth reading here.

[00:42:04]The first one is the bliss of Brahman.

[00:42:09]And this looks at the large play of his bliss without the limited focus into the darker side of the play.

[00:42:29]It is the fullness of the play which is being described here.

[00:42:34]This is a forism. This is the sonnet titled the bliss of Brahman.

[00:42:41]I have become a foam white sea of bliss.

[00:42:46]I am a curling wave of God's delight.

[00:42:51]A shapeless flow of happy passionate light.

[00:42:56]A whirlpool of the streams of paradise.

[00:43:02]I am a cup of his felicities, a thunder blast of his golden ecstasies might a fire of joy upon creation's height.

[00:43:17]I am his raptures wonderful abyss.

[00:43:25]I am drunken with the glory of the Lord.

[00:43:29]I am vanquished by the beauty of the unborn.

[00:43:34]I have looked alive upon the eternal's face.

[00:43:40]My mind is cloven by his radiant sword.

[00:43:45]My heart by his beatific touch is torn.

[00:43:51]My life is a meteor dust of his flaming grace.

[00:44:01]So in this you see not only the a massive foam white sea of bliss and its large enormous flows and waves but also at the same time he is the cup of his felicities a narrow focus of the ja but cup is one relationship we hold as container to hold the bliss within The other relationship is thunderb blast of his golden ecstasies might. That is each ja is as if burst out from him thrown into manifestation as a thunder blast of his golden ecstasies might.

[00:44:44]We did not hear enter casually in a wandering way. What's this like? We were released from him thrown out as a spark and as an image it is enough to say thrown out but we forget that in the throwing out it is the all powerful who throws out what his own power. So our thunder blast of his golden ecstasies might and if you look at it this way the journey of our whole life not just this life but the soul's eternal journey across lives is this thunder blast thrown out into eternity and infinity at the same time. At the same time the soul also in its height a fire of joy upon creation's height and at the same time I am his raptur's wonderful abyss. It is the entry into the depths into the abysses and still it is the abyss of his rapture.

[00:45:43]And the third part of the sonnet describes how the individual person is vanquished, drunken, mindloven, heart torn by this radiance and beauty and bliss. And life itself is a meteor dust of his flaming grace.

[00:46:06]And the suggestion is as the meteor burns its way through the atmosphere it consumes itself to become dust.

[00:46:18]But what is this movement?

[00:46:21]It is himself pouring out. It is himself which moves as a flaming grace leaving behind this meteor dust in the trail.

[00:46:33]There is another set where the double status is described.

[00:46:39]On the one part this free being standing above and supporting and on the other side the small front which plays inside the dualities as if lost.

[00:46:55]This set is titled the dual being.

[00:47:01]There are two beings in my single self.

[00:47:06]A godhead watches nature from behind at play in front with a brilliant surface self.

[00:47:17]A timeborn creature with a human mind.

[00:47:22]So the godhead is behind. It watches nature playing in front with a brilliant surface elf. Sorry. A brilliant surface elf. It is a tiny timeborn creature with a human mind.

[00:47:39]And who watches? The godhead is behind.

[00:47:42]What is he watching? And the play of what? Nature. And who is nature? His own power.

[00:47:48]So there are two beings in my single self. A godheads a godhead watches nature from behind at play in front with a brilliant surface elf. A timeborn creature with a human mind, tranquil and boundless like a sea or sky.

[00:48:09]The godhead knows himself eternity's son.

[00:48:15]Radiant his mind and vast his heart as free.

[00:48:22]His will is a scepter of dominion.

[00:48:27]So this godhead behind is tranquil, boundless like a sea or sky. That is the vastness of the cosmos is his vastness knows himself eternity's son. So he is also eternal and yet a delegate entered time. So son of eternity but still living in the eternity living in his infinity.

[00:48:56]And what is the nature of his mind?

[00:48:58]Radiant and vast, his heart as free.

[00:49:03]So the mind is full of the light of omniscience, vast and allincclusive in his vision.

[00:49:11]And the heart is free that it can hold everything, leave everything, play with everything without being attached, without being bound. As free as his mind, as vast as his mind. and his will is a scepter of dominion. The scepter is the stick that represents the power of the king and he is truly a king in the cosmos.

[00:49:38]On the other side is this little elf. So the next uh paragraph describes that the smaller self by nature's passions driven thoughtful and erring learns his human task.

[00:49:57]All must be known and to that greatness given this mind and life the mirror and the mask.

[00:50:09]So this is the struggle driven by nature's passion. If you look at the surface personality and that's the ego sense in each one of us. The small self driven by what? Nature's passion. If you think about it, all of our efforts, all of our actions are driven by some passion. I want this.

[00:50:32]I desire that. I fear that. I hate that.

[00:50:37]I dislike that and if there is a neutrality there is no action. It is always a pull or a push which is driving us otherwise we lapse into inertia. But whose pull or push is it? We didn't choose it. It was not our free choice.

[00:50:53]It was nature which made us feel attracted or repelled.

[00:50:58]So it is nature's passion that drives us. But because nature pass nature's passion flows in us we identify with it and say I like I fear but it is always nature thoughtful and ingring always making mistakes learns his human task. All the journey from the point we are born is learning how to deal with the world.

[00:51:27]All must be known. The goal is not just learn a few things but learn everything.

[00:51:34]And to that greatness given this mind and life the mirror and the mask. The mind and life are both reflecting the greatness as well as masking the greatness and all must be given to that greatness.

[00:51:53]And ending with the last two lines of the sonnet.

[00:51:56]As with the figure of a symbol dance, the screened omniscient plays at ignorance.

[00:52:07]As if there is a symbolic dance being played out and with a figure inside that symbolic dance, the omnisient hiding behind that screen plays at ignorance. Pretending as if it is ignorant, the omniscient from behind the screen plays through this finger of a through this figure in the symbol dance.

[00:52:32]And this is the ja when it enters for the purpose of the full enjoyment of the dark ignorant portion of anunda. He has to conceal the anunda and conceal himself to enter the experience of that duality and relativity becoming obscure and ignorant in the process.

[00:52:58]And then the next verse describes the nature of the ignorance and what it makes us think.

[00:53:05]And it says to throw a few indications.

[00:53:09]You are that I am this. What you are, I am not. What is good for you is bad for me. If you gain then I lose. All of these experiences or relationships are part of the ignorance.

[00:53:24]And the root of ignorance is the idea that I am finite and therefore incapable, weak and sorrowful.

[00:53:35]And after that the verse 16 will teach us that by deliverance from the ignorance one is delivered from suffering. Knowing that I am all blissful. He am I. I am one. I am infinite. I am all one becomes all blissful. One becomes a being of bliss.

[00:53:59]This indeed is liberation. And liberated he enjoyments. Liberated he enjoys the enjoyments of all.

[00:54:09]And even the enjoyments of the finite and the infinite and so on.

[00:54:13]And the rest of it plays on the sense of the leela as the play of the world. But right now we are observing how the ja as a being of bliss. When he laughs, he laughs blissfully. But when he cries and sheds tears, the ja is still blissfully crying and shedding tears. And we have drawn repeatedly on the analogy which drives home this nature of the play.

[00:54:46]When an actor on the stage cries and weeps the most passionate painful whale deep inside him he says to himself oh what a beautiful performance and while the audience cries with the actor sharing in that pain deep inside they enjoy it since saying what a wonderful play what a wonderful acting I must come back to this again and in and you notice how we are drawn to experience all of these and we enjoy them.

[00:55:25]Even we are drawn to enjoy a tragedy.

[00:55:29]Although something in the surface is in pain in participation and identification with the tragedy, we go back to that drama. We go back to that movie because something inside enjoys this as one color of the bliss of Brahman.

[00:55:48]But the surface being suffers when this ident the true identity with the true enjoyer within is lost. And how to recover that true identity is described in the following verses which we will continue next Sunday.

[00:56:08]For now we reread verse 14 and we can meditate on it blissfully laughs the ja blissfully cries sheds tears blissfully throbs as if shining in dark ananda agitated by tortures blissfully throbs agitated by violent pleasures for the full enjoyment of The dark ignorant portion of that anunda, he the ja conceals it becoming obscure and ignorant.

[00:56:48]And verse 10, whatever thus manifests is the world bliss only.