Note: This is an updated and improved version of the satsang I posted earlier this week titled, Big Picture Carrot on A Stick. It contains some important additional information on Isvara.
Carrie: Thanks for your last reply to me Sundari, it was really helpful. So, Vedanta is highly sophisticated and very subtle, I get that. But its basic message is simple, right? I am Unborn Undying Ever-present Unchanging Awareness and not the messed-up person I think I am, living in a crazy messed up world consisting mostly of ‘other’ similarly messed up ‘people’, always looking for something and never finding it. Neither the person I think I am, or the world is real. This is a hard sell though, I mean, it all LOOKS and FEELS so REAL. Why is it so hard to wrap my head around this?! I get it intellectually, kind of, but it does not sink in. Help me out here, this really stresses me out! I understand it must be true that I am the Self following the logic. But this only takes me to first base and not much further. I need to understand the whole shebang, right? The whole Mandala of Existence, ignorance is hardwired, it takes years and years and all that. This depresses me! Does it have to be so hard? Can’t you give me the whole story, in a nutshell, you know, like a guide, a carrot on a stick?
Sundari: Self-inquiry is hard; I know and sympathize with you. But it is also exhilarating, not to mention a great relief, once you get on board with the idea that it is the only way to end your suffering. Non-duality is so counter-intuitive because we rely on our senses to figure out the world around us. Humans may be the hoof and crown of creation, but we have many impediments, the main one being that the only means of knowledge available to us are perception and inference. Neither are subtle enough to know the Self; the object can never know the subject. Our sense organs are amazing and very convincing instruments, but they have a limited bandwidth which only operates in duality.
To understand something that is not in duality you need another means of knowledge, which is the nondual teachings of Vedanta. Vedanta provides the pristine logic of why your true nature is not in duality, as a person, but that the person/duality is in you, nondual Consciousness, the true you. As you have figured out, intellectual Self-realization of this is not enough to set you free. To be completely free of the hypnosis of duality, you need to hear and assimilate the whole teaching.
Rajasic extroverted minds like yours have a hard time signing on to the day in and day out of self-inquiry, it sounds like such a grind. And it can be because ignorance is so repetitive and tenacious. It just won’t give way to Self-knowledge easily for most inquirers. Unappealingly, self-inquiry involves facing the not so fabulous aspects of the mind to negate it. It does not work to just jump over the fence and claim that you are the Self, who cares about anything else? Would that it could be so easy. Sadly, customs are very strict at the border.
But you are in luck because Vedanta is the ultimate carrot on a stick, to use a very bad metaphor for the Royal Secret, the knowledge that ends the quest for knowledge! Vedanta offers the only way out of the quandary of human suffering because it is a valid means of knowledge for the Self. That is the good news. However, there is a catch. The bad news is there are no shortcuts to liberation.
Vedanta is not spiritual fast food, it’s the most nutrient-dense reality diet available, not a quick fix, which accounts for why so few are sufficiently motivated for it. It requires qualifications, just like signing up for a degree at university. Though the difference is that Vedanta is not something you can study. It does not offer a degree in enlightenment; there is no mastery of anything because it does not give you anything you don’t already have. It only takes away your ignorance. And that, dear inquirer, is a long haul for most. So, it’s not attractive to most spiritual materialists looking for fast answers to their long suffering. But take heart, you have come to the right place and help is at hand.
If you have followed our instructions for self-inquiry, at minimum reading James’ book The Essence of Enlightenment (slowly and carefully, particularly chapter 2), you must know that it takes not only qualifications but lots of determination and grit to stay the distance with self-inquiry. There is a methodology to be followed which is explained in the satsang I sent you on the steps involved in Self-inquiry. It ain’t easy, there is just no way around that, sorry! You must be properly taught but nobody can do the work for you. You are either in it boots ‘n all no matter what, or Vedanta is not for you. It really comes down to that.
I think you do know that, at least partially, from our previous discussions, so I will not go into what self-inquiry entails again here. Please make sure you contemplate the satsang I sent you as well as read James’ book and watch as many of his videos as possible, sign on to the free courses we offer online. Get stuck in, as they say, despite the ego’s long lament. That said, at the risk of making the Big Picture sound simple, and it is far from it, I will do my best to sum things up for you in a short version Big Picture Carrot on A Stick kind of thing.
But be warned: the devil is in the details.
Ok, the Big Picture. Ever noticed how scientists scramble trying to find out what happened before the Big Bang, and they can’t because they don’t get that there is nothing there to reason from? Well, if they understood that reality is non-dual, they would know that, but they don’t. Right, so there is no ‘first’ because that implies last, and in a nondual reality, there is neither. Time and space do not exist here, which is a stretch for most to grasp. But let’s just say that prior to everything we know as this world there is unlimited attributeless unchanging Pure Consciousness. The substrate. It knows only itself because there is only itself, it does not think because to think there would have to be objects to think about and there are no objects. Pure undifferentiated bliss, which cannot create because to create there would have to be something other than it. Which there is not. So how do we get the Big Bang?
Pay attention because here is where it gets hard. Pure Consciousness is real (meaning always present and unchanging) therefore, it is unlimited. Unlimited means it is not conditioned by anything. To qualify as unlimited, Consciousness contains all powers including the power to do the impossible, which is to apparently limit itself. Emphasis on apparently. Maya, duality, or beginningless ignorance is a power in Consciousness. It is neither real nor unreal, which is very problematic. What the heck is that? Apparently real is hard to understand but is simple in theory: it means not always present and always changing. What is real is not subject to change, but Maya is the power in Consciousness to delude by making the real (unchanging) appear to be unreal (changing) or vice versa. Like a magic trick, and it is very convincing. So, when Maya appears, the fun and the trouble begin. Hence, the Big Bang.
When Pure Consciousness in association with Maya, called Isvara (the creator), waves its magic wand, the world of shiny objects manifests. There is now apparently something for Consciousness as Isvara (please note) to know. Important point repeated: though all the apparent objects arise from and are made up of Pure Consciousness, including Isvara in the role of creator, Pure Consciousness being nondual does not know anything other than itself because there is only itself. Isvara is the only knower because Maya makes apparent objects for to know, like rocks and socks and dogs and humans. Humans think they know a lot, but their knowing anything is ENTIRELY dependent on the presence of Consciousness. Take away Consciousness and you have inert insentient matter. How scientists’ reason that inert matter somehow got fired up and produced Consciousness is one of life’s great unsolved mysteries…
So, Maya, the wily clever magician, makes it look like there is a split between the subject, Consciousness, and the objects appearing in it (the body/mind/sense construct), through the hypnosis of duality, which everyone falls for, even the pragmatic scientists. Nonetheless, there is no split because the objects are Consciousness, though just as a reflection in a mirror. The mirror is Maya. Thus, though the objects are Consciousness, Consciousness is not the objects.
Do you ever confuse your reflection in the mirror for the actual you? Well, you may if you are a narcissist, but most don’t. So, though duality is only a seeming and not an actual ‘thing’, what Vedanta calls a superimposition onto nonduality, now we seemingly have two things: Nondual Pure Consciousness, and Maya—an apparent creation (person/world) with an apparent creator—Isvara.
The creation is governed by three forces called the gunas (energies): sattva, the energy of intelligence/peace, tamas, the energy of matter/inertia, and rajas, the energy of action/passion. These three energies make up the material world of gross objects and the subtle psychological (mind/thoughts/feelings) order of reality. As humans are the only self-reflective creatures with free will, they can accrue ‘good’ (punya) or ‘bad’ (papa) karma, according to their actions. There is no karma for any other sentient beings in that only humans can act against their inborn svadharma, or nature (program), and go against Isvara.
Some may disagree but it is much easier living in this world if you are not a human. Though other sentient creatures (including the plant world) are no less terminal and in addition suffer terribly at our species’ rapacious hands, only humans suffer psychologically thanks to self-reflectivity and free will. Nonetheless, all sentient and insentient life are subject to Isvara’s inbuilt laws and the gunas, the forces that govern the Field of Existence, which are synonymous with, and other terms for, the creator, Isvara. Because Isvara is actually Pure Nondual Consciousness, it is unaffected by the creation and the gunas. Isvara is the Law, the Beautiful Intelligent Master Magician.
You can call it God if you like. But as that term has so much baggage attached to it and a problem for many, it’s easier to call Isvara the creator. Or the Universal Force, the Field of Existence, whatever, as long as it is not a personal deity. Isvara is simply the impersonal principle behind creation. I know this does not appeal to those looking for something warm and fuzzy to believe in, but that’s just the way it is. Vedanta is the science of Consciousness, the logic of Existence, not a belief system. End of story.
It may sound cold, atheistic, and nihilistic, but it’s actually the opposite when you understand WHAT God is, that it is non-separate from you as a person or as Consciousness. Vedanta may not be a religion (or philosophy) but it absolutely encourages a religious devotional ATTITUDE. To whom, you might ask? To Pure Consciousness, YOU, in the form of Isvara. Why? Because you are beautiful, your essence is non-dual love, life is beautiful and a great gift. From Isvara.
The sentient world is made up of animal fish bird insect microbial and plant life. Animals are the most complex sentient beings with humans the most complex of all as only they possess the power of self-reflection and free will. This is both their super-power and their downfall. The latter because it binds them to desire and insufficiency, chasing objects in a vain attempt to feel whole and to find meaning. The former because self-reflection allows them to figure out who they really are and escape the whirlpool of samara (duality) the world of experience from which there is no escape except through knowledge.
This is more bad news and another tough lesson to take on board (especially for all spiritual egos in yoga pants): no action or experience will take you out of duality (no matter how ordinary or extraordinary) UNLESS it leads to the realization that you are the knower of the experiencing entity, the doer. This is called Self-knowledge. An experience may at best be a leading error, in that it inadvertently takes you to the right place: Self-knowledge. But if the knowledge that the experience is meant to deliver–I am the knower of this experience and not the experience/r–is not assimilated, the doer is still there, ignorance is still there, the small, limited suffering self is still there. There is no fine print here, and this is probably the single most difficult hurdle to cross for inquirers because doing is hardwired. We all do from womb to tomb. Doing is not the problem but the identification with the doer is.
The material and spiritual world are geared to doing your way to freedom or bliss however you define that. Good luck with that because the doer is the problem. You may not be a greedy materialist looking for happiness in things but a dedicated spiritual seeker, yogini, or meditator who still suffers having not figured out that the seeker, yogini, or meditator IS the problem. It’s like the fire department chief turned arsonist who joins his crew to fight the fire he started, over and over again. The doer must go, sorry to say.
But alas, humans seek meaning and safety in the world of experience and action, alarmed and frightened from birth because nothing in the world is guaranteed or stable. Loss is built into life, good and evil are ever-present. Life is not fair. We never really know what’s going on (hence all the conspiracy theories, btw). We worry, create religions, philosophies, science, economics, and politics to make sense of and help us cope with the inevitability of our demise. To find security and meaning in a seemingly random cruel world. If we are extremely lucky, through our punya (good) karma we find Vedanta, a qualified teacher, and the keys to the kingdom are bestowed upon us. That is if, we the inquirer, have the qualifications to use the keys, which are useless unless understood for what they are, assimilated, and applied correctly.
If you are suitably qualified and have the great good fortune to have found Vedanta and a qualified teacher….
ISVARA IN THE FORM OF THE SCRIPTURE Speaks to YOU and says THUS:
YO! listen up, calm down, will you! You probably will not like some of the things you will hear from me but relax. It all makes sense eventually, and in your world, this takes time. You have found the Holy Grail, the only out-card from my Maya, the upside-down insane unreal dream of duality. Be patient. I am here to help you get free by UNDERSTANDING what you stand on: the Self, Pure Consciousness.
To begin with, the you you think you are, the one that gives you so much trouble is just a construct. It’s not real. And that’s very good news. But your essence is real and is really me. We are both Pure Consciousness, we share the same identity. But here’s the thing: Inasmuch as there is an apparent mind-body construct (person) living in my dream world, even though you may know it’s a dream person and dream world, I am the producer of the dream and its contents. It all comes from ME. I am ‘the man behind the curtain’…. So, you best make sure you know all about me…
I decide who gets what karma and acts what part and I never make mistakes. Nobody gets karma that is not due to them, so don’t praise, decry, or feel sorry for yourself, or anyone else, for that matter. Empathy and compassion are fine but don’t think you have to ‘right the wrongs of the world’. You are asking for trouble if you do. I am not particularly partial to do-gooders because they think they know more than I do what the Field requires. It may seem messed up in your limited understanding but leave the world to me. I am in charge of it. I will let you know if I need your help; it will be clear, don’t worry. Until then keep your mouth shut and stick your nose in your own business. I have given you free will and the power to be self-reflective, it is a dangerous and powerful gift. Use it wisely.
If you are duped by my Maya and under its spell, you don’t know who you are and you will act from this ignorance, identified with yourself as a ‘doer’, causing great suffering to yourself and ‘others’. You are driven by desire, always needy, constantly dissatisfied, hypnotized by the shiny sexy objects which you are so sure will solve your problems though they never do. Please note: an object can be material or mental, anything other than you, the Self. If you know something, it’s not you. Thanks to ignorance you may think you create your ‘own reality’ through whatever special powers you may think you have. And you do, though not through any special power because you don’t exist in a world outside your own mind. GOT THAT?
There is a world outside your mind called the ‘empirical’ reality but you have never been there, not even for a visit. The empirical reality exists but it is no more real than your thoughts about it, and everything dissolves into Consciousness (you) upon investigation, anyway. Nonetheless, we can say there is an objective reality where a chair is a chair, a mountain is a mountain. But you can only know objects subjectively. I set it up that way. You (as the person0 only have the power to know and create your own tiny subjective world. You cannot create one single damn thing. Though you like to own things, experiences, your body, other people, you own NOTHING. EVERYTHING belongs to ME ALONE. You can act appropriately and in a timely way and I may give you what you want, seemingly catering to your likes and dislikes. IF it is in your karma stream and fits with the needs of the Total, please note. But remember to check the price tag when I do. Especially when you are really insistent on getting what you want when you want it the way you want it.
While you often have the vanity to claim success when you get what you want, feeling self-congratulatory, you seldom figure out the real cost, the unseen effects of your likes and dislikes being catered to. AND you are ignorant of the innumerable factors that need to be present for ANYTHING to happen in the field which make it IMPOSSIBLE THAT YOU ARE THE DOER. Only I provide those. Humility is not something that comes easily to frightened people desperate for security and validation in this crazy world. And how you all need to be noticed! But really, the sooner you figure this out and surrender to me, in GRATITUDE, I might add, the better for you. I really don’t care, either way, because I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I don’t need your gratitude, but you do.
Your knowledge as a person is limited to your experience and mine is unlimited because I AM not bound by experience. You are subject to the gunas, I am not. They are subject to me. Only I am omniscient and in charge of all the objects. Even your seemingly free will is subject to me and governed by my gunas. I said this already, but as it so seldom heard, I repeat: Nothing happens in the Field without me orchestrating it. I AM THE BIG PICTURE. I assign karma so that you can work out your karma stream and return to me, your NATURAL NORMAL, and ORDINARY state. That is the sole and soul purpose of your life. When you are under the spell of my Maya you are neither natural nor normal. You are either manic or depressed or somewhere in the middle, probably zoned out on Prozac, work, pleasure, entertainment, the green stuff, ‘doing’ yoga, or in meditation. Whatever your drug of choice is, you are trying in vain to escape your mind.
I may have gone a bit overboard on ignorance, I admit. It’s not my fault. I AM the creator of the Field and the game, but I confess…I DON’T ACTUALLY CREATE ANYTHING EITHER. Confusing, I know. Maya is a head-scratcher. As I say in the scripture…when it comes to karma, even the sages are perplexed. I did warn you this is the hard part.  I am also called Beginningless Ignorance, but you can’t blame me for your ignorance either. The biggest stumbling block for many is the question of evil and why there is so much suffering and apparent unfairness ‘in the world’. Who is to blame? I don’t mind if you blame me, feel free to do so. But it doesn’t help you. Forget blame. It is the most useless emotion available to you. Nobody is to blame. People only ‘do’ evil when they are ignorant of me. This does not mean that you do not suffer the consequences of breaking dharma. There is no way around that I am afraid. Those are just the rules of the Field.
Though it is said in some of the scriptures that I am the only doer, this is not the whole picture. I am pure Consciousness so I cannot be a doer. As Self-knowledge works on the mind of the mature inquirer, the notion of doership is entirely negated. As above, so below. Apart from the oft-stated inconvenient truth that the world is not real (a major fact, pls make sure you understand the definition above for real, it really puts everything into perspective), try to get this, it’s important. Maya, the gunas are not really under my control. Doing happens because of the nature of ignorance. The Field runs on natural immutable laws as well as on more complex moral laws. As with any other object, the gunas are not conscious but they have an innate impersonal leveler: the built-in natural law of relativity. For the law to work it needs the full spectrum of possibilities in the Field open to it. In duality, the Field of Existence in which you exist, you cannot have hot without cold, ‘good’ without ‘evil’. How would you work out your karma if it was not this way? It may not be obvious to you, but it is a merciful system. Everything works out as it should.
Relativity is the nature of the game of Maya, and the game…repeat after me…only causes suffering when you are ignorant of ME…and you take it to be REAL. When you know who you are not fooled, and you will do no harm. As for the moral order, I built in dharma, the law of non-injury, into the Field. It is especially helpful for humans and without it, you would have destroyed yourselves a long time ago. Other sentient animals (even some without a brain, like a bacterium, take note) are much smarter than you are on this score. Looking at how insane your world appears right now it seems impossible, but eventually, everyone figures this out because everyone knows on some level that they are the Self, and nobody likes suffering. But unfortunately, suffering serves a good purpose. It is my way to get you to go ‘within’ as spiritual people like to call it, or for the woke, to ‘wake up’ and stop chasing the unattainable. To see that you are the sought.
Some of you may think I am a pervert to make it so hard, but lucky for you, I AM actually an Ocean of Compassion. I created the scripture, the nondual teachings of Vedanta. It is the only lifeline for your poor suffering sods trapped in samsara, the whirlpool of duality. There is a way out and it is ONLY THROUGH ME. BUT…Rehash Newsflash…As the person is a limited entity no action it takes can produce a limitless result. Though self-inquiry seems like a doing, it is not when it is done with the karma yoga spirit (the consecration of all results to me) under the guidance of a proper teacher unfolding the scripture faithfully on my behalf. It leads to an unlimited result: Self-knowledge. You can trust my scripture; it works to set you free of ignorance.
When you start to figure out that there really is no joy in objects, that you can’t be your body/mind, I appear to you in the form of Vedanta scripture and a teacher to lead you out of the valley of darkness. If you follow me, you will stop worrying and relax, becoming a cool cat before too long. It does not happen all at once, and it may be very uncomfortable, even hurt, for a while. Egos are very sensitive and oh so defensive, but what price freedom? If you prefer suffering be my guest.
When you crack the code, you surrender the person to me GLADLY and I might add, in great relief, because you are SICK TO DEATH OF IT. Plus you know it belongs to me. Who would want to claim ownership of such a troublesome pain-in-the-ass construct, which for the most part, is just a toxic idea? Why stress about the person when I take care of ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING it needs? It is so hard to fight me, impossible really. You just wear yourself out because I ALWAYS WIN. Chill out man, TAKE IT EASY. I have your back.
And for the intellectuals, free or great thinkers, scientists, rebels, and radicals who are so determined to argue because you think you know so much, who take umbrage at Vedanta’s immutable teachings calling them elitist, or absolutist, you are arguing against your Self. It’s like the life prisoner eligible for parole arguing against the end of his sentence, for why he should remain imprisoned. What’s the point? Vedanta is simply the truth about you, the Logic of Existence. It is not up for interpretation and is not dialectical because it is nondual. Debate all you like, compare it to other teachings, exhaust all avenues of thought, knock yourself out. But no matter what you come up with, if it does not concur with my nondual scripture, like it or not, it is wrong. Dump it.
If this finally sinks into your thick skull, this is where the fun starts, and you are it. Ever heard the saying the quickest route to the wrong place is a straight line? It’s mostly true. It is far from a quick process or a straight line to full assimilation of Self-knowledge, MOKSA. But once you have assimilated that you are not the person but Pure Consciousness, ME, and this is irrefutable DIRECT KNOWLEDGE, you are home-free. Crack the champagne, crank up the music and bring out the party hats! This is NO SPECIAL STATUS, mind you. You never gained anything. Nobody ‘gets enlightened’ because you were NEVER NOT THE SELF. As I said, just the return to normal, to what you always were and always will be. ORDINARY unconditioned ever-present unchanging Pure Consciousness.
Discrimination between you, the Subject, and the objects that appear in you at any moment, is automatic. All doership disappears along with all boring worry and angst. And how boring it is, my God! Oi Vey, enough already! You stop hurling yourself against a very hard unforgiving brick wall. I am impartial but even I get tired of the sight of your blood and guts, I must say, especially when I am always there offering the only alternative.
Once Self-knowledge has scoured the mind of all ignorance, you have no problem with me or how the world works, which includes how ‘your personal’ world works, please note. The idea that you are a you (EGO) along with this world of seemingly separate objects is AS GOOD AS NON-EXISTENT, nothing more than a movie, a dream appearing in you. And not just sometimes, ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS. You can’t imagine how you ever bought into it! You have no problem with anyone or anything because YOU are no longer a problem. It’s all good, satisfying. You love the pesky little person thingamajig, and it causes you no trouble at all.
Here on in, providing you have cleaned up all the little person’s messes (note to self: how they do linger!) and have truly surrendered to me, your personal life is a magic carpet ride, effortless. Even though there may still be some rough seas you sail right through them, nothing touches you. Maybe the tassels on your magic carpet flutter a bit, but that’s about it. You can enjoy the apparent objects for their apparent bliss never getting caught up in them again, never losing or gaining anything. You are full. You are the fun. Every day is a good day, there are no bad days or results.
Though you still live in my world and must follow my natural laws as a person, you know you are not a person but the Self and so, get this…Here comes the best part…YOU CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO! This is not a problem because we always want the same thing: peace, the bliss of our true eternal nature as the Self. All your desires are in line with me because…DA DA…you are me! As there are no rules for free people, you are free to enjoy your apparent humanity with its foibles, but you will never be fooled by it again nor break dharma, neither personal nor universal. Ever.
You are Dharma, with a big D.
Home Free.
Whoopee!
Lovelee
Sundaree
Take It Easee
