Sundari: Yes, the mind is an amazing and powerful instrument, and the ego, which is a function of the mind, resists nondual knowledge because it would end its reign of the mind. The mind functions pretty much like a computer, with several components or functions. A computer comes with certain inbuilt programs which determine how it works, and it impersonally records the information we put into it. Whereas the human mind, though it too ‘comes in’ already programmed by Isvara, records information and responds to stimuli subjectively. It is influenced by the gunas, its inborn conditioning and the factors/karma that shaped its history.

We can only view things through these filters, speaking as an ego, of course.  Once Self-knowledge gets to work on the mind, the filters get upgraded to nondual vision, and eventually, they drop away completely.  Which means that once we have our nondual specs permanently on, though the human factor does not disappear, it’s as good as non-existent. Nothing colours our vision. We have perfect, clear vision 24/7 of what is unfolding in the moment, without needing to add anything to it.

The great thing is that as we are unburdened by the jiva’s past, we don’t create more past in the present to carry around with us as ‘the past’.  You have understood the jiva program, and negated your life story as not real, so neither hangs heavy on you. Our karma remains clean, and simple – there are no more accretions. You actualize Self-knowledge in every moment, thought by thought, as you apply the teachings to your life.  You do not need to wait until you are Self-actualized.  You are already what is actual.

While the mind and memory still function and we experience things as ‘before’ Self-knowledge obtained, we don’t create a story around them. So experiences (thoughts/feelings) just move on through, as the saying goes. Easy come, easy go Why bother holding onto anything if none of it is real?

Maria: He mentioned that one way to handle this “past” influence is to not label experiences, that sort of cripples the mind’s ability to create thoughts around it.  Maybe labeling an experience of any relevance enables the mind machine to spit out new thoughts, hence memories. No labeling, no thoughts.  These are my words, not his.  Please don’t share this online, I’m just trying to digest this knowledge –  as I realize how important understanding the bodily mechanism is.  Blah, Blah, Blah.  So, thank you both for your teaching today.  Right up my alley.

Sundari: Actually, this is an important point, and will help others, so I will post it anonymously. It is not labeling an experience that cripples the mind’s ability to create thoughts around it, and it will not stop thoughts from appearing. Nothing does. Thoughts come from Isvara, and though we learn how to think deliberately if we apply the nondual teachings to the mind, all thoughts are mithya. Labelling an experience can limit the mind to holding onto and harboring certain thoughts which are not helpful, that is true.  The real problem is not labeling but identifying with ‘our’ thoughts/experiences/labels.

There is nothing essentially wrong with labelling things, thoughts feelings, and we need to do it to function in and transact with the field ‘as a person’. The difference is that once nondual vision is operating, it is known that that the person is an impermanent object known to us, as are labels/thoughts/feelings/experiences. Nothing is taken on, and all influences pass as soon as they enter the mind, without sticking to anything. 

It is a question of who is receiving them. Jiva/ego or Self?

As the Self, one is just the witness of apparent name and form/thought/experience. You are the seer of name and form only in as far as Maya is operating.  But since there is no longer any maya (duality/avidya) in YOUR mind when you are firmly established in Self-knowledge, it’s just like watching a movie. Labels, thoughts and feelings arise, but you don’t add reality to what is known to be unreal and NOT YOU. Even though you still respond ‘normally’ to what the field brings to you, as though you are a person.

Don’t overthink things.  It always comes down to discriminating between satya and mithya, and asking yourself: who is labeling, thinking this, feeling this, seeing this, etc. 

Much love

Sundari

I really enjoyed the Videos from Trout lake and hopefully someday I’ll join you in one retreat. So here are my questions about Trout Lake lectures: Does the self need the experience of objects?

Ram: No. It is whole and complete and it is not an experiencing entity. It is just existence shining as ever-full consciousness. It is experience itself, so it has no needs.

Linda: Why does the self, I, experience Maya?

Ram: I doesn’t experience Maya, unless it is apparently deluded by ignorance of its completeness. It is being, experience itself. Nobody knows why. And you can’t experience Maya like you experience an object. However, if you are not experiencing complete satisfaction you are experiencing Maya, meaning you, Consciousness, are ignorant of your nature. The I is always satisfied. Ignorance makes the impossible possible. But what is possible is not actual so there is in fact no ignorance for you.

Linda: Is there a reason why the consciousness as freedom itself thinks it needs experience?

Ram: Nobody knows why. We only know that it thinks it needs to experience things to gain bliss when ironically bliss is its nature. If you say you want this or that because it will make you happy, without knowing that happiness is your nature, then you are experiencing ignorance, which Vedanta calls Maya.

Linda: Doesn’t what happens in mithya affect sathya?

Ram: You are satya, the self. Mithya doesn’t affect you. If it does you are ignorant of your ever-free nature. Freedom means that nothing changes you. If seemingly unreal experiences, affect you, you are deluded because you are free of discrete experiences whether you know it or not. There are not two or more experiences unless you are under the spell of Maya and if there is more than one experience—I AM—they aren’t real if you have no doubt that you are real. What is real can’t be affected by what isn’t.

Linda: What is the propose of mithya and the relation of the self?

Ram: Mithya…the world…seemingly hides the self. It depends on the self but the doesn’t depend on it. But the question isn’t right because fascination with experiences keeps your attention away from your self.

Linda: If I am already free, what is the whole point of experiencing the apparent reality?

Ram: There is no point. It is just entertaining, like a movie. 

Can you explain the idea that “experience and the self are the same”?

When you experience something you are just experiencing your self. There is nothing else to experience. Maya/Mithya/ignorance makes it look like you are experiencing something different from you.

Linda: Experience is a limited situation, right?

Ram: No. Experience is limitless existence shining as consciousness. It is sat, being. It seems to be different limited situations when ignorance is present.

Linda: So how can it and experience be the same as existence?

Ram: See the sentence above.

Linda: At least it’s part of existence as jiva is part of the self and Maya part of Isvara…?

Ram: Yes, if you think that experience is limited, meaning a lot of different experiences that are different from you. But all the different experiences you have are different in name only. They are just experience experiencing itself, which is a statement that you shouldn’t take literally. Experience is consciousness so it doesn’t have the instruments (body/mind) that make experiences possible.

There are two instances of ignorance in your question. First jiva isn’t part of the self because the self has no parts. Second, Maya isn’t part of Isvara, it is ignorance of Isvara.

Linda: Does action create ignorance and vice versa?

Ram: Action doesn’t create ignorance. Ignorance creates action. Action reinforces ignorance, meaning it makes the self think it is a doer doing actions but the self can’t do anything because it doesn’t have the instruments necessary for action.

Linda: How can I remove ignorance of the self without doing sadhana?

Ram: You can’t by doing sadhana, unless the sadhana is listening with a clear mind to Vedanta unfolded by a qualified teacher. Only knowledge removes ignorance. Sadhanas other than those recommended by Vedanta reinforce ignorance.

Linda: Is there some kind of balance between ignorance/knowledge and action?

Ram: Ignorance causes action. Knowledge removes ignorance of your wholeness. Action can make the mind ready for knowledge.

Linda: What’s your definition of experience, how do you define it, is it momentum or out of time?

Ram: Experience is Awareness plus a thought in the mind. Awareness is out of time, whereas thoughts are in time. Experience is satya and mithya but mithya isn’t real so experience just satya.

Linda: I’m asking because you’ve told us that an experience is finite from the jiva point of view, but the self is experience itself.

Ram: I said individual experiences are in time. They happen one after another. Some are short and some are long. Experience is Being—what is— so it is out of time. It doesn’t change.Regarding the difference between the voice of the self and the voice of jiva, is there any tool or advice that you could share about how to differentiate them?

Ram: The tool is knowledge (Vedanta) because it makes the difference clear. The jiva thinks it is small and incomplete so it tells you that you are small and incomplete. It makes you worry. It is not your friend. The self is your best friend. It loves you so it tells you that you are wonderful, that you don’t have to worry, that it has your back. Thank you so much, I don’t know how many times have you answered these questions but I really really appreciate your time.

Ram: It’s OK. It is my duty. Love you, Linda.

Having being a student of Vedanta for five years – committed to self enquiry and consistent study of various texts in a methodical early morning fashion – it feels like the right time to contact you.

My efforts culminated in early 2020 with a profound realisation/experience (awareness of being aware) and all other such words that are of course inadequate to describe it.

Following 24-48 hours of orgasmic bliss, 3-6 weeks of complete clarity and oneness pervaded daily life. This followed soon after with a breaking heart and the weight of all the worlds pain bearing down on my chest. A deep sense of grief and a very painful period.

My guru at the time advised me to put down all books of study and commit to physical activity to ground myself.

James:  I think you’re right about the timing.  You may be ready to hear a teaching that makes sense.  What texts did you study?  In your opinion, why didn’t your study bear fruit, apart from the experience you describe?  Did you ask your guru why he or she told you to put down the book and commit to physical activity?  You needn’t answer if the answer is no.  Prescribing intense physical activity is an admission that he or she has n teaching.  Any ski bum or big wave surfer knows that intense concentration produces a blissful experience of aliveness, oneness, etc.  In any case, he’s not wrong that you need another approach but he’s not right either.  Had you been properly taught you would not have expected to avoid suffering once the experience ended.  It is a fact that what is produced by karma i.e. dedicated practice, positive and negative, ends sooner or later. 

You need faith to practice self inquiry but not blind faith.  And you need an authority that transcends the authority you give to the teacher. 

Karen:  Ever since, having not studied, it seems no pursuit matches the “achievement” of early 2020 or ever will. The door opened and the universe undressed itself – the nature of the mind that the door itself sprang from became known.

James:  There is one pursuit that will produce the experience of the naked self but it is a pursuitless pursuit if you will, because you are already naked.  The ever-present experience of the ever-present unborn I— being shining as awareness—is hidden from you while you are seeking to experience it.  It’s clear that your teacher has never been properly taught Vedanta.  Because it is becoming popular, many people use the word Vedanta without understanding what it is to lend a bit of gravitas to “their” teachings. 

Karen:  However, the universe got dressed again. Thought crept back in, as did the world and now, having seen nakedness, that cannot be unseen, I find that it’s coloured the mundane with a hint of grey and the worldly of duty has become no match for its splendour.

James:  The universe is modest.  It must be a man.  No pillow talk: once it makes love it gets dressed and steps out to pursue other interests.  It’s a fickle lover.  The worship of the universe, which is merely a reflection of your eternally shining self, is far from a mere duty.  It is eager, glad and always uplifting accepting of what is Including the absence of the oneness experience. 

Anyway, thought is not in conflict with your nature as awareness.  Aren’t you aware of its presence and absence? I would bet that your mind was not thought free during that happy time either.  I am sure, however, that the thoughts didn’t affect you…until they did.  There is are reasons why you weren’t affected and why you were.  It is just a matter of understanding the difference between what is real and what is apparently real, which is not difficult to understand but it very difficult to accept.  

Karen:  Should I come back to study under your tutelage?

James:  I don’t teach how to study Vedanta.  I teach how to study yourself.  Vedanta is the means and you are the end.  Maybe you should come forward, not back, and maybe not.  Let’s see.  

Please tell me why you think your efforts will pay dividends this time.  What am I saying that attracts you to Vedanta?  If you want me to teach you, you need to understand that I would never tell you what to do.  And you wouldn’t be qualified for traditional Vedanta if you were willing to cede your discrimination to the will of another person, at least not without common sense reasons.  Evidently, your guru understood your kind of devotion and took advantage of you because he or she could just as well have given you a way to make sense of your experience and avoided giving you dumb advice.  Presumably he or she wasn’t against you studying Vedanta on your own, which often produces “non-dual” experiences but which doesn’t set you free of discrete experiences or of the experiencing entity, hence your disappointment. However, you can’t operate this means of knowledge on your own.  Anyway, these are all things you will learn if you commit to Vedanta pramana.

I make suggestions in line with the teachings only and provide you with irrefutable inspiring logic in light of the fact that there is only one principle operating here, which is you, existence shining as awareness/bliss, Then I wait and see if you take the suggestion to heart and if it produces the desired result.  If it doesn’t, I help you figure out why you didn’t get the desired result because Vedanta pramana always works if you are qualified and are properly taught.  It sets you free of Karen and discrete experiences, not experience itself, which amounts to non-dual love.

So please answer my questions and we will proceed from there. 

Love,
James

The essence of Vedanta is the idea that there is only one Self and that the Self and what it experiences are the same but different.  Usually when the Self is identified with the body/mind/sense complex somebody has a mystical experience, meaning when It thinks it is subject to change i.e. a limited entity, there is a momentary unintended suspension of identification, which produces a feeling of awe, wonder, freedom, bliss, etc. in the body/mind/sense complex.  The jiva/Self, under the spell of this identification, immediately places a special positive value on the experience because it is so unlike its parade of ordinary daily experiences.  So it identifies with this special experience.  If it were to have this experience every day all the time, the experience would feel natural, ordinary.  In fact it does experience limitlessness i.e. bliss always because the nature of the Self is existence shining as blissful consciousness/awareness.  But the experience is obscured by the constant stream of mundane experiences.

More often than not a mystical experience of the Self just happens, sometimes in ordinary circumstances, sometimes in moment of crisis; it can happy anytime at any place.   It can also be generated by various practices that produce conducive inner conditions, let’s call it meditation.  A person can arrest the mind momentarily and produce a mystical experience.

So over time the idea of freedom and happiness i.e. liberation has come to be associated with a particular kind of subjective experience.  The Self experience is Bliss experience.  It is being.  Being is bliss.  It is effortless.  It is not a discrete experience but seems to be a particular experience when it is evaluated with reference to a different category of experiences i.e. the humdrum seemingly endless string of daily experiences.

Because the experience and the Self are the same it is easy to associate the Self with a particular experience.  But, while they are the same they are also different.  Experience depends on the Self but the Self doesn’t depend on experience.  It exists in an order of reality that is prior to experience. 

I got this knowledge from Swami Chinmayananda because he got it from his guru etc.  But Swamiji knew that mystical experiences can be both harmful and helpful.  He also knew that when these experiences happened in his presence, he could clear up the confusion between knowledge and experience if a person committed themselves to Vedanta.  So he emphasized the experiential aspect, not the knowledge aspect, even though he made it crystal clear that liberation is only gained by knowledge. He was immensely popular because of his tremendous spiritual power. It inspired hundreds of thousands.  It is good psychology because most people are experience-oriented, not knowledge oriented.  Other teachers may not have the charisma to generate mystical experience in others so they emphasize the knowledge aspect. Or, if a teacher does have the power to generate mystical experience, he or she may downplay the experiential aspect because it can easily produce enlightenment sickness; the ego owns the experience in an attempt to distinguish itself in one way or another.

That old man, Swami Tarananda, who ended up in Dayananda’s ashram, felt that the danger of emphasizing experience at the expense of knowledge was greater than the benefit, even though emphasizing knowledge was not as popular.  I agree.  People are pigs for experience because experience is all they know.  Coupled with the feeling of smallness and incompleteness it is a recipe for disaster.  Look at the plethora of spiritual monsters it produces.  Only a few refined people appreciate the experience of knowledge.   Swami Dayananda and Swami Chinmayananda were the same but different.  They were both non-dual mahatmas but one was a non-mystical non-dualist and the other a mystical non-dualist. 

Love,

Ram               

I listen to your teachings over and over again and am slowly becoming a Vedanta computer.

There have been some experiences of absolute freedom, complete fearlessness, unconditional love, etc. in the past.

The first experience happened in a retreat. For days I had not followed the teachings of the guru, but had simply begun to dissolve all my resistance to the whole event and these spiritual people. So I felt more and more free. At some point something very remarkable happened. I just sat there and watched the goings-on like a moviegoer watches a movie. Then, from one moment to the next, the spectator and the cinema disappeared. There was only film, no more subject-object separation. The normal human perspective briefly reappeared, then it slipped away again. And in the middle of this timelessness, the mind suddenly roared: “You can’t even go to the john in this state.” That was indeed the thought that brought me out of this state again. After that the mind was just empty. Complete equanimity, Joe had disappeared. For a week. Then there was so much agitation that the personal perspective took over again.

From the whole story, I then concluded that I had to learn to simply tolerate strong feelings that bring me out of my peace of mind,  without pushing them away but also without identifying with them. I practiced this until I was sure that there was no more feeling that I could not handle.  With my present knowledge of Vedanta, I would then call this work with regard to moksa a qualification. I do not know if this qualification is meaningful for everyone. How would you see it?

James:   Yes, work on your emotions is qualifying work.  But let’s leave the qualifications idea out of it for now and look at your conclusion from the point of view of your ultimate goal—freedom.  The conclusion is logical, but logical doesn’t work for liberation because the problem lies with the one who concludes.  Freedom is freedom from the concluder, Joe.  But it was Joe that made the conclusion.  He “had to learn to simply tolerate strong feelings…etc.”   The one that concluded is the same one that “has to tolerate” in the future, which isn’t possible since the future is purely conceptual.  The actual meaning is that you don’t tolerate negative feelings now. 

This is quite fine since there is another solution: find out why you don’t tolerate negative feelings.  And the answer is that you don’t tolerate negative feelings because you think they are real.  But negative feelings, as well as positive feelings, including the feeling of toleration, are not real.  They belong to the “I-sense,” the feeling entity.  They only seem to be real.  Or you can say they feel real.  You, the one who sees them and believes that they need to be “tolerated,” is real.  If you know this, the feelings are as good as non-existent since they have no impact on you, existence shining as consciousness.  The other option, pushing them away, is subject to the same analysis.  You don’t push or pull.  You are the ordinary awareness in which pushing and pulling happen.   

Joe:  Unfortunately, I had also concluded from this experience that enlightenment is the dissolution of subject-object-appearance.  So that this state should be achieved. Today I would agree with the mind: A functioning on the worldly level, at least without help from others, would be quite impossible.

James:  Enlightenment is the dissolution of the subject object appearance but we need to look into what kind of dissolution it is.  Is it something you can do, something that happened, or  something that is already done?  It is not something that happens…except when it does…or something that you can do, at least not the way you conceive of it, because it is not a state.  It is a fact that can only be realized i.e. known.  If you dissolve it then you have the same problem I pointed out above.  The “dissolver” is not an actual entity.  It is purely a conceptual entity an “I-notion.”  And the subject-object split is equally conceptual because it disappears on inquiry.  It is not real.  So what kind of dissolution is it?  It is knowing that although duality is experienced, it is not real.  Once you know this fact the subject-object split remains but it is “dissolved.”  I understand that this is difficult to assimilate but it is the only fact you need to assimilate if you want freedom from Joe, which is to say you are interested in being unaffected by “his” experiences positive and negative.   

Finally, you are right that you can’t take a poop or tie your shoes in that state, but so what?  You can tie your shoes in the waking state where your shoes actually are.  And you can also take a dream poop and tie your dream shoes in the dream state.  Two states for pooping and tying are enough.  Experiences, spiritual and otherwise, are not real. 

Joe:  On the subject of qualification and above all the generation of more and more sattva I have a question. You sometimes bitch about yogic breathing techniques in your lectures. I do not practice yoga techniques, but I do other breathing exercises and I feel that they lead to a clearer mind in the long run. Do you see it completely different?

James:  No.  Any practice done in the right way with the right understanding is excellent and should be continued.  In general you can’t have enough sattva and all healthy habits produce it.  It’s good to think “I am am always qualifying.”  I hope this email helps you qualify for discriminating what happens to you from you.  It’s the essence of enlightenment. 

Joe:  One experience I would like to add. So after I had practiced to be able to feel all emotions freely and thought that nothing would knock me down now, the following happened:  I sat down one morning because I felt a slight pressure in the solar plexus. I knew from experience that this mostly has to do with feelings, so I completely got into that pressure and looked to see if there was an emotion. Slowly I felt a fear that became stronger and stronger with time. It developed into a real fear of death, even thoughts like “I don’t want to die!” But I remained the one who perceived the fear of death and also the thoughts and remained completely untouched.  Suddenly the thought came up: Give the fear the whole space. And with the OK to this thought, something happened that seemed to me similar to a supernova. As if everything was jettisoned from me and I imploded at the same time. It was only for a second and then everything was completely silent. I suddenly knew that fear of death is just the fear of this fear of death and that there is no such thing as death. Suddenly I also knew that no one has ever died because no one has ever been born.

As I sat there with this knowledge, it was absolutely silent until my alarm clock rang. I wanted to go to a seminar and got on the subway. Suddenly I was so flooded with love that I was not even embarrassed to have tears streaming down my face in the subway. Of course that was very nice, everywhere I saw only love. All those people: Love. Then after a few minutes (at that time I didn’t know the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna Arjuna shows the whole picture) I got the feeling that I could feel the emotions of all the people on the train. I was flooded with so much pain, fear, sadness, being lost, etc. that I just wanted to get out of there.  That was actually the beginning of the more interesting part, because for the rest of the day I was able to watch Joe’s personality reassemble itself by the mind resisting everything it encountered. What was astonishing was that there was absolutely nothing I could do against this process and it was quite clear that I am not Joe.

For this I then have a question: Is this what you mean by direct knowledge? I did not know where this knowledge came from and how I had to classify it. I only knew with absolute certainty that it was the truth.

James:  Direct knowledge is “I am blissful existence shining as consciousness and not the experiences that present themselves to me.”  This knowledge is in all the Vedanta texts and all my books.  It didn’t come from that experience.  That experience was Isvara’s clumsy attempt to formulate the knowledge for you.  But you didn’t assimilate it or you would not have felt the need to ask me about your experiences.   Don’t feel bad; almost nobody interprets these experiences in such a way that it permanently sets them free from the person they think they are.  However, once they are interpreted in light of Vedanta, they generally stop happening because experience is a decaying time capsule meant to deliver knowledge.  If you do interpret the you realize that you are what’s real and (satya) and experiences are unreal  (mithya.)  The experience dissolved and reconstructed Joe, which shows that Joe isn’t real.  And the knowledge that you got didn’t remain long enough to remove whatever belief remained in the reality of Joe and his experiences.  Revelations are discoveries, like gravity and electricity that produce knowledge. 

It’s so cool that it awakened empathy, the feeling of identification with the experience of everything. You will probably notice that the reconstructed Joe will increasingly become more empathic, in so far as he feels anything.  It is actually the same revelation, another way of saying that the nature of existence/consciousness is love.

I’m not saying that these experiences are not useful but they are only Isvara’s attempts to reveal the truth.  They are approximate, incomplete and inadequate as the basis for claiming your identity as existence shining as awareness.  Now the challenge is to make this claim and relate to everything that happens from now on as existence shining as awareness.  We call this the nididhyasana stage of enlightenment.   

Much love,

James

I want to confirm that awareness is ever experiencing entity. Right?

Sundari: I am not sure what you are saying here. We have been through this – Awareness is not the experiencing entity, the jiva (body/mind) is the experiencing entity.  Awareness makes experience possible because without it shining on the mind, the body/mind is just dead meat. Awareness does not experience because to do so, it would have to become something else, which is not possible. This is at the heart of the satya/mithya teaching.

All experience takes place in time and ends. Awareness does not begin or end.  The hardest thing to assimilate, yet it is obvious if you think about it, is that since you know the mind and the thoughts in the mind (experience), you cannot be the mind or your thoughts (the experiencing entity or jiva). You are the one who “sees” or knows the mind/thoughts/experience. Reality is nondual so there is just Awareness and thoughts/experience appearing in Awareness. Take thought/experience away and you are left with Awareness.  But you cannot take Awareness away. Awareness is always present whether or not experience is taking place in the mind because it does not need objects to know itself. Awareness is the only ‘thing’ that can never be negated. It is always present and never changes.

The main aim of Self-inquiry is discriminating the non-experiencing witness, the Self/Awareness, from the objects, or not-self. I.e., discriminating between Satya (Awareness) that which is real, never changes and is always present, and Mithya (body/mind/experiencer), that which is only apparently real, meaning not always present and is always changing. If you cannot discriminate between your Self, Awareness (non-experiencing witness), and the objects that appear in you (i.e. the experiencing entity), you cannot be free of ignorance – the hypnosis of duality.

You say you have read all of James books.  Have you read chapter 2 of Essence of Enlightenment?  It is available for free on our website.

Somesh: I don’t understand what actually nondual teaching suggest that all experience take place ‘here’ placeless place, which is called awareness. Please clear me to understand what actually non-dual Vedanta say about placeless place where all experience takes place.

Sundari: How can Awareness, which is the substrate for all life, the subject which makes all objects possible, be in time and place? There is no place that Awareness is not, it pervades every atom of existence and precedes time and space, which are objects known to it.

Perhaps it will help you to examine your own experience.

Your Unexamined Experience

Vedanta is not complicated, but it is difficult to assimilate because duality tricks the mind and reverses the truth.  Yet, upon examination of the logic of existence, it reveals to us our unexamined experience, nothing more. You are experiencing your Self/Awareness, all the time because it’s the only option, you are just not aware of it when the mind is under the spell of duality.  The trick is to know that you are not the reflection, the experiencing entity. Vedanta is like a word mirror to experience your Self, Awareness, reflected in a pure, qualified mind. You are not the reflection but the source of the reflection, though the reflection is you also.  When we are deluded by duality, we are prisoners of the senses. You can override sensory input by asking yourself just a few simple questions: 

The first question to ask yourself is: How do you know you exist, experience and are conscious? Has anyone ever told you that you exist, experience and are conscious? No, why not? Because it’s obvious. That you exist and experience because you are conscious is not up for debate. It cannot be denied because you would have to exist and be conscious to deny your own experience. So, to answer this question then, you need only to ask who is that knows you exist and experience, and what is Existence, with a capital ‘E’? The answer to that question is only found through self-inquiry with a valid means of knowledge for Existence/Awareness, which leads us to the next question:

How do I know what I know? You cannot be what you know, can you? What you know is known to you. Who or what is that? If you say it is your mind that knows (experiences) objects, are the objects (your thoughts and feelings) not known to you? Yes. Do they know you?  No, they do not. Your thoughts and feelings or any other object you are looking at are not conscious. But you are. The only thing we need to determine is who that ‘you’ is. And then the trick is to live that truth as your primary identity. It sounds simple but is not because Vedanta, nonduality, is counter-intuitive due to the hypnosis of Maya, duality. Maya produces the belief that objects are separate from you, Awareness, the knower of the objects, and that you need objects to complete yourself. Duality makes you identify with the experiencing entity instead of the witness of the experiencing entity, Awareness.

To function in this world, our senses relay information from the Field (our environment) to our mind, which then interprets it through our intellect, thoughts, and feelings. But sadly, the senses are not equipped to know Awareness because they too are objects and the Self/Awareness is the subject.  The object can never know the subject because the subject, Awareness, is subtler than the objects. Awareness is the ever-present factor that always knows what we are seeing, thinking, and feeling. Therefore, you cannot be your mind. Your mind is another object known to you.

Even in deep dreamless sleep, when there is no information exchange between the Field and the mind because the mind is withdrawn into the Causal body, Awareness must be present.  If it were not, you would not know you slept when you wake up. And, in fact, you would never wake up again because you (body/mind) would be dead. If you accept this—and how can you not—you must agree that Awareness cannot be negated, for two main reasons. Apart from the obvious fact that you could not be here reading this if you are not conscious, there must be Awareness present for you to deny its existence. You cannot step out of, deny, or negate Awareness. It is the one and only, constant, non-negatable, ever-present factor.

The third question is: Who or what is looking out of your eyes? Our vision cannot help but be organized around light. We cannot see anything without light being present. But when we look at an object, we are not aware of the light that makes vision possible. Just like we are not consciously aware of Awareness shining on the mind (which is inert) and shining on objects (also inert) because we are identified with our mind. Awareness is not only looking out of our eyes it is all that is visible and what allows us to see. We could say that Awareness is both light and that which makes light possible. The same Awareness that ‘looks’ out of your eyes, looks out of my eyes, the eyes of every stranger in the street, and every sentient being on this planet because this is a non-dual reality. There is only one Self.  

What or how each individual ‘sees’ (their subjective reality) depends on their conditioning, or vasanas, but that does not affect Awareness, which conditions to nothing and sees only itself. The same brain responses that enable us to see a tree or a person as a tree or a person instead of a ghostly swarm of buzzing atoms, also enable us to experience Awareness every time we open our eyes. We just must know who is ‘seeing’ and what we are looking at. That is called discriminating what is real, the nondual Self/Awareness, from what is apparently real, the body/mind. See definition of real and apparently real above.

Please make sure you read chapter 2 of Essence of Enlightenment.

Om Sundari

Sundari: Good.  But have you followed our instructions on the website? Have you read The Essence of Enlightenment, particularly chapter 2, Experience and Knowledge? Who is your teacher, or have you been reading Vedanta without being properly taught?  It seems to me that you have not followed the proper method, which is clearly explained in Ram’s books, How to Attain Enlightenment and The Essence of Enlightenment.  Did you read that satsang I sent you on self-inquiry? 

Timor: I know that there is no separate Self.  What you said is based on theory. But in my experience, my confusion still remains. Please tell me in experience level. I will wait for your reply.

Sundari: I am not talking theory, Timor. Vedanta is not theory in practice because it is the truth with a capital ‘T” about you, the Self. If you cannot take the word of the scripture as superior to your own limited knowledge, you need to start at the beginning by developing the qualifications for self-inquiry. You are identified with the experiencing entity and do not understand the difference between Satya and mithya. If you did you would not be confused. 

Most people who somehow find their way to Vedanta have explored many paths and suffered a great deal. I have attached a satsang for you to read on what self-inquiry entails, which also covers the qualifications required. These are not arbitrary requirements. I cannot help you develop them, but I can help you understand what they are. Vedanta is a radical teaching; it is scientific, and it works to end suffering if you are qualified, dedicated to self-inquiry, and properly taught by a qualified teacher.

The most important fact to grasp is that Vedanta is not about experience, it is about Self-knowledge. It negates the doer—the person identified with their body/mind by making you examine your own experience. Just ask yourself: how do you know what you know?  Who is it that knows the experiences you have?  If you know something, it cannot be who you are.  The question is then, who is the experiencing entity, and who is the knower of the experiencing entity?

Vedanta reveals that the experiencing entity is the one identified with the experiencer; the individual called Timor.  It is the one who thinks the body and mind are real.  But how can Timor or the body/mind be real? Real is defined as that which is always present and never changes.  But the body/mind is not always present and is always changing. The body/mind is not present in deep sleep, so where is it then? Who or what is it that keeps the body/mind alive while awake or asleep? When you wake up from deep sleep, which was an experience, you know that you slept, don’t you? So, who is it that knows if the body/mind was not present during deep sleep?

Therefore, we say that the body/mind is only apparently real (mithya), which’ means that while the body/mind exists because you experience it, it cannot be who you are. It is an object known to you, Consciousness.  The body-mind appear to be conscious, to think and experience ONLY because YOU, the light of Consciousness shines on it.  Remove Consciousness and the body/mind dies, but you are still there.  You were always there and always will be. Consciousness is unborn and undying. The body-mind can be negated but the non-experiencing entity, the Self/Consciousness (Satya) can never be negated because it is the only factor that is always present and never changes.

So, you do not need any special experience to experience the Self because that is all you are ever experiencing. All experiences take place and end in time.  But Consciousness is not ‘in’ time. It is the knower of time and of all objects. If you are confused about this it is only because you just have a knowledge/ignorance problem, and you have come to the right place for that. Vedanta reveals to you that all experience is a thought. This is a thought universe because everything exists only in your mind. If you are identified with the body/mind, then you believe that objects (experience/thoughts) are real, and they exist separate from you. Vedanta pramana provides the investigation into the reality of the world and your true identity, revealing that you are not your body/mind or the individual with its life story. You are the non-experiencing, whole and complete, non-dual, ever-present and unchanging Consciousness/Self.

Existence/Consciousness/Self does not experience because there is no duality for the Self, there is only itself. However, Consciousness is associated with name and form (an object, i.e. a thought), experience happens. Unless Existence is associated with name and form, it cannot be experienced.  Thus, Consciousness experiences indirectly in that no experience can take place without it – it makes experience possible. So, once again, we must ask experienced by whom? As stated, you are only ever experiencing Consciousness, but unless you have Self-knowledge, you don’t know this.  The Self/Consciousness needs nothing to experience itself.  When Maya (ignorance) appears, there is (apparently) something for Consciousness to be aware of and experience seemingly happens.  But as Consciousness sees only itself, who is it that experiences?  The jiva/individual is just a lens through which Consciousness apparently experiences objects, with the emphasis on ‘apparently’.

How Perception/Experience Happens

Gross objects require Consciousness to be known.  Human or sentient beings require Consciousness, a functioning intellect, and sense organs to know anything. The sense organs give rise to the experience of things in the body. Without functioning sense organs and intellect, you cannot experience anything.  You would be a ‘vegetable’, in a permanent coma.

When we look at an object, whether it’s a subtle object appearing only in the mind (like a thought, feeling or image) or a gross physical object with a name and form, the Subtle body sends out a thought, a beam of light, a ray of Consciousness to the object. Consciousness shines on the Subtle body and illumines the mind and senses, which in turn, illumines the object. However, the thought or ray of Consciousness sent from the intellect to the object is inert, meaning, is not itself conscious.  You know this to be true because your thoughts do not know you. You know your thoughts. Consciousness is delivered to objects through the mechanical process of reflected consciousness shining or bouncing off a conscious, sentient object – a jiva (Timor) or Subtle body. Thus, experience takes place.  If you cannot see a material or subtle object, no thought can reach it, so no experience of it is possible. Subtle objects like thoughts and feelings are known in the mind in the same way, by Consciousness shining on the mind.

Vedanta is a valid means of knowledge for Consciousness and tells you right up front that you are not the experiencing entity but the Self. However, it is not easy to know what this means, which is why if you want to be free of suffering, you must commit to the teachings and develop all the qualifications for self-inquiry, as I told you a few times now. I strongly suggest you read James book ‘How to Attain Enlightenment’ if you have not done so, with particular emphasis on chapter 2: Experience and Knowledge. The same information in that book is available in the form of three free 12-part courses on our Shiningworld website, called the Essence of Enlightenment.  It takes you through the whole methodology and provides the right questions and answers. 

Timor: As I know Consciousness does not need the mind to know itself. When Consciousness needs to know the world then it takes the form of the mind and experiences the world.

Sundari: Consciousness needs nothing to know itself because there is only itself.  What is there to know?  How can ‘Consciousness need’ to know the world or take a form if it is a partless whole and the forms are not real? Consciousness has no needs; it does not create and never takes any form. When Maya manifests, Consciousness apparently ‘knows’ objects because there is something for Consciousness to know—with the emphasis on APPARENTLY.  But Consciousness is not a knower as such; it is that which makes knowing possible, therefore Consciousness plus Maya=Isvara/Creator of the Field of Existence.  Isvara is the only knower.  The jiva (individual) seems to be conscious and know/experience, but it only does so because the light of Consciousness shines on the mind. 

The jiva/ego thinks it is a doer and owns things and experiences, not realizing that everything comes from and belongs to Isvara. But, Isvara is not ‘in the forms’ either because Isvara never takes a form, though it creates all forms. Isvara is the uncaused cause of creation; it is both the intelligence behind the substance and the substance itself. Although the creation arises from it (Pure Consciousness associated with Maya), Isvara cannot become the creation. Therefore, the effects (matter) is just an apparent transformation of the cause, Consciousness. It is not an actual transformation because if it were, Consciousness would have lost its limitless nature when it transformed into matter.

Remember, this world, the jiva, is only apparently real. Isvara’s only function is to provide the jiva with a field of objects within which to work out its karma. That’s it. Isvara’s creation runs on natural laws and so everything in the Field is in balance and in check for this sole purpose. The apparent individual under the spell of ignorance takes duality to be real because it has no way of discriminating between what is real and apparently real. Even someone with considerable knowledge can be deluded by Maya and be seduced by the seeming reality of objects. Ignorance is tenacious. Only Self-knowledge removes it.

The apparent reality (mithya) is a union of paraprakiti or higher reality (meaning Isvara) and aparaprakiti (jiva) lower reality. Their common identity is uparaprakriti, or Satya: Pure Consciousness, or Isvara. Isvara shapes the materials into form without ever losing or modifying its own nature. Both Isvara and jiva depend on pure Consciousness (Satya) but pure Consciousness depends on neither. Isvara and Jiva are ultimately not real, though their essence is real because everything comes back to the Self, Consciousness.

Timor: Mind is subtle but is not a different entity. It is a modulation or activity of the mind.

Sundari: Different from what? I am not sure what you mean: are you saying that the mind is a product of the modulation of thought—how can that be? The mind is an instrument, an object known to Consciousness. It has certain functions and allows you to experience, i.e., think and feel, but it is inert. The mind seems to think, i.e. ‘modulate’ to experience/activity only because the light of Consciousness shines on it, as I said before.  I know English is not your first language, but it makes it difficult to understand what you mean.

Timor: You can’t deny your experience. Witness position is half-way position of Vedanta. Consciousness is experiencing itself. For example -screen and movie, screen is not witness or different from movie. It is reality or modulation of the screen.

Sundari: Consciousness is only ever experiencing itself because there is no other option. Nobody is denying experience, we are simply explaining why experience is not real. The screen analogy is a good metaphor for duality as a superimposition onto Consciousness, but I don’t know what you mean by ‘witness is a halfway position of Vedanta’.  Please explain. 

Timor: Because Consciousness is not a witness of objects (feeling, sensation, etc.)

Sundari: Consciousness is the only witness because there is only Consciousness.  But because Consciousness sees only itself, it does not witness/know in the way the Isvara/ jiva does.  Isvara is the only knower, as explained above. 

Timor: So, every experience is real, only thought gives a name this experience then duality is created. No experience means no duality.

Sundari: Experience is real if you know it is you, Consciousness and you are not identified with the experiencing entity.  And no experience is real if you are identified with the experiencing entity. Name and form create duality.  No thought/experience=Non-dual Consciousness. Moksa is experience in so far as it is Consciousness itself, but it is not “an experience,” or an event because all experience begins ends.  Vedanta is a means of knowledge (pramana) which reveals the nature of the Self as unborn ever-experienced sat-chit-ananda.  It saves qualified inquirers the trouble of chasing Self experience because no matter how experientially enlightened you are, you will still have to remove the belief that you are an experiencing entity.  The Gita defines liberation as jnana karma sanyass, negation of the experiencing entity by Self-knowledge, alone. 

Timor: We can’t perceive the world as matter. We perceive our perception, and perception is knowing. So, no duality.

Sundari: Yes, correct. But if you are identified with the experiencing entity, you are in duality.  If you know there is no separation between you and objects, that is non-dual vision.  As the jiva all matter/objects are experienced in the mind, the subjective reality and not real. But as the Self, there are no objects as the subject/object split is negated.  All is known to be Self.  But who are you referring to as ‘we’? Is it the non-dual Self, or is it the one who thinks it knows the non-dual Self/Consciousness, the experiencing entity?

Timor: YOU ARE DENYING THE EXPERIENCE. DO YOU MEAN SENSATION, HEARING, TESTING, SMELLING ETC. ALL EXPERIENCE ARE NOT REAL.

Sundari:  You have not understood the teaching. This is not my teaching, Timor. The scripture, Vedanta, does not deny experience but says that experience is not real. It reveals that you are not the experiencing entity but the knower of the experiencing entity.  I have explained to you the difference between real (satya) that which is always present and never changing and APPARANTLY real (mithya), which is not always present and always changing. I cannot argue with you on this point.

Timor: YOU ARE NOT EXPERIENCE ENTITY, WHAT DO MEAN?

Sundari: The experiencing entity is the jiva. Who do you think you are—the one who experiences or the one who KNOWS the experiencer? You cannot be both.

Timor: CONSCIOUSNESS ITSELF EXPERIENCE WAKING, DREAMING, DEEP SLEEP. IN THREE STATE CONSCIOUSNESS SAME. IT’S MODULATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS.

Sundari: Consciousness never modulates because it does not experience any state. All states are mithya. Consciousness makes all states possible but is never in any state because it is unchanging, and all states change.  It is the knower of and common denominator in all states. The only non-negatable factor.

Timor: IF WE EXPLORE EVERY EXPERIENCE, WE FIND, THERE IS NOTHING OTHER THAN KNOWING (not a conception) IT. It is pure knowing being (sat chit ananda).

Sundari:  Yes, this is a nondual reality, so there is only Consciousness, Sat Chit Ananda.  Consciousness knows only Itself and does not need to experience (objects) to know anything. Maybe the issue here is just language and you do understand the difference between satya and mithya, but the way you word your questions makes it appear not to be so.

Om, Sundari

I have followed you for many years, and always read to this day your wonderful email exchanges.  An issue, but important, I would like to provide you with a recent posting from an Atmananda Facebook entry and get Vedanta’s viewpoint.  

Atmananda: “Both intellect and experience are not static. It is a movement and therefore always temporary. If we try to stabilize permanency in our experience we also establish and strengthen the dual nature of our experience. If we try to retain any experience or try to remove any experience we start fighting to establish a permanent state in our psychological experiences. The intellect tries to regulate and have control over the mind. It contradicts itself by setting itself in to two.“

James:  The first statement is basically true.  Trying to intellectually control experiences that are happening causes suffering because they are the result of previous actions that fructify whether you want them to or not.  It is the mind’s nature to change; it is never the same from one moment to the next. If by intellect, he means knowledge, then the concluding statement is not true.  The intellect doesn’t actually control anything because it is an inert material instrument.  But when the Self, consciousness, which seemingly becomes conscious owing to the presence of Maya, wants to know its true nature, it should exercise its apparent free will to effect a cognitive shift in the intellect and generate sattvic experiences, which will transform the intellect into an instrument that is capable of assimilating the knowledge of what it is.   

Furthermore, if the Self knows that it is ignorant and wants to obtain freedom-ready  mind, it should get its apparent emotions on the same page as the intellect’s thoughts.  The heart and the head should be fused together in the pursuit of truth, not to mention the doer, whose actions should be joined to the united mind and intellect to create one strong single pointed instrument capable of prolonged contemplation on the Self.  (samadhana)  

Atmananda can be taken seriously because he was a Self realized person.  Having said that he is more or less impossible to understand because he teaches knowledge in own elegant experiential language, so people are easily confused.  Intuitively you may accept his conclusion and may gain some kind of realization, but you will not be able to remove the ignorance of others effectively because you will not have a complete teaching.  A complete teaching is necessary since ignorance pervades every aspect of the Subtle Body and is extremely resistant to change.  I will try to contextualize his words by presenting the errors in this quotation, even though he arrives at the right conclusion.  Actually, I don’t think the quotation is direct from Atmananda.  Or it was copied incorrectly or someone interpreted it.  It is quite unclear.  If you read Atma Darshan and Atma Nivritti you will see that he was a precise elegant, eloquent thinker. Anyway, word usage and meaning is everything because these are subtle concepts that should have as little ambiguity as possible.         

Atmananda:  “When we do not indulge in such regulation, our experiences come on their own and disappear on their own. We need to not have any necessity to regulate our experiences. They are being regulated by them…”

James: Well, they come on their own when you do regulate them because they go back into the Causal Body, the Unconscious, and appear later during crisis situations when the mind is incapable of repressing them.

But what he is saying is generally true.  He’s talking to samsaris, not sanyassis.  Samsaris don’t understand the intellect and how to transform it into a vehicle that is useful for Self-realization.  However there is a good reason to plan experiences that generate sattva in so far as it facilitates the actualization of moksa.  Furthermore if your experiences, which means your Subtle Body, in so far as they take place in the Subtle Body and can’t be easily separated from it, is predominantly rajasic and tamasic, not changing it by changing one’s habits only results in more rajasic and tamasic thoughts, emotions and actions.  So there is no way that it can gain and assimilate the knowledge “I am the Self.” 

So his statement that there is no necessity to regulate one’s experiences is useful on one hand and unhelpful on the other, unless he is speaking from the Self’s point of view, which is likely, but not helpful considering that his words are aimed at people who don’t understand the nature of the mind and want to somehow arrest it, crystalize it into a some kind of permanent state.  Even then there a better reason to leave the mind alone: to whit: the Self is completely non-associated from the mind in the first place.  So what’s the point of trying to change it.  Accept your identity as the Self and leave the mind to its own devices.

However, this statement contradicts Vedanta’s instruction that the intellect should use its apparent free will to create a Subtle Body capable of prolonged contemplation on the teachings.   

Atmananda:  Regulating or setting right our experience does not mean to retain good experiences. Allowing the appearing experiences to disappear on their own, is the correct way of setting right experiences. Contradiction creates duality. Duality is contradiction. When the contradiction disappears, duality also disappears.

James: Again, the language is suspect.  What does “setting right experiences mean?” I doubt that Atmananda said it that way.  He may have said “setting experiences right” which in this context may mean letting them be, not trying to control them, which seems to be his point.  I shouldn’t really spend any more time on these words because they are second or third hand and really need a much bigger context but I will indulge you, Tom, because you’re a good guy.

Anyway, just as experiences appear on their own, they disappear on their own independent of the apparent person who allows or disallows them.  From the Self’s perspective there is actually no doer to allow or disallow what happens in the mind.  And from the jiva’s perspective, life, our present karma stream, happens in spite of us…unless we set about to change it. 

However the answer is a qualified yes.  But duality doesn’t disappear on its own because it is caused by hard-wired ignorance.  You have to work at it, usually long and hard.  It seems as if contradiction creates duality but actually duality, ignorance, creates the belief that experience is dualistic, whereas when knowledge removes the belief, one understands one always was, is and ever will experience only the bliss of non-dual existence.  The nature of experience is bliss.  We know this because everyone wants to live one more day.   

Perhaps I should add that the experience of duality is continuous throughout one’s life but the belief that it is real goes when one understands what one is. So in this sense even though it remains it is as good as non-existent because it has no effect on the self.

He is in the ballpark and some of his premises are more or less correct but he can’t close the argument.  It seems he cracked the code but his teaching is extremely subtle, erudite and not terribly useful for the general public.  A few of his disciples seem to have attained Self realization, but they were mostly exceptionally intelligent, committed, disciplined people  Sometimes this kind of inquirer/teacher comes to the right knowledge even though there are difficulties with the teaching if as I said above these are his own unabridged words.  That it appeared on Facebook gives me pause because it is not a good forum for disseminating subtle concepts. People are mostly egoic and eager to guru each other. I tried to use it to disseminate Vedanta but it was a waste of time.    

The intellect thinks, but it isn’t the thinker.

Atmananda: Then the boundaries, made by our intellect and experiences, also become powerless.

The boundaries aren’t made by the intellect; they are made by ignorance.  Vedanta removes ignorance, not the intellect.  The intellect remains when ignorance goes.  I think what he means is that when Self-knowledge removes Self ignorance one’s thoughts are known to be mithya, apparently real, and are rendered powerless i.e. negated.  As I mentioned the language is experiential.  The intellect thinks. but it isn’t the thinker.  It is an inert material instrument.  It looks like it is conscious because of its intimate proximity to consciousness, which does the thinking with the help of Maya, but it isn’t.  It is seemingly conscious.

His problem is that he didn’t like sanyassis but he had a tremendous spiritual vasana and was a disciplined intellectual.  So he somehow got the knowledge and put it in his own words.  If he been open to sanyassis (he thought they were social drop-outs and leaches) he might have had the good fortune to have been taught by a mahatma and his teaching itself would have been easier to understand.   

Atmananda: Then, even though there is duality it becomes powerless. Even though it is dual, it is non-dual and this is Advaita.

James:  Yes.  The experience of duality exists but the belief that it is real disappears once ignorance is removed.  Here he comes to the right conclusion in spite of his apparent lack of knowledge of the material “aspect” of consciousness.  But provisional acceptance of duality, in this case the belief that the intellect is conscious, is acceptable in Vedanta.  He has to conform to the level of understanding of the person to whom he is communicating.    

Atmananda:  This is also a kind of oneness which we have not created as it is there from discarding duality, and it happens by itself. How does one this is not at all and experience it is only in existence when there is no contradiction.“

James:  This statement is gibberish. “a kind of oneness”?  I doubt that this is a direct quotation.  Obviously English is not the speaker’s native tongue. But it seems like he has it right, a leading error.  However, his words are useless as a teaching.  He’s either trying to say that experience is non-dual even when you are ignorant that you are existence/consciousness or he’s saying that the contradictory nature of experience is not real; that it only seems to contradict the non-dual nature of experience itself.  Experience can only be non-dual because reality, the satchitananda atma, is non-dual, meaning there is only existence/awareness (satchit)

Tom:  I am sorry for providing this excerpt at such length and btw there are no toys, I wrote exactly what was printed and my print page stopped short at the …  Anyway, I read this shortly after I read your email exchange that discussed samadhana.  

There you wrote: “Samadhanam Is keeping the mind on the Self for extended periods of time, which is essential for self inquiry. If the greedy, monkey mind hijacks the mind through the senses, concentration is lost and along with it, usually, discrimination is lost too…..”

Tom: Your article continues making valid points for all the psychological reasons.  We need to discipline our mind, meaning our thoughts and actions.  I would love to hear from your response to the virtues of these very different treatments of the intellect and how it is to be considered in our spiritual growth and understanding.

James:  Honestly, Tom, Atmananda would have had a much greater impact and his words would be more useful now if he had had the benefit of receiving the traditional Vedantic teaching.  He could not have not known about Shankara and the Vedanta sampradaya.  He was an upper caste Indian intellectual.  I think he was put off by all the irrational mystical spiritual stuff that hovers around on the periphery of true Vedic culture so he went on to put Self knowledge into his own words.  So to make sense of him, one needs to have a very refined intellect and a strong desire to know, like his most clear disciple, John Levy.     

Love,

James

I did a lot of meditation, day and night, in the hotel, Ramana’s ashram, listening to the monks chant Sri Rudrum, everywhere I could. After going round and round the lingams, I fell into the shaft of light, so to speak, and Shiva’s still dancing in the ajna chakra when I look. It’s been a great experience. The ocean of bliss is where I take my daily bath now, it feels like jivanmukti, so I just need to stay focused going forward. I see now that my problem is (has always been) an overactive mind, and I need to stop it to be awareness-consciousness-peace, being right here and now.

What I do now I have no idea (suggestions appreciated). I don’t really want to do anything, all material effort is vain, but I am not over keen on travelling any more (maybe an age thing) and this place is going to get physically too difficult to live in within a few years. I need a temple near a decent healthy restaurant and not too many people, very hard to find!! I know, the biggest temple in the world is in your heart. I could write forever, this will have to do for now.

James: Hi, Mike.

Yes, I’m done with Tiru for various reasons, not the least of which is the noise, filth, fat Russians, guruwannabes, etc. Also, I’ve become too famous. Last time I had to bribe the cops and overpay the venue owner, and three days after I left the state tax man came looking for his bakshish. Fortunately, I am the Shaft of Light so India accompanies me as I enjoy the pleasures of European culture.

Okay. Suggestion department. Remember, you asked for it. ☺ A mind can always do with less activity, unless it is helpful activity. It can also benefit from laser-like focus on a beneficial topic, to wit: What am I? In deference to your prodigious intellect, I will not get into the details; I’m sure you can work them out on your own. But let me analyze the following paragraph in light of the teachings of Vedanta, please.

You say, “I did a lot of meditation, day and night, in the hotel, Ramana’s ashram, listening to the monks chant Sri Rudrum, everywhere I could. After going round and round the lingams, I fell into the shaft of light, so to speak, and Shiva’s still dancing in the ajna chakra when I look. It’s been a great experience. The ocean of bliss is where I take my daily bath now, it feels like jivanmukti, so I just need to stay focused going forward. I see now that my problem is (has always been) an over active mind and I need to stop it to be awareness-consciousness-peace, being right here and now.”

This statement speaks to the knowledge/experience issue, the resolution of which is usually responsible for considerable happiness because meditators of various types eventually discover that meditation is an activity subject to the zero-sum law governing the nature of human experience. To put it simply, if you “fall into the shaft of light,” you will fall out of it at some point. Law of karma. Furthermore, if Shiva dancing in the mind is a desirable experience, it seems it is not desirable enough to command constant attention but is interspersed with other experiences? If you argue that less desirable experiences hijack your attention, it stands to reason that you would immediately refocus on Shiva and stay in the shaft of light. This logic is contradicted by another law: experience, which is you, consciousness (aka the light that is not a shaft), plus the content of your mind is not under the control of the individuals (who usually think they are generating it) but is created, regulated and destroyed by the Total Mind, which religious people call God and Vedantins appropriately call the causal body, which is boils down to your karmaoutpicturing as your life. You’re probably aware that Vedanta calls your approach yoga, which is not the kiss of death, but keeps the doer/meditator on duty endlessly contacting and recontacting the light, which is actually not the limitless light of existence/consciousness that you are, but a reflection subject to the action of all material forms, i.e. the three gunas. Sometimes it shines brightly and clearly. Sometimes it shines as if through a glass darkly, and sometimes it shimmers as it dances enthusiastically. To state this argument bluntly: gaining more experience, even experience of shafts of light, doesn’t solve the problem it purports to solve.

So what is the solution? Convert the desire to experience the Self into a desire to know the Self. Why? Because you are already the shaftless shaft of existence/consciousness, which also happens to be eternal bliss (anandam). Obviously there is no way to directly experience yourself as an object, because you are always only experiencing yourself. Nobody ever told you that you exist or that you are conscious, because it is a self-evident fact. Vedanta calls this kind of knowledge innate knowledge. So you are two-thirds enlightened from the get-go. No thought is required to deliver it. But the other third – the fact that you are bliss – is not known. Why? Because you include Mike, the experiencing entity when you think of yourself. Mike is not a conscious subject capable of experiencing a shaft of light, although it appears as if he is. Mike, such as he is, is nothing but a particular bundle of priorities and values, an inert object, like the shaft of light itself. And you are the existent, conscious blissful Self that witnesses Mike. If you are clear that you are a what, not a who, you needn’t waste time meditating on shafts of light, which are pale reflections of the unborn original light of awareness that you are and ever will be. And you will get the following benefits from this knowledge: (1) the immortality benefit, which means that you will stop worrying; (2) the pleasure benefit, i.e. complete satisfaction; and (3) the freedom (from Mike) benefit.

So how do you claim your identity as the limitless, ever-present, unborn, ordinary, non-dual, whole and complete Self? You transfer your misplaced identity to your real identity. And how do you do that? You take a stand in your true nature, awareness. And how do you do that? Whenever a desire or fear, a belief or an opinion, which are proxies for ignorance of your nature, come up, you dismiss them as not-self with reference to What you actually are. At the same time you offload Mike and his conditioning, i.e. experience, on Isvara, the factor in you, awareness, that generates experience.

Jivanmukti is not an experience. Jivanmukti is the hard and fast knowledge backed by the palpable experience of the bliss of existence that does not require practice, i.e. staying focused. For instance, you don’t need to focus on your name, Mike, because it is hard and fast knowledge. Jivanmukti is freedom from Mike, the bather. You, awareness, don’t need a shower, much less a bath. You are immaculate.

And Mike, insofar as he is real, borrows whatever bliss is associated with his experience of the shaft of light from you, bliss itself.

We call yoga a leading error because it puts you in the Vedanta ballpark. Yogis do contact the shaft of light. But they don’t realize that it is only a reflection, a ray-like emanation of you, the Light of Awareness. So they relate to it as an object, not realizing that it is them, the subject. So yoga is not the kiss of death, unless it is. If you want to pursue this line of reasoning further, I’m happy to assist you. You are most welcome to visit. I took Steven to the airport yesterday.

By the way, what’s up with the kids?

~ Much love, James

I agree with what you are saying. I am 61 years old and struggle with intense chronic pain due to high sensitivity and trauma. I traveled a long journey through different therapeutic and spiritual modalities. I am actually in therapy with a therapist, trained by Brandon Bays and Bert Hellinger.

Sundari: Hello, Frank; yes, my apparent (not-self) self is Italian/African/whatever…

Most people who somehow find their way to Vedanta have explored many paths and suffered a great deal. It is not clear to me how much you have assimilated about the teachings of Vedanta or if you are even committed to Self-inquiry. It sounds to me like you are still seeking solutions in many places and Vedanta just happens to be one you have stumbled upon. Usually, we ask people to follow the instructions we give for Self-inquiry before taking them on via e-satsang because it is difficult to teach someone who is not committed or prepared to hear the teachings.

As I explained to you in our last email, to hear the teachings of Vedanta, the mind must be qualified. I have attached a satsang for you to read on what Self-inquiry entails, which also covers the qualifications required. These are not arbitrary requirements. Vedanta is a radical teaching; it is scientific, and laser-like in its veracity. It is the court of last appeal, as we like to say, once you have tried everything else. And it works to end existential suffering, if you are qualified, dedicated to Self-inquiry and properly taught.

That said, Vedanta is not a panacea that will end all karma magically, especially physical karma, such as chronic pain. There actually is no karma for the gross body; the karma seems to take place in the physical body only because the physical body is “attached” to the subtle body. Karma “burns up” for the subtle body when the time is ripe because it is only ever “in” the subtle body. Chronic pain is part of the prarabdha karma you as an individual came in with, which is to say the momentum from past actions, whether from this or past lives of “your” particular subtle body. The physical body is just meat and though it appears to be alive, it is inert. It only seems to be conscious because the light of consciousness shines on it. The gross and subtle bodies are objects known to you, consciousness. See further on for the definition of an “object.”

Problems arise when the doer thinks it can make the body “whole” through its own actions, which one can to a significant degree with knowledge and intelligent living. There are many modalities on offer in the spiritual and medical/nutritional arena which definitely do help to ameliorate physical pain. There are even more that are wrong, misleading and downright dangerous. There is no avoiding the fact that our bodies are part of our environment and not separate from it. There is a constant flow of energy from one to the other, positive or negative. We ignore the laws that run the Field of Existence at our own cost. There is much that we can do to help and prevent chronic illnesses that are under our control, such as healthy eating habits and exercise. But the main thing we can do to reduce pain is to not identify with it.

However, it takes extreme dispassion to deal with chronic illness or any pain we can do nothing about. This is where karma yoga is so important. I don’t know if you have any knowledge of karma yoga? I don’t think you do. Karma yoga is basically an attitude of consecration we take towards all action, accepting that everything we experience comes to us from the Field (Isvara), and we have no control over it other than our attitude to it. We can take appropriate and timely action, but the results are never up to us. Karma yoga reduces the pressure of existential doership because it negates the doer, the one who acts for results, allowing us to take everything that happens “to” us as prasad, as a gift, even physical pain.

With karma yoga, we can work with the body and what appears to be taking place in it by managing the thoughts that arise in the mind as a result. We call this mind management, and it requires knowledge of the three gunas, rajas (desire/action), tamas (dullness/denial) and sattva (clarity/revelation). Coping with chronic pain, which is rajas, makes the mind dull, tamasic. Even though it is very difficult to maintain a sattvic mind when the body is in a lot of pain, it can be done with the right attitude and knowledge because the Self, consciousness, is not affected by anything that goes on in the subtle body.

For many who have made pain an identity, pain becomes a cop-out, a way of justifying how hard done by the doer is, legitimizing complaint, blame and victimhood. Or just a way to hang onto binding vasanas (tendencies), to camouflage them with talk about Self-knowledge. That said, there is always something “wrong” with the body, even when we are experiencing good health. It is not static but fluid, like a river, always changing and in a state of flux, and in a constant symbiotic relationship with the environment (Isvara, the gunas). It is a product of the gunas. The body you had a year ago, a month ago or yesterday is not the same body you have today, because the gunas are always changing, constantly revolving and evolving. Thus nothing in the world of duality ever stays the same.

But, no matter how well we look after the body, Isvara (consciousness plus Maya) is the final (and only) determiner of how long the body will sustain life. The body is on loan to us. We must take appropriate and timely action to look after it and surrender it to Isvara, who will take care of it. The right attitude, which is an attitude of gratitude for the gift of life “in a body,” is the best and sanest approach to the body and to life, along with a knowledge-based lifestyle. It is a privilege to be born with a human body because only in a human body can freedom from limitation and suffering (moksa) obtain. And when the time is right, the body will be withdrawn and returned to the five elements from whence it came. And you, as consciousness, will not be affected by that one bit. Ultimately our problems do not come from the body, its good or bad health. All our problems come from ignorance of our true nature as whole and complete, non-dual, actionless, unchanging, ever-present consciousness/the Self.

Frank: Apart from that, I practice some doing nothing, shikantaza kind of meditation combined with vipassana like the observation of bodily sensations. I ordered the book by James Swartz De essentie van verlichting, so in Dutch. I appreciate his work.

Sundari: How is “doing nothing” going to help to remove your ignorance of who you are? Firstly, there is a doer doing nothing, and secondly, “doing nothing” is not opposed to ignorance, which is your main problem. As I said above, Frank, you need to sign on to the teachings in a systematic and committed way for me to help you. We encourage practices such as meditation, but unless they are undertaken in the karma yoga spirit, which means you know you are not the one “doing” the meditation, and so surrender the results to the Field, to Isvara, meditation usually works to reinforce the doer, who is the main problem. We know many inquirers who have been meditating for years, sometimes decades, but ignorance of who they are is alive and well, and so is suffering. Meditators are usually after and experience of the Self or whatever they think they need to gain to be better, or “whole.”

Vedanta is not about experience; it is about negating the idea of doership with SELF-KNOWLEDGE. You do not need any special experience to experience the Self, because that is all you are ever experiencing. There is no other option. You just have a knowledge/ignorance problem. Vedanta tells you right up front that you are not the experiencing entity but the one who knows the experiencing entity, in this case, the “meditator.” If you meditate knowing this, meditation can be an aid to Self-inquiry. It does not equal or take its place, please note. If mediation is done for results, it is invariably a stumbling block.

I have also attached a satsang on Vedanta and Meditation. Read it and the satsang on Self-inquiry if you are serious about making progress. You say you are reading James and appreciate his work, but you do not yet understand what you have found. James is one of the best Vedanta teachers alive, but he, like all other qualified Vedanta teachers, does not teach “his” work. He teaches Vedanta, which is a totally independent and infallible teaching for consciousness. It does not belong to nor comes “from” anyone. It is the timeless, flawless knowledge that ends the quest for knowledge, and it ends suffering. You have stumbled upon the Holy Grail.

Frank: Some years ago, I attended satsangs by Douwe Tiemersma, who was a disciple of Sri Nisargadatta. He advised me to expand my sense of self infinitely in all directions to resolve the heavy contraction in my chest…

Sundari: I have not heard of this teacher, but how can you expand your “sense” of Self, if all there is is SELF? This is a totally dualistic statement made by someone who clearly does not know how to discriminate between satya and mithya. It applies only to the small self, the sufferer, who believes it can “do” something to “become” the Self or to end suffering. But nothing a limited entity can do or gain will ever permanently remove limitation or suffering. All doing takes place in duality, which is always limited and the cause of all suffering. Vedanta is about non-duality. It explains what duality is (ignorance) with the Logic of Existence.

Duality (Maya) is that which is only apparently real (mithya), i.e. always changing and not always present. Non-duality (satya) is that which is always present and never changes. As I said above, non-duality is you, consciousness, the KNOWER of duality and the doer/experiencing entity. It is the only factor in any situation that can never be negated. Ask yourself: How do you know anything? And is that knower always present or not? Of course it is. If consciousness is not present, the body is six feet under. You cannot deny consciousness, because you would have to be conscious to deny it. Understanding what that means for you as the apparent person is where all the teaching of Vedanta takes place.

Although Nisargadatta was a jnani, meaning one who is Self-realized, he never claimed to be a qualified teacher of Vedanta, because he was not properly taught the methodology. For instance, he didn’t clarify the distinction between original pure consciousness (satya) and the reflected or small egoic self (the “I-sense”) which is mithya. His devotees generally have a knowledge-and-experience confusion (see chapter two of James’ book The Essence of Enlightenment). He used hyperbolic words and terms (such as the term you use above) to refer to consciousness, which created much confusion.

Vedanta is very specific about the words it uses to avoid confusion and the experiential trap. It takes great pains to elucidate that the Self is ordinary because it is the only thing there is. You cannot “become” more aware or conscious, because you are and always have been consciousness, that which makes all objects appear conscious, including the individual. All objects arise from you and are dependent on you to exist, but you, consciousness, depend on nothing. You are present with or without objects.

What is an object? An object is anything other than you, be it a subtle object like a thought or feeling; or a gross object, like the body or a rock. If you know something it cannot be you. The spiritual world has a tendency to make the Self and enlightenment something “special,” transcendent, extraordinary, something to be gained by the few, which is completely bogus. You cannot gain something you already are and have always been. We say consciousness is ordinary because it is all there is – there is nothing to compare it to, so how can it be extraordinary? All Vedanta does is remove the ignorance of your true nature as the Self, thus ending the hypnosis of duality for you as the apparent ego, the jiva, or individual. And, so permanently ending existential suffering.

If you would like my help in guiding your Self-inquiry, I am happy to do so. But you need to sign on to the logic and commit to it. Put all your other ideas aside, at least temporarily. You can always take them back if you like them better. You cannot read your way to enlightenment, because your own ideas, beliefs and opinions stand in the way. You must be properly taught. If you continually compare Vedanta to all other teachings you have come across, Self-inquiry will not work for you. It is your choice.

~ Love, Sundari