Helga: Thank you, Sundari, for sending me the PDF on fear.
I read it immediately and found it very interesting because fear-thoughts are not far away from my mind. Since my youth fear is a topic in my jiva’s life.
Sundari: I am glad you read it because it is very important to understand the universal fear samskara, as it is one of the hardest to render non-binding for the jiva, along with the longing-for-love samskara! That one is just as hard.
Helga: Fear and the longing for love. That’s crazy because I was raised with so much love but I always searched for love from “the outside world.”
Sundari: This is normal for samsaris because maya has deluded most people into believing that they are incomplete and need to find love to complete them. You are lucky if you were raised in a good home, but it does not inoculate you from the “finding an object to complete me” samskara, because ignorance (duality) comes with the territory of being born human. I have attached an article I wrote on non-dual love.
Helga: I must confess that I love this man I wrote about in my previous email and I am attached to him. This seems to be a binding vasana and may be the last obstacle to moksa, the strong desire to connect to a special object, according to the jiva’s likes, and to feel the love and completeness that is already within.
Sundari: Who is attached, and to what? Only the ego gets attached to other objects, never the self. But at least you know you are attached. And if you know you are attached, are you attached? There is nothing wrong with attachment to the self in the form of “another person” when you know that everything is you, that no object gives you something you don’t already have. I am attached to Ramji, to my daughter, to my granddaughter, to other people I love, not because they give me anything I don’t have, but because in loving them I experience the love I am. They don’t give love to me nor do they ever take it away. I am attached only to the self. Loving is always blissful, providing you don’t get sucked into duality again. Duality is only a problem if you identify with it. When you have realized the self and have negated all objects as not-self, the next step is to see that all objects are non-different from you, the self. But you don’t depend on them for anything. Only then can you truly love. Unless love loves with open arms and sees the beloved as non-different from you, it is not love-based love but fear-based love. The main thing is the motivation for being in this relationship. Why do you think you need it?
Helga: I feel so much love for him because I can feel despite all fears he is a really dharmic human being and maybe we could benefit from each other on our individual way to freedom. There is definitely a reason why Isvara let our paths of life cross because it was love at first sight for both of us. When he first saw “me” he looked shocked, and the same for me.
We are not in a relationship with each other right now, and on the other hand we are. It is complicated and an obstacle in my self-inquiry. Love and fear, what a combination or should I better write a match made in hell…?
Sundari: Nothing comes our way as a jiva that is not part of our karma – and maya is very intelligent (and RUTHLESS!) indeed! What looks so attractive can be the cause of so much grief and suffering. The story of love and heartbreak is the story of life, with so many love-struck jivas ending up in hell instead of heaven.
Maya makes the world of objects look so sexy and juicy, shimmering like jewels dancing in the light. Because all jivas are primed with likes and dislikes, it so easily and effortlessly attracts and deludes the gullible and ignorant mind to fall hopelessly under its dangerous spell, just like the delicious monster plant attracts insects to their doom. If only Isvara made the world of objects a little less attractive…
