Dear Martina,
Here are my replies to your
excellent questions. I tidied up your
English a bit so that your statements would be easier for others to
understand.
Martina: Thank you for your encouraging letter and the
satsangs. It is helpful to read them
again and again. They show how to
diligently and patiently monitor the mind from the old way of thinking to
thinking from the point of view of the Self.
First, in the sense of seeing oneself as the still quiet luminous
self and then as the paramatman, the Self beyond the Self, taking back the
world that was rejected, embracing and owing all the dualities: glory, peace,
anger, ups and downs, etc.
Ram:
Yes, one should continue to reflect and recondition the mind to think
from the Self’s point of view until the knowledge I am the Self becomes
automatic and drops out of consciousness.
I was with a friend the other day and we were thinking about doing
something and as we were considering what was involved he said, “We need to do
this and that because something could go wrong.” And I said, “We don’t need to do anything
because something could go right.” The
thought that one is inadequate and incomplete, like his thought that something
could go wrong, is just a habit of thinking.
So it is important to neutralize that thought with the right
thought. It’s a nice stage of one’s
sadhana. One knows one is fine, that
nothing is to be done, and one enjoys watching the mind not understand. It is a kind of amusement.
Martina: One of my oldest students (since 1985) who
loves inquiry and enjoys Vedanta style meditation is a teacher of yoga in the
Ram:
You are right. She will not be
able to relate to what I am saying. She
is probably using yoga as a kind of religion, beliefs to be practiced or as a
physical/psychological tool, a therapy.
She probably does not understand the limitations of yoga as a means of
enlightenment and I would bet that her teachers don’t either. What I am saying is not intended to stop anyone
practicing yoga but to give a clear idea of what one can and cannot expect from
the practice.
There is a very old and very deep
misunderstanding in yoga and in other enlightenment philosophies about the
nature of enlightenment and how to get it.
I am not attacking yoga. I am
trying to clarify the issues. The karmas
that one undertakes in yoga can have a very helpful effect on the mind and can
prepare it for enlightenment.
Most people begin the spiritual path
as doers committed to certain practices.
What these practices will bring and what they are thought to bring are
often two different things. Spiritual
practice, yoga, can have excellent benefits, health wise and psychologically…no
doubt about it. And it can generate
‘Self’ experience, apprehension of the reflection of the Self in a sattvic
mind. But when you get past the question
of experience and need to solve the question of the relationship between the
experiencer, the yogi, and that to which he or she is yoked, the Self, yoga
falls flat. Below you will see a
discussion of the heart of Patanjali Yoga, which is the root of all the yogas, and its limitation as a means of enlightenment. By enlightenment I mean the hard and fast
knowledge, backed by experience, that I am limitless actionless ordinary
awareness, the Self in short. “Backed
by experience’ means that one has at some point consciously experienced from
the Self’s point of view. It does not
mean that someone who has no experiential idea of the Self can claim
enlightenment merely by stating or believing he or she is whole and complete
actionless awareness.
Martina: They learn that understanding is the key aim
and any experience is just an aid at best once it is understood.
Ram:
They say experience is to be understood.
Sure, but who understands it? Is
this person, the ego, actually capable of understanding experience? How could it since it is nothing more than a
fundamental misunderstanding about the ‘I’?
If we are talking about the ‘experience of the ‘I’, the reflection of the
Self in a sattvic inward turned mind, then what is the point of view that
allows one to evaluate the meaning of the ‘I?’
People experience the ‘I’ twenty four hours a day and have all sorts of
incredible experiences in meditation…but still see the ‘I’ as limited.
Martina: What kind of yoga are you referring to? What texts, schools or teachers? I hope your ‘yoga’ does not follow the
argument style I know from the Tibetans.
They draw a caricature of Zen, Hinduism or whatever and then criticize it
as useful but... not quite right. The
same style any teacher here has who does not know the "other school"
from experience but just from the caricatures his tradition creates on
"them".
I am interested how certain methods
work and what does not work well. People
are different and doubts as well. So yogis work with what works. In short, what yoga are you referring
to? This way could offend serious yoga
people who do not suffer from what you describe.
Ram:
Yes, this idea is offensive to most yogis because it exposes the
limitations of yoga as a means of enlightenment. I am not referring to a specific school of
yoga, although what I am saying applies to Raja Yoga and Patanjali Yoga and Hatha Yoga and any practice oriented sadhana by whatever
name, including Hinayana Buddhism which emphasizes
practice. I am using the word ‘yoga’ to
describe any spiritual practice that sees enlightenment as the outcome of a
certain experience-based sadhana. I am
referring to any action oriented practice that takes the self to be a doer.
In the Patanjali Yoga Sutras you see
the fundamental idea of all the yogas. The first verse says, “Now the study of
Yoga.” The ‘now’ (atha)
means that some pervious work has been done, some maturity has been reached,
and the person wants moksha. The second
verse says, “Yoga chitta vritti nirodha.” This means that yoga is the removal of the
vasanas, since the vasanas are the cause of the vrittis, the thoughts and
feelings, i.e. the mind. In the third
verse you see what is thought to be the outcome of this practice. It says, ‘Then the Seer shines in all his
glory.” The Seer means the Self.
The idea is that the Self is hidden
behind the mind and that one has to remove this covering to reveal the
Self. Aside from the fact that the Self
is self evident and impossible to cover, and that literally countless
‘unconscious practices’ like extreme sports, drugs, falling in love, accidents,
etc. remove the covering and reveal the Self, the Self is not understood to be
the ‘I’ precisely because this system is based on the belief that mere
experience of the Self is enlightenment.
But we know that this is not true, unless
the understanding that what one is experiencing is me
arises and this understanding remains firm.
‘Remains firm’ means that when one continues to see oneself as limitless
awareness when a sense of separation and limitation prevails in the mind.
Furthermore, in ‘conscious
practice,’ that is, practice that is consciously aimed at Self realization, one
is always confronted with the problem of keeping the mind free of vrittis, what
I call the ‘maintenance game.’ As soon
as a vritti comes the Self goes. When
the vritti goes the Self comes. Is there
anything more absurd? I call this
‘firefly’ consciousness. One is enlightened
for a period, anywhere from a second to months, and then unenlightened for a
period. In fact this is the condition of
most people who have been doing sadhana for a long time.
The practice of vasana exhaustion is
valuable…to get a relatively peaceful mind.
But it is based on the idea that the Self can only be known when the
mind is dead. Yes, it can be known when
the mind is dead but it can just as well be know when the mind is not
dead. And since the mind is almost never not dead, except in deep sleep, how likely is
enlightenment for most people? Even if
the mind is dead, there can be a problem: who is there to know the Self if
there is no mind/ego? Enlightenment
would not be for the Self since it is already enlightened. So it would have to be for the doer, the
knower, the ego/mind.
In fact this whole way of seeing
enlightenment is incorrect. In a
non-dual reality there is only the Self with apparent ignorance and apparent
knowledge. ‘Apparent’ ignorance is
motivating the practice (as is the case with all practices) of yoga because the
vasanas (the vrittis and experience) are only a problem when one doesn’t know
that one is whole and complete and therefore, that one is always free of
them. Experience is me but I am not
experience. It depends on me but I do
not depend on it. If this is true, then
why am I trying to get rid of my vrittis, why am I chasing experience by
performing actions, i.e. yoga?
Yoga is just karma, practice. It is not a means of Self knowledge. (You see the limitation in the word
itself. Yoga means ‘to yoke.’ It is a verb, an action word. It involves the action of joining or merging
the individual self with the universal Self, the bhakta with Bhagavan. This is not possible as an action because the
individual self, the jivatman and the universal self, the paramatman are
already one. It is only possible through
understanding. )
Yoga is not a means of Self
knowledge because the knowledge that is gained is relative knowledge, knowledge
of experience, and it is gained by an agnani, an ego/doer. This ego/doer will never be set free for two
reasons: relative knowledge will not permanently free one of a sense of
limitation and there is no ego/doer.
Yoga does not counsel inquiry into the doer, the yogi, because that
would destroy the whole practice. And
yoga is for doers.
As the Buddha says, there is no
“separate’ Self, anatma. This is so because one is already free. One needs to only know that one is the
Self. And one doesn’t need a particular
vasana free experience of the Self since all experience is the Self. So one needs a means of
Self knowledge. One needs to be
first seeking understanding, not experience, and then one needs to have a
legitimate means of knowledge. An ego interpreting experience is not a
legitimate means of knowledge. The
ego by definition does not see reality and the reality it is learning from is
anitya, impermanent. One can never get
truth from an apparent reality. The
apparent reality, experience, is neither completely real nor is it completely
unreal…so what kind of knowledge is one going to get from it?
My ‘yoga’ is just common sense and
reason. See the argument above…it is
based on a clear understanding of the nature of the mind and the Self. It is based on the fact that no sadhana will
produce a limitless result. The Self is
limitless. How can a sadhana, a finite
action, produce limitless awareness or experience of limitless awareness? If you want experience, then manipulate the
mind and body and you will get experience.
But don’t expect some sort of permanent experience that will set you
free. Because if you
get an experience that was not there all along, it will definitely go. The only ‘experience’ that will not disappear
is the Self, which means any and all experience. You do not ‘get’ this kind of experience by
doing anything. You get it by
understanding something.
If you think clearly about the third
mantra of the Yoga Sutras ‘Then the Seer shines in all his glory’ you can see
that the next step is missing. This is
so because Patanjali does not know what the next step is. What is the next Step? That you are the I. If Patanjali knew the next step he would say,
“Now that you are experiencing the Seer shining in all his glory, investigate
the Seer.” And then he would say, ‘Who
is the Seer?” And then he would say,
“You are the Seer.” Yoga is fine as far
as it goes. But it leaves you right
where you started…caught in experience.
Yes, you now have the experience of the Self, not the experience of
samsara, but you still have separation, longing, and doubt. This ‘who am I’ doubt needs to be
removed.
Any practice oriented sadhana that
does not raise the ‘Who am I?’ question from the
beginning I call a yoga. Below I’ve
copied in a letter from Bettina that addresses this issue better than I
could. I have italicized the important
words.
“Dear Ramji, famous video star,
supreme comedian and beloved couch potato!
Thank you for your loving little
email. So you are already sitting under the hot Greek sun while I am writing
this to you. X left yesterday. She liked to be here and the course went very
well. I went to her talks,
she is a charming and entertaining speaker and teaches about the Self. She calls It
"boundlessness" and this is the subject of the Heart Sutra, the issue
of her course: (the original term is shunyata, emptiness):
"Oh Sariputra, form is not separate from boundlessness (fullness,
emptiness, limitlessness, Self...)
Boundlessness is not separate from form;
Form is boundlessness; Boundlessness is form.
Feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and discernment
are also like this.
Sariputra, boundlessness is the nature of all things.
It neither arises nor perishes,
neither stains nor purifies,
neither increases nor decreases.
Boundlessness is not limited by form,
nor by feelings, perceptions, mental formations and
discernment.
It is free of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind;
free of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and any object of
the mind,
free of sensory realms including mind consciousness.
It is free of ignorance and the end of ignorance.
Free of old age and death
and free from the end of old age and death.
It is free from suffering, arising, cessation and path,
and free of wisdom and attainment.
Being free of attainment, those who help all to awaken
abide in the realization of wisdom beyond wisdom
and live with an unhindered mind.
Without hindrance the mind has no fear.
Free from confusion, those who lead all to emancipation
embody complete serenity....
Beautiful, isn´t it? But what is so amazing to me is, that in these
Buddhist teachings THIS is always present, kind of vibrating in and through the
talks, but they never say: "And
THIS is you!!" Its always something like: This
is your innate nature, it is always present, it is here now, it is the core of
your being...or, like Roshi once put it in one of her
discourses "The other shore is already here." But she does not say "YOU are that other
shore!" In fact, there is of course no "other" shore, no
shore at all, and again words come to an end ... But I see more and more clearly, what is the difference between the teaching of
Vedanta and Buddhism, although they talk about the same subject. Vedanta
is so much more direct. It doesn´t leave you any choice, it just states "You are That and there is nothing else, take it or leave it!"
While Buddhism says: "There is this other shore and that shore is here
now" but I can still remain as this little i,
thinking this other shore, this boundlessness, this Buddha nature is available
for me. And even if they tell me that it
is here now, there is still this i, for whom it is available and I have to practice and DO something to attain it. Even though the text says "It is free of
wisdom and attainment" somehow one just doesn´t
really believe it. I am happy and
grateful that you made me see that it is not so, that you made me believe it,
and whenever I think this way and feel the release, the freedom, the
fearlessness, the space, the fullness that come with
this view, a graet and strong wave of
love for you wells up inside me, kind of rolls through my body and mind.
In this course there was brilliant translator, one of these
students of Martina whom she infected with the Ram virus. She came to me, we talked a lot and I told
her about some things you had told me in Tiru in Peter´s
restaurant. Once I said that I would
experience my body and mind differently from any other body and mind, that is,
I would experience "myself" from inside and any other body and mind
from outside, and you said no! You
experience your own body and mind in just the same way as every other body and
mind. The other thing was that I told
you about how limited and locked in inside the limits of my body I often feel
when I wake up in the morning, and you said: All that is happening is that YOU
experience limitation. It doesn’t mean that YOU are limited. I told this to Agnes and she understood it
and it made her so glad that she hopped away above the lawn like a happy puppy,
all little jumps and leaps, when she left me.
Maybe we really should invite a little group of people and you could
give a few satsangs when you come the next time. Think about it. Although as far as I’m concerned you could as
well just come and lie on the couch. I miss you happily.”
One statement of Bettina’s that
struck me as particularly interesting, dear Martina,
is this: that even though you are
experiencing limitation it does not mean that you are limited. Nor does it mean that when you experience
limitlessness that you are limitless, although this particular brand of
ignorance is called knowledge. In fact,
the whole question of experience, which is at the heart of yoga, no longer
applies at this level. All that is left
is to understand something. And since
understanding does not happen on its own, one needs a means and that means, in
this case, is the knowledge that you are neither limited nor limitless. You are the knower, the seer, of both. Do you find this idea in any of the practice
oriented sadhanas?
OK, dear Martina. The question may
arise, “Is inquiry a yoga?’ And the answer is yes and no. Obviously someone has to inquire. So yes, inquiry is a kind of sadhana. But to make this inquiry you need to be
governed by some very specific knowledge.
You cannot successfully realize who you are without any knowledge
operating. Even in the famous case of
Ramana’s Self realization experience, some knowledge…logic based inquiry…was
operating. You can see it operating
throughout.
“I felt I was going to die and that I had to solve the
problem myself, there and then. The
shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally
without forming the words. Now death has
come, what does it mean? What is it that
is dying? This body dies. And I at once
dramatized the occurrence of death. I
lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis had set in and
imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly
closed so that no sound could escape so that neither the word ‘I’ nor any other
word could be uttered. “Well then,” I
said to myself, “The body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning
ground and there reduced to ashes. But
with the death of the body am I dead? Is
the body ‘I?’ It is silent and inert but
I could feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of the ‘I’
within me, apart from it. So I am spirit
transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit that transcends it cannot
be touched by death. That means that I
am the deathless spirit.” All this was
not a dull thought. It flashed through
me vividly as living truth which I perceived directly, almost without thought
process.
‘I’ was something very real, the
only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity
connected with my body was centered on that “I”. From that moment onwards the ‘I’ or ‘Self’
focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death had vanished once and for all. Absorption in the Self continued unbroken
from that time on. Other thoughts might
come and go like the various notes of music but the ‘I’ continued like the
fundamental sruti note that underlies and
blends will all other states. Whether
the body was engaged in talking, reading, or anything else I was still centered
on the ‘I’. Previous to that crisis I
had felt no perceptible or direct interest in it, much less any inclination to
dwell permanently in it.”
Now, many are blessed with this kind
of experience, but very few can use logic and reason to understand its
significance. In fact most people who
are spiritually seeking, and especially those whose quests have been formed by
the sadhana-based schools, yoga particularly, have been taught that critical
thought, logic and reason, are ‘chitta vrittis’ to use Patanjali’s term. And they are right. They are ‘vrittis.’ But do they need to be eliminated? Do they prevent the understanding of who one is? They do
not. They are in fact the means for
understanding who one is. So if there is
an ‘I’ that is inquiring, this ‘I’ would need not only to have knowledge to
make the inquiry but would need to know how to use that knowledge to extract
the right conclusion about oneself.
The way yoga tends to deal with
problems is to counsel more purification.
This is necessary and helpful up to a point, but at what point do the
yogis address the issue of the limitation of karmas and encourage the practice
of inquiry? And even though inquiry is a
subtle action, its purpose is not to get a particular experience. Its point is to remove ignorance. Once ignorance is removed, it doesn’t need to
be removed again, like the knowledge of your name. But once an experience is gained, it
dissolves and needs to be gained again.
Finally, if there is no doer then
there is no inquirer either since inquiry is just a
subtle action. In fact inquiry is built
into the human mind. It is going on all
the time, not just on a ‘spiritual’ level but in the everyday samsaric state of
mind. One wants to know the meaning of
everything that happens. You fall in
love, a particular kind of experience, but is that the end of it? Not at all. You immediately want to know what it
‘means.’ You want to know if it will
last, you want to know how it will go.
You have a million questions.
Astrologers, psychic, mediums, shrinks etc. do a thriving business for
one reason…inquiry is going on all the time.
As you say above you are now relaxed enough to let the mind think on its
own…and it thinks on its own. But it
can get confused; it can come to erroneous conclusions, so it needs guidance, a
means of knowledge, a way to keep it on topic and a way to correct itself. So you could say that knowledge, not ego,
makes the inquiry. Does yoga do
this? No, it tells you the mind is the
problem and that the solution is to kill it.
It tells you that knowledge is a chitta vritti and needs to be
destroyed.
I’m sure you will have something to
say about this and I eagerly await your reply.
Much love,
Ram