Hi Sundari,
Congratulations on the publishing of your books! I can’t wait to receive them. I loved your recent satsang on the Damocles sword of ignorance. It brought home to me so clearly how terrified this ego is of ‘mattering’, of being valuable, seen.. How impossible that seems, and the lengths Isvara will go to get our attention. I am still struggling with the seemingly inoffensive but very destructive mouse persona syndrome that someone wrote to you about last week. I have the same problem. Though it disgusts me, it clings like moss to a wet wall, as my Irish aunt liked to say. Actually she had a worse metaphor, but that one will do! I know it’s probably pointless to ask why it has to be so hard to get rid of, because I know the answer. Still, I wish there was a magic wand…
Sundari: I have a few choice metaphors on that topic too. Maya shreds everyone to pieces and fills jivas with so much anxiety and fear. It is a sad state of affairs. Though there is no magic wand, thankfully, we are the lucky ones who can find the way out of the soul destroying game of duality with the help of Vedanta. Once Self-knowledge (nonduality) takes over the jiva’s typical mode of perception (duality), we are given brand new specs. The confusing upside down matrix we didn’t know we were lost in rights itself. It’s so incredible, to finally ‘see’ clearly how Maya has the ego in a vice-like grip. And its just a phantom of the opera – as good as non-existent, yet seemingly, so powerful. What a great cosmic joke!
It’s more than a little unfair, how the odds are stacked against Self-knowledge, but that’s the way it is. My 9 year old granddaughter is an international level jiu-jitsu champion, many times gold medal winner. She is just awesome. And her term for this grip would be ‘choke-hold’. She is a slender slip of a girl, but I have witnessed her many times bringing down opponents (mostly male and bigger) with ease, using this technique. It’s fascinating to watch how effective it is.
Well it’s like that with Maya. It has everyone in a chokehold until it Self-knowledge vanquishes the smallness of ignorance, once and for all. When that happens, you are immune to Maya, permanently vaccinated. The world can no longer fool or pull you into the relentless clutches of object-desire. You are the desire not opposed to dharma, always pleasing. You beat the odds and are free to enjoy duality for what it has to offer, without getting caught and devoured by Maya’s sticky spider’s web. It really is the best of all worlds, then. And only then.
The very sweetest part is you are no longer afraid of being loved or to love because you are love. There is nothing to lose, nothing to gain, no need for validation and nothing but you. How beautiful that is, and how sad that it is so rare. Most cannot believe it is possible,. But it is. It takes as long as it takes. Keep applying the nondual teachings to your life, one thought at a time. They work.
One day, that pathetic damaged persona edifice will crumble into dust. Hang in there, remind your poor ego that it is never not the Self, always and all ways. Give it a pat on its sorry little head, but don’t indulge it.
Much love
Sundari
