John: Hello, Ram. It looks I last wrote to you about two years ago. Nisargadatta has a line somewhere saying that the “I” eventually just lets you go. You teach the distinction between the language of feeling/experience and the language of knowledge. That said, I feel that I have been released or ejected from a vehicle and am bouncing a bit now on the pavement, reading the satsangs at your site that have accumulated in the last couple of years.

To get dramatic, it almost frightens me what my mind cooks up. That rajas gets the pot boiling sometimes so that the hot circumstances almost splash right out of the pan to leave blisters on my skin. Not quite though. You have taught me to see and name this and understand it. I am very grateful.

The rajas and invented near-misses in my life are more funny than frightening, really. In a recent satsang at your site a person asked for a kind of reassurance: “So I can’t really make a mistake then…(?)” and you answered with, “Sure you can, but you can be okay with your mistakes.” I like that, I resonate with that.

So I am writing to kind of check in again. It’s not exactly that I am “back in the saddle.” The saddle metaphor is a “doing” metaphor, and I don’t feel I am doing this. Thank you for your lessons.

So now what? I think some major categories of vasanas may have worn themselves out, having to do with my career. The evidence for this is in my reactions to things. Does traditional Vedanta discuss reactions specifically, other than as sort of the “inverse” of sattva?

~ Love, John

Ram: Hi, John. Lovely to hear from you again. I always wonder if someone finds Vedanta useful or moves on to something else. It’s nice to hear that you have stuck with it and that it has paid dividends. It always does if one understands its value. I am not sure what you mean by “so now what?” What do you want that you don’t have? Are you free and happy? If you are, then that’s it. But the question itself probably means that there is more for you. So tell me what’s missing. The purpose of Vedanta is to show you that you don’t need anything to make you feel complete and whole except the hard and fast knowledge that you are complete and whole. When this is clear all the questions stop and a great peace ensues.

~ Much love, Ram