I hope you are doing well.

Thank you to Ramji, yourself, and the entire Shining World team for presenting this knowledge in such a simple, relatable way for people like me who are not born into the Vedantic tradition.

Sundari: welcome to the Shiningworld community! We are so happy you have found us, and that you have the good grace to understand the value of these priceless teachings.

M: Just to share a bit of background for context (even though I understand that in Vedanta the focus is on knowledge rather than the individual story. My family is quite religious and dharmic in its own way, with strong values centered around God and service to others—which I now see as aligned with Karma Yoga and devotion.

S:  Strong family values centered on God and living dharmically is a good start in life, in many ways.  Especially as you point out, whatever the religious background, this tends to be in alignment with a devotional life in the karma yoga spirit.

M: Since childhood, I’ve had a natural inclination toward knowing God and living a peaceful, dharmic life. However, there was always some underlying anxiety, despite being relatively content as a middle-class individual without strong material desires. Initially, I tried resolving this through religious practices, joining different religious groups, and exploring Sufi teachings. These helped to an extent.

S:  I can relate to this as like you, I grew up in a very religious family whose values were spiritual as opposed to material. But nonetheless I felt constrained by the limitations of the dogma.

M: This led me to question more deeply: how can one be truly happy? I explored various courses on happiness from well-known universities, which emphasized meditation, mindfulness, and valuing experiences over possessions. Around this time, I began reading extensively. Books like How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie significantly reduced my anxiety, while The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and The One Thing improved my performance in my roles as a father and employee. I also explored Stoic philosophy.

S: Again, this is familiar to me, and most people who are born walking to a different drum. I realized very young that I did not fit into my set, which did not provide the wisdom I was looking for.  Like you, I did not find it in religion, so was drawn to philosophy, psychology and science. While these systems of thought tend to push beyond the safety net of acceptable but limited religious doctrine, they are all nonetheless still based in duality. 

If you go back through the ages as far as we have written accounts by powerful thinkers, you find that no matter how sophisticated and brilliant the thinking, nobody ever comes up with the definitive answers for life in mithya. For one simple reason: there are no solutions in mithya (the effects of ignorance/duality on the mind/society, life).

It can be summed up fairly simply: humans naturally need to relate to something bigger than themselves because even the most dualistic mind recognizes there is more to life than it is possible to know or understand. So religions and politics developed as a safety net for people who need guidelines and rules to feel safe. This also obviates the need to look inward because subscribing to a strict doctrine allows one to easily side step the difficult work of shadow integration, and what monsters may lurk in the unconscious.

Humans with minds that questioned the status quo did not fare well – just look at all the religious wars–the absolute certainty that whatever you believed gave you the right to destroy anything that threatened it. What humans under this spell are capable of doing to each other is beyond belief. Not to mention that aside from religious wars, this certainty also gives you the safety of self-righteous rectitude in living your life in a frightening, ever changing and unpredictable  world. 

But because the Self knows itself, there will always be those who will seek the truth at any cost, so many souls paid the price. Philosophy grew out of this need, as did science, where people stepped out of and challenged the consensus reality.  Here people are more inclined to look within, to face the less than fabulous aspects of the psyche, to stand away from the herd. Still not nondual thinking, but progress that offers at least the hope for a saner life.

Then there are those like yourself  and most people who are ready for Vedanta, where the limitation of all human thought is understood, and the zero sum nature of life is faced, if not yet accepted.  One stops trying to run from that and instead, turns within.  If at this stage you have the good grace to find Vedanta and a qualified teacher, you are one of the very fortunate souls.  Not better, just fortunate.  Because if you have developed the requisite qualifications, you have found the true holy grail: the means to step out of the hypnosis of duality.  You have found  the answers to everything. And it is you, the Self.

M: Gradually, I developed some level of discrimination, dispassion, and self-control. Then, reading The Power of Now (Introduced to me Enlightenment, a state that can only possible in Heaven as a religious guy), which I think I can led to what I would call non-dual experiences. For about one to two years, life felt effortless—everything seemed to align, and I experienced high efficiency, clarity, and focus. Considering I am enlightened now I can do whatever I want  I even managed multiple jobs for a while. However, this state eventually faded (Because Doer/ mind / world was denied as unreal) the “doer” returned, bringing back anxiety and burnout. Especially around Covid Time my life was focused around Artha only and fear and struggle in life started from where it was, After that, I explored various teachings—dark psychology, healing from narcissistic abuse, boundary-setting, and many spiritual paths including Neo-Advaita, Buddhism, Zen, and teachers like Mooji and Rupert Spira. While these helped temporarily, I felt something was still missing, especially the idea that I needed to eliminate the mind—which I now understand is not correct.

S:  Your passage to Vedanta is quite common among those who develop the qualifications for it. I passed through that way too, but the teachings of people like Eckhart Tolle (and many others of his ilk, especially in the neo-Advaita arena) are simply not valid; they are experience-based teachings. Though inspirational, they lack an actual teaching.  They rely on ‘enlightenment’ as a special state or experience, which as you discovered, does not last. Buddhism and Zen offer tools to live a more dharmic life, but also do not offer an independent means of knowledge for moksa.

In the  case of neo-Advaita, they deny the world and the person exist at all. While that is well and good, the truth is, they do exist because you experience them. It is not experience itself that is the problem, it is understanding who the experiencing entity is, how it is conditioned by duality, and why it is impossible to step out of that mindset without a valid and independent means of knowledge.  One that does not belong to or come from anyone, and that cannot be negated in any time frame, state or experience.  It is standing in Awareness, that which knows/witnesses the experiencing entity who thinks it lives in time. Being able to discriminate between the two is called moksa—freedom from the limitation of duality.

Both Mooji and Spira teach Vedanta ‘lite’, meaning, they do not have the full methodology of Vedanta.  They are good people who teach part of it and appeal to those who are perhaps destined for moksa, but have not yet developed all the qualifications.

M: Eventually, I discovered Ramji’s Vedanta teachings on YouTube “Westerwald 2014” through (Andre Vas (Yes Vedanta Website)). I completed the course in two days and continued with his books. Since then, I’ve engaged with Vedanta daily, and by Ishwara’s grace, I’ve gained a level of clarity I never found elsewhere. What stands out to me is Ramji’s precise and methodical handling of Neo-Advaita concepts, which resonates deeply with me.

S: There is nothing like Vedanta, and you are blessed to have found Ramji.  What is clear to me is that you must be qualified because you understand the value of the teachings, and how they stand apart from all others.

M: My current understanding (at least intellectually) as a jiva is:

• M: My core problem is ignorance, which leads to superimposition—the mistaken belief that reality is dual, and that happiness, security, and virtue lie in objects rather than in the subject, my true self.
• S: Well put.
• M: I am non-dual ordinary awareness; happiness and Enlightenment is the knowledge that I am whole and complete, not an experience.
• S: Self-knowledge is the knowledge that stands alone and can never be negated by the presence or absence of any experience, no matter how elevated or powerful. It is the firm identification with Awareness as your primary identity, and the understanding that the body/mind or ego persona is a secondary (apparently real not actually real) identity. The ability to automatically discriminate between Awareness and the jiva is called ‘enlightenment’.  It is not another experience because all experiences are objects known to you, Awareness. It is not something to gain or that makes you special in any way. ‘Enlightenment’ is simply the permanent recognition of your true eternal, unborn and undying identity as Awareness, which is never again confused with the impermanent, limited, and time-based ego identity..
• M: There is no need to reject the mind or jiva—only to align them with dharma.
• S:Essentially yes in that moksa will not obtain in a mind that is not dharmic.  But it is more than that.  It is the understanding of what the mind is, how it is constructed and conditioned by the gunas, a product of the Causal body (likes and dislikes, psychological conditioning/vasanas/samskaras). Which requires an understanding of the gunas and the Causal body (Isvara). This is the part all other teachings skip because it requires shadow integration and true self-love. Though you are the Self, and anything else is not you and therefore, not real (real being defined as that which is always present and unchanging), you cannot jump straight to the Self (satya) without first understanding what mithya (the person/the world) is, and negating the ‘realness’ with Self-knowledge.
• M: My role is to continue Karma Yoga—offering actions and accepting results as Ishwara’s prasad and  I need continue listening analysing and assimilating.
• S: Karma yoga is an attitude of surrender and devotion to Isvara because it subjugates the childish ego and lessons the pressure of the vasanas. Without it, you will not make progress with self-inquiry. You may understand the teachings intellectually, but if you do not live them, there is no freedom from limitation.
• M: Assimilation will take time, and results are not in my control, but be faithful this will eventually happy through qualifications, a qualified teacher,  Vedanta and practicing knowledge.
• S: Yes. As explained in many of the texts, you need to familiarize yourself with all the requirements for self-inquiry, understand the values required, and the qualifications which will determine how motivated you are for moksa.  You will find this all on the Shiningworld website, under New To Vedanta.
• M: I also recognize certain binding vasanas: overeating, lack of mindful habits, occasional smoking, excessive time on YouTube, and sometimes engaging in inappropriate content. Family challenges also create anxiety. Additionally, I notice a tendency to overextend myself in helping others, which leads to burnout.
• S: This is all explained in many of our texts.  You need to clean up your life if you want a purified mind in which Self-knowledge will obtain. It is not wrong or bad to indulge your vasanas, but it will not produce peace of mind.  Plus, the mind will still be turned outward to the world looking for what is lacking.  The entry level qualification for self-inquiry is that you have understood the zero sum nature of life, and that there is nothing in life to gain.  You are what you seek.  So while Vedanta is not about perfecting the person, and the occasional lapse is not the kiss of death, binding vasanas need to be rendered non-binding.  If your lifestyle does not conform to dharma, the mind will be agitated and the conditions for moksa will not be present.

M: I have a few questions for guidance, for my Jiva:

1. Based on your experience, what would you suggest I focus on going forward?
2. S: See Above.  Start at the beginning, sign on to the logic and follow all the steps of inquiry.  There is no fast track to freedom.
3. M: I enjoy teaching and sharing knowledge, but I tend to over-involve myself, especially when others become dependent and judge the other person for e.g.  my subordinate if they do not ask enough questions. Is it better to only teach when asked rather than assuming others need help? 
4. S: Most definitely.  While we encourage sharing of the teachings, it is advisable to make sure you have assimilated them before ‘teaching’. Be sure about your motivations because ‘teaching’ can build ego—and ensure you are not adding more ignorance to ignorance.
5. M: In my professional life, I’ve stopped advocating for raises, thinking results are Ishwara’s domain. Should I still actively ask for fair compensation as part of Karma Yoga? My friends told me you are underpaid compared to the market without asking, is it a sign from Ishwara?

S: Karma yoga and following dharma also require standing up for yourself when appropriate.  Remember, karma yoga is not ‘not’ doing anything.  It is taking appropriate action and leaving the results to Isvara.

5. M: Should I maintain boundaries with people I feel uncomfortable around (e.g., loud or draining individuals), or is this an expression of raga-dvesha that I should work through? 
6. S: Again, most definitely.  As I mentioned, understanding the mind requires understanding the gunas and how they condition the mind.  If you are not familiar with the teaching on the gunas, make sure to read The Yoga of the Three Energies.  All three gunas are highly contagious. Since peace of mind should be your main goal, its best to always aim for sattva and (when possible) avoid very rajasic/tamasic people.  If you can’t avoid them (as in people close to you), be very mindful of the gunas and apply guna mind management.

Thank you again for all your guidance and for making this knowledge accessible.

You are most welcome, please feel free to write any time.  We are here to help you with your self-inquiry.

Hari Om

Sundari

ShiningWorld.com

Thank you, your last satsang precisely describes what I as Jiva needed to hear, especially with the two Satsangs attached.

As happens more when we communicate in the last year my initial reaction upon reading is like getting hit in the face with a wet fish of “wake the hell up” but this is not a complaint at all, quite the opposite and especially this time. I let it sink in and came back to it this morning. 

This is like coming up for air.

It puts certain things I had weighted incorrectly into context, my mind needed a course correction while knowing there is no course or path – I as the Jiva was (for whatever reason) stuck in yet another eddy in Samsara – the usual flavor of thinking I as the Jiva can’t do this when I had tried so hard – all of which is ironically true because as the Jiva I cannot.

I think this is where further dispassion and discrimination is needed in the mind now. Time to get a grip; but holding onto the knowledge not “myself” which is like holding onto a rope and continually sliding back down (versus the Self).

Sundari:  I am not sure what you mean here – maybe you meant to say sliding back down into the Self?  If so, who needs to ‘get a grip’ or is holding the rope?  You cannot ‘slide back into the Self’ because you are the Self.  The only sliding is done by the ego, which thinks it is separate from the Self, and needs to course correct. Maybe that is what you mean.

Dario: Your points regarding Freud’s unconscious – but in Vedanta terms in “Are you the candle or the sun?” make this clear to me. Freud and modern psychology, I think as you pointed out in a recent Video, never gave / give the basis for the individual to “Peer into the Abyss” without just dropping into it or becoming highly dependent on the psychologist to pull them out. While this is logically impossible (as the Abyss is by nature Unconscious) most humans, even with just modest Self Reflection, are aware of the immensity of the Sun versus “they as the candle” and suffer – good for the psychology business, good for duality religions, good for the drug companies.

Sundari: Yep! As you point out, without nondual guidance, even the most objective reflection by a worldly mind,  no matter how brilliant or switched on, will still be limited to and stuck in the box of duality. And this is grist to the mill of most religious systems, and of course, those who profit from fear.

Dario: What is missing in Psychology is perhaps the knowledge of who is observing, witnessing this person looking at the Abyss as well as the Karma Yoga view which is Life is not just “My Abyss” – there is a much vaster system, like the Unconscious, but way more massive, around me as the Jiva and including all Jivas and things with the same governing principles which is astounding – one apparently massive sun amongst billions of suns.

Sundari: Yes, the missing factor, identifying as Consciousness, the only factor that can get the mind out of the mess of duality, is completely missing in standard psychology, science and most other places.

Dario: So it is no wonder that as a Jiva I feel doubly overwhelmed – by the particular unconscious Vasanas I mistakenly associate with “me” (and this is where I am as the Jiva, the knowledge is not yet firm) and then how these inevitably interact with the world (and everyone else’s Vasanas) and, whatever the Universe happens to be doing that day which may be totally not “in line” with my wishes which is hilarious now versus a decade ago when it wasn’t.

Sundari:  I think its time to take a good look at that persistent and recurring overwhelm.  The ego has had plenty of bandwidth on that score, but is it really so?  Maybe you are just a tad too diligent, and hesitant to claim your identity as the Self. I address this below.

Dario: You said “ “Free will” is the conscious mind’s ability to veto the stimulus before it morphs into automatic action generated by the unconscious.” – in Vedanta I understand this to be Sama (regarding the Gunas) and Dharma: Free will is not the ticket it as purported by common culture – if not exercised with these two it automatically means more binding, more misery which I as the Jiva (unconsciously!!) chose in ignorance, it was free will but it wasn’t because “I” and most people once bound would probably say “I did not want this” or “I only tried to do the right thing” (even dictators). This is a crucial part of the puzzle I have not seen yet.

Sundari: Yes, spot on.  The best ‘free will’ offers in mithya terminology is determined by the objectivity the mind has developed in understanding its conditioning and making ‘good’ choices.  But, that objectivity alone is not ‘free’ nor does it have much to do with freedom because it does not address the main problem: the doer who believes they need something to be happy and/or do something to be a better person. For most worldly, small-self-aware people this translates into more binding vasanas.  As in, ‘I don’t want this, but that’. And it is interesting that every dictator alive today or who has ever lived has plundered, oppressed, and murdered in the name of ‘freedom’.

Dario: I had not heard of the “Red Queen Hypothesis” but love the books and it’s close to my heart. I am horribly familiar with feeling like Alice – “that in her world you have to keep running just to stay in the same place”. 

This has been how I as Jiva have felt most of my life, out of place, trying to escape the treadmill, many treadmills, all manner of “escapes” of “misled inquiry” (just intellectual rebellion) – but through this – I as Jiva am still here, still on the treadmill; no apparent “change” for the Jiva. This is a fact. Wiser in the mind but even this can hinder – knowledgeable about my own mental “vomit”, knowledgeable about all kinds of intelligent sounding things but honestly inside still staring at the apparently impossible.

Sundari:  I came across the ‘Red Queen Hypothesis” term recently myself and realized its relevance with reference to the samsaric treadmill. It describes everyone’s experience under the spell of Maya—running like a mad hatter to get where they think they need to be, but staying in the same place.  Honestly, I think you are too hard on yourself, Dario.  I do not think you stuck on this treadmill any more, at all. You have made great progress.  Again, I address this below.

Dario: My inquiry is now who is staring? How can “awareness” stare at anything? It can’t as awareness, can I as awareness via the mind illuminated by awareness with the knowledge Vedanta provides? This subtlety can only be supported by the qualifications (I think) – if I as the Self (identifying as the Self) inquire with dispassion, discrimination (and the others) then those miserable identifications with the not-Self can be seen – not as impending Goliaths but as “just Mithya”. David was not alone – he did have tremendous skill with a sling shot, perhaps not unlike Arjuna with his friend Krishna.

Sundari: Awareness does not ‘stare at anything’ other than itself. Everything ‘you’ see with human eyes is you in apparent form. You are the seer who ‘sees’ only itself even as you transact with the world of apparent objects. The presence of Awareness makes seeing possible, but you as Awareness only ‘see’ objects when Maya is operating. Macrocosmic Maya does not disappear when your personal ignorance (avidya) is removed. You can enjoy the show without getting fooled by it. It’s all ok.

Dario: Had I not met James and Vedanta and with both your help this would be a lost cause. I’d like to say now “I get it” but this would not be honest, even after all this time but it is no burden at all. I do know now that that this is not a lost cause at all and am so grateful, it is beyond words to describe.

Sundari:  Everything you say is so well put as always, Dario.  My previous email to you, and the two I attached, all speak to the incredible subtlety of grasping nonduality for the human mind. Thanks to the way it is set up by the gunas (Causal body/Maya), nonduality is beyond its ‘normal scope’.  Though the human mind is the most complex and sophisticated piece of equipment in creation, it is bound by duality, and subject to the Causal body.  No matter how sophisticated our understanding is, whether that is scientific, medical, philosophical or spiritual, there is no way to step out of the box of duality without a valid means of knowledge that can do it for you – and the only option there is Vedanta.  There simply is no other way. That is indeed a sobering realization to come to for most inquirers. You were one of the blessed ones to have found Vedanta, that is for sure.  And we are so honoured to be of help to you.

As I said previously, as much as nonduality makes it clear what your true identity is as the Self, what the mind is, how and why it is programmed the way it is, and what the solution is—the process of liberation is far from easy.  It takes not only the application of the teachings to your life 24/7 for firm Self-knowledge to assimilate and firm up, which means the mind is no longer conditioned by gunas (even though they still play out). At some point it takes unshakeable confidence to stand as the Self.  Not the confidence to proclaim it. The confidence to claim it.

I have been fortunate because I have lived with James for the last 16 years, and been exposed to how that works and what it is like.  It is not easy for those such as yourself who have no-one in their immediate proximity to model freedom for them.  This very often is the cause of recurring doubts and confusion, which really have no basis in truth anymore.  But somehow there is still a catch, some strings of ignorance have not been severed even though they are seen.  Nobody can do that for you.

You know who you are, but these patterns still arise like dust that gets kicked up when we walk on a dusty road. These mental/emotional patterns cause endless rumination and loss of confidence: “how could these thoughts still appear if I know who I am’? Well, all thoughts are universal vasanas arising from the Causal body.  You can even have the thought ‘I am unenlightened’ and you are still the Self. It’s ok to ‘be human’ when you know your true identity. All thoughts and feelings are objects know to you, and I will bet that the habitual patterns are mostly burned ropes by now. It’s Ok to say: ‘So what?’ at this point. 

I can assure you that being the Self can still mean you can be a pain in the ass as a jiva, to yourself and ‘others’, at times. Neither James or me are in any way perfect as people. You will never expunge every bit of mithya and you are never going to be perfect as a jiva. Again, so what? When you know you are the Self, it doesn’t matter anymore. The jiva is what it is, with a certain personality and some of its ways will remain unchanged. Rendering binding vasanas nonbinding means you have overcome your biggest downfall:  chasing the joy in objects identified as a doer.  And imperfection as a jiva does not mean that you do not follow dharma perfectly. As the Self, there is no other option.  And as a jiva, following dharma is your main protection from all the vicissitudes of life. James is going to talk about this on Sunday.

Chasing the world is over for you now.  Will you never feel lonely or depressed again?  Maybe not, and maybe you will. But you will be the knower of the apparent loneliness and depression. So, is it loneliness, or all oneness?  It can be both. Love is nice. Being loved and ‘seen’ is lovely. Who doesn’t want that, and why not?? Even when you know you are the love that makes love possible and  the ‘seer’ that makes being seen possible. you can never again get lost because you are home.

You are not ‘at home’.  You are Home. Maybe the solution is to get off the dusty road? Or, just enjoy the dust.  Say—oh, this is nice, a little trip in the country on a scenic dirt road. I wonder what wonders I will find? Allow yourself to feel the uncomplicated awe of just being alive in this beautiful creation, with all its wonder, beauty, cruelty and banality. And let some dust get up your nose!

We have a friend who is dying, experiencing terrible physical pain. But she is completely consumed with ecstasy so sublime she has no words for it.  Just the raw, pure, powerful bliss of the Self, unfiltered. That is who you are. That is what life really is, all of it. For her, it took facing death to fully realize this, though she always knew it. The seeming loss and gain, the zero sum. The one sum.

Time to stop worrying.  You are nothing like Alice in Wonderland who has to keep running to stay in the same place.  You are the place, the only placeless place that is nowhere and everywhere.  Trust it. Life will continue to serve up lemons along with the good stuff, but hey!  Life is beautiful all the same.

Highly motivated and qualified inquirers like yourself, with such a great intellect, can fall into the trap of overthinking and ‘falling in love’ with your doubts.  Maybe you need to cut yourself some slack and relax a bit. Take it easy, as Swami Abedhananda instructed James when he cut him loose on the world, with a wink and a big grin!

Being the Self is not difficult because it is a fait accompli—something that can ever be disputed or lost.  For sure the mind can still play tricks, but it cannot fool you for long.  You are wide awake, dear friend. Celebrate it.

With much love

Sundari

Why not give the karma to Isvara?

Doing is happening. Remember, it’s an “as though” doing. In samsara my actions cause guilt and other’s actions cause hurt. Krishna says… ‘Know me, Gain me.’

Bhagavad Gita chapter 15

यो मामेवमसम्मूढो जानाति पुरुषोत्तमम् |
स सर्वविद्भजति मां सर्वभावेन भारत || 19||

yo mām evam asammūḍho jānāti puruṣhottamam
sa sarvavid bhajati māṁ sarvabhāvena bhārata

The one who is not deluded, who knows me in this way, she or he, the knower of all, gains Me as the self of all, Bhārata!

Samsara is strangely addictive and strangely sorrowful. In India they would say it’s like eating spicy food, tears are coming, but you can’t stop. However many people, like us, seekers of the truth and liberation override the desires and fears and realise Isvara is now my primary occupation. They are purified by knowledge.

Chapter 4.

वीतरागभयक्रोधा मन्मया मामुपाश्रिता: |
बहवो ज्ञानतपसा पूता मद्भावमागता: || 10||

vītarāgabhayakrodhā manmayā mām upāśritāḥ
bahavo jñānatapasā pūtā madbhāvam āgatāḥ

Free from craving, fear, and anger, totally resolved in me, taking refuge in Me, purified by the discipline of knowledge, many have come back to my nature.

Apply knowledge to your life with one pointed devotion.

You must know this by now, that clinging causes fear. Thinking I need something other than myself. Making even a razor’s edge of difference between myself, and something else. And why cling? You think it will give you some satisfaction.

God cannot be enclosed by a thought, no form, no name, and it’s non-separate from me. Everything is God. May you be the one for whom God is not a means to an end. Wherever I look, whatever I encounter is God. I’ve successfully Isvar-ized the whole universe.

In some ways, you can look at it like this. There’s not much difference between jnanis and animals. Animals don’t worry about tomorrow or saving for their grandchildren or retirement. And one who lives without reservation is a jnani; free of raga dvesas. They understand Oneliness. Nothing makes you let go like Vedanta. No other expectation for any other tapas than knowledge.

If everyone has moksha as a goal, then why are we not following God? The flow of life? We must realise everyone really does have moksha as a goal. The allure of God is like following the pied piper. There’s no hiding or cutting corners and in the end God only wants what’s best for you, to live free and happy as you truly are.

Bhagavan cannot go against Bhagavan. (the only name that’s stood the test of time.) Praying for certain things depends on my karma stream. Which is in Bhagavan’s stream and Bhagavan doesn’t have an agenda.

Chapter 4

                                 ये यथा मां प्रपद्यन्ते तांस्तथैव भजाम्यहम् |
                     मम वर्त्मानुवर्तन्ते मनुष्या: पार्थ सर्वश: || 11||

ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāns tathaiva bhajāmyaham
mama vartmānuvartante manuṣhyāḥ pārtha sarvaśhaḥ

Those who worship me in whatever way, I bless them in the same way. Pārtha! People follow my path in all ways.

 Nobody’s asking for moksa, interesting right? Plus you can’t have a little bit of moksa and a little bit of samsara. So the question is what do you really want? If you follow the sastra, you will naturally become a seeker and desirous of liberation, instead of those who want the stuff.

Do whatever you’re equipped to do, without being compelled and impelled for the fruits of actions. Everyone is a mumukshu, but no one knows it. The wise one, on the other hand, is always seeking the truth of themselves.

Every thought an ordinary person has, is sprinkled with salt and pepper, likes and dislikes. But the jnani has that satya sankalpa; that true resolve. And when you don’t want anything, it’s right there – everything. “Seek first the kingdom of heaven; the Lord’s justice and all else shall be added unto you.”

When you stop looking for things and realise, I am… The jnani’s prayer goes straight to Isvara. Knowing all that is here is Brahman.

“Why can’t you put the desire for freedom in everyone, oh Lord?”

This teaching is precious. It’s given freely without any expectation, nor manipulation, for free! Isvara doesn’t even want people to gain knowledge.

See all the deities as Bhagavan. Make your invocation sophisticated.

That’s the absolute success. Feeling fulfilled in myself. This human incarnation is very precious indeed.

Sattvic people inspire others to grow. The will has to be trained to go with Isvara’s flow. By doing only the things that align with Isvara’s flow. Exercise the muscle of discernment. Even if I don’t understand what I’m doing. Do what you know is right. There is a certain flow in the universe, and it’s palpable.

~ Dharma

~ Acknowledging there are certain challenges; The Gunas,

~Presence; the light of Bhagavan expressing through me.

Follow what comes naturally. Nobody wants adharma done to them.

Do what needs to be done by keeping with the voice in the heart. 💗

Inspired by the wonderful Bhagavad Gita classes, conducted by

Swamini Svatmavidyananda

at Swami Dayananda Ashram in Rishikesh.

For which I am eternally grateful.Om

Sundari: Thanks for the update, it’s always such a pleasure to read the elegance of your thoughts, even though they are just thoughts and you are not the thinker. Observing what manifests in the mind, holding the position of the uninvolved witness, and curating it with Self-knowledge is the key to a sane life for the jiva. Especially given that only 5% of what drives the mind is consciously accessible. This is quite something to wrap one’s head around, to use a rather inept expression to describe a very complex idea. I attached two satsangs I recently posted about this, which barely scratch the surface. They are called “Are You the Candle or the Sun?’ and ‘A Guna Cognizant Mind is A Mind Like God”. 

However, even though as the Self, the conscious and unconscious levels of the mind (which all originate in the Causal body) do not affect you in any way, it certainly behooves us to get a grip on the complexity of the mind if we want freedom from it. Self-knowledge bestows upon the mind the most subtle and sophisticated understanding of everything concerning *mithya*; when nondual vision is firm, nothing is beyond our understanding. The Vedanta pramana literally explains everything.

But that doesn’t translate to moksha being the default position of the mind—where it is no longer capable of wavering due to the fluctuations of the gunas.  The gunas still fluctuate and the body/mind remains subject to syntropy and entropy, but Self-knowledge never fluctuates.  This is a work in progress for most inquirers. It’s tough being a jiva, and even tougher getting rid of the notion that you are one.  Isvara does not make it easy, as I explain in the attached satsangs.

Have you heard of the ‘Red Queen’ hypothesis? It was coined by evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen positing that a species must constantly adapt and evolve not just to gain an advantage, but to survive. He named it after the character in Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’ who tells Alice that in her world, you have to keep running just to stay in the same place.

Well, that’s an apt description of mithya if there ever was one. Everyone’s running after or away from something, but they are always in the same place.  We are born, we grow up, old age comes and soon ‘we’ are gone.  But did anything happen?  It’s a blessing to be born with a good mind; some worldly people mature, gain wisdom and knowledge, and perhaps even become great souls.  But unless ‘you’ as an ego identity have been blasted away by Self-knowledge, you never got anywhere.  

This applies to most intellectuals, and most of the smartest thinkers who ever lived, are alive now, or who will ever live. It’s quite amazing how Isvara can develop the mind to be capable of such complex brilliant thinking – and yet. Still ignorant. 

As an inquirer, the mind poses the biggest obstacle to Self-knowledge because it is not only indoctrinated by duality, or beginningless ignorance. It is incredibly difficult to access most of its content, 95% of which lies in the personal unconscious and the macrocosmic unconscious, as explained in the attached satsangs.

Much love

Sundari

Dear Sundari,

After our last communication Isvara has had an elegant, precise way of repeatedly teaching me what I had prayed and pray for – knowledge. I am more grateful than ever for both your work and teachings – I listen every day first thing to a chapter or two and at night when walking. While I met James many years ago, it seems like the blink of an eye now.

Recently it’s been 4 months of “forced” reflection – but this does not describe it accurately.  I as the Self asked for it and received – it is not like I as the Jiva am sitting down to “meditate” or “work on myself” or “reflect”. Quite the opposite!

It happens in bursts – old vasanas, still unconsciously seeking a result – now don’t get the result at all….until I see “ah ok I see now I was looking for a result” and then this “jester” Isvara hands it to me – in a different form, in fact “better” – by often realising, well after the fact, that no result was indeed better in hindsight – for work, health, friends, whatever.

Crucially only when “I” as miserable Jiva have thoroughly grieved over not getting the expected result. Only then, does the entire trace become conscious and I can see in stark reflection what caused it – apparently for the first time – but I end up laughing knowing now – again – it was that old thing and can make the discrimination.

I think many of the more “intellectual” types attracted to Vedanta (who may have rejected dualistic religion, God even in that form, perhaps bounced like a pin ball into spiritualism, “God free Buddhism” or even a cult and bounced out again) – don’t realise that at some point, being dispassionate about results means giving it up, actually want to give it up, to Isvara. This is new. 

Karma yoga now means to me admission, true admission, that I as the Jiva am not in charge, not even in a small sneaky way. To be liberated means handing over to Isvara – but this is the case anyhow – my Jiva just needs to learn this, repeatedly, there is nothing there in Mithya (anyhow) which liberates anything, quite the reverse.

Many years ago a girlfriend had a small kitten who was shitting everywhere and she was told by the vet that she had to take the kitten and rub his nose in it, then it would learn. I do not know if she did (nor do I particularly agree with the method nor know if it works) – but this is how my Jiva feels and it is a blessing. The Self “asks” (somehow), Isvara responds but my Jiva feels like that kitten, all the time – mentally, emotionally and paradoxically it definitely makes “life” far easier, with real hope and faith.

If anyone ever needs 100% concrete proof of Vedanta I find it is not in any amazing temporary spiritual experiences (of which I have had few…I think I have…but forgot!)  – but for me its knowing what the Self is not from a non-dual standpoint. Vedanta allows me as the (Jiva, mind, complex) to allow light to shine on all that the Self is not, this is the proof I take home.

It is pretty tiring and oddly like a trap – I as the Self realise there is no “out” for the Jiva or any Jiva. If I only saw that it would be like being buried alive (mentally or emotionally), truly depressing and terrifying even – but that is not all there is – there is being alive itself which is existence, even if “I” don’t feel it, this is glorious. 

I find I am naturally more compassionate with both people I know and don’t, knowing this is the same for all as for me. I know the entire merry go round will keep going forever, for all Jivas and oddly that is ok. Karma yoga is indeed the saving grace which keeps me, as the Jiva, sane even if it’s like a sorry kitten with a tough owner at times.

In myself I feel great. Reading about Rory’s passing and incredible journey makes even “health issues” shrink to the tiny pinpricks they are.

much love to you both,

Sundari: This love is the truth of who you are, the direct experience of the Self when the attachment to the body is finally lessened. Unguarded, unconditioned. You, the Self, shine forth. It’s powerful stuff. Anyone coming into contact with you will feel it and know it because it does not belong to ‘you’ as the person. We feel this love very strongly in the ‘heart cave,’ located physically in the human heart, but it is not actually located anywhere because it is the non-local bliss of the Self.  This is the love you are, and are experiencing. As are those coming into contact with you.

Every major religion and spiritual tradition—Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam—identifies the heart as the seat of the deepest human knowing. The heart is an organ science is only recently fully understanding. Yoga calls the heart the hrydaya, the essence—that without which a thing is not a thing—like sweetness is the essence of sugar. Sugar cannot be sugar without sweetness. Meaning the true essence of everything is Consciousness.  You as a discreet ‘you’ or jiva, are ‘melting’ into this all encompassing bliss of the Self.

Whether the body lives or dies, you are very blessed to be having this experience, as it is rare. Some NDE’S have it, but usually not when they are still very much compos mentis, as you are. It’s the high everyone is chasing in the spiritual world, not realizing that the experience is not the aim. It is the recognition of your true identity, which is not an experience. Just the truth of who you are, without anything obstructing that knowledge.

Q: Paradoxically, I am also in love with living and would love to be here ‘in a body’ longer. I have so much to live, and to die, for. So is fighting my sentence fighting Isvara? My question is not coming from fear but the opposite. 

Sundari: As with any question that can be asked regarding nondual thinking, it all depends on who is asking it. Or rather, who wants a different result. If you were asking as a fear-filled jiva, the answer is probably yes. You are fighting your fate and therefore fighting Isvara.

There is nothing wrong with death. I am pretty sure it will be the most incredible experience one can have in a body will be leaving it. After all, as beautiful as it is to be alive, it is also pretty hard to be in a body, especially if you believe that is who you are. That you are born and die. Which I know you don’t. So I know you are not asking as a fear-filled jiva.

But even so, life is not easy on the body/mind even when you know who you are. Maya does not disappear when avidya does. The push and pull of duality, the gunas is relentless. Things fall apart and hurt. Gravity still pulls, entropy still marches us steadily back to dust from whence we come. After all, that is why we all start inquiry.

We want freedom from and for the jiva. It is the bondage we want to be free of, not life itself. Life is beautiful and it is a privilege to be ‘in’ a body. So yes, as you are asking as the Self, there are times it is appropriate to say no to Isvara and ‘fight your fate’, even as you love it.

So, the first thing is to be certain that you have cleaned out any anger or unfinished business attached to your life story—people who have hurt you, situations gone bad, etc. If you haven’t, you are not free even if you know that none of it is about you. Which it is not, as the Self. Since we incarnate to resolve our karma, and Isvara is karma phala data, then we are here in a body to do that, and realize the Self. That’s the main purpose of life.

All of our conflict/friction dynamics are driven by the unconscious minds (personal unconscious and macrocosmic unconscious—Causal body) which contain our conditioning and our past. Most of who we are as conscious beings is driven by it, whether we like it or not.  Our conditioning and our past weaves its way into our psyche like a parasitic vine wrapping itself tightly around the host tree, slowly suffocating, distorting it, changing its shape. And sometimes totally deforming, even killing it.

The scientific consensus is that the conscious mind—the part of you that reads these words, deliberates, and believes it is making decisions—controls approximately 5% of your cognitive and emotional activity. The remaining 95% is conducted by the unconscious mind. The vast, silent, invisible machinery that operates below the threshold of conscious awareness.

It generates the thoughts you think are yours, producing the decisions you believe you make, generates the feelings you think are yours, and runs the biological systems that keep you alive. All without ever asking your permission or reporting its activity to your conscious awareness.

The mind is truly an awesome and potentially terrifying thing. There be angels, but also, dragons, there. And they can only be slain when it’s their time. So much potential for freedom, expansion and joy. And for imprisonment, limitation and pain. Amazing and scary, being human. Especially when you are convinced that is all you are, which I know you do not.

One has to see it all, understand it, to cut the root of that parasitic invader, to ourselves free of its grip. But because it has no actual substance, you can’t see it until you see it. When you do, it is only knowledge and love that have the power to cut the ties, for good. To burn those ropes so that they no longer have any power to bind. Vedanta gives us that power. Without it, the ‘you’ you think you are is not in charge.

Whether you live or die, now is the time to take a fearless inventory. If there are remaining samskaras, Isvara sends us many messages that we often don’t hear. They have probably been there for a long time. If we don’t heed the whispers, we get the shouts and then the final kick in the butt from Isvara. The cancer itself may well be a manifestation of a deeply buried samskara. Or maybe, it is just the time for you to leave the body. Isvara must find a way to end the game for all of us. Either way, you cannot lose.

Q: I am told to think positively and would like to know what to make of it’?

Sundari. Forget about positive thinking. It only applies to people who think they are the body and have no other option. If you want to fight it, and if you know that there is stuff to resolve in the unconscious, as mentioned, that is where you have to look first.  Visualization is the best way to access the that content. See it in your mind’s eye. Paint it, draw it, write it, burn it. Whatever it takes. Drag it out from the unconscious and bring it to the conscious level.

Carl Jung argued throughout his later work that images access the unconscious more directly than language does. What a person responds to visually, before constructing a verbal rationale, reveals something truer about their inner life than what they say about themselves. There is much truth to this, so explore it.

The next step is to talk to Isvara as the Self, NOT as the jiva. Give Isvara a list of instructions. Jobs to do, meaning, reasons why you want to stay and make a contribution to life.

Be very specific and clear about what you want. As the Self you are the boss of Isvara because you know it’s all zero sum anyway. You are the sum of all things. It makes no difference if you stay or leave because you never arrived and can’t go anywhere. You have nothing to gain or lose either way.

Q: Many people, including doctors, seem to be interested in my story. What to make of that?

Sundari: As Vedantins we know that ‘our’ story, while very meaningful to us personally, is not really personal in the big picture. There is only one jiva appearing as many, life is the story of life and death for all. Death is in everyone’s karma stream.  No-one gets off the hook!   Whether we die now, next week or in 20 years, what’s the difference?  There is no time for the unborn Self.

For the jiva, living or dying shining as the Self is the greatest gift we can give to the whole, which is non-separate from us. All for one, and one for all.

Who lives and who dies?  

Much love

Sundari

Sundari:  Your mind does ‘belong’ to God, but it does not know what that means.  When it does, it will think like God automatically. This  means you have nondual vision, you see no separation or difference, anywhere.  In other words, the three gunas have no power to obscure your vision. It means that the control the unconscious mind has on your conscious awareness is under the management and control of Self-knowledge.

 It’s the Self ‘seeing’ only itself, the ‘I” in the eye that ‘sees’. Vedanta dissolves the identity between the human, God and the Self by negating the non-essential variables, revealing the one and only, non-negatable and common identity between all three, is Consciousness. When we stand firm in Self-knowledge and understand our true and primary identity as undifferentiated Consciousness, Satya, we can safely say ‘I Am Existence’. I am non-different from God as the Self and the human. Then, I think like God thinks, and see only God. Because that is the only option.

Our Secondary Identity Does Not Disappear

But as we all know, this does not mean that the human and the world it experiences disappears, or that as a human I have the same powers as God. Though we may be convinced that our primary identity is the Self, we still exist as a body/mind with its inherent limitations, subject to God, even if we relate to our secondary human identity from the nondual, or God, perspective.  This is the tricky, counter-intuitive part of living the teachings, for everyone, and it’s why moksa, nondual vision, is so hard to obtain. It is not easy to overhaul the mind’s natural, inbuilt tendencies when the conscious mind is under the control of the unconscious mind.

As an inquirer, the mind poses the biggest obstacle to Self-knowledge because it is indoctrinated by duality, or beginningless ignorance. A mind under the hypnosis of duality has very limited ability to manage the powerful unconscious mind, as I pointed out in my last email to you.  The causal or unconscious mind is in control of most of our seemingly conscious drives until we understand what it is and how it operates

Hence, the necessity for qualifications. Beyond or along with developing the qualifications, we have nididhysana or Self-actualization, the lengthy process of Self-knowledge purifying the mind of the remnants of mental/emotional binding vasanas and doership which ‘survive’ Self-realization. This is no walk in the park for all but the rarest souls.  

Isvara Does Not Make it Easy

Isvara, the field of experience, does not make it easy for us. Even though the mind only really feels good when it is progressing and growing, the human ego likes comfort and what’s easy and safe. It resists doing anything that’s hard. Just think how much energy is required to learn anything new, let alone be objective about our mental/emotional projections. And who wants to face up to the less than fabulous part of their personality?

Even those who are seated in Self-knowledge can slip up at times because it is easy to get sucked back into ‘jiva-mode’.  We are handicapped from birth because the body cannot be separated from the mind, and the entrenched ego identity makes identification with the body, which is the ultimate symbol of duality, of change and inconstancy, automatic, ‘ natural’ and instinctive. This is a big impediment to the assimilation of nondual knowledge.

The body is the most ‘there’ thing in existence for us humans, who are self-conscious and aware that we ‘have a body’. Though the body/mind can be negated as a non-essential variable with Self-knowledge, which is the absolute key to moksa, it never goes away. Until the body dies, of course. Self-realized or not, the body is still subject to the gunas. It may not be real from the nondual perspective, but ignoring the body/mind is virtually impossible. It is ‘in your face’ at all times, other than in deep sleep.  Which is why deep sleep is such a blessed relief and so essential.

The Body is On Loan to Me

The body is on loan to us from Isvara; it does not belong to us. It is part of the field of existence, and never the same from moment to moment. The intricate processes that go on every minute of every day to keep us alive, and at the same time, move us toward the death of the body, are mind-blowing.  In the eternal big Maya picture, there are no winners or losers, syntropy and entropy are equal forces because birth and death are one and the same. But in our one finite little picture, entropy or death, always wins in the end.

Our lives take place in a sea of constant, relentless change moving us inexorably to that end. The field of experience is full of things that bite and bless. The gunas are cycling constantly, producing and maintaining our vasanas, especially if they are binding, as they are for most people. It’s a case of respect, adapt and die, because you cannot live or die well if you do not honour, accommodate to and let go of life.

Thus, the body causes so much trouble for most people, either because it is going through inevitable changes that come with entropy and aging, or it is unhealthy through lack of respect and knowledge of how to look after it. Or it is a prisoner of mind that is run by fear and denial, rajas and/or tamas, and deep binding samskaras.

The Only Solution to the Mess is Moksa

The only solution to the body/mind conundrum is to manage the mind with Self-knowledge. But even with Self-knowledge, the body can be such a drain, especially when in pain or deep discomfort, which happens to everyone ‘in a body’, sooner or later. It is not hard to see how things can and do become very difficult for anyone, even dedicated inquirers, to stay focussed on the Self as the witness of the body and the gunas. Sattva is always present, but not always easy to access when the body is ill, in pain or discomfort, for whatever reason.

Discrimination Is Our Saving Grace

When the mind gets duped by Maya, even for a short while, it feels horrible.  Especially if you are an true inquirer. But when ignorance momentarily blocks access to Self-knowledge, our saving grace, and what always matters most, is discriminating satya, the Self, from mithya, the body/mind.  If the nondual teachings are put into practice, they work instantly. To get to where the secondary identity as the person, the body/mind, is handled, no matter what is going on with the body requires fully understanding mithya, the apparent reality.  The apparent reality is not real because it is always changing and not always present. 

Life in the apparent reality is extremely complicated because nothing in it ever stays the same, not in the body or the mind. To negate mithya as an object known to me that has no power to manipulate my intellect and emotions, we need to understand how everything is governed by the gunas. That is where self-inquiry matters most. It is impossible to jump straight to satya without first understanding and negating mithya.

Aka, objectifying ‘your’ body/mind and the field of life it exists in. Your story and how you/it relates to every moment of your existence. Not to make a bigger deal of your story, but to determine if your Existence is defined with a capital ‘E’, i.e., that which makes all experience and knowledge of experience/objects possible and objectified. Or is it existence as in ‘I as an ego keep getting sucked into the experiencing entity, and believe that is who I am’, with all the trauma being a body/mind entails?

If we are putting self-inquiry into practice, we know that the body/mind is an object known to me, the Self. From here, you can do a lot to manage the mind, especially if we are dedicated inquirers. We should know the importance of the qualifications for self-inquiry, as well as be impeccable in the application of karma yoga and guna management.  But even so, there is nothing to be done about the body’s natural changes, except taking appropriate care of it, and remaining the witness. You are not the body/mind. You are eternal and cannot change, are never born and cannot die. Have deep compassion for anyone who does not know the truth of who they are. Mithya is a cruel master. 

An Mind/Intellect Overhaul

Moksa, Self-actualization, requires a complete non-dual mind/intellect overhaul to develop the ability to think like God would think, if God was a person. We need a highly refined intellect and mind that has not only surrendered to the scripture as the boss, but is instantly capable of dissecting what’s going on with the body/mind objectively. Mind-management is the name of the game, which requires understanding of how it works. And where all the trouble it creates originates from – the unconscious mind.

Please note that a nondual overhaul is one step up from meta-cognition, which is the ability to think about and objectify what you are thinking/feeling about, but there is still a doer involved. Non-dual vision negates the thinker/feeler/doer altogether, and is simply the witness who ‘sees’ only itself, because that is all there is. If we are qualified inquirers in whom Self-knowledge has obtained, we know that we share the same identity with God/Isvara, but our intellects and emotions are totally purified of doership and binding vasanas. I.e., the person is there but in abeyance, managed. The gunas are always known and managed, and therefore, no longer cause trouble or get in the way of permanent access to the bliss of the Self.

Much love

Sundari

Dear Sundari, apologies for taking so long to reply to your last email on the difference between the cause and effect and non-origination teaching.  It is a difficult and subtle teaching, as you point out.  I am still trying to assimilate it.  I ‘get it’ intellectually, but am constantly tripped up by repetitive patterns. Things happen that trigger ‘me’ that I seem to have no control over. This causes so much conflict in my personal relationships, not to mention my state of mind. Could you shed some light on this?

Sundari: It is very difficult being a ‘human’ being, and it is even more difficult to disidentify with being a human being. We tend to think of  preferences, our likes and dislikes, as something we’ve reasoned our way toward over time. Vedanta says the opposite. How and when we respond to outside stimuli is shaped, in predictable and measurable ways, by our dominant motivational drives, our likes and dislikes.

The same could be said of most of our cognitive analyses. Or thinking patterns.  Most of these mental and emotional patterns, especially the ones that cause the most trouble for us, are based in the unconscious mind. Vedanta explains this perfectly in its teaching on our likes and dislikes, vasanas and samskaras, and what gives rise to them—the three gunas, which I know you are familiar with.

The (Four) Major Drives

Evolutionary psychology and behavioral science have long recognized that human motivation organizes around three primary and sequential imperatives. The first is oriented toward security and physical nourishment: safety, comfort, the body protected and at rest. The second is oriented toward social belonging: group membership, collective relationships, and one’s position within a community. The third is oriented toward intensity and deep connection: peak experience, charged aliveness, full engagement with whatever matters most.

Vedanta adds the fourth, and most important drive, which is virtue or spiritual growth, which sometimes, but not always, comes after the first three are taken care of. These are not personality types in the traditional sense but something more primary, even primal. These biological imperatives operate below conscious choice, organizing what each of us pays attention to and finds meaningful. When we have not dealt with the first three motivational impulses, especially security, we are unlikely to be qualified for self-inquiry.

The Cause of Friction and Conflict in Relationship

All of our  conflict/friction dynamics are driven by the unconscious mind(s), which contains our past. Most of who we are as conscious beings is driven by it, whether we like it or not.  Our conditioning and our past weaves its way into our psyche like a parasitic vine that wraps itself around a host tree, changing its shape. And sometimes totally deforming, even killing it.

The mind, whose deeper unconscious content makes up 95% of what propels it, is truly an awesome and potentially terrifying thing. There be angels, but also, dragons there. And they can only be slain when it’s their time. So much potential for freedom, expansion and joy. And for imprisonment, limitation and pain. Amazing and scary, being human. Especially when you are convinced that is all you are.

One has to see it all, understand it, to cut the root of that parasitic invader, to ourselves free of its grip. But because it has no actual substance, you can’t see it until you see it. When you do, it is only knowledge and love that have the power to cut the ties, for good. To burn those ropes so that they no longer have any power to bind. Vedanta gives us that power. Without it, the ‘you’ you think you are is not in charge.

Who Is In Charge?

What or who is in charge sounds like a spiritual or philosophical provocation, and it is that.  Humans have been trying to answer that question since we became aware of time, and starting wondering who we are and why we were here. Most religions are based on this and have their versions of the answer to the question. It is a question at the heart of self-inquiry as well, relating to the investigation of who the person is, what drives them, how they relate to and transact with their environment, and what creates, sustains and destroys the whole creation.

The 5% You

But it is also a scientific question with measured, replicated and findings published in the most rigorous journals in psychology and neuroscience. The consensus is that the conscious mind, the part of you that reads these words, that deliberates and believes it is making decisions, controls approximately 5% of your cognitive and emotional activity. The remaining 95% is conducted by the unconscious mind.

The 95% is the vast, silent, invisible machinery that operates below the threshold of conscious awareness. It generates the thoughts you think are yours, producing the decisions you believe you make, generates the feelings you think are yours, and runs the biological systems that keep you alive. All without ever asking your permission or reporting its activity to your conscious awareness.

In other words, the person you think you are is just the very tip of the iceberg.  The rest is mostly unknown. But not unknowable, if you have the right means of knowledge. Vedanta tells us upfront that reality is not what we think it is – that our sensory perception is vastly limited, and the information coming from it is biased and therefore, flawed. Though we relate to the idea of a conscious and unconscious mind, there is much more to reality than that. A whole level below our own personal conscious and  unconscious, the macrocosmic unconscious or Causal body.

Science has  named the three orders the three orders: 1) the personal conscious, 2) the personal unconscious and 3) the impersonal unconscious—the explicate, implicate and super-implicate orders. In Vedanta this is the triumvirate of jiva (Subtle body/System 3), Isvara (Causal body or System 2), and the knower of both, Pure Consciousness (System 1). We have written extensively on these three systems.

Are You the Candle or the Sun?

The person we take ourselves to be is only aware of a small spectrum of stimuli coming in from the senses at any given time. Whereas the personal and impersonal unconscious, the two levels of the Causal body, is processing millions of bits of information per second. The conscious mind is a candle, and the unconscious mind is the sun. But the candle believes it is illuminating the room. If we had to compare the conscious and unconscious minds to a computer, the conscious mind has a computational ability of 40 bits per second, and the unconscious mind 400 million bits, per second.

This finding is not new.  Freud proposed the existence of the unconscious mind in the 1890s, arguing that the conscious self is the tip of an iceberg, with the vast bulk of mental activity occurring below the waterline, invisible and inaccessible to ordinary awareness. Freud’s metaphor has become so familiar that it has lost its power to shock.

But the shock is deserved, because Freud was not merely proposing that some mental activities are unconscious. He was proposing that most mental/emotional activity is unconscious. That the conscious self is a thin veneer over a deep, powerful, autonomous system that has its own goals, its own logic and its own agenda. That is a scary thought for most. Is it any wonder that freedom from and for the jiva is so difficult?

The unconscious  is vast, powerful—and it is running your life. Modern sciences’ view of the unconscious begins not with Freud, but with Benjamin Libet, whose experiment on free will demonstrates that the brain initiates actions approximately half a second before the conscious mind becomes aware of the decision. The readiness potential or electrical buildup in the motor cortex precedes voluntary movement—it begins before consciousness arrives. The decision  to act is made ‘in the dark’. Without your knowledge.

The conscious mind is notified after the fact.  John Dillon Haines extended on this finding to 7  full seconds of unconscious brain activity, detectable by MRI pattern classifiers, preceding the conscious experience of choosing which button to press. In the investigation into free will, this puts things into very sharp focus.

Is There Free Will?

Who is really doing the choosing? What is weighing alternatives, committing to a course of action before the conscious mind has any awareness that a decision is underway? That something is the unconscious, the micro and macrocosmic causal body. And it is not merely fast and automatic. It is highly sophisticated and intelligent.

The unconscious does not merely decide before you do. It perceives subliminally before ‘you’ do. This framework suggests that our conscious awareness is like a small spotlight, illuminating a tiny fraction of the brain’s activity. While the vast majority of processing occurs in the regions outside the spotlights beam. In the unconscious systems that the (superficial) global workspace cannot reach.

The topic of freeway will investigates the relationship between the conscious and unconscious minds. Libet’s readiness potential, the unconscious initiation of action before conscious awareness, is the unconscious mind generating a neural template. ‘Free will’ is the conscious mind’s ability to veto the stimulus before it morphs into automatic action generated by the unconscious.

Standing Up to Your Vasanas

This is what Vedanta means by ‘standing up to your vasanas’. Start with identifying the low hanging fruit – your likes and dislikes. Track them and that will lead to the deeper samskaras in the uncosncious twhere hey originate from. Knowledge of our likes and dislikes and what drives them, affords us the power to select the  options generated by the unconscious. Mature worldly people without non-dual knowledge and the tools it offers, such as karma yoga and guna yoga, often manage a high degree of self-management and control. But this does not equate to freedom from and for the person.

For this you need Self-knoweldge, and there is nothing to beat it.  Only by applying the nondaul teachings to our lives do we gain the freedom from the person without the pressure to become a different or ‘better’ person.  Though that will happen because when you understand who you are you will never break dharma and cause injury to yourself or others in thought word or deed. 

But becoming a better person is a benefit of Self-knowledge, not the aim.  You are told upfront that there is nothing wrong with you other than ignorance of your true identity as the unborn, unchanging, whole and complete Self.  Knowing that gives you the power to discriminate between the two orders of reality, duality and non-duality. And like David going up against Goliath, the power to slay the dragons in the unconscious.

Self-knowledge is your super power.  Dedication to your sadhana and commitment to clearing up the repetitive patterns with it are the only way forward.  Take it easy, love yourself, and trust that the scripture has your back. You are on the right track.

Much love

Sundari

James:  All good here.  I marked a few sentences that show that you are assimilating Self knowledge very well.  Or should I say Self knowledge is assimilating you?  Good for you!  I attached a couple of documents on the topics in this email.

Ten days ago, my mother passed away at the ripe old age of 91. She spent her last three months in a nursing home and, due to severe pain, received pain patches (fentanyl). I spent many hours by her side and watched as her mind gradually faded away. This time was truly challenging—having to see a loved one in pain and utterly helpless. Your teachings and personal stories helped me a great deal. I could see that “I” was truly suffering, and then, a few moments later, “I” remembered the teaching that suffering exists but is unreal.

James:  This shows that Self knowledge is a vasana that has become a samskara due to your commitment to the teaching.  Good for you!

This shift had an immediate, and then a liberating, effect. Finally, she fell asleep peacefully. When I learned of her death, I wasn’t really sad that much—I had the impression that she had been released from her suffering and that her last great wish, to be allowed to die, had been fulfilled. Today I think, what a shame she’s no longer here—but she’s still here. So everything is fine.

James: Death is a zero-sum win. You gain the absence of suffering. Of course, it’s nice you “die” before you die, but…hey…she can’t quibble.

Nothing has really changed. Except perhaps my point of view regarding this world. I often notice myself walking through the house or garden, listening to the silence within me.

James:  The only thing that changes when you are clear about your nature as unborn awareness is the status of the world.  Formerly, it seemed to be real (satya), now it is known to be unreal (mithya) because although the world is you, you aren’t it. 

The need to do things has gradually dissolved. It’s not that I do nothing anymore—I still have my activities—but it’s more as if they happen on their own. This has happened gradually and feels very pleasant. I also take breaks much more often between these activities. Then I sit in a garden chair and listen to the birds chirping and enjoying the stillness inside of me. Well – I can say, everything has changed.

James: The absence of the sense of doership and the lack of pressure that accompanies it, not the absence of doing, is another sign of firm Self knowledge.

You are often in my thoughts, and it is nice to think of you. Love T

James:  I am very happy for you, T!  And I can’t help thinking of you always because you are everything that exists. 

Om and Prem James

I want lasting joy. Total fullness, purnatvam. To be satisfied forever.

I gain knowledge and experience of names and forms through what the eyes see, ears hear etc. But to know myself, I can’t use the senses, cognise with the mind or through inference. Still one struggles not knowing how to gain fulfillment.

 Sastra – a means, Vedanta – a pramana, a means of knowledge for knowing my Self. Otherwise, I’m like the 10th man, feeling lost when I’m actually not at all. There’s no other means for knowing myself. I want freedom, total freedom, total fulfillment and lasting satisfaction, where there’s nothing left to gain. Otherwise limited pursuits and ends wear me down and frustrate me. Therefore use Vedanta sastra to understand what I am not and realise What I am.

Perhaps easier said than done. On this human journey obstacles present themselves and a veiling ignorance hides my true nature. It’s tricky as it appears as something it’s not, can be most convincing and seductive therefore maturity and dispassion are required. The defects in things of the world must be humorously seen as they are, transitory, ephemeral and insubstantial. Invoking Isvara’ grace as I start my study is a beautiful offering, not only for my own heart and mind but as sincere gratitude for being guided to the knowledge.

ॐ सह नाववतु । सह नौ भुनक्तु । सह वीर्यं करवावहै ।

Om saha nāvavatu | saha nau bhunaktu | saha vīryaṃ karavāvahai |

तेजस्विनावधीतमस्तु मा िवद्विषावहै ॥

tejasvināvadhītamastu mā vidviṣāvahai ||

ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः ॥

Om śāntiś śāntiś śāntiḥ ||

Why at the beginning and each and every time? Because the mind’s nature is to wander. It lacks the peace required for knowledge to obtain. So, Isvara the ruler of this creation – total sovereignty, all wealth, power, knowledge, fame, and total dispassion needs to be invoked! I’m acknowledging my relationship and dependency with the Lord, therefore I pray to the Lord – help my mind be open and calm.

Saha – together, nā vavatu – let him protect. So let him protect us together.

Saha nau – us both, let us both (teacher and student) be protected by knowledge – to become free.

Bhunaktu –  may he nourish us with strength and the qualities required.  Saha vīryam karavāvahai – May he make us accomplish what we need to with the strength of knowledge. Then you feel secure.

Tejas vināva dhītamstu  Let it shine on us what we have studied. May he let it shine on us, and then people come to learn!

Ma vidvisāvahai. May we not have any misunderstandings and no hatred between us, born of misunderstanding. So let there be communication between us, adequate communication. May we remain having a healthy relationship.

Om śanti śanti śanti.

Three Shantis. Why? Because there are 3 disturbances within experience. First shanti is for myself, my body and mind, let it be free from laziness and dullness. Second shanti for the environment, and the people around me too, pray that illness does not disturb, and let me have the capacity to accept the circumstances no matter what and not worry about it. Third shanti, for the forces I have no control over. Natural forces over which I have absolutely no control such as earthquakes etc. pray for peace from those forces.

A shanti mantra is chanted and invoked at the start of an Upanishad study. What does Upanishad mean?

Sad is the root of the word meaning action, disintegrate, reaching, or destroying. And it has 2 prefixes.

Upa and Ni .

Upa means near. So the question is, who goes near? Those desirous of moksha; anadhikari – someone who’s turned their back on worldly desires, only has the desire for moksa and is qualified. We know there’s required qualifications, eg varaigya. I have to have dispassion for everything else and be free from binding desires. You’ve burned all the boats, you cannot go back. But you go to lasting joy and happiness!

Upa also can mean approaching this knowledge. So that one desirous of liberation is approaching the knowledge.

Ni is analysis, a study, also a commitment, Nistha steadiness; adherence, freedom from doubt and vagueness. What it conveys, it must stick.

Niscaya, decision; resolution, doubt free knowledge that will destroy the seed of a life of a limitation.

So what journey do we have to take? A journey of understanding. The journey, from ignorance to knowledge.

As Ramji greatly reminds us, how to apply the teaching in our lives is ‘where the rubber meets the road’. It’s easy when I’m in class, or doing sadhana. But what about my interactions with others and going about my duties? Well an excellent upasana; meditation, worship, reflectionI find most worthwhile is this… See the good in the other. Make it a sincere practice in the heart. See the good they can’t even see themselves…

It dispels any darkness quickly.

I leave you with this meditation, perhaps perfectly apt if you attended Ramji’s unfolding of Nirvana shatakam

OM

Sit upright.

Learn to sit upright as often as you can.

That keeps the body in the natural form, natural posture, just sitting upright.

Improves lung function.

Improves the blood circulation, particularly to the head, to the brain.

Therefore, there is a sense of vigour in the body, a vitality in the body.

Of course, the mind becomes quiet.

There is a natural cheer.

Cheerfulness, in you.

Now, this joy has nothing to do with the mind, or the sense organs, or the sense objects of the world.

So look at yourself, the body is vigorous, kind of rejuvenated when you sit upright.

The mind is cheerful and quiet. And you are joyous.

All of this has a name.

Just check again.

The body has a vigour.

The mind is quiet, naturally quiet.

Not forced to become quiet.

And I am cheerful with a sense of wellness.

All of this, you are without any effort.

Even sitting upright is not an effort with the natural posture.

Now, you can see an integration between the body, the Prana, which is inhalation, and the blood circulation, etc. the mind is quiet, and I am naturally cheerful.

All this put together is called Shiva, the auspicious.

Now, you can sing in yourself Shivoham Shivoham

This is the true religion.

Shivoham

The mind is quiet naturally without any force.

Now, I can feel a sense of wellness in the heart. A sense of cheer. Without any particular reason.

I can feel the sense of love in the heart.

Something like “I love all”.

And you can feel the sense of divinity in yourself, the divine.

The godliness in myself, I can feel in the heart.

You can sing in yourself, Shivoham.

The auspicious.

The divine, I am.

The spaceless, meaning the formless, I am

The timeless, meaning, motionless, I am

The independent, I am

The freedom to love.

Freedom is love.

That I am.

A heart which doesn’t know this song Shivoham, is an empty heart.

Shivoham, this is the real wealth, Shivoham

The real beauty, Sundaram, Satyam, Shivoham, I am.

The real I am.

Without this song in the heart.

Life is a waste, a dessert.

Shivoham

Shivoham

OM

~swami tattvavidananda

“The more I live, the more I learn.” – Sri Ramakrishna

Vedanta doesn’t change. It has said the same thing since I first heard it 8 years ago, and in the very beginning. Thank God.

I spent 3 months in consistent inquiry, being seen and seeing others in a sacred environment set up for self growth. A space the unconscious could arise in safely, be integrated and transmuted. It was beautiful to watch multiple transformations, blossoming of hearts and minds, soul friendships forming and deepening. (daily learning always) What it means to live this great teaching.

Tat Tvam Asi

Aham Brahmasmi

Brahma satyam jagat mithya jivo brahmaiva naparah.

Until these Mahavakyas can be properly understood and assimilated it requires consistent and ardent shedding ‘snake skins’ of ignorance. How strong is my desire to be my Self? Mumukshutvam. One of the most important qualifications to realise my true unborn nature

For many years I’ve contemplated a reconciliation of the “ideal” of the teaching, and “my life”,  or my personal reality/personality. Now I see the gradual full alignment of my life, my personality with the teaching, with what is true, with what the scripture says about me, and how to live a righteous wholehearted free life here and now. Letting ideas and feelings of separation and divisions melt away, so there’s no gap.

It’s not worth it to even have one little toe in Samsara (some sorrow). Samsara, a perpetual wheel of frustration. It’s just a notion! Full of attachments and beliefs. Wrong ideas about myself and the nature of reality.  It needs to be seen for what it is, a “rope snake”, merely a belief, a changing scene of appearances. Let it go and replace it with pure common sense logic and right knowledge, and true seeing, a vision, darshan. A deep, inner knowing, felt as absolute peace and unshakeable confidence. Harmony. Seeing All beings in my Self and my Self in All beings. A vision that transcends all boundaries of culture, religion, race, gender and states of mind, while quietly permeating them all.

 All these seeming differences, names and forms we see around us, can easily agitate one’s mind. How much are we living out of memory? How much is my conditioning preventing me to be truly happy, fulfilled, peaceful and authentic. To feel sovereign and empowered. (Have faith in the words of the scripture!)  A sense of being empowered that doesn’t need power or control. Doesn’t need to gain an upper hand or feel superior, look at others as inferior. But knowing the truth. Truth is simple, yet subtle. Therefore, not easy and often unpalatable. Therefore it’s important to keep the sastra so close to you in your daily life. Constantly remembering the Lord. and keeping company of the Self.

Such profound gratitude for my teacher came to me daily, tears would fill my eyes when I realised how well I’ve been taught, how compassionate and loving he is – to all those who come into his field seeking knowledge. It’s not a special kind of love, it’s equal to all who genuinely want to know.

That’s a true teacher. Whose love is pure. James taught me so wonderfully how to love all. How to know that I am deeply loved and what that really means. Isvara as my mother, as my father and how to truly love my biological parents, which is loving Isvara and opening up to Isvara sristi. It’s a setup here. The human journey is to realise oneself, nothing more, nothing less. Every little thing is perfectly curated. Remove just one thought… and that could be the most pernicious thought you can think of! Whether it’s afflicting or irritating or grand and holy, this whole thing would collapse.

Perhaps you’re already reading this on Shining World. I hope you know how blessed you are to have such a great teacher as James, Ramji, here with us in the West. I saw so many students who don’t have a teacher. Some perhaps don’t need one and some really do. Some had corrupt teachers, which is devastating indeed.

True love, true freedom, is letting God into your heart. Having full accommodation for Isvara, and nothing else, no one else, as everyone is automatically included. A true teacher has done the same. Seeing how much God loves you and wants you to love, be loved, be that shining beacon of pure love.

All of this is Isvara. That is called bhakti

All of this is Atma. That is called jnanam

Is there a difference between bhakti and jnanam ? There’s a difference in language but not in the vision.

Read the life of Sri Ramakrishna.

Inquire daily. Be courageous to be your Self. Be courageous to look at your Self. The beauty of who you are. Truly, in all ways. Letting go of anything that prevents you from knowing that, living that, seeing that. And…that requires some hard work. Karma yoga is not easy. Karma yoga is very difficult. The ego resists. The truth is there, it’s infallible. Action and results do not lie. Conscience is built in. “If you know you could do better, make small changes daily.” (read “I am an Ant” by Ramji)

 Early morning look at your thoughts. What comes up early in the morning is a great way to see if I’m habitually running off a program that doesn’t serve my best interest or my goals. What songs go around in your head? Let them be songs of God, who you are, Om Namah Shivaya! Let that go round in your head and know what that means. Not me, but Lord Shiva – all auspiciousness, please fill my heart and mind destroying any doubts. I’m free! – watching, unaffected, changeless. Think about it. Really, really think about it. Understand it.

What do you want? I have a choice. Moment to moment. Do I accept crumbs? Begging at the world for more of the same. Or do you want to know who you are? The divine effulgent source of everything. An endless source of love, security and pleasure. Free, unconditioned, not limited or modified. The pursuit is definitely most worthwhile. Never give up!

Daily, how do you treat yourself? Talk to yourself? See yourself?  How do you see and treat others? It doesn’t mean I must save the world. Or feed every starving mouth. But simply doing daily, what’s in front of you, what needs to be done, your duty to your Self. If you can offer your time and attention to others that is a great gift and blessing. The best service to the Lord is knowing me and the Lord are one. Let go of the divisions and oppositions in your mind. What are those elements appearing there that divide and oppose? Malaise, jealousy, hatred, spite, rivalry, competition, all these elements divide and come in the way of realising the spiritual unity. Therefore do away with all those elements.

 ~ Words from Swami TV  (whom I got to meet!)

 “Practice love, you have to practice love. Love all, like yourself. the one who censures you, love that person. The one who praises you, you love that person anyway. But the one who condemns you for a good reason or for the wrong reason, still you love that person anyway. How to do that we will see, this is how you have to grow into that realisation of spiritual unity. You have to grow into that. You have to bring an inner transformation in which the mind gets rid of all the divisible movements. You have to work on it. Take help from the sastra. Take the cue from the sastra. From the mahatma. Both. The sastra and the lives of the mahatmas. But ultimately you have to make it happen for yourself in your own heart and mind.

Suppose you are willing to live with non love, hatred and all that, then you are waiting for sastra to help you. It can’t. It’s an artificial structure. You have to pay attention to quality and intention in your mind, in your heart. Forgive all. There is a prayer. Oh god forgive my trespasses as I am willing to forgive those who trespass against me. Forgive those who you consider your enemy or opponent adversaries and there are people who are always waiting to find a fault in you. They are always waiting for that – fault finders these people are there, forgive them. Unless you forgive you cannot forget. Then your mind remains free from spite. Grow into consciousness that is ready for realisation of the Spiritual Unity.”

What else did I learn? It’s about integrating knowledge. Understanding I’ve been given everything. So I’m not grasping. I’m not struggling anymore. I’m not fearful. I don’t have grievances or complaints. I don’t feel victimised. I don’t feel I’ve missed out on anything. I’m not regretful – as I’ve attained the highest there is to attain in this life. So every day – show gratitude, and worship by making my heart and mind as bright and beautiful as possible. Be of service and inspiration to others. Be true to yourself and your Svadharma. Give more than you get. I’m not wanting needless stuff. Dreams about a better body, a better life. Better circumstances. If I want better health from my body or circumstances, that’s all within my capacities to make it possible. Because it is. I need knowledge. There’s no wishful thinking. The body is a science, a beautiful vehicle given to me by Bhagavan, it’s miraculous really, so see it as your own temple. The mind has endless infinite capacities to be brilliant and to be open to change. (The battle within) Gain control over your mind. Keep viveka and vairagya in your back pocket!

Don’t let your mind get stuck in the past. When you see something. How do you just see it? Can you just see it? Without naming it without a whole raft of thought or emotion to follow, apply this to people too, can we be objective when it comes to people, our nearest and dearest. Or money or your phone or the news. ( I generally don’t watch the news anyway, I didn’t watch it once for three months, of course I knew what was happening. My shanti prayers went out to the world… and… I was hoping I might have to stay in India.)

I learned and witnessed the power and beauty of Prayer… I pray show me Lord, how can I serve and learn today. Let me be happy and joyful. I learned so gloriously about the efficacy and purpose of prayer. Help me, help me keep my mind yoked. So that all pervading love shining in my heart lights up my mind – Tat Savitur Varenyam.

That one can pray is itself a blessing, and how one prays makes prayer meaningful.

I met and made the most wonderful friends. Inspiring each other to be the best human beings possible. A kind, loving, caring, and compassionate being willing to help and show others. I was inspired to be a better sister, daughter and friend. I saw them offer their time and hearts to those around them. Helping the kids on the street to read, buying them food, holding their hand walking along the river, or just generally giving love. I saw senior Vedanta students teach newer students what and how to pray at Ma Ganga. We sang a lot and laughed a lot together. The best things in life are free.

To sum up this piece, (more insights to come soon!) a few words from Swami Dayananda about prayer. I was so blessed at his ashram, soaking up all his amazing teachings. Namaste astu Bhagavan!

“Life has to be prayerful. Being prayerful means having an awareness of everything that is given, and the awareness of a giver. The more awareness you have of the presence of Isvara as the giver and the given, the more prayerful you are. If you analyse it, nobody can say that he or she is lonely, and yet most people feel lonely. It is because you feel that you are not understood.

You are exactly as you should be at this time and place, in your life. This is exactly what you are expected to be at this time and place. The Lord is the only one who knows that. And in order to say this, you have to know the Lord to be so. You are appreciating an omniscient being, in whose knowledge you are totally accepted. You do not need anybody else to approve of you, to accept you. You need not ask the Lord. Oh, Lord, please accept me. I may have many omissions and commissions, but please accept me. The Lord is not a limited individual like an uncle. In your vision of Isvara you are totally acceptable. It is not enough to say that in the vision of Isvara you are acceptable. That is all “iffy” because it depends on how much you understand Isvara. It is not enough to say that God is infallible.

You have to discover the infallible is God!

In that vision, you are totally acceptable.

There you can relax.

The one who counts is only the Lord.

When I say that everything is non-separate from the Lord. Then all that counts as one. In Isvara’s presence I am totally acceptable.

That I am acceptable in Isvara’s vision is my understanding. And that understanding is a must.

I have to see that I am an individual given this body mind sense complex. And as an individual, I have limitations, I have virtues. Both I acknowledge, and I am prayerful. I pray for the things I want. And one of the things I pray for is to be prayerful. Thus the whole life is one of prayerfulness.

I can look back and say that time, of course, wrung out. But it brought in a lot for me. So I can say it was a very good year. And I look forward to the next year, because in growth there is a joy. In simplicity, there is a joy. The simpler you are, the more people will love you because people are complex. Everybody has lots of problems.

Therefore, they look for a simple person.

People want to relate to a simple person, not a simpleton, but a simple person who is a wise person.

If a wise person is not simple, then he is not wise. He is otherwise. The simpler you are, the more profound are the things that you come to discover when you pray.

Let my life be prayerful.”

OM

Love,

Kate