Dearest Sundari
I have learned so much these last 8 years because both of you have committed to sharing your understanding with us and it has made such a big difference to me.
Sundari: Thank you, you appreciation is much valued by us. We are showered in the blessings of these incredible teachings, knowing how powerful they are and that they work. Testimonies like yours are proof of this.
Carla: The deep river of love that seems to flow below the mind bubbles up more and more, and some days I feel I could burst into tears with gratitude. But I am never sure that the qualities of love peace emptiness and this river of love that I notice when I am sattvic are reflections of the eternal or just the beauty of Sattva.
Sundari: The deep feelings of love you feel (the reflection) are both you and not you because the Self is independent of the reflection. Yet, is a ray of sunlight fundamentally different from the sun? Yes and no. Because reality is non-dual, everything resolves in the Self, so you can take the sattvic feelings to be a true reflection of who you are. But you are not your feelings. While the wonderful sattvic feelings are most desirable and common when Self-realization is firm, they are nonetheless objects known to you.
Sattva is the springboard for moksa because Self-knowledge will not obtain in a very rajasic or tamasic mind. But the danger of getting too attached to the good sattvic feelings is what we call the golden cage of sattva. It can keep you stuck, or engender a spiritual ego, a feeling of spiritual superiority (which I know you do not suffer from). The Self is unchanging and never comes and goes. So, when you are not feeling good or high on sattva, does that mean you are no longer the Self? Only if you are still identified with the conceptual jiva, i.e., the egoic doer. If you know that the eternal Jiva is the Self because it is non-different from you, then you enjoy the feelings but are not attached to them.
You are never not the Self. The Self does not feel like anything because it is not an object of experience. It is subtler than the experiencer. The bliss of the Self is not dependent on any feeling. It is simply knowledge, manifesting as rock-solid satisfaction and self-confidence. The jiva can be feeling totally rotten and in a bad mood, and you are still 100% in the bliss of Self. When Self-knowledge is firm, you have not gained anything. The knowledge removes the ignorance of your true nature, and then both knowledge and ignorance are gone, leaving only the Self.
In the scriptures, there are two kinds of bliss used to describe the Self, ananda, and anantam, as in “Sat Cit Ananda”, which means limitlessness. Ananda or atmaananda, is my nature, always present but not experienceable. It cannot be gained; it is to be claimed and owned. Anantam is the experience of my true nature in a sattvic mind, and as with all experiences, it ends. In the spiritual world, you find the confusion and misunderstanding of these two terms a great deal, especially in yoga.
Carla: Covid was really a challenge and I felt it could well be man-made. I have lived in India on and off for years and have had most of the fevers that India could serve up but nothing like Covid. I fainted one day and hit my head on the stone floor it looked as if John had given me a black eye it was so funny and then we both slept our way through the illness.
Sundari: Anything is possible in Maya, but nonetheless, nothing in mithya is man-made! While man may think it creates the only doer is Isvara. There are just too many factors in the field beyond the scope of mere mortals that it is impossible for jivas to be doers. So, what difference does it make? None at all. This is a tough one to take on board, especially when it comes to adharma, but there it is. Isvara is both dharma and adharma. That is just the only way the apparent reality can function to allow us to work out our karma. Keeping this in mind alleviates all the stress of worrying about all the supposedly bad things in the world. Just leave it up to Isvara.
I had the opposite of your experience when I got Covid, and so has everyone else we know who got it, strangely. Ramji and I got over vicious chest colds when we returned from our respective travels in August, and they were ten times worse than covid. Who knows. In mithya, Isvara holds all the cards and total karma yoga is the only sane response to everything.
Carla: This has been really helpful dispelled all questions; of course, it is me and not me. Suddenly, I got it, but I must have gotten caught in these lovely sattvic feelings, which are, of course, objects known to me. The question really is when there is firm knowledge it seems that there is more and more sattvic energy around, it happens on its own, and I should know better because it is all objects. And yes, a golden cage. But when I am very grumpy, that’s when I must be vigilant and not get caught up in ignorance. I am cooked but not cooked. I think on difficult days stuff swirls around and I was getting hooked on why am I not more sattvic!!!!
Sundari: Discrimination always comes down to which ‘I” is talking, and are we talking about? In this case, who gets hooked, who is cooked or uncooked? As the Self, you are the non-experiencing entity observing the play of the gunas for the experiencing entity, the jiva. And you are neither cooked nor uncooked; both are concepts known to you. No truly free person refers to themselves as enlightened or ‘cooked’, but simply as the Self. You are no less the Self if you are partially cooked, and the knowledge is not completely firm. There is still a vestigial jiva involved, and that is par for the course with nididhysana. This was the theme of my talk last Sunday night, as it is such a common problem for most inquirers, even advanced ones.
Of course, Self-knowledge produces a lot of sattva because that is the true nature of the mind when it is not hijacked by rajas and tamas, which is why self-inquiry entails aiming for peace of mind. But all states of mind are known to you, the Self, and never define you.
Much love
Sundari