Hi James, I told myself I wouldn’t bother you with any more questions until after watching the Atma Bodh series and reading the book. I’m 3/4 of the way through the videos and it’s wonderful as usual. However I felt compelled to reach out as an intense discomfort is arising and I’m not sure what to do about it. The further I get into this the more discriminating my mind is becoming to the point where my dispassion for every-‘thing’ is somewhat painful. It’s hard to describe but there is this constant intense focus on every experience being referenced to the teachings, I’m no longer absorbing into the experiences and enjoying them.
Everything just seems so damn fraudulent – the good and the bad, there’s no emotional movement, the inner voice is being rendered nothing more than a poser of sorts, it’s objectified constantly, I cannot even legitimately ascribe to any “I” notion as even that is seen as just another thought. Gahh, where to turn?
Small talk just seems so silly, I feel no compulsion to indulge others bullshit. This is further conflicted by the knowledge that all is Isvara’s creation so I feel bad for not “loving it”. I feel cornered, so to speak, and it’s certainly not pleasant, it feels like my eyes are being held open and forced to watch a murder. My question is, am I doing something wrong or is this normal?
James: It’s normal but it needn’t be normal. If looking at the world unemotionally is painful, why not look at the feeling of pain unemotionally since it is an uncomfortable feeling? Isn’t it just another worldly thought?
Or ask yourself why it is painful. It’s painful because you want the world…meaning your own mind…to be different. In fact, the world is value neutral. It just is. People’s desires and fears…their expectations of objects in the world make them pleasurable or painful.
Additionally, why should you indulge in other’s bullshit? It’s their bullshit. You have nothing to do with it. You can only indulge (or not indulge) in “your” bullshit. But when you think about it, it can’t be yours, can it? Why? Because you don’t think “I’ll think painful bullshit before it appears in your mind. It belongs to Isvara, the Unconscious Mind. Indulgence is just identification with a thought/feeling object. Understanding the difference between the subject and the object is call Discrimination.
Actually, you aren’t “supposed to” love thoughts and feelings because they aren’t real. You’re “supposed to” love you, the ever-present awareness of the presence and absence of thoughts or feelings. They are not there to love when you’re thinking value neutral thoughts, which is most of the time. When you open a door, you need a thought or you can’t open it, but you don’t feel good or bad about it. It is acceptable as it is. Or, you don’t think a bad thought when you are enjoying a good thought. Loving you, awareness, is called Devotion, one of the four “D’s” that qualify a person for Vedanta.
So when an uncomfortable feeling arises, just turn your attention to the ever-present unattached witness of the feeling and watch the feeling dissolve or shrink to manageable proportions. You, the subject…ever-present awareness is never what you observe.
Keeping one’s attention, which is your reflected consciousness, on the thought “I am ever-present blissful awareness” is the Discipline of Self inquiry the second D. As scripture says, you do it “over and over” until the mind is locked on the Self and can think of nothing else.
Finally ask yourself who is suffering. If Joe is suffering, how do you know that he’s suffering? You know it because he is an object known to you. If he is an object known to you and you aren’t the objects known to you, then are you suffering when you’re suffering? It may feel like it momentarily but when a non-painful or a pleasurable thought arises, where is the suffering? Knowing that the subject is free of the object produces Dispassion, the final “D.”
Finally, finally you say that you are no longer enjoying experiences. If an experience is enjoyable, just note that it is enjoyable and enjoy it. If an experience is unenjoyable, just notice it and turn your attention to what is always present and the mind will no longer modify to the painful experience. In the absence of pain the mind seeks pleasure, but you don’t want to let it seek pleasure because that only keeps it caught in the pleasure/pain cycle. Just relax it and it will seek the self, which is the bliss of existence, which is noticeable in the absence of pain. The mind has no nature of its own, except to seek. It is like a chameleon; it becomes what it associates with. If you discipline it in this manner it will feel rewarded by the discipline and start to automatically turn within when it is dissatisfied.
Much love,
James
