Mark: What I mean by my last email is that I sure as hell I have the all emotions kicking in in an endless chain. Pissed at that, happy at this, too hot, too cold, what an idiot, now he’s a great guy, how could they do such a thing, beautiful, ugly, the whole schmear. Dogs bark and humans have a constant desire to change what is. If you see yourself as a separate self you are stuck in constant frustration. You’re fucked. If you see the whole as it is, as one, it makes me smile. Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t. Oh well, I guess I’m human. Do you think this is correct?
James: It’s correct if you’re Mark, but it’s not correct, because you’re not Mark. See your orientation. You say, “Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t.”
In this case Maya has you by the balls because you are not an “it.” Mark is the “it” and you are the existence/awareness of the “it.” So what can you do about it? You can shift your orientation from Mark to “it.”
“It” doesn’t go through all the stuff that humans go through. The human stuff goes through the “it” without leaving a trace. It’s simple but not easy, because “they” start orienting us around the body the minute we pop out of the womb. I know they drive on the left in England, but I’m nearly killed every time I walk on London street because I turn my head the wrong way when I’m about to cross.
So setting one’s self free of the Mark-thought is a discipline. You can’t expect the Self to miraculously set you free, because the Self doesn’t know you have a problem. Well, you will be free when they shovel you into the warm earth, but everything up till then will be wasted because conceptual entities are never fulfilled. How can you fulfill something that isn’t real?
The purpose of Vedanta is to shift your orientation. It’s a lifetime pursuit. As Swamiji says, “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” which means keep the mind on the “it” at all times until it becomes natural, like your name. You operate as Mark effortlessly now because the idea that you are Mark is completely assimilated. But your knowledge of yourself as awareness is only partially assimilated. So you blink on and off like a firefly. When “I am awareness” is completely assimilated, then Mark “becomes” an it and the “It” turns out to be you forever!
~ Love, James
