I take pleasure in my studies each day and in the knowledge that patient study, meditation, and inquiry will remove ignorance and reveal abiding freedom in time. I do not have bothersome doubts at the moment. However, where I find the most questions arising for me usually have to do with understanding the problems of evil/suffering, free will, and doership. On the problem of suffering/evil–how does saying “Isvara or the Self does not create evil, it emerges from Maya/Ignorance and jivas’ free will, resolve the Self’s accountability in a nondual reality?
James: There is nothing for the Self to account for in so far as these concepts are mithya, apparently real; they don’t affect the Self. And the Jiva is the Self so there is no accountability for it either. I will explain.
Mark: If there is nothing separate from the Self, then this includes evil and suffering in samsara, correct?
James: If you say there is nothing separate from the Self including suffering and evil, then the Self is not non-dual in so far as it “includes” something else. The word separate also implies Maya, i.e. duality (not a duality between Maya and the Self) but a duality within Maya where a jiva is situated. zero-sum.
Evil is a concept generated by ignorance of the Self. When a jiva doesn’t know it is the Self it is prisoner of its likes and dislikes and defines good as things that conform to its likes and evil as things that conform to its dislikes. From this standpoint there can be no absolute definition of good or evil since jivas are free to like and dislike anything they wish.
In so far as Vedanta only works if we provisionally accept duality because jivas are situated in duality, we need to see to it that jivas don’t blame themselves for evil or take credit for good in so far as both blaming and claiming keep the jiva firmly entrenched in duality. And we don’t want Jiva blaming Isvara/Maya either or it will not surrender to Isvara and grow to maturity.
So we speak of Isvara the first creation stage, assuming creation evolves, which it does from Jiva’s point of view. To create Isvara needs intelligence i.e. sattva, a material substance (tamas), and the power to transform the material into objects, rajas. The blueprint for the creation is embedded in sattva. Creation implies destruction. If something born didn’t die there would be no room for anything in the creation eventually. For instance, if you have deer, the deer has to die. So Isvara cleverly generates a mountain lion. Prey and predator, a tidy duality.
From the mountain lion’s and the deer’s point of view there is no good and evil because they don’t think they need to live happily or unhappily, a short time or a long time. They are not self-reflective, so when something “bad” happens it isn’t “bad.” But humans have intellects and always want to live another day so they generate good and evil thoughts, which fittingly is both a blessing and a curse in a zero-sum environment.
Good and evil come in the third stage of evolution after the creation of the material world. The jivas appear in the third stage because in the absence of a material world, how would they work out their karmas? Plants and animals don’t work out karma because they aren’t self-conscious. But when homo sapiens, an apelike creature, evolves intellect it becomes self-aware and is blessed or cursed according to its likes and dislikes.
Mark: It seems to me that from the non-dual Self’s point of view, evil and suffering are indeed dependent on Awareness–it is Self that gives birth to Maya, it is Self that illuminates good, truth, and beauty, and it is Self that illuminates evil, horror, and tragedy. And from Self’s point of view, this is all okay and perfect as it is for reasons this jiva’s intellect may not understand.
James: Yes, if you use cause and effect logic. However, the Upanishads state that there is only Awareness, so cause and effect logic doesn’t work, except from the worldly perspective, which Vedanta eventually negates. Nothing depends on Awareness because there is only Awareness and even if there were a creation, it couldn’t depend on Awareness because there is no connection between Awareness and the world, satya and mithya. If there were, freedom would be impossible because satya and mithya would impact on each other. The Self is associationless (asanga). It inhabits an hermetically-sealed Teflon “world” of it’s own, blissfully unaware of anything else. It is one without a second.
In so far as we tentatively accept the world we say that the world and Awareness are not the same and are not different. Dependent and independent are duality. Awareness wasn’t ever bound to objects so it can’t be set free of them. At the same time it seems as if it is set free when ignorance is removed.
If you understand Maya as Ignorance then you needn’t worry about cause and effect and karma because Vedanta pramana takes it away instantly in so far as the world, suffering, jiva, etc. are only thoughts generated by not knowing “I am unborn ever-present Awareness.”
Mark: On free will and doership: Is it necessary to posit free will? In nondual reality, in an actionless universe, isn’t free will an illusion and more like apparent free will?
James: Yes, our choices are seemingly real.
Mark: In truth, aren’t all actions, good or evil, mithya, and the result of Isvara/Maya and the gunas playing themselves out?
James: Yes.
Mark: If there is no action, how is there a doer at all? (I realize from my identity as the Self, I am not a doer, I am the witness to experience being done in apparent reality).
James: There is no doer.
Mark: Given nondual reality, given the role of Isvara, Maya, and the gunas, how is there free will, how does it operate, and from where does it arise?
James: It arises from ignorance of the Self.
Mark: Again, this doesn’t cause doubt for me. I am good with the knowledge that free will is apparent and an illusion, or that in some paradoxical way, jivas exercise some type of will apart from Isvara (or perhaps from within Isvara’s dream).
James: If you understand the meaning of apparent, you’re good to go. All these teachings are helpful at a certain level but as one’s understanding grows, they can be profitably discarded.
Chad: I’ve read and listened to some of your teachings on these subjects as well as others in the satsang database. The questions that arise around these issues are not the kind that threatens my confidence in Vedanta, however.
James: Great. You’re obviously a mature person.
Chad: I have studied spirituality, philosophy, and theology for decades. I realize these same issues surface again and again from every wisdom tradition and from wise and not-so-wise scholars trying to solve these paradoxes. I would like to have a correct and clear understanding for how Vedanta answers them. I know you have tackled these from students many times so I welcome your pointing me in the direction of those teachings on these subjects for me to look into further.
James: It sounds like there isn’t any “further” for you since you say that they don’t bother you. Apparent means unreal. The world, individuality, choice exist all right but they are as good as non-existent, however, since none of the things in Jiva’s mind impact the Self. Knowing the world as mithya puts the fun back in life.
Love,
James