I’m reading Swami Chinmayananda’s commentary on the Gita and finding it very helpful, especially his explanation of karma yoga.
Sundari: Karma yoga was Chinmaya’s forte as he was teaching karma yogi’s for the most part, i.e., inquirers who were not quite qualified for moksa and still had karma in the world. For them, karma yoga was the primary teaching, not jnana yoga so much. Although Ramji did get moksa from Swami C, he only realized what was missing from his teaching once he became Swami Dayananda’s disciple. Swami D was his guru brother, and he was Swami C’s disciple at the same time that Ramji was. But when Dayananda had it pointed out to him that he was not teaching the proper tradition by Swami Tarananda, he switched his teaching method to jnana yoga very publicly. This caused a split between him and Swami C, though it was purely regarding the teaching method. Both Swami Dayananda and Ramji maintained love and respect for their first guru, Chinmaya.
Fernando: However, he seems to treat the topic of ego differently to Ramji, as if it was the goal to get rid of it. For instance:
(II 48) From this stanza onwards we have an exhaustive discussion of the technique of Karma Yoga as conceived by Krishna in his Doctrine of Action and expounded in Vyasa’s Geeta. A complete technique of how one can live the life of a truly inspired worker is explained here, and, to any careful student, who understands all the implications of the terms, it must be clear that a complete effacement of the ego and its vanities is to be achieved to succeed in this Path; and this is gained by practising the equipoise mentioned in the previous stanzas.
Sundari: This is essentially correct, but the implied meaning is problematic if not properly unfolded: i.e., what is the ego, and how does the ‘effacement’ take place? The ego is the doer, and the doer cannot undo or remove the doer. Only Self-knowledge can reveal what the ego is and is not, and dismiss it as an object known to you, the Self. The technical name for the ego in Sanskrit is ahamkara. In the spiritual arena, especially in yoga (and Chinmaya has added to this confusion) the idea abounds that the ego is the problem and must be ‘busted’ or surrendered. But surrendered to who and by who?
The ego cannot and will never surrender the ego, not for long, anyway. There is nothing for an ego to gain by surrendering, or so it believes, when rooted in duality. If we are honest, it is everyone’s experience that we cannot permanently surrender the ego trough action. It can be ameliorated, true. But no matter how hard we try to get rid of it with meditation, ‘sitting in silence’, any other yoga, even extreme practices such as cold water swimming, it always comes back. You may manage an improved ego, but it is still an ego under the spell of Maya. It takes a while to really understand the truth that no action taken by a limited entity (the ego/individual identified as a person) will produce a permanent and limitless result, i.e. freedom from limitation, from suffering. Which is freedom from the small limited egoic identity.
As a doer you might get a temporary reprieve with the idea that you have surrendered the ego, which feels like grace flooding in, but the ego is still there because it never really went away! Nothing gets rid of the ego because it is not possible to get rid of it. It is a thought, the mistaken identification with the conceptual jiva, and it belongs to Isvara. The thought can only be negated through Self-knowledge. True ego surrender takes place when the understanding of what the ego is takes place in a qualified mind, i.e., the ego surrenders only to Isvara, the scripture. Until then, the binding vasanas that condition the mind (your likes and dislikes/conditioning), and the identification with the doer, are still there. So, the ego and thus suffering, is still there.
Fernando: I’ve heard Ramji mention how the Swami had a different approach to teaching Vedanta, one more focused on experience if I’m not mistaken, and not on pure knowledge like Swami D. I’ve noticed this while listening to Swami C emphasize the importance of “the experience of the higher state of consciousness” and how “the work is the means; the Higher Self-experience alone is the Goal-Divine”.
Sundari: Yes, you are quite correct, explained above. While Chinmaya was a great Mahatma and a powerful voice for the sampradaya, he taught an experiential as opposed to knowledge-based approach to Vedanta. According to James, this was deliberate on his part because though he was fully versed in jnana yoga, his main mission was to revive Hinduism, which was in decline. As most Hindus, like most people anywhere, are not quite qualified for moksa, he taught what was appropriate for them at the time, which was karma yoga for doers. However, this can be very confusing for inquirers. This is why we always add the caveat about Chinmaya’s experiential teaching technique to inquirers who follow him.
Fernando: But how do these approaches differ when it comes to the ego? From reading and listening to both you and Ramji, I understand that the goal is not to “efface” the ego. Maybe the Swami means to erase identification with ego? Or does “erasing the ego” mean the same as “realizing I’m not a doer” in this context?
As always, I’d appreciate your help with this technical doubt. I’m having some trouble because of the implications of the word “effacement”. Mithya doesn’t get “effaced” when satya is firmly recognized, right?
Sundari: The word ‘effacement’ means to eliminate, bust or remove, and the implied meaning is that there is a doer involved. Mithya (the hypnosis of duality) does get effaced for you, when moksa obtains, but not by you as a doer. Avidya, or personal ignorance, is removed by Self-knowledge alone, never the doer. Not even a qualified teacher of Vedanta teaching jnana yoga removes ignorance; they can only facilitate the process for you by correctly unfolding the teachings. When permanent Self-knowledge obtains, the conceptual jiva (ego) is as good as non-existent. So the mind no longer conditions to the gunas, though they still operate the transactional reality.
But macrocosmic Maya remains as it is an eternal principle in Consciousness. Satya and mithya never meet and they are not in opposition to each other. Duality only causes suffering when we do not know what it is and are under its spell. Nothing opposes the Self, satya, because everything ‘dissolves’ in it when the true nature of reality is understood to be a non-duality. Though the goal of an inquirer is to efface the ego, that can only be done through karma yoga and jnana yoga (the scripture), not the ego/doer as stated above. It bears repeating because that fact is so central to moksa.
However, we need a functional ego to operate in the apparent reality; it gives us our (small) ‘I’ sense and is supposed to function as a messenger from our ‘inner’ world, to the ‘outer world’, the apparent or transactional reality. When our inner subjective world is in ignorance of our true identity, and that messenger is the deluded doer, suffering is inevitable. When the inner world and the messenger is the Self, you have no problem with the world or in the world because the world is ‘in’ you.
So what is the ego? Simply put, the ego is the “I” thought wrongly associated and identified with objects, therefore it is always afraid, always worried and anxious because it is not in control of the objects or the results of action. Nothing in the transactional reality can really be trusted because nothing is what it appears to be. Only Isvara is in control of objects and results. As you know, an object is anything other than you, Consciousness, which includes both subtle objects (thoughts/feelings) and gross objects. There is no such thing as an ego in reality as it has no existence other than as a thought.
Like all thoughts, the ego thought arises out of Consciousness, is made up of Consciousness and dissolves into Consciousness with the removal of ignorance by Self-knowledge. This only takes place for those ready to assimilate the teachings on non-duality, and thus escape the whirlpool of samsara. All egos function in the same predictable way because they are run by the gunas. In fact, there is only one ego and that is beginningless ignorance. All embodied entities (jiva’s) share it, unless and until they know what their real identity is as Consciousness
The ego is also a word that describes the thought that limitless non-dual Consciousness (you) is a limited separate entity, an ‘individual’. All individuals need to feel that they have some agency in the world, that they have free will and freedom of choice. There is nothing wrong with this, and these are components of a healthy functioning person. But at the same time, the thought that I am an individual gives rise to the idea that I am a doer. The one who owns actions, objects and experiences things, which is the cause of all suffering. As egos we do actions to get something we think we want or need to complete ourselves, to give meaning to our lives or to remove our dissatisfaction, i.e., to get away from or change something we don’t want or like.
This is the lot of all samsaris’ – people identified with the body/mind. It is thinking programmed by Maya, and the resulting actions that arise from the playing out of the guna generated vasanas (in other words, ignorance). The ego has no effect on you, Consciousness, because it is not real. And as you well know, real is defined as that which is always present and unchanging—a definition that only ever fits Consciousness, nothing else. And if it is not real, how can it be busted—or surrendered? And anyway, the ego is not the problem. As you have deduced, only identification with the ego produces suffering, the misapprehension or lack of appreciation of yourself as whole and complete, non-dual, ever-present, unchanging, limitless, actionless and unconditioned Consciousness. The KNOWER of the apparent ego.
One of the common symptoms of the knowledge working on the mind is when Self-knowledge blinks on and off, what we call the ‘fire-fly’ stage of self-inquiry. This stage often causes considerable agitation in the mind as the ego is adjusting the way it usually relates to its environment, which is (ab)normally totally object/experience-oriented. This is because Maya super-imposed duality onto nonduality, which has to be reversed. The road to freedom is not easy for the poor jiva, it has a really hard time disidentifying with its identity as a doer. Though we need a functioning ego as jivas to live in the world, it must be demoted as the one in charge (a job it does very badly, btw) to being subservient to our primary identity as the Self. This is where all the teaching takes place in Vedanta, because ego identification is another word for Maya, beginningless ignorance. When that troublesome identity is under control, you are no longer troubled by the ego or apparent identity.
But for most inquirers, even though the ego identity becomes much more subtle with sustained inquiry, sadly, it can survive moksa, Self-realization. This means that there is still some residual ignorance which is capable of blocking access to permanent satisfaction, or Self-Actualization. This is why the last stage of inquiry, nididhysana, is the longest and toughest for most inquirers. Dismissing the remaining ego identity is no walk in the park. It may not be real but it is a highly resilient idea which is very hard to uproot completely. And yet, we all have certain svabhavas (inborn characters) that are not that likely to change much. And that is perfectly fine.
The trickiest part of the nondual teachings is the both/and aspect. Though we cannot change the jiva program, yet binding vasanas and doership are the cause of suffering. It sounds like a mixed message. Moksa is very subtle, and this leaves room for confusion, and worse, for the ego to hide out, what we call the ‘Advaita shuffle’. This is where the ego co-opts the teachings and uses them to hang onto binding tendencies, which simply means that the mind remains in ignorance and limitation.
The ego/doer idea must be as good as non-existent for moksa to permanently obtain, this is non-negotiable. Which means that the egoic doer program must be understood and negated in light of Self-knowledge (jnana yoga) so that ignorance is no longer capable of clouding the mind. Nonetheless, that does not mean the jiva necessarily has to change, though the jiva will improve as an indirect result of Self-knowledge, not as its aim. Important point. Moksa is for the jiva, after all. As the Self, you have never had an ego because you have never been bound by Maya. When moksa obtains and the jiva is known to be Jivatman, you realize that there has never been anything wrong with you as an apparent jiva, other than ignorance of your true nature.
Even when moksa obtains for you, Maya is inscrutable and makes it impossible to determine what the field will dish out to us as jivas from one moment to the next. Which is no problem as the Self. But most egos identified with the body/mind are rooted in fear and feel like a fraud because the ego is a fraud when it is in the service of ignorance. If we are very lucky, and Isvara unleashes its wrecking ball of Self-knowledge in our lives, it feels like death for the ego, and it is. It is the collapse of the whole edifice of our known personal identity, the death of denial, and the illusion that there is anything to gain in this world. The hope that we can shore up ‘future’ happiness through people or situations. It can and often does, bring about the dark night of the soul. This can be an extremely painful and uncomfortable process as all egos are very sensitive and easily injured. Yet everyone who genuinely desires moksa above all else has to go through it. I certainly did, so did Ramji, and it was not fun. With death always comes new life, they are inseparable. But you are unborn and never die.
I know you know most of this, but as always, I have given you the longer answer to the question, which is actually, one of the most important questions in Vedanta. It is very subtle and hard to fully assimilate the full meaning, and not many do.
I hope it helps
With much love
Sundari
