Robert: As you know I broke up recently in the middle of a house renovation. Initially, this email was me whining, but as the weeks have gone by and the clarity of sattva has returned, it has become an inquiry into some avidya that has been quietly fermenting these last few years. Like a fine mead now ready to be drunk. That said, it is still a bit whiny. 😉
Sundari: It is indeed whiny. As for ignorance being fine a fine mead about to be drunk, I think you need to change your drinking habits! See more in my reply at the end of your email.
Robert: I have had many vivid dreams lately. This first one reminded me of you somewhat, and is when the move from self-psychoanalysis finally shifted back toward Vedantic inquiry. So I’ve had a rough winter. Soon after I broke up with my girlfriend, she got together with someone else. I knew I still loved her and cared for her, and I thought she was the same. Nonetheless, we had established that our values were not aligned and so decided it was best to part ways. However, when I saw her with other this guy all of a sudden I wanted her back.
The if onlys came up in abundance… blah, blah, blah. Shut up Robert, you’re boring me. 🙂 What I see here reminds me of Ramjis story in The Yoga of Love, when I broke up with my girlfriend I was giving something away and it felt good. However, when she got with this guy all of a sudden it seemed like something was being snatched away from me and it felt bad. Robert is just paying the heavy price for slacking off on the sadhana these last few years.
Sundari: Yes he is paying dearly. See more below.
Robert: Initially, my girlfriend was all about Vedanta. When she chased me down 4 years ago, she was just out of a relationship too, so I shouldn’t be so surprised. She could not handle the directness and honesty of how Ramji teaches. She went through a few other Vedanta gurus but they never impacted her. I started listening to Swami P. more than Ramji, and half that time was when I was in bed about to fall asleep. As time passed, the Vedanta chats became less and less, she became more controlling, and I could see that my drinking was a trigger for her.
Sundari: The only thing chasing you down and controlling you is and was your own ignorance in the form of a sexy object.
Robert: Due to the rajas of the house and lockdown, I had started having a drink every evening. She is a very insecure person. I believed I was trying to teach her something about her anxiety, and that if she wanted to be a free person, she was going to have to look at that and her inability to be alone. However, in retrospect, it is equally true that I was spiritually bypassing, and compromising my values by engaging in my tamasic tendencies. I became weak. What to do?
Sundari: Really Robert, talk about the Advaita shuffle! Everything you say here applies to you. At least you know you became weak.
Robert: Additionally, due to being spoiled with affection, I realise that the relationship has created a vasana in me for physical touch and affection, one that I didn’t really have before. Unconsciously, my devotion toward the Self was slowly shifting back towards transitory objects. So here I am again, unlearning some tamasic habits. On a more positive note, I decided to sublimate my evening drink last week and it is fine. In fact I prefer it as I have more time for upasana, to read scripture, and to inquire and write to you. As Rumi said, the highest form of learning is unlearning.
Sundari: You had the need all along, stop fooling yourself. You have never faced the needy person within. The truth is that you got seduced into thinking that indulging your need for physical closeness (probably mostly sex) was not need but normal and dharmic. The highest form of learning is the realization that everything you think you have convinced yourself is true or think you know that is not aligned with the scripture can and must be eliminated. It is the removal of ignorance of your true nature by Self-knowledge.
Robert: Unfortunately or fortunately, breaking up in this way has triggered some demons from my childhood that I spoke to you about 5 years back, when I had a similar but not as intense situation as this one. Back then I saw it primarily as jealousy. However, now I think perhaps my deepest samskara is around betrayal. I do understand that my girlfriend is another manifestation of awareness. However, I feel she has broken dharma and for me to pretend that everything is ok would not be dharmic either.
I feel betrayed by as we had agreed on certain conditions to prevent this situation arising, which she totally ignored. It brought up deep issues for me relating to my past programming. In relationship after relationship, where I would be extra cautious not to hurt my partner, but often they would end up hurting me, as my inability to express anger would become passive aggressive and so they would respond in kind. I have a good understanding of it now.
Sundari: The only betrayal taking place is thanks to the expertise tamas has in dulling the mind and dragging it into the tamasic swampland of the soul. You got sucked into the Maya dream, thinking that you could make Vedanta fit into your life, instead of the other way around. I have replied to this in more detail below, and Ramji has also replied and will send his email to you separately.
Robert: Still though, it does not shut up the persistent voice of this samskara when triggered. Only time will, and persistent practice of karma yoga etc. It is interesting how the chit (memory) and manas continually reproduce the same thoughts and feelings in me, it is almost as if they are under some demonic possession at times churning out the same old thoughts. My ability to nip them at the bud and offer them back to Isvara is improving, but it is quite a wonder. I am grateful to Isvara for this story of mine that I know are just a bundle of experiences appearing in I the always present, unshakable consciousness.
I read this verse recently from the Gita and it took my right back to where I belong “All experiences enter the mind of a wise man through the senses, but they create no agitation, because he is full in himself. Just as the rivers pouring into the ocean do not disturb it. Because he is full, he is not a seeker of experiences.” However, it got me thinking earlier this evening as I was observing the automatic chit/manas demonic feedback loop. What about the experiences that enter the mind from manas and chit? Does the wise man negate them and return to the senses? Maybe I am reading into it too much, at least I get the wisdom in the statement.
Sundari: Your thinking is tamasic. The thoughts/feelings/experiences are all one, and are all generated from the senses. Where else? They create the demonic chit/manas feedback loop, it’s all beginningless ignorance. The senses are programmed by the gunas, or Causal body. By wise man, I assume you mean a Self-aware or Self-realized person, would know this and would therefore not condition to the gunas but manage them with Self-knowledge. Your means of knowledge as a Self-realized person are karma yoga and jnana (guna) yoga, which if applied instantly negate and over-ride information from the senses.
Robert: It doesn’t help though that currently, I am surrounded by triggers. But I know I am the one with the ammunition so I am diffusing the weaponry with upasana, and re reading The Yoga of Love, such a great gem of a book, pranamas to you, Ramji, Swam P., and Narada! Already I feel the bliss of the Self shining through the clouds again as I shift my devotion back towards you and Ramji, the scripture, and the wonders of Isvara such as the sky and the sea.
Nonetheless, it is interesting to have witnessed the identified ego reappearing with all its self images, and comparisons. It is extremely painful for the jiva, even suicidal thoughts, deep samsakaras. I have known these suicidal thoughts intermittently since my teenage years. They are what led me to spirituality. Ultimately, I know they are just a manifestation of an unloved, disconnected suffering jiva seeking to feel whole and complete again. And what better way to love the jiva than with the knowledge that I am love itself.
Sundari: Good for you. Almost everyone identified with being a person has been through this. Duality is a bitch when you do not know what it is and take it to be real. The suffering that the hypnosis of duality causes is what turns the mind inwards towards the Self. If you are very fortunate, which you are, Vedanta comes to you. But the inquirer must be dedicated, properly taught and follow the methodology without fail. The teachings must be assimilated and applied, intellectual knowledge is not enough to remove suffering. If your self-inquiry is not resulting in the permanent peace of Self-knowledge, the fault lies with you, never the teachings.
Robert: I am not sure why Robert has to look at these old wounds again. Perhaps it is to show him that this relationship had been adharmic for a long time and I had been ignoring that fact due to my vasana for guilt, i.e., not leaving my girlfriend a year or 2 ago when I first started having doubts, but I couldn’t as part of me loved her and wanted to keep her safe too (the good old Mummy and Daddy issues). And also, for tripti to obtain I must stay on top of my sadhana, and to do more inquiry into betrayal in order to free the jiva of its samskara.
Perhaps the first form of betrayal is when the ego begins to project the bliss of awareness onto objects, and until I tackle that samskara on a moment to moment basis at that level, consistently and persistently, will I be free of it? Recently, it has been difficult, but this last week thinking of you and Ramji and sitting with scripture once more it is as if I am being lifted out of a pit in which I was drowning.
Sundari: Good. See reply below.
Robert: I have been thinking back as to exactly when viparaya started happening again in the last few years, i.e., when did the ego start projecting the bliss of awareness onto the objects once more. My girlfriend is quite an attractive girl (Isvara gave jiva a very alluring object and Robert fell for it), and she plays the damsel in distress roll quite naturally. I think at some point my Knight in Shining armour began to believe she was real and so began some clumsy dance between the 2. No doubt the rajas of renovating this house helped the magic show appear to be real once more too. When I got with my girlfriend and started the house I saw no difference between jiva and Isvara and thought I was good to go. As time passed, I stopped consciously consecrating every action to the lord and slowly but surely, unbeknownst to me, right under my nose, attachment was setting in. Knowing that I am awareness, when the demons set in recently was double edged, I knew I could not kill myself which was good, however, it also makes it even more painful that the jiva is so resistant to its true nature as unborn, limitless awareness. Perhaps avidya is the greatest betrayal of all.
I am close to finishing the house now, but much of the time, I am struggling to work, I am fine if I have someone working with me, but on my own I often struggle. The funny thing is I have little interest in the house. All I wanted was a small cabin somewhere to leave my stuff when I went away for the winter months. I guess that is what happens when I don’t listen to my own needs and values, something I find particularly difficult when in a relationship. I betray myself.
It is only if I prioritize my sadhana first that I have any hope of getting something done around here. Work happily, but not for happiness. Since I started writing this email to you 2 weeks ago, and reading scripture again in solitude, already I am noticing the rays of the Self raising me up. Thanks so much for taking the time to read this. Hope it is not too whiny. Maybe I have said too much? I know Robert is a bit caught up in jivahood right now. Perhaps you can add something to it.
I sent my first message prematurely in every sense of the word. 🙂 I apologise for that. I didn’t really look at the email from the point of view of the gunas. I guess the bottom line is I am quite angry with myself for not standing in my values. Anger produces a lot of rajas and rajas a lot of tamas. I think that is what might be the cause of the demonic manas/chit feedback loop. Misunderstood anger, the rajasic nature of anger causes the manas and chit to go on churning out the same old story until I process it in some shape or form.
Sundari: I think it is good that you sent the first email, as you needed to hear the ego lament as a catharsis. A whiny feedback loop as you call it, of intelligence, sattva, in the service of tamas, ignorance. Isvara is bus at work in your life delivering the fruits of action, or inaction, more likely. Despite the tamas talking, you clearly are Self-aware, and when the tamas subsides, the discrimination of Self-knowledge is there. You certainly are correct that you need a serious dose of guna management.
A romantic break-up is never much fun, even one we know is not in keeping with our svadharma, as you did and do. You have been trying to justify staying in the relationship for a long time because, as I said above, you have not faced the needy person within. Isvara does not make mistakes. Nobody forced you into the relationship, only your own unconscious jiva stuff. Observing the ego go through its dependency mania would be funny, if it were not so predictable and misery-inducing.
Even if you did get its desire fulfilled and you ‘get her back’, how long do you think the feel-good would feel good? I am sure you know you know the answer to that! You made the right decision finally, for the right reasons. Stick to it. Get your focus back where it should be, on your sadhana. Stop slacking off and making excuses. It does not work to give lip-service to the scripture, however much you think you know the teachings, and you do. Vedanta only works if it is applied rigorously to every aspect of your life, no fine print.
The sattva and the lucidity of Self-knowledge does shine through in your words; you write well, as always. We also know you love the feeling of sattva and have a tendency to get stuck in it, which is also tamasic. The sattva gets subsumed in an extremely repetitive fruitless cycle, one even you are clearly bored with. The endless story of ignorance, originating from the Causal body, finding a way to become ‘our’ story, thanks to the brilliance of Maya. The jiva may not be real, but there is no way to avoid cleaning up the sewer of the unconscious. Isvara does not give passes on this. It does not help to just know you are the Self, unless you have truly seen and negated the jiva program. You have skipped important parts of your self-inquiry so the teachings have not assimilated and are not being properly applied to your life.
We commend you for your self-honesty and humor, though. Small-self deprecation is a good sign of discrimination taking place. A healthy disdain for the jiva program is required to see it for what it is. But though you are objective in your ability to psychoanalyze Robert, which is all well and good, your thinking is nonetheless emotional. Guna management is meant to be about managing the needy emotional jiva. But he is alive and well.
You clearly know that you slacked off, which is a tendency you have, not only and most importantly with regards to your sadhana, but in general with your mithya life. The house renovation disaster seems to be a good analogy presented to you by Isvara. Everything you said about your life is a testament to this, house, parents, girlfriend, etc. Nothing happening ‘to’ you has anything to do with the people and situations that plague you. Even the strange dreams are there to remind you that your only problem is Robert.
He is the house that needs renovating. Freedom, as you know all too well, means freedom from the jiva, not for it. And there are no shortcuts or easy paths to it, which means dependence on any object, however seductive, must be negated. It’s not the object itself that is the problem but the attachment to the idea that you need to have it (or be without it) to be happy. As the Self you are free with and without objects.
You know what to do. Go back to the beginning and apply the teachings. I understand how difficult this is when the tyrannical needy mind is under the sway of rajas and tamas. It is brutal, but no excuses allowed if freedom from limitation is your aim. Unless it isn’t. As you well know, Vedanta is only for those who are ready to face all aspects of the fabulous and less than fabulous jiva program. There is no other way to negate it. The ego cannot free or ‘renounce’ the ego. That’s why Vedanta is not attractive to most. But if you truly want to be free of the limitation and suffering involved with being Robert, there is no other way.
After all, the ego identity is not you, it’s just an Isvara construct. You are never not the Self. The ego hates the relentless scrutiny of the Self, of course, but what price freedom? It’s time to get serious about your sadhana and stand in the fullness of who you are, the ever full, whole and complete, uncompromising Self. Or give it up and indulge Robert. You will get more of the same, but you cannot do both.
We are fond of you and wish only to see you shining brightly as the limitless Self, free of karma, free of Robert, while loving him warts and all. But I think perhaps what you are unconsciously asking for, and needing, is a much needed kick in the butt. Isvara has already delivered it, and will keep doing so…. until you surrender. So get with the program!
Much love
Sundari
