Samuel: If I am the witness…pure consciousness/awareness…the doer is a reflection but not my true self. So, am I a doer? Isvara as a reflection of consciousness, created a program within which choice is one of many sub-routines of Isvara. So, although the jiva-reflected awareness makes choices, the choice making ability is a program within the matrix of programs Isvara created. Therefore, on the one hand, yes, I do make choices when I identify with the jiva and on the other hand I don’t because they are all within Isvara’s programming matrix. Also, within Isvara’s programming is the program that pushes me towards awareness as freedom (desire to know my true self). Therefore, freedom is outside the matrix as witnessing consciousness. But accurately I am also jiva because jiva is reflected consciousness, thus all is consciousness.
From consciousness arose Isvara (an expression of consciousness). From Isvara arose the world including the jiva (reflected consciousness). Consciousness = Isvara. Isvara = world. Then I & all objects = reflected consciousness. So, humanity’s essential nature is the same regardless of whether we identify as awareness or not. I am not a doer and am a doer. Isvara created a meta program (world of objects). There are no choices outside this meta program. Within this meta program are sub-programs. One of those is choice (jiva). Another is the desire for freedom or to know the true self. Another is not finding lasting happiness in objects. I can choose here as reflected awareness. But that choice exists only within the matrix of Isvara. Isvara is running the programs not me. I have never had nor has anyone ever had an original thought. My program to choose the objects of the world or freedom is available only as reflected awareness. – Freedom is stepping outside the matrix in identification with the true self.
Sundari: Correct, an excellent analysis for the Consciousness-Isvara-jiva identity, explanation of free will and negation of the doer. The reality most people take to be real, mithya, is one big computer programme in the mind of Isvara.
Samuel: Then the happiness/unhappiness problem is misidentifying the jiva as the true self. I need to take my stand as witnessing consciousness as James said. Ashtavakra uses the word “relaxed” because awareness is open, limitless, unfettered, ordinary so there is no tension, resistance, striving etc. I can go to Oneness University in India, do Tony Robbins, meditate etc… and spend all this time doing jiva related things which strengthen my identification as a jiva…or I can simply it all by with knowledge and taking a stand as awareness.
Sundari: Spot on. Nothing you do to get free ever works as the doer because the doer is the problem. Only through self-inquiry with karma yoga and applying the teachings of Vedanta, which negate the doer, can freedom from doership ever obtain.
Love,
Sundari