Hi Ramji
I thought I would email you one last time and that this would be a more in-depth testimonial to help other enquirers and because I am enjoying writing it to you and plus it will be a nice addition to the website and to the power of the great Vedanta sampradaya should you wish to include it in the Satsang section. I know you’re busy, especially with the weekend zoom seminars and you must be getting many questions from students because of them, so there are no questions here, just a testimony to show you once again and all the Vedanta students the power of this extraordinary teaching and what it can do to change and make interesting an very ordinary apparently from the outside ho-hum life..
A Simple Life
My everyday life is far from what most people would call interesting. I get up in the morning usually around 7:50-8:30am and first things first I find myself logging on to shiningworld to see if there are any new Satsangs. I check my emails and then later on I play one of my electric guitars for around an hour or less. I go for a walk for an hour at 8-9pm and in between I eat some simple food like chicken and rice and drink water and coffee and this is basically my life as it appears on the surface.
A Discriminating Mind
On the level of the intellect I am always keeping in mind the discrimination of mithya from Sathya and the karma yoga understanding of consecration of action and knowing the results of any and all actions are not up to Jiva. I now find that I am able to live on two levels, in that as the self I am that which is free from all manifestation – the knower and known – and yet also as the Jiva, I appreciate the subtle bliss of Being as everything that lives, moves and has its being within me – the self – and so it is kind of like I am playing as the world, the individual in the world, and that which links it all together and am yet free from these expressions of being. As it is said in the yoga of love your brilliant commentary on the Narada Bhakti Sutra’s. I believe this knowledge is revealing itself to me so powerfully because Isvara “knows” that I don’t have much worldly karma left in my account, not that I ever did have much to do in this world, nor did I want a complicated existence.
Alone But Not Lonely
My Mother died from cancer in July 2019 and She was my only real family and I don’t have many friends as I much prefer my own company although I do like people sometimes to talk to, as we all do. And a sexual relationship with a partner is the last thing I would want at this point in the life of this Jiva. I have no desire for sex much and company really isn’t anything I feel that I need or even want. You could say that relationships, money, fame, security and women etc etc. are not binding Vasana’s for me. Money isn’t an issue and never has been. For instance I have never equated self confidence or self worth with money or lack thereof, and so as Ramakrishna said; “Woman & gold” are not something that or ever were in my karma stream. Maybe this is why I was so attracted to the spiritual life and knowledge wanting to know from an early age the who, what and why’s of existence. That there really isn’t strictly speaking “other people” is really hitting home and the need to be with them just isn’t there at all. I lost the need to be with people and along with it any feelings of loneliness when I was in my late teens for some reason or other, and only very rarely have I felt even a twinge of what you’d call loneliness. Anyhow my Mum left me her house in her will and since I sold it I am able to live on the proceeds, plus I can live without much in the way of “luxuries”. I don’t own a car or do I go on holidays or socialise at all, except by “accident”, (knowing of course that there are no accidents) if I see someone from the past I used to know.. In fact I can’t think of any thing I would like to do less than socialise and small talk. This might sound like a boring or even, dare I say, unhealthy existence to any modern psychologist who believes that without human company we go to pieces (which may happen to some people, but it happens because of attachment to objects and ignorance of oneself as whole and complete, not because of being alone), or to any “worldly centred” person but I’m sure you understand what I mean. So, when there are no longer any obstacles to remove, this knowledge shines unobstructed in the mind that has less rajas and tamas. I’m not saying that my work is done because I’ve been around long enough in the spiritual world to know that the work is never finished on the level of the appearing Jiva. It’s just that less and less I am seeing that there is any need of the need for inquiry and the Jiva is able to relax in and as “existence shining as awareness”. By the way I like that use of language, although “ordinary awareness” is a great lakshana also. Thank you Ram for all you do in both teaching and having the greatest spiritual website of all times🕉
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Love
