If you still have trouble with applying the nondual teachings to your life at times, it is most likely because the tricky mind with its likes and dislikes blocks clear access to Self-knowledge and capsizes your life boat, dumping you in the ocean of samsara, and causing what feels like failure.
Maybe you know how to get back in the boat, but there is still an ego in the way preventing the full transference of your identity to the Self. Self-doubt and uncertainty still holds sway at times, causing confusion and agitation. This is not a fault nor a flaw in you as a person or as an inquirer. It is the way ignorance works on the mind, making it extremely difficult for Self-knowledge to obtain permanently and to be completely free of avidya, personal ignorance.
Enlightenment Sickness
Don’t feel bad about this as the other side of uncertainty is the sin of the complacency of certainty. James spoke about this – how easy it is for the ego to co-opt the teachings and seemingly confer ‘specialness’ on the ego identity, which often unwittingly, causes spiritual pride, which is called enlightenment sickness. It is hard to avoid and something we all fall into at some point, even if you are not inclined to pride and spiritual arrogance. I am not, yet in the past I have had to overcome the feeling of being different as a teacher of Vedanta. And you are. But only because Vedanta is flawless, not you. You are just a mouthpiece for Isvara.
Humility Heals The Sin of Certainty
I see this tendency to be complacent and the identification with certainty in other teachers, and some inquirers. A level of smugness sets in because Vedanta is the King of all teachings. There is nothing like it. But the problem is, if it is your ego that is certain and feels powerful, you have missed the mark, which is the true meaning of ‘sin’, or ‘failure’. Therefore, along with the supreme self-confidence that is the effect of Self-realization, what must be present for true liberation for teacher and student alike is genuine humility. And by that, I mean the kind of humility that surrenders everything to Isvara, without a shadow of a doubt. Such a mind claims nothing even though it knows it is everything.
Self-knowledge does not confer specialness. Being the Self is ordinary. And it does not confer omniscience, either. Though you know the essence of everything is you, there will always be something you don’t know as a jiva, even when you know for sure you are not one. In mithya, nothing is certain. In fact, if you are certain about anything, you are probably wrong. It has been said, and I agree with it, that the greatest sin in life is certainty, because when we are certain of anything, we cannot accept being wrong. Pride and arrogance are at work (rajas and tamas) and have blinded us.
This is what all wars and all manner of human aggression and greed is based on since time immemorial. People who are certain they are right and will stop at nothing because they believe they have the right to impose their ideas on others. Mithya certainty cuts out discrimination and dispassion. It puts an end to accommodation, co-operation, and compassion. It is the ultimate pursuit of a point of view based completely on the idea of separation, fear and desire. Certainty is a sin in mithya because by its very nature, anything can be true or false, depending how you look at it. Nothing in mithya is real, so what do you base certainty on?
The Certainty of Satya
Only Isvara is omniscient and knows all the factors in the field. We cannot have the mind of Isvara as a jiva, enlightened or not, and we don’t need to know everything, thank goodness! Imagine what hard work that would be. Isvara has our back. Yet, the irony is that if you look at mithya through the eyes of satya, there is only certainty. It is true that nondual vision makes you clairvoyant because you see everything with crystal clarity. That is why, when Self-knowledge obtains and vanquishes all doubts about everything, particularly self-doubt, someone who is ignorant of the Self may mistake your self-confidence for arrogance. It looks like arrogance, but it is far from it.
The qualitative difference in the certainty of satya and that of the ego is that there is no pride or ownership involved. There is nothing like the supreme confidence of nondual vision. It’s not black and white. It is colourless because the Self simply sees what is without adding to, subtracting from, or seeing separation in anything. There is no longer a doer, so no subject/object split because there is no longer avidya in your mind. Such a mind never confuses the subject with the object because the nondual mind knows that the world is there because I see it, not the other way around.
You have no problem with the world anymore – you know without a shadow of a doubt that everything belongs to and comes from Isvara. The deluding power of Maya, which reverses the truth duping you into believing you see the world because it is there, is no more. That is called moksa, freedom from the limiting power of Maya, duality.
Only Self-knowledge stands on its own and cannot be argued with. When nondual vision is active in the mind, it is like a sword cutting straight to the truth. If the mind finds an argument with what is, you can be sure that is the litmus test revealing that Maya and avidya are back again. Simple! You can track yourself on this and it will never fail to reveal where ignorance lies. Of course the ego does not like it to hear this, but what a relief it is when you know. Just leave it all up to Isvara and the scripture. No need to carry anything. It puts an end to all arguments and the need to be right, permanently. It’s not that you can’t be right about anything in mithya, you just know it’s all relative, so what difference does it make? None. Who cares?
Om
Sundari
