CC: Thanks, yes, all is good – whatever is uneasy is easy, and most is easy 🙂 . Sorry to have disappeared a bit … I know I tend to do that at times.
Sundari: How can you disappear? You are never not present …
CC: The ‘crash’ came with a sort of ‘knock-out’ but was just a nice landing really. After so much energy output, physically and mentally, it had to happen 🙂 – which also resulted in a clear settlement in what these guna’s do and don’t do.
Sundari: Guna knowledge is the game changer in living an intelligent sane life, and they work predictably so once you know, you know. Rajas and tamas cannot be separated – though what is interesting is that excess rajas inevitably ends in excess tamas, but not the other way around. Yet, once tamas gets hold of the mind, it is very hard to get out of it, but the only way to do so is with rajas. Sattva is just not available.
Conversely, the most effective (but not easy) way to get out of excess rajas before it becomes entrenched tamas, is with sattva, again, not easy but possible but requires discipline.. Though sometimes, tamas is the first or only option, if only to sleep. Excess rajas extroverts the mind so much that the nervous system becomes fragmented, in permanent fight or flight mode.
As Ramji has been teaching the last two Sundays, sattva can also pose a big problem. It so easy to be seduced by the idea that you are somehow special or different when the knowledge first dawns that you are the Self, the witness and not the experiencing entity. It is akin to waking up from a very deep, very long sleep and seeing clearly for the first time. What most don’t realize is that whether you run off to India and get high immersing yourself in the sattvic peace of ashram life, which is very common, or whether you just think knowing who you are makes you different from everyone else, that is enlightenment sickness.
The golden cage of sattva traps most inquirers at some point. Luckily, there is a cure, but only if the ego is prepared to accept its demotion, and the reality check that being the Self is ordinary. That is the tricky part, and it is where ‘the rubber meets the road’ in the real meaning of moksa. It can be a tricky balancing act managing the gunas, but Self-knowledge does the job.
As you know, a true jnani is simply the witness of the gunas, just observing the play without being disturbed. But it is very unpleasant for the mind to be overrun by either rajas or tamas, as it is to get unwittingly caught up in the illusion of spiritual specialness. So taking the appropriate knowledge based approach to managing the gunas may be required.
CC: I often don’t know the difference anymore between Ishvara and jiva, in some sense, but they are funny – it’s all free.
Sundari: There is no difference from the Self’s perspective. But there is a big difference from the jiva’s perspective in that their abilities are vastly different. It’s only ‘all free’ if you truly know that.
CC: It’s like seeing jiva and Ishvara as the same, and me and making jokes amongst each other also, talking beautiful nonsense.
Sundari: Yes, if by ‘me’ you mean the Self
CC: I mean to say that a refining of mind is going on and that this is very much like a celebration and very quiet. I would like to check some things with you on this but it isn’t in word-mode yet. But the sheer joy to be, and to not apply it to circumstance reflexively, or subconsciously.. phieuw…
Sundari: As always, you are doing a pretty good job of it! Alway here if you need any clarification.
Much love
Sundari
