Thank you for our talk again, it pops up sometimes and brings a great big smile in me 🙂
Also I look forward to your satsangs. I try to be there on Sundays more regularly but my life has not much to do with weekends, holidays and so on. Nonetheless, I will get it better planned.
Sundari: Always good to hear from you CC
CC: I have three questions – but the first isn’t like a question, so maybe you can comment a bit on it. It is basically about the mind. Not that long ago the ‘gold – ornament’ teaching removed some more ignorance. Similar teachings say the same; ‘not being the gunas’ and the ‘space- pot’ teaching. All teachings point to the same truth, obviously, but I find it quite funny and also amazing how the mind needs to be re- or un-wired from multiple angles, to convert it completely into a mode of understanding. What one part ‘gets’ is not always integrated with another.
Sundari: So true
CC: Perhaps the difference between these teachings is that my mind can and enjoys negating and removing stuff – like not being the gunas or seeing through the space/ pot, while the ‘gold/ ornament’ cleared up the fake problem of Isvara’s world as weight, its superimposition. I never felt a problem with form as such, but to be dominated by life, being swept along brought about a whole lot of resistance. The weight of it is like a scar, in the subtle body or mind. I don’t see the weight to be true any longer but it does come up sometimes because of its long repeated sense of living without knowing, avidya. Avidya has been such an irritation, frustration that ended up in a depression. This is gone, solved and it cannot come back. – The world, body and mind are upadhi. Including the scar.
Sundari: How amazing it is that Self-knowledge is the panacea for literally all things jiva related, no exceptions. When avidya is vanquished, the wound of ignorance does heal, but you are right, it can leave a ‘scar’ or impression in the Subtle body. Hence the need for nididhysana, which is tackling the residual ignorance that survives moksa. Once the ‘weight’ of mithya is gone, it takes some getting used to for the ego, to pop up like a cork that has been held under water, impervious to all since its release from bondage.
CC: The question is about what it means to experience a fairly subtle mind, because duality has its ups and downs. It is useful to have an open and subtle-working mind but it also gets easily impressed by life in ways unhelpful.
Sundari: This is a contradiction in terms. If that does happen, it means ignorance is back, blocking or obscuring access to Self-knowledge. If the mind is truly subtle thanks to Self-knowledge obtaining, it will be open but not easily influenced or impressed by life because it knows it’s only apparently real. Being firm in Self-knowledge brings a confidence that cannot be shaken, even when the field presents difficult stimuli for the mind to compute. You never confuse satya and mithya again. That doesn’t mean you are impervious to feelings such as sorrow, sadness, even a little depression. But none of it sticks to you because it can’t – there is nobody there to stick to. You as the Self are porous, and the jiva is known to be you in essence and not you as the doer.
CC: I stopped to worry about earning grace. I know that grace is earned, but grace is always present as well. Last week I – Self, told jiva or mind, that I am very happy with him and a subtle sense of wholeness flooded the mind. I am grace. It is a strange sentence … but real.
Sundari: Grace is always present as the Self but not always accessible to the jiva. The funny thing about grace is you can’t really work to earn it, just like you cannot gain the Self because you are it. Well, you can earn grace as a jiva by following dharma and doing your duty, but if there is a doer in the mix, the motivation is wrong. Grace comes with the humility of knowing that though all is you as the Self, you owe everything to the field of life, to Isvara, as a jiva. That ‘you’ may not be real but it and the field it needs to live in does exist by the grace of Isvara.
CC: I see so much clearer the two levels of the same reality. I cannot be jiva, am not jiva but it is me – like all is. The logic of this came first, as it usually happens – but its validation, so to speak, has become so much more obvious – often without obstruction. It isn’t a constant but it is also a constant.
Sundari: Yes, both/and. When Self-knowledge obtains you see everything from the Self perspective first and then the jiva’s. We need to have both to transact in the world. There will come a time when nondual vision, what I call your primary experience, prevails and is constant. And automatic While the jiva’s subjective interpretation of its human subjective reaction will also always be there, it is understood and instantly resolved with reference to Self-knowledge.
CC: This doesn’t mean that all troubles in life are gone. To understand and take them as prasad is certainly next level maturity, growth -dispelling naivety and denial. Not easy but easier than not taking it this way. In part this is why I stopped the earning grace idea because the things I have to solve, worldly speaking, present not much grace to jiva – that is to say; it tends to make it believe it is wrong, doesn’t deserve a peaceful life and soon. These matters create doubts, keep the doer alive however foggy/ unreal this also is. The teachings are working daily on removing all kinds of small and hidden doubts, obstacles – little movements in the mind that were unknown to me but do cause trouble like mice in a house. ‘Underneath’ it, it is ok. And much goes well too. The difference between good, bad, gentle, hard, sits in the dual and it isn’t all that dual. It is, but it isn’t.
Sundari: This is a good description of how Self-knowledge works in the mind, delving into all its nooks and crannies, ferreting out all the dusty hidden corners of ignorance, great and small. The big deep samskaras are tough, but it’s the small likes and dislikes that add up and are in some ways hardest to eradicate. Especially the enduring universal myth of being undeserving, inadequate. That’s a tough one.
I was talking about this recently with an inquirer with an addiction problem that was related to a much deeper samskara. I explained how everything jiva related comes down to fear and desire, which are the same thing. If you chase down the origin of every single insecurity (fear and desire are both caused by insecurity), the root source is always what I call the ‘universal tree of fear’.
It takes dedication to sadhana to render all binding vasanas big and small, nonbinding – to cut the mind free of its deep tangled roots in the universal tree of fear. That is why I advocate working with likes and dislikes as the ‘low hanging fruit’, which upon examination, always leads to the motherload samskara – fear.
CC: All forms/ experiences are prakriti, upadhi, material. These days I am quite happy and feel fairly secure simply by knowing the truth about Maya – in a very quiet sense. A quietude that ‘expands’. ‘Something’ in me has always felt this, known this, and trusted this. I – or mind/ avidya didn’t know that this ‘something’ is Self, I or Isvara – who/what needs nothing and just Is. I think it explains why I never cared much about being me – because what is there to care about? I wanted the truth, not myself – because I am already and I couldn’t care about whether I was this or that. But who didn’t care? My person didn’t care and myself didn’t care – here I cannot make a distinction, but perhaps I miss out on something, still.
Sundari: I don’t think you are missing anything and you have a natural ability to be dispassionate. This expansion and dispassion is how it is to be free OF the jiva. The hard part is to live free AS a jiva. That takes retraining the mind that has been in bondage to fear all its days, to relax and take it easy. You know, like when a long time prisoner is released from prison, it feels terrified of freedom. The mind has been institutionalized by smallness, limitation, i.e., ignorance, fear. I emphasize this point in my teachings on neutralizing likes and dislikes, because Self-realization creates another problem – the confusion of how I am supposed to live as a jiva that knows it is the Self.
CC: It took quite some time, years ago now, to even accept Self because the idea that it was all about me was, and to mind still, is somewhat strange. Freedom and truth are what I was after; peace really. At one level I have been at peace, living from there, let’s say. And therefore the riddle of life stood in a stark contrast. I wasn’t asking for ‘me’, myself, whatever that meant or means because I am anyway; and freedom is, must be and cannot not be.
Sundari: All about ‘me’ as the Self is very different from all about me as an ego. Unless you are a true narcissist or psychopath, for the ego to accept that all is about ‘me’ is a mind blast because that me is so small. Transferring your identity from that small tortured egoic entity to the imperturbable Self seems so impossibly huge for the mind to accept that it is the whole, non-separate from anything, the ground of being. See above.
CC: This was always my stand, as a jiva and it goes for all and everybody. I could not and cannot see anything wrong, complicated or mysterious about this. But avidya is – however nonsensical – a tough cookie. How weird all this is … But of course I had to bring my mind to discern between ahamkara and being, so this too takes inquiry. Here the reflection teaching cleared it up, and I bring my mind to see this daily. Isness, I knew, Am-ness I now know, no words/ thought needed, but to think it in terms of identity comes slow. I know, but it doesn’t know – therefore I sit, meditate, calm down and bring mind to accept this. I am the knower of knowledge. I am not depending on knowledge, the mind is depending on knowledge. The mind and knowledge are both insentient.
Sundari: Well put! You are so right – Maya is very hard to understand from the jiva perspective, and is very weird! Even when you do start to understand, it all comes down to the process of living free of and as a jiva. There is a qualitative difference between being free as an ego and as the Self. The former comes and goes, has to be constantly validated and maintained, and is usually dependent on all things being equal. The latter does not and is not. The Self does not need validation, does not move or change when it encounters movement and change, no matter what pleasure or turmoil consumes the jiva.
CC: Hard work, insisting and trusting Isvara/guru/Vedanta and the joy of knowledge begins to pay off in new ways – I can tell because worry is waning. The artha business isn’t over but it has much less impact. Therefore I also want to be extra careful.
Sundari: The litmus test of freedom is the growing decrease in worry and anxiety. If this is not taking place, Self-knowledge is still obscured by ignorance, and you are still in bondage to the limitations of being a person. I told the person I mentioned earlier that fear has absolutely no place in moksa – it has to go. We must stand up to all our likes and dislikes, all that binds us, and conquer that demon. NO excuses. So if the security demon is much diminished, though vigilance is still required because it will try its best to come back, you have nonetheless come a long way.
CC: To un-pretzel my mind further I wonder how hard/difficult circumstances are useful to Isvara. You once said how Isvara can overdo it … Problems tend to extravert the mind – which isn’t helpful, unless it is, karma yoga. Since both being and experience are impersonal, actually, there is no need to doubt Isvara and/ or oneself when the crow shit hits the fan and gold does not grow on trees – either way; mithya is mithya and mithya is satya. Fear seems stronger than courage and or acceptance; but is it? It isn’t.
Sundari: If automatic and spontaneous discrimination is hard and fast, then you are free of everything. Whatever comes at you from the field, good or bad, problems are over for you because the main problem maker, the doer, is disabled and negated. You manage the gunas with knowledge and keep your karma at your feet like an obedient little dog. Though mithya and satya never meet, they are just principles in you and known to you, Awareness. There is only you.
CC: Basically the sense that this world, waking, dreaming and sleeping, isn’t all that real sets free – so what is there to fear really ? Nothing. I sense/ see these two levels of reality, one is fine, fearless, am-ness/ being, non-form-me and the other gets tense, or enjoys life- and is hardly existing. Very strange, and this time around I want my mind, jiva, to keep more calm during the ‘have-to-do’s’ and learn to see it as prasad. The waking state has always been odd to me in that it seems familiar and yet illusive. This seeing sets apart the Fat Morgana.
Sundari: Fear is synonymous with jivadom – and it is an acronym for False Evidence Appearing Real. The ‘have to do’s’ can still be a grunt at times, even when you can discriminate satya from mithya, but they are only really tough for the doer. If all your doing is consecrated to God in the humility of the karma yoga spirit, even the tough stuff or drudgery can be meaningful. Living nonduality is like having really strong glasses on for the first time, correcting very bad eyesight you never knew you suffered from …and it takes getting used to!
CC: Often, when I am at work, painting or building, it all gets done on its own – the doer becomes forgotten, or irrelevant, there is doing but yet not. But these are easy settings, not taxes and haywire people to deal with. Nonetheless, I am solid, only settings change.
Sundari: Doing and non doership is effortless and automatic when Self-knowledge is in the driver’s seat and has booted out the doer/ego. The strange thing is that most of the time even those identified with being doers don’t register that they are not conscious of doing anything but things get done, or happen. This is so obvious if we think about it even a little bit – there are so many factors involved and anything happening, how could we be responsible for any result? The whole field is involved. Things get done because Isvara is the only doer.
CC: I negated, and still do at times, God in so far the limited understanding of God plays up and at the same time I talk to God, pray and so feed my mind with non-difference. Isvara talks back, sometimes drops a thought or comment and in this quiet zone, so to speak. The difference between Isvara and Self expresses but isn’t otherness. Jiva only exists as long as ignorance about experience/ identity limits understanding.
Sundari: The jiva as a conceptual entity exists only as long as ignorance of its true nature binds. That notion disappears when Self-knowledge obtains. But the jiva does not disappear – it is known to be the Self, with its God-given apparent nature. For the full mandala of nonduality to take up residence in the mind permanently, all stages of God-knowledge must be resolved, from total to partial duality, on to nondual. As with everything mithya related, especially all the limiting ideas for and against God, it takes time and is not easy to root out all duality. To come to know God as essence, Isness, non-separate from me as Awareness, unobtainable because God is me. And is also not me as a limited entity. Yet to continue to have the humility, devotion and gratitude to God for the gift of life.
CC: So, I think I am not spiritually by-passing the matter; a worry that I noticed, and perhaps I might as well ‘extravert’ into the world, at least in moments when necessary, as a karma-yogi and stop worrying about it ‘internally’. Life has been like that plenty of times already – and this only strengthened sadhana. Nonetheless, I pray for a more quiet life, whether this will come about or not. It is my wish, although amidst hectic, trouble, joyful or sad stresses – I am not taken out of centre. I may care for the world but not care about it.
Sundari: You are not bypassing and have come a long way. If you can ‘keep your head while everyone around you is losing theirs’, you are indeed a man. Meaning of course, not as a person, but as a mature mind that is seated in nondual discrimination and objectification of the jiva as a doer. Peace of mind will always be present regardless of your external circumstances.
CC: Love is the essential of it all. And surely it is difficult to understand the ugliness as prasad too. But to work on it is prasad.
Sunari: Yes, love as Self-knowledge is the essence of it all. From these eyes, the ugliness of life is transformed into what it is – the truth of love distorted by ignorance into the sadness of adharma and suffering. We say that Isvara is both dharma and adharma only because the field of life functions as a duality. It has to for the jiva to work out its karma. But in truth, duality is only a superimposition onto nonduality, as you know, so it is only ignorance of Isvara/God as the Self that creates adharma.
CC: Mostly I live with Isvara. Being and Form – alone, non-different, just ok, and when jiva and/or avidya seems to dominate, it is ok too. My jiva sometimes thinks, jokingly; I am a very untalented jnani, but at least a jnani. I am real, ordinary and ever present and in this sense not anything special. But what is special – it seems, at least qua world and avidya, is to bring the mind in peace as peace, as me. What is great is to be and know to be free of samsara, material dependencies and the odd of the psyche.
Sundari: Amen. How can anything be ‘special’ if everything, including all talents, belongs to Isvara, and Isvara is you? Needing to be special is the mark of ignorance and an insecure inadequate ego. Be happy being ordinary, it lets you off the hook as jiva!
CC: Some weeks ago while painting a house I saw in my imagination a text on sadhana and where the rubber hits the road. An inspiration, so I began to write again and sketch out this idea – who knows what comes of it, but it is a good form of nididhyasana.
Sundari: We call these impulses ‘Isvara downloads’. Follow and see what comes of it. Isvara is always ‘talking’ to us. But an Isvara download is usually different in that it springs forth from the field appearing in the mind with the absence of any personal likes or dislikes, fear or desire. It’s just ‘there’.
CC:- The second question is about Nisargadatta, out of curiosity. I am reading ‘I am That’. I enjoy it, it is full of funny perspectives – but also not a full teaching. I understand that certain people get the gist of what Vedanta says through him but it is quite chaotic. At any rate, I’ve read here and there, twice I think on SW, a comment on him being like a sleep walker or something like that. Do you know why ?
Sundari: As we have said many times, Nisargadatta was a jnani, but not a qualified Vedanta teacher. He made many confusing and misleading statements. As to why he is called a sleep walker – that’s a far-fetched story. Apparently, his ashram was near a brothel, which he would visit on occasion for, well, obvious reasons. When this became known, his devotees said he was not calling on the dear ladies of the night, but only sleep walking….wink wink.
CC: And a last question, James talked about some sort of diet/ cleansing he did and said that the ego didn’t like it all that much ..ha! I fast a lot and may eat a pizza but I eat little but healthy food generally. Eating wild plants from my garden and surrounding nature, etc. Anyway, do you know what diet he was talking about – I like to try it.
Sundari: It’s really good to live a healthy life as a rule, but let’s face it, it’s a bit anal not to break the rules occasionally. As long as it is occasionally, and not in the extreme, the body/mind will bounce back quickly. James is referring to a diet he did for three months decades ago that removed ‘post putrefaction mucoid’ in his gut, using a product called Kalinite or intestinal cleansing formula. Read the colon health handbook by doctor Robert Grey. Ramji says you may not need it – and to read this booklet first:
Much Love to you dear friend,
Sundari
