I have been studying and practicing (practicing in the sense of trying to be aware) for a long time about advaita and non-duality.
Sundari: You can’t try to be aware because you are Awareness. It is your true nature, you cannot change that, only be ignorant of the fact, which is your only problem. Ignorance of your true nature causes you to confuse your Nondual Awareness with the ‘thinking mind’ or dualistic conscious awareness, meaning your ego identity. There is only one Awareness because reality is nondual, but because of Maya – the power or hypnosis of duality – they are not the same. Understanding the difference is called moksa. See why below.
Q: I have studied and contemplated the work of Ramana Maharshi, Nisargdatta Maharaj and Ramesh balsekar. I happened to visit www.shiningworld.com and browsed through a couple of topics. I am having some questions regarding this process. Can you please guide me?
Sundari: None of the teachers you mention were qualified teachers of Vedanta, especially Balsakar. Ramana and Nisargadatta were very inspirational and fully Self-realized but they did not teach the whole methodology of Vedanta. They made some confusing statements.
Before we go any further, you need to know what it is you truly want. Do you know?
If freedom from the limited false small self is what you want most, then you have to sign on to the methodology of Vedanta and commit to self-inquiry under the guidance of a qualified teacher. From what you say, it sounds like you have never been properly taught and have been trying to read and ‘think’ your way to freedom. It cannot be done because the identification with the thinker (doer) is the problem. You cannot study Vedanta unless it is properly unfolded for you by a qualified teacher or you will interpret it according to your cognitive filters – i.e., ignorance, which is what you are doing..
We are qualified to teach traditional Vedanta, it is not our teaching. I am happy to answer your questions, though we have certain requirements for teaching new people. It takes more than reading a few topics to solve your ignorance problem, or to ask the right questions, which is very important. To undertake serious inquiry, you need to understand what is required of you – for your sake, not ours.
Please make sure you read the satsang attached on what self-inquiry entails, as well as our instructions on our website: https://shiningworld.com/new-to-vedanta/
At minimum, please read James Swartz’ Essence of Enlightenment or How to Attain Enlightenment. We have thousands of satsangs on every question you could think of on our satsang section of the website– there is a search function available. If you are serious, do the work: https://shiningworld.com/satsangs3/
Q: My questions are:
Some master says that when you do walking just do walking. Meaning do not use thinking mind when you are at the task. Be completely absorbed in the task so that you forget yourself. Meaning forget the thinking mind. Forget the false sense of self.
Sundari: Some master? No Vedanta teacher is a ‘master’. We are the Self, just like you are. There is no difference except in Self-knowledge. The only way to negate the false self is to understand what it is. The whole point of Vedanta is to teach you how to discriminate your dualistic personal identity or conscious awareness (mithya), meaning that which is always changing and not always present, from your Nondual Self/Awareness (satya), your true identity, that which is always present and never changes – the true witness.
There is no way you can stop thinking – and thinking is not the problem. As stated, it is the one identified with thinking, the doer or ego, who is the problem. Thoughts are only a problem if you do not understand where they come from and you identify with them. As the nondual Self/Awareness, thoughts do not affect you because they are objects known to you. An object is anything other than you – Nondual Awareness – which could be a subtle object like a thought/feeling (experience) or a gross object like a chair.
Q: It says that in the moment there is only experience and you become that. So you do not exist.
Sundari: Who does not exist? Whoever taught you this is not a qualified teacher of Vedanta and confused. They do not know the difference between satya, the Self or that which is real, and mithya, the person/world, or that which is only apparently real. The body/mind or egoic false self is not real, but it does have an apparent existence that depends on you, Satya – that which is real. You know this is true because in order to exist or not to exist as the person you need Awareness (Self) to know existence and ‘non-existence’. In truth, there is no such thing as non-existence; there is only that which is real and that which is not. You cannot ‘become’ Awareness because Awareness is there before, during and after experience. It is the ground of Being.
It is true that if you are identified with the body/mind, there is only ever changing experience for you. But who is it that knows the experience and the experiencer? As I said, all experience requires Awareness to exist. But Awareness exists without experience. So the question to ask here is who knows the experience and the experiencer? Something that is known to you cannot be who you are – so the witness can only be Nondual Awareness.
Q: Experience comes later when the thinking mind takes false responsibility for the action.
Sundari: See above. The doer automatically owns all experience. In nondual language, that is called ignorance, caused by the hypnosis of duality.
Q: I get that but then some master says that be aware of your being while you perform your daily tasks. My question is how is it possible to be aware of our being in the midst of intense activity? And if you become aware then how is it possible to give justice to the task meaning how is it possible to give your 100% if part of your being busy in witnessing it
Sundari: Again, who are you talking about here, who is the witness? If it is the ego, how can it not be aware of any task, daily or not? If ‘you’ as an ego are not consciously aware it means the body/mind is dead or in a coma. But the Self, NONDAUL AWARENESS, that which animates the body mind and makes conscious awareness possible, is not affected by the body/ego because they are both objects known to you. See above.
YOU as the Self are free of all objects. You are unborn and never die.
Q: Another question is even if I am not practicing the witnessing but always remain in present and not using my thinking mind to wander anywhere else and remain absorbed in the task, then is there any spiritual value to it?
Sundari: The ego witnessing the ego has no spiritual value, other than a certain relative clarity or objectivity about the small or egoic self. The Self witnessing is always only ever witnessing the Self regardless of what is or is not happening for the ego or person. This witnessing is called nondual vision – freedom from limitation – moksa.
Q: Is it necessary to witness what you do and feel compared to being in the moment and do the tasks? I do have a lot of other questions but this one is most important from a daily living perspective.
Sundari: See above.
I am looking forward to your response.
Thank you so much.
Sundari: You are welcome – but please read everything I have given you carefully.
Hari Om
Sundari
