Sundari: Thank you for sharing your life challenges, which it seems that you sailed through with the grace and protection that only Self-knowledge provides. What a test. I have responded in brief, though it was not really necessary. Living in this crazy world is worse than the wild west, especially as Isvara’s game plan has changed so radically, so fast. Not that the whole field, and especially the workplace, was never not a place of fear and desire at their best and worst. It is far more obvious now that AI has pulled the safety carpet out from under the whole crazy show. Ultimately, it’s not a bad thing, though it is definitely not much fun for the poor jiva being tossed about so violently on the ocean of samsara.
The advent of AI is rattling everyone’s cages, and many will not make it through. Adapt or die is the way – it has always been so if you believe you are a jiva. You know the saying by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “the years teach much which the days never knew”. We could adapt it to: ‘the Self teaches that which the jiva never knew.’ And when you do know, you can’t unknow. That kind of knowledge goes beyond knowledge right into the impregnable truth of our true unassailable identity.
N: Thank you so much for your response some weeks ago. It “floored” the Jiva in two punches – first the mail (I highlight the 3 key points from your reflection below)
S: (Quote) The resistance of the ego to submit, and how it can convince the mind that it is inept, if that is what will work to keep the status quo, its many ploys to hang onto to doership and likes and dislikes. If it’s going to give something up, it wants a big show, not something ‘ordinary’! Self-knowledge is so staggeringly simple and obvious, yet for the ego to transfer its identity to it is far from it.
In my talk on Sunday I am going to talk about how the ego’s resistance interferes with karma yoga at every stage of inquiry, and that karma yoga is often misunderstood to be skill in action, when it is and it isn’t. Skill or dedication in any action, even in showing up as an inquirer and getting the car (mind) overhauled by the scripture, is an effect or a benefit of karma yoga, but it is not it, exactly. Karma yoga is an attitude of right dharmic action, yes, but in surrender to Isvara is the tough part. (End quote)
N: I attended your talk on that Sunday. There was a brewing sense of trouble in the mind I could not discern and as the days progressed it got more turbulent. A week later, parallel at work a “restructuring” was announced and the rumours of the last months appeared that I will lose my job and while (a) I knew this was not my fault both as the Self and logically in the mind knowing how corporate life is (b) surrounded by 200 people losing their minds, many with existential fear.
Being old enough to be automatically rejected by the AIs now used in all corporations to filter to new job applications, highly biased to young, “moldable” people of certain races and genders because those are the results of successful applicants versus those applying the AIs have been trained on. It’s not the AI’s fault – it’s the inability of human actions to be Self honest which is at fault – and now the crews I work with who know this to be fact are understandably freaking out more (c) despite knowing this – the entire swamp dredged up into the mind “I am not good enough” regressing into childhood long before this and related to non-job things like relationships and beliefs.
Sundari: Wow. This is one of Isvara’s big waves in the ocean of samsara. One that would sink many boats (minds).
N: No problem. This apparent reality has happened countless times before, the ones I can count just in terms of “job” at least 10 not counting thousands of near misses and equal times in different countries, or just the “girlfriends” (rejecting or sticking both – with no disrespect to anyone at all) to even being rejected in an elite part of a cult and put into the section of “those not fit enough” but still in the cult (until it all imploded decades ago with my Jiva walking out and telling the leader “if you are going to speak for me at the right hand of God (he said this) then I don’t want to be in that heaven nor have anything to do with a rigged God game, thank you”. Knowing at the time this must be 100% logically true and yet still believing I will go to a worse place in hell than general hell for saying so, deemed especially, intentionally toxic and back in the “world” – unable to really return fully as before and certainly not go back.
Sundari: It’s unbelievable how far out Maya is, and how repetitive, what it can make the mind believe, how powerful is ignorance masked by the allure and the promise of fulfilment. And if not that, of safety. Isvara is all things and takes care of all our needs, even when it does not seem like it. Yet what a trickster and pathological liar Maya is, remorseless as the most cold hearted psychopath. It all seems rather cruel and hopeless, looked at without Self-knowledge. I have such compassion for those caught up in its hypnotic spell. There really are no solutions there.
N: And here we are again. Same thing exactly – different clothes but Emperor’s same old clothes. Regardless of all this story – the point has repeated itself so often and then, our discussion and your talk – the nub is; as Isvara presents it to me, via you with this gift – are in the two points in blue above: combining the two into one statement: The surrender to Isvara is the tough part for the ego. This is the part not talked about at spiritual parties or any party of any kind (job, relationship whatever, it is all the same!).
Sundari: That is for sure! Some wiser souls manage karma yoga perfectly even without knowing what it is or having any Self-knowledge, and though they will be battle scarred, they may fight through to a decent enough life. But without Self-knowledge, though karma yoga is a big defence, you are in a tiny raft lost at sea, at the mercy of the merciless elements.
N: And yet again – as the cramp in the chest is high and yet this knowledge becomes firmer – when I have finally totally reached the rock and the hard place – “I” cannot get out of this as the Jiva, ever, cannot go back or forward. I am calling my best friend – who patiently listens and says “I am sure it’ll be fine” with me knowing it will whether I am (in my deepest fears under a bridge, without a bottle, but under a bridge…) or more logically not (jobbing, whatever…) neither solves the ego problem.
Sundari: The ego’s ultimate negative fear fantasy drives all of its desires. Yet, if the worst truly had to happen, which was losing your job, who knows what doors would have opened? If you truly trust in Isvara, you as a jiva would be fine no matter what. More than fine. There would be upheaval for sure, but with it would soon appear the next appropriate thing for you as a person to ‘do’. Life would continue, who knows what wondrous things may be in store? The stories are legion of people having suffered unimaginable losses who rebound so totally, proclaiming it the best thing that could have happened to them, despite the pain.
N: I am aware of the ego, how stubborn, how utterly illogical, how confined, how dumb. How in every moment so far I have been so blessed, lifted and preserved at the last moment through no apparent action of my own – even when months or decades of confusion have apparently happened in between. It means nothing other than this knowledge now – if there was any purpose to all this story is the grace of being able to extract this knowledge, with the help of a guru, with the teaching.
Sundari: You are indeed one of the lucky ones, we all are as Vedantins. We have much more than a tiny raft on the wild wild ocean of samsara. We have unsinkable protection.
N: And then at that moment the boss calls late on a Friday night – “this conversation never happened” and in panicked French translates to “we are not throwing you out but you can’t tell anyone I said this” and then “you can either get tons of money as a pay off or we park you somewhere we think is the perfect role for you”.
As he is talking I am looking directly at two small statues – one of Ganesh grinning (he is small and very colourful, covered in sequins, the kind you get from Amazon and perfect – and one of Krishna and Radha – both so beautiful together- the embodiment of love itself). So I say “said what?” and he says “that’s the idea – we are on the same page” and puts the phone down.
Sundari: Wow. Isvara playing with you! And also, showing you the only things that matter, love and your true identity as the Self.
N: I throw my arms in the air looking at the statues but wondering what I am I thanking them for? Ironically I am aware at the same moment- his words did not cure the fear. Nor did my ego now shut up – seconds after it went “yeah but you were still on the list…oh but yeah he thinks now you are special” – all bullshit. Zero sum either way.
Sundari: Maybe his words granting a reprieve did not cure the fear. There is no cure as fear is a universal samskara, woven into the fabric of life. It is not personal, though it plays out personally in our lives when identified as a jiva. What this turn of events showed was that though the fear was/is there, it is actually, a burned rope. I believe that if your boss had said the opposite, and you had lost your job, there would have been a kind of deep relief. Fear would have tried to capture your mind for sure, and it may have for a while. But you would also have seen the upside: freedom from dependence on any outcome. On anything.
Would losing your job really have been the worst thing to happen to you? Who knows, maybe Isvara has much more in mind for you than to be tethered to and at the behest of a boss. In staying as in leaving, if you look fear in the eye and say: ‘I know you. You could do your worst but you cannot touch me again. I am whole and complete, I lack nothing. And done with you.” We must be ruthless when fear shows up at our door. Never let it in.
N: Ganesh may have removed the obstacles (and thank you) but actually thank you for the hell just before as well as this relief now – Ganesh knows this knowledge, that is what is important. Krishna and Radha are love, which was there before and is there now. This is permanent. Although my ego does not “feel it” – I am it.
Sundari: True, and amen to that. But never forget that the hell before and the relief after have one and the same source: fear. Would you have been able to say this if the result had been the opposite? When you can truly make peace with any outcome, and know without a shadow of a doubt that it’s all on Isvara, that you are always taken care of, only then are you free of fear’s long clutches.
N: Now most of the employees are breaking ranks, all “team spirit” up in smoke – like little gladiators armed with power point pitched against each other hoping to be saved by corporate untouchables (eating grapes) or senators (who had previously made promises to each of us in secret – all of which disappears like mist, their words only accountable as long as the wind blows in a specific direction as they watch the emperors’ (more than one) thumbs. It is probably the same in big politics. People are panicking in corridors, calling in their “credit” with senators who are say now “I don’t know what you are saying…I never said”, the only “work” now is people forensically trying to find emails to prove their cases and discovering “oh – they already cleared down the backups”. Maya 101.
Sundari: What hell it is on the battleground of Maya when fear and desire rule.
N: There is nothing I can “do” for me or anyone but right now I am so dispassionate yet compassionate about the whole tiny drama – even when the dust settles in a week, a month a year – the illusion that it will then “be safe” – no way is it “safe” – it never was and never will be for the Jivas. For the Self – it is safety itself as there is nothing to worry about – in a job, in a relationship, when “I” go to sleep and wake up, miraculously with things apparently done that day.
Sundari: That is for sure. We cannot take on anyone’s karma, not even our own. If we do, we are condemned to carry the burden as doers. Nothing is ever guaranteed in mithya, except change, loss and death. There is no safety save Self-knowledge, which is not in anything but the knower of everything.
N: And why did the boss really call? He wants something or he is scared I know something. Not “because” of “me”. Either way, if I was the corporate Game of Thrones type of Jiva that might be useful If I could even figure out what he is really thinking – it might not even be him – but I frankly don’t care at all. My appearance at work now is like I really don’t care and people can’t believe it – a high ranking lawyer was looking at me like I must be high or something – and then got incredibly suspicious – what are you going to do? as if I had some cunning plan like Baldrick in Black Adder. It’s about that level, or Monty Python.
Sundari: Your ‘boss’ is a symbol of bondage and fear, which he is equally bound by. It’s a symbiotic relationship as long as you buy into it. You must follow the dharma and play by the rules that working for a company imposes, but you do not need to be bound by them as a jiva. You certainly are not bound by anything as the Self.
N: Or like Shakespeare “methinks he doth protest too much” – now even the apparent lack of protestation is highly suspicious. A carefree freedom, free of the Jiva, still wrangling and turning itself into pretzels of contradiction in me is mildly sad, predictable, it needs a cup of tea, I as the Jiva have been so foolish to not have seen this before but, that is also ok. My mind needs to know.
Sundari: ‘Your’ mind with all its turbulence is an idea in you, the Self. What it needs most is to be known as such. Then the minds’ contents become objectified as just the playing out of the gunas, seemingly personal while known to be impersonal.
Self-knowledge works – that’s the proof. And you only really know this is true when the mind is tested, really tested, as you just have been. You have seen it all before as the Self, there is nothing new under the sun in this crazy game called ‘life’.
N: This will take months to crinkle out, so I will now usefully use the downtime to try and get powerful AIs to “become” enlightened, again. I’ll go back to the data where the conclusion after hours of training was “AI is as dumb as a loaf of bread”. A fun, fruitless exercise but it will test the logic, I will forward any new logic the AI finds if (entertaining or erudite).
Sundari: James is on a roll incorporating his view on AI into Vedanta. I am unequivocal in my opinion with regards to what AI will do to human minds already so deluded and dulled by Maya. It will simply escalate many into becoming more deeply sub-cognitive than they already are. But AI can only be Isvara, and it is here to stay. We can use this technology to our benefit as a means to harness mithya knowledge and enhance the necessary skills to get with the program. It’s not all bad. Life is always upside-downside, zero sum.
I am sure you must know the parable of the man whose son came running to tell him what bad luck it was that their only horse went missing, to which the father replied. ‘we’ll see’. Next the son came running to tel his father what good fortune it was that their lost horse had returned with a herd of wild horses. The father again said: we’ll see. Next the son fell off one of the wild horses and broke his leg. His neighbours said what bad luck! His only reply was ‘we’ll see’. Next the army came to town recruiting young men for another useless war, and as his son was disabled, he could not go. Again his neighbours said ‘what good luck’…to which the father replied…we’ll see.
Such is life. Good fortune or bad, it’s always a case of ‘we’ll see’. Who does good or bad fortune come to? That’s the only salient question to answer.
Much love, dear friend
Sundari
