CC: What you say about the hooks concerning vasanas playing out or having died out – what/ when is it free and actually free-lived is quite the thing the mind flows into, seeing jiva as is what Isvara gave for an experiential factor. Trials and tribulations indeed – and a peace underscoring it all, peace, which involves no jiva and jiva.
Sundari: So true, the both/and of it – and then going past that to pure and unequivocal nondual vision. Which makes accepting the jiva and the experiential factor without contradiction: you are that which makes experience and the experiencing entity possible. No more confusing the two orders of reality.
CC: Isvara is boss, finally, I mean; not just devotion but directly – since a few months really, I see how I tried to unravel differences between surrendering, stubbornness, the will to know it all perfectly and the no-need of it. Acceptance … 🙂
S: As long as you can discriminate between satya and mithya and you don’t get sucked into jiva drama, acceptance is automatic. I mean, who is the I that does the surrendering or accepting? If there is a surrenderer,/acceptor, there is a subtle but stubborn doer who may still ‘wants to know it perfectly’. While ‘grokking’ the whole teachings is important, and doing so is a great way to train the mind to think non-dually, ultimately all you need is the firm assimilation of satya mithya.
CC: Mind is becoming easier and free of the efforts in some sense, free to call Isvara a knucklehead and bow with the greatest joy and respect for the Lord. Less pushing jiva over the edge, ‘always’ critical about himself for not having – or not being, the ‘perfect’ jnani, like a sort of spiritual illusion playing in the mind. This nonsense is almost completely gone – a mild reflex more than an actual belief/ content. With your help, I remember things you said years ago.
S: Thank God for that! If there is any teacher who models that it is ok for the jiva to be imperfect, it is James. His confidence in the Self renders the jiva truly authentic – even in its obvious imperfection. As the Self, you will never break dharma – but being true to your nature may seem like you are, especially to others, and to the inner critic. It is a fine line, because the Advaita shuffle can come into play here. But if you are truly being authentic and acting true to your nature, self-doubt will not come into play because you will not be breaking dharma. Your peace of mind is undisturbed, even if disturbance temporarily arises. But if the Advaita shuffle is in play, your peace of mind is contrived and not authentic.
CC: The litmus test you speak of – dharma, makes a lot of sense; in that jiva doesn’t always know what is right or wrong. Living in the world, and having been quite harsh on my non-self, for good reasons with not so good methods. That is no longer active, but now the results of that are getting removed. This feels like darshan and actually is the way to clear up after the buts and commas – and so avoids the Advaita shuffle. It is not that deep, or painful at all, but more like ridding excess ‘ideas’ of having to be the perfect renunciate.
Sundari: The last stage of nididhysana involves clearing up the remnants of the teachings, realizing you do not need them anymore because you are the teaching. There is no conflict with devotion to Isvara as Self and non-different from you and with seeing Isvara as both dharma and adharma. You are comfortable with the paradoxes of mithya because you know that the field operates the way it does because it cannot be any other way.
And of course you know it is only apparently real. This only comes when the doer is fully negated and binding vasanas rendered non-binding, but it does not necessarily mean that your essential character as a jiva changes that much. Unless of course, you had a lot of work to do to improve your jiva character for peace of mind.
CC: And the old grunt-ness towards Isvara; why put this jiva through a material world when it has no wish for it whatsoever? Well.. is it that bad to live a worldly life as well? Not at all. What is the difference really… Jiva and Isvara are different-non-different. These sort of things show themselves as reflexes, not as content, and Isvara with and without voice removes much of it. It said for a few days, like a mantra, ‘I am existence’ – alone. Removing gaps in perceived meanings of the word “self’, subtle things.
Sundari: Amen. I think most true inquirers go through this. How can you not, mithya being so tenacious and so hard to make sense of without nondual vision. Yet, Self-knowledge frees the mind to appreciate the beauty that is inherent in the world when it is known to be apparently real. To witness the jiva living a worldly life when fear and desire have been negated and the doer neutralized, can be pretty joyful, despite the zero sum nature of mithya. It’s essence is love, is you. And that is definitely ‘good’.
CC: All in all, these words sound more like a story than it is, it is more like colours and patterns changing, calming down – technical, material in nature, however subtle and experiential.
Sundari: Yes, words always fall short in some way because they are mithya. But we can use words wisely and as accurately as possible to paint the picture of reflected truth.
CC: On prarabdha karma and vasana’s … I had mixed these things, thinking that these are basically the same. But it looks now that Prarabdha is more like the ‘given’ or external circumstance, form or blueprint of jiva’s karma ; the result of previous vasanas ? – and now playing out until it is exhausted and dies, and vasanas the tendencies active or not so active in the seeming present?
S:undari: Prarabdha karma is the blueprint for the jiva, but what is the difference between external and internal? Vasana and prarabdha karma are purely technical terms for the forces of creation which originate in the Causal body. Prarabdha karma and vasanas are both the momentum from a past action, the tendency to repeat something. Essentially, all vasanas and all karma is just the impersonal playing out of the gunas. As everything in the apparent reality is a vasana, so is it also karma— eternal and impersonal.
Vasanas cause karma and karma causes vasanas. It is impossible to say which comes first, vasanas or karma, because they are inseparable. It’s the chicken and the egg story. Vasanas are the seeds—the knowledge—that drives creation. Anything created by action is karma, and it is impossible to be alive without action. Actually the gunas precede action as they are macrocosmic forces that cause the world to change.
But action ‘creates’ the gunas/vasanas too, in the sense that actions done from a particular guna reinforce the tendency, meaning the vasana, for that guna to express itself again as karma. The vasanas and karma are just two ways of speaking of the same force. Karma is vasanas manifesting and vasanas are the unmanifest results of karma. You can say that ignorance appears as vasanas and the vasanas grossify to become karma which in turn ‘subtlelizes’ back into vasanas.
Though vasanas are usually the result of past actions (prarabdha karma), they can also sprout without any previously known tendency, action, or desire because the seeds for all vasanas are Isvara (Causal body) and therefore exist as potential in everyone. It may seem like ‘our’ vasanas and ‘our’ karma are personal and original, but they are not. Therefore, all vasanas and all karma are eternal because they originate in the Causal body. Isvara churns them out over and over because there is really only one eternal Jiva or Subtle body, appearing as many seemingly unique individuals with seemingly unique ‘issues’.
CC: To keep my mind busy – Isvara keeps on putting me in front of Vedanta, while in the world . Gold and crow-shit – ‘talking’ satsangs.
Sundari: You, as the Self, are Vedanta, so you cannot be put ‘in front of it’ But because you have a highly developed vasana for self-inquiry, Isvara keeps the mind on Vedanta because its orientation is the Self.
CC: Anyway, your answer smooths out mind stuff – from the seeming outside, and I cannot thank Isvara enough. I read more in it then I reflect here. So sadhana is not so much learning/ applying anymore but hanging the mind to dry in the sun. And now all kinds of weaves, details, come to the surface.
Sundari: Well put! Yes, living as the Self is a lot like ‘putting the mind out to dry’!
Thank you for staying in touch, it’s really always so good to hear from you
With much love
Sundari
