Ellen: Right now, my mind is playing games with me. For some weeks I have been without my accustomed energy and at work, my concentration is really bad. I came home hours early today because I just could not function at the computer…blocked and got felt guilty being paid for staring into a screen. The only thing that functions is Sadhana. It feels like being displaced or in a kind of limbo. My ex-husband is dying but it started before he got sick, and I had a very loving time with him when I went to spend an afternoon with him. I know Isvara knows best, and all will resolve so I am not really worried even though I dislike this feeling of exhaustion. Nothing can really happen, and I just keep offering it up. Time will tell. I feel suddenly a resistance to work at my job and a feeling of being trapped pops up. Longing for sky and stars and sun and expansiveness and movement. This valley seems to be closing in on me…longing too for Sangha so look forward to seeing James
Sundari: It sounds to me like you are suffering the inevitable result of too much rajas, which is falling into the dark dull pit of tamas, longing for change, once again. Rajas and tamas always work together, they are in fact one guna, with the extreme version of either guna being on a spectrum. Very rajasic people always pay the price of a lot of tamas and will feel this swing regularly. From what I know of you and your formidable energy, this process is a pattern for you. I too have a lot of rajas which is not a bad thing, if you also have a lot of sattva, which thankfully, I do. Rajas in the service of sattva, i.e., in balance with sattva, is a very desirable energy. Rajas out of control is highly destructive and exhausting, not to mention that it totally extroverts the mind making it incapable of sustained inquiry. And deep tamas is as bad because when that energy takes over, the mind is out of commission and not in a good place.
All three gunas have their downsides, even sattva, but rajas and tamas are the worst troublemakers. They are (mainly) only a problem when out of balance with sattva. We need enough rajas to act. When rajas is in balance with sattva, sattvic rajas makes the mind focused, efficient, capable, confident. It can also make it negatively focused – cunning and sly, using sattva (intelligence) to get what it wants. It is intelligence in the service of ignorance. When rajas is out of balance with sattva, rajas extroverts the mind and makes us agitated, frantic, worried, anxious, distressed, incapable of seeing solutions. Basically, totally neurotic, about everything. And what follows is….deep tamas.
When excess rajas has run its course, which it always does, it always results in dullness, fear, exhaustion, depression, and of course, denial, among many more typical tamasic mind states. However, sattvic tamas is necessary for sleep and endurance; it produces a mind that is not worried, neurotic, or anxious but chilled. Taking it easy. Sattvic tamas can be induced by drugs, alcohol, smoking, food, sex, even exercise or work– any pleasure/reward addiction. But it is not true sattva because it is dependent on the short-term effect of the drug of choice. Genuine sattvic tamas is a result of a predisposed guna profile, like James for instance, who has tremendous sattva but also a lot of tamas. Or it is the result of guna management.
Historically, you hurl yourself into new challenges whenever you get tired of the old, and as you burn out your enthusiasm (rajas), you get exhausted, bored, and restless. You cure the problem by finding another project to hurl yourself into. This is a typical rajasic-tamasic pattern by the way, not personal at all. It is just the way rajas/tamas process works. The only long-term solution is to get to the bottom of the rajas, the boredom, which is frustrated desire, and address that. Why the deep dissatisfaction, which is always covered up by intense activity? There is a deep samskara there. I am not sure what the practical solution is for you, maybe you do need to move on for the right reasons. Karma yoga of course is the obvious solution to everything, as is guna management. Your tendency will be to move on as you have done so many times, but you will be in this situation again, sooner or later.
So, if you are as serious about your sadhana as you say you are, and I know you are, then this is the issue you need to address, and rajas is a tough habit to beat. How ‘you’ the jiva, is feeling, is just the guna print-out of what has been going on in the Subtle body for a long time. Maybe it is time to address it? Moksa is about freedom from the jiva and its habitual patterns, after all.
I sympathize with you because I know this is not easy. We all have our remaining jiva issues to deal with in the nididhysana stage of sadhana. I too recently went through the ending of pretty unpleasant rajasic/tamasic samskara. I wrote about it in a satsang called the ‘Durodhyana Factor’. Isvara is relentless, there is no off button when it comes to ignorance, especially if one is committed to self-inquiry as you are. It is a choice either to keep suffering or to address the ignorance. You are such a kind and wonderful person, we have so much time for you. Know that we are here to help. Ramji is looking forward to seeing you in Berlin.
Much love
Sundari
