Nididhysana, Necessary or Not?

Section 1 of my Sunday 14^th Zoom Satsang

It’s so strange that nonduality is so hard to accept as fact when it is and always has been the truth about who we are. You cannot become it because you are it, there is no doubt about that, and Vedanta sets out to prove it to you with the incontrovertible logic of existence.  Living as the Self should be the most natural thing anyone could do. In fact, it’s impossible not to live it. Why not try not being conscious about being conscious, see if you can manage that? It’s impossible. You cannot negate or deny Consciousness because you have to be conscious to deny or negate it. Known or unknown, Consciousness is your primary experience in every moment of every day. Duality, which is when Maya makes me forget or overlook my primary experience and identify with reflected consciousness or my secondary experience, is what is unnatural. Nonduality does not give us anything special; it simply returns us to normal. But it’s negating the pesky personal program with its like and dislike filters that is problematic. Unfortunately, most of us have normalized that dysfunctional persona as our primary identity.

Nididhysana, Self-actualization, is hard because it sounds so contradictory. On the one hand, it is saying that if you have realized the Self, you don’t need to worry about the jiva persona. Which is true. You cannot perfect something that is not real. And on the other hand, it is saying that unless we clean up the jiva’s act, moksa will most likely not obtain. Also true. But, which is it? Well, it’s both. The personal jiva identity may not be real as it is purely conceptual, but the universal Jiva is the Self. There is no other option in a nondual reality. But the universal Jiva and conceptual jiva exist in two different orders of reality, satya and mithya, which though not in opposition to each other, never meet.

Great news, right?! So, does this mean I just carry on being a dysfunctional jerk, and forget about ‘my’ vasanas, or likes and dislikes, because they are not me, and I can’t see how working that hard to get rid of them will help? I don’t have to worry about how irritating it is for others when I just don’t feel like accommodating to or taking their needs into consideration. I can say what I like when I like. I am the Self, so who cares. None of it matters. Well, if you tried this, how is it working out for you? I bet not very well. Dharma requires us to take others into account. If we are only interested in a good life, there is no way to ignore dharma, which includes you. You insult yourself and others by living this way. And there is no way to ignore your impact on others. If you are after moksa, living dharmically is our primary aim because peace of mind is our primary aim. If you are Ok living with your dysfunctionality and the blowback you get for being a jerk, that’s your call. But are you really Ok with it?

Let’s try to keep this simple. If Self-knowledge has realized, which means the nondual teachings are or have assimilated, this is what that looks like:

1. We can discriminate between satya (the witness/unchanging Consciousness/primary experience) and mithya (conceptual persona/always changing/secondary experience)100% of the time;

2. We have objectified our jiva persona, see, accept and love it totally, as it is, without the need to improve it or change it. Yet it has changed for the better not because it had to but because it values peace of mind above all;

3. We love and receive love without inhibition, exclusion, withholding or defending;

4. Our personal program no longer causes us, or anyone else: (1) any agitation and (2) to deviate from the position of the witness. This means our likes and dislikes don’t drive us or trouble us. We are satisfied with what we have and don’t need anything. We always consider how we impact others and take their needs into account. We live impeccably according to the dharma of non-injury.

If all of the above are true for you and you are not fooling yourself with a spiritual bypass, crack the champagne and celebrate. You are home free. Why worry about your jiva, in that case?  It is just is what it is – an imperfect object known to you. No jiva is perfect, needs to, or even can be. That’s good news, guys! But the bad news is that if the above points are not true for you all the time, then you are not home free.

High spiritual states are all very nice, and good for you if you have lots of them. But it’s the every moment moments of life that matter, not the experiential highs, which always end.  If you are often, or even occasionally, tripped up by binding likes and dislikes, meaning your jiva persona prevents you from accessing the position of the witness and causes suffering to you and others, even momentarily, how free are you? Not very at all. When Self-realization has taken place, it is very hard to be prevented from accessing the bliss of the Self, even for a moment.  So be warned, there is no going back at this point. You can make excuses for hanging onto your likes and dislikes, but only you pay the price. You cannot unknow the Self. And separation is worse when you know.

Accepting life as it is in every moment of every day is living a sane God filled life. Another great bit of news is that we can do this even if we have not actualized Self-knowledge.  We do not have to wait twenty years if we are fully aware that wanting things to be different is the recipe for suffering. If we can greet every experience generated thought/feeling, good or bad, as God visiting us, showing us something we need to see, without judging it, every moment of our lives is a sacred moment. There are no exceptions here, even for the hard stuff. Each moment contains a gift that has never happened before and will never happen again. Whatever life presents to us, whether we choose to act on the like or dislike or not, if we acknowledge it, honor it, and let it go, it will not stick to us. We remain a tabula rasa because we are the witness, standing as Awareness. Love rules as I identify with my primary experience, not the secondary interpretation of my subjective human reality.

This is probably the most important realization we can all have, if we want a peaceful mind and a happy life. In fact, it is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where the true inquirer stands apart from the lifestyle inquirer.

Living like this has a name

Amor fati

Love your fate, which means, love God

Every moment of Every Day 

How to do it? 

1. Humility. Faith in the nondual scripture and the teacher representing it, commitment to my sadhana as my primary motivation;

2. Discrimination. Taking a stand as the impersonal witness – my PRIMARY EXPERIENCE.

3. Dispassion/forbearance/mind management = karma yoga. Whether I  act on it or not, I surrender to God EVERY experience (thought or feeling), i.e. like or dislike, instantly, as it arises, BEFORE  it morphs into action. Every single one. I DON’T GIVE IT TO THE EGO!

4. Appropriate action or inaction. Control of the sense organs (especially speech) and organs of action. Action should always come after you have applied karma yoga to your likes and dislikes.

These four points are all you need to know to live nonduality.  It helps to track where you are at, in the process of negating bondage to your likes and dislikes. Further on I have listed the four basic stages of what surrender looks like and entails.

 First, let’s take a closer look at what it means to live a God-based life.

(See section two of my talk posted on the website)