Sam: I have a tendency to be very honest, and this often causes blowback karma for me. How do I deal with the feelings that arise before acting on them?
Sundari: All experience is just particular physical sensations, feelings and thoughts arising in the mind that exist for a bit and then cease to exist to make way to different physical sensations, feelings and thoughts that conform a new experience in a continuous cycle. But nothing is actually “really” happening. Nothing is being achieved or unachieved, because it is all the same and after all, you are the same that you were before with every experience, and none of those experiences stay.
The jiva exists apart from what it achieves/feels in the sense that the jiva is just the Self identified with the objects arising in the subtle body which he says are his or are him, so it is actually just awareness under the spell of ignorance owning some impersonal objects, and that’s why it exists apart from experience. If disidentification takes place, there is actually no jiva, because all there is are impersonal subtle objects arising in the subtle body by a doing of its own that function and go on whether you like it or not, and you know you are the knower of all of those objects.
So if the jiva knew this in the first place, he would know that the program, or Isvara, is putting those desires/fears there; it has nothing to do with him, it is not personal, and there is no point in participating in them, because nothing is actually happening and nothing is being gained or lost.
There is no reason to dig into the reasons for any tendency, although it can’t hurt if someone wants to purify it. One just works through the issues patiently. As less binding tendencies are purified, peskier ones emerge. The solution is simple. Karma yoga is desire/anger management. So when something happens that generates an emotion, you take it as prasad and offer an appropriate response to Bhagavan, i.e. the individual involved. Sattva is intended to manage rajas. It acts as an early warning system that neutralizes the rajas before it has a chance to morph into a deluding emotion and enter your karma stream to live another day.
Honesty is great, but non-injury is better, so when a strong desire to blurt out “your” truth arises, keep the Golden Rule in mind at all times. Sattva means patience, letting things clear up before you enter the fray. Sometimes just non-reacting produces the desired result, sometimes you must be a bit tricky and diplomatic. Rajas is painful, so it is hard to wait for Isvara to resolve issues, so sometimes the sledgehammer seems to be a useful tool. It rarely is, although the Gita recommends it in certain cases. Arjuna, who was rajasic, couldn’t kill Duryodhana with his sharp arrows which wouldn’t stick in Duryodhana’s tough hide. His brother, Bhima, who was tamasic, had to pound him to smithereens using a huge club.
~ Much love, Sundari
