Dear Ramji,
I have 2 questions for you. I understand that you are very busy with the regular emails and especially with your preparations for going to America, so please pass this on to one of the other teachers if you think that that would be helpful.
I am listening to the Carbondale series again and you mentioned that a woman became depressed for two years after realizing that the world is empty. Between January and April this year I was also what I can only describe as depressed, when all the meaning disappeared from my life, it was also winter and lockdown and possibly a reaction to the Covid vaccination. I have never experienced that before.
I have used Rajas to get out of that. I volunteer for a sailing charity and have several friends who are very active in running and cycling. While I have had many insights that I am full, whole and complete, that I am not this body/mind complex and that the one who is looking out of these eyes is consciousness, I am still aware of an underlining dissatisfaction and that ‘my’ life, as it is, has lost its meaning. I also feel that making radical changes at this point, without a clear idea of which changes to make, is not the answer.
Ramji: It’s wise not to make changes until you understand and when you understand you will see that no changes are necessary.
You are identifying with the one who owns the life. Can you take credit for the fortunate birth, the intelligence and the rajas necessary to actualize “your” likes and dislikes. Did you ever decide to like or dislike anything or did they spring up from within without your permission? Did you generate the feeling of dissatisfaction that you now experience? Is it possible that you feel dissatisfied because you are claiming something that you aren’t responsible for? Perhaps you should revisit karma yoga. If you are the author, you are the owner. If not, not. Of course there is guilt. Just as the wise don’t grieve over misfortune, they don’t rejoice at good fortune. Every single object, event, situation, thought and feeling belong to Isvara. You, Awareness, create nothing. And in so far as you think you are a jiva, only ignorance creates the story that anything belongs to you. So even feeling bad about “me and mine” doesn’t belong to you in so far as nobody decides to be ignorant. Jivas are born in ignorance.
X. Secondly, it seems that I am halfway between knowing that I am the self and still identifying as X, this very privileged and sometimes painful role that I am playing in Isvara’s magnificent drama. I often forget that I am playing a role especially when I appear to give so little and take so much, it is not straightforward to understand how to change that in a meaningful way.
Ramji: Isvara says, “I remember and forget.”
X. It’s a strange mix of accepting this privileged life as prasada from Isvara, which I have carefully constructed over the years as a result of my likes and dislikes, and feeling guilty, perhaps the result of a good catholic upbringing, that I am definitely not suffering when most of the world seems to be in turmoil. I am very aware that I have had an auspicious birth, amazing parents and family, and have been found by a wonderful teacher and Vedanta.
Raamji: You change it in a meaningful way by exercising your free will as a jiva to cede your free will to Isvara and enjoy the bliss of the “being experience.” The satisfaction that you seek only lies in being what you are. Being is not a verb. When you accept the knowledge produced by the logic of the teaching you gain perfect satisfaction because you understand that everything that happens, happens by the grace of Isvara. Letting go is the only relevant doing, which isn’t a doing. It happens when you see that you are actionless existence shining as awareness, which comes when you understand that too many factors go into producing each and every specific experience for which you claim credit. So you aren’t playing a role. You seemingly play a role when you appreciate the nature of Isvara but seeming roles are actually non-existent roles so you needn’t think about what is happening. If satisfaction or dissatisfaction appear they are thoughts, duality in action. You are the already satisfied self.
The teaching is simple and elegant because the truth is simple, but it’s not easy to accept owing to the Self’s fixation on an object that it never was nor can ever be. Ignorance creates a beautiful, complex, interesting dream populated by fascinating animate and inanimate objects that are taken to be real, one of which is a fortunate person. When you accept the knowledge, the dream ends and with it the guilt that comes from not knowing. Guilt is not a mistake. It is a “miss take.” Vedanta points it out and you are free.
And remember. Ignorance is beginningless but it isn’t endless.
Love,
Ramji
X. Thank you very much and I wish you a wonderful and safe journey to the States and around Europe.
