yeah [Music] so welcome back the second of our big three blender show the questions is now gonna look inward and asks Who am I really right what's the nature of the self what makes me me is it just my body or is there something different from that is there anything deeper or more subtle than the physical body that survives its death is there a soul and if so what does it look like our friend why is Yaya well Kia tackles this question in the rather quaint scene I think that involves another kind of intellectually oriented woman this time it's his wife my dayi so once upon a time where the Agni vodka decides to become a renowned sir and he wants to enter that fourth stage of life so he summons my je and also his second wife got Yanni to have a conversation about how his estate should be divided up between the two of them when he goes let's see how the conversation proceeds and how odd Nia vodka ends up answering our question about what the self is what the soul really is now yog near bokya had two wives my gray and Katja any of the to my today he was a woman who took part in philosophical discussions well God Guyanese understanding was limited to womanly matters one day he was preparing to undertake a different mode of life yada vodka said my today I'm about to go away from this place so come let me make a settlement between you and got the Ayane way today he asked in reply if I were to possess the entire world sir would it would it not make me immortal no said yeah Daniel gay it would only permit you to live the life of a wealthy person through wealth one cannot expect immortality how's that for an important lesson that few of us today pay heed to anyway this makes my three longed for a better parting gift from her husband than just money here's what she said what's the point in getting something that will not make me immortal rich forted may three tell me instead sir all that you know this makes her husband happy yada Nia vodka said in reply you have always been very dear to me and now you've made yourself even more so come my lady I will explain it to you but while I'm explaining it try to concentrate I guess you could call this the kind of earliest recorded case of mansplaining an ancient Indian literature I don't know now what would he what he tells her might make us a bit shocked in fact it shocked me you and I first learned of it it's it's in a it's in that same a kind of repetitive sermon like style the one who sheds that we saw last time that uses this kind of repetition to drill those key points in the minds of the listeners and it's about now the inner self the Ottoman one holds a husband dear you see not out of love for the husband rather it's out of love of oneself one that's one's Otteman that one holds a husband dear one holds a wife dear not out of love for the wife rather it's out of love for oneself that one holds a wife dear when holds children dear not out of love for the children rather it's out of love for oneself that one holds children dear I'm curious what you think about this it's jarring I'm you one usually takes these kinds of loves to be completely selfless what does it mean to insist that love is ultimately a self oriented action when you're loving your children are you really loving yourself so it really it's kind of hard to accept so he's gonna go on and connect it even further one holds wealth dear not out of love for wealth rather it's out of love for oneself that one holds wealth dear one holds livestock dear not out of love for the livestock rather it's out of love for oneself that one holds livestock dear one holds priestly power dear not out of love for that priestly power rather it's out of love for oneself that one holds priestly power dear one holds royal power dear not have love for royal power rather it's out of love for oneself that one holds royal power dear he then says the same thing for the world's the gods the Vedas living beings ultimately everything the cosmos here is called the whole one holds the whole dear not out of love for the whole rather it's out of love for oneself that one holds the whole dear so how could this be what on earth does God mean okay talking about here doesn't it kind of go against like every decent thing that we've been taught that you should be selfless in your love for others that you should dedicate yourself to other people your children your wife your husband to things that are bigger than yourself right I think what yeah you know it's it's a puzzle actually and it's supposed to be jarring but I think what ya know eclis what God Nia is doing is trying to get you to see that actually you don't really know who yourself is you think you do but the the the person that you know to be yourself is actually some construction of what you think yourself is while your true self your Othman is something different altogether so here's what I'm talking about you see my three it's one's self Atman which you should see and hear and on which you should reflect and concentrate for when one has seen and heard one's self when one has reflected and concentrated on one's self one knows this whole world he then explains how all those things that we hold dear will actually forsake us if we don't see them as already lying within our inner self we can skip this section for now but do look have a look at the bottom line argument that he delivers he says all of these priestly power royal power world worlds God's beings the whole all that is nothing but the self it's pretty powerful stuff actually right yeah I'm okay then gives many other examples of how everything is actually contained within yourself even though it may not seem like it right and he uses everyday examples to make his case it's actually really fun to go through all of these examples but for now I want to just look at the very last one that he gets it's like this a mass of salt has no distinct core and surface the whole thing is just a single mass of flavor so indeed my dear this self has no distinct core and surface the whole thing is a single mass of cognition it arises out of and together with these beings and it disappears after them so I say after death there is no awareness so all of this strange speculation starts to get maybe a little bit too much for my three so she interrupts him at this point and then kind of charming scene I think after Yatta Yatta said this late today he explained now sir you have utterly confused me I cannot perceive this at all he replied look I haven't said anything confusing this self you see is imperishable it has an indestructible nature for when there's a duality of some kind then the one can see the other the one can smell the other the one can taste the other the one can greet the other the one can hear the other the one can think of the other the one can touch the other the one can perceive of the other right now he's gonna move on to the kind of true paradox of inner knowledge this is an important passage here when however the hole has become one's very self the Atman then who is there for one to see and by what means the hole here is the equivalent to the idea of Brockman that he talked about last time actually who is there to smell and by what means who is there to taste and by what means who is there to greet and by what means who's there to hear and by what means who is there to think of and by what means who's there for one to touch and by what means who is there for one to perceive by what means right now he arrives at our million dollar question that we're all asked to reflect on right it's the tough question that the blemishes want you to find an answer for because it's gonna be a kind of wedge that we can use to differentiate the true self from the perceived semblance of ourselves which we carry around as false images of ourselves in our heads by what means he asks can one perceive him by means of whom one perceives the whole world so how can you look at the one who's doing the looking basically he then explains the final secret to his wife about this self this Ottoman one can only say not this not that Nadine Athey in Sanskrit it's one of these big statements it's ungraspable for he cannot be grasped he is undecaying for he is not subject to decay he has nothing sticking to him for he does not stick to anything he is not bound yet he neither trembles in fear not nor suffers injury does it sound familiar right it's exactly like the brahman isn't it only it's right there inside you look says yada valkia by what means can one perceive the perceiver there I've given you the instructions my three that's all there is to immortality after saying this yeah I know both get walks away whatever kind of beautiful ending right leaving us with the central person puzzle for us to solve just like my today he has to solve it how can one perceive the perceiver how in other words can we have a subject position to view this world if everything in this world the whole that we can see is also sub suma Belen that very subject position that we have so to sum it all up Yaya bokya teaches us two different concepts right first he says there's a single stable reality behind all the universe that's what we saw in the last segment that's Brockman it's imperceptible it's imperishable it's infinite in this segment what we saw is that there's also the soul inside of us that animates us that gives us an individual sense of existence it's also indescribable immeasurable unchangeable beyond death and decay the big upanishadic secret shh don't tell anybody right is that these two different things are actually exactly the same thing that Brahman equals optimum that's the biggest vedic bundu of them all if you can understand that unity if you can realize it that both the world that we think we proceed and the person we think we are both of these are false and actually the true reality is that eternal unpassable one then we can liberate ourselves from the material world which is perishable decaying and subject to death and given all that then there's only one question that remains what happens to this Ockman this soul after death right how can it merge with that bruckman which it's identical to anyway well Yaya vodka doesn't go into this into these details he just walks away all right instead we're gonna have to turn to another Upanishad called the gut hope when I said we're a brash young boy decides to go and ask death himself what happens when you die no better authority to ask that's what we're gonna turn to next time when we continue on in our train ride through ancient this street so thanks for watching [Music]