Ramji,
Greetings once again. I hope all is well with you and your life.
James: All is good.
I have had much time to reflect on what you told me. “What good is honestly without self discipline?” Indeed. What has become real for me is a shift from questioning to enacting. I no longer feel as though I have any specific questions about the Self or Creation or even the Jiva necessarily. Not that I won’t in the future, but that knowledge seems secondary to the reality of freedom.
Without the distraction of family life, my flickering between the experience of freedom and lingering desires has become more acute.
James: You don’t flicker. The mind flickers.
I am noticing a marked difference in the quality of my thinking when engaging in even the slightest deviation of lifestyle. Such as hanging out with tamasic people for a couple hours. Or eating a heavy meal prepared in a tamasic environment.
It’s not that I feel judgmental towards others. But I am feeling the effects of my lifestyle choices more than ever. I suppose I have entered a period of cultivating desire for these things to change permanently.
James: Permanent change is an oxymoron.
At 48 I am seriously late to the party. But as I continue to write about my life I am realizing the severe handicap I have been working with emotionally from a very early age. It really is a miracle that I have come toward spirituality at all, much less find myself contemplating liberation. I am not sure if there is anything I can do to help the process along?
James: Just keep doing your practice with increased commitment.
Does the mind just get more and more sick of unhealthy lifestyle choices as awareness dawns and eventually give up? I’m not sure.
James: Be sure. Of course it does. If scripture says it, you can bank on it. I say it too. Don’t doubt the teaching.
It seems I am headed that way, but I’m more and more frustrated by even the slightest setback.
James: Karma Yoga. The results are out of your hands. They come when they come.
And it doesn’t seem to be the actions themselves that are the issue. It is the uncontrolled habitual engagement. The lapses of conscious choice compelled by a lifetime of action. I find myself wondering who or what this incarnation would be without the continual struggle of bad choices and their effects.
James: It would be a doubt-free incarnation. No second guessing the teaching. Regret is ugly. Self pity is ugly.
Whenever I first try something it is disappointing to fail. But eventually after enough effort there is a feeling that success should come and a mounting frustration at even the smallest failure. I wonder if I am being too hard on myself. That is a tendency of mine. But then again giving myself a break doesn’t help either. Thoughts?
James: Don’t think you’re the self that needs a break. There is no mention of success or failure in the list of quaifications, only the state of mind that evolves from a string or failures or successes. If you succeed in everything and think you are wonderful, you miss the point. If you fail at everything and think you are terrible, you miss the point. A qualified mind is says, “I failed. So what?” A qualified mind says, “I succeeded. So what?”
Ram