I’m moved to write to you as I’ve experienced such profound change in my life as I read James’ “Enlightenment” book. Your Satsang really hit home for me and I wrote this afterward.
Christopher: After the Sastang and Sundari dissertation on Dispassion, I feel acknowledged that I’m doing it “right” which in itself is ridiculous as the notion that my I/ego has to gain validation from a teacher that there is an I/ego seeking to validate the very existence of my duality. “Feelings are our mirrors” gives me validation that my life experience is a part of my Self operating in this realm and that the Vedanta is a set of teachings that train me to live in bliss in the face of the feelings that arise over situations/objects.
Sundari: There are few small issues with your statements here, though they are essentially correct.
First of all, ‘doing it right’ is important if you are referring to self-inquiry. There is a methodology to follow as the teachings are progressive and are meant to reach the inquirer from where they are in their understanding. It raises many doubts but also answers them. If the methodology is not followed, it is easy to get stuck, as many inquirers do. In light of this, it is not about gaining validation from the teacher but making sure that your inquiry is on track in light of the teachings. This is why being taught by a qualified Vedanta teacher is so important. Many inquirers are too impressed with their ability to think well, but we cannot read our way or think our way out of ignorance because we all have a load of biases and are conditioned to think according to them, and how life has shaped us. Most often, this is not in keeping with the teachings, and if so, our thinking has to change. This is not easy.
Secondly, our feelings as mirrors do not validate ‘a part of my Self’ operating ‘in this realm’. As the Self, you have no parts; you are a partless whole. And you do not operate anywhere because there is nowhere you are not. The transactional entity (person/ego) that operates in the transactional reality is only apparently real – meaning not always present and always changing. It is a dream appearing in you, the Self. The dream depends on you to exist but you depend on nothing. You are the bliss, and you are never affected by the person’s feelings, which are objects known to you. When ignorance of this fact is removed from the mind by Self-knowledge with the help of a qualified teacher, the bliss that is your nature is your natural unconditioned ‘state’. Though as the Self all states are known to you, this bliss is experienced by the conceptual transactional personal entity as a feeling, but it is not actually a feeling. The bliss of your true nature is Self-knowledge.
Christopher: This validates the “Conversations With God” and the Landmark teachings as reflected in my belief that the Universe (as experienced) is a reflection of my current thoughts/beliefs about my world. Vedanta plugs the holes in those teachings about how to manage the feelings/beliefs when I find myself in discomfort/anger/etc. It’s one thing to know the world is my mirror and that has been very useful in my growth; it’s another to have the tools of Vedanta to bring myself back to center.
Sundari: True. But what Vedanta provides is a means of knowledge that has nothing to do with beliefs. It is the science of consciousness, the logic of existence, and it reveals our unexamined experience. The tools that Vedanta gives us work if we understand and apply them to discriminate between ignorance and knowledge, thought by thought, day by day. The important point here is to always be very clear who the ‘my’ and the ‘I’ refer to in our thoughts and words. Self or jiva? There is a big difference.
It is not the ego or the intellect that removes ignorance. Both are objects known to you, the Self. As I said, self-inquiry requires training the intellect to think differently, to want different things. The problem with very smart people who ‘get’ the teachings of Vedanta very quickly is who is it that gets it? The mind (ego) has a slippery tendency to claim to be enlightened when it is actually only the ego that is ‘enlightened’. Discrimination between Jiva’s experience of Awareness and the Self’s experience of Awareness is essential. How to tell and what is the difference?
The Self’s experience of itself is qualitatively different from the jiva’s experience of the Self as an object or as objects. The realization “I am Awareness” does not give you the experience of Awareness or make you Awareness because you always have been Awareness. It negates the idea “I am the jiva.” When you know you are the Self and the knowledge is firm, first and foremost is the negation of your primary identity as the jiva, discrimination between satya (that which is always present and unchanging) and mithya (duality – everything else) is automatic. With this comes the recognition (re-knowing) that there is nothing special about being the Self. Self-knowledge is reality, what is true. Everyone has only ever been experiencing Awareness consciously or not.
For the jiva, the mind is functioning properly for the first time because the reversal that Maya imposed on it with the hypnosis of duality has been removed by Self-knowledge. The ‘veil’ that covered the mind is gone and you are free of the jiva program. The jiva who is free does not change except in the way it contacts objects, which of course, indirectly greatly improves life for it because it no longer chases objects to complete itself, has no need for validation or to impress, and does not fear death or loss.
Freedom is huge for the jiva at first, but it does not feel like anything because it is not a feeling. It is hard to describe the Self as the witness who does not condition to what it witnesses. Perhaps what comes closest to describing the indescribable with the inherent limitation of words is this: it is permanently being the observer ‘in’ the ‘place’ between feeling and not feeling. It is neutral, but far from uncaring. It is an ocean of compassion. It is caring and infinitely compassionate but never invested.
Christopher: So we’re given this mind to use (God’s playtoy he gave me). The world experiences we have are the mirrors into our thinking. Instead of wishing that the world would change to line up with our dreams of it, I/we use the world to show us our inner thoughts that have heretofore been hidden from our conscious access to them. “Change your thoughts, change the world” is great unless you don’t recognize the “sponsoring” thoughts that are manifesting in your experience. Turn that around and use the world to show you what your thoughts are and begin the path of discovery into Self. Vedanta shows us the fallacy in the thinker/doer mentality though we’re given that reflected in contrast and choices we make (inherent duality?). It’s difficult to completely rid oneself of the duality through renunciation as a monk when, in fact, that is our gift from God – to be present to our Godness witnessed in the creation of the world we experience.
Sundari: Beautifully written. Though God is not a ‘he’ I like the term to describe the mind – ‘God’s play toy’. The only problem with the toy part is that if we do not understand the mind and the thoughts/emotions that run it, it is more like a weapon of our own destruction. While the ability to objectify our thoughts definitely helps, if we do not understand how duality works, the effects of it on the mind are merciless. A mind under the spell of Maya eats most people alive. Isvara, or God by whatever name, will show up in our world in such a way as to show us what we need to pay attention to, and deliver the karma we need.
While the person is only apparently real, to be free of it means understanding that delivery system (God/Isvara) and responding appropriately to the karma. The only true purpose of this life is to realize the Self, to be free of identification with the limited small-self identity, or jiva. And yes indeed, if we are paying attention, Isvara will show up in our lives loud and clear to help that along. If we don’t listen to the whispers, we get the shouts and then, usually, a big kick in the butt. If we are fortunate enough to have the means of knowledge Vedanta provides, karma yoga and jnana yoga, we can decipher everything we think/feel and that ‘happens to us’ in light of the teachings, and thus, avoid the inevitable suffering that Maya, duality, imposes.
There is no way to ‘rid yourself of duality” other than with Self-knowledge, assuming the presence of the qualifications for it, a qualified teacher and Isvara’s grace. The ego/doer cannot free itself because it is the problem. Renunciation does not work because there is still a doer – the one who renounces. How to be free of that entity? Karma yoga and jnana yoga lead us to renounce the renouncer. There is no other way.
Christopher. I have always been a seeker starting with the Seth material in 1972-3 and recently have reconnected with the woman I “loved” who introduced me to Vedanta recently. “Loved” in quotes as I abruptly discovered that I had no f’ing idea what love is, only my young ego’s notion of it. He was pretty easy to tear down and now the Vedanta has given me a new way of learning what love is. Much life has been lived by both of us and much forgiveness was called for before we could acknowledge that we each remained special to the other. She is truly my Teacher.
Sundari: We all are given the karma appropriate for us, and when we are ready, Isvara sends us the teacher we need. Nobody truly understands the true nature of nondual love until they know, or start to know, who they truly are as the nondual Self. Before that, love is mired in duality, the idea that it is something you feel towards another and dependent on them.
In love and light,
Sundari
