Jason: I found your recent satsang on the Duality of God, especially regarding the issue of virtue, extremely helpful but also confusing. From what I understand, virtues are mithya, as is sattva guna. Freedom from limitation means freedom from the jiva, so virtues must be disregarded and seen as an obstacle to freedom from the doer. Is this correct? It confuses me as in this case, must I forget about following dharma as a jiva?
Sundari: While it is true that attachment to virtues can be an obstacle to freedom because moksa is not about perfecting the jiva, or being a ‘good, nice’ person, freedom from the jiva does not mean that you forget about dharma. It means you disidentify with the jiva – and – you follow dharma automatically, both personal and universal. The both/and of the very subtle points in the scripture regarding moksa are important to assimilate, which is why actualizing Self-knowledge is hard, and freedom from the jiva so elusive.
Even though as the Self you condition to nothing, as the jiva, it does not feel good to not follow dharma, personal and universal, which are just Isvara’s natural laws. Isvara’s world runs on these natural laws which cannot be transgressed without consequence for the jiva. In fact, dharma is built into the jiva program, or life in the field would be a much bigger mess than it seems to be. The main law or dharma operating in the field is non-injury, which covers just about every transgression, whether in thought, word or deed.
As the Self, you are ‘beyond’ dharma and adharma as you are not the jiva, but why would you not follow dharma because there is nothing to gain or lose by doing so? After all, moksa is for the jiva. To live a good life, it follows dharma for peace of mind. It is always the identification behind any jiva issue that causes problems and limits the jiva. This identification can be extremely subtle even for fairly experienced inquirers, and it is easy to fall into the trap of imposing satya, nonduality, onto duality.
Whenever we break dharma for any reason, even in very minor ways, we suffer and feel guilty, a most uncomfortable state of mind, which is why most people are motivated to not cause injury. We have an inbuilt value for peace of mind. Most people do not enjoy the inevitable blowback that comes when we break the rules of life. But trying to be a good person can become a vice when we are doing so to avoid facing our unconscious patterns. Or when we believe that it makes us superior in some way, or it is the proof of being ‘enlightened’.
We emphasize this point because so many inquirers, aiming for moksa, get stuck in sattva, taking it to be moksa, which it is not. Sattva feels extremely good, and it is the springboard for moksa, because freedom from limitation will not obtain in a very rajasic or tamasic mind. But all three gunas that make up the field of existence and condition the mind are objects known to you as the Self. You are free of the field and the mind. Attachment to sattva is ignorance of your true nature as Sat.
Nonetheless, the deep seated need to ‘be a good person’ is built in too because our true nature is bliss. And that can be a hindrance not only in the way we judge or validate ourselves, but it also colors the way we see and judge and validate ‘others’. Ramji has often been criticized because inquirers assume he ‘should’ behave a certain way. They get offended when he swears or seems to get emotional as the apparent jiva. But he is the Self, there are no rules for how the Self should behave.
As the Self, you are limitless, so you are free to feel, think and behave any way that is true to your svabhava (personality/jiva program) and svadharma (the duties appropriate to your nature as a jiva). And the reason this is true is because you know that the jiva and the field are not real, they are all Isvara associated with Maya. Meaning, they are always changing and not always present, which only ever applies to you as the Self, the knower of the jiva/field/Isvara.
The scripture says that there is no way that you can tell if a person is enlightened or not by their behaviour, whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Good or bad according to whom? Personal dharma is a relative thing, which is why understanding situational ethics (visesa dharma) is important. Though the basic rule of non-injury applies to everyone, its application is not always black and white. Appropriate and dharmic behaviour in any situation depends on many variable factors. The only non-variable factor is Dharma with a big ‘D’, the Self.
As the Self, you would never deliberately cause injury or break dharma, as mentioned above. And though you will feel the satisfaction and confidence that emanates from an ‘enlightened’ person (i.e., free of the person), the mark of a free person is Self-knowledge, and that has no particular outward physical manifestation. If you are free of the person, why would they be a problem, or why would you need to behave in any particular way to ‘prove’ that you are enlightened? All that would prove is that you are not ‘enlightened’.
The difficulty in actualizing Self-knowledge is accepting Isvara in association with Maya as both dharma and adharma. We all would love a world where good triumphs over bad, but such a world would mean there is no way for the jiva to work out its karma. There is no other way for the field to operate without all possibilities present in it. The only way out of duality is with nondual vision.
The whole problem dissolves when Self-knowledge obtains and you realize your limitless pure nature as the non-dual, ever present, unchanging, ordinary and ever satisfied Self, free of it all. It does not matter what is or is not going on in the field or with the jiva. There are no good or bad outcomes, just apparent outcomes.
Much love
Sundari
