Sandra: Thanks a lot for the book The Yoga of Relationships. It helps me a lot.
With the crisis in my relationship, I found that:
– The problem is really in me. There is something very important that I need to see.
– I have a vasana or samskara related to relationships, the search for love, that needs to be worked on.
Sundari: Who else would the problem be about? There is only ever you, whether you think that someone else is causing problems for you or not. When we have difficult karma with someone, the root of the problem always lies with us. As this is a non-dual reality, there are no others. Everyone we have contact with is the Self, exhibiting slightly different versions of the same influences, the gunas. In fact, most people are only ever in relationship with their vasanas, not ‘another’ person. When under the spell of Maya, we are drawn to bond with others who complement, either positively or negatively, our likes and dislikes. So, when we have a reaction to or an issue with someone else, it is never about them, no matter how trying the circumstances, such as one partner being unsatisfactory in whatever way, as in your case. When we are identified with the body/mind (ego) we project our needs onto them and suffer the consequences.
Sandra: I think that until very recently I saw relationships as fundamental to be able to move around the field of Existence. I bet all the chips on love out of me. I had the idea that without a partner, without external love, I could never feel complete. And that partner should give me the love that I didn’t have in my childhood. Without that love, I couldn’t be happy.
Sundari: Yes, this the fundamental problem with chasing love, and one that is dealt with extensively in my book the Yoga of Relationships. The idea of relationships is the ultimate duality because there is no ‘other’. To chase love in another is to chase it where it cannot be found and, a guarantee that you will only find dissatisfaction and suffering, sooner or later. Freedom means freedom from dependence on objects for your happiness. No object has the power to make you happy or unhappy. Only your desires and false belief that they can does that.
Sandra: And with the grace of Ishvara, I failed. I did 10 years of therapy to learn how I could be able to have a fake normal life, fake normal relationships, fake professional life…
Sundari: Sadly, the tools on offer from the psychotherapeutic world are all mithya, they are about improving the person so that they can cope with their karma. That is not a bad thing, it is necessary to resolve our psychological issues to progress to self-inquiry. But psychotherapy does not address the real issue at the root of everyone’s unhappiness, the illusion that you need to find what is missing outside yourself, that you must ‘fix’ your (not) self (jiva). There is no way to fix the jiva, it does not need fixing, it simply needs to be understood in light of Self-knowledge. The person you think you are is an imperfect construct. To be free of it requires only knowledge of what it is and what governs it (gunas-vasanas). Only Self-knowledge can free the mind and complete permanent satisfaction.
Sandra: And now, looking to use the tools proposed by Vedanta, I feel like I have had an accident. An accident in which I lost my movements, I lost my speech … It’s like I need to learn everything again. How to walk, how to speak, how to be transparent, how to be honest, how to be true… I need to give up many things – everything I believed was normal until today. My beliefs and opinions.
Sundari: You have not had an accident, you have just received the greatest gift possible, the means to end suffering and realize your true identity as the Self. You have found the Holy Grail. Yes, Vedanta is a radical teaching, and it does strip you of all your erroneous ideas. It exposes the lie that you have been living. The ego will feel vulnerable and uncertain, naked. Everything the world teaches us is a reversal of the truth like you have been standing on your head your whole life and did not know it. Vedanta is a return to normal, not a departure from it. It corrects the reversal, but it is not easy for the ego to get on board with this at first.
The ego feels like it has to give up a lot, but it is really only giving up suffering. Once Self-knowledge starts to work on the mind/ego, it begins to calm down because it understands that Vedanta is not about destroying the ego but simply correcting it through knowledge. The “I” in your statements above is the ego lamenting, so have some compassion for it as it goes through the torment of the dark night of soul. Invite it for tea and have a chat about how this is not about its demise, just a reconfiguration of identity.
Sandra: Once, in a Satsang, you pointed (Ramji) to the board, to the top, where the Self is, and said – here we just enter naked… I see. I feel emotional at the moment and heard you in another Satsang saying: being emotional is not good. (I feel that it activates Tamas in me. I feel heavy and lost. I understand that I feel emotional because I still want to resist.) So I try to apply the knowledge: there is nothing to fear, there is nothing to wish for, I am already complete. And I try also to apply Karma Yoga.
Sundari: Yes, the Self is naked, but it is also the most powerful identity anyone can have. It is the ultimate protection, the most powerful shield. It even protects the poor frightened and emotional ego! Just see the mind/ego and its fear-based thoughts and emotions for what it is: objects known to you, giving up the hypnosis of duality. When Self-knowledge starts to enter the mind, ignorance is not safe from it. It will scour the mind of its illusions. Let it. Observe the emotionality, allow the ego to grieve its illusions. Know that the illusions will fade and be replaced by the rock-solid reality of the ever-present, whole, and complete Self you are and always have been.
Freedom from and for the jiva does not require it giving up being a jiva or its needs, other than those that are adharmic. It’s just shifting your primary identity from the jiva to the Self. To do so you need to address your needs and desire (likes and dislikes) and render non-binding the ones that are adharmic, i.e., not in harmony with your identity as the Self. This may require changing your life in some ways, and it may not. Karma yoga is essential of course, but as I explained to you before, it does not work to apply karma yoga when something in your life does not fit or work. One thing is certain: your life must fit in with Vedanta, not the other way around, as I explained in a prior email.
The jiva will remain as Isvara made it, for the most part—even with moksa, and we must love it unconditionally. Nevertheless, satya & mithya is duality if you think the jiva is as real as the Self. Taking a stand as the Self means the jiva is as good as non-existent. You are Self. You are not The Self and the jiva. So, when jiva appears, dismiss it. Self-actualization is not for the faint of heart, that is for sure! It requires a great deal of courage to face the demons that await us in the Causal body, to free ourselves of the jiva. When we do, we see the demons for what they are, just paper dragons. Not real at all.
Seeing the less than fabulous parts of ourselves is never easy to swallow, even if we have Self-knowledge and know that they do not belong to us. However, if we want to be free, peace of mind will never be permanent until we have transformed all our emotional/psychological disturbances into devotion to the Self. Don’t make the mistake of being too hard on Sandra. Love her unconditionally and fearlessly, as she is right now. It’s tough being divine in human form until that form dissolves into the Self. Though Self-knowledge is not about improving the jiva, that always happens indirectly when the jiva lives in harmony with the nondual truth of its reality.
At the end of this email, I have added the poem I included in the Sept 2016 Newsletter, written by our friend, Collen-Joy Page. It gives a poignant and beautiful voice to what many people experience during the dark night of the soul, as James said to you in his reply.
Sandra: It is as if until now, I had only played with spirituality… And from now on, it is no longer possible to play. It is no longer possible to pretend…
Sundari: Indeed. If freedom from suffering is what you are really after, this is where the rubber hits the road, if you are serious about ending suffering. Stick with it, it will get easier, and we are here to help you.
Sandra: Ishvara asks me for significant offerings…
Sundari: Yes, there are things you will need to renounce, sacrifices to be made. But they are not real sacrifices because they will all be things/attitudes/ideas that bind you to the false identity that you are as a jiva, that you are lacking something. Where is the sacrifice in giving up the cause of suffering, ignorance? Isvara is offering you the most significant offering of all: Your SELF.
A note of advice: If you do not have one, start a daily devotional practice, construct an altar of things that symbolize the Self for you, and use it regularly. When an emotion threatens to take over, go there, light a candle, say a prayer, and consecrate all your feelings on the altar of karma yoga, to Isvara. Give back to Isvara what belongs to Isvara, all ignorance, and remain free of suffering, as the Self.
Here is the poem from Colleen, read it.
“Take a stand.”
A writing on being human and willing to be awake…
The place no one wants to visit. The place no one wants to look. The darkest terror, that threatens to capsize the fragile mind and its theatre kingdom. The terror of insignificance wrapped in becoming nothing.
‘Don’t take my crown’, cries the ego, as the slaughter of light lays waste the clinging.
Mothers to babes. Rich men to gold. Vanity to her curves, her pleasure trap of sex.
She is not always pretty, enlightenment. She is a ghost maker. A throne taker. A joker laughing in a hall of mirrors. And she will end you.
I say let her. Let her throw back the veils of my heart and tear the nails from their clinging to the vapors of life’s hollow promise.
You, who threaten me – you thief. You who hijack my nights with your Hollywood productions of hell in my head. Life, do your worst. Crush my heart with your grief-boot. Tear my guts open with your fear-razor. But know this, you cannot touch the real me.
This that knows itself in the eyes of all the beloved eyes, the touch of all skins, this that sings itself awake, for this love is a medicine that I will pay for.
Throw open these doors and let the storms rage on.
Take all you want from this little life, from the little child who lives in the echoes of this story.
I am willing. I am willing to bleed, to cry my eyes dry. To hurt. To live. I am willing to live. To live as this truth. To be both untouchable and crushable. To be mortal and boundless eternal truth. Your price is steep. I am willing to pay.
Much love
Sundari
