John: I hope you have been keeping well. This time my question is on the degree of purity and the exaggeration of enlightenment even in scripture.
Rory: This is why a teacher is important, to help unfold the scriptures and deal with both the overt meaning and the implied meaning. The Upanishads in particular are conveyed in an often poetic language which can cause confusion if not correctly unpacked.
John: Many portions of the scripture make enlightenment seem like a larger than life goal after gaining knowledge of which you supposedly become so pure that flowers bloom wherever your blessed feet touch the ground.
Rory: I can understand why it might seem like that from the jiva perspective. However, first of all, it’s best not to see enlightenment as a goal or an attainment. I know the mind likes to think in those terms. It’s a realisation of what is; and yeah, in a sense it IS larger than life (if we consider “life” being the mithya world).
It’s also not about “becoming” pure. It’s the realisation that you have never been anything less than pure.
As for the flowers blooming statement. Well, all flowers bloom by the light of the sun, and, similarly, all this universe exists by the light of the Self—you.
John: I was wondering what level of purity is needed before I can stop my Sadhana?
Rory: Purity simply means having a predominantly sattvic mind. It’s as simple as that; guna management.
The mind is by nature sattvic; that’s how it’s capable of knowing things, because sattva is reflective in nature, like the clear surface of a lake.
Rajas and tamas are described as impurities. Both are essential for the mithya world to exist, and they’re not “bad”; they both have essential functions. But in terms of knowledge, they create impurities because they interfere with the mind’s ability to clearly perceive, to know and understand. They impede knowledge. Rajas has a projecting quality; it distorts what we see and makes us see what isn’t there. Tamas has a concealing/veiling effect on the mind; it prevents us from seeing/knowing at all.
Sadhana is all about managing the proportions of the gunas. This isn’t a one-time affair. You don’t suddenly manage to purify the mind once and for all. The gunas affect the body-mind-sense complexes of living beings in the mithya world, even the jivanmuktah (liberated soul). Therefore, sadhana isn’t something that should really be thrown away. It can be stripped down to the bare minimum, certainly; but if you want to keep the body and mind happy and healthy, it’s important to be aware of the influence of the gunas and manage them as necessary. They’re constantly fluctuating, even through the course of a single day. So much of life is really just finding what works for keeping them in a more or less harmonious flow. The more sattva we cultivate, generally the happier we’ll be and the more qualified the mind will be for Self-knowledge and the three stages of Vedanta.
It’s a mistake to abandon sadhana prematurely. Take my word for it. As Swami Chinmayananda once said “eternal vigilance is the price of freedom”. Even once you fully “get” the teaching at an intellectual level, it takes time to assimilate it until the switch is flipped. Swami Paramarthananda suggested that if the first stage of Vedanta, shravana takes 5 years, we should allow 10 for manana and 15 for nididhyasana. The whole while, a sattvic mind is necessary. So that’s 30 years of sadhana.
Of course, once the knowledge has truly integrated and flipped your sense of identification from the jiva to awareness, you are free to do whatever you like because you know that, as awareness, YOU cannot be affected by the condition of the body and mind. But there’s a price to pay for failing to adequately manage the gunas; the body and mind will suffer the effects of rajas and tamas. Many jnanis become very dispassionate and some don’t care too much about the condition of the body-mind-sense complex. They are alike in pleasure and pain, as Krishna says in the Gita.
Continuing to do sadhana is a kindness to the jiva though. I think of it as housekeeping. Nobody likes to live in an unclean or disorderly environment. That’s why even mahatmas tend to continue their sadhana long after liberation. What better is there to do with the body/mind? Plus, by that point the sense of “doer-object-enjoyer” has been neutralised so there’s no sense of doing anyway; sadhana just happens because it’s a beautiful way of expressing the love we are and praising the Lord.
John: From what I know self knowledge doesn’t make it so that you never have a bad day again and some level of desire and fear will still be experienced though it won’t cloud your intellect anymore.
Rory: That’s looking at it from the perspective of the jiva, not the Self. Self-Knowledge is knowing you are the Self and the Self never has a bad day. It never has any day at all, actually. It’s just there—it just shines. All the mithya stuff takes care of itself. It’s not touched by the jiva’s good days or bad days. Again, the jiva will always be subject to the gunas, including the intellect, which can be contaminated by rajas and tamas. When the knowledge has been fully assimilated, however, you know that you are free of this whole play and are unperturbed by desire and fear. So, when you know that you’re the Self, you’ll quite literally never have a bad day again.
John: I realize that the goal of Self knowledge is not to make you a saint but just to understand your jiva’s tendencies and negate the binding and adharmic ones in the light of knowledge which will indirectly purify you as the unconscious sewer is cleaned out.
Rory: This is correct.
John: But it seems the purification game has no end. Every time I clear out some character flaw a subtler character flaw comes out, immediately I understood that this whole jiva being in Maya is in for a zero sum game purification wise. Should I just stop? These flaws which I am aware of are not noticed by anyone except for me and they don’t have a huge effect on my daily interactions. But leaving it there actually causes agitation because it is like a dark spot on an otherwise clean mirror.
Rory: I went through a spell like that. I decided I’d try and purify the whole damn subtle body and clear out absolutely all the crap. I found, like you, that the unconscious repository of samskaras is almost like one of those plate or mug dispensers you see in canteens; the moment you take one, another immediately pops into its place.
My advice is deal with the samskaras, vasanas and blocks that are binding and which cause significant discomfort. A reasonably pure, sattvic mind is important. It’s unnecessary and not possible to have a 100% pure mind. There will always be an element of rajas and tamas. Remember karma yoga. Just do your best, tackle what you feel needs to be tackled and take the rest as prasada. Accept those little dark spots; heck, even someone like Ramana could be cranky at times. It didn’t affect the splendour of his/the Self’s light one little bit.
John: I was wondering if you had any advice on how to stop this strange purification addiction as I surely don’t have the disposition of a saint who can successfully go through doormat Sadhana as I will have a lot of worldly karma as I am still quite young.
Rory: Karma yoga. Keep your attention on the sun and the shadows fall behind you. Keep your mind on the knowledge and deal with any blocks as and when they come up, but don’t obsess on anything other than the light/beauty/bliss that you are.