Why am I here in this universe? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Question: Why are we here in this universe?
Speaker: How do you know you are somewhere? We have to be attentive here! How does one know that he is anywhere? What do you call as this universe? You can claim that you are here in this hall or in this universe only because you see this universe. Right?
Listeners (everyone): Yes, Sir.
Speaker: What do you mean by seeing? You mean that your eyes receive a certain sensation. As a student of science you must be knowing that your eyes receive a few waves falling upon them which creates a particular sensation, a message travels to the brain and the brain says that something is happening. And that is how you are trying to conclude that we are here purely on the basis of the eyes, the ears and the brain. Correct?
But you see, the brain itself is a product of this universe. It has been configured into its present form by the universe and the only proof that the universe IS, has been given to you by your brain. Except the brain, is there any proof that the universe is like this? The moment the brain changes, the universe is no more like this. You go to an animal and its universe is very, very different. It hears different sounds, it sees different pictures. The same waves that your brain interprets as one kind of sound, the animal’s brain interprets differently. There are so many stimuli that your brain cannot make any sense of. It has not been configured to receive them but the animals’ brain takes them in and produces an image or a sound out of them. So what do you mean by the universe? The universe is nothing but a projection of your brain and the brain has been put together by the universe. When you say ‘universe’, isn’t the brain apart of the universe? Is it outside universe? No!When you say ‘universe’, is the brain outside the universe? No!
So the brain is a part of the universe. And how do you know the universe? Only through this the brain. Are you getting it? It is a closed system, a closed loop where the brain says that the universe is and the brain is nothing but an organ put together, brought about by the universe, as a product of evolution. So first of all realize that as such there is no reality in what you are seeing or hearing. It is all a projection of your own brain. If you see this wall here, it is because your brain has been configured to look at space as a three-dimensional thing. This wall will not exist in this shape, in this form, in this colour if your brain changes. So this wall is a function of your brain, this wall as such has no reality. You are calling the universe a reality, you are thinking that the universe isa reality and then you’re asking that why are we here in this universe. The question can just be inverted as, ‘Why does the universe look like this?’ You are assuming that the universe is there independent of us, as an objective reality, as a truth but theuniverse is not there except in your brain. Your brain projects the universe. Your brain is projecting this wall. Brain changes, the universe changes. So where is the universe except in your brain? You are not there in the universe but, the universe and the brain are together like two sides of a coin, which appear separated but are always together. Similarly, the universe and the brain appear like the subject and the object but they are always together. You can know this. And if you can know this, then you are something different from this subject-object combination. Then you are neither the wall nor the brain. You are the intelligence that knowscan knowthis happening together.
In response to the last question we said that know what is happening and also know the mind that is knowing what is happening. That happening (pointing outside) is the Universe, this (referring to the brain) is the Mind. Mind is your Brain and that knowing is Intelligence. If we are saying that know that universe and know this mind, then there must be a third thing as well that knows both that and this. And if both of them are being known, there must be a third entity as well. You really are thethat third entity, that Intelligence which knows that (Universe) and which knows this (The Brain) and that entity is nothing but Intelligence. The universe and the brain are always together. They are parts of the subject-object duality. They are always together. You are neither that nor this. You can know this universe and you can also know this brain that is watching that universe, not only watching it but actually creating it. So forget that how and whydo we come tointo the universe. The universe comes into you. You are not within the universe, infact it would be equally right to say that the universe is within you. You can be the observer of both, the universe and the brain that watches the universe.
Probably it would be something new to you but stay with it and give all attention to it.
Excerpted from a ‘Shabd-Yog’ session. Edited for clarity.
