Enlightenment – Is It All One?

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

Haribol.

So this is a continuation in our series on the wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita, and the topic I was asked to speak on: Enlightenment – Is it All One? In short, yes and no.

So, in addressing the topic, we’ll look at two things. One is the spiritual path, or process, and how there can be a wide variety of paths and processes. And the question is, are they all heading to the same place?

And then the second part of the question is in relation to the goal of spiritual undertaking. Is that all one? And that can be approached in a lot of ways, but I think the most common one that people think of in this regard is the idea that God, or the highest spiritual truth, being a form of an impersonal ocean of energy, of spiritual light, the Brahmajyoti, and that ultimately, everything is one with this ocean of light.

So firstly, the idea of all paths leading to the same place, you’ve heard this idea before? Or no? I think a lot of people have heard the idea, but a lot of people don’t know actually where it came from. And it was an idea that was somewhat widely considered, but it was made popular by a personality in Bengal, India, Kolkata. His name was Ramakrishna, and in the late 1800s he developed a saying in Bengali, it’s yato mat, tato path, means as many minds as many paths, meaning whatever you think up as being a way to try to approach God, that’s all valid, and it’s all the same.

And a lot of people are not familiar with what were the pressures at that time. By that time, by the late 1800s, the second wave of English colonization had taken place. The first one was just, you know, exploitation of wealth. The British East India Company was there to grab everything they could, and they pretty much left everybody alone, and they were quite respectful. Many of them married Indian women. When they supported education, they would always have a Sanskrit college attached to all of their educational institutions.

But as their presence became increasingly powerful, then you had a lot of people back in Britain complaining about it, and they felt that they had a great obligation to civilize the Indian people, which is actually kind of quite hilarious. And so, they went there with the view to convert quite aggressively. And so it became part of the policy to really go for it. And so they did it by influencing—and often through their educational institutions—the people from the upper class. And they were actually quite anti-Hindu in a lot of ways.

And then there was this phenomena of, they had a term in England, it was called rice Christians. Have you heard this term before? This was like one of the ways of getting converts in Asia in general, but specifically in India. And the policy was, in a lot of Christian churches that were established, if you are baptized a Christian, we’re going to give you a sack of rice, we’ll give you a dhoti and a gamcha, that’s a kind of towel, and we’ll give you a kilo of ghee for anybody that—and of course, for the poor people it was like, oh wow, amazing, so we’re going along..

And so there was, in South India, some very broad outreach that had been going on there, the Portuguese in Goa, and then in Tamil Nadu, the Syrian Christians, the apostle Thomas went there, and so there was a lot going on.

At the same time there was this resurgence of a desire amongst the Indians to become free of British rule and to find their identity, and they’d been hearing for like 60-80 years that Hinduism was really stupid, and it was uncivilized, and it was just not intelligent to be following that path. And they decided that they’ve had enough, and so there was this period, they call it the Bengali Renaissance, where we had an upsurge of people that wanted to revitalize the understanding of Vedic spirituality. But unfortunately, many of the people that started these different movements were speculating. They weren’t parts of some traditional sampradaya or lineage. And so they were looking for ways to counter the influence of the British.

And one organization, the Brahmo Samaj, latched onto Ramakrishna thinking that he is going to be the salvation. What I’m sharing with you is what I was told when I first was in India over 50 years ago. This was kind of like knowledge amongst the people that were even around at that time at a young age.

And so Ramakrishna went through these whole series of spiritual exploration. He said he meditated at some point on Jesus Christ and met him. Another time he took up an absorption in Islam, and he said in his meditation, he met Mohammed. And he, another time, was meditating as a Buddhist, and he said he met Buddha. And then another time, he was running around acting like a monkey, he said he was a Rama bhakta. And he said he had all these different realizations and realized it’s all just one. And that’s where he came up with this saying, yato mat, tato path.

And it was sort of like, okay, so then it was broadcast by people within the Brahmo Samaj, it wasn’t like official policy, that Ramakrishna was an incarnation, and he’s had all these realizations, and he’s telling you, so, hey, you don’t need to go get the rice. You’re perfectly okay where you are.

His well-known disciple was Vivekananda, and Vivekananda had been invited, because of his connection also, although he wasn’t part of the Brahmo Samaj, they were closely affiliated, he was invited—there was an attempt to establish the first what they called Parliament of World Religions. This is again still in the 1800s, 1880s, and they were going to have this big conclave in Chicago. And it was run mostly by Protestant and Jewish rabbis and ministers, but then they were looking to get representation from all religions there so they could have a big thing, and they’re panicking, because who do we go to, to represent the Hindus?

And so through their connections through the British overlords who were based in Bengal at that time they were introduced to the Brahmo Samaj, and the Brahmo Samaj pointed at Vivekananda and goes, “He’s the guy,” but actually the vast, vast, wonderful, spiritual culture of the Vedas was not just represented by what he said. But he was convenient, he was there, he was introduced, so they brought him to America, and he got to address a big conclave of 3,000 people.

His picture was taken, it was sent back to India: here he is speaking to 3,000 different priests and ministers and bishops. And at that time that was considered just amazing, because in India there was this pervasive feeling of being subjugated and put down, and now somebody, one of us was there speaking.

And so he aggressively promoted—and this is in 1883—this idea that all paths lead to the same goal, which really fitted in well with this Parliament of World Religions that were being established. And so this became widely propagated amongst theologians in universities, people that studied philosophy and everything.

Phew! Crash course. Interesting or what? Yeah. So a lot of people—we’re disconnected from history.

So it is true, it is true, that when people are generally seeking upward movement to something higher, that we can say that they are heading in the same direction. However, they won’t all necessarily arrive at the same destination. And my example I’ll use is if you’re up in Auckland, and you’re going to get on a bus going south: in the beginning of the journey, everybody on all buses going south are all on the same line and going to the same place. But quickly, one of them is going to turn off and head towards the Bay of Plenty. Somebody else may head off towards Rotorua. Somebody will go as far as Hamilton, and the bus will stop there. Other buses will continue on and pass through Palmerston North and all different kinds of places and may stop there. And there may be one that goes all the way down to Wellington. So the mere fact that all the buses were heading south in the beginning, it doesn’t guarantee that everybody ends up in the same destination.

We understand from the Vedic perspective that real spirituality should be seen within the context of sanatana dharma. When I say sanatana dharma, it will mean something sometimes to people from Indian origins because that’s become a little bit of a politicalized term and associated with Hinduism. But actually, it predates Hinduism. It is a Vedic terminology, and sanatana means eternal, and dharma here refers to the nature of the jiva, of the spirit soul, the eternal nature of the jiva, and their understanding that all life emanates from the spiritual being, the jiva, and all jivas have common characteristic. We have a common spiritual identity, and it’s not connected to or based on the body or anything connected with body and culture and material consideration.

So realization of one’s spiritual identity means that we can actually realize and answer the question of:

“Who am I?” in relation to what is my essence, meaning my spiritual being, what is my essence?

What is my position? Where do I fit in relation to other living beings? Is there a superior being? And this material world, where do I fit? This is the position.

And then the third aspect of self-realization is, what is my natural function? When the spiritual being is stripped of all the material covering and consciousness, in its pure state, what is the natural expression of the atma, of the living being, the spiritual being?

And so the Vedic perspective was very firmly appreciated in this context, and things were judged—and I’ll say that but in a gentle way—as being spiritual or not spiritual according to whether they were aligned with that or not. So in different cultures and different parts of India, for instance, there were different types of practices. Some of them were taken from some parts of the Vedas. Some of them were taken from and mixed with cultural backgrounds. And whether they were actually purely spiritual, or would arrive in the same destination as a pure transcendental or spiritual practice, that one needed to be evaluated.

And I’ll just make a point—and I’m going to skip over things a little bit quickly, we don’t—I’m always trying to jam so many things into the very short time that we have to speak. I do post the talks online, so if you want to go back and revisit any of it, then you can most certainly do that.

People in the Western world actually have a very limited view of what is spiritual or so-called spiritual (I’m going to say that, because I mean that word not in the purest sense of being spiritual) but people are looking to something higher, for more meaning in life. So you will see that throughout the entire world, all cultures, save and except for some Abrahamic traditions, which is Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (which compared to everything else that was going on in the world are actually quite small)—so in the Vedic tradition their view of things was vast. And I’m bringing this up just because this question of all paths leading to the same goal, to show that that’s not the case.

So there was an acceptance in all cultures, (apart from this narrow sliver) of the idea of powerful and empowered beings that were responsible for universal management of the affairs of the universe. And they were referred to in the Vedic culture as devas. And in English, we would translate this use of the word deva as a demigod. A demigod means like a very powerful or empowered being who was not actually the Supreme Being. And there was a massive number of them.

So just like you see in the Greek tradition, the Roman tradition, the Egyptians, you go to South America, all the different ethnic groups there, they all embrace this. You go to Asia, all of the countries of Asia and Africa, they all embrace this understanding. But people were sometimes focused on one particular deity or another to receive certain type of benefit. They refer to this as polytheism.

In the Vedic tradition, it was far more nuanced than just the idea of polytheism. But in modern times, people have been quite separated from the very ancient practices and traditions that become much more kind of like cultural and things. The Vedas actually compassionately promoted a system of gradual elevation, even over lifetimes, from a position of being utterly materially absorbed to pure transcendence. And rather than being dogmatic and—they embraced things and encouraged people to always move upward, to understand more, to develop a deeper appreciation.

But we will see that in India, in the Vedic culture, as well as throughout most of the world, people were engaged in so many varieties of worship. And I just want to make a point. Just because something comes from India, it doesn’t mean it’s spiritual. Sometimes you see with all the Western yogis, and they go to hook up with something and learn something, and then they come back, and then they just adopt sort of like a mishmash of ideas and things and do overtly promote the idea that it’s all one.

This might be a little bit mind-blowing for people, but in the Vedic culture, they taught, for instance, there was a creator of our universe. But that creator is not the Supreme Spiritual Being. His name was Brahma, and he was greatly empowered, and he was responsible for this creation. But there is a very interesting passage in one Vedic text where Brahma is being questioned, “Is there anyone higher than you? Do you offer your homage and worship to anyone?” And his response was, “Yes, I do, and I’m very grateful for that question because now it gives me the opportunity to speak about that.”

So, when people engaged in these activities, number one, it’s important to understand that the adoption of some—what I’ll call external activity, or rite, or ritual, or practice doesn’t make you spiritual, doesn’t make what you’re doing spiritual. Spirituality, to be purely spiritual, one has to consider the state of consciousness of the person that is progressing along a spiritual path, and what is it that they are seeking. The vast majority of people in the world that engage in different forms of religion, or spiritual practice, actually are completely focused on material benefit. They will honour God or worship God, asking, please help me with this; give me this; help my family; my wife is sick; my kids got a problem with that; and please help me with all of this. The idea of that is not bad or wrong, but that is not spiritual, because the desire and intention is not purely spiritual.

So, I’ll just read a couple of verses from the Bhagavad-gita referring to these types of things. In the first one, from the seventh chapter, it says, Lord Krishna speaking:

“Men of small intelligence worship the devas, or the demigods, and their fruits are limited and temporary. Those who worship the demigods go to the planets of the demigods, but My devotees ultimately reach My supreme abode.” [Bhagavad-gītā 7.23]

So, I’m not going to get into discussing that, other than just simply pointing out that just because you may have your eyes upwards, and you may be directing towards something bigger than yourself, it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily spiritual.

Then in the second one I will read:

“Those who worship the devas, or the demigods, will take birth among the demigods; those who worship ghosts and spirits will take birth among such beings; those who worship ancestors go to the ancestors; and those who worship Me will live with Me.” [Bhagavad-gītā 9.25]

So, this is actually really profound. There is a concept that many people in the Western world—but it’s also prevalent everywhere—that if there is some subtle being, like a ghost or a spirit (and they use the word spirit) that people connect that, connecting with those beings or whatever, as being spiritual. And the understanding of the Vedas is, no, you have two categories of material energy, the gross material energy, the sthula, and the linga, or the subtle material energy. And so, for instance, ghosts and spirits, yes, there are beings that are caught in those situations, but those very subtle bodies are a form of material energy. That is not spiritual. It’s not connected in any way with that which is purely spiritual.

So, then there is this question, okay, on all these spiritual paths, is there considered to be an idea of an ideal spirituality? Is there such a thing as an ideal spirituality? Again, we’re not going to get into all the details. I will read a verse and just explain a little bit about it. This is from an ancient text called the Bhagavat Purana, and it references the parah dharma, the supreme dharma, which has been translated by Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad, as being, dharma is used as the word occupation. Unfortunately, we all think of occupation as what? Like our job, our work, or our craft, or our trade is occupation. But this is actually a very modern meaning. Just in the last 20, 30 years it’s come to mean almost exclusively that. Previously, the term occupation means that which occupies you, that which you are focused upon, that which you are engaged and focused upon. And so the translation,

“The supreme occupation [or dharma] for all humanity is that by which men can attain to loving devotional service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to completely satisfy the self.” [Bhāgavata Purāṇa 1.2.6]

So if we were going to spend time, which we’re not, I’ll just touch briefly: In analyzing that it clearly points out what should be considered as actually being spiritual, and what is not—that which is tied to the eternal function of the soul itself. The living being, the atma, has a desire for love. That is a characteristic, it is part of you. That is why in the embodied state we are all looking for love, because it is actually—it originates as a spiritual desire. But when we direct it towards the world and things of the world and mundane relationships, we cannot experience the actual love that we seek, which is pure and transcendental. It is called prema. And that is an entirely different focus than the focus on: help me with this; I’m sick; please heal my disease; help me pass an exam; please, I need money for this; all of the things that are connected to this world.

Real spirituality involves self-realization and God-realization, to come to realize my eternal spiritual identity and my connection with that supreme spiritual reality, or God. So that’s the standard that was used in the Vedas. And by that standard, if somebody even is engaged in an authentic spiritual process, but their focus is completely material, then we should understand that’s not spiritual.

In the end of the Bhagavad Gita, one of the last statements of Lord Sri Krishna:

sarva-dharman parityaya…

 “Abandon all varieties of religious practice and just surrender unto Me.” [Bhagavad-gita 18:66]

This is a huge idea. This is an amazing idea, where even though He has been talking to Arjuna about all these different paths of yoga, of yajna, tapasya, He’s been laying out so many different types—jnana—of spiritual practice and different pathways, and now at the very end, He commands, just abandon all of that and just surrender unto Me. And this has really, really deep meaning. Even within the yoga system, Patanjali references this as well, as being the way to attain the highest spiritual experience and realization.

So, I hope I wasn’t going too fast, and I hope we’ve kind of got it, that no, not all paths end up in the same place. Some may take you partway, some may veer off at a different angle, some may go down even much further, but still it’s not the complete journey; that one actually has to know and cultivate an understanding of what is the end, so that we can appreciate that, no, it is not correct that all paths end in the same place. They don’t, even if they are heading in the same direction.

And if people are heading in an actual spiritual direction, they are to be encouraged, they are to be supported, not criticized, and not told to stop, but they are encouraged to look even further, to take it to another level, which is what Lord Krishna does in speaking with Arjuna on the subject.

Now, in relation to the goal and this idea of, is it all one in the end? Again, yes and no. And it’s like, well, how can it be both yes and no? Well, I guess we’ll explain that a little bit. You know, the idea of everything being one with God, and God being one with everything, and it’s just non-differentiated, has become popular in the Western world, and widely popular in India, because there were certain personalities that gained public attention.

So, I’ll just speak about the Western world, and these ideas that are prevalent in the West. In the very early times, there were different yogis that came to America. They began with Vivekananda in 1883. There was Yogananda Paramahamsa, who came in 1920 to America. There was Swami Vishnu Devananda in 1958. The Maharishi appeared on the scene in 1959. Does that sound like a long time ago to you guys? And Swami Satchitananda in 1966. But all of these personalities who gained so much attention by philosophers and religionists in America and in the Western world, they all came from a single school of thought. And that school of thought was the Advaitavada, the philosophy of oneness, of undifferentiated monism, it’s called. So, people weren’t actually exposed. This is just one school of teaching.

But you have huge other schools that are connected to the ancient Vedic teaching that don’t promote that idea, and say that that idea is incomplete. You have four huge sampradayas, or spiritual traditions and lineages, that date back thousands and thousands of years that don’t support that idea. But in the Western world, which then turned around and revisited India, they all came from one school of thought and proposed one idea.

It wasn’t until 1965 that somebody actually challenged what they were teaching, and that was Srila Bhaktivedanta Swami when he came to America and founded what today is called the Hare Krishna’s. But he brought with him a very ancient tradition that was widely pervasive in India and actually represented the most ancient Vedic traditions. And of course, the school of practice of spiritual philosophy that were promoted in these different traditions was all called bhakti, the bhakti tradition.

Each great founding acharya in these different lineages, they would all have—they were so intelligent. I mean, they were so profound in their exploration, understanding, and realization. They were just like giants in terms of spiritual philosophy. And in the four great Vaishnava traditions, and even in the school of Adi Shankar, this monism, they all have an aphorism. This aphorism explains, or is a framework for understanding the profound and deep spiritual philosophy. So, in our lineage, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the aphorism that he used, it was called acintya bhedabheda tattva. And this is kind of like mind-blowing. Acintya means inconceivable. It can’t be conceived by the mind, that one actually needs realization to appreciate it.

Is it getting a bit warm for you guys? If it is, there’s windows that are a little bit open. If you want to open them a bit more, please do that. Some of you are sitting by the heater there, which is probably blasting away.

So, this aphorism, acintya bhedabheda tattva, acintya means inconceivable. Bheda means one. Abheda means not one, different. And so the closest English translation is inconceivably, yet simultaneously one and different. And that’s just like, what? That’s pretty amazing.

So I’ll read an excerpt from a something that was written by Srila Bhaktivedanta in the Bhagavat Purana.

This philosophy was propounded by Lord Chaitanya, acintya bhedabheda tattva. Everything is simultaneously one with and different from everything else. The cosmic manifestation created by the Supreme Lord, by His material energy, is also simultaneously different and non-different from Him. The material energy is non-different from the Supreme Lord, but at the same time, because the energy is acting in a different way, it is different from Him. Similarly, the individual living entity is one with and different from the Supreme Lord. This simultaneous one and difference philosophy is the perfect conclusion of the Bhagavat school as confirmed by Kapila deva.

So, well, here we go. They understood the highest reality, Godhead, or God, was manifest in three aspects. One is called Brahman, which means this ocean of undifferentiated spiritual energy, called the Brahmajyoti. But the same Absolute Truth is manifest within the heart of every living being in a personalized feature called Paramatma. And within a spiritual dimension, the same Absolute Truth exists in a feature called Bhagavan, the Supreme Personality.

In a verse from the Bhagavat Purana, it says, that,

“Learned transcendentalists who know the Absolute Truth call this nondual substance Brahman, Paramatma, or Bhagavan.” [Bhagavat Purana 1:2:11]

So in the Sanskrit, they use the term advayam. Advayam means it is non-dual. So you’ve got these three features, an ocean of light; you’ve got a feature of God sitting in a personal form within the heart of all living beings, and within every atom, actually; and you’ve got yet another feature manifest in a spiritual realm; and they’re saying these three things are non-different. And that’s just like Bwoah!

So the problem in the Advaita school of Shankaracharya, they say, no, only Brahman is the absolute reality, that Paramatma and Bhagavan are not the absolute reality. They are somewhat temporary realities. Yet, the Vedas teach different. They say there are these three features.

When we speak of this ocean of light, of spiritual energy, and again where—this is like I’m running through this really quickly, these are really deep ideas and need a little time to consider. In one verse from the Bhagavad-gita, Lord Krishna states that I—“aham”

“I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman. which is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness, and which is immortal, imperishable, and eternal.” [Bhagavad-gita 14:27]

In one of the Upanisads, the Sri Isa Upanisad, it also references this, that this Brahmajyoti is actually the effulgence of the original Purusha, the Personality of Godhead. There is one mantra, mantra 15, it states that:

“O my Lord, sustainer of all that lives, Your real face is covered by Your dazzling effulgence. Kindly remove that covering and exhibit Yourself to Your pure devotee.” [Sri Isopanisad 15]

 So, in relation to the individual living being, you’ve probably heard the analogy of like a drop of water returning to the ocean, right? You take a drop of water, and it seems like an individual drop, but when I return it to the ocean, it just merges into the ocean. This example is always used by those in the Advaita-vada school, trying to promote the idea that there is no distinction, there is only this kind of oneness where one loses their individual identity and existence and merge into a vast ocean. That is real. That can happen. This is a form of spiritual realization and experience, but it is not the only form of spiritual realization and experience.

The idea of the drop of water that they use is actually not a good analogy. I mean, a drop of water cannot be compared to the individual atma. A drop of water is, it is part of a bigger substance, water, but it is defined by physical forces. You have the forces, the physical forces of adhesion, cohesion, and surface tension, plus gravitational forces all acting on the molecules to create a shape. And as soon as those forces are overcome by a bigger force, then that implodes, and it just merges back into the ocean.

But the reality is the individual atma always retains its individuality. That individuality can be temporarily lost or suspended in the state of merging into the Brahmajyoti, the ocean of light, but that is not, in the biggest sense, an eternal reality. The individuality of the living being and of the Supreme Being is eternal. So there is a famous two lines that appear in both the Mundaka Upanishad and the Svetasvatara Upanisad, and the verse is

nityo nityanam cetanas cetananam
eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman

 So, translated, this verse means

“He is the eternal among all eternal entities and the chief conscious being amongst all conscious beings. Among many living entities He is the chief who fulfills their desires” [Svetasvara Upanisad 6:13 & Katha Upanisad 2.2.13]

So we also have this confirmation from somebody that’s not in this tradition, the Bhagavat tradition, but in the yoga tradition, Patanjali, Rishi Patanjali, and he states in the Yoga Sutra, that there is one being that is distinct and different from all others. He refers to this in Sanskrit as the puruṣa-visesa. And in English, a translation

“Isvara, [which means the supreme controller], is a special purusa, unlike other purusas, being untouched by afflictions, material activity or actions, and the fruit of actions, and latent impressions, or from material desire. In Him the seed of omniscience is unsurpassed. He is also the teacher of all ancient teachers, being not limited by time. The transcendental sound personifying him is AUM.” [Yoga-sutra 1.24-27]

So, the question may arise, well, if there are three features of the absolute, can we consider the realization of one of these features to be more perfect than of the other features? And Lord Krishna addresses this point, when Arjuna inquires:

“Which is considered to be more perfect: those who are properly engaged in Your loving devotional service, or those who worship the impersonal Brahman, the unmanifested?”

The blessed Lord said: He whose mind is fixed on My personal form, always engaged in worshiping Me with great and transcendental faith, is considered by me to be the most perfect.” [Bhagavad-git 12:1-2]

Then a couple of verses later:

“For those whose minds are attached to the unmanifested impersonal feature [avyakta] of the Supreme, advancement is very troublesome. To make progress in that discipline is always difficult for those who are embodied.” [Bhagavad-gita 12:5]

So there is a direct correlation between—I mentioned earlier, the question of self-realization means answering the question, What is my essence? What is my position? And what is my natural function? So the three realizations of Godhead, of God, Brahman, Paramatma and Bhagavan, correlate with those things.

In the first, where the living being can realize my spiritual essence and merge into Brahman, forgetful of any, or unaware of any, individual existence, these correlate. When one realizes—and the vast majority of yogis used to meditate upon this feature of Paramatma, the Lord residing within the region of the heart of all living beings, they will automatically have a realization of how everything fits and what is their position, that there is someone greater than myself. And then the third experience, what is my natural function, which is to love and to serve, is realized or experienced in the realization of Bhagavan, the beautiful transcendental existence of a supremely lovable, supreme personality.

And another thing I will raise, and again it’s not sectarian, it’s not with a desire to—people use it to try and feel superior to others because I’m on this team, therefore I’m better off than everybody else. When you’re going into those dimensions, you’ve lost the plot. You are not connected to something that is divinely transcendental. But a reality exists.

The final verse that I will read:

“One can understand the Supreme Personality as He is only by loving devotional service. And when one is in full consciousness of the Supreme Lord by such devotion, he can enter the realm of God.” [Bhagavad-gita 18:55]

 So, wow, there we go. That was a—was that overwhelming? It’s huge, I’m telling you, if you could actually really absorb all of those things.

But just to put things very gently and carefully, yes, there is a oneness, but at the same time there is a distinction.

The big problem with the idea of absolute oneness and only oneness, is then people falsely come to think that they are God, being non-different from Him, which then gives them license to do things that they shouldn’t do. And we see so many instances of people, so-called spiritual teachers, taking advantage of people, exploiting them for money, or sexually exploiting them, or taking lands from them and everything, because they feel that they are God, and they have an entitlement. And anyway, “It’s all right, you are also me, so what does it matter whether the title of the land is in my name or yours? Get with the program, turn it over.” You know, so many corrupt and horrible things happen. So many people are betrayed and hurt in so many ways because of false appreciations, misinterpretation, twisting of things.

So yeah, the original question, is it all one? The answer is yes and no.

Does anybody have a question? Was this too much? Or it’s okay? Do you like it, I guess is the big question. Was it too complex? I mean it can be a lot more complex. I’ve tried to give the most simple presentation I’m capable of. I tend to be overly complicated. This stuff is far out. It is so deep, and it’s so—you know, we’re just skimming the surface. But I promise you, I promise you that what I have presented to you is the most authoritative and authentic Vedic version of truth.

So if we don’t have any questions, what we’ll do is we’ll have a little kirtan. And afterwards, as usual, they have some nice food. And if you have questions at that time, we can just do it casually. Feel free to ask. Ask anything. Nothing is intimidating, and no question is bad or wrong. If you want to explore something and question something, even if you’re having a hard time, “Aah, I’m not buying it. Can you talk about that a little bit?” Then, wonderful, we can definitely, definitely do that.

So I will chant the Mahamantra, the Hare Krishna mantra.