Kendra: Additionally, I would like to improve how I communicate my understanding of nonduality, and not further confuse. Previously, I wrote:
“As the Self, I have no need to pray. I’m good with myself and the world, as it is.
As a jiva, I feel comfort when I repeat mantra japa for suffering persons”.
Would it be clearer if I stated:
“Abiding as the Self, I have no need to pray. I am good with myself and the world, as it is. Yet, without the clear light of aware presence, identified as a jiva, I feel comfort….”
Sundari: No. Why would you need to abide in the Self if you are the Self?
Abiding in the Self implies a state of mind subject to change. The Self is the knower of all states of mind, and unchanging, the knower of the one ‘abiding in the Self’.
“I am good with myself” implies that you can be dissatisfied with yourself.
Yet, without the clear light of aware presence, identified as a jiva, I feel comfort….”
This is confusing. Why not just say:
As the Self I am always good, and therefore, inasmuch as it exists, the world is always good. Though I am never not the Self, when my clear light of nondual Awareness is clouded by duality (ignorance) in the mind, I seem to be under the spell of Maya, and identification with the body/mind, or jiva, takes place.
Kendra: I see how much thought needs to be given to each word, as I have also been taught by Ramji and Swami P, and that is also what I learn from you, both by example and by direct teachings.
Sundari: Yes, indeed. This is an important teaching because nonduality is very subtle, as we say so often. Vedanta is for people who can and (want) to think, who have a subtle intellect and understand the importance of applying the language of identity, not the language of experience, which is what the mind is indoctrinated in. Mithya being what it is, all words are suspect. I find linguistics and philology very interesting for this reason because since time immemorial, language has been conflated with the ability to think, and with civilization. No language meant you were no more than an ape – a barbarian. Language endowed the mind with the ability to organize and express thoughts. It also causes a lot of suffering!
Though Sumerian is said to be the oldest language in the world, Sanskrit is one of the very first developed, and most sophisticated of languages. It is designed to avoid confusion, because all words have two meanings, one ostensible and one implied. These two meanings happen because the Causal Body (Total mind/Unconscious/Isvara) and the Subtle Body (personal conscious and unconscious) affect our experience simultaneously. All experience is a combination of these two factors, always.
So we can say that experience takes place on two ‘levels’ at the same time, one experienced directly and the other indirectly. In truth, there are no levels because reality is nondual. Only in Maya, the apparent reality, do levels and differences exist – and that is where all the trouble lies in our connection with ourselves, with others and the world. But we need to provisionally accept duality to negate it.
The Self is the non-experiencing witness of the experiencing entity, the jiva. But, we can also say that as there is only one principle in reality, experience too is the Self. We are only ever experiencing the Self, even though the Self is not an ‘experiencer!’ Confusing, for the mind, I know. On the mithya level, direct experience is simply the thought that is playing in the Subtle Body (mind) at any moment. Lucky for us, the mind has an inbuilt ‘traffic cop’ which governs and directs the flow of stimuli (thoughts and feelings) into the mind. We only experience one thought at a time and therefore, we only have one experience at a time, so two streams of words, one from the Subtle Body and one from the Causal Body do not come out simultaneously.
Even if they did we could not hear both because incoming experience is controlled by the same rule governing outgoing experience. So, how does the Causal Body (Isvara) speak? Or to rephrase the question, “how does the implied meaning manifest?” It is encoded in the spoken or written words. When you are speaking without full attention i.e. when your mind is rajasic or tamasic (governed by your likes and dislikes), you are not aware that the words you are speaking or hearing have two meanings, that the content of your unconscious is at play, and being revealed.
Because words are so open to interpretation, Vedanta puts us into a whole new world of perception because it is so insistent on the correct and conscious use of words. It absolutely does entail retraining the mind to think differently, which is not easy. Vedanta teaches through the implied and not usually the ostensible meaning of words, and for self-inquiry to work, where the ostensible meaning does not work, we must take the implied meaning, based on logic.
For instance, if we say that there is an identity between Isvara and Jiva, what do we mean? We can’t work this out with the ostensible meaning of this statement because Isvara is Consciousness plus the world and Jiva is Consciousness plus the Subtle body. Isvara is omniscient and the jiva only knows its subjective reality. We must take the implied meaning by removing all the non-essential variables to get to what is non-negatable, the fact that both Isvara and jiva are Consciousness.
Yet, all words are mithya and are not the actual thing they represent – the finger pointing at the moon, not the moon. They are dependent on so many factors to relay what they are actually saying. Even though Vedanta uses the implied meaning to teach, as stated, the mind is accustomed to thinking dualistically – it is entrained by the language of identity. No matter how close to the true meaning of a word the word is, whether spoken or heard, it still must pass through the filters of the mind hearing it or speaking it. We hear and speak as we are, often not hearing what is actually being heard or said. Therefore, the mind must be trained to think from the nondual perspective, which is hard because the default setting is duality.
As the little fox says to the little Prince, ‘words are the source of all misunderstanding’. So, we must use words as advisedly and carefully as possible, knowing their inherent limitations and implied meanings. More so if we want to train the mind to think from the nondual perspective.
Long explanation, hope it helps!
Much love
Sundari
