Secret Teachings of the Vedas

Session 1 part 1

[Babaji reads the goals of the class]

Babaji: ...full of God loving people. Strong in spirit, healthy in body and high-thinking, through knowledge of the Secret Teachings of Jesus and the Holy Name of God. Is there anybody that understands that?

Audience Response: Yes.

Babaji:You all agree?

Audience Response: Yes

Babaji: Good. OK than we can work together.[Pause] OK, please take a piece of paper. Please write down your one greatest desire. [Pause] Don't put your name. [Pause] We will look at these later and see how your thinking has changed. [Pause] Your one greatest desire. [Pause]

The course tonight will study the source of the Esoteric Teaching. The Esoteric Teaching is the origin of all truth. It is not a religion, but it is the source of religion. Its not a science, but it’s the source of many sciences. Why do we call it Esoteric? Does anybody know the definition of Esoteric?

Audience Response: Because it can’t be expressed with words?

Babaji: No, because the Esoteric Teaching can be expressed in words.

Audience Response: Occult.

Babaji: What do you mean [occult in the sense of] hidden? That’s closer.

Audience Response: Philosophy?

Babaji: OK that’s close, but really, esoteric means limited to a few people—either because it’s secret, or because it requires initiation. Just like if we want to learn to be a doctor or a lawyer, going to college is not enough. We also have to practice under the direction of people who know. And when our practical knowledge is perfect, we get the degree. We get a license to practice.

So Esoteric knowledge is like that. We can learn about it by reading, especially the esoteric scriptures, the Vedas. But to really understand it, we have to practice under the direction of someone who has realized that knowledge. That person is a spiritual master. A spiritual master has to realize the knowledge and the practice. But the beginning starts from the esoteric scriptures. The source of the knowledge we are presenting is called Vedas.

Vedas are the ancient scriptures of India. At one time the Vedic culture was spread all over the world. But in the last five thousand years, it has become limited to India. The real source of this knowledge is the Vedic literature. What does Veda mean? The root word ved means “to know.” And therefore Veda means real knowledge. In the broadest sense, any knowledge that is true is Veda. But in the sense of Esoteric Teaching, the Vedic scripture which talk about the nature of consciousness and reality, the Absolute Truth, is Veda.

Remember last time we talked about the Absolute Truth? The Absolute Truth is knowledge that is always true, in any time, in any place, in any situation, for any person, in any condition in life; that is Vedic Truth, Esoteric Truth, or Absolute Truth. I'm taking the time to define all these terms very carefully so that you will understand what we are talking about.

This course is all about Absolute Truth, or Vedic Knowledge, the Esoteric Teaching. These are all synonyms. Vedic literatures were written down about five thousands years ago. Before that time, they were simply taught by the spiritual masters to the disciples as an oral tradition. But because we are now in a historic period called the Kali Yuga since five thousand years ago, the sages had to write down the teachings to keep them from being changed.

However, the real Vedic culture is much older than that. The historical records of our Vedic culture go back more than one hundred thousand years ago. Now if you notice, every history in Western culture begins about five thousand years ago. Isn't it? Jewish History, Roman History, Greek History. Even Native American History is no older than five thousand years. Why? Because more than five thousand years ago Vedic culture was all over the world. But five thousand years ago something changed, and the Vedic culture became limited only to India. Later on we can talk about the history of what happened. That’s all you need to know, to understand why these different cultures only began five thousand years ago.

The Vedas are written in the Sanskrit language. The Sanskrit language, if you ask any expert on languages, is the ancestor of all of our modern languages. Especially Greek, Latin, German, the Romance languages have many many words from the Sanskrit. So the Sanskrit language is actually the mother tongue. And anyone who studies the Sanskrit language becomes very intelligent, because the language was created consciously. Our modern languages are created accidentally. But Sanskrit was created deliberately.

And it’s written in a script called Devanagari. Devanagari means the “City of the Gods.” It does not come from this planet. If you study Sanskrit, you will find that it is beyond the intelligence of human beings. No human being could have invented it. For example, the Vedas are written in very sophisticated poetry. We are going to show you examples here tonight. The amount of the Vedas could fill this entire building, although they were written by one man. His name is Vyasadeva. Vyasa means “divider.” He took the Vedic tradition of "Absolute Truth" and he divided it into different subject matters. Namely he divided it into four. Four Vedas. And than he taught these Vedas to his four main disciples. And than those lineages are coming down to the present day. I am an initiate of one of those four lineages. Which goes back to the original author of the Vedas. So the sophistication of the poetry of the Vedas would be impossible for a human being to sustain over such a large body of work. We see today that an author will write two or three books, these books will become very famous, and their other books maybe not so good. But the books of Vyasa are all perfectly composed. There’s not one mistake. So this is beyond human intelligence, because if you analyze the Sanskrit poetry, you will see that it uses a language that is based on transcendental ontology. All the Vedic literatures are written from the level of perfect spiritual realization. So this is another point, why they cannot be written by a human being. So the conclusion is the author of the Vedas has greater intelligence than a human. And in India Vyasa is accepted as an incarnation of God. So let me give you an example.

In Sanskrit there are seven rules of context. This is a Sanskrit verse called a sloka. This sloka describes the seven rules. Here is the Latin Transliteration. I will read it to you.

upakramopasaṁhārāv abhyāso ‘pūrvata-phalam
artha-vādopapattī ca liṅgaṁ tātparya-nirṇaye

“The beginning, the ending, what is repeated again and again, what is unique and novel, the general purpose of the book, the author’s statement of his own intention, and appropriateness are the factors to consider in interpretation of obscure passages.”

Sanskrit has 14 vowels and 56 consonants. For example, the ṅ in liṅgam is different from the n in nirṇaye, which is different to the second ṇ in nirṇaye. OK. So three different sounds from the same n.
So every sound in every language is found in Sanskrit. But our modern languages only have a few of them. So again, it’s more than a human language. What are the seven rules?

1. upakrama - means the beginning

2. upasaṁhārā - means the ending

3. abhyāsā - means what is repeated again and again

4. apūrvata - means what is unique and novel

5. phalam - means the general purpose of the book

6. artha-vāda - means the author’s statement of his intentions

7. upapattī - means appropriateness

Each of these seven contextual rules is defined very elaborately and scientifically within the rules of Sanskrit grammar. So to compose Sanskrit poetry you have to remain constantly in that awareness of all seven contextual rules. Superhuman intelligence. Let me explain. Each Sanskrit Sloka is written in a strict metric meter. There are, I think there are 22 main meters. And they each have a specific emotional meaning. So a Sanskrit work has to follow the rules of all the meters.

So what is a meter? A meter is a verse that has a specific number of pādas. A pāda is a rhythmic note. So a short syllable is one pāda and a long syllable is two pādas. Like when you recite the Sanskrit alphabet: a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, ṛ, ṝ etc. See? You have a short vowel and a long vowel. There is no accent. But there are different lengths of rhythm in the syllables, and this rhythm has meaning. So the total number of syllables or pādas, rhythmic units, in a sloka add up to a specific total. And this total has to remain the same for each verse written in that meter.

OK, here is a verse from Sanskrit from the Bhagavad-gita. A very famous verse.

dehino 'smin yathā dehe
kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā
tathā dehāntara-prāptir
dhīras tatra na muhyati

“As the embodied soul continually passes, in this body, from boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly passes into another body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by such a change.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.13]

Every letter is pronounced; it’s a completely phonetic alphabet. OK. And we can see there are some long syllables and some short syllables [Babaji goes back to the sloka and highlights long and short syllables]. Long and short. And the rhythm is very important. Also the tune is important. So we have svara which is the tune, matra which is the rhythm, and than there is mantra, the text itself which has to follow all these rules. Let’s look at the checksum of this verse. Oh by the way, what does this mean? [referring to the sloka], You should understand the meaning: “Just as the soul passes from a baby to a young person’s body, to a grownup body to an old person’s body, the spirit soul also passes to a new body at death. The self-realized soul is not bewildered by these changes.”

OK, first we divide the Sanskrit into its syllables. For example [using the above sloka]: De Hi No 'Smin Ya Tha De He Kau Ma Ram Yau Va Nam Ja Ra Ta Tha De Ha Nta Ra Pra Ptir Dhi Ras Ta Tra Na Mu Hya Ti.

Now we analyze, de is a long syllable and receives two vowels. hi is a short syllable and receives one vowel. De (2) Hi (1) No (2) 'Smin (2) Ya (1) Tha (2) De (2) He (2) Kau (2) Ma (2) Ram (1) Yau (2) Va (1) Nam (1) Ja (1) Ra (2) Ta (1) Tha (1) De (2) Ha (2) Nta (2) Ra (1) Pra (2) Ptir (2) Dhi (2) Ras (1) Ta (1) Tra (2) Na (1) Mu (1) Hya (2) Ti (1).

OK, Now we add them up. The top line of the sloka adds up to 26, while the second line adds up to 24, with the total count being 50 pādas. Now nobody can change this verse without changing the number of pādas. So this serves as prevention for mistakes in copying or to prevent people from making serious alterations. Lets look at another one, the next verse of the Bhagavad-gita.

mātrā-sparśās tu kaunteya
śītoṣṇa-sukha-duḥkha-dāḥ
āgamāpāyino 'nityās
tāṁs titikṣasva bhārata

“O son of Kuntī, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed.” [Bhagavad-gita 2.14]

[Babaji goes through second sloka and pronounces it for everyone and than translates it as follows] “Never was there a time when you did not exist and never will there be a time when we cease to be. The individual soul is eternal and indestructible, and it is never killed on the battlefield.”

I get goosebumps! OK, so we do again the same analysis. And again we get 26 [from the top line of the sloka] and 24 [from the bottom line of the sloka], and the total is 50 pādas. In this meter, which is the main meter that Bhagavad-gita is written in, actually the most common Sanskrit meter there is, every sloka must have 50 pādas. So just like when you download a file to your computer, it has to have a certain checksum. Every Sanskrit verse must have its correct checksum.

What is the significance of this? It means the teaching has not changed. Most traditions have changed. Just like last week we talked about the Bible, and the history of how in the beginning there were many books, and then the Emperor Constantine had a big meeting, and he threw out many of the books and he also edited many of the other books and made many changes. Then he got rid of the original manuscripts, and today we don’t have any idea of the actual original teachings of the Bible.

We’re starting our spiritual work from the fragmented text, that we know. Because it’s recorded in history it was changed from the original. This has given many problems to Christian theology. But when we work with the Vedic text, we are working with the original knowledge that was written down five thousand years ago, by someone with intelligence so much greater than you, we cannot comprehend and calculate how much greater. Because no one can write this stuff. It requires 12 years just to learn how to read Sanskrit. Even to chant the verse properly takes 2 or 3 years to learn. So how can any human being write the Vedic scriptures? It’s not possible. Very sophisticated. Beyond human intelligence.

Human beings are not perfect. Remember, you heard it here first! [laughter] Specifically, they have four defects: they make mistakes. I remember one time I made a mistake; I thought I did something wrong. (That’s a joke.) Is there anybody who hasn’t made a mistake? It’s human nature to make a mistake. That’s why when I learn a new language, one of the first things I try to learn is “I’m sorry.” Because we all make mistakes. And we also have to tolerate other peoples’ mistakes. But when it comes to spiritual knowledge, human mistakes can cause great difficulty. Therefore the Vedas are very important, as they are coming from a source greater than human intelligence. There are no mistakes in the Vedas. Even according to all these rules, you will not find any mistakes. This is astonishing!

There is nothing so perfect in this world as these Vedic scriptures. And the more you study them, the more they more astonishing they become. I have been studying them now for almost 40 years. And there is no mistake in them. Just like if you go into a laboratory and you perform experiments based on scientific formula, you will get a consistent results. That’s the definition of science. Similarly if you follow the instructions in the Vedas, you will get the same results consistently every time. Of course the Vedas deal with the subject of consciousness and spiritual life. That means the laboratory is within you, and the experiment is performed inside of meditation. So it’s a little bit different than regular science, but still the same principles apply. If you do the experiment, follow the procedure, you get the same result.

Another problem with human knowledge is we are in illusion. I have a very specific definition of illusion in mind. When I see a material object it appears to have independent existence. See? Optical mouse. [Babaji holds it up as an example] No connection with anything, but it still works. But actually, where does this come from? The material was what? Somebody took it out of the ground, factored it into many different chemical compounds, than made it into plastic, then molded it, then put the electronics inside; someone had to design it, manufacture it, distribute it, to sell it, if it breaks somebody has to fix it, etc. So does this really have independent existence? No; it has a beginning, a middle and an end. Someday this will go back into the ground, and who knows what will become of it. Similarly human bodies do not have independent existence. They have a mother and father, and without their mother and father they wouldn’t exist. What to speak of the environment, the food required for its birth and subsistence, medical care, education, human society, there is no such thing as independent existence, yet our senses tell us something different. So even our intelligence, if we don’t think deeply, we tend to assume that things have their own independent existence.

For example this is a chair. This is a chair, right? Everyone knows this is a chair. So our language has a word that appears to assign independent existence to this object. When we talk about a chair we don’t talk about how the metal is extracted from the ground and goes to the factory, and is purified, and is cast into different shapes, and is assembled, etc. We ignore all of that. Even though that’s the actual origin of the chair. Our language enables us to forget all of that, and treat it as if it has its own separate existence. So this is a deficiency of our language, which is done for practical reasons. If every time I wanted to talk about this object I had to discuss its whole history, we wouldn’t get anything done. However, it tends to make us think in terms of that object having independent existence. The whole world is like that: everything is connected; everything is part of the chain of cause and effect that goes back originally to God. Yet we tend to think of things as separate objects that have their own independent existence. So we are always in illusion because of the way we think, our language and our ontology.

What is an ontology? It’s a classification of all the different levels of being and existence, and the relationships between them. So we have a map of the world and its possibilities. Our language is an expression of our ontology. They have a strong relationship with each other. So when our language appears to describe things with independent existence, we tend to assume that is so, because our language says its so. Again, Sanskrit is not like that. The ontology that Sanskrit is based, is scientifically designed, to express the truth of absolute existence. And if you study the Sanskrit literature you will see that is so. Its mind-blowing!

This leads to the next defect of human beings. We have imperfect senses. This is just a sheet of paper, but if I put it in front of my eyes, I can’t see anything. So what is my power of seeing? It’s very imperfect. Just like if I put something very close to my eyes it appears big, or likewise when I put something far away it looks small. This is another defect, because actually the sizes don’t change. If we understand what happens when I look at something: Here is a person. Here is my eyeball, spherical. In the front is a lens. The light from the object goes thought the lens, it focuses, and is projected on the back of the eye. OK, as we know the lens always turns everything upside down. The lens of the eye does the same thing. And back here there are rods and cones, and they take this image and turn it into nervous impulses in the optic nerve. The light has been refracted, focused and turned into electricity, then it does into a place in the brain called the visual cortex. The visual cortex processes all this information, all this electrical data and turns it into an image (whatever that is) and this goes to the rest of our brain, and then we process that further. We recognize it: “Oh, that’s so-and-so.” We recognize that person. But to do that, we have to go through all these stages.

So when we see something, are we really seeing that being? No we’re seeing a symbol of a refraction of a processed version of the light that was reflected from that thing. Yet our language says “I see Ulysses.” But actually that is not the case. But because we have imperfect senses we say, “I’m seeing this person, I’m seeing that person, I’m seeing a car, this chair,” etc. But that’s not really true. We’re seeing symbols created by our own nervous system. If we know this, than we understand that the world we see only exists inside ourselves. There is good news and there is bad news. The bad news is, that means we have imperfect senses. The good news is, if we reprogram our process we can change the world we see.

Finally, we all have the tendency to cheat. Come on, admit it. We have the tendency, if we have the opportunity to portray things better than what they are. “How are you today?” “I'm fine. I owe $50,000 on my house. My daughter is pregnant. I just had a car wreck. I might lose my job next week. But I'm fine!” [says jokingly] It’s human nature. So why do we do this? Because we think we can get something in a short time that would normally take a long time, or we can get something easy that would normally take a lot of work. But let me tell you something: you get what you pay for. There is no free lunch; there are no short cuts. But because we have imperfect senses, we are in illusion and we can commit mistakes, [chuckles] it’s very hard not to cheat when you have the opportunity.

One of the things about a really wise person is they know this. So they try very hard not to cheat. And if they commit mistake they admit it and they apologize. Or if they are in illusion... in other words, that’s why you hear very smart people saying things like “It may be like this” or “I think that might be...blah blah blah.” They never say “This is it, and thats all there is to it!” Because why? Maybe I made a mistake; maybe I'm in illusion, and I will find out later. Maybe my imperfect senses are misleading. Maybe I can’t help myself and I’m cheating.” So we see really wise and intelligent people try to soften the things they say, by putting them in context. That’s why I was very careful in the beginning of this course to define our purpose. We want to be absolutely as truthful as possible. Because if you find out later I’ve said something that isn’t true, than what are you going to think? So a really wise person will never say anything based on their own opinion, but always seek out a superior source of knowledge, like the Vedas. That’s why we take our knowledge from the Vedic literature, not from our own opinions. What you get in this course is not my opinion, not anyone’s opinion; it’s the opinion of the Vedas. Our work is to only to translate that from one language to another, from one culture to another. So we are going to give you practical things that you can do to improve your life, by improving your consciousness. Like we experienced in the previous session, you can change your consciousness. You can act drunk one minute, very passionate the next minute, and the next minute you’re a saint. You can change your consciousness. We have the power. It was given to us by God. Human nature.

This is another thing to talk about. We have free will, so we have to use that will, to make good choices. So the process of receiving Vedic knowledge, means how to get perfect knowledge. Because the source is higher than human it does not suffer from the "four defects". No mistakes. No illusion. No imperfect senses. And no cheating. Thats our standard.

I am going to use a word here, which has been misused: guru. What is the meaning of guru? Anybody?

Audience response: (2 responses were given, but were unclear due to accent)

Audience response: A person with a lot of practice? A wise man?

Babaji: The actual Sanskrit word guru means heavy. Heavy with knowledge. What kind of knowledge? Knowledge of the Absolute Truth. It’s one thing to read knowledge in a book; it’s another thing to experience practical knowledge. Like we said at the beginning of the class, one should not only have theoretical knowledge to study, but also practical application from someone who knows. That’s how you become self-realized. We see too much of theoretical knowledge. People are reading translations of translations of translations etc. Just like, we have all heard of Tantra. Does anybody know what is Tantra? What is Tantra? Most people think Tantra is about sex. And perhaps not here, but in the US there are many people teaching Tantra. It’s just like swingers. [laughter]

Babaji: It’s crazy! [smiling] But actually the Tantras are a division of the Vedic literature. And like any Vedic literature, their aim is about self-realization. Enlightenment. In the process of discussing enlightenment on a practical basis, the Tantras discuss every area of human activity. From intellectual, to spiritual knowledge, to meditation and yoga, temple worship, different forms of meditation, visualizations. They also discuss how to manage a spiritual organization, how to run a community, how to raise crops, how to raise animals, how to build houses, how to choose a wife or husband, how to choose a spiritual master, even how to have children, how to go to the bathroom, etc. Everything. So there is some discussion of sex, out of all the huge body of literature. I want to go to some of these Tantra teachers and ask them “So you teach Tantra?” “Oh yes” “OK, well how many of the actual Tantras have you read?” “Oh well I don't read Sanskrit.” “So at least you must have gone to India and met some Tantric masters there?” “Oh no, I don't want to go anyplace outside the United States.”

So really they are cheating. And similarly, most of the people who teach yoga. We will talk about that later on today. What is the meaning of real yoga. Most of the them have never read the actual source material on yoga. Now this baffles me. If I’m going to study music—which actually I did study music, as it’s my first career—I went back and played all the original music of Bach, and all the great musicians that formed our musical tradition. And any serious student is going to do that. They’re going to go to the original. He’s not going to be content reading some interpretation of the original; he wants the real thing from the source. That’s a serious student. Do you agree with this approach?

So, a real guru is someone who has been there, done that, gone to the source, read the original material, and studied with experts. Practically. That’s guru. That’s our definition of guru. So who is a guru? Someone who knows practically, and whose opinion agrees with the original. Just like, who is really a doctor? A real doctor is someone who can actually cure disease. It doesn’t matter how many books he has read, but he can perform the activity of that profession. So who’s a guru really? Someone who can bring or help other people to attain enlightenment according to the original scriptures, the original literature on the subject, which is the Vedas. If you look into history and anthropology, you cannot find an older book on spiritual life than the Vedas. And yet the Vedas are enormous.

You saw in our video, we had the bible on one side, and than on the other side, we had the books on the esoteric teaching going up the ceiling, and actually there’s many more, enough to fill this whole building. I stayed in one temple in Kashmir where they had the complete collection, it was one of the archives for the complete Vedas. So this building was just filled with scrolls: the complete Tantras, the complete Upanishads, the complete Vedas, the complete Agamas, everything. So I could study anything I wanted, and I had complete freedom to read anything. And they had historical records going back hundreds of thousands of years, from other planets. All kinds of wild stuff.

Unless you know this literature, you can’t say that you are a guru. You cannot say you are teaching yoga. It’s cheating people. Just like if I go to the library I can read so many books on medicine, but does that make me a doctor? No, because I have not done the practice. So, a real guru is practiced with a real spiritual master. So, we should approach a genuine spiritual master for spiritual instruction.

Now I’m going to talk about something we call disciplic succession. The Sanskrit word is parampara. You’ll never hear anyone else discussing this, because their not in the parampara. They’re taking their own opinion, or the opinion of somebody else who themselves has no connection. But like we discussed earlier, the Vedic scriptures were divided into four. And each of these four branches was entrusted to a particular disciple. And then their disciplic descendants are coming through to the present day. Unless someone is situated as an initiate in one of these four disciplic successions, he can not really claim to be a yogi, a guru, or a representative of the Vedas. Now we’re also bringing up representative of Krsna. So who is Krsna? Does anybody know?

[end of tape]