Dear Sundari,
Thank you for this beautiful, unexpected and deeply impacting gift. This message is so obvious once it is given to you! And at the same time subtle beyond subtle. Many can teach Vedanta methodology, but this step??? It is a really good friend who can point this out.
Sundari: You are most welcome Grant. Though it is true you are a dear friend, I was speaking to you Self to Self. There is no teacher at this point. You already know it all and have assimilated the teachings. It’s just the last step, discarding the teaching, that is the hardest.
Grant: In the days since receiving your letter, and thank you very much for your insistence and clarifications, very much appreciated and needed, I veer between such peace, a weight of my shoulders, and Grant’s mind freaking out in this groundlessness, a greater awareness of the weight Grant tends to carry.
Sundari: The ego, which is invested in its identity as a spiritual seeker on the quest to perfect itself, does not easily surrender to becoming obsolete. Observe how predictably it runs through its usual patterns. These will not disappear, but so what? It’s just the jiva program, let them play out until they don’t anymore. Just like you would tune out an annoying song you have heard a zillion times; don’t waste time resisting, just observe as the Self.
Grant: “Everybody is interested in Shakti, nobody is interested in Shiva”, a dear friend once told me. Maybe he was pointing to this. I look at the large print I have hanging in my house of Nataraj, and now see it with renewed clarity.
Sundari: The spiritual arena, as you know too well because you were indoctrinated by it, is totally hung up and therefore held up by, experiential ‘enlightenment’. Most are not qualified to move beyond it, but you are. It has not been easy for you because of your jiva and its low self-esteem problem. But it is time to shed that identity once and for all. It is really old and tired now.
Grant: I once heard James say that through his days he never thinks of Vedanta. Vedanta knowledge comes when he needs it…..
Sundari: You may have missed the full import of his meaning. He does not think about Vedanta because he is the knowledge. It does not come or go. He was referring to the teaching methodology. As I said in my last email to you: the final teaching, which is the subtlest of all teachings, is that there is no longer any teaching. Ignorance is gone and so is knowledge. They are both objects known to you because there is only you, the Self. What do you need Self-knowledge for when you are the Self? The ladder of knowledge, the teaching, that ‘got you there’ (where you always were), is no longer necessary. Kick the ladder away. The jiva exists but is as good as non-existent, accepted as it is, a mirage. And it’s fine. End of the line. It is not an experience which is why it is hard to put into words. Happiness is not claimed so much as known to be the normal sattvic base state of the mind, no matter what is going on in it.
Grant: Grant has become more than ever an object for me. I remember James saying in the article you attached (thank you!!), how we always want more, better, etc. One of the great gifts you have given me is that the momentum of needing to be more and better in different ways has come to a standstill. I have also become much more aware of this tremendous drive in me.
Sundari: Stay vigilant that it is the Self observing Grant and not Grant observing Grant. The ego is an expert at camouflage when its demise is imminent. There is a qualitative difference in the discrimination between the two. If it’s the Self observing the jiva, discrimination works instantly to neutralize the ego’s typical act. If it’s the ego observing the ego, there is identification, and either justification and denial, or there will be censure, however subtle.
The jiva’s relentless need for something from life is just the Self seeking itself. And as I said to you, if you are seeking the Self you will not find it until you stop seeking and realise you are the sought. When you know you are the Self, that needy little bugger can still surface but it is instantly recognized and neutralized because there is honestly nothing you need. It’s all preference from that point. It’s ok to have desires because they will all be in line with dharma, and easily discarded if they cannot be fulfilled.
Grant: You said that maybe the hardest thing was to give up being an inquirer, but maybe the hardest thing is to give up being a fabulous inquirer, or at least a more impressive version of Grant! That is still a carrot dangling before me, apparently.
Sundari: Well put. As stated, the ego is a genius at disguise especially when it is clinging to the illusion of improving itself. And, as you know, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Grant: Your letter is also very timely as it has broken a struggle that I have been engaged in over the last 6 months or so or placed it in a bright light. I return to this from time to time – Self-knowledge and action. I have told you that I have been inspired by Vimala Thakar, and what a wonderful woman/being she was. But she reinforced the idea of purification of mind as a prerequisite to “become” available to the universal intelligence. So that the “I-sense” may dissolve, and we become part of the wholeness that is existence/consciousness/bliss. Time oriented view…..
Sundari: Big trap Grant. The “I’ sense is another object known to the Self. That is the problem with so many teachers who are not qualified Vedanta teachers. There is inevitably ignorance mixed in with knowledge and the experiential slant clouds any chance of freedom from and for the doer. A teacher like her would appeal to you because you have spent your life trying to destroy your ‘flawed’ ego (Grant) and recreate him in a purer form. Hence your enslavement to someone like Andrew Cohen.
The idea that the ego is a problem for moksa when it is present and not a problem when it is gone is ignorance (avidya) i.e. duality. It is only a problem if the mind is incapable of non-dual thought. Reality is non-dual Consciousness i.e. you (satya), and by the grace of Maya it appears in two orders: satya and mithya.
The ego, the ‘I sense’ is in the mithya dimension. Anything in the mithya dimension does not affect or negate satya, just as the clay in a clay pot does not negate the clay. If you weigh the clay and subtract the weight of the pot, the weight of the clay is the same.
Satya, you, are always free of mithya so there is no reason to get rid of or improve mithya, the ‘I sense.’ The problem is due to a confusion of the word ‘I sense’ and ignorance. The ‘I sense’ is an effect of ignorance that remains when Vedanta reveals the fact that you are limitless Awareness. Although it remains, it is as good as non-existent because it has no effect on you. The ‘I sense’ is an essential component of the Subtle Body, because you can’t do actions unless they are motivated by a thought (“I want” or “I don ‘t want,” for instance); that’s the way Isvara has set it up.
It was Ramana and Nisargadatta that popularized this idea. Though both were jnanis neither were proper teachers, nor claimed to be. Ramana didn’t make clear the distinction between Yoga and Vedanta and their relationship to each other, so his devotees generally have a knowledge and experience confusion (see Chapter 2 of Essence of Enlightenment) which could be easily removed by the satya/mithya teaching.
Because of the misinterpretation of the teaching on the I-sense, inquirers try to ‘cling to the ‘I sense’ as a practice which boils down to clinging to something that is apparently real. In the case of Ramana bhaktas they want to get rid of the ego, which is a yogic notion that came from Patanjali. Ramana said that there is always a ‘functional’ ego, ahamkara (the “I sense”). The Subtle Body, which is eternal, is created by Isvara in conjunction with Maya. It has several functions, one of which is the ‘I sense.’ It is always present, even in deep sleep where it is unmanifest. It is not the jiva’s creation so the jiva can’t destroy it.
Vedanta advises ‘clinging’ to the thought “I am limitless non-dual Awareness,” not to the ‘I sense’ because contemplation on the former in the context of the satya/mithya teaching sets the inquirer free in so far as moksa is the discrimination between the Self and the ‘I sense.’ To say that moksa is discrimination implies that the ‘I sense’ is not a problem. The ‘I sense’ is like a ray of sunlight with reference to the sun itself. There is no contradiction. They share the same nature, light.
When one’s discrimination is clear, the ‘I sense’ doesn’t ‘drop away;’ it is negated. Negated means that it continues to exist but that it is known to be mithya, not real, a paper tiger. See the imprecise nature of meaning of words that appear in the books about these modern teachers. And without exposure to the whole Vedanta teaching, an inquirer has no way to contextualize specific teachings, like the ‘I sense’ teaching.
My advice to you would be to avoid non-Vedanta teachers, no matter how appealing. They will continue to confuse you; this is why James is teaching Ramana’s Sat Darshanam, because the experience and knowledge confusion and the misunderstanding about the I-sense cause many advanced inquirers to get stuck.
Grant: Your letter is so full of precious gems! And James’s articles are great. I have read it only once, and I want to read it again.
Sundari. Thank you. Make sure you do as it contains everything you need right now. We sent it to Di as well, who totally got it. Here is her reply, which we posted online:
“I would like to share with you about what has come to me as a result of listening to your seminar, Ramji, on Sat Darshanam. I didn’t get it at first – what you were pointing to in choosing this topic -but it wouldn’t let me go and I found myself reflecting on what you were saying about Ramana’s statement that to know the Self is to abide firmly in the Heart. Then at a certain point something relaxed in me that I did not know was not relaxed(!). I realized that there had still been subtle effort to “be the Self” when all along of course, I am the Self. This was despite having enjoyed much benefit from Self-knowledge for a while now, but the difference relates to an understanding of what is meant by existence, is-ness, me-ness. In the mind the knowledge that existence is self-evident is clear, but the integration of that fact into one’s experience is a shift of identity that is almost impossible to put into words, like falling in love – and yet very profound in its impact. For a start it removes a belief that there is a need to justify one’s existence through action, as if it were not enough to simply exist. Happiness is a pre-existing condition that has only to be claimed and until it is claimed it is not possible to fully integrate the knowledge that one is not a doer.”
Grant: You know Sundari, I think the hardest thing to accept and embrace oneSelf as the Self, even after having clearly seen there is only the Self!, is when I see Grant struggle with vasanas and still cause harm, all the jiva stuff. Well, you already gave me the golden answer, “why not give Grant a pass and love him the way he is”. I guess some polishing is not excluded from the field of limitless possibilities, but then again, this is in Ishvara’s hands. Your gift is the softening, dare I say falling away, of the pressure ideas of improving Grant. There’s so much subtlety to all this. Enough for now. I thank you so much! Much love to you Sundari.
Sundari: The thing about polishing the jiva is that it is an endless thankless job. It is mithya, so there is no way to succeed, ultimately. Leave it to Isvara. If unhelpful samskaras remain, remember this advice, given to you before: Taking a stand in Awareness as Awareness means taking a stand in our fullness, not in our smallness. You cannot be the Self and the jiva. The jiva can never compete with the Self, obviously. So, the jiva overcomes its smallness by living as the Self and consciously doing battle with the ‘voices of diminishment’ as they arise.
It does not try to defend them. To do so is the seduction of duality and only serves to strengthen and give the voices of diminishment life. It is difficult at first, because you feel like a fraud, that you are trying to be something you are not. However, if we are hooked by the turbulent thoughts and emotional patterns inherent in being a jiva, even in seemingly small day-to-day issues, we will never be free of them. The ever-changing and limited idea of who you are trying to keep alive as the person is just a memory, a guilt-inspired thought. For the most part, it is a toxic program. I say: ‘Get rid of it; pay it no heed!’
The time has come. Let Grant be and let him go. He is a good person with a few quirks, just like every other jiva. He is not you though he depends on you to exist.
Much love to you too, Grant
Sundari
