Dear Ram
You write I have to accept that the
love of people and the desire to belong will never supply me with lasting
happiness. But can there be lasting
happiness along with the feeling of being alienated and disconnected and unable
to communicate about the most important topic of my life?
Ram: Is the cause of feeling
alienated the fact that no one understands and sympathizes with
you? People like us are rarely understood and appreciated except by people
like us. And the number of people like us is quite limited compared to the
total. So I think it is not reasonable to expect to be understood and
appreciated…except very occasionally. Almost nobody understands me but I
don’t care. What does it matter if anyone understands you? And if
someone does, do you think that is the end of your dissatisfaction? I
don’t think so because it stems from an incorrect view you have about life…you
want it to give something it is incapable of giving.
If you want to feel satisfied then
it should be because you are following the right path. You should feel
very good that you have been working so long on this spiritual question without
giving up. Look at how much energy you have invested in it. The knowledge that you are pursuing your
heart’s desire should be enough to make you happy. The fact about people
is that nobody really cares about anyone but themselves. They are all
trying to find happiness and can’t be bothered with you. So what use is the attention of such
people? Nonetheless ‘the feeling of
being alienated and disconnected’ is just a feeling. Why make such an
issue of it? Is it there twenty four hours a day? There are a lot of
other feelings, positive and negative, that come up every day. Why single
out this one for attention? Furthermore, are you actually the author of
this feeling? Are you the only one who feels it, the only one who ever
felt it? No. Why? Because it is just a universal
feeling coming from the collective unconscious. Why take
responsibility for it? Why say it is mine? Everyone feels this way to
some degree. Why make such a big deal of it? Lasting happiness is not
something that depends on how you feel. It is the very nature of the
Self. So you have it already. The
problem is that you seem to want to identify with self-defeating
feelings. Why?
Shanti: Of course the Self
never fells alienated, but I feel I have to live on both levels, the level of
the Self and the level of "Shanti" and as Shanti I have to find a way
to live my little human life, to do things, to communicate, don’t I?
Ram: This is one of the most
common spiritual misunderstandings. The answer is no. How can you
live on two levels? Are there two yous? You yourself immediately see the absurdity of
this point of view when you say, “Yes, I know, there are not two levels but
still somehow there seem to be two and I feel like juggling with two balls
and one or the other keeps slipping from
my hands and rolling away. And sometimes both.” Why
not be satisfied with the answer you have given yourself? It is true.
Ram: There’s that old Yabut
monster sticking up his ugly head. The problem here, it seems to me, is
lack of self confidence. You know what
the truth is but you don’t want to live it. You want to have your cake and
eat it too. You want to be spiritually free but at the same time you want
to be loved. Since your own love is the most valuable and that of others
always suspect why not win your own love by asserting your Selfhood and
banishing this weak self-indulgent state of mind? Why are your feelings so
damn important? You’ll like yourself a lot better (and others will too) if
you only related to yourself as if you were the Self.
At some point you are going to have
to give up expecting that your desires be fulfilled. If they haven’t been
fulfilled so far and life has had every opportunity to fulfill them, then isn’t
it reasonable to suppose that you are not going to get what you want… and be
satisfied with that? Yours is not a mature attitude. At some point
you need to get fed up with your whining and complaining and feeling
bad. You need to take yourself in hand and refuse to put up with this
nonsense. Go to
And, what is so difficult in living
‘your little human life?’ You’re already doing it, aren’t you? Is
there a problem brushing your teeth, paying your bills, getting out of bed in
the morning, eating your food? The truth is that it doesn’t take much to
live a little human life. It’s basically a no-brainer. There are six
billion people doing it. How special can it be? Middle-aged people
are endlessly telling me that they still have something to learn but for the
life of me I can’t figure out what it might be.
The whole problem lies in the
expectation that life should be a lot more/better/ different than it
is. Why isn’t it fine as it is?
So how does one change one’s attitude? The best way is put all the
energy that goes into feeling bad into counting your blessings. You have
your health. You have money. You have three meals a day, clothing,
and a roof over your head. You probably
have no debts. You have no whining needy brats (except your ego) to
bedevil you every minute of the day. You have no husband or aging parents to
look after. You have a consciousness of something greater. So your
mantra when this sense of dissatisfaction starts is to run down this list in
your mind (and any other items you might add to it) and see that you have a
very good life. How many people in the world have what you do? Yet,
you still feel unsatisfied. God has blessed you in so many ways yet here
you are saying that you aren’t happy. What is wrong with this picture?
Shanti: Right now I feel caught
between two incompatible worlds, the west, where the environment is pleasant
and familiar, but people turn every spiritual aspiration, even Buddhism into a
personal wellness program and India, where nothing is familiar, where the
environment is a real challenge but spirituality aims beyond the
individual. I just don’t know how to proceed with my learning.
Ram: I assume that finances aren’t a
big issue. Why not stay in the West until you can’t stand it and then stay
in
Shanti: Maybe I will have to go back
to
Ram: I don’t think it would
help. You already know enough. Until you are ready to discipline this
complaining anxious mind, every place will be unsuitable. And when you do
every place will be heaven. When your mind is under
control then approach a teacher. There was a guru years ago who
used to advertise like this: “Come to me when you are already
happy.” First you get happiness then you get enlightenment. That list
of qualifications that Vedanta is famous for basically means that you are a
happy person, you have figured out how to keep your mind cheerful most of the
time. Then the teacher can easily help you finish the job.
Shanti: I like your description of
the Self as "inaction in action", but I don’t think that I ‘realized’
it. What makes YOU think so? And what does the first sentence of your
mail about the problem with the past and the vasanas mean?
Ram: I’m sorry, Shantiji, but I
switched to my laptop and can’t find that file. I think what I was
referring to when I mentioned the past is this feeling of not being properly
loved and understood in your childhood. I wonder if this isn’t what
is causing so much of your dissatisfaction. Perhaps you
weren’t. Perhaps you were but perceived that you weren’t. But whether
you were or weren’t, one doesn’t attract love when one is dissatisfied because
everybody knows that nobody can fill up a dissatisfied person. If you were
looking for someone to love you would want somebody who was already happy so
they could contribute happiness to you rather than demand it from you.
Shanti: Uff,
always these heavy topics - sorry! I don’t want to complain, just to
describe, but it always ends up in all these questions.
Ram: Swamiji used to say that
people like you were ‘in love with their doubts.” Does that seem
right? It is rather like picking a scab or scratching a mosquito
bite. It works against the result you’re aiming for. At some point
you are just going to have to get fed up with your mind and stop indulging
it. This is what is required. You already know all the answers. You
made a statement above and before you finished the paragraph you already knew
the answer…but that wasn’t enough…you still decided to feel rotten. It’s
not the questions or the answers. You’re the answer to all your
questions.
Shanti: If all this stuff seems
too much to you, please feel free to just ignore it and tell me some beach
stories.
Ram: Aha! I’m sent by God
to entertain you! I didn’t realize that. Seriously, Shantiji, isn’t
it too much for you? I’d suggest you lighten up a bit. Why not bag
the whole spiritual thing for a while? I think you’ve probably done enough
with it for now. Don’t worry, it will come back. But sometimes it is
necessary to walk away from it and do something completely out of character so
all the work you’ve done so far can cook in the unconscious without being
further disturbed by the conscious mind’s problems. Act out some bizarre
fantasy that has nothing to do with your quest for God. Go to
Much love,
Ram