Karl: Hi, Ramji, how are you? How’s the Vedanta world looking?
Ramji: If it gets any better I don’t know how I will stand it!
Karl: The website is always nice and I always enjoy the newsletters, though I suppose there hasn’t been one for a while. I think what’s new is your wife’s book. I might have to look into that one; relationships seem to always elude, but I’m starting to think maybe that’s a good thing, and hormones are just tricking me. I think last we spoke I told you about some girl. It was an interesting time – that week I had asked God for a change and a possible long-time game-changer of a girl to come along – it’s interesting I learned that week we met that she had asked something as well, and it was a strange time hanging out. Funnily enough it fizzled out very quickly and I was very upset, but it’s funny that’s how these things go, and I kind of saw it coming, though it was either an opportunity or a cosmic joke.
Ramji: Well, prayer for a relationship isn’t exactly an intelligent use of your free will, but it’s good you eventually had a good laugh. It’s better to ask why you are praying for a game-changer in the first place. If you love yourself properly, you will have to beat the girls off with a stick.
Karl: Now I see it was probably for the best, and maybe it wasn’t an opportunity or now is the opportunity. Though at the time things seemed to align, now things are very much chaotic, so I’m trying to take the opportunity to do some karma yoga, but at a loss for the next steps, so I’m trying to assimilate daily the teachings. Are there any good succinct satsangs or new writings I could check out to reinvigorate one’s faith in non-duality and learning what the “Self” should mean to one? Take care, and thanks.
Ramji: Now is an opportunity to take up karma yoga. If you had been doing karma yoga beforehand, you wouldn’t have expected it to last, and so you wouldn’t have been disappointed. And if you had been doing karma yoga, you would be happy and the ladies would be all over you, so maybe you would be praying to get rid of a relationship.
Anyway, you are definitely a slow learner, Karl. I’ve been trying to knock the karma yoga idea into your thick skull for about ten years now, and it seems it hasn’t stuck. Karma yoga is not an opportunity, it is a state of mind and a lifestyle, the importance of which you have not understood.
So no “new” teachings, Karl. Forget “faith in non-duality.” It is not something you believe in. It is something you understand when you are ready. But you won’t be ready until you have purified your mind with karma yoga.
~ Love, Ramji
