Sam: It’s funny, I feel like I understand what you or Ramji say when you say you are speaking about the cause and effect teaching, but my mind feels like a sieve when I ask myself the question “what is the cause-and-effect teaching?” I’m not certain what the block is or whether there is one, but I am most certainly going to keep my attention on it until I feel comfortable that I can answer that important question.
Sundari: We have had several people write in recently on the topic of cause and effect, as often happens when Isvara wants to emphasize a teaching. So I am going to post this exchange as it is useful for others, I hope it is for you too, although I am sure you know most if not all of it. It is a good thing that this block in understanding has surfaced and you are putting your attention on it as the topic is very important.
The cause and effect teaching in Vedanta is an entry-level teaching and not that complicated, but it is subtle. In some ways it fits the religious narrative: there is a creator and a creation subject to it, and the creation is intelligently run by natural laws which cannot be transgressed without consequence, i.e., cause and effect. However, the Vedanta perspective on cause and effect, of course, differs in important ways.
Isvara, the impersonal creator, is Consciousness wielding Maya, not a personified deity. Unlike the religious creator, Isvara does not punish or reward but is simply the facilitator of karma. So, in truth, as Maya is the three gunas, it is these three forces that bring everything into manifestation, including the jiva construct or Subtle Body—i.e., the individual and its field of experience. There is no actual creator except beautiful intelligent ignorance. The creation seems conscious, intelligently designed, and run because the light of Consciousness shines on it, but it has no light or intelligence of its own.
The first stages of self-inquiry require investigating and understanding the creation, meaning the creator (Isvara), the person (jiva or Subtle body), and its field of experience (the world- jagat). Not to perfect the person in order to attain salvation for it in some hereto perfect heavenly world beyond the imperfect material world, but to negate both the person and the world in light of jnana yoga (Self-knowledge). To take a stand in Awareness as your identity and develop devotion of Isvara (as the Self, not a deity), to whom the jiva entity (person) owes everything.
But that is not the whole story because if this is a nondual universe, which we know it is, the cause and effect teaching is duality and Vedanta is about nonduality. The two never meet. Vedanta provisionally accepts duality because it meets the beginner inquirer where they are coming from – duality. It is a radical paradigm shift from duality to nonduality, so the teaching slowly builds the foundations for that essential liberating leap that the inquirer must make to progress to the next stage of self-inquiry, understanding the Isvara – jiva identity.
Unlike religion which places an all-powerful deity infinitely above and beyond the mere mortal, Vedanta reveals that as this is a nondual universe, there is essentially no difference between Jiva and Isvara except in two ways: Isvara is omniscient and the jiva only knows the objects it has contact with. Secondly, in their capacity to create. Isvara creates all objects, subtle and gross, the objective world, and Jiva creates its subjective world, its world of thoughts and feelings—which also come from Isvara, the gunas.
The next all-important question to be answered arises here, which is: if Isvara and Jiva are both Consciousness, what is real, and what is not real? Vedanta defines real as that which is always present and never changes, which cannot be used to describe the creation because we can negate it with Self-knowledge (jnana yoga). The definition only applies to Consciousness, the one, and only non-negatable, invariable, ever-present, unchanging witnessing factor. Vedanta calls the creation apparently real, which means, it owes its existence to Consciousness, it does not have a reality of its own. It does not stand alone because it is always changing and not always present.
That ‘something else’ is at the heart of inquiry, not as a subjective notion but as an identity issue. What, not who, I AM. The whole point of self-inquiry is to discriminate satya, nonduality/Consciousness, from mithya, the effects of Maya, duality. Vedanta is a progressive methodology so by eliminating all the inconstant variables, it is logical that the common identity between Isvara and Jiva can only be Consciousness. The person is an object known to Consciousness, and you cannot be what you know. Thus, the cause and effect teaching forms the bridge for the next step: The much more difficult non-origination teaching, which is about as subtle as any teaching can be.
Assimilation depends on whether the inquirer has the requisite qualifications, is properly taught, and has a thorough foundation in the first stages of inquiry. Though the inquirer may well have understood that they are the Self at this stage, as we often say, Self-realization is where the ‘work’ of self-inquiry begins. A common occurrence among inquirers is that they jump ahead before completing some of the important foundations for self-inquiry. This always catches up with them and holds them up in their quest for freedom from limitation and dependence on objects for happiness.
The completion of the steps of self-inquiry means assimilation, not being able to parrot the teachings. Some inquirers who think they must ‘learn’ Vedanta, miss the point that Vedanta is purely a means to an end: moksa. Once you know you are the Knowledge you no longer need the means. Others, like the Neo-Advaitins, deem the first stages irrelevant and just skip mithya entirely, heading straight to satya. Sadly, it does not work to impose satya onto mithya. To kill the beast of duality one cannot pretend that it does not exist. It does exist because you experience it; the question is, what is it? If there are still the remnants of a doer lurking it will stand in the way of an independent mind free of the suffering caused by duality.
For moksa to attain, duality must be negated entirely, and to do so we must understand what it is, there is no other way to establish your identity as Existence (capital E). Only then can assimilation of the non-origination teaching take place, without which Self-realization remains an intellectual understanding, it is not actualized. Moksa does not obtain. Though you say that the teaching does not stick, I am pretty sure that you understand both the cause and effect and non-origination teachings quite well. But there is somehow a disconnect in your discrimination of the difference between them, probably because something has not been assimilated.
As I said in my last email, it helps to think of the cause and effect teaching not as a means to explain the cause or the creation (though it does do both) but as a mechanism to negate duality (the doer) by removing the non-essential variables. These are anything other than you, the Self. Here is a recap.
As I am the Self, I am non-dual, limitless. whole and complete, without parts, without beginning or end. Anything other than me is impossible because non-dual means just that: nothing other than, no divisions, no parts. But as I am limitless, I contain all powers, even the power to apparently limit myself: Maya – beginningless ignorance—the cause, which makes me, the causeless changeless ever-present non-dual Self, appear to cause, to change, and to be many. I.e., it makes the impossible possible and seems to make me ‘become’ the effects of ignorance, Maya.
This is not an actual change like milk becoming cheese, which is irreversible. It is an apparent change because I, the Self, cannot cause or become anything being a partless changeless whole. To do so would mean I have to become something other than me, which is impossible. There is only me. So, I never enter into the apparent creation, the effects, even though the apparent creation only exists because of me.
Think of it like this: Just like a movie director/producer and cast do not enter into a movie onscreen, even though the movie exists because it was produced/directed and acted by them: they ‘caused’ the movie, the ‘effect’. But the movie is not real; it is just a projection, a trick of light on a screen. It cannot affect (modify) anyone other than psychologically. It’s all in the mind, as the saying and the teaching goes, which of course, is where everything ‘happens’!
I, the Self, am not your mind, which, like all effects, is an object known to me. Nothing affects or modifies me. So, though the Maya movie is me, I am the producer/director/actor, the apparent indirect ‘cause’ of it, but I am not it. Confusingly, unlike the producer/cast of the movie, I am not the actual cause of it. There is no cause in me because there is nothing other than me.
You can’t get something out of something that is incapable of modification–this is how the logic of the non-origination teaching destroys duality (assuming qualifications and assimilation). Though I mentioned it in our last exchange, it bears repeating because it answers the logical question:
How can Sat, Consciousness, be the basis of the material creation if it is non-dual Consciousness? The material creation is not material. It has no actual substance; it is a mirage. The deeper you delve into it, the further it recedes. Just like a movie, the creation is a projection caused by Maya, which is not the same OR not different from Sat, Existence/Awareness. Very important distinction, not the same and not different, essential to nondual vision, i.e., discriminating Satya from mithya.
Who then, is the witness, the knower of the creation, you may ask? I, the Self, am also called the non-experiencing witness or knower of the effects of Maya (ignorance): the Subtle body, or jiva/experiencing entity and all objects. But in truth, I am not a witness to anything as there is only me to ‘witness’ me. I am only a witness with reference to the witnessed when Maya is operating. When Self-knowledge removes ignorance of me from the Subtle Body (mind), there is no Maya for it. Non-dual vision is permanent. Self-knowledge is not an object to obtain, it is who I am, so once moksa obtains, both ignorance and knowledge are then just objects known to me.
Cause and effect are, therefore, words to describe Isvara (me plus Maya), and the doer, the effect (me apparently under the spell of ignorance…note apparently). Both Isvara and Jiva share their identity with me, which is real, but neither the Isvara nor Jiva construct is real, though as stated the cause/creation appears to exist just like the movie onscreen.
When Self-Realization is not indirect intellectual knowledge but a direct experience of Existence As Your Identity, Self-actualization obtains and you see everything as just ISNESS, the Self. You. There is no longer the need to take a stand in Awareness because you are Awareness, there is no ‘stander’ left. The reality of Maya, ignorance/duality, is no more, though duality still apparently exists, and you can enjoy it for what it is, it is as good as non-existent. As Maya no longer deludes, you never confuse ignorance with knowledge again, confusion and suffering for you are over. Mithya ‘becomes’ satya because there is no other option.
Much love
Sundari
