One term at a time · fourth of the series
विवेक viveka
Discrimination — telling the real from what only looks real.
It is what decides how much you can safely let go of.
The words for what your mind is already doing.
Vasana, samskara, viveka — an older psychology named these patterns with a precision English never developed. Fifty of them carry nearly all of the teaching. Four are filmed. The rest arrive as they are made, free.
One word, one film. We will not email you about anything else, and you can stop any time.
Two minutes, and then he says it himself.
The card carries the definition. Swamiji carries the rest — he almost never defines a term outright, he shows you one at work.
2 min 11 sec
Viveka is like a flashlight.
A discerning intellect. It tells the real from the unreal, the eternal from the passing.
Sri Swami Jyotirmayananda · Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Lecture 77 · at 3:46
He gives an image rather than a definition, which is how nearly all of it is taught. The flashlight does not create anything. It only lets you see what was already in the room.
This one is the fourth of four.
Viveka is not a word to collect. It is the last step of an argument, and the three before it are what make it mean anything. Each has its own film.
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वासना vasana
Where the pattern starts.
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वैराग्य vairagya
What loosens its hold.
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सत्सङ्ग satsanga
What decides whether it comes back.
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विवेक viveka
Discrimination, telling the real from what only looks real. It is what makes the letting go possible at all.You are here
About seven hundred Sanskrit terms appear across our written study guides, but only about fifty come back again and again. Those fifty are the set, and they are what we are filming.