Jim: Well I think you are a cool dudess too! 🙂
Your presentations have been just as insightful to me as those of Ramji, Ram, James, and Jim’s :):) Have great confidence that you are teaching traditional Vedanta correctly and that for those who are qualified the direct knowing-vision of our true nature as Unborn Brahman is opened wide and swallows all to remain Alone.
In redneck Alabama language, ” You go girl!”
Sundari: Good to meet another Unborn Redneck! Thank you for the feedback and acknowledgement, much appreciated. I had the best teacher in James, viz a viz Ram/Isvara/God. The Teaching Tradition of Vedanta cannot be messed with, if you understand what it is. Sadly, it can be misunderstood or never found. Blessed are those who are finders.
Jim: Ramji, recommended I read The Teaching Tradition of Advaita Vedanta by Swami Dayananda so I downloaded from your website and read it yesterday. It is so strong and clear and ends with such humor in its summary of the three main things that teachers of “modern vedanta” do not understand and then it says, ” If these are not understood by the modern teachers of Vedanta, then I wonder what is left of Vedanta!” ROTFL. As a Christian theologian I heard, ” If you take Jesus out of Christianity then I wonder what is left of Christianity!” Hehehe. Of course my background caused me long ago to leave dualism but I do have a memory of each step along the way and it helps for me to connect with people where they are and so many are Christians. One of the hardest things I ever did was to “let go of Jesus and any anthropomorphic form as a step to finding the formless infinite Godhead in the center of my heart. Wait, hey, that’s ME. Hahaha.
Sundari: I never fail to wonder at God’s humour – how does it go so unnoticed by most? I guess it’s the basic anxiety that life/duality brings that kills it. It’s plain why the Vedic seers called humans the ones who worry’. Pity that God as the nondual source/essence seems so counter-intuitive, but there you are. The great sorceress Maya is a wonder indeed.
Not so easy to find one’s way to the knowledge that swallows the loneliness leaving only all one. Seems God is perverse, too. Sad thing is, thanks to fear, God is so often missed altogether. Even by those who ‘find’ God. Most religious people and religions are essentially dualistic with some elements of nonduality, but no valid, independent teaching that truly stands alone. What else could they be as God in the form of the apparent dream reality (Maya) does such a good job of deluding. Aligning with anything to the contrary got your life greatly shortened not too long ago.
Jim: Sundari, for the past 50 years I have studied the mysticism (knowing God directly) found in all the major religions and I am convinced so many of them knew their, to use your words, True Nature as divine. I think the same thing is true for many of the Neos like Rupert Spira and the beyond brilliant Swami Sarvapriyananda of the Vedanta Society of New York BUT…even the giants like Ramana Maharshi, Rumi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, Kabir, al-Ghazaali, Meister Eckhart, and on and on and on did not have the clearteaching of how ORDINARY no big deal, no weird experience needed consciousness IS ACTUALLY Infinite Non-dual Consciousness
Sundari: Yes, indeed. Vedanta states that upfront because it is everyone’s unexamined experience. But Maya/duality is not so easy to scrub from the mind. Knowing about God/Brahman/Consciousness as the Monad, Oneness or nondual Self is one thing. Direct knowledge, knowing and living what that means is quite another.
Jim: when perceived correctly by the intellect. My gawd, what else you got in your toolbox to do you some perceiving and knowing with well certainly not your big toe on your left foot. Hehehe.
Sundari: Vedanta does offer a complete ‘toolkit’ to understand and negate duality, revealing one’s true nature to be the nondual Self. But it requires qualifications to understand and apply. Consciousness ‘perceived directly by the intellect’ can still be a bit sticky, because the intellect is an object known to it. The seemingly vertiginous perception of unborn undying ever present Consciousness as my true nature in a clear mind, while undeniably non-negatable, is still the reflection of Consciousness. It’s easy to make a big deal of it, but being the Self is ordinary. But taking it to be my true identity requires a few more steps.
Jim: One last word of encouragement as far as calling out the shortcomings of the Neos it was good to see Ramji say doing that is right in the tradition’s training for its teachers. Christian pastors are also supposed to call out bullshit but few do. The prophets all did call out the in your terms adharmic doctrines and behaviors and most of them were killed, imprisoned or banished by the priestly politically correct class. Oh, and they were as you and Jim probably know were also not rich. They also were people of love and compassion. Sorta all goes together. No matter what you call a duck or rose it quacks or smells the same. You and Jim quack good…..
Sundari: These days you may not encounter your premature demise, all the same, it never goes down well pointing out ignorance, as you know. But that is part of the tradition of Vedanta, which is the all-time most potent BS buster. Few can take it. We like quacking for God. It beats everything else we could be doing hands down.
Jim: In the end…only Godhead-Brahman remains as Being-Knowing….plus nothing whatsoever….no self, no history, no goals, no stories, no justice, no injustice, no guru, no formed god, no devil, no heaven, no hell,no “others no world, no teaching, no time, no space, no cause-effect, no void, ?… Uncreated Light, Midnight SUN, Clear, Transparent, Stainless, Fathomless, Silent, Awareness- FIRE! or in your terms a ShiningWorld but such terms matter not, matter and energy matter not, I matters NOT….YET….here I sit returning Sundari’s email in a spacelessness which has no things or persons or emailing and not even one second in which to hit….SEND…:):):).
Sundari: Amen. I would change just a few words. “In the end” implies time, or A time when “only Godhead/Brahman remains as Being-Knowing” was not so. Also, “plus nothing whatsoever’ is a logical fallacy if there is always a knower. Who BTW is not a knower in the sense of knowing objects because there are no objects for the Self/Consciousness to know. All words fail here because all words are mithya. But we can say that there is only the fullness that ‘knows’ the ‘nothing of the void’. But that is silly, because there is no void. It’s just a word.
Jim: How silly it is for Christians to think they alone can be children of God, sunbeams of God’s Sun when the whole point was God so loves the WORLD. As far as Infinite Peace it is certainly available outside of Christianity because it is no religion’s property. It is God Her/His/ITs Self. That said it is also given within Christianity but only to hearts that want NOTHING else but God not God’s stuff. Sundari, here is a song I learned as a child in a little country church of 30 people. I can tell you there is such a Place of Quite Rest…it is where you, Ramji and I are Oneness. See if this old song rings true in your own HEART CENTER…today….:):):) It can do us all good because it can bring us as Opraha said at the Democratic Convention …JOY!!!!!!! She could have said, ANANDA!!! but like this old Alabama redneck she is from the South in Mississippi and Tennessee…..I bet she knows this song…Pope Francis not so much. :):) Fourth Guna is Humor, gal…
Resting the PEACE that passes Understanding I AM,
Sundari: All religions are remarkably good at getting God wrong. Can’t blame ’em though. Duality is very persuasive and most people just need a good rule book to get by. As for ‘where we are one’…There is no nowhere and no time we are not one. Always, all ways, everywhere. No other option.
I like the song. Though it’s title and message – It does not ‘bring me joy’, ananda (experiential joy which comes and goes) because ananta (non-experiential ever present bliss) is my nature. Also, ‘near to God’ implies duality because there is only God. You cannot get near to or far from God.
Hallelujah, brother Jim. Good to hear from you, a voice for God speaking copious words that stand alone.
Much love
Sundari
