Dear Lynn,
I know that you have always been
suspicious of me and what I have to say.
In a way it is pointless for the object of someone’s suspicions to try
to convince them to trust. But I ask you
to trust what I have to say because sometimes you don’t think very clearly and
this lack of clarity causes you to put yourself through more than you need
to. So I offer what I offer not because
I get any ego satisfaction in seeing you take ‘my’ advice, but just to make
your path easier. It is quite amazing
how things work when you trust the words of non-attached people. By non-attached I mean someone who is
satisfied in his or her self alone and who is therefore not pursuing an
agenda. You don’t lose anything by
taking my words on board and I don’t gain anything. Therefore there is no need to be reluctant.
For example, when I got here and spoke
with everyone in the family I could see that there is a deep distrust between
the family members, a generational thing actually, that has made their lives
quite unhappy. The way they opened up
made me realize that they desperately wanted out of this situation. When I saw how intractable it was…everyone is
so proud and has been denying/projecting for so long…I suggested the
obvious…that they go their separate ways… that peace of mind was more valuable
than the idea of family loyalty. About a
week later one of Sally’s sisters, after thinking about it, quit her job and is
going to
But this wasn’t all. The biggest casualty of the family hatred was
Sally’s seventeen year old daughter. She
was very stressed and unhappy and having awful problems with her adoptive
parents, one of Sally’s sisters. I spoke
with her several times and one day when she mentioned that I was not ‘a normal
person’ I realized that she was seeing me, the Self, not a projection. Two days ago she came over after school in an
awful emotional state and suffering a stress related eye infection. She could hardly see and her nose was running
and she was just miserable. I felt much
compassion for her because she very good and yet she is the one suffering most
from this conflict. I wasn’t sure what
to do with her at first because I didn’t want to get involved in this family
dispute, to be seen as taking sides, so I kept my distance. I was friendly and polite and avoided making
statements that she could misconstrue.
But she kept trying to make contact and I saw that she was ready to hear
the truth. She finally said, “Come on,
James, what do you really think about me?” So I spoke.
Within a few minutes the shakti got into her
and I could see that she was taking every idea on board without a bunch of
arguments. I went at it with great
energy, basically giving her a crash course in Vedanta. It was music to her ears. She recontacted her
true nature, the Self, and became radiant and happy.
She came back yesterday and I
overheard her talking with Sally and she had made every change in her thinking
that I had suggested, changes that would resolve her situation. Sally told me that she said James was sent to
set her straight, that some great energy had come down and that James had
cleared her mind and that she was seeing clearly for the first time in her
life, that nobody had ever told her the truth, etc. I could tell by the natural and confident way
she spoke that there was no doubt in her mind about the wisdom of seeing things
in this new way. And she said that by
the time she got home her eye was completely healed. Sure, she will face problems but she will
never be the same again. This was her
awakening and within a year her karma will be straightened out and she will be
able to pursue her heart’s desire. The
point, which I’m sure you’ve got, is that the words of people like me can be
trusted. The Shakti lives in the words
and when they are taken in wholeheartedly, the changes happen
automatically. In a sense the whole
spiritual path boils down to getting oneself ready to hear the truth. When you are ready, it just floods in and
everything is set straight.
Of course one will get there
eventually no matter what, but the problem with staying within oneself and
negotiating with oneself on every issue is that the transformational energy
that comes with the truth never gets activated.
The mind pisses away its power considering the pros and cons of every
issue and when it’s time to actually make the right moves, there is no energy
for it…so one just runs off old patterns and life becomes a monotonous series
of repetitive behaviors. Even if the
proud egoic approach were sensible the ego is not the one to make decisions
because he or she is unduly influenced by his or her fears and desires and
cannot therefore make disinterested choices.
When you open up to the word you get yourself off the hot seat. You hear the truth and you take it in and it
makes the changes. There is no deciding
involved. All this dealing with issues,
making decisions in the relative world, wears out the mind. And on top of it a ‘responsible’ obligated
ego gets formed and one finds oneself feeling virtuous for being so concerned
and caring and conscientious but an important something is missed: that free
joyful feeling that distinguishes a truly spiritual life from the life of an
ordinary person.
Love,
Ram