Hi Ramji,
Thank you for doing the online seminars and Q&A, they’ve been a great way to stay connected. I’ve been listening to the recorded sessions when not able to attend in person.
A couple of weeks ago during the Q&A I asked a question about mystical non-dualism versus non-mystical non-dualism. Your answer was clear and made total sense, that the jiva comes to understanding though ‘spiritual’ experience as well as non-spiritual experience and you used Swami Dayananda as an example of the latter. There is still a lingering question if you wouldn’t mind, and allow me to provide a bit of back story.
A while ago my son and I smoked a little pot together which has been an occasional sharing of sorts between us. The high was like the mystical drug experiences of old with the heightened awareness and the promise of something wondrous, something other. This time however, I dismissed it with one thought, asserting Self knowledge, and the allure and ‘magic’ vanished immediately, effectively destroying the old belief that there was some divine experience of love that would consume me. Now I know what I am, that there’s nothing to be added, and that I am free of all experience, no matter how glorious. It felt like an old chunk of ignorance dropped away.
So my question is what was it that caused that old man to confront Dayananda and tell him he’s not teaching the tradition? What was it that made him (and you, if I have that right) part ways with Swamiji? Was his view that some mystical experience was a necessary qualification for Moksha? I find that hard to believe but I’ve been curious about it since hearing that story, especially given my own past mystical experiences and how much confusion resulted from them.
Thank you for clearing this up. I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend this Sunday’s Q&A but will catch it on the recording if you choose to answer it online.
Please give much love from us to Sundari and of course much love to you as always.
Ram: Lovely to hear from you. I trust all is well. Everything here is just fine.
The essence of Vedanta is the idea that there is only one Self and that the Self and what it experiences are the same but different. Usually when the Self is identified with the body/mind/sense complex somebody has a mystical experience, meaning when It thinks it is subject to change i.e. a limited entity, there is a momentary unintended suspension of identification, which produces a feeling of awe, wonder, freedom, bliss, etc. in the body/mind/sense complex. The jiva/Self, under the spell of this identification, immediately places a special positive value on the experience because it is so unlike its parade of ordinary daily experiences. So it identifies with this special experience. If it were to have this experience every day all the time, the experience would feel natural, ordinary. In fact it does experience limitlessness i.e. bliss always because the nature of the Self is existence shining as blissful consciousness/awareness. But the experience is obscured by the constant stream of mundane experiences.
More often than not a mystical experience of the Self just happens, sometimes in ordinary circumstances, sometimes in moment of crisis; it can happy anytime at any place. It can also be generated by various practices that produce conducive inner conditions, let’s call it meditation. A person can arrest the mind momentarily and produce a mystical experience.
So over time the idea of freedom and happiness i.e. liberation has come to be associated with a particular kind of subjective experience. The Self experience is Bliss experience. It is being. Being is bliss. It is effortless. It is not a discrete experience but seems to be a particular experience when it is evaluated with reference to a different category of experiences i.e. the humdrum seemingly endless string of daily experiences.
Because the experience and the Self are the same it is easy to associate the Self with a particular experience. But, while they are the same they are also different. Experience depends on the Self but the Self doesn’t depend on experience. It exists in an order of reality that is prior to experience.
I got this knowledge from Swami Chinmayananda because he got it from his guru etc. But Swamiji knew that mystical experiences can be both harmful and helpful. He also knew that when these experiences happened in his presence, he could clear up the confusion between knowledge and experience if a person committed themselves to Vedanta. So he emphasized the experiential aspect, not the knowledge aspect, even though he made it crystal clear that liberation is only gained by knowledge. He was immensely popular because of his tremendous spiritual power. It inspired hundreds of thousands. It is good psychology because most people are experience-oriented, not knowledge oriented. Other teachers may not have the charisma to generate mystical experience in others so they emphasize the knowledge aspect. Or, if a teacher does have the power to generate mystical experience, he or she may downplay the experiential aspect because it can easily produce enlightenment sickness; the ego owns the experience in an attempt to distinguish itself in one way or another.
That old man, Swami Tarananda, who ended up in Dayananda’s ashram, felt that the danger of emphasizing experience at the expense of knowledge was greater than the benefit, even though emphasizing knowledge was not as popular. I agree. People are pigs for experience because experience is all they know. Coupled with the feeling of smallness and incompleteness it is a recipe for disaster. Look at the plethora of spiritual monsters it produces. Only a few refined people appreciate the experience of knowledge. Swami Dayananda and Swami Chinmayananda were the same but different. They were both non-dual mahatmas but one was a non-mystical non-dualist and the other a mystical non-dualist.
Love,
Ram
