Except from a talk by Swami Sarvapriyananda: No Mind Q&A June 3, 2018

Just because something is non-eternal, temporary doesn’t mean it’s not real. That’s what that’s our reaction, all of this [pointing to the world], it is non-eternal, we know. And yes, of course, it’s very good, very soon we’re going to bring the session to a close. It’s non-eternal. Luckily, otherwise, you’d go hungry for a very long time if it’s an eternal Vedanta session.

I find it extraordinarily interesting, and some people find it scary, from the well accepted fact of the things change, things born and die. From this fact to go into that things are false, they are illusions, they are appearances, I will show you right now how it works. We think these things, I know they are created. Flowers blossoms and then we put it here, they will dry up and it will be thrown away. So it is non eternal. So is this class events are non eternal. Human beings are non eternal. We are born, we die. But do we say they are false? No, they are real, but only for a period of time. They last for a period of time. During that time after the birth and before death, they are real. After production, before destruction, they are real.

Now, Vedanta says, Follow this carefully. It’s like this. There’s something called intrinsic property and borrowed property, intrinsic property is that which belongs to you, and borrowed property is that which belongs to somebody else, but you have borrowed it for the time being and using it now. Somebody said, these days, it’s very difficult to find out who is rich and not, because everybody borrows so much and they spend like they’re rich, especially in this city. So they’re very well dressed and have fancy cars, and they go to fancy restaurants. But they might not be particularly rich. They were living on credit cards very soon, Wells Fargo is going to catch them. So that money, that luxury, that’s borrowed, it’s not intrinsic to that person.

What is the sign that something is borrowed? It comes and goes. So the example is they give of boiling a potato, hot potato. But is the hot potato really hot? No, because it was cold earlier, and once you put it on the dish and serve it, after some time, it will become cold again. Its heat is borrowed. Where is its heat borrowed from? The boiling water. Is the boiling water intrinsically hot? No, it’s heat is borrowed. Where is it borrowed from the directly, you can’t put water on the fire. It will put the fire, fire out, or the water will become steam, the bowl, the pan, or whatever is the pan intrinsically hot? No, it borrows its heat from the fire. The pan was cold earlier becomes hot and it becomes cold again. The water was cold earlier, boils in between and then becomes cold again. The potato was the potato was cold earlier becomes hot, becomes cold later on, all because heat is borrowed, but from where the fire let me ask you, is the fire intrinsically hot? As long as the fire lasts hot, the fire is hot because heat is the intrinsic property of fire, in a very common sensical way, let’s say because it does not come and because it’s intrinsic. It does not come and go. It belongs to the fire itself. As long as fire is dead, it is hot.

Now let me ask you a question, if something has existence as an intrinsic property, what will happen to it? If something does not have existence as an intrinsic property, if it borrows existence, what will happen to it, it will die. It will be born the moment it borrows existence. What will happen? Just like a person, borrowing money, poor person, not rich, suddenly, borrowing money, rich, not existent, borrowing existent. Existent become, comes into existence when it loses existence again? What will happen to it? It will die. It will be destroyed. It will go out of existence. That means, bring it all together. Impermanence is a sign of borrowed existence. Are you with me? If there is any such thing as borrowed existence, impermanence is a sign of borrowed existence.

Now, everything in the world is impermanent. It has borrowed existence from somewhere. That podium is impermanent. It has borrowed its existence from the wood. The wood is impermanent. It has borrowed its existence from the earth material, the earth. The earth is impermanent. It has borrowed its existence from the constituent materials, atoms and all of that and so on.

If something does not borrow existence, what will happen to it? If something borrows existence, it will be born. It will die. If something does not borrow existence, as in, yeah, has intrinsic existence, what will happen to it? It will be eternal in the sense. It will never come into existence. It will never go out of existence, because it has intrinsic existence. That is the very concept of SAT of Brahman, that which has intrinsic existence, which is existence itself, being itself. You cannot even conceive of it being, not being, not existence. Everything else borrows existence from Brahman.

For a time, being and appears to exist, but all the while Brahman is holding it up, just like this. The podium borrows existence from wood, because it’s wood, through and through, and the name and form of the podium is held up by wood as it fare a wave, as long as it exists, it borrows existence from the water, because without the water, no wave, without the wood, no podium, without Brahman, no universe. The sign that the universe has borrowed everything in the universe has borrowed existence is because it comes into existence and disappears. It is born and it dies. It is temporary. So this temporariness is a sign of borrowing existence. It’s not really rich on existence. It’s Brahman, which is a billionaire on existence.

This borrowed existence is exactly what Vedanta calls falsity, mithya. So the very temporariness, the non eternality of things, the changing nature of things points to the falsity of things. In Vedanta, it is called mithya. In Buddhism, it is called interdependence. They are not intrinsically existent. They are devoid of self existence.

In Buddhism, it is called shunyata, shunyata sarovana, all entities, devoid of self existence.

In Vedanta, it says, all entities are appearances. They have borrowed their existence from the real.