Join us this Sunday as we explore the two primary obstacles to liberation with Lucua du Preez from South Africa. Lucua has been teaching Vedanta since 2020 after receiving requests from clients and friends. While teaching, she frequently identified two obstacles that hindered liberation: The first is the idea that we can “do” enlightenment, which is not possible. The second is holding onto our opinions that cause so much trouble.
In her talk, she will explain how to overcome these obstacles with the help of karma yoga, dharma, and surrendering to Isvara. As Lucua says, Vedanta – the knowledge of who you are – itself is very easy and will bring about a restful surrender and acceptance of what is.

Take a moment to reflect, are you accepting what is? Are you restful?

Join us this Sunday to explore these questions and the two obstacles to liberation: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8346167587

Meeting ID: 834 616 7587

Passcode: 2023

Here is the full Newsletter:
https://open.substack.com/pub/shiningworld/p/the-two-primary-obstacles-to-liberation?r=2ii4um&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Video from Last Sunday with John Baxtor:

To Enroll: http://www.yogaananda.co.uk/pages/workshops

The seasons seem to change
Music seems to play
Work seems hard
But I know what it’s all about

My beloved seems to glow
Wars seem to kill
Nature seems pure
But I know what it’s all about

The scripture seems to reveal
The Guru seems to matter
The path seems to continue
But I know what it’s all about

Rory: This is actually a great question because nididhyasana is such an important topic. The first two stages of Vedanta, shravana and manana, listening and reasoning, are actually pretty simple as long as you have a good teacher capable of unfolding the teaching and answering any questions or doubts that arise. 

Nididhyasana can be a little trickier. Whereas the first two stages work according to a set curriculum and have a certain duration in time — you start ‘learning’ Vedanta and gradually the vision of Truth becomes firmly established in the mind—the third stage is an open-ended one. In fact, some teachers suggest that nididhyasana ought to be an ongoing process; something we should keep up in some form for the duration of the incarnation. 

Ignorance is so hard-wired and such a slippery customer that the moment we declared we’re “all done!”, there’s often a ‘fall’ of some kind around the corner; a fall into ignorance, that is—and usually at this stage the form ignorance takes gets subtler and subtler until it’s often impercetible to the mind. As Ramji’s guru, the great Swami Chinmayananda used to say; “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”. This basically means keeping up with our nididhyasana in some form even when we’re no longer students or seekers as such.

Some translate the word nididhyasana as ‘meditation’, but I think ‘contemplation’ is a more apt word. It basically means continuing to apply the logic of the teaching, and specifically the knowledge “I am awareness”, to the mind on a consistent basis. The purpose of Vedanta is to reorient our sense of identity from the jiva, the conceptual mind/body/ego entity, to the awareness/consciousness in which it is perceived. 

This is a mighty, mighty undertaking for the simple reason that ignorance is so deeply entrenched. 

Even though you may be intellectually convinced of the truth that you are awareness, the mind will naturally default to identification with the body-mind-sense complex, and so it takes an almost Herculean effort to shift that sense of identification to the ever-present, yet invariably overlooked light that is our own awareness/consciousness/existence. It’s rather like training a puppy. It might be the simplest of commands, but you can never underestimate the puppy’s—or the mind’s—obstinance and resistance to change! The key to training the mind is persistence, perseverance and repetition. Basically, we keep at it and at it until the knowlege takes root.

Nididhyasana can take many forms.

Most people find it useful to continue exposing the mind to the teaching for an extended duration. This may involve watching/listening to seminars, reading Vedantic books and scriptures, commentaries and satsangs, etc. While at this point you may not be ‘learning’ any longer, what you’re doing is actively keeping the knowledge alive in the mind. Even a few minutes a day can make a big difference. Instead of getting up in the morning and reading the morning  papers, which is basically a headlong dive into samsara, a healthier habit would be to read or watch some Vedanta over your morning coffee. What better way to set the mind up for the day? If you haven’t already, finding some way to incorporate Vedanta into the structure of your day will pay great dividends.

Something I found particularly helpful at all stages was to keep journals or notebooks. In the initial stages, while listening to the teaching, I would jot down what I felt were the key points or “lightbulb” moments. I also liked going through the scriptures and copying out verses and sections that I particularly liked. I also found it helpful writing things out in my own words, simply and concisely. This really helps integrate the knoweldge into the mind. These notebooks quickly become treasuries of Self-knowledge, and wonderful to have to hand so you can leaf through them again and again.

Part of the reason moksa is rarely instantaneous for the vast majority of people is that the mind contains many layers of ignorance accumulated over many lifetimes. Avidya (self-ignorance) is a tough nut to crack! Accordingly, a large part of your nididhyasana may involve learning to deal with the mind and its various vasanas and samskaras and to recondition it in the light of Self-knowledge.

It’s worth noting that enlightenment isn’t about perfecting the mind. Nothing in mithya is perfectable because this is a realm of apparent duality. For the purposes of liberation, the key is to distinguish satya from mithya, the Real from the seemingly real. This in itself won’t instanetously wash away every last samskara, although it does have a great neutralising effect. Issues may still arise in the subtle body, but you find it easier to remain as the Witness and not get pulled into identification and reactivity. Self-knowledge naturally brings with it an increasing sense of dispassion with regard to the world and its imperfections, and over time this automatically tends to neutralise binding vasanas. 

However, because we want to taste the full fruits of Self-knowledge, part of nididhyasana may involve actively polishing the mirror of the mind, allowing a clearer ‘reflection’ of our true nature as pure awareness/consciousness to shine.

So, it pays to be aware when binding vasanas arise, or what we call pratibandikas— stubborn pockets of ignorance arising in the form of self-limiting thoughts, beliefs or emotions—our “stuff” basically; psychological triggers and compulsions that may lead to actions not always aligned with our dharma. Once we’ve identified these root thoughts and patterns, we can then resolve them by holding them up to the light of Self-knowledge. 

I’ve found journalling to be a great tool and I recommend it to everyone. Whenever you find the mind agitated, anxious or depressed, you can take that as a sign that self-ignorance is at play. First of all, you need to identify the offending thought pattern, belief, or emotion (emotions are invariably the body’s physiological response to thought), then get it down on paper and apply self-inquiry. When you see these patterns as impersonal mechanisms based upon ignorance you can adopt the perspective of the Self and see that all suffering is based upon the erroneous delusion of separation and duality.

A key Vedantic technique is to employ what we call pratipaksha bhavana, which means seeing from the perspective of the Self and adopting the opposite thought. Thought by thought, we discard notions of lack and limitation and replace them with thoughts of wholeness and completeness. As our thinking changes and comes into alignment with the Truth of what we are, we begin to taste the deep satisfication and fulfilment of knowing ourselves to be limitless and whole. Over time, we begin to notice fewer issues and triggers coming up for the mind, and vasanas that previously held a binding quality often unravel by themselves, becoming preferences rather than compulsions.

Incidentally, I wrote an article pulling together a number of tools and techniques I found particularly helpful for dealing with vasanas and managing the mind. You can check it out here: https://www.unbrokenself.com/mind-management-101/

I’d argue that another component of nididhyasana, particularly in the earlier stages, is keeping the mind pure and qualified. This is an essential prerequisite for Vedanta working in the first place, and something that a lot of people tend to skimp on—much to their detriment. This can be a challenge for many, especially given the turbulence and adharmic qualities of our society and basic conditioning. When the mind is qualified, however, Vedanta works its magic pretty much by itself. Shankara likens it to an acid slowly eating away at the metal of ignorance. We really do make the process so much simpler and easier by ensuring that the mind remains discriminating and dispassionate, with the senses held in check and our values rigidly aligned with dharma. 

Depending on what’s going on in our lives, it’s possible for these qualifications to wax and wane somewhat, but part of our commitment to our dharma as inquirers is to endeavour to keep those qualifications in place. It really is the determining factor between ‘success’ and ‘failure’ when it comes to moksa. That’s why people often find it necessary to continue their practice of karma yoga, managing the gunas and also upasana yoga, or worship of the divine. Eventually karma yoga becomes somewhat irrelevent because you realise that rather than something you apply to the mind, it is simply Knowledge, and you find yourself naturally acting out of service to Isvara while remaining unattached to the results, which are Isvara’s domain alone.

Many enlightened people continue to worship Isvara through prayer and devotional offerings (puja). This is something a lot of Western seekers shy away from, but it may be the extent of some people’s nididhyasana. Worshipping Isvara in whatever way appeals is an excellent way to keep the jiva’s ego in check by recognising that everything in the phenomenal world is in fact Isvara and belongs solely to Isvara. Because all forms of Isvara are but symbols of the one Self, the Truth of our being, worshipping Isvara helps keep the mind directed to its source and therefore aids nididhyasana beautifully.

Questioner: How do we know that the knowledge has been assimilated?

Rory: Swami Paramarthananda has a cute analogy. He likens nididhyasana to adding sugar to tea. In order to taste the sugar, it’s necessary to stir it in, otherwise it will just sit on the bottom and the tea will remain such as it is. Nididhyasana is, therefore, the act of stirring the knowledge into the mind; by both actively applying it to the mind and continuing to neutralise any obstructions in the form of ignorance and pratibandikas. 

How will you know when the knowledge has been assimilated? You will taste the sweetness for yourself. You’ll find the samsaric world losing its hold over you and experience yourself as lit from within by a wonderful sense of wholeness, confidence, steadiness and peace. The outer world ceases to pull you in as once it did and you finally feel able to stop seeking fulfilment from objects because you feel so utterly happy and contented in yourself. Seeking falls away and you find yourself living simply and happilly, enjoying what pleasures come your way while remaining unattached and unperturbed when things don’t go your way. 

The Bhagavad Gita provides a wonderful snapshot of how the enlightened see and experience life in the latter verses of chapter two. It serves as a neat checklist and will help evaluate how well the Knowledge is ‘sticking’. As long as the mind is turbulent and disturbed it’s a sign that more work is needed to integrate the Knowledge. There’s really no yardstick for how long this takes. It really depends upon each individual’s karma.

I hope that answers your questions.

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

Hi Ken,

It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.  Your email about the motorcycle was creeping up toward the top of my list when this one came in.  Simple and undramatic as it is, this shift of the story from the foreground to the background is the most important event in your life and your understanding that although it is more or less meaningless chatter, it is useful feedback and worthy of gratitude because it always points to the ever-present real you, the knower, which has been exposed by your inquiry.  It will become increasingly faint and transparent as it fades into you, the background, and one day you will have a good laugh that you spent so much time watching that particular soap.  The light that you are will gradually reduce all events large and small into one simple beginningless non-event and the sunset of your life will be filled with peace.  As the Ken topic becomes less interesting to you, he will probably become more interesting to others and maybe one fine day as you cruise into a small town on your cool bike, you’ll catch the eye of the woman of your dreams, which should add a little spice to a life well-lived.  It doesn’t matter how you get “there.”  That you get there is all that counts.  Good for you.  God is great.  

Love,

James

P.S.  If you have a few bucks to spare, you could make a donation to ShiningWorld as I would like to increase the functionality of the satsang section of the website, which involves getting my tech guy to write some extra code.  

The question about moksa isn’t clear yet.  Do you say moksa is in all 3 states?  Because it seems to me the problem (if any) and/or seeking liberation is in the waking state only, not in the dream and especially not in deep sleep.  So moksa seems to me to be something in the waking state only.

James:  You are right.  Moksa is not in all three states.  Moksa is liberation from all three states and the three experiencing entities: the waker, dreamer and deep sleeper.   If you think you are a waking state person, then moksa is only for the waking state.   The sleep state entity, whioh isn’t a specific person, like the waker, experiences freedom and bliss so the idea of moksa doesn’t occur in that state.  The dream state happens by the grace of Isvara.  The dream agent is created by Isvara and it has no will of its own.  Even if it seeks liberation in the dream, the liberation will end when Isvara generates the waking state.  So liberation that ends is not liberation.  Freedom is the nature of you, Existence/Awareness.  Please get the Mandukya and Karika book and video.  It explains the whole teaching.  Here is the link: https://shiningworld.com/site/shop/index.php?route=product/category&path=18_74

Love,

James

Thanks a lot for your answer. I think I’m almost through with this strong and unexpected emotional vasana download in this so-called corona crisis and my role in it. I eventually can step back and see this impersonal happening in the world. It’s not that my perception of it has totally changed. This worldwide projection of evil on a virus is still crazy. But such is this dark current culture and its medical approach. But my temporary identification with a “position“ has really changed. Thanks be to God. I am back on the way to Myself, i.e. to knowledge.

And – this is the good side of a crisis – I’m even more committed than before.

This Nisargardatta quotation touched me when I accidentally came across it: “Nothing stops you from being a jnani here and now except fear! You are afraid of being impersonal! As impersonal being it is all quite simple.”

James: Good for you, Rheinhart. Freedom is a choice once you understand the options. You didn’t actually choose fear. Maya chose it for you. And you believed it was a valid choice. It is valid if you want to suffer, meaning leave the path to truth. Good and evil are always present. We, meaning people who know, don’t choose either. We choose the other option, the “I,” the knower of good and evil. It is simple.

~ Love, James

Ramji: Thanks for the book. It makes my point. Because the problem of freedom is only solved by Self-knowledge, Sai Baba needs to teach Vedanta, i.e. the Gita, which is the essence of the Upanishads for those who want moksa. Veda Vyasa, not Sai Baba, wrote it, long before Sai Baba appeared on earth in any capacity. So he is actually endorsing the guru/shisha parampara, the teaching tradition of Advaita Vedanta, which comes from Isvara to Veda Vyasa and on down through a long succession of enlightened people to Sai Baba, assuming Sai Baba is a either a brahmanistha or a srotriya. A brahmanistha is someone is a Self-actualized person, and a srotriya can be a samsari who knows how to wield the teaching methodology, or a Self-realized person.

Another point that you should consider: in the Gita an avatar is given a specific definition, which is to establish dharma and destroy adharma. In Krishna’s case he was a brahmanistha who taught Vedanta (the Gita is the essence of Vedanta) and he corrected dharma by helping Arjuna kill Duryodhana. So far in 50 years in the Vedic world I have yet to meet one Sai Baba devotee who claims to have attained moksafrom Sai Baba. This is not to say that he was not an object of worship for people, who, as Krishna, speaking as Isvara, says is meant to develop devotion for Isvara. It’s also clear that Sai Baba was not Isvara insofar as Isvara with the help of Maya created the world long before Sai Baba appeared on it in any form.

My criticism of Sai Baba is related to the testimony of Sai Baba devotees who were abused by him and the fact that when he died they found a large hoard of gold in his apartment. 


Sex and Money

There was enough evidence that India Today, India’s equivalent of Time magazine, felt comfortable publishing credible allegations of abuse. I was also told of it by various honest people whose children were abused by Sai Baba. Of course most of his devotees couldn’t accept it, because the nature of their belief keep them from being objective. Someone who is supposed to uphold dharma and teach moksa is meant to be a dharmi himself.

I have very little faith that you will consider what I have to say. People who have blind faith are not generally reasonable people. Even some otherwise reasonable people are sometimes prone to irrationality, which I think applies to you. You’re a good, honest person. Osho, for instance, is much loved today in spite of a long life of well-documented deceit, abuse, criminality, etc. They protect their belief by claiming that documented evidence is purely a projection by non-believers, i.e. fake news.

If Sai Baba was a jnani, it doesn’t imply that you missed the boat if you didn’t get moksa from Sai Baba while he was alive. If that was true, then there would be no moksa today or henceforth. So on the topic of moksa Sai Baba may have been useful when he was here, but he was obviously not the only teacher. My view is that he was a spiritual person who didn’t do proper sadhana. He had a few epiphanies when he was young and no guru to keep him humble, cleverly declared himself an avatar, performed a few miracles in front of gullible people who told other gullible people looking for a savior. From that point on the faith of the devotees manufactured miracles for them that they attributed to Sai Baba. On the topic of moksa it seems he taught indirect knowledge, i.e. that he was God in human form, which it so happens is true of everyone and everything.

Moksa is the knowledge that reality is non-dual existence/consciousness/bliss (satchitananda), which means that the disciple attains the same status as the teacher. If there is any difference, then the teacher, avatar or not, hasn’t done his job. If avatar is a special spiritual status, then it is only an apparent phenomenon, not an actual phenomenon. This is not to say that it isn’t an inspirational belief for certain people, as I mentioned.

Furthermore, how do you explain the fact that many dharmic spiritual people who gain moksa from a brahmanistha or a srotriya don’t see Sai Baba as an avatar? Even if they did, which is possible, I suppose, the moksa they got from a jnani who was a srotriya or a brahmanistha would be identical with the moksa that another person attained who had an avatar as a teacher and indeed the avatar’s moksaitself. Freedom is freedom. It has nothing to do with people. In fact Krishna, who the Gita presents in one chapter as an avatar, says that there are no differences in reality, i.e. that reality is non-dual. So the teacher and the teaching are only means to an end. The very fact that he presents himself as an avatarimplies that he sees himself as the knower of the avatar concept.

At another place, Krishna, without mentioning avatars specifically, says, “In whatever way you worship me, I will come to you to make your faith strong.” The word “whatever” means that anything that inspires one to seek to know God is good. So if you worship Sai Baba, it is good, irrespective of his actions. This does not imply that if you don’t you cannot attain moksa.

In fact the Gita says that avatars come to establish dharma when adharma is dominant, not teach Vedanta, although one way to establish dharma is to teach Vedanta. So let’s say that you are a person who follows dharma. If so, you don’t need a lesson in dharma, only adharmis like Duryodhana need it. So what good is an avatar to a good person? If a good person wants moksa, and moksa is possible through the teaching tradition (sampradaya), what advantage would he or she gain from being taught by an avatar?

Finally, this whole conversation assumes that moksa is an event which happens when ignorance of one’s nature is removed. But moksa is the nature of the Self, which is everything that is. So is this kind of moksa real? In fact Shankara, speaking for/as the Self, says, “I’m not guru or shisya or moksa. I am limitless exitence/consciousness/bliss. [Chid anananda rupa. Shivoham. Shivoham.]”

In any case, I’d be curious to know what function your belief that Sai Baba is an avatar does for you. And it would be interesting to know why a devotee of “a full poorna avatar” is so interested in Vedanta. Incidentally, poorna means “full.” So in this context your statement implies that there is a partial poorna avatar. So poorna avatar is enough. What it actually means is that an avatar is full, which means he or she is the Self, which is the only thing that is full. We are all partial avatars, meaning incarnated, until we discover that we are whole and complete, which is to say full. And how do you become a full avatar? By contemplating the words of the Gita, which will erase your ignorance of the fact that you are fullness itself.

Finally, which specific idea in Sai Baba’s book do you think would improve the way I teach Vedanta?

~ Love, Ramji

You already pissed Sundari off by that inconsiderate late-night call. She’s now blocked you. If you hadn’t been so focused on what you wanted and had actually considered the time difference, you wouldn’t have called. I’m a bit more patient but if I’m going to help you, you need to show some respect. Love is not enough. Wednesday’s request, which I just discovered, is the right way to go about it. You must have felt a bit guilty, which is good but not good enough. Because you know how to give love, you perhaps assume that people should accommodate your demands, no matter what. But love freely given to a loved one does not entitle you to do or say anything you want when you want to do or say it. Love, an emotional value, should be its own reward. We are not love-starved, because love is our moment-to-moment experience. You can’t add any love to us. We don’t need respect, an intellectual value, either, because we respect ourselves completely. However, if you feel that we can help you, then it is your duty to consider our needs for a good night’s sleep. It is a simple thing. For you to become an altogether well-integrated person, the head and the heart need to be united. The intense stress that you experience is a sign that your subtle body is not in yoga, which is the first stage of the journey to liberation.

The Solution

The whole point of karma yoga is to objectify the person, meaning to see it in context, which is always other people. When a person is ego-obsessed, he or she has little feeling for the feelings of others or the appreciation of one’s actual spiritual needs. I was accommodating when you were here, all right, not because you are a charming person, which you are, but because that is my nature, but it was impossible not to notice how self-centered you are when you visited. My friends noticed it too. The point, however, is that Sandy notice how self-centered she is. Yes, Sandy is an object to the Self, but Sandy needs to appear as an object to Sandy as well. The number-one qualification for liberation is dispassion, which is just a healthy distance from one’s desirer/doer entity. I think that is what your friend was trying to tell you when he wrote you off.

If you had actually been more aware of your spiritual needs and the dharma of the tradition when you decided to attend the teachings, you would have put your worldly business on hold so your mind would be available for the healing effects of the satsang. You even took up a relationship since you professed a desire for liberation. People with common sense don’t take up relationships when they are stressed by heavy karma, because relationships don’t help; they are just one more ball to juggle. One certainly doesn’t go into relationships for freedom.

Anyway, what happened is good because it showed me what needs work. So the ignorance of which I speak is not ignorance of the doctrine; you’re okay on that level. It is not appreciating the dharma of each situation, particularly when you are out of your element. Your behavior is understandable in light of your career but not in light of Vedanta. Vedanta is for mature, classy people who put the needs of others first when appropriate. You’re a bit primitive and were never properly cultured. It’s not surprising, knowing what I know about your family situation.

If you want to please me, you need to be a good karma yogi. And you need to please me because I can help you because I know more about Sandy than Sandy does and I can show you how to set yourself free. Sandy’s desire to succeed blinds her to certain facts. I can’t tell you what to do and I don’t want to – it’s not like that – but you need to be sensitive to my suggestions. I give hints and see if a person picks up on them and implements them. If they do, they grow quickly. If not, I leave them to Isvara and Isvara corrects them in ways that are not always pleasant.

I suspected that I was going to have to write this letter when we first met but I didn’t say anything, because I wanted to let things unfold naturally so I could see where you are at spiritually. You have the desire but it needs to be paramount and it needs to be accompanied by several other qualifications, particularly discrimination and dispassion. As long as it is one among several goals, you won’t be successful in any endeavor. So I suggest that first you get your career under control, then figure out the relationship business if you can’t convert your emotions into devotion to the truth. Obviously, relationships in the world only work as karma yoga. If you subtract the spiritual component – the desire for freedom from Sandy – and do your life as a kind of secular karma yoga, you will probably be as happy as any worldly person but if you appreciate the desire behind your desire for security, control and love as a proxy for the desire to free yourself of the wanting person, then karma yoga will take you all the way.

People come to the Self for various reasons, the main reason being suffering. Others see the advantage of having God on their side so they kiss Isvara’s ass to get what they want. The best class of seekers are sattvic, curious people, who have their lives in order; their minds are subtle and capable of growth. Karma yoga sattva-sizes the mind.

Enough already. If you want to have a satsang, I’m home alone with time on my hands this week. I’d like to hear your views on this email but I won’t be surprised if you write me off although a simple apology would set things straight.

~ Much love, James