Dear Sundari
I really enjoyed reading the talk you gave at Trout Lake on the reflection teaching, but I think I am more confused than ever! I know Vedanta is an independent means of knowledge for the Self, and its main aim is to remove ignorance of my true nature as the Self. I know the teaching does not belong to anyone, it’s not yours nor your opinion.
But what does it mean when you say Vedanta provisionally accepts duality? I don’t understand this. I mean, I thought the teachings say there is only nonduality, even though there is no proof or way to validate that nonduality is primary, or even exists. I thought I understood but now I am flooded with uncertainty and doubt again. I still experience a lot of fear too. How do I get rid of it?
I would love some pointers on what I am missing. Could you please help me understand this?
Sundari: You have a bad case of FUD, which is an acronym for Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty, a term developed by corporations who manufacture disinformation designed to discredit a competitor. It is now a popular term used by the crypto world to defend itself and fight back because of all the bad press it has been getting lately.
FUD is a good way to describe how most people under the spell of duality, i.e., identified as people, experience life. Fear, doubt and uncertainty is another name for Maya, duality, and it is inescapable without Self-knowledge, non-duality.
The hypnosis of duality creates a system of thinking with built-in paradigms that keep everyone stuck in it. Thanks to Maya, the mind is a very limited thought processor constrained by heuristics and designed to allow us access to only a small aperture of vision. But we don’t know this because under its spell, we think we are in control of our understanding, when we are anything but.
The difficulty is that Vedanta, nonduality, is highly counterintuitive from within the system of dualistic thinking, which is why you need qualifications and to be properly taught. Even the smartest people on the planet, the best thinkers throughout time, have been and are stuck in this system, and they don’t know they are. They believe they are right and their clever thinking proves it.
The only way to step out of duality is to have the nondual teachings ‘worked’ on a qualified mind by a qualified teacher. You cannot think your way to freedom because the mind under the spell of Maya is not capable of it. It can only think through the filters of its conditioning – i.e., ignorance.
Even though we only ever experiencing nonduality, because nonduality is so subtle, we don’t know it. Thanks to the unpredictability of the field of life, i.e., duality, the way the mind is trained to see, think and feel is through FUD. The only thing that is certain here is uncertainty. Isvara very kindly endowed us with a doubting function for this reason; nothing is what it appears to be seen through dualistic vision. No wonder life is so difficult and filled with suffering for most people. There is nothing you can count on.
As for proof that you are the nondual Self, there is none because you are that which validates everything. Vedanta teaches you to examine the unexamined logic of your own experience – which is that you are only ever experiencing nonduality, Consciousness, just don’t know it. But to do this, it needs to train you to think differently and want different things. If the mind wont relinquish its limited thinking, and is focused on the world, still convinced that it can give you what you want, you are not qualified, and Vedanta will not work to set you free.
What makes the nondual teaching so difficult are the seeming paradoxes in it, with the emphasis on ‘seeming’. They all dissolve if the meaning of the nondual teachings assimilate, but to do so, a lot of ignorance needs to be removed by the teachings. While no action can produce a limitless result, self-inquiry – though it is an action – does produce a limitless result , but in an unusual way. By removing ignorance. This naturally ‘produces’ Self-knowledge, freedom from AND for the jiva, that which is ‘covered’ by ignorance.
For Self-knowledge to obtain, the inquirer needs to have faith in the teachings, and the courage to set aside what they know, which is hard for most. As in your case, your ideas are clearly still in the way, causing confusion. This is natural, duality being as tenacious as it is. Which is why we emphasize over and over again that the inquirer must follow all the steps involved in the methodology of Vedanta, for ‘vertical integration’ to take place.
I spoke about this in my teaching at Trout lake, but it needs repeating, If the foundations for inquiry are not strong, the integration either collapses or spreads out thinly – as in horizontal integration. You may ‘know a lot’ of Vedanta but if the teachings have not assimilated and are not applied to your life, they are shallow, and you remain locked in limitation, duality.
Vedanta informs you that the teachings are a set up, and that it provisionally accepts duality because that is where most inquirers are situated. It takes you step by step out of it, starting with the cause and effect teaching. This unfolds what the jiva is, what forces run it and why, how that relates to Isvara, the creative principle, and what their common identity is as the Self. It reveals that the natural conclusion to the statement ‘examine your unexamined experience’ is that you are the only ‘thing’ that cannot be negated – Consciousness, the knower. But the hard part is understanding what that means, and taking your identity to be Consciousness.
Even if you are an atheist who adamantly proclaims that God is a fiction and there is nothing after life, just one big void, you have to ask the question, well how would you verify that without a knower of the void? You can never negate the knower because there has to be a knower of the negater. So even if this is confusing to you, and you are not ready to move beyond cause and effect, you can take this on faith: anything that cannot be negated, stands on its own, so it has to be knowledge, even if you don’t understand it.
The cause and effect teaching gradually removes duality, one step at a time. It is no easy feat because Maya does such a good job of deluding the mind. Discriminating satya (you, the Self, that which is always present and unchanging) from mithya (the conceptual jiva and its field of experience, that which is not always present and always changing) is the name of the game.
However, the problem with this is that the inquirer can fall into the trap of unwittingly identifying freedom as solely freedom from the jiva. The jiva’s conscious awareness, the reflection of Consciousness, is confused with Consciousness, the original. Freedom from the jiva means that you have the right values and motivations, always follow dharma, apply karma yoga and upasana yoga to your life religiously; you apply guna yoga to resolve your psychological issues. It may also involve psychotherapy to clear the mind of its ‘story’.
Even though there is the risk of trying to ‘perfect’ the jiva, which is impossible and unnecessary because it is not real, this immeasurably improves the life of the jiva. For some, it’s enough. You can stop here, there is no law that says you cannot, if you are happy enough. But it is the first step of moksa, it is not moksa. For the next step, the cause and effect teaching, which is also the reflection/superimposition/negation teaching, has to be transcended.
For Moksa to obtain, you need freedom AS the jiva = Jivatman. As I explained in my talk at Trout Lake, this means that the next step assimilates: the non-origination teaching. There is no cause and effect in a nondual world. If nondual vision is permanent, there is no longer a need to discriminate satya from mithya, because you are SAT, Consciousness. Knowledge AND ignorance are objects known to you. You don’t need to follow dharma, you ARE dharma with a ‘big’ D. Karma yoga, upasana yoga and guna yoga are no longer practices, as such. They are effortless knowledge.
Experiencing never ends, but you know you are that which makes all experience possible. You no longer have the need to change your experience, even though it does change all the time. You no longer chase experience. You still act appropriately in all circumstances, but the doer is negated, so it is no longer a foe to do battle with. The ego and the world no longer bother you. Nothing affects you or makes the mind condition to it.
The ego behaves very nicely because it has submitted to nonduality – just another object known to you, the Self. You are still the same person, with a certain temperament, doing what you do to ‘live your life’, contacting objects because you are happy, not FOR happiness. Life is ordinary and extraordinary. You continue to worship Isvara, but as the Self, not the jiva.
Few achieve total liberation AS the Self, Jivatman. The subtle ignorance of cause and effect remains, there is still identification with the reflection of the Self, especially if the mind is very sattvic. This is a trap in itself because sattva creates spiritual complacency – a ‘spiritual’ ego. You are ‘enlightened’ as a ego. But sattva is just another object known to you, the Self. This is usually because the inquirer must requalify – they need nididhysana. Vertical integration goes both ways: from the jiva to the Self, and the Self to the jiva, until nonduality assimilates. Most inquirers still have a lot of work to do ‘after’ Self-realization for this reason.
So keep going with you sadhana; start at the beginning by investigating if you have developed all the qualifications. Track yourself on them thought by thought. Make sure you understand and apply karma yoga. Not just surrendering results of action to Isvara with an attitude of consecration and gratitude, but make sure you practice all the five sacrifices involved in karma yoga. I have attached them for you.
Make sure you apply upasana yoga. If you don’t have a devotional practice, start one immediately. Create a place of focus, an altar of sorts, chant, pray, meditate. To start with, karma yoga and upasana yoga prepare the mind for self-inquiry, they are not equal to it. But when you fully commit to jnana yoga, they are intrinsically part of self-inquiry – guna yoga/jnana yoga.
The takeaway is this: Although you are never not the Self, that is an impossibility, as long as there is residual ignorance in the way, you will experience FUD, because you are still identified with the reflection of the Self. Self-knowledge is indirect. There is nothing wrong with this. For Self-knowledge to become direct requires ongoing nididhysana, which is the removal of all residual ignorance. until nondual vision is permanent.
This takes as long as it takes. If you stick with it, FUD will definitely decrease and eventually disappear altogether. Keep going, trust Isvara, and never give up!
Much love
Sundari
