Mumbai Retreat February 2025 | Day 5 - The Steps to Liberation

Today is, as I said, transcendental links of dependent origination, or also known as dependent liberation. When we use the word liberation, what do we actually mean? In the Buddhist context, it's talking about the destruction of greed, hatred, and delusion. Greed, hatred, and delusion. So what is greed? Greed is that mindset that wants something and gets obsessed over that something. The hatred is the repulsion towards something in such a way that you intend to cause harm to it in order for you to run away from it. The delusion is the misperception of reality, taking that which is impermanent as permanent, taking that which is dukkha as sukkha, taking that which is unhappiness as happiness, that which is unsatisfactory as satisfactory, taking that which is impersonal as personal, as me, mine, or myself.

So the destruction of greed, hatred, and delusion is liberation because these are the seeds that cause rebirth. We have to understand the context in which Buddhism arose, or the Buddha Dhamma arose. During that time, and even now, we see in India, there are all of these different traditions, and they're all geared towards some kind of spiritual understanding, revelation, but they're geared towards what's known as moksha, and liberation in Pali is vimutti, or vimukti in Sanskrit, and that is to be liberated. But what are we actually being liberated from in the very traditional sense of the word? We're being liberated from rebirth, from the constant cycle, endless cycle of samsara.

Samsara is essentially the collective consensus reality that we've created in our conceptual understanding of what the world is. And it continues to evolve and continues to change. But the idea here is that we continue to fail to learn from these lessons and thereby, because of our karma, our attachment, come back. It's like you're playing a game, but you haven't yet mastered the game. And so you have so many lives available to you until you achieve the end of that level. Think of samsara as one level of the game that you're trying to accomplish, complete. Very philosophical. Do we really need to believe in rebirth? Do we really need to believe in one life to the next?

Why should you believe in that? What proof do you have that there is an afterlife? What proof do you have that you had past lives? It's all within the realm of concepts that have been handed down in Vedic tradition and in Buddhist tradition. But there is a way of understanding it on a much more present level situation. In other words, rebirth doesn't mean just the rebirth of one life to the next. Rebirth also means the kinds of behavioral patterns that keep us hooked to the same kinds of situations over and over again. No matter where you go in the world, you seem to always attract the same kind of people in your life, same kind of friendships, same kind of relationships, same kind of situations.

If you reflect in your own life how that happens, that rebirth actually is a process that happens from one moment to the next. We continue to reinvent ourselves, consciously or unconsciously. The fact of the matter is, even on a physical level, our cells continue to arise and pass away, continue to recycle, continue to create new cells and replenish the old dying cells, and so on. That is the nature of this existence. It's happening all the time. So that's one level. But at the level of one's life, the moksha that we're talking about, the liberation that we're talking about, can be immediately seen in how we don't get caught up in the same behavioral patterns that lead us to the same kinds of situations over and over again, that only frustrate us and only create further

karma and so the cessation of suffering is a cessation of that kind of rebirth is a cessation of rebirth on a macro level as well lifetime to lifetime but again like I said let's take that away and just talk about our life here the cessation of suffering is a cessation of karma where it doesn't mean that when you're fully awake and you don't means that you are no longer beholden to new ripening of karma you're beholden to all of the other karma that you've produced prior to that level of understanding because it's like an arrow that has already been released you can't do anything about it you can only experience it everything you're experiencing in this present moment is a result of causes and conditions due to past karmic actions now is your Vipaka, your fruit of those effects, I'm sorry, the fruit of those actions, the effect of those conditions.

So liberation is being liberated from continually propagating those same fruitions, liberating from acting under the fog of ignorance, acting from the misperception of reality. Liberation is the realization of anatta, that this whole process is impersonal. Anatta means not self. And the more we start to see this, the more liberated we become. This is why liberation is a process. It's not a one thing and you're done kind of situation, at least not in my understanding. So here, I'm going to go in reverse. This is why I'm starting off with liberation. Liberation leads to what's known as the destruction of the asavas, or the greed, hatred, and delusion, basically, the roots of existence that continue our existence in this game of samsara.

And so liberation is the cause of that. But liberation itself is a realization of the impersonal nature. Here is how we can stabilize our liberated mind, and how we can integrate that liberated mind into everyday life. That is the practice, the blue sky mind that we talked about yesterday and experienced for ourselves. That is the nature, that's the taste of liberation, and it is accessible to us anytime, and it's not because of an effort that we make. It's because of our process of relaxing into it, of letting go of all phenomena, disengaging, and then allowing the mind to take that as refuge. So that can be accessible anytime, but then the practice is to bring that out in everything that we're doing.

Right now, when I'm speaking, I'm speaking to you from that. When I'm thinking, I'm thinking from that. When I'm walking, I'm walking from that. When I'm doing anything, I'm doing it from that. Maybe not all the time, but as much as I can. And it's not an effort. It's a result of previous effort, of bringing that all the time. And that's the utility of the mindfulness we talked about. So this liberation, this realization, this cessation. What do we mean by cessation? You know, the Twin tradition, and I have also talked about this while teaching, is that cessation is cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness, where you come in and out of consciousness. But that's one experience of cessation. That's one kind of cessation. What we're talking about is also the cessation of suffering.

When you're in quiet mind, that ceases all activities. We're going to talk about jhanas at some point, but what happens is, as you get deeper into each jhana, you're ceasing coarser and coarser experiences. So the cessation of all those experiences comes to quiet mind. The cessation of identification of that goes to signless. The cessation of that is nirvana, nirvana. And when all experience is ceased, the mind goes to its natural state, which is touching the nirvana element. And then when it comes out, it experiences a feeling of relief and joy and so on and so forth.

And so when it's doing this, the mind experiences a changing in some ways. It perceives the world differently. It starts to see the impersonal nature of everything on a very experiential level. So this liberation is dependent on something known as this passion but this passion cannot be cultivated just like liberation cannot be cultivated this passion it actually comes from the word in Pali viraga viraga means without color without passion and so you think about the mind like Teflon sticks on it. You look at a non-stick pan, right? That's the quality of the dispassionate mind. The dispassionate mind doesn't care what is arising or passing away. It remains completely disengaged, completely free of trying to control anything.

It's let go of controlling any experience, allows things to be as they are. This detachment, or this passion, is dependent on something known as disenchantment. What is disenchantment? Disenchantment, I'll give you an example. Let's say you have, I'll give my example. I love chocolate cake. That's the example you've always heard me use when you watch my drama talks. Chocolate cake. And let's say you found the best baker in town who makes the best chocolate cake. Just amazing. And you treat me to a slice of that chocolate cake after dinner. I say, oh, this is wonderful. I enjoy it. It's great. But you want to make sure that I'm happy and I'm content. So you say, have another one.

Have another piece of chocolate cake. Me, in my inability to control myself, whenever I see chocolate cake, yes, give me another piece. So I eat another piece, I eat another slice of chocolate cake. I can't control myself, so I say, give me another one. At this point I've eaten, probably out of ten slices, nine slices of that chocolate cake. I'm filled to the brim with chocolate cake. And then you say, just finish the cake, now it's almost done, just one more piece. Feel disenchantment. I feel like I want to throw up. I feel nauseous. I've had enough of my fill. What was the object of craving has now become an object of revulsion. Not aversion.

I don't hate chocolate cake. I can have as much chocolate cake as I want. It's just I feel I can't have enough right now. I feel like I can't have more. Same thing happens in meditation. There comes a point where you're trying to control the hindrances, you're trying to control the distractions. For those of you who are in quiet mind, you're trying to manipulate, how do I continue to be in this? But there comes a point where you're like, you know, I remember Delson telling me if there's too much going on in quiet mind, just go back into equanimity. So I do that, and I come back into quiet mind, and I go back into I've had enough of that.

That's enough. I don't care anymore if hindrances arise or not. I'm just going to remain detached. That is disenchantment. Disenchantment and dispassion. You've had enough of the distractions. Not that you hate them. You've just had enough. You can't take any more. You're like, I don't want to make any more effort. Just want to relax. That is disenchantment. Yeah, this disenchantment is based on something known as yatha bhuta nana dassana, the knowledge and vision of things as they actually are. This is equanimity. This is the observer state that we're talking about, seeing things as they are, without getting caught up one way or the other. Just observing, just witnessing, without getting affected. Just, okay, here's a thought, here's a thought, here's a thought.

Here's a distraction, here's loving-kindness, here's quiet mind. You're not commentating, you're just observing in the experience as the experience arises. Right now, if I tell you, listen to my voice. Some of you are clearly listening to my voice. Here, this is the experience of yathabhuta nanadassana. But some of you are contemplating and reflecting on what I'm saying as you're listening to my voice, even when I say just listen to my voice as it comes to you.

That distorts the knowledge and vision of things as they are. Because you're conceptually projecting onto the experience, is no more conceptual proliferation. Just observing for the sake of observing. In the seeing, there's only the seeing. In the hearing, there's only the heard. In the sensing, there's only the sensed. In the cognizing, there's only the cognized. That's it. Just listening is happening. Just meditate. Meditation is happening. Distraction is happening. Seeing things as they actually are. This is the quality of equanimity, or vice versa, this has the quality of equanimity. So this is dependent on something known as samadhi. You might have heard the word samadhi in many different contexts. You'll hear samadhi even in the Yoga Sutras, or you'll hear different spiritual teachers talking about samadhi.

Nirvikalpa samadhi, savikalpa samadhi, nirvichara samadhi, savichara samadhi, asmita samadhi, ananda samadhi. So many different kinds of samadhi. But those are states. Those are different levels of meditation experience. Here in this context, samadhi literally means even-mindedness. Sama, same, at the same level. Dhi, which is short for buddhi. Buddhi is the intellect. The mind is collected. Remember we were talking about collectedness, where the mind is in orbit, it's anchored to its object. The attention is not dispersed, it is collected, it is composed. So when your mind is collected enough, as you're practicing, naturally equanimity will arise. And as you're observing things as they are without getting caught up in them long enough, naturally your mind gets disenchanted. It gets tired of the continuous bombardment of stuff, and as a result of which it becomes detached. And in that detachment, it doesn't even care what happens anymore. It's just like, okay. Thoughts are coming.

Thoughts are going. Distractions are happening. Distractions are going. And then when you least expect it, everything kind of just stops. And then that's the cessation. Your mind is liberated from that whole mental proliferation. And it drops into a different quality of experience. And when it drops into a deep enough experience, completely unsullied by greed, hatred and delusion. So this collectedness is a result of what? It's a result of sukha. Sukha, here translated as happiness, but I'm going to use a different definition, which is comfort. It's a level of comfort. You know, in the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali defines asana. Asana is how you're sitting, how you're meditating, as sthira sukha asana, or asana sthira sukha, meaning sthira, which means that which is stable, sukha, that which is comfortable.

So in order for your mind to be attentive, in order for your mind to be collected, there needs to be a level of comfort in the body. And not only just a level of comfort in the body, a sense of presence of mind where it's comfortable with everything that's going on. It remains comfortable with what is arising and what is passing away. The mind feels tranquil. It feels at ease. So when the mind is at ease, the body is comfortable. Over a period of time, it becomes collected. The attention becomes unshaken. And then over a period of time, the mind is able to observe things as they are from that witness moment. And once it does that for a period of time, the mind then experiences disenchantment and dispassion.

And therefore liberation or cessation. So what is this sukha, this comfort, dependent upon? It's dependent upon tranquility. So this tranquility comes from the word passaddhi. It means to tranquilize. Where have you heard that word before? It means to relax. This meditation is not about pushing ourselves. It's about how deeply can we relax into every situation. How deeply can we let go? So, relaxation. And every time we're using the four R's, right effort, we are experiencing that tranquility. We're utilizing and practicing that tranquility. Remember, tranquility is also a factor of the seven awakening factors. To tranquilize, to relax.

So as you relax, you find ease in the body. You find ease in the mind. And after a period of time, the mind becomes collected. As it becomes collected, it remains equanimous. From this equanimity, it becomes disenchanted and dispassionate, and therefore experiences cessation when you least expect it. On something known as piti, which is joy. This joy is not dependent upon any of the physical sense bases. It's a joy that happens in the heart and in the mind. Actually, the heart and the mind are one and the same thing. Heart-mind, they can call it. And this joy, you feel it. You feel this warmth. You feel this rush of euphoria. Sometimes it feels like euphoria, and other times it just feels very pleasant.

Like your mind is just relaxed and tranquil, and therefore happy. It's content. And there's a joy in that contentment. You're enjoying the process. Things are happening. Things are flowing in a certain way. This joy is dependent upon something known as relief or gladness. You can use either word, but it's coming from the word called pamojja, Pali. And it means gladness in the Dharma. But what it really is saying is you have sat down for meditation. Maybe you do a body scan and let go and relax. And you feel relief in that. You feel quite glad in just being here right now. And as you're there in that gladness, eventually that transforms into joy.

And then that joy further relaxes the mind and body into a state of ease, or sukha. And thereby the mind is naturally collected. And being naturally collected, the mind is able to perceive reality as it actually is. And as it does that, it gets tired of the constant attention-grabbing, and it's disenchanted and dispassionate. So this is the flow that happens. This pamojja is dependent upon the goodness that we've done in life.

Virtue. Keeping and observing the precepts. That's why one of the things that you can do when you start off in meditation is actually look back into your life and look at the goodness that you've done. Look at the people that you've helped. Look at the fond memories that you have of yourself, your family, your friends, and see how that gladdens your heart. And stay in that gladness. And allow that gladness to overtake you, to pervade all over you, so that it becomes joy. And now you're experiencing the first jhana. Now your mind is withdrawn from the external. And it's going into the internal. And it feels that happiness. It feels that joy. And being joyful, it relaxes further.

It deepens into contentment, or sukha, the ease of mind. Thereby the mind becomes even more collected. It becomes unwavering. And then from there, equanimity arises. Then from that equanimity, the mind is seeing things as they are and thereby disenchanted and dispassioned. The mind then releases at the deepest layers and experiences cessation. There is goodness in each and every one of us.

And so if there's one thing to take out of this retreat, it's to find that goodness. And it's to appreciate that goodness. And it's to reflect on that goodness. Somewhere along the way, when we grew up, we stopped becoming children. Why? Suffering. Life got in the way. Different things happened. We met with so many different traumatic events. Grief, despair, sorrow, lamentation. Our elders reprimanded us. Don't act like a little child. Don't be like this. Be mature. Act your age.

Why? Why? Where has it gotten us? Look where we are. Jesus Christ, look where we are. I mean, our world leaders, they're showing a level of maturity, but they're all acting so immature. There's a difference between being immature and being like a little child. What I'm talking about when I say being a little child is to get back to our there in each and every one of us, before life got in the way and screwed that up. We can find it. Find it and cultivate it. Bring that up. How did the Buddha become enlightened? On the night of his enlightenment, he sat down under the Bodhi tree after realizing that doing ascetic practices is only going to cause further harm to his body.

And he enjoyed a scrumptious bowl of kheer, rice pudding, took a comfortable cushioning of kusha grass, and sat down under the tree. I'm sorry, the reason I'm smiling is because I remembered something when I was in Bodh Gaya. You had to be there, so I don't know how funny it's going to come across. But I don't know how many of you guys have been to Bodh Gaya. But there is, so you go to Bodh Gaya, and you see the tree, and it's beautiful, and you have an amazing experience sitting underneath it. But you can go to some side places, like you go to the place where the Buddha, the Bodhisattva, Gautama, received the kusha.

And there's a tree there and you see all that. On the way there, there's a little temple or a little kind of commemoration place. And it says this is where the Buddha received grass. And you see the guy passing the grass to the Buddha. Looks so stoned, you look so high, you have to see it, it's just so great, and it's just right across is the Bodhi tree where the Buddha meditated. Anyway, so he sat under the tree, and what did he do? He actually reflected back on the time when he was happy. He remembered a time from his childhood where he was visiting the farmers during the harvest festival, and he was sitting under the rose apple tree, and he remembered meditating and feeling joyful in that experience. And he said, I wonder if this is the path towards freedom. And remembering that, his mind became lifted.

And then the rest of the series happens of what we just discussed. And then he goes through a process that's a bit more mystical, where he looks through his past lives, looks through other beings, karma, and so on, and then comes to the realization, which is the Four Noble Truths. But that is the starting point. The reflection on one's childhood. Do that. We can all go back to a point where we were really happy as little children. You don't have to tell a child to be happy. They are naturally happy. You don't have to tell a child to laugh. They'll laugh at anything. You don't have to tell a child to go play. They'll naturally want to express and play.

And this is the whole point and purpose of this practice: to come back to that child and then let that child guide you through this process. Look at all the goodness that we've done in our life. Enjoy that feeling and let that ease the mind. Let that bring tranquility and contentment to the mind. And the mind naturally, just as the Buddha says in this particular sutta that this series of links are from, the rivulets, the drops from the mountain, start to flow down and produce rivulets, and then those produce streams, and just as those streams go down and descend into rivers, and just as those rivers go down into larger bodies of water, and just as that flows down into the river into the oceans, in the same way when we start with seeing the goodness in our lives, other states naturally follow. We don't have to force them. They happen naturally. We just have to be available to them, and being available means just to sit and observe and watch how that whole process

unfolds. So I'm going to stop here and I'll start taking some questions - So I have a two part question. At the beginning of this talk, you were talking about rebirth and cycles of rebirth. So 100,000, 200,000 years ago, there were what, five million humans on this earth. Flash forward to industrialization, there's a boom. We're in the billions now, we are, what, eight, nine billion people currently. So where are all these new souls, as to say, coming from? Yeah. So this is the thing about the Buddhist understanding of life: what we call as soul, it's a result of karma. And so the souls that we talk about are the aggregates, or the accumulation of karmic energies, that come together to produce an individual.

But in reality, it's infinite. It's like coming from a seemingly infinite, endless sort of pool of karma and vibration that coalesces into all of this. Humans, we're talking about insects. There are many, many more billions of insects than there are humans, and then the animal kingdom, reptiles, what about the fish in the sea and so on? So all of those are being coalesced because of certain kinds of karma, which is in essence coming from an infinite source of this karmic energy. Why has it increased over time? Like, what changed? We're all very horny, that's what it is. I mean, what else can you say? I mean, that's what it is. Well, one is obviously we have done a lot of leaps and bounds in terms of science and technology and medicine, so we're able to live for longer, and in living longer we're able to have more children. In fact, we're actually having less children nowadays, and our grandparents and their grandparents were having many more children than we do, but the only thing is the survival rate of those children was much

less, and as the population starts to become more technological, more mechanized and so on, there is actually a loss of interest. So I believe that populations will come to a decline at some point. We might be entering the peak or just exiting the peak of our population and growth. And now we're going to see, in the next 100, 200 years, probably a decline.

So I think it's for a myriad of reasons, but basically the technological advancements that we've come to. So it's a cycle of growth and decline, growth and decline. Yeah. Second part of the question is: when we go through the cycle of rebirth, are we always born as human? No, no. In accordance with both Vedic and Buddhist ideas, that's dependent upon our karma. And I will talk about this in a couple of days, but just to kind of answer this question: every type of being has a certain kind of psychological state attributed to it in terms of its needs.

They are all about reproduction and survival. The hungry ghosts that we talk about are all about hungry, hunger. They're psychologically hungering for something, hungry for something. When we talk about other beings like devas and other spiritual beings, we have attributed to them certain kinds of psychological states. And so, as humans, the beauty of human life, as mentioned in the Vedas and as mentioned in Buddhist doctrine, is that it is very rare compared to other life forms, but also that it's the only place where karma can actually be having some effect. In other words, we have control over our karma through our intentions, whereas anything above that or below that is beholden to the effects of choices we've made on this human plane of existence.

So there are other realms, and thereby, because of our actions and our mindset and how our psychological states have grown based on our actions and usage of our intentions, the last few thoughts that are dependent upon many decades of actions will give rise to a kind of consciousness which will either go up or down, or remain in the human level, or cease altogether if it experiences liberation. The Pali Canon is huge. There's a lot. The Pali Canon is so vast and so informative. Is there any other canon that is equally, or you know, as sort of more well differentiated as...? Yeah, this is a good question, because the thing is, the English translations of the Pali Canon that we have, thanks to many scholars like Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhante Sujato and others, Analayo and so on, they've translated only so much of the Pali Canon. I mean, the Khuddaka Nikaya, for example, it's not fully translated in English. We have the Sutta Nipata, which is the only, I think, one of the only things that's from there.

But the equivalent to the Pali Canon is the agamas, which are the Chinese parallels to the Pali Canon. And there's a lot that is overlapping or in parallel to the suttas that are mentioned in a different Majjhima Nikaya, Anguttara Nikaya, and so on and so forth. Find this, oh, I think it's the Buddhist American Society or something like that. You can find it online. If you look for the Chinese Buddhist texts, you'll see it. I'm sorry, I didn't frame my question properly. Is there any other religion which has got an equivalent canon which is so properly expressed as...? Oh, like that. Well, I mean, that's a good question. I think if you look at the body of work,

of the Upanishads and the entire kind of, because in Hinduism, we say Hinduism, but it's more than that. You've got the six darshan, and there's extensive knowledge. There's Sankhya, there's yoga, there's Vedanta, there's atomism, and all of these things, which all kind of overlap. And they also kind of overlap with the Pali Canon in terms of knowledge about rebirth and other aspects of meditation. And then within each of these, they have their own collective sort of canons. Like, for example, in Vedanta, you have a vast array of Upanishads. You have the commentaries on the Upanishads. And then you have other texts by contemporaries of those commentators, like Adi Shankara and so on. qualified to tell you.

I know growing up in a Catholic household, the Old Testament and the New Testament. But the Old Testament is basically a series of findings from what they call prophets about what they say is God and what existence is, and then a lot of rules and regulations of what to do and what not to do. And the New Testament is really all of what Jesus kind of took and synthesized into his understanding and philosophy. And then from there, there are certain texts after the New Testament that talk about his philosophy. And then they're kind of commentaries on that. But I think the Pali Canon is probably one of the largest, extensive sort of collections of information to anything else that's there.

The closest is, of course, as I said, the Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta traditions. Are they applicable? I mean, you can sort of, the applicability to... Yeah, I mean, there is a lot of practical stuff in there and there's a lot of theory in there too. Again, I'm not even scratching the surface, because there's also Jainism. I'm not really qualified to talk about that, because I don't know how much is in that as well. But from my understanding of Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta, it's equally applicable in terms of its understanding of rebirth, its understanding of consciousness. But they have disagreements on what consciousness is and what consciousness is not. That's really the differences.

So yesterday you talked about determination, determination to wake up at a certain time. I'm guessing that is also connected to intuition. It shouldn't be effort again, right? Because then I'll be anxious whether I had that feeling, I have to wake up at this time, and then it just screws everything up. So how do you get to that? So determination is just setting an intention. It's sankalpa, intention that this is what I want to do, and then trusting in the mind to be able to follow through with that determination. The reason I tell you that is for two reasons. One is to give these guys a break from waking you guys up, and the second is because as you advance to other levels of meditation, there'll come a time when you can actually intend to go into a jhana whenever you want for however long you want.

So these are the stepping stones to doing that. You can even practice that by saying, if you're going to take a nap, you're going to sleep only for 20 minutes. And you'll notice, because of that sankalpa, because of that intention, it's 20 minutes exact. And so that's how you're practicing or exercising those muscles. Similar to meditation, there'll be hindrances, like I'll have doubts, I'll have anxiety if I'll sleep throughout, or will I wake up on time? So you... It's similar, right? You let go of and... Yeah, just let go of all the baggage and the thoughts and the chatter around and behind that. So, I'm just basically the question is, I think maintaining precepts has been, this is my belief, I cannot prove it, that that has been helping in improvement in quality of my life, also brings up gladness and all of that.

But is there any account in suttas or anywhere where it is clearly mentioned what exactly maintaining precepts can do? I remember Bhante talked about few things, like perfecting the precept of no harsh speech can basically give you a siddhi, to whatever you say come true, comes true, sort of stuff like that. But is there any account in the suttas of precepts in day-to-day life as well as the siddhis? I haven't really come across it yet. We're going to have to ask ChatGPT. And what's your view? I can tell you from my experience what it is: seeing and hearing from Bhante about this and his students, that keeping the precepts not only purifies the mind, but it elevates it.

As far as I'm aware, there are cross references to other traditions that talk about something similar, where by keeping these precepts, there is a level of perfection in them that you experience. And by doing so, you do attain certain accomplishments or siddhis in those things. Like being non-harming beings, ultimately results in you being either never harmed. There's harm somewhere, being diverted somewhere else, and so on and so forth. I've spoken about this before as well, but basically it's like, for example, if you continue to keep the precept of not telling false speech, eventually what you say comes true. Likewise, when you refrain from indulging in intoxicants, there's a certain level of sharpness in your mind that's there all the time, and so on.

So these are more sort of theories or anecdotes instead of real evidence of it. So we're going to have to ask. Yeah. This is the last question. So I wanted to ask that, is it possible as to what we are asked, that we know the known Earth is maybe this much old, people probably there at that point in time, but what Buddha saw and the flow of all this karma is much, much beyond the known and perceivable? Is that possible? It is quite possible, because what we are looking at is certain scientific evidence of whatever we've discovered so far in terms of the archaeology and paleontology and so on. It is quite possible that even in deeper and deeper layers of the earth, where over millions of years things have crumbled, there is no evidence available, just because of the sheer many millions of years, that perhaps there was a civilization that was existing that we have no idea about.

I would say that there's understanding of these different kinds of beings and these different kinds of human civilizations as the Buddha talks about them, perspective and his understanding, because either that was what was being told in that time, or because he actually saw it for himself, and that was proof enough for him, let's say. So we can't know till we don't see what he saw exactly. Okay, let's just, you talk today about liberation. Mm-hmm. For that we have to go for asavakkhaya. Mm-hmm. By this metta meditation we can go to the liberation. I agree. But asavakkhaya is there. How to do that? That, okay, so that's what I was talking about. The first thing I mentioned was destruction of the asavas, asavakkhaya.

See, metta is not going to take you to liberation. No object of meditation is going to take you to liberation. Anapanasati, maranasati, satipatthana, none of these objects that the Buddha has mentioned take you to liberation. These objects are anchors for your attention to be collected enough, which is the samadhi, where then naturally it leads towards these states. And asavakkhaya will happen as a natural result of cessation. You cannot force it. You have to practice it. And the practice of that is the continual usage of Samavayamu, the four Rs, which continues to recondition our mind. And by reconditioning our mind, it bit by bit allows for the reduction of these asavakkhaya, these destructions of the asavas, I should say.

So what are the asavas? There are three of them. Four, if you count the wrong view. Six. Let's just talk about the four. These are wrong view, sensual desire or kamasava, avijja or ignorance, and bhava. When we enter the stream we let go of wrong view and we are slowly reducing the avijja, and then when we enter the third path you destroy the kamasava, the sensual desire, and then eventually you destroy avijjasava and bhavasava when you become fully liberated. This is the conceptual understanding of this process. So they are natural, just as the fruit falls when it's ripe enough, the asavas also fall when the mind is ripe enough. It's not something we can practice to drop on our own.

We only practice the continuous reconditioning until the mind drops that naturally. Okay, this is the last question. May I ask him something? Yeah. Darshan, only Darshan, small book, it is about 50-60 rupees by Dr. Bhadan Anand Kaushalayan. He has explained all these six. All the six Darshan. All the six Darshan. Sankhya, Vaisheshika, Appa, Patanjali and all. Right. And Darshan, Dik Darshan, he is starting from the Abraham. Oh, interesting. Okay. So maybe you'll want to exchange information. Abraham to Mark Swann. Right.

Everything is explained. Interesting. Simple, it is a version by the doctor, that is both are in Hindi, so English are available, you can study for them if you want. I got the books. Perfect, thank you. Does it take after the cessation, does it take time for the asavas to drop, or is it instant? Or I mean, does it integrate? Okay, it's instant. - Okay, let's share that. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear-struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation.