Dear Sundari
In your talks and satsangs, you often bring up the Duryodhana Factor, as you coined the term, which incidentally I think is brilliant. Sharing how this played out for you, which led to your insights about how this ‘factor’, works out for everyone, has been very helpful for me. I am sure for many others too. How you unfold the teachings on duality as it relates to our humanity is where the rubber meets the road, as James likes to say.
Some weeks ago you briefly talked about the predatory instinct, and how that works in conjunction with the negativity bias. This really caught my attention and I have been trying to find your satsang on it. Could you explain it a bit more please?
Sundari: The coining of the Duryodhana Factor is a term Isvara gave me when I identified the remaining unconscious, hard core, resistant and defended part of the ego. It’s also what I call the adaptive child persona, and others call the wounded child persona. We all have one that develops as we learn to cope with whatever karma life hands us when we come into this world, where injury is inevitable, and we don’t get what we want. Whether that is not enough love and attention or other factors, the DF develops because we did not feel safe as children, for whatever reason.
It was a key insight for me into the nature of a deep samskara, a blockage at the core of my jiva conditioning, that prevented love flowing from and to me. Even though I knew it was there, and had dealt with most of it, there was a remnant that blocked full access to the bliss of Self-knowledge. Some years ago, the time came for Isvara to clean it out, and it was not much fun. It is the control centre or headquarters if you like, of the fearful, negative ego. That’s why it’s so defended.
Even people who have had seemingly perfect childhoods develop the DF because of the nature of duality, Maya. Nothing in life is certain, which from the ego’s point of view, makes life inherently dangerous. Which it is if we are identified with the body mind. Loss and suffering are part and parcel of the deal if you think you are a someone.
Though cracking “my” DF came about through what seemed like very personal and hurtful circumstances, thanks to the blessing of Self-knowledge, what was soon obvious was how impersonal it was. We all have more or less the same cognitive biases and psychological protective mechanisms because injury is inevitable for all humans. Nobody gets everything they want until the one who wants is negated. Only then are we satisfied because we are what we want.
Right from our earliest caveman days, life was full of threats to our survival. These days most of us don’t need to worry about survival, and most threats are purely psychological. But the atavistic fears are still there. The predatory instinct is the reflexive assumption that someone or something intends injury, whether the issue is minor, (someone cutting you off in traffic), or major, (a big argument with someone), and the deep, instinctive and aggressively protective response to it.
Whenever we get caught up in antagonistic defensiveness it’s pure rajas and tamas at work, projection and denial. It’s a fight or flight stress response that makes us highly emotional and reactive, raising the blood pressure and heartbeat. Almost like our very lives are in danger. When activated, discrimination goes out the window because the mind is extroverted by rajas and in denial thanks to tamas.
The predatory instinct (rajas) always works in tandem with the negativity bias (tamas), which tends to blow things out of proportion and expect the worst. It is also a protection against injury based on the fear of not getting what we want or avoiding what we don’t want. To add to the misery, what is usually in the mix of that unhappy psychological cocktail is the fear of not being a good person, worthy of love. Of not being good enough. Low self-esteem, shame and blame.
Isvara really does not make unique humans. Therapies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy work well to helps us identify our emotions. But basically, these three biases are almost without fail the major ingredients of everyone’s seemingly personal DF. On that score, we are all very similar. Knowing how impersonal our personal ignorance really is, we can track how it plays out because it is so predictable. Knowledge is power, especially Self-knowledge. With it we have the tools to un-defend and demote that fearful controlling ego: guna knowledge and karma yoga.
Guna knowledge makes us clairvoyant, which means we can see clearly. It quite literally gives us 20/20 vision into how our ego functions. Seeing is one thing but the hard part of un-defending the ego, karma yoga, is surrender to Isvara. Which means giving up being right. Without that, humility is absent and karma yoga is no more than lip service. There are no shortcuts or excuses if what you want most is to be free of the conditioned egoic program, and to live free, confident and whole as the Self, porous to and free of what comes in from the field.
When that ego is no longer defended, you still have positive and negative feelings, of course. They come from Isvara. You are free to get angry, to stand up for yourself, or to confront when necessary or appropriate. But the mind being porous means the feelings don’t stick. They come and they go, passing through, without leaving any damage (karma) in their wake. Just part of life. Quickly defused, curious objects known to you.
Living nondual knowledge is without doubt, where the rubber meets the road. As I said in a recent talk, we must both dispassionately and ruthlessly objectify the jiva, and at the same time, embrace our humanity with compassion. We are all made a certain way, no one is perfect as a jiva. But we most certainly are perfect as the Self. We can trust nonduality to take care of the “wanter” if we have the courage to be honest and apply the teachings.
Much love
Sundari
