Shiva and Shakti, fully explained || Acharya Prashant, at IIT-Delhi (2022)

Acharya Prashant

Video Information: 15.04.2022, IIT-Delhi, Delhi  Context: ~ What work to choose in life? ~ Should one seek social validation while choosing work? ~ How important is money while choosing work? ~ Why do we often underestimate the circumstances?  Music Credits: Milind Date

Transcript

00:00Sir, I have two questions.

00:06How do we understand the union of Shiva and Shakti from non-dual Vedanta perspective?

00:13And the second question is how to surrender to Guru consciously?

00:18These are symbols.

00:20Shakti represents everything in motion, everything that can be experienced, everything that you

00:29can think of, Shakti represents the totality of that.

00:37If Shakti represents everything in motion, one feels like asking why is everything in

00:45motion in the first place?

00:48Why is everything moving?

00:54Let's begin with ourselves.

00:55Why does the mind move so much?

00:59Why does the individual never rest anywhere?

01:04Why are you always thinking?

01:08Why do we always want to reach somewhere?

01:11What is this quest for attainment, achievement?

01:18What is desire that fuels all our movements?

01:26We move.

01:28It seems commonsensical so that we may come to a point where there is no further need

01:36for movement.

01:37Is that not so?

01:41No one moves to remain moving.

01:44No one walks to remain walking.

01:48No one begins a journey with no end.

01:54So if we are constantly in motion, both physically and mentally, that tells us something about

02:03who we are.

02:07We are entities deeply in desire of something.

02:13And that's why we are constantly in motion.

02:19Otherwise who wants to move?

02:22Otherwise why would there be such unrest and disquiet within?

02:30You would never find any person, even a non-human organism that is perfectly still whether physically

02:44or mentally.

02:49Consciousness moves.

02:53Consciousness moves and it moves in search of a final destination, a place where there

03:02is no movement at all, a place where there is no experience at all.

03:10The clock keeps ticking so that you can come to a certain and ultimate timelessness.

03:20We value experiences so much.

03:23We want experiences of all kinds so that we may come to a point where there is no further

03:29need for experience, where we are beyond experience.

03:34We keep looking at faces, we keep meeting people, we keep entering into relationships

03:41because we want to come to a point where there is no further need to look at any face or

03:47form, where there is no need to further remember any names.

03:55That point is symbolically represented by Shiva.

04:00Shakti is movement, Shiva is destination.

04:08Those who are inclined towards having the right kind of movement, worship Shakti.

04:19Those who are inclined towards the destination, those who have fallen in love with the destination

04:26itself, worship Shiva.

04:30The fact is that the two are inseparable.

04:34Are you getting it?

04:37Shakti is the totality of all our experiences.

04:43Everything that is in space-time is contained in Shakti.

04:51And space-time does not exist for itself.

04:53It exists for the sake of its dissolution.

04:57Had it existed for its own sake, you would have succeeded in somehow, at any point, finding

05:06contentment in it.

05:09But we do not know of any person who has managed to find ultimate contentment in anything in

05:16the field of space-time.

05:19Is there anything in the entire universe that can perfectly satisfy you?

05:25No.

05:26What does that tell you about your own consciousness?

05:30It is looking for something beyond, something transcendental.

05:35Now that something transcendental is not an object of thought.

05:42It is not something you can think of, ideate or conceptualize or imagine.

05:49That which is beyond imagination, formless, nirakar, nirgun, attributeless, that is called

05:59as Shiva.

06:00To give a form to Shiva is not a very proper thing.

06:09It is some kind of human compulsion to always search for forms.

06:20Because we cannot think without forms, we cannot think without names.

06:25So even to the formless, we assign a form.

06:28Even to the nameless, we give a name.

06:34Irrespective of what we do, you must understand that Shiva is the name of the final, nameless,

06:48formless, attributeless, shapeless, timeless truth.

06:52Why are we calling Shiva as truth?

06:58Because by definition, that which is changing, that which does not remain what it appears

07:05to be has to be called as false.

07:08There is nothing in the world that remains what it appears to be.

07:15In fact, since things are changing every moment and it takes time for you to perceive anything,

07:26therefore by the time you perceive anything, it has already changed.

07:30Has it not?

07:32That's the reason why the world is called as false.

07:36It is not what it appears to be.

07:41Even stuff that we call as factual is actually not factual.

07:49Because of the gap between the observed phenomena and the observer's perception, there is a

07:57lag and that lag is sufficient for the observed entity to change.

08:06Therefore what is the truth?

08:07Only something that which cannot be experienced.

08:10If it can be experienced, it is false.

08:15You can understand it further to mean that the experiencer itself is false.

08:21Why?

08:22Because the experiencer places so much trust in his experience.

08:26He says it is the truth because I am experiencing it.

08:29It exists because I am seeing it.

08:32It was said because I heard it.

08:37Because you heard it, it becomes the truth.

08:39Seriously?

08:41There are so many of you here and I suppose I am one person saying one thing but I am

08:47so sure that no less than 200 versions of what I am saying are being heard here right

08:53now.

08:55The experiencer is false but the experiencer is just too self-confident.

09:00The experiencer says because I am testifying through my ears that such and such thing has

09:09been said.

09:10Therefore, it has been said.

09:12I am the proof.

09:13No, you are not the proof.

09:15Ask your neighbor.

09:16He has not heard the same things as you have even in the last 15 minutes.

09:24Are you getting it?

09:26That is the reason why Satyam Shivam Sundaram.

09:30Shiv is called the truth because anything that is within the purview of experience cannot

09:37be fully trusted.

09:38Hello sir.

09:39Sir, I want to ask a question that what is consciousness?

09:48So how can we say that a system is conscious or not?

09:54So whenever I try to find an answer to this question, so people explain it very abstractly.

10:04So I don't find any scientific explanation.

10:07So how can we say like there is a stone lying on a footpath, is it conscious or not?

10:17So mostly people say that living beings are conscious whereas non-living beings are not.

10:26It is flow of energy.

10:29It is flow of energy through space and time.

10:32As Albert Einstein also said.

10:36So sir, I want you to explain it in a scientific way.

10:45So yes.

10:48Anything that experiences is conscious.

10:55Consciousness is the entire domain of your happiness, sorrow, likes, dislikes.

11:02Everything that is rising is in the domain of consciousness.

11:06Everything that is falling is in the domain of consciousness.

11:09Who is the conscious one?

11:11The one who experiences.

11:15How do you define experience?

11:19The urge to not remain who you are, that's what makes an entity conscious.

11:31And the process of consciousness is via duality.

11:35I do not want to remain who I am using what I am perceiving.

11:40I want to change, so I want to use this to change.

11:45This is the process of consciousness.

11:48The conscious entity is the one that's experiencing this.

11:53Experiencing this in order to change.

12:00Does the stone have a quest for liberation?

12:05It's a far-fetched thing to say.

12:09So even if you want to say that every particle in the universe is conscious, then the level

12:15of consciousness is extremely low.

12:20Who then is a highly conscious entity?

12:25The one who has a strong urge for liberation.

12:31What is liberation?

12:33Everything that limits your experience.

12:34Mind you, a conscious entity is an experiencing entity.

12:38Everything that limits your experience is a bondage.

12:43The one who realizes that bondage, feels suffocated and rebels against it is a conscious

12:50entity.

12:55There is no complication, no abstraction in it.

13:01When you want to rise higher, when you just cannot remain the one you are, when you have

13:09a choice unlike a stone, then you are conscious.

13:18You are lying somewhere, you are pushed aside, you have a choice.

13:26The stone is pushed aside, the stone does not have a choice or even if it has a choice,

13:30it is lying very very latent within the stone.

13:34The stone will one day become soil, the soil will one day become a foetus.

13:44Before that it will become food and the foetus will then turn into a human being and that's

13:51when the stone will develop choice.

13:55So even if you want to assert that the stone too is conscious, its consciousness is lying

14:02greatly dormant within itself.

14:07So the stone will have to go through a lot, undertake a long journey to come to a point

14:14where it can say it has an active choice, till then nothing.

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