From a satsanga on "manmana bhava / मन्मना भव =may your mind be always in me" [Bhagavadgita 18.65] with Swami Dayananda Saraswati in 2007 at Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Saylorsburg If the object that you see is a table, what is its truth? 'What is?', is the question. You think it is created by a carpenter who is not here, because when you see the table, you do not see the carpenter. What did he make? A table. Can you see the table without seeing another object, the meaning of which is not the same as table? We have an object table, which means that we have a word ‘table’ and that word has an object. Then there is a word, 'wood'. It also has an object, wood. When you see the table, do you see wood at the same time? There are two words, 'table', and 'wood'. Both must be synonyms if they are referring to the same object. ‘Table’ refers to an object and ‘wood’ refers to the same object, therefore, wood and table are synonyms. What does it mean if two words are synonyms? It means that wherever there is a table there is wood, and wherever there is wood, there is a table. Both are wrong. Wherever I see a table, I do not see wood, and wherever I see wood, I do not see a table. Here, wood and table have assembled together. A certain logician said, "They are two different objects connected by a principle called samavaya / समवाय." He says so because he has a commitment to proving that they are two different objects. Let us understand 'what is' and not try to prove anything. 'What is', is this table, which I cannot even imagine without imagining a substance other than table, referred to by the word 'wood', ‘plastic’ ‘steel’, etc. Some other object has to be seen by me in order to see the table. Without seeing that, I cannot see the table. Not only can I not see table, I cannot even imagine it. Any one thing you look into is like this. You cannot think of a given thing without thinking of another. That ‘another’ also, you cannot think of without thinking of another. The more you know, the more you have 'another'. Can you think of an object without its cause? No. If there is a cause for this entire jagat / जगत्—the maker and material being one cause— can you think of the jagat / जगत् without it,? Can you take the mind away from any one object to Isvara / ईश्वर? How can you think of an object outside Isvara / ईश्वर? You can think of Isvara / ईश्वर perhaps without the jagat / जगत्, but can you think of a jagat / जगत् which is outside Isvara / ईश्वर? Which object will take you away from Isvara / ईश्वर? No object. When you understand 'what is', with the answer to that question, “What is?” you have all the answers. All questions become redundant. In all the chapters of the Gita, Bhagavan has made such questions redundant. Therefore, manmana bhava / मन्मना भव— we have to see that whatever we see is Isvara / ईश्वर, because the product is namarupa / नामरूप, just name-form, which is not separate from Isvara / ईश्वर; it is Isvara / ईश्वर. You do not need to rub your eyes and see something more. Inside one has to be totally free from not recognizing 'what is'. If you see only the table and fail to recognize the wood, you will search for wood.
