Ramji,
Greetings and pranams with love and gratitude. I wanted to reach out and discuss what seems a new type of spiritual dilemma on the pathless path. As I continue the process of simplification and refinement, my lifestyle has become increasingly spartan. To most, I would say it is even boring. Mostly vegetarian meals only once or twice daily. Meditation at early hours of the morning, sometimes as early as 3-4 am. Followed by a simple hatha yoga routine for back maintenance and scriptural study. Most recently I finally started making progress chipping away at a lifelong sex vasana and seeing the benefits of what yoga calls continence. This the routine that makes me happy, gives me self-confidence and creates a stable mind.
My focus is increasingly on the way I interact with others to do my best to avoid conflict or to say anything that I will regret later because it disrupts my mental focus.
OK great, so I am plodding down the sattvic path attempting to mind my own business. But what about karma yoga? Being of service to others tends to invariably lead me into mixing with their lifestyle. Eating out. Staying up to late visiting even if the conversation is about spirituality. Before I know it, I’m eating meat, staying up late, haven’t meditated for 3 days and feel like a homeless drunken sailor who has been sleeping in the park. What used to be normal is now almost unbearable. What is to be done? I see many yogis whose idea is to segregate themselves from society. They give darshan, write books, and the rest but never really mix with people in a way that compromises their sadhana.
Short of running away to the ashram, what is to be done? I still have kids that need support, friends that make mistakes and want support, community that asks me to immerse myself in the drama of life even if it is as a spiritual guide.
And then there is the annoyance of jealousy. As you know, no good deed goes unpunished. Sincere gratitude expressed by those you help garners the envy of others. Why covet the same praise for selfish reasons? A tamasic lifestyle protects from the negative thought waves of others but a sattvic lifestyle makes you more exposed or at least aware of these things. In short. Spirituality is great. It is obviously much preferred to ignorance. But as we progress, how do we navigate the world without succumbing to the natural desire to get the hell away from it? I am fine with isolation. I enjoy it very much. But do I outgrow karma yoga? Or do we begin to only help those who don’t disturb our peace? Is the spiritual world stratified? “Sorry sinners. I’m too pure for you now.” Seems a bit elitist. But at the same time somewhat unavoidable. What say you?
With love and respect,
Joe
Ramji: I’m happy to hear that you’ve got a lifestyle that is conducive to self-inquiry. Chipping away at those pesky vasanas is what it’s all about on a daily basis. The karmic pipeline goes on until they tuck you into the warm inviting earth, so the enlightened and the unenlightened chip away cheerfully day by day.
But you have a common misconception about karma yoga. It seems you have the action side under control, in so far as you are happy and you’re chipping away at the vasanas, but karma yoga isn’t social service, although helping others is one of the practices. I’m not sure, however, why helping people involves getting into their “lifestyle” to the degree that it makes your mind tamasic. You should always have a reason why you can’t stay long when you visit tamasic/rajasic people. Those energies infect the mind by osmosis. So when you visit, you need to arrive in a sattvic state and when you feel the mind getting dull and agitated, you should politely excuse yourself. “I’ve got to see a man about a dog.” Don’t hang around. Indulging in “their” bad habits is cultivating “yours.” This is how you protect yourself.
If they come to you, make it clear that you have a schedule, don’t let them drink or smoke in your house. Offer them a cup of tea, let them tell their story, give some sensible advice like “stop whining and man up,” and show them the door. Your needy little ego will have a very hard time doing this because it needs to feel loved, undoubtedly because your self-love, which is growing—thanks be to God—is still insufficient to keep your mind quiet.
Who cares if people think you are an elitist? F..k them. Life is not a popularity contest. You’re a spiritual person, not a politician. Freedom is freedom to do your own dharma before you set out to mess with the dharma of others. Put on your own oxygen mask before you put on your kid’s mask. It’s common sense.
Your sattva, which should act as an early warning system, isn’t deep enough yet. If you were monitoring your state of mind, this is when you discover that you forgot that you have a meeting with your lawyer in twenty minutes, give them a hug and high tail it out the door.
You should segregate yourself from society. All the texts recommend it. What exactly does society have to offer someone who is serious about life? Living in society as we know it is little more than indulging in or fighting against powerful weapons of mass distraction. F..k society. Keeping apart is not elitist. It’s commendable common sense.
Your inner child has been fed too much democracy. Democracy is the best of a number of bad political philosophies, but there is nothing democratic about life. Governments should legislate on bi-partisan issues and quit pandering to the personal needs of spoiled foolish people. How are you going to get free of your pesky vasanas if you can’t get free of paternalism? Society and government are not your mom and pop. God is. I’m not talking about rebelling against society. I’m talking about protecting yourself from toxic people.
As for friends that make mistakes, the worst thing you can do is to try to fix their mistakes for them. Fixing is just an excuse for enabling them. The Gita is particularly clear on this point. What part of Krishna’s advice “Doing the duty of others is fraught with danger” don’t you understand? I once saw an inscription on some restored medieval stocks in England that read, “Tis sport for a fool to make mischief. Let thy wicked ways correct thee.”
Karma yoga means that you pass praise and blame on to God. It has nothing to do with you. What do negative feelings like envy have to do with anything?
I’m glad all this stuff is merely an annoyance and that you like your own company. You’re on the right path and doing good work. Enjoy solitude. Crave it. Gobble it up. The most compassionate thing you can do is to let people figure life out for themselves, not enable their dysfunction.
I help a lot of people but only because I am qualified to do so. I feel their pain, but I don’t take it on board. I try to encourage them to do the right thing but when they need a kick in the butt, I kick them in the butt with love and feel good about it. Don’t “attempt” to mind your own business, mind your own business. Stand in a cold trout stream casting your fly and know that fishing has nothing to do with fish and that it has everything to do with worshipping God. The next verse on Sunday night is about worshipping God as nature. Humans are God too, but worshipping them is a lot more tricky because, unlike the rest of the creation, they always have an agenda born out of ignorance.
So, that’s my nice kick in the butt for you this month. This email is a far cry from the last one, which made me think that you are a fully self-actualized sage.
Love you, Joseph and come to Trout Lake.
Joseph: Thank you Ramji. It’s always a pleasure. It doesn’t feel like a kick in the butt at all. It feels like a confirmation to follow my inclination to stop babying people and stand firm in the Self. You are right that my self love is not what it should be. That has been the main issue all along. An inability to disappoint people when they need disappointing and allowing their tamasic justifications to become my own. Why? Because it’s easier than facing my own demons I suppose. But the war has begun and I have tasted victory in battle with the help of heart-felt submission to the Lord. That has been the whole process since the beginning of this journey of Self inquiry which began in 2015. It has yielded amazing results that shine in the mind and the heart becomes radiant. But the fear of disappointing others has continued to surface from time to time.
But what has also come is a true appreciation of my own jiva’s spiritual position and an appreciation of spiritual people who really live renounced lives. I started this path with a severe handicap in conditions extremely adverse to a spiritual life. This is not an excuse but my history and decision making explains a lot. I’m a ghetto sage, a flower that pushes through concrete. The more the heart blooms in the Love of the Self the more painful a nonconforming lifestyle becomes, even small things like watching too much TV and staying up late. Once you get a taste of the Bliss of Love it’s painful to interact with others the way you used to. What is important for me to acknowledge is the fact that there people drowning in self-created misery and I can’t save them
Yes. Trout lake. It was already my plan. I would love to be more involved with Vedanta directly. I have been making more meditation/yoga friends and they are wonderful but scripture is not their strong suit ( although that doesnt stop them from trying. God bless them). I love meditation and it is critical for truly comprehending but meditation doesn’t make a wise person. With love and gratitude always.
Ramji: Cool. The only comment is that you needn’t love Joe at all because he isn’t real. There is only one self and that is you, the beauty that makes beauty beautiful, so it is easy to love. About meditation, you need to read my book, “The Power of Know.” Love you.
