Hi Sundari,
I hope you are doing well.
Thank you to Ramji, yourself, and the entire Shining World team for presenting this knowledge in such a simple, relatable way for people like me who are not born into the Vedantic tradition.
Sundari: welcome to the Shiningworld community! We are so happy you have found us, and that you have the good grace to understand the value of these priceless teachings.
M: Just to share a bit of background for context (even though I understand that in Vedanta the focus is on knowledge rather than the individual story. My family is quite religious and dharmic in its own way, with strong values centered around God and service to others—which I now see as aligned with Karma Yoga and devotion.
S: Strong family values centered on God and living dharmically is a good start in life, in many ways. Especially as you point out, whatever the religious background, this tends to be in alignment with a devotional life in the karma yoga spirit.
M: Since childhood, I’ve had a natural inclination toward knowing God and living a peaceful, dharmic life. However, there was always some underlying anxiety, despite being relatively content as a middle-class individual without strong material desires. Initially, I tried resolving this through religious practices, joining different religious groups, and exploring Sufi teachings. These helped to an extent.
S: I can relate to this as like you, I grew up in a very religious family whose values were spiritual as opposed to material. But nonetheless I felt constrained by the limitations of the dogma.
M: This led me to question more deeply: how can one be truly happy? I explored various courses on happiness from well-known universities, which emphasized meditation, mindfulness, and valuing experiences over possessions. Around this time, I began reading extensively. Books like How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie significantly reduced my anxiety, while The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The One Thing improved my performance in my roles as a father and employee. I also explored Stoic philosophy.
S: Again, this is familiar to me, and most people who are born walking to a different drum. I realized very young that I did not fit into my set, which did not provide the wisdom I was looking for. Like you, I did not find it in religion, so was drawn to philosophy, psychology and science. While these systems of thought tend to push beyond the safety net of acceptable but limited religious doctrine, they are all nonetheless still based in duality.
If you go back through the ages as far as we have written accounts by powerful thinkers, you find that no matter how sophisticated and brilliant the thinking, nobody ever comes up with the definitive answers for life in mithya. For one simple reason: there are no solutions in mithya (the effects of ignorance/duality on the mind/society, life).
It can be summed up fairly simply: humans naturally need to relate to something bigger than themselves because even the most dualistic mind recognizes there is more to life than it is possible to know or understand. So religions and politics developed as a safety net for people who need guidelines and rules to feel safe. This also obviates the need to look inward because subscribing to a strict doctrine allows one to easily side step the difficult work of shadow integration, and what monsters may lurk in the unconscious.
Humans with minds that questioned the status quo did not fare well – just look at all the religious wars–the absolute certainty that whatever you believed gave you the right to destroy anything that threatened it. What humans under this spell are capable of doing to each other is beyond belief. Not to mention that aside from religious wars, this certainty also gives you the safety of self-righteous rectitude in living your life in a frightening, ever changing and unpredictable world.
But because the Self knows itself, there will always be those who will seek the truth at any cost, so many souls paid the price. Philosophy grew out of this need, as did science, where people stepped out of and challenged the consensus reality. Here people are more inclined to look within, to face the less than fabulous aspects of the psyche, to stand away from the herd. Still not nondual thinking, but progress that offers at least the hope for a saner life.
Then there are those like yourself and most people who are ready for Vedanta, where the limitation of all human thought is understood, and the zero sum nature of life is faced, if not yet accepted. One stops trying to run from that and instead, turns within. If at this stage you have the good grace to find Vedanta and a qualified teacher, you are one of the very fortunate souls. Not better, just fortunate. Because if you have developed the requisite qualifications, you have found the true holy grail: the means to step out of the hypnosis of duality. You have found the answers to everything. And it is you, the Self.
M: Gradually, I developed some level of discrimination, dispassion, and self-control. Then, reading The Power of Now (Introduced to me Enlightenment, a state that can only possible in Heaven as a religious guy), which I think I can led to what I would call non-dual experiences. For about one to two years, life felt effortless—everything seemed to align, and I experienced high efficiency, clarity, and focus. Considering I am enlightened now I can do whatever I want I even managed multiple jobs for a while. However, this state eventually faded (Because Doer/ mind / world was denied as unreal) the “doer” returned, bringing back anxiety and burnout. Especially around Covid Time my life was focused around Artha only and fear and struggle in life started from where it was, After that, I explored various teachings—dark psychology, healing from narcissistic abuse, boundary-setting, and many spiritual paths including Neo-Advaita, Buddhism, Zen, and teachers like Mooji and Rupert Spira. While these helped temporarily, I felt something was still missing, especially the idea that I needed to eliminate the mind—which I now understand is not correct.
S: Your passage to Vedanta is quite common among those who develop the qualifications for it. I passed through that way too, but the teachings of people like Eckhart Tolle (and many others of his ilk, especially in the neo-Advaita arena) are simply not valid; they are experience-based teachings. Though inspirational, they lack an actual teaching. They rely on ‘enlightenment’ as a special state or experience, which as you discovered, does not last. Buddhism and Zen offer tools to live a more dharmic life, but also do not offer an independent means of knowledge for moksa.
In the case of neo-Advaita, they deny the world and the person exist at all. While that is well and good, the truth is, they do exist because you experience them. It is not experience itself that is the problem, it is understanding who the experiencing entity is, how it is conditioned by duality, and why it is impossible to step out of that mindset without a valid and independent means of knowledge. One that does not belong to or come from anyone, and that cannot be negated in any time frame, state or experience. It is standing in Awareness, that which knows/witnesses the experiencing entity who thinks it lives in time. Being able to discriminate between the two is called moksa—freedom from the limitation of duality.
Both Mooji and Spira teach Vedanta ‘lite’, meaning, they do not have the full methodology of Vedanta. They are good people who teach part of it and appeal to those who are perhaps destined for moksa, but have not yet developed all the qualifications.
M: Eventually, I discovered Ramji’s Vedanta teachings on YouTube “Westerwald 2014” through (Andre Vas (Yes Vedanta Website)). I completed the course in two days and continued with his books. Since then, I’ve engaged with Vedanta daily, and by Ishwara’s grace, I’ve gained a level of clarity I never found elsewhere. What stands out to me is Ramji’s precise and methodical handling of Neo-Advaita concepts, which resonates deeply with me.
S: There is nothing like Vedanta, and you are blessed to have found Ramji. What is clear to me is that you must be qualified because you understand the value of the teachings, and how they stand apart from all others.
M: My current understanding (at least intellectually) as a jiva is:
- M: My core problem is ignorance, which leads to superimposition—the mistaken belief that reality is dual, and that happiness, security, and virtue lie in objects rather than in the subject, my true self.
- S: Well put.
- M: I am non-dual ordinary awareness; happiness and Enlightenment is the knowledge that I am whole and complete, not an experience.
- S: Self-knowledge is the knowledge that stands alone and can never be negated by the presence or absence of any experience, no matter how elevated or powerful. It is the firm identification with Awareness as your primary identity, and the understanding that the body/mind or ego persona is a secondary (apparently real not actually real) identity. The ability to automatically discriminate between Awareness and the jiva is called ‘enlightenment’. It is not another experience because all experiences are objects known to you, Awareness. It is not something to gain or that makes you special in any way. ‘Enlightenment’ is simply the permanent recognition of your true eternal, unborn and undying identity as Awareness, which is never again confused with the impermanent, limited, and time-based ego identity..
- M: There is no need to reject the mind or jiva—only to align them with dharma.
- S:Essentially yes in that moksa will not obtain in a mind that is not dharmic. But it is more than that. It is the understanding of what the mind is, how it is constructed and conditioned by the gunas, a product of the Causal body (likes and dislikes, psychological conditioning/vasanas/samskaras). Which requires an understanding of the gunas and the Causal body (Isvara). This is the part all other teachings skip because it requires shadow integration and true self-love. Though you are the Self, and anything else is not you and therefore, not real (real being defined as that which is always present and unchanging), you cannot jump straight to the Self (satya) without first understanding what mithya (the person/the world) is, and negating the ‘realness’ with Self-knowledge.
- M: My role is to continue Karma Yoga—offering actions and accepting results as Ishwara’s prasad and I need continue listening analysing and assimilating.
- S: Karma yoga is an attitude of surrender and devotion to Isvara because it subjugates the childish ego and lessons the pressure of the vasanas. Without it, you will not make progress with self-inquiry. You may understand the teachings intellectually, but if you do not live them, there is no freedom from limitation.
- M: Assimilation will take time, and results are not in my control, but be faithful this will eventually happy through qualifications, a qualified teacher, Vedanta and practicing knowledge.
- S: Yes. As explained in many of the texts, you need to familiarize yourself with all the requirements for self-inquiry, understand the values required, and the qualifications which will determine how motivated you are for moksa. You will find this all on the Shiningworld website, under New To Vedanta.
- M: I also recognize certain binding vasanas: overeating, lack of mindful habits, occasional smoking, excessive time on YouTube, and sometimes engaging in inappropriate content. Family challenges also create anxiety. Additionally, I notice a tendency to overextend myself in helping others, which leads to burnout.
- S: This is all explained in many of our texts. You need to clean up your life if you want a purified mind in which Self-knowledge will obtain. It is not wrong or bad to indulge your vasanas, but it will not produce peace of mind. Plus, the mind will still be turned outward to the world looking for what is lacking. The entry level qualification for self-inquiry is that you have understood the zero sum nature of life, and that there is nothing in life to gain. You are what you seek. So while Vedanta is not about perfecting the person, and the occasional lapse is not the kiss of death, binding vasanas need to be rendered non-binding. If your lifestyle does not conform to dharma, the mind will be agitated and the conditions for moksa will not be present.
M: I have a few questions for guidance, for my Jiva:
- Based on your experience, what would you suggest I focus on going forward?
- S: See Above. Start at the beginning, sign on to the logic and follow all the steps of inquiry. There is no fast track to freedom.
- M: I enjoy teaching and sharing knowledge, but I tend to over-involve myself, especially when others become dependent and judge the other person for e.g. my subordinate if they do not ask enough questions. Is it better to only teach when asked rather than assuming others need help?
- S: Most definitely. While we encourage sharing of the teachings, it is advisable to make sure you have assimilated them before ‘teaching’. Be sure about your motivations because ‘teaching’ can build ego—and ensure you are not adding more ignorance to ignorance.
- M: In my professional life, I’ve stopped advocating for raises, thinking results are Ishwara’s domain. Should I still actively ask for fair compensation as part of Karma Yoga? My friends told me you are underpaid compared to the market without asking, is it a sign from Ishwara?
S: Karma yoga and following dharma also require standing up for yourself when appropriate. Remember, karma yoga is not ‘not’ doing anything. It is taking appropriate action and leaving the results to Isvara.
- M: Should I maintain boundaries with people I feel uncomfortable around (e.g., loud or draining individuals), or is this an expression of raga-dvesha that I should work through?
- S: Again, most definitely. As I mentioned, understanding the mind requires understanding the gunas and how they condition the mind. If you are not familiar with the teaching on the gunas, make sure to read The Yoga of the Three Energies. All three gunas are highly contagious. Since peace of mind should be your main goal, its best to always aim for sattva and (when possible) avoid very rajasic/tamasic people. If you can’t avoid them (as in people close to you), be very mindful of the gunas and apply guna mind management.
Thank you again for all your guidance and for making this knowledge accessible.
You are most welcome, please feel free to write any time. We are here to help you with your self-inquiry.
Hari Om
Sundari
ShiningWorld.com
