Alexa: You were asked about intuition in the last zoom satsang, and you and Ramji blasted it as untrustworthy. I often feel like I know what people are thinking or get inner guidance about what a certain situation requires from me. I have a good understanding of psychology and of people. Why should I not trust this and act on it?
Sundari: There is a difference between an astute impersonal observation of what is going on in our environment (especially if we have guna knowledge) and our intuition. Even without guna knowledge, if we are mature, dispassionate, and objective we can assess things pretty well, usually. But intuition is not a valid means of knowledge because it is a product of our biases and of our conditioning or inborn tendencies. Plus, it is not always present and always changing so it is risky to rely on it because its interpretation of reality is subjective, unpredictable, and changeable.
Remember that which is true is defined as that which is always present and unchanging. It’s not to say that intuition (or instinct) is never right. In some ways ‘gut’ instinct can give us more accurate input from our environment because the gut has not evolved self-doubt. And we should take note and act appropriately and judiciously in certain situations.
In some cases, our intuition gives us a download from the unconscious or Causal body that is not helpful unless we can objectively and dispassionately assess the input and apply it to effect change. Unconscious content we pick up from others, even it is accurate, is never a good idea to share with them for the very reason it is unconscious, so they are not ready to hear it. Because of human biases and the mind’s tendency for heuristics, as well as what Daniel Kahneman calls ‘noise’, we often ascribe meaning to our interpretation of people and events which is simply not true or at best faulty. In psychology, the term for this is the law of attribution, where we project or attribute meaning to people and situations that is subjective, not objectively true.
While our understanding of people may be helpful if we apply the knowledge wisely, in most cases, it is best to assume that you know nothing. Or to have the humility to understand that what you think you know intuitively or otherwise may well be untrue. The only thing we can know for certain is that we are all the Self. Everything else is subjective and thus potentially false. Because the mind and the apparent reality are so complex, it is really difficult to know for sure what is going on in someone else’s mind, no matter how certain we are about our ability to psychoanalyze others or understand human nature. It is best to focus on working out what drives us, our own unconscious patterns. The only truly reliable means of knowledge for that is Self-knowledge, there is no other.
Self-knowledge is that which is always true in all situations and never changes. The information we receive from our subjective reality, the five (or six) senses only pertains to perception and inference, it is always changing. Besides which our senses are not subtle enough to assimilate Self-knowledge because perception and inference are objects known to the Self. The Self is the subject, and no object can understand the subject because it is subtler than it. You can prove this to yourself by asking two simple questions: are my thoughts/feelings/intuitions known to me? Answer: Yes. Do my thoughts/feelings/intuitions know me? Answer: No.
The only question to answer then, is who is the knower? It cannot be your mind or your brain because they are also objects known to you. The knower can only be Consciousness, the only invariable constant and that which makes experience (thoughts/feelings/intuition, etc) possible but never conditions to it.
Alexa: What is it that makes it so hard to understand and to change our self-destructive habits? I get so frustrated with this as even though I apply the teachings, I find myself caught up in the same old issues time and again.
Sundari: That is the million-dollar question! There is an important verse in the Bhagavad Gita where the student says, “What is that terrible force within me that causes me to act contrary to my higher nature?” The teacher replies, “It is rage, born of rajoguna.” The student then says, ‘The mind (owing to the rage) is an entrenched tyrant, impossible to control.” And the teacher replies, “Yes, it is difficult to control but it can be brought under control by repeated practice and objectivity.” This practice is self-inquiry and karma yoga.
The fruit of self-inquiry is Self-knowledge, the fruit of karma yoga is peace of mind. But even when we know we are the Self and no longer identified with the person or conditioned by their tendencies (vasana load), the person still has a certain unchangeable Isvara-given nature. Moksa is not about changing or perfecting the person which is why there are no rules for how a free person behaves, except that they never break dharma. Moksa is freedom FROM the person, so their nature no longer bothers you or causes suffering because it is as good as non-existent. Until this is true for you, eternal vigilance is necessary, along with continued self-inquiry.
While you are never not the Self, self-inquiry is not easy because ignorance is so hard-wired, don’t lose hope. The complete removal of ignorance is no walk in the park for anyone. Self-realization is the easy part. Actualizing Self-knowledge so that it is permanent and unchanging is the hard part. It requires dedicated commitment to self-inquiry as your primary motivation. The inquirer must understand and complete all three stages of inquiry, listening (srvanna) reasoning/contemplating (manana) and the final stage (nididhysana) which is the most difficult, purifying remaining binding tendencies (samskaras). Stick to the scripture, keep applying the teachings to your life, one thought at a time. Take a stand in Awareness as Awareness at all times and practice the opposite thought. Trust Self-knowledge (the Vedanta bus) to do the rest.
Alexa: Is there a difference between the brain and the mind? I am unclear about the functions of the mind and how it differs from the brain if it does. Could you help me to understand this?
Sundari: This is a very good question, and it has a complicated answer. There is an important difference between the brain and the mind, though ultimately, they are both the same because everything dissolves into Pure Consciousness, your true nature (also called Isvara 1). The brain is a material instrument, and the mind is the interface between the material and the spiritual, between spirit and matter. The mind is your spiritual ‘part’ because it is your subjective emotional/mental or ‘inner’ world. The brain is the material part and makes it possible to have an immaterial mind, but it is not the mind.
The Mind is a complex object and is synonymous with the Subtle body. It is responsible for thinking and feeling and encompasses all the other functions of the Subtle body, such as: the intellect (buddhi), memory (chitta), the I sense or ego (ahamkara); the 5 gross sense organs – eyes, ears, mouth, nose, skin, and the five subtle sense instruments, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching (jnana indriyas); the five gross organs of action – speech, hands, legs, anus, genitals (karma indriyas), and the 5 physiological functions (prana) – respiration, circulation, evacuation, digestion/assimilation and ejecting the Subtle body at death, udana.
Your imagination and intuition, all the weird dreams, the conscious and unconscious impulses, all the things you think and feel, all the things you wish you said or wish you never said, all the things you are absolutely certain are true about something, someone, or yourself but turn out to be absolutely false (or true), as well as the doubting function, is your mind. When the mind is identified with action, the enjoyer of pleasure or sufferer of pain, that is the ego (doer). Your ability to think, reason, and discriminate, is the cognitive function of the mind, the intellect. The memory function allows us to store and recollect information because experience is of no use without memory. If you can’t remember what you experience you cannot evaluate experience.
The five gross sense organs and five subtle sense instruments are our means of knowledge (perception and inference) with which to know objects (experience). They receive stimuli from the environment which the mind unifies and integrates into one experience. The mind has what we call the ‘traffic cop’ function that decides which organ will function consciously or mechanically. The five physiological functions, breathing, digestion, circulation, elimination are the unconscious faculties that keep your body alive and release the Subtle body at death. All the amazing things you are so grateful you can do consciously, such as walk talk, run etc., are thanks to the five organs of action. And none of these functions would be possible without a functioning brain.
You really cannot separate any of the functions because they are synergistic. As the Self, you are free of the mind and the body, but as a jiva, though you can live without a functioning mind, in a coma say, you cannot live without a functioning brain. However, if the brain and thus the body dies, the Subtle body does not die because it is eternal. It belongs to Isvara and returns to the Causal body in ‘seed’ form until its next incarnation to work out the remaining karma in the form of another person. Unless moksa obtains, in which case that Subtle body’s still to fructify karma (sancita) and fructifying karma (prarabdha) is finished. There is no karma for the Self.
The human brain is the most complex instrument known to man. But the brain’s computational brilliance does not belong to it. If that sounds totally irrational, it is from a dualistic perspective. The rules that govern the brain and thus the mind are profound and elusive and not known by most because they are not in duality. You need non-dual knowledge for that because only Vedanta explains the whole mandala of Existence, the forces that run the material and spiritual (subtle) creation and our conditioning (the three gunas), as well as the creative power behind the creation, Isvara 2, the impersonal Causal body (creative principle). All doing happens by virtue of Isvara, but it is important to note that Isvara 2 is actually Pure Consciousness, Isvara 1, so it is not a doer. The gunas, which are: sattva, the mode of clarity/intelligence, rajas, the mode of desire/action, and tamas, the mode of dullness/denial, are what give rise to the creation and to the doer, the individual (jiva), but they are not personal either.
Even though our brains are just meat, no matter how advanced our science gets, it will be impossible to fully understand them scientifically because the brain is beyond the scope of human understanding. This is because our brains are not our brains even though we all own one. Our brain is really Isvara’s brain because the mind pervades it, and the mind is one with the Causal body. There is no separation. Isvara is thinking and feeling you, you are not thinking/feeling. You are conscious and can think, feel and act only thanks to Isvara 1 and 2, and you need a functioning brain to do that as a jiva. There is really only one brain/mind, and we all share it, scary as that sounds! We can think of Isvara (Causal Body) as Powerful Big Brother watching us, driving our conditioning, with a computational ability that way supersedes our puny little bit of brainpower. Any wonder why moksa is freedom from the person? If you haven’t got that yet, that is why.
From the material perspective, to make things more complicated, the brain is wired by our nervous system and is always bathed in the chemicals it and the endocrine system produces, which are also incredibly complex and nuanced systems connected to all other body systems. Even though we talk about our brain as though it is separate from our biology it is impossible to separate them. Spirit and matter are one, as stated. As psychologists like to say, everything biological is psychological, or vice versa. Pity they do not understand the most important part, Consciousness, the spiritual aspect. So where is the mind? Scientists think it is located in your brain and more recently, in your gut and all over your body, but is not ‘in’ anything. It has escaped. Your brain is your body, your body/brain is in your mind, your mind/Subtle body is Isvara. The mind has no location other than the Causal body, which is not a place. And as everything resolves into the Self, Isvara and the mind (person) are you, the Self.
It is said we only use 10% at most of our brains capacity but that is not true. Unless there is serious damage to it, the entire brain lights up with the simplest task, even for people who are not particularly bright. How is this possible, what’s going on? We can only access 10% of our brain capacity (at most) because the other 90+% is the Causal Body, and way too powerful for us to compute. Isvara gives us only a narrow bandwidth of capacity for our human awareness (mind) or we would quite literally blow our mind! Some mental illness is the result of too much Causal body content ‘leaking’ into our human awareness.
So don’t be hard on yourself because it is so difficult to make permanent corrective changes to your understanding and conditioning, particularly rendering binding tendencies, (the things you wish you could stop doing but can’t), nonbinding. Your brain/mind is governed by the gunas or Maya, and that is a formidable program. For freedom to obtain, permanent change must be made in Isvara 2, and this can only be done if Self-knowledge obtains for the individual.
Isvara 2, the Causal body, or Pure Awareness wielding Maya, is the operating system and to make permanent changes in it is extremely difficult for the individual (jiva), whom we could call Isvara 3. In addition, your mind is also a result of karma, which is another word for the Causal body. If there is a huge store of still to fructify (sanchita) karma in your account, the pressure of that karma will make it very difficult to render binding tendencies non-binding, if not impossible in some cases. There is no way to escape karma, it will fructify. When it does, we call it prarabdha karma. When all your prarabdha is finished, it is time to go home.
So, to answer your question, this is why it is so hard to negate the doer and to render binding vasanas non-binding. It really is like David up against Goliath. But it can be done. Luckily for us, as stated, Isvara 2 and 3 are really Isvara 1, Pure Awareness. Self-knowledge, the non-dual science of Vedanta, makes it possible to render a permanent change in the operating system assuming the inquirer has developed the necessary qualifications, is properly taught by a qualified teacher and has assimilated Self-knowledge.
Once you can see that the jiva identity is a construct and is not who you are, that there really is no difference between you as a jiva and you as Isvara 1 and 2, you are on your way to freedom from Maya’s powerful hold. This is called Self-realization, and it is where the work of self-inquiry begins. Actualizing Self-knowledge is not easy, but with dedicated inquiry, it is entirely possible. Vedanta works to free you from ignorance, the limited small egoic false self-identity governed by the gunas.
Much love
Sundari
