Marie: Thank you for the beautiful satsang last Sunday. Teaching together and opening up the floor for the deep stuff touched my heart.
I’ve been at this (Vedanta) for around six years with all the support, care, and attention from the scripture and you personally that anyone could ever want or need. I imagined I had it under control, but Isvara had other plans and exposed the “horror” place in me that, in retrospect, I was most afraid anyone would see, much less my beloved friends and teachers. I was so ashamed and embarrassed because I thought that surely by now, with all the help I have received, I should have had this stuff in hand or at least have been more aware of it.
When it appeared out of the blue, I was shocked and dismayed. Isvara took it right down to the studs, smashing my self idea beyond all recognition and I felt firsthand, painfully, what it is like to be around such a malicious, needy, toxic little mouse, the flip side of the sattvic, good kind and caring person that I imagined myself to be, trying to get it right, be perfect and appear to “others” as my own self-authored fictional persona. It’s draining and a burden to uphold that image whilst trying to keep the lid on the other, and quite ridiculous too around you, my friends, who love me for who I am. I’m so grateful that Isvara caught me off guard enough that this deep stuff was able to come to light, smashing to bits the pretentious shield of authenticity and righteousness that goes along with a sattvic sense of self.
I love you dearly and love this open-hearted and generous invitation to cop to and acknowledge/understand the jiva so that the teachings of Vedanta will “anchor” – as Sundari puts it- in a way that gives real happiness and satisfaction in my life.
Sundari: Beautiful email. There is no need to be ashamed because you never made your jiva the way it is nor chose your life karma. It’s all impersonal and comes from the Causal body. All jivas must pass this way to freedom, and it is not easy. No matter how much work one has done on our psychology, the deeply hidden patterns in the personal or microcosmic causal body, which everyone has, cause the deepest upheaval in the psyche when they emerge. And it is important to note that Vedanta does not encourage digging them up or digging through them. All it requires is to see them for what they are in light of the gunas so as to negate them as not self.
That said, it is no walk in the part for the ego to endure the full process of jiva negation when these powerful samskaras arise from the Causal body to be smashed. Once we see the patterns for what they are, the only way to make the change in the jiva blueprint (Subtle body) permanent is to first make a change in the much more powerful Causal body. And that is like David taking on Goliath! But it is possible because David and Goliath share the same identity as the Self. Amazing how painful it is though, just goes to show how powerful Maya is. Therefore, freedom from and for the jiva is so difficult and subtle, and it is never required to pile shame onto it.
Remember I said this to you some time ago: We dream ourselves into existence every day, with every thought, making ourselves the heroes or villains of our own mythologies. We each have an endless showreel in the theatre of our minds, one that feels so incredibly real, we forget it has an audience of only one. It is the story you are telling yourself. And it is time for another story, one that is the truth about you. One without shame. Dare to be beautiful, whole, and magnificent even though the jiva will always be flawed. So what?
We are so happy for you that you bust through this, as painful as it was. I truly sympathize, as I know what it takes. My prayer for you is that the changeless You shines ever more brightly in the ever-changing not-you until there is only one light, one permanent experience of the love that is your true nature.
Much love
Sundari
