German: Thank you so much for further deepening and clarification!
What a beautiful satsang!
“Without a personal relationship with God, which should be your primary relationship as it is synonymous with love, self-realization does not take place.” Bam, that sticks.
What I understand is: If God is Love the Self must be Love (although nirguna means without attributes; but is love an attribute? No it is not, it’s a synonym) and if the Self and God (nirguna and saguna) are Love Self-Knowledge is a form of Love or rather is Love as well; the highest form of Love (for God) is the pursuit of Self-knowledge, as Krishna says in the Gita. The lover of God is pursuing moksha.
Sundari: Beautifully put. I like the way you answered all your questions. The lover of God is anyone who knows that there is an intelligent force behind creation which is greater than the limited personal mind, or reflected intelligence. The difference with the seeker of moksa is that they are committed to self-inquiry, so assuming qualifications, mumukshutva and being properly taught, they should know that love of God and moksa are synonymous.
German: Quote: “Perhaps the toughest one is to be impervious to criticism. I had an experience recently where I felt I was unfairly attacked and insulted, which hurt my feelings. Instead of being indifferent, I was defensive. Isvara revealed to me the vestige of a fear-based person who still had an attachment to the idea of the jiva being a good and righteous person who was (apparently) being unfairly treated. It is a pretty ingrained human tendency for most, and one that is hard to dismiss. But it must go. When you know you are the Self and not the jiva there is no-one to defend.”
Thank you for being so open. The fear-based persons vestiges are something that’s coming up in my daily experiences for sure but looking back over the years with Vedanta they have gotten less – Identification with body and mind is still in the foreground most of the day and that is the source for fear. All the stronger is the longing for God and the scriptures and their guidance. The vestiges go when light falls on them, don’t they? That’s what God does, that’s how he helps me! I am so grateful for having God in my life and God is grateful for having me – we’ve found each other. We were never separate, only I thought I was!
Sundari: God does not have a gender and cannot ever be lost, though duality makes it appear as though we need to find God and hang on to ‘him’. Gratitude, like devotion to God, is for the jiva because it not only opens the door to moksa by managing the childish ego, it feels so good to connect with the bliss of the Self. God, Isvara, does not need our devotion or gratitude. We do.
Self-knowledge shining in the mind does take care of the vestiges of duality when we live surrendered to the scripture in the form of Isvara. Our only true purpose in life is to neutralize binding likes and dislikes and to follow dharma – Isvara’s instructions.
German: It all mounts into non-duality. But it seems to be dual. The jnani is independent of God yet there is no jnani without God and that’s not a contradiction.
Sundari: All apparent contradictions resolve in Self-knowledge. The jnani is independent of God in the form of an external idea or concept, and totally dependent on God as the Self.
German: For a seeker it’s very tempting to let it all come down to “all is God” as an ideal or a mantra and leave it with that, which I think pure Bhaktas – no blame – tend to do. And which is true but it needs to be understood. So the satya mithya discrimination is necessary until it sits and can’t be swayed anymore. And that again only works with God.
Sundari: Yes, pure bhaktas are not really interested in nonduality. The three stages of God worship really need to be understood and assimilated. I will go over them this Sunday. It is natural for the entry level inquirer to come to Vedanta with lots of erroneous ideas about who or what God is, which are very limiting. If the inquirer is qualified, Vedanta will end that limited and limiting idea of God permanently, and give you instead, unlimited God or Isvara. But as I said previously, as important as it is for moksa, to transition from the dualistic small idea of God to the unlimited idea of God, to maintain a relationship with the nondual God, is difficult and subtle.
As Pirouz said on Sunday, and he is a highly advanced inquirer, for him there was mourning when he ‘lost’ the dualistic God after Self-realization. He could not understand why he as the Self could (or should) have a relationship with God if he is the intelligence that created the whole field, which is non-different from him. You see how easy it is to project satya onto mithya? He was confusing the intelligence of Isvara, which is not the intelligence of the light of Consciousness shining in the mind, which is reflected intelligence, with God’s intelligence, which is pure Sat. God does not have a mind capable of thinking, or ‘human’ intelligence. God simply is Consciousness/Sat, that by whose presence human intelligence is possible.
James helped him a lot by making him aware that once you live a life surrendered to God, you do not need a purpose in life anymore. God is your purpose. You live Amor Fati – which is to see every moment of your life as a sacred instruction from the field of life telling you what your appropriate response is. You do not even need karma yoga anymore, nor guna knowledge, because you are the knowledge and just live in harmony with Isvara. It should be simple, but it isn’t, unfortunately. I have posted another satsang on this, called ‘How to Live Nonduality as a Person’, which addresses why this is so. See link below.
German: Faith is something that really keeps coming into my mind (and I often make a point there when teaching Vedanta classes at Yoga vidya) – holding on to God and the scriptures and remaining in the company of realized and like minded people. “Vedanta is a word mirror” it is said “and each word needs to be understood properly”; this truth reveals itself as I walk along with the scriptures and my teachers … I have no hurry, I am only grateful
Sundari: Faith in the teachings is living surrendered to God on a moment to moment basis, to have the humility to know that the jiva is a limited entity that owes its existence to Isvara, even though the jiva is as good as non-existent. It does exist, and it can have the most wonderful life when it is lived as the Self.
German: Does it actually matter, that “most of the time identification with body/mind dominates”. No, not at all. All that matters is the focus of the heart and mind. As long as the focus rests and is brought to God and Self (nirguna, saguna) that’s all it needs. Any learning, any knowledge, any experience is well and good and is for the jiva, is for entertainment. So, I have already “made it”.
Sundari: Yes, indeed. Here is my satsang that covers that topic:
Much love and thanks to you too, dear guru brother
Sundari
