Do You Know Brahman? (The Eye of the Eye) | Kena Upanishad Explained | Swami Vivekananda Teachings

[00:00:16]Please make it you see to whatever available. One spot see wherever empty, sit.

[00:00:26]Here is on this corner there is one.

[00:00:29]Go ahead, next to me.

[00:00:41]So, please sit down.

[00:00:48]So, we are happy again to listen from Swami today.

[00:00:53]Do you know Brahman?

[00:00:55]That will be the topic.

[00:00:57]And it's a pleasure to have you all of you and Swami because Swami has come, so all of you have been are here are here, so it's good.

[00:01:08]And is Swami will leave tomorrow morning.

[00:01:13]So, in this chance on last talk, no?

[00:01:18]Today is the last talk.

[00:01:19]So, without saying anything more, I request Swami to give his sermon.

[00:01:52]>> Lead us from the unreal to the real.

[00:01:55]Lead us from darkness into light. Lead us from death to immortality. Om peace peace peace.

[00:02:10]Our experiences are what we call our lives.

[00:02:16]And we saw yesterday how the student asks a question, a remarkable question.

[00:02:23]He doesn't ask about some special experience. He asks, "What is the nature of experience itself? What's the nature of seeing and hearing and talking and thinking and feeling and breathing?

[00:02:36]Just our life.

[00:02:38]What's the secret of this? What makes all of this possible? He asks, "Which bright being illumines all of our experiences?"

[00:02:47]And the teacher's answer we saw was equally remarkable, even more remarkable.

[00:02:52]It is the eye of the eye. It is the ear of the ear. It is the mind of the mind. It is the speech of the speech. It is the breath of the breath. And that one, if you realize that, that one light which makes our seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking, feeling, speaking, actions, all of it possible. That one light, if you realize that, right here right now you will attain to freedom while being embodied in this body, you will transcend the body and mind.

[00:03:21]And after death, you attain to the bodiless freedom. Jivanmukti, freedom here. Videhamukti, freedom hereafter.

[00:03:29]Both you attain. The ultimate goal, purpose, point of human life is attained thereby. Why just human life? All life, all existence.

[00:03:39]That is the dimensions, that is the depth, the profound depth of the matter which we are discussing here. It does not get any more sublime.

[00:03:50]It does not get any more profound.

[00:03:53]What we are discussing here.

[00:03:54]And yet it's not easy to point out. The teacher said, "Speech cannot reveal it.

[00:03:59]Eyes, our senses cannot objectify it.

[00:04:02]Our speech cannot We cannot Whatever we can express in language cannot capture that that ultimate reality. That pure consciousness.

[00:04:11]Mind cannot conceive of it."

[00:04:15]Yet the teaching they gave the teaching in a remarkable teaching. How do we know what what we are talking about with this pure consciousness? What is it? How do we know? And the teacher said, "It's other than the known. It's other than the unknown."

[00:04:28]Some of the mantras which I did not refer to yesterday, he follows it up by saying, "What is that? It is that which cannot be seen by the eyes, but because of which you get the experience of seeing."

[00:04:40]And that one, he says, "Know that to be Brahman, the ultimate reality of this universe. From which this universe emerges, in which it exists, into which it disappears, that Brahman and this light by which you have the experience of seeing, they're one in the same thing."

[00:04:55]The Atman within and the reality of this universe, Brahman, they're one in the same.

[00:05:00]It is not something that the mind can think of, but because of it you have the experience of thinking, willing, imagining, remembering, desiring.

[00:05:09]So the it lights up the mind, but the mind cannot grasp it.

[00:05:13]The eyes cannot see it, but it sees everything.

[00:05:17]I was just remembering that right here in Los Angeles, in Pasadena, in in fact.

[00:05:22]Swami Vivekananda was here and the year There was a young lad, Roy or Ray, I think. He asked, "Roy, do you know Can you see your own eyes?" He says, "No."

[00:05:32]And you know, "God is Roy, God is like that. God sees everything, but you cannot see him. Just as I see everything." It's almost the language of the Kenopanishad Vivekananda was using right here in Los Angeles, in Pasadena.

[00:05:45]And so this is the teaching.

[00:05:48]The light by which we experience everything, by which we see, hear, smell, taste, touch, by which we think, by which we speak, all actions, all mentation, all feeling, all sensory experiences, all of these experiences are because of that one central light.

[00:06:06]It is often called the light of lights.

[00:06:08]Jyotisham api tad jyoti. The light of lights forever beyond darkness.

[00:06:14]The teacher does not use language like Atman, pure consciousness. No, he just says ear of the ear, eye of the eye. Almost like Vivekananda's language. It's like your own eyes, which you cannot see.

[00:06:29]Having said this, the teaching is now complete.

[00:06:32]Hopefully, the student is enlightened.

[00:06:35]Now, it's a time for a an exam. Quiz.

[00:06:39]The teacher wants to test whether the student has become enlightened. So, the teacher asks a question. It's a difficult question, tough question to the student.

[00:07:01]The teacher asks the student, "So, do you know Brahman? That's the subject today, by the way. Do you know Brahman?"

[00:07:07]So, it's done. Teaching is over. Do you know Brahman? Because if you think you know Brahman, then you know very little indeed. You know very little of that ultimate reality, which is behind this cosmos. You know very little of it within yourself. Two things, you know, subject and object. I, the individual, and this cosmos. I, the subject, and this objective universe.

[00:07:28]And what he's been teaching the student is your innermost reality, that consciousness because of which your life is possible, is also the reality of this universe.

[00:07:39]Atman is Brahman.