Ramji,
Greetings with love and respect. Update. As I continue to contemplate the teaching and practice actualizing it, a very subtle point has come into focus. As a result of a recent fast without food and water alone in nature—one of the more helpful indigenous practices, which I undertook for the purposes of soaking the mind in sattva and burning out remaining vasanas—I am finding a new outlook on equanimity.
As you know I have suffered from a steady conflict with my Jiva program’s judgments, expectations, fears, and resentments with regards to its relationship to the larger community. It occurred to me in the wake of my fast that it is not up to me as an individual to resist or chase anything. This perspective totally solves the “what should I do” dilemma.
If I am planning, due to a desire, then I am subject to the pain of worry due to the lack of my desired object. If I am absorbed in resentful resistance to the experience Isvara has placed in front of me, then I have lost discrimination. The old saying “let God handle it” does not work because Jiva is not “letting” God do anything. God IS handling it and always has been. So what use is the surrender? It just keeps the jiva locked in a story, a mental concept.
This may sound dangerous to the uninitiated, but true surrender is the acknowledgment of Jiva’s true place in the Universe, its short and beautiful existence, and the fact that striving for or against anything is pointless. The only thing left is how well one responds in the present moment.
There is freedom in equanimity. It is the freedom to not give a damn about shit that truly does not matter. Meditation is a joy when there is less crap rolling around in your head. And things seem to happen more spontaneously when Jiva is open to all the ways in Isvara lets it act in the world. What a beautiful thing! How subtle and hard to explain. Anyway, that’s the update.
Love
James: Beginning karma yogis can’t blow off their desire to change unwanted experiences into desirable experiences. No blame. But at some point, they realize that desire is not a command, only a suggestion from ignorance that seems like a command. But as one pays attention to one’s thoughts in light of the teachings, it becomes more and more clear that every experience is equal to every other experience, what I call a zero-sum fact and you call equanimity. It realizes that in so far as Jiva exists, it is here to learn and that avoiding learning from unwanted experiences is counterproductive. So, it takes everything as a gift, which isn’t the same as “leaving everything up to Isvara.” You’re right about the danger of the “letting go and let God” teaching, which definitely has its place in so far as it neutralizes one’s resistance. You can’t move forward if you are resisting something in the present.
While the power of now teaching needs to be eventually discarded, it is useful to focus the mind on dealing skillfully with what is happening in the present. You seem to have moved to the second stage of karma yoga where you just give all the usual desires a pass. Ho-hum. Nothing new here. Nothing to gain or lose. This too will pass. Let’s go fishing with a barbless hook. Etc. Discrimination is knowing that what Jiva wants and doesn’t want is unreal.
Very nice update. You’re a beautiful flower growing like a weed. Love you.
Ramji
