Reality vs. Appearance: How to See Pure Existence Behind Name & Form

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]So, the traditional ways to memorize in traditional schools in the Himalayas, they won't allow you to come to the next class unless you already memorized what was taught in the earlier class. So, the art of memory is something that we have lost um over the years. There's a very interesting book very casually titled Moonwalking with Einstein.

[00:00:27]The name of the book is Moonwalking with Einstein. Um um Joshua, I think. Josh Foer.

[00:00:35]Josh Foer.

[00:00:37]Uh there he talks about the art of memory.

[00:00:41]I I borrowed the book from the library, but I couldn't read it before the time was up. So, I went to return it and the lady at the counter said, "Oh, that look That looks cool." Uh I said, "I couldn't read it. The time is up." She said, "No, no, you should You should read it. You" She reissued it to me. And so, then finally I did read it.

[00:00:57]And it talks about the the lost art of memory that at one time everything was memorized. All that was important was memorized.

[00:01:05]And it's very useful in spiritual life to have the key texts memorized. So, you don't have to memorize a whole book.

[00:01:12]There are people who do that.

[00:01:15]Even now, I remember a friend of mine, a monk, when we were novices in the training center, he came from another center, Bhubaneswar.

[00:01:25]And he came to the training center.

[00:01:28]And this young monk who was was a novice at that time, within 3 years, 2 years of his joining, he had memorized the entire Bhagavad Gita, he had memorized eight Upanishads, he had memorized the Vivekachudamani, he had memorized uh um uh one or two other big texts.

[00:01:50]I said, "How did you do that?"

[00:01:52]And he said, "Oh, the Swami in charge put me to work in the bookshop."

[00:01:59]So, what did he do? First of all, he read the books.

[00:02:02]And the ones important ones he memorized all of them while he was working in the bookshop.

[00:02:06]So, it just goes to show that um the traditional examination for a pandit is called Shalaka Pariksha, where they will take a Sanskrit text, a manuscript, and drive a needle through it.

[00:02:22]And where the needle stops, they will open the text where the it has stopped, they will ask the student to recite that that page first and then explain it.

[00:02:33]So, that person has to memorize the whole book.

[00:02:36]Um Sanskrit pandits do that.

[00:02:39]And I thought it was impressive until I read in this Moonwalking with Einstein that uh there's similar tradition for Talmud scholars, Jewish scholars in Judaism, the scholars of the Talmud. And they go a step further. They in fact have that needle examination also.

[00:02:56]And what they do is they memorize their own book so thoroughly that when a needle is pushed through the text, it seems that's what the book says, it seems that not only the person will read out what is there in the page in which the needle stopped, but by looking at where the needle was put, he will tell you through which word in each page the needle has gone through.

[00:03:17]He knows it's his own text, so he knows each page so thoroughly. If you put it in one place, he knows what is all there below it on the all the pages down.

[00:03:26]So, tremendous.

[00:03:28]Anyway, uh so we can do this much. We can only memorize the single sentence, the Vedantic text.

[00:03:35]Now, external world.

[00:03:39]Remember one thing.

[00:03:41]Our attachment to the body, our identification with the body gives rise to internal and external.

[00:03:48]After all, what is inside and outside?

[00:03:50]Inside this skin and outside the skin.

[00:03:53]Isn't it? Inside this head and outside this head.

[00:03:56]What is east, west, north, south? It's just because of the world the way we have got our map.

[00:04:03]What is front and behind? It's just because you are identified with the body and where you are standing and facing, then you have a front and you have a behind and you have a an above and an a below.

[00:04:12]It's all identification with the body.

[00:04:14]The whole thing is a superimposition.

[00:04:18]So, external world. All this world we see around, the Vedantin claims it is pure existence.

[00:04:25]It is pure existence. It's like here there are so many pieces of furniture. I give the example of furniture and wood.

[00:04:32]Here is a table.

[00:04:34]It's a name is a table, the form is of a table, but the material is wood.

[00:04:40]If you weigh the wood and weigh the table, you'll get exactly the same weight.

[00:04:45]Which means there is not 1 mg more in this or an ounce more in this other than the wood which constitutes it.

[00:04:53]The reality of this table is the reality is the wood itself.

[00:04:56]Now, how do you recognize the wood apart from the name table and the form table?

[00:05:02]Because we know what is meant by wood and we know what is meant by table. It's easy for us. If I say, "Look at a table." You say, "Yes, Swami, I'm looking at the table." If I say, "Look at the wood." You say, "Yes, Swami, I'm looking at the wood." After all, when we touch this, we say, "Touch wood."

[00:05:16]We don't say touch table. We say touch wood. We recognize it it's wood.

[00:05:19]In the same way, this entire universe which we experience is pure existence, sat. The Sanskrit word is sat.

[00:05:29]Pure existence.

[00:05:30]With an overlay of name and form.

[00:05:34]Whatever we see, a person, a man, it's a man name and a man form. It is existence first. Swami Vivekananda says, "It is that existence first, then we cover it with good or bad and we call it a good thing or a bad thing. It's existence first."

[00:05:50]Now, how do you distinguish this existence in anything that we experience from the name and the form?

[00:05:57]How do you do that?

[00:05:59]It's like when you go to see a movie, it is actually a screen on which light is projected and pictures are projected.

[00:06:07]The whole screen is covered by pictures.

[00:06:10]But whenever it is covered by the pictures, it's just the screen itself.

[00:06:14]At every point there is a picture, but in reality, it's it's a screen. Now, how do you distinguish between the picture and the screen? You cannot switch off this movie. That movie maybe you can switch off, but the movie of life you cannot switch off.

[00:06:28]When you do switch it off at night, you are not thinking anymore, so you can't distinguish. You've switched yourself off also. The mind is also switched off.

[00:06:36]So, how do you distinguish between the reality and the appearance right now?

[00:06:41]Reality and the appearance right now.

[00:06:44]And that takes me back to my again to my training center days. There's a famous book called Reality and Appearance by a Professor Bradley, F. H. Bradley.

[00:06:53]He was a professor in uh I think Oxford or Cambridge, I forget.

[00:06:58]At the beginning of the 20th century, famous philosopher. And his book is famous book is Appearance and Reality.

[00:07:04]So, we had a philosopher coming to teach us philosophy when we were novices.

[00:07:08]And I wanted to read that book.

[00:07:10]And the teacher was so happy. He said, "Swami, nobody wants to read these books now. So, I'll take time off from my afternoon nap and if you're from India, you know how big a thing that is.

[00:07:20]I'll take time off from my afternoon nap and you take time off from your afternoon nap and we'll sit and read this book." So, we read, but I didn't come to the reality There are two chapter two sections, appearance and reality. So, we read about the appearance, but I never finally got to the reality section anyway.

[00:07:34]But how do you distinguish the appearance from the reality? Name and form from pure existence. Here we have three techniques. Let us see.