Shining World

Be Fair to Yourself

Dear Charles,

It’s time to either write off the notion that you are a serious seeker or admit that you don’t have your own best interests in mind. Your letter was not about my moral failings. It’s surprising, considering your background in psychology that you didn’t analyze it for projection and denial before you sent it. I was gobsmacked because I always thought you were a fair-minded person. I didn’t for a minute think that you were actually talking about me because if you trusted your own experience you would have realized that I always treated you with love and respect. I invited you to visit in Spain and you said the visit was the spiritual high point of your year. Then you did an about face and changed your knowledge on the basis of another person’s feelings. Hearing their complaint was another opportunity to analyze your state of mind. But some part of you identified with their “hurt” and you went off half cocked and insulted yourself.
Belief in the reality of “feelings” is one of the problems with the psychological model.

Vedanta’s psychology is karma yoga, which is meant to be practiced by someone who is seeking freedom from subtle and gross objects. It is wrong to assume that you are actually practicing karma yoga if Self realization isn’t your goal. Integrating one’s emotional self into society’s view of the self is the purpose of psychology. So, rather than project your dissatisfaction on others, in this case me, ask yourself why, considering the fact that you are a life coach or some such, you are still dissatisfied with yourself. My decision to remove X as an endorsed teacher and the suggestion he not leave the satsang, but sit in the back and just observe, not comment, was intended to help him become aware of how his orientation away from the psychological model to the Vedanta model wasn’t complete. There was no reason except hurt feelings, that he needed to ignore my friendly advice. He identified with his feelings and projected the anger on me. Research shows that psychological health of psychological care givers is on a par with the psychological health of the society in general.

To express it rather crudely my advice to you is, “Shit or get off the pot.” It’s time to be fair to yourself, Charles. Be objective. Be humble. How can you purport to help others with their projections if you haven’t mastered your own? Start over. You need to stop pretending you are a spiritual person and see yourself as a regular guy with no answers. You were led to the right place…Vedanta…but you haven’t taken it seriously so far. You are always welcome to communicate with me but only if you appreciate what people like myself can actually do for you. Teachers are for learning, not hooks for projections. You flunked your latest test. No blame.

Tough Love,
James

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