Dear Ram,
Namaste.
Thank you so much for sending me the satsangs over the past few
months. I have found them very clear and
insightful.
I have two
questions. Firstly, I understand what
you say intellectually and I have a great love of truth but why is there is
still so much fear and resistance in me?
Ram: One way to dismiss one’s fears is to
investigate yourself and see if you are the fear and resistance? If your fears are ‘in you’ as you say, they
are not you. Discover who it is in whom
the fears are occurring and you will see that you are always free of fear. The problem is that for some reason you
identify with these fears. Why do you
identify with them? Try to figure out
the ego payoff for being fearful.
Another way to deal
with them is to think them through. See
if they are legitimate. You might ask if
there is anything in your immediate environment that is a threat to your
life. If there isn’t, then what is the
cause of these fears? See if there is a
reasonable cause. If you think it is
reasonable that you be fearful when there are no physical threats in your
environment, then why not see that it is reasonable to be fearless? Why chose to think of yourself as a fearful
person when you can just as well think of yourself as fearless? Scripture says you are non-dual Awareness,
free of fear. Your epiphanies also tell
you this. So why are you choosing to see
yourself in the opposite way?
Isn’t it true that in
reality nothing ever happens? You go on
day after day, waking up, going to work, eating and sleeping. The mind keeps thinking,
the emotions keep feeling, the body keeps acting day in and day out. You have been living like this for a long
time, perhaps thirty years. You don’t
get beaten or raped or robbed every month or two, do you? Have you ever been without clothing, a roof
over your head, food to eat? You’ve
been to
This fear is a habit
of the mind and it is now an identity.
What is causing it? Vedanta says
that the cause of existential fear is the incorrect conclusion you have come to
about who you are. Don’t you
‘intellectually’ believe that you are limited and inadequate and vulnerable (to
fear) etc? The answer is probably
yes. But are you?
Ask yourself who you
would be without this identity you have concocted.
If none of this works,
if it is just too subtle and confusing, then there is another way you can deal
with your fears. Accept them as a gift
from God. Thank God for them. Know that in a non-dual reality everything
here serves the Self and see that you have been blessed with fears and that
these fears are just exactly what you need to realize who you really are. Welcome them,
embrace them, honor them to the fullest.
Find the fun in fear and enjoy it completely.
Mary: How to deal
with this? I have heard conflicting
ideas that "the mind enjoys its own cremation" and "the
mind will never be ready to give up itself to freedom." If so where does the desire for freedom come
from? The Self?
Ram: There is only the Self. Freedom is the nature of the Self. When you experience anything other than
freedom it feels unnatural. This is why
you want to be free of your fears. But
you cannot be free of your fears.
Why? Because you are already free
of them. You must look to see if this is
true.
The mind is not
something that is going to enjoy anything.
It is just a bunch of feelings and emotions and ideas. It is already dead. I say leave the mind out of it. Take responsibility yourself. You choose to think of yourself as incomplete,
inadequate and separate and then you are not happy with the dualistic emotions
that this choice produces. I’m sure this
whole fearful self idea is carefully supported with all sorts of reasons from
the past. Analyze each of these reasons
and find out why they are not a good basis for your view of yourself.
If you are not going
to attack fear head on and refuse to let your mind go into this state, nothing
is going to change. There is no clever
spiritual or psychological practice that is going to get rid of the fears. If you want to get rid of them you have to
change the way you see yourself. When you find your mind going into this negative way of thinking,
correct it. Put it to work
thinking the right thoughts. It is not
easy. It will take a lot of work. But it is worth it. Ask the Self to help you monitor your mind
and correct it. Keep at it day in and
day out. Slowly, you will notice a
change. But be prepared to work long and
hard.
Mary: Also there is much talk about bliss in
spiritual circles – ‘bliss is your nature, the bliss of freedom.’ If bliss is an experience then
doesn't it come from the mind too? I am a little confused.
Ram: The Self is bliss. Bliss means whole and complete, limitless,
and full. When the mind is still the
fullness of the Self, the light that it is, pours into the mind and floods it
with good feelings. This is the
experiential side of bliss. If you want
to experience a lot of bliss you need to get your mind very sattvic. If you have a lot of rajas and tamas, desire
and fear, you will not experience much bliss.
The bliss gets deflected by the rajasic waves or absorbed by the tamasic
clouds and you feel either frustrated or depressed. So the whole secret to bliss is in how you
live.
With love from
Mary