Hi Maria,
Here are Ramji's doubt-dispelling words of wisdom.
Maria: You're implying that because this is a lawful
universe, everything that occurs in this creation must serve a certain purpose.
What purpose serve cruelty, genocide, child abuse…?
Maybe your assumption is not correct?
Ram: The assumption I'm speaking from is that this
is a non-dual reality. If you argue that ours is a duality or a plurality or a
multiplicity, then my statement is not true. But scripture, the knowledge that
comes from spiritual experience, is very clear that this is a non-dual reality.
If it is then everything in it must somehow serve it, no matter how much it
seems not to. When I use the word ‘serves' I don't mean that everything in Maya
directly serves the Self. I mean that nothing can happen here that is
completely independent of the Self because the Self is the ultimate cause of
everything. So there is an indirect relationship between the Self and the Self operating as Maya. You must have observed that many
ugly negative things have positive consequences
although it is true that even positive happenings do not directly ‘serve' the
Self.
The relationship between the Self and itself in the
form of Maya is one of master and servant. Maya depends on the Self but the
Self does not depend on Maya. The bombing of the trade center was an act of
unmitigated evil but it has had the effect of waking people up to the scourge
of terrorism. Suffering often causes people to think about what they are doing
and make changes in the way they live. So in this sense it ‘serves' a ‘higher'
purpose.
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Ram: (from his commentary in Tattva Bodh) “Completeness-perfection-limitlessness-freedom
falls into the category of the ‘already accomplished' and no action or effort
is required to accomplish it.
Maria: That statement must seem totally absurd to
any unprepared reader
Ram: Remember Maria, the texts of Vedanta are not
for unprepared readers. They are for mature thinking people who are looking for
wholeness in themselves. I presented this idea to a satsang of about thirty
people today and nobody failed to grasp it. I agree that unprepared people will
not be able to understand this statement because they believe that perfection
can only be accomplished through some kind of action. But even people who think
like this…and it is most people…have to admit that ‘perfection' is never
achieved through action. There is always something missing at the end of the
day. This statement is just intended to get people to understand that they are
perfect…they just don't know it. It is the introduction to the teaching of
Vedanta because the teachings reveal the innate perfection of everything.
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Ram: (from Tattva Bodh) “If I believe that what I am
seeking is something other than myself, a particular experience for example, I
will be unable to realize my limitless nature because I am always experiencing
who I am.”
Maria: I don't understand this argument
????
Ram: In a non-dual reality everything experienced
and the experiencers are already the Self. So if I'm
looking to experience myself in the form of an object, a discrete experience of
the Self (as opposed to all the other experiences I erroneously define as 'not
me'), it means I'm not aware of this fact. To realize your limitless nature you
have to know that your limitless nature is you. How can you experience you? You
are you. This 'experience' which is not an experience is only obtained by
understanding who you are.
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Maria: What is immediate knowledge, aparoksha jnana? It is not direct seeing like seeing the
pot. So what is it? Wouldn't it be good to explain that here? I know the
following lines are a kind of explanation, but one recognizes it only when one
already knows, I believe
Ram: It is direct seeing/knowing. Immediate
knowledge happens when the object to be known is present and the means of
knowledge is operating. I've heard of you but never met you. This is called
indirect knowledge. Direct knowledge is when I've heard of you and you are
standing in front of me but I have not been introduced to you. When I am
introduced my indirect knowledge becomes direct. I was already experiencing
you…you were right there in front of me, perhaps we had a nice conversation
about the Self…but I didn't know who you were. When one of my friends who knows both of us directly introduces you to me I know you
directly. Everyone is always experiencing the Self but they think that what
they are experiencing is something other than the Self.
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Ram: (from Tattva Bodh) “When this belief is
investigated and subsequently dismissed in the light of the teachings of
Vedanta your sense of limitation dissolves… because the Self is limitless.
Therefore if you want to be free you need to expose yourself to a valid means
of Self knowledge.”
Maria: Does it? No, the sense of limitation stays,
only you know better. It stays, because your devices of perception, the body
and the mind, are limited. You stick to what you know and not to what you feel.
Ram: The problem here is meaning of 'limitation.'
The limitation may remain but is it a limitation if I know it isn't real?
Remember the mirage example. You see the water but you know it is sand. Are you
then affected by it even if you are very thirsty? Is the sense of limitation
inherent in the object or is a projection of Maya?
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Ram: (from Tattva Bodh) “If we are whole and
complete, pure and perfect by nature there is no reason to enter a body to
experience the world since the world is simply a place to garner experience
that is aimed at removing the universal feeling of incompleteness. The verse
says that the ignorance that causes us to be born is inexplicable. This means
that it is prior to the formation of the Subtle Body (the mind) and therefore
cannot be rationally explained.
Maria: This is not a very satisfying statement. Are
you saying the Subtle Body is ignorance?
Ram: The Subtle Body is as good as ignorance because
it is the effect of the Causal Body. The Causal Body is just the vasanas that
accumulate as a result of not-knowing that you are whole and complete. When you
know who you are you do not produce negative vasanas; your long term outlook is
always positive. Is your lack of enthusiasm, which is a subtle body quality,
not the product of ignorance?
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Ram: (from Tattva Bodh) “That state about which one
says later "I did not know anything. I enjoyed limitlessness" is the
deep sleep state. The Self identified with the causal body is called prajna.
Prajna means ‘almost ignorant.' Even though the Subtle Body is absent and
therefore no knowledge is available in the sleep state, the Self, Awareness, is
present and therefore it is ‘almost ignorant'. Of course it is never actually
ignorant of who or what it is; this is just a clever
way of describing the Causal Body with reference to knowledge and ignorance.
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Maria: What is the difference between knowledge and
Awareness?
Ram: Knowledge and ignorance are condition of the
Subtle Body. Ignorance is the condition of the Causal Body. Ignorance means
non-apprehension of the Self. Awareness, the Self, is that because of which I
know what I know and know what I don't know. It is the knower, the light in
which objects subtle and gross appear.
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Ram: (in Tattva Bodh) The
Causal Body is responsible for the bliss an individual feels in the waking
state. There are three subtle energies (vrittis) that operate in it.
Maria: In what? In the Causal Body
or in the waking state?
Ram: They operate as vasanas in the Causal Body,
thoughts and feelings (vrittis) in the Subtle Body and as gross karmic
experiences in the waking state.
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Ram: (in Tattva Bodh) “Time is a projection of the
mind, a relative, not an absolute concept. Identification with time causes
worry about birth and death.“
Maria: Yes. And yet as human beings we do live in
time and space.
Ram: Are you a human? What is a human? It is just an
idea that is meant to explain a series of experiences in time and to identify a
constantly changing body/mind. The point of Vedanta is that you are not a
human. You are limitless Awareness. You are feeling a bit down now because you
think you are a human. If you asserted your real nature to yourself instead of
calling yourself a human your funk would go.
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Ram: (in Tattva Bodh) “Real happiness happens when
one is with one's Self. Objects cannot supply happiness. In the deep sleep
state there are no objects, no body or mind, yet one experiences
limitless bliss, the Self.”
Maria: One's self? As there is only one Self it
should be "one with the Self", I think.
Ram: Point taken. You are right. I was using
dualistic language. Sorry. I'll change the manuscript.
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Ram: (from Tattva Bodh) “The power by which the Self
appears to be the body and mind is called Maya. Because this is a non-dual
reality composed only of limitless Awareness, the Self, this power resides in
the Self. When the Self operates this power and produces the apparent reality,
the world of experience, it is termed God, the creator. When it identifies with
the three bodies it is called the individual (jiva). Essentially the individual
and God are the same because both are Awareness, but there is also a
difference. The individual is under the control of Maya and can only create a
personal world out of its thoughts but God controls Maya and creates the
material world.”
Maria: If God is the world, as you say, that means
God is created. Everything that is created is created by the power of Maya. So
how can God control Maya if He is created by Maya? How can the effect be in
control of the cause?
Ram: Good reasoning. You are right. If God is an
effect of Maya It cannot control Maya. God is actually personification of an
impersonal principle, Maya. Anyway, I'll try to make this more
clear. This is a very subtle point, one that revolves around the meaning
of words. From the Self's point of view there is no God, no individual, and no
creation. But from the individual and the creation's point of view something
had to cause them because in the creation you do not find an effect without a
cause. We see the world and ourselves in it and we know that we did not create
this so to satisfy our need to know we give a name to the one who creates…God.
Maria: And: If God is the creation, who is the
creator?
Ram: A spider is both the creator of its web and the
web itself. So in this way God supplies both the intelligence to shape the
substance of the creation and the substance too.
Here are other words that say the same thing: The
Self is the world but only in its capacity as God. It is a role that the Self
assumes. God and Maya are one and the same like the web that is in the spider.
Maya is just an impersonal word for God. Maya is just the Self with reference
to the totality of the apparent universe. In fact there is no world here unless
you understand the world to be pure Awareness. What you call the world is just
Awareness seen through the prism of ignorance. The words total and individual are
ignorance. However if you understand the teaching you will see that what you
call God and the individual are just Awareness.
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Ram: (in Tattva Bodh): “Or by contemplating on the
location of objects. A man stands in front of a tree. Where does he experience
the tree? Does the experience take place outside his body in the tree itself?
It does not. It takes place in his Awareness. How far is the tree from
Awareness? Is there a gap between them? There is not. Awareness takes the form
of the tree and experiences it.”
Maria: Awareness may take the form of a tree but to
experience it, it also has to take the form of a mind, doesn't it?
Ram: Yes. The mind, however, is Awareness. Whether
you say experience takes place in the mind or in Awareness it is the same.
There is no separation between the form the mind takes and Awareness. Therefore
everything experienced is nothing but Awareness. This is perhaps the most
powerful teaching of Vedanta.
Maria: What do you mean everything experienced is
nothing but Awareness? Everything, experienced or not,
is nothing but Awareness because there is nothing but Awareness.
Ram: You are right. Your Self knowledge is
excellent. But people do not believe that what they see with their senses is
Awareness because the senses make experienced objects seem solid. They think it
is matter 'out there' and very different from the one experiencing it. Even
thoughts and feelings which are objects of experience seem to be separate from
the mind experiencing them. This teaching is meant to make you see that what is
experienced is nothing but Awareness.
Maria: Or do you want to say that everything created
is also simultaneously experienced?
Ram: No. I don't mean to say that. But it is true
because creation is in duality and duality is made up of two factors: awareness
which is sentient and which can be called ‘the experiencer' and the objects
which are insentient and are what are experienced.
Ram: “The Subtle Body is always bathed in Awareness.
It glows with Awareness when it is free of agitation and dullness. If one
meditates on the mind in this condition one can easily see the Self.
Maria: Paramarthananda says,
you can never see the Self because the Self is that which sees?? As one meditates
on the Self in the mind one should think clearly about what it is (How can you
think clearly about what it is? It has no qualities?! )
Ram: The problem here is level confusion. He is
talking from the Self's point of view in this statement. I'm speaking from the
point of view of an individual whose attention is turned inward and who is
contemplating/experiencing/ investigating the Self. My statement does not make
sense from the point of view of his statement. Yet it is helpful at a certain
stage of one's sadhana. It is an attempt to keep make
the point that one should be looking to erase the mind's ignorance rather than
just experience bliss. It would be more correct to say, however, that one
meditates on the reflection of the Self in a pure mind. The whole purpose of
sadhana is to get a pure mind so you can see the Self and investigate it.
OK, Maria. The ball is in your court. Hit it back.
Love,
Ram