I want to share the big shift that has happened for me lately regarding a problem that affects most advanced inquirers in the nididhysana stage. While I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am not the jiva but the Self, nonetheless, freedom from the jiva cannot take place until the jiva program is fully seen and understood, so nididhysana is necessary. Yet the ‘jiva issue’ is so interesting because once the knowledge that you are the Self is firm and unshakeable, who is there to conduct nididhysana? Obviously, there is no nididhysana for the Self. As the jiva is an imperfect and unreal construct, how can it be improved with nididhysana? Well, moksa is not about improving the jiva, but this is how it is possible for an advanced inquirer to ‘get stuck’ after Self-Realization. The knowledge can be used to protect the residual jiva because it is easy to rationalize that if you did not create and cannot change it because it is not real, why bother with it? It is all mithya. But it’s not so simple, sadly.
If the jiva survived moksa, even in the smallest way, then is still some avidya, even if it is very subtle, which if not cleaned up, creates suffering. In my case, it was a deep suspicion/protection samskara developed as a result of the jiva’s tough karma stream in this life. This samskara is a universal one of course, as all samskaras boil down to fear, in micro or macro doses. That is why the jiva is called ‘the one who worries’. The suspicion/protection samskara is particularly prevalent in most jivas because life is so brutal and unpredictable. Nothing in mithya is what it seems. Just take a look at the world today, society has gone berserk because it is consumed by and lost in the universal suspicion/fear samskara, trying futilely to protect itself from its self-created demons.
I call this samskara the Duryodhana factor, the hard cruel part of the jiva that we all have to some extent. I knew full well it was there and watched it like a hawk, but nonetheless, it was not non-binding, and I thought it was. It played out not only in suspicion but in ruthless honesty. The ruthless honesty part I rationalized as part of the jiva’s svadharma, which is true, to an extent. Honesty is a positive value and essential to for living a dharmic life. But partnered with the suspicion/protection mechanism, it morphs into hostility at worst, and a low-level joy-dissonance, at best. It creates a feeling of the imposter syndrome in the jiva’s life, another very common effect of fear. Fear is completely incompatible with the Self.
A dear friend played Isvara’s part in triggering the samskara from the Causal body, which erupted under the perfect conditions of physical exhaustion and pain as well as emotional stress regarding my daughter’s unhappines and distress. After it happened, my friend, a Self-realized person and fellow Vedanta teacher said to me, ‘you are only as strong as your weakest link’. I can see how this saying definitely applies to the jiva and in fact have used the saying myself on occasion.
To survive the harshness of Maya, the jiva must learn to value its vulnerability and stop trying to protect itself from life, from Isvara. This is never easy for the ego, accustomed as it is to protect itself at all costs. But as an inquirer, karma yoga is a recognition of the truth inescapable truth that as a jiva we are in control of nothing. Surrender to Isvara is the only sane option. But the saying does not apply to the Self, which is free of everything.
The weakest link is the jiva, and it must go because it has the power to impact everything on such a subtle level, even with Self-realization. Hanging on to the jiva even in the smallest way is like having a perfectly tended vegetable garden and reserving a spot for very poisonous weeds. There is no fine print to freedom, you either are or you are not. While this does not mean we are any less the Self at any point…the steps to ‘get there are the qualities of ‘being there’…at all times, But there is a codicil to that statement: If there is still the remnant of a jiva freedom is not that free, it’s the bottom line.
I have been and am immeasurably more blissful now than ‘before’ Ramji and moksa, more than it is possible to express in words. Ramji and I have had such a wonderful life together, it is and has been a total privilege and joy. I have such deep gratitude for it and wondered so often what I did to deserve it. But what I learned through the full understanding of the suspicion/protection samskara is how high the cost of the weakest link is.
Yet I always defended it when it came up because moksa is not about improving the jiva. ‘I’ unknowingly refused to surrender to Isvara on this issue, because though I knew it was there, the remaining avidya made me blind to how the samskara played out, and the hubris around this issue. I really could not see how it caused conflict in my otherwise perfect life, robbing me of the full joy of the Love I am.
But because I was perfectly satisfied enough as the Self, it seemed unnecessary to remove the samskara. The jiva is the jiva and belongs to Isvara, this is true of course. The problem was that I unknowingly had not fully offloaded it onto Isvara, there was a hook. I paid the price as the samskara leaked out in tiny molecules of ignorance taking little bites out of every bit of joy, as fear does. So Isvara created the perfect circumstances for it to be fully seen and negated, for which I am eternally grateful. I am in a new world of perception regarding it, that of the Self.
Yet I can still feel it now, the ego pathetically trying to insinuate excuses for it. The ‘Yabut’ monster. But it cannot escape the full X-ray gaze of the Self now. So, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom until you are free. You cannot be 99.9% free because the .1% contains the full power of the 99.9% of not free.
I am not sure if you have been following James’ recent talks and postings on nididhysana, they are brilliant. Nididhysana is not really a stage, it is actually the culmination of all the stages, as you know. It is so subtle and so important because though the conceptual jiva must be negated in light of the teachings, the ‘eternal’ Jiva is the Self. There is no division. I finally got that Satya and mithya never meet because they were never apart. So, no big shift other than knowledge. Yet, the ‘shiftless shift’ is huge.
Satya and mithya are mithya. They are a means to an end. Once the Self is known to be who you are, they are redundant because Self-knowledge means there is no jiva other than the Self. If the conceptual jiva survives moksa, then it needs to do nididyasana, no escaping this fact. But cleaning up residual ignorance includes seeing that the teachings that were helpful no longer apply. As long as you are discriminating between satya and mithya you are still a jiva. As Ramji says: ‘Self-knowledge is non-discriminating “wisdom.” “The one who knows, knows.” That’s the end of it.” Even the discriminator is no more.
Once I could see that I was not dispassionate about the samskara and had in fact defended it, the scales fell off. It hit home what the price of ignorance is, even the slightest amount keeps the conceptual jiva intact. It feels like that hard part dissolved into complete unconditional trust in Isvara, something I believed I already had, but did not.
I finally got why James often said to me I need to learn how to be cool like he is… I thought, ‘who cares about being cool as a jiva, and so what if I am not?! That’s not me and I am not you!’ I never understood what it means to be cool, but now I do. A cool person is simply a person who does not worry…about anything! You cannot be free and retain the worrier. James lives this way; he cannot tolerate fear in any dose. That suspicion vasana was a thorn of neurotic anxiety that had to be removed by Isvara.
While it is true that one must be compassionate about the poor troublesome beleaguered jiva, it can be a bit dangerous to be too compassionate! What I realized is that it is actually as important to have a healthy (and humorous) contempt for it! I also realized how sensitive the ego is, and how important it is not to take a sledgehammer to it, mine or anyone else’s!
A samskara is never about one issue but a conglomeration of them, all interconnected. What also became clear to me is that the suspicion samskara included an emotional security attachment to my daughter and her children, which had to be severed. Love is love and does not change but love as emotional security is not love.
Love is free. Of everything.
Sundari
