Nathaniel: Sundari, thank you for your friendship. It means a lot to me. Please share any or all of this with James if he has the energy and interest. It feels weird to send a status update that isn’t addressed to him, but you and I have a separate relationship, and he seems busier than ever. I love you both, thanks for teaching me and for your kindness and friendship.
Sundari: Yes, of course I will, and have been doing. He is never too busy to hear from you, so feel free to write to him too. He knows how much I like you, that you are writing to me and we are becoming friends, that you have expressed interest in working with SW publications in the future. He is delighted by both. We both love you. When you are the Self and love as the Self, ownership does not exist. Who can own love? It is Isness.
As do I, James has many friends male and female with whom he has the same love he has for me. It can only be because there is only one love. We extend this love to everyone, friends and inquirers alike, though not many come directly into our personal orbit. Either because they are not ready, afraid, or it is not their karma. Isvara choses. Some who do come in get ejected because they can only relate to us as people. Inevitably they start to judge us for not living up to their projections, for whatever reason.
Nathaniel: I have really wanted to know more about how enlightened people live in the world and how they relate to each other. I have asked James but he evades the question a little, at least he did in the beginning. I read the Avadhuta Gita and the Ashtavakra Gita and they are inspiring but not so practical. I remember in one email I asked James something like “was I supposed to start enjoying country music” after self-realization? It was meant to be funny, but it was the last of a long list of questions about how people live after self-realization because for me, the Nathaniel personality continued to be as dysfunctional as ever and I mostly didn’t care.
Sundari: I don’t think James evaded this question. Maybe you were hoping to hear some magic formula? Many who want to believe that being the Self confers specialness want to hear that we are somehow exalted, that the normal rules of life do not apply to us, or ‘becoming’ the Self obviates the need for any inconvenient jiva adjustments. It comes as a great disappointment to know that this is false. Though moksa is only for the person because as the Self you have never been bound, the person will not change that much in terms of its personality. You better learn to like it. You will not suddenly start loving country music (thank God), or any other weird thing you never did before! And you won’t magically be transformed into the idealized version of you that your ego thought you would become…too bad. Here is where Vedanta ‘loses’ the spiritual materialists….
You are the Self, the jiva is made the way it is made, and though it is a flawed entity, it too is the Self. When you know you are not it but the Self, you no longer censure it or indulge it. That said, if the nondual teachings are put into practice and assimilating (i.e., cleaning up the sewer of the unconscious, no excuses), you as a person will improve simply because your relationship to yourself and everything else changes for the better. You will like yourself so much more – not sometimes, but all the time. Gone forever is all that boring and tedious self-hatred. It all starts with the mind, and if that is purified, your relationships and life will reflect it. It has no choice but to do so because how you live is a print out of the state of your mind. When you are the Self, you are the embodiment of dharma, and you live ‘clean’ effortlessly.
But because duality endows all humans with the scourge of egoic smallness, living as the Self – actualizing Self-knowledge – is simple but not easy. Especially if you have never been loved, truly loved. That is the most difficult barricade to Self-knowledge. You will not know how to love, because you just cannot accept that you are worthy and you are love. That is the essence of the Self, and of a joy-filled life. If you have all this love bottled up inside, unable to be expressed or received because it is unknown or cannot be believed, it’s so painful. It has nowhere to go and is the driving force behind all smallness and blinding desires that never deliver. Like lying in bed all day watching TV eating junk food….
A bit like the poor relative you told me about with the bladder problem who despite drinking so much awful Kool-Aid, couldn’t pee and was screaming in agony. Thankfully Nathaniel as God came to the rescue for him. Now you need to let God rescue Nathaniel so that he can be God. Nathaniel has no choice because God will not let you rest until you surrender to God what belongs to God.
Natthaniel: I’ve wanted more of a “chop wood, carry water” account from people who have been self-actualized for some time. Can you tell me what it actually boils down to?
Sundari: The chop wood and carry water of living with someone as the Self is the same as anyone else. You do what needs to be done. You enjoy, delight, annoy and bore each other according to what guna is playing out. As stated, what is different is how you relate to everything and everyone in your environment. If you are not free to feel what you are feeling, how free are you? It’s a question of how you see your feelings. As the Self, you know your feelings are objects known to you, no more than temporary indicators of whatever gunas is passing through.
When conflict arises, which of course it does even in a nondual relationship, it’s Ok. You are not trying to be a saint, or perfect. The game changer is that you are not identified with your emotional state of mind, though you are fully cognizant of it. You resolve all ‘personal’ issues with reference to you, the Self, not the ‘other’ person – even if they are quite legitimately being a pain in the butt – which of course, the Self can be!
Being the Self certainly does not mean that you conjure up the perfect partner or life. You know that all jivas including yours are programs which operate a certain way that will not change, and you don’t expect anyone to change to suit you. Everyone is true to their nature, what use is control? Self-knowledge and karma yoga takes care of everything. You get to be a ‘normal’ person just like anyone else and yet you are ‘extraordinary’ because you know you are the Self. All the lights are on. And life is a lot of fun.
You live in the world but are not of it. The world is in you. Duality is enjoyed for what it offers – and it offers a lot which is beautiful. Like touching and holding a beloved, looking into their eyes and seeing the Self – you, enjoying a great cup of coffee or meal, laughter, feeling your body or their body, move, the caress of the wind on your face, the beauty of Isvara’s creation. So much. But you are not dependent on any of it for your happiness. You can be having a really bad jiva day and the bliss is still there. That is the bottom line.
What being Self-actualized boils down to is being Self-satisfied, as opposed to object dissatisfied. You don’t expect anyone or thing to love you, take care of you or provide you with happiness. The lover and the beloved are liberated from the need to be different, to love, and to be loved. They just are and they just love. That love is open, transparent, constant. It doesn’t come and go because you, the Self, do not come and go. You can’t lose it. Even if a nondual relationship had to end, which like any other, it can, the love would not end. It is the same in death.
Nathaniel: Are there any rules that apply?
Sundari: Yes, there are dharmic rules that apply, of course. The person may not be real but they do exist, so non-injury, respect and honesty are the basis for peace of mind in all good relationships. As is integrity in living according to your partnership contract. Like anyone else, when James and I first got together we had to work out our relationship contract. This is so important for harmony because life is transactional. Both people need to be very clear about their values and what goes into their contract. Perhaps more important, what does not go into it.
We sometimes refer to our roles as ‘married’, and James gets a lot of mileage out of making fun of me as ‘the wife’ when he is teaching. But in actual fact, we have never been ‘romantic’ or ‘married’ in the conventional understanding of those terms. That is not why we are ‘together’. James has primarily been my teacher, and we are together to do the work we do. Apart from having the same life values, our strongest connection is intellectual/spiritual.
We have agape love, the highest form of spiritual love, that of selfless service. Deeper than friendship but not excluding it. Even though we entered into a clearly defined nondual partnership, our karma was not straightforward, mostly because we are very different as people. This is sometimes a source of conflict, which karma yoga takes care of. Unlike James, even though I knew I was the Self when I entered the partnership, I had work to do on disassociating with my jiva identity. It takes as long as it takes and it was not an easy ride. Self-actualization only obtained about three years ago. James has been actualized most of his life. I had a lot of catching up to do.
Who knows how long he, or anyone, has left. We are all on borrowed time. Sooner or later will all be in that liminal place between birth and death where we face the ultimate renunciation. We are not afraid of death because we were never born and don’t die. Love is eternal. But we will miss the jiva’s delicious dream woven life. Though we were never holding on to each other or really attached, we have let go of our story. James has spread so much happiness in this world, his legacy will outlast us all. He has given me, and so many others, so much, it’s impossible to quantify. Our time together has been truly blessed, and borne the fruit of Self-knowledge, the ultimate prize. There are no words to express the gratitude I feel.
Here is an excerpt from a poem of mine. It’s the inspiration for my art piece (2020) the Universal Jiva on the cover of the second book of my trilogy – Lifestyle Solutions. It describes the Universal Being
One more turn of the Infinite Circle
Hidden, secreted away in Heaven’s cleft,
Where the foot leaves no print
And I shall be gone from here
I will walk in gardens holding hands
Creature and Creator
We will touch one another
Like lovers torn from death
To say goodbye
We will lie in each other’s arms
And awaken as One
Invisible to the other
Today I isolate that part of me
That is always present
I dance with it
Like moonlight on water
I hold it to myself
In a longful embrace
That beats perfection
In the hymn of the Time keeper
One day when I leave
I will dream of you
This flesh covered bone of animal
I might yearn to know your life again
And reach out to you
As you now reach out to me
Such magic!
Glory to covet the Unknown
The One that Knows
That which is not
Is always searching for that which Is
That which cheats appearances
Who dreams itself awake and asleep
And who knows that both sides of the canvas
Are painted, awaiting the other
To meld anew
One day
Out of this flesh covered cocoon
I will rise like a golden bird
Of silent wing
Graceful as the smoke of a fallen flame
And dream no more of places
Hidden, secreted away in Heaven’s cleft
Where the foot leaves no print
I know the secret of secrets
I Am my True Home
All Ways Here
Sundari