Hi X,
X: I understand why the 5/10/15 year time frame is realistic to fully understand and assimilate what Freedom means. It seems to me that Isvara is testing all the time, and as Swami C. said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of Freedom”. It seems very risky for the jiva to lay claim to being the Self. I understand that ‘shift’ of identity is crucial but doesn’t it happen by itself as we continue to listen and contemplate the teachings?
James: Not necessarily. If your faith in the teaching is middling or piddling, it may never happen. You have a say in what happens. If your desire for freedom is all-consuming and the other qualifications are in place, you will force Isvara to do your bidding, which will result in a permanent shift, which isn’t a “shift.”
X: Once ignorance is removed and peace and satisfaction are attained, it’s tempting to think we’re ‘in the clear’ so to speak.
James: Attained for whom? The Self is already accomplished even when you think it isn’t. Once the knowledge is hard and fast you are in the clear.
X: I know without a doubt I’m whole and complete and yet I must remain vigilant!
James: Why? You only have to remain vigilant if there is the shadow of a doubt. If you are the Self there are no doubts.
X: Again, a paradox! My appreciation continues to grow for the value of karma yoga as a safeguard against the arrogance of ‘my’ knowledge and the hubris of thinking I’m all done.
James: Sure, if it’s “thinking” that you are done. Knowing is different from thinking. Knowing destroys “thinking.” Is the pope Catholic? There’s nothing to think about. Anyway, what’s to guard if you’re the Self? Karma yoga is a preliminary stage for the Self that thinks it is a jiva.
X: As you often say, it’s a both/and, not an either/or when it comes to a Satya/Mithya understanding and living a Dharmic life, where we are accountable for our words and deeds.
James: Yes, up to a point, but satya and mithya are mithya. They are teaching tools, means to an end. Once the Self is known to be oneself, they are useless because Self knowledge means there is no jiva other than the Self. You drink a coke and you throw away the can. If the jiva survives Self knowledge, then it needs to do nididyasana,, which involves getting rid of the teachings that were helpful at one time, but which no longer apply. “What use is a small pond when the whole land is flooded?” As long as you are discriminating between satya and mithya you are still a jiva. Self knowledge is non-discriminating “wisdom.” “The one who knows, knows.” That the end of it.
X: To say we’re only the Self seems like more of the same drive to be something other than just what we are and opens us up to all manner of pitfalls. Would it be fair to say that it’s the Self that ‘claims’ the jiva instead of the jiva claiming it’s the Self?
James: Bear with me, this is going to take some time. The nididyasana stage only becomes relevant once the manana phase is finished. The manana phase is complete when the jiva is 100% convinced that it is whole and complete existence shining as consciousness, which is a “shift” from the misunderstanding that one is limited, inadequate and incomplete to the knowledge “I am whole and complete, adequate in every way.”
This shift ends the sadhana if there is a steady natural palpable current of bliss (ananda) and if everything that happens is handed over to Isvara, particularly the thought that I am a jiva doing sadhana and that I ever was a jiva doing sadhana. The nididyasana phase is nothing but a sometimes long series of “shifts” as you dismiss the idea that you are a doer over and over, which is a remnant of root Ignorance. These innumerable shifts, which eventually become less frequent, are simply a noticeable change in perspective when you let go of the idea that you are a doer. To say Isvara is the doer means “I am the Self.” Isvara can’t be a doer because Isvara isn’t a big jiva with karma. It is just the beautiful intelligent ignorance that generates the appearance of action in you, actionless awareness.
The ignorance about one’s identity is gone in the nididyasana phase but the effect of ignorance remains in the form of the claim that I am a jiva, which you establish in the first part of this email. I don’t know, but I assume that the series of incidents you recount produced a rajasic/tamasic reaction and you failed to offload the belief that something actually happened to “you” onto Isvara, which is usually the result of a lack of faith (shraddha) in the teaching itself.
So it seems that you haven’t completed the manana phase because you are looking at what happens as relevant to a jiva, when it is only relevant to Isvara. Failure to complete the manana phase is due to failure to complete the sravana phase, which is due to insufficient karma yoga.
What is karma yoga? Karma yoga is a cheerful grateful state of mind. You wake up in the morning and you think, “I like myself. I’m really lucky. I’ve got everything I want and everything I don’t want. I’m totally cool.” And you carry that thought as you brush your teeth, fix you coffee and get the day going. When the IRS bugs you or a dear person dies you see the duality, the upside along with the downside, and you appreciate how unreal that is. As Krishna says in the Gita “the wise grieve neither for the dead or for the living,” which means that you know that you had nothing to do with the taxes or the death of that person, etc. People don’t “make” mistakes. Mistakes happen by Isvara’s grace, meaning as a result of impersonal factors too numerous to calculate.
It’s not risky to claim “I am the Self” if your primary value in life is knowledge. If it is, you will accept the irrefutable logic of the teachings, which all result in the same statement, “I am completely adequate. I can cheerfully handle anything that happens to this body/mind/sense complex because what happens it not real.” For instance, In my case I have an absolutely fabulous life and I’m absolutely happy to leave this body when Isvara sees fit to remove it. I’m ceaselessly active but I don’t do anything at all. “The one who sees action in inaction and inaction in action” is free.”
Who is aware of the doubt you so carefully expressed in this email? The doubt doesn’t belong to that entity, which you seem to think is a “real” person named X. But there aren’t two entities. You don’t experience yourself as two entities. If you did you would have two or more of everything: bodies, minds, karma streams, wives etc. Well, you may have two or more wives if you are a Mormon. 🙂 That one entity is never what it knows.
If you want to worry, you are free to do so, but it doesn’t help if you take a stand as a jiva. And you have free will, in this case the power to see yourself differently i.e. as The Only Knower, which you experience as perfect dispassion and discrimination, etc. The qualities required to get “there” are the qualities of being there. You are the there there.
X: To say we’re only the Self seems like more of the same drive to be something other than just what we are and opens us up to all manner of pitfalls.
James: If it is true, then you are just a wanna be. How can you be a wanna be if you already are? If it is true there are no pitfalls. Karma yoga says there are no pitfalls. “There are no unwanted results for a karma yogi.”
X: Would it be fair to say that it’s the Self that ‘claims’ the jiva instead of the jiva claiming it’s the Self?
James: It wouldn’t be fair to say because the Self isn’t a doer. It is existence shining as consciousness. It is everything that is. It doesn’t know there is a doer and if it does it knows that the doer is just a concept cooked up by Isvara aka Ignorance, as good as non-existent.
You’re distracted and not thinking, X. If you thought about this sentence you would have realized that it doesn’t make sense and you would have traced back to the point where is all began. Anyway, I traced it back. Don’t feel too bad about it. The group mind is very powerful. It robs even intelligent, good, committed people of discrimination. It used to be quite rare for Vedanta people in our sanga to lose their discrimination but it has become more frequent since the pandemic. Some perfectly reasonable people who professed great love and respect for the apparent me and the apparent teaching for a long time now question both, probably because they exposed their minds to more media than scripture.
The final third of the teaching in the Bhagavad is about character, the value of values. It takes a lot of character to protect the mind from the hysteria of the crowd. As Krishna says, “Stand up and fight, O mighty Arjuna.” He does because he has character. He accepts the truth even though his emotions don’t. You need to be strong to stand up to uncertainty. What to do but summon up the strength and stand fast in truth? The alternative stinks. It isn’t helpful.
Much love,
James
Addendum:
Hi X,I’ve got a doubt now after rereading your email again a couple of times
When you said, “Would it be fair to say that it’s the Self that ‘claims’ the jiva instead of the jiva claiming it’s the Self?” did you mean that there is no difference between the jiva and the Self? I took it to mean that the jiva and the Self are different. If you meant that there is no difference, which is true, do you understand it is not the same but it isn’t different, See you soon,!
X. That’s funny! Damn the words and yet it’s the words that set us free! 
I meant that I have no doubt about what I am but that clarity came about by listening to you and Vedanta. I, as X, didn’t do anything other than sit my ass in front of the videos
Yes, I do understand that I and the jiva are not the same because I’m the knower of this body/mind, but it’s also clear that they are the same. The wave is not different than the ocean because they are both water but the ocean doesn’t depend on the wave for its existence. Everything depends on me as Awareness. Or, to say it another way, it’s me that makes this apparent world beautiful. The beauty of the sparkling waterfall comes from Me! ️
See you in Trout Lake!.
Ramji: Great!