Dear James, Dear Sundari,
From 2012 to 2015 I was a close follower of your teaching and visited your seminars whenever I could. Even though I understood the teaching intellectually my comprehension was flawed because I used Vedanta just for coping with life and because I was not getting what I want in my relationship and my business.
Sundari: Vedanta can be used purely as a coping mechanism because it is the logic of Existence. Karma yoga has a secular application and we have always said that the guna teaching can be uncoupled from self-inquiry and used as a practical tool for samsaris trying to improve the quality of their lives and make the world work for them. If an inquirer is not ready for self-inquiry, the nondual teachings of Vedanta will not assimilate.
But, if you have developed some of the qualifications for self-inquiry, such as realizing that the joy is not in the objects and there is nothing ‘out there’, you are looking for more than merely a ‘better’ life for the jiva. Once you get to that stage, there is no going back. No matter how much you try to get the world to work for you, it still disappoints. There is no way forward but through and this is where, if the mind is sufficiently qualified, you sign on to self-inquiry. You are very fortunate that you found Vedanta and particularly, James as a teacher. It is grace, and grace is earned.
Gary: My approach to life became nihilistic- nothing makes sense since this world is not real. I made up my mind to take it a little easier with my spiritual pursuits in order to accomplish something in the world. Maybe this would make my mind calmer and more peaceful. I never abandoned Vedanta completely though. I kept reading your books and visiting the Shining World HP.
Sundari: It is clear that you must have understood the basics of Vedanta and developed some ability to discriminate between satya, the Self, that which is always present and unchanging, and mithya, the jiva/world, that which is not always present and always changing. But the understanding is purely intellectual, it did not translate into your life, which is why the mind was agitated and gave up its ‘spiritual pursuits’. It is not easy to convert desire for the world and its stuff into devotion to the Self. For that, all the qualifications need to be present. An intellectual understanding is not enough and will not work to produce the fruit of self-inquiry, firm Self-knowledge. So what if you know you are the Self if you are still identified as a jiva with all its cravings?
Self-inquiry requires training the intellect to think differently and to want different things. While we need an intellect, it is not the intellect that removes ignorance. It is just an object known to you, the Self. You cannot ‘think your way to enlightenment because it is the ego, the doer, doing the thinking. The ego must surrender to a qualified teacher and the teachings and trust Self-knowledge to scour the mind of ignorance. But you turned to the world to find solutions to your agitation and sense of meaninglessness.
If an inquirer has assimilated that the world/life/desire is nothing but a strange mirage, this realization can cause an existential crisis. Vedanta seems nihilistic when the inquirer realizes that there really is nothing to the world or the life that they are living, nothing to gain or lose. A tamasic mind will see this as a great big void, and so pointless. Some people get stuck here for years until they develop enough sattva to realize that they have forgotten about the most important factor, the fullness that knows the void. Once that is known, life does not have to have meaning. You are the meaning.
The void disappears and everything is imbued with the perfect satisfaction of the ever-present, unchanging Self you are. Life can be enjoyed for what it is, without fear or worry. But that does not happen easily; usually, it takes a while. We have many satsangs and teachings on the three stages of self-inquiry which explain what they are and why it is so important to complete them all. I have attached two for you. Many inquirers forget or just don’t understand that the teachings of Vedanta are methodical and progressive for a good reason: ignorance/duality is hard-wired and nonduality is very subtle, which is why you need to be properly taught.
Marcel: Some coincidences lead me to an Ayahuasca Ceremony I attended last weekend, and I would have never expected anything close to what I experienced. Very early in that journey the sentence “Tat Tvam Asi” occurred in my mind and after a while, the great Story Generator called mind was totally muted. My intellect kept working as sharp and clear as never before. I inquired into all my stories, identities, and beliefs until there was nothing left but bliss, space, joy, and astonishment followed by the striking realization that this is not an experience. I am that! This is my absolute nature. The nature of everything! I couldn’t help myself but laughing wholeheartedly that I believed all those stories for my entire life. I believed those stories to be my life! In the aftermath, I even understood how Karma and Dharma would fit into this. Amazing!
Of course, ignorance set back in after some hours, but I’m incredibly grateful for this glimpse on the absolute. What other goal than this can there be now than establishing this realization for good? I do understand though, that it was not those Amazonian herbs that gave me this epiphany- it was the beautiful teaching of Vedanta. I suppose Ayahuasca just made my mind extremely sattvic, so that I had the intellectual clarity to conduct that inquiry. I feel sorry for the years I lost not being immersed in the teaching. Thank you and your team so much, Ram for doing this invaluable service.
Sundari: Your experience with Ayahuasca is very interesting. The plant world holds many powerful mind-blowing keys to the world beyond our senses that have the potential to be life-changing or a big trap. Your conclusions about the insights your experience on drugs afforded are astute, good for you. If you have read James’ autobiography you will see that he had many mind-blowing experiences on mind-altering drugs too. He consciously used them to gain insights into his vasana programs and found them very helpful in this regard.
These drugs have the power to remove some of the veil of Maya that keeps us from the full appreciation of the incredible power and beauty of creation and its non-separation from us. I find the scientific findings of the potential benefits both medicinally and psychologically of plant-based drugs fascinating. But they are also dangerous. Aside from possible addiction and bad ‘trips’, without a proper understanding of the experience, the experiencer will not assimilate the knowledge the experience is meant to deliver: that the wonder you are experiencing is non-separate from you. It is you.
James realized that though he could apply the insights he had obtained on the ‘out of body experiences’, nonetheless, the experience always ended. Moreover, having such a heightened experience created the strong desire to keep having that experience, i.e., bondage. While it seems at first to be extremely sattvic, the drug-induced experience can soon turn tamasic. Nothing comes without a price in mithya. There are no shortcuts to moksa. Isvara keeps those far-out experiences mostly beyond our senses for a reason.
The Self is powerful and beautiful beyond words, it is love itself. But it is also ordinary. Lucky for James, even before his spiritual path took him to Vedanta and his teacher in India, he had realized that he did not need the fantastic experiences on drugs because he was the one observing the mind on drugs. He saw that he was not the mind or its programs but the knower of both and he was on fire with that realization. By the grace of Isvara, his path from there took him straight to the court of last appeal, Vedanta. When he met his teacher Chinmayanda through a set of pretty incredible circumstances, he never looked back.
You are fortunate that you assimilated the knowledge through your drug-induced epiphany that the drugs did not give you anything, you are the observer and the observed. You could identify with the knower, the Self. You are also fortunate that you realized there is nothing to substitute self-inquiry. Coming to rely on an external process like drug-induced epiphanies can develop a vasana for the highs and getting stuck thinking that you cannot make progress without the drugs. It does not seem that this is the case for you, which is great.
Stick to your sadhana, make sure that you understand all the steps to self-inquiry, which are well outlined on our website. Only Self-knowledge can remove any remaining obstacle to the full appreciation of the wonder that is you. You do not need an epiphany of any kind to appreciate that because it is the truth of who you are, all the time.
Marcel: Thank you so much for your warm words. Before that Ayahuasca Experience my inquiry was heavily burdened with a sense of the pointlessness of my apparent existence caused by permanent disappointment and frustration. The Ayahuasca epiphany made me experience the bliss. In the morning I take long walks with my dog listening to James’s Satsangs and my mind becomes quiet and peaceful but still far from blissful.
Sundari: It sounds like you may still longing to have the experience of bliss back that you experienced on drugs. Knowledge is not doing it for you because the bliss you are after is not an experience. Blissful implies bliss-less. The bliss of the Self is not a feeling, though it can be experienced as a feeling, such as the bliss of deep sleep. It is just knowledge. The bliss of the Self is perfect satisfaction, all the time. No big impermanent high. Self-realization does not mean you suddenly start doing spontaneous cartwheels of joy or break out into song. The jiva is still subject to the ever-changing gunas and goes up and down. But YOU don’t go up and down. You are ever-present and unchanging, the one and only constant factor.
There is a big expectation in the spiritual world that ‘enlightenment’ transforms the life of the jiva bringing it unbroken bliss. This is not untrue. The problem lies in the misunderstanding of the word “bliss”. There are two kinds of bliss: ananda which is experiential bliss that ends, and anantum, which is the bliss of the Self and never ends. The bliss of the Self, that which is always present, unlimited, and non-changing is not an experience because it is your true nature, anantum. It is having all you could ever want and knowing that it will never leave you. It is love loving itself. It does not matter whether the experience of bliss is present or not. The bliss of Self-knowledge is always present because the Self is always present, regardless of what the jiva is feeling or what is or is not going on in its life.
Self-realization does transform the jiva as the mind sits still in the Self, if not all the time, most of the time until Self-actualization takes place. But that does not necessarily mean that the jiva or its life change. Moksa is not about changing the jiva but understanding what it is. If the inquirer applies the teachings to their life, Self-knowledge transforms the way life is experienced, not necessarily life itself. Though you know you are the Self, there is still work to do on binding jiva programs. Self-actualization takes a lot longer.
Marcel: My greatest obstacle is my business vasana which I try to exhaust with Karma Yoga. My Lord, what a battle! I can feel for Arjuna. Right here I need some guidance, dear Sundari. Whenever I catch myself thinking through new business ideas, I approach the upcoming excitement with the notion that I don’t have to act on them and probably should not I understand that seeking for new business ideas is prarabdha karma but there is also a different voice in my head that tells me that this is my Svadharma and my contribution to the field is in acting this program out.
Sundari: The reason why the scripture says that an inquirer who is committed to karma jnana sannyas should not embark on new ventures in business or otherwise is to keep the mind focused on the Self. If the mind is consumed by the desire for more, better, different, or the excitement of the chase, of gaining something, it is in bondage to dependence on objects for happiness. Moksa is about breaking the dependence, whatever they are, it makes no difference. Seeking new business ventures is a binding samskara that creates karma, as you are well aware.
It could be your svadharma if you have business vasanas and karma. Most likely the different voice in your head telling you that chasing new business ventures is your svadharma is the ego, still out to succeed in the world, hoping to gain something. There is no right or wrong about what compels us to act, and it is true that we must act in the world according to our Isvara given nature. But if there is a driving and binding desire for satisfaction through making business deals, you have yourself a problem, because that is not compatible with self-inquiry. You must decide what you want most.
Marcel: do understand on an intellectual level that from the self’s point of view it doesn’t matter if I succeed in business or not, but still, this question causes a lot of turmoil in my head. To me, it looks like that this is exactly the subject Arjuna was puzzling with on the battlefield.
Sundari: I don’t think you do understand why it is true that from the Self’s point of view it does not matter whether you succeed in business or not because if you did your mind would not be in turmoil. The Self truly needs nothing to succeed or be happy. It is full and free of bondage, free of desire. Desire agitates the mind because desire is painful. It wants what it wants not for the object but to end the desire itself. When the desire is satisfied, the mind feels blissful, for a while, until the next desire comes along, and off it goes again. It’s exhausting, like being tied to a charging horse.
The battle that Arjuna puzzled about on the battlefield was not really about his svadharma, he was certain of his nature and status as a great warrior, though he did experience conflict with this when it came to killing his friends and loved one’s in the name of duty. But his real conflict was about good and evil, right and wrong, ultimately, about duality and nonduality. Hence the teaching Krishna unfolds in the narrative of the Bhagavad Gita, which contains the whole methodology of the scripture.
Marcel: Karma Yoga means that I’m not attached to the results of my actions. I try my best for my current business and the actions I conduct on a daily basis for this business. But I also feel that I must change a lot of things or even start something completely new. But this would cause new Karma which I have to act upon and probably deter me from more simplifying my life. Any advice is wholeheartedly appreciated.
Sundari: Secular karma yoga, non-attachment to results, is very different from sacred karma yoga, but it can be applied by doers to get what they want in the world without stress. For dedicated inquirers, sacred karma yoga without desire is not purely non-attachment to results, it goes further. It does not mean that we stop doing but that we understand we are not the doer, Isvara is the only doer. This is a whole different perspective. If your desire to do business is purely a practical issue and does not bind you one way or the other, there is no harm in it. But that is not the case, is that not so? It sounds to me like the desire is binding.
As I said in our first exchange, it seems that the knowledge that you are the Self has obtained, but complete freedom from the personal program has not. There are still binding mental/emotional patterns to purify. Up to now, karma yoga went from relinquishing results of actions to the Field and taking given results as a gift, to the next level, renunciation of the idea of doership, and, of desire.
Short Teaching on Sacred Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga without Desire
In the last stage of self-inquiry, Self-actualization or nididhysana, karma yoga becomes a different kind of mind management, karma yoga without desire, or Sacred karma yoga. It is for more advanced inquirers. It is the transformation of our remaining binding mental/emotional conditioning into devotion to the Self. At this stage, you have given up needing anything. You are no longer the boss; the scripture is the boss. You are not after ‘God’s stuff’. You are after God (Self), period. It’s not that you no longer have desires, but all desires are preferences and not contrary to dharma, directed to the Self. Self-actualization is managing the mind’s involuntary, habitual thoughts and feeling patterns, which are bedrock duality and often survive Self-realization.
These patterns can still hijack the mind without a moment’s notice, denying it access to the Self in the form of Self-knowledge, so you are still bound to the egoic program, as you are experiencing. Hence the dogged ever-present dissatisfaction of the ego. There is nothing inherently wrong with involuntary thoughts, but they tend to immediately morph into actions that are liable to create unwanted karma in the form of obscuring thoughts and emotions. Therefore, guna/mind management continues. Until this stage is complete, Self-actualization has not taken place and discrimination can be lost, if not permanently, at least temporarily. You are not free because limiting thoughts and desires still bind the mind.
Vedanta cannot tell you what to do, or what is the truth of your situation. You are not wrong to chase new business deals. But if your desire for freedom from dependence on objects is greater than your need for the objects, then you need to be completely honest with yourself and ask yourself the tough questions. Why do you need to chase new business ventures, do you need the money to live, are you not comfortable enough, what are you hoping to gain?
Self-inquiry will not work to set you free and give you the permanent satisfaction of the Self until you are absolutely clear about what it is you want most. And then commit yourself, either to self-inquiry or to chasing experiences in the world. You cannot do both.
Much love
Sundari
