Dear Ram,
In your last e-mail you made the statement “So that
‘you’ which is unaffected by experience is called the ‘Self’ and the knowledge
‘I Am the Self’ is enlightenment. What
would be the signs of that?
Ram: Here is a
verse from the Bhagavad Gita, so I am just going to tell you what it. First Arjuna asks Krishna the question, ‘What are the signs of an enlightened soul?’
and
Joseph: Does that
mean, for example, if I were sitting in a restaurant and a beautiful woman
comes in and I start fancying her?
Ram: It has nothing
to do with whether or not you fancy her.
It has everything to do with why you fancy her. If you fancy her and are thinking that making
love with her will increase your fundamental happiness you are deluded. If you fancy her as the Self, if you see the
light in her and recognize it as the light in you and everything, then that
would be the response of an enlightened person.
But that does not mean that you will try to get her in bed. If you are just conditioned, like Pavlov’s
dog, to start fancying a woman that your vasanas attract you to, then you are
just an animal. It’s OK to be an animal,
but it isn’t Self realization.
Joseph: But there is
nothing actually stopping me from doing it?
As long as I am not caught up with the idea that it will make me feel
good or feel bad?
Ram: People usually
want things because they think things will make them happier. If you feel that love is modifying you, then
you are not the Self. That person would
be Joseph, the Ego. It is very easy to fool yourself on the issue of
desires. In the Bhagavad Gita,
So how does a jnani, view desires? In The Course of Miracles, it says, ‘From
what you want God won’t save you.’ What
does that mean? It means that the karma
from indulging your desires may not be as wonderful as you think. In fact
experience teaches that sometimes we get what we want and sometimes we don’t,
so, on one hand, we can’t even count on getting what we want….which can lead to
frustration and depression. It also
teaches that sometimes we aren’t happy when we get what we want and at other
times we are happy when we get what we don’t want. So, on the other hand, tying happiness to the
satisfaction of your desires is foolish.
In the Gita it also says when a person, ‘… is satisfied in
the Self by the Self, then is he said to be one of steady Wisdom.’ [Ch.2, v.55]
This is a statement that applies to an enlightened person:
when one is satisfied in the Self alone.
The desires of the mind are optional and can be ignored without causing
agitation. When you know that ‘you’ are
the source of your satisfaction and don’t look for satisfaction outside
yourself through fame, security, pleasure, wealth and duty, etc. then you are
wise.
Joseph: I think one
of my difficulties when you tell me these things, is when did it start? When was it that I started to say certain
things? In some way, I could say I was
always like this. As long as I can
remember that was true.
Ram: Yes, that is
the Self. It was always true for the
Self. It did not become true at some
point for the Self. Maybe for Joseph it
became true at a certain point. But for
the Self it is always true. It says in
the Upanishads, “It is not for the sake of the wife that the husband loves the
wife but for the sake of the Self.” Now
that could mean the ego but it does not mean the ego – it means the Self. Because everything is done for the sake of
the Self and everything is the Self, including all activity. When you love somebody, it isn’t your
girlfriend you love although you perhaps think it is; it is the Self in your
girlfriend that you love. When you get involved as a person love goes out the
door.
Joseph: So what do
you make of my personal situation? How
does my situation fit in with this whole Self-thing we are discussing?
Ram: You see, Joseph,
you are not a person. You have no
personal situation. What is personal
about you…your hair, your nose, your mind?
Nothing here is personal.
‘Personal’ is a concept that comes about when you don’t know your real
nature. How does any of what you
consider yours become yours? Your body
is just five elements, not different from any other body. The physiological
systems are just universal forces working in the impersonal body. Where is it written that any of it belongs to
a guy named Joseph? Are any of the
thoughts in your mind unique? They are
not. As we speak there are millions of
people thinking the same thoughts we are. What about your feelings? When you feel lust, is it a special Joseph
lust? It isn’t. When you enter the state of deep sleep are
you entering your own personal state of sleep.
No. A king sleeping on silk
sheets and a drunk sleeping in the gutter are enjoying the same state. There is nothing personal here.
The Bhagavad Gita says, ‘He whose mind is not shaken by adversity, and who in prosperity does
not hanker after pleasures, who is free from attachment, fear and anger, is
called a sage-of-steady-Wisdom.’ [Ch.2, v.56]
If you hanker after pleasures, that may be Joseph, but it is
not the Self. If you are upset when
things don’t go your way, that’s Joseph and not the Self.
Enlightenment confers the power of viveka, the ability to
discriminate between the Self and the non-Self – to know which is which. So all you need to do is know what Joseph is
and know what the Self is. When you get
that sorted you can decide whether you want to be Joseph or the Self. It is up to you. When you think of yourself as Joseph, a
person in this world, working to get certain things and get rid of certain
other things, then you are said to be an aviveki, someone who lacks discrimination,
a samsari.
Joseph: I can
clearly say that I am unattached to those sorts of things. Today in satsang I
was telling a story about how I met this person and someone called out, ‘that’s
not satsang’. Everyone was shocked by
the interruption. I didn’t react at
all. I stopped talking and waited to see
what was going to happen and then other people started to talk and a whole
thing happened. I sat quietly through it and it felt really good. I noticed
that there was one man in the room who was simply present in the Self, sitting
there and everyone else was being hooked into the big drama that was
happening. I felt myself totally with
him.
Ram: The first fellow
was right. It wasn’t satsang. It was Joseph talking about Joseph. But it is also true that as the Self you are
not going to be any less than what you are if people either like of dislike
you. It isn’t a statement about you at
all. It’s just their own projections
that are causing them to behave in the way they do. Your happiness and peace of mind doesn’t
depend upon their opinion, or their feelings about you and whether they love
you or not. It’s the ego that
cares.
Joseph: I feel
pretty clear about this one. That is
definitely not the case.
Ram: Let’s get back
to the Gita. This is something that only
you know in your heart unless you’re in denial.
You may be able to delude yourself but you can’t conceal it from others. Anyway, the verse says ‘The Self free of
attachment, neither rejoices nor hates.’ The one who rejoices is the ego; the
one who hates is the ego.
Joseph: ‘Joseph’ is
attached to a friend staying here longer, but at the same time I really don’t
care. Does that make me unattached?
Ram: No, it
doesn’t. Joseph cannot be
unattached. It is simply not
possible. Being limited, Joseph is by
definition always attached to something.
Spirituality is not about a person, like Joseph, achieving a state of
non-attachment. This is a very common
misconception. Behind this idea you have
a lot of people trying to detach from bad habits, other people, negative
thought patterns, etc. But it is a
futile endeavour. You cannot gain what
you already have by karma, by doing something, in this case detaching. You can only see if you are Joseph or the
Self. When you see that you are the Self
you get perfect non-attachment, a non-attachment that does not have to be
cultivated. But then, Joseph, after
living through so many experiences, can suddenly realize that nothing here is
going to make him permanently happy and he can just let go. So in that sense a
kind of relative detachment can come.
This is probably enough for now. I hope it clears things up.
Ram