Dear Sundari, I love the recent emails you posted on intuition and implicit bias, both really helped me to understand not only what they are and where they originate from but how to negate them. Karma yoga and the guna knowledge are invaluable. What I struggle with the most is a tendency I have had since a child of zoning out. People have criticized me for this, calling me aloof, disinterested or rude. Since I came across Vedanta, which by the way, made redundant all other teachings, thank God!, I am starting to formulate a different understanding of this tendency to disassociate as one of the qualifications for self-inquiry, am I correct? At the same time, I struggle with negative thoughts, there is also a feeling of the hopelessness of life.
Sundari: Thank you for the feedback, I am happy the satsangs helped you. Before I get to your question about dissociation, which is a good question btw, let’s look at the negative thoughts. You are the knower of the thought of hopelessness, the negative thoughts, right? So you know they cannot be you. They are known to you. Apply the teachings, keep discriminating, one thought at a time. Freedom from the jiva identity is hard, but the scripture offers all the tools you need, use them.
Karma yoga and guna knowledge are all you need. If negative feelings loom large and take up residence in the real estate of the mind for longer than it takes to recognize they are there, you suffer. Non-dual vision means I see my thoughts and feelings as they arise and Self-knowledge kicks in instantly to dismiss them. Nobody said freedom from and for the jiva is easy, which is why faith in the teachings is such an important qualification. If that fails you, Maya is right there waiting to take over the mind.
Regarding disassociation vs dispassion, this is an issue that many people have, especially inquirers. I certainly did growing up, in fact, you could be describing me. Most people who are qualified for Vedanta have experienced this to some extent because whether they realized it or not, their main motivation in life was not to get something from the world, but to understand themselves and how they relate to the world. In other words, they are knowledge seekers who tend to go against the grain and are thus misfits.
But there is a difference between detachment and clinical disassociation. For some people the kind of disassociation you are describing is temporary and considered a fairly normal occurrence in the ever-changing architecture of life, thanks to its inherent but unexamined zero-sum nature. This state of mind or withdrawal relates not so much to an inability to process what is coming into the mind, but as an attempt to escape from it. It’s not really a problem except to those who are invested in you behaving a certain way in public. My family used to call me names, ‘alternative’ was one of the kinder ones!
The second distinction is those who have a pathological disassociative disorder, and they do have a problem. They feel totally unreal, insubstantial in comparison to others. I’m not referring to Self-knowledge, zoning out or the insecurity of imposter syndrome but the fraying, febrile experience of clinical disassociation. Of feeling like everything you know about who you think you are, your past and present, do not cohere to real personhood. That you don’t actually exist. The experience that inscribes the small self identity is just a jumble of unintelligible fragments. Life is an unstable frightening landscape, racked with contradictory sensations that threaten to tear your mind apart.
It is a mind incapable of discrimination, overwhelmed by its own contents and its inability to relate what it feels within to what it experiences ‘without’. Knowledge does not work here. In Vedanta, this is explained by a mind in the grip of Maya, the hypnosis of duality, ignorance of its true nature. It is complete descent into rajas (fear/desire) and tamas (denial/depression) by disassociating, usually the result of trauma. The mind, which is our instrument to know objects, is not functional. There is a problem with it. The world of psychology generally accepts this kind of disassociation as a mental health issue and categorizes it as four kinds of disorders, including ‘de-personalization’. Treatment is available but the mind is unlikely to ever be qualified for self-inquiry.
The next distinction is those who are or true seekers, this experience is part of the process whether we are committed to self-inquiry or not. The mind is functional but confused. We have an innate feeling that nothing is what it seems. The dissociation is usually a brief but revolving foray into rajas and tamas. The only permanent salvation or way out is through Self-knowledge, which seeks to negate the personal identity by removing our ignorance of our identity as the nondual Self.
Everything is then understood be only apparently real, meaning, not always present and always changing. A trick of light. It is all insubstantial, you are not the person – the body and the world – which seem so real because we can experience them, are in fact, a mirage created by Maya. The superimposition of duality onto nonduality. As I said above, I think it is safe to say that all genuine inquirers go through this stage, until Self-knowledge actualizes.
The last distinction is when Self-knowledge truly has obtained in the mind, and the identification with the small-self identity is completely negated. In this case, the mind is acutely functional (sattvic). Disassociation with its contents and what comes into the mind from the field of experience comes in the form of dispassion – detachment. meaning non-attachment to experience of whatever kind, good or bad. Such a person may appear to be unfeeling, impersonal and dissociated to those who are still under the spell of Maya, duality. But though as the Self, you are free to feel and express any emotion, you are not troubled or triggered by them. You are free of the jiva (personal) program. So, the mind does not condition to the gunas or fluctuations in the mind or the field of experience. That is the litmus test of freedom.
I think what you are going through is part of the process of ‘de-personalization’ that inquiry into the true nature of reality as a nonduality, requires. When the truth of life being zero-sum sinks in and we realize that there really is ‘nothing out ‘there’, it can be a scary time for inquirers who are Self-realized but not Self-actualized. We call it ‘the void’ because all objects are seen to be devoid of substance and meaning, which of course, they are. In particular, when the person they once took themselves to be is revealed to be no more than a construct, a concept, a guna-generated program.
What to ‘do’ when you realize the pointlessness of all doing and you are not the doer? Knowing that we are the Self does not magically translate into the disappearance of the jiva with all its stuff. That can take years and years for some in the last stages of self-inquiry. Nididhysana is the purification of the remaining vestiges of mental/emotional patterns once Self-realization has taken place. Only when this stage is complete does Self-actualization take place naturally.
The ‘all is emptiness’ stage is created by tamas, which presents another Self-actualization problem because you cannot in good faith distract yourself with the mindless samsaric pursuits that previously occupied it, i.e., jobs, entertainment, sex, or endless family events, etc. What all serious inquirers dedicated to the last stage of self-inquiry, nididhysana, are aiming for is to transition directly to perfect satisfaction – tripti. Perfect dispassion. Unfortunately, this can only take place if you are totally qualified when Self-realization takes place. I.e., all the jiva’s binding conditioning (mental and emotional patterns) have been transformed into devotion to the Self, meaning rendered non-binding. This is seldom the case when Self-realization takes place, which is why nididhysana, is for most inquirers, the most difficult and the longest stage.
Swami Paramarthananda, calls nididyasana ‘requalifying.’ You never know when, during the manana phase, firm Self-knowledge will take place and you never know how long nididyasana will take. In fact, if Self-knowledge makes you a perfect spontaneous karma yogi, it doesn’t matter because time doesn’t exist for you. So, if you don’t experience perfect jiva satisfaction when Self-knowledge is unshakable, you need to remain humble and keep up the practices that qualified you for understanding as they will eventually remove the obstacles to limitless bliss.
Keep up the inquiry, trust the teachings, and trust Isvara to give you exactly what you need.
Much love
Sundari
