I’ve been contemplating your recent email, reading and rereading it. I’ve been on the website reading scripture and the teachings of James. I’ve also been listening to the multiple Satsangs given by James in 2020. One doubt that keeps coming up is, if the objects are inert, and are not sentient, then how is it that you can teach Vedanta? It would seem to me that if I’m insentient to you, then how could I know you are teaching me, and vice versa.
Thank you as always!
Sundari: I think tamas is at work here, dulling your intellect, though it is true that Maya, the hypnosis of duality, is a trickster. It is very good at reversing the truth.
All gross and subtle objects are insentient, even the sentiency of the jiva is borrowed from Consciousness. The mind is an object known to Consciousness. However, thanks to the presence of Consciousness, the mind is capable of sentiency – it can think, and has the ability to be self-reflectivity, i.e., to know itself.
The question is what is the mind identified with? If ignorance of its true nature as Consciousness operates, the mind believes that sentiency belongs to it. It has the real truth backwards – even when seeking the ‘truth’, the mind thinks that it is something to be gained and not your real identity, the knower of the mind.
You can think and feel, as we can teach, thanks to the presence of Consciousness. The difference is that we know that sentiency belongs to Consciousness and not to the mind, we have no satya – mithya confusion in our mind.
Om
Sundari
