Dear Sundari,
thank you for your reply, I took time to focus on one of the areas you gave:
“…conch call is always the call not to arms but to surrender”
“Surrender to Isvara is not really a surrender, it is the knowledge that there is no need to surrender because there is no surrenderer and nothing to surrender..”
For some years the sculpture on the left has been reminding me of the teachings every day. During our exchanges in the last weeks I felt drawn to the symbolism of Shiva the destroyer in the form of Kali and Shiva the creator, and put it on the wall.
While I do not have a deep understanding of either yet – I feel a connection to both and (meaning no offence to the respective symbolisms or deities) – they appear to be the same, at least to me. Shiva is in the first above, Shiva in the second below. The act of surrender looks to be with a relaxed smile, in both!
The picture with Kali I originally saw in a grungy place downtown years ago, while getting a tattoo. Huge on the wall, meters long and high, terrifying at the time. I asked about it and the tattooist said “check his face, he is smiling“, then he giggled and continued buzzing the needle on my arm. I did not get what he meant – but found it so interesting (and nicely distracting).
Now it’s the opposite, I see it every morning on waking and say a thank you to the deities and greet the day lying down in surrender happily to Ishvara.
Sundari: I had a direct experience of both the creative and destructive face of Shiva play out in my life recently, and the surrender required. I have written about this and posted on our website and I am giving a teaching on this topic Sunday on our weekly Zoom satsang. Basically, it comes down to seeing both aspects integrated as the essential process of freedom from the limitation of our personal identity with its awful fears and desires. Not real, but all the same, it has to be faced and vanquished. Not much fun!
Michael: Desires and fears, past and present, with the apparent Jiva being apparently walked on by Ishvara, whether the Jiva likes it or not, was “my life”. A good symbol of the terrifying anxiety I used to feel as the Jiva but would never admit not even to myself, for decades; “I” have absolutely no control, am thrown around (by the Vasanas), acting out over and over again, bound into Maya. A Jiva in a storm, getting apparently stamped on.
Sundari: This is life as most people live it when we are still bound to the ego identity. We are at the mercy of Isvara in the form of our likes and dislikes, which are both formed by the vasanas and the effect of them. This is in my talk this on Sunday and I will post and send you the whole satsang once I have given the talk.
Michael: This was a dream, it happened for sure, but I really was unscathed. That is how I know it was and is a dream. The unscathed-ness and this is true for all, not just me. This is what I see in others now. The odd thing is while I know this – if I ever had to explain it to someone, let alone try and teach it, I couldn’t. I know now it takes every day nididhyasana to focus on just this Jiva, where at least I can see it! All I could do is refer people to the scripture and Shining World, if they ask.
Sundari: Life is a waking dream, and not much different from a sleeping dream. In both we are unscathed as the Self, no matter how devastating the personal ego identity finds its karma. Depersonalizing that devastation is the hard part. It requires understanding that because all vasanas come from Isvara they are universal, though they seem to play out personally for us. If we can banish the two imposters, our likes and dislikes, with karma yoga, it does 95% of the heavy lifting. The other 5% is jnana yoga – knowledge of the gunas/Isvara. But without karma yoga, we are at their mercy. Isvara in the form of our life will walk all over us. We will be constantly doing battle with disappointment, hurt, nameless anxiety and stress, whether we get what we want or we don’t.
Michael: This also tells me this is real. Anytime in my life previously, “I” was proud of how much I thought I knew – even tried to teach people (not Vedanta, religions picked up and dropped along the way). That Jiva has never felt so humble as now, speechless. Through Vedanta and your work we don’t just learn but really perceive this is not real; the Self, as Shiva in this case, is one thing: both destroyer and creator and logically therefore as itself, it is neither. Shiva can then easily lie down under Kali’s feet until (as far as I understand the symbolism), she returns back to her original form.
Sundari: Well put. True humility comes when we are ready to totally surrender our likes and dislikes – as in every single thought/feeling good or bad – to Isvara. We just say no to them, refuse to take them on. We are neither superior or inferior. We are just the impersonal witness. Then the egoic doer is put in its proper place – as the office messenger, not the CEO. It fails so badly at that because it is not capable of doing the job of CEO, which is why we suffer so much fear and free floating anxiety when the ego is in charge of the mind. Karma yoga is the only way to manage and neutralize the egoic doer.
Michael: I am reading your article Synopsis of the Steps to Self-Actualize and The Last Stages of Doer Negation. Nididhyasana is not a final thing it seems; every day is like a ping pong ball bouncing with ever smaller distances on a table of knowledge. It does not drop once “as a state”. The only thing that is there is the table, knowledge. As far as I know, no ping pong ball ever moved a table! Knowledge has that feeling to it, for the Jiva.
Sundari: Indeed. The first and last part of self-inquiry, Self-realization and Self-actualization, are the same potent 5% of the process of liberation. But as I said above, the last part, nididhysana, cannot take place without the 95% of karma yoga – neutralizing the likes and dislikes and thereby negating the ego or doer.
Michael: The process of nididhyasana as I come to understand is a process one has to undergo alone but is not a lonely thing. Like arriving at a final, inevitable destination on a bus in the desert, knowing there is nowhere else to go, nothing more to do, can’t go back. Going forward is also not possible; there is no “forward”.
Sundari: Nididhysana is a process one does ‘alone’ but not it’s lonely because it is essentially about understanding that all is one. Nididhysana is not a destination but the discovery of where you have been all along. Which is why I always remind people that the steps to ‘get there’ are the qualities of ‘being there’. Not that there is a there to get to because you are not going anywhere and there is nowhere to go to and nowhere you are not. You are never not the Self. It’s just your likes and dislikes, the egoic doer, that prevent you from experiencing the permanent satisfaction of the Self.
A mistake most advanced inquirers make is focusing too much on nididhysana as an end goal, forgetting that what is important is putting into practice, one thought or feeling at a time, saying no to our likes and dislikes. The 95% of guna knowledge in action with karma yoga. The final stage takes care of itself when you have learned the meaning of true humility as complete and automatic surrender to Isvara in the form of every experience as it appears to you in every moment of your existence.
There are no bad results, so no more worry. You never doubt that everything that comes to you is love in action. It’s not that tough things don’t happen, blissful or hurtful feelings do not appear, or that you don’t have preferences or desires that are not contrary to dharma. But none of it has the power to hold sway over your mind. You are the bliss of love, undefended and open. The dam wall you built to protect yourself but only hemmed in love, is gone. There is nothing to stop love flowing from you and to you. This stage can be attained even without Self-realization. I know people who naturally apply this without being fully cognizant of their true nature as the Self. They just live it.
If you are Self-realized, and you truly live this way, you will not care much either way, because you will be very happy. Once the last 5% goes, you are not enlightened or unenlightened, and you will notice that you have no ignorance or knowledge. You have no teacher, no teaching, and no problems. You are Existence shining as Consciousness, that which is always good. You live a normal life, and it is always satisfying with all its ups and downs, whether you get what you want or not. You know that none of it is real, but you honor its apparent existence and interact with life happily, not for happiness.
Michael: But there are great luminous teachers like yourselves standing there beaming, scriptures and beautiful symbolism stretching endlessly into the distance without which, no Jiva would ever even know that they don’t know. Thank you again.
Sundari: Thank you Michael. The luminosity does not come from us or anyone, it belongs solely to the teachings themselves, because they represent the one true Self. We are all just reflectors of it, teacher/student alike, one and the same. I feel as blessed to be taught by you and to bask in your luminosity.
With much love
Sundari