Dear Sundari,
This is like a soft powerful welcome punch to the body, in a good way, thank you.
I have been aware for some time that my Jiva / ego has avoided wanting to confront Iswara – the existence of God.
Having rejected what Jivas do with religions, I still lump God into the same boat – “there is no God” – yet never had the guts to just go full-on atheist, because of basic values I have towards life. My spiritual runaway Jiva tries sneakily to get away without an Iswara – yet still maintains beliefs in all kinds of garbage, hoping to pull some kind of freedom or solution towards itself as if magically without Iswara. And it always snaps back to exactly as before, to the Self. This has happened thousands of times and I am quite sure, thousands of seekers can admit this quietly.
Sundari: You are welcome, and beautifully written, as always. What you describe is the conundrum many inquirers face. I have written extensively on the topic, and have a whole chapter dedicated to Why Everyone Needs God in the first book of my Enlightened Lifestyles trilogy.
In brief: Though Self-inquiry is not affiliated to any religious or philosophical thought, there is bad news for people who have an aversion to the word or idea of “God”, which is often the case with those who are qualified for Vedanta and are ready to move beyond the idea of God as a parent. God is unavoidable, and must be understood, if you really want a happy life. And especially if you want self-inquiry to work for you. The nondual teachings on what or who God is are the subtlest, and for many inquirers, a stumbling block. But freedom from limitation will not obtain without the assimilation of this teaching.
Some people believe that Vedanta is atheistic, but that is very far from the truth. In Vedanta God is referred to as Isvara and is not a dualistic, external personal God hanging out somewhere above and beyond. Isvara is the all-pervasive, impersonal, non-dual principle, one with the Self, so one with us as apparent individuals. God is the creator and governor of the Field of Existence, an intelligently designed universe running on natural laws and in which everything works perfectly, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. But to get to that requires a particular and refined understanding because it does not take our individual likes and dislikes into account.
Although most people have never thought about it, applying the simple logic of inference we can legitimately infer that there must be an intelligent, conscious cause behind the world. You cannot deny that you exist and are conscious because you must exist and be conscious to deny your existence/consciousness. Therefore, you cannot deny that God exists because without God as cause, there would not only be no existence, but no logic to existence. Whether we know it or not we all seek God because we want to be happy. Being happy involves understanding our mind and being in harmony with our relative nature, our environment and our eternal nature as nondual Consciousness. Because duality is so persuasive, this is very hard to do without the nondual teachings.
Nick: Karma yoga in how you explain it here so beautifully, means first admitting that Iswara is everything – including the Jiva. To this, the Jiva squirms, trying to be separate. Karma yoga I see now means more than being released from the immediate desires and fears of the Jiva – it means release also from the compacted results so far – which is the Jiva itself. The Jiva appears to be the thing I have associated wrongly as “me” and have done so since the age of 2 or 3.
Sundari: Yes, a nondual understanding of Isvara/God means that there can be no separation, other than in abilities. Though Isvara and jiva share the same identity as Consciousness, only Isvara as the creative principle is omniscient and omnipresent. It is the impersonal knower, which is a tough idea to get our limited personal mind around, with its very limited knowing abilities and subjective reality. Thanks to the persuasiveness of Maya, we are all convinced very soon after arriving on earth that we must be separate and incomplete, and identify with the body/mind and our personal story. When Self-knowledge releases us from the vice grip of duality, we start to see that there is only one eternal Jiva – and like Isvara, it is a principle in Consciousness, known to me. So it is me.
Nick: Not that I knew this then, but I do remember a shift from blissful ignorance, with no particular identification, to then identifying with a “me” Jiva – around which the world then had to apparently revolve even into adulthood, even now. And, it didn’t – but thinking so accompanying every doer action I did, was a big ignorant mistake, with consequences I am still paying for.
Sundari: It’s not a mistake if you cannot discriminate between duality and nonduality because you do not know that there are two orders of existence and they never meet. It’s normal, or what passes for normal, thanks to Maya. Nonduality reverses what is considered normal and shows you that duality was never normal. Though of course, we all still pay the price for being ignorant of this fact.
Nick: Even from that ignorant platform, to add my own manufactured God – loving just me or punishing just me – seemed insane. Even in ignorance, it was obvious that “God” didn’t care and was doing a really bad job of intervening both for sinners and believers alike. At least as a spiritual God rejector, if there is a plan (Karma) I know it cannot be personal. But, if this is so, clearly not for me, the Jiva, personally either. The Jiva does not like that.
Sundari: The dualistic God only makes sense if you abandon unbiased critical thinking. Religions require blind faith for this reason. Vedanta does not require blind faith, just faith pending the outcome of your own investigation. Once you understand the logic of Vedanta, and how that relates to you as a seeming individual, God as a seemingly separate force, and how both can only be Consciousness, the subject/object split dissolves. And the great thing is that though you know you are the Self and have the same identity as God, your devotion to God becomes even more meaningful because it is not in supplication but appreciation. It is really what karma yoga is all about – bhakti yoga.
Nick: Still the Jiva tries: if there isn’t any plan (my Jiva tried countless times to rejoice in a puff of hedonistic logic) – then why is life so precise? Now that I can see the Jiva, thanks to the teachings, I can see all the egocentric tendencies coming back so perfectly to roost, every time, inevitably, like a magnet where they aggregate and later force more. As this is not just true for me this one Jiva, but all Jivas, then the results of my actions affect the whole. My Jiva does not like that either!
Sundari: Vedanta explains perfectly how the field of existence works for everybody – guna yoga is totally precise and logical. Once you understand how the field works, you cannot not see the gunas at play. They determine everything. The trick is to see how the gunas have evolved your particular vasana load. As I said before, your likes and dislikes, which take place every moment of every day and are behind every thought and emotion, are the signposts of what is hidden from view in the unconscious. Deal with them, and the rest takes care of itself, thought by thought.
Nick: Karma yoga is therefore 95% as you say – even though my spiritual Jiva hates it and yet, this is its “salvation”. Daily action – which “I” do anyway – means 95% of the work – but not to a mythical personal God (or imputing some religious win lose overlay) – but an admission in the mind that “life”, the “world”, people, everything – Iswara – is not there for the Jiva but for life itself. That God.
Sundari: Life just is. Isvara is the Total Mind and keeps the show on the road. Whatever percentage one puts to karma yoga, it is what does the heavy lifting of rendering binding vasanas nonbinding. It works ok without jnana yoga, but you will not negate the doer without it. The trick is to apply karma yoga to every like and dislike, every thought and feeling – which means surrendering the thought/feeling to Isvara before it morphs into an action. It takes vigilance. But there comes a time when it is natural. You notice that you greet every moment of your existence as God bringing you a gift. You see it, feel it, don’t judge it, and let it go. It passes through you, leaving you unchanged. If you act on a preference it’s not because you have to or need to. It’s totally ok not to. This is not renunciation anymore, because the renouncer itself is renounced in the process. This is spontaneous freedom from the likes and dislikes. Then we have unhindered access to the love that is our true nature. But its not easy.
Nick: When an action is done in this spirit, I then see in parallel the Jiva is not me. Up to that point it is just knowledge – which is key – but missing corrective momentum. Without this, the Jiva I know will career onward, same ways and motivations, despite knowing the truth, like a runaway train.
Sundari: Yes, if Self-knowledge is not behind karma yoga, the old patterns will be on repeat, and the doer will not be neutralized, even if you have some success at saying no to some of your likes and dislikes. As you put it – the knowledge is there, but the corrective momentum is not there unless we negate the doer entirely – this is karma yoga sannyas. Total surrender to Isvara.
Nick: I feel like I am just starting this and also know that I have to act all the time anyhow. It can’t be that hard to defer to God, surely? And if it is, to inquire – to whom is the default then? Spotlight the Jiva – it is one or the other, it can’t be neither!
Sundari: We will all act until the day we die, there is no escape from that. What matters is the identification with the doer. If you examine objectively what happens when you give in to your likes and dislikes and resist God – you will see how hard you are actually making your life. It may seem like life is working for us when the doer gets its way and a binding desire is fulfilled, but look more closely. What is the cost? It’s there, make no error. So turn this statement on its head and ask yourself instead: how hard is it when I do not defer to God? If you want your life to work for you, give in to true humility and let God do it for you. It’s going to anyway. Resistance is futile and very costly.
Nick: Just recently I keep seeing it as something which dissolves at death anyhow and I know it is just better if it dissolves now, so my remaining days can play out as part of the whole, happily. This needs work and practice, thank you again.
Sundari: Why wait till the body dies to live the freedom and peace that is yours right now? You will not gain anything in death as the Self because you already are the Self. You don’t die and were never born. Moksa is for the jiva, to live the glory of its true nature right now. One of the teachers in Shiningworld recently said this, and I have subscribed to it most of my life, though living it is not always easy:
“Today is the best day. A better day will not come.”
If you cannot be happy right now, when?
Much love,
Sundari
