Franco: I’m beginning to see that the results of karma are not in my control (finally!). My knowledge and power are both limited as an individual and because of this I simply don’t know how karma will unfold. The fact that I do karma in the first place shows that I’m not in control of the karma-phala.
Sundari: Karma yoga is a surprisingly difficult concept, even though it should be common sense. We cannot stop doing, but how could we be in control of results when it is obvious there are so many factors involved for anything to happen or not happen that are not in our control? It’s illogical. However, the deeper meaning of karma yoga needs to be unfolded (see below) because without it, jnana yoga will not work so Self-knowledge will not obtain.
Franco: I had a small doubt come, when you mention:
“How can the puny jiva make a change in such a powerful system as Isvara? And the answer is that you as the jiva share the same identity as Isvara, which is Consciousness. That’s why it is possible. But it is only possible with Self-knowledge“.
In this context, does Self-knowledge refer to jñana yoga or is karma yoga also included? Can this change at the level of the unconscious happen with karma yoga alone or is jñana yoga what makes it ultimately possible? I feel I know the answer but still I want to make sure I’ve got my definitions right. My goal is to one day teach karma yoga since it’s now clear how much better it can be than simple meditation or mindfulness at reducing anxiety/stress.
Sundari: It depends what you mean by karma yoga, and what your motivations and qualifications are. Maybe all you are after is a better life, in which case, secular karma yoga alone is enough to give you that. Until it isn’t. When that time comes, you may be ready for sacred karma yoga and jnana yoga.
There are essentially three stages to karma yoga, which are:
Stage 1. Secular karma yoga – karma yoga with desire for doers who still want things in the world, not going for moksa. Here you encounter the idea of doership, but not to negate it. Karma yoga is used to accomplish things and get what you want without wearing yourself out. This works well for samsaris, though many ‘spiritual’ people fall into this category too; they tend to be experience seekers, who also rely on experiential yoga, such as meditation and devotional practices to feel good.
For some, secular karma yoga and experiential yoga suffices, even though neither alone will remove ignorance. Binding tendencies in all likelihood still persist, so there will still be suffering. But because experiential yoga helps and a little karma yoga goes a long way to manage the ego by reducing the pressure of the vasanas and existential anxiety, this is a huge shift for many. It may not be moksa, but it allows for a much improved quality of life through fear and stress reduction.
Stage 2. Sacred karma yoga with and without desire; karma yoga sannyas is the advanced level of this stage. This is only for people qualified for and actively engaged in self-inquiry because it requires negating the doer, which means understanding the relationship between pure Consciousness and Isvara (God, or the creator), the jiva (individual), and jagat (the world). It requires total surrender to Isvara (the scripture) as the boss. You may still have some worldly desires, but the results of action are taken in an attitude of gratitude, consecrating each thought, feeling, word, and action on a moment to moment basis to Isvara.
It is managing thoughts and emotions and taking all results that come as prasad, so mind management requires guna knowledge. It is the application of Self-knowledge (jnana yoga) to discriminate the Self from the not self, the conceptual jiva program. This means that you know that ‘your ‘conditioning does not belong to you though you may still be bound by it to a greater or lesser extent. The guna teaching can be simplified to understanding Isvara to identify the jiva’s conditioning and managing the gunas.
Karma Jnana Sannyas is more advanced because though desires are still present, they are all in line with dharma. It is complete negation of doership, with assimilation of the knowledge that we can act but Isvara is the only doer. We no longer initiate any gratuitous actions or pursue anything in the world, although we still do what is required to live. Yoga is still practiced but not to gain anything.
Stage 3: Self-Actualization: Nididhysana: This is the final stage of Sacred Karma Yoga. Here karma yoga becomes a different kind of mind management, nididhysana, the transformation of our remaining or residual binding mental/emotional conditioning into devotion to the Self. If this stage is complete, binding vasanas have been rendered non-binding. Self-knowledge has fully removed the ignorance of your true nature and you know without a doubt that you are the Self, beyond the gunas—trigunaatita. This is moksha. In this case, karma yoga is no longer a practice as such, it is just automatic knowledge.
This period can take many years for most inquirers. Duality does not disappear once you know what it is, which is why the both/and issue is so tricky for many inquirers. If only it did disappear, that would make things so much easier! But Maya/Macrocosmic ignorance and the dream world continue even though personal ignorance (avidya) has been removed by Self-knowledge. However, the dream is known to be a dream appearing in me, the witness, Consciousness. Discrimination is automatic and spontaneous.
But more often than not, most inquirers still have work to do on rendering binding vasanas non-binding, i.e., negating the doer and managing the mind’s habitual thought patterns. You may have realized you are the Self, but the ego (doer) can (and usually does) survive moksa, if only to a certain extent. Thus, freedom is not that free. So, continued nididhysana is the essential practice, which requires a much humbler, refined and more determined approach to end the limitation of duality.
In a nutshell, nididhysana is not another ‘special role’ for the ego. It is placing the ‘I’ where it belongs, on to your perfect, eternal, ever-present, unchanging and primary identity, The Self – Consciousness. Not as the doer who still needs to perfect itself, or its life. If you find yourself agonizing over ‘doing’ nididhysana ‘right’, you have lost the plot. Moksa is not about being a perfect inquirer. Nididhysana is managing and negating the mind’s involuntary and habitual thoughts and feeling patterns, which are bedrock duality, so that they become impotent. Meaning, they no longer have power over you; the jiva identity is only secondary, and no longer a problem.
Some inquirers at this stage say ‘what do I need nididhysana for? I am the Self, it’s just another object appearing in me’. This is true and it’s all well and good if you really are free of the jiva program. But without karma and jnana yoga, these habitual patterns can and will still hijack the mind without a moment’s notice, denying it access to the Self in the form of Self-knowledge. There is nothing inherently wrong with involuntary thoughts and feelings if you catch them with karma and jnana yoga. But if not, apart from the mental distress they cause, they tend to immediately morph into actions which are liable to create suffering in the form of obscuring thoughts, emotions and blowback karma.
To sum and simplify:
Karma yoga starts off as, and remains throughout inquiry and beyond it, a tool to function in the transactional reality to reduce stress and maximize peace of mind. We call it ‘burn out insurance’. In its simplest form, karma yoga is common sense knowledge – you can take appropriate action but are not in charge of results. But when sufficient qualifications develop for the assimilation of jnana yoga, in addition to functioning appropriately in the transactional reality, karma yoga becomes an essential tool to negate it altogether, in conjunction with jnana yoga.
Jnana yoga essentially unfolds what the Self/nondual vision is; but in order for Self-knowledge to become direct, jnana yoga is also the means to understand Isvara – jiva – jagat, what is the same and what is different about them. It explains Isvara’s whole psychological order – the vasanas, the gunas, and how they condition everything in the apparent reality. Without this knowledge, it is not only virtually impossible for moksa to obtain (and remain), it is a tough job to manage the mind and how it relates to the world it lives in, as mentioned above. Nididhysana is the actualization of the teachings, the final ‘stage’.
This is why the Neos get stuck. They get told they are the Self, and that’s it. No karma yoga, no teaching on Isvara/jiva, the vasanas or the gunas. While it is true that you are the Self, try all you like, the ‘Advaita shuffle’ does not work to produce freedom from limitation. You will not get Satya to stick to mithya. They just never meet because they are in different orders of reality – mithya is only apparently real (not always present and always changing) and satya is real (always present and never changing). Without an understanding of what both satya and mithya are, and negating mithya with Self-knowledge, you are highly unlikely to ever be free of the limitation of duality or to take your identity as Sat – Consciousness.
If superimposition of satya onto mithya happens, even though the Self is known, it will remain indirect knowledge i.e. the Self will still appear as an object. And we will think we must “get” it. Or we must wait to have that final experience that will prove we are Consciousness! Direct knowledge and Self-actualization is thus the most difficult part. It’s hard ‘work’, but gradually, through determined discrimination and application of sacred karma yoga and jnana yoga, the jiva, the individual under the spell of self-ignorance, understands that it is actually the Self, limitless Consciousness and not the person it thinks it is. Moksa is for the jiva because the Self is already free. This knowledge allows the jiva to live free of its likes and dislikes (conditioning, fears and desires) in this apparent reality.
At the nididhysana stage you need very strong motivation for moksa because the poor fragile ego gets severely challenged. You need to be hypervigilant and prepared to face the deeply hidden parts of the jiva program coming to the surface, which is not much fun for anyone. For this stage to complete you will need to ‘requalify’, which requires still being properly taught; you are not ‘done’ yet. You throw everything at ignorance because you are absolutely sick and tired of it. You will pay any price for freedom from the jiva program, and for it.
So, to recap: if moksa is the aim, self-inquiry requires that you show up, develop all the qualifications, forego your ideas and opinions, surrender to Isvara, immerse the mind in the nondual teachings with faith and confidence, and apply the teachings, i.e. sacred karma yoga and jnana yoga, to your life. There is no other way to permanently free the mind from its habitual tendencies, biases, and identification with the body/mind. Yoga practices definitely still help at this stage, as with all the others.
But we emphasize over and over that 1) you cannot study Vedanta because the subject matter is you, and the ‘studier’ (ego) will obstruct Self-knowledge from assimilating; and 2) you need to transform yoga practice to knowledge. This does not mean that you give up yoga; you just are no longer identified with the one ‘doing’ yoga. Yoga, whether it is prayer, chanting, devotional practice, meditation, surfing, running, walking in nature, creation of art, or anything else, are all a wonderful ways to keep the mind focused on the Self. When correctly applied as an aid to self-inquiry, and not a substitute for it, yoga definitely helps in the assimilation of jnana yoga, Self-knowledge. It is a gift when you know the bliss you experience from yoga is coming from you, the Self, not the practitioner of yoga. But yoga can become an obstacle if there is a doer involved.
Therapy also helps, as do other things like positive affirmations. Did you know that there are as many self-help books on affirmations to achieve this change as there are religious books in all religions, on the planet? Why do you think this is so? Because it is really hard to change the unconscious jiva program. It requires knowledge based repetitive application of karma yoga and jnana yoga to everything you think, say and do. For as long as it takes. This means making a binding sankalpa – living with sacred intention. But there is no quick fix. The durable and persuasive jiva program does not give in easily. It is an entrenched tyrant.
Franco: Thank you very much for your previous response. I’ve read it multiple times and it’s now clear that, like you say, the answer to my question was not an either/or but a both/and. I tend to forget this aspect of the nondual teachings, it’s always very tricky! Thank you for reminding me of it.
Sundari: Yes indeed, nonduality is very subtle, which is why the qualifications for it and being properly taught are so important. The both/and issue of nonduality is hard for the mind to assimilate because it seems so contradictory, though it isn’t when the mind is qualified to assimilate the nondual teachings of Vedanta. Because you cannot ‘get’ nonduality with your mind, it takes as long as it takes for Self-knowledge to scour away the ignorance (hypnosis of duality) enabling clear ‘access’ to the nondual Self. Of course, you don’t ‘access’ Self-knowledge because you are the nondual Self, but if there is still ignorance in the way, it can temporarily block access to your experience of the Self in a pure mind.
A mind that is firmly established as the Self knows that the reflection is actually its true identity, and not an object to obtain; it’s not after the experience. Just like when you look at your image in the mirror, you know the image is not real, but you are. Experience equals knowledge. But thanks to the power of duality, it’s not so easy to make the shift from experience to knowledge when it comes to nondual vision; therein lie all the teachings of Vedanta.
As I said above, experience is the tricky part of all yoga practice because for many yoga followers, the reflection (experience) is often taken to be the real deal because it feels good. We call that the golden cage of sattva. And that is a problem because duality is still firmly in place; all experiences end. Nonduality is not an experience and it does not end as it is who you are. Therefore, you do not need any special experience to know who you are. You are always only ever experiencing Consciousness.
Though yoga practices are essential, they are a means to an end, not the end. They are very helpful in preparing the mind for moksa, but there is a real danger of getting stuck in the doership of yoga practice. Even very helpful identity yoga practices, like meditations that impart jnana yoga, such as the one the Ben de Silva gave last Sunday on nididhysana, which is a powerful tool to assist the actualization of Self-knowledge, nonetheless, can potentially become obstacles. We had rave revues for it, and rightly so. Ben did a great job of devising the practice of nididhysana into a simple protocol which is very effective in addressing the tenacious residual ignorance in the nididhysana stage of inquiry, one we highly recommend as an aid to self-inquiry.
But it’s important to keep in mind that the reason any yoga practice is attractive is because yoga is easier and it has the feel good factor. Whereas not so much with jnana yoga if you are doing it right, because the mind is forced to face its ingrained likes and dislikes. The mind tends to prefer taking the easy route whenever possible, and the ego is very quick to defend its good opinion of itself and latch onto anything that might keep it afloat longer. It will do almost anything to avoid confrontation with pesky unconscious programs.
The problem is that the feelgood from yoga does not last, and suffering returns. You are back to square one. Knowledge is harder to obtain, but it does last and can end suffering. All experience is meant to deliver knowledge, that is its only purpose. Because the mind does not like working too hard, it often latches onto the experience, and the knowledge does not assimilate. That said, as stated above, repetition and determination is required for moksa, until Self-knowledge assimilates, and anything that assists the process is very helpful when used properly.
In your case, though I know you admit that you are not quite ready for jnana yoga or to teach it, I think you are still unclear about the difference between secular and sacred karma yoga. In this case, it would be fitting to stick with teaching secular karma yoga in your meditation class until you feel confident that you have assimilated and know the difference between secular and sacred karma yoga. You need to practice what you preach. For people who are at the experiential yoga stage and not yet qualified for self-inquiry, such as your students, secular karma yoga is the place to start. As I said, it alone will not remove ignorance, but it can be life changing.
So go ahead and show up, do your best, and trust Isvara to do the rest!
Sundari
