Somebody, some people, some of . . . practically the whole population of the world, they are under the bodily concept of life and, above them, there are some people who are on the mental concept of life. They are thinking "mind." And somebody is on the intellectual platform of life.
- indriyāṇi parāṇy āhur
- indriyebhyaḥ paraṁ manaḥ
- manasas tu parā buddhiḥ
- (BG 3.42)
Buddhiḥ means intelligence. And, when you transcend the intellectual platform also, then you come to the spiritual platform. That realization first of all required. Before you practice transcendental realization, you have to reach to the transcendental platform. That transcendental platform is called brahma-bhūtaḥ.
Perhaps you have heard this word Brahman, ahaṁ brahmāsmi. That is transcendentalist that, "I am not this body, I am not this mind, I am not this intelligence, but I am spirit soul." That platform. Then what is the symptoms of a person who has reached that platform? Brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā na śocati na kāṅkṣati (BG 18.54). When you reach to the platform of Brahman realization . . . brahman realization means transcending. We are talking on the transcendental meditation. So transcending the bodily concept of life, transcending the mental concept of life, transcending the intellectual concept of life, when you come to the real spiritual platform, that is called brahma-bhūtaḥ stage.
So brahma-bhūtaḥ stage, it is not simply word, that "I have realized Brahman." There are symptoms. Everything has got symptoms, how one has realized Brahman. That stage is explained in the Bhagavad-gītā, brahma-bhūtaḥ prasannātmā.
When one is on the transcendental platform, brahma-bhūtaḥ stage, his symptom is that he's always joyful. Joyful. There is no moroseness. No. And what is joyful? That is also explained. What is joyfulness? Na śocati na kāṅkṣati: he does not hanker after anything, neither he laments.
In the material platform we have got two symptoms: hankering and lamenting. The things which we do not possess, we hanker after it, "I must have it. I must have it. I must have this, this, that . . ." Gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittaiḥ (SB 5.5.8). There is nice explanation how this hankering, hankering is expanded. This hankering expanded: this whole material world is hankering after sex life. That is the basic principle of hankering. Puṁsāṁ mitho. Puṁsāṁ striyo mithunī-bhāvam etam. This is Sanskrit language. Mithunī-bhāvam means sex life. Either in human society or animal society or bird society or insects'—everywhere you will find that sex life is very prominent. That is materialistic way of life, indriyāṇi, senses.