I read your response, for which many heartfelt thanks (heart pangs a bit too given that it has disappeared into the ether and I cannot reread it now, but —), and I also read the satsang posted on Shining World to which you referred me. Perfect timing! Yes, confusion around one’s Swadharma can lead to suffering and confusion for the jivatman when a jivanmukta (who is really nothing more than jivatman) takes the dharma of a (in my case) father and grandfather more seriously than what one knows to be true, i.e., that the Swadharma of a jivanmukta is to live freely and to love freely (and as a perk, to enjoy, i.e., experience, the freedom which comes along with taking a ‘stand’ in Consciousness as Consciousness.
Sundari: Thanks A. The last satsang between us is posted on the website, title: Tilting At Windmills. The main message of the satsang I directed you to was not about the confusion about my svadharma or my attachment to my daughter, though the latter was part of the samskara. It was about the final maturation of a residual samskara, how subtle ignorance is even when Self-knowledge is firm, and the cost involved in terms of peace of mind.
A:You were spot on about my Jungian friend and his relegating ‘my’ thinking to an avocational pastime of retirement, though it is that as well as ‘my’ vocation (in the literal meaning of a ‘calling’ and leaving aside market economics with its leveling univocity so very different from OM Prem), from a mithya POV. More recently I sent him a short poem, to which he replied:
‘On the elegant, lovely bit of doggerel, I just dreamt that working with addicts is discouraging because of the relapses but God just wants us to love and grow consciousness, our own and others, the rest doesn’t matter.’
After explaining to him why Consciousness cannot be grown, I added:
‘Interestingly Isabella Viglietti aka Sundari, wrote me of her fall into anxiety through what Vedanta calls a ‘Samskara’ and Jung called a ‘Complex’ that in this instance bundled a familial (motherly/grandmotherly) suspicion-protection set of drives — which she ascribed to ‘showing too much compassion’ for her (Jiva’s, which I’ll translate here as:) role-playing self’s desires (entangled with its Swadharma or sense of personal duty, obligation) since it temporarily blinded her to exactly the point you make here (though she’d quibble with the wording) — her real Swadharma (one’s duty to oneSelf) is ‘to love and “grow” consciousness, our own and others, the rest doesn’t matter,’ as you put it. I recognized in her words and in yours, the readjustment I had had to make regarding ‘my’ daughter and grandson (suspicion & protection complex risen in my mind!) not long before — though I confess I do hope not to be again in the flesh driving her unconscious (coma-like) into a hospital’s ER (as I did on one occasion) nor to be receiving a phone message from her saying, ‘I’m dead!’ after she has again consumed a volume of alcohol she assumes — I.e., consciously concludes [that is to say, with an ego identified with her body-mind complex] — will kill her [her body mind-complex] (which contact of course sent me into an emergency mode of action I’d just as soon not have to repeat).’
With such wise correspondents as you and Sundari in ‘my’ life these days — affirmation, observation and truth always welcome!
Sundari: I am not surprised that your Jungian friend would not understand and I feel for you with regards to your daughter and grandson. It must be hard to stand by as a parent as he self-destructs. That is not something I have personal experience with and it must be tough karma to go through, my sympathies. ‘Our’ children are not ours, and we cannot resolve their karma for them, but it nonetheless must be very painful. However, as I said above, you did not quite understand the whole point of my Durodhyana Factor satsang. It is a no-brainer to love one’s children and part of the svadharma of a parent is to do what you can for them, up to a point, with the karma yoga attitude. Beyond that is interference or enablement. Doing the dharma of another is fraught with danger, as the scripture says. Freedom is not about curtailing any experience or role, just not identifying with them. I have no problem at all with my daughter, my svadharma as her ‘mother’ is crystal clear, as is hers as ‘my’ daughter. She is a glorious being, someone who manages her mind beautifully with knowledge, does not need protecting, and whom I greatly admire. Our relationship is one of pure joy to both of us.
The suspicion/protective samskara that arose for me at the time I was staying with her recently had nothing to do with that or her per se. The samskara is universal, not personal and it involved a residual unconscious fear of loss. It caused suspicion and sometimes harsh protective ‘honesty’ which played out across my jiva life, in all my transactions and relationships. It was known to me, and I thought I had negated it, but there was still a remnant that had to go. Isvara chose the perfect timing for its maturation. The main problem was that there was still a subtle ‘transactional jiva’, even after ‘moksa’. As stated above the main point I was making is how difficult it can be to route out residual ignorance in the last stages of nididhysana. How easy it is to pull the cloak of Self-knowledge around it. After all, if it is not you, why go there? Yet, how high the cost is in terms of peace of mind. Moksa is not really moksa until all ignorance is gone, no fine print.
A: However, now that I’m writing directly to you again, Sundari — thank you for your patience! — I too am a word quibbler. From my reading of Aparoksahnubhuti (years ago: I really should reread it with Ramji’s commentary), I see a distinction between Time as measure (actually I think this may result from a confusion of time with space, which is to say, movement in space as the essence of time) and Time as duration (as in an eternity, or eternity as non-dual duration and as such identical with Awareness, even if space, and all distance plus measure along with it, goes unmanifest!). Moreover, I do not see this analytic distinction as in any way contracting Vedanta, though I would not raise the point during a pramana presentation in which Time as measure (which surely exits in Mithya and hence ‘in’ Satya appearing as Mithya) is being negated as ‘Not-Self’ as ‘Object’ which is certainly a fact. Also, while I know it remains important not to confuse Vedanta with philosophy, I find the distinction made by Alfred North Whitehead between what he calls ‘Eternity’ and what he calls ‘Eternalities’ — the latter being those entities in Mithya (and indeed Mithya itself) that seem to last forever but are only apparently eternal — given a mind/body complex point of view useful to thinking clearly.
Sundari: Clearly you understand that time and space are objects known to you, the Self, that time has no objective reality and is just the distance between experiences. I am wondering if this intellectual quibble is not about something else? What are you really asking, and how does this inquiry help you? Or, are you just bored with too much time on your hands….
A: And thank you for bringing up the name of Stan K … but since I cannot retrieve the email with that mention, and I cannot recall how to spell his last name, I cannot seem to retrieve his email address in order to write him and express my gratitude and love. The last time he wrote me, he and his wife were attending his brother as he lay dying (which made me think of John Keats and the famous letter he wrote while attending his brother’s deathbed experience in which the famous but also not-so-famous Keatsian concept of ‘Negative Capability’ appears … a tool for negating the emotional security vasana to which you refer so insightfully). I of course wrote Stan back then but cannot find those emails either! Now I am beginning to totally waste your precious time. Just want to add: thank you Sundari! OM.
Sundari: Stan’s surname is Kublicki, and his email address is: maggistan@msn.com.
Much love
Sundari
