What a beautiful satsang tonight, thank you both so much!
Sundari: thank you for your feedback, much appreciated
Oscar: What struck me is when you said that the jiva is not conscious. (it struck me so much that I could hardly hear the rest of you satsang to be honest.) Intellectually I know it is true that the jiva is not conscious, because I’ve heard and read it before and I trust the scripture.
But now it’s only beginning to dawn on me that, despite the fact that I experience myself AS this jiva véry much conscious and aware, this knowing that I am conscious and aware is not coming from this jiva that seems so utterly close to me at the same time.
I know this is only indirect knowledge since this knowing is definitely not there all the time, actually most of the time it’s not there, but I will stay with it. Well, at the moment I don’t have to make any effort it seems to know this.
Sundari: This is a very important breakthrough for you. It’s like smashing down a thick glass door you never knew was there, yet it kept you trapped behind and under the spell of Maya, entraining the mind in the hypnosis of duality. In psychotherapy that is called premature cognitive commitment – how the mind works to adapt to what it thinks it sees/knows. It then makes a cognitive commitment to seeing that way, which is how our likes and dislikes become entrenched. It seems so logical from the jiva perspective that the one who knows is you as a person. It is not obvious to most that the person is an object known to something else – which is not a part of it, nor apart from it, yet free of it, and that is ‘pure’ Consciousness.
After all, you are conscious and intelligent, nobody denies that. But who does that consciousness and intelligence really belong to, or come from? If the person is known to you (and we can prove that simply by asking how it that you know you are a person at all?) then you cannot be what you know. What is known to you is not you. The tricky part is understanding what this means so that you can step out of duality and take a stand in nondual Consciousness as your true nature, permanently. And so allowing Self-knowledge to correct how you see reality, which is backwards, as a duality. It has to reverse the reversal and get you standing on your feet – in nondual understanding. That which ‘stands under you’.
It is wonderful that Self-knowledge got through and broke that glass door of separation down. But to keep the glass door broken down is the hard part. It has a tendency to quickly reassemble itself. Maya being as persuasive as it is, personal ignorance quickly comes back. Intellectual indirect knowledge is a good start, and it is a big breakthrough. But as you say, it is not direct and permanent Self-knowledge, yet. That will take a little more to properly assimilate and become your lived reality, 24/7. Still, what a great big leap you have made!
Just keep reminding yourself about the discrimination between you and your image in the mirror. How could you take the image in the mirror to be conscious? It doesn’t know you and cannot have a conversation with you. Then take a stand in Consciousness, the witness. One thought at a time, thought by thought, day by day.
Oscar: What a brilliant trick this all is..
Please correct me if I am wrong or if you have any suggestions.
Sundari: Yes indeed, Maya is the biggest trickster there ever was or will ever be – and yet, it is nothing at all! You are doing great and are on the right path for sure, stick with it.
Much love
Sundari
