Cathy: An old tendency/vasana that was often triggered came back today. The upset is an object known to me, but I got consumed by it for a while. By the evening and after your satsang I was quiet. Then it came back intensely again and I realised I felt grateful to my friend for bringing it to my attention. It is unfinished business/behaviour that I do not want to keep acting out on. My dreams sometimes remind me of these hidden issues.
So with this unpleasant experience.
Do I reject it because it is not me, do I sit with it in meditation until it thins down. Do I allow my feelings to be full on knowing I am not these feelings and yet they are there. How should I act now I have seen the pattern emerge again? I do need to do some sort of action. At least I think I do. But as I sat with it, I also saw that if I did nothing, it is still life/ God /Isvara and maybe I don’t have to do anything. Hum I am quietly confused. I feel as if I am back at the beginning again with some of these behaviours and patterns.I would appreciate your thoughts if you have time
Sundari: I sympathize with you regarding the difficult karmic situation that persists, and the adharma involved. Injustices are very hard to side-step, even when you know who you are. Just don’t forget to investigate who the ‘I’ refers to that gets consumed. As the beautiful serenity prayer goes – ‘please give me the courage to change what needs to be changed, the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference’. This is standard karma yoga.
There are times that we must stand up and deal with what is at hand, and there are times when we don’t. Either course of action you choose, don’t be the chooser/doer. Pray for guidance, be very vigilant of how the ego typically responds. Feel the feelings but objectify them. Who is the feeler? Not you, the Self. But all the same, as the jiva is the Self, you are free to feel anything ‘as a jiva’. Just don’t get identified and swept away by them. If a negative state of mind persists and takes over the mind, there is still a doer there, and karma yoga has not been truly applied.
Take appropriate action or not, as the case may be, with karma yoga, truly surrendering and leaving the results to Isvara. Trust that there are no bad results, only results. How you relate to them (jiva or Self?) determines how quickly peace of mind returns.
The application of Self-knowledge to our life is often very difficult in these situations. But if we do, Self-knowledge unfailing works.
With much love
