Carson: Hi again, Sundari. I’ve just made a donation via PayPal and I really look forward to meeting you and Ramji on Skype whenever you are available per my previous email (at around July 10). In the meantime, there is something that I wanted to run by you. It’s challenging to use words these days because I am the self and yet I have to speak using jiva-Carson. It’s all semantics anyway. But semantics are important. The problem is things can get confusing. For the sake of this email and our correspondence, I am the self. I am always the self. My knowledge is unshakable, unwavering. In my vocabulary I use the terms “absolute” and “relative.”

Sundari: Yes, words are tricky to use once when gets to the subtlety of the self; however, they are very important, which is why Vedanta is so specific about the words it uses. “Relative” and “absolute” are both words that imply duality, so are not good words to use, but they are nonetheless useful.

Carson: The shift happened about six weeks ago when I wrote to you and James in early May. Although I had been on the path for 2.5 years before the shift, there were many prior glimpses. When the shift did happen it was sudden, deep. I didn’t become the self so much as ignorance just fell away and revealed the self that I am.

Sundari: Yes, indeed: how can you become what you already are? Self-realisation is simply the removal of ignorance of your true nature, which is what was revealed to you with the falling away of ignorance.

Carson: It just so happens that Isvara wanted Carson to have a beautiful little girl three months prior to ignorance falling away. So now I am learning how to integrate, or balance, or whatever term you want to use… the relative and the absolute.

Sundari: I think real and apparently real, sattya and mithya, are better words, but I know what you mean. See above.

Carson: It makes my wife and my entire family very uncomfortable that I am so detached. They think that because I am detached I don’t care. Of course I care in some sense but things are just different now. I just AM the self and I play the role of Carson and watch the play unfold. My wife has a spiritual guru that channels a spirit who they call “the teacher.” This isn’t my thing but it’s hers, and so I respect that. She wanted me to go and see this spiritual guru of hers so that she could “read” my energy and “help” me. As the self it’s my inclination to kind of just go along with things now, because why not? So I said sure and I went to this guru lady. She asked me if I thought I was enlightened. I told her I don’t like to use words to talk about these things and that the word “enlightenment” is especially problematic because of all the different ideas people have about what it is. So I just told her that for me ignorance fell away and that for lack of a better way to put it… I said there is now lots of space between self and Carson. I said that Carson is relative-apparent and that self is absolute-fundamental. Anyway, it’s hard talking about these things… I find it much easier just being. In the end this lady said that Carson still has lots of psychological stuff that he needs to work out… she said that my Knowledge was firm (again, whether she has the authority to even say these things is beyond me… I don’t know and I am not judging her… I am just relating the story) but that I need to reintegrate self and Carson and open the Heart to go along with the Knowledge… and that by opening the Heart the integration will happen and that is the purpose of our relative-apparent selves being here… according to her… to realize self and then integrate self and jiva. Again, all this is really hard to put into words… but I think you understand what I mean… I hope I am clear, in any case.

Sundari: It is very clear, Carson; this is a common problem for self-realised people in relationship with samsaris – especially ones who think they know better. As you correctly point out, as the self you have no real preferences so it is much easier to accommodate to other people’s likes and dislikes. This is especially important with people close to us as they are part of our dharma field. If we see them as the self and worship them as such while practising karma yoga, this makes life much smoother. However, this does not mean that you stop discriminating.

Your attitude to your wife’s spiritual path is correct but this does not mean that she has the right to push her beliefs onto you. The situation you are in is not an easy one, particularly because your wife is under the influence of her guru and they are both out to find fault with Carson. Now, you know that Carson is not real but they don’t. So if you want peace in the home and your marriage to continue without agitation you will need to follow your dharma, which is to take care of your karma as a husband and father. This applies to your wife too. She is not following her dharma by trying to change you. You know that she is doing this because she does not know who she is or who you really are; nonetheless, you need to point this out to her. Her dharma is to do the same for you, and love means that she needs to accept you for who you are. As I said in my previous email, see her as the self under the spell of ignorance, give her love and attention, make her feel special and wanted. It’s no skin off your nose because as the self you have love in spades. ☺ But you also need to make sure that you keep your authority with regard to this person that has a hold on her and she sees as her guru. Put your foot down there; be gentle but be very clear and clean that this person is her guru, not yours. The self is your guru, and you are it. All so-called “channelled” information is highly suspect because even if it contains knowledge it comes through the mind and therefore the conditioning of the channeller, so it will be contaminated. Vedanta does not come from or through the mind of anyone. It is revealed to the mind by consciousness. Vedanta is called a “brahma vidya,” which means the science of consciousness. It is an objective analysis of the true nature of reality – and your experience, based on the facts. Like any other science, it is not personal. Vedanta is simply the truth about you. Not your truth or my truth or anyone’s truth. The Truth.

I highly doubt that this person you speak of knows what enlightenment is or would be able to identify someone who really knows who they are. As you know, if you do know who you are you would not say that you are enlightened or unenlightened, you would simply say “I am neither enlightened nor unenlightened, I am the light.” It is true that there is a lot of space between you and Carson because he is an object known to you, awareness. And as awareness you are the substrate for everything as all objects arise out of you but you are always free of the objects.

This person’s advice to you about having psychological problems and you needing to “…reintegrate self and Carson and open the Heart to go along with the Knowledge… and that by opening the Heart the integration will happen and that is the purpose of our relative-apparent selves being here… according to her… to realize self and then integrate self and jiva,” is a very garbled idea of what the self is, typical of the ignorance that abounds in the spiritual arena, the idea that one needs to “feel” and “open the heart.” In other words, it is the incorrect idea that enlightenment is experiential.

The fact is that self-knowledge is understanding your true nature to be pure love, and not the person or ego you thought you were, which makes nonsense of this claim because one can only realise the self through self-knowledge, not through feelings. Feelings are just objects known to you. The other obvious bit of ignorance in her statement is that you need to “reintegrate self with Carson.” How can you integrate him “into the self” when he already is the self but as the self you are free of him?

Being enlightened and therefore dispassionate does not mean that you are unfeeling or detached. This can cause problems in relationships, so you will have to make sure that you show love to your wife and child. Remember that love is paying attention to what we love. We do not love what we do not pay attention to. As I said above, see your wife and child as Isvara and worship them as the self, even though your wife is the self under the spell of ignorance. As you are all, the self you are limitless, so give your wife and child what they need; it is no problem for you. Nothing takes from or adds to you, you are the source of all joy, so show this to them.

Carson: I read through a lot of your satsangs on the Web… especially the ones relative to this whole issue… such satsangs as Don’t Try to Fix the Doer… and it occurs to me, and I would appreciate your feedback on this, that there is no sense in getting all caught up in fixing Carson or integrating this or that… I couldn’t do it if I wanted to because I am the self and apparent Carson is apparent Carson… there are vasanas raining down on Carson and I just go along with the play and watch it all unfold. It is what it is. Nothing more or less. Meanwhile, my wife is convinced that Carson needs to undergo all kinds of “opening the heart” stuff with her guru, Carson needs to cry and let stuff out, blah, blah. Of course she means well, and I understand that. In the end though it occurs to me, and again I would appreciate your feedback, that these people (my wife and her guru), although well-meaning, are still meaning well as samsaris… if they want to get all hung up in channeling and opening the heart and releasing through crying, speaking in weird tongues, etc.… that’s their business but not mine. Vedanta cold-cocked me over the head, my ignorance fell away: I am the self… there is never any going back. In your experience, does this happen often where one person in a relationship is self-realized and the other person isn’t (again, no right or wrong here, no better or worse) and things just kind of don’t work anymore? I can imagine the answer to be a very big Yes.

But since you communicate with a lot of people you have probably seen this issue a thousand times, and I would be grateful to hear anything you think is worth sharing regarding these things.

Sundari: Well, I have answered this above, and yes, it a big problem for people in your situation. Remember though that self-realisation means that you have discriminated the self from the objects appearing in you, in other words, negated all the objects as not-self, which you have done. Self-actualisation means that you have rendered the binding vasanas non-binding and negated the doer. Many enlightened people claim that, seeing as they are the self and that their conditioning (vasanas) does not belong to them, they do not need to bother with it. This is true if your thoughts and feelings don’t agitate the mind. Very often people who say this just don’t want to do the work of facing down their vasanas. There is no way around this if one really wants to be free. One has to look at one’s conditioning in the light of self-knowledge and dissolve the binding vasanas through understanding. This does not mean one has to perfect the person, not at all. But if the person has deeply ingrained vasanas or samskaras that cause agitation to the mind suffering will continue. I have attached the article that I wrote in the latest newsletter, on the Isvara-jiva-jagat identity. Read up on it, recap on the guna info, it’s really important.

Other than that, knowing that Carson is not real and his conditioning belongs to Isvara, how can you not love him unconditionally?

You are doing just great, Carson. Maybe you have some work to do on the mind. Only you will know if this is true. It does not sound like it to me. There is a big misconception that Vedanta is all intellectual but it is completely untrue. When you understand your true nature to be parama prema svarupa (pure unconditional love) there is no need to “open the heart” because self-knowledge is the purest love there is. Samsaris believe that love is emotionality, which is bogus.

~ Love, Sundari