Franco: Maybe you remember we first met about 5 years ago. Since then I’ve never lost contact with Vedanta, with Shiningworld and all your tools of knowledge. “Somehow” I’ve tried to do my daily sadhana … yes “somehow”. What I mean is that I feel I lack a burning desire for moksha. This is why I’ve never felt up to asking questions in satsangs or writing to you, besides my problems with spoken English.
But of course I suffer, I do suffer in this my dull, tamasic samsara with my physical disabilities. I realize this suffering has been growing lately, and don’t believe I should start again with psychotherapy, like I did in the past.
What shall I do? I understand that Vedanta is about Moksha and that I should go for it. Is it possible for me? How to get some peace of mind?
Thank you for your attention. Excuse me for this strange letter.
Sundari: Of course I know who you are, and I know that you have continued your sadhana despite the challenges you face. I don’t think this is a strange letter, though there is no easy answer to your question. I understand your despair and admire you because life is not easy for you – yet you carry on. What else can we do? Resistance is futile. Moksa does require a burning desire for freedom from ignorance, that is true. No escaping that. But if some of the qualifications are not strong, you can work on them. It just takes commitment.
I wish I could do something for you, but though I am the Self, as are you, I am not Isvara. I can only remind you of who you really are and to apply Self-knowledge to your mind. Nobody knows why they have the karma they have, especially difficult karma like yours. Isvara is the giver of karma, and though karma is unfailing in that we always get what we need to grow as a jiva, it is not often easy to understand why we get the cross we do. Everyone has one though.
Health, disabilities or illness are prarabdha karma, the momentum of karma from ‘past’ or current lives. However, karma is a difficult topic because how you experience it depends on who you think you are. Karma is real if you think it is real. There is no karma for an enlightened person (jnani) for instance, but the individual identified as a person accumulates karma that seems to come to the body/mind sense complex.
There is no solution to anything in this world – therapy can help to a point, but it is not the ultimate answer. The only answer is to take refuge in the knowledge that this karma, while difficult, does not belong to you . Even though it is so hard to live with a body that is disabled, because the karma ‘belongs’ to the body/mind, only Isvara, who gave it to you, can help you with it.
If one super-imposes what belongs to Isvara onto the individual then you are thinking as a person, not as Awareness; which means that you think the karma comes to you and therefore the suffering belongs to you—because you are identified with it. If you know that you are Awareness, you see the suffering taking place in the mind (Subtle Body); so you are free of the suffering.
I know it takes extreme dispassion to deal with chronic health issues or disabilities, because the rajas makes the mind dull, tamasic. It is very difficult to maintain a sattvic mind when the body is suffering, as you are. We can work with Isvara regarding our karma by our attitude to the thoughts and feelings about the karma. This is where dispassion and karma yoga is so important because your biggest problem is not the disability itself but the thoughts and feelings that it generates. It sounds like you are stuck in many ways.
There is almost always appropriate and beneficial action to be taken, which is up to you. To allow this karma to overwhelm you will definitely make both the rajas and the tamas worse, and therefore your life situation will also get worse. A slippery slope does not stop being slippery unless you get off it. Remind yourself that while physical disabilities are bad, psychological disabilities are much worse.
Identification with the Gross Body is inseparable from identification with the mind because the Gross Body exists only as a thought in the Subtle Body. When your attention is on a thought or a feeling, the Gross Body does not exist for you. It only exists for you when you pay attention to it. Like when it feels pleasure or pain.
The Gross Body is ‘within’ the Subtle Body and the Subtle Body is ‘within’ Awareness (you). There is no way to understand this or discriminate Awareness from the objects that appear in you unless you step out of Maya with Self-knowledge, i.e. discriminate between satya (always present and unchanging) and mithya (not always present and always changing).
Though the karma does not come to you as the Self, the jiva exists in mithya and it has to live with the laws that govern the Field of Existence. As the body belongs to Isvara, the momentum of past actions plays out as long as the body is alive. When the prarabdha karma is finished, the body dies. We are all in the same boat, with or without disabilities, as a jiva. Everyone has to cope with prarabdha karma, good or bad, and it will run out for everyone.
Though you cannot do anything about your physical disability, you are one of the lucky ones. You can do a lot about your psychological disabilities as a result of the physical karma. You have salvation at your disposal – Self-knowledge, the ability to discriminate between satya and mithya, karma yoga, and guna knowledge. You need to apply the teachings, vigilantly and bravely, and fight off the demons of depression and despair. Armed with the scripture, you can gain control of the mind. Put on your armor!
Some people buckle under seemingly easy life circumstances, others grow stronger despite deeply devastating karma. Whether our mind is our friend or greatest enemy all depends on the types of thoughts/feelings we allow to define us. This is an intelligent universe, and nothing happens by accident. You are only a victim if you fall for those tamasic voices of fear and despair and fail to take appropriate action.
Take a stand in Awareness as Awareness every single time they arise and practice the opposite thought. Just do it. What price freedom? There are always those who have it tougher than we do. Count your blessings. Start a devotional practice of gratitude, find something to appreciate every day, set up an altar if you don’t have one. Pray or chant when the tamasic thoughts threaten to take over. Hand over your fear and existential boredom to Isvara on the altar of karma yoga.
You don’t have to carry it. Let Isvara do it. Failure to appreciate this fact results in low self-esteem, the feeling that “I am a failure, or I am a victim.” Make peace with what cannot be changed, and focus on what can. And remember, you, the Self – the knower of Franco with the disability, are untouched by it.
Much love
Sundari
