Christian: You guys may find this interesting <https://youtu.be/qyPWvg9dxD4>. Nothing new, but fun to hear it from a physicist.
Sundari: Old Hagelin, he’s been around for a long time, still peddling his limited version of consciousness. Amazing how one can be so close and yet so far. Science may have got closer to understanding consciousness, but it still takes it to be something we have rather than who we are – a “fourth state,” for God’s sake! Consciousness is not a state – it gives rise to all states. He has no self-knowledge or very little. His language is experiential, he is a yoga guy, Maharishi’s big guy in the U.S. He does not eliminate the meditator, so up the stream without a paddle.
Science has no satya/mithya teaching, so it has no teaching. What good does it do you to know about this stuff, without the knowledge of how to negate the doer, the person and the world? Not much, apart from tingling the mind a bit.
James and I have both written a lot about this topic. Science is how I came to Vedanta, as it has some of the basics – and Vedanta does not disagree with its findings. The Vedics knew this stuff thousands of years ago, as you know. It comes down to qualifications again, no getting away from that. Without them, the truth is staring you in the face but you will take ignorance to be knowledge.
I attached a satsang I wrote about it.
Christian: I thought it would bring a “hands up in the air, aargh” moment.
Science always seems to balk at a certain point of inquiry. Like it’s approaching the truth and then something doesn’t like where that truth would end up… so it just keeps looking.
As for here
Jiva… complete mess
Yet
I Am… so all is perfect
Sundari: Yes, indeed. Reason, being science’s epistemology, retains the senses, so it will continue chasing its tail, incapable of surrendering to the only true infallibility, that which cannot be measured, the self.
Christian: As an incidental query, does the vairagya that arises from antidepressant medication constitute a genuine qualification or is it of a different nature to that which is present in a jivanmukta? (Relatively speaking anyway.)
Sundari: Ouch, jiva is still going through its stuff, it seems. But as you say, if you know it and don’t identify with it, you remain wonderful, even if the jiva’s karma is a bitch. There is no rushing the effects of ignorance, they take as long as they take to succumb to self-knowledge, which is why we remind true seekers like yourself not to expect instant transformation of your life.
Vairagya resulting from chemicals is still vairagya, in a way, but the problem is the dependence on a substance disqualifies as true dispassion. The tamas that results from chemicals is not true vairagya, because not having the energy to care is not the same as having the knowledge to apply karma yoga, surrendering results to Isvara, and in so doing be indifferent to them. It is the same as a drug-induced high can give you a real insight into the jiva’s stuff, but that is only helpful if you have the knowledge of how to render it non-binding in the non-drugged state. So, sorry to say, no shortcuts to enlightenment.
Keep at it, Christian, you are doing great. It’s tough dismissing the jiva when it’s not easy or possible to change its karma. Self-knowledge is the greatest purifier though, and you are one of the lucky ones because you know what it is.
~ Much love
