Marian: Regarding satya-mithya discrimination and thought management – it’s all clear. The difficulty I find, however, I think, is that there seems to be a dyad or an opposition between me/satya and everything else/not me/jiva-Isvara – like the gold being in opposition to the ring and the ring seeming much more “important“ (as in urgent and immediate and bigger for all purposes in this life!) than the gold. I’m not sure I can formulate this properly.
Sundari: So you are saying that the ring cannot be negated, it’s real? Your confusion is thinking that duality and non-duality share the same reality. They do not. They are in different orders of reality which can never meet, because mithya is only a dream within non-duality. Duality, the Creation/ring, exists, but it is not real, “real” being defined as “that which is always present and never changes,” which can only ever be applied to consciousness, existence. So though the ring seems to have greater meaning for the jivain terms of its existence; it does not. The ring, like all objects, owes its existence/essence, or purpose, to Existence with a capital “E.”
To use the ring-and-the-gold metaphor, existence would be the gold – consciousness, or Isvara 1. There is no opposition between the gold and the ring; that is the point of the metaphor. Though duality dissolves once it is negated by non-duality, it still has an apparent existence. Once it is understood what the nature of that apparent existence is, we know that there is no essential difference between the ring and the gold, or jiva and Isvara 2. They both have the same identity as consciousness. Your thinking here is dualistic, and there seems to be a satya-mithya confusion.
Marian: The satya is superimposed on the person, and you’re left with an “overwhelmed poor/little/angry me.”
Sundari: Who is imposing satya onto mithya? It can only be the jiva thinking as a jiva, i.e. under the influence of duality, Maya. If the gold-and-the-ring metaphor is properly understood, satya cannot be imposed on the onto mithya – the “overwhelmed poor/little/angry me” jiva is known to be just a dream and dismissed. While imposing satya onto mithya is a common error for many inquirers, it reveals that the fundamental principles of non-duality and discrimination have not been fully assimilated. Self-knowledge is not firm. More below.
Marian: The satya-mithya discrimination works great to intellectually understand and separate the gold from the ring, but it stops at the integration of both into one I – or that’s my impression when the gold still has to apparently function as a ring and interact with other objects that, being themselves also only gold (one essence), appear in very different forms – because all being “gold” (and I know it’s one but not same or equal), you end up stuck in the apparent differences – the little you at the mercy of a big Isvaraand a bunch of other yous(!!).
Sundari: The “other yous” (objects) do have apparent differences on the vyvaharika level, which is fine, but they have the same essence, consciousness, on the paramarthika level. Again, who gets stuck? It seems that you have gaps in your understanding of the teaching on the Isvara-jiva identity. Let’s look at the steps in the logic, starting with the two kinds of changes possible in mithya, the apparent reality:
In the gold-and-the-ring analogy, the gold represents Isvara 2 (satya plus Maya), and the ring the jiva(mithya, or the effects). If you take the apparent reality to be real, then both the ring and the jiva have a purpose defined by their form identity. As we know, consciousness is limitless and formless, and thus so is Isvara 2. Who or what is Isvara? Consciousness wielding or in association with Maya. If consciousness/Isvara “became” matter, i.e. if duality and non-duality ever “merged,” Isvara would have to cease being consciousness to become something else. It would have become limited, bound by time and space. There would be no sentient objects and no movement possible in the Creation.
But, luckily for us, Isvara is the uncaused cause of the Creation; it is both the intelligence behind the substance and the substance itself. Although the Creation arises from it (pure consciousness associated with Maya), Isvara cannot become the Creation. Therefore the effects (matter) are just an apparent transformation of the cause, consciousness. It is not an actual transformation, because if it were, consciousness would have lost its limitless nature when it transformed into matter. Remember, this world, the jiva/the ring, is only apparently real.
Two Kinds of Change
1. Parinama, “permanent” change. The best example of this is milk and cheese. If we make cheese out of milk, the milk has to stop being milk to become cheese. This process cannot be reversed; we can never get the milk back. Another one is the clay and the pot, or the gold and ring. The clay must stop being clay (mud) to become a fired pot, and the gold must stop being gold to take form as a ring.
2. Vivarta parinama, apparent change. Although the milk seems to have become cheese, the clay the pot, and the gold the ring, the essence of cheese/pot/ring remains milk/clay/gold, without which there would be no cheese/pot/ring. Therefore, although it seems as if consciousness has “become the world,” it has not. Owing to the agency of Maya, it appears AS the world. So the world is not real and it’s not unreal; it is apparently real. This means we can experience it, but upon investigation into its true nature, the world (form) disappears. It is negatable, whereas consciousness, being that which is always present and unchangeable, can never be negated. It is the only constant.
Marian: I guess the apparent person owns the ring and shortcuts the step of noticing that Isvara is the ring and that it’s Isvara’s job to function as such, the person being part and parcel of it, but not it – the wave being ocean but only part of the ocean, not the ocean.
Sundari: Yes, the jiva/ego thinks it is a doer and owns things and experiences, not realizing that everything comes from and belongs to Isvara. But Isvara is not the ring, because Isvara never takes a form, though it creates all forms. It’s not Isvara’s “function” to operate as the ring because Isvara’s only function is to provide the jiva with a field of objects within which to work out its karma. That’s it. Isvara’s Creation runs on natural laws, and so everything in the Field is in balance and in check for this sole purpose. The apparent person under the spell of ignorance takes duality to be real because it has no way of discriminating between what is real and apparently real. Even someone with considerable knowledge can be deluded by Maya and be seduced by the seeming reality of objects. Ignorance is tenacious and insidious.
Isvara is unchanging, but it is Maya that makes the changeless appear to change. As stated above but bears repeating, if Isvara did change, there would be no way out of duality. Isvara is both the creator free of form and the effect in apparent form (the milk and cheese, clay and the pot or gold and the ring) because Isvara actually refers to pure consciousness, which has no form but from which all apparent forms apparently emerge. The agent for that apparent emergence of form is Maya in association with pure consciousness = Isvara 2.
The apparent reality (mithya) is a union of paraprakiti, or higher reality (meaning Isvara 2), and aparaprakiti (jiva), lower reality. Their common identity is uparaprakriti, or satya: pure consciousness, or Isvara 1. Isvara 2 shapes the materials into form without ever losing or modifying its own nature. Both Isvara and jiva depend on pure consciousness (satya) but pure consciousness does not depend on either. Neither Isvara 2 nor jiva are ultimately real.
Isvara 1 is pure consciousness prior to Maya manifesting, also called paramatman. Although paramatman is called eternal and imperishable, it is neither. Eternal and imperishable infer non-eternal and perishable, and since paramatman is non-dual, it is neither. It is is-ness, being. It is simply that which gives rise to everything, that which is Self-knowing and, when objects are present (as in when Maya appears), knows objects. It is prior to and the knower of both the jiva and Isvara. Therefore it has no qualities, it is nirguna Brahman, whereas Isvara 2 has qualities and is referred to as “saguna” Brahman, with qualities, i.e. Maya, the three gunas.
The question is, what is the relationship between jiva and Isvara? Jiva can’t see a world that appears to be “out there” unless it is conscious, and Isvara can’t create the whole objective world unless it is conscious. We know that Isvara is conscious because its Creation is intelligently designed: it all hangs together perfectly.
So there is essentially no difference between jiva and Isvara except in their capacity to create. Isvaracreates the objective world, and jiva creates the subjective world – such as how you as the jiva feel about the ring, for instance. They both appear to be conscious because consciousness is the common denominator, which is why Vedanta says they are “essentially” the same. If this is true, then we can eliminate both jiva and Isvara as real and take ourselves to be consciousness.
Neither Isvara’s Creation nor jiva’s creation hides consciousness; it is only seemingly covered by Maya. It is always present prior to the Creation and prior to the birth of individuals. You can’t have a macrocosmic Creation without consciousness. Something had to exist before Isvara could “bang” the Creation into existence. Paramatma, pure consciousness, is free of both Isvara and jiva.
An effect (jiva) is just the cause (Isvara) appearing in a form. We can’t apply the same logic to Isvaraexcept loosely, because consciousness does not “cause” Isvara. Isvara – Beautiful Intelligent Ignorance, or Maya – is something altogether different. Isvara is not an effect but it is a cause with reference to the Creation. There is only one consciousness out of which everything arises and depends upon, but consciousness is always free of the objects.
Marian: I’m trying to phrase these doubts – like when you say, “While we cannot control what we are going to think, we can learn to think deliberately, which is what taking a stand in awareness as awareness and thinking the opposite thought is all about.” Yes, yet if you don’t control what you are going to think, how can you think deliberately? Deliberately means “intentionally” and assumes some level of control. I know what you mean, I’m definitely not arguing. I’ve done the Calm to the Core course, lined up values, rearranged determinations – we might control the intention but not the results. I’ve only been looking for a way of thinking that is easier (language!) for how I’m wired, I don’t know…
Sundari: All thoughts come from Isvara, the causal body, whether they are deliberate or not. When we understand that all thoughts are generated by the gunas, we discriminate each thought from the Self, satya, and do not identify with it. Guna management means that because you understand the typical thoughts that each guna generates and you know which ones produce peace of mind, you can choose to think certain thoughts. The point is to choose positive thoughts, not as a doer or controller, but with reference to yourself as the Self, not as the jiva and its typical thought patterns. As I said to you, this is taking a stand in awareness as awareness and thinking the opposite thought – one thought at a time.
We all have a range of thoughts available to us, from negative to positive. A happy life for the jiva is all about thought-and-emotion management. The quality of our life depends on the most powerful organ, the mind. The thing is, the mind is supposed to, and can, produce deliberate thoughts of our own choosing, but unless we understand it and know how to manage it, its nature is to produce and churn out involuntary thoughts continuously. It is simply a machine, and this is how the mind is made. There is no off button. But you are one of the lucky ones who have, by some good grace that is not your doing, stumbled upon the only manual that truly works to permanently understand and manage the mind, Vedanta.
This manual contains not only all the operating instructions, but it also explains the nature of the mind, what it is, and the forces that run it, the gunas – the three energies that bring about, sustain and destroy all of Creation: sattva, rajas and tamas. We have all written extensively about the gunas, especially James’ book The Yoga of the Three Energies. If you have not read it, I strongly advise that you do. Triguna vibhava yoga, which is the teaching on the three gunas, is a very subtle and most important teaching, which comes after you have established karma yoga.
There’s no magic to Vedanta. Volitional, deliberate, thinking boils down to owning your mind as your primary instrument, and repeatedly and consistently reconditioning it with thoughts that are true – in other words, that produce peace of mind. Our failure to have a peaceful life is due to a lack of knowledge and incorrect thoughts that dominate the mind/emotions/intellect. The simple solution is reconditioning the mind with chosen thoughts based in Self-knowledge.
When skilfully managed, the mind will produce peace of mind and allow us to express and enjoy the beauty that we are in our day-to-day life, no matter what life dishes out to us. When you feel bad, for any reason, you can convert your emotional distress and mental agitation via karma yoga into peace of mind through managing the gunas by thinking the opposite thought.
It may sound like hard work and involve a doer trying to control, and it is, at first. Ingrained, habitual patterns that have been in the mind forever are not easy to change. Almost every inquirer at first tries to manage the mind as a doer, an ego. If mind control is not done with the karma yoga spirit, the doer trying to control the mind becomes part of the problem. Guna management only works with karma yoga.
Marian: Subject-object was how I started thinking about it (in fact how it was “revealed” way back when), but at the time the relationship between the apparent subject and objects (jiva-Isvara) wasn’t clear at all. I have read a bunch of Swami Dayananda’s satsangs and I’m experimenting with thinking/contemplating along those lines, with Isvara in the mix. I am the I observing the apparent subject and objects. I, unchanged, see as subject, and object apparently interact and modify. I see how the subject’s emotions are further objects and that, although they are as such “accounted for,” they can’t affect me. I see how they, if disturbing, are something that belongs “there” and that Isvara offers for further learning – and then I (Isvara) can do journaling/contemplation of what that issue is trying to point to and clarify. This is being very helpful in order to, as you say, transform “all our emotional/psychological disturbances into devotion to the Self,” without falling into the woundology trap.
Sundari: Essentially, yes, correct. The point of subject-object thinking is to dissolve the subject-object distinction, as you point out. But based on your previous statements in this email, it does not seem clear that this has properly assimilated.
Marian: The trick here, for my wiring, is that it seems “easier” to see the “there” to be different from the I, yet one with the I. I remain here, but one with the “there” that is no “there,” because it’s experience, one, big Experience (Isvara), always full and always limitless – purnamadah, purnamidam – whatever may be going on… does that make sense?
Sundari: Duality does not disappear once you know what it is. It still functions as it always has, but you no longer take it to be real, so there is no problem. Duality only causes suffering when you don’t know the difference between satya and mithya, and confuse the two. Keep discriminating yourself as the SELF from the doer/objects, 24/7.
We can chat more about this. I think you have most of it, just more clarity on the gunas and the Isvara-jiva relationship is required.
~ Much love, Sundari
