CC: I just want to say that for me, all is good, it is your time. And you are right, there is a bogged down sense, tamasic stuff. It has no story anymore and even if it tries to ‘story-up’, so to speak, I don’t let it. It is also circumstantial tiredness. My mind is not completely tamasic but, for example, I can’t write poetry. It seems that sattva and tamas have never been so mixed up – or next to each other. Don’t know how to put it.
Sundari: I can see the weight of your karma, and the tamas along with the sattva as your dominant guna mix. As someone who has very little tamas, I can understand this is not always easy to manage. Tamas can be very enjoyable too – Ramji loves it. But too much of it is painful, as is too much rajas. Sattva of course is always there, it’s just rajas and tamas that cause trouble when out of balance with sattva, blocking access to it.
I also see how lightly you deal with your karma, and all its heavy demands on you. That is all we can ever do. Isvara gives us the hand we are dealt in life, and if we accept it with grace and live in gratitude despite the jiva’s hardships, things do change and lift. We often get people ask us what they are doing wrong, or rather, not getting right, because their lives are not working. But we cannot help anyone apply the nondual teachings to their lives. We can only repeat over and over again what it takes to live a good and free life.
We wish there was a magic wand that could be waved to sweep it all away, and Vedanta actually does work like a magic wand if you really get and live what it reveals. I know you do. Especially if you follow dharma and practice bhakti yoga. We are focusing more on that now instead of directly on moksa. Ramji’s talk this Sunday will go deeper into this.
CC: Being able to write with you and listen to Sunday satsangs brings so much, even if I don’t have specific questions. So much so that I even cry a bit at times, which releases a lot of drizzle, unconscious stuff and these tears are both happy and sad, simultaneously.
Sundari: I am touched to hear how much it helps you to join us on Sundays, that is a great reward for what we do.
CC: This opens up my mind and makes further assimilation possible. The teachings don’t stop working, my mind keeps drinking, and I cannot go back being jiva and yet, well – what is the difference? As you said many times, it is very subtle.
Sundari: This is good to know. We sometimes wonder if anything really lands, especially when we teach on zoom and cannot see faces directly. Luckily as I said, we are not in the salvation game because we know without a doubt that nobody needs saving. It’s all in Isvara’s hands. But as we know how powerful even a little Self-knowledge is, it is wonderful for us when we see it working in people’s lives, easing their load and freeing the mind from samsara.
CC: As self I can accept everything and even act from here – however strange this is. I so often see how the ‘I-idea-ahamkara ‘ creates and takes on notions that are misplaced because it isn’t me. If anything it is the field or Isvara. Vasana’s that pop up. Matter in action. Well, I hope I make sense here, because I know how foggy my mind is; the instrument is a bit out of tune.
Sundari: Action in inaction, inaction in action. When we ‘act’ as Self there is no ‘actor,’ because doership is not part of the equation. As the jiva we never stop acting of course, which is why nonduality is so subtle. The ego/doership is just an idea arising in the Self, and has nothing to do with me as Self. But it is a function of being a jiva, which is why negating the ego wrongly identified with the ‘I’ is hard.
CC: This Duryodhana matter, or the abyss, I must deal with and oddly enough I enjoy the battle at some level. It is good action.
Sundari: The ‘D” factor is the universal fear core of the ego, which seems to play out uniquely in everyone but comes with the territory of being ‘human’. The path of devotion which we talk about and Ramji will further unfold this Sunday, is about transmuting that ‘battle’ with the vasanas into devotion, love of God. So, when you observe a typical like/dislike pattern, instead of going into battle, you just see it as love and with love, because everything in life, no matter how apparently good or bad, is about love of Self. Therefore, love of God. It’s a different approach to the same problem, with the same outcome – freedom from the ego, peace of mind, perfect satisfaction.
CC: Not that long ago, I spoke with a friend about Vedanta. He’s a great guy, very open and wants to know everything. Quite suddenly I found myself talking straight through my own tamas and had nothing to do with it. This happens quite often, talking – out loud, i mean – about vedanta, just settles the whole matter.
Sundari: Isvara is not conditioned by the gunas, and if we are not identified with the ego when we open our mouths, Isvara can use our instrument to convey truth. That is all we want to be as teachers – purified instruments useful to Isvara in whatever way is required.
CC: This is true and hard to believe, afterwards that is, for then a very odd mixture of insecurity and scepticism also comes along – not very strong but enough to become very honest with jiva; a scared-ness or so, that is afraid to claim anything before it ought to, and a ‘yeah right…’ based on disappointments, past things merged in a blob. It is right, there is no problem, I am the freedom that can speak freely about freedom as freedom. Freedom is very different from what jiva’s may think it is – basically.
Sundari: When the ego gets involved there is always skepticism and self-doubt involved, because there is no way the ego is capable of doing anything, especially not teaching moksa. It is a fear thought, as a result, and always feels like an imposter. Everything comes from Isvara whether we know it or not. Being ‘scared’ can be a good thing because it keeps the mind vigilant. Enlightenment sickness can be the result, if the ego manages to co-opt the teaching, or anything really. Freedom is seeing the ego and how it typically functions, being free of it, and loving it, because you know it’s not real. Only a thought arising and disappearing in you.
CC: All in all, as a person I’ve been too hard on myself for decades, for what I feel, or have felt. It served a purpose, it brought a lot of good and strength too.
But it is time to get the mind softer, more gentle. Love-sadhana. Love and knowledge are the same. Without your guidance I could not have come this far.
I’ll keep the faith.
Sundari: I am so happy to hear this. I had to go through it, I think most of us go through what you describe until we learn true compassion and dispassion, which go hand in hand. That is the beauty of jnana yoga as bhakti – it is love loving itself. You are the faith you keep.
Well done, and much love, dear friend
Sundari
