(Note: This is a follow up email to What is My Duty – Svadharma posted below, which will give the reader more context. We are publishing these satsangs because Vedanta only works as a complete teaching. It is an impersonal teaching, a qualified inquirer and a qualified teacher. An opportunity to discuss the quailfications of a teacher arose with the information that a person who was once associated with ShiningWorld is extorting money and sexual favors from people on Facebook.)
Dear Jane,
I’d like to flesh out the dharma topic a little more. You said that my attack on Robert is a violation of my svadharma, which is writing and teaching Vedanta. Svadharma, what your do for yourself from the point of view of your individuality, flows from svabhava, your basic personality structure, not from a specific set of generic actions incumbent on a particular social role. For instance, karma yoga is an attitude one does for one’s self that exhausts unwanted karma plus sattvic dharmic actions that a person does that benefit his or her self and society.
But the field in which he or she does those actions is determined by his or her svabhava. Bhava means experience, in this case how you experience yourself. An artist experiences his or herself differently from a business man. A mother experiences herself differently from a father, etc. Any type of person in any field that wants moksa can become a karma yogi. It is an assumed secondary identity for achieving a particular purpose.
Keep in mind that we are only talking about a samsari or a Self realized person, not a Self actualized person who is an apparent person, not an actual person. “He or she” is Being shining as Awareness. No dharmas apply. No bhavas apply, except the experience of limitless bliss. In conventional worldly terms this person is an actor that can play any role that any situation that is presented to him or her demands, with the idea of supporting dharma. In my reply to your email I played the role that you assigned me, teacher of Vedanta, and related to your idea of what a teacher should or shouldn’t do.
I’m telling you now that you actually wrote the real me, not the apparent me. I am completely disassociated, meaning free, of the body and the word James. I am unaffected by the roles Isvara presents to me. Isvara is the factor in reality that generates experience. The jiva doesn’t generate experience although it thinks is does and Existence shining as Awareness doesn’t either. Why? Because it is everything that is and is not subject to modification. In fact, I’m not slightly bored or bothered by this task. No task is beneath me or beyond me. I’m completely blissful, got all my wits about me and am enjoying every minute of my life on earth, irrespective of what anybody thinks about me, positive or negative.
This is why you only get real Vedanta from mahatmas, not from conceptual entities like James or Robert, or any other jiva. The word mahatma means limitless Existence shining as Consciousness, not a person. When Ramana was asked if he was a teacher, he said no. Vedanta is apursheyajnanam, not from human beings. It is from Isvara, which is not the same or different from the Self. If you understand this you are free, in this case free of the idea that James is a Vedanta teacher or that you are a student of Vedanta. This understanding needs to be in place or you won’t get the benefit of listening (sravanna), the foundation practice of Vedanta. You will always interpret the teachings through a filter, not hear the teachings as they are. Your interpretation was that I should be writing uplifting books, not attacking a scummy internet troll.
Robert is pissed off because he thinks he’s a teacher and that I’m a teacher that doesn’t like him being a teacher that is trying to ruin his reputation, for the reasons I gave in my last email, which is correct as far as that “I” is concerned. You will notice that I make a point of calling attention to the fact that I am talking to the Self under the spell of ignorance, trying to appeal to that while castigating the person that he obviously thinks he is. If he was a proper mahatma he’d welcome a debate and we’d have a nice dharma combat as they did in the old days.
In those days people were actually interested in the truth and would give up erroneous views and accept the orthodox view. Obviously Robert has a problem with orthodoxy . You won’t find the idea that there is any Self at all in the James that Robert is talking about. That James is just Robert’s hate. He’s just a typical pissed off jiva who doesn’t want anybody raining on his parade.
Anyway, this is how Vedanta looks at this situation. It is not a good situation or a bad situation. It just is. Life just is and we need to deal with what is, not what we want or think about what is. And you do that by dropping the thoughts and letting Isvara respond to Isvara as you watch (sakshi bhava.)
Much love,
James
