Mary: Dearest Ramji, the Zooming on the Gita is brilliant; unlocking more and more inner doors to my self.
I’m looking forward to being with you for the next three days of the Kaivalya Upanishad. What a gift you are giving us.
All I can say is “click, click, click”! The quieter my life becomes and the more I live with the silence within and without, the happier I get. This virus (Isvara) is my “corona” (crowned) jewel of space-time, allowing me to truly cultivate sattva and practice karma yoga and jnana yoga daily.
YES, as you said today, it requires effort and it’s not easy. For this I am so grateful to Isvara because the quieter I get the more observant I become of the rajas-tamasic samskaras that drive my body-mind complex. I contemplate and see the facts about them and then after a few tears can smile and give them to Isvara (of course after understanding them or not!).
I have one question after today’s satsang. With this pure self-knowledge = love, we therefore love everyone and everything. True. However, I am finding that the more I make friends with and accept myself I have less of a desire to be with people. After more than three months alone, I spent two days with children. After the first two to three hours together, I had to go into my room for quiet. The same thing went for my rajasic mother. After ten minutes on the phone with a friend I am ready to hang up. All of these people just talk, talk, talk about themselves or the woes of the world, and there is no real listening, and constant jumping and interruptions. It makes me tired.
So I am asking, how do I square up the immense love I feel for Isvara, the world, nature, myself, you, Vedanta, etc. with the love you said I would feel for these “folks” I am describing. Yes, I love them; but the big news is – I observe that I don’t “need” them anymore. Also, I don’t resonate with the way they behave and would rather spend time alone (with Isvara and Vedanta). Weird: I’m not even feeling drawn to my hobby at this time. What I am drawn to is nature: planting veggies and flowers, watching birds, cutting down old invasive brush and dead trees and basically making the natural world around me full of beauty. So that’s my update, musing on the Gita teaching you are so generously giving us. Happy to think of you in Suryalila with good company, great food and gorgeous surroundings. We will Skype soon. Enjoy your week at home in Colmenar. All my gratitude and love for you and Isvara.
Ramji: I’m so happy that Vedanta is working, Mary. Give yourself a nice pat on the back for sticking with it! The mother-daughter-friend-boss dharma no longer applies. You now have the dharma of an inquirer, a wise person, so the guilt(?) you feel about the feelings of repulsion (perhaps disgust?) with worldly people is completely natural and appropriate. You’re not that old Mary. Incidentally, I have exactly the same feelings about samsaris, as does Sundari. The solution is to remember that they aren’t your friends and relatives. They belong to Isvara. If at the same time you no longer wish to perform the function they expect (what in times gone by I used to call garbage-can sadhana: open your lid and they dump their garbage in it), Isvara will find others who are eager to listen to their victimized whines and offer advice that they won’t follow. In fact listening to meaningless babble encourages meaningless babble. So you don’t want to enable it.
At the same time scripture encourages an introverted lifestyle to protect us from the world. Plus karma yoga offers five service options. Yes, service to people is one, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your biological family. It means anyone who wanders into your life for whatever reason, and it doesn’t preclude saying no. I always have a convenient excuse at the ready in case I get waylaid by a needy worldly person: “Oh, I’m so sorry I just remembered that I have an appointment with the X in twenty minutes. It’s been lovely. We’ll have to do it again sometime.” ☺
Our service to Isvara is keeping our minds in sacred space. One of the karma yoga rituals is serving plants and animals who are conscious entities. I happen to like serving cacti, petunias not so much. They are very interesting beings and they don’t need much. So you are already taking care of Isvara very nicely. Trim that brush, grow those veggies!!! When I lived in the forest in Montana I helped Mother Nature, who is a bit unrestrained and sloppy, gussie up a bit. I created a magical sacred space. Sometimes I didn’t see a person for two or three weeks and was much benefited by it.
Yes, one’s relatives are also God’s creatures, and we do go the extra mile on occasion, but enough is enough. Finally, they only exist as thoughts in your mind even when you are in their physical presence, and thoughts are not etched in granite. You can change them. Or love them from afar. Or see them as Isvara whining and take perverse pleasure in the misery they inflict on you. ☺
I love you and thanks so much for your generous donation.
~ Om and prem, Ramji
