Sundari: My talk this Sunday is about nonduality and being human, the both/and of it.  All three gunas are always operative, and the mind is subject to them.  But when Self-knowledge is at work, emotion regulation is possible because we are objective about what’s going on in the mind.  The tail is not wagging the dog.  And even if rajas and tamas briefly manage to do that, we know how to neutralize the patterns with Self-knowledge. We can zap the nasty biting little mosquitoes of ignorance that threaten our peace of mind.

CC: I read in a satsang that the reflection teaching is at the core of scripture – or so I understood it. 

Sundari:  Yes, the reflection or pratibimba vada teaching is at the core of the nondual scripture. The cause and effect and non-origination teaching is in essence the same as the reflection teaching, which is understanding the difference between personal consciousness that humans are endowed with, and impersonal universal nondual Consciousness as our primary identity, and that of everyone else. The main issue common with inquirers, is the belief that once you have understood the foundational teachings of Vedanta, you have gained knowledge, and moksa follows as a matter of course. Sadly, this is not the case, ignorance being as subtle and tenacious as it is. 

CC: To say yes and/or no to Isvara while also surrendering to Isvara and to negate Isvara is very subtle. I can also see a whole lot better where scripture/vedanta isn’t ‘lived’ properly, so here I am making changes to follow the compass ‘North’. That is not only very important but feels really good too. 

Sundari: Excellent, nondual knowledge at work.  The Isvara topic is very subtle and seemingly contradictory.  But it is not really. As a human you have a given nature and it’s ok, though for peace of mind to reign, we need emotion regulation through Self-knowledge, as I said above. Without it we will not be able to objectify the jiva and will be at the mercy of our subjective world of thoughts and feelings. Isvara is both the controller of the field and also pure Consciousness.  If we are identified with our true identity as pure the Self, everything dissolves into it, including Isvara.  The jiva is the Self, as is Isvara. Its only problem is ignorance of its true nature. When we are seated in Self-knowledge, we are in harmony with Isvara. What we need to do next as a jiva is clear because it’s going with the flow, which we trust implicitly. Instructions will be clear. Karma yoga is just knowledge and just for the jiva, we are not the doer and there is no karma for the Self.

Hope to see you this Sunday!

With much love

Sundari

Well, my plan was to work this out first and once that’s done to mail you again 🙂

It takes a bit longer than I thought. It looks to me, now, that I understood early, perhaps a bit too fast kind of, that I wasn’t the gunas, so, most of the time it is all good and easy, but not over, so to speak – continuous.

Sundari: It’s great to hear from you again. Vasanas are really like a carpet covering the mind, under which all the detritus of the gunas gets swept gathers and grows. It is very common for Self-realized people to claim moksa too soon – before the remaining work of doership negation is completed. It’s the most subtle stage. Or, they get stuck in ‘studying Vedanta’, which never works. Vedanta is not theory in practice, it is who you are. Good for you doing the work of cleaning up the remnants of duality in the form of binding vasanas, and the final doer renunciation. Both James and I wrote about this topic – I posted a satsang on it this recently, called ‘The Final Negation of Doership’.  I have attached it for you.

C: It is more like adjusting and training the mind more, so as to reflect better/clearer. It looks difficult, but actually much has changed for the better. Well, you taught me basically everything, and I still enjoy the satsangs that got this mind un-I’d. 🙂 It is a beautiful, creative and logical teaching. Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jivo Bramaiva Na Parah.You gave me all the tools.

Sundari: Yes, if Self-knowledge is about training the mind to think differently. If the nondual teachings are assimilating, and you are applying the teachings to your life, your life will improve. Not only because you are cleaning up the unconscious jiva drives but the way you relate to your karma changes – even if your karma does not change that much. Moksa is not about perfecting the jiva, but it is about giving it a good life, and the only way to do that as you know all too well, is with Self-knowledge. If there is no improvement, it means the teachings have not assimilated and/or are not being applied/ or there is a duality blockage.  

C: I give this jiva/mind another 2 years or so, to clean up most of it. Such a timespan seems/feels fair enough, also practical speaking. I, Self, am, beyond words.  

Sundari: It’s good to have a plan – to make a commitment to doing the work. Except when it comes to Self-actualization, Isvara does not know of your plans. That comes with grace, and it requires the continuing humility of applying the teachings. For as long as it takes. You are always the Self, nothing can change that. The steps to ‘get there are the qualities of being there’.  You are there. With just a few remaining layers of avidya to contend with. May Isvara smile on you! 

C: I replied to the last mail, cut it short, added, etc. But I wasn’t happy with it… so I took a broom to see what is what here. And came to the conclusion that ‘the data are in’.  It is time to become quiet, meditate and make sure that assimilation settles, deeper let’s say, not to know more, per se. It seems that I have a quick mind, mercury-like, creative, but also something sleepy. 

Sundari: Time out to contemplate so that assimilation can take place is always a good idea when things are stirred up. All three gunas are always present as you know, with two usually dominating. A quick mercurial mind can be a boon if sattva is in balance with rajas, as can a slower mind be useful if tamas is in balance with sattva. Problems arise when the relative proportions of rajas or tamas are out of balance with sattva. Highly creative people like yourself often have an imbalance, they go on a rajasic tear and have a tamasic burnout. Too much rajas always results in too much tamas (dull mind).

C: I, Self is without attributes – but I can speak, think, just the same. How else can there be the teaching? So, when nirvikalpa happens jiva is not or hardly present – when savikalpa happens – depending on self-knowledge; jiva is hardly or not present either. 

Therefore: Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya Jivo Bramaiva Na Parah. 

Sundari: The Self being attributeless does not speak think or act, though all happen by virtue of the presence of the Self. I know what you mean, but nirvikalpa or savikalpa are not ‘happenings”. When nirvilkalpa is present, there is no mind, no jiva. In savikalpa the jiva can be present but the mind is single-pointed on the Self.

C: I have to help myself here, or jiva rather and I think I know how-to. If not, I can ask you later – but this, knowing what I know, being able to verify and adjust faulty assumptions – or pesty convictions – I will sit and teach/remove this jiva-figure here, from the inside out, as if that is not already the case 🙂 It is subtle, you said a few times, and it is – obvious also. 

Sundari: Who sits and teaches, who does the ‘I’ refer to? The jiva cannot remove or teach itself. The Self does not teach or remove the jiva either as the jiva is the Self. Assuming qualifications and a qualified teacher, Self-knowledge dissolves the split between subject and object, it simply breaks the false identification with the jiva as separate, flawed, and incomplete.

C: Some time ago you said that there is mithya wisdom and Self-knowledge wisdom – I take this to be a difference from the karma-yogi and the jnani-yogi?

Sundari: Mithya knowledge is worldly knowledge, which can be knowledge about anything. We need knowledge to succeed and survive in life, but mithya knowledge is subject to change and error, and not always present. Self-knowledge, satya, is who you are, it never changes and is always good in any situation and at all times. It is the one and only non-negatable factor. A jnani is someone who is never confused about which is which and automatically discriminates between satya and mithya.

C:  I have a question on what Nirvikalpa means, by effect/experience. Because if savikalpa happens spontaneously, so does nirvikalpa, apparently. Is that when ‘mere observation’ – a kind of thoughtlessness, as if ‘in’ forgetting, takes place? 

Sundari:.  You cannot make either savikalpa  or nirvikalpa ‘happen’. They are the result  of the mind standing still and the Self shining purely in it. Samadhi involves thought, the jiva is present as it is a cognitive samadhi, in which there is objective experience or experience of “qualities”, with the triad of knower, knowledge and known.

Nirvikalpa samahdi is non-conceptual; without the modifications of the mind, i.e., no thoughts at all, but it is not forgetting. Rather, it is complete remembrance, as in wholeness. The experience of being the Self. It is beyond all duality in which there is no objective experience or experience of “qualities” whatsoever, and in which the triad of knower, knowledge and known does not exist.

It is considered the highest state of samadhi, beyond all thought, attribute, and description, which is why some people confuse it with moksa.  But it is an experience nonetheless, and all experiences happen in time and end. If Self-knowledge is not firm, ignorance returns once the samadhi ends.

C: Is kalpa prior to the guna’s and affecting them? 

Sundari: Kalpa is another word for time, which is synonymous with Isvara. Kalpa is the term for the length of the creation, also called the Day of Brahma. It alternates with a Night of Brahma of the same length. In the Day of Brahma creation is manifest and in the Night of Brahma is it resolved into its causal state. You are maybe confusing prakriti with kalpa?

There is no time for Awareness, so it is very difficult to explain the creation teaching, but let’s assume time existed. First and always, there is Pure Consciousness.  Secondly, Maya (Pure Macrocosmic Sattva) appears and Awareness plus Maya ‘becomes’ Isvara in the role of creator. Lastly, matter appears, but Macrocosmic sattvic prakriti is present before matter appears. Prakriti is the clear mirror of Consciousness, prior to the emergence of rajas and tamas.

Prakriti as the subtle nature or substance of all matter, subtle and gross, the blueprint of all forms, existing eternally within Maya.  Prakriti does not exist without Maya. There is no point in talking about the difference between them because prakriti does not mean anything without Maya. They are the same, but they are not.

Isvara associated with Maya is independent of prakriti because Isvara is trigunaatita, beyond the gunas. Prakriti depends on Isvara, not the other way around. And Isvara as Pure consciousness gives rise to creation but is always free of the creation.

 
C: Thank you for the clarification. I was seeking through thinking to find/come to knowledge, certainty or essence, more than ‘finding happiness’ – or felt that the truth will/must set free, so that is happiness. I also thought that moods, feelings, and emotions do have not much to do with this. Now I know they don’t but do, in a way as they, well, are gunas, and seem to have a say in the qualities of experience, i.e. useful for clarity. I am fine with a chunk of tamas, it doesn’t bother me; inherently none of the gunas are a problem to ahamkara – not per se. 

Sundari:  Correct, a jnani has no problem with any of the gunas and simply relates to (observes) them as orientation pointers and adjustments for the jiva. However, though the gunas are objects known to me, as peace of mind is prized above all, a jnani seeks to keep rajas and tamas in balance with sattva through lifestyle choices and knowledge of the typical thoughts/feelings that emerge with rajas and tamas.

C: And jiva never thought of having to deal with dark moods, in part because it has an optimistic and easy-going nature – that remains during hardship mostly. So, I take the gloominess for what it is. It goes away simply by kicking ‘its ass’ and/or a good night of rest. Pain may be a teacher, – pain, physically, without much thought, just get through, fuck it – and a blow to the ego is mostly good, but suffering .. what in the world enjoys that? 

Sundari: Yep, good attitude to have to rajas and tamas! Sometimes there is nothing to do but go with rajas or tamas, no point in fighting it or much mind management. But other times it is advisable to use sattva as a grappling hook to get out of manic rajas, or deploy some rajas to get out of dull doom and gloom tamas.

C: At any rate, all this may be; but I don’t want it to repeat. I lived an edgy life, still do in some sense, so ‘experience’ is fast, has momentum but some of it does leave a trace in the mind and becomes a memory that plays into present vasana’s, or so it seems. Hah, it sounds complicated, but it isn’t. I give it some attention, that is good, but I don’t like it in my responses to you. 

The key is what jiva and Isvara share: Self, and what they don’t share, micro and macro cosmos; which, as Self, makes no difference. 

Sundari: Excellent.

C: I do a lot of karma yoga now, in areas that are so contrary to what I meant, intended, in life. It is pulling outward, but that’s ok, for now. Working out lists of things – calls to make, handling chaotic weather, worldly stuff. Each morning and evening I let it go again. 
 
Sundari: Karma yoga is the way of course, but who is ‘doing’ it? We must all attend to our worldly jiva stuff, it goes with the territory of being ‘human’. As a karma yogi, we ‘do’ karma yoga to get what we want in life.  As a jnani, we relinquish the idea of doership altogether, and trust Isvara totally, but we still take appropriate action. 

 
Chantur: Fuel to the doer – it’s a tight balance. I can see how it is trouble and also how gold and crow shit is the same, that ‘lack’ is unreal, relative, and so on.  Nonetheless, jiva finds it often difficult to live in this culture, basically: the downplay of dignity – self-respect of and for all that lives. Powerplay, crushing morals, authority/ obedience etc… money… I found it very distressing to experience the battle of ego’s, it makes no sense to me, whatsoever. I feel zero respect for powerplay. 

Some good old competition is fine but the stakes are taken too far, to my mind – it’s nuts. The absurdity makes it humorous – but too much thought on it, I cancel, it’s not worth it. Creation has something amazing to it, beautiful, mesmerizing. Its beauty may not be real, but to the degree that it is; how hard is that to see? Why love war, manipulation, power and such things and act that out on such a scale? Even ‘care’ is corrupted, I see what politicians and others do – but, a thousand years ago, the same type of shit happened. I remember all kinds of complicated thoughts on ethics, discussions with academics. They said that ethics is hard, but I thought, no, living by wisdom, is hard. Perhaps the wheel is in Kali-yuga … Mithya is the place to work it all out; Isvara dishes out the results. Ignorance is ignorance, a twilight zone. Ok.. enough. 

Sundari:  Good mithya rant! Mithya is not a place, it’s a mirage, an idea created by the play of the gunas, nobody is doing anything because none of it is real. Isvara is both dharma and adharma, it can only be that way or duality would end and there would be no opportunity to work out our karma. Why bother taking a stand to judge any of it? The play of the gunas has always been thus, and always will be.

C: Is it right to say that ignorance may not be a problem, actually, because it isn’t real, but is a problem because it makes suffering possible, which is unnatural to freedom, the very truth of existence essentially? Unless there is a desire for suffering … but that’s really strange. 

Sundari: Ignorance is only a problem when you do not know what it is. – which means that duality is going to seriously mess you up.  When you do know the difference between duality and nonduality,  discrimination is automatic and permanent. Then and only then can you truly enjoy it for what it has to offer. It temporary bliss, but it is still beautiful because it is you. Mithya ‘becomes’ satya. Fear is a thing of the past because the illusion of loss and gain is no more.

C: I often get the impression that the cosmos is a ‘reject-ion’ of what is not-self, which cannot be, so it is not; and consecrates the fact of being, as if by might; but sweet and loving. It’s like a mystery but maybe not mystical; depending on experience versus empirical notions. 

Sundari: The ‘cosmos’ is not a mystery or mystical, or sweet and loving, for that matter. Those are just jiva projections.  It’s a movie. If it’s not real, how can it reject its(not)self? The Self ‘sees’ only itself, and all is well with the world. It is there because I see it, not the other way around.

C: (…) – plus timeless, I realize, Thanks to You, Sundari-Self. 

Sundari: Definitely not thanks to me. Thanks to the teachings, to Isvara, the Self. You. I am just Isvara’s scribe.

C: Ok, point taken. I know what You/I am. I feel an endless Thank You for the teaching. The last days much fell off, duality only seems complicated. While cutting wood, a job to build a fence, the sun was shining and birds chirping – a robin hopping around that wasn’t afraid of me, or the noise of my machines, all is peaceful.

Sundari: A state of grace. You are always welcome, you are doing great. I love the way your mind works, and hearing from you.

Much love

Sundari

Proponent:  The shortcut to Consciousness is to just be it.

Answer:   There is no shortcut because consciousness is the nature of every sentient being.  How can you be what you are?  Your statement implies that you can do to be but you can’t do unless you already are.  You can do Self inquiry along scriptural to remove the belief that you are something other than consciousness.  A person can say E=MC² but have no knowledge of what the equation means.  To recognize yourself as consciousness takes a lot of effort and perseverance, not being. 

Proponent:  But I had the feeling that I was consciousness as a kid.  It led me to did vipassana meditation at a Buddhist Centre where I daily did sadhana of asanas and meditation (all 8 limbs of yoga).  A few years later I discovered another spiritual group and I was there almost daily, volunteering, meditating, doing courses.

But the last 10 years I just got sucked back into the mind, the physical experiences, the chaos of my family. And my biggest question was, “when you know/see It, how can you “un-see” It.  How can a yogi go backwards??? LOL.

But, we can slip back into the World of senses, physicality, avarice etc. I got caught up again in the body and became very insecure.  I’m going through my inheritance now and using drugs too. They block my brain in ways  in ways that only a user can understand. But, hey, without them I wouldn’t have got through the pain and mental/physical exhaustion.

Answer:  There is no evidence that the drugs saved your soul as you point out in the next paragraph.

But that is where ISHVARA comes in, as you say. A sensitivity to and faith and trust in it, even gratitude for keeping everything held together. The yogic sciences are such an overwhelmingly beautiful system. The joy and fulfilment flooding into the body cannot help but create healing in the body and mind. Release from the World in knowing one’s own Self is… well, it’s like a natural high far beyond what any drug could achieve.

So I am very excited to be Home again. Constant vigilance over the mind will keep me secure in it. Be assured my journey is not over! Deepening and living it is a moment by moment journey.

Answer:  It is very easy to understand the flow of what happened.  The times when the mind was quiet and peaceful is the sattvic mind so pure Consciousness, yourself, shines through.

But you did not get the knowledge that you are eternal, limitless Consciousness. Like all human beings, we start being ignorant of the Consciousness we are and think we are a mind-body with Consciousness. We think the quiet peaceful mind is it but the mind is matter and matter is threefold so it changes and trigger change in circumstances. The guna changes from sattva to rajas and tamas; they rotate round and round in any order endlessly. Gunas are trap of samsara.

So we get surprised … “I lost it!” … “got sucked back”. Yes, we lose the sattvic mind because its nature is to be lost, to change. It may be present for a long time but it will definitely change when rajas and tamas arise. What you “knew and saw” was not pure unchanging Consciousness. It was Consciousness and sattva guna. The guna changed and with the guna it seems as if the Consciousness changes or that Consciousness is gained.  Anything that is gained will be lost or changed. It is that simple.

All the time, in the background, was/is the eternal Consciousness, unrecognised, unknown. It is this Consciousness that Vedanta points to and wants us to recognise and abide as. The conscious mind-body person will keep on changing, shifting, experiencing the ups and downs, gains and loss, “got it” and “oops, lost it”, etc. This is the play of the gunas. It is not Consciousness.

That is why this knowledge from Vedanta is so unique. No other tradition talks about it. Patanjali’s Ashtanga Yoga and Vipassana train the mind to be a good watcher, catch thought, emotions, sensations, consciousness as they arise. But all such traditions do not mention Consciousness with the Capital C. All others refer to small c consciousness in the mind, but that is not the Consciousness which Vedanta points to … pure Presence of Be-ing, unconditioned Awareness, complete Fulfilment, Atma (Consciousness pervading), Brahman (Consciousness universal). It is always present and never changes. It is unaffected by the gunas, beyond the mind. Hence, Consciousness is always free.

That Consciousness, you are, here and now, not a person with a mind and consciousness.  You are immortal, eternal, changeless, limitless, infinite, complete and fulfilled, free from matter and gunas, here and now.

The person we think and believe we are, will never be complete nor fulfilled. It is bound, dependent, imperfect, affected by the gunas, by past karma, by personal tendencies, by space, by time. It is trapped in duality.

All that needs to be done is eliminate ignorance with knowledge and, bingo, the Consciousness we always and already are, is revealed and recognised immediately. But as discussed, it takes work, study, listening to the correct teaching repeatedly.  Perseverance.  This is Vedantic meditation. Persevere because ignorance is deep and strong, ‘hard-wired’. Slowly, the veil of ignorance is removed and what a blessing when recognition happens!

So, which do you identify as, a person with the mind and consciousness or  Consciousness?

You decide and accept the consequences of your choice. It is really a no-brainer.

Identify as person means more suffering, even with a nice, quiet mind. It will inevitably change and you will think you “lost it” and suffer.

Identify as Consciousness and you are free, whatever the outer circumstances and the inner state of the conscious mind affected by the relevant guna. As Consciousness, You were free, You are free here and now, You will always be free … whether with a mind-body or without a mind-body … for ever and ever

Allen: 1) Causal, Subtle & Gross

I understand there is a macro and micro, which is to say, Ishwara and Jiva, version of the 3 bodies: causal, subtle, and gross. I am confused though by what I took to be your placing vasanas in Ishwara’s causal body and in Jiva’s subtle body.

Sundari: The Causal body is synonymous with the three gunas and is the repository of all vasanas because all vasanas are guna generated and beginningless.  The Causal body is another term for Isvara, System 1. But Isvara is Pure Consciousness wielding Maya, it is not a person and does not have any ‘bodies’.  Jiva has a Subtle body that contains a Gross body and a microcosmic causal body, i.e., the unconscious or ‘system 2’, programmed by its vasana load.

Allen: Am I wrong in thinking that in both macro and micro the 3 gunas line up neatly as causal = predominantly sattvic, subtle = predominantly rajasic, and gross = predominantly tamasic?

Sundari: The Causal body/Isvara is pure Consciousness wielding Maya and as such, unaffected by the gunas.  If it were not, there would be no freedom from their effects: mithya/duality/ignorance. The gunas are called macrocosmic vasanas i.e. they belong to Isvara or the Total, the Creation. All vasanas arise from the three gunas: sattva, rajas, and tamas which are what makeup Maya—the dharmafield or creation.  The gunas give rise to the jiva, the vasanas and their results (karma). Vasanas are not inherently good or bad.  They are the seeds—the knowledge—that drives Creation.  Nothing stirs in the creation or apparent reality without a vasana driving it, whether it is a once-off thing or an often-repeated pattern of behavior. A vasana becomes a good one when it drives you into pleasant circumstances and it becomes a bad one when it drives you into an unpleasant situation.  A vasana is the momentum from a past action, the tendency to repeat it.  It is purely a technical term. 

But vasanas can also sprout without any previously known tendency or desire because the seeds for all vasanas are Isvara and therefore exist as potential in everyone. It may seem like ‘our’ vasanas are personal and original, but they are not.  All vasanas are eternal because they originate in the Causal body.  Isvara churns them out over and over because there is really only one eternal Jiva or Subtle body, appearing as many seemingly unique individuals with seemingly unique ‘issues’. They are not unique (although the ego likes to think they are) but generic and timeless. It is impossible to put a timeline to this logic because as principles the Gunas, the individual jiva, and the Vasanas cannot be separated as they exist ‘out of time’, in infinite potential within the Causal body, which is infinite because it exists in Consciousness.

Allen: Is it not the rajasic in the Jiva that employs fast thinking and the sattvic slow thinking? 

Sundari: Not necessarily. Rajasic thinking is typified by an extroverted mind under the whip of desire and/or fear. Sattvic thinking tends to be calm clear thinking, but when rajas is in balance with sattva, the mind is capable of fast and clear thought.

Allen: Now fast thinking and slow thinking are terms that apply to the Jiva and not to Ishwara, is that right?

Sundari: Most definitely. Isvara is not a person, as stated above, and thus does not think. Isvara wields Maya and is karma phala datta, the giver of karma.  There is no thought involved in the delivery of karma as Isvara in the role of creator is an impersonal principle.

The Subtle body (jiva) is conscious and seems to think but it can only think because Isvara has provided it with an intellect and the light of Consciousness shines on it.  Thanks to Maya, the jiva identifies with its guna-programmed thoughts/emotions and believes it is a doer/thinker, separate from the objects/Field of Existence, blind to its true nature as Consciousness.

Allen: For Ishwara, vasanas and the causal body are identical, for Ishwara 2 that is, Maya, the creator and sustainer of the subtle and gross bodies — and am I wrong to see these as (predominantly) Rajas and Tamas?

Sundari: The creation manifests with the emergence of ALL three gunas.  Sattva is intelligence, knowledge; tamas the heavy dense energy of matter; rajas the mode of action or desire.  We need all three gunas to function. There would not be a world to function in for the Subtle body if all three were not always present because they make up the fabric of the created world, whether sentient or insentient. The nature of the mind is sattva, and the nature of gross matter is tamas. Neither sattva nor tamas creates. Rajas, the energy of passion and action, is required to activate the blueprint for creation. The problems arise for the jiva when the relative proportions of rajas and tamas are out of balance with sattva.

Allen: Now perhaps my mixing up the 3 gunas with the 3 bodies, is the source of my confusion.

Sundari:  Yes, it is, but it seems that confusion is a result of some gap in your understanding of the gunas/Isvara.

Allen: Or perhaps I misheard or misunderstood you to say that for Jiva, the vasanas as or in the causal body manifest as fast thinking, and thus it is in or as the subtle body that Jiva through slow thinking can break free of this or that vasana. Is that what you were saying? Please correct me if I have that wrong.

Sundari: You must have misunderstood the analogy we used these terms for referencing System 1 and System 2. See below.

Allen: Yet distinguishing Satya from Mithya too is a vasana, no? A vasana we wish to strengthen until it is constant and automatic, right? I understand that slow thinking, or Inquiry, can accomplish this.

Sundari: Yes, discriminating satya from mithya is a vasana we need to strengthen and then drop once the knowledge assimilates. As James says: satya and mithya are mithya.  They are teaching tools, a means to an end. Once the Self is known to be oneself, they are useless because Self-knowledge means there is no jiva other than the Self.  You drink a coke and you throw away the can.  If the jiva survives Self-knowledge, then it needs to do nididhyasana, which involves getting rid of the teachings that were helpful at one time, but no longer apply.  “What use is a small pond when the whole land is flooded?”   As long as you are discriminating between satya and mithya you are still a jiva.  Self-knowledge is non-discriminating “wisdom.”  “The one who knows, knows.”   That’s the end of it. 

End quote. But it is not simple.  This is why nididhysana is usually the longest stage of inquiry for all inquirers.

Allen: When this vasana becomes hard and fast (meaning here, firm or unchanging) knowledge we call it Jiva Mukti or Paramatman, right?

Sundari:  Yes, see above. When the knowledge is hard and fast there is no longer a ‘discriminator’.  There is only the Self.

Allen: Perhaps I will be able to understand what you mean by associating fast thinking with Jiva’s causal body and slow thinking with Jiva’s subtle body — unless I’m already misunderstanding what you said by writing it this way —  if you could describe the process of strengthening the Satya-Mithya-discrimination vasana in terms of Jiva’s 3 bodies.

Sundari: Fast thinking is simply a way of describing how the Causal body works, it is an analogy.  Isvara/the Causal is an automatic processor, like a computer. 

This is what I wrote about System 1 and 2 using Daniel Kahneman’s terms fast and slow thinking:

System 1 can be applied as a code term to describe Maya in association with Consciousness appearing as Isvara, the Creator. In other words, the ‘cause’ of the world of objects, the effects, or System 2, the jiva.  We can also call System 1 the Macrocosmic Causal Body or the Unconscious. It contains the ‘personal’ or microcosmic causal body (the subconscious mind).  System 2 incorporates the physical body, the conscious mind with its personal subconscious, the 5 subtle and gross organs of perception, the 5 organs of action, the five prana, i.e. the Subtle Body. 

The real usefulness of the terms System 1 and 2 either for the seeker of liberation or the average person (samsari) is that they help to understand why reality is not perceived the way it really is. Isvara wielding Maya (System 1) operates the dharmafield (Systems 1 and 2) in such a way that the conscious mind (System 2) is deluded.  The conscious mind cannot be blamed for this because without Self-knowledge, the person is programmed by Maya to interpret experience according to its conditioning, the Causal Body, System 1. It is like wearing a blindfold but not knowing you are wearing one, you think you can see.

We can liken System 1 to an information processor, like a computer. It not only provides the raw material for an experience it is responsible for experience by setting it in motion and recording it.  System 1 is astonishingly powerful and ‘thinks’ so fast that we are almost never aware of the information until after the fact, if at all. According to cognitive neuroscientists, if we had to apportion actual brain function to the two systems (which they see as the unconscious and conscious minds), System 1 has 40 million nerve impulses per second whereas System 2 has 40 nerve impulses per second.  This means that System 1 is one million times more powerful … and faster … than System 2! 

In contrast to System 1’s computational brilliance, System 2 has only marginal aptitude for creativity.  It is a stimulus-response system, with pre-recorded responses totally predicated by System 1. This clearly demonstrates that System 1 controls all behaviour not attended to by System 2, which turns out to be just about everything that is apparently ‘happening’ in present time! For most people, System 2 or the conscious mind is so preoccupied with predictable thoughts about the past, present, and future, or whatever imaginary problem absorbs it, that it is unaware of the function of System 1. System 2 contributes about 5 percent of our cognitive activity.  This means that 95 percent of our decisions, actions, emotions, and behaviour are derived from the unobserved processing of System 1, the Causal Body. This process is automatic, which is why ignorance is so hardwired, tenacious, and sneaky.

It is believed that of the 4 billion stimuli that are available to the conscious mind at any given moment, only around 2,000 of these stimuli are recorded.  And which would these be? Only those stimuli that conform to the individual’s frame of reference: their conditioning. For all intents and purposes, the remaining stimuli do not exist for System 2, although they impact it in unseen ways too numerous to mention.  As long as ignorance of our true nature as Consciousness, and therefore of Isvara, remains, our ‘fate’ is actually under the control of our conditioning or vasana load.  This is called bondage and there is no escape from the relentless pressure of the apparent reality, of being and becoming. Hence the saying: “Life is something that happens to you while you are busy doing other things.”  Or: “Man proposes, and God disposes.” System 1 is always running in the background and is the real lead in the movie of our lives, although most of us are unconscious of this fact.  If we do not have Self-knowledge, we think that System 2, the conscious mind, is making decisions and running our lives.

Where it gets difficult is to effect a change in System 2, a permanent cognitive shift first needs to take place in System 1, the Causal Body.  The important distinction to make here is that the effects which make the dharmafield are Isvara, but Isvara is not the effects.  Isvara is the cause, not the effects.  The cause does not change, it is eternal and outside of time. The effects change and affect each other, which is why we can render binding vasanas non-binding. The only way for the conscious mind, ego, or System 2 (jiva) to effect a change in System 1 is by Self-knowledge introducing a change in the intellect which brings about a change in the thoughts, feelings, and the execution of actions in System 2.  This is no easy task because System 1 or ignorance is very powerful.  Think of David and Goliath.  System 2, David, must aim that blow to System 1, Goliath, very precisely. But it is possible, thanks to Self-knowledge.  

The reason it is possible to effect change in the Causal body is that there is a two-way connection between Isvara and the jiva. Even though from a psychological perspective on the relative level or apparent reality, System 1 and 2 are so unevenly matched. The conditioning that runs System 2 can be changed in System 1 where it originates from, through repeated, appropriate action based on Self-knowledge. When it comes to deeply entrenched conditioning or vasanas, it is extremely difficult and requires constant vigilance. What this entails is every day, moment to moment asserting and re-asserting your nature as limitless Consciousness with every thought word and deed.

If no change of thought takes place in System 2, System 1 will continue running unchanged, by default.  Making these changes in one’s thinking in the light of Self-knowledge is what renders binding vasanas non-binding.  All true inquirers soon discover that the application of Self-knowledge is hard work and no walk in the park. It requires taking a stand in Awareness as Awareness 24/7, which is beyond both systems. Only Self-knowledge is capable of permanently removing ignorance of our true nature. The important question to ask, always is:  Who is the knower of System 1 and System 2?  Of course, this is Consciousness, the Self. What does it matter, then, what our apparent nature is if it is not real and ‘belongs’ to Isvara? Why bother with it? The only issue with the jiva is if there are residual vasanas causing a disturbance in the mind, in which case, nididhysana is the way to remove them.

 Allen: I think of vasanas as repetitions, for jivas (though there is only 1 Jiva) or jivas thinking/acting, as habits, habits of thought.

Sundari: Yes, vasanas are repetitive actions/thoughts based on guna-generated mental programs, as mentioned above.

Allen: As apparent individuals, do we not seek to replace bad habits with good habits, or bad habits of thought with good ones?

Sundari: I do believe that most people try to improve and be their best selves, nobody enjoys suffering.  Sadly, it is very hard for people to change their bad habits without Self-knowledge, hence the sayings like ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’. The problem is that trying to improve the jiva does not end suffering because it does not address its root cause: the hypnosis of duality, ignorance. Freedom is not about improving the jiva or becoming a better person, though that usually does happen as an effect of Self-knowledge.  It is not the goal. Freedom is freedom from the limitations of the identification with the jiva as your primary identity.

Allen: I tend to think of Jiva in terms of the 5 sheaths, but I know Ramji teaches Jiva in terms of 3 bodies as well — which you seem to have assimilated, learned, and now simply know.

Sundari: It makes no difference how you think of the jiva as long as you understand that the jiva is you, the Self, but you are not it.

Allen: Can you explain it to me so I can understand it?  As I recall, when I said the vasanas are in the causal body, you said that is macro only and that for Jiva, on the micro-level, they are in the subtle body? Do I have that right? Then how is fast thinking a manifestation of Jiva’s causal body and slow thinking the subtle body?

Sundari: This is answered above. As stated all gunas/vasanas are macrocosmic, i.e., originate from the Causal body. The individual Subtle body is programmed by its guna-generate vasana load according to its karma. When moksa obtains, all karma is burned up. There is no karma for the Self. There is no longer an individual jiva, though it still seemingly manifests.  It is as good as non-existent.

Allen: I confess to my confusion here. Thank you for any help you can offer me. I tend to think in terms of Intellect (an instrument of knowledge), Mind (not in the Western sense but in Vedanta’s meaning of thought in service to emotion), and Ego (this last representing thought emanating from an identity with the gross, physical body). 

Sundari: Essentially correct. When the mind is purified and moksa obtains, all thinking is in line with the Self.  Automatic and repetitive guna-generated thinking is rendered non-binding (see explanation how this happens above), so thinking becomes spontaneously Self-referenced and free of the limitation of duality, i.e., the conceptual jiva and its programs.

Allen: Perhaps I superimpose the 3-some of I, M, E onto causal, subtle and gross bodies, and/or sattvic, rajasic and tamasic thought/action, thereby, as far as understanding the teaching of Vedanta (itself a mere instrument to be tossed aside when knowledge reveals Satya to be Reality and the Ishwara-Jiva duality but a dream of Mithya and ‘real’ only as such) hopelessly confusing myself by superimposing completely separate regimes (or instruments) of Inquiry onto one another?

Sundari:  Yes, most likely.

Allen: Of course, Paramatman even as a concept, let alone as Reality itself — as I Am, cannot be reduced to such dualistic notions as macro and micro: They are Me (I Am) but I am not them. But help me understand the teaching better, even if it is only a ladder to be kicked away when no longer needed, by explaining how the macro and micro 3 bodies operate differently. Thanks!

Sundari: All these terms are mithya and necessary for teaching and the assimilation of the teachings, Once Self-knowledge obtains, they all fall away and what remains is only the Self, ‘the one who knows’. (See Quote from Ramji above).

Here is the breakdown of how knowing happens:

1. Both the known and unknown do not apply to the Self because it is not a knower in the sense we use that word.  How can it be a knower if there is only itself?  What’s to know or not know if all there is, is you? The jiva is not a knower either because it is not conscious; it is an inert know object whose consciousness (ability to know) belongs to the presence of the Self. But does it belong to the Self? Yes and no. No consciousness is possible without the Self, but the Self/Consciousness does not know anything because it does not modify to experience.

2. When Maya appears, prakriti, the subtlest form of matter that the creation is created from, appears ‘simultaneously’ in Maya, before the gunas emerge.  Prakriti is reflected Awareness and also does not know anything because it is not modified by the gunas, which have not manifested yet.

3. When the gunas manifest, pure Awareness operating Maya in the ‘role’ of the Creator, meaning Isvara, knows the world – the reflected medium – because Isvara is conscious.  Why? Because with the appearance of Maya there is something to be conscious of – an apparent creation, the reflected medium. Isvara is in fact, the only knower.

4. The reflected medium is the Field of Existence in which the jiva perceives, experiences and works out its karma.  The Field and the Jiva seem conscious because the light of Consciousness shines on them. We can infer that the Field is intelligent and must have an intelligent creator because we know that we are conscious, and the Field is intelligently designed. Consciousness makes everything possible, everything depends on it, but Consciousness is unaffected by everything.

 Allen: 2) The Lotus and Desire

The single lotus in the pond outside my small room in Auroville, did not desire the sun when it closed its petals at night; it desired the sun when it was shining and it opened its petals to the light.

Similarly, our deep desire is not a lack, for I do not lack enlightenment even when I appear to be unenlightened, for I am the light and that is my desire (thus I Am That [which is desirable]) — always already completely fulfilled!

Sundari: If you truly know that and live it, there is no need for a teaching. Knowing you are the Self means you know you are that which makes the lotus and the light possible. Who needs enlightenment?

Much love

Sundari

Sundari: Thank you for your feedback and appreciation. Our reward is knowing how much these teachings transform people’s lives.

Danielle: This seems to me proper due diligence while adjusting this life to fit Vedanta, especially since it directly affects my work. For 12 years I have already been teaching and guiding others in taking a new perspective for relating to and caring for horses. There has always been a spiritual component to this as it came to me from my teachers in this area, but until Vedanta came to me it remained muddled in duality.

I realize it may sound like I think I’m inventing something new by saying I see the horse is symbolic in terms of Jnana yoga. That’s not the case. I’m aware of the existing Vedic metaphor of the horse and chariot as a symbol for managing the gross and subtle bodies. And I am also aware of the horse symbology in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, though I admit to not having yet fully read it. My point is that there is a niche of people who engage with actual horses and who exhibit a belief in a spiritual purpose of such relationships within the framework of seeing the horse for his own sake and not someone to be controlled for the benefit of ego. However, this spiritual and religious impulse usually becomes simply another samsaric exercise rife with magical thinking and virtue seeking/attachment because the nondual perspective does not get clearly explained. I wish to explain it from the perspective of the Self.

Sundari: I understand your reverence for the horse, having been a keen rider myself for many years, I had my first horse in my late teens. My daughter had a special affinity and connection with horses from a very young age too and had her own horse for many years. The horse symbol is indeed interesting and used widely in cultures and spiritual paths east and west. It has always had a mystical component, such as in the tales of the indigenous people of America. In the Hindu tradition, the horse and chariot are of course a good metaphor for the mind and the senses—who or what is driving the chariot is the defining factor in terms of the jiva’s life experience.

I get what you mean about the horse as a symbol of jnana yoga too. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that he must put all his energy into the ‘steed of yoga’, meaning he must put all his faith in the scripture. He uses the powerful horse as a symbol, not for jnana per se, but for it as the means, yoga. In other words, once you trust the scripture/Vedanta to carry you, and Self-knowledge will take you where nothing else can, freedom from and for the jiva (moksa).

A similar metaphor we use is the Vedanta bus. Once you are on board, you can put your heavy suitcase down (life/jiva issues) and trust the bus (scripture) to take you to your destination (moksa). Which of course in either case is not a destination because you are and always have been ‘there’! But if there is ignorance standing in the way of that knowledge you are bound by ignorance and suffer.

But there is a codicil to either metaphor. One must be qualified to ride the horse or have the right ticket to board the bus. And if so, one must stay on the horse/bus. Meaning, we must have the requisite qualifications for self-inquiry, we must be properly taught by a qualified teacher, totally dedicated to self-inquiry, and we must apply the teachings to our lives, or we will not go the distance. So self-inquiry (jnana yoga) will not work to produce Self-knowledge, moksa. We will not get to our destination.

In this metaphor, I can see that the work you do to help people connect with horses as a vehicle to impart karma yoga and rudimentary guna yoga could be very helpful. Even though all objects are mithya, it is possible to see anything as a symbol of the Self as everything is a reflection of it. The horse in particular being such a powerful, noble and magnificent animal, giving humans so much (and suffering a great deal because of them too), lends itself well as a symbol of purity and eternal truth. But from what I understand what you teach is not really about the horse; what you do is psychological counseling, really. Jnana yoga, or triguna vibhava yoga, unfolds Isvara’s psychological order, and karma yoga is the most powerful tool to manage the ego and the senses, the horse. An unskilled rider will not last long on a runaway horse, just as without Self-knowledge managing the mind (the chariot) we are powerless against binding vasanas. As stated, it all depends on what is in charge of the chariot.

Vedanta’s defining message is that your true nature is Consciousness, the Self, you are unborn undying, ever-present, whole and complete, and require nothing to be happy. Nothing gives this truth to you or takes it away. The teachings do not give you anything you do not have; they are purely to remove the ignorance standing in the way of you appreciating your true nature as truth. But while it is relatively easy to realize the Self, it is quite another to actualize Self-knowledge. This is where all the ‘work’ of both teaching and self-inquiry takes place, in deconstructing mithya to negate it. While freedom is about discriminating satya (that which is always present and unchanging, the Self) from mithya (that which is not always present and unchanging, the jiva/world) how are we to be free of mithya unless we understand it in light of Vedanta? Therefore, as we are already the Self, completing all three stages of self-inquiry, srvanna, manana, and nididhysana, is about negating mithya so that Self-knowledge actualizes. Meaning, we are permanently free of the jiva, and the jiva lives a great life.

As everything in mithya is subject to Isvara, the giver of results, and to the gunas, which condition all objects, I can see how karma yoga and guna yoga apply in connecting to horses, as it does to anything else. Even for an unqualified person, knowledge of these two practices improves anyone’s life and can be ‘de-coupled so to speak, from traditional Vedanta. If someone does not have the qualifications for self-inquiry, they can still benefit greatly from secular karma yoga and guna yoga. Both are really commonsense logic, especially karma yoga. There is no way to fully practice mind management, nor to understand what is unfolding in ones’ environment, without knowledge of the gunas, even if you do not call them that.

Danielle: Once I began to evaluate it all in light of Vedanta, I knew I could no longer continue teaching as I had been but could clearly see the metaphorical value of the horse and human relationships. So, yes, I can help people literally change their relationship with their actual horse, which really comes as a result of karma yoga, but there is the opportunity to see the horse symbolically in terms of jnana yoga.

If I may, I would like to share this experience and my developing outlook with you in more detail and then have a Zoom meeting with you to start a dialog to discuss the nitty-gritty of my Vedanta practice to make sure I am not misunderstanding or misusing the knowledge, especially since sharing it with others or a least leading them to it is at the fore of my dharma.

I have a sincere reverence for the Vedanta sampradaya and would not dare call myself a qualified Vedanta teacher now, though in another several years perhaps that could be true – if you say so. I don’t take it lightly and would and do willingly defer and refer to ShingingWorld as a resource and authority as I share the non-dual wisdom to the best of my ability now.

Sundari: I commend you on your attitude to the teachings, both for your sadhana and for imparting them. As you seem very aware, teaching Vedanta is a tricky business unless one can discriminate satya from mithya. Though many so-called teachers claim to teach Vedanta, and some not fully qualified ones even do a fair job of it, when it is the ego teaching as opposed to the Self, there is a very big difference. Not to mention that unless a teacher fully understands the teachings it is very possible that you will confuse or mislead inquirers. Furthermore, teaching builds ego. Vedanta is the most powerful teaching, and to teach it properly not only requires complete knowledge of the teachings but the humility and solid understanding that Isvara is the only teacher. To me, it seems clear that you understand this very well, and do not have the ambition to teach. It is taking place as a natural consequence of your svadharma.

I am happy to talk further about this on zoom or skype.

Much love
Sundari

The moral inventory process has been very useful. This Jiva came with so much delusion and confusion. I have been very selective when it comes to teachers and teachings but never identified as a seeker. In fact I see that I have been seeking the key to end suffering at the same time as causing the suffering.  The Vedanta teaching has delivered the key to unlock the process that causes the suffering thru the understanding of the vasanas, the three gunas, Ishvara and Maya. I continue to benefit every day from your teachings and cannot thank you enough for spending 50 years teaching so that I could finally show up. Not a moment to waste. 

In gratitude I bow…

Love, 

M…

I hope you’re well and so is Sundari!  You’re with me ‘wherever I go‘ and I just cannot start a letter to you without telling you how grateful I am, that you and the teaching appeared one fine day and turned everything around – finally! A turning around, which I always knew deep inside of me, must somehow be possible, that couldn’t have been all to life… but how? I didn’t have a clue! And although in this mail I really want to ask you for your attention as my teacher and not only praise you, I just feel so much love and gratitude that you share the knowledge so generously and that you’re available! So first of all: Thank you.

In the last months, after I’ve visited the seminar you gave at Suryalila and I’ve told you I would like to write to you – I didn’t forget it obviously! But I also didn’t want to bother you with something half-baked. We could also call it a slight predominance of tamas 😉 The tamas – on the other hand – gave me the precious opportunity to think and contemplate once more about the Gunas and in general about mithya and its proper understanding. 

I know that I’m the Self in which the conditioning of the person (nothing more than a continuous series of thoughts and accompanying emotions) plays out. One could name it the play of the gunas, ignorance or whatever one wants, but it will never change the fact that the Self is absolutely unaffected by the apparent play. 

Some weeks ago I had a pretty tamasic week although Larry was very sattvic. He felt like the cat’s pajamas. I couldn’t stand it! He was happy and clear, but also arrogant and conceited. Thanks to just enough sattva on my side I could clearly see the `disease pattern` of sattva, which was very liberating. But before the feeling of liberation through a deepening of understanding sunk in, embarrassment kicked in, remembering how often in the last years I was “Mrs. Knowing it better and I tell you about it and show you, if you want or not”, because of the confidence of sattva. No question, sattva is beautiful and makes the mind clear and the reflection easy, but it’s a chain too and it’s just a reflection – an appearance in mithya – not the light itself.  It’s a chain, not only because one can be stuck there on `the way to liberation` in it feeds the ego.  Or after the understanding of one’s true nature mixing the Knowledge with the experience of a sattvic mind, but also because you just can be an annoying person when you are sattvic.

I would say that a very pure sattvic mind is just beautiful and a gift to the Jiva and the world. but as soon it gets mixed more strongly with another guna, the ego tends to `use it` as support for rajasic or tamasic needs). I guess one can always recognise this state of mind, if there’s a strong desire to share something with the world. 

I’ve found my little examination about sattva also interesting, because it shows clearly once more that since the play of the gunas is in a constant state of flux, we cannot trust the mind. From the standpoint of a predominately tamasic mind I can’t cope with the predominance of sattva. If I would have been the same sattvic-rajasic like Larry, we would have been two cat’s pajamas. So it’s similar to the three states; since it changes it cannot be real, I cannot count on the mind, the view is always filtered and not reliable! I know – on the other hand – how valuable words are. Vedanta only deals with words to transport knowledge. The mind will just never become perfect. It is duality itself.

And therefore it’s also not easy to stay objective accurately with one’s own state of mind or the proportions of the Gunas and interfere intelligently… although I would say mostly it’s possible for me to be clear about the relative proportions of the gunas and I’m able to bring some balance back. But sometimes when I get triggered, I identify with it and cannot just stay 100% consciously present, leave the situation in its order of reality and be the witness, free of it all. It’s like a voice which says: Yes, yes, I know who I am, I’m full and complete, limitless, unconcerned awareness, but I jiva still need to take care of this and that and tell my boyfriend that he sucks. It just makes no sense. I know in general it’s not a problem to have whatever feeling or thought or even a fight (it’s anyway not up to me) but it feels kind of binding and identified sometimes. 

It never takes long to be knowingly the Self and be just the loving witness of the show, but, dear James, it happens that I get a little bit too identified with a thought and I ask you for advice.

One assumption is that the temporary cloudiness is fed from the (ignorant) thought, something needs to be optimised.  Similar to the belief; a very sattvic state of mind is the evidence for The Knowledge. That’s of course no freedom at all, but dependence, ignorance and mixing up sathya and mithya. I’m a little bit stuck there. I know it’s not true, but the thought-pattern still appears.  I also find myself sometimes being a little bit mechanical in situations. 

You know, I think and contemplate about these things all the time and I know that I’m not it. I know that my identity is flawless and infinite. So any slightest irritation, any disturbing, distraction thought is worth an investment. What do you think?

One more thing: I’ve heard you saying several times that people don’t really want to hear what you can tell them and show them about themselves.  So I want to invite you here and now to tell me about every blind spot about Jiva Ute – even and especially when it will turn into nectar a little later. For example I remember you wrote to my ex-boyfriend in an email that Ute is proud.

Hi Ute,

I’m glad you wrote.  Here’s my take on the situation.  At what point do you just accept Ute’s small imperfections and turn your attention to the Self?  Perhaps you are overthinking this situation a bit.  Perhaps you are a bit too conscientious.  You can’t optimize situations.  But you can optimize your mind.  How?  Just accept the situation as “what is.”  The conflict in you and with Larry is the Self. You have no control of his state of mind but, as you say, “it never takes long to be knowingly the Self, the loving witness…”  So just go to the Self right away instead of pandering to your negative feelings.  Or just see him as the Self and let the irritation turn to love.  If everything is the Self, meaning you, then love him as much as you love yourself.  You can optimize the mind…establish it in sattva…but you can’t make it 100% sattvic.  I think you’re confusing satya and mithya, expecting Ute to be a perfectly spiritual person and your relationship to be a perfect relationship.  You can never make perfect what is imperfect by nature.  This is perhaps where pride comes in.  Can you only be proud of yourself if life fits your idea of what it should be?  It’s clear you love each other so just have your fights but limit them to a few hours.  Evidently the basic issues, money and privacy, haven’t been laid to rest.  Even then, so what?  You can get a job and let him sit alone in his room for days on end if he wants.  Or just say, “Larry is Larry,” take a walk and come home with love in your heart.  I don’t want to stereotype, but Germans tend to be a little too obsessed with being right.  I walked against the light in a town in Bavaria one time and a house frau came running out of her house and followed me down the street for a good five minutes shouting a violent lecture at the top of her lungs so everyone could hear.  It’s good that I didn’t understand German.  Say, “hi” to Larry.

Ute: Thank you very much! What you’ve said resonates with me 100%. As usual you hit the nail right on the head – You’re the best! I was hoping to hear that I’m overthinking it. It seemingly needs a little time for me to fully relax into being just a normal imperfect person again. On the one hand the recognition of my true nature is like finally coming home, finally being able to relax, no agenda, noThing. And on the other hand it kind of also hit me like a Tornado but the Self doesn’t move an inch. It unmovable/quiet/unchanging/always present and Ute overflows with joy/ a bursting vision of non duality/ in an impeccable flow with isvara. The storm is over now, knowledge and peace is all I need.

Much love,

Ute

I do have a couple of questions which if you are willing to answer I would be most grateful. 

Once one has achieved moksha thereby no longer necessitating being reincarnated as a new life form after death presumably what would survive the “death” of the jiva would be pure consciousness as Brahman. Is that so? But would that not mean being aware but with nothing to be aware of? Like in a sleeping state when one is not dreaming. One is still aware but there is nothing to be aware of. It’s just that it doesn’t sound like much fun or worse tantamount to annihilation. Like an eternal dreamless sleep. How do you understand this?

Rory: There’s often a bit of a misapprehension about this, as some teachers equate enlightenment to being like deep sleep, but that is not the case. Dreamless sleep is one of the three states of consciousness (waking, dreaming and deep sleep) experienced by the jiva. The Self, awareness, however, is not contained by any of these three states. It is sometimes referred to as turiya, the ‘fourth’. This turiyadoesn’t refer to a fourth state, but the underlying substratum of all states; That which pervades and transcends them.

A better way of understanding pure awareness free of objects is not the analogy of deep sleep, but samadhi. In deep sleep, the mind is overcome by tamas. So, there are no objects, and that is a kind of bliss in itself, which is why we all enjoy a good night’s sleep and eagerly look forward to it. But because tamas obscures the mind, there’s no self-awareness. 

The scriptures make it clear that the Self is self-luminious and self-aware. It’s referred to as sat chit ananda; existence, consciousness and bliss. We get a clearer understanding of this in deep meditation, for in deep meditation the mind is predominantly sattvic rather than tamasic. Whereas tamas dulls and obscures (hence the blankness), sattva is revealing and capable of reflecting the light and bliss of the Self.

This is an important distinction. Buddhism, for instance, emphasises emptiness because it focuses on the intangibility of the ego and doesn’t have an adequate means of knowledge for the Self. But Vedanta reveals the Self to be not emptiness, but absolute fullness and wholeness. It’s not a nothingness; it’s an everythingness. So, with regard to understanding the nature of the Self, I suggest it’s more helpful to consider the bliss and fullness experienced in deep meditation and samadhi—the sense of being what I call ‘the Infinite Light’. It’s consciousness free of objects, but unlike the ignorance of deep sleep, where tamoguna predominates, there is knowledge of our being, for the Self is self-aware and self-revealing.

Rory: Such thoughts and feelings are just the result of tamoguna conditioning the mind. Don’t see them as personal and don’t invest energy in them. Whereas sattva allows clear, objective vision, tamas and rajas colour the mind, distorting our perceptions. This may be a sign to look into your lifestyle a little bit, i.e. diet, exercise, the people you’re around, pastimes, and weed out anything that might be pulling your mind down. When tamas is predominating, it can help to generate a little rajas, and there’s nothing quite as good as exercise, hitting the gym, going for walks or runs, etc. Just a suggestion, maybe you do that already.

Life in maya isn’t always easy, and we are living in stressful times without doubt. When it comes to the need to earn money and so on, karma yoga is your refuge, as it converts every action to devotion; even the most mundane chores can be an act of worship. There’s much talk of the importance of mindset these days, and karma yoga changes our mindset like nothing else. As a person with worldly karma, karma yoga is non-negotiable, as it helps tame the mind and manage our desires and aversions. When it comes to Vedanta it’s all about getting and keeping the mind qualified. Heck, even without Vedanta, that’s also the way to a life of inner peace and happiness!

Jane: Thank you for your extensive answer. A lot to digest for my ignorant mind – but even with this mindset the logic in everything you wrote cannot be denied – even with this tamasic mind. Easier said than done of course, but your email cleared the muddy mind a bit…

Rory: I’m glad the email helped. I hope that you are doing better now and the mind is freer from the conditioning effect of the gunas. Tamas is a particularly difficult one – like a big invasive weed, it likes to grow roots and suck out the light. But recognising the effect of the gunas really is half the battle. It depersonalises suffering like nothing else when we just recognise these thoughts and feelings as patterns relating to the gunas.

If we look into Isvara as: (1) sattva, the intelligent cause, (2) the material cause (tamas), (3) the energetic cause (rajas), (4) the precise laws by which the universe is governed and (5) the physical manifest universe (jagata) – which, if any, of these factors are not subject to change?

Evidently jagata does change. But how about the laws governing jagata? I would say it does. But what is more intriguing is Isvara as pure sattva, the intelligent cause! Is it a changing or changeless principle? To begin with, I mentioned that this subtle analysis about the “apparent” nature of Isvara is not really relevant to self-knowledge, although a very nice inquiry.

I mentioned that I am inclined to believe that Isvara as the intelligent cause IS subjected to change because there is no such thing as pure sattva, Maya, the fundamental prakrit are the three energies constituted by their different proportions.

I also said that Isvara in its most fundamental apparent nature is awareness reflected on an aspect of Maya conditioned by a huge proportion of sattva. But these proportions are not fixed but changing, otherwise scriptures would not say Isvara = awareness reflected on satya-pradhana-prakrit. If Maya-prakrit is of the nature of change, Isvara may also be of the same nature. What are your thoughts about this logic?

Ramji: First of all, the gunas – Maya – are material forces. As such they are inert, which is to say incapable of change. Awareness is also incapable of change, because it is unborn, i.e. eternal. It is nirguna awareness, i.e. without qualities. But when Maya is added to awareness, it seemingly becomes a Creator and time begins. Time simply means change. Maya seemingly breaks up awareness into discrete bits that are never the same from moment to moment, so it is possible to measure the distance between events. So awareness plus Maya is awareness with qualities (saguna). Qualities change, i.e. evolve. At the same time they are eternal because they change predictably. Fire, for instance, is always hot although there are many different temperatures. So the gunas change but they don’t change. It’s all a matter of one’s perspective.