Seeker: Dear Sundari, thank you for your beautiful words.
My God, one never knows when the next vasana load explodes in me/consciousness, apparently explodes! I have just gone through an intense episode of old love/pain, a wound of the heart, as it may be called. I cannot remember if I have told you how I lost my wife?
All that is fine now in this jiva, it has all found its place and served its function in my life. But apparently there was still a (hidden) part in me that was waiting to recapture that great beautiful love that I had once known. My relationship with Susan is wonderful, beautiful in so many ways, I love her loads, but this particular “depth” is not included. So yes, just recently I met someone whom I have known for four years now, who touched this place inside me. And the vasanas exploded with a vengeance. What a projection! What a masterful creation. How real it seemed. My mind kept telling me that she held the keys to all happiness in her hands. My mind kept projecting the love/beauty/sweetness I had once known with my ex-wife onto her. What a force!
I did pretty well, suffered through the mind’s projected heartbreak, lovesickness, and what a sickness it is, and I kept up my practices as well I could. Also, I have to say that the woman of my projections was not making things easy for me either! Isvara orchestrated everything perfectly. But now the spell is breaking. Thank God I knew the spell all along as a spell; nevertheless, it was intense! Such intense emotions. I see it as a healing.
Every morning I do my morning ritual to start the day, and one morning I was particularly sentimental and emotional, and the thought came, “What would it mean to live as the Self today, with all these emotions flooding my mind?” And all the emotions just began to resolve in consciousness. And the spell started to lift. Thank God and thank you and Ramji for the Gift to know what it means to live as the Self!
So this little episode is now coming in quieter waters, and nothing ever happened! What a magic show this apparent life is!
I think I have said to you before, that my practice has been and is very simple. I just contemplate myself, consciousness, and the beauty, peace and love that I am. Some people seem to have all the teachings of Vedanta at their fingertips and are able to express the teachings so elegantly. I can’t do this. Maybe one day. But I have been and am meditating, contemplating my nature as beauty and unborn fullness, and what beautiful peace and happiness emerges. What a simple secret this is. All apparent life resolves into the radiance of one’s own non-dual nature. I am very happy and quite pleased with myself, how I came through this last little test Isvara sent my way. It was just through sticking with Self-knowledge that I found my way. I have no other recourse. As it is said, nididhyasana is converting emotion into devotion for the Self. What a Gift!
Sundari: Thank you for this beautiful sharing of the jiva’s temptation tribulation in the desert with “Satan”! How perfectly Isvara orchestrates our karma – my goodness, the poor jiva cannot get away with anything! And thank goodness that is true, even as we know that none of it is real. But it sure feels like it when Isvara has your hands in the fire and is stepping up the heat. It is a testament to the power of the scripture, and your assimilation of it, that you made it through a big challenge like this one.
How perfectly the knowledge served you. Imagine if you had fallen into the trap – what a disaster! You would have been swept away by a tide of emotion that would have dumped you in the hopeless quest to find joy in the object, tearing apart your life and causing grief to everyone. We can only feel immense gratitude that we have been graced with Self-knowledge; without it, we are sitting ducks for suffering. The trick is to apply what we know when Isvara throws us into the boiling pot of desire. I am sure you will go forward with your life with a much lighter heart now that Isvara has removed this big thorn you probably never knew was still there.
~ Much love, Sundari
