I’m a current high school student interested in Taoism and I just read a phenomenal article by Rory Mackay who mentioned his spiritual teacher James Swartz, which led me to your website!
Sundari: Rory is a wonderful nondual writer, as well as a gifted and qualified Vedanta teacher. You are welcome to write to him directly. His details are on our website, but here they are: amoyaan@yahoo.co.uk. I have copied him on this email.
Amy: I’ve been thinking about a question that I was hoping you’d be able to provide your thoughts on: what are concrete ways that the principles of Taoism can transform our everyday lives? Most of the people I know are unlikely to renounce society and become a monk, so how can we pursue our Tao while still going to school, working a job, interacting with friends, etc.
Sundari: Taoism, like Buddhism, is a religious philosophy. The nondual teachings of Vedanta are neither a philosophy nor a religion, though it encourages a religious attitude or devotional practice as part of self-inquiry, not as a replacement for it. There are no special conditions or circumstances more conducive to being the Self, other than the qualifications required for self-inquiry – which is a mind that is purified and ready to assimilate the nondual teachings. This is because you are never not the Self. This is a nondual reality, and there is only the Self. Even though most people are under the spell or hypnosis of duality (otherwise called Maya or ignorance), and identified with the body/mind, which is the cause of all existential suffering.
Buddhism and Taoism do not offer the tools with which to understand and deconstruct your personal reality. They do not offer a methodology or means of knowledge to get to the root of the existential suffering – which is ignorance of your true nature, the mistaken identification with the person (body/mind) as your identity. Neither is Vedanta theory in practice. You cannot study Vedanta as you would a course at university because it is who you are. A purely cognitive or intellectual understanding does not remove suffering.
To understand and more importantly, to assimilate what Vedanta teaches, qualifications are necessary. These are explained in detail in many of the nondual teachings. James Swartz’ book The Essence of Enlightenment explains them all, along with the whole methodology of Vedanta. Without all the necessary qualifications present in the mind, the mind or ego will be suspicious of the teachings, or confused, as it will not have the requisite faith in them to put aside its own opinions, biases, and beliefs. You also need to be properly taught to assimilate the teachings or you will interpret them according to your own conditioning or ignorance.
Vedanta is the logic of Existence, also called a “brahma vidya” which means the science of Consciousness. It is an objective and scientific analysis of the true nature of reality, and your experience, based on the non-negatable facts. Like any other science, it is not personal. But unlike science, its methodology progressively meets the inquirer at their level of understanding.
Vedanta offers practical tools to aid self-inquiry, such as karma yoga and jnana or knowledge yoga, which must be applied to your mind/life. The aim is not to improve or transform the person but to be free of its conditioning (identification with the body/mind) and end doership. To be free of limitation there is no need to renounce anything, other than the one who believes it has to renounce in order to ‘gain’ enlightenment or be a ‘better’ person. Renouncing the renouncer means submitting the mind to self-inquiry so that Self-knowledge removes the idea of doership. Nothing you do can bring this about because the doer – the one who is identified with being a person doing actions to improve itself– IS the problem.
Assuming qualifications, if the teachings are followed with great dedication and commitment, the ability to discriminate between that which is real – the eternal non-dual ever-present, unlimited, unchanging, nondual Self (your true identity), and that which is only apparently real – the limited, finite, ever changing person, develops. And with this, the irrefutable knowledge that is moksha: Self-knowledge. Freedom from and for the person, actualizes. With the emphasis on from.
There is nothing wrong with Buddhism or Taoism, depending on what your main objective in life is. If you are a true inquirer whose main aim is freedom from limitation, their philosophy can confuse and mislead because they are unclear about what the Self is. Nor are they able to explain the apparent reality or the apparent person, and their common identity as the Self. Many people objectify the Self, thinking it is something other than them, something to gain. Or they personalize the Self, thinking that by ‘the Self’ we mean the reflection of the Self – the person. The Self is the source of the reflection, which is caused by Maya. But the Self is always free of the person (body/mind).
Buddhism/Taoism are based on yoga and the primary aims are to improve the person by ending desire. This is achieved by getting rid of the mind through meditation and good deeds, often requiring acts of self-abnegation. Vedanta teaches right up front that you are the non-dual Self, Consciousness/Self. There is nothing wrong with you other than ignorance of your true nature. You cannot gain the Self because you are the Self. You are what you seek. You have a problem and suffer because you are under the spell of ignorance, duality. You cannot improve the person nor get rid of the mind because they are not real, and—not the problem.
Identification with the person, the mind and desire is the problem. It is neither possible nor necessary to get rid of the mind; it can only be understood to be not-Self through the removal of ignorance by Self-knowledge. Once the true nature of the mind is known to be the Self, binding tendencies are rendered non-binding and the sense of doership is negated. But the mind remains—and no longer troubles you anymore. As stated, moksa is freedom from and for the personal identity because as the Self, you are already free.
We are teachers of Vedanta, not Taoism. I am unclear what you are really after. Are you interested in Taoism or studying Vedanta? Or are you interested in understanding your true nature?
Hari Om
Sundari
