Student: Chapter 3 of the Mandukya Upanishad and Karika keeps revealing things, subtle clarifications. I want to make sure that I’ve discerned the implications correctly from the discussion about “nothing ever happened”.
I had understood that objects aren’t real and thoughts aren’t real. Yet there was something obvious that I hadn’t seen – the transaction between objects and the relationship between objects are equally unreal.
Ramji: Yes, transactions are objects.
Student: So in the statement – “Putin is amassing troops on the border of Ukraine” – something is definitely happening, and yet… Putin is a story, Ukraine is a story. When we say Putin it doesn’t mean what we think it means. It’s a name and form. It’s in my mind.
Ramji: Yes. And whatever meaning it has is meaning you’re going to have to assign to it because objectively there is no meaning to it. It’s just words, vibrations. It’s om, the word, concepts.
Student: I get that. So can I bring it closer to home, to something that touches me more emotionally, because that’s where I really need to apply this knowledge. Suppose a person said something that hurt me. There was an event, something did happen, so we’re not dismissing that it didn’t happen, it’s just that the hurt is because of a meaning that I unconsciously assigned it.
Ramji: Yes and why? Because it reminds you of a similar situation that happened “x” number of units of time ago, where you responded that way, so you respond that way again.
Student: That’s where the potential for freedom really lies isn’t it – when emotionality kicks in. When I first got this, I really got that I’m not the doer, it’s all just happening. It is meaningful, but it’s not the meanings that would have been projected onto these happenings by my unconscious vasanas. So the ground opened up between me – existence/awareness – and all that’s happening. Have I got this right?
Ramji: The “ground opening up” means you’re aware that you’re different from the objects, you’re not the objects you’re experiencing. You’re actually aware of the difference between the self and the not-self.
Student: That’s still an intermediate step isn’t it?
Ramji: It is, but it’s the essence of freedom. Now, do you have to have the ground open up every time, or is it just a fact that there is a difference? If it’s a fact that there is a difference, you don’t need to wait for any kind of event to reveal it to you.
There is no real connection between you and the object, apart from you supplying the blessing to whatever appears. But basically, you remain unchanged by what’s appearing right?
That experience should just reduce to knowledge. So when anything is happening, is anything happening to me? No. Things are presenting themselves to me but nothing is happening to me. Say I’m sitting in my chair and somebody comes up. They’re presenting themselves to me but they’re not doing anything to me. I’m just sitting in my chair observing them.
Student: OK. And suppose they come and they bow to you, saying sweet words – that’s one experience. Or suppose they come and start swearing at you – it’s the same. It doesn’t have anything to do with me (awareness).
Ramji: You’re just the light that’s illumining it. You see your body sitting there and you see them talking to your body. Bowing or haranguing you… either way, it’s an object momentarily playing in your light, in you.
Student: And that is what is meant by not being the doer isn’t it?
Ramji: Yes