I am sure most of us are here today because we have a burning desire for raw truth. To seize it, to know it, to be it. All true seekers long for this, hoping to be healed. Healed of what? There is so much beauty in this life, such glory and wonder. Why is it so hard to see this, what’s so bad about life in the world that makes us refugees of war, torn and bleeding? Or empty, dissatisfied and bored? How can all this beauty and the enormity of our souls, who we really are, be eclipsed by such tiny minds? Maya is a great wonder, indeed. Here we are, the unchanging unchangeable Self, all there is. And yet duality, the hypnosis of separation, has the power to blind and imprison the mind in smallness. No more real than a mirage, Maya is a deluding trick of light that shuts off access to our magnificent, powerful light as the nondual Self.
Thirteen years ago almost to the day, Ramji blazed into my life like a comet coming out of nowhere. Scorched earth tactics. Nothing remained the same. Everything about my life at the time changed almost instantly. It’s like God erased it. My family and those who knew me who already thought I was weird, now believed I had totally lost the plot. In fact, my family ganged up on me convinced I had been seduced by a cult leader. Most don’t speak to me to this day. They were right, in a way. Except the cult of Vedanta has no leader and no followers. This cult is not the occult, not the cult of the chosen ones, the righteous, the lost and found or the next best thing to Zorba the Buddha. It does not give you anything and it makes no promises.
There is an eligibility issue though. Nonduality, Vedanta, is the only valid pass for those who are, or can become, qualified to break out of the prison of smallness. Not to become big – that’s the false promise of all cults. Though any ‘bigness’ promised in a cult is simply grooming to keep the cult and the cult leader going, never to allow you to break free. I have never been in one, but anyone who has, knows how true this is. Vedanta does the opposite.
It tells you upfront that you are free, that you are not in prison and never where. It’s all just a case of mistaken identity. But it does not make you into anything. In fact if Vedanta is working it will unmake who you thought you were. It has to if you want the medicine to heal all wounds, the key to unlock all doors. But true freedom does not come easy. It would be great if the key of knowledge opened the door of our prison and we could just walk over the threshold to freedom. Sadly, the normalisation of the abnormal by Maya is entrenched. Like anyone incarcerated in an actual prison, duality institutionalizes us. We are used to limitation, it’s normal. We even find comfort in it because it’s what we know. Vedanta requires us to think counterintuitively, to reverse everything we think we know, and that kind of thinking is hard work.
To develop all the qualifications, the right values, to commit to a sadhana, identify and clean up all the unloved and injured parts of our ego identity, and to negate doership, is very hard work. Before James and Vedanta came into my life, as a deeply spiritual knowledge seeker from young who had tested but not succumbed to the many offerings of the spiritual supermarket, I had gone as far as I could go. I was Ok with who I was, happy enough, and becoming a very successful artist. Most importantly I had given up the idea of finding happiness through objects, especially people. I had worked out a lot. But I had no real independent teaching and no teacher. There is no way I would have ever negated the doer on my own.
You just cannot read or do your way to freedom. That is the hardest part of escaping the clutches of duality, Maya. The doer. You have to be qualified and you have to be taught. If you truly want to break out of the prison of smallness, there is no way to avoid ‘facing down Isvara’, as I like to put negating our jiva story. You can fool yourself that you know who you are and that’s enough. Maybe it is. But it’s not freedom from limitation if there is still a doer in the equation.
We are all teachers and the taught. So many of you inspire us with your insights, and we encourage all of you to share what you know when appropriate. A Self-realized friend of ours who has assimilated the teachings and is doing the hard work of cleaning up residual ignorance, shared a thought process with me that cuts to the essence of what it means to live as the Self.
This is it: No happiness without integrity. No integrity without authenticity. No authenticity without transparency. But what do these terms actually mean if we look at them from both the satya and mithya perspective, as we must do all things?
Integrity – What Is It?
1. Mithya perspective: As with all words and all things mithya, the meaning is a matter of interpretation. On the personal level, having integrity means holding and living in accordance with a moral code of conduct. The basic law that underwrites life is a value for non-injury in thought, word and deed. Unless you are a true narcissist, a socio or psychopath, you will suffer if you break this rule. Whether you see the principle in terms of a religious or purely humanistic context, integrity means that your life values are in accordance with non-injury, to yourself, or anybody else. Therefore, what you value is congruent with who you are, what you say, and what you do.
But if integrity is linked to non-injury, what really constitutes non-injury? Non-injury means honouring yourself, and others. But you may have to break contracts you have made with people because they no longer serve their purpose and/or are no longer congruent with your values. And the person or people on the receiving end would very possibly feel injured; you may be accused of lacking integrity. I was when Isvara turned my life upside down and I changed everything about it. But are you? As being true to your dharma is primary, and if you are breaking a contract for this reason, to be in integrity means that injury to ‘others’ is unavoidable, and not adharmic for you. Quite the opposite. We are not here to make others happy, firstly because there are no others, and secondly because our true purpose is to realize the Self.
What if you hold the value that life is sacred, but you are a soldier who goes to war protecting your country, and you have to kill as part of your duty, like Arjuna had to do on the battlefield? That is in keeping with the integrity of the whole. Therefore, integrity is not only a matter of svadharma, personal ethics, it is also a matter of visesa dharma – situational or group ethics. When we take doership out of the equation, we see that life naturally follows the law of non-injury, though it may not look like it on a personal level.
But because of the power of Maya, being ‘in integrity’ can also be used as a manipulation strategy to get others to do what you want, or to avoid doing your duty and what is dharmic. To shirk responsibilities under the guise of being true to ‘yourself’.
In addition, integrity can apply to anyone who lives according to whatever is their moral code. For instance, you could claim to have integrity and be a hitman or a thief who lives in accordance with an honour code that applies to those professions. You could have low morals or be a person of ill-repute, say a prostitute, but living in integrity with your svadharma. In mithya, integrity is a grey area as is everything.
2. Satya Perspective: From the Self’s perspective, there are no grey areas – the meaning of integrity does not lend itself to interpretation. Though the person is known to be a program and not real, they do exist and automatically follow the dharma of non-injury on all three levels, personal, situational – and most importantly – as the Self. Everything in your life is in accordance with the scripture and therefore, the harmony of life. Everything about the jiva construct is known. There are no binding or self-insulting jiva patterns causing harm to you or any part of life conveniently ignored because they are too much trouble to clean up. Your karma is clean and reflected in all you do, in all your relationships, in the way you live, your body and home. You are the Self. You live it. No fine print.
But for those who do not understand what living as the Self actually means, it could seem like integrity is up for interpretation. Though as the Self you effortlessly uphold the law of non-injury, and never engage in self-insulting acts of any kind, you are also free to be true to your relative nature. Which could mean that you behave in ways that other people interpret as wrong, or injurious, or not in keeping with being ‘enlightened’, depending on how identified they are with being a person and a doer. Ramji and I have both encountered this situation.
So, let me use our life story as an example:
As the Self, I am free to get emotional, even angry. There are times that it is right to vent, to take a stand and act on these feelings. I am free to change my mind, to behave in whatever way is in accordance with my personal dharma or svabhava – meaning my character, even though I am not identified with being a person. Everyone is made a certain way. Ramji and I are very different as people. Our karma streams prior to meeting could not be more divergent.
James was born in middle class America with all the mod cons, number one son with one brother, a triple A plus personality – which is highly competitive, high achiever, impatient – born to stand out, command all the attention in the room, a leader, a King. He is a true Mahatma, great soul. His life story both before and after moksa is so larger than life and off the charts, it would make a great movie. He is truly one of a kind!
I was born in darkest Africa 150 miles from the nearest town, the tenth child of eleven, we had lions walking around our house, elephants tearing up the vegetable garden and giraffes taking down the telephone wires. For the first six years of my life, I had contact only with family and the people who worked on the coffee estates my father ran. I was completely unsocialized.
We moved to South Africa in my seventh year, I spoke only Swahili and Italian. Just like a wild untamed little animal, I spent the first year of school sitting under my desk, mute and terrified. Not only was I terribly shy, to make things worse, growing up I realized I was a complete and utter misfit in my family. They are all good people, I was loved, but I was born with a different program to theirs. One flew over the cuckoos’ nest scenario.
My family are died in the wool devout Catholics, it never took with me. I have seven brothers who were all high level auto engineers, owning the highly successful Southern African Ferrarri Importership for forty years. I am Italian, I grew up driving very fast cars, so I drive like a racing driver. James drives like an old man. What could possibly go wrong?
When James and Vedanta upended my life and the unlikely joining of forces took place, I had broken free of my family and my life story, I had found my own way, and was successful and happy. But I would not say I had lived large, as he has. I was a knowledge seeker but I still had a long way to go to step out of prison. Ramji saw potential and told me he would download his mind into mine, which he proceeded to do and threw me in the deep end teaching Vedanta.
And here I am, 12 years later, a scribe for Isvara. But in becoming so, all jiva smallness ended. The little girl sitting under the desk is long gone. The warrior woman Athena archetype is unleashed, and I had to learn to moderate her, too. James likes to embarrass me by telling people that I am not all sweetness and have teeth – and this is true. I do. Everyone does. Including Ramji, who has a bad boy Ramji character in the mix, too. And we both love our little devils!
Though we do not have a lot in common as people other than our values, intellectual level and love of art, and are primarily together to do the work we do, our love is deep, sacred and nondual. Yet, recently we realized that the ‘married’ archetype operative on the jiva level, sometimes caused conflict because of the way it activates jiva differences, which neither of us enjoyed. We found it limiting, and the Self cannot tolerate any limitation. Love is free, it cannot be owned, it is faithful only to itself and automatically follows dharma. So we ended the idea of the married program. Limiting ideas go, but the love is the same. A nondual relationship is not like any other.
Our personal story is not important and probably has similarities to many of your stories. I tell you all this because there is nothing personal about anybody’s life. If you do not understand how the Self lives, or that your nature is love, you may judge it. You may not like it and feel insecure if I am not behaving according to your desires or projections. You will not understand that as the Self, I still act for results and have desires but they are in keeping with dharma. Meaning, I am never chasing or avoiding anything. I am what I want and anything I apparently do not have on the personal level, I don’t need. Even if the jiva would enjoy having it. Nothing wrong with having it, just the need is absent.
How can I be free of limitation if I am not free to be true to my nature? The difference when you know you are the Self is that thoughts and feelings never stick. They instantly dissolve in Self-knowledge, and there is no harm done. Even if apparent conflict arises, there is never any real conflict because you are never conflicted. It’s just ripples on the waters of mithya. You are free of karma. If someone judges you, it does not bother you because there is nothing you can do about other people’s projections. It’s just ignorance.
2. Authenticity – What Is It?
1. Mithya perspective – it is hard to describe true authenticity because nothing is as it seems in duality. Black and white does not exist. For most, like integrity, being authentic generally means that how you speak and act – how you conduct and convey yourself in and to the world – is congruent with your core values and who you really are. You are honest and true to yourself because you are OK with who you are, even if you believe there is a lot of room for improvement on the personal level. You don’t try to hide it and neither are you trying to impress anybody. You can laugh at yourself and be self-deprecating, you can even have healthy self-disgust, but without beating yourself up about it. You accept yourself flaws and all.
But it’s not easy being totally authentic because most people carry a lot of shame and low self-esteem. Few people actually like themselves and most people try to convey an image of themselves that is a lot better than they feel about who they are. The strange thing is that you will far more easily be liked and accepted regardless of faults if you don’t try to hide them. Authenticity is probably one of the most powerful currencies we have in connecting with other people because it engenders trust.
Authenticity is most valuable when it conforms to the value of non-injury. But though we can add a moral component, it does not have to be there to qualify as ‘authentic’. If being ‘authentic’ means not trying to hide who you are, you could be an authentic jerk, a psychopath, a murderer or child molester. Or an authentic liar. Like integrity, you could use being ‘authentic’ as an excuse to avoid following dharma, or even injuring others.
2. Satya or Self Perspective – As the Self, you have zero to hide because the jiva persona is known to be not who you are, its binding samskaras and doership are negated, and your karma and lifestyle are cleaned up. You like your ‘not’ self a lot, even though it still has inborn character and limitations as a jiva. But as you always follow dharma, and are surrendered to Isvara, life is harmonious despite its ups and downs. There is no option other than for you to be authentic. You are an open book. No grey areas. Always and all ways. Some people may feel uncomfortable with this, and judge you, especially if you are very open and honest, and never try to hide ‘personal’ issues.
Transparency – What is It?
1. Mithya – as with authenticity, being transparent as a person means you have nothing to hide. You do not have subterfuges, do not manipulate others to get what you want, are naturally open and honest, even if you do not like everything about yourself, or if your life is not everything you would like it to be. You allow the world to see this, even if you are not that proud of some things.
But because the law of non-injury applies everywhere, it may not always be wise or kind to be totally transparent and honest. Like integrity and authenticity, being transparent can be used deliberately to manipulate or injure. Even if not, always being honest about what you think and feel can cause unintended confusion or even injury in certain situations. Therefore, though being transparent is part of your svadharma, situational ethics may at times require you to not be too transparent or honest. Sometimes a white lie may even be necessary and dharmic.
2. Satya or the Self – Same as with authenticity – as the Self you are naturally transparent because you are the perfection of love and life. Plus your jiva identity is negated, its binding samskaras cleaned up, you naturally follow dharma and everything in your life is harmonious because it conforms to dharma in every way. You truly accept and love your jiva, flaws and all. There is never anything to hide and you tend to be totally open and honest, always.
And yet – though you are always authentic because as the Self you cannot be any other way, when you are dealing with a person who is stuck in duality, the Self may still be cautious of what it reveals. As the scripture says, do not disturb the minds’ of the ignorant. Some people who are timid or unable to understand your freedom and openness may not be able to take total transparency in certain situations. Therefore, being the Self does not mean you no longer apply discretion in how you deal with the people and the world.
So, as we can see – while the terms integrity, authenticity and transparency seem different and are all open to interpretation from the mithya perspective, from the Self’s perspective, they are interchangeable and not open to interpretation. Seen from the satya perspective, you could say that integrity, authenticity and transparency are a good description of what it means to live fearlessly as the Self.
Keeping on the topic of what it means to be live as the Self, Lucua wrote to us after our last Sunday Zoom teaching, and this was her question:
Last night in the satsang Jeremy spoke of coming to the end of inquiry, realising he can’t go further. I often see this point, where it is clear the individual needs to give up, meaning let go of the idea that it can make liberation happen. This is a very hard (seemingly) and critical point for the jiva. How do I phrase it from a scriptural point to address this need for surrender?
Sundari: I saw the confusion on Jeremy’s face – his question was not answered for him last Sunday. He wants to know what ‘he’ can ‘do’ to ‘go further’. See the subtle doership and the illusion of somewhere to go and something to gain? The doer cannot go any further.
Here are the three main reasons advanced inquirers get stuck:
Reason Why You Are Stuck #1.
Residual Ignorance – Self-Actualization
As Rory mentioned in his talk last Sunday, the traditional Vedanta teachings do not focus on the final stages of self-inquiry – Self-actualization – other than to clarify what is required for moksa. And they do so in almost every teaching. A qualified Vedanta teacher can tell you what moksa is and isn’t, what values and qualifications you need to qualify and how to develop them; they can teach you to discriminate between ignorance/duality and knowledge/nonduality by unfolding what the jiva is and isn’t with reference to the ever present and unexamined factor, Consciousness; they can unfold the entire methodology of the logic of Existence with precision giving you the technical steps you need to follow and the tools you need to apply the teachings: karma yoga, guna yoga, bhakti yoga. It’s all there in the scripture. If the teacher and the student are qualified, assimilation of Self-Realization should take place.
Self-realization is a huge step in the right direction but it is not Self-actualization. The knowledge that you are the Self may have obtained, but complete freedom from the personal program most likely has not. There are almost always some remaining binding mental/emotional patterns to purify that cause mental/emotional agitation, along with a remaining and subtle doer. For most people, this stage is like ‘requalifying’ – re-examining values, qualifications, psychological and lifestyle issues. This may well be tedious hard work, but what price freedom? The problem is most people are looking for an easier way to escape their suffering and there isn’t one.
As we say ad nauseum, moksa is for the jiva because as the Self you were never bound. Moksa is not about perfecting the jiva because it’s not real, though if Self-knowledge is working your life will improve. The only agenda Vedanta has is that happiness is good and suffering is only due to wrong thinking and living due to ignorance of your true nature. It is to restore the jiva to its natural state of permanent happiness, free of anxiety, and to give it a fabulous life without suffering. The jiva’s life will improve greatly even without Self-actualization because the nature of the Self, Consciousness is parama prema svarupa. Parama means limitless; svarupa means nature and prema is the love which makes love possible – i.e., bliss. When the song of the true heart is heard, you can never ‘go back’.
Self-realization can obtain even if the inquirer is not fully qualified, and all the values/qualifications are not quite present. But Self-knowledge will not likely stick unless all the qualifications are developed eventually. To begin with, faith in the teachings and the teacher is paramount. The student also needs to be totally dedicated, and as stated but must be repeated – ALL the steps for self-inquiry must be followed. If not, Self-knowledge cannot deliver the bliss you are after because there is a doer in the way.
Even a little or intermittent access to the bliss of your true nature is huge in terms of transforming the jiva’s life. But it’s not moksa. Anyone dedicated to actualizing Self-knowledge is aiming to transition directly to perfect satisfaction – tripti. Unfortunately, this can only take place if you are totally qualified when Self-realization takes place, which is almost never the case. Therein lies all the ‘work’ for the teacher to impart, and the student to assimilate and apply.
The inquirer must clean up the binding samskaras, both in terms of the jiva’s practical and subtle emotional life. Especially the deeply painful life experiences of the jiva. No excuses here. All self-insulting habits must go. The devil is in the details. It requires the final negation of the idea of yourself as an individual, a jiva, and a doer.
The problem with most advanced inquirers who have assimilated the teachings and know they are the Self, is that no teacher can help you with nididhysana, Self-actualization. It’s up to you. The teacher can still advise and help you, keep nudging you in the right direction, and point things out, but cannot do the work for you.
And there is work to do on dismissing the residual duality that keeps tripping you up – binding vasanas and doership. There is no fine print. If you want freedom, everything about the jiva character needs to be seen, understood and negated in terms of nonduality. It does not necessarily mean changing all habits – just the self-insulting ones that stand in the way of accessing Self-knowledge, meaning the binding and habitual rajasic and tamasic thought/emotional patterns that keep you chasing or avoiding things in the world.
This Also Entails:
Home – How clean is your house, how much do you hoard, ‘in case you need it one day’ or just because you are too lazy to clean it up?
Body – What do you eat, how do you treat your body, how much do you move it? How do you dress, are you a slob, do you take care of yourself or obsess over yourself?
Speech Tapas – How much do you say that does not need saying, the pointless babble, instead of carefully organizing your thoughts and speaking succinctly and clearly? And just as important, how many things are you too afraid of saying because they will reveal what you are hiding, from yourself, and don’t want anyone to see?
Entertainment – What do you do to numb your mind, what is your drug of choice? What weapons of mass distraction do you indulge in to escape your mind? Tamasic – such as food, sex, drugs, TV, or rajasic – shopping, gambling, frenetic sports, etc etc….?
Associations/Relationships – Who do you associate with, how do you relate to everyone in your life – are all your dealings with the world clean, and all unfinished business a thing of the past?
Money – What is your relationship to money? Do you hoard it, give it or splurge it?
Devotional/Gratitude Practice – Do you have one?
Reason Why You Stuck # 2.
Studying Vedanta – You may well have realized the Self and have done or are doing the ‘work’ of cleaning up your act. But you are still stuck. Maybe, it’s because you think that ‘studying’ Vedanta is necessary. You are meticulous in your sadhana, maybe take pride in how ‘spiritual’ and ‘clean’ you are living. You have integrity, are authentic and transparent. But you cannot see the doer who has co-opted the knowledge, and the spiritual hubris holding you back.
Reason Why You Are Stuck # 3.
The Final Renunciation Minus the Renouncer
The most subtle reason you are stuck is that though you have assimilated the teachings, have cleaned up your act, and are genuinely living the scripture, you are stuck in what Matthew calls ‘the slippery slope’ or ‘the infinite approach never arrive’ problem. This is a very good description of this stage, where the doer has gone as far as it can go – and can go no further. Though doership is negated with karma yoga sannyas, there remains a subtle doer.
This was Jeremy’s point, and Matthew puts this well it in his satsang (see posted online – titled Practical Step Regarding Self-Actualization and Their Limitations):
Quote: “If you are doing the work of discrimination to defeat the process of identifying and establishing “standing as Awareness” (self-realization), so you can correct your thoughts, emotions and behaviors (self-actualization) then you are doing the required practicing like a piano student learning to play the piano.
But you also have the “infinite approach, never arrive problem” of using your intellect to study the reflection of the self in the mirror of your own intellect, and even worse you are reinforcing your identity as a person who does things to get results. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
See the problem here? The doer standing in Awareness, the doer ‘using’ the intellect? It’s all correct. But nonetheless, this doer too, has to go.
Matthew again:
Ultimately satya and mithya are only teaching paradigms. Reality is non-separate.
Remember the analogy given by Ramana Maharishi about the stick that is used to stir the fire eventually itself being consumed by the fire. Your standing as Awareness and your correcting yourself will also be consumed.
Practicing this is not just developing integrity for the jiva, it is also rehearsal for the moment of grace after efforts, when we no longer need to consciously discriminate between satya and mithya. Duality isn’t real, only apparently real. Someday the world will transform for us forever and the self we worked so hard to transcend will be like the mist from breathing on an early winter morning. It appeared for a moment and was gone, an insubstantial indication of the presence of life”. End quote
This is renouncing the renouncer, which happens by the grace of Isvara. So, the reply to Jeremy’s statement, how can I go further, is: Who is wanting to go further? The doer cannot go further because there is still a doer involved and that is the problem. Hence, the final renunciation
Renouncing the Renouncer
If all of the stages of inquiry have been completed, there is still one more step – the most subtle object to renounce – the desire for moksa itself, and the remnants of the teaching. Even in that there is still one more layer because there is still a ‘renouncer’ in the mix. Who or what is renouncing what, if there is only you, the Self? From the doer perspective, here is where you can get stuck on the loop of infinite regress, as Matthew points out.
A Simpler way to put this in a quote from James:
1. “When Self-knowledge is hard and fast, you know you are not the doer and have cleaned up its act, the next thing is removing the doubts about yourself and the world created by the teaching. They will be there. When your last doubt disappears, the idea that you are a doer finally disappears. Then the doer appears as an object that is obviously not me. Self-knowledge alone does that.
2. Now that you are no longer a doer, you can do without doing and allow knowledge of the Self to transform the doer into a perfect reflection of the love that I am. With easy confidence you can say I am free. I am love.
Is that all?
3. No. You need to eliminate the non-essential variables in the two statements above. What are they? Anything other than you.
Is that the end? When you eliminate them, you will know the answer. “
As Matthew points out, the stick that is used to stir the fire eventually itself is consumed by the fire.For me, I was blessed with the karma of living with a Mahatma, and the lessons that came from that were harsh but necessary for the elimination of jiva identification. James was equally fortunate with his guru, who was also very hard on him. Not everybody is so blessed. Does this mean everyone else is up the creek without a paddle? Not at all.
It just takes as long as it takes. Maya is the best teacher, but it has no idea of time because it is time. The good news is that you are never not the Self. And if you understand what moksa is, the ‘steps to get there’ are the qualities of ‘being there’. You are never not ‘there’. Trust the Vedanta bus to get you where you never left. All of us who have been fortunate enough to get on Ramji’s Vedanta bus have very good punya karma!
Once you know that you are satya, you know that there is only satya. Mithya still plays out in all its apparent technicolour dream-like beauty and ugliness, but it’s known to be a dream appearing in you. There is only you. There is nothing to renounce and ‘nobody’ left to renounce anything. And then you can really enjoy the beautiful dream for what it delivers, without getting sucked into it. You are home free.
As Isvara said through Ramji at Trout Lake 2023:
One fine day,
There’s a little click
And the world stops
It never starts again
The status of the world has changed
It’s no longer real
It doesn’t move or spin
It just sits still like a mirage on the desert
It’s there but it has no meaning
It’s just pretty and shining
Reflecting the light of Awareness. You.
And you know
You didn’t say it, affirm it or claim it
Or do anything to obtain it
You are Awareness
You’re functioning here as Awareness
The human body mind and emotions
And the whole world are out in front of you
And nobody is looking over your shoulder
This is what nonduality means
There are not two entities here
There are not two things here
I shine and the world shines after Me
