Dear Sundari,
When you mentioned the painting I immediately visualised an old water drain pipe, thinking how charming the impressionists are.
Then I looked it up and with a shock saw it was a traditional smoking pipe, already projected, from one tiny impulse, a fiction and had quickly imputed a story on top. Who needs fake news “outside”, when it’s generated in the mind, with just a pipe?!
Sundari: So true. When looked at this way, one can see that everything in mithya is fake news! Artists like Magritte and others of his ilk, Marcel du Champ for one (seen his famous signed toilet?) pushed the envelope of how conservative our perception is, showing how the mind pigeon holes everything into its narrow subjective frame of reference. Vedanta blows up that narrow bandwidth and exposes the fact that everything is just a thought taking place in an unreal ‘place’ called ‘mind’. The realization that nothing is as it appears to be takes some getting used to. But how cool it is to give up the idea that reality needs to conform to my idea of it. That is one of the great functions of Vedanta, as it is of true art. To make you step out of your mind and see it too as an odd artefact appearing in you.
Frank: Even then, the update from “drain pipe to smoking pipe” is another trick; it will change again and again. Who I thought I was for most of my life (until Vedanta) has had countless iterations like the pipe, on top of childlike notions which sum to “[feeling] scared, don’t really know what to do, nor know what is going on, nor who I am and, dare not admit it to others, even myself” and this still persists. Without a constant unchanging reference point from which to see this, Vedanta, Jivas are lost in Maya, apparently forever.
Sundari: I doubt there is a human alive or who ever lived that did not experience life in this way. What you describe speaks to the core issue of our humanity – the king of universal vasanas – free floating anxiety. Do we ever really know WTH is going on? Not really. The mind sees and records what it wants to according to its prevailing narrative, and not much will change that. Which is why we suffer, if we are identified. But the purpose of suffering is to blow your mind, break down entrenched coping mechanisms, however comforting they seem to be. Tragedy is terrible but it works wonders to either break or make, or both. All serious inquirers have suffered a great deal. and they come to Vedanta, if they are lucky, like refugees seeking asylum from life. The only asylum from the vicissitudes of duality is Self-knowledge, that which never changes. The one and only constant to hold onto.
Frank: I then saw one of his other paintings auctioned this week for an astounding 71 Mio EUR, the “Empire of Light” – genius – its impression constantly moves in the mind between night and day, equally hard to form a consistent idea – it’s both day and night.
Sundari: Amazing. Magritte did finally achieve considerable success late in life, but he struggled to find recognition for his genius for most of it. He peddled his talents in advertising, and at one time he even resorted to faking paintings of the masters to make money.
Frank: So I walked into town to consider actually buying a pipe, holding it up, photographing it and sending it to you with “this is a pipe”. I wanted to hold a “real” pipe and compare to the painting – but even then, the caption would probably still have to be “it’s apparently pipe” like when I now see the Jiva, see what I used to associate with, this “Duryodhana” obstinate this is me, of course this is me and it won’t (even if it has no will of its own nor express it), cannot be questioned” and so too with every person I meet, every circumstance I encounter they are (insert adjectives, usually not nice ones) ending in we are all separate.
Sundari: Yes, well thought out, and this is the point I was making. As a person, the stubborn idea of who you are, reflected awareness, is no different to a pipe, be it painted or otherwise, or any other object known to you. Makes no difference how you perceive it, no object is real or capable of knowing you, the witness of all objects.
Frank: Years ago in a Satsang, I remember feeling a bit jarred about something and Ramji asked me how I was – all I remember is what he said in response “it’s just Maya” in a really simple, light, factual way. I really knew at that moment he saw it that way and more so, it was so – but at the same time, at that time, rock like for me, not at all apparent.
Sundari: Yep, that about sums it up! But boy is it an unwelcome thought when we first hear it. We so badly want to hang on to our illusions, and our grievances. And so imprison ourselves in suffering.
Frank: This seems to be “melting”, to shift like a mirage – it’s really not really there. I know this. I don’t have that confidence yet, but I see it is possible and enough doubt has happened to convince my intellect. Sometimes it’s screaming like a cartoon, not really real anymore as it apparently fears its death. Like the witch at the end of the Wizard of Oz “I’m melting!!” from the water of Vedanta.
Sundari: This is the power of Self-knowledge at work, and the confidence will grow. It may be a dualistic means of knowledge, but Vedanta is capable of removing all ignorance, leaving only the truth of our nondual essence. But as I said, it is far from easy for the ego/mind/intellect to be convinced that letting go of all its ideas is the way to freedom. Particularly the idea that who you thought you are is just an incorrect conceptual assumption which has no basis in reality. That sounds just bizarro to the poor ego.
Frank: I feel I was born into Maya’s Abyss “He who fights with (apparent muppet) monsters should be careful lest he thereby becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee” and even a little tyrannical muppet is then apparently formed, constantly commenting on itself, what it has to then do, triggered by “pipes” which are not there and don’t even look like the pipes others mean, until this particular muppet, in all its sound and fury, melts back into the Self.
Sundari: Ha ha! I love this description of Maya and the jiva, it’s very good. All jivas are a product of the Causal body – which can aptly be called ‘the tyrannical birth abyss’. And yes indeed, we cannot help but stare into that abyss as one does at a parent, hypnotized, entrained. And the abyss stares back, often swallowing us whole and turning us into tyrannical egos. Yet the abyss and the ego are just a fata morgana. The imaginable and unimaginable depths of suffering this idea causes. What a wonder!
Frank: Hopefully before death!
Sundari: You can’t die, but yes. Hopefully you get to end the tyranny and live your deathless life before it’s over for the body/mind.
Frank: The puppeteer, Maya, then removes its big hand and the monster flops back into the box of all Jivas becoming just cloth. Monsters apparently created in a Pandora’s box I got “born”, the box was opened by being born, into ignorance and the box never shuts, of itself. There is karma to be worked out, Maya is there or “I” would not logically have been born, it is inevitable. But it’s no big thing from the Self’s viewpoint. All this has happened before and will happen trillions of times again with all the Jivas, all objects until the “end of time”.
Sundari: Pandora’s box is a good description of the Causal body, too, from which seemingly new iterations of the same Universal jiva appear, apparently ad infinitum. But there is no time, and none of it is really ‘happening’ at all, that’s the real kicker!
Frank: But wars end. Is the “karma” mine? it is in “my” account – but is this not perhaps like an inheritance account? Can it burn down, like money does and rather than get into further debt (or credit), just empties? Or perhaps it just becomes inert, the attention to it no longer directed to it (giving it value) like Ramji said “it’s just Maya” a bit like (rare) billionaires sometimes say “it’s just paper” – and the bank just closes the account. Like Germany in hyperinflation, the currency was reset, they burnt all the old notes and made a new one giving each person 100 marks to start with.
Sundari: You got it. All wars, whether psychological or material, are the ultimate pursuit of a point of view based in lack – duality. Karma, if it exists at all for the jiva, only has the meaning we give it. Of itself, karma is value neutral; its meaning depends on who you think you are. There is no karma for an enlightened person (jnani). The individual identified as a jiva accumulates karma that seems to come to the body/mind sense complex. When moksha obtains, the karma burns up. However, one has to look at what “burns up” actually means. Karma does not burn up for the Self as there is no karma for it. For the Self nothing ever happened. It is not a doer. Karma is not real, as you know.
Frank: The contribution my life can make, at most, is just a little less ignorance even though it is not a quantity that reduces. Is that all I can ever “do”? And even then the total ignorance amount remains the same anyhow. Life seems like a trick, with no goal or purpose or target – but then when something is already entirely complete, with all powers already, there would be nothing left to do for it anyhow – assuming it got from “here” to “there” in the first place to get to that point to become complete, which seems moot for something which is / was / will be itself with no beginning.
Sundari: This is the difficulty we have trying to put into words that which is beyond them. Remember this. There is no purpose to life, and nothing to contribute to, if you are everything. Life, as we like to call it, seems ‘alive’ because of me, Consciousness. I am life. I am not here in ‘human form’ to make a contribution. I am Existence itself, and I am everywhere and nowhere. ‘Life’ is a movie taking place in me. I cannot be improved. Moksa is just so that jiva ‘me’ can live knowing who it is, that it is the joy in life. To have fun with that, to live without fear. To live knowing you are unborn and undying, you are eternal love. You can call that a contribution to the whole if you like, speaking as a jiva, because you live as a beacon for truth, beaming it out to the universe for other lost souls to see, and find their way home.
Frank: The jester, Feste repeats in 12th Night the letter Malvolio has read (and has taken to be true, confirming what everyone knows he thinks about himself and the court) but now with a tragic, tired sense as if to show it was never real, “why, some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them” – in all 3 cases, “it was done to them”, “they” did not do it. Maya gives greatness, takes it away, some think they have achieved it and some get it even if they don’t want it and greatness like the pipe is not necessarily “great” anyhow.
Sundari: There is no greatness in this life – it’s an illusion. It feels very good to achieve our goals as a jiva, and success is possible in mithya, which is great. Life would be pretty grim if that were not so, nobody would get out of bed in the morning. My granddaughter just won the Jiu Jitsu World Championships in Japan, and she is only 9. We all felt so good about that, and so proud of her. But everything here is transitory.
Frank The Malvolio I see, my Jiva with Feste (the only one in the play both participating yet lucid; the Self). Malvolio says, after the reflection “I will now be proud” and “I will not fool myself nor let imagination jade me”. He did not take it as prasad, and if he had, the play would probably never have made it to the comical stage, but been a story in the Bible or similar.
Sundari: Shakespeare certainly seemed to have had rare insight into human nature. Playing the court jester is always a good option in life, certainly a lot better than taking oneself very seriously.
Frank I am struggling with the non-dual aspect. I see this, feel the release in the body and mind, perceive the indifference to things which used to be polarized. It’s not a depressing void but intermingled with “this is the way and it is ok”. But, like looking out of a dark box, I see everything around me as potentially me. But I cannot force myself to love God. I have tried and even though it is now logical, I still find it odd, almost as odd as someone trying to go from straight to gay, or the reverse.
Sundari: You are getting there. Maybe you need to start with loving yourself. As there is only God, ‘loving’ God is a dualistic viewpoint. And even if it is a good start, it will still be hard to do unless you love your (not) self totally. We often take this as obvious but it isn’t. And it’s not easy, either. The way life works for most is that even if we vaguely know that love starts with ourselves, we are not able to do so. Then Vedanta comes along and tells you the person is not even real, what then? Well, as we harp on this all the time, the way to nondual love is ‘through’ dualistic love. No way around it. Got to love ourselves warts and all. Most of us have or had a wounded child persona lurking about that prevents the love we are from shining forth brightly as our (constant) life experience.
Frank: All I do know is, it is not the Jiva doing the loving – walking that path again and again, whether it’s a person, a pet, work, a hobby or God – going a long way for nothing, is futile. Thank you again so much,
Sundari: Love is loving. Moksa, living with nondual vision, is about being your natural Self, accepting all you are as the finite body/mind, enjoying what that can bring you when you know you are the eternal witness of that short lived entity, relishing life in all its strange and wonderful glory. Loving God or anyone/thing is just being yourself.
James wrote this about love, it’s so good:
The Secret to Love:
Learn to get and give love at every opportunity!
I think that ‘relationship’ is a code word for love.
Everyone has this need.
But love is not always available the way we want it…so it is important to learn to get and give love at every opportunity…in everyday situations. This way one becomes satisfied and the need for a ‘special relationship’ becomes less important.
The best way to get a special person is to be full of love.
If you are empty, people will stay away because they do not want to be responsible for fulfilling your needs. It is just too demanding.
And to be full of love you have to feel right about the way you are living.
When you are satisfied that you are taking care of yourself properly the mind relaxes and the love that you are comes out…and attracts people.
Much love
Sundari
