Hi James,
How was Amsterdam, I guess it was a great success, are you already in Berlin? Anyway I hope you had a good time and enjoyed the Döner 🙂
James: Amsterdam was fantastic, including my doner!
Sufferer: I would love to tell you about hitting bottom during this current OCD attack. Though it’s happening in the dualistic world, it shines a light on how OCD works and how Vedanta can be applied on this bubble of fear.
James: I am not sure I’d love to hear it. But it will make a good satsang for the website.
Sufferer: The story goes like this:
I sold our 13 year old Mercedes with nearly 180.000 miles to a guy from a city close by. He called me after arriving home and asked whether I had trouble with the car’s indicator. I said no, but afterwards I remembered that there was a faulty code during diagnosis of the car but I cleared the code. It happened one or two times more, but then it didn’t. I didn’t even think about it when I sold the car but it obviously it occurred while the buyer drove home. At this very moment OCD Bubbleland set in.
I thought “What if the new car-owner drives the car while the indicator fails and an accident happens!?” OCD is always about the worst case; someone will die and who is responsible? ME! because I didn’t fix it. My mind and my body gets totally absorbed in these fear thoughts.
James: Yes, fear is very attractive to weak-minded people.
Sufferer: I see myself in jail because I failed. The fear drives me to act. What can I do to get back in charge and avoid further, harmful, consequences. I called the owner and asked him to go to a service station and fix what’s wrong with the car. I offered him 500€ for the security of knowing no one would become injured. I called a lawyer but he said he wouldn’t have said anything, because the indicator worked when I sold the car. But that’s not my point. It’s about non Injury. His advice was requesting the new owner not to drive with car until the problem is fixed. I did so, begged him to do so and told him that we can talk about the bill later. Since this happened I am a mess. I hit bottom, and pray for a good outcome. This scenario has happened all my life, but it turned out better since Isvara’s grace brought me to you as my teacher and to Vedanta.
James: Well, a lot of good your teacher has done, since you don’t take his words as God’s words. Never mind that, my point is that throughout this whole miserable narrative, you’re busy injuring your not-self and ignoring your true self, the one that witnessed and reported many attacks over the course of your life. Anyway, you’re the jail, the jailor and the one in jail.
You reported the most recent case with complete objectivity, which means that the OCD has nothing to do with you. You didn’t ask for it. You don’t generate the attacks and yet you want to take responsibility for them? Something fishy here. A wise person once said, “Bitten by the vipers of guilt, obligation and responsibility, human beings suffer endless births and deaths in the ocean of samsara.” Why is it so hard to see that you are never what you see? What you see/experience is always only an inert object known by you, awareness, presented to you by ignorance.
God Finally Enters the Picture
Sufferer: Now about Vedanta. When I turn back and see how this process of selling the car worked, it was a kind of a flow. It couldn’t have been any other way. Isvara brought me and the new owner together, Isvara didn’t bring this thought of the indicator failure to my mind. I felt like a puppet on a string. I know the results are not up to me, no more control, which I hadn’t anyway, except the effects will work on the jiva. Isvara is teaching another lesson, Karma Yoga.
James: No effects on the jiva because it is not different from you, consciousness. But yes, I know what jiva you are talking about.
Sufferer: Can something like this disturb a wise person? It disturbs an OCD triggered mind. I am barely capable of withstanding these thoughts of fear and being a failure.
James: But you do withstand them.
Sufferer: And yes, if something worse happens, like an accident, I will feel passionately about about hose who might be involved.
James: Feel passionately about the one who is uninvolved. The one who is ‘involved” is the one who is unloved.
Sufferer: Due to the laws I have to surrender to a possible law suit.
James: Due to ignorance of the uninvolved one, you worry about a law suit.
And the wise man knows that he isn’t affected anyway, It’s isvara’s stuff.
James: Being wise only involves accepting what the guru tells you. This OCD stuff is just a kind of “poor me” vanity. Seems I’m not doing my job very well.
Sufferer: But honestly speaking, I am not a wise men, I only know that a wise man couldn’t be disturbed by the world.
James: Yes, it’s clear to me you’re not wise but I love you just the same. If you know you aren’t wise you are a wise man. It’s funny to watch you ignore yourself, Arjuna.
Sufferer: By the way, of course I talked about the whole story with my wife. She also said, like you did, don’t be so hard on yourself.
James: I’ll bet she’s sick and tired of hearing it. Think of her the next time Isvara2 attacks you. This is hardly the way to have a happy marriage.
Sufferer: And while I am listening to my inner voice, it’s not talking good about me, I put myself down, while I am a failure, incomplete and while this OCD thing comes back all the time and I lose power to withstand it.
James: You withstand it. That’s why you are repeating the story. If it destroyed you, you wouldn’t be talking to me. I must be a fool to repeat myself again and again. What good does stubbornness do you? You` would accept the words of Isvara if you liked yourself. The way you to like yourself is to accept the words of God, not the words of Arjuna the fool.
Sufferer: I read a book about music, “Liberating the Musician Within” by Kenny Werner. There is a section which I love, “ We are all part of a universal game. Returning to our essence while living in the world is the object of the game. The earth is he game board and we are the pieces on the board. We move around and around until we remember who we really are, and then we can be taken off the board.” Being taken off the board that is what my innermost wish is all about.
James: If God hasn’t done it by now, it’s up to you to remove yourself.
Much love
