Hi Don,
I want you to know that I really admire you for your reply to Sundari’s direct words about your attitude. It takes a lot of courage to investigate core beliefs. This is not to say that character traits self-correct without considerable commitment to continued inquiry. The next step now is to ask why one holds tightly to a particular point of view. Objectivity about the reason is at least as difficult to face as is facing the belief itself. I won’t go into the reason unless you want to hear more, however, I will say this: you cannot choose a point of view that will completely eliminate risk because risk is the nature of the creation. Life is purely experimental. We are all Isvara‘s guinea pigs as It works out how to lead us to the light. Pain and loss are inevitable.
The second point I’d like to make is that we are not only self aware people we are eager to serve Isvara. We are aware of the nature of the risks and rewards that are options in every situation every moment. We chose to wear masks, socially isolate and get vaccinated for two reasons: (1) they increase our chances of avoiding Covid and reduce worry and (2) we gain a clear spiritual benefit: we put ourselves firmly on the side of Isvara, The Great Experimenter and The Lord of Sacrifice, in so far as it is obviously It’s will that the human race survive. Genetics, eugenics, medicine, etc are all good faith attempts to help us survive and in that survival to grow into the light.
Yes, there are mistakes but how do we learn except by our mistakes? How can we grow if we don’t learn about ourselves and our environment? How will we survive as a species if we aren’t willing to make sacrifices? Our birth here is a sacrifice because, as much as we love life, we have to sacrifice it sooner or later. This spirit of sacrifice is the main topic of the first six chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. It should be with us every minute of every day. Covid is an opportunity. Vaccines are an opportunity to serve the world. That’s the spirit behind our thinking. We aren’t fools. Fear is reasonable up to a point but it won’t protect a person from what is inevitable.
I said I won’t go into the psychology of self protection but here’s a satsang I published last week that touches on it, if you care to read it. If you want the psychology in a nutshell, please ask.
Much love,
Ramjl
James: That’s correct. If you are serving the world as you are (and I admire you for it!) and adding good positive vibes to the mix, you are doing all that can be done. The collective karma we created is already in the pipeline and has to fructify. We only have some control over what is yet to come.
By the way I have good news. Isvara gave Sundari and me the opportunity to help the world and our apparent selves by getting vaccinated!!! Not surprisingly we already heard from one nice spiritual person we think of as a friend that we are fools. I can’t figure out how in the name of fear some people would not seize the opportunity to serve humanity in this way. It’s pretty common these days so we shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. It’s amazing how people think fear is smart when it is not smart at all. Well, you can’t blame them because they don’t even know what harm they are doing to their own minds when they succumb to unreasonable fears.
Having said that I understand that people honestly think the science of vaccines is flawed, but what human institution isn’t flawed? We need the mistakes to learn and advance our knowledge. Vedanta encourages doubts to stimulate inquiry and it promotes precaution in the Bhagavad as a valuable value. So it is reasonable to wait and see if the vaccines work before one makes up one’s mind. However, the longer people wait, the longer the quarantines are going to compromise our return to normal life. I’m lucky in that I’ve done everything that I needed to do in this life and the sun is setting on my life so its not a very important issue for me. We are all allotted so much time here according to our karma and Isvara will moves the vaccinated and unvaccinated on at Its will and pleasure.
