Sundari: As Vedanta teachers, we do not teach egos, even though most of the teaching and language in Vedanta is to negate the ego. We teach the Self as the Self, because that is the only option. But what stands in the way is the psychology of the ego identity.
Grace: Every time those awarenesses come in, it’s truly liberating and an utterly beautiful awareness to hold.
Sundari: This statement needs some correction. I know what you mean, and it does seem that each created being or jiva has its own reflected awareness because we all have our own seemingly unique subjective reality. But there is only one Awareness, and therefore, only one reflection. The Self is one without a second, and only the distortion of the looking glass – Maya – makes individuality with all it entails, along with its reflected awareness, seem real. As we know, the definition of real is that which is always present and never changes, so reflected awareness does not qualify as it is not present in deep sleep. Only pure Awareness is always present and cannot change.
Grace: Thank you for the clarification. This week back at work has felt challenging for so many reasons!
Sundari: It’s funny how Self-knowledge makes things on the mithya level so much easier because we understand what’s going on objectively, yet it also makes ignorance harder to endure on the jiva level. Compassion the key, in every way.
Grace: You have articulated what I couldn’t yet articulate. My work is mostly with relationships. I haven’t dived into it fully yet, however, I am getting more frequent little downloads about how you and I could formulate some way of working with couples in a therapy context to support the non-dual perspectives of love and relationships. Small and powerful interventions that could slowly reorientate… I am so tired of working in hard core duality concepts. Slowly slowly.
Sundari: I would love that and it could be very helpful, both to you as a professional, and to those who come to you for help. It’s tricky though because the field you work in is so controlled – it’s very difficult to introduce new ideas. A psychologist friend of mine in Switzerland got hauled up in front of a control board for trying to get a patient to accept some responsibility for his feelings. Crazy! I can only imagine how tiring it must be to do what you do, ignorance being what it is.
Grace: While this experience is not new to me, I’ve been noticing it for a few years now, it is like I am working for an organisation (that which is the industry of Psychology), where my values are misaligned with the organisation; it is like the Jiva is a sales person selling a faulty product (therapy based in duality) to people which works for a while and then it breaks again and they have to come back to get the product repaired; rinse and repeat. The product doesn’t last in this wild world – it’ll never stand the apparent test of time, curve balls, the dramas of relating and interacting, and as you put it so well in Bali, the Weapons of Mass Distractions.
Sundari: Yes, unfortunately, the psychological model is very limited, and only works up to a point in mithya – where there are no permanent solutions. Only temporary fixes. But all the same, therapy has its place in preparing the mind for inquiry. As a professional, write up the main benefits and pitfalls of therapy. Contrast this with how it differs from self-inquiry, and where and how you think the nondual teachings, particularly on values, karma yoga and guna knowledge, could be applied to those not qualified for self-inquiry, but it would have to be in language that is relatable to people at that level.
The problem I think is that many people who come for therapy have no desire to do any real work on themselves, they just want a fix. It’s very hard to help people like that, even with very basic Vedanta. Best you can do is to keep putting out the fires – which you know they will keep igniting. It must be a thankless task. I have attached a satsang I wrote a few years ago, it’s called ‘The Psychotherapeutic Dilemma’, and it’s quite long. But it covers most of the issues involved.
Grace: Thank you for sharing The Psychotherapeutic Dilemma Satsang. What a great title and synopsis of the dilemma. I really enjoyed reading it and the term you so appropriately used, “functional dissatisfaction” made me giggle. I was waiting to read the bit about Jung (hehe).
Sundari: For the record, the story on Jung is very interesting. When he was in Chennai and had the opportunity to meet Ramana, he declined. At least he was honest about why. He said that he was not prepared for how Ramana may alter his world view. And of course, if he had been open to it, Ramana would have. Imagine having to admit that your life’s work is based on a false premise! Never going to happen.
Much love
Sundari
