Frank: Thank you again for the insights you have given me these last weeks. Karma yoga is liberating and challenging at the same time! I have always had (and have) awe and gratitude for being alive and everything Iswara is.
Sundari: Our brains are wired to notice patterns, but they don’t always pick the healthiest ones. In fact, we’re naturally inclined to focus on problems—it’s a survival instinct (negativity bias) that keeps us alert to danger. This tendency is useful when avoiding literal threats, but it’s less helpful when it keeps us stuck in a loop of negativity (tamas). This is where gratitude (sattva) comes in. Neuroscience confirms what we know as Vedantins, that though our thoughts and emotions are guna dependent and objects known to us, they shape our brains over time. Science calls this experience-dependent neuroplasticity.
A sure way to combat our inbuilt negativity bias is to focus on gratitude. This creates a new vasana by strengthening neural pathways associated with positivity, making it easier to notice the good in our lives—even when it feels scarce. That doesn’t mean forcing yourself to feel grateful when you’re struggling. It’s not about pretending everything is fine or dismissing challenges. It’s about choosing, even in small ways, to shift your focus to what’s still good, still steady, or still worth appreciating, and what we appreciate, appreciates. I.e., choosing sattva.
Gratitude goes hand in hand with humility, and both are essential ingredients in managing the mind with reference to the gunas, in combination with karma yoga, the practice of sacrificing habitual binding tendencies (likes and dislikes) in sublimation to a higher ideal – freedom from and for the jiva, or person. Karma yoga does not work without humility and gratitude. The field of existence is forever changing—and as we are part of the field, the ability to be grateful deeply changes us. It brings to our attention the abundance of life. When the abundance of life becomes our focus, abundance grows, and fear lessens.
The more gratitude we have, the more we have for which to be grateful; it is the best attitude to have to everything. Taking all results as prasad. A sattvic mind lives in gratitude because it sees life as a great gift from the field, call it God, Isvara, or whatever. Such a mind does not need to dig up a feeling of gratitude or remind itself to ‘to be grateful’. Gratitude is always present when sattva dominates rajas and tamas. This is because a sattvic mind knows that life is not about indulging the likes and dislikes of the wanting person, but it is about appreciating the Self, the one who does not want anything other than what it is.
Frank: Now thanks to Vedanta, I can now start to differentiate when the ego Jiva is acting and expecting the results it wants, versus, I as the Jiva, as part of Iswara (?), making an action with the intention of giving the results back to Iswara and accepting the results either way, as a gift from God, is still new. Is this the fight that Krisna is referring to in Chapter 3 verse 19 of the Gita?
“Therefore, giving up attachment, perform actions as a matter of duty (because) by working without being attached to the fruits….”
Sundari: Yes, this is the fight we have on our hands when subjecting the mind to self-inquiry. Self-knowledge must train the ego to give up wanting things to be the way it wants them to be, instead of accommodating to the way life is. At first this requires dedication to the value of surrender, and great vigilance. The ego is not happy about relinquishing control, and as you say, karma yoga is not easy. As the mind is programmed by Isvara to experience life as a duality, it takes a lot to negate the ego and transfer our identity to the Self, which is the only way to end all worry and fear permanently. Be assured that with practice, this gets easier.
As the mind is trained to think differently, and the built in fearful duality program gets gradually replaced by fearless nondual vision, all actions we take are appropriate, in keeping with the flow of life, as it is presented to us. The mind/ego may still chatter on or complain about this or that, but it has no real power to influence anymore. Dharma is automatic, the default. But this takes as long as it takes. As I say so often, you can take refuge in the knowledge that no matter where the mind is in the process of freedom from bondage, you are never not the Self.
Frank: The intellect, thanks to Vedanta, is able to differentiate through knowledge that the Jiva (the entity I always thought I was) believes it is an independent, free will entity and by definition alone (aka “independent”) – in a sea of Samara, buffeted by Mithya which life continually demonstrates and within this, is a permanent never changing point of awareness which I see almost all people recognise albeit clouded at times.
Sundari: As the fire of Self-knowledge works on the mind, ignorance starts to ‘evaporate’, and what was always there ‘becomes’ known. Even though what was always there – the knower – is what makes knowing anything possible and was never not present, nor ever will be. Everyone does have a sense of this, though duality is very difficult to remove from the mind, and it won’t happen unless the mind has come to its knees and seen that there are no solutions in life (mithya/duality). Life is a zero sum, from the mithya perspective. But that is not the end, or the ultimate truth. It is the beginning of finding the Holy Grail – the fullness of Self that makes life infinitely rich, whole and beautiful, because you are the source of all of it.
Frank: The “choice” is to “do it for the Jiva or do it for God” but whether Arjuna even makes that “choice” is only apparently up to him as I see it now. His duty is his duty which is greater than him. The recognition of it by his intellect, through Krishna, is the gift he is given.
Sundari: We often teach the truth that dharna trumps moksa. Without following dharma, our lives will never give us what we all long for the most, which is peace of mind. This is true for everyone, no matter how enlightened or depraved. Arjuna cannot understand jnana yoga at first, so Krishna teaches him karma yoga, which he applies to the situation at hand, and he does his duty. But eventually, he is taught and becomes qualified for jnana yoga.
Frank: Contemplating and acting in this spirit conscientiously the last months has produced new apparent battles. I went down a rabbit hole of Christianity dualism and for a couple of weeks, feeling as the ego Jiva “ok this is really like the thing I always rejected at school prayer”, started praying with a feeling of being good but at the same time felt it was misplaced – but how could this be wrong? Am “I” evil?
It’s a vasana – my parents often moved house and sometimes I would be in one school and then a new one every year or so. I wasn’t particularly good at school but one time had done “something good” and was taken by the nun to “see Mary” at the grotto shrine. At 7 years old. I came home and told my father thinking it would be rewarded. He was furious, roasted the nuns and I didn’t go back the next day.
All this came up again now after decades – am I on the edge of making this choice again? I even read parts of the Bible, even prayed like back then but now felt constricted in the chest – a tightening – me as the Jiva back into duality – “I do this, God will like it and I’ll be ok”. The only way I can resolve this contradiction (which has repeated itself countless times over life) was to re-read your “Isvara knows only the Self”.
Sundari: It’s ok. The mind conditioned by duality will do battle with nonduality because it is so counterintuitive. For the ego, which does not relish its demise, nonduality is extremely ‘unsafe’. It cowers in the face of freedom because it is ‘too big’. Too much. What blasphemy! The smallness of the separate ego giving rise to the desire to seek absolution from the insidious idea of being born a ‘sinner’, subject to evil, while desperately trying to be ‘good’, is hard to shake.
I think this happens to many inquirers. Christian values have infiltrated much of secular society, but especially those conditioned by religious dogma. However, once Self-knowledge has taken a foothold, even a toe hold, it is hard for the mind to ‘go back’ to duality entirely. It does happen, we have seen it, but not often. Assuming enough of the qualifications are sufficiently developed. If not the mind could once again be subsumed by duality. Hence the need for vigilance.
Frank: So yes I can see Christ as a light, a temporary appearance within Isvara of many other lights (heresy! apostate!) and I can fully accept Christ- but the daring terrifying idea, I cannot accept what ignorance has since done with Christianity nor do I need to “be Christian”.
Sundari: Christ or Krishna/Shiva/Brahman, same thing. Worship the symbols, but don’t objectify them. All symbols point to only one principle, the nondual Self. The religions of this world have a lot to answer for in terms of inflicting horrendous suffering. But all the ‘evil’ in the world, not just that inflicted by religions of whatever ilk, are the result of the lack of Self-knowledge, of Isvara.
Frank: As the Self it is not “me down here and God up there” nor is it “me as the Self loving an object” – of any specific kind, including Christ and expecting results, or thinking because I do, then I am ok or everything will be ok now or after death.
Sundari: Who dies? Only the body/ego. There is no before or after death for you, the Self. Knowing this as incontrovertible truth is freedom.
Frank: In other words, believing in Christ, or any religion, with the expectation of results (good karma) is as binding as anything else. While perhaps “better” than not “believing in Christ” and acting adharmically, dharma is not the proprietary patent of Christianity or any other dualistic religion. None are a guarantee as it is not up to the Jiva, as the last 2000 years clearly demonstrate across all religions.
Sundari: Most definitely. Amen to that.
Frank: It is a “thing” I have rebelled against all my life – perhaps that my father was the way he was (staunch atheist) and my mother loves the Gita, rejected Christianity (but loves Christ) and they certainly loved each other. The rebellion was only fighting the apparent duality I see now and could never understand between them.
Sundari: Interesting life karma you had. As James guru said to him: You are what you are rebelling against. Though I can understand that growing up with that contradiction in values must have caused great confusion. Be thankful as it is what brought you to Vedanta.
Frank: Whatever the explanation, what is clear for me now is to take up the bow and fight. I am so annoyed in a good way, with how this weak, back and forth game has gone on for so long. The issue I am still struggling with is where/who to address action to – I know not to the ego / Jiva – I see this, feel it tangibly. Is it then everything else which is not that without any specific trap hole of a dualistic God appearance?
Sundari: Being annoyed with your (not) self will not help much, though a healthy contempt for the ego can be useful at times. Every moment of life is a unique and sacred gift from Isvara, no matter how trivial, banal, sublime or terrible. If you are not the doer, doing is not a problem, and it never ends. It is only the identification with doing that is the problem. Take life on a moment to moment basis as your guide. Whatever we need to know is always given to us. We just need to look and listen.
Manage the gunas so that you always aim for sattva, making sure that rajas does not run away with the mind or tamas veil it. Follow dharma and act on what is appropriate, knowing without a thought that the results are not up to you. When you live this way, what is there to worry about? Whatever happens, happens; it’s not on you. And you will be fine, no matter what. Choose the quiet joy of Self-knowledge, consciously deliberately, thought by thought, by thinking the opposite thought, taking a stand in Awareness, and making gratitude your shield and your MO.
With much love,
Sundari
