Dear Sundari,
This floored me as the Jiva the moment I read your email title – the split mind observing itself. This is what is happening. The subtle but hammer-like knowledge you offer also shows that I clearly do / did not know – splitting and thinking one half of that is the Self, while perhaps helping to be dispassionate / discriminate what is not the Self, can only be temporary. It does not mean the remaining other half is the Self! and both will eventually be seen and both dissolve. It also allows me to confess how this process has felt these last months:
Sundari: Well, this is the interesting and difficult part of inquiry– there are no halves in nonduality. There is only one principle and that is the Self – and apparent objects appearing in it (you) when Maya/duality manifests. Note – apparent objects. When nonduality removes the hypnosis of duality, the subject/object split dissolves, and mithya ‘becomes’ satya because there is no other option. Duality does not disappear, its just known to be a superimposition on nonduality.
As I said previously, based on logic alone, (is there an essential difference between one ray of the sun and the sun itself?) the jiva can claim its identity as the Self at any time because it is never not the case. However, if your ability to discriminate between satya (that which is always present and unchanging/Consciousness) and mithya i(that which is not always present and always changing/the person or jiva) is not firm, meaning direct, it will seem like Self-knowledge is obscured. And it is, by duality, Maya. But that does not mean that Consciousness is not there. Just like when a cloud obscures the sun, we know it is still there shining behind the cloud.
Michael: I never felt such a lack of purpose at work over money, or promotion, or “having an impact” (as they like to say) – not even feigned non-interest – but like it really it does not matter.
Sundari: Self-knowledge can do that to the mind when ignorance starts dropping away and you see the zero sum of it all. The ridiculous need to have impact dissolves like smoke on the horizon, leaving a feeling of emptiness. Nature abhors a void, as I also said before. Some inquirers get depressed at this stage of inquiry as nothing seems to have meaning any more. But this stage should pass when you realize that you are the fullness that knows the void. You give meaning to everything. When you know that everything is you but you depend on nothing, you can enjoy mithya for the bliss that it offers – even if it is always changing. Have fun with it. You do not change. Actually, that is when you truly start enjoying life in all its flavours, because fear of inadequacy and loss is gone. You don’t need any of it and are the joy in all of it.
Michael: Equally the idea of a “relationship”, not in a depressed way, just I can’t see playing that out again and it has exactly the same disinterested quality as work – as if they are the same thing.
Sundari. They are the same thing. When you are not looking for the non-existent ‘other’ and know that the joy is not in any object, particularly another person, is when you can truly love (or be alone) without fear. Without Self-knowledge, though human love may be deep and true, it always carries an element of fear because one way or another, you will ‘lose’ the other. Love is your nature, but life is transient. Which is why many people both seek and hold back on love.
Isvara has set up life in such a way that we have all these amazing and seemingly disparate forms, which though so different, are all me. I can relish myself in another without in any way gaining or losing anything, and allow the love that is me to dance with the love in another form, knowing we are one. It’s beautiful when you know you are that which cannot change, and you don’t need anything. Loving is exquisite.
The trick is to give up seeking love, because that is a recipe for suffering. See what life brings your way. There are so many opportunities to love, everyone is God. You don’t need a special other, though that is lovely too. Why not love? As the Self, you are free to feel anything because you know that feelings are you but you are not them.
Michael: Liberating but, leaving a void filled with this inquiry fight going on in the space left.
Sundari: I understand what you mean by ‘the space left’, though that statement needs inquiry. The steps to ‘get there are the qualities of being there’, is a good mantra to keep in mind. Except that you are never not there because there is no there. You are never not the Self, though there may be residual ignorance still standing in the way of you always appreciating and living that as your primary identity.
Michael: Which is like trying to tame an inexhaustible nebulous tiger. Along with these feelings is a curious panic about dying I never had before. It even led me to draw up a Will and make preparations – this may have been an echo with the brush with death last year in hospital – but there is no basis now, which makes it all the more weird as I feel really healthy and happy.
Sundari: Freedom from bondage to the ego or conceptual self is scary for it. As I said above, nature abhors and fears a void more than anything else. This is the abyssal fear that swallows lives, causes depression and most suicides. ‘An inexhaustible nebulous tiger’ is a good description of it because it is a paper tiger. Yet it is a formidable foe. A bit like shadow boxing with a fierce opponent you cannot see. The panic about death is not about the death of the body, just the death of the ego identity. Write a eulogy for it and hold a symbolic funeral! Throw a party to the end of bondage to fear.
Michael: Your counsel is so accurate. Thank you. It’s a little vertigo producing at the moment !
Sundari: You are always welcome Michael, I love talking to you. Yes indeed. It may seem like the Self is vertiginous and too far out of reach for the small ego identity. Maya is a powerful and dangerous trickster. But you have the only true out card, never fear. Just trust Self-knowledge to show you the way.
Michael: One point keeps coming up from what you said Sunday morning. When the conceptual jiva identity is negated, the inquirer should be mindful of Consciousness that remains because negating the jiva produces a void. I know that I exist and I’m aware (the 2/3rds Ramji often refers to) – but in understanding this I know therefore am nothing else.
This is the void (at least as I see it at the moment), although I also know this void is the recent relative absence of identification with the jiva/ego “I” have spent most of my entire life previously identified with, due to Maya/ignorance (?)
Sundari: Yes, see above.
Michael: Your recent communication is so valuable, the last few days have been like getting a dislocated ligament or socket aligned in the mind.
Sundari: I like that statement – Vedanta is the best doctor for the mind/body, no matter what ails you. Stick with it MIchael, even though it can be tough going. It’s not a comfortable or easy ride disarming the defended ego, it hangs on for dear life. But you are doing just great.
Much love
Sundari
