(This is a reposting of a satsang for the purposes of the Zoom teaching on Sunday 30th April)
Dear Sundari,
Recently I saw that you wrote to an inquirer about a personal experience of yours regarding total surrender to Isvara, and I quote:
Speaking for myself as a jiva, I know how hard this is. I had to grow up without any support and take care of myself in a hostile world, where I was much criticised by my family. I developed a fierce independence and suspicion of people’s motives, often with good reason. Everyone has an agenda in the world of duality. I put great store in trust and honesty, and often felt betrayed by those who did not demonstrate these qualities. Who has not experienced this?
Can you explain what you mean about this trust and honesty samskara, and how it affected your judgement of what was transpiring in your world from a self-inquiry point of view?
Sundari: I am glad you wrote about this, because there is a corollary to the satsang you mention. Life requires a great deal of dispassion for everyone. If we think about it, all agitation, anxiety and mental stress come down to a failure of dispassion. Isvara never makes mistakes, so when a lesson in dispassion comes our way and a deep samskara is triggered, it is always necessary and a blessing, assuming total freedom from the jiva and perfect dispassion is the goal. As I said above, because of my injured adaptive child program around issues of honesty and trust, Isvara has given me many occasions to feel betrayed by those who did not have these values. Or, to put it more accurately, seemingly did not have these values. It was my perception of betrayal that injured me. There is never anyone else involved.
It is when these emotional issues get triggered that we get an opportunity to see what mischief is programmed into our subjective cognitive network, and therefore, where we rate regarding dispassion. The important thing to understand about dispassion is that you cannot be dispassionate about feelings you do not allow yourself to have. This is called suppression, or denial, a deeply tamasic tendency. The narrative that triggers deeply emotional issues, whatever they are, does not matter. While it is most unpleasant to be emotionally triggered, it is always a gift if Self-knowledge catches it and we can apply karma yoga. If not, the issue will be interpreted by our limited and biased cognitive filters. What does matter is the loss of dispassion, and the instant barricading of the heart, the attempt to protect and defend against ‘the other’ that being triggered and loss of dispassion activates. While emotional hurt and distress is not much fun, it is nonetheless better than denial.
There is no problem feeling our feelings; freedom as the as the Self means you must be free to feel. Feelings are only a problem when they are denied or identified with and hung onto. Karma yoga is the antidote. Though my Self-knowledge is firm, James is the only person I know who is fully actualized as the Self. As such, though he has no problem feeling his feelings, he stands inviolable, refusing to allow anyone to upset him in any way, for long. And more importantly, refusing to stop loving them, if they temporarily do. How can the Self get upset or stop loving itself? If there is even the slightest barricade to love towards anyone, no matter the justifications, there is instant duality and access to love as your nature is blocked.
Speaking as the Self, love is my nature, the path of love is my path. But when this deep honesty/trust samskara pops up, and “my’ durodhyana factor gets triggered (the hard and unforgiving part of the psyche that everyone has) it temporarily obscures access to love, to dispassion. It feels horrible. Although I am never not the Self, and this pattern is a typical jiva pattern, known to me and known to be not me, until perfect dispassion develops, nididhysana continues for the jiva. Lucky for me, I had James and the scripture, the rock of truth upon which this tenacious jiva had to be smashed, once and for all. It certainly was not fun.
Protection only matters if I am identified with the egoic self, the one with the story. Life in the apparent reality is inherently dishonest and untrustworthy for the simple reason that everyone has their own agenda and experiences everything subjectively because everyone has a different uphadi, or Subtle body. Nobody ever truly knows the thoughts of anyone but themselves. There is no empirical ‘truth’ to trust. Nothing is as it appears to the subjective and conditioned jiva mind. All conclusions drawn about the veracity of anything or the lack thereof in any situation, are therefore, always subjective and thus, probably, flawed. Best take them with a big pinch of salt and a karma yoga shrug. In the transactional reality, there is always something you don’t know because there are always too many factors operating in the field at any time. Only Isvara is omniscient.
There is no dispute that honesty and trust are values the Self automatically lives by because as the Self you would not break dharma; non-injury is the highest value to uphold in thought word and deed. But in the mithya game, ‘trust’ is something only the insecure jiva needs, I do not. What is there to trust or distrust if there is only me? What difference does it really make, if there is nothing to defend myself from either? I am the only ‘thing’ that is honest and trustworthy, I cannot be harmed or negated, and I am not in the game. No fine print. Dispassion through Self-knowledge is the panacea.
However, here is a corollary to this, because of the both/and of satya/mithya. Though it is wise to bear in mind that all values are subjective due to the nature of mithya being constantly changing, and subjective, there is a shortcut to perfect dispassion and instant peace of mind for the jiva. It sounds paradoxical, but freedom means complete and total surrender to Isvara, to life. This is basic karma yoga. But to truly surrender means not only accepting that the results are not up to you, but absolute acceptance of the fact that life is inherently benign and is always working in you favour, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. There simply are no bad or wrong results. This is not easy to do when we are deeply hurt.
While all serious inquirers know how important karma yoga is, total surrender is easy to give lip service to. But it is far from easy to live fully. In fact, it is probably the hardest part of self-inquiry and the one we are most likely to fool ourselves into thinking we have mastered. But few actually do. And it is the secret to Self-actualization, the end of mental and emotional suffering. There is no way around it if we truly desire to be free of the jiva program. If total surrender to Isvara is religiously applied to your life, thought by thought, it automatically negates everything that bubbles out of the mithya cauldron. It bypasses all introspection. It even bypasses guna management because accommodation and karma yoga are second nature. Who cares what the gunas are manufacturing in my life? As James says, Isvara says ‘jump’ and you automatically respond, ‘how high’?
And if you do, Isvara instantly removes all worry. You can’t fail no matter the result.
I would say this is a pretty good deal, and worth giving it a go, wouldn’t you?
The Main Takeaways:
- Perfect dispassion is the goal if moksa is the aim. Perfect dispassion does not mean denial of your feelings. It means feeling them and seeing them for what they are: Not ME.
- It is Ok to feel my feelings. What matters is how invested I am in them and how long I hang onto them.
- If I barricade my heart and protect ‘myself’ from the offending ‘other’, I am in duality. I shut off access to love, to Self-knowledge, to joy. I pay the price and suffer because there is no ‘other’. To be the Self means I NEVER say NO to love, and I automatically say NO to negative thoughts, no matter the apparent justification for them
- Perfect dispassion is true karma yoga, which means I totally trust that life is benign, it is always working in my favor. Isvara has my back even when it does not look like it.
- All judgements of others and their intentions are flawed because nothing is what it appears in mithya; everything is subjective including ‘truth’. The only truth that can never be negated, is always good at all times and in all situations Self-knowledge. Nothing else matters.
Much love
Sundari
